B004U2USMY EBOK

by Wallace, Michael

  “Fine, no problem,” Alfonse said. “Last time I was here you had this excellent plate with shrimp in garlic butter sauce. Is that still available?”

  “We do have shrimp, but. . .desoleé, monsieur, the butter is a problem. We only have margarine tonight.”

  “Margarine?” Alfonse grunted. “May as well cook it in melted candle wax. Well, forget the shrimp, then. How about cheese, you still have that?”

  “Yes, of course. We have an excellent selection.”

  “Fine, fine, bring me that. Just a plate of whatever.”

  The man returned a few minutes later with a plate of cheeses. Alfonse said nothing, but eyed the cheese tray with a scowl as the waiter left. “This is a goaty selection. You like goat cheese?”

  “Some, if it’s not too strong.”

  “Helmut loves the stuff, we can save it for him. The stinkier the better. So, how is it working for my friend?”

  She shrugged. “All right, I guess.”

  “He just needs to relax more. I mean, you saw me, I know how to get it done when it’s time. But when the crisis passes, you’ve got to let it go. Relax, enjoy life. He shouldn’t be down there breaking his back on the heavy lifting. That’s why the army drafts privates.”

  “Maybe that’s his own way of relaxing,” she said. “If he keeps busy, he’ll forget faster.”

  “He relaxes by working? Hah.” Alfonse shook his head. “No, that’s not it. Not it at all.”

  “Then maybe he wants to make sure it gets done right.”

  “Again, you’re wrong. I’ll tell you what it is. It’s his messed up marriage, that’s the problem. That wife of his. . .oh, there he is.”

  Helmut came through the terrace doors. He’d mostly cleaned up his face, but there was a smudge of soot over his right eyebrow. Gabriela picked up a napkin. “Here, you’ve got something above your. . .yes, right there.” She stood, rubbed at the spot, mostly got it out.

  Helmut took a seat. “That Dutch engineer is a genius. He’ll have those tracks repaired by morning.” He took the glass Alfonse offered, drank.

  “We were just talking about you,” Alfonse said.

  Helmet fingered a hole in his suit, which had taken a beating. It was torn, muddy, and splotched with oil. “Discussing my impeccable sense of style?”

  “I was telling Gaby about your wife. God, she’s a beauty. Do you have a picture?”

  Helmut reached into his jacket pocket and removed a billfold, handed her a small photo. The woman was very beautiful, severe looking, with light hair pulled into a bun at the back.

  “About what you’d expect from this handsome wolf,” Alfonse said. “Pick the most beautiful girl and seduce her.”

  “She’s very pretty,” Gabriela said. “What’s her name?”

  “Thank you, her name is Loise.”

  “Did you know Helmut almost married some French peasant? It’s true. Black hair, hazel eyes, beautiful breasts.” Alfonse held his hands in front of his chest and pantomimed a generous bounce. He grinned and held up a hand as if to stop Helmut’s anger. “Not that I ever saw them, but you could imagine.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Helmut shrugged. “The war happened.”

  “Excuse me for saying,” Alfonse said, “but you know, I’ve already had a couple. I talk too much when I drink. Which is often. I think you should have taken the Frenchy with the big busen. Not the ice princess.”

  “Alfonse,” Gabriela said.

  “It’s true. That French girl—what was her name? Come on, what was it?”

  “Marie-Élise.”

  Alfonse snapped his fingers. “Yes, that was it. Marie-Élise. She was alive, she loved everything about life. Okay, Loise is a smart woman. She’s got a clever tongue, she can match wits. The peasant girl, I don’t know. Maybe she’s a dummkopf, but I know I’ll take the simple, but passionate girl.” Alfonse tweaked Gabriela’s cheek. “If she’s beautiful naked, like Gaby, and always horny, so much the better.”

  Helmut got up as if to leave. There was something in his eyes that looked like pain.

  Alfonse grabbed his arm. “Oh, come on, Helmut, don’t go. I’m a little drunk already, you know how I get.”

  Helmut sat back down, finished his drink, and held it up for Alfonse to refill. The pained look faded, or perhaps was masked.

