by Allan Massie
Moncerre had reported that the precious couple, the Brunes, had refused to make any identification when he showed them the photograph of Sigi/Marcel.
‘Never seen the man. They almost laughed in my face. I couldn’t make them the least bit nervous. Someone’s got to them, I’ve no doubt about that.’
So, now, Lannes looked Henri in the face, and said, ‘I’m ashamed’.
‘Perhaps we should all be ashamed. Bloch has gone. He took my advice and left for Oran. As for me, I shall continue to sell books which is, I suppose, my way of keeping my head down and cultivating my garden. Who knows? Perhaps the Germans will turn out to be good customers, and that will intensify my shame.’
He gave Lannes the whisky-and-soda.
‘It won’t be long before I can get no more Johnnie. Any news of Dominique?’
‘None.’
‘I’m sorry. Tell Marguerite, will you, Jean? Not that my sorrow or sympathy can be of any comfort. Still, they say “no news is good news”, don’t they?’
‘Only because it’s not bad news.’
‘When do we expect the Germans?’
‘Very soon. Three or four days at most. A grand reception is being prepared. According to my brother-in-law, Marquet says there’s a New Order in Europe and France must play a leading role.’
‘A new order? I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘Nor do I. But it’s what we can’t escape.’
He walked home in an evening of soft yellow light. Roses were in bloom and the city was quiet.
PART TWO
I
He wasn’t the poster-boy Aryan. On the contrary, the officer of the GFP (Geheime Feld-Polizei) who presented himself in Lannes’ office only a few days after the German troops had rolled over the Pont de Pierre and up the cours Victor Hugo, watched by a sullen, silent crowd, was short, thin, dark-complexioned, his face wrinkled like an apple left too long on the tree. He had arrived without warning, and now when he held out his hand in a gesture intended perhaps to suggest that they were really comrades with interests in common, Lannes detected irony in his eyes and in the twist of his lips as, without bowing or heel-clicking, he introduced himself:
‘Lieutenant Schussmann’. Was it on account of his recognition of this irony that he accepted the offered hand? Could be, for there was something in the lieutenant’s manner which seemed to acknowledge that theirs was, and indeed must be, a relationship false from the start. Or was it simply because he looked ill-at-ease in his uniform?
Lannes glanced at the note he had found on his desk when he arrived that morning: the mayor’s instructions to all officials who were enjoined ‘to collaborate in a loyal and courteous fashion with the German authorities, and acquiesce in all their demands.’
And Marquet, author of this humiliating order, had been appointed Minister of the Interior in the Marshal’s government, with the brief, as he put it, ‘to reconcile the German and French points of view, for on this collaboration depends the return to normal life’. Normal life? With your city occupied by the army of a foreign power? It was the height of absurdity.
‘I am so pleased to make your acquaintance,’ Schussmann said. He spoke as if repeating a sentence learned by heart from a phrasebook. But in fact his French, though slow, measured and stilted, would prove to be adequate, if without any idiomatic fluency.
Should Lannes apologize for having no German? Damned if he would. He contented himself with inviting the lieutenant to take a seat and resumed his place behind his desk, just as if he was about to interrogate a suspect.
Schussmann said: ‘You understand that we wish to be correct. Indeed that is required of us, though I am happy to say it is also my personal inclination. We have no intention, still less any desire, to interfere with the administration of the French State. In so far as I understand the function of the police judiciaire, I see no reason why we should find ourselves at cross-purposes. We have a common interest, do we not? The maintenance of order, the suppression of criminal activities. Your role is to investigate crime. Yes? And this concerns my department only on such occasions as any crime may touch the interests of the Reich, that is to say, if it appears to have any political connection. Apart from that we should only to see good order maintained.’
‘Public order,’ Lannes said, ‘is the responsibility of the gendarmerie and the municipal police. The PJ, as you say, occupies itself only with the investigation of serious crime, under the direction of an examining magistrate and, ultimately, of the Prefect and the Ministry of the Interior.’
That sod Marquet, he thought.
‘Good,’ Schussmann said, ‘Excellent. We have, I think, a basis of understanding. May I add, superintendent, that you have been recommended to me as a man of integrity. You are well spoken of. Therefore I am confident that you are a realist, and that we can work together. It is in a spirit of co-operation that I invite you to approach me, freely, whenever you seek information or have information to impart which in your opinion impinges on the interest of the Reich.’
‘Schussmann?’ Schnyder said, rolling a cigar between his fingers, sniffing it, clipping the end, and holding a match to it before putting it between his lips and drawing deeply. ‘We had a word too. What did you make of him?’
‘Very “correct”.’
Lannes put audible quotation-marks round the word.
‘You thought so?’
‘He may even be a decent fellow, but I don’t trust him. He flattered me, you see.’
He left the office early in the afternoon. There were German soldiers everywhere, many with cameras, as if they were tourists. And, while they gaped at the sights and snapped them, ordinary Bordelais, going about their business and now for the most part rid of the refugees who had flocked back to Paris and the North, stared at them. This too was a sort of tourism, Lannes thought, or a visit to the zoo. But which were the caged beasts and which the onlookers?
