A Prince Without a Kingdom (46 page)

Vango was thrown off balance by the restaurant owner’s friendliness. He had been expecting a collaborators’ den rather than the warmth of this establishment, with not a word of German on the menu slate. Over by the door, there was even an old English advertisement for boats crossing from England to Calais —
Bienvenue, welcome
— which couldn’t be innocent.

Vango had just tasted the piping-hot creamy soup Ethel had been served. Quickly, he pulled his lips away from the cup. The liquid had scalded him all the way to his heart. It was a heat that took him right back. The taste of rosemary . . . What was it about this soup?

Ethel held Vango’s hand. Her nails dug into his palm. Vango suddenly wanted to whisk her away with him, without waiting.

On the second floor opposite, Max Grund stood up. It took a while for everyone to fall quiet around him. Grund cleared his throat like a tenor.

Augustin Avignon felt ill at ease and couldn’t sit still. He was cross with Inspector Mouchet for taking so long to provide him with the list. Avignon had only received it the day before, at which point he had finally understood why he was invited: Viktor wanted to be remembered to him.

Avignon glanced at the two men at the other end of the table. Voloy Viktor and the Irishman shared the same smug smile, while their eyes smarted from the smoky room. Viktor was relishing being in Paris without needing to hide.

Voloy Viktor had succeeded in making a reality of Zefiro’s fiction: a colossal arms deal with Germany, invented several years earlier by the padre in an attempt to ensnare the arms dealer. The contract had just been signed. The Irishman, supremely confident since the airship had gone up in flames, was prepared to follow him blindly. Viktor would gladly have put flowers on Zefiro’s grave to thank him. After all, this was originally his idea! It was as if Viktor had killed him for a second time.

Grund stood there stiffly, his fingertips touching the tablecloth.

“
Messieurs,
this evening I shall address you in French.”

Viktor leaned into Cafarello’s ear to translate.

“In French, for the sake of a number of our friends around this table,” continued Grund, “and because the gratin I have just eaten also speaks to me in this language.”

Nina Bienvenue seized the opportunity to slip away for a moment. She signaled to the pianist and made her way down the spiral staircase.

“Among us this evening we have two gentlemen, I should say two friends, whom our führer has decorated with the Grand Cross of the Eagle, two gentlemen who, without seeking honors or the limelight . . .”

Nina Bienvenue glided between the armed guards waiting downstairs. She walked into the ladies’ room but immediately reappeared, accosting Fermini as he emerged from the kitchen.

“Monsieur, just now I left a lady’s item in a little box, but it’s not there anymore.”

“I’m not surprised, Mademoiselle Bienvenue. We clean these facilities after every visit.”

Casimir Fermini spoke drily. He knew about Nina’s reputation and had no time for her.

“I thought I was the only lady here. I do beg your pardon.”

She reached out and slowly pretended to remove a speck of dust from the patron’s tie. He tried to maintain his composure.

“You are indeed the only lady on the second floor. But there are kitchens just behind this door, and perhaps a lady worthy of availing herself of these facilities after you, with your permission.”

Nina Bienvenue flashed a disarming smile, unshocked by the democracy of the ladies’ lavatory.

“Could you tell me where I might find my box?”

“In the cloakroom, behind the gentleman who is staring at your legs.”

Startled at being caught midstare, a German soldier promptly stood to attention. Fermini moved him off one of the checkered floor tiles, like a pawn on a chessboard. He opened a curtain.

There was indeed a small box next to a large leather suitcase.

“Doesn’t that case belong to you?” inquired Fermini as Nina picked up the small box.

“No, I use very little makeup. Thank you.”

She disappeared into the ladies’ room. The patron tried lifting the suitcase. It was full.

“Did one of your men arrive with this suitcase?” he asked, turning to face both soldiers.

They didn’t appear to understand. Fermini leaned over to open it, but the case was locked. He hesitated for a moment before closing the curtain and heading upstairs.

Grund raised his glass in the air.

“To the greatness of our industry, the might of our tanks, the radiance . . .”

