Secrets and Showgirls

by Catherine McCullagh

  ‘Monsieur, I have to ask ... are there any ... Jews ... among those you wish to hide? I beg your pardon for asking, but in these difficult times . you understand .’

  ‘Monsieur, I do understand, and I can assure you that those who need to be hidden have other reasons to hide. There are no Jews among them.’ Napoleon looked visibly relieved and nodded emphatically.

  ‘Then I can help you, Monsieur Maurice — we can discuss price a little later when I have finished my afternoon with Mademoiselle Crecy.’ He beamed at the voluptuous blonde who simpered back, patted his mountainous coiffure and batted his eyelids furiously. ‘Perhaps if they are ready in an hour, I can take them with me in my truck, know what I mean?’ Maurice allowed himself a relieved grin.

  ‘Monsieur, that would be perfect, thank you!’

  An hour later, Monsieur Maurice returned to Madame Gloria’s kitchen with his collection of fretful fugitives in tow. Orlando, André and Roland, clutching a motley assortment of possessions and several large boxes of bottles, wound their way into the kitchen where Madame Gloria gave each a reassuring pat, a little sack of food and a bottle of her mulberry wine. Crecy and Napoleon emerged from the little sitting room and, with voluble exchanges of endearments, Crecy clip-clopped his way out the door and up the stairs, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke, a waft of fruity perfume and a series of colourful farewells in his wake. Napoleon surveyed the little group and the boxes in turn and declared himself satisfied with all. Maurice explained to his fugitives that Napoleon would look after them until it was safe to return, although he had no idea how long that would be. Napoleon flashed his broadest smile and regarded Maurice.

  ‘They will work for me for a week or so until you decide they can return. They can stay inside the truck I use for the Governor’s special deliveries,’ he gave Maurice a massive wink, ‘that is never searched. And this fellow,’ he placed a hairy paw on Orlando’s broad shoulder, ‘will be very useful. He could be my brother — know what I mean?’ Maurice had to admit that his Spanish strongman and the huge black marketeer bore a close resemblance. ‘He will be easy to hide.’ He turned to Roland. ‘This one can work in my office with my errand boy and this one,’ he pointed to the weedy André, ‘my wife will find him something, he does not look as if he is used to hard work.’

  ‘He’s a violinist,’ explained Maurice.

  ‘Ah, I see, that is why he looks as if the wind would blow him over. Maybe I will build him up for you, eh?’ André looked miserable and Maurice hastened to his rescue.

  ‘Perhaps build him gently, Monsieur, if you would.’

  ‘Of course, Monsieur,’ laughed the big man, giving André a substantial pat on the back that almost flattened him. Still grinning, he led his ragtag band off towards his truck to join the other contraband that lived permanently inside while Maurice mopped his brow with sheer relief.

  Maurice’s timing proved exquisite. Having posted Lucille to watch the front foyer, he and the wizened Cabot began to move everything out of the hiding place beneath the stage that would betray its purpose as a bolt hole and replace it with stock provided by the Governor. Just minutes later, a terrified Lucille raced into the theatre with the news that several police cars had pulled up outside the front of the cabaret and were disgorging a steady stream of uniformed occupants. Maurice paled, glancing quickly at the hiding place which still contained several items of clothing and hissed at Cabot to grab as much as he could and stow it behind the bar with the utmost haste. Then he drew himself up and marched steadily towards the theatre foyer, sending Madame Lucille to recover her senses in Madame Gloria’s kitchen. The French police were every bit as conscientious as the Germans when it came to building searches and Maurice was heartily relieved that his little band of fugitives had been moved with such rapidity. He only hoped that Napoleon had had the good sense to immediately drive off with all of his newly acquired contraband aboard.

  The moustachioed manager reached the red velvet foyer to find an irascible police inspector stamping his feet impatiently while five uniformed policemen studied the colourful posters, grinning salaciously or giggling with titillation at the pictures of sassy showgirls and sequined performers who winked and smirked sensually back.

  ‘Inspector, I do beg your pardon for keeping you waiting, how can I be of service to you and your men?’ The policeman glared at him.

