“You are quite right.” Hardy laughed as well, only with nervous embarrassment. “Next time I will be fitted with better glasses.”
Hardy was afraid, so terribly afraid of this man who sat in front of him and who held his very destiny in his hands. But this little joke that he had made suddenly brought Hardy to realization that perhaps the German wasn’t such a disagreeable fellow; that he wasn’t as rigid in his views on résistants and their treatment as they were saying; that maybe it was still possible to work something out with him; that perhaps, if Lunel was still very much alive and kicking…
Hardy outstretched his hand to Barbie before he could – God forbid! – order his SS butchers to get to their grisly work and spoke in a rushed manner. “I have no fears about my future. I know that we’re both reasonable men… I’m sure you understand that I’m more than willing to cooperate if you promise me decent treatment. I’m not asking for much—”
“Ach, Hardy, you French never do,” Barbie replied with a positively delighted look on his face. “Just for your life and some money.”
Hardy hung his head in shame after Barbie escorted him to his car, parked downstairs – alone this time; this fact showed that Barbie was so sure of himself that he was persuaded Hardy wouldn’t see running as such a good idea. He trailed like a dog after his new master, following him into a room in the Hotel Terminus, and thanked him warmly when Barbie offered to order early dinner from their own, Gestapo-owned kitchen, with permission to treat himself to the aperitifs from the bar. It was on the evening of that very day that he finally understood Lunel. Soon, one of his former comrades would be looking at him with the same accusation in their eyes when he sold them out for his thirty coins. But eventually, they would understand too, and join him against their own kin.
Lyon, June 1943
Etienne was glad that it was Jean Moulin who paid him a visit, and not Frenay, whom de Gaulle had sent to Algiers and appointed as a minister in charge of prisoners of war just to stop all the never-ending disputes between him and Moulin. The reason for the meeting was a joyless one – they needed to figure out with whom they could replace the arrested General Delestraint – but at least they were able to sit down next to each other and enjoy their chat like in the good old days.
Frenay was right when he scornfully commented on Etienne’s regard of Moulin bordering on adoration; it was difficult not to adore him, the bravest man he knew and a true patriot of his country. Moulin could have easily agreed to the policy of collaboration when the Germans marched into France and offered him to sign the paper in which Senegalese soldiers were blamed for the death of twenty civilians. One didn’t have to be a specialist to recognize that the civilians’ mutilated bodies were the result of the Luftwaffe’s bombing raid. The Germans, however, had to save face, and the Senegalese soldiers conveniently fell into the category of undesirables in their book and were thus seen as a perfect scapegoat to blame for the German army’s atrocities.
Moulin politely refused to sign anything and was not only taken off his position as a Prefect of Eure-et-Loir but thrown into jail, where he was ruthlessly beaten. Afraid that he wouldn’t be able to stand a second day of torture and would eventually agree to the Germans’ demands, Jean Moulin cut his own throat with a piece of shattered glass that still lined the floor of his cell after the recent bombing. It so happened that a Senegalese soldier, who shared a cell with him (as Germans considered it a good joke, placing him with a “savage” which Moulin happened to “like so much”) immediately alerted the sentries and saved Moulin’s life. One would think that after such treatment and having narrowly escaped death, Moulin would stay as far away from Germans as possible and everything that involved a chance of his encountering their butchers again, but instead Jean decided to do everything in his power to fight them while he could. How could Etienne possibly not adore him for such heroism?
Using his current occupation as an art collector as a convenient excuse for traveling all over the country, Moulin made it to Lyon specifically to see Etienne and ask for his help. Etienne was only too pleased to provide it.
“We need to appoint someone in General Delestraint’s position,” Moulin spoke in his usual voice, pleasant and confident. He had warm brown eyes and a dreamy half-smile that seemed to rarely leave his handsome, youthful face. His usual scarf was wrapped around his neck, covering a long scar. “I’m thinking about Colonel Schwarzfeld; he’s also an army officer and of suitable rank.”
