by Philip Kerr
I wasn't fond of the French. The war - the Great War - was much too recent in my mind to make me like them, but I felt sorry for them now that they were second-class citizens in their own country. They were forbidden the best hotels and restaurants; Maxim's was under German management; on the Paris Metro first-class carriages were reserved for Germans; and the French, for whom good food was virtually a religion, found it was rationed and there were long lines for bread, wine, meat and cigarettes. Of course nothing was in short supply if you were German. And I enjoyed an excellent dinner at Laperouse - a nineteenth-century restaurant that looked more like a brothel than the brothels.
The next day Paul Kestner was waiting for me in the Lutetia lobby, as arranged. We shook hands like old friends and admired each other's tailoring. German officers did a lot of that in 1940, especially in Paris, where fine clothes seemed to matter more.
Kestner was tall and thin and round-shouldered like someone who had spent a lot of time behind a desk. His head was almost completely hairless apart from the dark eyebrows that softened his solidly cut features. It was a face engraved with integrity and it was hard to believe that a man with a jaw as square as the Brandenburg Gate could have betrayed the police service and then me with such impunity. Kestner's was a head that belonged on a Swiss banknote, only I'd spent a large part of the rail journey from Berlin considering the idea of putting a bullet in it. Heydrich's myrmidons had done their homework well. The file he'd handed me in his car contained a copy of the anonymous letter Kestner had sent to the Jew desk denouncing me as a Mischling, as well as a sample of Kestner's own - identical - handwriting which, conveniently, he had also signed. There was even a photograph taken in March 1925 - before he'd joined the Berlin police - of Kestner wearing the uniform of a communist party cadre and aboard a KPD election bus, with a placard over his shoulder on which was printed, YOU MUST ELECT THALMANN. At the very same moment I smiled and shook Kestner's hand and talked about the old times we shared I wanted to punch his teeth in, and the only thing that seemed likely to stop me from doing it was the affection I still held for his little sister.
'How's Traudl?' I asked. 'Has she finished medical school?'
'Yes. She's a doctor now. Working for something called the
Charitable Foundation for Health and Institutional Care. Some government-funded clinic in Austria.'
'You'll have to give me the address,' I said. 'So that I can send her a postcard from Paris.'
'It's the Schloss Hartheim,' he explained. 'In Alkoven, near Linz.'
'Not too near Linz, I hope. Hitler's from Linz.'
'Same old Bernie Gunther.'
'Not quite. You're forgetting this pirate hat I'm wearing now.' I tapped the silver skull and crossbones on my grey officer's cap.
'That reminds me.' Kestner glanced at his wristwatch. 'We have an eleven o'clock appointment with Colonel Knochen at the Hotel du Louvre.'
'He's not here at the Lutetia?'
'No. Colonel Rudolph of the Abwehr is in charge here. Knochen likes to run his own show. The SD is mostly at the Hotel du Louvre on the other side of the river.'
'I wonder why they put me here.'
'Possibly to piss Rudolph off,' said Kestner. 'Since almost certainly he knows nothing about your mission. By the way, Bernie, what is your mission? The Prinz Albrechtstrasse has been rather secretive about what you're doing in Paris.'
'You remember that communist who murdered the two policemen in Berlin, in 1931? Erich Mielke?'
To his credit Kestner didn't even flinch at the mention of this name.
'Vaguely,' he said.
'Heydrich thinks he's in a French concentration camp somewhere in the south of France. My orders are to find him, get him back to Paris and then arrange his transport back to Berlin, where he's to stand trial.'
'Nothing else?'
'What else could there be?'
'Only that we could have organised that on our own, without your having to come here to Paris. You don't even speak French.'
'You forget, Paul. I've met Mielke. If he's changed his name, as seems likely, I might be able to identify him.'
'Yes, of course. I remember now. We just missed him in Hamburg, didn't we?'
'That's right.'
'Seems like a lot of effort for just one man. Are you sure there's nothing else?'
'What Heydrich wants, Heydrich gets.'
'Point made,' said Kestner. 'Well, shall we walk? It's a fine day.'
'Is it safe?'