  ‘You are Maurice Hernand, manager of this establishment?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector.’

  ‘Papers.’ A hand shot out in anticipation as Maurice groped inside his jacket pocket. Like everyone else in occupied France, he never went anywhere without his papers, all too conscious of the penalties for not producing them instantly in response to a barked demand. The inspector glanced cursorily over Maurice’s papers, shoving them back at him just as quickly.

  ‘We have reliable information that there are illegals being hidden in your theatre, possibly Jews. Do you know the penalties for hiding Jews?’ Maurice quailed visibly, his face turning ashen and his knees beginning to wobble dangerously. He swallowed and attempted to calm himself.

  ‘Monsieur, I am aware of the penalties and I can assure that I am not hiding anyone, Jews or other illegals in my theatre.’ The inspector regarded him stonily.

  ‘We shall see.’ He motioned to his giggling subordinates.

  ‘Inside! Search under the stage!’ Maurice felt his heart begin to race, fully aware that some of the personal effects that he had not had time to clear away could see him damned. He reined in his terror and bowed courteously to the policeman.

  ‘But of course, Inspector, please feel free to search throughout the theatre.’ Boots tramped through the gilded doors and headed directly for the stage, the men descending into the empty orchestra pit and through to what now purported to be a simple storage room, its clandestine role as a bolt hole for illegals partially obscured by several boxes of wine and champagne and sacks of provisions, all with safe German markings. The policemen searched thoroughly, shifting the boxes and moving the sacks, carefully examining the area for any trace that it had ever been used as a hiding place of a more personal nature.

  Maurice stood calmly, trying hard to control his features lest his face betray any sign of his anxiety. A policeman produced a giant pair of Orlando’s trousers and Maurice cursed him silently. The Inspector studied the trousers. Maurice hastened to explain.

  ‘Monsieur, these belong to my janitor who occasionally uses the storeroom to change his clothes.’ He turned and bellowed for Cabot, who raced breathlessly to his manager’s side.

  ‘Take your trousers away, Cabot,’ Maurice instructed the little man. Cabot looked at him quizzically but gathered the trousers, clearly large enough to fit several Cabots and have room for a spare, and trotted back to the bar where he stowed them out of sight. The Inspector gaped, evidently aware that something was not quite right but, unable to pinpoint precisely what, said nothing. Another policeman produced a large, spotted handkerchief which was also dangled in front of Monsieur Maurice.

  ‘Ah, thank you,’ exclaimed Maurice, hastily blowing his nose in the handkerchief as if to seal his claim to the item’s ownership, ‘I wondered where I had left that.’ A pair of shoes, a spare violin string and a novel of rather dubious character were also discovered and presented to the little manager as potentially damning exhibits. He laid claim to each one, with the exception of the novel which he handed to Cabot with a rebuke over his choice of reading material. By now the gnome-like janitor was wheezing loudly and, thought Maurice, possibly close to collapse from an attack of nerves. He despatched Cabot to Madame Gloria’s to be revived and turned back to the Inspector, explaining that his staff were responsible for moving the German stores in and out of the room and occasionally left odd items of clothing and personal effects behind. He smiled as broadly as possible, keen to endow his explanation with as much normality as he could. The Inspector looked highly dubious. The police continued to search, moving further into the bowels of the stage. Maurice rea
lised with a sinking heart that the Inspector was convinced that his men would find incriminating evidence of some description — bedding, food scraps, identity papers — something that would confirm his suspicions. If nothing else, this was the final unequivocal sign — if one were needed — that there was an informer at Le Prix.

  Another twenty minutes of meticulous searching produced no further evidence and the policemen emerged to report that they had discovered nothing to suggest that the recesses of the stage had ever been used to hide people apart from the few items Maurice had claimed. The Inspector grunted and turned to the ginger-haired manager.

  ‘So, perhaps you have moved them? What is to prevent us searching the living quarters of your performers? They may be hiding there.’ Maurice’s heart missed a beat and his fevered brain worked overtime.

