The Forger

by Paul Watkins

  “I don’t know what you’ll think of the painting,” I said.

  “What do you think of it?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “The damned thing has filled up so much of my brain that I can’t even picture it as a complete image. It’s as if I can see it through a magnifying glass—pieces of it, the tiniest detail. But the whole thing.” I shook my head again. “I just … I don’t know.”

  * * *

  PUBLIC TRANSPORT HAD GENERALLY shut down. I had to borrow a bicycle from Madame La Roche. It was a ridiculously heavy thing with brake pads made of wood since the rubber had worn out. She told me to wear my oldest pair of shoes because the wooden pads sometimes failed, in which case I would have to stop the bike by dragging my heels on the road. I didn’t get very far, anyway. Barricades had appeared on street corners all over Paris. The tarmac on the roads was peeled up and the old cobblestones beneath used to make walls. Some barricades were made of downed trees, others of beds and mattresses and chairs. It took me over three hours of detours to get to the warehouse. Some streets were wide open and empty. At others, I was flagged down by men and women in civilian clothes waving pistols and told that German snipers had staked out the road ahead. At some barricades, there were more spectators than Resistance fighters, and it was hard to tell which was which, since everybody who could find a helmet or an old gun was taking to the streets.

  That night, with the sweat from bicycling still cooling in my soaked clothes, I helped Pankratov switch the frame from the original to our forgery. By morning, we were finished. It was August 23, the last day Dietrich had given us to deliver the painting.

  I was tired and shaking with cold, because I’d had no chance to change my wet clothes and we hadn’t lit a fire. The only thing keeping me awake now was adrenaline. I sat down in Pankratov’s chair and looked at The Astronomer. “Voss,” I said, as if to summon the demon who had lived inside my skull these past two months. Every time I managed to persuade myself that the forgery was fine, the specter of this man would rear up and destroy my confidence.

  “Hermann Voss is not in Paris,” said Pankratov, “and even if he can tell the difference, there won’t be anybody like him waiting at Dietrich’s office. Anyone with that kind of expertise is smart enough to have left by now.”

  Using scraps of wood, we built a small crate around it and attached two canvas straps so we could take turns carrying the painting on our backs. I tried to call Fleury but the phone line in Madame La Roche’s building was dead. Then I tried the Dimitri, and that line was dead, too.

  “We should go straight to Dietrich,” said Pankratov. “This is our last chance. It might already be too late. There’s no time to check with Fleury.”

  “We promised him,” I said. “We have to.”

  Pankratov looked down at his boots. He scratched at the back of his neck. Then he nodded slowly.

  We set off on our bicycles through the streets, Pankratov shouldering the crate. As we made our way to the Rue Descalzi, we saw the first Allied tanks to enter Paris. They were surrounded by men and women waving bottles of wine and throwing flowers onto the armorplating. The tanks were painted with French names like Romily and Champaubert and each machine had a small white map of France painted in a white circle on its side. Behind them came armored cars and French troops. The crowds screamed and danced in front of the soldiers. I wondered where those people were now who had spat and jeered at the Allied prisoners of war as they straggled through these streets only a few weeks before.

  I began to feel the exhilaration of the crowd. It hummed in me like an electric current. I had the strange feeling that everything going on around me was inevitable, as if I had lived it before, like an event whose happening had been predicted far in the past. The whole of history was pivoting on this one place. Nobody who was here today would ever forget it.

  Pankratov weaved dangerously close to me on his bike. My wooden brake pads smoked against the rims. The heels were almost worn off my shoes. At one point, Pankratov stopped, his head bowed over the handlebars of his bicycle. The exertion of the past weeks had finally caught up with him. I made him unshoulder the crate. The wood was damp with his sweat and his old canvas coat was shredded where the splinters had dug into his back. I heaved the crate onto my own back and we kept going. By the time we reached the Rue Descalzi, I was coated with sweat and dust. My shoulder blades were raw from the sharp edges of the wood. We found the street blocked by a barricade made of two park benches, some old suitcases and Madame La Roche, along with her friend, Madame Coty. Madame La Roche had found herself a German helmet which was too big for her. Madame Coty was carrying two German stick grenades in her apron. As usual, both were wearing their housedresses. Behind the barricade, they had set up their chairs and were sitting on them when we arrived. A dozen rabbits were hopping about on the road.

