Morosow was sitting in his shirtsleeves at the table in his room, solving a chess problem. The room was almost empty. A military coat was hanging on the wall. In one corner was an icon with a light burning before it. In another stood a table with a samovar, in the third a modern refrigerator. It was Morosow’s luxury. He kept vodka, food, and beer in it. A Turkoman rug lay by the bed.
Morosow got up without saying a word, brought two glasses and a bottle of vodka. He filled the glasses. “Subrovka,” he said.
Ravic sat down at the table. “I don’t want to drink anything, Boris. I’m damned hungry.”
“Good. Let’s go and have something to eat. Meanwhile—” Morosow rummaged in the refrigerator for black Russian bread, cucumbers, butter, and a small box of caviar “—have this! The caviar is a present from the chef of the Scheherazade. Trustworthy.”
“Boris,” Ravic said. “Let’s not behave like actors. I met the man in front of the Osiris, killed him in the Bois, and buried him in St.-Germain.”
“Were you seen by anyone?”
“No. Not even in front of the Osiris.”
“Nowhere?”
“Someone came across the meadow in the Bois. When everything was finished. I had Haake in the car. There was nothing to be seen except the car and me, vomiting. I might have been drunk or I might have become sick. Not an extraordinary incident.”
“What have you done with his things?”
“Buried them. Removed the labels and burned them with his papers. I’ve still got his money and a receipt for his suitcases at the Gare du Nord. He had checked out of his hotel room by then and intended to leave this morning.”
“Damn it, that was luck. Any traces of blood?”
“No. There was hardly any blood. I’ve given up my room in the Prince de Galles. My belongings are back here again. It’s possible that the people with whom he had dealings here will assume he took the train. If we call for his luggage, there will be no trace of him left here.”
“They’ll find out in Berlin that he didn’t arrive and they’ll investigate back here.”
“If his luggage isn’t here, they won’t know where he has gone.”
“They’ll know. He hasn’t used his sleeping-car ticket. Have you burned it?”
“Yes.”
“Then burn the receipt for his luggage too.”
“We could send it to the checkroom and have them send his suitcases to Berlin or somewhere else, collect.”
“That amounts to the same thing. It would be better to burn it. If you are too smart they might suspect more than this way. Now he simply disappeared. That can happen in Paris. They will investigate and, if they are lucky, will find out where he was last seen. In the Osiris. Were you in there?”
“Yes. For a minute. I saw him. He didn’t see me. Then I waited for him outside. No one saw us there.”
“They might inquire about who was in the Osiris at that time. Rolande will recall that you were there.”
“I often go there. That doesn’t matter.”
“It would be better they didn’t question you. Refugee without papers. Does Rolande know where you are living?”
“No, but she knows Veber’s address. He is the official doctor. Rolande will leave her position in a few days.”
“They’ll know where she is.” Morosow filled his glass. “Ravic, I think you’d better disappear for a few weeks.”
Ravic looked at him. “That’s easily said, Boris. Where to?”
“Any place where there is a crowd. Go to Cannes or Deauville. There’s a lot going on there now and you can easily disappear in the crowd. Or to Antibes. You know it and no one asks for papers there. Then Veber and Rolande can always let me know if the police have been inquiring for you to question you as a witness.”
Ravic shook his head. “The best thing is to stay where one is and to live as if nothing had happened.”
“No. Not in this case.”
Ravic looked at Morosow. “I won’t run away. I’ll stay here. That’s part of it. Don’t you understand?”
Morosow did not reply. “First burn the receipt for his luggage,” he said.
Ravic took the check out of his pocket, lighted it, and let it burn over the ashtray. Morosow took the copper plate and threw the fine ashes out of the window. “So, that’s done. You’ve nothing else of his on you?”
“Money.”
“Let’s see it.”
He examined it. There were no markings on it. “You can easily get rid of that. What will you do with it?”
“I could send it to the committee for refugees. Anonymously.”
