Paris: The Novel (139 page)

“A terrible business,” Jacob said, nodding toward the stadium. He looked distressed, and agitated.

“I believe they’re all foreign Jews,” said Luc.

“Ah. Yes. Perhaps,” Jacob replied absently. “I wonder if you could do
me a small favor,” he said suddenly. “I should like to tell my wife that I shall be home late. But you know I can’t use the phone over there. If I gave you a number …”

“But of course,” Luc spread his hands. “No problem.”

“Well then, my wife’s name is Sarina. If you could just tell her that I am delayed until this evening, but that I have not forgotten we are going to see her cousin Hélène in the morning.” He smiled. “She thinks I forget everything.”

“All wives think their husbands are forgetful.”

“You are very kind. Here is the number.” Jacob wrote it on a scrap of paper. “And the price of the call.”

“No payment, monsieur. It’s a pleasure. I’ll do it right away. If you stand over by that street corner, the police won’t see you, but you’ll be able to see me make the call.” He smiled.

“You are very kind, monsieur.”

Luc made the call.

“Am I speaking to Sarina?”

“Yes.” The voice sounded cautious.

“Your husband was just here, by the Vel d’hiv. He can’t use the public telephone, you understand? He asked me to give you a message.”

“I see.” She still sounded a little doubtful.

“He is delayed. He won’t be back until this evening.”

“This evening?” She sounded very surprised.

“That’s what he said. And something else. He said to tell you that he hasn’t forgotten he is going with you to see your cousin Hélène in the morning.”

“Our cousin Hélène? He said Hélène?”

“Oui, madame.”

“Oh my God.” Her voice sounded terrified. “Oh my God.”

“Madame?”

“Nothing. Thank you.” She hung up.

Luc glanced toward Jacob and nodded. He saw the Jew give a grateful nod in return, and hurry away.

Now what, Luc wondered, was that all about?

Sometimes Schmid despaired of the Vichy French. Not that the government of France was being uncooperative. Far from it. Pétain was a
splendid figurehead. The respect he’d earned in the Great War meant that the French were glad to follow the old warrior. And it was evident that, as a realist, Pétain had decided the only way to save his country was to become a German satellite. The French police were keen to do Germany’s will. Almost too keen, sometimes.

Yet they kept missing the point.

Karl Schmid leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head and sighed. “It’s partly our own fault,” he murmured to himself. “We didn’t have a proper plan for the Jews.”

Nobody wanted them in Germany, of course. They were kicked out of there. But there was so much to accomplish that the problem of what to do with them had been rather shelved. And since they had been fleeing there from Eastern Europe anyway, France had, rather by default, become a dumping ground for the Jews of the Third Reich.

But now it was time to tidy things up. At the start of that year, Schmid knew, a final solution to the Jewish question had been secretly agreed, and this very summer the methodology was being perfected. Officially however, the Jews were to be sent as workers to the East, or kept in labor camps.

There was only one problem. The French did not understand the Jewish question. It had been glaringly apparent at the meeting the French police came to in the Gestapo offices here on the avenue Foch just a couple of weeks ago. Though he was only a junior fellow, they had allowed him to sit in on the meeting, and he had watched with fascination.

“We shall conduct the roundup, but we have two stipulations,” the senior Frenchman said.

The first was that they should wait until after the fourteenth of the month. To conduct the roundup on Bastille Day would seem unfortunate. This was easily agreed to. But the second stipulation was more tiresome.

They wanted to round up only foreign Jews. No French ones.

“It might provoke bad feeling in the city,” the French police chief said. “Stir up trouble. Just what we don’t need.”

“But why?” one of the SS men asked him. “This is not just a question of rounding up troublesome Gypsies who don’t belong here. That of course we understand. But the Third Reich does not make a distinction because a man is a German Jew as opposed to a Polish one. That is not the point. What matters is that he is a Jew.”

“We have no objection to the statutes that rightly make Jews into
second-class citizens,” the Frenchman answered. “Eventually, I dare say they may all be removed. But we should at least start with the foreign ones.”

“We make no distinction.”

“In France”—the police chief spread his hands—“when a man is a Frenchman, even a Jew …” It was clear that somehow the French, even now, were so proud of their nationhood that they considered it could somehow mitigate the most fundamental facts about a man.

His boss had turned to Karl.

“What is our capacity at present, Schmid?”

“We could take in a little over thirteen thousand.”

“Good.” The German turned to the French police chief. “We want thirteen thousand, whoever they are. And no children. Remember, these people are all going east as laborers.”

“Understood.”

But of course, though the French policemen had started at dawn and moved with commendable efficiency, they’d brought in all the children as well. Some people said it was because they couldn’t bear to part the children from the parents. It might be so. Schmid suspected it was so they wouldn’t have to deal with all these inconvenient children themselves.

Thousands of them were in the Vel d’hiv at this moment. It must be like an oven in there, he thought. Soon they’d be transferred to other holding camps. And then in due course, sent east.

