Hunting Ground

by J. Robert Janes

  Matthieu Fayelle returns to take the dishes away. As he reaches for the soup plate, a spill of cartridges leaves his hand. ‘There are more if you should need them.’

  As my hand closes about them, I say, ‘Get me a Schmeisser, two fully loaded magazines, and a grenade. Have them ready for me.’

  ‘But surely the police …’

  ‘You leave the flics out of this! Dupuis is with them at the house. It’s a private matter, Matthieu. I want no interference.’

  Down through the beeches, I can see the millpond before the small, quaint farmhouse of the Poulins, whose white stucco and green shutters form a tidy place where geese are force-fed while the husband basks in the sun. It’s a scene out of Sisley. Good people, those two. Before the war, I used to bring the children here in my little car to buy eggs and goose livers. While they were with Madame Poulin, I would bathe at the far end of the pond behind a screen of reeds. Henri Poulin would stand in his flat-bottomed punt, pretending to fish, and I didn’t mind if he saw me. I rather liked the idea. It was, in a way, a chance for me to repay him.

  Janine and Michèle came for a visit early in July of that summer of 1941, and the three of us rode out here on our bicycles. The pond is southwest of Fontainebleau, on the road to the village of Ury, so you pass through the forest and, for us, it was to be a little holiday.

  They had both obtained an Ausweis for the weekend. Michèle had asked the general who was interested in her to help, so we had two days and the weather was perfect. Marcel was at the house and when that Saturday’s school was out, the children would be with him.

  It was a chance to talk. Our bicycles lay in the grass behind us, we on the blanket Janine had brought. A wicker picnic basket provided everything, along with two bottles of Château Latour-Blanche, the 1927, my having plundered my husband’s cellar. Bees hummed among the daisies, buttercups, and sky-blue chicory. Nini lay on her back, Michèle on her tummy. Me, I sat right where I’m sitting now. ‘We have to leave it for a while,’ I told them. ‘Lie low. Let Schiller and Dupuis plug away, but don’t do anything to stir things.’

  It’s Michèle who said, ‘Henri-Philppe told me there’s to be a big auction this autumn, that it looks like Göring’s Luftwaffe will finish off the Russians and the Wehrmacht will be in Moscow by then.’ The Germans had invaded Russia on 22 June.

  ‘And you … what do you think about it?’ Janine asked her.

  ‘Me, I don’t even want to talk about it!’

  ‘Idiote!’ said my sister. ‘The Boche are going to lose.’

  ‘But Göring will still be there for the auction. Henri-Philippe’s certain a notice has been sent to Hofer. They always send notices to him when something’s coming up. Jules is in on it, too. He and the Vuittons have been over the lists of works that are to be sold. Now leave me be!’

  She was so near to tears, we let her rest. I even lowered my voice. ‘Nini, I meant what I said. That trip to Paris with Dupuis finished me. I’ve the children to think of.’

  ‘And Tommy?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to ask him to take the children and me to Switzerland or out through Spain. It’s worth the risk. I can’t stay here.’

  She flung her straw away. ‘Neither are possible! If they were, Tommy would have done it. Besides, we have to move people. Those places are reserved for them.’

  This was my little sister. The Midi beauty was still there, the black gloss of her short hair, the flounce of it as she tossed her pretty head or settled those dark eyes on me. ‘Nini, Georges and Tante Marie have become a problem. They watch the house constantly and report everything.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Me? Are you crazy? If anything should happen to them, Schiller and Dupuis would immediately suspect me and you know it!’

  ‘Not if you were to do it the right way.’

  Ah, merde, I couldn’t be hearing this, but her words were to haunt me for months. ‘You try to be so hard, Nini, but underneath it all I know who you really are.’

  ‘Then you have failed to realize that the Boche are going to be driven out of France. Russia will be the end of them. More and more, the Reich will have to move its forces to the east. Dmitry says it’s only a matter of time before the tide turns, that Stalin’s going to suck the Wehrmacht in and crush them. One hard winter is all it’s going to take. Their supply lines are far too long as it is, and they must know it, too.’

  ‘And how is Dmitry these days?’

  ‘Busy,’ she said and shook her head to indicate I mustn’t say anything more in front of Michèle.

