Hunting Ground

by J. Robert Janes

  It was the Gefrieter who stripped me with his eyes and said, ‘A man.’ Nothing else. It could mean anything or everything, but was I sex-starved, they wondered, or was it that they already thought this, for it was crowded and we were all squeezed together. The bike had been taken to the front, where a couple of them steadied it between themselves. All had rifles and field kits, and merde, but that private first class thought he knew me. ‘You’re the one the Oberst Neumann stays with. The one with the big house and the kids.’

  There was nothing for it but to agree. ‘Oui, c’est moi,’ I said and flicked ash again, harder that time. ‘Is it so bad? He seems okay to me.’

  ‘Neumann,’ one of them said, and the smiles began to fade.

  ‘Schiller, too,’ I told them.

  The Gefreiter’s’s eyes found mine, and for a long time he looked at me in a different way until the lorry stopped suddenly and we all lurched forward and back. The bicycle went first and then myself. One leaped down to the road, another hung on to me while the Unterfeldwebel, who had been riding in the cab, gave the orders.

  ‘Your papers, madame. It’s just a formality.’ This guy was even bigger, tougher than the Gefreiter.

  They set up a roadblock. Three men were to be left while others worked the woods on either side. I handed over my papers. I didn’t need an Ausweis to go to the farm, but the sergeant took his time. His thumbs were big and strong, the nails dirty, the skin cracked in places. ‘What’s the purpose of your visit?’

  ‘To see my mother. To take her some things.’

  He pawed through the carrier basket, found the wine and eggs, fingered the cheese. I hesitated. He looked at them and glanced at me. I shrugged, I started to say, ‘Please don’t break the eggs,’ and then found the will to smile. ‘Those are for my mother, but she has chickens of her own so you may have a few, if you like, but in payment for the lift, you understand.’ It was but a guess, a gamble: Was I right about him? Dear God, I hoped so.

  A swiftness came to the look he gave. One of the men produced a haversack and the stuff disappeared as if by magic, so I knew they’d done this lots of times. ‘The rest is to trade,’ I heard myself saying of the clothing, even though bartering was illegal and he damn well knew it. ‘I need some potatoes to use as seed for my garden.’

  It was a little late for planting them, but he let that one pass. ‘What’s in the suitcases?’

  ‘More of the same.’

  His arm brushed mine as he walked towards the carrier and I turned sideways to look at him. One of my hands was on the seat, the other on the handlebars, my sabots firmly planted but could I kick them off fast enough?

  There was a rope that tied the suitcases down, and I’d wound it round and round and tied it tightly with several big knots.

  We waited–all of us. The Unterfeldwebel favoured his chin in thought. He was from Mecklenburg, maybe, or Pommern. Thick-headed if he wanted, also swift and sly, but had he realized that the catches on those suitcases were British, not Continental? There was a difference, and this finally telegraphed its little message to me since even Dmitry hadn’t noticed, or had he deliberately failed to mention it?

  The men were as if rooted to the roadside, their guns at the ready. Bees hummed among the tall grasses and wild flowers. My dress was pulled tightly across my chest. It clung to my legs, and again I thought of making a run for the woods but knew what they’d do to me if I should—they’d all got that look about them.

  My papers were handed back. ‘Tell the Oberst Neumann that we were very thorough with you.’

  I nodded, suppressed the quivering, folded the papers and tucked them away in a pocket, and finally had the presence of mind to say, ‘Thanks for the lift. That was very kind of you.’

  Sunlight streamed into the studio to find the pots, the shards on the floor, the dust that eddied in the air. When it touched the glazes, it brought out the colours, a royal blue, a deep jade green, the ochres and the browns, the earthy, rusty reds I have always liked best.

  My mother sat at her potter’s wheel. The kiln had been fired up. The place was very warm, and sweat trickled down her forehead. There was clay on the robust hands. Not for a moment did the wheel stop. The vase must be finished. After all, the Germans would buy it, and the money could be used for other things.

