Had Louis the sudden need to get it all off his chest? That boy, that little son of his, had grown and had then to have a bed, a chest of drawers and, perhaps, if the money could be found, a little table and chair of his own. Always there had been money problems, the wages for defying death next to nothing, just like in the army. ‘But again she wouldn’t choose them herself, Hermann. That wouldn’t have been right of her, she had felt, like so many of our women, and had insisted that, as “head of the household” I must make that decision for her.’
This war, this Occupation, had made a lot of them change their minds about that and change them quickly. Louis had ordered the stuff from the Lévitan, spring of 1940, but would the memories and the loss of that second wife and their little boy haunt him to his dying day?
They had entered the Lévitan through a door next to the loading docks, had smelled the rank soot from the Gare de l’Est and heard its locomotives beyond the usual high wire fence all such places were supposed to have. There’d not been a light anywhere out there in the darkness of that railway yard and but a stone’s throw away, nor had there been anyone on that door, the place apparently wide open yet that couldn’t be, but they’d gone up the stairs anyway so as to keep out of sight.
Kitchen stoves were also on this third floor and Kohler had to wonder at the logic of this since most were of cast iron and heavy. Sinks, washbasins, bathtubs, bidets, mirrored medicine cabinets and toilets were here, too, as were iceboxes and tennis rackets, ironing boards, steamer trunks and suitcases still with their travel stickers, ladies’ hats, fur coats, dresses, suits, corsets …
‘Candlesticks,’ breathed Louis. ‘God has deserted us, Hermann. There are thousands of them.’
The escalators, installed in the thirties but now frozen in time to save power, were to be used simply as staircases of another kind. ‘Oona, if she’s here, must be in the cellars.’
Lamps were on the fourth floor and seen to the horizon’s walls, wireless set, too, and gramophones with heaps of black Bakelite recordings.
‘Mendelssohn,’ breathed Louis. ‘The Violin Concerto—it’s magnificent. A Deutsche Grammophon. Nothing but the finest.’
Though Mendelssohn was a definite no-no at home and even here in France.
Sheet music, tied in half-metre-thick bundles, made its ramparts but there were no pianos. Those had been taken by the Sonderstab Musik and were stored elsewhere in three large warehouses just to the north of the city. Numbered, certainly—how the hell else were they to have kept track of them, seeing as their legs, bearing those same numbers, had been removed to make the carcasses easier to ship?
But there were piano benches, delivered here by mistake. A teenager’s note, when found, said only, and in her native Deutsch:
Herr Kaufmann, if we are to meet in secret even for coffee and the cakes you love so much, my father would never forgive me. You would then be out of a necessary employment and would, in addition to your extremely modest fee, no longer receive the generous tips that are his great pleasure to present to you when such progress has been deemed entirely evident, even to ears that cannot, and never could, to my knowledge, hold a tune or keep the voice on key, due entirely, it must be admitted, to the noises of the foundry he owns and tirelessly manages so that my younger sister and myself may experience the finer things of life from such a talented instructor as your kind and diligent self.
A mouthful.
‘Let’s go downstairs, Hermann. Maybe they’re waiting for us there.’
Clothing racks held men’s suits. Shoes, sorted from their mountains, were piled on shelves. Some had even been polished.
Lists of the contents of each house or flat would have been made, sometimes by the owners if time allowed, most often by the ERR with Germanic thoroughness though done most likely by a French employee and overseer, since virtually all of the Aktion-M boys were locals, and sure, they had needed the jobs just like Max Auger.
Jewellery, china, books—whole libraries of them—desks, family photos by the spill and heap, were accompanied by military decorations, and why hadn’t Colonel Delaroche simply taken a Légion d’honneur ribbon from here? Too Jewish, too tainted, or simply, unlike Max, goods that had best not be taken unless paid for, even if only a little and especially as one had a hold on a fellow veteran who would have had to agree to letting him have the use of his own?
