“Not bad,” he said, looking me over. “Black would look even better on you.” He slapped me on the shoulder. We didn’t take the elevator—Leibold detested being closed up in narrow spaces.
We reached the fifth floor. General exchange of greetings. Two Gestapo agents bent over the guest list. They stared suspiciously at me, a Wehrmacht corporal in SS land. I stepped close to Leibold to make it clear I belonged there.
“I’ll let you know when I need you,” he said. He left me by the entrance and joined the brass in the salon. I’d never seen a full colonel close up before. A giant of a man, he gave Leibold a hearty greeting. I ordered myself a glass of white wine and withdrew into a corner. Half an hour later, Anna Rieleck-Sostmann appeared. She was wearing a gray suit; its skirt covered her calves almost all the way to her ankles.
“You got an invitation, too?” I asked her, surprised.
“Telegram for Leibold,” Rieleck-Sostmann replied, holding up a briefcase. Her look said that she wanted to distinguish herself from the painted and powdered French women the officers were gathered around.
“Shall I lead you to him?”
Leibold was sitting in the salon, across from the colonel. It was strange to see the two of them there, against a background of wallpaper decorated with a pattern of crowns. As I started toward them, I felt Rieleck-Sostmann’s hand on my sleeve.
“There’s time,” she said. Her fingers lingered on my cuff links. “What floor is your room on?”
I told her.
“And the number?”
I looked at her.
“You go ahead. I’ll knock twice,” she said. Her eyes remained cool.
“And if Leibold—”
“He won’t miss you so soon.”
I wanted to say something in reply, but Rieleck-Sostmann’s manner ruled out any protest. Slowly, I turned toward the double door, kept going, one step after another, without looking back. When I passed the watchdogs, I lifted my hand in salute. I could feel the sweat inside the shafts of my boots. My uniform coat was stuck to my armpits. On the stairs, a group of SS officers were trying to form a difficult French sentence. I hastened down three flights and through the hall. A lightbulb gave me a fright, popping and going out as I passed it. I opened my door, let it shut behind me, and stood in the room like a stranger. The bed took up practically the whole room. I neither turned on the light nor opened the curtains, even though the air was stale. As usual, there was nothing to drink. I felt a muffled drumming in my temples.
A short while later, Rieleck-Sostmann slipped into the room and closed the door without a sound. She looked at me like someone assessing a commodity and loosened her hair. With a single grab, she unfastened the buckle of my leather belt. “A bayonet would look good on you,” she said as she laid the gear aside.
“I find daggers unpractical,” I murmured. “It’s too easy to get tangled up.”
She gave me a push, and I fell onto the bed. Then she unbuttoned her jacket and blouse, but she didn’t take them off. With a high, clear sound, her skirt slid to the floor. She was wearing flesh-colored hose. She knelt over me and undid my shirt. I thought of my neighbor in the next room, who perhaps at that very moment was picking up the receiver on the other side of the thin wall. I said, “We have to be quiet.”
She grabbed me by the hips and pulled my trousers down to my knees. It made me think about the water washing over the steel framework of the Pont Solférino.
7
The two Gestapo agents conscientiously checked their list before they let me back into the meeting rooms.
Leibold was waiting. “You must ask permission to leave,” he said irritably.
“Latrine visit, Captain,” I said, coming to attention. When he looked away, I wiped the perspiration off my upper lip.
“You just have to hang on for another half hour. Then we’re going to Turachevsky’s with a few of these gentlemen.”
“I can’t afford to go to a nightclub, Capt—”
“Stop with the whining,” Leibold snapped. “You think they bill champagne by the glass? I’m not interested in going out with a tight-ass. Try some of the sturgeon.”
I spread a bit of the black jelly on a rusk. Since the Soviet embassy got cleared out, tinned food was everywhere. Also different kinds of tea, richer and stronger than the ground powder provided by the Wehrmacht. I remembered reading horror stories about the confiscations in Je suis partout. Trapdoors and dungeons, electrified tubs for burning bodies. The faces in the photographs, bleached white by the flash.
