by Jan Harvey
The silence was draining, the women looked from one to the other helplessly. Then there was the sound of Jacques entering the room, Eva’s room, and the low rumble of men’s voices.
A sweep of cold air entered the house, Madame F was speaking. It seemed she had opened the front door because suddenly half a dozen soldiers were storming up the stairs, rifles at the ready. The women, including Claudette, fled upwards, hurtling into Sophie’s bedroom. Pollo opened the windows leaning out to see if they could hear anything.
It was a cold March night, there was a frost clinging to every surface, sparkling white in a road grey with dreary buildings. Claudette crouched between Pollo and Bella, her hands leaning on the freezing cold window ledge.
There were muffled sounds at first, then slightly clearer noises and sounds of furniture scraping. Jacques shouted, it was unintelligible, but they could tell he was pleading. Then they saw Eva’s small body on the next window ledge down, her naked skin being scraped across the frosty stone. A green-grey sleeved arm pushed her and she fell over the edge and down on to the street, hitting the road between two black cars. There was a splattering of blood as she hit the floor. Her body had fallen limply, she was already dead. She lay against the strip of frosted road, her naked body white as her platinum blonde hair. There was a black hole, from a single gunshot under her ribs, the only blemish.
‘Oh Jesus!’ said Bella. ‘No!’ She covered her face with her hands.
Pollo leaned out of the window as far as she was able to and shouted. ‘Bastards!’
The front door opened, a light cascaded across the street, it glanced off the two cars and highlighted Eva’s body. She looked even more beautiful, like a fragile sculpture. Rechtstein walked down the three steps, his Walther in his hand. He shot her three times. Her body flexed each time and red spattered across the frosted road surface. He yelled “Juden” and kicked her.
‘Bastard!’ Pollo shouted again. Rechtstein looked upwards as he holstered his gun. ‘Jew lovers!’ he yelled at them as he wrenched open the car door. His driver took the direct route straight over Eva’s body. Claudette felt so numb she thought she would never be able to move again.
Jacques was sitting in the lobby, head bent over his knees, eyes closed. Madame F was standing by him, her wide hips barring his exit through the front door as if she thought he might do something stupid. ‘Bastards,’ he growled, ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards,’ over and over.
‘I know, my love, they are, but there is nothing we can do. We can’t help her now, poor little mite.’ Madame F had been crying, her eyes were red, her face blotchy and swollen. Claudette was standing amongst the women, some were weeping on each other’s shoulders, the remainder were sitting on the stairs rocking themselves. Lilia’s face was hollow and haunted, her eyes half closed.
‘What happened?’ asked Babette, a lone voice in the silence once Jacques had stopped talking to himself.
‘The bastard had shot her. When I burst in he was standing over her, he had a face like a devil. I nearly shot him, the bastard. His men came up, took my gun off me and then they just threw her out of the window, like some sort of rag doll. She was so small, like a little girl. I tried to stop them and one of them punched me.’ He pointed to his ribs and then clutched them as if he remembered the pain anew. ‘There was nothing I could do, nothing, I let her down.’ No one replied, two of the ladies were weeping.
‘We all let her down,’ said Bella. ‘All of us.’
There was a hollow knocking on the door. Everyone started. It was Claudette who stood up and opened it. Perrine rushed inside and closed the door behind her. ‘Oh my God! What on this earth has happened? Eva’s out there on the road, have they run her over? Oh my God!’
‘How did you get through at this time of night?’ Claudette asked, astonished to see her.
‘You should see it out there, there are people coming out to look, like it’s the most gruesome spectacle. They’ve left her uncovered.’ Perrine’s teeth were chattering.
‘Oh, they have, have they? Bastards!’ Bella stood up and disappeared into the salon. She re-emerged with a brocade coverlet in red and gold. She was wearing a fine satin negligee, cut on the bias, which clung to her every curve. They watched as she opened the great front door – more cold air filled the lobby – and proceeded down the steps. She walked over to what was left of Eva, the blood congealing in the freezing night air, her hair still beautiful, silver, untouched.