Personal things even letters and tax records, the lot had been gathered. First the fist or truncheons at the door, then the arrest and the stick-on seals to tidy things unless the neighbours were able to dash in and grab whatever they could, but this would have happened anywhere, Kohler knew. The Netherlands was still seeing it, Poland too, even the Channel Islands. Wherever people were arrested and deported.
‘Legalized, officially sanctioned robbery, Hermann.’
‘And then murder, Louis. We both know those “work camps” they’re being sent to aren’t just for work.’
Once sorted, catalogued, cleaned and repaired if necessary, the loot would be packed up and either sent to the Reich and the Eastern Territories, or to another depot for later transhipment.
Deliberately they had avoided the ground floor, had chosen instead to make the briefest of reconnaissances up here first. Seen from the head of one of the escalators, though, the ground floor had its riches—billions of francs worth of loot. Aghast at the display, Kohler hesitated. Savonnerie and Aubusson carpets were spread out, Turkish ones, too, and Persian. Tapestries—Flemish, Beauvais and Aubusson—were there, paintings … family portraits by the look, hundreds and hundreds of them on the floor, piled and leaning against each other while above them hung the richly carved, water-gilded empty frames of still others whose subjects had been cut away and trashed—they must have been—even those dating back a century or two or three.
‘Louis …’ he managed.
‘Hermann,’ came the reply.
Descending a few more steps, he again paused. There were aisles and aisles, a maze in which the contents of the grandes salles and salons of châteaux, maisons de maître, hôtels particuliers and appartements had been emptied and some of them hastily reassembled, though totally depopulated. Among the contents there were gorgeous bouquets and splashes of flowers that, even when seen from such a distance, still took the breath away. ‘Henri Fantin-Latour, Hermann. Pierre-Joseph Redouté …’
Egyptian alabaster vases, Greek sculptures, Boulle armoires, vitrines full of enamelled silver and/or gold music boxes, snuffboxes, jewellery boxes, Augsburg silver tureens and silver-gilt pilgrim bottles, Sèvres porcelain and Meissen figurines, Régence mirrors, lacquered Chinese screens and those whose many-coloured silk birds seemed to fly up into the electric light from above …
‘And no one about, Hermann. Not a soul but ourselves.’
‘It isn’t right, Louis.’
‘Are we not expected?’
Could they be so lucky? ‘What’s that smell?’
There wasn’t time to answer. Gallé glass figurines, vases and bowls, with Daum, Lalique and other pieces made a floor-to-ceiling rainbow through which stared the silent ebony and teakwood faces of African sculptures, absolutely exquisite works beyond which, they having reached the ground floor at last to be hidden by its contents, were rock-crystal, Baccarat and Venetian chandeliers that hung as if from a gallows or lay draped over Louis XIV and XV settees and sofas, or prostrate at the feet.
‘Velum-bound illuminated Renaissance books of hours with their calendar pages from the early 1500s, Hermann. Old-Master sketches … Pour l’amour de Dieu, how the hell could Pétain or anyone else in Vichy or Berlin have sanctioned such robbery?’
‘Coins, Louis. Drawers and drawers of Roman coins.’
‘Used postage stamps?’
‘Most certainly.’ And this was only a portion of the loot that was constantly being gathered. Roll-topped desks and others, still with their fountain pens and inkstands, waited in long rows, their letters and account books still evident. ‘A marriage licence,’ s
aid Louis. ‘The deed to a flat in Passy. Another in Auteuil.’
Swords, matched pairs of pistols in their velvet-lined cases, battle-axes … There was still no sound other than the careful passage of themselves, the time 5.57 a.m.
Bedroom suites gave the dressing tables of the once-wealthy, blonde hairs still clinging to a hairbrush and comb, a spill of rings and earrings as if but taken off and left frozen in time but scattered deliberately, for the piece and its chair and mirror couldn’t have been moved otherwise and brought here from wherever.
‘Set out again, Louis, even with the silk sheath of a nightdress so as to amuse and intrigue those who come to see what the Baron von Behr and the ERR are up to.’
That one and his British wife often did bring their after-dinner, after-theatre parties here and for just such a purpose and to sell items on the side. ‘Far too much is at stake for us to be allowed to interfere, Hermann.’
