Last Train to Paris (25 page)

“Madame Sand,” my mother asked, “what did you think of Vosberg's handwriting? Can you tell if he's homosexual or not?”

“No, I can't tell his sexual persuasion,” Madame Sand said. “But I can say he's a sociopath, and I don't put homosexuality in that category. His handwriting shows that he has no moral sense of the value of life. He looks for immediate gratification and doesn't concern himself with the aftermath.”

“I wonder,” I asked Madame Sand, “why they've redefined the word ‘sociopath' to mean ‘psychopath'?”

“I'm surprised you don't know, Rose,” my mother said in a withering voice, before Madame Sand could answer. “You know a lot about Freud.” Her nastiness made me want to crawl away and hide.

“It's astonishing,” Janet said, changing the subject, “that someone so intelligent could be so ruthless and cold. How do we reconcile his good looks with his evil nature? How—Oh, God, we've got to go! We're late.”

“The check,” Colette demanded, snapping her fingers.

 

The next day in court was more interesting. First, there was a discussion of the gun that Vosberg had used to shoot at the police when he was captured. Gun experts were called. At one point, each member of the jury held the gun—and each and every one of them looked down its barrel.

Then Vosberg was asked why Stella had her passport and all her money in her handbag. “We were planning to elope,” he said. “She was going to telephone her aunt to tell her. And—” and he held up his hand, as if he were in school asking permission from a teacher. “I have something more to say.” He stood. Vosberg put his hands in his pockets and looked down at his shoes. The courtroom was silent. We were all suspended, waiting.

“I admit it,” he whispered. “I killed her. I couldn't help it.”

“No!” his two lawyers yelled simultaneously.

“No!” Moro-Giafferi boomed again. “Remove that statement from the record. He's crazy, can't you see?”

The courtroom was in chaos. People were yelling at the judge, at the lawyers, at Vosberg. Everyone had an opinion.

I turned to Pete. “I don't understand. Why's everyone so upset?”

“In America,” he said, “if you confess to a crime, the next legal proceeding is the sentencing. Essentially, the trial's over. But here in France, if you confess to murder, the sentence is pretty much automatic. It's death, unless you can prove insanity.

‘However, if you don't confess, and leave it to the court, there's always a possibility that you'll be given a life sentence in prison or an insane asylum. By confessing, he's undoubtedly killing himself.'

 

The judge banged his gavel over and over again. The lawyers huddled together.

At last, order was restored.

“Continue, Mr. Vosberg,” the judge demanded.

Vosberg's hands gripped the railing. He directed his confession to Judge Levi.

“She wanted to make love,” Vosberg said quietly. “She was giddy and playful and pushed me down on the bed and began to unbutton my pants. I couldn't have sex with her—there's something wrong with me.”

“Speak up so the jury can hear you,” the judge demanded.

“She sneered at me—she taunted me,” he shouted. “She called me a stupid eunuch. She humiliated me.

“And I couldn't resist getting her money. I needed the money. I always needed money. And I knew she was Jewish and that Jews are wealthy.” And like some poor waif, Vosberg threw himself back into his chair and wept.

I wanted to scream at him. His feeling sorry for himself disgusted me.

I couldn't imagine what Stella had been thinking. This was a part of her that I had seen only once—the time she returned from her first night with Vosberg and I slapped her. Yet it surprised me to hear that she had taunted him. Truly, I didn't believe him. I agreed with Moro-Giafferi. Vosberg was insane.

Court was adjourned. Pete and I met up for a drink with the
Manchester Guardian
reporter, Clyde Thomas. Clyde was a frog-eyed man who walked with a limp. We always seemed to be covering the same stories. We were discussing the case. And then Clyde started to chuckle.

“What's so funny?” I asked.

“When they were passing that gun around,” Clyde said, “all I could think about was R.B. and her growing up in the mountains of Nevada. You were squirming with laughter,” he said to me, “but so was one of the cartoonists. Do you know her? Is she American?”

“No, I don't know her, but I did almost lose my self-control. It was hilarious! Where I come from, it's considered an act of stupidity to look down a gun barrel. Only greenhorns would do such a thing, to the glee of old-timers.”

