11
Two weeks later, just before I went on duty, Leibold met me in the hall.
“I was right!” He appeared to be in unusually good humor as he pushed back his cap and rubbed his shiny pate. “The Gascon has led us to his rat hole.”
Only now did it occur to me that I hadn’t seen the offender’s face for days. I remembered the amazing patience Leibold had shown while interrogating this man, without obtaining any worthwhile result. Hunkered down like a mossy stone, the Gascon made his stolid denials; even the corporals’ techniques made no impression on him.
“I let him go,” Leibold said affably, “and that’s where he went. It’s a shop we’ve had our eyes on for a long time. A barbershop.”
For a moment, I had the feeling that the dead-level floor in front of me was sloping downward. Leibold walked on, thereby forcing me to accompany him.
“Our friend thinks he’s clever,” he said with a big smile. “He got a haircut, paid, and left. Shortly afterward, he sneaked back in through a neighboring house.”
An unexpected ray of light struck me; outside, it was a most gorgeous day.
“And have you already…taken action?”
“There’s no hurry.” We reached the orderly room. “My people are watching everyone who goes in or out of the shop. In a few days, we’ll strike.” Leibold grabbed the door handle. “And then, the barber’s going to get a very close shave!”
“And where is this shop?” I asked a touch too hastily.
“In the sixth, close to the river.” Leibold turned around. “Do you know the area?”
I pretended to give this question some thought. Without waiting for my answer, he disappeared into his room.
Staring at the scuffed stone floor, I noticed a first lieutenant too late and saluted when he was already past me. Slowly, I took off my forage cap and clamped my case under my arm. A PFC snatched the office door open right in front of me and nearly ran me down. I stepped in and said, “Good morning.” A mumbled “Morning” from every table. I took out my writing pad and sharpened my pencil. Rieleck-Sostmann gave me a provocative look. There was something different about her. Her hair was gathered into artificial curls on the sides of her head. French girls had recently started wearing their hair like this, but it wasn’t a look that suited a tall German woman. I nodded, acknowledging her coiffure, and she smiled at me and patted her new curls. Without exchanging a word with her, I kept moving, crossed the room, and sat down at my little table. The corporals were sweating already, and they hadn’t even gone into action yet. I watched Leibold’s booted legs walk past me with measured steps. I couldn’t bring myself to look any of the culprits in the eye.
During the midday break, Anna Rieleck-Sostmann joined me and ate her black-bread sandwich. “So how are your French promenades going?” she asked.
I sat there with my eyes closed, as though enjoying the sun. “I’ve given them up,” I replied quite truthfully.
“No more rambling?”
It was impossible not to think about Chantal. Her cheerfully bobbing walk as she hurried through the narrow streets ahead of me. The last look she gave me before I marched into the trap. The way she smelled the one time she opened her lips for me.
That evening, I lay in Rieleck-Sostmann’s energetic arms and touched Chantal at the same time. Frau R. noticed the difference and spurred on my despairing passion. She grew so loud in this endeavor that my telephoning neighbor pounded on the wall. I wasn’t able to hold on to Chantal for very long. I was left alone with Rieleck-Sostmann. She cut up a strudel someone had sent her from the Reich. I lay on my back, chewing the raisins, and watched the big girl get dressed. One floor above us, the gramophone began to play. I moved my lips to the words of “Ma Pomme” and smiled at the realization that Hirschbiegel was now my only ray of hope. The fat lieutenant with the childish conception of women had become my friend.
“What are you smiling about?” Rieleck-Sostmann was tightening her garter straps.
“Your new hairdo looks good.” I looked away.
After she left, I went upstairs to visit the lieutenant. In the hall, my neighbor from the next room looked at me respectfully.
Hirschbiegel was already out of his bath. “Tonight’s the night,” he said, beaming. “My luck’s about to change. You’ll see!” He held his breath and buttoned his pants.
