Beekeeper

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘That one’s partner has arrived and is waiting in the car for him. A matter of some urgency. This,’ she said acidly, and held out the flattened remains of what must once have been a birdcage!

  ‘All right, Hermann, enlighten me.’

  ‘Not here, idiot. Somewhere quiet.’

  Was it as bad as that? wondered St-Cyr as the Citroën roared up the impasse, crossed over the rue Stendhal, made a hard right on to the rue de Prairies, a right again and then shot down the rue de Bagnolet. Of course there was so little traffic these days, it really didn’t matter if one stopped where one was supposed to stop. Mon Dieu, it took only ten minutes to cross the city from suburb to suburb at peak times, even with the clutter of bicycles, bicycle-taxis and pedestrians, far less to reach Chez Rudi’s on the Champs-Élysées, especially with Hermann behind the wheel!

  ‘This is not somewhere quiet!’ seethed the Sûreté acidly.

  ‘But it is the centre of all gossip and gossip is what we need, mein lieber Französischer Oberdetektiv. Let me do the talking – that’s an order, eh, so don’t object!’

  Hermann was really in a state but one mustn’t take crap like that! ‘Inspektor, my lips are sealed. After all, you, too, are one of my German masters.’

  ‘Piss off. This is serious. Act natural.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then don’t look as if the ground had just fallen out from under you! Try smiling.’

  ‘You know how much I resent having to come here when most of the city is starving!’

  ‘But you do get fed, so please don’t forget or deny it. And don’t seal your lips to a damned good feed. I’m going to order for you.’

  Nom de Jésus-Christ, must Hermann be the same as all the others of the Occupier only more authoritarian, more forceful, more blind and insensitive to even the simplest wishes of his partner?

  Of course. After all, like Rudi Sturmbacher, he was a Bavarian.

  Beerhall big and at the tea-and-coffee stage at 3:47 p.m., the restaurant was in one of its more genteel modes. Couples here, couples there. Uniforms and pretty girls who should have known better than to consort with the enemy in a place so visible.

  But none of this caused Hermann to stop on the threshold, to gape in surprise and dart his eyes over the walls and ceiling, then hesitantly grin only to caution himself and finally croak, ‘Mein Gott, Louis. Was it done overnight?’

  From wainscoting to ceiling, and over that too, huge murals revealed the heart, the mind, the sympathies and loyalties of the restaurant’s owner.

  ‘It’s Rudi’s little contribution to morale,’ whispered St-Cyr. ‘Be sure to praise it. You’ll have to and so will I.’

  Across the far wall, Arminius, conqueror of three Roman legions in AD9, rode a white stallion through the brooding forests of the Teutoburger Wald. Chained centurions and legionaries were among the captives, their former slaves, too, and in front of the pommel of his saddle was bent all but double, a naked maiden, she forced to moon her gorgeous backside to the heavens and to all and sundry, her long, blonde tresses trailing.

  There were crowded shields and swords and drinking horns of mead among the barbarians who wore wolfskins and whose women were dressed in blowsy, off-the-shoulder gowns that were belted at the waist. Smiles and grins were on most of the conquerors, outraised arms of welcome from the humble citizens of their forest abode. Babes in arms, babes on shoulders to better see the victorious, and babes voraciously suckling from under bearskin comforters. Kids everywhere.

  ‘I like the helmet, Louis.’

  It was big and it was winged. ‘What about his brassiere?’

  ‘Did they wear such things – the men, that is? I don’t think the women did.’ It was of iron – two mounds shaped like tumuli that had been forged by Vulcan himself. A battle-axe in hand, the expression on that thick-bearded, big-boned Teutonic countenance was ever-grim even in conquest. ‘Muscles … mein Gott, look at his arms and thighs!’

  ‘Look at the prize he’s brought home. There is something vaguely familiar about her but I can’t quite put my finger on it. The hair perhaps.’

  ‘Her ass, Dummkopf! and the women who are looking on.’

  Most of the female faces were similar. ‘Rudi’s little Yvette and his Julie were models.’

  ‘Helga, too, idiot!’

  Rudi’s youngest sister waited on tables and was still hoping for a husband. ‘But they all wear boar-tooth necklaces?’ hazarded St-Cyr.

  ‘That’s because they like the feel of teeth!’