“I don’t personally know him but if you think he’d be a good candidate…” Etienne conceded without finishing his sentence.
“Frenay knew him, but Frenay is now…” Moulin made a dismissive gesture with his hand, indicating Frenay’s current position which wasn’t even in France anymore. “I can’t say I’m not relieved though.”
“I believe you are.” Etienne chuckled together with Moulin.
Moulin was older than him, in his early forties, but he always treated Etienne not only with respect but with the warmth of a true friend. The fact that he confided in him and had asked him for this meeting also flattered Etienne immensely.
“As for that favor that I mentioned earlier…” Jean started again, looking pensive this time.
Etienne pulled forward at once, searching his eyes.
“Do you think you can find a place for us to meet? I mean, the heads of all the Resistance networks. Here in Lyon would be the best, within the next few days. I need to be on the road soon, and I don’t want to have the meeting in Paris. Paris has been a bit too hot lately.”
“Lyon is no better, with that fellow in the hotel.” A grim smirk and a nod in the direction of the window, even though they met at Etienne’s villa and not even in the city, clearly indicated the Hotel Terminus and a certain Obersturmführer Barbie.
“I suppose it means I should take the hotel off the list of possible meeting places?” Moulin arched his brow, grinning. Etienne obliged him with a saddened smile. The joke didn’t quite seem funny.
“I have a place in mind.” Etienne considered for a few moments. “Yes, I think it would be the best. A friend of mine is a doctor – he’s a good, reliable man – and he has his private practice right in his villa. It would be the perfect cover for you all to meet under one roof without causing any suspicion. It’s in the suburb of Caluire though. Not exactly a discreet location.”
“Not a problem. As long as we keep the meeting discreet.”
“You can all walk in as patients; this way even his housekeeper won’t suspect anything. There’s hardly a chance that she would inform the authorities but better safe than sorry, you know?”
“Perfect.” Moulin nodded and drummed his fingers on the surface of the table, pondering something. “I’d like to ask you one more thing, but…”
He paused in hesitation.
“Whatever you need, just tell me.”
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea. I don’t want to get you involved.”
“Jean, please tell me!” Etienne moved forward in his chair. “You know that whatever you need—”
“I don’t want you to get arrested if things go south,” Moulin interrupted him with sudden steel in his voice. “I’ve had this feeling for quite some time now… You know, when you start physically sensing the pack closing in on you. I’ve become such a paranoid person, Etienne! I see Gestapo agents everywhere, in every suspicious fellow who simply looks ‘German’… I feel like I’m being followed. I feel like this all will end me. I’ve already written a letter to de Gaulle. I told him everything I had to in case…”
He sighed and shook his head, suddenly looking aged by ten years; grim, pale, haunted and so very tired of running.
“I don’t want to drag you down with me,” he finally finished with some strange notes of finality in his voice.
Etienne put on a brave face and smiled as brightly as he could. “I’m not afraid. I’ve been hiding far too long behind my people’s backs while you fight along with them. I’ve longed for an oppor
tunity like this for a long time now. Tell me what to do. Please. Don’t deny me this honor, to help you with something more than just empty words.”
Moulin grinned and patted his hand with affection. “Thank you, Etienne. I appreciate it. I really do. Will you help me bring people to the meeting? Physically escort them there, so that no one knows about the place where we’re going to meet until we actually get there? I’m afraid, I don’t trust anyone anymore, except for you.”
It’s a sad state of affairs, Etienne noted to himself, when the head of the Resistance couldn’t trust his own men anymore.
“Of course, Jean. I’d be glad to help.”
14
Lyon, June 1943
Klaus was playing the piano in his room, his fingers gently caressing the keys as a soft smile played on his lips. He knew this melody by heart; he didn’t even bother turning the pages of notes anymore. Music was one of his passions; it was soothing and oddly satisfying, always putting him in a strange state of tranquility, which was highly uncharacteristic in him. His men never bothered him in his quarters when they heard the notes of the piano. The calmer the boss, the better – or so they thought. That’s why Klaus scowled deeply upon hearing urgent knocking on the door just as he was feeling particularly tranquil. He turned in his seat sharply and shouted an angry “Ja?” hoping that whoever lacked the sense to bother him now (that new annoying recruit again?) would regain it and disappear without revealing themselves.
