B004U2USMY EBOK (18 page)

“Thank you,” she said with genuine warmth.
“But they’ll have to sell this cheese. It’s too valuable to eat.”

“Then tell them to get a good price. I paid.
. .well, never mind. Just get a good price.”

She tucked the prizes under her coat, left
Helmut in the car. The same hungry eyes followed her. She kept her
distance. The smell of freshly baked baguettes might be enough to
start a riot.

#

Madame Demarais fumbled with the latch for
several moments before she finally got it open. She eyed Gabriela
with a look of desperate hope. “You’ve come back? Henri! Gaby has
come back, we have a renter. Henri!”

Gabriela stepped into the flat. It was colder
inside than it had been in the street, if that were possible. Or
maybe it was just being out of the sun that did it, into the gloom
of the flat.

It looked dirtier than she remembered: the
paint more faded and peeling, the floors more worn, the few pieces
of furniture more shabby. It was quiet, too, and it took a moment
to realize why; there was a dusty spot in the corner where the
radio had sat for the last two years.

“You sold the radio?”

“We can’t eat the BBC,” Madame Demarais said.
“You wouldn’t believe what that nasty man at the
marché aux
puces
offered. Theft, I tell you.” She leaned against the
wall and her hand trembled. “Sorry, I feel a little faint.”

“Sit down.” Gabriela took the woman’s arm to
help her to the chair. Her skin hung off her bones and there was a
sharp, bony look to her face that hadn’t been there a few weeks
earlier.

“We kept your room in the back. I knew you’d
come back.”

“I’m sorry, but this is just a visit. I’m
living with my aunt, remember?”

“But, we. . .oh.”

The old woman sagged into the chair with such
a defeated expression that Gabriela couldn’t stand it. She fished
out one of the loaves. “But I brought you something.”

“Bread? White bread? And cheese?
Mon
dieu.
” She blinked. “But how did you get that?”

“My uncle, he works for the ministry.”

“What ministry?”

“You know, the ministry of ah, food and
rations.”

“The Ministry of Food and Rations? I’ve never
heard of such a thing. Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Would you
terribly mind breaking me off a piece of bread? Henri!” she called
again.

There was an answering cough, deep and wet,
from their bedroom.

“That damned fool,” she said. “Spent three
hours in a food line, outside, in the rain. There was some kind of
riot, he fell in the water, came back chilled to the bone. You
know what he got? Two tins of potted meat product. Potted meat
product, is that even food? Henri, I’m warning you, I’m going to
eat this all myself.”

Madame Demarais took the piece of bread,
closed her eyes with a rapturous look as she put it in her mouth.
“Oh, this is. . .oh, you couldn’t understand. You don’t know.
Henri! For god’s sake, come out here.”

The man said something in a feeble voice.
Another wet cough. Gabriela was growing alarmed. “Is he all
right?”

“Oh, he’s fine. Just a little cough. Bring
him a piece of that bread—not too much, mind you—and he’ll be
en
pleine forme,
you’ll see.”

But when she went back, he could barely lift
himself to a sitting position in the bed. He was covered with
blankets, but still shivering. He took a small piece, thanked her
wordlessly with watery eyes and chewed unenthusiastically at the
bread. She tried to get him to eat some more, but he just shook
his head.

“How about a piece of Beaufort, then? Just a
tiny piece.” She unwrapped the cheese and held it under his nose.

“
Mon dieu,”
he said with a hoarse,
damp voice. “That smells good enough to wake the dead.” He broke
into another fit of coughing. Whatever gurgled in his chest, he
couldn’t cough it up.

They should sell the cheese, not eat it, but
she felt a desperate need to get him to eat. “Still cold, but
smell that. Isn’t that good?”

“Okay, just a tiny piece.” He put it in his
mouth, chewed, swallowed, but shook his head when she tried to
give him some more. “No, I can’t.”

“We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”

“I have no money for a doctor,” he said. “Not
a centime.”

“I brought a few coins. Maybe the madame
could buy you some medicine.”

“It’s too late, you know that. Even that old
hen knows, if she would admit it.”

“Don’t give up hope, you’ll see. You’ll
bounce back. All you need is some medicine.”