The cognac was warm. Hirschbiegel added some cold water to it, and we drank.
“Tell me what you think about my latest treasure.” He proudly picked up a brown record sleeve from the table and extracted a gleaming disk. “Bought it yesterday!” He set his machine in motion and placed the record on the turntable.
“So now you’ve doubled your collection,” I said with a smile. “What’s this?”
A musette band played café music. I poured myself some more cognac and made myself comfortable on Hirschbiegel’s bed.
Maurice Chevalier sang about a girl he fell in love with in April; in the summer, he left her for someone else. The girl was sad, but Chevalier consoled her. She’d be his April girl. He’d come back next year. “Avril prochain—je reviens!”
“What will next April be like?” I said.
We listened to the rest of the song in silence.
When we left the hotel, Hirschbiegel smelled of violet water and had tamed his curls with brilliantine. “Let’s paint the town,” he said, his face full of hope.
We strolled toward the Seine, had a meal in a riverside restaurant, and walked west along the bank. The rear view of a buxom flower girl attracted the lieutenant’s interest; we followed her for two bridges. He bought one of her little bouquets but didn’t have the nerve to make her any further offer. Flowers in hand, he came back to me.
“At least it’s a start,” he said shyly.
A soft evening; summer was already on the wane. You couldn’t see it fading anywhere yet, but you could feel it. The heat had rolled up the chestnut leaves. In the overgrown gardens that sloped down to the river, women were at work, bent over or on their knees, tending potato plants, pulling up weeds and burning them. Stinging nettles overran the meager, narrow flower beds on the bank. There was a baby carriage in the shade of a tree, and next to it the child’s mother huddled, dressed in black; another woman was cutting grass with a sickle. A worker glided past on a clattering bicycle. Tree limbs, thick as arms and marked with fresh ax cuts, were tied to his handlebars, forming a swaying bundle that stuck out like spears for several feet on either side. I watched my shadow creep along ahead of me with slumping shoulders.
“So look, buddy, what’s wrong?” The lieutenant stood in my way.
“What could be wrong? It’s hot.” I fixed my eyes on the shadow.
“You’re the picture of misery, do you know that?” He furrowed his brow and looked worried. “Come on, tell me what’s bothering you.”
I tried to get around him by moving toward the river. “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”
“Is it the death’s-head boys?” He stumbled along beside me. “And the prisoners, right? Is all that getting to you?”
I wiped my hand across my forehead. Things were very busy in rue des Saussaies. The interrogations had multiplied by leaps and bounds. Executions were more frequent. The prisons were bursting at the seams. New camps had been set up. Shots rang out in the night. Leibold, under pressure, was becoming grimmer. He allowed the corporals to hold their “physical education classes” more and more often. The marble building was swarming with Gestapo. Leaves were being canceled. The general nervousness seemed to be growing with each passing day. But that wasn’t it.
To change the subject, I asked Hirschbiegel, “Is your unit supposed to move out?”
He nodded. “We’re waiting for marching orders from one hour to the next. They won’t affect me. The colonel owes me about a thousand from bridge. He wants to win his money back.” At this point, w
ords failed him, and so the lieutenant poked me in the side. “Say, come on, now…I don’t like it when you’re down in the dumps. You lead a charmed life.”
Surprised, I looked my good-natured companion up and down. There were patches of sweat all over his uniform jacket; the massive fellow was positively streaming. “Guys like you get all the breaks,” he said. “You’re a lucky stiff, Roth. Don’t you know that?”
I sighed. “But what’s going to happen?” I replied softly.
“A woman?” He laughed out loud. “I would never have guessed! The ladies’ darling has it bad for someone? Who? A Frenchwoman?”
I nodded.
“Married?”
“Worse.”
“Nothing’s worse.”
“She thinks I’m a swine.”
“You?” He stopped short. “Then she doesn’t deserve you. Or did you try something disgusting?”
