Clandestine (22 page)

The transformation to an SS officer had been instant.

Releasing her, turning brutally away to go down the stairs, he said as if throwing it over a shoulder to
gestapistes français
, ‘
Employez la baignoire avec la glace, mes amis.
Maybe the chill will loosen her tongue, but be sure not to drown her.'

Shade filled the rue Daru as dusk approached. Up from the Seine came the first touches of the evening's fog, but he wouldn't go along the street just yet, felt St-Cyr. He would continue along the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, would keep mingling with others on foot and never look back. He had to be absolutely certain of not being followed, and that, of course, was only the start of it, for he had then to somehow leave convincing evidence for Anna-Marie Vermeulen so that she would agree to meet and not vanish if she did manage to get into Paris.

The Salle Pleyel had two secondary entrances on the rue Daru. The first, and nearest to him as he crossed that street, was just around its corner with the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. A courtyard entrance­ allowed­ those in private cars and taxis to be dropped off. The second­, and more plebeian was, he knew, well along the street and all but next to the Cathédrale Alexandre Nevesky.
Artistes­
—musicians­, even Cortot perhaps—would enter there, dancers too, and those who worked in the studios. And across from that, of course, was Chez Kornilov, but was it not favoured also by those who ran Reichsmarschall Göring's biggest purchasing agency, the Bureau Munimin-Pimetex? It was, and yes, unfortunately Sergei Lebeznikov­, alias Serge de Lenz of Rudy de Mérode's gang, would be all too familiar­ with it and with them, especially as Göring had astutely ordered that his purchasing agency be run only by Frenchmen­.

‘Since those will know where things are and have all the necessary connections,' he said as if to her. ‘
Merde
, mademoiselle, but you do have the linkages, and not just to Hector Bolduc via that mistress of his, or to Madame Nicole Bordeaux and the cream of Parisian society.'

Munimin-Pimetex was attached to Göring's Ministry of Armaments and Munitions, and bought hugely and constantly and still did, for the Reich desperately needed evermore quantities of everything. ‘Including diamonds,' he softly said.

Hermann and Évangéline Rocheleau had let him off at the Quai de Valmy. Right away, though, those who would try to follow had been far more careful than last time. Taking the
métro
, crowded as it always was especially on a Sunday, had helped, changing trains as well, but could one ever be certain?

Coming to
place
des Ternes, he stood as if waiting for someone beside one of Guimard's marvellous art nouveau entrances. Évangéline Rocheleau had had a life history that had overflowed yet Hermann, being Hermann, had listened attentively and had made no attempt to stop the torrent. Indeed, he had
encouraged
it and hadn't even silenced her incessant questioning of their past and present lives and investigations. Instead, he had plucked bits of truth to commingle with the elaborate fiction he had concocted­, this partner of his having to listen to it all while
crammed
into the backseat of his
own
car next to that woman's
three
suitcases.

Hermann was to show her a little of the city while there was still some light, and to find her an hotel where she could freshen up. Later they would meet in the foyer of the Hôtel George V and go into the Boeuf sur la Toit together to encounter the husband and Herr Ludin.

Quickly crossing himself at the thought, and the traffic circle to its island, he walked beneath the lindens searching for a café that would give him a view of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Every week, though not on Sundays, there was a flower market here, but now not even that and far too few pedestrians.

Bicycles and
vélo-taxis
did go round and round the circle. Wehr­macht­­ trucks and staff cars would speed ahead of the
gazos
but with everything else, did give some semblance of cover. Tattered­ and faded, last year's poster still proclaimed the Salle Wagram's International Exposition,
LE BOLSHEVISME CONTRE L'EUROPE
. Lots had attended, but now the war in Russia had progressed to such a point, using that threat would avail the Occupier little.

Satisfied, he retraced his steps but would first head for Chez Kor­nilov where a
vélo-taxi
and a Mercedes were dropping off a few early diners, the women beautifully made-up and clothed in nothing but the latest the
marché noir
had to offer, the men perfectly dressed in suits, ties and polished leather shoes, their fedoras freshly blocked.