  There were always a few plain-clothed Gestapo about, a few of the SS too, in uniform, and burly Feldgendarmen, et cetera. Saying hello to some, ignoring others, Hermann found a table right in the middle and, throwing himself into a chair, sat staring up at the ceiling in wonder to where Stukas dived through thunderclouds, Henkel-ms dropped their bombs and Messerschmitts chased Spitfires which exploded into flames.

  ‘Well, my Hermann. You say nothing?’

  It was Helga. The round, milkmaid’s eyes were bluer than blue, the blonde braids cut shoulder length, the chunky hips firm under a pale-blue workdress that hugged them.

  ‘Helga, meine Schatze.’ My treasure. ‘I can’t believe it,’ swore Hermann, still taken aback and trying, perhaps, to find a deeper meaning where there was absolutely none.

  She indicated the other wall on which a naked Brünnhilde rode a comparable white stallion but at one of the Munich torch-lit fêtes. Surrounded by lusty, young torch-bearing Brown Shirts with swastika armbands, the girl had risen up in her stirrups for a better look at the bonfire.

  ‘That’s you,’ he murmured, half in surprise perhaps, half in interest – it was hard to tell.

  ‘I modelled for it,’ gushed the girl. ‘Rudi let me.’

  The blaze was huge, a pillar of fire whose light glistened in her eyes and on her pale white thighs and ample breasts, but lost itself among the tangled mat of pubic hair which glowed more softly.

  ‘Good for Rudi, Helga. You deserve it. Alle Halbeit ist taub, eh, Louis?’ Half-measures are no-measures.

  ‘Such poise, mein Kamerad der Kriminalpolizei. Were you one of the BDMs?’ asked Louis of her.

  The Bund deutscher Mädchen, the League of German Maidens. ‘Of course. It’s gesunde Erotica, is it not, my Hermann?’

  Healthy eroticism designed to increase the birthrate and produce cannon fodder. ‘This …’ Kohler indicated the murals. ‘Is fantastic, Helga.’

  ‘If only the Führer knew,’ exclaimed Louis.

  ‘He does. Rudi sent him photographs,’ she said and proudly blushed.

  ‘The murals are bound to be the talk of Paris and Berlin then,’ enthused St-Cyr. ‘Ah! not Braque, you understand, or Picasso who is also out of favour but also thinks he’s so good. Still … what can I say, Hermann? I, a lover of art?’

  And bullshit! Braque and Picasso were the fathers of cubism! ‘Art for the people and of the people.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s it exactly!’ said Louis, still full of enthusiasm.

  ‘Pea soup with pig’s snout and trotters, Helga,’ said Hermann positively.

  She screwed up her face in distress and frowned deeply. ‘Rudi won’t like it. You know how he is. Meals at mealtimes. Coffee and cakes at other times.’

  Kohler put a hand firmly on her hip. ‘Tell him it’s necessary and that I’ve managed something sweet for him. Now after the soup, we’ll have the grilled Franconian sausages with pork rind, sauerkraut and boiled potatoes. And two big steins of that Münchener Löwen he saves for friends like us. The sight of you up there on that wall has made me hungry.’

  But had it made him see her as she really was? wondered Helga, and wetting the end of her pencil, took longer at this than necessary.

  ‘Encouraging her will only get you in trouble!’ hissed St-Cyr when the girl had disappeared into the kitchens.

  ‘Trouble,’ muttered Kohler. ‘Our days are clouded with it just like those of the Romans on that wall.’

  From a pocket he to
ok a small ball bearing of silver perhaps, and after rolling it around in a palm, let it trickle slowly across the table towards his partner and friend. ‘Don’t bite on it, Louis. I already have.’

  The days of the Munich Putsch, the uprising of 8 November 1923, lived on in the triumph of murals. A Brown Shirt from them, a survivor with fists, the mountain of flesh that Rudi Sturmbacher had become weighed 166 kilos. The hair was flaxen and cut short in Wehrmacht and SS style; the eyes were small, red-rimmed, pale-blue and wary.

  A moment ago there had been greed and larceny in those eyes – the expectation of profit which had accompanied the huge platter of sausage, potatoes, sauerkraut, et cetera, to the table.

  Uneasily the mountain’s gaze flickered over the little silver ball bearing Hermann had placed in an ashtray. That gaze passed beyond this humble Sûreté, thought St-Cyr, and took in at once the whole front half of the restaurant, the reward for years of service and loyalty, the murals, the entrance – everything. Even the newspapers and magazines that had come straight from the Reich that very morning.

