The Girl Who Dreamed of Paris

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The Girl Who Dreamed of Paris Page 27

by Natalie Meg Evans


  ‘The Gestapo have a place on avenue Foch, with prison cells and interrogation rooms.’ Ulrich put distance between them. ‘You went with that woman to the ladies’ room. You were gone a long time.’

  ‘We were fixing our faces.’ Her voice split. ‘Touching up our lipstick.’

  ‘But she is your friend?’

  ‘Not really. I hardly know her.’

  There. Betrayal was so easy and she was no better now than Serge Martel or her father. I have to be, she told herself.

  They were taking Ottilia towards the stairs, two Gestapo holding her arms. Four men, to remove a woman as slender as a wine-glass stem.

  Coralie muttered an excuse to Ulrich, and, afraid he would try to stop her, ran as if to the lavatories. Changing direction, she cut behind some tables, keeping to the shadows. In her haste, she stepped out of one borrowed shoe, turning her ankle. Excruciating, but she mentally blanked out the pain and pulled off the other shoe. The club’s stairs were lit by tea lights, a candle on each step. Coralie climbed soundlessly, knowing the arrest-party was just ahead of her. Perhaps Ottilia had, belatedly, put up a fight. Coralie could hear her demanding her cloak in near-hysterical German. So much for being mild-mannered Ottilie Dupont.

  Coralie had no particular plan and her only weapon was a hatpin. And even though it was a nice sharp one, it wouldn’t fell four trained policemen. There was just a chance that, as they left the club, she could slide between them and whatever vehicle they drove. If she could get Ottilia running, they might seize their one advantage: the streets of Paris. Coralie knew the back ways, the cut-throughs. If they made it as far as the Butte de Montmartre, she’d find the ancient, rustic lanes where no car could follow. She stepped forward. It was, literally, now or never.

  A hand clamped hard over her mouth. Somebody had come noiselessly behind her. She tried to kick but was bodily lifted up the last few stairs, and shoved hard against the wall. A voice said in her ear, ‘Don’t fight me.’

  Dietrich.

  ‘I can’t save you both. Kurt.’ Another shape loomed. ‘Take over and keep her quiet.’

  Time to draw a breath, then a different hand covered her mouth. She heard Dietrich shout, ‘Major Reiniger, stop, please. I have new orders regarding the woman von Silberstrom.’

  A challenge was given in answer, then Coralie heard Dietrich again: ‘I am Generalmajor von Elbing and I am to take this woman to Luftwaffe Headquarters. She is of great interest to the Reich and to my superiors. Hand her over, please.’

  Coralie got a corner of her mouth free. Her man – had Dietrich called him Kurt? – had a softer grip and must have decided she didn’t need to be put in a wrestling hold.

  She asked, ‘Was tut er jetzt?’

  ‘Pulling rank. Let him get on with it.’

  Dietrich was challenged again. One of the Gestapo – Reiniger, presumably – demanded, ‘On whose orders, Generalmajor?’

  ‘On the orders of the commander in chief of the Luftwaffe. On Reichsminister Göring’s orders.’

  ‘He isn’t in Paris. I must know who gives you orders here.’

  ‘Reichsminister Göring.’ Dietrich remained polite, but with an edge. ‘Are you questioning the instructions of the man who answers directly to the Führer?’

  Silence. Had Dietrich overshot himself? Coralie couldn’t see much, but she could hear Ottilia’s frightened breathing.

  Dietrich tried a more conciliatory tone: ‘I suggest, Reiniger, you return with me to avenue Marigny and put your doubts to General Hanesse, my immediate superior. I should perhaps have explained that it was he who issued this order following a telephone call from Berlin.’

  ‘I know the general. We’ll take the woman away with us and call on him in the morning.’

  ‘But the general is leaving Paris early tomorrow.’ Dietrich made a thoughtful sound. ‘Here’s an idea. He will be dining at the Ritz, now, at his usual table. He won’t object too strongly to our disturbing him, I’m sure. Let’s go and find him.’

  That seemed to be the secret code, the ‘Open, Sesame.’ Coralie heard the scuffle of shoes and at last saw a female shape in the darkness. The shape dissolved, but somebody moved fast towards it. A swing door bumped open and closed.

  A car engine fired nearby. Ottilia was gone, but was she safe?

