The Cafe Girl

by Ian Loome

  He no longer needed her to get the money, and if he could convince her to go somewhere else, to avoid the road checkpoints and intelligence that lay ahead if she stayed in France. He could always help her cause out with some of the money later, once they were settled.

  'What if there was another way, a safer way for you to get out?'

  She was perplexed. 'How? The Nazis seized all of our resources. The only way to avoid inspections and patrols would be to have letters of transit...'

  'Which I am close to obtaining,' Giraud said. 'Would you agree to run with me? I know we barely know each other and I understand there is no promise that we ever will. But I can get us flight passes, and tickets to New York...'

  'My God... New York.' He could see the sudden conflict in her face. 'I have always dreamed of seeing it. But.... what of the movement, what of...'

  'You can still help them from outside the country. I will have access to money, lots of it. You can marshal resources, support, fundraisers in the United States, people of conscience.'

  'I...' She appeared flustered. 'I must think... this was not my intention...'

  'I know it is a difficult decision.'

  She sighed. 'I am so tired.' She turned slightly and studied him, looking for a sympathetic soul. 'Do you know what I hate most about the curfew, Monsieur Giraud? The absence that it brings. If you were to look at Paris from the moon, I imagine that right up until the last moment, you would see the warmth of a million hearts, the lights from a hundred thousand homes and a million conversations creating a blanket of life, a singular pulse to power all manner of passions. And then the curfew arrives, and all of those lights, they flicker and go out, first just one at a time, then dozens in patches, then hundreds, then thousands, then just the last few most daring, or obstinate, or tired, the ones to whom the threat of the darkness is no worse than the absence of joy. And then the blackness settles in, and the joy of life is extinguished. '

  She turned to face him again and this time seemed resolute, certain, perhaps even a little excited by this new prospect. 'Yes.'

  'Yes?'

  'Yes. Yes, I will go with you, Monsieur.'

  'Please, it is Damien.' He was excited and he tried to hold in his joy, with limited success.

  'I will go with you, Damien.'

  He could scarcely believe it. 'Are you certain? We barely know one another and this is a big decision.' Inwardly, he cursed himself. For God's sake man, what are you doing? She has said yes! Don't give her reasons to change her mind.

  'I am. I ... I suppose I had a feeling from the first time I saw you across the street, that you were a kind man, someone who would watch over those he loved.'

  Giraud could feel himself blushing. 'I... am most appreciative of your compliment.'

  'What do I need to do?'

  'Just wait for me to get everything together. I shall return at six-thirty to pick you up in a taxi. Bring one bag only, with just clothing and personal possessions. You have your identity card?'

  'I do.'

  'Give it to me.'

  She reached into her purse and withdrew the document. 'Why?'

  'We need the picture for the passport my contact will provide. It is not an exact size match but it will have to do on short notice.'

  She had gone from excited to staring blankly. 'I must let everyone know. I must tell everyone before I leave...My life is here. My whole life...'

  'No!' Giraud said. 'There's too much risk. Let your friends here at the cafe know and they can tell everyone else. Get your things together and find a place to hide until I've gotten the correct documents. Then meet me here at six-thirty and we'll go to the airport.'

  She nodded. 'Monsieur Giraud...'

  'Damien.'

  'Damien... thank you.'

  'Please...'

  He did not tell her about the money and he would not; he was helping her escape. She would already be eternally grateful, he knew, and the question of whom owed who was perhaps for a later date.

  He rose and left the patio, crossing the street back to the bus bench. 'She has agreed.'

  Rousseau was surprised, but happy for him. 'Wonderful news, my friend, wonderful news.'

  'Now I just need to get the papers, and we'll meet back here at six-thirty.'

  Rousseau frowned. 'Six-thirty? No, as I said, I expect my family to be on the five o'clock.'

  'But... I do not expect to even receive the papers until quarter-four, perhaps four o'clock.'