  Rudi hadn’t touched the ball bearing and wouldn’t. ‘Something sweet,’ he breathed and pursed the big lips that had only just lost their grin.

  ‘Honey,’ confided Hermann, conspiratorially leaning over the table, and why must he do this? demanded St-Cyr silently. Didn’t he care about the SS and Gestapo who were now taking note of them, even the GFPs, the Secret Police of the Army? Didn’t he know that gossip was instantly passed to, and generated here at the centre of it?

  ‘Honey from Russia,’ confessed the Sûreté – one had to say something, especially after having had to listen, over their soup, to Hermann’s long-winded discourse on the subject.

  Steam rose from the platter, and with it came an aroma which made the juices flood to remind one that meals, even though from the Occupier as this one was, were seldom seen and often taken on the run.

  ‘We could get you some,’ offered Hermann – merde, even when bluffing he could be blithe about it!

  ‘How?’ asked Rudi. He wouldn’t let on to these two what he knew. Not yet. But in the past Hermann had often been a useful source, a student of the black market, so one had best make a pretence of being attentive.

  ‘Two lorries. Drivers who won’t say anything. Yourself and myself, I think,’ said Hermann. ‘Tonight would be best. Let’s set it for 22:00 hours, me to meet you and the lorries, you to choose the meeting place.’

  ‘Honey … Whose honey, mein Lieber?’ puzzled Rudi softly.

  Hermann gave the shrug he always did when meaning, It could be anyone’s, so why bother worrying?

  Was Hermann slipping? wondered Rudi. Had the Kripo’s most disloyal Detektiv left little messages along his route today only to forget all about them? ‘Oskar,’ he indicated the little ball bearing of silver and gold, ‘is very well placed, my Hermann. But it’s good you’ve come to me – yes, yes it is. Oskar could do a lot for you and this one.’ He indicated the Sûreté, the traitor, the patriot who was, at the moment, being treated with felt gloves simply because Gestapo Boemelburg needed him to fight common crime and keep the people quiet. ‘I’m certain of it, Hermann. Herr Schlacht is a man of many talents and a valued client. Enjoy your dinners. Drink your beer. They’re on the house.’

  Rudi abruptly got up, deliberately knocking the table a little and sloshing their beer. ‘Now wait!’ bleated Hermann. ‘Sit down, eh? Come on. We’re friends.’

  ‘And friends are what you and this one need.’

  Sacré nom de nom, were things that bad? cursed St-Cyr and managed – yes, managed somehow to dig the serving spoon into the platter and load his plate without spilling a drop.

  ‘You’ve such splendid linen, Herr Sturmbacher. Everything complements the meal.’ Beer instead of wine!

  Louis stabbed a chunk of sausage and brought it up to let those nostrils of his flare as he drew in the aroma – no cat meat, no rat meat, no sawdust either, thought Kohler.

  Repeatedly dumbfounded by Louis’s coolness in the face of a crisis, he watched as his partner and friend blew on the morsel, chewed it slowly as a connoisseur would, and pronounced it magnificent.

  ‘Don’t try to flatter me,’ breathed Rudi. ‘I know it’s perfect. So, eat, yes, and let’s talk a little. This is serious, Hermann, and you’d better listen.’

  Word had got to Rudi from Frau Hillebrand of the Procurement Office. Whispers of a birdcage had come from Schlacht himself.

  ‘The Hotel Drouot, Hermann. As you were consorting with a certain chanteuse who shall remain nameless, a call was being placed from the ground floor. I could even hear crockery in the background.’

  ‘He’s lost his little badge,’ swallowed Kohler. ‘I should have told him where it was.’

  ‘Certainly not here and not with the Bzp Qbergruppenführer Denke who is, I believe, already heading for the Russian Front, courtesy of the Kommandant von Gross-Paris. Your miliciens, by the way, were taken directly to the Santé and shot. I … why I just thought you ought to know, Hermann, that when a flea tickles an ear these days, the elephant is likely to sneeze.’

  Or fart! ‘It’s the trunk you mean. The flea tickles the elephant’s trunk, Rudi,’ muttered Hermann. He hadn’t meant for those two to be shot, thought St-Cyr, but had merely felt a few years of forced labour would have been good for them.

  ‘Eat,’ urged the mountain. ‘Don’t let that little taste of home you wanted go to waste. It’ll be in every mouthful.’