I walked around unobtrusively, plate in hand, among the crowd of uniforms. Looking out the window, I could see a Frenchwoman in a robe, standing on the balcony across the street and gazing at the noisy gathering. When I learned out, she disappeared into the darkness of her apartment. I stared at the dark rectangle. What was Chantal doing at that moment? Did she live with her father? Was their flat above the bookstore? For the first time, I wondered why I’d never yet seen her with a man. The barber, perhaps?
“Are you dreaming, Roth?”
The champagne made Leibold’s normally melancholy eyes glitter. “We’re off,” he said, putting on his cap. When his bald pate was covered up, he looked years younger.
Four SS officers were going to share the car. Mine was the only Wehrmacht uniform. Things threatened to be a bit tight in the backseat, so I offered to take the Métro, suggesting that we could meet up again at the Trinité stop. Leibold brushed off that idea with a joke: They wouldn’t want to throw me in with all the common soldiers hurrying to get back to their quarters before lights-out, he said. When I got in the car, the colonel looked peeved. Leibold unbuckled his dagger and laid it on his knee. I pressed myself up against the door.
“Do you know what I found on my way out of the officers’ mess?” the colonel asked. “A brochure.”
We drove off.
The second lieutenant in the front seat turned around. “Indecent photos?”
“Indecent but amusing,” the colonel said with a laugh. “A woman, shot from behind, wearing nothing but a pair of short lederhosen. They had oval windows cut in them, and the cheeks of her butt were showing through!”
During the ensuing laughter, Leibold observed me with searching eyes. We passed the Pont Solférino. The invisible water roared.
“Now’s the best time for Turachevsky’s,” the lieutenant in the front seat said. “After midnight, the Wehrmacht starts drifting in. Then the couches tend to get crowded. One night, I counted eight grunts sitting on a single sofa.” His bleating laugh was smothered by a look from the colonel.
“I heard a Negro sing there once,” Leibold said. “Totally amazing.”
“I hope there’s a dance show tonight,” the colonel replied.
They fell silent until we got to rue de Clichy. The streets were practically empty. There were a few German civilians and a woman in a hurry. Her wooden sandals clattered as she ran. When she heard the German car, she disappeared into a building. A blue light burning in the entrance to the Scheherazade reflected off the visor of the night porter’s cap.
We stopped in front of Turachevsky’s. I jumped out and opened the captain’s door.
“Don’t make such a face,” Leibold hissed.
Before the second lieutenant could lay a hand on the doorbell, the door was opened.
“What’s this? The place is empty.” The colonel looked all around. “Usually, you have to ring like crazy before they can hear you.”
I was the last to enter the lobby. Sofas and chaise longues. High overhead, a chandelier glittered in the smokeless air.
“It’s early yet,” the colonel muttered.
The woman who greeted guests came toward us, wearing a blue silk dress. In one hand, she clutched a wadded-up lace handkerchief, which she was drumming against her forehead. “Ah, mon Dieu, good evening, what ees up, holy smoke?” she
cried out. “Where are your friends, les messieurs soldats?”
The officers looked at one another.
“It’s so lovely and warm out, madame, such a fine evening. People prefer to stay outside.”
“But what you talking, m’sieur l’officier? All soldier have gone to Russia, gone last night, on the railroad.”
“Damned nonsense!” the colonel cut in. “Je vous assure, madame, no German soldier is leaving Paris for the east. Who starts these bloody latrine rumors?”
“Hopefully, you are right,” madame replied, somewhat relieved. “Encore deux jours comme ça et je dois congédier les filles.” She fanned her bosom with the handkerchief. “Quelle horreur, cette guerre de Russie. They say Germans have lost many men.”
“On the contrary, madame.” The colonel adopted a severe tone. “Il faut garder votre sangfroid, je vous en prie. The German losses are meager when compared with the world-historical dimensions of our successes.” With that, he left the matron’s side, stalked resonantly across the room, and disappeared into the bar. Our convoy fell in behind him.