  Pankratov and I stopped just in front of the barricade. It was like this all over Paris. In one street, people were celebrating. In another, snipers were doing battle on the rooftops.

  Outside the Postillon warehouse, I noticed a man sitting by himself on an upturned wine crate. He had a bottle of red wine open beside him and was drinking from it thoughtfully. He raised his head to feel the sun against his face and the threads of gray in his mustache were lit up in the afternoon brightness. I recognized him now. It was the old Dragoon. Crouched beside him was Monsieur Finel. The two men were speaking in voices too low to pick up. Now and then, one of them would nod thoughtfully, and this would set the other nodding, too.

  I also noticed Madame Lindgren and the Charbonniers. Madame Lindgren was giving an impromptu dance lesson to their son Hubert, who stared at her in amazement as she held his arms and swung them back and forth.

  Madame La Roche walked up to me. She tilted her head back until she could see out from under her helmet. “Oh, it’s you, Monsieur Halifax,” she said.

  “They shall not pass!” shouted Madame Coty, and waved one of her grenades.

  “Have you seen Fleury?” I asked.

  “He’s gone,” replied Madame La Roche. “A man came to see him and they both left several hours ago.”

  “What did the man look like?” I asked.

  Under the iron hood of her helmet, Madame La Roche’s face crumpled with the effort of thinking. “He was wearing a suit. He had shiny shoes. At first, I thought it was you.”

  Then I knew it must be Dietrich. “Did they say where they were going?” I asked.

  Madame La Roche shook her head. “They didn’t seem to be in any hurry. They walked that way.” She gestured down the street.

  I turned to Pankratov. “That’s toward the Avenue d’Iéna.”

  “Be careful with those grenades,” Pankratov told Madame Coty. “Do you know how they work?”

  “You throw them!” shouted Madame Coty.

  “Madame La Roche,” I said. “Your rabbits.”

  “I have liberated them!” she shouted.

  By the time we left, Madame La Roche was dancing with the Dragoon to an Edith Piaf song being played on a gramophone out of someone’s window far above us. The two of them rose up on their toes, holding hands and sawing back and forth and singing. Madame Lindgren was sidestepping around them, holding up her hands, fingertips pinched together, and saying, “One, two, three, four. Very good. Very good.”

  We set off for the Avenue d’Iéna. Even if Dietrich and Fleury weren’t there, someone at that place would know where to find them. By now, gunfire was coming from all directions, and with it the revving of big engines, shouted commands and the sound of breaking glass. We managed to avoid streets where there was fighting. Blocking one avenue was a Sherman tank. It was one of the tanks I had seen earlier, a large number 34 painted on its turret, which had been flipped upside down by an explosion. It was still garlanded with flowers from its entry into the city. The olive paint was blistered by fire. Oily smoke billowed from its hatches. One of the crew lay facedown on the cobblestones beside it. Someone had scattered flower petals a
cross the dead man’s back.

  We kept moving, through the heat and dust. I tried to block out the pain in my cramped leg muscles from pedaling the bike. We raced along the streets. Sunlight flickered off the windows of buildings high above us, splashing into my eyes and blinding me.

  Half an hour later we were standing in front of the ruins of what had been ERR headquarters. The street was covered with sand from spilled sandbags. The road surface was patched with the starburst marks of exploded grenades. The windows had all been shot out and chunks of stone were gouged from the window frames. The marble steps that led up to the main door were smeared with blood and littered with bullet cartridges. The huge doors had been blown off their hinges. Smoke seeped from one room. The curtains had burned and the little wooden rings that had once held the curtains were smoldering. A black streak, like the path of a comet, showed across the wall inside where a Molotov cocktail had blazed.

  The Avenue d’Iéna was empty now. I looked up at the buildings on either side of me. A few of the windows were broken, but otherwise they looked untouched.

