by Black, Cara
“I need some anesthetic,” she said. “Let’s get a drink.”
Yves jerked the van to a stop in a narrow alley off Bastille, still in the Marais. A waiter shuttered the windows from inside a murky bistro on the corner. She heard strains of a jazz guitar as the door opened and a laughing couple spilled out. If she concentrated, she could probably make her feet walk to the corner and cause a ruckus so the bistro would let them in.
“Listen, this shoulder hurts,” she said, feeling giddy.
“I’ve got just the right thing for that.” His black eyes bored into her with a laserlike intensity.
“I seriously need a drink.” She started to giggle and didn’t know why.
“I’ve got that too,” he smiled.
And a beautiful smile, she noted. Here she was with a neo-Nazi carrying stolen videos—possibly containing an old woman’s murder recorded by him. And incredibly attracted to him. He’d seemingly helped her for the second time that night.
“My flat is over here,” he said, pointing to a darkened brick turn-of-the-century warehouse. “Can you make it?”
“You leave the equipment in your van on the street?” she said and wondered at her own coherent thinking.
“No one messes with our blue vans,” he said. “That’s for sure. But”—he pulled out a digicode remote and punched some numbers—”I don’t park on the street.”
As the metal awning rolled up slowly, Yves eased the van into the warehouse courtyard.
Aimee didn’t like the sound of the awning rolling back down and looked for a way out. A narrow side entrance showed a pinhole of light.
“Thinking of leaving?” Yves said, unlocking a door under the vaulted arches of the brick building.
“Not yet,” Aimee grinned. “I’m thirsty.”
“Let me help you, this is tricky,” Yves said, scooping her up. He flicked on a set of lights and carried her down a spiral metal staircase to a brick basement flat.
Warm air hit her, laced with a strong familiar tang. They descended onto a bleached wood floor lined by deep white sofas, a long metal table, and open kitchen. The vaulted arches in the walls had been bricked in and covered by bright batik fabric.
“Site of the old tanning vats,” Yves explained, setting her down on a sofa. “This was an old saddle factory. Police and cavalry saddles,” he grinned.
Aimee felt sticky and hot but didn’t dare take off her leather jacket. Her arm had started throbbing. Funny how things hurt when you had time to think about them, she thought. Sure that the grease and patchouli oil had been absorbed into her pores, she wanted a wash.
“Remy, OK?” Yves said as he handed her a bowl-like brandy snifter.
Aimee hadn’t had Remy Martin VSOP in years. She almost purred as it slid down her throat. This neo-Nazi definitely had more class than his comrades.
“I need to clean up,” she said.
He gestured. “Be my guest.”
She gripped the Remy and hobbled towards the kitchen. Inside his white-tiled bathroom, she put her clothes in a pile on the floor, making sure the videos were secure in the inside pocket of her jacket.
One good thing, her shoulder hurt so much she couldn’t feel much else. She turned the hot water on. Praying there was enough for a tubful, she knelt on a thick towel in front of an old gilt mirror. After she downed another shot of brandy, she noticed the thin red line of singed skin along her spine.
Her shoulder drooped, but this had happened before and she knew what to do. And with enough brandy she could do it. Gritting her teeth, she rotated her shoulder socket counterclockwise up to a three o’clock position. Taking another gulp of the brandy, she reached with her left hand to grip her right shoulder. She took a deep breath, pulled her arm straight out, swiveled it slightly, and popped the socket back into twelve o’clock. The pain shot from her fingertips to her neck. She heard a gasp behind her. Yves was in the mirror wincing, still in his jeans and sweater.
He knelt down beside her and took her gently in his arms. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and gave him a lopsided smile.
“You’re not going to pass out, are you?” He kept her cradled in his arms.
“Not yet.”
He poured another snifter and she sipped slowly. “I’m fine.”
Softly, he stroked her wet hair. “What kind of outlaw are you?”
“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. But I should be asking you that.”
“If you do, I’ll give the same answer.” He laughed and then Aimee knew she was headed for trouble.
They ended up in the tub with the bottle of Remy, surrounded by steam, most of it of their own making.