  Gabriela looked back and forth between the two men, wondering. “How did you two become friends?”

  “Flatmates at Oxford,” Alfonse said.

  “You studied in England?”

  “That’s right, we’re college mates,” Alfonse said. “And the rowing team. We formed a coxless pair. We were good, right Helmut?”

  “We were good.”

  “Remember that race against the so-called Cambridge Invincibles? They had style, you’ve got to give them that. They sent an ornate letter with Gothic letters in the post claiming they were going to give us the old Viking blood eagle, then eat our still-beating hearts. God, that fired us up, I’ll tell you. We had those cocky bastards by a full length going into the last fifty meters. Then came the premature celebration.”

  “What do you mean, premature?” she asked Alfonse.

  A half-smile crossed Helmut’s face. “He means he stood up and gave some sort of Viking cheer as we approached the line.”

  “I didn’t need to row,” Alfonse said. “All we had to do was coast across the line.”

  “Soon as he stood up, he unbalanced the boat and over we went. So there we were, in our whites, clinging to our boat, hats floating down the river. Three meters from the finish. I’ll never forget the smirk on the Invincibles’ faces as they slid past us. Or Alfonse’s hangdog expression, for that matter.”

  “Oh, god, you’ll never let me live that one down.”

  “Me?” Helmut said. “You’ve told that story ten times for every time I mention it.”

  “Good times, I tell you, good times.”

  “Immature times.”

  “Ah, we had fun,” Alfonse said. “You know, Gaby, we both speak perfect English. They came to me a few years ago, asked me if I wanted to infiltrate the UK as a spy. I told them espionage was not really my thing. It’s true, I would’ve made a piss-poor spy. I don’t like danger.”

  “And you talk too much,” Helmut said.

  “And I talk too much. Cheers to that.” Alfonse tipped back his glass. “You’d never know it from that grim look plastered to his face, but Helmut was quite the ladies man at the university.”

  “Oh, I believe it. He’s a handsome man.”

  “Those English girls swooned over him.”

  “Come on, don’t exaggerate,” Helmut said.

  “There were dozens,” Alfonse said. “Couldn’t take a walk without making every girl in the park blush and giggle and stare.”

  Gabriela gave Helmut a teasing smile. “Is this true?”

  Helmut snorted. “Hardly. In four years, I remember all of two girls. A girl who wanted me to take her home with me to Bavaria so she could escape her father’s farm in Sussex. Then there was that earl’s daughter, from Scotland. She was, uhm, big-boned.”

  “Goddamned Amazon, you mean,” Alfonse said. “Remember that time you played tennis? And she caught you one in the beak with a forehand smash? Blood everywhere. Like a slaughtered turkey.”

  “I swear, her whole family was like that,” Helmut said. “I visited her estate in Scotland and the friendly croquet games turned into the Second Battle of Bannockburn. Broken mallets, shouting and cursing, fist fights. And that was just the ladies match.”

  “Shame we’re enemies with the Brits, now,” Alfonse said. “We had some good times, made a lot of friends. It’s unnatural for the Germanic peoples to be at each others’ throats. Why should Britain and America be allied with Slavs? And who are our allies? The bloody Japs and the Italians. Tell me, does that make sense?”

  “Your voice is awfully loud,” Helmut said. “Maybe we should talk about something else.”

  Alfonse leane
d forward and spoke in a conspiratorial tone, still too loud. “I’ll tell you something else. When’s that bastard Hoekman going back to Germany?”

  “We’re stuck with him for awhile,” Helmut said.

  “That other night, that was horrible. When he pulled on his gloves?” Alfonse let out a nervous-sounding chuckle. “I half expected him to say, ’We have ways of making you talk, Herr Ostermann.’”

  “So watch yourself,” Helmut said. “Keep your paperwork in order. The Wehrmacht can only protect you so far when the Gestapo is involved.”

  “Hmm, well we’ll see about that. General Dorf has pull in Berlin, too. He’ll cover for me.”

  “Maybe, but Hoekman has two things General Dorf doesn’t. One, he’s impressed the hell out of Heinrich Himmler. Two, he’s on the side of justice.”

