Paris: The Novel (137 page)

“Max,” his father continued, “this is my good friend, who is known as Monsieur Bon Ami. Please remember his face so that you will know him when you meet again.”

The two younger men gazed at each other and smiled. Then Monsieur Bon Ami slipped away through the trees as quietly as he had come.

“Who the devil was that?” asked Max.

At first, when Charlie had thought about how to make himself useful to de Gaulle, there had been one great obstacle. Who to talk to, and how to find them? So many of his own contemporaries had been among the million prisoners of war taken into the German work camps. Others might have been amenable to doing something, but they had no idea how to make contact with the Free French across the water.

Of his father’s generation, even the most patriotic military men all seemed to be following Pétain.

It was Marie who made a clever suggestion. After a few telephone calls, she found an instructor in the Staff College who’d been close to the English officer she had met before the war. Her approach to him was subtle. Was there any way that he was ever in contact with the Englishman, she inquired?

“I doubt that such a thing is possible, madame,” he replied. But she noticed that he did not say that it was out of the question.

“I should be grateful if you would not mention this to anyone, because my husband and his son are ardently for Pétain, and would not wish me to have any contact with the Englishman at all, but before he left Paris, he left some prints with me and asked if I could dispose of them for him. I did so, and I have the proceeds. If you ever think of a way of my discreetly letting him have his money, I should be glad. That is all.”

“It will probably have to wait until the cessation of hostilities, madame,” he told her. “But I will make inquiries.”

A month passed. Charlie kept busy. For a start, he got a list of all the officers who used Louise’s brothel on a regular basis, found out their duties, everything he could about them. He also constructed a list of people who, if they could be persuaded to help the cause, might be useful. Given his social position, and his family’s reputation as German sympathizers,
he was often a guest at the receptions that German generals were giving in the mansions they had requisitioned.

“It’s remarkable,” he said to Marie once, “apart from a German host and a sprinkling of German officers, I seem to see just the same people at all these parties as I did before the war.”

But it meant that he could gather information quite easily. The question was, would he be able to make use of all this activity?

It was dusk, one evening in November, when the butler announced to Marie that there was an elderly French art dealer at the door of the apartment, who had been told she might have some military prints for sale. She at once told him to usher the gentleman in.

The disguise was excellent. Shuffling in, with a low bow, came a man apparently in his seventies. Only when they were alone did he look up sharply, and she saw the face of the English officer.

“Your message was very clever, madame,” he remarked. “What can I do for you?”

“How did you get here?” she cried.

“I am a
parachutiste
, Madame la Vicomtesse,” he answered with a smile.

She explained quickly that it was Charlie who was anxious to make himself useful, and that it would be best if the two of them met alone. He immediately suggested a spot in the Parc Monceau the following day and departed.

When Charlie met him, and explained what he had to offer, the English officer was impressed, and told him that he’d soon be contacted. “You’re just the sort of man Colonel Rémy needs,” he said.

“Colonel Rémy?” The name meant nothing to Charlie.

“Code name. Safer,” said the Englishman, and left.

Within a week he’d received his first instructions from Colonel Rémy. A list of information needed, and the address of a safe drop where he could leave his reports.

Soon Charlie was making careful notes on all the barracks, the road and rail transport used by the Germans, the places where ammunition and explosives were kept, any information that might come in useful later for sabotage.

It was useful information. He could see that. But he wanted to do more. He was told to be patient. But Charlie wasn’t very good at being
patient. “I want the chance of some action,” he confessed to his father. And it was after some weeks of this frustration that his father finally gave him the name of a man who might be able to help him.

“I have no idea if he is in any Resistance movement,” his father said, “but I have made some inquiries about him. He is a socialist, and I am sure he is not pro-German. He might be able to put you in touch with people. But tell him nothing about your business with Colonel Rémy. Keep the two activities totally separate, or you could compromise security.”

A few days later, the elder Le Sourd had been surprised when, soon after he had left his home in Belleville, an athletic young man, almost as tall as his son, fell into step beside him.

“Monsieur Le Sourd?”

“Perhaps.”

“I am Charlie de Cygne. My father sent me. May we speak alone?”

“Why?”

“My father told me I could trust you.”

“He did? Why?”

“I don’t know. He said you were comrades in the Great War.”

“He said that?” Le Sourd considered. “How do I know you are his son, and that he sent you?”

“He told me that, if he had been killed, he had asked you to send something to me.” Charlie pulled out the little lighter made from a cartridge shell and showed it to Le Sourd.

“What else did he say?”

“That we should not shoot each other until France is liberated.”

Le Sourd nodded slowly.

“There is a little bar along the street, young man,” he said. “We can talk there.”

When they had finished their talk, Le Sourd had told him that it would be best that he had an operational alias, and asked him what he would choose. After hesitating for a moment, Charlie smiled.

“Call me Monsieur Bon Ami,” he said. A good name, he thought. For that’s what he’d like to be: a Good Friend.

When Luc Gascon first met Schmid, he thought the young German wasn’t so bad—for a Gestapo man.

It had been an icy day in early December of 1941. News had just come from Russia that the Germans had suffered their first reverse. At first, they had swept through south Russia and taken the city of Kiev. But now, up in the north, they had met such furious resistance in the suburbs of Moscow that they had turned back.

In the Gascon bar that morning, the news had been greeted with pleasure. If the emperor Napoléon himself had been forced to retreat from Moscow, it would have been galling if Hitler had done better. And one of the regulars at the bar had just remarked, “Hitler’s buggered,” when a young man in a black Gestapo uniform entered the bar and ordered a drink.

Luc had happened to be in the bar just then, and he’d moved quickly as an awkward silence fell. Explaining that he was the owner of both the bar and the restaurant next door, he welcomed the Gestapo man with discreet politeness. Skillfully showing the young German respect, it hadn’t taken him long to engage him in conversation. He soon let it be clear both that he was solid for Pétain, and that he might be a useful mine of information about the city. He also learned that the German was named Schmid, that his family were farmers, that he had a married sister and that he worked in the Gestapo headquarters.

Karl Schmid was unremarkable to look at. Were it not for his black uniform, he would be the kind of figure who is immediately lost in any crowd. Medium height, mousy hair. Only his pale blue eyes were at all memorable.

After the German had left, one of the regulars remarked sourly to Luc that he’d been nice to the German. Luc only shrugged.

“Who needs to annoy the Gestapo? I want them to leave us alone.”

But in fact, he had already decided that this young Gestapo officer might be useful to him.

Luc always found ways to make a living. His first task was to ensure there were provisions for the restaurant. Using the black market he managed to keep the restaurant going, despite the wartime food shortages.

But his income was down. Though he could still obtain a little cocaine, many of his clients had left, and the high-ranking German officers who
used the drug had their own suppliers. He never saw Louise now, but it enraged him that she must be making a fortune at L’Invitation au Voyage, and was paying him nothing. There wasn’t much he could do; but he still vowed that one day he’d make her wish she hadn’t treated him like that.

In the meantime, however, he knew how to live by his wits. And it was natural that he had been wondering for some time how he should profit from the German occupation. People like Marc Blanchard and Louise met Germans at the highest levels. He did not. But young Karl Schmid the Gestapo officer might be just the sort of contact he needed.

Two days later, he went to his office.

Karl Schmid sat behind his desk and considered the world. He was twenty-eight years old and remarkably fortunate.

For a start, he was in Paris—a city he’d always wanted to visit, and never dreamed he would live in.