She watched silently while he moved his chair from behind the desk and lifted the rug from the floor beneath it. His hand searched for a wooden slat on the floor, and finding it, pressed it. A small trapdoor, a little more than a foot wide, sprang up. He reached inside and took out what looked like a tin safe-deposit box and placed it on the table. He lifted the latch, opened it, and beckoned to her. “Look.”
She walked to the desk and, standing beside him, looked down. The box was filled with shining gold coins. She was speechless.
His face was serious. “Gold louis. There are forty boxes like this here. One hundred thousand in all.”
Her breath rushed from her. “My God! I had no idea.” She looked at him. “How—?”
“No questions,” he answered. “I have them. That’s all that matters. And you’re going to bring them to Switzerland.”
“How?” she asked. “You know all the luggage is searched when we cross the border.”
“I thought of that,” he smiled. He gestured to her, and she followed him to the window. He pointed to the Mercedes limousine standing in the courtyard. “It looks like just any other car, doesn’t it?”
She nodded.
“It’s not,” he said. “The side panels around the doors and sides are hollow and lined with soundproofing material so that the coins will not rattle and make noise. I had it specially built.”
“What if the men who built it talk?”
“They won’t talk,” he said. “They were Jews. And they are long since gone.”
“Dead?”
He didn’t answer. He went back to the desk and placed the box back in the trap, then covered it again with the rug and moved the chair back into place.
He sat down in the chair. “You will have to transfer it alone. I will show you how to gain access to the panels. But no one must see you do it. No one. Your life and your daughter’s will be worth nothing if you are seen. I do not have to explain what people will do for that kind of money.”
She nodded. Murder had been committed for far less.
“You will have to arrange at least one or two hours each night to be alone in the house. It does not all have to be done in one night. You have a month. When it is all in place you will be ready to leave.”
“Will Schwebel be the only one going with me?”
“No. There will be another man with him. An ex-paratrooper. Tough and a trained killer. If there is any real trouble he knows how to handle it.”
“And what do I do with it when I get there?”
“Rent a numbered box at one of the Swiss banks. Then remove the gold in the same way you placed it there. A little at a time. When the car is empty, Schwebel and his assistant will then drive the car to me in Germany.”
She sank into a chair. “For the first time, I am frightened.”
He looked at her steadily. “So am I,” he said heavily. “But we have no choice. There is nothing else we can do if we want to have any life together after this is over.”
***
Not once in all the time they had been together had he ever told her that he loved her—not even when his passion burst and flooded her with his seed did he ever do more than groan, trembling in the grip of his ecstasy until she feared that the crush of his body would thrust its way deep into her womb. And even now, as they stood in the doorway of the small French house, the gray of morning spilling through the open door, he was still erect and reserved.
Politely he leaned forward and kissed her formally on both cheeks. “Be careful,” he said.
“I will.” She nodded.
Then he turned to Janette, who had been standing next to her mother, her eyes wide, and picked her up in his arms. He kissed the child’s forehead, then her mouth. “Auf Wiedersehen, Liebchen,” he said. “Be a good girl and do as your mother tells you.”
The child nodded. “Yes, Papa General.”
He smiled and gave her to her mother. “I will see you soon,” he said, then turned and marched out the door, getting into the car that was to drive him to the train without looking back.
Anna waited until the car left the driveway before closing the door and turning back into the house. She put the child down.
“Mama?”
Anna looked down at her.
“Will Papa General come back?”
Anna was surprised. “What makes you ask that?”
“Nana says that he is going and that Monsieur Maurice is going to be the new papa.”
“Nana is stupid,” Anna said. “She does not know what she is saying.”
“But Nana said that Papa General is going to Germany, and that we can’t go with him. And now, Monsieur Maurice is going to be in charge.”
“Nana is wrong. When Papa General is away I am in charge. No one else. Not Monsieur Maurice, not anyone.”
“Then Papa General is coming back,” Janette said.
Anna hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Yes, he will come back. And you can tell stupid Nana that.”
Two hours later when Schwebel returned from the train station, she called him upstairs into the general’s study and closed the door. She sat in the chair behind the desk. “I think we may have a problem.”
He was silent, waiting for her to speak further.
“The child’s nurse. She talks too much. She has already told the child that the general will not return. If she talks to the child, who knows who else she might be talking with?”
Schwebel nodded.
“A word in the wrong place could endanger the general’s plans,” she said.
“I will take care of the matter, Countess,” he said.
She looked up at him in surprise. It was the first time he had ever addressed her by title. Until now it had always been Frau Pojarska.
There was no change in the expression on his face. “Is there anything else, Countess?”
“Nothing else,” she said, shaking her head. “Thank you, Johann.”
He bowed politely and left the room. Two days later the nanny had her day off. She never returned to work.
