* * *
When the griffons and their mistress had begun their ascent of the Cambon stairs, the storeroom door was unlocked from inside. Metzingen stepped out, only partly satisfied. The mystery of who was floodlighting the façade had been answered; the basement would have sentries from now on. But the answer brought no good solution. It wouldn’t do to see the elderly, celebrated owner of the Hôtel Ritz given over to the Gestapo; such a move might risk making a martyr of the woman, and Paris was already too prone to uniting behind such figures as it was. Better, thought Metzingen, to gift the Gestapo with someone else from the Ritz – someone already suspected for their clandestine activities, and only tolerated in the hope that continued surveillance might reveal greater things.
Hans badly missed Jürgen at moments like this. The young Hauptmann would have known who best to choose, and what’s more he would have organised it. Metzingen would have reaped the rewards while his hands were left unsoiled. But Jürgen was dead, another casualty of war.
Hans felt the familiar itch in his nose – his first for the morning. Or was it still night?
When he reached the Imperial Suite, and before he picked up the telephone, he snorted a line of what he thought of these days as salvation. Then he dialled the Ritz lobby.
‘Put me through to Gestapo Headquarters,’ he told the operator.
He waited, salvation coursing through his veins, making him feel superhuman.
His call was patched through. ‘This is Oberstleutnant Hans Metzingen at the Hôtel Ritz,’ he told the voice at the other end. ‘I have uncovered a resistance operative – yes, another one.’ A trickle of blood left his nostril, touching the top of his lip. Hans wiped it away. ‘This one is a girl – a child, practically.’
He waited for the Gestapo man to respond with interest, and when this didn’t come, he attempted to sweeten it. ‘But you’ll be amazed by this one,’ he promised, ‘the sorry little bitch is sightless . . .’
* * *
The sunny summer’s day was divine – pleasingly warm without any humidity – and Polly was happy to walk all the way to the Left Bank. She left the Ritz beaming, as if she hadn’t a worry in the world, so apparently frivolous was she, with her Hermès handbag swinging just so at her elbow, and a brand-new copy of Autant en emporte le vent nestled in the crook of her arm. She was seemingly just one of so many beautifully dressed BOFs and German officers’ girlfriends, who continued to pop in and out of the luxury shops around her as if the Allied forces weren’t advancing at all. She kept heading east until the ruined Tour Saint-Jacques loomed through the trees, which was when she turned right onto the Boulevard du Palais. This route took her across the Seine and onto the Île de la Cité, where she came to a halt outside the Police Headquarters. She had no intention of going in, she merely wished to move beyond it, but of course there was a queue at the Wehrmacht sentry box first, as she’d known there would be. Polly took her identification papers from her handbag in readiness as she joined the long line.
She became aware of someone making disparaging tongue clicks. Polly glanced behind her and saw a dark-haired girl, younger than herself, condemning her with a glare.
‘Something wrong, Mademoiselle?’ wondered Polly.
The young woman wore trousers, which Polly quite envied her for. ‘Who me?’ She made a laboured point of looking Polly coolly up and down.
Polly smiled and turned around again.
‘They say only collabos wear haute couture these days,’ shot the young woman to her back.
Polly tensed. While disgusted looks were not uncommon when she went out in the streets, insults were harder to bear. She turned around again. ‘And who are “they”, Mademoiselle?’
‘Anyone with a breath of patriotism left inside them.’
The two held eyes. ‘You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, you know.’
The girl in trousers glanced at the book in Polly’s arm and shook her head. ‘You don’t even read French books, so what I see is what I get with you, collabo.’
‘Have you even read this?’ said Polly.
‘I wouldn’t soil my hands,’ said the other girl. ‘Clearly you’ve not heard the day’s news.’ The girl sneered at her.
Polly resisted looking back. ‘What news?’
‘Why should I be the one to shatter your little dream world? You’ll hear it soon enough.’
This was too much, and Polly turned around. ‘What news? Tell me,’ she insisted.