 

In some respects the trial had turned into a comedy. Many of the women who came to the courthouse each day wore white hats. They were called “Vosberg's girls,” and they were restless. That afternoon, Vosberg was led into the courtroom, and there was a collective and conspicuous sigh. From one of the back stalls a woman screamed, “We love you, dear Ernst!” The police headed for the gallery. There was much commotion. The culprit was taken by the arm—the other “girls” gave out a united shriek—and before you could blink, a policeman had the infatuated woman outside the courtroom doors.

During this time, Vosberg had his face buried in his hands. There was no more smiling at his “girls.” When he finally straightened up, his face was red and blotchy and his eyes were bloodshot. Vosberg had begun the trial neat and trim, and in control of his feelings. Now he looked as if he had been crying himself to sleep.

A few minutes into the day's judicial proceedings, Vosberg slowly stood and dramatically grasped the rail before him. Looking directly at Judge Levi he began to speak with a breaking voice, wetting his lips. “I am ready to die for my crimes. I ask you to try to understand me. I am guilty. I offer you everything I can—my life. But please, do not deny me a last request. I am of the Catholic faith and beg to be forgiven.” And he sank into his chair and wept.

The prosecutor rose and bellowed, “How dare you ask forgiveness! In the end you are nothing but a vulgar assassin.”

 

That same day, Hitler sutured three countries to the Reich. ‘Don't be so gloomy, Rose,' my mother said as we walked to the Métro. ‘You're simmering in your own kettle of bad news. Don't you think that if you could step back, you'd see the brighter side of your life?'

I didn't know how to respond. My mother was living in a fantasy world. She was so self-involved that she couldn't bear the idea that even a war could disrupt her plans. And, of course, she couldn't be aware of my sorrow and anxiety about her—much less be sympathetic.

I was beginning to suspect that my mother was truly happy. Certainly, she wasn't grieving for my father. She seldom mentioned him. And I was embarrassed by her obvious sensuality. I had observed men flirting with her while she coyly flicked her eyelashes and demurely looked down. I found it all bewildering. My mother was being transformed before my eyes and rather than being happy for her, I rued her pleasure.

“You're just jealous,” Pete said a couple of nights later over many glasses of wine. “It's like what I once heard my wife say about her mother: I wallow under a dark cloud while my mother waltzes in a starlit night. Anyway, R.B., you're not the flirting type. But it's apparent to those of us who have met her that she certainly is!”

If she could recover from the death of a husband of thirty-six years, I asked myself, why couldn't I get over Leon, a lover of a mere four? But I knew Pete was right. I simply didn't know what to do about it.

 

I often ask myself why I never married. I must be quite strange, I suppose. Although there were men in my life after Leon, I was far more interested in the adventures of my work than in the complications of a marriage. Leon had faded from my consciousness, true. But the passion I felt in that relationship, I never felt again. So, I thought—why bother?

 

The next morning, the courthouse was again crowded with observers. Pete and I were lucky to get seats. People were perched on windowsills and railings, leaning against walls, jamming the space. Colette was sitting with the actor Maurice Chevalier and Georges Carpentier, the former heavyweight champion of Europe, in the celebrity section.

Today it was the prosecutor's chance to convince the jury that there could be only one sentence for the German murderer: death by guillotine. The prosecutor had changed into a black velvet robe with red-ribboned decorations dripping from his chest. His contrast to Vosberg was startling. Vosberg looked ragged. His shirt collar was now too large; his usually obsessively combed hair was out of place.

“This,” the prosecutor said and paused dramatically, “this man is an incarnation of a devil! He must be destroyed. There is no chance for rehabilitation. No, gentlemen of the jury, even with his weeping and sniveling, Ernst Vosberg is past hope. We demand the penalty of death. Nothing less. We have said all that needs to be said. The decision is simple. The handsome devil must die!”

The courtroom became pandemonium. People screamed, “Murderer! Monster!” Others screamed, “No! Let him live!”

