Days of Winter

by Cynthia Freeman

  She couldn’t bring herself to be more specific, to actually mention Reichart and her assigned “role.” All the time she’d been speaking he hadn’t taken his eyes from her, but now they looked out to the river, the Seine. The Nazi patrol boats plied up and down the water … in place of the once pleasure-filled bateaux mouches … their swastika-adorned flags, obscene pennants, flapping in the gentle breeze. He had understood every word that Magda had said, as well as those that she had not said … the words behind the words “the right people, that sort of thing.” He knew very well what they meant, and they chilled and terrified him. …

  He turned back to look at her, and as he did so he saw in her face the face of a very little girl, a little five-year-old girl named Jeanette … damn his mind, so clear in a helpless body, and with its clarity memories now came flooding back, memories too precise, too well remembered. … “Oh, Uncle Alexis, I love you so much. …” The voice of Magda’s daughter, now finally found by her mother. Years ago he had told Magda he would kill her if she ever deceived him, but she never had, she’d been a marvelous wife and woman to him, and now he was a cadaver that she’d dedicated herself to keeping alive. …Well, she would need no terrible sickness to kill her if he denied her this chance to live for her daughter, because that was what it was to her. He would simply be signing her death warrant, as the Nazis had signed them for so many other Jews, if he were to discourage her now and anything should happen to her child, and grandchild. …He would play the game with her, pretend with her that he knew less than he did. It was, after all, the least—and the most—that he could do. …

  She was watching him very closely, hardly daring to breathe. He had been looking at her but not seeing her. Now his attention had clearly come back. And slowly, emphatically, he blinked, giving the signal. Giving his assent …

  Just the anticipation of Thursday, and meeting Christian Reichart, made her ill. But Thursday arrived, and she forced herself to be calm as she prepared for the evening, for her most important role. The stage had been set, the play was about to begin, curtain going up.

  She went down the stairs, looking, she hoped, positively radiant, feeling ready to throw up. She was dressed in layers upon layers of delicate pink chiffon. The top was bare, except for thin shoulder straps, exposing her porcelain skin. Silver pumps showed slightly below the dress as she walked. Her diamond necklace was dazzling. She found herself repeating Solange’s words to Rubin so long ago … “She will do, Rubin … indeed, she will do.” God, she hoped so. …

  It was in a gold and blue baroque ballroom of the German Embassy. A Viennese waltz—naturally—was playing. Appraising the guests, she was shocked to see so many acquaintances present. Tonight they were not only fraternizing with the enemy, they were paying court to their oppressors … and, of course, imagining that she was here doing the same. …

  Above the din of voices she heard someone calling her name. Jean-Paul Dupré. Taking her hand in his, he kissed it This man, her daughter’s brother-in-law, was also the enemy. …And now, suddenly, he seemed dangerous, menacing. She must push the thought aside … he was Etienne Dupré’s brother, after all. Perhaps he was doing the same thing she had been asked to do … and, hardly professional yet in her new role, she found herself hoping that Jean-Paul’s assumptions about her being here would be the same.

  “Countess, I’m delighted to see you.”

  “Thank you, Jean-Paul.”

  “You’ve been missed about town. How is Alexis?”

  “Much improved …”

  “That’s good news. But you’re alone this evening?” She must have joined our side, he thought. How sensible … after all, she’s a sensual woman, with a dying husband on her hands … and a lover …? There must be … and probably more than one. …

  “May I introduce a friend?” He led her over to his latest mistress …a tall slender blonde in a black satin gown, bejeweled with pearls and emeralds. She was a German model turned actress. …Paris, she said, was not Berlin, but it had its compensations … Jean-Paul among them, she thought—he was so generous, the jewels and furs were fabulous, sometimes she almost forgot he was a Frenchman, supposedly a sympathizer but still a Frenchman and so had to be watched … that was the word from Christian Reichart, and one paid attention to Christian. …

  She stood laughing, with a glass of champagne in one hand and a cigarette in the other, as Jean-Paul waited for the joke being told by a baldheaded General to conclude, then made the introductions.

  “How long have you and Jean-Paul been … friends?” she said.

  Smiling at Jean-Paul, Magda said, “I believe he was just beginning to shave the fuzz from his chin. …What were you, Jean-Paul, seventeen?”

  “Eighteen.” He gave her back his irresistible smile.

  “Eighteen?” Her name was Fredericke Von Brenner. “Were you really ever eighteen, Jean-Paul?”

  “I believe so,” he said with mannered roguishness, “though, as I recall, fairly precocious—oh, Colonel Reichart, how very good to see you again. May I present Countess Maximov. …”

  He kissed her hand, and as he did Magda felt, along with her revulsion, that now the play had, indeed, begun. No question, he was quite a specimen. He gave off charm on charm. He knew how to make a woman believe that she was the only person in the room. …Well, he was the only man in the room for her. This was the enemy, and now that they were face to face she was almost relieved. She understood her job. He was a man, she could handle it. This would be one conquest he would regret making.

