April in Paris (7 page)

“We’ll never get anything useful out of this guy,” Leibold said later, when we were in the hall. “But I’m sure he’s got important connections. I’ll let him go in a few days. Then I’ll set five blood-hounds on his trail. From then on, he’ll never be alone, not for a second. At some point, he’s got to try to make contact again.”

Sometimes I persuaded myself that I could be present at the endless interrogations—and even that I could witness the corpo-58 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

rals’
techniques
—without feeling anything. And then again, I thought I couldn’t bear it. The memory of the screams woke me up every night. I’d tried to talk to Leibold about getting transferred back to my old unit; I’d pointed out that my assignment to the SS was only temporary. I shouldn’t get any ideas in my head was his reply.

“Have you been back to Turachevsky’s recently?” Leibold asked. We’d avoided this subject ever since that night. “And what about your little thing with the bobbed hair? Was she an open-minded girl?” He had a cold, lascivious gleam in his eye.

My days in rue de Saussaies, my sexual gymnastics with Rieleck-Sostmann, my yearning for Chantal—I felt I was caught in a joyless triangle.

There was a sound of rushing water over my head now. Hirschbiegel was getting into his bathtub. I kept staring at the jacket on the floor. The thought that the strains of “Ma Pomme” would become audible at any moment gave me the necessary impetus. I quickly picked up my pants from the bed and started to dress.

The air was still hot, even though evening was coming on. I transformed myself into Monsieur Antoine, taking along my volume of La Fontaine, just as I’d done the first time. The book made me feel more secure. I wasted no time on the Right Bank, crossed the Pont Royal, and headed for rue Jacob. At the Café Lubinsky, a table in the shade was free, and I ordered my first
café
crème
. I laid the book open in front of me like a man who wanted to read undisturbed. From one day to the next, the weather had turned quite warm. The air above the hot pavement was shimmering. Haze hung around the gables. The people were enjoying the heat. I heard them talking about the thunderstorms that A P R I L I N PA R I S . 59

would descend on the city during the night. I bent over to tie the laces on one of my shoes. And then I felt a shadow.

She stood over me in grave contemplation, wearing the dress with the red dots. She wasn’t staring at me; she was examining my book. A fierce monkey rode on the back of a dragon-fish in the midst of a foaming dark-green sea. For me, that copperplate engraving on the title page had always been the entrance to an enchanted place. Chantal’s fingers touched the hairs of the fish-monster’s beard.

“Only a catfish looks like this,” she said. “No other animal.”

Her voice was surprisingly deep, like a boy’s when it’s breaking.

“I’ve never seen a catfish,” I said. It was the first time I’d ever used the expression
poisson-chat.

“My grandfather catches them sometimes,” Chantal replied.

“In the country.”

“You live in the country?”

She gave me a surprised look. “You know I don’t.” She sat down so abruptly that my coffee sloshed out of its cup. She re-cited,
“ ‘Une grenouille vit un boeuf / Qui lui sembla de belle
taille.’ ”
Then she opened the book.

“The frog and the ox,” I said, nodding. “Do you like that fable?” I was searching for the story between the lines.

“It comes up a lot.”

“The frog who wants to be as big as an ox?”

“People who puff themselves up until they burst.” She called out her order to the passing waiter. “I haven’t seen you here for a long time,” she said. She squeezed her dress between her knees.

My eyes strayed over the triangle formed by her lap.

“You noticed me before?”

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

There was a pause. Then she said, “Most visitors to Paris wear a uniform. Not you.”

“Not me.” I waited. A puff of wind stirred the pages. The book was now open to “The Monkey and the Leopard.” The waiter put a glass of lemonade in front of Chantal. She drank in tiny sips. My eyes penetrated inside her mouth.

“What kind of work do you do?” she suddenly asked.

I bought a little time by closing the
Fables
and putting the volume back into my pocket. Pretending to be a bookseller would be too risky. A bookseller’s daughter would know what questions to ask. The Sorbonne was closed—I knew that—but what about the universities outside of Paris? The pause threatened to go on too long.

“I’m a student.”