Fermini sighed. This wasn’t the moment to talk about luggage. He went back downstairs, crossing paths with Nina Bienvenue, who now gave off a scent of frangipani.

“Perhaps it’s for a honeymoon,” she said. “Newlyweds always have a suitcase. You never know; someone might have a surprise in store for me!”

Fermini gritted his teeth. Nina, meanwhile, returned to the dining room to the sound of the applause for the end of Max Grund’s speech. The pianist played the first few notes of a song, and Nina Bienvenue broke into German,
“From my head to my toes, I was made to love . . .”

At eleven o’clock, the metal shutter on the other side of the street was pulled down so that it was three-quarters closed. Fermini had come to an arrangement with Grund the day before. Despite the curfew, he wouldn’t send away any of his customers from the dining room opposite until the New Year’s Eve dinner on the second floor had finished. A small victory in exchange for such an invasion.

And so thirty privileged guests remained in the restaurant with its shutters almost closed, which only heightened the diners’ delight: just as when a lid is put on the cooking pot. Less shouting could be heard coming from opposite now, just a few notes from the piano. The food traveled via the cellars, which ran underneath the street: a tunnel lined with bottles. Plates and aromas arrived in waves. The waiters kept emerging from a trapdoor just behind Ethel and Vango.

Vango repeatedly checked the clock to stay in touch with reality. He had expected to be thrown out with the curfew, so he wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on the premises right up until the fateful hour. But this hadn’t proved to be the case, and now he was hoping to stay until the end. The suitcase was timed for midnight. He would be in the car, at the end of the street, when he heard the explosion.

And then it would all be over.

Ethel was staring at him intensely. For once, she allowed herself to be led by him.

Vango knew that he was breaking the promise he had made to Zefiro, as well as the one he had made to himself: to renounce warfare and death. This place, which he was warming to, would be affected as well. But it was the dining room opposite that would be destroyed. He had checked each name on Grund’s list several times. Which of these criminals would anyone miss? If necessary, Vango would dig up Mazzetta and his donkey’s treasure, the fortune hidden in a cliff on his island, in order to rebuild these walls so they looked exactly the same.

A small group next to the couple sipped at their herbal teas. Vango could detect a whiff of aniseed in the air. Tonight, the whole world was conspiring to throw him off balance.

Slumped over the steering wheel, Simon was worried: the agreed time had long since passed. Paul was asleep behind him. Police officers walked past the car without seeing them. The bell-ringer-turned-driver was wondering whether he should get out.

At eight minutes before midnight Vango stood up, as if getting to his feet after a dizzy spell.

“We must leave.”

Casimir Fermini rushed over to him.

“Please, a final dish for the young lady.”

“We can’t stay.”

“One last dish, in the chef’s honor. And then I’ll grant you your freedom.”

The patron clicked his fingers, and Bartholomew approached with a tiny plate beneath a copper bell. Vango glanced at the clock and sat down again.

“This is our great specialty,” said Fermini. “Of course, we haven’t served it on the other side of the street. I still have my honor.”

Hearing him speak this way, Vango felt ashamed of the damage he was about to inflict. Ethel was watching every flicker on his face.

Fermini raised the bell. On a bed of melted butter lay eight little potatoes, no bigger than quail’s eggs and peeled so that they had eight facets, like diamonds.

There was a first tiny explosion in Vango’s heart.

“Your chef . . .” he said, with tears in his eyes.

Fermini had placed the bell against his chest so as not to let the steam fall back onto the plate.

“Is your chef a woman?” asked Vango.

The patron stared at him.

“Monsieur, you are the first person to guess that.”

“She
is
a woman?”

It was five to midnight. The patron lowered his voice, as if he were talking about treasure buried in his garden.

“Not only is she a woman,” Fermini corrected him, welling up with as much emotion as Vango, “but she is a marvel.”

He seemed to be of two minds about going on.

“She used to work here before the First War. She was very beautiful, and I was still a child. She learned everything from my uncle.”

He was shaking his head. Vango turned once again to check the clock.

“She disappeared, a long time ago. And then she returned, barely five years ago, to set to work again in the kitchen. She named the restaurant La Belle Étoile. It’s a fine name, but she won’t tell me why there has to be a star in her restaurant’s title.”

