Hunting Ground

by J. Robert Janes

  Neither Tommy nor Nicki had told me she’d be present, and had let her appearance come as a complete surprise. ‘Just what do they intend on doing?’ I asked when we had a private moment.

  ‘Nothing. Don’t worry. Let’s just wait and see.’

  The talk was most often in German and loud. There were perhaps seventy or eighty ‘guests,’ a real flowering of the Nazi and collaborationist elite, a party such as the de St-Germains might once have thrown in Napoléon’s time. Beautiful women in absolutely stunning dresses, some caught with laughter in their eyes, their reflections imprinted in ornate, gilt-framed mirrors that were so old I can still remember them.

  The Germans were mostly in uniform, those of the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht, but there were others of the Gestapo and the SS, and those early dress uniforms of theirs were the colour of anthracite. Tall, short, thin, big, plump, fat, grey-haired, or not, some of the men were handsome, most quite ordinary, but all had varying degrees of the sinister, for these were the conquerors, and I still can’t bring myself to think of them in any other way.

  The buyers and dealers of art and antiques were among them, some from Switzerland, others from the Reich, and still others from each of the occupied countries and territories, but they were not in uniform. Instead, it was tuxedos or expensive business suits, and they appeared as sprinklings among the black, field-grey, or navy blue uniforms and all those lovely evening dresses. Yet it was business as usual for them and others, too, of the Paris elite. Everyone was overly polite, overly attentive, silly, or serious, and sometimes all in quick succession since few really knew one another and those who did were hard to find.

  I circulated as I had to. I, the woman of the house who had recently butchered and buried the body of a young Canadian pilot, had to smile and welcome everyone because that’s what a hostess does, and I saw that the Oberst Neumann, my star border, felt a little out of place. The Feldkommandant of Fontainebleau was flattered that the Reichsmarschall should pay his district a visit and stay, of course, in the palais, the hunting lodge of former kings.

  The Vuittons were watchful. Always they kept that little bit of distance between them and whomever they were talking to. That bitch had her black hair piled high and pinned with spun gold skewers that were centuries old. She wore a low-cut gown of black velvet, a necklace of gold and turquoise, and I saw the gap between her breasts as a chasm.

  Dupuis from the Sûreté smoked his pipe as he groused around or stood alone, watching everyone in the mirrors. Clever, eh? He looked as if he’d still got his rubbers on, but don’t let that fool you. He was far more sinister than most of the others.

  And Göring? Göring was resplendent in the soft, dove grey-blue uniform he had made especially for himself and that the Führer had let be different from all the others. There were medals on his chest like I’d never seen before, but don’t get the impression they weren’t deserved. That one was a flying ace in the Great War and had a bullet from that, also splinters of paving stone and lead that were lodged in the thigh muscles and groin from something that came later, a Nazi thing. That’s when he turned to drugs. He sat on one of the couches, all but filled it, his great hams spread. A glass of champagne was always in hand; the other often dunked into a cut-glass bowl with frosted nymphs that Lalique had wrought, a masterpiece that was filled with jewellery. Art Nouveau to please him, amethyst and aquamarine, rings, bracelets, little butterflies, the cheap and the gaudy hiding the good. Rubies and sapphires, my diamond earrings. Agates, malachites, and lapis lazuli, strands of pearls but most of all, emeralds to match my dress and remind me of the tiara of the Empress Eugénie. A little warning from my husband and his friends, but now there were other priceless pieces that were far more recently stolen in Paris from the Jeu de Paume auction.

  Katyana was feeding the Reichsmarschall herring on toast, thin wedges of it. I was introduced again by my husband as the sculptress. Göring looked me up and down but didn’t say a thing about the tiara. Did he even know what happened to the real one?

  Jules said, ‘She’s the one who made that bronze of this one, her sister.’

  He took Nini by the hand and brought us face-to-face with him. Nini had the shadow of a bruise under one eye, but with that Midi beauty it was perhaps hidden enough.

  ‘Two sisters. Yes, I see the resemblance,’ said the great one. ‘The sculpture is very good, madame. You should do something more.’