  “May I have the pleasure of this dance, Countess?” he was saying.

  “If you like,” she said, her voice faintly arch and not especially impressed. Well, that didn’t offend him. In fact, he found it refreshing … besides, along with her title, this one also was a woman … that was clear. He wondered how it was that he hadn’t met her before. …

  After the dance he summoned a circulating waiter for champagne. “To your health, Countess.”

  “And to victory …”

  He looked at her closely. “You find the German occupation acceptable? For a French woman … by the way, you are French?”

  “No … my husband was born in Russia, but we’ve lived in many places. His allegiance is to whatever government serves us well.”

  “And yours … Countess?”

  “My allegiance is more specific; my mother and grandmother were German—”

  “You were born in Germany?”

  “No, in Poland … where my father was born.”

  “I see … I take it they met on a holiday, fell in love and got married?”

  “You must be clairvoyant …That’s almost precisely the way it happened. My mother, though, was never anything but German, as were our servants, and my governess. Yes, I’m quite German.”

  “Even having spent your childhood in Poland?”

  “Geography has nothing to do with feeling. You are in France at the moment.”

  He smiled slightly. “Countess … you seem to be a rare combination of beauty and intelligence. Why haven’t we met before?”

  “My husband suffered a very serious stroke and I’ve been … out of things for some time. But now the doctors say he no longer needs my constant attention, so I felt I should do what I can for my people. …”

  After three more dances she decided the time had come for a strategic withdrawal, and when he asked to see her home, she kept a careful balance between being coy and eager—managing a faintly interested coolness.

  By the time they arrived, Magda knew perhaps more about Christian Reichart than he about her. He was married, his wife had brought a large dowry to the marriage, his three children were his favorites. He was fond of small children, dogs, horses. His wife owned a bank, which he controlled. He had ambitions for the top intelligence job in Germany … Heinrich Himmler’s, no less. He was young, he had patience, he would wait and it would come. Paris was his showcase. …The Führer would notice.

  Magda offered him a glass
of kümmel, and as he sipped it in the spacious salon … a good distance from the bedrooms, and Alexis, he admired the antiques and paintings, which, if it weren’t that he was so taken with Magda, he would have had no qualms about requisitioning along with the entire place. But not for now. Later, of course, he’d have both.

  Magda watched the wheels of his mind turning. Suave he might be, but hardly subtle. He sat down beside her on the sofa. “Tell me about your husband.”

  Matter-of-factly she repeated the details of Alexis’ stroke, as though it were something long since adjusted to.

  “But how could you cut yourself off from the world? You strike me as a very normal woman. …”

  “As I told you, I felt I had an obligation, that is the way I was raised … the German way. …Surely you understand that”—(just as surely, she thought, as she understood what his questions were leading up to…). “Now, with the war, I feel I must involve myself … as I said, I’d like to be useful in some way.”

  “Is that why you came to the Embassy this evening?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. …”

  So far he was very pleased, and even a little flattered—not common for him. This was a woman of obvious means, titled, and a genuine German sympathizer … not the sort he’d been meeting lately whose politics and bed partners were strictly a matter of who was on top … he smiled to himself at his private little joke. No, this one had, so far as he could make out, nothing at all to gain, and if he should later discover otherwise, he would know how to act … but for now, she was for the taking, and he was an experienced taker.

  “Tell me,” he said, “do you still love your husband? Truthfully, now.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I married rather young, without experience. The marriage was quite appropriate … I was attracted to Alexis … I respected him enormously … he was an older man … I still respect him. …”

  “But now he is a sick older man. And you are … as you are …” (Time to get to it) … “Don’t you ever want other men?”

  Right on schedule, she thought. Just like a good German, damn his rottenness. … “Are you asking for confessions, Colonel? Those are for priests or very old friends. …”

  “I am hardly the former, but would very much like to be the latter. …I repeat, no other men?”

  “None. Never.”

  “Difficult to believe.”

  She looked at him. “Not at all. More than anything else, I’ve never met another man I found equal to Alexis, that I could admire, look up to as I have him.”

  He immediately went up to her, pulled her close to him. “Are you so certain of that?”

  “Not quite so certain as I was.”