Kestner laughed. 'From who? The French?' He laughed again. 'Let me tell you something about the French, Bernie. They know that it's in their interest to get on with us Fridolins. That's what they call us. Quite a lot of them are happy we're here. Christ, they're even more anti-Semitic than we are.' He shook his head. 'No. You've got nothing to worry about from the French, my friend.'
Unlike Kestner I didn't speak a word of French, but it was easy to find your way around Paris. There were German direction signs on every street corner. It was a pity I didn't have a similar arrangement inside my own head, it might have made it easier to decide what to do about Kestner.
Kestner's French was, to my Fridolin ears, perfect, which is to say he sounded like a Frenchman. His father was a chemist who, disgusted by the Dreyfus affair, had left Alsace to live in Berlin. In those days Berlin had been a more tolerant place than France. Paul Kestner had been just five years old when he came to live in Berlin, but for the rest of his life his mother always spoke to him in French.
'That's how I got this posting,' he said as we walked north to the Seine.
'I didn't think it was because of your love of art.'
The Hotel du Louvre on the Rue de Rivoli was older than the Lutetia but not dissimilar, with four facades, several hundred rooms and an international reputation for luxury. It was a natural choice for the Gestapo and the SD. Security was every bit as tight as at the Lutetia and we were obliged to sign in at a makeshift guardroom inside the front door. An SS orderly escorted us through the lobby and up a sweeping staircase to the public rooms where the SD had established some temporary offices. Kestner and I were ushered into a tasteful salon with a rich red carpet and a series of hand-painted murals. We sat down at a long mahogany table and waited. A few minutes passed before three SD officers entered the room - one of whom I recognised.
The last time I had seen Herbert Hagen had been in 1937 in Cairo, where he and Adolf Eichmann were attempting to make contact with Haj Amin, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Hagen had been an SS sergeant then, and a rather incompetent one. Now he was a major and aide to Colonel Helmut Knochen, who was a lugubrious officer of about thirty - about the same age as Hagen. The third officer, also a major, was older than the other two, with thick horn-rimmed glasses and a face that was as thin and grey as the piping on his cap. His name was Karl Bomelburg. But it was Hagen who took charge of the meeting and came swiftly to the point without any reference to our former meeting. That suited me just fine.
'General Heydrich has ordered us to provide you with all available assistance in visiting the refugee camps at Le Vernet and Gurs,' he said. 'And in facilitating the arrest of a wanted communist murderer. But you will appreciate that these camps are still under the control of the French police.'
'I was led to believe that they would cooperate with our extradition request,' I said.
'That's true,' said Knochen. 'Even so, under the terms of the armistice signed on June 22nd those refugee camps are in the non-occupied zone. That means we have to pay lip service to the idea that in that part of France at least, they remain in charge of their own affairs. It's a way of avoiding hostility and resistance.'
'In other words,' said Major Bomelburg, 'we get the French to do our dirty work.'
'What else are they good for?' said Hagen.
'Oh, I don't know,' I said. 'The food at Laperouse is quite spectacular.'
'Good point, Captain,' said Bomelburg.
'We shall have to involve the Prefecture of Police in your missi
on,' said Knochen. 'So that the French may persuade themselves that they are preserving French institutions and the French way of life. But I tell you gentlemen that the loyalty of the French police is indispensable to us. Hagen? Who's the Franzi that the Maison has put up as liaison?' He looked my way. 'The Maison is what we call the flics in the Rue de Lutece. The Prefecture of Police. You should see the building, Captain Gunther. It's as big as the Reichstag.'
'The Marquis de Brinon, sir,' said Hagen.
'Oh yes. You know, for a republic, the French are awfully impressed by aristocratic titles. They're almost as bad as the Austrians in that respect. Hagen, see if the marquis can suggest anyone to help the captain.'
Hagen looked awkward. 'Actually, sir, we're not entirely certain that the marquis isn't married to a Jew.'
Knochen frowned. 'Do we have to worry about that sort of thing now? We've only just got here.' He shook his head. 'Besides it's not his wife who's the liaison officer, is it?'
Hagen shook his head.