***
Maurice’s voice was guarded on the telephone. “I must see you.”
It had been three weeks since Wolfgang had left Paris and this was the first time she had heard from him in all that time. “I am here,” she said simply.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I may be under surveillance. Now that I have made my overtures I do not dare come to your place.”
“Can’t we discuss it on the telephone?”
“There are certain papers I must turn over to you. Exit visas for yourself and Janette approved by the French authorities and the Germans. Other matters concerning mutual affairs.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “There is no way I can come to see you. Schwebel is under orders to accompany me every time I leave the house.”
“Merde!” He fell silent.
She waited for him to speak.
“There is not much time left,” he said. “The day after tomorrow I will be gone.”
She still did not speak.
“After midnight tonight,” he said, “be at the back door of your house. If I am not there by half-past the hour, do not wait for me.”
At ten minutes past midnight she heard a light tapping on the service door. Quickly, she got to her feet and opened it. He stepped inside and shut the door quickly.
“Is everyone asleep?” he whispered.
She nodded.
“Schwebel?”
“Since the general left, he spends the night in the small apartment over the coach house.”
“I need a drink,” he said abruptly.
“Come,” she said. She led him through the darkened house to the small study on the second floor. She opened the cabinet and took out a bottle of cognac and a snifter. Quickly she filled it almost to the brim and handed it to him.
He drank half of it almost at one gulp and let out a deep sigh. Slowly he seemed to relax. “It’s been like walking a tightrope,” he said. “Que
stions. Always questions. Traps in every corner.”
She didn’t speak.
He took another sip of the cognac. “Have you heard from Wolfgang?”
“No. Should I have?’
He looked up at her. “I suppose not. Still, I thought he might have gotten word to you somehow.”
She changed the subject. “You said you had some papers for me.”
“Yes.” He opened his jacket and took out an envelope. “The exit visas for you and Janette all countersigned and approved by the French and Swiss authorities.”
She opened the envelope and looked at the papers. They were in order. She put them down on the desk. “You said there were other matters.”
“They were not things that could be committed to paper,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“The gold,” he said.
“Gold?” She hoped the puzzled sound in her voice was convincing. “What gold?”
“I have heard rumors at different times that Wolfgang had been buying up gold louis.”
“That’s the first time I heard of it,” she said. “And I thought I knew everything that was going on.”
“He never said anything to you?”
She shook her head.
“Strange,” he said. “The information came from usually reliable sources.”
“You’d better check them again,” she said. She paused, then as if she had a sudden idea. “Could it be that it is another form of trap they are setting for you? To discover how close you really were to the general?”
“I never thought of that. It is possible.” He looked at her with open admiration. “I am beginning now to understand why I have been attracted to you from the very beginning.”
She smiled, keeping the relief from showing in her eyes. “You’re being very French. And very gallant.”
“Not true,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I’m sure you know how I felt about you.”
She allowed her hand to rest in his. She did not want to seem too abrupt. After a moment, she spoke. “It is getting late. It might be dangerous for you to remain too long.”
“No,” he said. A flush surged into his face. “This time may not come again. I want you to know how I feel.”
“Maurice—” She tried to keep her voice light as she withdrew her hand. “We’re not children. This is neither the time nor the place.”
His voice was challenging. “I am not a one-meter-eighty Boche general but I have a power that none of them have, a strength that all of them envy.” His hand moved quickly, unbuttoning his fly. “Look!” he commanded.
She stared down at him, unable to keep the look of surprise from her face. It was as if whatever growth had not gone into his slight frame and height had all gone into his phallus. It seemed almost as thick as his wrist and half the length of his thigh.
“Touch it!” he ordered. “You will need more than two hands to hold all of it.”
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head but unable to take her eyes from it.
“Why?” he demanded.
She forced her eyes up to his face. “Because I have my period. And if I touched it I am afraid I would not be able to stop.”
He searched her eyes. “You’re not lying to me?”
“I’m not lying.” She forced a smile. “Who could lie with a monster like that threatening me?”
He took a deep breath, then turned away for a moment. When he turned back to her his clothing was rearranged. “There will come a time,” he said. “You will not be able to forget this.”
***
One week later she drove across the border into Switzerland, Schwebel and the ex-paratrooper in the front seat, she and Janette, wrapped in blankets, in the back. The border guards waved them through without even a cursory inspection of her luggage.
And now, more than a year later, as she listened to Wolfgang arrange her strange betrothal, she remembered the words Maurice had spoken that last night in Paris. It was at that moment she first realized that he had been right. She had not been able to forget. As much as she tried to concentrate on the knitting needles in her hands, all she could see was that monstrous phallus, the swollen red glans glistening moistly at her.
***
Wolfgang snapped the valise shut and straightened up. He turned toward her. “That does it.”