  “We’re too late,” said Pankratov. He set his bike against the iron railings which ran in front of the ERR building. The rails had been pierced by bullets and curved up like crooked fingers.

  I walked up the steps, kicking aside brass cartridges, which jangled over the bloody marble. As I stepped inside the foyer, the first thing I saw was the reception desk, where Grimm manned the phones when he wasn’t driving for Dietrich. The front of the desk had been chopped to splinters by a burst of machine-gun fire. Grimm lay behind the desk, spreadeagled on the floor next to the chair in which he had been sitting. He had been hit several times in the chest and legs. There was very little blood, only splatters of it around where the bullets had gone through his clothes. His eyes were open and patient, the way I had remembered them in life. The holster for his pistol was open and the pistol was missing. His pockets had been turned inside out and the lightning bolt insignia cut from his collar.

  The foyer had been stripped of furnishings. There were no tapestries or pictures on the wall, and the bullet marks in the plaster reminded me of a map of some constellation of stars.

  The staircase that led up to Dietrich’s office was charred by more Molotovs. Wine bottles that had held liquid for the homemade bombs lay in melted shards on the steps. There was more blood on the wall at the top of the stairs, where it looked as if someone had been shot and had fallen back down the staircase.

  It was quiet, except for the rustle of my feet over the sand-gritty floorboards. “Dietrich?” I shouted, hearing my voice bounce back. “Thomas Dietrich? It’s David Halifax. I’m here with Pankratov.”

  After another moment of silence, I heard footsteps upstairs.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  “Is that you, David?” It was Dietrich.

  “Stay there!” I raced up the stairs, the crate bouncing against my back, its makeshift shoulder straps numbing my hands and elbows as it cut off the flow of blood.

  Dietrich stood on the landing outside his office. He was holding a Schmeisser, the folding stock tucked up into the armpit of his gray suit, which was torn at the knees. The red, black and white enamel Nazi Party badge was still in his buttonhole. His hair was scorched and his face smudged black with smoke.

  “We brought you the Vermeer,” I told him.

  “I thought you weren’t coming,” he said. “I was sure you had let me down.”

  At his feet, just outside his study door, was the body of a man in a short leather jacket, lying facedown on fragments of broken glass.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked. “Are you all right?”

  He looked around, as if seeing the damage for the first time. “They only left about ten minutes ago. They’ll be back. I think they just ran out of ammunition.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The Fabry-Georges.” He jabbed one of the dead men with his toe. “I expect they thought if they could bring the Resistance my head on a plate, it might make up for everything else.” He rubbed his forehead against his sleeve. “I’ve spent the last half hour trying to change their minds.”

  “Where’s Fleury?” I asked. “You were with him, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” replied Dietrich, “but he’s not here now.”

  “He must have gone back to the apartment,” I said. I was thinking how angry he would be that we had brought the painting to Dietrich without letting him see it first. But it was too late now.

  “Did you see Grimm down there?” asked Dietrich.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m afraid I did.”

  Dietrich leaned back against the doorframe. “I was hoping he might have gotten out.”

  Pankratov appeared at the top of the stairs. “Holy Christ,” he said, when he saw the body and the bullet cases.

  I unshouldered the crate.

  With a stag-handled pocketknife, Pankratov pried off one of the slats and pulled out the painting.

  Dietrich lowered the Schmeisser, never taking his eyes off the canvas, which Pankratov slowly turned around so he could see the painting. With one reddened, gun-smoked hand, Dietrich took the painting from Pankratov’s outstretched arms. He glanced at it for a couple of seconds before he turned his face toward us. He was smiling.

  Pankratov and I watched him carefully for any trace of doubt to cloud his face.

  Dietrich turned back toward his office. “Come out!”

  I glanced at Pankratov.

  Pankratov shrugged and shook his head.

  There was a muffled moan from somewhere in Dietrich’s office.

  “Out you come,” commanded Dietrich impatiently.

  “Has the shooting stopped?” asked a nasal, terrified voice. “My ears are still ringing.”

