The Collaborators (12 page)

‘Never heard of him,’ he lied easily. ‘He’s well known, you say?’

‘Oh yes. He’s been in the papers a lot, helping ordinary people in trouble, so maybe someone like that could help Jean-Paul, is that what you mean?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Mai. The effort of changing back from friendly adviser to
Abwehr
officer was surprisingly hard.

‘You’ve met this lawyer fellow, have you?’ he asked.

‘Yes, in a way. I’ve seen him a couple of times when I’ve called at Christian’s flat. He seemed very nice.’

More brandy came, almost furtively.

Mai said, ‘That’s good. Bear him in mind. But I wouldn’t say anything just yet. It’s some time in the future you may find him useful, after you’ve got your husband home. For the time being, the less you say to anyone, the better, family or friends.’

His turnaround on the question of lawyers went unchallenged as she seized upon the bait he offered.

‘When I’ve got Jean-Paul home? But you said there was no hope!’

He smiled and drooped one eyelid.

‘No
official
hope,’ he said. ‘But who knows…?’

He’d done this sort of thing a thousand times, manipulating contacts with half-promises, veiled threats, hinted bribes. It had never felt degrading before. Then he thought of German soldiers being assassinated in the métro and in the streets, of German families waiting for the postman. The link between Valois and Delaplanche might be nothing. On the other hand it could lead right into the middle of a Resistance group.

Janine set down her empty glass with a bang.

‘All right,’ she said in a voice of decision. ‘What are the terms?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Look, I may not have gone to the Sorbonne, but there are some things you pick up, even working in a baker’s shop. Price, profit, payment and return. Can you guarantee delivery, that’s the first question.’

He didn’t pretend not to understand but said, ‘I’ll do my best. If it can be done, I’ll do it.’

‘And what’s the price?’ she asked.

He hesitated. He suspected that she might be a lot less successful if she knew precisely what he was after than if he kept things vague and general. But she mistook the cause of his hesitation.

‘You’re not getting me body
and
mind,’ she said. ‘If it’s information you want, I’ll try. If it’s me you want, you can have me. But don’t hope for both.’

She was missing the point, but they nearly all did. They thought of one-off bargains, not appreciating that the initial exchange was merely the planting of the hook. It didn’t much matter what form it took. In Janine’s case bedding her would probably be as good as anything. With that family-destroying threat he could probably play her for ever more.

He looked at her and for a moment was tempted. She saw it in his eyes and looked away to hide whatever was in her own. No, that wasn’t the way, he told himself, shocked that he could have entertained the idea for even a second. Before he could say anything, the patron appeared at the table and stopped to whisper in his ear.

‘The flics are outside, Monsieur Scheffer,’ he breathed. ‘They’ll be raiding us any second to check papers. I just got the signal.’

Mai didn’t have to feign alarm. Not that there’d be any trouble from the police once he showed his
Abwehr
identification but he didn’t doubt the sharp-eyed patron and God knows who else would spot what was going on, and bang went a well-established cover.

He said, ‘Can we get out the back?’

‘No. They’ll have someone there. But you can hide upstairs. Second door on the right. Lock it after you.’

His eyes flickered to their clasped hands and with a grin he added, ‘There’s a bed in there too!’

Mai rose, pulling the girl with him and went through a door behind the bar. There was a flight of rickety uncarpeted stairs. They went up them and into the room indicated by the patron. It was small, almost totally filled by a huge metal bedstead with a feather mattress. What light there was filtered through a threadbare curtain over the tiny window.

‘Here?’ she said in a small voice.

