April in Paris (22 page)

“Where can you catch catfish?” I asked.

“My grandfather catches them sometimes. In the country.”

208 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

I stood up slowly and laid the open book on the counter. The forest of Balleroy. I started looking around again. After awhile, I was holding a school atlas in my hand. It had been published during the previous war, but I figured that the place names could hardly have changed.

“Balleroy,” I said. “Where’s Balleroy, Chantal?”

At first, I searched in the vicinity of Paris, and then I turned to the northern regions and departments—Ile-de-France and Seine-et-Marne, followed by Picardie, Val-d’Oise, and Haute-Normandie. My eyes gradually began to burn from reading the tiny print on the map. The farther west I searched, the more im-probable it seemed that I’d find Balleroy. The Joffos weren’t Normans; it wasn’t likely that the family would have property up in Normandy. I made a new search, this time starting south of Paris, but I didn’t find any place named Balleroy.

The light disappeared. I’d stayed there much too long! My carelessness gave me a fright. Hastily scooping up the
Fables
and the atlas, I slipped out of the shop, protected by the gathering twilight. While I pressed the boards back into place, I looked around. Chantal wasn’t waiting for me anywhere.

I reached rue Jacob. The folding grille had been let down in front of the barbershop. The Jewish haberdasher had given up his shop, too. I avoided German patrols as much as I could and made my way back to my sleeping place. I turned into rue Faillard under cover of darkness, pressed the books against my body, and ran past two automobiles to the building’s entrance. The big door buzzed open. I stepped gingerly along the entryway and drew near the concierge’s booth.

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 209

The make of the two parked automobiles burst upon my consciousness. It was too late. I already heard the footsteps; two men were running after me. The door of the little booth slowly opened.

I tried to stop, skidded on the slick stones, bounced back. Leibold was standing in front of me. His cap was at the correct angle, the top two buttons of his overcoat properly fastened. He slapped his gloves against his thigh. In the silence, which seemed to me interminable, I asked, “How did you find me?”

“I hadn’t ever lost you.” His smile was unusually cheerful.

“Not for a moment.”

He was only two steps away from me. All at once, I felt hot.

Images flashed across my mind. The one-armed gardener in rue des Saussaies who had shown no fear whatsoever of our pursuers.

The SS soldiers who were hot on our heels and then suddenly disappeared. Why weren’t my suspicions aroused when I saw that Joffo’s shop wasn’t under surveillance? And I’d rummaged around in there for more than an hour. Shouldn’t I have realized what Hirschbiegel would say to his interrogators after the attack in Turachevsky’s? That he would at the very least give up the secret of rue Faillard? I understood that the previous weeks hadn’t been
lucky
; they’d been Leibold’s plan. He’d let me swim around like a goldfish in a bowl, watching me the whole time. The freedom I’d enjoyed had been a favor to me from Leibold. He’d waited patiently until I went back to the bookshop and discovered what he couldn’t find: Chantal’s location.

An SS corporal stepped out from behind Leibold, his weapon at the ready.

I had no hope and not the slightest chance. But nevertheless, 210 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

I sprang forward, grabbed Leibold by the arms, and shoved him into the corporal. For a moment, I felt the bandage on his back.

The corporal couldn’t shoot without hitting Leibold. Both of them staggered backward; the smile vanished from Leibold’s face.

“Don’t,” he said crossly.

I ran. The others’ steps were so close behind me, I figured I’d be granted the coup de grâce any moment now. Holding the books with both hands—why were there no shots?—I dashed up the first flight of stairs and then the second. Apparently, they wanted me alive. There was no escape for me anywhere. My breathing grew loud. I leaped up three steps at a time; from below me came the sound of hobnailed boots, in no hurry.

I’d made the discovery three nights before. The weak spot in the wall, the sabotaged spot. The padlock on the attic door was massive and solid. But its frame was pegged into crumbly ma-sonry. I’d hoped that a certain amount of effort would enable me to lever the peg out of the wall and get into the attic. I’d used a sharp-edged piece of scrap iron as a tool and scraped away for hours during each of the last few nights.