  “Justice,” Alfonse sneered. “Fascist bastards will piss on your face and tell you it’s raining. Cut off your hand and send you a bill for the surgery.”

  “But it is justice, isn’t it,” Helmut said.

  “You’re not actually taking Colonel Hoekman’s side,” Gabriela said. “Are you?”

  “God, no. Men like that have turned Germany into a perverted nightmare. But if you take Hoekman’s general assumption about what is good and right for the Fatherland—and I’ll be damned if most Germans don’t seem to agree—then everything the colonel is doing is right and proper.”

  “I was at his house once, in Prussia,” Alfonse said. “You listen to his accent, you can tell he was born to working parents, but you’d never know it by his house.”

  “Is it big?” Gabriela asked.

  “Used to belong to a Baron von Something or Other. Hoekman isn’t married. Can you imagine a girl marrying him? And his parties are dreadfully dull, tedious. With what he’s got, you’d expect him to fill the place with paintings and statues. Half those places look like a bloody museum.”

  “Like a French museum,” she said. “Which is not a coincidence.”

  “Well yeah, whatever. Not that Hoekman doesn’t have taste, he doesn’t bother to try. He has a more unusual collection.”

  “Snakes?” Gabriela said.

  “Exactly. How did you know? Yes, he’s got two rooms filled with the disgusting things. It’s like a zoo in there, he breeds vermin to feed to his animals. Smells like mice. Piss and shit.”

  “I’ve heard about the snakes,” Helmut said. “First thing he does when he visits a new country, is go collecting.”

  Helmut seemed to have warmed to the crème de cassis, and poured himself another glass. He took a nibble from one of the more pungent goat cheeses.

  “Wonder who takes care of the snakes when he’s not home,” Alfonse said. “Can’t imagine the maid or the cook would be too keen to clean up snake turds.”

  “He brought some with him,” Gabriela said. “One is this big, black rat snake from Bulgaria.”

  “How do you know that?” Alfonse asked.

  “Uhm, the girls like to gossip.” She thought of a convincing lie. “He took home a girl from the Egyptienne and made her watch while he fed mice to his snakes.”

  “There’s got to be a better way to seduce a girl. Mademoiselle, do you want to see my snake? It is big and strong.” Alfonse chuckled. “It lacks a certain subtlety.”

  “Interesting,” Helmut said. A thoughtful look came over his face. “How many snakes has he got in France? Did this girl tell you?”

  “I don’t know. Three in his office, anyway.”

  “Wait,” Alfonse said. “Let me get this straight. He took a girl to his office and made her look at his snakes? Is that supposed to make her horny or scare the hell out of her?”

  “Does it have to be either, or?” Helmut asked. “Hoekman probably doesn’t know the difference.”

  Some time later, after they’d finished the crème de cassis and moved on to a bottle of wine, Helmut asked to be excused to visit the WC.

  “Probably won’t be gone long enough for us to slip upstairs,” Alfonse said when Helmut was gone. He was slurring some of his words now.

  “The longer you wait, the hornier you’ll be.”

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  She leaned across the table until their lips were almost touching. “That will be a very good thing, I promise.”

  “Come on, let’s go now. Helmut’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.”

  But Helmut came back moments later. Alfonse looked disappointed.

  Helmut poured more wine for everyone. “Let’s have a toast.”

  “A toast? Whatever for?” Alfonse asked.

  “To the piss-poor British pilots who bombed a cow pasture instead of our railway depot.”

  Alfonse laughed. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “We’re alive,” Gabriela said, “and that’s a good thing.”

  They drank their wine and Alfonse started a story about a midget sex show he claimed to have seen in Pigalle. It sounded suspiciously like a setup for a joke, with a punchline that would make the others groan. But then one of Helmut’s sarcastic asides distracted him and soon he was talking about Oxford again.

  Helmut stood up some time later. “I’m going to my room. All this wine has gone to my head.”

  “That’s what it’s supposed to do, you know,” Alfonse said.

  “Nevertheless, I think I’ve had enough.”