  ‘Inspector, you are welcome to do so. However,’ Maurice paused delicately, ‘the show is to begin in an hour or so and my performers will be dressing. Interrupting them will delay the show and we are expecting the Governor to attend tonight. He is a man who is rather keen on punctuality.’ The Inspector shifted his feet uncomfortably.

  ‘I see.’ He continued to regard Maurice steadily. ‘It is interesting, Monsieur, is it not, that a reliable informer should be so very convinced that there were illegals hiding here.’ Maurice could only agree. ‘I think,’ resumed the Inspector, ‘that we should interview the landlady of the boarding house where the performers live and ask her if she has seen anyone suspicious recently. Then perhaps we will return when your performers are not dressing and conduct a more thorough search.’ Maurice blanched but could only reply meekly.

  ‘Yes, Monsieur, of course.’ He gestured towards the side of the theatre where the door led to the alleyway that separated Le Prix from Madame Gloria’s apartment boarding house. The Inspector strode ahead as Maurice prayed silently that Napoleon and his truck were long gone. Any delay could see the entire company lifted bodily and placed none too gently in Fresnes Prison. He felt beads of sweat begin to collect on his forehead and dabbed at them absently with the large, spotted handkerchief of unknown origin.

  As they emerged from the theatre into the alleyway, Maurice glanced quickly past the Inspector’s bulky frame just in time to see Napoleon swing into the cab of his truck. He started up the vehicle and, catching sight of the Inspector, gave the charcoal-fired engine a hefty rev, producing a pall of smoke that would have hidden a battalion of illegals. As the Inspector coughed and roared to his men to prevent the truck leaving, Napoleon reversed rapidly, sent another smokescreen to hide the direction of his escape, and tore off as if all the demons of Hell were in hot pursuit. Maurice spluttered in the smoke, hoping desperately that the Inspector had failed to note anything about the truck that would lead to its subsequent identification. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief as the Inspector marshalled his men, realising that the truck had escaped him.

  ‘Whose truck was that?’ he demanded of Maurice.

  ‘That is the truck used to deliver the Governor’s supplies,’ he explained, conscious that this was not so far from the truth. ‘It is always racing around, Inspector, we have tried to ask the driver to slow down, but he tells us that the Governor is a very impatient man and demands that his deliveries arrive exactly on time. If you would care to address your concerns to the Governor’s office, I would be very pleased to see his driving habits addressed.’ The Inspector gave him a severe look as if to dispel any notion that he would spend his valuable time on mere matters of traffic safety. He bellowed to his men, clearly deciding that his time was also too valuable to waste on interviewing landladies, sending the policemen back through the theatre and out the gilded doors ahead of him. Maurice accompanied him as he walked slowly through the theatre. He continued to regard Maurice with suspicion.

  ‘Why do you think a reliable informer was so convinced that you were hiding illegals under your stage?’

  ‘Perhaps he was mistaken and meant another cabaret. There are several close by and the entrances are easily confused from the outside.’ Maurice paused and looked at the Inspector, adopting what he hoped was a deeply sincere tone of voice, giving it an earnest look for support. ‘Inspector, you must understand, Le Prix is the Governor’s favourite cabaret and every performance fills the theatre full of German officers. Even if I wanted to hide people here, which I assure you I would never do, it would not be worth the risk with so many Germans present so often.’ The Inspector fixed Maurice with a look that could have filleted a fish and simply grunted. Then he stamped out the front door after his men, sliding into a sinister black car, and was gone in a roar of engines and a cloud of exhaust. Maurice watched the police depart with an overwhelming feeling of relief. He turned and trudged back to Madame Gloria’s for a reassuring glass of something alcoholic following what he regarded as a near-death experience. Truly, life as a manager was far riskier than he had ever contemplated. He wondered idly whether he should have stayed in banking which surely promised a far less exciting, but potentially far longer life.

  Chapter 34

  The shrouded beast

  By late May the temperature had begun to rise and Paris had recovered much of its gaiety. Monsieur Maurice’s little band of fugitives remained hidden in Napoleon’s shady establishment, although Orlando and André returned to perform in the evening, Maurice retaining his conviction that there would be no raids in the presence of the Governor himself. So far, his luck had held and, as the rumours of an Allied invasion strengthened, he began to nurse the hope that he would not have to hold out much longer before a change of regime would see such raids become a thing of the past.