  ‘Go for a walk, you two,’ said our violinist. ‘I don’t want to listen!’

  We moved away to sit in the shade. ‘She’s terrified, Lily. I wish we could get her out of Paris and into the Free Zone. Schiller knows she’s the weaker of us. He’s taken her to dinner twice—she couldn’t refuse—so he sits there at Maxim’s every night he can and watches her play her violin. To counter this, I’ve asked her to take the general as a lover, that this would be by far the safest thing for all of us. She’s promised to think about it. I’ve given her the weekend.’

  Nini would do that, too. ‘And yourself, chérie? What about you?’

  There was a grin I recognized, a lifting of the breasts with cupped hands. ‘The Folies Bergère. One of their bare-assed nudes. The feathers tickle my nose, and it’s cold up there on that big staircase with all of them ogling me, but it’s a living, so one must do it, I think.’

  ‘How’s Tommy?’

  ‘Fine—at least he was the last time we met at Marcel’s. He’s gone into the Free Zone with Nicki and Dmitry. They’ve taken the wireless set with them and two packages for Spain. Switzerland is impossible. We can’t even get the artwork out that way, so they’re hoping to set up something else.’

  And sending information back to London, the ‘packages’ being downed aircrew or others on the run. ‘Did Katyana make it?’

  Nini gave a nod. ‘She’s with friends, but Nicki’s afraid she’ll try to come back. With that red hair she refuses to dye, and those green eyes, they’d pick her up at once. We never knew exactly when Göring and his entourage would pay you a visit, so she had to infiltrate them. She’s got guts, Lily. I think she’d kill for Nicki, and if she does come back, you take good care of her because we may need her again.’

  ‘I wish we could get those things out of that cave. It’s far too dangerous having them there. Someone’s bound to find out, and if they do, it’s the end for us.’

  ‘You worry too much. You always were such a worrier.’

  Janine kissed me on the cheek, and I can still feel the softness of her breath. ‘I’m scared, Nini. Scared all the time.’

  ‘Who isn’t? Hey, listen, you, we moved eighteen packages last month. Eighteen! Who would have thought it possible a year ago? Seven were escaped POWs. Now that Russia has come into the war, we’ll be getting drops by parachute from England. Weapons, Lily. Things with which to fight back!’

  She was so eager, she asked me for the names of people I thought we could trust, and I nodded towards the house that was across the pond. ‘Matthieu Fayelle as well.’

  ‘Him?’ she asked.

  ‘Oui. I’m sure of it, but honestly can’t tell you why. Clateau also. His butcher shop in Barbizon has been used for meetings. Mother’s certain of it. He also has the use of his gazogène van.’

  ‘Then there’s hope. Where one is found, there will be others.’ She was like some sort of missionary.

  ‘What about Marcel? How’s he been shaping up?’

  ‘Jules has been to see him twice with offers of peace.’

  ‘Then we’re in trouble.’

  ‘Perhaps, but for myself, I’m more worried right now about Dmitry. I’m certain he’s really working for the Soviets, but we don’t know what they want of him. Whenever we need false papers, he gets them, but still won’t reveal his sources. The Communists are good, Lily. I’m sure they have a powerful transmitter in Paris a
nd that the Germans, though able to detect it, can’t precisely pin it down because the security is so tight. But when I ask Dmitry, he simply shrugs and says he doesn’t know, that so far he’s been unable to make contact with them, so he tags along with us and he watches. He’s useful, yes—very, but he also worries me, and I’m the one who brought him in.’

  ‘Will you be sending escapees to the house?’

  ‘It’s too risky. The committee has decided you’re to be left out of things as much as possible.’

  This was such a relief, I’m ashamed to admit that I knew nothing of such a committee. ‘Let’s go back. Michèle will be wondering where we are.’

  Nini shook her head. ‘She understands it’s safest this way. Our visit’s not just for pleasure or to talk things over. Henri-Philippe really is certain about that the auction and that there’s a good chance of our stealing quite a lot. Tommy wants us to, and so does Nicki.’

  ‘Then take it someplace else! Don’t involve me. Bon Dieu, de bon Dieu de merde, are you people crazy? Schiller will be down on me like a flash!’

