Beekeeper

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘A romance made of all the good things, eh?’

  The detective moved on through the flat. He wished, perhaps, that others he knew could also see it. Quite obviously the owner had left Paris during the exodus of June 1940 and hadn’t returned, thereby forfeiting all right to the flat and its contents. Those, too, of his safety deposit boxes and bank accounts.

  There were music boxes – girlhood things Frau Schlacht must have once admired and now found possible to buy in quantity, thought Kohler. There was even a mechanical bank – man and his best friend, which when fed a sou, danced around to a scratchy tune. ‘Nothing but the best,’ he snorted.

  ‘Every Saturday she visits Saint-Ouen to spend the morning among the stalls. They remind her of home, I think. I … I have to accompany her because of the language, you understand. Madame can’t speak a word of French.’

  Or won’t, like so many of the Occupier. ‘And Switzerland – does she take you there when she visits it for her husband?’ It was just a shot in the dark. Well, not really, but what the hell, one never knew …

  ‘Four times a year. At … at every quarter. Herr Schlacht has relatives who are old and … and in need of comfort.’

  Once again, a man with a big family. ‘And are her suitcases heavier when you leave or when you arrive?’

  She would duck her eyes and say it modestly, thought Mariette. ‘Heavier when we arrive. Always it is this way.’

  ‘And how many banks does she visit for that husband of hers?’

  Madame would kill her if she knew about her telling him, but he was of the Gestapo and had shown her his badge. ‘Three. One in Zurich, another in Bern, and the last in Lausanne. It … it is best that way, is it not?’

  This kid wasn’t dumb and had figured it all out, had damned well known it was illegal for any citizen of the Reich to send or hold money in a foreign bank, yet they all did it, those who could.

  In the master bedroom a flowery dust of icing sugar fell from the Turkish delight the detective sampled. Herr Kohler noticed this dust as he noticed everything, and even as he nodded and said, ‘Pas mal, pas mal – not bad – she knew he was thinking she was counting the bonbons because Madame would most certainly do so later.

  ‘I’ll leave her a little note,’ he said, eating another.

  ‘Please don’t. You … you mustn’t. Just let her blame me as she often does when she loses count. I … I will eventually be forgiven.’

  ‘What does she pay you?’

  ‘Fifty a week.’

  Two hundred francs a month! And yet … and yet such maids, even those who had taken the trouble to learn a little deutsch – and this one knew far more than that – were dirt cheap and easy to come by. The French bourgeoisie had seen to that. And one did get fed, clothed and have a room, even though it was usually nothing but a filthy garret and as cold as Siberia in winter. But this one must have been treated far better and, under Frau Schlacht’s firm hand, no doubt, had learned to bathe and groom herself every day or else.

  ‘Saturday afternoons, after the flea market, I am allowed to visit my family and to … to take them a few little things that are no longer needed here.’

  A stale loaf of bread, a half-litre of wine – the dregs of a dead soldier? wondered Kohler. A suspect egg, a few withered carrots, even the icing sugar that would soon be left in the bottom of this box.

  The detective set the bonbons on the bedside table among the clutter of figurines. He touched the Art Deco alarm clock Madame had found last Saturday. He sat down on the edge of her bed and ran a hand over the antique lace of its spread, but did not say pas mal this time, for he was now concentrating on the photograph of Madame’s son whose frame was draped in black.

  ‘A sergeant and so young,’ said Mariette, surprised by the steadiness of her voice, for the room had grown quiet and the clock, it must have stopped. Ah no!

  ‘A midshipman on a U-boat, a Fähnrich zur See in Unterseebooten,’ muttered the detective, and there was to this giant with the terrible scar the sadness of a father who had, perhaps, lost a son himself. The postcard he picked up had the photograph of men firing the bow cannon of a submarine, and beneath this, the words of a song. ‘Kameraden auf See,’ he snorted sadly. ‘That’s an eighty-eight millimetre gun, probably the most versatile thing to have come out of this lousy war so far. Is this the medal she kisses before bed? It’s the boy’s Kriegsabzeichen. Every man aboard a U-boat gets one after two sorties. Two is good and damned lucky. Three are possible. Four is … Well, you must know all about that.’

  He ran a forefinger over the eagle and swastika above the badge’s U-boat, then indicated the oval wreath of oak leaves around it. ‘When did his boat go down?’ he asked.

