B004U2USMY EBOK

by Wallace, Michael

“Mais, non. You’ll be dead.” Christine shook her head. “What are you thinking?”

  What was Gabriela thinking? She wasn’t, not tonight. She’d had two and a half years of thinking. When she’d pulled the stitches from the secret hem in her coat to remove the bills she’d hidden inside, when she’d sold her grandmother’s gold locket and her father’s silver cigarette case. When she’d taken the job working in the kitchen and resisted Monsieur Leblanc’s pressure to work the Germans instead. She’d thought for the last few months as she’d scrutinized every German to step into the restaurant.

  Even in the last twenty-four hours, since she’d told Monsieur Leblanc that she was ready, she’d had plenty of time to think things over. Even after Christine shook her head and tried to talk her out of it, then reluctantly sat her down and shared tips, explained the nuances. It had all seemed surreal but the time had now come and she couldn’t second-guess, not even a little, or she’d never be able to go through with this.

  “Look at you,” Christine said, “your hands are trembling. You’re so scared you’re going to drop the trays.”

  “I’m not scared, I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten yet.” She caught Christine’s skeptical look. “It’s true, a crust of pain noir with a cup of watery coffee for breakfast and nothing since. What do you think I’m doing here, I’m sick of fighting the other dishwashers over the garbage. I’m tired of struggling.”

  The part about the crust of bread and bad coffee was one hundred percent true, the rest a lie. She may be down to her last five francs, but she had no intention of selling her body for money.

  “Now please, let me go.” She steadied the tray of drinks. The men at the table couldn’t see her tremble.

  “Please, Gaby. Just look.” Christine parted the doors a crack.

  Gabriela glanced into the lounge. Three Germans at the table. Colonel Hoekman stood out from the other two. He was pale-skinned, a strong-looking man with a weak chin and too-narrow eyes. He was watching the negro band with barely-concealed disgust. The other two men at the table sat as far from the colonel as possible.

  “Gestapo agents need comfort, too,” Gabriela said.

  Monsieur Leblanc approached from further back in the kitchen, where he’d been arguing with the cook. “What’s this? Oh, come on girls, gossip on your own time. We’ve got thirsty customers. Gaby, you said you knew what you were doing. Either get out there and prove it or change out of that dress and go back to washing dishes.” He stepped into the lounge and snapped his fingers for her to follow.

  Gabriela followed. Christine gave one final pleading glance, but said nothing more.

  Christine may have recruited her to the restaurant, but she really was as nice as she’d seemed that first day in the flea markets, if a little dreamy. When she was not out serving and seducing Germans, she sat in the back smoking Gauloises and fawning over the drawings of Monsieur Leblanc’s son, Roger. And gushing about the pretty trinkets given to her by German lovers.

  Monsieur Leblanc swept up to the table with the three Germans and gestured for Gabriela to follow. “Come, come, whiskeys for our fine guests. On the house!”

  The whiskey was on the house in the same way that the Germans were in Paris as guests.

  The Germans may not pay directly, but one way or another Leblanc would find a way to extract a few more reichsmarks from their wallets to cover the drinks.

  Leblanc stepped to one side and flashed that wide smile again. “Our new girl. Very pretty, no?” He ran his finger along the lace at the plunging neckline of her dress.

  The first thing Christine had done after Gabriela told her she was ready to move out of the kitchen was drag her back to the marché aux puces and buy her a red dress and a pair of shoes. It had seemed an extravagance, but Christine insisted she could pay her back when she worked her charms as a hostess. It was Gabriela’s first time in the flea market as a buyer.

  Gabriela fed the Germans her most seductive smile. She bent for effect when she put the drinks onto the table to give them a view down her dress. As expected, their eyes dipped to her freckled breasts.

  The restaurant was slow tonight, with only a few miliciens—French paramilitary—and a larger table of German officers on the opposite side, who had waved away any company and feasted on a leg of lamb and loaves of boules de pain blanc, the kind of white bread the average Parisian hadn’t seen in years. Nearby, a fat Austrian businessman sat having wine and Camembert with his regular hostess.