  Giving him a defensive shrug, I tried to find my voice. ‘I haven’t the energy, Herr Reichsmarschall.’

  ‘Then your husband should see that you have all the help you need.’

  Ah, merde alors, what an idiot I was. More Nazis in the house, more of their comings and goings!

  It was Nini who took charge by sitting at his feet. ‘Lily’s really quite able to manage, Herr Reichsmarschall. Like all artists, she simply needs peace and quiet and the encouragement of an expert like yourself.’

  ‘A bronze of the three of you, then. Yes … yes, that would be suitable. That one,’ he points at Michèle. ‘And yourself and that one.’

  Katyana—‘Giselle.’ ‘En costume d’Ève, Herr Reichsmarschall?’ she asked, for his French was excellent. Her eyes were saucy as she stroked his sleeve.

  ‘Toutes nues?’ he roared with laughter, his cheeks becoming bright red, the champagne sloshing out of his glass onto the Aubusson carpet. ‘The Three Graces. Yes, that is exactly what I would like. ANDREAS!’ he bellowed, the crowd quieting as glasses were deliberately lowered, but so slowly one would hardly notice. ‘Andreas, another commission for you to negotiate.’

  Walter Andreas Hofer was little, with thinning hair but sharp, shrewd eyes, a real dealer and the man who would play such a part in the evening to come. Göring’s chief buyer could and did secure the release of wealthy Jewish art dealers and see them into Switzerland so as to use them there, a man with connections, lots of them, riding on the swift-winged horse of the times.

  ‘Andreas, the Fräulein Sculptress will do a piece for me.’

  Had he forgotten my name already? Remember, please, that he commanded the German air force and was responsible for what happened to Rotterdam, but failed to bring Britain to her knees.

  ‘In wax,’ I heard myself saying. ‘Then you can take it to whichever foundry you wish.’

  ‘Marcel could look after that,’ said Jules. Was my husband so wrapped up in this crowd he has forgotten that he had kicked his former friend?

  ‘Marcel, yes … yes. Marcel Clairmont, the artist, could see to the casting for you,’ I managed to blurt.

  ‘He’s the one who handled that little piece we found in Carrington’s hotel room,’ said Jules.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hofer, who, like Göring, didn’t know a thing about that room or the man who was killed instead of Tommy. Asking what the Reichsmarschall wished to pay, he suggested, ‘Something modest?’

  There was a curt nod, not only of dismissal but of censure. The pay-off. I was not really that good. Even so, Hofer and I began the negotiations. ‘Three hundred thousand old francs,’ I told him.

  ‘We deal only in the new. It’s the law.’

  ‘Five hundred thousand, then.’

  Göring overheard and spluttered, ‘Five hundred … Lieber Christus im Himmel, get that bitch out of here!’

  ‘Three hundred, then. New francs.’

  ‘Two hundred thousand,’ said Hofer, the Riechsmarschall now watching us closely.

  ‘Two-fifty,’ I told him.

  ‘One-fifty,’ says Göring. Was he trying to bait me? Had he sensed my hatred of him and what that air force of his also did during the Exodus?

  ‘All right, for yourself, Herr Reichsmarschall,’ I tell him, ‘two hundred thousand francs.’

  To him it had all been a great joke, but a deal had been struck and he knew I’d realized that, and anyway it was just chicken feed to what was to come, but I think it had excited him to see me barter. Quaffing champagne, he ate a slab of pâté Nicki’s wife had offered, she laughingly askin
g, ‘Are you sure you don’t want yourself to be included in the piece as a Bacchus, Herr Reichsmarschall?’

  To roars of laughter from him, the sounds of the room picked up, and I suddenly found myself alone with my husband and my sister. ‘Behave,’ said Jules. ‘I’m warning you, Lily. Do exactly as he asks. This …’ he indicated the crowd. ‘Is very important.’

  ‘For whom?’ I asked.

  Was there sadness in my husband’s eyes? ‘For you and the children.’

  It was Nini who asked, ‘What else could she possibly do?’

  ‘You keep out of this.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ she said.

  ‘It’s enough that they’ve questioned you.’

  Janine touched the bruise. ‘This must show, Lily. Me, I’d better put something on it. I know I’ve forgotten to.’