'All in good time we shall see who is a Jew and who isn't a Jew, but right now it seems to me the priority is the apprehension of a communist fugitive from German justice. A murderer. Isn't that right, Captain Gunther?'
'That's right, sir. He killed two policemen.'
As it happens,' said Knochen, 'this department is already in the process of drawing up a list of wanted war criminals to present to the French. And in the establishment of a special joint commission - the Kuhnt Commission - to oversee these matters in the unoccupied zone. A German officer, Captain Geissler, has already gone down to Vichy, to begin the work of this commission. And in particular to hunt for Herschel Grynszpan. You will perhaps recall that it was Grynszpan, a German-Polish Jew, who murdered Ernst vom Rath, here in Paris, in November 1938; and whose actions provoked such a strong outpouring of feeling in Germany.'
'I remember it very well, sir,' I said. 'I live on Fasanenstrasse, just off the Ku-damm. The synagogue at the end of my street was burnt down during that strong outpouring of feeling you were talking about, Herr Colonel.'
'A representative of the German Foreign Ministry, Herr Doctor Grimm, is also on Grynszpan's trail,' said Knochen. 'It seems that the little Jew was here in Paris, in the Fresnes Prison, until early June, when the French decided to evacuate all of the prisoners to Orleans. From there he was sent to prison in Bourges. However he didn't arrive there. The convoy of buses transporting the prisoners was attacked by German aircraft, and after that the picture is rather confused.'
'As a matter of fact, sir,' said Bomelburg, 'we rather think that Grynszpan might have gone to Toulouse.'
'If that's the case then what's Geissler doing in Vichy?'
'Setting up this Kuhnt Commission,' said Bomelburg. 'To be fair to Geissler, for a while there was also a rumour that Grynszpan was in Vichy, too. But Toulouse now looks like a better bet.'
'Bomelburg? Karl. Correct me if I'm wrong,' said Knochen. 'But I seem to recall that this French concentration camp at Le Vernet - where Captain Gunther's quarry may be imprisoned - is in the Ariege department, in the mid-Pyrenees. That's near Toulouse, is it not?'
'Quite near, sir,' agreed Bomelburg. 'Toulouse is in the neighbouring department of Haute-Garonne and about sixty kilometres north of Le Vernet.'
'Then it strikes me,' said Knochen, 'that you and Captain Gunther should both get yourselves to Toulouse as quickly as possible. Perhaps the day after tomorrow. Bomelburg? You can remain in Toulouse and look for Grynszpan while Gunther here travels further south, to Le Vernet. Have the marquis find someone to go with Gunther and Kestner to smooth over any ruffled French feathers. Meanwhile I shall send a telegram to Philippe le Gaga in Vichy and inform him of what is happening. I dare say that by the time you get down there we will have a clearer idea of who to arrest and who to leave where they are.'
'Any trains running down that way yet, sir?' This was Kestner.
'I'm afraid not.'
'Pity. That's rather a long drive. About six hundred kilometres. You know it might be an idea to take a leaf out of the Führer's book and fly down there from Le Bourget. In a couple of hours we could be in Biarritz where a motorised detachment from the SS-VT or secret GFP could take us on to Le Vernet and Toulouse.'
'Agreed.' Knochen looked at Hagen. 'See to it. And find out if there are there any motorised detachments of SS operating that far south.'
'Yes, sir, there are,' said Hagen. 'In which case the only question that remains is whether these men should be wearing uniforms when they cross the demarcation line into the French zone.'
'An officer's uniform might lend us more authority, sir,' argued Kestner.
'Gunther? What do you think?' asked Knochen.
'I agree with Captain Kestner. In a surrender situation it's as well to be reminded that the surrender began with a war. After 1918 I think the French would do well to learn a little humility. If they'd treated us better at Versailles then we might not be here at all, so I don't see any sense in trying to sugar- coat the pill they have to swallow. There's no getting away from the fact that they just got their arses kicked. The sooner they recognise it the sooner we can all go home. But I came here to arrest a man who murdered two policemen, and I don't much care if some Franzi doesn't care for my manners while I'm doing it. Since I put on a uniform I don't much care for them myself. I can take the uniform off again and pretend to be something I'm not in order to get the job done, but I can't pretend to be diplomatic and charming. I never was one for French kissing. So to Hell with their feelings, I say.'
