by Black, Cara
Georges smiled and said, “I’ll check.”
Aimee motioned to Morbier. “I’m inviting you.”
He feigned indifference. “What’s the occasion?”
“It goes on the business account,” she said. “Under purchasing information.”
He chuckled as he lit up a nonfiltered Gauloise blue. “You can try.”
They edged towards a booth with cracked brown leather seats. Dingy and comfortable, a cop hangout with good food. Several others from the Commissariat nodded and raised their glasses of le vin rouge in mock salute as they walked by. She recognized several from her father’s time. A table of men in pinstriped suits were busily arguing and slurping Georges’s signature dish. Bankers, stockbrokers from the Bourse, even a famous designer would roll up here. Many a time, Aimee had seen the prime minister’s chauffeured Renault out front while he came in for a bowl. It was that good.
“No dice on the forensics. Lili Stein’s file has disappeared upstairs.” He tore off a piece of crusty baguette.
“I need to know when she was killed.”
“Formulating some theory that I should know about?”
“Just a theory,” Aimee said.
“Like what?” He lifted the edge of the white tablecloth and wiped his mustache.
She frowned and tossed him a linen napkin.
“Nothing points directly to the LBN. The swastikas I saw at the meeting were different from what was on…” Aimee stopped. She remembered the bloodless lines carved in Lili Stein’s forehead and heard the bland voice from the Auschwitz=Hoax video. Burning anger rose in her throat.
“Is something wrong?” he said.
She stopped herself. Anger would get her nowhere.
“No. The closest hate crime in the videos I borrowed was burning the Star of David in front of the Jewish Center.”
Solange Goutal, the receptionist at the Jewish Center, had guessed right.
“Borrowed?” he said.
After watching the videos, she’d been relieved to see Les Blancs Nationaux hadn’t recorded killing Lili. But that didn’t mean they hadn’t done it. Just that she hadn’t found a tape, if any existed. Not only had she slept with Yves, deep down she wanted to do so again.
“Like a lending library,” she said. Her back still ached as if large logs had rolled over it.
Morbier snorted.
“All I know for sure is that they’re sick misfits,” she said.
“Misfits. That’s quaint.” Morbier nodded. “They figured you were some kind of plant. And they’re not sure from who.”
“Mystery is my middle name, Morbier,” she said. “Nail anybody in the alcohol check?”
“Got one of the cockroaches for parole violation. That’s it,” he said.
“At least they didn’t bash a synagogue.”
“You sure bring ‘em out of the woodwork, Leduc.”
Just then, Georges appeared with two steaming, fragrant bowls of soupe a l’oignon gratinee. Big chunky pieces of half-melted cheese sitting on a piece of baguette floated lazily in the middle. For eons, these huge blue bowls had fed butchers, fishmongers, sellers of vegetables, cheese, and fruits in early dawn.
“Sorry, we’re out of cassoulet,” Georges apologized. That was the running joke. Le Renard never had cassoulet, only the best onion soup in Paris.
For a time, the only sound between them was the serious dunking of chunks of bread.
“I want the records of a murder in 1943,” she said.
Georges, a blue-and-white-checked towel draped over his arm, stood by the counter. She nodded at him and mouthed “Espresso.” He winked back in reply.
Morbier shrugged. “Would this murder be related?”
“Inspector called Lartigue investigated in 1943.” Aimee plopped a brown sugar cube in her espresso. “Victim named Arlette Mazenc.”
“Before my time. What’s it got to do with anything?” he said.
She had to be careful what she told him since her suspicions derived from information illegally obtained off the computer. Too illegal to tell Morbier.
“I’ve got another theory,” she said.
“In 1943 a lot of people disappeared and there weren’t exactly detailed investigations being conducted,” Morbier said.
“She didn’t disappear, Morbier. Murdered. Indulge me here, check the records,” she said.
His voice changed. “Why?”
She motioned to Georges for the check. “Because you asked for my help, remember? It’s awfully odd that another woman was bludgeoned to death in Lili’s building. Somehow it’s connected.”
