Paris, 1949
It had taken months for Slim to coax the story of his family’s fate out of Daniel, and even then he gave her only the barest of facts. When she’d asked what Auschwitz was like, Daniel had put his hand over her mouth and said only, “Don’t.”
She’d never brought up Auschwitz again, but she did try to heal Daniel’s heart; she bought the building where his family had lived and worked together and gave it to him. She expected him to cry out with joy or tears or even anger, but he took the keys from her and simply nodded. When over drinks at the Ritz she told her father’s old lover, Marlene Dietrich, what she had done, Dietrich asked if one of her ex-lovers, Françoise Derrain, could reopen her famous lesbian bar la Silhouette on the bottom floor where the barbershop had been. The Gestapo had shut it down soon after the Germans had entered Paris, and Dietrich reasoned that it was time for la Silhouette to open its doors again. As her father’s longtime lover, Dietrich had been the closest thing to a mother she’d ever had, so although she wanted to say yes, it wasn’t her decision. Slim thought Daniel would want to keep the barbershop shuttered as a memorial to his family, but much to her surprise, he agreed.
“We will take the money made from the bar and help the Jews get to Palestine,” he said, referring to the mass exodus of European Jews to the newly minted Jewish State of Israel. She and Françoise, a trim, chain-smoking, handsome woman who favored well-tailored men’s suits, set to work and transformed the barbershop into one of the hottest lesbian clubs in Paris.
Six months later, the bar was an assured success, and Slim was again at loose ends. She came down to the bar to try to help Françoise close up for the night, but the woman shooed her away. Feeling useless, she went upstairs and found Daniel smoking and studying a map of Germany.
“What are you doing?” she asked, a bit concerned by the marks he was making with a grease pencil on the map.
“Nothing,” he replied, making Slim feel anxious. Their affair had settled, not quite into a routine, but steady enough so that the initial excitement and newness was gone. She was worried that she was beginning to bore him.
“Françoise doesn’t want my help,” Slim began.
“Why would she need your help? She’s got Remy,” he said, referring to the German Gypsy woman Slim had taken pity on and had hired after finding her mopping the floors at the Hôtel Lutetia.
“I just don’t know what to do with myself now that the Red Cross has closed my displaced person’s center. I thought the bar would give me something to do, but . . .” Slim trailed off.
“There are still people who need to be found. Why don’t you set up your own agency? I’ll help you.”
So Slim opened an office above the bar and placed an ad in Le Parisien Libéré. The first two cases came one after another, and then a week went by, and then another without a single inquiry.
After saying a quick goodbye to Daniel, Slim wandered downstairs to the bar. At the bottom of the stairs, she saw Remy, mopping the floor. Inside the bar, Françoise was going over inventory with her ever-present cigarette dangling from her lip.
“Daniel left,” Slim said as she slid into a chair.
“You need to forget him,” Françoise shot back and continued to count bottles of liquor. “Look, the thing is about the soap people . . .” Françoise called all survivors soap people because it was rumored the Nazis took the fat of the Jews and turned them into bars of soap.
“I wish you wouldn’t call them that. It’s disrespectful,” Slim countered.
Françoise shrugged. She stopped counting, went behind the counter, and started making them each a café au lait. Slim looked around. Dark and smelling of stale cigarettes and sour red wine, the bar made her feel depressed, even in daylight. She asked Remy to open the large glass doors to let in air. Françoise came back and placed a bowl of café au lait in front of Slim and pulled up a chair.
“I call them soap people not to be disrespectful.”
“But it sounds so . . .”
“I know how it sounds. It sounds so . . . dismissive.” Françoise searched for a word. Her English was tinged with a posh British accent, no doubt picked up from some titled lover whom she’d bedded before the war had started. “But I’m not trying to be dismissive. I want to throw what happened into everyone’s face.”
“You mean the Germans?” The steamed milk burned Slim’s tongue.
“Not only the Germans but also the French,” Françoise said.