  'Then we shall have to hurry. We will meet at Le Bourget Airport. You will provide the documents. I will go to the nearest CNEP branch and withdraw the money while you wait with my family. When they are off safely, I shall give you your split.'

  Giraud shook his head. 'No. I am not responsible for whether your family leaves France. Once you return with the cash, our deal is done, whether they are on the plane or not.'

  'Fine. But you cannot be late at all, Giraud, or this will cut things too close. By my travel estimates, we have a ten-minute window of extra time at most.'

  Giraud groaned. 'I could have avoided all this anxiety and just taken my chances with the Nazi accounts, and the window would not have been much different.'

  'Yes, but we both would not be many tens of thousands of dollars richer, Giraud. No one cares about marks or francs except for the Germans. It is worth the risk, or I would not be taking it.'

  'Fine,' Giraud said. 'The airport, in...' he checked his watch, 'eighty minutes time.' He gazed across the road to the cafe where Isabelle was seated and waiting in the shadowy area near the main building door. She gave him a shy half-wave and he returned it. 'And then we will finally be done with all of this.'

  46…

  Obst counted the money in a fan, his eyes wide. 'Now that was worth the effort,' he said. He jerked his head towards his desk. 'Gott in Himmel... it's four years' wages.'

  'I don't mean to rush you, Gunther,' Giraud said. 'But...'

  'The folder on top,' he said, nodding towards his in-out tray. 'Seven transit documents as requested, five for Buenos Aires, two for New York, open-ended, and one passport blank. I hope you know what you're doing, Giraud. A cabinet had to be 'left open' for this to happen, and they will very quickly notice a jump in serial numbers from the top of the letters of transit pile to the bottom. It won't take more than a few hours...'

  'I'm hoping the fact that it's late in the day will help me. It's more likely to be noticed tomorrow, I'd say. If all goes well that won't be an issue.'

  The German peered at him distrustfully. 'You're not going to try and run out without paying my other half, are you, Giraud? I must say, from what I hear of late, your reputation in all matters 'off the record' has taken a beating. You know what I'd do if I felt you'd betrayed me, don't you?'

  'You'd kill me, I assume.'

  'Worse: I'd have you shipped to one of the work camps they're building back home. How does a few dozen years of forced labor strike you?'

  'Like I'd better pay you and not have to deal with the issue,' Giraud lied. If all went well, he was never going to see Gunther Obst, or any members of the Third Reich, ever again.

  He secreted the documents in his coat as he headed for the door.

  'By next week, Giraud,' Obst said as the Frenchman walked out. 'Or I shall come looking.'

  Giraud took a diesel cab to Le Bourget airport, just northeast of Saint Denis, to ensure he wasn't late. He arrived with nearly twenty minutes to spare. Rousseau, ever the cautious financier, was even earlier and was waiting with his five family members near the departure gate. The banker stood with an attaché case in one hand. His relatives sat with their backs to the window. The rest of the room was half-full, and it appeared the small passenger plane was sold out, which would surprise no one.

  Rousseau's kin looked sickly and sullen: a mid-teen girl with a brown bowl cut to match her knee-length dress and rusty freckles; a younger boy with skinned knees; a big-boned older woman, whom he assumed was Rousseau's sister, a balding senior with a cheap su
it, his wife in a floral print dress, heavyset and looking as if she would rather be anywhere else and doing something productive.

  Rousseau gestured towards them. 'My parents, my sister, my niece and nephew.'

  Giraud withdrew the folder from inside his coat. 'Your papers. You have your tickets?'

  'DLH to Lisbon, then Pan American from Lisbon to Buenos Aires.' The banker gestured to a nearby standing table. 'We have to act quickly.' He looked around cautiously to see if anyone was paying attention. The soldier by the gate was pre-occupied with passengers for an earlier flight who were boarding. The one by the front door was leaning against the wall looking half asleep. The banker placed the attaché case on the table and opened it, taking out some paperwork.