  ‘In December. The fifteenth. A Tuesday.’

  And still fresh in Frau Schlacht’s mind.

  ‘Madame lost her brother in the Great War. She …’

  ‘Hates you French.’

  ‘But myself not so much, I think.’

  This kid had really learned her lessons.

  There were photos on the wall next to a landscape of Renoir’s: black, cheaply-framed snapshots of the three Schlacht daughters. The youngest was a fresh-faced Luftwaffe Signals Auxiliary; the middle one, a Red Cross nurse, but taken in the summer of 1941 during the blitzkrieg in the east and not among the shattered, snow-covered ruins of Stalingrad. The eldest, a big, round-faced replica of Herr Schlacht, wore the grin, the uptilted goggles and dungarees of a scrap-metal cutter with torch in the yards along the Luisenstädter Kanal.

  The detective eased the bedside table drawer open and ran his pale blue eyes over the contents. He touched the neckerchief Madame’s son had worn on parade as a Hitlerjugend and noted that it was tightly crumpled and damp.

  ‘She still cries,’ said Mariette softly. ‘A mother must, is that not so, monsieur?’

  The boy’s pocketknife – black-handled and with an oval portrait of the German Führer and stainless steel eagle and swastika – was there, too, and as the detective fingered it, she heard herself saying, ‘Klaus forgot to take it with him when he last visited Paris in November. Madame … Madame feels his leaving it behind was an ill omen for which she blames herself for not having sent it on to him by special courier. But you see, she did not know where to send it.’

  ‘Lorient, probably. It’s on the Breton Coast. My partner and I were there not so long ago. A dollmaker. The Kapitän zur See Kaestner.’

  ‘But … but could it have been the same boat and now you’ve come here, too?’ she blurted, revealing at once that she, herself, might quite possibly be superstitious.

  The detective looked up at her and shrugged, but there was not the emptiness that had just been in his gaze. Now there was a warmth, the loss of loved ones, the feeling, yes, that all were a part of this war and that he had had enough of it.

  Unlike Madame, he spoke French and well, and this was a curious thing, but had it made her tongue loose? wondered Mariette and hazarded, for it was not her place to demand, ‘Have you seen enough, monsieur?’

  ‘I’ll leave in a minute. Don’t worry. Just don’t tell her I was here, eh? and remember your concierge, Madame Jouvand, is also on board and won’t say a thing.’

  He examined the Louis Vuitton trousse de toilette Madame had bought – an extravagance she had lamented but had not denied herself. He examined her jewellery, such as it was.

  ‘Marcasite,’ he said, fingering a bracelet. ‘Onyx and carnelian – most of these are from what was once Isaac Kahn’s factory in Pforzheim. Mein Gott, does she not realize he was Jewish? I may have to report it. You remember I said so, eh?’ And grâce à Dieu for that little bit of ammunition!

  There were plastic bracelets and bangles, chrome neckchains – the gaudy, cheap and plain, when Madame could have had the very best.

  There were sturdy black leather shoes fit for walking all day, lisle stockings, no silk ones, not her, thought Kohler – silk was for parachutes. There were stiff, prewar woollen skirts and jackets, a s
mall pin on the lapel of one. ‘The Honour Cross of the German Mother,’ he said. ‘A bronze …’

  A Tyrolean hat à la Fräulein Braun caught his eye and he asked, ‘Like Eva, does your mistress spend her time waiting for the light of her life to come home?’

  ‘He’s never here. Well, not never. Only sometimes.’

  ‘In and out, eh?’

  ‘She hopes he will stay and invariably begs him to, but he’s … he’s very busy.’

  ‘So, okay, tell me where you went last Thursday?’

  The detective had not said why he had come to the flat. ‘She … she went out at about two in the afternoon. That … that is all I know.’

  A cautious answer. ‘Did she take anything with her?’

  ‘I … I do not think so, monsieur. Just her handbag. The big one.’

  ‘You can do better than that.’

  The emptiness had come back into his eyes. He patted the bedspread and indicated she had better sit down beside him. ‘It helps,’ he said tonelessly. Would he now beat her, force her to answer – torture her? wondered Mariette and felt tears rushing into her eyes.