It took a second to get her meaning. She thought he’d made his choice and opted for payment in flesh rather than information! They were standing so close he could smell the brandy on her breath. He opened his mouth to tell her about the police raid but suddenly she moved forward and pressed herself against him. It was the spasmodic leap of the timid swimmer plunging into the icy pool before her nerve completely fails, but in that darkness, that silence, that isolation, it communicated itself to Mai like desire. He put his arms around her, bent his face to hers and kissed her passionately. There was little response from her lips, but his body responded with all the fervour of long deprivation. His mind was still protesting that this was wrong, in so many ways wrong, wrong professionally, wrong morally, wrong emotionally. If she’d cried out in rejection, he might still have had the will to back off; if he’d been able to see the contempt and revulsion on her face, he might have been unmanned. But the room was dark and the girl was silent except at the very moment of entry when she said desperately, ‘He will come home, won’t he?’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ he promised wildly and thrust himself into her, exploding almost immediately in the reluctant, constricting heat of her body.

They lay side by side, not touching, not speaking, till the patron scratched at the door and whispered, ‘All clear.’

Downstairs, there was no thought of returning to their table. They went straight out into the street. It was still relatively early. People strolled by. Everything looked mockingly ordinary.

‘You’ll be in touch?’ she said, clearly eager to be rid of him.

‘Yes,’ he said.

She walked swiftly away, not once looking back.

9

A cold October wind rattled leaves like bones down the side of the synagogue.

‘Jesus, I’m frozen,’ said Michel Boucher stamping his feet. ‘Where is the little bastard?’

The little bastard was Pajou, who had just clambered through a forced window at the back of the building. It was size not courage which had got Pajou elected. The other three men in the group, though not as large as Boucher, were all well bulked with beer bellies. Boucher thought they were a dead loss. He’d been amazed at first to discover they weren’t even getting paid. The Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire, they called themselves.

‘I’ve never heard of it,’ he told Mai in the weekly briefing he gave the
Abwehr
lieutenant on SD plans. ‘Have you?’

Mai had smiled and nodded and made another note.

‘He’s here,’ said one of the MSR men excitedly. ‘He’s here.’

‘All right. Calm down. Let’s get on. And for God’s sake, not so much noise!’

He’d thought at first there wouldn’t be much need for stealth. But Pajou had put him right. Even though it was an SD operation in origin, for some reason the Fritzes wanted to keep right in the background and hadn’t even tipped their own Boche military patrols the wink to keep out of the way. It was all very puzzling. What did occur to him was that if he could lead this bunch of dynamite-laden idiots round the city without getting picked up, then it shouldn’t be too hard for Resistance groups wanting to blow up the Boche to do the same. But he kept this thought to himself.

Inside, for a little while the darkened solemnity of the synagogue seemed to affect even the MSR men. Then one of them farted and the others laughed.

‘Here, Paj, how the hell have we got mixed up with these jokers?’ asked Boucher.

‘You’re getting paid, aren’t you? Let’s get these fuses laid. And keep that lot away from the detonators!’ retorted Pajou.

The little man proved to be expert in the laying of charges and rounded off the job by setting a clockwork timing device.

‘Aren’t we going to see this shit-heap blow up then?’ asked one of the MSR men, disappointed.

‘There’s more to do,’ retorted Pajou. ‘Once one goes up, the gendarmerie will likely check up on others, so we don’t want to warn ‘em, do we? You can watch the last one!’

As they passed silently through the door, Boucher glanced back, feeling again the peace and solemnity of the place. What’s the point of it all? he wondered.

Then he felt the weight of the piece of silver plate he had pushed inside his leather tunic and thought, well, mebbe it’s not all been a wasted effort!

That night six synagogues were blown up and a seventh, where the saboteur’s charges didn’t go off, was destroyed by the military for ‘reasons of public safety’ the following day.

In the collaborationist press the outrage was reported as the protest of ordinary Frenchmen, indignant at the slowness of the anti-Jewish reforms promised by their new military partners.

‘But I told you what was going to happen!’ fumed Günter Mai. ‘Didn’t you pass it on to your chums at the Majestic?’

‘Don’t be insubordinate, Günter!’ warned Zeller. ‘Of course I passed it on.’

‘Then why didn’t they stop it?’

‘How? By putting a permanent
Wehrmacht
guard on all the synagogues in Paris? Think of how that would have looked back in Berlin!’