Civilians from the embassies, one of them wearing gaiters. The other civilians were rip-off artists, black marketeers, and pimps. Very few Wehrmacht, but many SS, with their black uniforms and death’s-head insignia. Terse nods, careless salutes. The waiter showed us to the best table—the stage was only an arm’s length away. I hesitated before taking a seat. Leibold gave me a comradely wave.
“Down in front,” someone behind me shouted.
I pulled up a chair from a neighboring table. On the stage, dancing girls were performing an animal scene. They wore sheep masks and lion masks and very little else. The band played folk melodies. While the girls hopped about, the colonel ordered two bottles. “If the champagne’s as stale as this is…” he grumbled.
At the end of the number, the lions lay down with the lambs. The Wehrmacht contingent howled approval.
“Easy to please,” the big officer said, looking around condescendingly.
Without bowing, the girls disappeared from the stage. The band played a march. The pianist stood up and announced in broken German that “living nude sculptures” were next on the evening’s program.
“I’m going to need schnapps for that!” the colonel groaned. Not waiting for the waiter to open the champagne bottles, he sent him off to fetch something stronger. The second lieutenant popped the corks. Leibold’s hand hung at his side, not far from my knee. He was beating time on the leg of my chair. I took a full glass and shifted a little to one side.
“‘Nude sculptures!’” bleated the lieutenant as four girls presented The Bridge to Happiness on the stage. A young man in princely garments crossed the bridge, attentively considering each of its four naked piers. The colonel poured himself some schnapps.
“This is worse than Grimm’s Fairy Tales!”
“Well, yes, but the one with the chignon sure is a hot-looking little beast.” The second lieutenant was alternating between schnapps and champagne. The Bridge to Happiness disappeared. Accompanied by a fiddle solo, the models for the next living sculpture took up their positions. I felt Leibold’s hand gripping my bootleg.
Three young women presented The Judgment of Paris. Naked Greek goddesses, bearing their symbols and turning slowly in a circle. The bosomy Hera wore a red toga. Aphrodite played with a fig leaf, clumsily covering each of her naked parts in turn. The third was Pallas Athena.
I forgot Leibold’s hand, which was carefully encircling my knee, because the girl playing the war goddess was Chantal. She wore a helmet and armor, the latter cut so as to show her breasts to great advantage. Like the others, she stretched out her arm to the golden apple and turned in a circle. Her reddish brown hair gleamed in the spotlight. Her face was completely expressionless.
“That’s enough for me, gentlemen!” The colonel sprang to his feet. “I’m going to have them appeler les dames.” He stamped back into the salon.
Very slowly, very stiffly, I stood up, staring fixedly at the stage. Leibold’s hand withdrew and moved toward his cigarette case. Paris, in gold makeup, was about to hand the apple to Aphrodite, but the commotion in front of the stage irritated him. He dropped the apple, which rolled behind the footlights. Merriment among the goddesses. Without finishing the scene, they disappeared behind the transparent curtain. The band played “Liebeslied.” The stage lights went out. I kept staring. Chantal, the barber’s assistant—had she really been standing there?
Leibold scrutinized me. “Which of the Graces has struck your fancy? Or was it perhaps the young man?” I registered his soft face, the drops of sweat on his forehead.
“So what’s going on?” asked the second lieutenant.
Leibold pointed toward the salon, where a bell was being rung for the second time. Without saying anything, I made my way among the tables. Leibold followed, glass in hand.
When we entered the room, madame was clapping for the girls to hurry up. They were already entering through every door. The chandelier shone more brightly. The colonel was on the sofa, waiting to review the selection. A tall girl in a blue tunic placed herself in the center, like a flagpole that the others gathered around. A second girl, looking insulted, lifted her little skirt and gave us a rear view. There was a Slavic girl with yellowish eyes and powerful teeth and a girl in a green shirt, very thin, with pronounced shoulder blades. More girls kept coming in, their faces long from suppressed yawns. The rustle of silk. The squeaking of high-heeled sandals. My eyes flew from door to door. Which door would Chantal come through?