  ‘Look, it has to be done, so that’s all there is to it. You, me, Tommy, and Nicki are the only ones who know where that stuff is hidden. There’s lots more room. If we have to, we can use it again. In the meantime, help us organize. Find those we can trust. Build a network for us here so that we’ll have that help when needed.’

  ‘No self-respecting Frenchman, résistant or not, would ever work for a woman or even include her in any such meeting.’

  ‘Not unless she was British, and not unless she had access to a wireless and could call on London for arms drops, so there, my little friend, you have your reason and permission to tell them if necessary. About the wireless, that is. Nothing else.’

  ‘Thanks. Thanks a lot!’

  Michèle lay in the sun, lost to the embrace of sleep and exquisitely so. ‘Telling her that she should have an affair with that general isn’t fair of you, Nini. She and Henri-Philippe should be having children and building a life for themselves.’

  The sky became more hazy as the afternoon grew. We had our picnic, had our time. Lots of laughs, lots of talk about little things, too, not just about the Occupation and what we might have to do about it.

  A last memory is of Michèle and Janine standing timidly knee-deep in the water just beyond the reeds. Both were naked. Both faced the opposite shore where the sun still shone and Poulin was mending a bit of fence.

  They had gorgeous figures, really superb bottoms. Poulin squinted into the sun and shielded his eyes as his wife called sharply to him and my sister waved and cried out, ‘Oo-oo, Monsieur Poulin, we’re over here. C’est moi, Janine. Lily’s too modest to come in.’

  We were still there at dusk, three heads bobbing in the water upon whose surface were mirrored the threads of sunset and the wings of dragonflies.

  The noise of someone digging comes to me through the forest behind the orchard. I pause. I listen hard. I ask myself again, as I have so often since I killed André, is Schiller really with them, was that voice I heard his?

  Everything comes at me: the shrieks, the blows, the threats. He has the power of life or death over me, and I want so much to die, but he won’t let me. Not yet. Never yet. The sound of digging stops. There are no voices, no muted curses or arguments.

  Through a gap in the trees, down from me a little, Jules is burying André’s body. He stands in a shallow pit. A Browning automatic is close to hand, a 9 mm and one of those the British dropped to us later on in the war, but don’t ask me how he came by it.

  There’s no one else around. Just the two of us. It’s such an opportunity, but I haven’t seen him in so long I find my emotions torn. On the one hand, there is a loathing I can’t stop; on the other, pity. He’s older, but still very handsome—distinguished. Unused to digging graves. Already there are blisters.

  As he stoops, the jet-black hair falls over that brow. He never tried to intercede when we were in the Cherche-Midi, not that it would have done any good. For myself, I understand this, but how is it that he’s still around, that he wasn’t at least sent into forced labour?

  I can only say that he was far too useful to Göring and all the others. For him, we had simply ceased to exist—finished, just like that. Puff! And up the stack. Perhaps he even had an apéritif with some new woman.

  He’s married again. Her voice over the telephone sounded young and excited, only to become distraught at a strange woman asking for her husband. Jealousy is so instant in the young, especially when one is in love. Me, I pity her. He must be running around with someone else, and already she’s beginning to notice his absences.

  They have a flat in Auteuil, on the rue Boileau. Very posh, very handy to everything, the quays along the Seine, the Bois de Boulogne, et cetera, and a baby girl who is three months old. Is he any better as a father?

  From time to time, he pauses to tidy his hair and brush off the jacket’s sleeves. When it’s back to digging again, I have to wonder where the others are.

  Making a wide circuit through the forest, I see that André’s car is gone. They’ve split up, but it’s a trap. It has to be. That’s the way Schiller and Dupuis would work, but have they left the car down the road a piece? Are they now walking back, the one well ahead of the other?

  In spite of this, I take a chance. It’s only a short distance from the coach house diagonally across the drive and into what was once the ground-floor study of my husband’s father. Voices come to me as I step inside—Vuitton and then that sharp-tongued wife of his. They’re in the kitchen.

  ‘The lieutenant is right, Louis. We can’t stay bottled up here waiting for that salope to come to us. He and Dupuis were right to go out and hunt her down before she kills us.’

