‘Certainly,’ said Louisette, taking Oona by the hand to place it fondly against a cheek.
The salle de séjour, closed off and never used, not since the husband had gone off to war, appeared just as that one must have wanted it kept: totally undisturbed by the children or the wife, except when dusted. A mastery of Art Deco into which had been fitted several gorgeous pieces of Biedermeier, it had a chaise longue from among the earlier of such pieces: 1825 by the look—Josef Danhauser’s workshop in Vienna? St-Cyr wondered. Of walnut, though, not of the South American hardwoods, which had first been used. The British naval blockades during the Napoleonic Wars had forced a return to native woods. A vitrine and matching cabinet were of birch, with a black lacquered ormulo clock and tasseled candlesticks to perfectly set off the latter. The pear-wood fauteuils were from 1845 perhaps, the maple side table and breakfront bookcase also, everything exuding that clear, clean and uncomplicated line so characteristic of the style, and of Art Deco too, the name coming, of course, not from any furniture maker but from Gottlieb Biedermeier, the much-loved character of a novel whose bourgeois opinions were those of his readers, bieder meaning honest, worthy, upright or just plain simple.
It was only later that the style, admired at first by the Prussian and Viennese aristocracy, began to be appreciated by the bourgeoisie and no longer thought of as ridiculing them.
In the dining room the Biedermeier was Russian and of birch wood, the room exquisite but also off-limits and kept closed. Had she been a prisoner of this husband of hers? he had to wonder but couldn’t ask, though Oona intuitively knew what he was thinking.
‘Her desk, Jean-Louis. It’s there that she has faithfully kept every postcard they have received from the prison camp.’
‘But only the one letter she was going to send back,’ said Henri.
‘Maman hadn’t started it yet,’ confided Louisette. ‘We’re not allowed to keep any of Papa’s letters. They must all be returned to him for safekeeping.’
‘Idiot, it’s because Maman has to write on the back of them,’ said Henri.
‘Two are received each month and two of the postcards,’ said the sister, ignoring her brother. ‘Unless, of course, Papa sends them to his mother and father.’
Because Madame Guillaumet was a career officer’s wife and not that of a common soldier like Madame Barrault, the allowances the Government in Vichy paid, even though only to wives whose incomes were below five thousand francs a year, wouldn’t have been available to her. Having a salary would have helped, since she would then have been eligible for the family allowance and social security, but unfortunately career officers’ wives had never been allowed to take full-time jobs outside the home, and the part-time teaching wouldn’t have counted.
Trapped again? he had to ask. In Paris alone there were more than thirty thousand POW wives whose incomes were below ten thousand francs a year and who were in desperate circumstances.
‘Her desk is in the bedroom, Jean-Louis,’ said Oona, knowing she should tell the children to tuck themselves in but that she couldn’t bring herself to do this without joining them.
Reassuringly Jean-Louis reached out to her. His, ‘Please don’t worry. Hermann and I will see to things,’ was meant to be comforting. The desk was nothing but a plain table. To Jean-Louis’s right, there was the lamp she had switched on after the children and Giselle had finally fallen asleep. There were only sixteen postcards in that little pile, there having been a good four months at the first when no mail at all had come through to anyone. Eight of them had also gone to the grandparents.
To his left was February’s five-kilogram parcel the woman and the children had been making up to send to the camp. No extra ration tickets were ever provided by Vichy for this purpose even though there were so many men locked up. Everything that went into that box, and everyone else’s, had to come from the family’s own supplies.
There were some cubes of Viandox, once the nation’s most popular brand of beef tea, prewar of course and obtained on the black market. Some packets of camomile and of mint tea followed—not much yet, she knew Jean-Louis would be thinking. A pair of heavy woollen socks that had been knitted from the leavings of an unravelled sweater, two drawings …
‘Cartoons,’ Henri said. ‘My latest.’
‘And one of mine,’ his sister added. ‘It has been marked with my kisses.’
Though her words would sound hollow, Oona knew she had best say, ‘The package won’t be sent until the end of the month, so there’s lots of time yet.’