A soldier stepped out and barred her way with his rifle. She looked at him, levelling a stare straight into his eyes and said starkly. ‘Geh mir aus dem Weg du Dreckskerl.’ He ran his eyes over her curves, mentally frisking her body. ‘Aus dem Weg.’
Whether it was the spoken German, the ice-cold stare she fixed on him or the sheer beauty of her, none of them knew, but he gave way, and Bella placed the throw over Eva’s body. In the shadows shapes moved, people backed away into their houses and rapid footsteps were heard on the cold pavements. Bella turned and walked back into the house, her head held high.
‘It would have been better for him, and for all of us, if he’d kept that quiet,’ said Jacques after the door was closed. ‘He’s in charge of deportations, it’ll be humiliating for him. We’ll all pay a high price for this, you mark my words.’
Madame F stood back, her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. ‘Who here knew that about the girl?’ she demanded, but no one answered. ‘Who here knew?’ she shouted. ‘Someone must have known, Nannette – you did her hair, didn’t you?’ Nannette looked alarmed, and as Sophie gripped her forearm for support, she shook her head.
‘What’s the use of asking us now?’ said Sophie. ‘It’s over, isn’t it?’
‘And how do we know? Any of you could be Jewish, with your hair dye and your tarty make-up. Who knows who you’re related to?’ Madame F. was sneering.
‘Jews have been in Paris a thousand years, we’re probably all Jewish, if you’re asking, Madame F, take your pick.’ Pollo was dragging on a cigarette, which she had passed around to the others. ‘Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You have very dark eyes.’ Madame F had no time to answer, there was a flash of lights and the ceiling above them lit up, highlighting the patterns and scrolling in the plasterwork.
‘What now?’ cried Marie. ‘Are they going to take us all?’ She fled to Madame F’s skirts, seeking comfort there like a child. There was banging on the door. Bella, who was nearest, opened it. When Jacques stood up, his legs almost buckled. Perrine grabbed his arm to support him and Claudette saw that a dribble of blood was running down his neck. Soldiers came in first, they formed a ring around the hallway. A vase on the side-table wobbled precariously, then smashed to the floor in pieces. The tall figure who came in next had his head erect, his shoulders back, he assumed an air of authority. He was wearing an army great coat, which made him look broader, indomitable.
It was Keber.
‘Now,’ he said, looking at them all slowly and deliberately. ‘I make it nine prostitutes as recorded by Madame Odile and five servants in total, excluding the one Agnès Guilles. What does she do?’
‘The bookkeeping,’ said Madame F ‘and other administration. But she only works in the evening, she works for other people during the day.’
Keber looked at her for a moment, causing her to step back. He had his back to Claudette. His eyes searched around the hallway like a torchlight, taking in one character after another. Never had Claudette seen everyone all together in one place, they were surreal, like phantoms who might vanish before her eyes.
‘So, you are all here?’
‘Yes,’ replied Bella, her voice hard. ‘Except, of course, the one you have murdered tonight. Eva.’
‘Yes, Eva also known as Hélène Resnik, a Jewess.’ There was an angry silence, he thrived on it, Claudette could see it in his body language. ‘And where, may I ask, is Madame Odile?
’ They all ducked and bobbed looking around for her.
‘I am here.’ The disembodied voice came from the stairs and everyone turned to look at her as she proceeded to walk steadily down them one by one. She had put on her brown suit with a fox fur slung over one shoulder. Her make-up was full, lips the colours of rubies and her hair was scraped back against her head with two tortoiseshell combs. On her arm was a Chanel handbag with matching tortoiseshell handles. ‘I will answer all your questions about Eva. I insist that you let everyone else get back to bed.’
‘Are you harbouring any other Jews in this house, Madame?’
‘No.’
‘Resistance?’
Claudette gripped her nails into her palms tightly.
‘No.’