“The French? What are you talking about?” Slim asked. “You were the ones who were occupied.”
“Before de Gaulle marched down the Champs-Élysées, Coco Chanel was holed up in the Ritz with her Gestapo officer,” Françoise continued. “Oh, I know now, everyone pretends they were part of the Resistance, but deep in here”—Françoise stabbed her cigarette out in a tray and tapped her temple-“we know who did what.”
Slim sipped her café au lait. “What does Daniel have to do with the soap people?”
“Did Daniel ever tell you how he survived in the camp? The job they gave him?” Françoise asked.
“Yes, of course. He was nearly worked to death in a Krupp munitions factory. Why?”
“It is not for me to say then. You love this man, Slim?” Françoise lit another cigarette and blew out her match.
“I’m not one for love. Maybe it would be easier if I were a lesbian.” Slim smiled.
“Women are brutal with one another. They’re tender in bed, but once out, they will tear your heart out and serve it to you on brioche for breakfast.”
Slim looked up at Françoise to see if she was kidding; she wasn’t.
“Look, I know you care for Daniel, but be careful. He’s damaged goods.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“No, not like that. There are some soap people no one can help.”
“But . . .”
“Be careful. People like Daniel live as ghosts in this world. In his mind, Slim, he’s already dead.”
While Slim considered this, the front door opened, and a short woman in her late forties wearing a smart gray suit walked in.
“The bar doesn’t open until eight. Come back later,” Françoise said as she turned away and started barking orders at Remy.
“I’m not looking for the bar. I’m looking for the Pitchipoi Agency.” The woman took a piece of folded newspaper from her purse and showed Slim the ad: Need to find someone lost during 1940–1945? We can help. Agency Pitchipoi. 37 rue de Sevigne.
“Who do you need to find?” Slim asked as she motioned to the woman to sit. She was suddenly grateful that she had someone to distract her from her problems with Daniel.
“During the war, I was part of the Special Operations Executive. The SOE, stationed out of London. I was in charge of thirty-eight women who were sent into France as couriers and wireless operators.”
“You ran spies into France who were women?” Slim was impressed and also relieved that this was not going to be a run-of-the-mill missing-spouse case.
“Their jobs were to find out what supplies were needed by the Resistance so they could commit acts of sabotage against the Nazis.”
Slim wasn’t sure where this was going, but it was certainly more interesting than moaning over some man who viewed her more as an option than a priority.
“I sent thirty-eight women into France. Twelve did not return. After the war, I promised their families I would find out what happened to them. I have tracked down eleven of them.”
“But not the twelfth?”
The woman pulled an envelope out of her purse, opened it, and took out a snapshot.
“I need you to find out what happened to Marya Vyrubova. She was picked up by the Gestapo in February of 1943. That's all I can prove, but I must find Marya. Her mother is dying. She wants to know what happened to her daughter.”
Slim studied the picture of the young woman in uniform. “Surely if you found the eleven you lost, you tried to find her as well?”
“I’ve exhausted every avenue, eve
ry lead. At this point, I think a pair of fresh eyes would help.”
Slim set down the picture. “Well, Mrs. . . . ?”
“Miss Chapman. Flora Chapman.”
“Miss Chapman, I’ll do what I can, but I can’t promise anything. I think it’s admirable that you want to find out what happened to her.”
“It’s not me being admirable. It’s me being responsible. I was the last person to see these women off from England; I sent them all to their deaths. Marya is the final piece of the puzzle I need to solve.”
Slim looked up, a bit startled by this frank admission. “Where do I start?”
“Tomorrow, there is a gathering of some of the survivors of the French section of the SOE at 84 Avenue Foch at noon.”
“Why there?” Slim asked.
“That’s where the Gestapo brought them to be tortured by the Sicherheitsdienst, or the SD, as they were known. They were an offshoot of the Gestapo that dealt with the gathering of intelligence.”