  The restaurant décor was faded elegance. Dark oak paneling. A thick, woven carpet on the floor, now showing its age, paint that hadn’t been freshened since 1940 and the debacle. Always the debacle. One never used the words surrender or capitulation. It was as if the Germans were an act of God, like a volcano that had erupted in their midst, killing and burning. One didn’t fight these things, one simply adapted. And what could you do anyway when they cut your rations or when they arrested your neighbor without explanation? Just shrug, drink your watered-down coffee and be thankful it wasn’t worse.

  She put a drink in front of each of the men. “Your dinner will be out shortly. Meanwhile, may I interest you in some whiskey?”

  “You’ve outdone yourself this time,” the first man said to Leblanc in lightly-accented French. “Free drinks with a pretty girl, how can we say no?”

  He was a handsome Wehrmacht officer in a crisp uniform. The man to his right was just as good-looking, with blond hair and strong Aryan features. Unlike the other two, he wore a business suit instead of a uniform. The third man, the Gestapo officer, sat stiffly, his hat on the table in front of him. A silver eagle decorated his hat, straight-winged, gripping a wreath and swastika in its talons. Below the eagle, a silver skull. The man’s gray uniform was finely pressed, his boots polished. It was late in the night, but nothing was out of place in his uniform or hair.

  Gabriela served the drinks while Leblanc produced a brass lighter to light the candles.

  The Gestapo officer held the glass to the light of the candle at their table, said something in German to the other two.

  “You do not like the whiskey, Monsieur? It is genuine Scotch.” Gabriela gave him a sly smile. “Isn’t that naughty of us?”

  “Very impressive,” he said with a heavy accent.

  “Only the best for my clients,” Leblanc said. His smile looked forced. He would be worrying about this new customer. Did he look offended at the presence of the illegally imported Scotch?

  A fourth glass sat on the tray. Unlike the other three, it held a strong, unpleasant French whiskey, made in an illegal still somewhere in the Dordogne. You could have bought a barrel of the stuff for what Leblanc would pay for a single glass of the Scotch given the Germans.

  She handed the empty tray to Leblanc and slid into the seat next to the Gestapo officer with the fourth glass in hand. “May I join you messieurs?”

  “But of course,” the regular army major said in lightly accented French. He said something in German to the Gestapo officer, who nodded.

  She took a sip, tried not to make a face. She imagined that a Russian soldier on the Eastern Front, hiding behind a barrier of dead, frozen horses with a rifle in his hand and suffering a gangrenous wound in the thigh, might find this drink a suitable companion for a chill winter night. She’d have preferred a nice Chablis.

  “I’d better see to the kitchen,” Leblanc said. “Gaby, anything for you?”

  “I’m not hungry,” she lied, “so maybe just a bit of bread.” It was the agreement with Leblanc. She could work, but no salary and no freebies from the kitchen.

  The alcohol slid straight through her empty stomach and to her head. “Did Monsieur Leblanc tell you about the new one-armed dishwasher?” she asked. “He can balance a stack of plates on his hook.”

  The major grinned. “Really?”

  These three weren’t friends; she could sense the discomfort the major and the businessman felt for the Gestapo agent. Was it business or circumstance that brought these men together? It didn
’t matter, she needed to warm things up if she didn’t want them to leave the restaurant separately and alone.

  “Also useful for hooking bits of food out of the garbage when he thinks nobody’s looking. He’s good with the hook, maybe too good. Claims he can unhook a girl’s brassiere, but I’ve declined his offer.” She winked at the Gestapo officer.

  The major laughed, the businessman chuckled, but the Gestapo officer frowned and shook his head with a confused expression. The major repeated the joke in German and this elicited a smile. The story was obviously embellished, but the men didn’t seem to mind. The next was a story about a cat that ended in the pot of their rivals across the street.

  “Can you imagine, serving cats? Ouai, and an English cat, too. The former ambassador left it behind when he fled Paris in his nightgown. Please, if you’re going to put cat meat on the menu, at least make them French cats. Everyone knows English food is merde.”

  Another laugh from the major, more translation for his SS counterpart.

  “My name is Gaby, and you are, messieurs?”