“Yes.”
They were standing on opposite sides of the bed. “It will be a long time,” he said. “Perhaps years.”
“I know.”
He forced a wry smile. “I won’t even be here for your wedding.”
She didn’t speak.
He made no move to come around the bed to her. “I never told you that I love you, did I?”
She shook her head. “No, never.”
“But you know that I do, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe not the same way that other people love each other. But in my own fashion.”
“I know,” she said. “As I love you. In my own fashion.”
He glanced at his watch. “I guess it’s time.”
She opened the door and signaled to Schwebel, who was waiting. He picked up the valise and they followed him downstairs. At the halfway landing, she placed a hand on Wolfgang’s arm, stopping him. She waited until Schwebel had gone outside before she spoke. “The gold? What do you want me to do with it?”
“Leave it where it is,” he said. “As soon as I get settled I will write you and let you know.”
She still held on to his arm. “I wish you were going directly to South America from here, not back to Germany.”
“There are still things I must do there,” he said. “But do not worry, I will be safe. I will remain in the French zone, where Maurice has everything arranged for me.”
“I still don’t trust him,” she said.
He tried to joke. “Fine way for a woman to talk about her future husband.”
She didn’t smile. “That makes no difference.”
“He’s greedy,” he said. “He wants the title and the money. And he knows there’s no way he can get either except through us. Nothing will happen, believe me.”
She looked into his eyes. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. You have been too good to me.”
He cleared his throat of a sudden tightness. “You have been good to me also.”
“Be careful anyway.”
He thought for a moment. “You be careful too. Remember what I told you. No matter how much he insists, after you are married do not transfer the companies into his name. Just have him appointed the managing director of them. If he asks why you won’t do it, tell him that I did not leave the transfer papers with you.”
“I’ll remember.”
“That should keep him in line,” he said. “He wouldn’t dare try anything unless it’s all in his hands.”
“I understand,” she said.
This time he kissed her on the mouth. There was a faint saltiness to her lips. He drew back and looked at her. “No tears.”
She shook her head. “No tears.”
“Strange things happen during a war,” he said. “But you made some of it beautiful.” He kissed her again. “That’s for the little one. Tell her that I was sorry I could not wait for her to return from kindergarten.”
“I’ll tell her.”
They went down to the front door. Once again, he kissed her. Gently this time. “Auf Wiedersehen, mein Liebchen.”
***
Maurice’s voice crackled with pleased excitement through the telephone lines from Paris. “The De Gaulle government accepted my proposal. You are now talking to the Marquis de la Beauville.”
“M’sieur le Marquis,” she said. “May I offer my congratulations?”
“Madame la Marquise,” he said. “That is not all I expect you to offer.”
She laughed. “That is good news.”
“There is even more,” he said. “I managed to have your old papers disappear from the files and have a w
hole new set for you.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Don’t ask how. It was expensive but it was worth it. Now there is no one who can point a finger at you. The new papers are in the mail to you. Now all you need are new photographs to attach to them, then go to the French Consul and sign them and it’s all over.”
“But there are still some people in Paris who might recognize me.”
“I thought of that too. Dye your hair blond and change the style. Shoulder length with waves is the latest thing in Paris right now and it would be perfect for you. Plucked eyebrows are also in fashion, as are dark eye makeup and blush-accented high cheekbones. Do that before you have the photos taken. And one more thing. You will notice your residency permit is made out in the name of Countess Tanya Pojarska. I’ve dropped the Anna for a reason. Just as Wolfgang had you drop Tanya because it was not a German name, I want you to go back to it, just in case anyone does try to put two and two together.”
“I’ll go to the beauty parlor first thing in the morning,” she said. A thought flashed through her mind. “You seem to know a great deal about the latest fashion.”
He laughed. “We own a perfume factory in Grasse, remember? It would be a simple step to jump from there into cosmetics. I’ve been studying the market. After all the drabness of the war years, it’s ready for a tremendous expansion—women are just bored with being plain.”
“I think you’re right,” she said.
“I know I’m right,” he said. “And I’m making all the contacts I can in that field.”
“I hate to bring it up,” she said, “but there’s one thing you seem to have forgotten.”
“What’s that?”
“Our marriage.”
There was a moment’s silence. “I thought we’d be married when you came to Paris.”
“No,” she said. “I know the French. There will be too many papers to fill out and too many questions to answer. They will want to check everything and that will take forever. Besides, who knows what they might discover? Then all our plans will be for nothing. We’ll get married up here as soon as I have the papers completed. It will be much simpler.” She laughed. “Besides I like the idea of coming back to France as the wife of the Marquis de la Beauville.”
She could almost see him preening over the telephone. “Of course, my dear,” he said quickly. “Anything you want.”
Goodbye, Janette Page 3