‘Any others that we would consider undesirable in Paris?’
She held firm her gaze as she drew level with him. ‘No. Apart from the woman Madame Guilles, who does my accounts, there is no one else. Everyone is here.’ She stood before him absolutely still, her chin held high.
‘Then we shall take only you for questioning.’
Jacques wavered and fell back into his chair with a groan. Perrine put her arm around his shoulders. Keber turned on his heel so that he was facing Claudette. As he left through the door, there was only the briefest glimpse from him, the softness of eye he saved for her, as he passed by. Then he strode down the steps and climbed into his waiting car.
Chapter Thirty Seven
The Rue Ercol stretched out before us, a long plain looking street with houses on each side that opened straight onto the pavement. We walked up and down it looking for anything that might be evidence of a hotel. Two or three larger houses had a flight of steps up to the door, and all of them seemed to have long forgotten basement rooms hidden beneath chicken wire that collected all sorts of rubbish. There was a small supermarket and one house had been removed with a new frontage created, and a half-hearted attempt at a little precinct of shops, all of them “A Louer,” for rent, with signs that had been put up a long time ago.
We walked round the corner and sat under the shade of a café awning.
‘Well, that’s got us bloody nowhere,’ Matt exclaimed, as he came back from the loo. You know those two Dan Brown characters in “The Da Vinci Code”, Thingy and the French woman?’ I wondered where he was going with this. ‘I feel like their alter-egos Hopeless and ‘opelesser!’ I smiled. Admittedly I felt the same, done in and nowhere to go next.
Daniel had scanned his mother’s passport and printed a copy for us. I was studying it carefully. I took a long sip of my iced tea and took out my ipad. I’d made a list of all the things we had in our possession and I had scanned and emailed to myself the five letters. Matt had given the two from the shed his best attempt, but even I could see it was a non-starter. If the originals were bad, the copies were twice as bad.
‘That note there, the Rose leaflet, what was that?’ he asked.
‘A little guidebook of some sort, tearooms?’ It was all in French with price lists in tiny type.
‘Google Little Book Rose, Paris,’ Matt leaned forward to watch as the results came up. It offered pink macaroni, patisseries, hotels called The Little Pink in villages across France. ‘Try Little Guide Rose instead.’ I re-typed it. There were lists taking us off in all directions including a guide who would show you all the pink-themed places in the city, quite bizarre. ‘Go to images,’ he suggested, I tapped on the screen.
It was covered in small thumbnails of naked women and in one case a whole room of naked women, all sitting sedately and looking like they were taking tea at Claridges. I scrolled down and there it was; for sale in America for three hundred dollars, a Petit Guide Rose exactly like the one I’d seen with Hat. ‘That’s it,’ I said, turning the screen round for Matt. He read the description. “The 1930s guide to Maison Closes in Paris. Only a very few remain, this one is in excellent condition.”’
He turned to look at me. ‘I have the unsettling feeling that Daniel’s mum and Freddy’s mum were working for “Ladies of the Night.”’ He scratched his chin. ‘That would explain the name, maybe it was the House of March, Maison du March, or something. Or, oh my goodness –’
‘Or they were the said ladies of the night,’ I chipped in as the thought dawned on us both at precisely the same time.
‘For the Germans, being hospitable to the occupying forces and all that,’ Matt was pursing his lips. ‘I didn’t see that one coming.’
‘Shit. That’s why his dad was German.’
We stared at each other without saying another word, because this was one hornet’s nest that probably should remain unkicked.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Everything had changed at the house in Rue Ercol.
Claudette had opened the door to Madame Odile the following day; she had walked all the way back from the Avenue Foch. There was a blue bruise on her cheekbone and a long scratch on her neck. Her hair hung around her face, the tortoiseshell combs sliding out. She was dangling the fox fur, letting it drag behind her, and her handbag was scuffed as if someone had kicked it around the floor.
