Madeleine's War (30 page)

“Couldn't he have bought it on the black market, or stolen it from one of the captured agents?”

“I don't think he would have stolen it, even from a captured agent. He was a remarkably upright man in some ways. He was a Nazi, of course, but I don't think he would have stooped to petty theft. And he wouldn't have bought it on the black market—he despised that, and, being the Gestapo, he didn't go short. He didn't need the black market.”

She sipped her Ricard again. “For a time I wondered where he got that lighter, and who from, but I didn't dare ask him, and I must admit I had forgotten it until you mentioned it just now. He was fond of the lighter—at least he was till I noticed it was English, when he removed it—because, I think, it represented a big secret in the war. I'm piecing this together—since you asked your question about a double agent. It's the best I can do.”

I nodded, writing down what she was saying.

That took a while. I tried my whisky, then I said softly, “And what was it like? Being with Kolbe, I mean. Leading a double life of such…intimacy? Was he good to you, gentle, generous, considerate? Did he have a family? All wartime experiences are unusual, but yours…yours was unique.”

She sat back in her chair and again put her glass on the table next to it.

“That will be a big question for me, after the war. Before the war, before the Nazis came, the Germans were the most civilized people on the planet—the best culture, the best science, some of the best theologians even. Ulrich—I still think of him as Ulrich—was part of that civilization. He kept his brutality quite separate, he never brought it into the bedroom. He was never rough with me, he loved the fact that I was a pastry chef, and took a great deal of interest in my work. He had a wife and two sons back in Germany. He liked me well enough, but he missed his family.”

“Did he never suspect you?”

“If he did, he never made anything of it. I…I shouldn't say this, perhaps, but…Well, I am very skilled at making love. He had power and he enjoyed spoiling me, because he
could
. And he made it easy for me. Sometimes I feel that those women who did this to my face”—and she pointed to the crimson mark on her cheek—“had a case. I
did
live well.”

“But you—”

“Yes, I did. I took risks, I got information, information that saved lives…but in order to stay where I was I had to let some intelligence go by without any action on my part. If I had leaked
everything
I would have given myself away. So it cut both ways. I saved lives, I let some people die. It couldn't be helped.”

She picked up her glass and drained it.

She pointed to her face again. “I have this but I am
alive
. Can you say that about your dear friend?”

LATER THAT NIGHT I LAY IN BED
in the Hotel Séranon, accompanied by what I had left of the whisky I had brought from London, three of that day's newspapers, and the map of Europe I had also brought with me.

I was aware that I had, so far, done precious little about locating François Perrault, and would have to act soon, but that night the accounts in the newspapers were especially vivid about the pace of the war. The maps printed in the papers showed that our forces had taken Châtel and Lunéville, near Nancy, and that fierce fighting had broken out at Nijmegen. So some of our troops were quite a way east. At the same time, the Germans in Calais were still holding out, as they were at Brest. Most of northern France, Belgium, and parts of southern Holland were in our hands, but there
were
those worrying outposts.

Looking at the map, I could see that Lunéville—our forward-most point—was just under a hundred miles from Pforzheim, a few miles into Germany. At the moment, our forces were making headway at anything from seven to twelve miles a day, so even on the most favourable scenario we were more than a week away from reaching Pforzheim and that was—

Suddenly, from down below, came the sound of a door being opened quickly, and banging against the wall of the hall. Voices could be heard immediately, laughing, accompanied by the sound of more banging. I looked at my watch: 1:35 a.m.

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and more voices. Laughter, drunken laughter from the noise level.

I knew what was happening. This was the third night in a row of these late-night noises. An American jazz band, touring with the U.S. troops, had been billeted in the hotel and they liked to party when they weren't playing—staying out late, drinking, and joining in late-night jam sessions, in whatever club they found themselves.

The Hotel Séranon, once a quiet haven, was one no longer.

I tried to concentrate on my map.