But admirable as this was, it still did nothing to address the question of the French Jews. Some had been arrested, of course. Blum, the former prime minister, was being kept in detention—but a comfortable one. Jew or not, it would be foolish to treat a former prime minister of France without some show of respect. His brother, however, was in a holding camp already.

Patience, thought Schmid, patience would eventually do the rest. When they’d worked through all the foreigners, the French police would be obliged to start rounding up the Jews they so foolishly considered as their own.

In the meantime, any French Jew who broke a regulation or stepped out of line could be taken instantly.

He was just considering this when an orderly told him that Luc Gascon had come to see him.

The Frenchman’s face was a mask, but Schmid sensed that he was quite excited.

“You have something for me?”

“I am not sure. I have a French Jew. He is an art dealer, so I assume he owns a quantity of paintings. Whether he has broken the law, or is planning to, I am not sure. But let me tell you what happened.”

Schmid listened carefully as Luc described what had taken place at the Vel d’Hiv. When Luc had finished, Schmid asked him what conclusion he drew.

“I think it’s possible that Jacob was so shocked by what he saw that he is going to try to escape from Paris, maybe from France. When I used the words ‘Cousin Hélène,’ his wife sounded so frightened that I think it may be a code word between them.”

“I agree.” Schmid nodded. “It is possible. If so, there may be an escape route we know nothing about; and this Jew could lead us to it.”

“Can you arrest him?”

“I can pull him in on suspicion. After that, we shall question him. See what he says.” He smiled. “Give me the telephone number and leave the rest to me. You have done well.”

The two plainclothesmen waited outside Jacob’s house the next morning. Schmid’s instructions to them were simple: they were to observe where the family went.

Early in the morning they saw Jacob leave the apartment block where he lived on the rue La Fayette. One of the men followed him to his small gallery, where he remained until the end of the morning. Meanwhile, his wife went out shopping, and returned home. Late in the afternoon, Jacob returned home. Nothing else happened. “Watch again tomorrow morning,” Schmid instructed. “If he goes to the office again, pick him up and bring him in.”

At noon the next day, they brought Jacob in. They didn’t take him to the avenue Foch, however, but to a house on the rue des Saussaies, just behind the Élysée Palace. It was well equipped for such encounters.

Schmid conducted the interrogation. As he looked at the small, neatly
dressed art dealer, he felt no particular emotion. He asked his questions gently. He could always use other methods if he chose.

So he learned at once that Jacob had a wife and a single child, a little girl. That was easy. What was his business? Jacob explained that he was an art dealer. Schmid asked for the keys to the gallery. Reluctantly, Jacob gave them. Had he any other family?

Not much. He had a cousin named Hélène.

The first setback. Hélène was not an invention. She might still be a code word, of course. He asked for her address, so that he could check the story. How often did he see her? Quite often. He had planned to go around to her house with his family yesterday, but then changed his mind.

Where had he been two days ago? To the Vel d’hiv. Why? To see what was happening. Was he afraid? Yes. Where did he go afterward? Into Montparnasse. Why? He had a friend whom he hadn’t seen for a while named Abraham. He’d been concerned he might have been rounded up and taken to the Vel d’hiv. And had he?

“I don’t know,” Jacob said simply. “When I got to his place, they told me he’d moved a couple of months ago. That’s all I could discover. So I went home.”

Schmid guessed that some of this story was probably true. But was it the whole truth? He took Abraham’s address.

“We shall talk again,” he told Jacob, and sent him back to a holding cell.

By evening his stories had been checked out. Cousin Hélène turned out to be a plump middle-aged woman of no account. Abraham had moved, but not registered his new address. He might be of interest.

Meanwhile, Schmid had gone to the gallery himself. Its contents were quite intriguing.

If the Third Reich confiscated art collections—especially Jewish ones—Schmid had started acquiring art as well. He believed he was developing an eye. He found many things in Jacob’s gallery—some of it degenerate art, which would have to be burned, of course—but many good things as well. No doubt there would be more in Jacob’s house. It seemed likely that Jacob’s art inventory was of far more interest than was Jacob himself. He stayed there until dusk. Before he left, he took a small sketch by Degas, rolled it carefully and put it in his briefcase. It would never be missed.

On the way back, he called in again at the rue des Saussaies. He had them bring Jacob to an interrogation room and strap him in a chair.

He explained to Jacob that he believed there was an escape route out of France, and he wanted to know about it.

Jacob said that if there was one, he didn’t know it.

Then Schmid took a pair of pliers and pulled out one of Jacob’s fingernails, which made him scream, and Schmid said: “It is painful, you see.” He asked him: “Did your friend Abraham know an escape route? Isn’t that why you were looking for him?” Jacob said no. So then Schmid did what he had done before, and Jacob screamed again. And as he was sobbing, Jacob looked up wretchedly and said: “If I could have escaped, do you think I’d be here now?”