AIMÉE SLID back into her greasy jeans and left Yves asleep. But not before stealing his brown sweater and checking out his apartment. Off the open kitchen space she found a small office with a state-of-the-art computer, printer, and color scanner. Yves obviously had a decent day job. She searched high and low but couldn’t find any other videos.
She grabbed a taxi, switched to another one at St. Paul, and rode home. Just to be sure, she doubled back along the quai twice. Dawn was an hour away. Miles Davis greeted her in the dark flat, sniffed her noisily, then burrowed into her patchouli-scented jacket. Silhouetted against the quai’s street lamp, the black shadow of the Seine snaked outside her window.
Aimee felt more guilty than she ever had in her life. Somehow she should have gotten away from him. But she’d drunk too much and enjoyed how Yves had made her feel. The brandy hadn’t dulled her brain, she’d known what she was doing. And she’d wanted to do it. What if he’d been a part of the old woman’s murder? Sick, she made herself sick. How could she have slept with him?
She opened a bottle of Volvic spring water and popped a handful of vitamin B and C. She slid Les Blancs Nationaux’s video labeled “Meeting November 1993” into her VCR. Miles Davis nestled into her lap and she hugged him, trying to prepare for the awful truth.
SUNDAY
Sunday Morning
“CONGRATULATIONS, MEIN HERR,” ILSE squeezed his arm tightly and whispered. “We will make the past live again!”
Hartmuth was afraid his smile looked like a grimace of pain, and he glanced away. He concentrated his gaze on the balding mayor of Paris, standing among the European diplomats at the ceremony. Only once did his eyes drift to the gray wainscotting of the room.
He remembered these walls well. In this very room he had routinely filed Jewish Population Removal Orders in quadruplicate. His Kommandant viewed “removal” as a simple business function of the Occupation. Jews were “removal material” subject to tiresome but routine formalities, formalities Hartmuth was required to perform every time he swept the Marais in a Jewish roundup. He’d found Sarah’s family too late. They’d already been deported on the convoy to Auschwitz.
Ilse beamed from under the brim of her rose-colored hat. Across from them, Cazaux laughed familiarly with the mayor. After the opening ceremony, Hartmuth escorted Ilse in her brown orthopedics across the rotunda of black-and-white tiles.
He entered the waiting limo that would take them to Saint Sulpice Church. There under the smoky, incense-filled nave, below the leering phantoms imprisoned in Delacroix’s mural, he exhaled quickly. He realized that he’d been holding his breath. Soon, he told himself, soon this whole thing would be over. A few more days and he would be safely back in Hamburg.
As the bells pealed and the party descended the marble stairs of Saint Sulpice, the hairs lifted on his neck.
He had the oddest sensation of being watched. Of course, the Werewolves were watching, but this felt different. And he didn’t know if he minded at all.
At the reception following, Cazaux smiled and pulled him aside. “We must talk of the trade commission’s future. You know, I think you would be best qualified to lead negotiations.”
Hartmuth did not want to have this conversation. Nor did he believe in the unfair treaty that he was being pressured to sign. He’d stall Cazaux and buy time. Mayb
e he could lobby other delegates to effect compromise on the harshest policies. He didn’t hold out much hope but he would try.
“I’m flattered,” he said. “Others are more qualified than I.”
“Politicians can’t afford to be modest.” Cazaux winked and patted him on the back. “Of course, the commission gets in place after the treaty is signed. First things first.”
Quimper, the rosy-cheeked Belgian delegate, joined them. “This pâte is superb!” he said, gently dabbing at his mustache with a napkin.
Cazaux grinned. “May I offer you the privacy of my office to conduct your perusal of the treaty clauses?”
Hartmuth had already seen the addendum. He figured Cazaux wanted to get Belgium’s and Germany’s approval first, then convince other delegates to agree.
“My understanding, Minister Cazaux,” Hartmuth said, “is that the European Union delegates, as a body, are presented with the treaty tomorrow and we discuss any details or changes before we ratify.”
A shadow passed briefly over Cazaux’s face but it was gone in an instant.
“But of course you are right, Monsieur Griffe.” He nodded his head sadly. He put his arms around their shoulders and steered them away from the babbling crowd.