‘At least they could have used our advance warning to make sure everybody knows who really organized this.’

Zeller sighed wearily and said, ‘You disappoint me, Günter. This is like burning the Reichstag. Of course everyone knows who
really
did it, but private knowledge and public acknowledgement are very different things. No, the SD have done well for themselves here. They’ve put the Military Governor in an impossible position either way. So, despite your excellent advance intelligence, it’s one in the eye for the
Abwehr
too.’

‘Listen, sir,’ said Mai urgently. ‘It isn’t just a game between us and them, is it? There
is
a war on and none of this is helping us to win it! There’s England uninvaded, Russia sucking up our troops like an ant-eater sucks up ants, America sitting waiting till someone gives her the push to join the war, and what’s happening here in France? We’re spying on the SD who are trying to undermine the Military Governor’s authority at the same time as they play into the hands of the Resistance by initiating a reign of terror! We’re going to have to conquer this sodding country all over again, has anyone told the Führer that?’

Zeller stood up and waggled his finger in his ear.

‘Strange how deaf I’m getting,’ he said. ‘Hardly caught a word of all that! Günter, take care of yourself, dear boy.’

He went out. Mai smiled after him. His indignation was genuinely felt, but, sober, he was not in the habit of letting his emotions control his mind. But he had to be quite sure where he stood with Zeller and a little controlled indiscretion was the best way of checking on that. The way things were going, he could see a hard road ahead and he needed to be sure who was walking along it behind him.

Later that day he was sitting having a drink with Michel Boucher, debriefing him about the aftermath of the synagogue burning.

‘Fiebelkorn’s going around like a dog with two cocks,’ he said. ‘They all are. Me, I don’t get it. What’s so clever about letting off a bit of dynamite?’

‘I can’t say, Miche,’ said Mai, who found Boucher’s political thought processes at once naïve and impenetrable. ‘We’ll keep in touch, eh?’

‘Sure. Talking of which, Auntie Lou was wondering if she’d offended you somehow. Says you’ve not been into the shop for ages.’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘That’s what I said. I expect she’s just worried she’ll mebbe not get her next lot of extra flour. I told her I’d fix her up if you let her down, but I don’t think she liked my prices. Cousin Jan was asking after you too.’

‘Was she?
Why?’
snapped Mai, guilt making him aggressive.

‘No need to get ratty! I think she’s still hoping you might be able to help with finding Jean-Paul, that’s all.’

So at least the girl had had the sense to keep the news of her husband’s survival to herself. Probably that was Valois’s idea.

‘It’s not easy,’ he said.

‘I didn’t reckon it would be,’ said Boucher. ‘Might cost a bit, I told Janine a while back. Only, make sure you get value for money.’

He knows, thought Mai. Or at least, he’s guessed.

He’d made a conscious effort to avoid meeting Janine ever since he’d raped her. Yes, that was the right word;
went to bed with, made love to, had sex with,
none of these phrases would do. The act had been brief, brutish and against her wish if not her will; it deserved the most unadorned of verbs. The memory of the encounter filled him with shame.

And yet, amidst the shame, vibrating on the edges of these pangs of self-reproach, he could recognize, had to acknowledge, desire. He wanted to do it again, not as it had happened last time, but with her body compliant and consenting and receiving as well as giving pleasure. He found himself thinking of Jean-Paul Simonian with furious resentment. For God’s sake, it was almost like being jealous of the man.

‘I’ll be on my way then,’ said Boucher.

‘All right. Look, if you see Janine, tell her…’

‘No need,’ interrupted Boucher with a grin. ‘Tell her yourself. I mentioned I’d be seeing you in here today. That’s her just come in. See you, lieutenant!’

He rose and left, exchanging a brief word with his cousin
en route.
She came straight to the table and sat down. Mai found he was packing his pipe so full that strands of tobacco drooped down from the bowl. He expected her tone to be accusatory but when she spoke, her voice was hesitant, almost apologetic.