  “Of course the damned shooting has stopped!” barked Dietrich. “Now come out of that damned closet and do your job and then you can go home. Come along, Sniffles.”

  Then I knew it was Touchard who had been hiding in the closet. I felt the familiar out-of-control pounding in my chest.

  Touchard appeared in the doorway. His suit was crumpled. One of the sleeves was torn at the elbow. “But I don’t want to go home!” wailed Touchard. “I want to go to Spain! And I expect it’s too late now, anyway. You’ve never treated me fairly!”

  “Stop blathering.” Dietrich gave him a shove with the barrel of the Schmeisser. “Just get on with it.”

  Touchard caught sight of the dead Fabry-Georges man on the landing. He cried out and stepped back into Dietrich, who pushed him forward again.

  “Tell me if it’s right,” said Dietrich, holding out the painting to Touchard. Then he looked at us and smiled. “Just a formality, you understand.”

  Touchard stepped forward to take it, bony hands held out.

  The Schmeisser dangled in Dietrich’s hand. The black tip of the barrel with its covered gunsight swung like a pendulum just above the level of the floor.

  I didn’t look at Pankratov. I kept my eyes on Touchard.

  Touchard squinted at The Astronomer. He held it close to his face and then held it out again. His eyes were narrowed. Then he looked up from the painting and right into my eyes.

  It was the first time he had acknowledged our presence in the room, and in that moment, I knew he had seen through the forgery.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Dietrich. His face seemed to change, as if his body would at any moment crack like glass and something terrible would step from the brittle shell. What he really was. What I’d known all along in my heart. He would kill everyone. Me, Touchard, Pankratov. His rage would overtake him. “What is it, Touchard?” he asked.

  I tried to breathe in but couldn’t.

  “Nothing,” blurted Touchard. “There’s nothing wrong with it. I’ve just never seen it so close up before.” A nervous laugh slithered out of his mouth.

  I looked down at my shoes. My eyes had dried out from staring.

  Pankratov cleared his throat. He looked around t
he room, blinking as if he had just woken up.

  Dietrich took the painting and propped it against the wall.

  Touchard wiped his nose, which had started to run. “Can I go now?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” said Dietrich. “Hold out your hands.”

  Hesitantly, Touchard held out his cupped hands, as if he expected Dietrich to cut them off at the wrists. “What is it?” he asked in a whisper.

  I thought of the statue back at the warehouse. The one Dietrich had smashed. I imagined Touchard’s brittle fingers rattling to the floor.

  Dietrich reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of coins. They were gold. He set them in Touchard’s hands. The heavy sovereigns clunked as they settled in Touchard’s palms. “Now you can go,” said Dietrich.

  Touchard pushed past us, avoiding our glances. At the head of the stairs, he turned to Pankratov and me. “I have always been…” he began.

  “Go!” shouted Dietrich.

  Touchard ran down the stairs and out into the street. His footsteps faded away.

  I wondered then whether Touchard might have seen through more than just this one painting. Perhaps there had been many that he let slip through. The little man had paid back Dietrich after all, for five long years of ridicule.

  Holding The Astronomer with one hand, Dietrich reached into his other pocket and pulled out an old iron key. He chucked it to Pankratov, who caught it as it slapped into his palm. “There you go, gentlemen. The Gottheim Collection is in the basement. It’s all there. I’ll be leaving now. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to see me off.”

  Pankratov and Dietrich fitted the painting back into its crate. They tapped the nails back in place with the butt of the Schmeisser. Then Dietrich shouldered the crate. He rolled his shoulders, settling the splintered wood against his spine. He tucked the Schmeisser under his arm. Then, from his pocket, he pulled a white armband. On its band was a poorly drawn Cross of Lorraine and the letters FFI. He tugged the band up his sleeve until it rested over his bicep. “About time I joined the Resistance,” he said. “In the last twenty-four hours, everybody else has.” He plucked the party badge from his lapel. He lifted the dead man by the hair and hooked the needle clasp of the badge right through the dead man’s lips. Then Dietrich let him go again. The head thumped back onto the floor.