  The regular army officer introduced himself as Major Ostermann, and the businessman called himself Helmut von Cratz. The businessman was watching her, but she couldn’t read him as easily as the Wehrmacht officer. The major’s hungry look was obvious enough.

  “Et vous, Monsieur, le sérioux?” she asked the Gestapo officer.

  His French was good enough for that. “I am called Colonel Hoekman.”

  Colonel Hoekman. To hear it from his own mouth thrilled her. She’d spent more than two years not knowing, remembering that cruel face. Yesterday, Leblanc spoke it for the first time, and now she had confirmation: Hoekman. The bastard. She wanted to grab a steak knife and ram it through his throat.

  “Ah, a colonel.” She gave a teasing smile to the other men. “I’m afraid a girl must cast her net for the biggest fish.” She put a hand playfully on Hoekman’s knee. He glanced down and then met her gaze, but didn’t pull away.

  “Bah,” Major Ostermann said. “Your so-called biggest fish is going to swim back to Berlin day after tomorrow, next week at the latest. You won’t get a meal out of him.”

  We’ll see about that.

  “What this place is?” Hoekman asked in his imperfect French. “Like One-Two-Two club? The Egyptienne?”

  “What? No, this is a fine restaurant.”

  “Then who are all the girls?”

  “Well, Elyse is from Belgium, Christine is from Provence. Those two are Parisiennes.”

  “But are they. . .I mean, do they. . .?” He frowned, as if searching for the words. “Work, sexually?”

  Major Ostermann blinked and there was a long, uncomfortable silence. “Please, just enjoy the Scotch,” he said at last. “We don’t want to insult our hosts.”

  Hoekman snapped something in German and Ostermann shrugged and stared down at his drink.

  Like Gabriela, the other hostesses weren’t exactly restaurant employees, but neither was this a brothel or a maison close like the Egyptienne. Leblanc and Le Coq Rouge offered opportunity, nothing more. Opportunity to meet someone who would buy you a few pretty things, move you out of your louse-infested rat hole. Opportunity to tear up your ration coupons and eat real bread, drink real coffee, a real glass of wine. Eat meat.

  But you’d better sell yourself or you’d be fighting the dishwasher’s hook for the tastiest garbage.

  Ostermann and von Cratz picked up their conversation, this time in German. Colonel Hoekman watched them without comment.

  The lights flickered and then died. The jazz music continued in the dark without interruption and Leblanc materialized with more candles. He had them on the tables and lit within moments. Sconces on the walls. The light was dim, but passable. A few minutes later, the electricity came back on and the patron swept up the candles with the same practiced hand.

  Leblanc brought a bottle of wine and a basket of bread. A few minutes later, the venison and potatoes. She took a pitifully small slice of bread, spread as much butter as she dared and nibbled at the corner as if participating in the meal out of politeness. Her mouth watered and her stomach gave an excited rumble. A moment later, she forced herself to put down the bread, unfinished.

  She tried not to stare at the venison.

  Colonel Hoekman ate deliberately, almost daintily, while the other two attacked their food with a good deal of cutting and chewing and clanking of silverware and dishes. Gabriela kept up a meaningless chatter. Her hand kept returning to Hoekman’s knee. He’d come here for something other than food or hostesses. She could see it in the way he studied people as they came and went. What that was she couldn’t guess. Something unpleasant, no doubt. Looking for the opportunity to arrest some poor, innocent bastard for the crime of voicing the wrong opinion about the war or for telling the wrong kind of joke.

  But gradually, Hoekman’s glances fell more and more on her neck and bust line and less toward the door. By dessert, she would make her offer. Word it cleverly enough and he’d think he’d seduced her, rather than the other way around. The conversation between the other two Germans switched back to French.

  “Have you seen Roger Leblanc’s drawings?” Major Ostermann asked. He had downed several drinks and loosened up considerably.

  “Roger Leblanc?” Colonel Hoekman asked.

  “The owner’s son. He’s quite talented.”

  “Ah, yes, the. . .how you say?” He said something in German.

  “Deviant? Well, yes, I suppose he might be homosexual,” Ostermann said with a frown. “They all are, aren’t they? We wouldn’t have a museum in Europe if you cleared out all the homosexuals.”