I said nothing. The pounding in my temples came back.
“What went on with you two?” Hirschbiegel insisted.
“I pretended to be a Frenchman.”
I searched his eyes carefully; I had put myself in his hands. What I’d done was so outlandish that I had to explain it in exhaustive detail before Hirschbiegel could understand it. In the ensuing silence, we ducked under the arches of a bridge.
“Do you know you could be shot for that?” he blurted out. He braced his hands against his hips.
“First something happens,” I murmured. “Some random thing. Then the next thing happens. And then the next.” My words rang hollow under the damp vaults. “One thing after another, deeper and deeper.”
The stones reflected the movements of the water.
“Do you love her?”
I looked for a hint of irony in his face. “These aren’t the times for love.”
“What can you do, then?” He licked the salt from his upper lip.
“At best, you can focus on the next day,” I said. “Every time you tear a page off the calendar, that’s another victory.”
“Will you see her again?”
“As what? As a Frenchman, a German, an SS translator?”
“As you,” Hirschbiegel replied.
“There’s nothing to be done.” I shivered in the shade. “I tear off calendar pages.”
“And I play bridge,” the fat lieutenant said. “It’s a strange war.”
We walked on. I listened to our footsteps, sounding in unison. We took the next steps leading up from the riverbank and climbed back to the street.
12
I put on the better uniform and considered myself in the mirror as I straightened my belt. The Wehrmacht corporal, a young man with anxious eyes.
I wasn’t doing it out of concern, which is what I’d told myself at first. I wasn’t doing it to protect myself against possible discovery. I was doing it so I could see her again.
Slowly and thoughtfully, I had something to eat in a little restaurant around the corner. Uncharacteristically, I drank three glasses of red wine with my meal. Then I set out on my walk. I went a few blocks beyond the avenue de l’Opéra and passed the open area the Wehrmacht used as a parking lot. The pasty-white sentry posted in front of army headquarters had a damp forehead and seemed about to keel over on the spot. I turned north. The soot from the old chimneys was being washed into the gutters. A beanpole SS lieutenant bent down toward his companion, a listless blond woman. Three Silesian PFCs wearing badly fitting uniforms conversed in their thick dialect. Probably reservists, I thought. You saw more and more of them in the city; the combat troops were disappearing eastward. The men’s arms were full of packages, so much so that they were unable to salute a passing captain with anything but their eyes. Next came two promenading Parisian ladies; their faces looked hollow, their lips and cheeks sucked in. They patted their hairdos nervously as I passed by.
I was getting close to the Trinité square. It was after hours in the pastry shop, but the line of customers waiting to get in had kept the place from closing on time. In their midst stood an officer from the municipal administration, who, it seemed, had broken into line; several small women assailed him. Meanwhile, the rolling shutters came down, and the CLOSED sign was displayed. The officer went off grumbling, as did the housewives. Posters announced guest performances in Paris by the Berlin State Opera. On the posters, a prima donna’s dazzling white face and a bouquet of flowers. When I neared the Pigalle quarter, I thought I needed to rest. Actually, I wanted to give my anxiety a little time. I went into a bar and ordered a glass of absinthe. As I drank, I grasped my uniform sleeve with my free hand, as though trying to touch my current existence, my present. I paid and left.
Now I was only a few streets away. Between the buildings came the muffled sound of thunder burrowing behind the clouds. It wouldn’t rain tonight. I passed the Scheherazade. The doorman made an enticing gesture, but I didn’t slow down.
And there was Turachevsky’s, looking deserted and unreal. I came to a stop a few meters from the door. My collar was too tight; my forehead was sweaty. A group of privates pushed past, cheerfully inviting me to join their party. I stepped to the door with them. Madame herself let us in.
“You’re rather early, gentlemen,” she said with a professional smile.
A swarm of girls and women charged the sofas and settees. They wore simple white smocks—the kimonos would appear after midnight, when the officers were there. I stuck my forage cap under my epaulet and looked around.