The young woman savoured it. ‘They tried to assassinate Hitler. They failed but they came mighty close.’
This development sent a current of electricity through Polly.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me who “they” are?’
Polly stared. ‘Tell me.’
‘The krauts themselves. Just fancy it . . .’ The girl leaned close to Polly’s ear. ‘The day of reckoning is coming fast, Mademoiselle. The day when all the collabos like you get shown to the wall.’
‘What wall?’
A mocking grin on her face, the young woman made the silent actions of holding and firing a machine gun. This briefly caught the attention of the Wehrmacht guards at the sentry box ahead. The girl dropped her arms at once and cast her eyes to the pavement.
Polly leaned in to her ear in turn. ‘This news is encouraging,’ she told her, ‘and I’m as sorry as you are that they failed, hopefully next time they won’t. But the Allies aren’t here yet – and if you keep carrying on, you’ll be dead long before they make it.’
The young woman’s eyes flicked at hers, angry. ‘I’m not taking “advice” from some kraut’s whore.’
Polly looked at her imploringly. ‘What is your name?’
‘Why the hell would I tell you?’
Polly held out her hand. ‘Mine’s Polly.’
Unexpectedly, the name seemed to register with the young woman. Polly saw the girl’s face soften in surprise, although still she didn’t say anything.
‘Don’t tell me yours then,’ said Polly.
‘It’s Anaïs.’
They shook hands.
‘Nice to meet you,’ said Polly. She kept her voice even lower. ‘Your papers – fake, I suppose?’
Anaïs said nothing, just staring at her.
Polly took that as a yes. ‘They must be pretty good fakes then, if they’ve got you this far.’
Anaïs gave a small nod.
‘Well, here’s my final bit of advice,’ said Polly, ‘find a better “disguise”, I beg of you. Not trousers. Dress younger – ankle socks. Let them think you’re a kid. Then they’ll see you without seeing you. Then perhaps when General de Gaulle gets here, you and I will fight side by side.’
She had robbed Anaïs of further words. Then, as Polly was about to turn around again, Anaïs whispered, ‘I was there.’
‘What?’
‘I was there. When the Comtesse sacrificed herself for Suzette – I was there.’
Polly’s eyes welled.
Anaïs touched her hand. ‘She was a heroine.’
Polly wouldn’t let herself cry.
‘I’ll never forget what she did,’ said Anaïs. ‘And someday, neither will France.’
Polly was only a dozen people away from the guards now, and she turned to face forward again, saying nothing more.
Polly made it through the checkpoint without incident, her papers checked cursorily, as they always were when she dressed like a BOF. As she neared the Pont Saint-Michel to cross over to the Left Bank, she glanced behind her once and saw that the trousered Anaïs was still detained with the sentries, her papers being examined in forensic detail.
* * *
Polly continued along the Boulevard until she came at last to the leafy Place de la Sorbonne. The storied façade of the great university’s chapel lay at the end of the narrow square, the two streetscapes on either side lined with some of the Latin Quarter’s beloved bookshops. Polly slowed down her pace, dallying by the fountain for a moment while she steadied herself for what wou
ld come next. She looked at the names of the bookshops on the shop awnings, finding the one she wanted: Librairie Rive Gauche. She spent a minute or so examining the books placed upon trestle tables in front of two other store windows, before she got to her intended bookshop’s offerings. She thumbed through what was there with a feigned show of interest: German books mostly, for that was the bookshop’s specialty, both in original printings and French translations, plus books written by French writers who were sympathetic to National Socialist ideals. Polly placed her copy of Autant en emporte le vent upon the table while she flipped through other books. In the act of putting one German book down to pick up another, she switched the little metal catch at the side of her book. The device inside the hollowed-out cavity clicked into motion. Polly knew she did not have very long. As casually as possible, despite the speed with which her heart was now racing, she strolled on to the next bookshop’s trestle. Then she gave every appearance of giving up on book browsing, as she walked purposefully through the great wooden doors of the chapel.