“That’s exactly what you look like.” For the first time, she smiled. “Why didn’t you have to join the army?”

“And what about you, mademoiselle?” I said. I’d had enough of Twenty Questions. “Do you do anything besides sweep up hair?”

“What do you mean by that?” There was a bit of tiny fuzz on her upper lip.

“I know something about you.” I snapped my fingers and pointed to my empty cup. The waiter nodded. I looked at Chantal. “You like butterflies.”

“How do you …” she started to ask, genuinely surprised.

“Every time a butterfly flies away, you feel a little sad.”

Silence reigned. I could feel my heart beating. At that moment, I felt capable of anything, even of walking across the power line that passed over the café.

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 61

“How do you know that?” Her eyes were serious.

“Do you dance?” I heard the soft laughter in my voice. “Surely you know a place where there’s dancing tonight.”

“There’s a blackout.”

“Where there’s dancing
behind drawn curtains.
”

“What about the curfew?”

“The Krauts can’t be everywhere.” I said it in French:
les
boches.

Her glass was empty. She looked inside her purse. “You’re wrong about me. I have to go.”

“May I?” I reached for the saucer with the chits.

“Do you know the fable of the amorous fox?” Chantal asked, standing up. “The fox is in love with a girl. She promises to love him in return, under one condition. He has to cut his claws and have his teeth filed down. The amorous fox does as she orders.

And now, since he can’t defend himself any longer, the girl sets her dogs on him.”

I put some coins on the saucer.

“Do you mean a fox shouldn’t let a girl tame him?”

Without answering, she turned and left, squeezing past the other tables. I put on my hat and followed her. The waiter in the Lubinsky stared in wonder at the departing guest who’d paid for his coffee but hadn’t drunk it. Chantal went west on rue Jacob.

“Do you have to go home already?” I asked as I caught up with her.

The first thunder rumbled in the east.

“What else do you know about me?” She walked faster.

“In the evening, you go to the news shop and read the news.

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

You even read the front page of
Je suis partout.
You buy fruit at Mallard’s and bread at the bakery two doors farther on. You push the black gate open and step into the hidden street and disappear.

Sometimes you sit on a big rock that looks as though it must have fallen from heaven.”

Chantal stopped walking. In the distance, a blue-white bolt of lightning ripped the milky sky.

“My father says a man was asking after me. Was that you?”

The next clap of thunder burst over the fifth arrondissement.

Suddenly, the sky was dark. The air was filled with the smell of sulfur. A swift shadow split Chantal’s face into two halves. A gust of wind threatened to carry my hat away. She came very close to me. “If my father sees your La Fontaine, I’m sure he’ll offer to buy it.”

“It’s not for sale.”

Lightning flashed over the rooftops. The dusty wind pressed Chantal’s dress against her hips. I took off my checkered coat and hung it over her shoulders. The first raindrops spattered on my shirt.

“We shouldn’t stay here.”

We ran toward the storm, which was howling down the narrow street. Chantal’s hair was disheveled and blown about. “Shall I walk you home?”

The wind blew dust in my face, making me spit. Chantal turned her head away. I put my arm around her back, and together we braced ourselves against the wind. At the intersection with the boulevard, we suddenly collided with a wall of rain.

Chantal immediately pulled me into a bumpy side street. Its sur-A P R I L I N PA R I S . 63

face was split, as though damaged by an earthquake. After about a dozen steps, we came to a little wine bar. It was packed with people standing quite close together, taking refuge from the storm.

The bartender spotted us. “Red or white?” he asked.

I looked into Chantal’s flushed face. She shook out her hair. I closed my eyes at the spray of rainwater. “Two reds!” she called back.

The glasses were handed over the bar and from one customer to the next before coming into Chantal’s hands. “Where do you live?” she asked.

I hadn’t anticipated this question. I couldn’t possibly tell her the name of my hotel. I thought about Hirschbiegel. “I stay in a friend’s apartment,” I said. He had described the flat to me once.

It was in the second arrondissement. A very comfortable place, according to him; you could invite women up there.

We clinked glasses. She sipped her wine. “Where is this apartment?”

“In the second.”