“You know and I know, this isn’t the best answer,” Cazaux said. “However, France’s economy and our relationship with you, our close European neighbors, will suffer if this isn’t signed.” He sighed. “Mass unemployment—well, that’s just the tip of it.”
Quimper nodded in agreement. Cazaux dropped his arms and studied the floor.
Hartmuth stared at Cazaux. “This treaty sidesteps due legal proceedings for immigrants. The mandate allows them to be held in detention centers indefinitely, without trial by judge or jury. No high court will sanction this.”
“High court? No, dear Monsieur Griffe, it will never come to that. Once the treaty is passed and signed, discouraging new immigrants, we begin proceedings to strike those clauses.” Cazaux smiled expansively. “The clauses will be deleted, like they never were there! Immigration will have slowed to a trickle. Eh, voila, our consciences will rest quietly after that.”
“Plenty of time for us to deal with that tomorrow,” Hartmuth said.
“Of course, gentlemen.” Cazaux smiled, putting his arms again around both of them. “As the host, where are my manners? And where is that pâte?”
Hartmuth felt Cazaux’s clawlike grip on his shoulder. More than ever, he wished he was far away.
Sunday Noon
SARAH PULLED THE HAT lower over her eyes. She felt disoriented, grappling with the old Paris she knew and the changes in the fifty years since she’d left.
“Bonjour, Monsieur, the evening Le Figaro, please.”
She paid and passed under the damp colonnades of Place des Vosges. The Marais felt oddly the same yet different, memories accosting her at every corner.
The wind whipped crackly brown leaves around her legs and she pulled her raincoat tightly around her thin body. The smell of roasting chestnuts wafted across the square. At the bottom of the back page, she saw the article she’d been looking for.
Marais Murder
Lili Stein, sixty-seven years old, of 64 rue des Rosiers, was found dead on late Wednesday evening. According to autopsy findings she was a victim of homicide. Police inquiries are centered in the Marais and surrounding 4th arrondissement. The Temple E’manuel has posted a reward for information leading to the conviction of person/s involved.
Here was Lili’s murder, confirmed in black and white! She must have missed the first mention during the week. Above her, the strains of a violin, playing “Coeur Vagabond,” drifted from an open window.
Her mother had hummed that old song on laundry days before the French garde mobiles, supervised by the Gestapo, rounded up her family in The Velodrome d’Hiver raid and deported them to Auschwitz in July 1942. She trembled and it wasn’t from the chill November wind. Were they after her, too? Or was Helmut?
Sunday Noon
AIMÉE FOUND ABRAHAM STEIN in the storefront synagogue Temple E’manuel on rue des Écouffes, a sliverlike street crossing rue des Rosiers. Formerly a stationery store, the synagogue stood next to a vegetable shop that displayed bins of dark purple aubergines, shiny green peppers, and scabbed potatoes on the curb.
Abraham looked thinner, if that was possible. Dark circles ringed his eyes and his dark blue striped shirt gave him the appearance of a concentration-camp inmate from old newsreels. Lili Stein’s memorial service had brought the small community together inside this tiny dark synagogue.
Everything bespoke tradition to Aimee—the low tones, the smell of fat before it got skimmed off chicken soup somewhere in a nearby kitchen, the gleam from brass candlesticks, and the feel of the rough wooden bench. Present time faded.
She became a little girl again, with ankle socks that always slid down and itchy wool sweaters that scratched her neck. Fidgety as usual. Trying to be as French as everyone else, the continual struggle of her childhood. Her mother holding her hands, making the sign of the cross, telling her to stop speaking English mixed with French. “Mais, Maman, I can’t help it!” she had begged. “Stop that Frenglish, Amy, you’re old enough to know,” her mother had said. But that was as foreign to her as feeling French. “Sooner you learn, the better it is,” she remembered her mother saying. “You can take care of yourself!”
“Baruch hatar adonhai.”
She slowly came back to the present, while a pair of wizened hands gripped hers and helped her make hand motions. But it wasn’t her mother. It was a white-haired woman, eyes clouded by cataracts, whom she’d never seen before.