The sound of Leibold’s voice issuing orders mingled with the stamping noise of the boots. I ran past Wasserlof ’s flat. I was certain it had been gone through quite thoroughly. Soon I stood before the iron door, panting openmouthed and yanking on the lock. The metal frame didn’t budge. I pressed my fingers under-neath it and tore at it in a frenzy. The peg moved a millimeter and then sprang back. I pulled on it and heard Leibold and his men reach the third floor. I bent lower and the books fell to the floor.

I groped for the piece of scrap iron and rammed it between the A P R I L I N PA R I S . 211

wall and the frame. Sharp edges cut into the balls of my fingers.

I levered like a madman, screamed in desperation—and suddenly the frame was in my hand. Blood. There wasn’t enough time to pick up both books, so I grabbed the nearest one and stumbled into the dark. Shouts from down below; they’d found my escape route. I closed my eyes in the total darkness, then opened them again and saw the rectangular outline of the skylight, dim against a black background. I shoved the book down the front of my trousers, buttoned my jacket over it, and hurried over to the skylight. The lock was high up and rusted shut. I had no choice but to ram the glass window with my head. At first, the glass cracked, and then the skylight burst; glass shards rained down on my shoulders. I bent the wooden frame backward. The SS soldiers reached the attic door; the beams from their flashlights danced.

I stuck my arms out into the open air above my head, gathered myself, and jumped. Although I was out of breath and there was hardly anything in my stomach, I had enough strength to pull myself up. I thrust my shoulders out, heaved myself higher, and hung for a moment between heaven and earth. Then, quickly clearing my legs, I rolled onto the steep-pitched roof, held on to the skylight frame, and looked around. Only a thin layer of snow covered the shingles, but I could feel ice beneath it. I clambered up.

Now there were shots; they were firing through the roof. One of them shone his light through the opening and shot into the night. I saw the flash from his weapon and felt the bullet hiss past me. I scrambled higher, clawed the shingles, slid back, kicked out, and at last grabbed the round ridge of the roof. Drawing in my 212 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

breath with a shriek, I pulled myself up the rest of the way, strad-dled the crest, and scooted along on the seat of my pants. My pursuer’s head turned in my direction; he fired. Two bullets whizzed past me, but the third one found its mark and tore through my ribs. I crumpled over, toppling onto the other side of the roof. There was a dormer window, a projection of some sort, maybe a ledge. As my side started to burn, I let go and slid down on my shoulder. The adjoining roof, coming in at a correspond-ing angle, slowed my fall, but I couldn’t grasp anything. I slid past raised, snowy roof tiles, grabbing at them wildly while my feet thrashed about, looking for traction. Ice everywhere. I seized a hook—briefly—and felt a hot stabbing in my hand. Something tore. I shot out over the gutter and caught hold of the thin metal at the last second. It cracked and started to come apart. I held on tightly, as though the gutter were a flying carpet. Even this last handhold was ripped away from me. For a long moment, I was completely free in the blackness. Happy to have escaped them, to have flown away into the night.

The eyes of the Virgin Mary. Also a dim reddish light. I wasn’t really awake. Only groaning. Consciousness disappeared again.

Later, lying on my side, I felt warmth on my back. Soft watery sounds. Someone was washing me. A powerful forearm, a broad figure bent over my body, curly hair. The shape held still and looked at me.

“So you’re really there,” a woman’s voice said.

Unable to move. I was a sigh, nothing more. I heard quiet laughter. Water ran along my back. Time.

Languid, drowsy, dozing; I didn’t want to wake up. I was able to perceive but not to discern. The room and the sounds seemed close. Someone came and went. Above me, a picture on the wall:
La Vierge Marie.
A figure dressed in blue, standing in a pleasant 214 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

garden. The first world I saw. Looking serious, God’s mother pointed upward, but the top part of the picture lay in shadow. I tried to imagine a dove.

Had I moved? The person in the room stood still, wiped her hands, came closer.

“Are you awake? Are you awake?”

I turned my eyes away from the Virgin. Pain grabbed me and shook my whole body.

“No. You’ve still got a long way to go,” the woman said.

She bent lower. She was older but by no means elderly. Her eyes weren’t merry, her nose was flat, and only her mouth smiled.

Dark hair with gray streaks. A blue apron dress of some soft fabric.

“I don’t have anything to help your pain,” she said. “Nothing at all.” She pointed to me.