“I have no money.”

“I’ll find help.”

#

“Did they appreciate my precious Beaufort?”
Helmut asked as she climbed into the car. He pulled away at once.

“I gave it to them.”

She didn’t want to face Helmut’s disdain.
He’d just shrug and say it wasn’t his problem, it was a tough war,
there were lots of hungry people, the Germans had it tough too, or
some similar
merde.

But what else could she do? She had no money;
even Madame Demarais hadn’t thought much of the few coins she’d
left. A meal, maybe two if they stretched it. Who, then? Alfonse
would just laugh, she couldn’t borrow from Christine again. Maybe
if Gabriela had kept working, Monsieur Leblanc would have loaned
her a few francs. Or if she’d made any progress in locating his
son. Could she lie to him, or lead him to believe she had
something from Colonel Hoekman?

“How were they?” Helmut asked after a few
minutes of silence.

“Hungry and sick.”

“How hungry?”

“Starving. And the
monsieur
has a
horrible cough, down here in the chest.”

“Dry cough or wet?”

“Wet, like he breathed in some milk and it’s
stuck down in his lungs.”

“Was he shivering?”

“Constantly,” she said, “but the apartment
has no heat, so of course he’s cold.”

“And when he coughed up the phlegm, what did
it look like?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t looking at his snot.”

“I think he has pneumonia,” Helmut said.

“You don’t have to be a doctor to guess that,
but so what? They can’t do anything about it. They can’t see a
doctor, they have no money for medicine. I couldn’t even give them
a few francs for food and coal.”

“Actually, a doctor would be time-consuming.
I know a man in Dijon who could probably see him right away, but,
well. . .”

“There’s no way to get to Burgundy.” She
tried to stay calm, but his words gave her hope. “I think they’re
going to die, first the
monsieur
, then his wife. Unless
someone does something about it.”

“They don’t have to die. Let’s forget the
doctor. What he needs is a chemist. Sulfite drugs are the surest
treatment. They’re hard to get, but not impossible, if you want
them badly enough. You’ll have to help them.”

“Helmut, I can’t help. I have no money and no
contacts.”

“Yes, but I can and I do.” He took the next
right, then a left. “We’ll make a quick detour.”

“Really? Thank you so much.” Her gratitude
was deep and genuine.

“There are all sorts of things money and
contacts can buy. Not just drugs and doctors.” He turned and fixed
her with a significant look.

“Yes, so your friend is always telling me.”

“Alfonse is a braggart. You can’t believe
everything he tells you.”

“You want me to move in with you instead, is
that it? You have more money and contacts than he does, so you’d
make a better lover. I should have known.”

“Gaby, give me a little credit. I’m trying to
help you.”

“How.”

“I have friends and those friends talk to
other people and sometimes this information can be quite useful.
Tracking down missing people, for example. People taken by the
Gestapo.”

“What? Do you know something about Roger
Leblanc? Is he okay?”

“I have no idea. But I have heard about
another of the Gestapo’s victims. He’s a Spaniard by the name of
Ricardo Reyes.”

“Papá!”

Chapter Fourteen:

“I have to confide in someone,” Gabriela
said. “I have no friends, you understand.”

“I’m your friend.”

“Yes, except you. And I have no family,
except my father, and I don’t know where he is or even if he’s
still alive.”

“Then go ahead and tell me,” Christine urged.
“I’m your friend and always interested in hearing your problems,
at least where a good piece of gossip is concerned.”

Gabriela sighed. “This isn’t gossip and you
can’t act like it is.”

“Okay, I won’t. So what happened after you
left your old landlords?”

“We got the sulfides, just like Helmut
promised.”

“Wait, hold that for a second.” Christine
turned to study a pair of bicyclists who passed on the left. They
were two older men and whatever she’d been looking for on the path
through the forest, this apparently wasn’t it. She turned back to
Gabriela. “Go on.”

“Are you looking for someone?” Gabriela
asked. “Is that why you dragged me out here?”