“And you, my son?” Madame’s fan whirled. “We’ve met before, n’est-ce pas? You prefer—let me guess.” She liked to keep business moving along briskly; indecisive customers slowed down her turnover.
I anticipated her recommendation and disappeared into the bar, where I ordered an absinthe and sat at one of the farther tables. The tenor stepped onto the stage, surrounded by ladies in evening dress. He sang about the “little difference.” The soldiers started clapping for the dance show. The atmosphere was lighter and freer than it had been the night I was there with the officers. This group drank the less expensive booze, but in great quantities; many guys needed to get their courage up before venturing into the salon.
The girls danced to the strains of the invincibly popular “Ma Pomme”: one step left, three steps right, howls from the blond audience. The piano player struggled with the tempo. Confusion among the dancers, girlish legs moving in disaccord. The little orchestra played stubbornly on.
How mellow it is in here, I thought. Letting the green spirit take effect, I opened a button or two on my uniform and observed my fingers as they beat time to the music. The fear was still there, but masked. I was waiting for whatever came next.
Some half-naked girls used a dwarf as a watering can. The little fellow cried out in a croaking voice, “Water the vegetables! Don’t let my little flowers dry up!” Laughter. A man with performing pigeons induced the pampered birds to jump through hoops and pull a pretty little wagon. He was shouted off the stage when his artistes shit on his evening coat. The rubber man picked up a harmonica with his feet and played a German march.
The dancers appeared in innumerable costumes, ten girls at a time; Chantal was never among them. I was suspended in a green fog. The reason for my visit had fled into other spheres. I watched the piano player and admired his ability to accompany whatever was happening on the stage and make his way flawlessly through all the current hits. He was a man in his fifties. I imagined his life. Studies at the conservatoire, interrupted from 1914 to 1918 by the war. Afterward, concerts in small towns and marriage to a singer, who sacrificed her career for their children; his playing kept the family afloat. Cabarets, barrooms, and finally this whorehouse in Pigalle. He was paid by the hour. The more tunes he banged out, the more money he took home. Sometimes a plastered major stuck a hundred-franc note into his pocket so that he would play “Schön Rosmarin” or “Lippen Schweigen.”
Ch
antal came on as a sultan’s favorite wife. The other girls wore black wigs; holding little cymbals, they gathered in a circle around Chantal. She tossed back her own real hair and greeted the sultan. Frivolous laughter started to well up inside me. The pianist was playing chords in fifths that sounded more Chinese than Arabic. The stage pasha had Chantal dance the Dance of the Veils while the other girls obsequiously offered themselves to him. When the last bit of fabric had fallen, Chantal left the stage. The soldiers applauded. I tore through my own veil and stood up. With no more thought for the danger I’d been brooding over for hours, I stumbled in the general direction of the band.
“Accès interdit, monsieur,” the piano player called out without interrupting the flow of his harem music. Turning my head, I gave him a glassy smile, disappeared behind the velvet border, and collided with the tenor. In the harsh glare of a spotlight, I could see that he was an old man. Watery eyes looked me up and down; white hair peeked out from under his pitch-black wig.
“Ready for a duet, soldier?” His lips were painted so as to make his mouth look like a little heart. Thick powder masked a skin rash, and a scarf covered his wrinkled neck. I pushed him aside and stumbled into the narrow passage. My hobnailed boots made considerable noise.
“Vous allez où, m’sieur?” As he spoke, the stage manager moved a control on the light board and a garish violet shimmer was reflected from the stage.
“Chantal,” I said hoarsely, and left the man behind me.
Bluish light in the corridor. Scraps of words and laughter from behind closed doors. I stood there, reeling and helpless. From the stage, the strains of the “Toreador Song.” I called Chantal. The conversations fell silent for a moment and then began again. Finale and flourish; feeble applause.
April in Paris Page 7