Fermini smiled before adding, “To us, she’s only ever been known as Mademoiselle.”

“Where is she?”

“In the building opposite, just over there. The poor woman has to cook to the sound of boots above her head.”

Ethel saw Vango turn abruptly toward the clock, then fix his eyes on the trapdoor that led to the cellars. In a flash, he had disappeared.

He bumped into a waiter in the gloomy tunnel beneath the street. A few seconds later, he emerged on the other side. The trapdoor opened onto the corridor in front of the kitchen. He pushed open the first door and found himself face-to-face with the soldiers.

For a second, Vango stopped breathing. Then, slowly, he caught his breath again and managed to say to the soldiers, “My suitcase.”

He went over to the cloakroom and lifted the suitcase, without appearing to take any strain. He probably had about two minutes left. He walked slowly past the guards and made for the door marked
Messieurs
under the staircase.

He reached out for the handle, but the door was locked.

Twenty seconds went by. The soldiers stared at him suspiciously.

“There’s someone in there,” Vango explained pointlessly.

Vango stood there waiting for the tiny click of the detonator at the bottom of the suitcase, but it was the lock in the door that grated first. The door opened and a man appeared.

Vango took a step backward.

It was Cafarello.

He wiped his hands on his jacket.

“It’s clogged,” the guest of the German high command muttered in Sicilian, staring at the man carrying the suitcase.

“It doesn’t matter,” replied Vango in the same language.

They stared at each other, and Cafarello didn’t budge from the door. He checked that his suspenders and fly were in order. He was drunk.

Upstairs, the countdown to midnight had begun. Emerging from the trapdoor, Fermini appeared next to the guards.

Finally, Cafarello began to stagger toward the staircase. He turned around for a second to look at Vango, as if he reminded him of something.

“Sicilian?” he asked, holding on to the handrail.

“Sorry?” replied Vango in French.

“You spoke to me in my language,” said Cafarello.

Vango shook his head to indicate that he didn’t understand.

Climbing back up the stairs, Cafarello cursed French wine and all the vermin on this earth.

Vango pushed open the lavatory door and locked himself in.

He took a key out of his belt and turned it twice in the locks on the suitcase, which gave way. Upstairs, they were stamping their feet to mark each second. Vango had grabbed an iron box with a clock dial. Above all, he mustn’t break the wire. With the same key, he attempted to undo the box’s screws. They wouldn’t turn. And then it happened: he accidentally snapped the rectifier wire. Upstairs, a great cheer went up for the New Year. It was all over. But the alarm clock that activated the bomb was five seconds behind German time. Vango jammed his finger into the mechanism and stopped it.

The walls were trembling.

A minute went by.

Vango didn’t hear Fermini knocking on the door to the gentlemen’s lavatories, or the military hymns wafting down from the great dining room. He was sobbing and staring at something left behind by the previous occupant, over there on the washbasin: a piece of red fabric.

A Cossack scarf, worn out by the century.

He went over and picked it up.

By the time Vango reappeared with his suitcase, Casimir Fermini was beside himself with worry. He’d been convinced that Vango wanted to kidnap his chef. He spoke quietly and urgently, complaining that he’d been given such a fright.

“You left just like that! It was so fast. And you were talking about my chef.”

But his words didn’t register with Vango.

“Is that your suitcase? You know, there are lavatories back on the other side too, as well as a cloakroom. Tell me, are you on your honeymoon?”

Casimir was whispering so as not to be understood by the two soldiers. He kept talking about how worried he’d been. What he wasn’t admitting, his secret, was that he was madly in love with his chef. Even as a twelve-year-old boy, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her setting the table. Now he lived in fear of losing her, even if she pretended not to pick up on any of his hints.

“Dinner was on the house! I’m sorry, but we have to ask our guests to leave now. You gave me such a fright. I must warn you not to go into the kitchen. Mademoiselle doesn’t allow visitors.”

All Vango heard was the final sentence.

“In that case, I’ll come back,” he blurted.