Hunting Ground

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Action française?’ I asked and saw him nod.

  ‘A splinter group, perhaps. The Vuittons have this little scheme of theirs to not only return that tiara to France as a rallying talisman, but to store things here, there, everywhere, so that no one will really know what else is being stored. I may be a shit, Lily, but I’m not political. I’ve no feelings that way except for the safety of my ass.’

  And what better way to hide things. ‘Well, at least you’re being honest.’

  ‘Then I’d better tell you that Jules has remortgaged the house to the tune now of twelve-and-a-half million francs.’

  ‘He what? But why?’

  ‘Why, indeed?’

  ‘Have the taxes not been paid?’

  ‘Your husband doesn’t think it will be necessary, since the house has been designated a repository.’

  Even though mortgaged for such a sum. Charles Edward Gordon had told me that the Empress Eugénie’s tiara had been bought at auction for one hundred thousand pounds sterling in 1870. Had Jules borrowed roughly two-thirds of that to buy it, only to discover it had been a fake?

  The cognac in my glass, the tiles of the hearth, the flames that ran along the logs … I saw all of these as I tried to figure out what it must mean. ‘The Action française …’

  ‘Its Comité Secret d’Action Révolutionaire.’

  The armed faction. ‘But … but that was broken up by the Sûreté in 1937?’

  ‘Only to go underground, Lily. Just like in 1937, Vuitton and that wife of his can hardly wait until the Third Republic and all it stands for are gone.’

  ‘And Jules?’

  ‘Like I’ve just said, doesn’t think he will ever have to pay the taxes.’

  ‘Or that mortgage?’

  Marcel didn’t smile. I think it was then that I realized how much he had valued the friendship and encouragement of my husband. ‘They wanted him to put up the money for that thing and he did, which sealed—if I may say so—the house being designated a repository.’

  Even though they must then have found out it was a fake. ‘And the visitors?’ I asked. ‘Who were they?’

  At other times, that shrug of his would have infuriated me, but now I simply didn’t know what to think.

  ‘Three Germans, this much I do know, but your husband, madame, insisted that I leave by the back door like a dog of which he was ashamed.’

  Poor Marcel, his feelings had been hurt, but unwittingly he had given me the key with which to unlock his secrets. I couldn’t sleep that night. At two a.m.—or was it three?—I pulled on my things, took torch in hand, and plodded out through the icy mizzle.

  It was strange to see all those crates from the Louvre lined up in rows and often stacked several high in the coach house. Good and dry, locked up, and protected by sheaves and twists of straw, each crate bore a number and letter boldly on one side and at the top. There was no other identification. I could only think I was in some Aladdin’s cave. Rodin, Bourdelle … Carpeaux’s The Three Graces, Michelangelo’s The Slaves.

  Only sculptures, you understand, because of the lack of climatic control. But there were other crates, flat ones—paintings—in the attic of the house, and wasn’t that a good place to store such things? Out of sight and out of mind?

  I walked among the centuries of those crates, passing the beam of light over them. Shadows fell or were thrown upon the walls and the timbers above. My breath billowed with hesitation, and I knew I was afraid, for I remember touching the rough boards and thinking that if they’d emptied the Louvre and scattered its treasures, had they not done the same with all the other museums in Paris and other cities and towns? And why, please, had they done this if the government and all those concerned believed so firmly in the invincibility of the armed forces?

  Paris alone had so many beautiful museums, so many treasures—the private collections of the rich as well. Jules had his lists of those. It would be so easy to hide things among the others. Nicki’s treasures—some of them perhaps? The paintings … Botticelli, Raphael, da Vinci, Gauguin, Matisse, Degas, and Van Gogh, Cézanne, aussi. Tapestries, small pieces of sculpture, the icons? I asked myself. The Roman and Etruscan glass. Collections of rare coins.

  Jean-Guy was the one to tell me of the duelling scar, Marie … ? Well, Marie told me that the lady with the funny eyebrows and the curious beads had asked her about Monsieur Tommy.

  ‘Is he with the police?’ she had asked.