  It was, of course, all that was needed. And afterward, on the bed, feeling numb so as not to be sick, she reminded herself again that it was a role, that she was playing a character that was not herself, and that more and better lives than her own were dependent on the success of her performance. …

  Three months passed. Her relationship with Reichart had fallen into a pattern. Thank God he worked all day, leaving her free to care for Alexis. …But at night … She had unquestionably become his mistress, and more than one of the colonel’s associates envied his extraordinary good fortune … she entertained beautifully, the perfect hostess, and what a pleasure she must be in bed. …

  By now, in fact, Magda had learned how to handle not only her own emotions but his as well. She was his confidante, and without realizing it he gave her much valuable information in the context of their easy, familiar conversation. Familiarity, she thought, not only bred contempt (hers) but also confidence (his).

  She knew how to calm him, massaging his neck and shoulders when he came to her, raging about what would happen. “If we don’t find out how those damn Jews are escaping … I’ll send the whole office to Berlin to be shot … I swear it.”

  “The Jews are escaping? How?”

  “If I knew the answer to that I could—”

  “Listen to me, Christian … perhaps the French are buying off your men?”

  He looked at her shrewdly. “I wouldn’t say this to everyone, but I think that’s precisely what’s happened … and I swear I’ll find out—”

  “If anyone can, I’m sure you will. …”

  He was tired. He wanted to take a bath. She led him into the bathroom and turned on the water taps. While the bath was filling, she undressed him. He especially liked that.

  While he lay back in the tub, closing his eyes, and began loudly humming his favorite Wagnerian—naturally—aria …God, how she detested it … she went out to the bedroom, quickly took the briefcase off the desk, opened it and went through the contents. She’d done it a hundred times, and her memory had become so keen that she could remember dates, times, places and names without writing them down. Quickly her eyes read through the pages, making mental notes. Suddenly her heart almost stopped beating. There it was, in black and white.

  The dossier read: Jeanette Hack Dupré. Jew. One son, Henri. Time of arrest, 7:00 A.M. Date, November 2. Destination, Dachau.

  Meticulously she put the contents back into the briefcase, replaced it on the desk. She began to tremble, and couldn’t stop. November 2 … my God, tomorrow … She wanted to kill him at once. But if she killed him, would that save Jeanette and her son? No. Then what should she do? Whatever she decided, she must not panic. Now was the time for matching wits. …She ordered herself to remain calm … to play out her role. She had a feeling that, for better or worse, it would soon be over.

  It was no problem for her to dissolve a sleeping pill in his coffee during dinner …he was already drowsy. …Afterward he got into bed and, sitting next to him, she said, “You know, my dear, you really need to relax more.” And he’d sleepily agreed, smiling and holding her hand, and then his grip relaxed and he had fallen asleep … soundly, she hoped, at least for a few hours. She personally saw to it that his cup was carefully rinsed out … not a trace could be left in the cup to arouse suspicion … then went straight to Pierre and told him the awful news. “I’d stay with Alexis until you get back. …Go to Anjou … tell him what’s happened … he’ll know what to do. Oh, God, hurry …”

  Late that night the doorbell rang at the Dupré mansion on the Boulevard Victor Hugo. A small man wearing wire-rimmed glasses was admitted. Impeccably dressed, he took off his hat, revealing the sparse hair on his shining scalp. Nervously, he waited for Etienne to come to the library.

  When he joined him Etienne was dressed in his robe and slippers. “Charles, my dear friend, what brings you here so late? Sit down. You look sick. Let me get you a brandy.”

  Charles sat down in a chair facing the painting of Marshal Dupré. His forehead broke out in perspiration. He gratefully accepted a glass of brandy.

  “Now, Charles, tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Etienne—I don’t know how to tell you this—”

  “Relax, calm yourself. After all, we’ve been friends for a very long time, since our days in school together. Now please tell me …”

  Charles hesitated, cleared his throat. “Etienne, you know that for me to exist, I have to pretend to support the present regime. I have no other choice, I’ve been in the government all my life …”

  “I understand, you know that … but what is so pressing tonight?”

  “Etienne, I am a Frenchman. I may seem to work with the Germans but I am also in the underground, and it would mean my life and the lives of my children if that were known. You understand that …?”

  “Of course, Charles, and I admire you for it. I wish I … but never mind … does your coming here tonight have anything to do with me?” he suddenly asked.

  Charles hesitated, then answered very quietly, “Yes, I’m afraid it does … Etienne, the Gestapo is scheduled to pick up your wife and son—”

  Etienne looked at him as though he hadn’t heard, and then as though what he’d heard was the outpouring of a crazy man. … “Charles, I know you mean well, but this is impos
sible, surely you’re mistaken …”

  “I wish I were, Etienne, God knows I do. But you must believe it, there’s not much time—”

  “What do you mean, not much time? What time? When …?”

  “Seven, tomorrow morning—”

  “My God, you’re certain?”

  “Yes, Etienne, I’m certain—”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Don’t ask me that, Etienne.”

  “But I want to know, I must know … how could the Gestapo possibly find out? All the records were changed … a priest …Who could have told them? Damn you, Charles, tell me …”