'Bravo, Captain Gunther,' said Knochen. 'That was a fine speech.'
Maybe it was and maybe I even believed some of it, too. One thing I said was certainly true: the sooner I went home, the better I was going to feel about a lot of things, especially myself. Mixing with anti-Semites like Herbert Hagen reminded me just why I'd never become a Nazi. And French victory or no French victory, I wouldn't ever be able to overcome my instinctive loathing of Adolf Hitler.
That afternoon I went to see Les Invalides. It was a very Nazi- looking monument. The front door had more gold than the Valley of the Kings but the atmosphere was that of a public swimming bath. The mausoleum itself was a piece of mahogany- coloured marble that resembled an enormous tea caddy. Hitler had visited Les Invalides just a couple of weeks before. And I can't have been the only person who wished that it had been he and not the Emperor Napoleon who was inside the six coffins that were contained in that overblown mausoleum. Following his escape from Elba, I suppose they were worried the little monster might escape from his grave, like Dracula. Maybe they'd even put a stake through his heart just to be on the safe side. Burying Hitler in pieces looked like a better bet. With the Eiffel Tower through his heart.
Like every other German in Paris that summer I'd brought a camera with me, so I walked around and took some photographs. On Pare du Champ de Mars I photographed some German soldiers getting some directions from a gendarme. When he saw me the gendarme saluted, smartly, as if a German officer's uniform really did command authority. But the way I saw it the French police had an attitude problem. They didn't seem to mind the fact that they'd been defeated. Back in Germany I'd seen cops look less happy when they failed to get elected to the Prussian Police Officers' Association.
I enjoyed another solitary dinner in a quiet restaurant on the Rue de Varennes before returning to the Lutetia. The hotel was a mixture of art nouveau and art deco, but the swastika flag that appeared on the sinuous, broken-art pediment below the Lutetia's name was the clearest indication of the neo- brutalism that afflicted its guests, me included.
The bar was busy and surprisingly inviting. A Welte-Mignon pianola was playing a selection of maudlin German tunes. I ordered a cognac and smoked a French cigarette and avoided the eye of the reptilian lieutenant who'd been on the train from Berlin. When he looked like he was headed my way I finished my brandy and left. I took the lift up to the seventh floor and walked along the curving corridor to my room. A maid came out of anot
her room and smiled. To my surprise she spoke good German.
'Would you like me to turn down your bed linen for the night, sir?'
'Thanks,' I said and, opening my door, complimented her German.
'I'm Swiss. I grew up speaking French and German and Italian. My father runs a hotel in Berne. I came to Paris to get some experience.'
'Then we have something in common,' I told her. 'Before the war I worked at the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin.'
She was impressed with that, which was of course my intention, as she was not without her charms. A little homely perhaps, but I was in the mood to think well of home and homely-looking girls. And when she finished her duties I gave her some German money and the rest of my cigarettes for no other reason than I wanted her to think better of me than I thought of myself. Especially the man I saw in the mirror on the front of the wardrobe. In some pathetic little fantasy I imagined her coming back in the small hours, knocking on my door and climbing into my bed. As things worked out this wasn't so far from the mark. But that was later on, and when she left I wished I hadn't given her my last cigarettes.
'Well, at least you won't fall asleep with a cigarette in your hand and set the bed on fire, Gunther,' I said, with one eye on the brass fire extinguisher that stood in the corner of the room next to the door. I closed the window, undressed and went to bed. For a while I lay there feeling a little drunk, staring up at the blank ceiling and wondering if I should have gone to the Maison Chabanais after all. And perhaps I might even have got up and gone there if it hadn't been for the thought of putting on my riding boots again. Sometimes morality is just a corollary of laziness. Besides, it felt good to be back in the world of grand hotel luxury. The bed was a good one. Sleep quickly came my way and put an end to all thoughts of what I might have been missing at the Maison Chabanais. A deep sleep that became unnaturally deeper as the night progressed and almost put an end to all thoughts of Maison Chabanais and Paris and my mission. The kind of sleep that almost put an end to me.