Two hours down the Champs Elysees and through
the 16
^th
Arrondissement on foot to reach the park of
Bois de Boulogne
.
Her feet were tired; she
wanted to sit on a bench and talk, but Christine insisted on
walking up and down the paths through the forest. Mostly old
people and kids who should have been in school.

“
Ouai,
” Christine said.

“Well, who?”

“You’ll understand when you see. Go on, tell
me what happened.”

“So after I brought the drugs to the
Demarais, Helmut took me to his office to translate something from
Spanish. I kept thinking he was going to find some weak premise to
stop at his flat. Try to seduce me.”

“If he did, it would be a first. He’s
famously and faithfully married.”

“Alfonse reminds me that every time his name
comes up.”

“If your friend looked like Helmut, you’d try
to remind the girls of that, too,” Christine said.

“Hmm, well, he’s not my type. Too proud and
Nordic looking.”

“Isn’t that like saying he’s too rich or too
good looking?”

Christine’s grip tightened on Gabriela’s arm.
Two young men came around the bend. They were smoking, laughing.
Gabriela caught a fragment of conversation as they approached on
foot. “. . .and the old man actually quoted Petain. Work is the
duty of every Frenchman. ’No,’ I said, ’Bending over and taking
one up the arse from the
boches
is the duty of every
Frenchman.’”

The other young man guffawed. “And?”

“Bastard chased me out of the house with his
cane. I barely had a chance to grab my sunglasses.”

The two men had slicked-back hair, carried
rolled-up umbrellas over their arms even though the sky was clear,
and slouched along in that idle gait so beloved of the zazous.
Gabriela stiffened in memory of her last encounter.

But they merely smiled, gave an ironic tip of
their non-existent hats. The one who’d been sharing the anecdote
said, “Good day, ladies. It’s a lovely day to be idle and
beautiful and French,
n’est-ce pas?
”

Christine turned to watch them go, then shook
her head. “Maybe I was wrong.” She sounded disappointed.

“You came here to study zazous?”

“Not exactly, no. So Helmut didn’t seduce
you.”

“No, he didn’t even try,” Gabriela said.

“
Tant pis pour toi.
Well, Alfonse is
good enough for a Spanish girl. And a hell of a lot safer than
that Gestapo agent.”

“Helmut offered me a job. Offered you a job,
too.”

Christine frowned. “A job? What kind of job
does he think we could do?”

“He didn’t say. He made it sound like there
were a number of things. A little of everything, I guess. It was
very strange, I can’t explain it.”

“There’s an explanation. I know the type.
He’s trying to save us from a degenerate life.”

“Like how you rescued me that day in the flea
market?”

“That was different. You were starving. We’re
not starving. Helmut wants to save us from a degenerate life. No
thanks for me. I prefer to earn my living lying in bed. It’s an
easy living. You going to take the job?”

“Maybe. It will give me something to do while
Alfonse is out. There’s something else.”

“Ouai?”

Gabriela took a deep breath. Here was the
danger, when you opened your mouth and you confided in someone.
And that someone confided in someone else and that someone else
denounced you for an extra ration coupon or to get her POW husband
assigned to an easier work detail.

Christine must have read her thoughts. “Don’t
worry, I can be discrete.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’ve never heard me admit that Monsieur
Leblanc is a captain in de Gaulle’s Free French, have you?”

“Christine!”

“I’m just joking.”

“That’s the kind of joke that gets people
deported.”

“Why, are you going to report this
conversation to someone?”

“Of course not,” Gabriela said.

“And neither am I.” Her voice held an
uncharacteristically serious edge. “You can trust me one hundred
percent.”

“I’ve got a problem. I got close to Colonel
Hoekman and it turned out all wrong.”

“Of course it did. I warned you.”

“You did, but I had no choice. I had to do
it, I had to get close to him.”

“For god’s sake, why?” Christine asked.

She took a deep breath. “I’m looking for my
father. Hoekman is the man who arrested him.”

“Oh.” And then, a moment later. “Oh, I see.”

“I’ve been looking for my father for two and
a half years. Two and a half years of nothing, of worrying and
wondering, and dead ends. And now I finally had a chance to do
something. But what am I going to do? He’s Gestapo and I don’t
have anything to trade for my father’s freedom.”