  ‘Look, I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘My partner and I don’t do that sort of thing. I just have to know.’

  ‘She … she went out, that’s all. She did not say where to, nor when I had got myself ready, did she want me to accompany her. Always she does, but … but not that time.’

  ‘And when she came back?’

  A hesitation had entered the detective’s voice. ‘She said, “There, it’s done.”‘

  ‘What was done?’

  Hurriedly the girl dried her eyes. ‘I … I really don’t know. Something she had to do. Something important, I think.’

  In defeat, the girl’s shoulders drooped, and she folded her hands in her lap.

  ‘Now tell me about the beekeeper. Give me all you can about his visits. My partner will be sure to ask and gets bitchy if I forget something. You’ve no idea, Mariette. A Sûreté. A Chief Inspector, no less, but impossible!. Merde, you should hear him sometimes!’

  ‘And where is this “partner” of yours at the moment?’ she asked with wisdom well beyond her tender years.

  ‘The Salpêtrière.’

  ‘Ah!’ She tossed her head and nodded. ‘The sister. A tragedy Madame is only too aware of, since Monsieur de Bonnevies always speaks of Angèle-Marie at length when questioned by her.’

  Startled, Kohler hazarded, ‘And she never fails to ask him?’

  ‘Never. Not for some time now.’

  ‘Is it because of something Madame de Bonnevies did? Well, is it?’

  Merde, why had he had to ask, how had he known?

  Hastily the girl crossed herself.

  ‘May God forgive me, yes. Yes, it is because she suspects her husband is having une affaire de coeur with the woman. It’s crazy. I tell her this. I plead with her but … but Madame is of her own mind, monsieur. Of her own mind!’

  The detective let a sigh escape. ‘And Herr Schlacht does mess about with the ladies, doesn’t he?’

  ‘A lot, but not with me. I swear it. She … she put a stop to that before it ever got started. I screamed and she … she heard me.’

  There was more to this, there just had to be.

  ‘She badgered Monsieur de Bonnevies until finally he agreed that, yes, his wife was probably seeing Herr Schlacht,’ said the girl.

  ‘And not just for an isolated lunch at Maxim’s?’

  ‘Other places. He … he did not know where.’

  ‘A candle factory?’

  The girl bit a knuckle and tried to stop herself from crying. ‘The Hôtel Titania, on the boulevard Ornano.’

  A maison de passe, a seedy hotel where prostitutes, licensed or otherwise, took their ‘lovers’.

  ‘I know this because I … I have followed Madame de Bonnevies there for Madame.’

  The life had gone right out of the kid but he’d have to ask it. ‘Did you see Schlacht go into that hotel?’

  ‘He … he came in his car.’

  She’d have to be told. ‘Then watch yourself. If you feel you have to bolt and run, go at once to 12 rue Suger, in Saint-Germain-des-Près, and ask for Oona or Giselle. They’ll know what to do and will probably hide you in the house of Madame Chabot, around the corner. Failing that, go to the Club Mirage on the rue Delambre in Montparnasse, but use the courtyard entrance and be careful, since the Gestapo’s Watchers may still be taking an interest in the place. Ask for Gabrielle, and tell those Corsican brothers behind the bar that Hermann says it’s urgent and they’re to keep you out of sight or else.’

  Shiny brass cowbells hung from dark ceiling timbers and made little sounds when vibrated by the din as Kohler squeezed himself into the Brasserie Buerehiesel. Loud laughter, boisterous, good-natured banter and argument competed with orders for meals, for beer and wine. Crockery clacked, copper pots were banged – there were no signs on the rows of bottles behind the bar saying Nur Attrapen, only for decoration. No coloured water. Not in this establishment.

  Schiefala, smoked pork shoulder, served with hot potato salad; Baeckaeoffe, a long-simmered stew of lamb, pork and veal with onions and potatoes; and choucroute, sauerkraut with several types of ham and sausage – the fabulous golden-crusted tarte à l’oignon also – were constantly on the move. One hustling waiter had seven heaped dinners perched in a row on an arm and three in his right hand. How the hell did he do it?

  ‘Monsieur, your coat, please, and weapon. You do have a weapon?’

  The coat-check girl was cute but firm. There were off-duty Felgendarmen on the door and hired especially to bring ease, so everything was okay in that department, but what the girl really meant was the SS ceremonial daggers so many of them would wear. They simply got in the way when sitting cheek to cheek in such long rows. ‘No weapon. Not tonight.’