‘Time for Maman to come home to us,’ said Louisette.
‘We add a bit each day, Inspector. Sometimes once every two days. It depends,’ said her brother.
Though heavily censored—blacked out first by the German censors at the camp and then by Vichy’s at the frontier—each postcard held only seven lines, often reduced to four-and-a-half or less; each letter, written on the regulation return that would fold itself yet again into an envelope, held only twenty-seven lines, reduced usually by the censors to twenty or less.
‘One can’t say much, can one?’ said Oona. ‘Repeatedly he writes as though she will do everything he says and expects; she, in turn, as though she has.’
But had she? Hadn’t she arranged to be taken to the Hôtel Ritz where at least two hundred francs would have been received for a simple pass, four hundred for the half-hour, six for the hour? A steady income? She was handsome—a framed photo taken before the Defeat revealed her to have been a little on the comfortable side but she would have lost all that, would have had the figure trimmed down hard by all that walking if nothing else. The hair was of shoulder length and parted in the middle, swept back to expose droplet earrings of great delicacy that framed a look that was steadfast, serious, and wanting what? he had to ask. To be understood, to be treated as an individual of some worth? Had she been trapped even then?
All over the city and the country it was happening. ‘She’s lucky her assailant didn’t kill her,’ he said. ‘Mon Dieu, forgive me, children. I only meant …’
They looked at him with moistening eyes, rightly feeling betrayed by the harshness of his judgement but had the life of a detective not forced him into a prison of his own?
‘Come on, you two, let’s go into our room,’ said Oona. “Let’s snuggle up and leave the chief inspector to think a little more about what he says.’
‘Oona, I’m not like Hermann. Certainly he constantly reminds me to mend my ways. It’s only that the policeman in me sometimes forgets. Once a cop, always a cop.’
‘And the gun in that handbag?’
‘Is another matter but not entirely.’
* * *
The Ford’s heater was throaty, Didier Valois, owner-operator of the maréchal’s Baton, less than cooperative. Kohler sighed as he hauled out the bankroll and, in the feeble light from the judge’s cigar, counted them off. ‘Five hundred … No, let’s make it a thousand.’
‘Two. Things are expensive these days and Monsieur le Juge will have my balls put on display before the blade falls if he ever finds out that I’ve spoken to you.’
An interesting comment Louis would have appreciated. ‘Two thousand it is, but with the offer of a bonus.’
And didn’t the Boche have all the money and think they could buy everything? ‘Sometimes the judge has me pick him up just to make sure he gets home.’
It was a start but one had best go carefully. ‘Under the empire of alcohol is he at such times?’
‘He’s not an alcoholic, only sometimes takes a little too much. It … it depends.’
On whom he’d been with, but that had best not be asked just yet. ‘The Folies-Bergère?’
‘Inspector, I’m not the only one he hires. There are others,’
‘Of course there are.’
Pressure was needed, otherwise this Kripo was going to dig a grave that would hold them both. ‘The Cercle de l’Union Interalliée.’
That private club of clubs and better even tha
n the Cercle Européen since everyone who was anyone had to be a member of both but only some of the latter were allowed into the former. Men like Gaston Morel, no matter how useful they might be or how hard they tried, would never be welcomed into the Interalliée. It was just that simple. Located on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré at number 33, opened in 1917 and counting that arch supplier of cannon fodder, the Maréchal Foch, as a member, now deceased, the hôtel particulier was sumptuous in all regards and had a history that went back a further two hundred years to Louis Chevalier, président of the Parliament of Paris, and his sister, Madame le Vieux, but Louis would have said, Go easy, Hermann. Don’t be rash.
The Interalliée, the union of the Inter-Allied, had been started as a place for, amongst others, American aviators to stay when in Paris on leave, and when that other war had ended, this use had continued but been expanded to include others, especially now with the club’s military reputation and the Defeat.
Herr Kohler was thinking the matter over and that was good, thought Valois. The judge had stated most clearly on a number of occasions the names not only of the club’s most illustrious members—pillars of society—but more especially those of the new ones, among them the generals Karl Albrecht Oberg and Ernst von Schaumburg.