Anna-Marie Vermeulen had lived right across the street, a girl with a kilo of boart and another of borderlines, something those at Munimin-Pimetex would be more than anxious to obtain before any other purchasing agency did; the same, too, of course, for Lebeznikov and Rudy de Mérode and all the more reason to somehow convince her to meet with him
.

Very quickly he would have to cross the street and duck into that artists' entrance, all the while wishing that Hermann was watching his back.

Lighting yet another cigarette for Herr Kohler, Évangéline knew her lipstick would again touch those lips and perhaps he would think of her in that way. Attentive, considerate, an excellent listener and always conscious of her presence, he had quickly shown her as much of the city as possible. Pausing on the
place
de la Concorde, he had let her see the obelisk with its strange and wondrous writing from the temple at Luxor in Egypt. ‘More than 3,000 years old,' he had said. ‘Imagine having to write like that. Slaves, concubines, pyramids, pharaohs and Cleopatra who came lots later but killed herself with an asp because she wasn't able to seduce Octavian who became emperor anyway. Look right down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, Évangéline. My partner tells me this is by far the finest view and that it was a Frenchman, Jean-François Champollion, who, having dedicated himself to it at age sixteen, finally figured out how to read those and lots of other hieroglyphs on 14 September 1822.'

She had asked of an asp, and he had enthusiastically told her it was either one or the other of the Egyptian cobra or the horned viper. ‘Instant, but painful,' he had said. ‘I don't suppose anyone even held her hand.'

Outside the cafés and bistros, the waiters were now stacking the tables and chairs or stringing chains to be locked among those as darkness came on. Lots of pedestrians and cyclists were still about, a few German cars and trucks, two old wagons, one being pulled by an elderly couple, the other by a mare that desperately needed feed and water, and then a hansom being used instead of a bicycle taxi, and with two German officers sitting in the back, talking and smoking cigars and taking in the scenery as if it was the most usual of things.

Magazines, newspapers, posters and films, Paris seemed to have everything. On the Île de la Cité, they had both stood side by side gazing up to where the rose window of the Notre Dame had once been, that ‘eye' as he had said, ‘having been carefully packed away in case of a bombing raid.' Lots of the ‘green beans' and the ‘grey mice' had been around. ‘Tourists,' he had said of the secretaries, typists and such from the Reich who had been very spiffy in their neat grey uniforms, their caps perched at absolutely the same angle, the hair never once touching the shoulders, but pinned up, tied up or simply cut short. ‘And otherwise forbidden,' he had said. ‘Love affairs, too, but girls will be girls, and everyone knows love never pays any attention, does it?'

Merde
, did he know what she herself was thinking, but … but was he also
asking
?

Turning onto the rue de la Boétie revealed, through the growing darkness, she felt, the family mansions and former
maisons de maître
of the wealthy, many of these now offering a choice of hotel. But which would he choose for Eugène and herself, and would he take her up to the room to tip the porter and close the door behind himself? Would they face each other at last and in private? Eugène, he had never taken the time with her like Herr Kohler must with his two women, one at a time, of course. Always with Eugène it was in and out, on and off, his jumping from the train at the last moment to shoot the stork in flight, Maman always listening from the next room to hear her daughter's desperate sighs of unfulfilled longing.

‘The Wildenstein Gallery is in that hotel at number fifty-seven,' said Herr Kohler, glancing again into the rearview mirror. ‘It's being run by a very trusted employee, Roger Dequoy, who sells scads of fabulous paintings and drawings for Wildenstein to scads of buyers from the Reich and Switzerland, among others like Spain, Portugal and Argentina—you name it and they come, even with the war and especially because of it and the bargains. But at number twenty-one, the former Rosenberg Gallery is now the Institute for Study of Jewish Questions. Rosenberg was the agent for Picasso, Braque, Matisse and others.

‘Ach
, there's the Hôtel Excelsior,' he said, glancing again into the rearview, ‘but there are also the Hôtels Rochester, Angleterre and d'Artois, and lots of choice.'

