by Pirate Irwin
There were tasteless cartoons about US President Franklin D Roosevelt and his wheelchair. But the least wholesome part of all were the classified pages where ‘valiant’ French people hiding their courage under the cloak of anonymity denounced people they knew to be Jews, who were either neighbours or had sought refuge in their town.
This made Lafarge nauseous, a quick nip of cognac putting that to rest, as he read through some of them. The Germans may not be winning the war but it wasn’t stopping people from continuing their patriotic duty in either going down to the local gendarmerie or sending these poisonous notes to the newspapers, none of which would be checked for their veracity.
Not many policemen were industrious in researching the information provided to them and would simply have the people who had been denounced picked up. Robespierre would be proud of them, for they had not learned anything from the terror that he had created under the false premise of protecting the state.
He sighed deeply and looked out the window as the train sped along under its own steam through the countryside. Every now and then he would spot a group of German tanks or armoured columns either motoring along or taking a break in the fields, the young men looking like any other human being but for their uniforms and heavy weaponry.
How much longer, mused Lafarge, will this be the case? Will I or the people who occupy this compartment in the years to come have the same sight confront them? His thoughts were interrupted suddenly as the door to his compartment was drawn back and looking up expecting to see the conductor he saw instead Aimee.
Oh Christ he thought as he flashed a look of despair and he also felt fear rising inside him, for perhaps she had followed him with the sole purpose of killing him. Perhaps she had dispensed with the idea of him facing judgment by legal means and thought it was too good an opportunity to pass over. She must have sensed this because she burst out laughing.
“Ah Gaston you look as if you died! Or that I was about to perform a grisly execution ritual on you, a drama worthy of Shakespeare or Marlowe! Well you can rest easy, I have not come here armed with anything more powerful than my handbag and a packet of cigarettes,” she said still laughing.
Lafarge smiled thinly, breathed a sigh of relief, but still questioned her motives. For she had hardly boarded a train simply to frighten the living daylights out of him. It was too risky for her to have had that as her only motive.
Undeterred by his silence she took the seat opposite him and lit a cigarette.
She once again looked superb, a finely designed blue wool two piece suit with a cream taffeta shirt and adorned by an elegant mother of pearl necklace. He noticed too she was wearing stockings, which were hard to come by for most women these days, and for those on the run even more so.
“There’s one thing missing from this reunion on a train, Gaston,” she said, merriment in her eyes.
“What’s that Aimee?” he asked evenly.
“Why a drink for your travelling companion. You were very generous with it the first time we met, perhaps having conquered me you feel it isn’t worth it this time round,” she said.
Lafarge smiled sheepishly and stood up, withdrawing a bottle of wine from his suitcase. The cognac could come later.
It was after all only just past 10 in the morning and his nausea had subsided. He opened the bottle and poured them two healthy sized glasses and they clinked them together and sat in silence. She looked out the window while he looked at her and tried to gauge what it was that she was after from him.
“Aimee I cannot expiate my guilt over what happened in Limoges. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me for betraying you and your family, all I can say in mitigation is that I had to sacrifice something so as to survive myself.
“Unfortunately that is the situation I found myself in, and it has caused me a lot of pain since as I did have strong feelings for you. I mean sleeping with you was not done lightly, as you can see I have a very special wife, but I really felt something strong between ourselves,” said Lafarge.
Aimee flashed him a look of such disdain that he resisted making any further comment.
“So Aimee what is it that you want? Obviously you are not going to kill me, but you must have a reason for placing yourself in danger by taking the train,” said Lafarge.
She didn’t answer, simply crossed her legs so they were barring him from leaving the compartment, and carried on looking out the window.
He filled both their glasses again and tried to resume reading his book, The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas. It wasn’t exactly adult reading but he had always found the author an exciting read and for him a well observed account of previous French rulers and their endless deadly intrigues.
After about an hour of the train crawling through the countryside she finally broke her silence.
“You know Gaston, being an actress doesn’t just mean I perform on stage or in front of a camera. I am always performing a role of some sort, no more so than when it is really needed. Thus it was the day your charming colleagues turned up at the farm house,” she said, her eyes not meeting his.
“However, unbeknownst to you I knew that something was pending. I saw you slip out that night and follow them across the driveway. I don’t know what you heard but obviously it was enough for you to report back to your colleagues.
“I really don’t want to know why you felt compelled to do such an awful thing, but in any case I made my own arrangements to escape, by making my way down to the lake and rowing across it to safety. Hence I feel a little guilty too because I left my brother and his wife to their fate. But at least I did not betray them.
“I was stopped but I was fortunate for it was that colleague of yours Broglie, who does not seem to share the enthusiasm for the Nazis as some of your colleagues do. He put me in his car and drove me to the lawyer chap in Limoges, Gerland, who looked after me very well and explained that you had been by and taken away your prisoner.