‘The Casino de Paris?’ hazarded Herr Kohler, but had he asked it so as to distract from the other?
‘The Apollo,’ said Valois levelly. ‘Sometimes the judge likes a little change.’
I’ll bet he does, snorted Kohler silently. Both were on the rue de Clichy in Pigalle where lots of those delinquent prisoner-of-war wives trolled the music halls, bars and pavements before lining up outside the nearest maison de passe with their clients. ‘The Naturiste, the Chez Ève and the Romance?’ he asked.
Sister clubs on place Pigalle. ‘The Bal Tabarin also.’
Number 36 rue Victor Massé and in the area, an old style cancan that always showed lots of leg and frilly-clad crotches. A man of many tastes. ‘And after a good feed at the Lapin Agile or some other such trough, the Boeuf sur le Toit, eh, at its new home in a wing of the Hôtel Georges?’
An SS and Gestapo trough! ‘Inspector, Monsieur le Juge has many contacts he must consult on the business of the courts. Who am I to …’
‘Entertains them, does he?’
‘Is it not necessary?’
‘Régine Trudel’s La Source de Joie?’
Why had he asked if he knew all the answers? ‘There, also.’
The Fountainhead of Joy on the avenue Frochot in Pigalle and definitely better than those who trolled the streets. ‘Ah, bon, mon ami, out with the rest. That wife of his is scared to death of his contracting a heavy dose of the clap. That daughter of his knows all about it too, and may well have a hidden life of her own for all I know at the moment, so give.’
Perhaps if nothing else, this would stop Herr Kohler. ‘La Maison de Plaisir du Maître.’
The House of the Master’s Pleasure, the SS brothel on the avenue de Wagram. ‘Your judge has an interesting after-dinner life, doesn’t he?’
‘I … I wouldn’t know. I simply do as I’m told.’
‘So tell me where you picked him up last night and don’t lie to me.’
‘Inspector, as I’ve already told you, he gets rides from other taxi drivers, from friends, too, among those he entertains. He must.’
‘Has a blanket pass to be out after curfew, does he?’
An Ausweis. ‘Of course.’
Cigar smoke filled the car. Herr Kohler fiddled with the windscreen wiper switch and checked to see that the blades were not frozen fast. He didn’t say, I’m waiting. He merely implied it. ‘The Lido. Monsieur le Juge, he … he likes to watch the girls there.’
‘While they bathe topless in the swimming pool and sometimes, if the law’s not looking, completely bare the rest for the tips they’re bound to receive?’
‘That is correct.’
‘And now for the hard part, since there’s room for two in that contraption of yours.’
‘He didn’t take anyone from there. The girl hadn’t been feeling well. The headaches—perhaps the onslaught of the flu.’
Oh-oh. ‘What girl?’
Did this one always insist on digging his own grave deeper than necessary? ‘The one he often takes to the flat he keeps on the rue La Boétie.’
Scheisse, a petite amie! ‘Her name?’
‘He’ll kill me if I tell you. Madame Rouget might find out. She’s a …’
‘Very jealous woman? Surely the judge has told you that?’
‘Élène Artur. She’s … she’s an indochinoise, you understand, but her skin is almost white and I think her father must have been French, the mother the half if not a little more.’
And so much for racism. The generals and the boys who flocked to the Lido would have been fascinated, but had she made that telephone call and, if so, why? ‘Keeps her at the flat, does he?’
‘There are also others he uses it for. The judge doesn’t stay the rest of the night, you understand. Only the hour or two unless he …’
‘Falls asleep?’
‘Oui. She …’
‘Élène.’
‘Oui. Élène comes down to the cellar, to the furnace room to get me, and … and together we put him into the taxi.’
‘Pretty, is she?’
‘Très belle.’
‘Come on, there’s no perhaps about it, is there? Twenty-two, is she? Twenty-four?’
‘Twenty.’
‘Leaves by the side entrance, does she, in the morning after she’s rested up?’
‘Leaves it at five, when the curfew ends. She has a child her mother looks after.’
A child. ‘Whose?’