  Marie had shaken her head and had no doubt rolled her eyes as she had said, ‘Ah, no, madame. He is a hunter of wolves especially.’

  The front hall is littered with debris. The walls are full of bullet holes. Everything of consequence is gone, even the newel posts and the railing down which the children would slide.

  Suddenly, I can’t take it anymore and have to have a cigarette. Shaking, my hands can hardly keep still, and I fumble with the matches, stare at them and at all the trash. The black and shrivelled gauntlet of a dispatch rider lies beside a hobnailed jackboot. Bloodstains are on the stairs, and in the litter of papers at the foot of them are the beginnings of a last letter home, dated 20 August 1944, as well as the maps and things that soldier was carrying.

  Finally, the cigarette is lit, and I’m coughing and holding my chest, for I mustn’t inhale. Looking up the stairwell to where the crystal chandelier once hung, I catch the head of another match under my thumbnail—I still have my nails, you understand. They’ve not been yanked, though why or how this could be, I can’t imagine, given all the other things those salauds did to me.

  There’s now quite a heap of papers at my feet—unconsciously, I must have been gathering them—and to the sulphurous odour of the match, comes the stench of cordite, mould, blood, puss, and urine.

  Agitated, I stub out the cigarette and grind it under the toe of one of those shoes they’ve given me. God only knows where they got them, but am I thankful for them? This I really don’t know. There’s a dark side to those shoes, something I don’t want to think about. Not yet.

  I step gingerly over that heap of papers—I can come back to it. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll wait until they’re all upstairs looking for me and then I’ll light the place on fire and wait to shoot them as they try to escape.

  Going into the main dining room, I even close the doors, though this is difficult. Again, there’s nothing. Wine stains, food stains, pus stains, urine stains seem everywhere. Excrement has been smeared on the patterned silk of the walls where Chinese birds once sang amid cherry orchards that blossomed by green-latticed houses and pagodas.

  But even so, I’m back here then, in that January of 1940. Jules had wasted no time in paying us a visit. He had brought the Vuittons, that woman bundled in grey furs with tiny silver bells dangling from the chains about her scrawny neck. The husband was in severe mink to which a broad collar, thick gloves, and a freshly blocked fedora gave a glacially added touch. Marcel was still with us, so it must have been Georges and Tante Marie who informed Jules that I was back.

  They crowded into the dining room. They shoved everything aside and dumped that treasure chest of Jean-Guy’s on to the middle of the table. That sea of polished mahogany had waves and scatterings of antique jewellery: diamonds, opals, rhinestones, and all the rest.

  The tiara. Ah, mon Dieu, how anxious they were. They passed it from hand to hand without a word to me, but was there doubt in madame’s eyes? There was nothing but a heartless appraisal in the dark blue eyes of the husband.

  Jules left the tiara with them and strode towards me, and as I backed away, I told him, ‘If you think you’re going to get rough with me, forget it. That thing really is a fake, just as you told me. Royal families always had such duplicates made to fool would-be thieves. Is it that you paid far too much for something you thought was still a bargain, my husband? Is that why you mortgaged the house of your father to the tune of twelve-and-a-half million francs?’

  The blow when it came caught me by surprise and knocked me against one of the s
ideboards. A decanter fell. I really hadn’t thought he would do such a thing. ‘So you got taken, eh?’ I shouted. ‘Well, I’m glad, my husband. Glad, do you understand?’

  ‘Smuggled out of France and then smuggled back in, was that it?’ challenged Madame Vuitton.

  Jules demanded to know who Tommy worked for and were we still in love, and I told him that business was finished the day he himself took the children from me, but that I would tell him nothing else.

  He gave me a little smile that was not only swift but also vengeful, but was there a hint of sadness beneath it as well? Oh, for sure, we’d fought before. Lots of times, but nothing like this.

  I think he knew it, too, for he said, ‘You may think you’re tough, Lily, but I’ll tell you right now, you’re not. And as far as you and I are concerned, we’re finished. I’ll let you stay here with the children, but only if there’s no more trouble. One more attempt to leave with them, and the police will be notified.’