  Having clearly been delivered by the Almighty from the discovery of his fugitives by the meticulous and well-informed police inspector, Monsieur Maurice had become concerned that the police might return, this time to conduct a thorough check of the apartments occupied by his performers. While most of his artistes led colourful lives and, thought Maurice, were probably surrounded by the obvious symbols of their various predilections, the performer who caused him to lose most sleep at night was undoubtedly the avowedly communist and loudly patriotic Chinon, who he knew kept a collection of the banned communist broadsheet L’Humanité. Late one afternoon, the little manager girded his loins and trudged stoically to the room occupied by Chloe and the acrobatic Master of Ceremonies, determined to ensure that the offending collection was carefully hidden, or preferably destroyed. He panted his way up the two flights of stairs and knocked tentatively on the door, eventually eliciting a response after several knocks of increasing volume and loud assurances to Chinon that it was his anxious manager rather than a Gestapo raiding party. The door opened inch by inch, allowing the noxious fumes that characterised Chinon’s den to escape gradually and begin their suffocating work by degrees. Maurice coughed and spluttered as he was eventually admitted to the murky inner sanctum, wondering how on earth Chloe managed to cope with this daily asphyxiation. It took Maurice a minute or two to adjust his eyes to the darkened room and, at first glance, he was relieved to discover that the floor was bare of evidence of Chinon’s political proclivities. Raising his eyes, however, Maurice quailed in terror at the sight that greeted him — a large, ancient Berthier rifle lay in full view on a table in the centre of the room.

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ hissed Maurice, slamming the door shut behind him with almost unseemly haste, while fighting for breath at the same time. ‘Chinon, what are you doing? Do you know what will happen to us if you are caught with this weapon?’ He raced over to the dishevelled bed and pulled a sheet off the top, throwing it over the vintage rifle to hide it from prying eyes.

  ‘Ah, Maurice,’ responded Chinon calmly, ‘isn’t she a beauty?’ But Maurice, having peered gingerly through the curtains to ensure that Madame Auguste Dupleix, the inveterate hypochondriac and neighbourhood spy who lived inconveniently just across the courtyard, had not chosen this precise moment to survey the building with her opera glasses, was now sweating profusely, mopping hi
s brow with a damp handkerchief as he collected his wildly disarrayed thoughts, spluttering once more from the overwhelming fumes of stale brandy and cigarette smoke.

  ‘You cannot keep this here, Chinon, you will have us all shot!’ But Chinon was not easily persuaded.

  ‘It will only be for a few days, mon ami, while I clean and repair it,’ he replied serenely, as if harbouring illicit weapons were as commonplace as growing geraniums.

  ‘So it does not work at present?’ Maurice glimpsed a faint ray of hope and was determined to exploit it.

  ‘Non, non, it was liberated from a museum by the comrades.’

  ‘Ah, that at least is good.’ Now that Maurice was sure the thing could not possibly be loaded, he wrapped it bodily in the sheet and shoved it under the bed. ‘Now,’ he turned to his communist ringmaster with a fierce look, ‘you must tell the comrades that you cannot possibly keep it here and they must come and collect it, preferably today.’ Chinon reached for the brandy bottle that appeared to have kept him company for some time and took a hefty swig before offering it to Maurice who declined as politely as possible given his conviction that his own arrest was imminent.

  ‘Maurice,’ the little communist began, ‘you worry far too much, the comrades will be here in a day or so to take it away.’

  ‘Non!’ cried Maurice, alarmed at the force with which this sharp denial had escaped him, ‘it cannot stay an hour, let alone a day, they must come at once!’ Chinon gave him a relaxed smile.

  ‘Mon ami, let me explain.’ Maurice gave him a haunted look and pleaded silently with the Almighty for strength, his own reserves now dangerously low. ‘You see,’ Chinon continued with studied patience, ‘our reports tell us that the Allies will land soon and then we will need to rise up and take the fight to the Boches and the Milice bastards and kill them all!’