She half collapsed into the chair that Jacques had been sitting in the night before. Claudette went to the bar and poured her a large Cognac. Madame Odile’s hands shook as she curved them around the glass.
‘Did they hurt you badly?’
‘Mostly it was my pride,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’ll get over it.’
‘Will they close us down?’ asked Claudette, feeling for the first time a surge of anxiety for the women who now shared her life.
‘What do you think, Françoise?’ Madame Odile snorted, her lips curling into a sneer. ‘A place were they can fuck beautiful women who do anything they are told to do?’ Claudette dropped her eye contact, feeling a stirring of shame. ‘And women who are bewitched by these Aryan monsters with their blue eyes, golden hair and supreme intelligence. Did you know they speak three languages, virtually all of them? They are a world away from what these girls have known.’ Claudette nodded, thinking of her own German officer. ‘A woman working here can earn three times the wages of the average Frenchwoman by sleeping with just one German. So no, they are not closing us down, they are demanding what they had before, but free of charge. And, they will be all but running it themselves. I’m only a front now, all of us will have our income cut to the quick and who knows how long we can last? I will have to go cap in hand to that man every time I need something from rubbers to eggs.’
‘Rechtstein?’
‘No, Keber,’ she said flatly. ‘They have put him in charge, he reports now to the Gestapo.’
The knock on the door at noon was done with a stick, hard and hollow, a sound of foreboding in itself. Claudette answered it, hoping it was Keber. It was the Gestapo doctor. He was a small man in a long leather coat who wore thick bottle-bottom glasses making his weasel eyes huge. He introduced himself as Herr Doktor Diess and handed her an exquisitely carved silver-topped cane and his ornate peaked cap.
‘I am here to examine all the women.’ His voice was clipped, efficient.
‘I will show you to Madame Odile’s office,’ she replied as calmly as possible.
That evening the women all gathered for dinner, even Lilia who often took a tray of food away with her. Their heads were low, shoulders rounded, make up in some cases forgotten. They had chosen blacks and greys to wear, gone was the vibrancy and the steely arrogance.
‘He hurt me,’ said Sophie, sipping her wine as if it might comfort her. ‘Really hurt me.’ She looked forlorn.
‘And me,’ said Freya. She looked as if she had been crying all day, her eyes were red and raw.
‘Odious little creep, it’s part of their plan,’ said Bella. ‘They will grind us down. Any other business harbouring a Jew would have been razed to the ground and the people in it would be hanging
from lamp posts. They have other plans for us, you watch.’
They were silent as they ate. None of them mentioned Eva who was still lying under the brocade rug outside, guarded by a single soldier morning, noon and night. A trail of Parisians had walked past to stare at the remains and to see what was now confirmed as a bordello and not a gentleman’s club for German officers. Some of the people passing by spat on the small shape of a body under the ornate cloth. Whether it was because she was Jewish, a prostitute, or because she was a collaborator, Claudette couldn’t tell. Maybe they did it to impress the soldiers to show whose side they were on.
The next morning Keber arrived. She heard his voice as she came up the kitchen steps. No one was around, everyone had slept in or they were staying in their bedrooms avoiding contact with others. Perrine had let him in and he stood talking to her in the entrance hall, his great coat making him look powerful, untouchable. Claudette stood watching him, before he saw her.
‘I have some questions for Françoise Favelle,’ he told Perrine. Claudette stepped forward from behind the turn of the staircase. ‘Take me to the Private Room,’ he ordered.
She led him away and up the stairs. Perrine was staring in revulsion at them both, her feet rooted to the spot. Once inside, he locked the door and then stood with his back to it. He took a deep breath and shrugged off his coat, letting it fall carelessly to the floor. Claudette watched, not moving as she stood opposite him.
‘That was the hardest night of my life,’ he said, sinking down onto the nearest chair. ‘Why in God’s name employ a Jew? I cannot believe her abject stupidity.’
‘She had no idea,’ said Claudette, ‘No idea at all.’
‘Truthfully?’