“Change it tomorrow and send the money in two weeks.”
“Good.”
Ravic put the bills into his pocket. Folding them, he realized that he had been eating. He gave his hands a fleeting glance. What strange thoughts he had had that morning. He took another piece of the fresh dark bread.
“Where are we going to eat?” Morosow asked.
“Anywhere.”
Morosow looked at him. Ravic smiled. It was the first time he had smiled. “Boris,” he said. “Don’t look at me as a nurse might, expecting me to have a nervous breakdown. I’ve wiped out a beast that deserved a thousand times worse. I have killed dozens of people who did not matter to me, and I was decorated for it, and I didn’t kill them in fair fight, but sneaked up on them, spied them out from behind when they were unsuspecting, and that was war and honorable. The only thing that was repugnant to me for a few minutes was that I could not first tell Haake to his face, and that was an idiotic desire. He’s done with and he will never again torture anyone, and I’ve slept on it and it is as far removed from me as if I were reading about it in the papers.”
“Good.” Morosow buttoned his coat. “Let’s go. I need a drink.”
Ravic looked up. “You?”
“Yes, I,” Morosow said. “I.” He hesitated a second. “Today for the first time I feel old.”
31
THE FAREWELL PARTY for Rolande began punctually at six o’clock. It lasted only an hour. Business started again at seven.
The table was set in an adjoining room. All the whores were dressed. Most of them wore black silk dresses. Having always seen them naked or in a few thin wisps, Ravic had difficulty in recognizing a number of them. Only half a dozen had been left behind in the big room as an emergency force. They would change at seven o’clock and be served then. None of them would come in their professional costumes. This was not madame’s rule; the girls themselves wanted it this way. Ravic had not expected anything else. He knew the etiquette among whores; it was stricter than that of high society.
The girls had collected money and given Rolande six wicker chairs as a present for her restaurant. Madame had presented her with a cash register, Ravic with two marble tables to go with the wicker chairs. He was the only outsider at this party. And the only man.
The dinner started at five minutes past six. Madame presided. Rolande sat at her right, Ravic at her left. Then followed the new gouvernante, the assistant gouvernante, and the rows of girls.
The hors d’oeuvres were excellent. Strasbourg goose liver, pâté maison, and old sherry to go with it. Ravic was served a bottle of vodka. He loathed sherry. This was followed by a Vichyssoise of finest quality. Then by turbot with Meursault 1933. The turbot was of the same quality as that served at Maxim’s. The wine was light and exactly young enough. Then green asparagus came after it, then roast chicken, crisp and tender, carefully chosen salad with a whiff of garlic, with it a Château St. Emilion. At the head of the table they were drinking a bottle of Romanée Conti 1921. “The girls don’t appreciate it,” madame declared. Ravic appreciated it. He was served a second bottle. In exchange he passed over the champagne and the mousse chocolat. Together with madame he ate a ripe Brie with the wine and fresh white bread without butter.
The conversation at the table was that of a boarding school for young ladies. The wicker chairs were adorned with bows. The cash register glittered
. The marble tables gleamed. An air of melancholy pervaded the room. Madame was in black. She wore diamonds. Not too many. A brooch and a ring. Fine blue-white stones. No coronet, although she had become a countess. She had taste. Madame loved diamonds. She declared that rubies and emeralds were risky. Diamonds were safe. She chattered with Rolande and Ravic. She was well read, her conversation was amusing, light, and witty. She quoted Montaigne, Chateaubriand, and Voltaire. Her white, slightly bluish hair shimmered above her clever ironical face.
At seven o’clock, after the coffee, the girls rose like obedient young ladies at a boarding school. They thanked madame politely and took leave of Rolande. Madame stayed on for a while. She had an armagnac brought such as Ravic had never drunk before. The emergency brigade that had remained on duty came in, washed, less painted than when they were working, dressed in evening gowns. Madame waited until the girls were seated and eating turbot. She exchanged a few words with each of them and expressed her thanks that they had sacrificed the preceding hour. Then she said goodbye graciously. “I’ll see you, Rolande, before you leave—”
“Certainly, madame.”
