B004U2USMY EBOK (7 page)

Alfonse could be a smart man in many ways. On
other occasions, he was the biggest idiot in the Reich. Seeing as
the Reich was full of idiots these days, that was quite an
accomplishment.

As for the prostrate nation that had once
been known as France, the center of the country was still largely
ruled by the French. One wave of his papers and any French police
would send Helmut on his way. This German crossing was the
difficult part.

When he reached the bridge, an SS captain
ordered him from the car and took his papers. Helmut kept his
briefcase tucked under his arm. A soldier walked around the car
with a mirror on a pole, inspecting the undercarriage. If
something looked wrong down there, they’d soon have the car in
pieces. He was counting on the contents of the briefcase to
distract them from a more thorough search.

A man with a German shepherd on a leash
followed the riverbank. The dog’s breath steamed as it paused to
sniff at something in a clump of grass. A light mist rose from the
river. There were several stone cottages along the riverbank and
they’d been turned into some sort of barracks, guarded by sand
bags and machine gun nests.

“Come with me, Herr von Cratz,” the captain
said. The man led him into the nearest stone cottage, which had
been converted into a guard post. A corporal with a submachine gun
gave a Hitler salute as they entered.

As Helmut expected, the money in his
briefcase attracted interest. The captain took out the money and
set it to one side, then ran his fingers along the interior as if
looking for hidden compartments. Helmut felt his heart rate
accelerate slightly. If they paid similar attention to his car, he
would be in trouble. Perhaps outside they would be, perhaps at any
moment a corporal would come in and whisper something in the
captain’s ear. Tell him what they’d found.

“Twenty-five thousand marks is a lot of
money, Herr von Cratz.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Why not carry francs, if you are planning to
cross into the Vichy zone?”

“I arrived in Paris last night from Munich,”
Helmut said. “Francs are rather hard to find in the Reich. And the
reichsmark carries somewhat more weight these days than useless
French paper.”

The SS captain shut the case holding the
stacks of 20 mark notes. He did not yet hand it back or order von
Cratz to return to the vehicle. “And you travel alone, and by car.
This is a dangerous part of the country for a lone German carrying
a large sum of money. What a risk to take.”

“If the
maquis
target my car, I’ll
have other things to worry about than losing a few marks.”

“Still, why not take the train and ride with
other Germans?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Which are?”

“Are my papers not in order?”

The SS officer thumbed through them a second
time. “Yes, they appear to be. But you did not answer the
question.”

“You may call headquarters if you must. But I
can’t divulge the nature of my trip. Surely you understand.”

The captain seemed to consider this. He
seemed a bright young man, alert, but Helmut didn’t sense any
malice. So many of these SS officers had to lord it over you,
remind you that at any time they could drag you away somewhere and
nobody would ever hear from you again. Maybe if more SS were like
this young man. the world wouldn’t be in its current state of
absolute
scheisse.

Which begged the question of why the captain
was in the SS and not in the regular army. Why join up if you
didn’t harbor a sadistic streak, if you didn’t enjoy power and its
many uses? If you hadn’t been the kind of boy who liked to skewer
frogs and light a cat’s tail on fire? Bully the little Jewish boy
and all of that. Why bother?

The captain handed him the briefcase and then
the papers. “Very well, Herr von Cratz. You are free to go.” The
man followed him back to the car, which sat undisturbed, to
Helmut’s great relief.

As Helmut climbed behind the wheel, the
captain raised his arm. “Heil Hitler.” This was an SS officer, so
of course Helmut was expecting it this time.

“Heil Hitler,” he repeated.

Heal Hitler? I’m not a doctor.

Moments later he was on the south side of the
river.

He had no illusions that the arm of the Reich
could not find him in so-called Free France. But at the very
least, the local authorities would be deferential. They would take
one look at the signatures and stamps on his papers and step
meekly aside.

#

Ten kilometers south of the border he found
the Molyneux farm. It was late morning.