The book bomb exploded without her seeing it. The Librairie Rive Gauche front window blew inwards, peppering customers and staff with glass. Flames quickly took hold in the well-stocked bookshelves and soon the ground floor was ablaze. While students around her ran out to the square to see what the commotion was, Polly kept going, enjoying her walk through the Sorbonne grounds, mostly unnoticed and entirely unsuspected as someone who had just destroyed the Occupiers’ favourite source of Fascist literature. It had been easily done, Polly marvelled to herself.
Scarlett O’Hara would have well appreciated it.
* * *
To the BOFs and collaborators with francs to spend at the Bon Marche department store, they were just another Parisian couple succumbing to a public display of affection. No matter how grim things became, the city still had the same affect upon lovers. Their lips pressed together, two bicycles pressed tightly between them on the curb, Claude drew the nameless woman even closer to him, running his fingers through her long chestnut hair. As he did so, her fingers slipped her tiny bicycle pump from her bicycle to his. The kiss was over then, and Claude had to adjust his trousers at the pocket. He was still a man, and a kiss was a kiss, even if he had never met this woman before.
Her eyes flicked to his trousers and sparkled. ‘Au revoir, my Jean-Paul – I shall see you next week.’
‘Au revoir, Lisette,’ he grinned. They had christened each other on the spot. Although it was madness, he could have happily kissed her again.
Claude mounted his bike and smoothly joined the stream of other cyclists, heading away from the cluttered mishmash of the Left Bank and home to the ordered Right Bank again. From the direction of the Latin Quarter he heard the sirens of fire trucks. In the sky was a pall of smoke. Good, he thought, the more distractions the merrier.
Claude made it back to the Ritz without incident, stopping only briefly at the Wehrmacht sentry box that had been placed at the Pont Royal since Hauptmann Jürgen’s murdered corpse had been found under it, two years before. The guards waved him through, brows creased with other concerns. There was pleasingly so much more going on than a fire in the Latin Quarter, Claude thought, having heard from his own sources about the assassination attempt upon Hitler. It was a delicious rarity to see guards looking worried.
With his bike stashed in the basement, Claude took the Cambon elevator to the floor where his suite lay, and once inside, with the doors locked carefully behind him, he went into his library and took down a red leather-bound volume on painting from the Napoleonic era. He thumbed through the book until he found a colour print of Jacques-Louis David’s great masterpiece, The Intervention of the Sabine Women. Pinching the page between his thumb and his forefinger, Claude slipped a piece of tissue paper out from under the colour plate.
‘Afternoon, Papa.’
He turned with a start. Odile was at the door. ‘You’re home. I didn’t realise.’ It was a relief the girl couldn’t see what he was up to.
‘Have you heard the news?’
Claude had. ‘We mustn’t go letting off fireworks just yet.’
‘You’re not excited?’
Claude considered. ‘I’m cautious.’
‘You olds are unbelievable,’ said Odile. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’
Claude froze in the act of unscrewing the base of the little bicycle pump the woman had attached to his ride. Once again, he wondered whether Odile could see more than her doctors claimed that she could. ‘What’s it look like?’ Claude wondered, testing the water.
‘Don’t know – that’s why I asked you.’
Claude knew Odile’s tactics. ‘It’s an art book,’ he told her. ‘I’m looking up something for a guest.’
Odile came properly into the room. ‘Boring.’
Confident the girl could see none of it, Claude reached into the pump with his finger and drew out another piece of paper. ‘Haven’t you got something better to do?’
‘Better than watch you with your spy work?’
Claude lurched, dropping the pump pieces to the floor.
Odile laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I’m only having a lend of you, Papa.’ She sat down in the library divan.
But Claude had suffered enough of these sorts of exchanges with Odile. ‘If I really was a spy, do you think you’d show more respect to me than you do?’
‘Only if you were a good one.’
‘I see.’
‘Or if you were my dad.’
This only made Claude feel sad. ‘Then I fail on both counts.’
‘Who says you do?’