“What do you suppose this snaggletoothed battle-ax is up to?” The colonel laughed. “She’s even mobilized the reserves!” One girl on the flank opened her kimono. Her breasts stared dully in opposite directions. It struck me that not one of these women seemed to be really present. Their smiles looked painted on with spit and lipstick. There were two rows of them now, one behind the other.
“I always thought they had at most ten women here,” the big officer said, nodding, impressed.
The second lieutenant was exchanging glances with the tall girl in the tunic. After the second row was full, the latecomers lay down in front of the others. Raised eyebrows, serious expressions. Chantal’s eyes were not among them.
“Attention, group photograph!” the colonel cried out, baring his teeth. He undid his top button and pulled at his Merit Cross. The second lieutenant was waiting for his commanding officer to make his choice so that he, the lieutenant, could finally snap up the tall girl and vanish. Leibold lounged in an armchair, as though nothing that was happening had anything to do with him. Silence fell; the moment of decision had arrived.
“Mesdames, l’offre surpasse le…” The colonel turned to me. “How do you say demand?”
“Demande,” I answered, thereby drawing all eyes.
Madame brought champagne. Leaning over the colonel, she called his attention to a full-figured angel. “Vous connaissez cette fille, Flora, a recent addition?”
“No, no, not her.” Flora failed to suit the officer’s taste. He said, “The one behind her, in the second row. Fourth from the left, with the vulgar mouth. We’ve already had the pleasure.”
“Alors, monsieur,” madame said with a nod. She waved her handkerchief in the direction of the chosen one.
“Yes, I have simple German tastes. I like plain food,” the colonel mused as the girl moved toward him, her eyes cast down. “All right,” he said with a sigh, as though he’d lost interest in the remainder of the process. The second lieutenant jumped on the tunic a bit too eagerly, as though someone else might snatch her away from him. She didn’t smile.
“Lost your appetite?” Leibold stood next to me. I whiffed his expensive cologne.
“I really didn’t plan on—”
“We could go somewhere else, if you want.” He took hold of the brocade trim on my collar. His arm brushed the back of my neck. I lo
oked into his white, tactless face. Two dozen women were still facing us. Madame played with the silver cross on her bosom. Her expression was supposed to be encouraging, but I could see her impatience. In the second row, a girl with bobbed hair yielded to a yawn; her mouth opened wide. She rubbed her eyes with her hand, making her bracelets tinkle.
“Her,” I said, and stepped away from Leibold.
Softly murmuring “Pardon” and leading with her narrow shoulders, the girl with the bobbed hair parted the ranks of her colleagues. Leibold didn’t stop smiling for a second as he made his way back to the bar.
The girls turned on their heels. Those who were on the floor stood up. There was a whirling of sleeves and belt ends. And then the room and the gray-green carpet were empty. On the stairs, the unchosen began to talk all at once, like girls in a boarding school. The one with the bobbed hair waited for me to accompany her. She put her hand in front of her mouth. All this while, I was trying to identify Chantal among the girls leaving the room, but my hopes were in vain. The bookshop owner’s daughter. The Judgment of Paris.
“Veuillez monter?” madame suggested encouragingly.
I followed the bobbed head without touching its owner, who introduced herself, as I might have expected, as “Yvette.” I knew that Leibold was watching me from inside the door to the bar, so I didn’t turn around again.
The room was bigger than I’d imagined. I sank down onto the bed. Yvette took off her little green coat.
“Seulement un moment,” I said.
She didn’t understand and knelt down on the carpet in front of me.
“Je pars tout de suite,” I said. I fished some banknotes out of my breast pocket, paid her, and pushed her hands away.
“Mais qu’est-ce que t’as? Tu me voulais.”
“Oui, tu me plais beaucoup. Je suis fatigué.”
I looked at my watch. Was Chantal still in the building? How did she get from Pigalle to rue de Gaspard at night? Somewhere behind a nearby wall, the second lieutenant laughed. The girl with the bobbed hair laid her head in my lap. She was still stroking my hand when she fell asleep.
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