  All the time she worked, we talked. Occasionally, the dark eyes flashed at me. Most times, they were swift and hard—worried. She was all French, that one, a Midi from the south, no longer the shapely young thing my father fell in love with but still … ah, there was that something. The liveliness of the eyes, the dark lashes and eyebrows, the hair that was pinned back. One could’t define it. She exuded a kind of earthiness, had a ready laugh.

  The face was broad. Wisps of hair shot from under the red polka-dot bandanna. The hair was jet black, no signs of grey. The lips were firm—Janine’s lips and eyes. Yes.

  Hairs sprouted from a mole on her neck, and she didn’t give a damn about those anymore.

  ‘You must bring the children with you, Lily. That way, the Boche will be less suspicious. Children always distract people. Bank robbers should use them.’

  A little of the clay left her fingers, for she’d gestured—couldn’t help but talk with her hands. ‘Have they questioned you?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Them? Bien sûr, why not? They question everybody but the geese. I let them allocate me wood for the kiln.’

  ‘Don’t try to be too tough, maman. I’m warning you.’

  ‘Me?’ A shrug. A slip of encircling hands up the vase, the fingers deftly shaping the lip. ‘Oh, for sure, chérie, you know I’ll be careful. So, you are still in love with this one, eh?’

  Why is it that the potter’s hands are often suggestive of something other than working the clay? ‘Well?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, and very much, and you know this.’

  ‘Janine, she isn’t interested in him?’

  My mother always knew she could bait me. ‘Janine had better leave him alone.’

  The vase was cut off and placed on a board to dry. The wheel stopped. The hands were plunged into a bucket of cold water and rubbed together. The fleshy forearms were bare, the old plaid shirt and pink sweater rolled up above the elbows. ‘Janine,’ she said, and gave a nod. ‘She regrets what happened with Jules. For her, the experience was painful.’

  ‘She wanted to show me what he was like.’

  ‘Now I hear he’s got two others,’ she said and clucked her tongue. ‘One is eighteen, the other twenty-three. Janine says they have to report to the Gestapo, that they’re really mouchardes placed in his bed by the Vuittons. Men will mumble things in their sleep.’

  Informants. We looked at each other. It was an uncomfortable moment. ‘Is Jules under suspicion?’

  Again, there was that tartness. ‘The Boche don’t even trust their friends, especially those who work for them.’

  ‘But there’s something else, maman. Please, you must tell me.’

  The hands were dried and warmed at the kiln. Sweat stained her front between the sagging breasts. A cigarette was needed. This she puffed at as if it was her last, then raised her eyebrows and held it out to me.

  Three times then within a week, I’d shared cigarettes with people. ‘Inhale, idiote! Don’t waste it! You girls … Pah, what is the matter with you both?’

  I handed the cigarette back to her. She said, ‘The Vuittons suspect Jules of being too soft. They want you and Janine out of his life. It would be easy for them to arrange but for the moment, Jules still has Herr Göring’s support.’

  ‘But only for the moment?’

  ‘Ah, mon Dieu, how many times must I tell you not to display your feelings like a billboard? Certainly, Jules is playing a very dangerous game, but the Vuittons need him and so does Göring, so the Lieutenant Schiller must bide his time.’

  Nini had told her far too much, but I asked, ‘Did Nini tell you where Tommy was?’

  My mother went into the kitchen. From its window, the f
ields of the Barbizon Plain spread out for a couple of kilometres before rising a little into the forest.

  ‘The Caves of the Brigands, but you mustn’t go there.’

  I remembered the ratissage and the roadblock, but asked, ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the Germans are looking for him—for a tall man. Someone must have seen him crossing the fields.’

  ‘Then Tommy stayed here last night, and it wasn’t just Nini who told you things?’

  She nodded. There was a quivering to her lips, and she turned away to hide this. It was all her fault. She was blaming herself for having let him leave, and now the Germans were searching for him. ‘I was afraid to tell you,’ she finally confessed.

  I took her by the shoulders and said, ‘I’d better go and find him later on. He’ll need me, maman. His accent is terrible, and he’s far too tall for most Frenchmen.’

  ‘They don’t know who the man is. I’m sure they don’t.

  ‘Then everything will be all right, and I can give him the things I’ve brought.’