He snorted. “Connected? Not even coincidental, Leduc. If there’s a link, it’s all in your mind.”
“This woman, Arlette, was murdered under Lili’s window…”
Morbier interrupted. “And fifty years later Lili got snuffed by some Nazi type. Where’s the connection?”
“The forensics would tell us.”
Georges brought them each a thimble-sized glass of amber liquid with Aimee’s change. “My brother’s Calvados. Home brewed,” he said proudly.
Aimee downed it, feeling the coarse tang of the apple brandy burn her throat.
“No wonder we never see your brother, Georges.” Aimee grinned. The tart sting became a slow, toasty aftertaste.
Morbier continued. “Forget it. I’m off the case.”
“But you have authority to get old files. Morbier, I can’t prove anything yet; I need to explore my way.”
“You still haven’t told me the possible connection,” he said, looking up. He dropped ashes onto the white butcher-paper tablecloth scattered with bread crumbs.
“I think Lili saw who murdered Arlette,” she said.
“So what? It doesn’t explain the swastika.”
“It doesn’t explain anything, Morbier, but I’ve got to start somewhere. Get me the file, let me prove that Lili’s murder…”
He stopped her. “I’m off the case, remember? Leduc, stick with computers. You’re way off the track here.”
She put her elbows on the table and tented her fingers as she began. “Morbier, you never heard this from me and if you talk, I’ll deny everything.”
He leaned forward.
“But I’ve got an idea. It’s rough, but it could tell us something,” she said. “I need Luminol to test a theory about bloodstain traces left in Lili’s light well. Some trace could point to the killer.”
In the end he agreed.
LATER ON, as they were bidding adieu to Georges, she noticed how quiet Morbier had become.
“Maybe I should retire,” he said as he put his hands in his pockets.
Outside on narrow rue du Bourg Tibourg, she searched her shoulder bag for her Metro pass. “What’s that, Morbier?” she asked distractedly. “You’ve just had too much to drink tonight.” Then she looked at his forlorn expression.
“Never been pulled off a case before,” he said.
“Who exactly pulled you off?” she said.
He shrugged. “My superintendent informed me on his way out.”
“His way out? Relieved of his post?” She looked directly at Morbier.
“Promoted. Now I report directly to the antiterrorist unit chief. At the Commissariat, instead of onward and upward, we say wayward and francword. You get the meaning, eh?”
“Are you talking bribery?” She cocked her head sideways in disbelief. “The chief superintendent of greater Paris?”
Morbier shrugged. “Well, to be fair, he was up for promotion in a few months anyway. Just happened sooner than expected.”
“So what are you saying, Morbier?”
“Could be a coincidence or”—he peered at the luminous fingernail of a moon hanging in the cold sky—”vagaries of nature due to the cyclical spheres of the moon. I don’t know.”
“Why would someone from the antiterrorism bureau override you?” she asked.
“Certain things happen and you accept them or leave. That’s all. Let’s walk.”
She hooked her arm in his and they walked. They walked in silence for a long time. Like she used to with her father. Paris was the city for walking when words failed.
They walked down past the Hôtel de Ville with the tricolor flags flying from balconies, across the Pont d’Arcole to the floodlit Notre Dame, now camouflaged by sheeted scaffolding, where a crew was giving her a face-lift, down the Ile de la Cite to the Pont Neuf and past the shadowy Louvre and her darkened office, across the shimmery Seine on Pont Royal to the Left Bank.
Down the elegant rue du Bac they strolled along lively, crowded Boulevard Saint Germain, where even on this cool November night the sidewalk tables were full of smoking, drinking patrons gesturing, laughing, and people-watching. Models, students, tourists, and the cell-phone set.
On Ile St. Louis, around the corner from her apartment, they stopped for a sorbet at Berthillon, famous for the best glace in Paris. Aimee chose mango lime and Morbier, vanilla bean. Finally they stopped in front of her dark building.
She kissed him on both cheeks. He clutched her arms, not letting her go. Uneasily, she tried to back away.
