April in Paris (15 page)

She laughed through her tears. “You—a deserter?”

The fact that she didn’t take me seriously, not even for a second, annoyed me.

“You’re not French,” she said. “You’re just a Frenchman in your dreams.” She ran her fingers through my hair.

I pulled my head away and declared that I intended to abandon the idea of a university education. After periods of great de-struction, simple things are needed, I said. Wood and stone. I planned to employ my skills as a manual worker. People with such abilities would be in demand in Paris, too.

“Where will you go, Chantal?” Our breathing coincided for a few gasps and then separated again.

“Away from Paris.”

The thought that we were lying next to each other for the last time paralyzed me. I stared over at the window. Sounds announced the arrival of morning. Had Chantal said a single word, I would have gone away with her, to wherever she wanted, that very night.

She pulled the covers over her feet. “Whatever happens,” she whispered, “don’t ever go back to Turachevsky’s.”

“If I hadn’t gone there, we’d never have seen each other again.”

I smiled.

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 139

“Promise me.”

“It’s hardly likely I’ll have another opportunity to go there.”

“Promise me anyway.”

I laid two fingers on her mouth and made the vow.

“The
Fables,
you remember?” She rolled over so that she could see me better. “Everything’s in the
Fables.
”

I nodded. My head was getting heavy.

“All roads are in the
Fables,
” Chantal said.

The image of the fox and the grapes crossed my mind. I opened my eyes once more and saw her smiling at me. Outside, the blackness was gradually turning gray.

December was severe. I climbed over mounds of cleared snow, entered the headquarters building in rue des Saussaies, and looked on empty-eyed as the PFC in the security passage checked my papers every day as if for the first time. Then I climbed the marble steps, went into the unit offices, sat at my place, and greeted Rieleck-Sostmann.

My colleagues talked—guardedly, in approximate terms—

about the Eastern Front. Of late, the catchwords were
redistribu-tion of forces
and
breathing space.
Things were bound to heat up soon in the west, too. On the eighteenth, Rommel had arrived in Fontainebleau to lead the defense of the Atlantic Wall. This development caused some concern in rue des Saussaies. I didn’t par-ticipate in the conversations, and no one invited me to join in.

The others knew I had my marching orders.

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 141

The ambiguity of my situation and my service here, which was becoming more senseless and brutal with each passing week, was just about over. The necessary papers had been issued. Leibold had only to write in a date. Montenegrin-Serbian border area, specific locality unknown, a new company, new comrades. The days passed.

I found myself inadvertently staring at a situation report in an open folder.: “1. Russian Offensive Against Army Group South Ukraine./ 2. Defection of Bulgaria./ 3. Order to Evacuate Greece and the Aegean./ 4. Progressive Withdrawal from Southeast Bas-tion; Transition to Definitive Defense of Fortified Sava-Theiss Line.” The word
Definitive
was underlined.

I looked at a map. My new assignment would be there, in mountain country. The front wiggled through the karst like a snake run mad. I waited. This delay in my departure was pure torment, but I didn’t speak of that to Leibold. Christmastime came closer. I hoped I would leave Paris before the year was out.

Stories shortened the time for me. I lived in them. As soon as I went off duty, I picked up a book. I read novels, tales, whatever I could get my hands on. I browsed the booksellers’ stalls every day, bought something, and devoured the words. Sometimes I went through two books in a single evening. The ones I liked the best had to do with glory and the performance of great tasks. At night, I thought about Chantal, imagining her life in the country, conjecturing about what she did during the brief, dark days, what clothes she wore, what she ate. I clung tightly to the belief that we hadn’t said good-bye forever.

I seldom opened my door when Hirschbiegel knocked, which was generally late in the evening. His armored infantry unit was 142 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

being transferred to duty on the Atlantic Wall. He’d experienced war as a cakewalk for three and a half years, and now he was supposed to face the Allied invasion force, of all things. The lieutenant was happy because he’d been posted to the western portion of the Normandy coast and not to the Calais sector, where the attack was expected to come. His baths got longer and longer; he concealed his nervousness behind Bavarian grumbling. On the rare evenings when I went out with him, I felt uncomfortable and went back to the hotel early. I’d already said adieu to the city; Paris was the past.