‘I hope you don’t mind. Miche said you’d be here. I know it must be hard to get things moving. Miche said, a man in your position, well, you’d need to be careful. I appreciate that, I really do, only as I knew you were going to be here, and time goes by, and we’ve still not heard a thing…’

She looked at him with a confident expectation that was harder for Mai to take than recrimination and despair.

In fact Janine was feeling far from confident. In some ways she was a shrewd judge of people and what had prompted her to be so frank with this stocky Boche with the filthy pipe and the probing eyes was a feeling that he was the kind of man who kept his bargains. But the nature of their bargain bothered her and paradoxically it was her trust in her judgement which was making her feel increasingly doubtful of his dependability. She looked at him now and couldn’t see in him the kind of man who would look for the cheap, speedy thrill he must have got in that squalid room above the café. He looked so comfortable and domestic. But you couldn’t tell just by looking. Who could look at me and tell that I’m nothing but a tart? she asked herself scornfully.

She said, ‘Please, how is he…?’

‘He’s very well,’ said Mai confidently. ‘He’s almost back to full health. And he’s in no danger. But I’ve got to be careful not to attract attention to him.’

It was all lies, though it might of course be accurate. He hadn’t made any more enquiries about Jean-Paul since he and Janine had last met. He’d simply tried to suppress the whole affair in his mind. Now she had revived it, damn her.

He left the woman abruptly with a promise that he’d see what could be done.

He wrestled with the problem a week longer. The stupid thing was, it wasn’t really a problem. The only way he could get Jean-Paul released officially was either to confide in, or lie to, Zeller and process an official
Abwehr
request. The dangers were too great, to Jean-Paul as well as to his own career. Or was it simply that he didn’t want Simonian released?

After another ten days of intermittent soul-searching, it occurred to him that he could do one thing at least. There was no need to keep on withholding Simonian’s mail.

Having once made up his mind, he acted swiftly, authorizing a direct phone call to Erhard, the doctor in charge of ‘Simon’.

‘Give him the letters, you say? Good. About time. It’s an act of sadism, keeping them from him. More Gestapo than
Abwehr,
I would once have said.’

Erhard was a prickly outspoken man, not the best qualities for survival, even in a doctor.

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Mai. ‘It was regrettably necessary. But no longer.’

‘I expect you’ll want to know how he reacts to his letters,’ demanded Erhard grumblingly.

‘No. No need,’ said Mai. ‘You’ve done enough. Thank you.’

‘Oh?’ This gentle response seemed to take some of the steam out of the doctor. ‘Very well. It’s just that pretty soon we’re going to have to make our minds up and his reaction here might help.’

‘Make up your minds about what?’

‘About where he goes next. No point in keeping him here much longer. We need the bed.’

‘And what are the alternatives?’

‘POW camp or medical repatriation, of course. Not that there’s much choice in this case, whatever I say. Unless there’s some vital part clearly missing our admin. chief is impossible to convince, so it’s the long road east for this poor bastard. It should be a medical decision, not some file-farting pen-pusher’s!’

‘He’ll surely review the evidence first,’ said Mai mildly.

‘You would say that,’ snorted Erhard. ‘Two of a kind. This fellow keeps on trying to get transferred to Intelligence. That’s where the real work’s done, he says. Same bloody work, as far as I can see. Gathering information you don’t know what to do with. No wonder he admires you lot. All bureaucrats under the skin!’

Here it was again, the voice of that ironic God he’d heard already in the Café Balzac, though this time disguised in the bitter tones of an over-worked doctor.

‘I wonder if you could get this call transferred to your admin. officer?’ said Mai.

Ten minutes later it was done. No official forms, file records, or signed requests. Hints, hesitations and half-promises, the dialect of deception which Mai seemed to have been speaking since childhood.

‘You’re looking pleased with yourself, Günter,’ said Zeller, entering the room. ‘Up to something wicked?’

‘On the contrary, major,’ said Mai with a smile.