“What will the surviving agents tell me that they haven’t already told you? I assume you’ve interviewed them,” Slim asked, wondering why they would reveal anything to her, a stranger.
“I’ve interviewed them more times than I can count. I’ve turned over every rock, every rumor, but nothing leads to Marya.”
“What makes you think I can do it?”
“I’m running out of time—my office is closing at the end of the month, and as I said, Marya’s mother has but weeks to live. I need to find out now what’s happened to her if she’s still alive.”
“I can try, but I can’t imagine I’ll do better than you already have.”
“Tomorrow, you’re going to be introduced to four SOE agents: two men, two women. One of them is the one who betrayed Marya. Once you find out who, you will find Marya.”
“You mean the body, of course?”
“No, I mean Marya. I think she is still alive.”
“Why do you say that?” Slim was confused. “Surely, she must be dead. It’s been almost five years since the war ended.”
“Someone has been calling and transmitting messages in Morse code to me over the telephone.” When Slim didn’t respond, Miss Chapman read her mind. “You think I’m mad, but I’m not.”
“What do those messages say?”
“They say, ‘You promised you would find me. Now keep your word.’”
“But how do you know it is Marya?”
“Because the transmitter uses Marya’s safety word.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“The safety word was used to make sure that the person transmitting was indeed the transmitter. Without it, we would know the agent had been arrested, and someone else was transmitting in her place.”
“But couldn’t someone find that out somehow and . . .”
Chapman stopped her before she could continue. “It’s also her fist.”
“Fist? I don’t understand.”
“Every transmitter has her own way of tapping keys. Marya had long pauses between her words. And that’s not all; she transmitted using the Playfair cipher.”
Noticing Slim’s look of confusion, Miss Chapman explained, “It’s an encryption technique where one letter of the alphabet is omitted. Most agents encrypt using a favorite poem, but we didn’t have enough time to train Marya.”
“And she’s sending these messages where?” Slim asked.
“To my office, which is being shut down next month. The British government’s postwar austerity scheme has no room for extraneous spending. That’s part of the reason I want to hire you. I have to go back to London and organize the files to be archived. But I can’t do that and have the time to look for Marya.”
Françoise came over with another bowl of café au lait, leaned between the two of them, and picked up the photo of the missing agent. “Sacré bleu!”
“What?” Slim asked. “Did you know Marya Vyrubova?”
“I knew her, but her name wasn’t Marya. It was Marie Claire.”
“Marie Claire?” Slim said, incredulous. The story was getting more and more bizarre.
“Her alias was Marie Claire. How did you know her?” Miss Chapman asked, intrigued.
“She was my lover.” Françoise’s gaze lingered on the worn photograph.
Miss Chapman did not blink at this information but continued. “Tomorrow, Miss Moran, is July Fourteenth, the day of the Liberation of Paris. After the surviving members of Marya’s network meet at 84 Avenue Foch, they will go to a celebratory luncheon at la Tour d’Argent. I’ve let them know that you will be joining them.”
Slim smiled at the mention of the famed restaurant. She had been there once when she was a child.
“Now I must go home to London, and you must start your work, Miss Moran.”
“How did you know my name?” Slim asked, surprised. The ad did not mention her name.
“I asked around. Is it true that you are Tyrone Moran’s daughter?”
When Slim nodded, the older woman said, “I thought so. You’re the spitting image of him, and most times what’s handsome on a man is ugly on a woman. You seem to be the exception. What’s your fee?”
Slim told her, and the woman wrote out a check and handed it to her.
“If Marya is alive, as I think she is, she must be found before her mother dies. You have three weeks at most.”
“May I keep the photo?”
“Yes, but it’s the only one I have of her, so please don’t lose it.” With that, Miss Chapman got up and left.
Slim handed the photo to Françoise and asked, “What do you think?”
“I think if Marya were alive, she would have contacted me by now.”
“Were you very much in love?”