He parked at the top of the lane, so as not
to get stuck in the mud, then headed to the trunk. It took a
minute to pry open the secret compartment. From there, he opened
the crate and took out a wad of ration coupons from on top of the
main cargo. Moments later he was walking down the lane toward the
farm house.

The house was a run-down version of what he
clearly remembered. The gate hinges had broken and not been
repaired. The stone wall still marked the boundary of the property
in its solid, eternal fashion, but the barn on the other side was
faded and the doors missing. Five years ago, there had been
animals everywhere: chickens, cows, goats, pigs, draft horses.
Now, a single, scrawny dog barked angrily, confronted him as he
stepped out of the car and then slunk off with a whimper when he
sharply told it to back off.

Two women were lifting a basket onto the
porch, filled with coal scraps. They set down the basket and
stared. Coals dust blackened their hands and smeared their faces.
He’d passed the rail yard a few kilometers back, and they must
have walked all this way, carrying the basket of gleanings.

“Marie-Élise,” he said.

The younger woman stared. Her breath puffed
into the cold air and her breast heaved from the effort. A light,
chill rain fell from the sky and dripped off the end of her hair.
She was an older, thinner version of what he held in memory. But
still achingly beautiful. Her green eyes were hard, like stone,
but a tremble at her lip betrayed her.

She recovered quickly. “Ah, a German. Sorry,
we have nothing left to steal. Not even our wheelbarrow, as you
can see.”

He looked at the house with the broken
shutters and a cracked window, unpainted, weedy and thought about
how meticulously neat the Molyneaux patriarch had kept it before.
“What happened here? Where is your father?”

“Gone to Germany to work.”

“Your brother?”

“Him too.”

“But he’s just a boy,” Helmut said,
surprised.

“He was fifteen when they offered him the
chance to volunteer.” A note of irony as she said this last word.
“They promised to send him home with a good wage when his term is
up. I have doubts. You know how Germans always break their
promises.”

“Let me help with that basket.”

“Don’t bother, we can manage.”

“Is there something I can do?”

“Why did you come, Helmut?”

“I brought you something.”

“I don’t want it.”

The woman’s mother turned. “Marie-Élise.”

“I don’t want it, mother. I don’t want
anything this snake has to offer.”

“But we’re desperate. We have nothing. We—”

“Go inside, mother. Go inside now and don’t
come out until he’s gone. And when I come in, never mention this
visit or this man’s name again.” Marie-Élise didn’t take her eyes
from Helmut’s as she said this. The gaze was so intense he had to
look away.

Madame Molyneaux nodded, then turned inside
without another word.

“I’m sorry,” he said when they were alone.

“It has been four years. Four years without a
word.”

“The war,” he said. The words sounded even
more feeble as he spoke them than they had in his head. “You know
how difficult it became.”

“You promised. You knew there would be
fighting and you said you’d find a way to get me. I thought you
must have been taken into the army and then what? Killed? You
don’t know how much I suffered just wondering what had happened to
you.”

“So why are you so angry? Why aren’t you
happy I’m alive?”

“Because I found you. I looked, and I asked,
and I paid money—money we didn’t have—and I found you. And I
figured out why you never wrote or came like you promised. You got
married.”

“I had no choice.”

“
Conneries!
You had a choice.”

“It was the war. I was going to lose my
business, everything. I couldn’t marry a French girl. I needed
help, contacts. Loise was the daughter of a man who could—”

“My god, I don’t want to hear her name,” she
interrupted with a grimace. “Listen to you, you make it sound like
you’re some Jew, who needed to flee the country in the middle of
the night. You’re a man of privilege, no doubt you and your family
have prospered greatly by the war. I can tell just by looking at
you and your car too. So you got married, you probably have
children. Well good for you, but after everything that happened
between us, everything you promised to me, everything that’s
happened to me since then? Excuse me for not wishing you well.”