Miriam was behind the counter of the tabac. Seeing him enter, she called on her niece to take over and directed Lannes to the parlour behind the shop. Then she fetched coffee and a bottle of marc. She looked as tired as Lannes felt.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m not sleeping well. I don’t know whether it’s on account of grief or anxiety. Curiously, I do feel grief for him, as well as for my father. We did have a sort of companionship, he could make me laugh, you know, and I keep remembering too how willingly, even avidly, I gave myself to him when I was seventeen. And anxiety, we all feel that, I suppose. What’s going to become of us? Have you any word of your boy?’
‘None as yet.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He couldn’t tell her why he had come. That too was shameful. It wasn’t that he wanted to make love to her, or, rather, he had no intention of doing so. He was in search of comfort. Marguerite’s unhappiness, her fear for Dominique, oppressed him. There was nothing he could do or say to help her. Neither could find the words they needed to speak, and so they spent hours in a silent desert. In her misery she snapped at Alain and Clothilde, and, though he assured them that her anger was not directed at them but at the world, he couldn’t blame Alain when he said, ‘It’s not my fault that I’m not of an age to be in the army and Dominique is.’ Strangely it was with Maurice alone that she seemed at ease, her old and true self; it was as if she saw him as someone as much at a loss as she was.
Miriam said: ‘And so Edmond is now a great man! Enjoying the spoils of defeat and national humiliation! Well, he’s welcome to them, that’s what I say.’
She didn’t ask the reason for his visit, but, when she said, ‘You’ve nothing to tell me, have you?’, he felt she understood that he regarded this back room behind the tabac as a sort of refuge where he would have liked to sit in companionable silence or to exchange merely the banalities of small talk. There were many, he sensed, in Bordeaux, and indeed all over occupied humiliated France, who could not allow their conversation to go beyond that. Talk of what really mattered was to venture into a dark forbid
ding forest. Yet on the other hand reality irritated him like an itch he could not refrain from scratching. So he found himself telling her of his meeting with Schussmann and of how the assurance that he had been recommended to the German as ‘a man of integrity’ grated.
It was an insult, or at least something which diminished him. Yes, that was it: diminishing like the Marshal’s insistence that the honour of the defeated army was not tarnished but still shone bright.
‘It’s as if he was trying to recruit me.’
‘Do you know what I saw yesterday?’ she said. ‘The old cow with a German officer on either side coming out of the Chapon Fin where they had evidently been lunching.’
The Chapon Fin was a Michelin-starred restaurant patronised by ‘le tout Bordeaux’. Lannes had no need to ask whom she meant by ‘the old cow’.
‘Marquet would approve,’ he said. ‘He has decreed that the return to normal life depends on a sincere collaboration with the Boches. Not that he calls them that of course. Lunch must qualify as sincere collaboration.’
‘Normal life? I assure you that the old cow hasn’t been able to afford to eat there for years, and has certainly found nobody to treat her. Mind you, to be fair, I remember that her late husband had German cousins. I met one of them once. He was in the wine business, manufacturing a horrid sweet ersatz champagne. No market for that in Bordeaux! So perhaps one of these officers was family. Who else – who but family, I mean, would feel obliged to stand the old cow lunch?’
She refilled their glasses.
‘Liquor helps, I find,’ she said, and lit one of her American cigarettes. ‘I must tell you I’ve been selfish. Not knowing how long these will be available, I’ve removed several cartons from the shelves and put them aside for my own use. If there’s going to be a general tobacco shortage, I’ll do the same for you. But at the moment your Gauloises are in good supply.’
She crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt. In normal times, Lannes thought, she would soon find another husband, she has too much vitality to remain a widow. But now?
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I’m very glad you’ve come, apart from the normal pleasure of seeing you. Speaking of family. I’m worried about Léon. Of course I hesitate to speak of it when you have your own anxieties and fears for your son, but there’s no one else I can trust.’
‘Léon?’
‘It’s not what you might suppose, though naturally that worries me too. It’s more serious, dangerous, I think. He was here yesterday, talking wildly. First, about poor Gaston, saying he was murdered by Fascists – is that right, or can’t you say?’
‘It’s not impossible. There are indications – I can say this much – that the motive was political.’
What had he told her about the man who went by the name of Marcel, but was really Sigi, and, it seemed, her late husband’s bastard, fruit of incest? He couldn’t remember.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Gaston was only part of it and not what’s really worrying you?’
‘That’s right. It seems Léon heard the broadcast by that General who’s gone to London – I forget his name – the one who insists that the war isn’t lost, isn’t over – and the boy has been enthused by it. “We can’t just accept this Occupation,” he said, “we can’t knuckle under.” He kept coming back to that, like a refrain. It’s as if he has changed altogether in these last weeks and I don’t understand it. For instance, he also said, “We’re Jewish, aunt, and we’re not going to be allowed to forget it”. He’s never spoken as a Jew before. It has meant nothing to him, for his father was a Protestant, you know. I’m afraid, dreadfully afraid, that he’ll do something stupid. Will you speak to him? Is that too much to ask?’