“May I leave the armagnac here?” she asked Ravic.
Ravic thanked her. Madame left—every inch a lady of the highest rank.
Ravic took the bottle and sat down at Rolande’s side. “When are you going?” he asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon at four-seven.”
“I’ll be at the station.”
“No, Ravic. That cannot be. My fiancé will be here tonight. We’ll leave together. You understand why you can’t come?”
“Of course.”
“We plan to pick out a few more things tomorrow morning and have everything sent off before we leave. Tonight I’ll move into the Hôtel Belfort. Good, reasonable, clean.”
“Is he staying there, too?”
“Of course not,” Rolande said in surprise. “We are not married yet.”
“I see.”
Ravic knew that all this was not a pose. Rolande was a bourgeoise who had been in a profession. Whether it was a boarding school for young ladies or a brothel did not matter. She had completed her professional work; it was over and she was returning to her bourgeois world without taking a shadow of the other world with her. It was the same with many whores. Some of them became excellent wives. To be a whore was a serious profession, not a vice. That saved them from degradation.
Rolande smiled at Ravic, took the bottle of armagnac, and refilled his glass. Then she took a slip of paper out of her bag. “In case you’d like to get away from Paris someday—here is the address of our house. You can come any time.”
Ravic looked at the address. “There are two names on it,” she said. “One is for the first two weeks. It’s mine. Afterwards, that of my fiancé.”
Ravic put the slip into his pocket. “Thank you, Rolande. For the time being I’ll stay in Paris. Besides, your fiancé would certainly be startled if I suddenly dropped in.”
“You mean because I don’t want you to come to the station? That’s something else. This is only in the event that you have to get away from Paris someday. Quickly. In that event.”
He glanced up. “Why?”
“Ravic,” she said. “You are a refugee. And refugees are sometimes in difficulties. In that case it’s good to know where one can live without having the police concerned about it.”
“How do you know I am a refugee?”
“I know. I haven’t told anyone. It’s no one’s business here. Keep the address. And in case you should need it some day, come. No one will question you at our place.”
“All right. Thank you, Rolande.”
“Two days ago someone from the police was here. He inquired about a German. He wanted to know whether he had been here.”
“Really?” Ravic said attentively.
“Yes. He had been here last time you were in. Probably you don’t remember it any more. A stout bald-headed man. He was sitting there with Yvonne and Claire. The police asked whether he had been here and who else had been here.”
“I have no recollection,” Ravic said.
“I’m sure you didn’t pay any attention to him. Of course I didn’t say that you were here for a moment that night.”
Ravic nodded.
“It’s better so,” Rolande declared. “This way one doesn’t give the flics a chance to ask innocent people for their passports.”
“Naturally. Did he say what he wanted?”
Rolande shrugged her shoulders. “No. And it’s none of our business. I told him that no one had been here. That’s an old rule of our house. We never know anything. It’s better. Nor was he very much interested in it.”
“Wasn’t he?”
Rolande smiled. “Ravic, there are many Frenchmen who don’t mind what happens to a German tourist. We have plenty to do for ourselves.”
She got up. “I must go. Adieu, Ravic.”
“Adieu, Rolande. It won’t be the same here without you.”
She smiled. “Not right away perhaps. But soon.”
She went to say goodbye to the girls. On her way she looked at the cash register, the chairs and tables again. They were practical presents. She saw them in her café already. Particularly the cash register. It meant income, security, home, and prosperity. Rolande hesitated for a moment; then she could no longer resist. She took a few coins out of her pocket, put them beside the glittering apparatus, and began to work on it. The machine whirred, marked up two francs fifty, the drawer shot out, and Rolande put in her own money with a happy childlike smile.