“I understand,” he said. He hadn’t expected
hugs and kisses and tears of joy, but he’d hoped for understanding
and forgiveness. This vitriol hurt and it hurt more to think about
what she must have suffered in the past few years. Look how thin
she was, the pain etched on her face.

“You don’t understand. There’s no way you
could understand. Not yet. Maybe some day, when the war comes to
your own country, maybe then.”

“I brought you something.”

“You said that already. And I said I don’t
want it.”

He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat
for the ration cards, which he tried to hand to her.

“What is this
merde?
” she asked.

“You’re not blind, look.”

“Yes, ration cards, so what?”

“Look, this isn’t just rotting potatoes. Look
at these cards, you can get milk, grain, even pork and sugar.
Cooking oil! I brought enough cards for four people to live well
for six months.”

Ration cards were more valuable than money,
at least for a French girl like Marie-Élise and her mother. And
these were T-cards, for manual laborers, which gave extras to
compensate for the heavier work load.

She shook her head as she stared at the
cards, wide-eyed. “No. Don’t do this, no.”

“There are only two of you, it could last a
year. Maybe longer, maybe the war will be over then. But you’ll
have to be careful. This much food could attract attention.”

“I don’t want your help, why won’t you listen
to me?” Her voice was anguished.

He stepped forward with the cards, but
Marie-Élise snatched them up and threw them to the ground. She
came down off the porch as if to stamp them down in the mud and he
seized her wrists to stop her. She beat her fists against his
chest and cried.

That day, he could only think of that day.
The day they had walked hand-in-hand along the banks of the Cher.
The chateaux were still open then, and they had visited Chenonceau
and the gardens of Diane de Poitiers. It was a brilliant, sunny
day and the flowers were in bloom in the garden. They’d perched on
the stone wall overlooking the river and kissed like naughty
teenagers. A pair of old French widows in black had clucked their
tongues as they walked past.

A
policier
eventually tapped Helmut
on the shoulder. “This is not Paris,
monsieur
. We behave
properly in the Loire,
n’est-ce pas
?” Marie-Élise blushed
and they shared a guilty laugh after the
policier
straightened his hat and continued on his way. That night they
made love in the hay loft above the horses. He was certain
Monsieur Molyneaux knew what the young lovers were about, but
Helmut had not disguised his intention to marry Marie-Élise in a
proper Catholic ceremony. Those were the days when many people
still thought the war would be averted.

“I’m so sorry,” he said as she wept. “It was
the war. The war.”

She looked up at him. “Go away, Helmut. Do
not come back.”

They stared at each other for a long moment,
then he nodded and turned to go. He did not look back until he got
to the car. As he did, he saw Marie-Élise on her hands and knees,
collecting ration cards from the mud and wiping them clean on her
dress. Her shoulders shuddered.

Chapter Six:

Colonel Hans Hoekman picked up the gold coin
in a pair of forceps. He’d removed the top of the lamp, and now
held the coin in the direct flame.

“Does anyone know what the melting point of
gold is?” he asked.

One of the young lieutenants answered. “A
little over one thousand degrees centigrade.”

“That high? I never would have guessed, are
you sure?”

“
Ja,
Polizeiführer.
I’m sure.
One thousand sixteen degrees, to be exact.”

“Now if you had given me the exact number to
begin with, I never would have doubted you. You were afraid to say
it, because you didn’t want to appear to be showing off. It
sounded officious, an affectation. Can you be more precise,
still?”

“One thousand sixteen point one-eight
degrees,
Polizeiführer.
”

“Excellent.” Hoekman considered. “But that is
interesting. You think of gold, it is so soft. You would expect it
to melt like chocolate or butter. And look at that, it is not even
turning red. How would you even know it was getting hot? Apart
from the fact that I’m holding it in direct flame, of course.”

He smiled at his own joke. None of the other
three people in the room seemed amused. The two lieutenants
watched intently; they were wondering what he was doing. Perhaps
hoping he would let them get involved, maybe scheming to get
ahead. How best to please him, how to crush him in turn when the
time came. There was always scheming.