  “Finally,” Alfonse said after he’d left. “Come on, let’s go to bed, I’m horny as hell.”

  Gabriela had no enthusiasm for it. The drinks had calmed her nerves after the bombing at the rail yard, but she wasn’t particularly aroused by Alfonse’s loud, drunk voice and red face.

  “Come on,” he said in a pleading tone. He tugged at her sleeve.

  “Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

  #

  Later, when Alfonse was snoring in bed with all the noise and enthusiasm of a Ruhr Valley steel mill, she slipped into her clothes and stepped onto the balcony. The air was brisk, and a welcome change from the booze and sweat that radiated from the bed. The village slept below her, dark but for a few lamps in windows and the moonlight overhead. Swallows flitted above the tile roofs.

  Helmut stood on the adjacent balcony. “Good evening.”

  “Can’t sleep?”

  “Too much running through my mind. You?”

  “With Alfonse snoring like that? It’ll be a miracle if I get any sleep at all.”

  “I can hear it from here. He keeps up that racket and the Brits will think they discovered a secret munitions factory and come drop a few bombs on our heads.”

  “They’ll never bomb here. There aren’t any cow pastures next to the hotel.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad you came out. I’ve been called away. We might not see each other for a few days.”

  She was surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment. “Oh? Where are you going?”

  “Called away. You know, the war effort.”

  “Always the war effort. Well, be careful. I don’t want to see you killed or worse.”

  “I need to ask you something before I go.”

  “You can ask.”

  “What does Colonel Hoekman want?”

  “I told you before.”

  “Right, you said he wants spies. Gaby, please be open with me. He didn’t bring you in for a herpetological exhibition.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Gaby, I’m trying to help you, you’ve got to understand that.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “What does Hoekman want? Are you spying on Alfonse, or is it someone else?”

  There was no reason to deny it, was there? If he suspected already, he could say something to Alfonse whether she lied or not.

  He must have read her worries. “Alfonse is a big talker,” he said, “but I’m not. He’s careless, he lives above his pay grade, and that attracts attention. We sat through a hell of an inspection of Alfonse’s paperwork the other day and it could have gone even worse.”

  �
�I’m worried about him,” Gabriela said, truthfully. “He’s always going to be that guy who stands up in the boat before it crosses the finish line.”

  “That’s why his friends have to look out for him.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Look, if you can tell me, we can help—quietly, without making Alfonse panic and do something stupid.”

  “You really think so?” she asked.

  “I do think so, and you know what?” He leaned over the railing that separated the two balconies. “I might be able to help you with Hoekman, too.”

  “How? What could you possibly do against the Gestapo?”

  “Nothing, directly. But I’m a rich man. Hoekman himself is untouchable, but I can work on other people.”

  “Sounds a lot like Alfonse’s General Dorf solution to me.”

  “I’m not Alfonse. Surely you’ve noticed by now.”

  “Fine, you say you can help. Could you help me find my father?”

  “Your father.” He hesitated. “I want to lie and say yes, of course, but I don’t know. Gaby, surely it has occurred to you he might be dead.”

  “He’s not.”

  “It’s been how long? Two and a half years? A lot of people have died in camps.”

  “He’s not dead and I’m going to find him. Can you help me or not?”

  He sighed. “I can try, but I want to be honest. They’re tough odds. But if I’m going to look, you’ve got to give me something.”

  “Give you something. That’s exactly what Colonel Hoekman told me.”

  “I’m not Colonel Hoekman, either. Surely, you’ve noticed that as well.”

  “You’re more sophisticated in your technique, I’ll grant you that.”

  “Give me some credit, please.”

  She’d been vacillating, but now she made her decision. She had few allies, and the friends she had—Christine, the Demarais, perhaps Monsieur Leblanc—were weak. Alfonse? He’d never help, she couldn’t trust him. So what about Helmut? Did she have any choice?

  “Hoekman’s looking for a private in the army,” she said. “He thinks the man works for Alfonse.”

  Helmut frowned. “A private, you say?”

  “That’s what he said. A simple soldat. I don’t know if he’s French or German.”