  ‘He’ll be in one of the caves.’

  There was a small, abandoned airfield nearby. During the Defeat, the men who operated this field wrecked what planes there were and hid ammunition in some of the caves, but the Germans quickly cleaned those out. Almost a year had passed, but this wasn’t time enough for them to have forgotten the location.

  ‘You’ll only lead them to him, Lily.’

  ‘Not if I’m careful. I’ll wait until after dark. I’ll go there then.’

  Suddenly, I had to see him. Nothing else mattered, not our safety, our lives, not even my children.

  The night is dark. There’s no moon. The clods of earth break beneath my sabots. I stumble several times. When I reach the abandoned airstrip, I pause among the wreckage and hear the wind in the tattered canvas.

  There were no lights on back then when I turned to look across the plain towards Barbizon and then towards the house of my mother. The blackout had seen to that. It had turned the French into a nation of nocturnal prowlers.

  I’d left the wireless set with mother. It would be better that way because I might not have been able to find Tommy and, anyway, Nicki was the one who knew how to use it.

  Crossing the little airstrip took only a few minutes. Surely, the Germans must have remembered this place, but they had far better airfields and their attention was now elsewhere. Perhaps we’d be safe after all. Perhaps this thing could be used some day to bring in planes from Britain. The wreckage was all down at one end where the hanger used to be.

  Pretty soon, my stumbling got worse. At one place, I fell and cried out; at another, I feared I’d sprained my wrist and sat holding it, rocking back and forth.

  In among the boulders and the rock walls, there was brush, the trickling of a spring. I was sure I’d got the right place. The Gorges d’Apremont were off to my right, the land rising into the forest.

  The Grottes des Brigands … I needed to cross the road—the one that ran to the north, northeast, a T-junction, the leg of which led westward to Barbizon. I’d come along that road that day. The Germans had let me out not far from there.

  The sound of the water returns, and with it, that of the wind in the poplar leaves and I’m right back there on that night. I can feel it all.

  ‘Don’t move. If you do, you’re dead.’

  ‘Tommy …’

  ‘Sh!’

  His hand slipped over mine. We waited. Perhaps ten minutes passed, maybe fifteen. Then someone not far from us lit a cigarette. Momentarily, we saw that moon face with its puffy pouches beneath the cow’s eyes that were widely spaced, the bushy eyebrows, dark bristles of a beard that was seldom if ever closely shaven. The neck of the grubby shirt was open, the jacket unbuttoned.

  He had the gut that one. It was Clateau, the butcher of Barbizon, lord of the meat cleaver and the damp-ended fag. He’d been out hunting rabbits with his ferret. The nets he used would be at his feet so, too, the sack in which there could well be six or seven furry little bundles, who knew? This guy was very good. Superb! And he knew it.

  But had he seen or heard us? With Clateau, you’d never know. Pretty soon, he was gone and I was in Tommy’s arms, but briefly.

  The cave was found by first entering another, then squeezing through a narrow fissure into yet another cave, near the roof of which was a ledge that led to the final and bigger one.

  I had the feeling that Nini had shown this to them, for she’d been there before, as I had, so long ago it seems. Me, I had to admit I was a little jealous of my sister, even though on his second visit, it was myself and the children who first brought Tommy there.

  He shone his torch over things, and I can still remember drawing in a breath, still remember him saying, ‘The Raphael, those two Renoirs of your husband’s, the Dürer Madonna and Child, Lily. That Gobelin tapestry. Everything we stole from the Jeu de Paume as well.’

  ‘The Giordano?’ I asked. My fingers trembled on the rough boards of the crates that were stacked on a ledge against one wall. The place was good and dry, the roof of the cavern just above our heads.

  ‘Everything Göring bought at your house.’

  ‘Everything?’ This I couldn’t believe, but Tommy was so pleased with what they’d done, he was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Katyana, Lily. When she left the party, she hitched a ride in the lorry. There were only two men to handle all that loot. Can you imagine it? She insisted on sitting between them, and when they reached the rendezvous, she jammed a pistol into the driver’s ribs and told him to stop. Nicki and the others took care of things while I walked those two men down the road a piece. We switched the crates, substituted stuff we’d bought in flea markets. Bric-a-brac, chipped enamel, and plaster busts of Napoléon … Göring? Did the Reichsmarschall really buy this stuff? Just think of the look on their faces when they unpack those crates!’