“Invite me up?” he whispered in her ear.
“We have a beautiful friendship, Morbier, let’s keep it that way. Don’t forget about our plan,” she said. She entered the door before he could make another advance that he would feel embarrassed about in the morning.
Miles Davis greeted her enthusiastically at her door. She laughed and scooped him up in her arms.
She picked up her phone on the first ring.
“Luna?” breathed Yves.
Aimee’s throat caught before she could answer.
“You left without saying goodbye.”
Aimee paused, what do I do?
As if he could read her thoughts, he said, “Get back over here. The entry code is 2223. I’m waiting.” He hung up.
He sounded so sure of himself that it made her angry. Well, she wouldn’t go. How could a coherent, rational woman voluntarily want to sleep with a member of an Aryan supremacist group?
Quickly, Aimee unzipped her dress, tossed her pearls in the drawer, and pulled on her ripped jeans and black leather jacket. “You’re going to stay with Uncle Maurice,” she told Miles Davis. She grabbed his carrier, throwing in extra dog biscuits. “Help him mind the kiosk. You like his poodle, Bizou, don’t you?” He jumped in his bag, eagerly wagging his tail. “I thought so.” She ran back down her stairway and hailed a taxi.
Monday Evening
HARTMUTH SAT WAITING ON the bench in the Square Georges-Cain and watched the shadows lengthen. He’d bought Provencal sweets, the same fruit calissons he used to bring Sarah. But what he really wanted to give her was himself.
What would she look like? He’d been eighteen and she fourteen the last time he’d seen her. Now they were in their sixties and briefly he wondered if he’d still be attracted to her. But all these years he’d dreamed of her, Sarah. Only her. The one woman who had entered the core of his being.
He had to take this second chance, no matter what. He refused to die full of regret. He’d draft a letter of resignation to the trade ministry citing ill health. Somehow he’d escape the Werewolves. He’d camp on her doorstep until she accepted him.
There was a slight rustle and thump in the bushes near him. He went over to investigate and found only pebbles. When he returned to the bench a figure sat huddled in a large cape. He nodded and sat back down. Then Hartmuth turned back to look.
Those eyes. Cerulean blue pools so deep he started to lose himself again and the years fell away. There was no doubt.
For a moment he was as shy and awkward as when they’d first touched. A stuttering, gangling eighteen-year-old.
Wrinkles webbed in a fine pattern from the corners of her eyes. Dark hollows lay under them and her pale skin glowed translucently in the dim streetlight. Exactly how he remembered: pearl-like and shining. A hooded cape covered all but her eyes and prominent cheekbones. And she was still beautiful.
His plastic surgery hadn’t fooled her, he knew. She would notice the deep lines etched in his face and the crepey folds in his neck. And his hair, once black, had turned completely white.
She searched his face, then spoke quietly. “You look different, Helmut.”
No one had called him Helmut in fifty years.
“Your face changed but your eyes are the same. I could tell it was you.”
“Sarah,” he breathed, hypnotized again by her eyes. “I’ve l-looked for you.”
“You lied, Helmut, you deported my parents.” She lapsed into the jumble of French and German they’d spoken. “They were dead and you knew all the time.”
He’d expected anything but this. In his dreams she was as eager as he. He realized she was waiting for him to say something.
“W-we d-deported everyone then. I found out later that they were gone but I s-saved you. I kept looking for you after the war, but it was always a d-dead end, because I’d erased your r-records myself.” He reached for her hands.
She pulled away and shook her head. “Is that all you can say?”
“You’re the only one,” he said softly, reaching again for her hands. “Ja, I’ll never let you g-go again, n-never.” His voice shook.
“You ruined my life,” she said hoarsely. “I stayed here. Saw ‘Nazi whore’ written in everyone’s eyes. Fifteen years old and I gave birth on a wooden floor while the concierge used metal ice tongs as forceps to pull our bastard out. At Liberation, they threw us in the street. The mob tried to lynch me while I clutched the baby and they screamed, ‘Boche bastard.’ Even Lili.”