He had slowed the car beside a fabulous house with white pillars yet had said nothing of it, simply glanced again at it and then into that rearview, and when she started to turn to have a look behind, said so very gently, ‘Just be the sensible woman you are, Évangéline, and leave this to me.'

He'd drive right up the street and turn around and come back at them, thought Kohler. Nicole Bordeaux lived in nothing but a perfect mansion, defying change, the Occupation, the charges of
collabo
and everything else. Unfortunately those two cars that had picked them up at the Pantin entrance had stuck to him like glue, and the worst of it was that the moment he parked Madame Rocheleau in one of these hotels, they'd pounce to find out who the hell she was and what he was up to. Having failed to remain silent, that husband of hers had told her all about those shoes and that bit of embroidery Louis was carting around.

There was only one thing to do. Park her where they couldn't get at her without a hell of a lot of trouble.

‘Now don't worry,' he said, ‘I know just the place. It's not far and you'll be right in the centre of things so that when the shops open tomorrow, you and the
garde champêtre
can have a field day. Breakfast first, though, overlooking the central courtyard and its garden. They've a fabulous restaurant.'

Strung with gold, there was a glass roof over the entrance whose brass doors shone, and a doorman in uniform with white gloves, all of which said that it must cost a fortune. ‘Me, I … I couldn't stay in a place like that, Herr Kohler. I've not the clothes, nor the way of speaking like the people in there. Everyone would stare at me.'

A realist. ‘Royalty, that's what you are,' he said, having laid a reassuring hand on hers, the car at idle, the doorman glaring at them. ‘It's all in the mind,
n'est-ce pas
? Believe me, you have something many of those who are staying in there don't and want very much, so always keep that in mind. You're what you are, a woman of mystery.'

Ah mon Dieu
, was it really happening?
Bien sûr
, the Hôtel Bristol, at 112 rue de Faubourg Saint-Honoré, was five-star and the room and the bed would be perfect, but … ‘Won't I have to leave my papers at the front desk?'

‘Not on your life.' The
Bonzen und Oberbonzen
from the Reich would think her perfect; so, too, the generals and other higher-ups. ‘The American multimillionairess, Mrs. Florence Gould, lives here more or less permanently since her apartment on the boulevard Suchet, along with the Palais Rose that the Gould money built on the avenue Foch, was requisitioned by the military governor back in June 1940.
*
She's famous for her Thursday lunch gatherings where she brings together both sides of this Occupation to introduce those from the Reich to Paris society and has the finest of tables. Oysters, caviar, truffles and pâté for starters, then the soup, the duck
à l'orange
and all the rest. She's still married, but her husband decided back in July 1940 that he'd stay on the Riviera where it was warmer. Florence knows everyone: Marie-Louise Bousquet, editor of France's
Harper's Bazaar
, Suzanne Abetz, wife of the German ambassador, also Marie-Blanche de Polignac and Marie-Laure de Nouilles, the
marquise
. Those are names to keep in mind since they're all very fashion-conscious and intimately know each of the great dress designers and will be a huge help in getting you the very best of positions as a seamstress and designer. I'll have a word. Don't worry.'

Since all of them, felt Kohler, would know Nicole Bordeaux and could well have encountered Anna-Marie at one of that consumptive's Sunday ‘cultural' gatherings.

Still worried, Évangéline watched as the doorman was forced to summon the head porter to take her suitcases and then to lead them across a magnificent foyer to the desk where Herr Kohler simply leaned over it to buttonhole a rather stern looking, much older maître d'.

‘Kohler, Gestapo Paris-Central, with one of Boemelburg's “specials,” so don't get huffy. The suite with the best view, since I know he keeps two of them free at all times, even if he has others staying with you, then a word in private with Madame Gould.'

Ah merde
, Madame Gould must have said the wrong thing to the wrong person, the gossip gathering to bring on the deluge, felt Émile-Henri Dumais. No more of the special lunches and the ‘At Home's' for those who liked to drop in ‘unexpectedly' to stay the night. The young officers, and the not-so-young.