‘This I don’t know since she doesn’t wear a wedding ring and I’ve not asked.’
The stage doorman at the Lido had said that all its girls had been accounted for but he wouldn’t have said anything of one who had had to leave early, especially not when he’d have known of the judge’s interest in her.
St-Cyr was certain the photos on the Trinité victim’s desk revealed far more of the husband than of herself and the children. Captain Jean-Matthieu Guillaumet had spent time in the colonies. The first tour of duty had been in French Polynesia. After that, he had had a lengthy stay in Indochina, then in the Sudan and, more recently before the 1939 call-up had summoned him home, French West Africa. Like his papa before him, he’d been a graduate of the École Militaire and a career officer.
The wife had, apparently, been left to fend for herself. Bien sûr, the husband would have come home on leave—six months perhaps, though three or four were more usual. There were no contraceptives amongst her most personal things—she’d been a good Catholic. There was, as yet, not one hint of her having strayed in all those years. No silk stockings but, like so many women had to these days, had they been sold on the black market? Among the rest, there were no seductive undergarments. One garter belt was neatly to the side of four pairs of plain white cotton briefs. There was not even one pair of the latter for each day of the week. Two slips, one of satin, had seen their wear, an extra brassiere also, but nothing fancy. All of these things were prewar and most of them had been mended, but had she worn the last of her finery? He couldn’t ask the children. Perhaps Madame la Concierge would have noticed?
Attempts at writing the next letter to the husband had been done on thin notepaper first and then scratched out. I must tell you. I have to tell you. I tell you I have no other choice.
On the back of that slip of paper: If only you would ask your parents to accept me as I am and not continue to prejudge.
And on yet another piece of notepaper: If only they could bring themselves to help us a little. They’ve plenty. They don’t need what the government allows of your wages. We do!
Each page had been tightly crumpled before being thrown into the wastepaper basket in despair and left ready for the fireplace.
It was on another piece of paper that he found: Why can they n
ot forgive my one indiscretion? I was young. You were away for months on end and didn’t seem to want me anymore. You could have taken me with you—at least for a little. It wouldn’t have cost that much, but when you did come home, and we did go out, I knew from the looks your fellow officers gave me that you had been with others.
All these efforts had had to be scrapped—for one thing the censors would have played havoc with them, for another, there simply wouldn’t have been enough space.
Oh for sure, I went to Deauville for a little holiday when you were in Indochina. It was only for a few days, as I have told you many times and, yes, I didn’t ask your father’s permission since you were unavailable to me, but why must he and your mother continue to hold it against me and believe the worst? I did nothing wrong. I kept to myself. I walked along the beach in my bare feet or sat in the sun, or watched others as they played tennis or danced in the evenings while I sat alone at my table.
Trying to get a grip on her life—he knew that’s what she’d have been doing, just as Marianne must have done during the constant absences of this detective husband of hers.
Then Madame Guillaumet had had a son, and then a daughter, the cement of them making things all the harder, and then the Defeat had come.
He’d have to ask the concierge and went downstairs. Madame Ouellette had switched to Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris.
‘She wore her street clothes, Inspector, but as always, tried to look her best, particularly as she had to spend two hours or more in front of her class. One of her students brought the message from the Ritz where he’s employed as a doorkeeper. I don’t know his name, only that when he came here early last Friday, he was wearing his uniform, so there can be no mistake in that regard.’
And weren’t all such doorkeepers suspected of being procurers? Francine could see him thinking this as a detective should.
‘If my partner shows up, madame, please tell him I’ve gone to find Giselle. First to their flat, then to the House of Madame Chabot and then to the Club Mirage, unless he catches up with me beforehand. Let’s hope he does.’
And then to the Ritz? she wanted so much to ask but knew she mustn’t, that they would go there soon enough. Adrienne had had to sell the use of her body but should never have been condemned. Many had had to do it during that other war, though many had also resisted, herself among them, but each day the loneliness had become harder to bear. Then in 1918, on 4 October, a Friday, and right near the end, the notice had come and she had found that the waiting, it had all been in vain and she was a widow.
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