If Madeleine
had
been the woman who escaped on her way to Pforzheim, she could, of course, be anywhere now. And there was no guarantee that, if and when the Allies reached there, and I was allowed into the prison, its records would tell me who had (and therefore who had not) been executed. At the same time, it was the best chance I had. Possibly, as Justine had said, not everyone there had been killed.

Maybe Madeleine was alive
in
Pforzheim. Maybe that's why she hadn't been heard from.

More voices in the corridor outside, then the sound of a bath running. This had happened for three nights also. Why was it that American jazz musicians liked to take baths in the middle of the night? And did they have to tell each other about it, at the tops of their voices?

I heard a door open.

“Hey, you! Keep the noise down, will you? It's half past fucking one in the morning.” I recognized the voice of one of the other British officers billeted at the hotel.

“Okay, okay,” said a voice, in reply. “I'm just taking a bath, for Christ's sake.”

“Well, do it with your mouth shut. Got it?”

“Sure, sure,” said the voice.

But, at that hour, even the sound of the water running was loud enough.

The voice in the bath started singing.

“Shut the fuck
up
!” shouted the British officer. “Or I'll shoot you!”

“Scary,” said the voice. But he shut up.

I finished my cigarette, drained the whisky glass, and put the newspapers and map on the floor. I put out the light and lay on my back.

Pforzheim was a long shot, a very long shot. But someone had escaped on the way there.

“
VOILÀ
,
MON CHER
,
I PROMISED TO
show you someone famous. Unless I am mistaken, that is Mr. 'Emingway over there—
no
?”

The lighting in the bar of the Ritz Hotel didn't actually
aid
anyone's sight at the best of times and, given the late hour we had arrived, and the smoke that thickened the atmosphere, visibility was far from ideal.

I peered across the room. The famous Ritz bar didn't seem to have suffered at all during the occupation. The crystal chandeliers glistened discreetly,
the red-and-gold wallpaper absorbed the light and then returned it, the deep green carpet was as lush as spring wheat, and the small tables, with their paler green tablecloths, boasted diminutive candles that barely helped you distinguish one drink from another.

We had come on here after another jazz and whisky session at La Pleine Lune.

“It could be Hemingway,” I replied softly.

The man in question was tall, and of muscular build, with a round face ringed with a grey beard. I had heard that a lot of literary types—journalists and authors—had flooded into Paris in the wake of the liberation. A lot of the better-heeled ones stayed at the Ritz—the Parisians sarcastically called it “Ritzkreig.”

“Who's that with him?” I added.

“Gertrude Stein?”

“Better not stare,” I said. “Let's leave them to their privacy, whoever they are.”

“You don't believe it's Hemingway?” This time she pronounced the “H.”

“It's hard to tell at this distance and in this light,” I replied. “And besides, have you never noticed that when you see someone famous in the flesh, they never look
exactly
like their picture in the paper? It's close enough—we'll pretend it's him.”

“I shall go and ask.” She made to lift herself out of her seat, but I leaned forward and put my hand on her arm. “Leave them be, Justine. Let them enjoy their drinks. Sit down.”

She sat down with a pout and a moue all at the same time.

“Why were you so keen to come here anyway?” I said after a pause. “The drinks are three times the price of those in the Lune.”

She didn't say anything for a moment. Then, “You have been…how shall I say, how do you British put it?…‘off colours' these past few days. Ever since Colonel Picard visited you. What did he say? What did he tell you, this Gaullist? I see you are thinking thoughts, thoughts that you don't share with me, that you hardly ever smile, that you never look at me directly. You work in a mechanical way, you don't joke with people, you don't gossip, you certainly don't flirt. You are not happy and you are not much fun. I thought seeing some famous people would give you—how do you say?—an elevation, a lift. Maybe we would have something to talk about. Maybe you would smile.”

She leaned forward and picked up her drink. “I was wrong.”

She sat back again.