  Leaving him, we headed upstairs, but from the landing turned to look down the staircase past that chandelier to see the Vuittons looking up at us. Dupuis joined them like a grey moth to its candle, Nefertiti with her withered breasts and overly made-up eyes, that husband of hers like another moth, the gumshoe seemingly lost in thought, the moment trapped in my mind forever.

  For all their former wealth, the de St-Germains had only one washroom and one toilet. Both of those rooms were impossible. The Blitzmädels were, of course, watching the children, but even so we checked on them and they were so happy to see Nini again, Marie was in her arms, all wet kisses and hands that explored the pendant, the earrings, the nose, the eyes, that bruise. Jean-Guy, I mothered, for I knew he was a little jealous of his baby sister. I was, too, once upon a time.

  At last, we were alone. We’d stepped into the library past the two men in uniform who were on guard here. Crates had been broken open, and their contents set about. Surprises awaited the Reichsmarschall. There was a Gobelin tapestry, a masterpiece of royalty in a forest with hounds at the hunt and a ferocious boar being put to the spear. There was an icon, a Madonna and Child, a priceless thing that had the look of veneration, so many other pieces, it was like a private art gallery. ‘Nini, what happened to you? How bad was it?’

  My sister shrugged as we stood before an absolutely sumptuous painting by Luca Giordano: the fall of rebel angels, the winged knight stepping on them with upraised sword. Göring had a passion for the baroque painters of the seventeenth century. Nini was in awe of it, as was I. ‘Did the Gestapo get rough with you?’ I asked.

  ‘A little, but the bruise isn’t from them. It’s from Jules. He’s afraid, Lily. Terrified because of the robbery.’

  ‘Ah, bon. How did Michèle and Henri-Philippe make out on their way into Paris from here?’

  ‘Just routine. What about the pilot?’

  I told her, and she took me by the hand to squeeze my fingers. It was such an immediate and intimate gesture of sympathy and understanding. ‘We mustn’t talk long,’ she said. ‘We’ve a network, Lily. It’s spreading. Dmitry … Has he made contact with you yet?’

  I shook my head. The Vuittons were now standing in the doorway, watching us. Nini pointed at the painting and said, loudly, ‘He will. I’m certain he will.

  ‘The Reichsmarschall,’ she said to that bitch. ‘He’ll buy this one for sure.’

  ‘Then everything will be forgiven,’ said Nefertiti.

  The Egyptian necklace had come from the loot of some tomb robber. The goddess Isis figured prominently in the centre of that thing, its wings outstretched towards the bony shoulders. There were hieroglyphs: snakes, birds, boats, crabs, beetles, too, and lions.

  ‘Who is that redhead?’ she asked, only to see us shrug.

  ‘An acquaintance of the Riechsmarschall’s, I think,’ offered Nini. ‘Doesn’t Obersturmführer Schiller know?’

  I waited. I remembered that Schiller paid Nicki a visit before the war, and asked myself, Was Katyana present? It was a horrible thought. Vuitton was too watchful; tense, like Jules: The whole business that night must come off well or else.

  ‘Please excuse me, madame et monsieur. I must see to the other guests.’

  ‘Not until I’ve finished with you,’ she said. ‘The Reichsmarschall is to have his pick and that includes anything on the walls of this house. Jules has agreed.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing to worry about. The things are his, not mine.’

  It was she who did the talking for the couple. ‘One word, one false step from either of you, and I’ll personally see that you are held responsible should anything go wrong.’

  They were really worried. ‘Michèle not cooperating?’ I taunted.

  ‘That girl’s a fool. She could have so much.’

  ‘Maxim’s suits her,’ said Janine. ‘To play in a French string quartet for the Germans every evening from five until ten thirty puts bread on the table, isn’t that so?’

  That Nefertiti couldn’t resist saying, ‘She gets many offers and refuses all. For her own good, you should warn her to accept some.’

  ‘And those of my husband?’ I asked. ‘Or has he now forgotten all about her?’

  The expression she gave was a mask out of antiquity. ‘Jules is no longer interested in any of you. He has much better to occupy him.’