Curiously the girls came closer and surrounded the cash register. Rolande registered a second time. One franc seventy-five.
“What can one get for one franc seventy-five at your place?” asked Marguerite, who was otherwise known as the Horse.
Rolande considered. “A Dubonnet, two Pernods,” she said then.
“How much do you charge for an Amèr Picon and one beer?”
“Seventy centimes.” Rolande registered zero francs, seventy centimes.
“Cheap,” the Horse said.
“We’ve got to be cheaper than Paris,” Rolande explained.
The girls moved the wicker chairs around the marble tables and sat down carefully. They smoothed their evening dresses and all of a sudden began to act like visitors at Rolande’s future café. “We’d like to have three teas with English biscuits, Madame Rolande,” said Daisy, a delicate blonde who was a special favorite of married men.
“Seven francs eighty.” Rolande kept her cash register busy. “I’m sorry, but English biscuits are expensive.”
At the adjoining table Marguerite, the Horse, raised her head after keen deliberation. “Two bottles of Pommery,” she ordered triumphantly. She liked Rolande and wished to show her affection.
“Ninety francs. Good Pommery!”
“And four cognacs!” breathed the Horse heavily. “It’s my birthday.”
“Four francs forty!” The cash register clattered.
“And four coffees with meringues!”
“Three francs sixty.”
The enchanted Horse stared at Rolande. She could think of nothing more.
The girls crowded around the cash register. “How much is it altogether, Madame Rolande?”
Rolande showed the slip with the printed figures and began to add them. “One hundred five francs eighty.”
“And how much of it is profit?”
“About thirty francs. That’s because of the champagne. You make a lot of money on it.”
“Good,” the Horse said. “Good! That’s how it should always go!”
Rolande came back to Ravic. Her eyes were radiant as only eyes can be when they are full of love or business. “Adieu, Ravic. Don’t forget what I told you.”
“No. Adieu, Rolande.”
She left, strong, upright, clearheaded—for her the future was simple and life was good.
He was sitting with Morosow in front of Fouquet’s. It was nine o’clock in th
e evening. The terrace was crowded. At a distance behind the Arc two street lights burned with a white and very cold light.
“The rats are leaving Paris,” Morosow said. “There are three rooms empty at the International. That has not happened since 1933.”
“Other refugees will come and fill them.”
“What kind? We have had Russians, Italians, Poles, Spaniards, Germans—”
“French,” Ravic said. “From the frontiers. Refugees. As in the last war.”
Morosow lifted his glass and saw that it was empty. He called the waiter. “Another carafe of Pouilly.”
“How about you, Ravic?” he asked then.
“As a rat?”
“Yes.”
“Nowadays rats too need passports and visas.”
Morosow looked at him disapprovingly. “Have you had any up to now? No. In spite of that you have been in Prague, Vienna, Zurich, Spain, and Paris. Now it’s time that you disappear from here.”
“Where to?” Ravic said. He took the carafe which the waiter had brought. The glass was cool and frosted. He poured the light wine. “To Italy? The Gestapo would wait for me there at the frontier. To Spain? The Falangists are waiting there.”
“To Switzerland.”
“Switzerland is too small. I have been in Switzerland three times. Each time the police caught me after a week and sent me back to France.”
“England. From Belgium as a stowaway.”
“Impossible. They catch you in the harbor and send you back to Belgium. And Belgium is no country for refugees.”
“You can’t go to America. How about Mexico?”
“Overcrowded. And also that would only be possible with some kind of papers.”
“Haven’t you any at all?”
“I had some discharge papers from prisons where I had been under various names because of illegal entry into the country. That’s not exactly the right thing. Of course I always tore them up right away.”
Morosow was silent.
“The flight has come to an end, old Boris,” Ravic said. “At some time it always comes to an end.”
“You know what will happen when war is declared?”
“Of course. A French concentration camp. They’ll be bad because nothing has been prepared in advance.”
Arch of Triumph Page 43