  ‘Even though you’re guilty of having purchased stolen property, something I’d be sure to tell them?’

  ‘She will, Jules!’ hissed that woman. ‘She’s already done us enough harm!’

  ‘The children are mine, Lily. Under French law, and that of the Church, you can do nothing.’

  ‘What about that thing?’ I asked. ‘Just what is it that you three intend to do with it? Give it to the Comité Secret d’Action Révolutionnaire of the Action française, eh?’

  Struck by this accusation, my husband backed off. ‘Marcel should say less and think more about it before he does.’

  I was left alone with Vuitton and that thing; they even closed the doors on the two of us.

  ‘Well, Lily, I must say I’m surprised you came back.’

  I held my throbbing cheek. ‘Since you don’t have children, you couldn’t possibly understand.’

  This reference to the couple’s infertility was ignored. ‘Is it that you and that lover of yours are wondering what happened to all the other things from the robbery in which this was taken, and who helped us to get it?’

  I didn’t answer. He fixed a loupe to one eye and picked up the tiara. ‘You know far more than you should and that is very foolish of you. To be British at a time like this …’

  ‘To be trapped without French citizenship—is this what you’re implying?’

  The loupe was lowered. ‘I’m merely suggesting that, in view of what could well happen to France and very soon, it would be wise of you to be careful. My wife has many powerful friends. She can help Jules a great deal. You’ll be safe here. Nothing will happen to you and the children. Why not be sensible? Tell us everything you know. Is that too much to ask? This lover of yours … he’s not here to protect you, is he?’

  Returning to the tiara, his scrutiny with the lens lasted several minutes during which he said nothing. Of medium height, but bulking large because of the fur coat, he had the pallor of the senior civil servant, the blotches too much childhood exposure to the sun can bring in later life, and a habit of hunching his shoulders forward while concentrating on something.

  As he set the tiara aside, he said, ‘Perhaps we should take a little ride in the morning. Yes, that would be best, I think. I’ll suggest it to your husband.’

  Marie’s bedroom is the first, and the hardest, for me to enter. There’s no glass in her window, only the splintered sash. An empty satchel lies discarded in front of it, a toss of spent cartridge casings amid the strewn plaster where once a man laid with his gun.

  I step a little closer, come finally to rest my hand on the side of that window. Always, I will remember the softness of Marie’s hair against my cheek, the way she turned to look questioningly at me. They weren’t going to use one of the cars. Instead, they’d found a glossy black open sleigh, the relic of some family fifty years ago, and that could only mean we wouldn’t likely be taking the well-travelled roads.

  The horses were frisky and weren’t from any nearby farm, either. Marcel held one of them by the bridle, and as he fed it a dried apple, he looked up at me past Madame Vuitton, who ignored him completely, as did the husband.

  Since Jules knew how to use the reins, he got up front but sent Jean-Guy to tell us it was time to go. Even in the depth of winter, Dominique Vuitton wore mascara, rouge, and lipstick. Eyeshadow—the kohl of the Egyptians? I asked myself. The lips were tight, and I was made to feel shabby in my overcoat and mittens, having forgotten to bring my scarf and toque.

  It was Marcel who handed me his own. ‘Remember what I said,’ he said, and we two looked at each other while she wondered about us, as did that husband of hers and my own.

  But all too soon we were out of sight of the château, and I found myself asking had Marcel tried to warn me of something? Only once more did Dominique Vuitton bother to look at me. The painted eyebrows arched; the prominent cheekbones, high and slanting away, gave ridges to the narrowness of her face, the knife of hardness to her expression. She was like the madame of a brothel who was surveying an object that must please a wealthy client but who had her doubts.

  There were many side roads. Most were deeply rutted by the logging wagons of winter, but just before Arbonne, there was one that cut through the forest to the buttes, to flat-topped hillocks with steep sides. Jules took us there. It was very private, very quiet except for the snorting of the horses.

  We all got down. Snow overwhelmed my shoes, and I worried about the children losing theirs, for it was deep and more had begun to fall, but even then I couldn’t have suspected what was about to happen.