“Herr Obersturmführer, Herr Hardy is here to speak to you.” It was indeed the new guy, fresh from Berlin’s SS Leibstandarte barracks, blond and stupid. Klaus didn’t like him one bit. “He says it’s extremely important.”
“Of course, he does,” Klaus grumbled under his breath but got up from his stool nevertheless, closing the top of the piano with unexpected gentleness.
He yanked the door open and shot the Berlin boy a withering glare, sending him scrambling to salute and freeze at attention, which only annoyed Klaus more.
“Well? Where is he?” Barbie made an exaggerated show out of looking theatrically both ways along the long corridor.
“I told him to wait for you in your office while I fetch you.”
“And you consider it befitting for the Chief of the Gestapo to go up to some French criminal instead of said French criminal coming down to the Chief of the Gestapo with his ‘extremely important’ information?” he demanded, sarcasm oozing out of every word.
Klaus noticed, with satisfaction, how the young orderly’s cheeks reddened in embarrassment. He would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t enjoy making his subordinate squirm.
“I’m sorry, Herr Obersturmführer. I’ll bring him down to you then.”
“That would be grand. Thank you very much.”
The Berlin boy hung his head even lower and trotted towards the stairs. By the time he returned with René Hardy, Klaus was already beaming his most welcoming smile, gesturing for his informant to take one of the glasses of cognac he had just poured. Only a hard glare, that he shot to his unfortunate orderly behind Hardy’s back persuaded the latter that it was indeed the same Klaus Barbie whom everyone feared so. The Chief of the Gestapo seemed to change his expression and stance as easily as one could change clothes.
“How is your beautiful fiancé doing, Hardy?” Klaus was already his friendly self, positioning himself quite comfortably in one of the burgundy upholstered armchairs.
Hardy beamed back at him, blushing slightly at the mention of Lydie’s name. “She’s fine. She thanks you for the beautiful fur you sent her for her birthday.”
Klaus shrugged one shoulder as if saying, ‘it was nothing.’
It was indeed nothing to him; the fur had been confiscated from one of the Jewish families, now well on their way to Auschwitz. Klaus had plenty of those furs where Lydie’s one came from.
After a few months of managing Lyon’s Gestapo, Klaus had learned the power that a delicate balance of fear and gratitude could produce on people. After he had not only promised Hardy freedom in return for his collaboration but laid out his plans before him, Hardy pretended to think them over, but just for show. The head of the “railway Resistance” wasn’t a stupid man – he knew perfectly well that Barbie couldn’t hold him under arrest for longer than two days, after which Hardy would be considered “burned” and therefore useless to Klaus. So, Klaus kindly explained to Hardy that he would let him go but under certain conditions.
“Don’t do anything stupid, and report to me as agreed. And if some rabid idea suddenly springs in your mind to warn your friends about your involvement with me, please consider the fact that from now on two of my men will constantly keep tabs on your beautiful fiancé’s whereabouts. And if for some reason I get wind of your disloyalty to me…” Klaus tilted his head to one side, leaving the sentence open on that menacing note.
Hardy agreed to everything.
It was important, however, not to overdo it, not to terrify him too much, not to just threaten him into submission but explain what exactly Hardy would gain from such collaboration. With men like Lunel, fear was the predominant factor, with men like Hardy it was the friendly attitude and treats which Klaus threw him from time to time, Lydie’s fur being one of the latest. See? I can be nice when I want to. Just don’t think of ever crossing me, and we’ll get along just fine.