  *

  They waited, Coralie and the companion she had not yet seen. A muttered discussion took place among the Gestapo men, seasoned with profanities. At last, the swing doors bumped again, several times, and they were gone. The club’s majordomo, the cashier and the cloakroom attendant crept out of a side-room. A low-powered light came on.

  Coralie glanced up and screamed. The man beside her possessed a face out of a horror film. Much of one cheekbone and the jaw beneath had been cut away, flesh stretched over bone. Scar-like sutures showed where it had been stitched. The eye above, the right eye, was covered with a black patch.

  A sardonic smile suggested that her reaction was not new. ‘Oberleutnant Kurt Kleber, friend and colleague of Generalmajor von Elbing. And, no, I don’t know where he’s taking that lady, but I’m to conduct you to a safe house.’

  *

  That house turned out to be Ottilia’s place on rue de Vaugirard. Coralie recalled Dietrich saying that he’d moved into a place ‘special to us’.

  Kleber helped Coralie from the staff car that had brought them from the club. Her ankle had swollen alarmingly.

  ‘This house is Luftwaffe property,’ Kleber said, misreading her hesitation. ‘The Gestapo will not force their way in.’ He took her arm. ‘You are all right? You are not wearing shoes.’

  ‘I turned my ankle, like an idiot.’

  Kleber helped her inside to the lift. They ascended to the second floor, where she’d come so often with Dietrich in the summer of 1937. Preparing to hobble around packing cases, Coralie was astonished to find the flat bare, a pristine blue carpet covering the floorboards.

  ‘What happened to all the crates?’

  Kleber helped her to a sofa. ‘Do you mean the art collection that was stored here? Generalmajor von Elbing shipped it out as soon as he moved in downstairs. I saw the last few crates being loaded up.’

  ‘Where was it sent?’

  ‘You will have to ask him.’ Kleber brought up a footstool and talked of sending for a doctor.

  ‘Cold water and cloths will do.’ When he came back with them, she asked, ‘Where has Dietrich taken my friend?’

  ‘I really cannot say. Is there anything I can bring you to make your stay here more comfortable?’

  She felt like saying, ‘My daughter,’ but in the end requested an aspirin, toiletries, some garment to sleep in. Oh, and something to eat. She was anxious about Noëlle, Ottilia, Una and herself. Yet, somehow, ravenous. ‘Who lives in this flat?’

  ‘Nobody. I share the one downstairs with Dietrich. Two other personnel were here for a while, but they’ve been put back on active duty. I expect you could do with a drink.’ Kleber reached into a sideboard and brought out a bottle of pale spirit. ‘Kirsch?’

  ‘If it’ll help the pain go away.’

  He handed her a glass, saying, ‘We have met before.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She’d have remembered.

  ‘Oh, we have. You came with Dietrich to the German pavilion at the Expo, though we weren’t introduced. You were wearing pink.’

  ‘I was. You’re right.’ And the shock of seeing Dietrich and two well-dressed men exchanging Nazi salutes had never left her. Neither stranger had looked remotely like this unfortunate fellow, however.

  A smile moved one side of Kurt Kleber’s face. ‘I have changed, I hardly need say. I was caught in an explosion. Perhaps you will remember if I say that I was the elder of the two who met ­Dietrich, the less handsome one.’

  ‘Is the other man here too?’

  ‘No, at wa
r.’ Kleber topped up her glass and promised he’d telephone Luftwaffe HQ opposite, and ask for a dinner to be brought from the kitchens there.

  ‘What about the Corvets, the concierge and his wife? Don’t they still live here?’

  Kleber looked blank. ‘German staff come in daily from across the road to clean. Apart from that, we look after ourselves. Never fear, there is a bed freshly made up. Shall I show you? No? Very well. I will bid you goodnight.’

  He clicked his heels and left.

  Coralie stayed on the sofa, emptying her glass sip by sip. Kurt Kleber had called this a ‘safe house’ but that could mean anything, depending on the motives of the people operating it. If Dietrich was really her enemy, she was in deep trouble, but she felt less afraid of him now. Serge Martel, on the other hand . . . an informant. A collaborator. A smiling enemy. As she knocked back the last of her drink, she tested her ankle. The cold compress had done some good and she made it to the bathroom. She wanted to wash away the smell of the Rose Noire, and all traces of the enemy’s touch.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  There is a particular sound a person makes when slipping back into a steaming bathtub. Coralie made that sound, then felt guilty. Noëlle might be awake, calling for her. Even so, she admitted, as she lathered soap into a flannel, a few moments’ bliss would not bring down the sky.