Chantal drank her wine in silence. A fine steam rose from her hair. The moth powder in my jacket exuded a peculiar smell.

More escapees from the rain crowded in. You could hardly see out the tavern window. Chantal grew tired. Her shoulders sagged against mine. I put my arm around her waist, turned her toward me a little, and took the back of her head in my hands. Her eyes were closed. I touched her lips; they opened easily. I felt the stream of her breath and her fingertips in my back. The man beside us jostled us and suggested we lean on someone else. Chantal’s eyelids opened. Violet and gray in her pupils. She felt with 64 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

one hand for the nape of my neck. Nearby, someone shook out his wet coat. A woman laughed. The smell of wine, of humanity.

“What do you do when you’re not reading the
Fables
?” Chantal asked.

I had a vision of the interrogation room, the bound prisoners.

The ones who tried to haggle with Leibold in order to spare themselves pain. The weak ones, who revealed all they knew and were mistreated out of sheer contempt. The steadfast ones, who bonded with their pain and broke down all the same.

“I just live in Paris,” I said. Shortly after that, we left. The sky was clearing as we stepped outside. The heat of the day radiated from the walls. Chantal and I walked side by side, without touching. We reached the black gate.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked.

She gave me back my jacket. “I’m not in the salon tomorrow,”

she said.

For a moment, I thought about Turachevsky’s, about her performance as Pallas Athena. Then I realized she meant the
salon de
coiffure
, the barbershop.

“Shall we meet at Café Lubinsky?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes searched mine.

“Or would you rather meet in a park?”

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

I held the heavy door open for her, and she stepped through.

Before she reached the streetlight, everything went dark. But I was happy as I hastened through the ghostly, unlighted streets.

Monsieur Antoine had spent an evening with Chantal. No disguise, no playacting—it had been me, me myself !

The next evening, I climbed the stairs to the floor above and opened the door while I was still knocking on it. I’d just heard the boots fly into the corner, and the gramophone had played “Ma Pomme” once already. Hirschbiegel had come home.

“Hirschbiegel, it’s me.” The sound of running water; he was in the bathtub. I circled the bed and knocked on the bathroom door.

“Hirschbiegel?”

I pushed the door slightly open. There he was. His huge body threatened to burst the tub. His wet, hairy chest swelled up out of the water. His eyes were closed.

“Hey, Lieutenant!”

His response was a bloodcurdling scream and terrified eyes.

“Why did you creep up on me like that?” Drops of water glis-66 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

tened in his curly blond hair. He braced his arms on the side of the tub and started to pull himself up, accompanied by much cracking and creaking.

“No enemy in sight, Hirschbiegel,” I said, sitting down on the tiny stool.

“Did the lady you were with yesterday eventually calm down?”

He tilted his head, pressing his fat chin to one side. “What unit is she attached to?”

“She’s only a casual acquaintance,” I said. I wanted to keep Rieleck-Sostmann out of this.

“And how are things with the ladies otherwise?”

“Pickings are rather slim at the moment.”

“Your blonde Valkyrie is anything but slim,” he said, full of admiration.

“Comrade-love,” I said.

Hirschbiegel laughed out loud. “Comradeship is a wonderful thing!” His body rolled over in the tub. “When are you going to take me along on one of your forays?”

“I really don’t like going to the bordellos anymore,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “They rob you of your illusions.”

The red face nodded gravely. “You’re hungry for company, but you can only be a stranger, a foreigner.” Suddenly, he braced himself on the sides of the bathtub. “I made you the offer!” he cried out. “Haven’t I told you more than once that the flat is at your disposal?”

I observed the pattern in the tiles. “Right, you have mentioned that.”

“If you’d only help me a little,” he begged.

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 67

“How is it that your parents bought a place in Paris
before
the war?”

“My father’s boyhood dream,” Hirschbiegel replied. “Dad always wanted to be a painter. He ignored the fairy tales about our

‘hereditary enemy’ and bought the apartment back in the days of the Weimar Republic. The whole transaction was handled through a Jewish proxy—to this day, everything’s under the name Wasserlof. A
Hirschbiegel
in Châtelet would be too conspicuous.”