  ‘Then please find yourself a seat if you can.’

  ‘Danke.’

  Neighbourhood pub and feedbag, the waiters, cook’s helpers and cook-owner had all been Alsatian fifth columnists prior to the blitzkrieg of 1940 and were now in their element. Meteor Pils, straight from Hochfelden, was on tap; Ackerland too – both the light and the brown. ‘Mortimer … have you Mortimer?’ he shouted at the balding barkeep who had little time and simply said in deutsch, ‘Ah, ein Kenner,’ a connoisseur, and filled a large, clear-glass stein with the dark, strong mother of beers.

  ‘I needed this,’ said Kohler, squeezing sideways to better look the place over.

  A slab of Münster cheese, ripe and seasoned with caraway, passed by – well, actually, there were six slabs of it. There were signs for Schutzenberger beer on the walls, signs for sabots made by a François Schneider, portrait pipes carved by an Adolf Lefèbvre, signs for the red Vorlauf from Marlenheim that surpassed most French burgundies.

  There were life-sized tin sculptures of storks wading in ponds or nesting on the roofs of half-timbered bits of home. There was even a gaudy poster of the Baron von Münchhausen in his hot-air balloon; others, too, of ruined castles – Hohenburg, Löwenstein and, yes, Fleckenstein which even Louis XIV couldn’t quite destroy in 1680.

  There were alpine scenes and alphorns, one of which some idiot had taken to blowing until silenced.

  There were the business suits of the collaborators, of the butter-eggs-and-cheese boys with their petites amies and those of the Occupier. All down the long tunnel of two sets of tables, and under lamps whose light fought with the haze of tobacco smoke and the heady aroma, there were the uniforms, most with tunic buttons undone.

  And there, sitting jammed into a far corner beneath the guild sign of a wrought-iron hunting hawk, and staring out over glass and bottle of eau de vie, was Frau Schlacht. The new permanent wave was perfect for the short, thick blonde hair which was parted on the left, the expression empty though, the lips tightly pursed as if deep in thought.

  A cigarette, untouched for some time, wasted its life in a saucer before her. In a place of conviviality she sought sol
itude.

  A chalkboard gave the menu. Five hundred francs for the prix fixe of choucroute, a thousand for the roast quail stuffed with goat’s cheese and served with a creamy sauce of preserved white grapes. Other items were in between, and for a bottle of the Pinot Blanc: four hundred francs; for that of the Reisling, six hundred francs; the spicy Gewürztraminer requiring three hundred more.

  When what looked to be a seat became free a few places from her, he squeezed himself down the long tunnel between the tables and gave a nod the woman completely ignored.

  The eau de vie de framboise she downed required four kilos of raspberries per bottle of the brandy and was priced accordingly at four thousand francs, yet she sipped it constantly until her pâté de foie gras came aux truffes sous la cendre, wrapped in chopped truffles and baked under the ashes, and served with a dicing of beef jelly whose colour was that of old amber.

  Her eyes were very blue, the forehead clear and smooth and broad, the lips good, the chin and nose and all the rest really something.

  Kohler ordered another beer and the Baeckaeoffe. Louis would just have to wait it out at the Salpêtrière. This spider in her little corner was simply too important to leave.

  When the seat directly opposite her became vacant, he moved in, but there was no surprise from her, no smile of anticipation or welcome. She simply stared at and through him, then went stolidly on with her pâté until every last bit of it was gone and the bottle half-empty.

  Then she ordered two servings of the grated potato pancakes with toasted goat’s cheese, and the chicken in mushroom sauce.

  ‘It is good,’ she said. ‘I had the same last night and will do so again.’

  A Berliner through and through, but Jésus, merde alors what a conversationalist! ‘Do you live nearby?’ he asked. The racket around them intruded.

  ‘Not far,’ she said, and for a time that was all.

  He’d take to studying her now, she felt, this giant of a Bavarian with the terrible duelling scar, the bullet graze across the brow, and the shrapnel nicks from that other war. He would want to get fresh with her, but would wait a little – he had that look about him. Great ease with loose and stupid girls, the younger the better, she told herself and said silently, Men! They are all the same.