  Gabriela had no idea if Roger was or wasn’t, but she didn’t like the sneer in Hoekman’s voice. The Germans were strange about these things. You might very well take a man like Hoekman for a homosexual himself. Big and strong looking, but with a pursed-lipped, almost pious look around his mouth and a perpetually arched eyebrow.

  Her father had once told her that the priests and bishops who were most anxious about rooting out and denouncing sodomites were invariably acting out of self-loathing for their own, similar inclinations. She wondered if you could say the same thing about fascists. She hoped not, in Hoekman’s case.

  “He’s not homosexual, just a sensitive artistic type,” she said.

  Colonel Hoekman snorted. “Another word for deviant, ja? This is why I do not like art. All deviants.”

  “But the drawings are quite good,” Ostermann said. “You should see them, Colonel. Isn’t that right, Helmut?”

  Helmut von Cratz shrugged. “They’re not bad, I suppose. For an amateur.”

  “Oh, come on. Where’s the boy, I’ll show you.”

  “There is no need,” Colonel Hoekman said.

  This was no good. A distraction, at best. But there was something else, like a warning. A bad feeling. A struggle between these three men coming to the surface, perhaps. She didn’t need it.

  “Oh, I agree with the colonel,” Gabriela said. “There’s no point. The boy’s all right, but it’s amateur stuff, really. Besides, it doesn’t seem Roger’s around. I think he went out.”

  But now that he’d staked a position, the major seemed determined to defend it. “How about Leblanc, where the devil did he get to?”

  “Never mind,” von Cratz said. “Didn’t you hear what he said? The colonel’s not interested.”

  Major Ostermann frowned and picked up his wine glass. It might have died there, but just then Monsieur Leblanc stepped out of the kitchen. Ostermann gestured impatiently.

  Leblanc hurried over with hands clasped. “Oui, monsieur?”

  “Where’s your son? We want to see some of his drawings.”

  Leblanc licked his lips and glanced from one man to the other. Gabriela gave him a tiny shake of the head. She couldn’t tell if he caught the warning.

  “Well, you see I was about to send him out. We need mushrooms, and—”

  “Oh, never mind mushrooms,” Oster
mann said. “Let’s see these drawings. Come on, Hoekman is a real art connoisseur. I told him we had a budding artiste on our hands. This is the real stuff. Where’s the boy? Bring him out. I insist.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Gabriela brushed her hand against Hoekman’s knee, tried to say something witty, but he was preoccupied now. He stared hard at Roger Leblanc as the boy came out with his father. Roger carried a battered leather portfolio under one arm. A cigarette dangled at his lips.

  Roger had the untidy look of a zazou: long hair slicked into a duck tail in the back, too much color and cloth on his clothing in defiance of wartime rations, narrow tie. When she saw him in the street he always wore dark glasses and carried an umbrella over his arm, a la Neville Chamberlain, never open no matter the weather. The look had the odd effect of making him look much older than seventeen, and at the same time like a child playing dress-up.

  Hoekman snapped his fingers. “Let’s see them, come on.”

  “Easy, easy,” Major Ostermann said. “This boy is an artist, let him show the drawings his own way.”

  Roger opened his portfolio and held out the first drawing with a look of practiced indifference. A woman feeding bread crumbs to pigeons. The old woman’s face drew Gabriela’s attention. Quiet desperation. And her hands, held out as if imploring the pigeons to eat, not offering.

  The Germans leaned forward and studied the drawing. Gabriela returned her hand to Colonel Hoekman’s knee. He glanced at her neckline and there was something smoldering in his look. Very good.

  Christine and Virginie came out of the kitchen. Christine caught her eye with an imploring look, but Gabriela looked away.

  Roger flipped to the next drawing. A man kneading bread. It was good, too. His hands, especially. Roger flipped to the next. It was only partially finished, but it caught her eye at once.

  He’d drawn an elegantly dressed couple, strolling arm-in-arm through what looked like the Jardin de Tuileries, with other couples only hinted at with a line or two. The only other completed detail was the face of a child, playing with a line or two of what would become a dog. A look of innocent delight on his face. That look made her heart ache.