‘Of course I will. Get him here. To-morrow evening when he leaves the Bank, and I’ll have a word with him.’
The boy who had immersed himself in Balzac . . . did he see himself now in the role of a Balzacian hero struggling for his place in the world? And what of Alain, of Maurice too? Could any young man of spirit not find this talk of collaboration contemptible, intolerable? He was ashamed not to have been aware of the danger.
II
‘I’m ashamed that my father is a minister in this government.’
Maurice pushed back the lock of hair falling over his eye as he delivered himself of this verdict.
Alain, without removing the cigarette which dangled, tough guy, Jean Gabin style, from the corner of his mouth, said: ‘It’s not your fault. So why be ashamed? We’re responsible for ourselves and our own actions, nobody else’s. That’s my philosophy.’
‘I don’t know. I daresay you’re right, Alain, nevertheless . . . ’
He stopped in mid-sentence. They were crossing the Place Pey-Borland behind the cathedral, and he took hold of Alain’s arm.
‘Look. That man there, the one with the thin moustache. Do you see him? Remember that day by the lake, he was rowing a boat, and I said afterwards I had seen him before, but couldn’t place him. Well, it’s just come to me, and we must tell your father. But first we must follow him.’
‘What sort of game is this?’
‘No sort of game. It’s deadly serious.’
At that moment the man disengaged himself from his companions, kissing the lady’s hand. He crossed the square with long elegant assured stride, and rounding the cathedral, entered its darkness.
‘You follow him, Alain. I’ll keep watch here. It’s you must go in, he might recognize me.’
‘You’re mad, do you know that? Crazy. All right then, if you insist. Hold this for me.’
He handed Maurice his half-smoked cigarette, and, with a shrug of his shoulders, did as he was bid.
Maurice waited, on edge. He had been a fool not to recognize the man in the boat, but now he was certain. It was the taller of the two he had passed that night as he left Gaston’s apartment, the one who had laughed when his companion identified him as ‘one of his bum-boys’.
Alain came out first.
‘Have you lost him?’
‘Not at all. He’s in the confessional. I could hardly follow him into the box. What’s all this about?’
‘Murder. Don’t laugh. I mean it. He’s a wanted man. He may even be the chap who shot your father too. So we’ve got to track him.’
‘Oh charming. I can just imagine what he’s saying to the crow: “Listen hard, Father, I don’t just have ordinary sins like fornication to confess, I’ve done someone in and taken a pot-shot at a cop also.” Great. So, what now?’
‘Like I say, we can’t risk losing him. Or should we telephone to your father? I don’t know. Follow him, find out where he lives and then call your dad? What do you think?’
‘What do I think except that you’re crazy?’ Alain lit another cigarette, looked his friend in the face. ‘You really mean it, don’t you? So, not a game, or rather a game played for high stakes. Fine. I’m with you. One for all and all for one. D’you suppose he’s armed?’
‘I’ve no idea. Only . . . ’
‘I expect he is. Just in case. You know. In case he has to shoot his way out.’
‘Look, here he is.’
‘A quick confession. Routine one, don’t you think? Confessing to murder might take a bit longer.’
The man stood on the cathedral steps. Maurice turned half-away.
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Nothing, really. Smiling.Waiting. Ah, the crow’s joined him.’
The pair set off side by side up the rue de Ruat. The priest, who was short and fat, had to break into what was almost a trot to keep up with his long-striding companion. The boys followed, thirty metres behind.
‘If he did confess to murder, it doesn’t seem to have worried the crow.’
‘You still think it’s a joke, don’t you?’
‘Not at all. But it is sport.’
The tall man and the little priest turned right, then left past the Prefecture. They crossed the cours de l’Intendance, and paused in the Place des Grands Hommes. They stood chatting
for a moment. The tall man laid his hand on the priest’s shoulder and laughed. They shook hands and the priest turned away to enter a café, while the other continued up the rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau towards the Place de Tourny.
‘Would you recognize the priest again?’
‘I’ve an eye for crows.’
Without glancing behind him, the man proceeded up the cours de Verdun. It was a long straight street and almost deserted. He was sauntering now, like one who is early for an appointment. The boys held back. There was a gate leading into the public garden and for a moment he stood there as if perhaps searching for a pretty woman. He had that air, Alain thought. Then a car approached, a big open Mercedes with a chauffeur and two German officers in the back seat. One of them raised a gloved hand to the tall man who half-turned to watch the car till it was out of sight, then resumed his walk. He turned left at the end of the garden. Maurice seized Alain’s arm as they rounded the corner after him. He had stopped at the door of one of the big handsome houses.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Believe what?’
‘Of course you’ve never been here, have you, but that’s our house.’
As he spoke, the door was opened and the man entered.
‘It doesn’t make sense.’