“Très bien, mon enfant!” the old woman with misfitting dentures beamed, hugging her.
Aimee sank back in disappointment. Her childhood was gone and her mother wasn’t coming back. She took a deep breath and gently, she extricated herself, clasping the woman’s gnarled hands in thanks.
Outside, she nodded at Sinta and approached Abraham Stein on the curb. He appeared melancholy as usual.
Rachel Blum, stooped and clad in an old sagging floral-print dress, disappeared behind a wooden door opposite the storefront synagogue.
“Excuse me,” Aimee said to Abraham. She knocked on the wooden door several times. Finally a wooden slat slid open a crack.
“Hello, Rachel, it’s Aimee Leduc. May I come in a few moments?” she said.
Rachel didn’t smile as she peered out. “Why?”
“I forgot to ask you something.”
Rachel slowly pulled open the heavy, creaking door.
“How are you, Rachel?” Aimee said, walking inside the moldy smelling entrance.
Rachel sighed. “Fallen arches, that’s what the doctor calls it now. Can’t take too much standing, my feet can’t anyway, not like I used to.”
She motioned to Aimee. They sat together on a wooden bench in the dark paved entrance.
“Walking on stone too much—that does it.” She’d taken off her shoe and was rubbing the sole of her foot. “Those stairs going to Lili’s used to be wooden. This stone gets my bunions hurting.”
“Is that where the bloody footsteps were?” Startled, Aimee remembered Rachel’s description. Morbier’s men had found evidence of Lili Stein’s blood there also.
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“No one deserves to die like that,” Aimee said, her face flushed. “Yet every time I ask questions about Lili’s past, people don’t want to talk. Why don’t I chase the neo-Nazis, they say, do something concrete?”
Rachel kept rubbing her foot and didn’t look at Aimee.
“I don’t care where you fit into Lili Stein’s past,” Aimee said. “You won’t talk to me because you think I’ll judge you. No one my age would understand what you went through during the Occupation, right?”
Aimee attempted to keep her voice neutral, but she wasn’t succeeding. “Who gives you the right to decide? And even if I can’t understand, do you want the horror of what
happened to be hidden forever?”
Rachel still avoided Aimee’s gaze.
“Look at my face, Rachel,” Aimee said.
Rachel shook her head.
“Lili’s murder wasn’t a skinhead special. That swastika was SS Waffen style,” she said. “The SS…don’t you see that? Or maybe you don’t want to.”
Rachel shrugged. “You’re the one with the big theories.”
Aimee sat back, feeling defeated as the hard bench cut into the burned spot on her spine. She shook her head and spoke as if to herself. “Who’s next?”
Rachel sighed. “Arlette’s murder happened after a big roundup of Jews in the Marais,” she said.
Aimee froze.
Rachel’s hands sliced the air, punctuating her words. “Jews kept indoors after that. We only bought things at certain hours of the day, we were even afraid to do that. That’s when the Gestapo started more night raids. Almost every night. I’ll never forget. Middle of the night, the squeal of brakes in the street and footsteps came pounding up the stairs. Would they stop at your apartment? Yell ‘Open up’ and bash in your door with their jackboots? Or would they keep going and pick on someone else that night? My neighbor down the hall beat them to it. When they were breaking down her door, she grabbed her two sleeping babies and jumped out the window, right onto rue des Rosiers.” Rachel pointed to the street. “In front of this building. I like to think those babies slept on through to heaven.”
Aimee sensed something odd in the way Rachel spoke, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Rachel took a deep breath and continued. “At Lili’s apartment they couldn’t get the blood off those wood steps. No one would go upstairs, they ended up just paving them over with stucco.” She leaned close to Aimee’s ear.
Aimee shifted on the dark, narrow bench.
Rachel whispered, “Some say they were Lili’s bloody footprints because they were small. But Lili was gone. She didn’t come back until Liberation and so much was going on, no one thought to question her. I asked her once about the concierge’s murder she witnessed but she wouldn’t elaborate. She never wanted to talk about the Occupation, said the war was over. She liked telling her son how she dealt with collaborators, though.” She added, “Lili could be mean sometimes.”