“No, it wasn’t love. It was something far more desperate than that,” Françoise said ruefully, and Slim wondered what exactly had happened to Marie Claire.
Chapter Two
London, 1942
Sweating from the humid July heat, Marya knocked on the door of a flat located off Baker Street in London’s West End, still confused as to why she had been summoned there. Two days ago, she had been working as a typist for the Royal Air Force. Perhaps she was being transferred, but the building didn’t seem like a government office at all. A butler in tails opened the door, then led her up in a lift, then into a small water closet, and told her to wait. Marya looked around at the black-marble sink and the red-silk Japanese-inspired wallpaper lining the walls. She closed the toilet seat, sat down, and wondered why she had been summoned.
She reviewed her work; she was a competent typist, she never was late, she kept to herself, and she went home to her widowed Russian mother every night. So why in the world was she here? The door opened just as Marya was contemplating whether she had time for a quick piss, and the butler asked her to follow him. He led her across a carpeted hall, opened a door, and a friendly man in mismatched Harris tweed waved her in.
“My dear girl, please take a seat!” The man who looked to be in his mid-forties almost fell off his chair as he stood to greet her. He appeared like an absentminded schoolteacher in his rumpled, stained tie with the Etonian stripe that looked more like a hangman’s noose than a Windsor knot. Marya decided he was more of an avuncular, bumbling uncle than whatever he was supposed to be.
“Excuse me . . .” Marya began, “I think there’s been some sort of—”
“Colonel Graham,” he interrupted her as he sat back down and swung his legs over the desk. He smiled at her expectantly, making her even more confused.
“Sir, I don’t know quite why I’m here.” Marya was beginning to think this was all just one big misunderstanding.
“You’re here because you spent a significant part of your young adulthood in Paris, is that not correct?” he said while looking at a file.
“Yes, we moved there from Berlin after my father died.”
“I’m in charge of the French part of the Special Operations Executive. We’ve been assi
gned by Churchill to light Europe ablaze.”
“But what do you want with me?”
“My dear girl, if you’d be so kind as to follow me, we’ll see if we can find out if you’re the right type.” He stood up and motioned for Marya to do the same. She followed him down another carpeted hallway where he knocked on a door and poked in his head. “Chapman, this is Miss Vyrubova. You’ll be well looked after. Toodle- oo!” he said as he headed off.
He left her standing in front of a stern-looking woman in a well-tailored forest-green and khaki uniform with brass buttons.
“Please sit, Miss Vyrubova. I am Miss Chapman.”
Marya sat down. Miss Chapman offered a cigarette, which Marya took, along with a light.
“Now, you live with your widowed mother in Little Russia?” she asked, referring to the section of London where all the Tsarist White Russians had since migrated. Marya never got a straight answer why they were known as White Russians. Some said it was because white was the color of royalty, others that it was the color of the pro-Tsarist army uniforms or, still others said it was in homage to Russia’s first Tsar Ivan III who was known as Albus Rex, ‘the white king’.
“Yes. I live in Little Russia,” Marya nodded, sensing that she was being interviewed for something.
“You speak fluent French?”
“Yes, I lived there after my family left Russia. I also speak less than fluent German, as we lived in Berlin as well.”
“Brilliant. So, Miss Vyrubova, you’ve been selected for a special assignment.”
“Special assignment?”
Miss Chapman lit herself a cigarette. “It’s all rather secret. You’ll be going behind enemy lines as either a courier carrying messages back and forth between us and the French Resistance or, you’ll be trained as a wireless operator where you’ll relay messages to the Resistance from us here in London.”
“Do I have to do this?” Marya asked.
“No, in fact, we much prefer if you would refuse. It’s dangerous work, and while you’re here, you’ll still wear your Women’s Auxiliary Air Force uniform, but when you are over there, you’ll be disguised as a French citizen. This means if you’re caught, the Geneva Convention will not apply to you.”
The Lost Spy (Slim Moran Mysteries) Page 2