No strength to lift my head and look at myself. My body must have been shattered. Two pieces of wood ran along my right arm, starting at the shoulder. Splints made of boards. They gently knocked against each other. Around my left hand, a thick bandage.

“I’m no doctor.” She shifted the splinted arm to a different position. “There isn’t any doctor. You have to eat something.” The pain was dull and distant.

“I wonder if you’ve still got
one
sound bone in your body,” she said. Her hand moved toward my hair. “You have to eat,” she declared, stressing the words. “You understand me?”

I wasn’t wearing anything that could tell her where I came from. How did she know I wasn’t French?

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 215

“You’re the crazy
boche.
” She straightened her back. “Look, I know that much.” My eyes questioned her.

“I’m the concierge. My name is Valie.”

I jumped. Leibold had come out of the concierge’s booth.

He’d been lurking in there, waiting for me.

She noticed the fright in my eyes. “At first, I hid you in the cellar. The building’s four hundred years old. The cellar has a cellar even older than that. They looked for you the whole night and all the next day. They’ll probably come again.” She followed my eyes to the picture of the Virgin Mary. “Now we’re somewhere else.”

Suddenly, she smiled. “I saw you go up to the flat with the young lady. You two went up there twice.” She said these words as though they contained a great mystery.

“I know the Wasserlof flat,” she went on as she stood up.

“Why doesn’t the young lady go there anymore?” When I didn’t answer, she left the room. “You’ll tell me all about it sometime.”

I listened to my breathing. She’d called me a
boche.
She was hiding me. She’d managed to conceal me from the search teams.

Was this another of Leibold’s traps? Where was the room I was in?

The building? My staying here seemed as unreal to me as the time I’d spent unconscious. Where had I landed when I fell?

I uttered a sound. She came back. It took me a long time to form the word: “Today.”

She leaned forward. “It’s the beginning of February. The sixth, I believe.”

She smiled at the moan that escaped me. “Yes, you’ve been down a long time. You were dead, believe me. Dead. All you had left was a little spark. You were all smashed up, but you didn’t let 216 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

the little spark go out. You’re tough,
boche.
Now let me go and warm your soup.” She disappeared from sight.

The concierge fed me. She put the end of a little metal funnel in my mouth. I wanted to bite down on it, but I couldn’t. I thought the wire in my jaw was broken, but I noticed that I was missing a couple of teeth on the left side. Valie carefully poured soup into the funnel. The liquid ran down from the corners of my mouth. When she moved the funnel to the right, things went better. I drank and swallowed, savoring the warmth.

“You still can’t bite,” she said. “But it looks like you can swallow all right.” She smiled. “So not everything in there is broken.”

I listened to my insides, trying to follow the path of the soup.

Gradually, I started to believe I’d escaped death. Days and weeks passed, during which the only changes were trivial.

Daphne blooms appeared on Valie’s chest of drawers and then were taken away. One afternoon, the sun was so bright it lit up the whole picture of the Madonna. There actually was a dove hovering over her, surrounded by the symbol of the Holy Trinity.

I contemplated the sunlit picture until the light disappeared again, centimeter by centimeter.

In this period, Chantal didn’t visit me even once. In my daydreams, I imagined her as a warrior, dressed in dark trousers, her hair pinned up under her cap. She knew how to handle weapons.

I rarely saw her in her light green dress. She said nothing; she only sat there on the bed or walked past it. It became clearer and clearer to me that Chantal couldn’t have known anything. She’d 218 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

never learned of my arrest. Therefore, she hadn’t sent me any secret messages. Ultimately, I accepted the notion that Henri had been a kind of tapping poltergeist that Leibold had put in my head. I’d gone reeling through the Parisian winter on
his
behalf.

One morning, I asked the concierge, more with gestures than with words, to bring me my books. She gave me the one I’d stuck in my pants before going off the roof. It wasn’t the
Fables.
They’d probably fallen into Leibold’s hands and were gone for good. The open atlas lay on my stomach. Valie sat next to me, turning the pages and looking at maps of the poles, the configurations of Oceania and Southeast Asia. Since I could move neither arms nor hands, I asked her to turn to France. France: post-1918 boundaries. Cities, rivers, regions.