She paused and took a deep breath. “Of all the collabos, I was the one they hated the most, even though I’d shared your food with them.”
Her eyes glittered in the dim glow of a far-off streetlight. “I stood on a statue’s pedestal for eighteen hours. They tarred my forehead with a swastika. Jeering, they asked me how I could sleep with a Nazi while my family burned in the Auschwitz ovens.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “We had a baby? What happened?” he rasped in pain.
“The baby died when my breast milk dried up. You know, Helmut, I’ve had so many reasons to hate you it’s hard to pick the crucial one. After Liberation, I hid in a freezing farm cellar and fought with the hogs for their food because collaborators with shaved heads had to hide. After a year, the swastika on my forehead finally began to heal. But for years, constant infections occurred. I had to leave Europe, go away. There was nothing here for me. Nothing. No one. The only ship leaving Marseilles was bound for Algeria, so I—once a strict Kosher Jew—ended up cooking for pieds-noir, what they call French colonials, in Oran. Fair and decent people. I became part of their large household. They left after the sixties coup d’etat. Later, I married an Algerian with French blood who worked at Michelin. He understood me and we lived well, better than I ever imagined. But for me life held a hole never to be filled.”
She slowly pulled the hood off until it draped in folds on her shoulders. Short, white bristly hair surrounded her head like a halo, highlighting the jagged, pinkish swastika scar on her forehead. It glowed in the dim light.
Hartmuth gasped.
Her voice wobbled when she spoke again. “I never really liked men to touch me, after you and after the baby. At first, it was hard even with my husband. He was a good, patient man and put up with me until I was ready. My insides had been butchered with those tongs, I couldn’t have children.”
Hartmuth listened in anguish. He took her hand and caressed it but she was oblivious, determined to finish.
“Algeria changed, I’d grown no roots there. But now I had papers, a little money. After my poor husband died this year, I felt so lonely that I returned to France. In Paris, at least I felt that any ghosts would be ghosts I knew. I wanted to live in the Marais again, the only home I knew. I could walk by my parents’ apartment every day, even if another generation born after the war lived there. But it’s so expensive here. With my references I fo
und a job. I found out what happened to my family. I found out what you did to the tenants in our building.”
Hartmuth stammered, “A-l-ll I c-could do was save your life and love you, I couldn’t save the others, we had to f-follow orders, it was war. I was eighteen and you were the most beautiful being that I had ever t-touched. I wrote poetry after I’d see you. Dreams swam in my head. I wanted to take you to live in Hamburg.”
“You’ve living in the past,” she said.
He took her face in his hands. “I love you, Sarah.”
She turned her head away for the first time. How could he make her feel like that again? That longing! She almost reached out to him but her parents’ faces floated in front of her. She shook her head. “Your mind is in a past we never had.”
“You don’t have to speak, I know your heart. You feel guilty that you still love the enemy,” he said. “What we have doesn’t recognize borders or religion.”
“Rutting in the dirt?” she said. “Eating like pigs while others starved? Hiding in the catacombs, always hiding, afraid to be seen…what was that?”
He hung his head. “I never wanted you to have pain, n-never. Even when there was no hope that you were still alive, you haunted me.”
Her voice quavered. “I want to kill you, I planned to do it but”—she put her head down, defeated—”I can’t.”
“Sarah, can you f-ff-orgive me?” Hartmuth sobbed, his head in his hands. When he finally looked up, she was gone. He had never felt more alone.
Monday Evening
SARAH BOLTED HER GARRET door and curled up on the bed. Several hours were left until her shift began the next morning. She clutched the spot where her yellow star had been and tried not to remember. Tried to forget but she couldn’t.
It was 1942, the stickiest and most humid day recorded in a September for thirty years. Not a breath of air stirred. School, already started and with compositions due, had settled into a tedious routine. As routine as the Nazi Occupation allowed. Only she and Lili Stein wore yellow stars embroidered on their school smocks.