  Yet he had suggested Marcel take care of my little sculpture in wax. ‘Then I hope he’s happy with them, madame, and that he doesn’t get syphilis.’

  I watch the house but none have dared to show themselves. Though the rooms and corridors are where my memory lies best, I must have strength for that. Always I would try to carry a little something in my pocket. A crust of mouldy bread, a piece of gristle from the filthy ‘soup’ they fed us in the camps, the leaf of a cabbage. I would try to save it to eat in secret, sharing only with myself, because only then does one come face-to-face with the friend and comrade that must be inside each of us lest we fail.

  They’ll wait for nightfall. They’ll say to each other, She’s coming then.

  Like the leaves at autumn’s end, they, too, must fall, but the sun streams through the branches as I move away to fade back into the forest and lie in secret, looking up at the sky.

  Marie and Jean-Guy loved to make leaf people. Tommy would heap leaves on them or we would simply laugh and sit together while they played. Brief times … all too brief, but I mustn’t cry. I must remember that night Göring first came to the house.

  Schiller watched Katyana all through that dinner. Somehow I needed to warn her that he had made a telephone call to Paris and that the SS might have a photo of her.

  She had a little handbag, a thing of beaded silk, very feminine, but heavy—bulkier than it should have been. This handbag was never out of her reach, Neumann being to one side of her, Göring to the other at the head of the table. Juices poured down his chin. Venison, pheasant, beets, borscht, mustard, wine, champagne, it all went in. Ah, mon Dieu, that man could eat! His eyes swam as if in water.

  She pecked at her food. She’d noticed Schiller all right, and I felt him move suddenly. ‘Mademoiselle,’ he said from across the table and down it a little, ‘your handbag, please.’

  ‘My … ?’ she blurted. ‘But why?’

  Her expression was one of utter dismay, but he snapped his fingers, and suddenly the table shut up. Cream fell from a spoon. Göring set his knife and fork down. ‘Ach, what is this?’ he asked.

  Again, Schiller snapped his fingers. The handbag was passed from guest to guest, Katyana seemingly shrinking from what could well happen. Her lovely red hair was so soft and light, but never had I seen such a look of dismay. It was as if she realized the game was up.

  Schiller received the handbag. Does it hold a pistol? he wondered. Remember, please, that Göring started the Gestapo and that for us, they and the SS were one and the same, so Schiller could move himself up the ladder if he uncovered a little something.

  ‘Be careful, Herr Obersturmführer,’ said Katyana. ‘There may be women’s things.’

  There was, mes amis, a slab of pâté wrapped in a napkin. ‘Pour mon petit chat,’ she said, but this was
greeted with suspicion by Schiller. He was certain she was going to poison the Reichsmarschall.

  A small paper of white powder came to light. ‘Icing sugar,’ she said apologetically. ‘From the kitchen, you understand, but please don’t punish the cooks. It’s simply very hard to get now and I …’ She shrugged, and me I was willing to bet there were others round the table with the same idea.

  Mustard fell on Göring’s dove-grey lapel to join an avalanche of gravy. Lipstick, a compact—several other items came out of that bag. The key to her flat, her papers, all these were laid out. ‘We shall see then,’ said Schiller. He was very proper. The long fingers dusted the powder over the pâté. He used a dinner knife to spread it evenly.

  Arsenic? I wondered, as did everyone else.

  Some of the pâté was placed on a bit of bread. A little more of the white powder was added, and that thing, that monstrous thing, was passed from hand to hand to her.

  ‘Eat it,’ he said. Her eyes found mine. Was there apology in them? Nini began to stand up to stop her. Me, I wanted to cry out, Katyana, please don’t!

  Her gaze settled on each person around the table, then the ‘Giselle’ smiled wanly and said, ‘Yes, of course, Herr Obersturmführer, but you must forgive me, all of you. No one else was involved. Only myself.’

  The table waited. There wasn’t a breath. Göring wet his lips. Had he ever watched a woman die like this?

  She took a nibble, chewed, and swallowed most delicately, only to hear, ‘All of it,’ from Schiller, she hesitating as she touched the base of her lovely throat.