‘You, obviously,’ said Claude.
‘Not me – you’ve passed with flying colours in one of them.’
This brought Claude up short. He felt a surge of warmth. ‘That’s very nice – but I’m not your father, which of course you well know. But you are very much like a daughter to me, Odile. My life is only the richer for having you.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Odile, flatly. ‘My dad’s some drunk on a film set. It doesn’t mean anything to me. Where you pass with flying colours, Papa, is spying. You’ve got courage and smarts.’
Claude spluttered. ‘Odile!’
‘I killed him.’
There was a moment’s quiet.
Claude recomposed himself. ‘I’m busy, Odile, there’s no time for this stupidity. There are guests waiting.’
‘I know your secret,’ Odile said, ‘you can know mine. Me and two others, together we killed him.’
Claude’s temper flared. ‘I said I’m not playing silly games with you.’
‘I stopped playing games when the krauts arrived,’ said Odile. ‘I do just like you do, Papa, and for real.’
‘Odile, please.’
The telephone on the library desk rang. Claude picked it up and put it straight down on the receiver again.
The girl stood up from the divan, trembling with intensity. ‘I’m telling you this because the day of liberation cannot be far away. Me and two others killed that kraut Jürgen. I stabbed him in the guts.’
Claude’s stomach had knotted.
‘You believe me?’ asked Odile.
Although it seemed incredible, Claude actually found that he did.
Odile was relieved. ‘We did it to get hold of his gun.’
There was another long moment as Claude sat with this. ‘And you have it still?’
Odile nodded. ‘Soon we will need it, Papa.’
Blanche appeared, framed in the library door. ‘I’m on my way out.’
Both Claude and Odile jumped.
Claude glanced at the open art book, the pieces of paper, the bicycle pump parts on the floor but Blanche just turned to her daughter. ‘You have not got a gun, Odile – so stop playing silly games with your step-father like a child. You’re nineteen.’
There was a pause as Odile caught her breath. ‘Yes, Mama.’
The weight of the paper Claude had pulled from the bike pump felt
like a stone in his hand. ‘And where are you off to, my sweet?’
‘To the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier.’ Blanche fluffed at her hat. ‘With Zita. We’re seeing that guy Sartre’s play.’
‘Ah. I hear it’s very good. Very original.’
Blanche shrugged. ‘It’s about three people stuck in some room. I just hope it’s got laughs.’ She blew them both kisses. ‘See you later then.’
After she had gone, Odile said, ‘She’s probably lying. Mama does stuff of her own – resistance stuff. She thinks that she’s hiding it.’
‘Maybe,’ said Claude, ‘but I don’t want to know. I don’t want you to know either, Odile. It’s safer.’
The girl nodded. ‘Sometimes the pressure of not telling the truth is unbearable. I was weak and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. Thank you for listening to me, Papa.’
‘That’s all right . . .’
Odile surprised him by kissing his cheek. ‘I’ll never betray you. I love you.’
Claude’s step-daughter left the room.
The telephone rang again. Claude picked it up. ‘Not now,’ he said into the receiver without hearing who was at the other end. He hung it up once more.
After a moment, Claude smoothed out the two pieces of paper on his desk. Lettered on the sheet he’d taken from the art book was the code cypher used by members of the Gaullist Underground. This afternoon, once he’d uncoded the message from the bicycle pump, Claude would pass the information to another man on a bicycle on the Quai Voltaire. Where the message would go next, Claude didn’t know, which was as it should be. He was part of a complex chain which relayed communications from the Occupied capital to the Free French Army headquarters in London. Resistance had thrived in the dark because no individual member knew anything other than the links in the chain immediately before and after them.
In the habit of reading without comprehending the messages he coded, Claude ignored this one, too, as he began the process. Then, once it was done, he decided he needed a nip of cognac before he set out on his bicycle to deliver the coded message. It was just now occurring to him that Odile’s confession – and his own acceptance of it – had shaken him.
The Heart of the Ritz Page 37