So the invitation was all the more surprising. “Christmas party,” Leibold said.

We were standing beside our preferred window, looking out at the garden. Snow was weighing down the unmown autumn grass.

Leibold had recently started smoking continuously. His nicotine-yellowed fingers clashed with his well-groomed hands. “We’ll take the opportunity to drink to your transfer.” He dropped ash from his cigarette and smiled.

“Has it gone through?” I asked the question as joyfully as if Leibold were granting me home leave.

He named the nightclub where the party was going to be.

“We’re starting early. There’s a colonel coming in from Chartres, and he has to go back there later tonight.”

I promised to be at the nightclub, which was near the Trinité stop, shortly before eight o’clock. “Might I bring someone with me?” I asked. Leibold shrugged his shoulders; his hands clasped behind his back, he returned to his office.

Back at the hotel, I changed my clothes, climbed up to Hirschbiegel’s room, and told him about the invitation.

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 143

“I’d rather not,” the fat man said, carefully checking around his bathtub to make sure everything was ready.

“We wouldn’t stay long. They have to go back to Chartres tonight.”

“I have an aversion to the death’s-head boys,” he answered.

“Besides, if my colonel found out I went to an SS Christmas party, there’d be hell to pay.” Hirschbiegel stepped out of his tent-size underpants.

I leaned my forehead against the windowpane. “Leibold’s not the worst,” I muttered.

While the lieutenant soaked his large body in hot water, I described the place and the women one could meet there. Gradually, he fell in with the idea. We left at 7:30. On the way, Hirschbiegel pointed at a poster for the collaborationist speaker Philippe Henriot. Over their compatriot’s mouth and nose, the Resistance had pasted a notice:
A LA POPULATION!

“Shouldn’t you report such a thing?” he asked, smiling and nudging me. I stuck my hands in my pockets.

At Leibold’s table, there were two decorated majors, a pair of adjutants, and a colonel who turned out to be from the First SS

Panzer Division.

When we walked in, Hirschbiegel held me back. “Why not bring Himmler along, too?” he said. Grumbling, he followed me to the SS table.

Leibold introduced me. “When things get French, Corporal Roth is very handy,” he declared, anticipating the amazement of his fellow officers, who otherwise wouldn’t have tolerated the presence of a corporal at their table. Leibold offered me the seat next to his. Hirschbiegel wound up sitting in the midst of the 144 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

black uniforms. He was giving me evil looks, because there was nary a woman to be seen in the whole place.

The nightclub proved to be a total disaster. The brass from Chartres considered the wine an affront. The maître d’hôtel apologized; his
good
stock, he said, had been confiscated in a raid.

“It’s your own fault for not hiding it better!” The colonel, an impressively large man with graying hair, laughed.

A change of venue was discussed. The gentlemen plumped for the usual nightspot itinerary, through the streets near the Seine.

Then the conversation turned to its main topic, the rumored invasion, but all in a tone that suggested the event would take place exclusively on a sand table. The Fourth Panzers moving west, supply lines secured, antiaircraft defenses set up along the Marne line. If Göring could just keep up production of the Junkers JU-52 bomber, the “ol’ JU.” Air superiority, that was still the key. In theory, the problem was solved.

Shortly before ten o’clock, the colonel said, “There’s this Frenchman who cooks for us. He recommended a club with a strange name—Polish, I think. Emil, do you remember what he called it?”

From the start, Major Emil had tried to converse with me in French, putting his vocabulary to the test. He was a rather formal but engaging fellow from Detmold. To my surprise, he knew the
Fables.
On the way to the car, he walked beside me and quoted from memory:

An ass who wore a lion’s skin

Did general fear awake.

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 145

Though faint of heart, like all his kin,

He made the other creatures quake.

“So is there a Polish whorehouse hereabouts, or what?” inter-jected the colonel.

“Roth?” Leibold turned to me. “Have you been back to Turachevsky’s recently?”