  The two of them dug in. Mein Gott, but they discovered they were hungry! Beer was taken. Bread – good Bavarian Roggenbrot – was broken and savoured with tears, so gut. Ja gut! ‘Now listen. you get that little badge for me, you two, and I will forget we even spoke of it. Oskar separates the honey when he recovers the wax, and a little of that “sweetness” already comes to me.’

  Ah Scheisse! ‘He also makes little wafers for you, doesn’t he?’ gulped Kohler.

  Rudi brushed ham-fat fingers over the linen before sampling the sausage. He toyed with a curled wedge of pork rind, judged it crisp enough and fully flavoured. ‘I did not hear that, Hermann. The restaurant pays for itself. What little is left, is sent home to my parents who are getting on and finding things somewhat more difficult than anticipated.’

  But to send money home from an occupied territory was illegal, therefore Rudi had to have another route. Switzerland …? The wafers are going there, thought Kohler. Merde but hadn’t he stepped in the shit this time! ‘I’ll get you the badge, Rudi. That’s a promise. No problem.’

  ‘If this beekeeper of yours was murdered, who cares, eh, Jean-Louis? What? Is the sauerkraut not to your liking?’

  ‘No. No, it’s perfect, Herr Sturmbacher.’

  ‘And you’re not even sure it was murder, are you?’

  Had the news travelled so fast and in such detail? ‘Not yet, but I believe we will soon be satisfied. One thing does puzzle me, but I …’

  Louis left the thought dangling while he helped himself to more from the platter and then peered deeply into his stein.

  ‘Helga … Helga, meine Schwester, another beer for each of my friends,’ sang out Rudi.

  The whole restaurantheard it, a good sign. ‘Danke,’ said St-Cyr. ‘You see, Rudi – may I call you that when in …’ He indicated the cosy friendship of their table and said, ‘In such Gemütlichkeit?’

  ‘Herr Sturmbacher, I think.’

  ‘Gut! It’s always best for me to be reminded of where I sit in this Occupation of yours. You see, Herr Sturmbacher, the victim was what we French call an original and this, I feel, must have contributed much to his demise.’

  ‘He doted on his daughter,’ confided Kohler, quickly picking up the thread Louis wanted him to pick up.

  ‘But hated and despised his son,’ said the Sûreté.

  ‘Whom the mother loved with a mother’s love, thereby all but totally rejecting the daughter, Rudi,’ insisted Kohler.

  ‘Who held the couple together and fed them as well as she
could.’

  ‘And helped her father with his bees.’

  ‘While revering her brother.’

  ‘Who hadn’t shared the same father with her,’ tut-tutted Hermann.

  ‘And remains lost in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Reich.’

  ‘Oflag 17A, Rudi,’ swore Hermann, sadly shaking his head. ‘A Kriegsgefangener.’

  ‘A Kriege,’ echoed the mountain, giving the slang for such and immediately taking note of what these two were really after. ‘I’ll see what I can do, Hermann. The badge in return for a little help.’

  ‘Maxim’s,’ breathed Hermann conspiratorially. ‘Did our Bonze of the gold wafers and the candle wax pay the fifty thousand francs down for her to get her son released? Save us time, Rudi, and the expense of going to that restaurant. You know the beer there always gives me gas, the soup also.’

  ‘Candles …?’ asked the mountain, ignoring the question of Maxim’s, but had he forgotten he’d mentioned Schlacht separated the honey when recovering the wax, wondered St-Cyr, or was he but testing the air for the perfume of how much they really knew?

  ‘Old Shatter Hand coughed up that crap about the candles,’ confessed Hermann, shrugging broadly.

  These two were known for the speed and ruthlessly thorough determination with which they sought their answers and steadfastly upheld the truth. One law for all and only one, the fools. ‘Oskar does make candles, yes.’

  ‘Where?’ shot Hermann, forgetting about Maxim’s for the moment.

  ‘That I do not know nor ask. Really, meine Lieben, have you not listened? Can you not realize who your friends should be? Der Führer has …’

  Rudi leaned over the table, looked to one side and to the other for listening ears not wanted, then thinking better of confiding it to both of them, got up and crooked a finger at this fellow countryman of his who was so delinquent, and whispered, ‘Der Führer has a secret weapon, Hermann. Yes, I have heard this. Everything of such interest passes through, here, but one must be careful to whom one imparts such confidences? The Vergeltungswaffe-Eins, Hermann. Even as we speak, the ground is being prepared for the launching ramps from which they will be sent. Normandy and Picardy have been mentioned.’