  Tommy thought it a huge joke. ‘Explosives and guns, Lily. I told those two that’s what we were after. They were so scared, they drove like mad to the station at Avon and loaded everything on to the railway truck and never said a thing about being held up. They both thought we were the ones who’d been fooled!’

  ‘And when the switch is discovered?’

  His grin vanishes. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but we were strapped for a place to hide everything, and Nini suggested we use these.’

  Nini … ‘She’s very pretty, has a gorgeous cul, n’est-ce pas?’

  The torch was still in Tommy’s hand. The crates all bore the Nazi eagle and numbers, and it was frightening to be standing among them, yet I was jealous of my sister and I wanted … My God how I wanted him.

  ‘The Nazis are stealing everything they can get their hands on, Lily. What Hitler and Göring don’t buy, others do. They’re all competing with one another. Generals, high-ranking Nazi officials, art dealers—crooks. We can’t let it happen.’

  He was really serious. ‘I’ve brought you a little something. It’s at mother’s, in the loft under the hay.’

  Tommy nodded. He knew what it was, but said, ‘Nicki’s gone to Switzerland. He’s really worried about Katyana, and so am I. After she left us, she took the train south. She was hoping to cross the Swiss frontier, but that’s not easy anymore. One needs a guide. I …’ There was much sadness in his look. ‘If they do make it, they’ll try to set things up so that we can get this stuff out of here before someone finds it.’

  A fortune. ‘You’d better seal the entrance. Some stones, bushes, old branches, and logs, anything to hide the cave that leads here.’

  He hesitated, then said, ‘That’s why I came back but now … Lily, what were the Germans after today?’

  ‘Someone saw you and reported it.’

  He took a candle from a pocket and, lighting it, fixed it to a ledge and sat down to lean against that wall and look at me. ‘Schiller?’ he asked. ‘Have they already opened those crates we substituted?’

  I had unbuttoned my coat. ‘Schiller was recalled to Berli
n, so something important must have come up.’

  ‘Then they know we made the switch, and the hunt’s begun. I seem always to be bringing trouble down on you. I don’t mean to, Lily. London made a deal with us. In return for helping them with information by wireless, they agreed to get Nicki and me back into France, Katyana convincing them of her usefulness. Janine’s been a tremendous help. We simply couldn’t have pulled it off without her. We needed Luftwaffe stamps and shipping labels for that stuff.’

  ‘You once asked me about her. Now I have to answer: Nini’s too daring, too impulsive.’

  ‘Perhaps, but London also want us to organize an escape route. Who else could we have gotten to help us set one up?’

  ‘Are you crazy? Robbery, downed airmen on the run, escaped prisoners of war …’

  I still couldn’t bring myself to tell him about Collin. Michèle and Henri-Philippe would already have done, and if not them, then André, but that one won’t have told him how the pilot died. Not André. ‘So, what will you do now?’ I was trembling, couldn’t understand why. It was a nervousness that completely overtook me.

  ‘Seal up this cave and find my way back to Paris. It’s easier for me there than in the countryside.’

  Tommy said Michèle was very well fixed for information at Maxim’s and was acting as a courier. ‘Henri-Philippe is back in the Louvre at his job as a restorer. The Germans have insisted that the work must go on. A lot of paintings and sculptures have been returned, and the museum is now open again. He has access to when the auction sales are coming up and can tip us off.’

  Those stamps and labels, were they but a warning of things to come? ‘Is Dmitry working for the Russians?’

  ‘Probably. Look, we really don’t know. He’s been very useful and can be a lot more now.’

  But had the Soviets told him to make himself useful so as to find things out? ‘And Marcel?’ I asked. ‘Me, I want to trust him, Tommy, but there’s still that little something that isn’t quite right.’

  ‘Marcel’s okay. Is there anything else?’