Our destination was decided. Even though Chantal had been gone from Paris for some time, the idea of going to the very place where she used to work excited me.

Not much conversation in the automobile. I looked out into the night; alternatively, from time to time, I considered Emil’s powerful-looking hands and pretended not to feel Leibold’s eyes on me. When we got out, Hirschbiegel placed himself at my side.

“These guys are even worse than their reputation,” he whispered.

“Please stay close to me.”

Leibold rang the doorbell.

Many girls were lounging in the salon. Madame swept in, obtrusive and officious. Faced with such a wide range of choice, the gentlemen from Chartres suddenly turned diffident. By way of relaxing the tension, Leibold proposed a visit to the bar. Madame accompanied us there. We got a table close to the stage, remarkably enough, because as a rule, the front tables were occupied first. The dance troupe was performing the usual nonsense. Emil wanted to sit next to me, but this time Leibold was faster. Hirschbiegel sullenly squeezed in between the two adjutants.

The champagne was just the right temperature. The gentlemen from Chartres applauded the dancing girls. After they disap-146 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

peared from the stage, the colonel from the First Panzers assumed the alpha-male role and began to tell jokes. He drained his glasses of champagne all in one gulp, as if it were whiskey. “Who knows the one about the rainbow trout?”

Hirschbiegel had grown more and more morose. After the first punch line fell flat, he excused himself, shot me a look, and disappeared into the salon. The gentlemen made remarks about the heavyweight firepower of the Wehrmacht. While I was watching Hirschbiegel’s exit, I noticed someone in the passageway. A woman with rust brown hair, her clothes out of place in Turachevsky’s—dark trousers, a heavy gray jacket. And she was carrying a bag. The woman resembled Chantal. A second later, she disappeared.

“I’ll have to tell that one to the old lady,” one of the adjutants crowed.

“Then she’s got to hear
this
one, too!” The colonel was radiant.

I slowly got to my feet.

Leibold’s eyes followed me. He asked softly, “See someone you know?”

I murmured an apology that was submerged by laughter, took the shortest way out, and entered the salon. The woman with the jacket was nowhere to be seen. Almost all the girls were gone.

Two soldiers complained that they had only half an hour left and hadn’t had their turn yet. No trace of Chantal. I started thinking I was mistaken. All the same, I asked a Greek woman in a kimono; she didn’t know anyone named Chantal. Then, in incomprehensible haste, she dashed up the stairs. Except for the Wehrmacht soldiers all around, the salon seemed unusually de-A P R I L I N PA R I S . 147

serted. I went to the door and glanced up and down the frigid, narrow street. Indecisively, reluctantly, I went back into the bar.

Three of the five musicians were on their feet, picking up their instruments. The bandleader was playing a piano solo—

Offenbach, a march from
La Vie parisienne
—joined only by the valiant percussionist, whose high-hat pedal squeaked. I watched the other musicians disappear through the side exit.

The gentlemen around Leibold were still laughing. Their booted legs were stretched out under the table; the officers whin-nied and gasped for breath. Their insignia jumped up and down.

The colonel incited them to new outbursts. “This guy forgets to send his wife flowers for her birthday… .”

Leibold spotted me at the bar. His questioning look was an invitation to return to the table. I pretended to have ordered a drink. The march began again. The percussionist kept looking at the gray-haired pianist impatiently, but he played on, as if he wanted to replace the entire band with his ten fingers. The Alger-ian bartender put two glasses on the shelf and threw his cloth over his shoulder. Grabbing up an armful of empty bottles, he left the bar, heading for the salon.

My eyes hastily scanned the room. No employee of the house was visible. The pretty cigarette girl, the old Romanian woman who always came out of the washrooms and bobbed her head in time to the music—I couldn’t find either of them. A chilly pre-monition came over me. Most of the people at the tables were Wehrmacht. The few French were profiteers, black marketeers, the
other
Parisians. One remark flashed through my brain. Hadn’t the colonel said that Turachevsky’s had been
recommended
to the 148 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

SS officers? And what about the woman dressed like a man and carrying a bag?