‘We’ll try talking to them anyway. We’ll lay out our cards and see what theirs are.’
‘What cards?’
They entered a ground-floor carpentry shop where pieces awaited further repairs, found wood shavings and sawdust in plenty, hardwoods of various kinds. Tapestries were awaiting further restoration in another room, laundry its ironing in yet another, carpets their cleaning in yet another.
‘And the stuff they use for packing, even the wood shavings, returned, Louis, to be used again and again.’
It wasn’t a brass gong that rang, nor some relic that had been brought back from the Far East, but a washtub that was being beaten furiously by a soup ladle. At once there was commotion from underfoot—shouting, grumbling, moaning, swearing in Yiddish, Hebrew, Spanish, Polish, German, French, Russian and Czech—Hungarian too, until silence of a sort was restored, the shrieks of, ‘RAUS! RAUS! SCHNELL! ALLES!’ echoing. ‘ZUM APPELL!’ Roll-call, too, and then … then, ‘EINS, ZWEI, DREI …’
They took the back stairs down, the stench of toasted, burned, sour black bread and ersatz tea of boiled hay, weeds, roots and other things mingling with those of the washed, the still unwashed and the latrines.
The cellars were a prison. Timber-held wire mesh ran from the floor to a bricked and ogive ceiling, and in this fetid cage which stretched on and on, one hundred and fifty … two hundred souls slept on tiered, grey blanket-draped bunks whose mattresses leaked sawdust and wood shavings as the prisoners stood to greet the dim electric light of day by lining up to be counted and then given their breakfast.
Men, women, old, young, middle-aged mostly, some in the stiff, still heavy black woollen suits and broad-brimmed black felt hats of the Marais, many not, some of the men even wearing their yarmulkes, defying the guards to snatch them off.
A spatula-wad of stiff grey-white grease—margarine, verdammt—from a galvanized bucket, was being slapped on to each thick slab of black bread to be finger spread later on. The canteen trolley was one of the Wehrmacht’s mobile soup kitchens, but the three behind it were not in uniform, the one with the ham cheeks and gut of a big bass drum, the resident cook among his other tasks, and wasn’t it interesting that the sous-chef immediately beside him was also of medium height and built like a wedge whose big hands must have lost part of a fingernail?
‘Fish oil, Louis. If only Marie-Léon Barrault and Gaston Morel could see that cook and Adrienne Guillaumet, the one in the middle. Steal the taxi, collect the victim and take her to the passage de la Trinité while the big one heads for the Drouant.’
‘And the other one, the second of the sous-chefs, having called out her name as if to help her to that taxi, then sinks his fists into the mud.’
‘With a certain safe in mind and Au Philatéliste Savant not far a walk.’
‘And with time enough for the one in the middle to have come from the Trinité attack to make sure those stamps were recovered.’
Five Wehrmacht guards were behind them, two with shouldered Schmeissers, a sergeant, a Lagerfeldwebel, in charge. ‘It’s Sunday, Louis. They’ve toasted the bread as a little treat to make it taste better. They must have given the prisoners an extra hour of sleep.’
They didn’t talk, these sorters, shippers, needlewomen, laundresses, tailors, carpenters, furniture restorers and other artisans, some no doubt former Lévitan employees. Each awaited his or her turn until all the bunks but one were empty. ‘Oona …’
She was sitting on the edge of a lower bunk, was clutching herself tightly by the shoulders and rocking back and forth, had been badly beaten. ‘Hermann, don’t say anything.’
‘You to the right, Louis. I’ll go left. We’ll cut this lot loose and see what happens.’
‘Ah, merde, don’t be an idiot! They’ve nowhere else to go without a great deal of outside help and you know it. Aren’t concierges who look the other way in short supply? Aren’t flats that are now empty and might be used if a cooperative concierge could be found, too often having neighbours who would simply report such new occupants? Too many would be killed in any case, or wounded. Besides, they’re hungry.’
‘Don’t argue.’
‘Then listen to me. We’ve not been expected, not yet.’