  Curls wrapped in a towel turban, she was half asleep when the sound of a key turning in a lock roused her.

  She heard, ‘Guten Abend!’ A man’s voice. Someone bringing her dinner? She’d assumed the domestic staff at Luftwaffe HQ would be female, but thinking about it, they were much more likely to be military stewards. She lay absolutely still, except that she pushed the big toe of her uninjured foot into the cold-water tap to stop its loud, giveaway drip.

  There came a light rap at the door. ‘Take your time, Coralie. Dinner will arrive in half an hour.’

  ‘Dietrich?’

  ‘I’m leaving clothes for you, from Ottilia’s cupboard. She will not mind as you are such good friends now.’ He spoke French, rather haltingly. ‘Unless, of course, you wish to dine in that very revealing evening dress.’

  A note of insecurity? She asked, ‘Is Ottilia with you?’

  ‘No, and I am not going to tell you where she is. I shall be in the sitting room, waiting.’

  He’d chosen a black Javier dress in knitted silk, with a same-fabric belt. ‘He probably thinks nuns overdress,’ she muttered, as she put it on. But once she saw herself in a mirror, she admitted she looked like a grown-up Frenchwoman. Autumn–winter, five years old, she judged. A dress from the era of sleek hair and near-masculine restraint.

  She took peony-pink lipstick from her evening bag. ‘We’re all wearing mouths big this year,’ she informed her reflection. Stroking mascara into her eyebrows to darken them, she added, ‘The day I’m seen all in black is when I’m lying in an ebony coffin.’ She’d taken off her doll-hat to bathe, and now she put it back on. Hot-pink feathers clashed with her lipstick.

  Shame about the ankle, which looked like a piano leg.

  She found Dietrich sprawled on the sofa, as in happier days, staring into a glass of wine. That had not been his habit before. He’d only ever drunk wine at table.

  ‘Knock, knock,’ she called gently from the doorway. He stood up, saying, without inflection, ‘I would know you anywhere, Coralie.’

  ‘You look more yourself too.’

  He’d changed from uniform to a suit of pale grey-blue, a white shirt and a dark blue tie. Conservative, but human.

  ‘Come, sit down,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll have to help.’ She displayed her tender ankle. ‘I did it running after your friends in the club.’

  ‘They are not my friends.’

  ‘You speak the same language.’ She sank gratefully on to the sofa. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to manage. I hate the Métro and buses are rarer than camels in Paris because you lot have nicked all the fuel.’

  He did not rise to the jibe. ‘You had better get a bicycle, then.’

  She couldn’t hold back a gurgle of amusement. ‘Very sensible.’

  ‘A bicycle will give you freedom.’

  ‘Freedom. I wonder. Pour me another glass of kirsch.’

  They sat side by side, nursing their drinks, like strangers who have arrived at a cocktail party on the wrong night. Living in a crowded house, Coralie’s ears had grown used to constant background noise. Truth be told, she’d never been good with silence, awkward or contemplative. ‘Please tell me that Ottilia’s all right.’

  Dietrich put down his glass and held out his hands, palm up. ‘Do you see blood?’

  ‘Proves nothing. Even Jack the Ripper washed his hands, I should think.’

  He gave a sardonic nod. ‘You have still an answer for every occasion, like the drummer boy clashing a cymbal after the music has stopped.’ He frowned. ‘That was badly constructed, but I spoke not a word of French for three years.’

  ‘Well, you’re in the right place to brush it up.’

  He ignored that too. ‘From boulevard de Clichy, I took Ottilia to the house of somebody I trust. In a day or so, that person will take her to another place of safety. I will learn that location when I need to. It is how these things work.’

  Coralie knew that. Arkady and Florian had been moved around Paris in similar style until the police had stopped looking for them. ‘How was Tilly?’

  ‘Tilly? Oh, Ottilia. Quiet. You had drugged her.’

  ‘No, but . . .’ She mentioned her suspicion that Ottilia had found sleeping tablets in somebody else’s bathroom. ‘And then we made her drink champagne.’