Judge Levi banged his gavel. “A recess of one hour is called.” There was more screaming. The observers in the courtroom were teetering on the edge of a riot. The guards began to menace those nearest their stations with their raised batons. Then whistles were blown and people began to rush for the door.

Pete and I leaned against the wall, a few feet from our seats. An hour later, after a stern admonishment from the judge, court was reconvened. Everyone was unusually quiet, as if they were embarrassed by their earlier behavior.

The attorney Renée Jardin began her poetic and passionate plea on behalf of Vosberg–a plea for life in prison. She begged the jury to ‘try to search for the human being behind the criminal.' Vosberg had his hands over his face.

“Vosberg's an unknown man,” she continued, “a mystic with a split personality. He does not understand, nor can he control, the compelling nonsense of his throbbing mind.” Here she paused, looked around the courtroom, and then stood firmly in front of the jury. “He is delivered and has begun his moral rehabilitation.”

Turning dramatically to the jury, she said, “Enough blood! Enough killing! There are other penalties that will remove Vosberg from society. It is you, gentlemen of the jury, who will discover yourselves, in your hearts and consciences, the penalty that you know is just.”

When Jardin finished, a wild wave of applause burst out in the courtroom. The judge banged his gavel for order, but the lawyers, and even the prosecutors, crowded around to congratulate her on her ardent attempt to rouse feelings of pity for a man who had committed such a gruesome murder.

 

The next day, extra soldiers and police were on duty both inside and outside the courtroom.

“Jeez, R.B.,” Pete said, “this is like the opera at the beginning of the season. It looks as if every mother, father, wife, and uncle of the judges and lawyers are jammed into the court.”

He was right. Women were dressed in veils, hats, and furs; men were dapper in expensively tailored suits. All the reporters lost our seats. We were standing, lining the walls, alongside the photographers.

Vosberg's other lawyer, Moro-Giafferi, was huffing and puffing around the room. Pete and I looked at each other and tried not to laugh. He was obviously revving himself up—getting ready to offer the most stunning oratory of his career.

For almost four hours he thundered. He pleaded. He preached. He rocked on his heels and stretched his short, massive body out over his wooden pulpit and thrust his heavily jowled face at the jury. He stamped and raged and banged his fist and massaged his gray mustache. He bellowed at the prosecutor, making him turn red. With perfect theatrical timing his words embraced the bent-over Vosberg and made the accused weep even more.

‘Vosberg is mentally ill. He's an instinctive pervert. Instinctive perverts are all the more dangerous if they are intelligent, as they use their intelligence to pursue their evil ends. This type of ‘instinctive perversity' is fatal. This being the case,' he whispered, and everyone leaned forward, ‘his only crime was to be born.'

His voice was now turning into a steam engine. “And I hear people say—Why not kill him? He killed! Let him die! That is the morality of the talon, the law of the lynch mob, the barbarian's justice. Why then our symbols—our traditions—and why my robe—and why yours, O judge? To murder yet another human being? Vosberg's not crazy, but he's abnormal. He wants to correct himself, but he cannot. His illness is incurable.”

Moro-Giafferi turned his back to the audience. Then with a grand gesture, he threw his scarf around his neck and turned back again. “Must justice always be a slaughterhouse?” he cried.

The judge called for an hour's lunch recess. The spectators opened their sandwich wrappers and bottles of wine and beer and, without moving from their treasured seats, carried on shouted conversations across the room. Some people, in the invited spectators' section, were drinking champagne from fluted glasses.

Pete and I sat on the floor and smoked, trying to curb our hunger.

 

Finally, the judge brought the court to order. The room fell silent. Moro-Giafferi continued his defense. His voice rose at the end of each of his sentences. I was captivated. I realized that Stella would have loved being there. It was a spectacular performance. He mesmerized the courtroom. And then, when his audience was perched on the edge of its seats, he whispered, “I rest my case.”

The room was silent.

After instructions from Judge Levi, the jury was sent out of the courtroom to begin its deliberations. Time crept by, but no one gave up his or her seat. Again we smoked. Everyone had to watch as trays of food and glasses of beer were brought, hour after hour, to the men of the jury.