The late Obergruppenführer Heydrich had first adopted a similar technique when he was appointed as the Protector of Bohemia-Moravia. Klaus met him only once, in person, during a meeting in Berlin, what felt like a century ago; he recognized in Heydrich not only a kindred spirit but someone who he, Klaus, would aspire to become eventually. Heydrich was a veritable idol for his SS men, and Klaus didn’t escape falling under his oddly hypnotic influence. Calm, invariably collected, unapproachable and with a somewhat disgusted twist of his mouth, Heydrich spoke in an unexpectedly quiet voice, but what intelligence, what brilliance, what genius radiated from him when he spoke! Klaus met Reichsführer Himmler as well during the same meeting and a few times afterward. Unlike tall and blond Heydrich, who towered over Klaus with his imposing frame, an Aryan demigod with icy blue eyes, Himmler was just as mediocre-looking as Klaus, only without any semblance of a chin and in round glasses with thick lenses. Klaus looked up to Heydrich with reverence; Himmler he simply tolerated. But, unfortunately, Heydrich was killed by Czech terrorists in May ’42, and now Klaus didn’t have anyone to look up to. Maybe, it wasn’t so bad to be unassuming and mediocre at times; types such as he was surely lived longer than Aryan demigods.
“You have some information for me, I was told.” Klaus swirled his drink in his glass, getting to business. Enough pleasantries for one evening.
“Yes, I do. I just received a note that a meeting is being arranged for all Resistance heads to meet, and it will be here in Lyon.”
Klaus straightened slightly in his chair, holding his breath against his will. If he grabbed Rex together with the others…
“There’s a problem with it though.”
“I don’t quite like that word – problem.” Klaus grinned, but the smile came out not only as unnatural but outright threatening.
“Yes, I know.” Hardy sighed. “It’s out of my control, I’m afraid.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know where the meeting will take place and neither was I invited to it. I was only told to inform one of the people who will be attending to show up at an appointed place, that’s all. From there, they said, they would take him themselves.”
“That is a problem,” Klaus conceded with surprising ease and went silent for a few long moments. “However, there are no problems which cannot be solved. And you, my dear Hardy, will help me solve it.”
“How exactly, Monsieur Obersturmführer?”
“Who told you about the meeting?”
“Henri Aubry. He works closely with ‘Rex’ from what I know. I saw them together, actually. I’m not entirely sure, but I think the second man was Rex. That’s what Aubry a
ddressed him as, at least.”
“Max and Rex are the same man, are they not?”
“Yes, I believe that is correct.”
Klaus was so close to catching de Gaulle’s second in command; he could almost taste the triumph. Then Standartenführer Sievers from the Paris SD Headquarters wouldn’t be sending him any more scornful telegrams, reproaching him for his incompetence.
“As a matter of fact, I’ll go with you tomorrow.” Hardy made huge terrified eyes at Klaus, but the latter pacified him with a single gesture of his raised hand. “Don’t fret. I won’t be arresting anyone yet. I just want to see what the man looks like. Tell him to meet you near Pont Morand, where you will be sitting on a bench, waiting for him. A man with a newspaper will be sitting next to you, and that would be me. He will take you to a discreet place to talk, of course. There, you’ll persuade him to speak with Rex for you and insist on having you there. With your boss Frenay gone to Algiers and with his right hand Renouvin dead, it’s only reasonable if you represent Combat during the meeting, is it not?”
Hardy considered. “I suppose… But it’s up to them to decide.”
“You have to be very persuasive then.”
Lydie, an unspoken threat hung between the two, thin and veiled but as real as the cloud of the grayish smoke from Klaus’s cigarette.
“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will. Give my best regards to Lydie, will you?”
Lyon. June 21, 1943
Etienne, dressed in his simplest and most nondescript clothes, pedaled down the street on his bicycle, leaving the car at home. Moulin had asked him specifically to not attract any attention, and Etienne camouflaged himself the best he could, leaving his elegant persona of a Sous-Préfet just for one day. He got to the ficelle – a funicular going from the Croix-Rousse to Caluire, where the meeting was to take place – at 1.45 pm, frowning when he noticed two people instead of one.
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