‘Oona’s clothes are torn. Was she …’
Hermann couldn’t bring himself to say it, but Hubert Quevillon was standing to one side of the machine pistols and so was Flavien Garnier.
The first was amused by the roll call, the second couldn’t have cared less, but when seen through this mesh of wire and its crowd of faded yellow stars and grey-striped shirts and trousers on some, dresses of the same on others, it was enough.
‘A waterproofing compound, Louis, when there are raincoats, capes and boots in plenty in this place.’
‘Unlike Max Auger, they know enough not to take anything.’
‘Hubert Quevillon having been later told all the lurid details of Madame Guillaumet’s attack and that of the Drouant. If he’s raped Oona, I’ll kill him.’
‘That’s for the courts to decide and you know it.’
‘What courts? Hercule the Smasher’s? If we’re going down, we’re going down hard.’
‘Then be so good as to back me up.’
‘Remembering always that we’ve an appointment to keep at 0900 hours.’
The Bois de Vincennes, the Chinese gate. ‘Suzette Dunand, Hermann. Have we missed something we should have anticipated?’
The detectives, Suzette knew, had warned her not to get to the station too soon, but the waiting in this flat was terrible. Clothes that would be impossible to replace, would just have to be left. She was to take only a little and had been ready for hours, had told herself over and over again that if arrested, she must never reveal the identities of the detectives who had given her the false papers, must simply say she had purchased them on the black market, an additional crime, oh for sure, but one the police or the Germans might eagerly latch on to and overlook the other.
And the letter they will find in your handbag that is signed by Colonel Delaroche stating that you have been designated an essential worker and must not be taken for the Service du Travail Obligatoire? What will these arresting police or Germans do should they find it among your papers? asked Teddy.
‘They’ll telephone him. He … he’ll send someone for me or will come himself.’
With that dog of his?
‘Oui, but I can’t leave that letter, Teddy. It has to be with me at all times, otherwise …’
You’re crying again. Must you give yourself away so easily?
‘I’m sorry. I just can’t help it.’
Won’t the métro be crowded? Won’t we be jostled if the police or the Gestapo or the German soldiers don’t stop you first?
How could he do this to her? Everyone had to face a ridership that had gone from two million a day to nearly four million. Whenever people could, especially on Sundays, they packed the trains very early on to head out into the surrounding countryside to forage the farms for food, taking things to barter and, if successful, then risking arrest at the controls
on return.
You’ll have trouble getting us a ticket, said Teddy spitefully.
‘The change,’ she gasped. ‘Ah, Sainte-Mère, I had forgotten.’ Exact fares were required. So scarce were small coins, the German soldiers always taking them away as souvenirs or simply forgetting them in a pocket, one now, and for nearly the past year and a half, had had to have the precise amount. The line-ups were terrible. ‘We’ll take the Concorde station. Oh for sure it will be crowded, but this can help us if necessary.’
Is it that we’ll have a need to hide? he demanded.
‘I … I don’t know. I’m just being careful. The number one, the Château de Vincennes–Porte Maillot Line from the Concorde runs straight out to the Bois de Vincennes. If someone is following us …’
He’ll think that’s where we’re going, but …
‘Will see what I’m carrying and think I’m taking a few things to my aunt and uncle, a little laundry also.’
Teddy just looked at her like he always did when wanting to tell her she was wrong.
‘We’ll get off at the Châtelet station. It’s one before the Hôtel de Ville. We’ll wait until the very last moment to step off the train, then catch a number four but … but take it only to the Gare Montparnasse station, walking up and over from there to its Gare du Maine Départ.’
Leaving him on the other train like in the films? A killer, Suzette? M. Jeannot Raymond and a girl who knows far too much about him and the Agence Vidocq?
‘We have to try. We can’t stay here.’
* * *
Torchlight fled urgently over the prisoners. Some were momentarily caught wolfing the last of their bread, others draining the rusty tins they used for mugs. It hit the tiers of bunks. Searching always, it fled along the corridor that surrounded the cage, casting wire-meshed shadows and settling at last on the main breaker box.
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