  Firmly, Vuitton took the children by the hand. Vapour billowed from the nostrils of the horses. Jules gave me a look I was never to forget.

  ‘We have to have the truth, Lily. Exactly who was this man you ran off with, who does he work for, and how much did you tell him about what’s being stored at the house?’

  ‘He’s a salesman of sheet music from Chicago.’

  ‘What are he and his friends planning?’

  ‘I’m not telling you or the Vuittons anything. We’re finished and you’ve said it yourself.’

  Curtly, he nodded. ‘You’re to wait here with the sleigh.’

  ‘Me?’ I looked around. I remember saying, ‘Ah, non …’ remember thinking I’d better run, but they came out of the woods, all with double-bladed axes. Some were older than the others, but all wore the blue denim jackets and dungarees of woodcutters. Some had not shaved in days, others not in years, and the snowflakes clung to them.

  Vuitton waited at the edge of the clearing with my children. That wife of his looked back. My husband said, ‘Lily, I’ll ask you once again.’

  Then he, too, walked away, and I felt myself come up against the sleigh.

  * * *

  Frost ringed the glass of the big French windows of my kitchen. Beyond the courtyard shadows, moonlight bathed the orchard. It made the snow crystalline, and as I touched the glass, I stood there in my robe and pajamas. There were no slippers on my feet. The tiles were freezing, but I didn’t care.

  The deer had come again to forage. Timidly, they moved among the trees, and I knew I should scare them off. Each nibble was at least a pear or two or more in season, an apple, or a plum, but I couldn’t do that because for me it was a ritual of healing. The robe fell open, the cold washed in, but I couldn’t move.

  There were five does and a buck whose winter could be his last. The tip of my nose touched the glass, fogging it with my breath. I took a chance and carefully rubbed the fog away. The deer were so graceful. One even stood on its hind legs. February 1940 had been bitter—harsh in the forest. Cruel!

  My love went out to them and they, in turn, sent theirs back to me. No hurting of another, not with them. No ganging up to beat and punch and kick and rape. Just life and living and getting by from day to day. No sleep at night, of course. How could there be? Tears were of no use. They were all gone anyway. There were the children to care for, and nothing could be said of it. Perhaps that was what hurt the most. That and what they
did to me while my children were taken for a little walk in the forest, and had to have heard me.

  The deer stopped. Suddenly, they froze all motion. In an instant, they were gone, bounding effortlessly through the orchard and into the nearby woods.

  I watched. I held my breath, and out into the moonlight came a man. He paused among the trees to survey the house, but the cold drove him on. He was dog-tired, had come a long way on foot, and when he reached my courtyard, he passed into shadow only to find me looking through the glass at him. He was startled—stunned to find me there. ‘Go away, damn you,’ I told him.

  ‘Lily, let me in. The police are looking for me.’

  He rattled the flimsy lock. I weakened. ‘The police … ? What is this, please?’

  I opened the door, and he shoved past me to drag off his shoes and things.

  ‘Why did you do that to me?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I had to. Because it was stolen, and your husband had no right to have it.’

  ‘You could have told me the truth.’

  He asked for some light so that we can see each other better. I refused. He opened the door of the firebox, and I moved away to stand behind the table, then to back up against the wall, which became the sleigh, so that I gripped my head and dug my fingers into my scalp and wanted to scream!

  The children would hear me. The children …

  ‘Lily, what happened?’

  How often was I to see men stand like that? Broken, stricken, cursing God and the enemy and themselves. A father with his son still bound to the execution post, a husband huddled over a bloodstained figure that lay sprawled in the street.

  ‘Lily, what did they do to you?’

  My face was crushed into the snow. Their hands were on me. One pinned my arms and had a knee against my head. Others held my legs. I tried to move, tried to crawl forward, to scream, to get away, but they were laughing at me, and my trousers were down around my ankles, my seat was up. I had told them the little I really knew, yet they still did that to me, and their laughter broke in waves that drowned as another of them rutted at me to the hoots of the others.