“Of course that all made sense then, why you had done what you did, but it still doesn’t make it right. Gerland managed to get me new identification papers which got me as far as the south and from then really I have been able to live a normal life to the extent that I have reassumed my real name.
“Of course there is an inherent risk in doing so, but I do not feel like fleeing as so many have done. No, I want to stay and hope that in a short time things will be almost back to what they were before. Then I can enjoy the sight of seeing those who benefited from the Nazis rule being judged and even executed publicly for that is what they deserve.
“It’s ironic isn’t it that in pursuit of solving a case regarding a slut of an actress you were prepared to sacrifice one that refused to go down the same road so as to advance her career.
“That I am sure is not lost on you.
“But then your whole behaviour over the murder has been from what I am told by those who know you, for I have done my research, been unpredictable. Whether it is because you have been blinded by your crusade against Bousquet or some other motivating factor heaven knows.
“All I can tell you is that it could cost you dearly, even if the case is solved. That is sad because I really thought you were different to the others, rather special in fact, but then I was never too good at picking the right man,” she said her eyes brimming with tears.
Lafarge dismissed her observations and her amateurish efforts at psychology and stared out the window, his indifference to her clear.
She smiled a bitter smile and poured herself another glass of red wine, settled back in her seat and sat observing him. He found it unsettling and eventually unable to handle the heavy atmosphere he stood up and told her he was going to stretch his legs.
“Going to find the nearest Gestapo man or German and deliver me up again are you Gaston?” she sneered.
“How easy that would be for you. Get some credit ahead of your unpopular return to Paris, make sure you rid yourself for good of an irritating character who you enjoyed an unwelcome adventu
re with and would prefer you hadn’t. Go on then do it,” she hissed.
Lafarge shook his head in exasperation and stepped out into the corridor. He walked to the end of the carriage and was about to progress into the next one when he saw that the conductor was coming down it checking the tickets.
It was not so much that that alarmed him with regard to Aimee but that the conductor was accompanied by two members of the Milice. They were so fanatical and violent that even Bousquet regarded them with disgust, whether because it challenged his authority or was even too extreme for him Lafarge didn’t really care but at least there they agreed on something.
Renowned for their brutality they were largely sociopaths, who were little better than the Lafont and Bonny outfit, and gave no quarter to French people believed to be anti–Vichy.
Lafarge thought quickly of how to avoid Aimee falling into their hands, but then reflected on how it would look for him if he were to be caught in the same compartment as a wanted terrorist.
He couldn’t claim ignorance about her links to the Resistance as one phone call to Paris and a subsequent look at his file would reveal that he had slept with her on a previous occasion prior to the destruction of the cell.
He could just imagine Bousquet’s glee on hearing the news. Aside from his investigation coming to a definitive end, he could face much worse than that if he were to be charged with aiding and abetting an enemy of Vichy.
He was perhaps developing a paranoid streak because he wondered whether this had all been a set up from the get go, her turning up at home just after he had his meeting in Vichy and then on his train.
It was too late to move compartment as he didn’t have the time to go back and get his luggage. All he could hope for was that she had left by the time he returned, but he was to be disappointed as she was still sitting by the window.
“I’m afraid that without any help from me, though, you may not believe me, that you are about to be picked up Aimee,” said Lafarge coolly.
“And before you get mad with me I might add that I too am screwed because of having you in here.
“What deal did you do with them to set me up Aimee? No death sentence, a light punishment if you delivered me to them and prevented my return to Paris?
“So your holier than thou remarks about me being judged by a higher court was all bullshit, you couldn’t wait or rather you had already set the trap when you made them!
“Revenge sweet is it Aimee? Well before you start congratulating yourself and enjoying the moment I would counsel you to take their word lightly. They are about as honourable as the snake was in the Garden of Eden,” he shouted.
Aimee remained impassive.
“For Christ’s sake Aimee can’t you see what you have done? You’ve screwed everything up, Bousquet will be the only one to benefit from this. I really pity you!” he shouted again.
“What’s going on?” came a gruff voice from behind him.
Lafarge turned round to see the conductor flanked by the two milice officers, who because of his rant he had not heard pull back the door.
Lafarge tried to calm down and smiled pathetically at the conductor, an old man who had probably seen these type of disputes aplenty down the years, and then at the two milice men. Their demeanour didn’t suggest they were going to fall for such a ruse.
The conductor checked their tickets and franked them leaving the milice officers to check the identification papers and that they had the obligatory travel permits.
The older of the two, middle aged with beady mean eyes and a pencil thin moustache which made him look like a mobster, checked Lafarge’s papers. He eyed him warily when he saw that he was a policeman, and made a derogatory remark about lily–livered detectives to his younger partner, who was checking Aimee’s papers.
The younger one, who had a pockmarked face as if he had suffered from a bad dose of chickenpox early in his youth, handed the papers back to Aimee without any fuss at all.