  ‘So. She will sleep, which is the best thing. But why to God did you take her to a nightclub that is a hive of Abwehr and SS?’

  Gulping kirsch was her excuse not to answer. She wasn’t about to divulge machinations, which, in a colder light, felt every bit as ill-advised as Ramon had judged them to be. Had Dietrich not arrived when he had, Ottilia would now be in Gestapo custody. She and Una might be in the neighbouring cell. Their only triumph: to flush Serge Martel out of the shadows.

  ‘Where is your daughter?’

  ‘In bed, I hope.’ She wasn’t going to discuss Noëlle. ‘When you came up the stairs behind me at the Rose Noire, you said, “I can’t save both of you.” May I assume that your intentions towards me are honourable?’

  ‘I would not say that.’

  Without intending it, they’d moved closer. Dietrich touched her jaw, a fingertip pressure that sent a ripple into her stomach. She looked into his eyes, distinguishing the brown flecks from the green and the gold. If she was going to get under his skin . . . Did she want to? No. Not under, against. Dietrich was no more indifferent to her than she was to him. If she were to lean nearer, trace the hard line of his mouth . . . what were the odds that he’d pull her to him and kiss her?

  That was what the old Coralie would have done, but she’d outgrown factory-girl manners. She’d learned how to sit with modest allure. To walk with her hips forward, head high, eyes soft . . . Tempting to put it to the test, to find an excuse to move about the room, but her piano-leg ankle kiboshed that. ‘Your friend Kurt reminded me that we’d met before.’

  ‘He has been through Hell. As have I.’

  He sounded so remorseless, so bitter, that it was easy to re-dress him in his uniform. To remind herself that, during the last war, he’d fired on British pilots, and would doubtless have been doing so in this war had he been a few years younger. They must not become lovers. Innocence had gone. ‘Nice and roomy in here,’ she said, thinking, Tease him. Laugh at him. Remember how he hates it? ‘Heavy job, was it, getting all those crates down the stairs?’

  ‘Are you asking me where the von Silberstrom collection has gone?’

  ‘You can’t blame me for being curious.’

  ‘I don’t
. Not for that . . .’ He left the comment dangling. ‘It is safe.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘A good question.’ He got up and went to the window. Not to look out: it was pitch dark, shutters and curtains drawn. He was putting space between them. ‘What would you think if I told you that the collection is awaiting inspection by my old comrade, Göring, for his personal acquisition? That what he does not want will be sent to Germany, as a gift to the Führer?’

  ‘I’d think Teddy Clisson was right. That you’re a swindler.’

  ‘Teddy is too kind. What if I were to tell you that all the pieces by Jewish artists and the degenerate works of all races will either be burned or sold to fund the Reich?’

  She stood up, and hot pins burst in her shin. ‘I would remind you of a bookshop on rue de l’Odéon where you told me that, in Germany, they burned copies of A Farewell to Arms because it challenged narrow thinking.’ Had she hit home? Impossible to tell. ‘What about those Dürer engravings Teddy wanted so badly? I suppose they’ve been spirited into safe-keeping.’

  She’d surprised him with the memory. ‘They too are safe,’ he said.

  Staying upright took real determination, but she wanted to say her next words while looking him in the eye. ‘You damn Nazi.’

  Dietrich came towards her, anger in every line, but before he reached her, a knock came, followed by ‘Hello!’

  Another knock, at the door to the room they were in. Coralie suspected Dietrich was grateful for the interruption.

  ‘Komm herein!’

  A man in uniform entered, carrying a tray covered with a white cloth. Dietrich indicated he should take it through to the dining room. After the man had left, he offered his arm to Coralie and said, with a hint of mockery, ‘Shall we go in to dinner? We will be gossiped about, you know. Not because we are together, alone, but because it astonishes German chefs to be asked to cook so late.’

  She’d never been inside the dining room before. It had previously been full of boxes. It was a pleasant room, with striped wallpaper, shutters fixed back, the window open to let in a night breeze. Chairs and the table were of lime-washed wood, a provincial Louis Quinze style similar to some that Teddy Clisson owned. The steward had left the candles unlit, and they agreed to stay in darkness so they could enjoy the open window. Coralie lifted the lid of a chafing dish and what she saw flummoxed her. ‘What are those?’

 

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