  ‘And what then, my dear Dominique?’

  He’s so dry about it all.

  ‘We’ll have to deal with him first and then Dupuis. You know that as well as I.’

  ‘Perhaps that Sûreté can be persuaded to help us. With Schiller out of the way, we can …’

  ‘Jules shouldn’t be out there alone like that. She’ll …’

  ‘My dear Dominique, is it that you’re still worried about the life of our protégé? Of what earthly use is he to us now?’

  ‘The three of us must stick together, Louis. The lieutenant … I’ve seen the way he looks at Jules and ourselves.’

  ‘As does Dupuis. Her killing de Verville can only have helped them, but perhaps we’ll be lucky, perhaps she’ll finish off the two of them and we can negotiate with her ourselves. She can’t be entirely unreasonable when she finds out about all of those who are still with us.’

  ‘Fool! She’s insane. She’ll strike when we least expect!’

  Their voices rise and fall. From where I’m standing in the corridor, I can just see a sleeve of Vuitton’s coat through the splintered boards of the doorjamb but does he have a gun in that hand?

  ‘Let’s go together to Jules, Louis,’ says that Nefertiti. ‘Don’t leave me alone in this house.’

  ‘Jules will be all right. Lily won’t kill him.’

  ‘Ah, mon Dieu, me, I’m not hearing this! How can you say such a thing?’

  Vuitton gives a snort of derision. ‘Because he knows what happened to their children, and she’ll have to hear it from his lips alone. Now please try to calm yourself while I have a look around.’

  ‘I’ll go and stay with Jules. Someone should.’

  ‘You’ll stay here where I can find you.’

  ‘I’ll go up to the library then. From up there, I can watch the road.’

  Vuitton is tired of her nervousness and exhales a, ‘Very well, do as you like. You always have.’

  The sleeve moves, and I hear him step out into the courtyard.

  Fastidiously, Nefertiti picks her way through the house and up the stairs, and I watch as she reaches the landing but doesn’t look back.

  When I come to the library, I find her crouched among the books that are littered everywhere
, but what does she search for? Answers to what must happen? Portents of the future, wisdom from the past?

  Very quickly, she tires of it and stands to one side of an empty window, gazing out over the drive to the road beyond. She has a little pistol clutched tightly in her right hand. The high coat collar frames the piled up, jet-black hair where pins and skewers of beaten gold and carnelian hold it in place.

  This one had my children killed—I know she did. There was fighting, that tragic, terrible sound of guns. I heard Jean-Guy cry out to someone, ‘There’s my mother! Yes, there!’

  I heard Marie screaming, ‘Jean-Guy, please don’t! Maman … Maman, they are going to kill you!’

  Marie could think only of me, even at such a time. ‘Madame Vuitton, I’ve come to execute you in the name of the Résistance. Please do not attempt to turn around or cry out.’

  Not a muscle moves as I place the Luger’s muzzle against the back of her neck. ‘Now drop the gun, madame, and I’ll give you a moment to ask God for forgiveness.’

  The seconds pass, and it’s really far too quiet. Just the two of us, eh, and the musty smell of books.

  ‘Fool, my husband is right behind you.’

  In an instant, I see him grinning at me, he having used his wife as bait, but one slug tears off his lower jaw and the other slams into his chest and throws him back into the corridor.

  And her little gun has jammed, or so she thinks. She can’t believe it hasn’t fired. Finally, I hear myself saying, ‘So, madame, luck is with me yet again, eh? Now please allow me. It’s simply the safety catch. This one, that’s right next to your thumb, you have to push it up.’

  She begs, pleads, cries at me, and backs away until she gives a startled scream, and I hear the sound as she hits the steps below.

  Exhaustion comes. It’s always swift after a killing. One feels totally drained, but I know Jules is out there and will have heard the shots, as may Schiller and Dupuis yet, for a moment, I can only stand and listen to the house, to its silence and the fragments of memory.

  Her body lies sprawled on the steps. Blood drains from her broken head. Vuitton is very dead, but I can’t take the chance. One slug for him and two for her. I’m just like Schiller. I’ve crawled right back down into the cesspool with him and all the others, and this I don’t like about myself. For this, as for so many other things, I am ashamed.