I took my time, sipping my Scotch slowly. At Ritz prices I couldn't afford to go any quicker.

“Do you have a husband, Justine, a boyfriend, a lover?”

“I am not married but of course I have a lover.”

“Is he here in Paris?”

“No. He is in the east. He leads a union in Nancy.”

“Do you miss him?”

She nodded. “Of course. But the war goes on. I know we cannot be together, not for now.”

“But you love him?”

A smaller nod this time. “But he loves me more, I think.”

I turned that over in my mind. An interesting answer—on the cold side, but practical. No doubt they were both members of the Communist Party, though I didn't want to get into that. It didn't
sound
like a great love match.

I weighed carefully what I could say. “A week ago, you were there—in La Santé prison—when I found out that
my
lover, Madeleine Dirac, code name Oak, had been captured and therefore almost certainly killed. That is why I am as I am. That is why I have been so…so
silent
this past week. Part of me is hoping, keeping alive a ridiculous hope that my Madeleine is one of the few—the very few—agents who have been captured but not executed. The other part of me is grieving. I'm sorry but I can't help it.”

She leaned in to me so that I could smell the soap she washed with. Her skin, even that close, was unblemished.

“What is it you miss most? Her beauty? Her skin? Her body? Her talk? Making love? Waking up together?”

“All of that, of course, all of that. And—”

“Yes?”

“This will sound mad, but we have a dog, a West Highland terrier—”

“
Alors
. At last you are smiling.”

It was true. I had noticed that myself.

“Sometimes, when we are making love, and not wanting to be left out, Zola—that's the dog—jumps on the bed, to keep us company. That always has us in stitches.”

“Stitches? What is that, stitches?”

“It's slang for making us laugh helplessly. If I thought…if I thought
I would never have that again—” I shook my head. “I can't imagine not having it again.”

“Where is this Zola now?”

“He is staying with my secretary. They too have fallen in love.”

She let a long pause go by.

I felt awkward but didn't know what more to say.

“So you are not just a colonel clearing up after a messy war, but something else as well. I should have guessed that something very personal was troubling you.”

“It's more than that,” I said. And I explained about Madeleine's affair with Philippe in the Limoges area, and the incomplete newspaper cutting I had encountered in the café on my first night in Paris.

“That part is easily settled,” she replied. “Old newspapers are by law deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It is in the rue de Richelieu and we can go whenever you want.”

That was something, a glimmer of a way forward. Maybe.

She looked at me, smiled, and leaned closer still. “And there's something else, yes? Now you are worried that because you are grieving it will interfere with your ability to do your job?”

“That's one of my worries, yes.”

“And the other worries?”

“I can't tell you everything, Justine. You must know that.” But of course the ambiguity had got to me—not knowing what happened to Madeleine when she suddenly stopped transmitting; was she captured, had she been taken to one of the areas where the Germans were cut off, had she got trapped in a ratline, or had she really been sent east, as Claudine Petit seemed to indicate? I felt out of breath just listing the possibilities that underlay the ambiguities facing me. “Why don't you tell me something, Justine? Tell me about the Communist Party.”

“Why? No. You are not really interested.”

“Do you have meetings? You must do.”

She looked at me and shrugged. “Of course we have meetings; we are communists. Everything is discussed before we act. Because we discuss everything, and vote on it, we have good discipline. Unlike the Gaullists, who have to do what he says.”

I didn't want to get into that.

“Tell me about
your
leaders. What type of people are—?”

“Not tonight, Englishman.” She nodded, lowered her voice again, and
looked directly at me. She leaned forward and put her hand on my arm. “Would you like to sleep in my flat tonight?”

“What?”

“Don't worry. I don't mean would you like to sleep
with me
. What I mean is that I am sure the Hotel Séranon is very plain, very sparse, very cold emotionally. You yourself said the jazz people make a lot of noise late at night and stop you sleeping.”