“Enjoy the rest of the journey, I would suggest that you go easy on the drink as it’s never conducive to an even tempered debate,” said the younger one with the hint of a smile on his face.
“Paris isn’t the worst of destinations after all. It’s not as if you are packed into a cattle truck like the Yids! So think yourselves fortunate and calm down.
“We don’t want to have to intervene in a domestic dispute when we might have Jews and their like to arrest on the train.
“So Monsieur and Madame Lafarge I would recommend you sleep this off, there are several hours to go. Why not even take advantage of the fact you have a compartment to yourselves, if you know what I mean?” winked the younger one.
The older one clearly didn’t share in the levity of the situation and looked at Lafarge with contempt.
“Ah Jean now you see why we had to be asked to step into help with the security of our country, when you see the degenerate and lax way our so called professional police behave. No wonder the terrorists and other lowlifes have killed so many of our patriots, because the police drink and whore their way through the war,” he said.
Lafarge bit his tongue so as not to lash out at the older Milice man, and sensing this the younger one, Jean, pulled his colleague out of the compartment apologising and shutting the door behind them.
Lafarge was stunned. Firstly at the vitriolic attack by the Milice man and that Aimee had successfully passed herself off as his wife.
He looked at her for an answer, but all he got was a belly laugh. It was perhaps the best response in case the middle–aged Milice man had stayed outside the door eavesdropping hoping to hear an explosive argument.
Disregarding the young pup’s suggestion about laying off the drink, Lafarge poured them both another glass and withdrew a second bottle from his suitcase. In fact he was willing to ignore most of the advice so unhelpfully proferred but he still wanted answers from his ‘wife’. Eventually her laugh died down as she reveled in the moment.
“Gaston, you really thought I would offer myself up as a sacrifice just to trap you! You really aren’t worth that much. I did enjoy your outburst, though, it was a performance worthy of Vigan more than a Guitry soliloquy, which is a compliment by the way!” she said before breaking out into another bout of laughter.
Lafarge didn’t feel like joining in, he felt ridiculed and that he had made a fool of himself, and he slumped down thoroughly deflated in the seat nearest the door.
“Oh come Gaston, look better to be fooled by me than to be carted off by those two gangsters and tortured before facing execution. The worst you can be accused of now is that you are a bigamist, which many Frenchmen would be envious of!” she chortled.
A bigamist, terrific, thought Lafarge. Married to a fiery Argentinian and also a wanted terrorist, and he doubted Isabella for all her relaxed airs would find this amusing. However, once he started to calm down he too began to see the funny side of it but he still needed an explanation.
“Ok Aimee you had me there. I apologise for thinking that you were setting me up for your own satisfaction, it was uncharitable of me to think that you should do something like that. But then as you say or as people have told you I have become a little neurotic,” he said gently.
“However, how on earth did you manage to pull this off? I guess it explains why you were so confident that you could return to Paris without any problem, I take it that seeking Guitry’s protection was a ruse, but still you have a nerve,” he said.
“Ah well Gaston, being an actress puts you in touch with all sorts of characters, not just the ones one plays! Hence there was an assortment of colourful characters I could call on in Nice to help me in my predicament, who because of affairs in the past and friendships formed were only too happy to help me create a new identity,” she said.
“It helped obviously that you or at least your wife was living in the city. So I went to work on such details as date of birth, ages of children etcetra, just in case I underwent a stiffer examination than those two fools performed
. What better security for an active member of the Resistance than to go round as the wife of a senior detective, albeit one who does his best to be an outcast.
“What fun it has been putting all this together! Rather malevolent of me, no? Brilliant, though, perhaps my finest role awaits me in playing obedient and submissive Madame Lafarge! Now I have the perfect cover to go about my business in Paris, for nobody will suspect me of ‘terrorist’ activities.”
She smiled contently and sat back with a triumphant look on her beautiful face.
Lafarge had to admire her for her chutzpah in going into such detail and pulling it off for now. But what if she came into contact with people who knew the real Madame Lafarge? Admittedly there were very few still in Paris, and one of those, Bousquet, was not likely to be seeing her.
Ordinary gendarmes stopping her in the street would not know her so she would have a free pass unless she was caught in the act of transferring messages or whatever duties she had been assigned to carry out – duties he did not wish to know about.
“Well Aimee I have to hand it to you, you are quite something. If you survive I can see you enjoying a terrific career as an actress. However, once we are in Paris how are you going to carry on this charade, I mean we will be separated and you will have to explain why you are not living at the address on your ID papers,” said Lafarge.
She didn’t flinch.
“Ah but this is the sweetest part of it, and this is the payback for your betrayal.
“We are going to live as a married couple in your apartment and to all intents and purposes we will be Monsieur and Madame Lafarge.
“You will deal with the concierge in whatever way you wish to, money or some story about changed circumstances, and we will carry on our daily lives separately but we will live together.
“Isn’t it terrific, the cop and the terrorist living under the same roof. How your colleagues would laugh if they knew.