  Rousseau spoke quietly. 'Sign by the x's. The first grants you power of attorney for Ms. Gaspard so that everything seems legal, or at least for as long as we require. The second allows you to cash the bank draft and withdraw the full sum, the third indemnifies the bank against responsibility for how you exercise power of attorney.'

  Giraud gave him a dry look as he signed. 'Did you have to be quite so thorough?'

  'Quite frankly, yes. You don't know what bankers are like; we're sticklers, and we notice when things are out of place.' He checked the room again, taking note of the immobile soldiers, disinterested after hours on the job. 'They're not paying much attention to flights tonight, it seems. We may have picked an opportune window.'

  Giraud looked at the clock. 'It's four-twenty. Your flight is only forty minutes off.'

  'And the Dugny branch closes in ten minutes. I must rush.'

  'Do you have your car?'

  'I do. You will watch my family for me until I return?'

  Giraud nodded. 'Go.' His nerves were shot as Rousseau walked away, anxiety in full flight. The policeman knew that by the time they got to New York, he might be excited at the prospect of a new life with the woman he loved. But for now, he just wanted a reprieve, an escape.

  He nodded at Rousseau's family members and they nodded back awkwardly. Giraud hated small talk and they did not seem inclined, so he did not attempt it. Instead, he cast his mind back a few hours to the look in Isabelle's eyes when he had complimented her, and the determination when she had said 'yes'; he felt a warm and unfamiliar glow inside, like something flickered, a candle by his heart. He looked at the soldier who was rocking back and forward on his heels while the ticket taker checked the dozens of passengers. Most them looked tired, haggard and perhaps defeated enough to give up and start anew. Giraud wondered if, for all his authority and influence, he didn't feel exactly the same way. Vaillancourt was nipping at his heels; the Germans seemed closer to linking him to the soldier's death; his black market assets were drying up.

  Perhaps it was just time, he wondered. Perhaps after we live a certain way for a certain amount of time, there is always a conclusive reckoning, that point at which bills come due and must be paid. No doubt, the endeavor was costing him a fortune financially; but with an imminent windfall in the form of Rousseau's speedy and safe return, money wasn't the biggest issue. Leaving Paris was. He had fallen in love with a girl, and he wanted her to be safe; but he was giving up his influence, his contacts, his knowledge of the city. He was erasing his history and beginning over. And that was fraught with anxiety in entirely new ways.

  He looked at the clock. It was four-forty. The plane that had just boarded passengers was taxiing the runaway, a DLH Junkers Ju 52, identical the one they would take in a few hours, also to Lisbon, the only place where American flights could still safely land in Europe. The drizzling rain slicked the plane's shell, the slick metal catching the light.

  The public address announcer called for boarding to begin for the five o'clock flight. People rose from their chairs and began to line up; an older couple, a pair of what appeared to be off-duty German soldiers, a woman and her son, her with head scarf and glasses, the boy in a pinafore and flat cap. Giraud wondered how closely the gate guard would examine the documents, and whether consecutive serial numbers would tip him to something being wrong.

  The line progressed, slowly. At four-forty-five they made a final boarding call, heads around the room tilting up automatically, craning to comprehend the tinny public address speaker. The line had all but vanished with just a few stragglers checking through.

  He looked back at the Rousseau family, sitting alone in the waiting area. The branch closed at four-thirty. They had probably stayed open slightly late to accommodate such a large transaction. It had been fifteen minutes, but the branch was mere blocks from the airport. It was possible he would not make it, but the plane would not take off until five on the nose, so he still had time.

  Had Rousseau been smart enough to at least let them know in advance that he was coming? Perhaps he'd been arrested; perhaps such a large transaction had been impossible even with a ranking bank official. If so, what would he tell the man's family?

  No, that was foolish. There was no point playing out negative scenarios.

  The clock ticked over to four-fifty. Even the stragglers had crossed the tarmac and climbed the steps to the plane by then. The family didn't move, each looking nervous. He wondered what they were thinking. By the gate, the German soldier was beginning to eye them suspiciously, probably wondering what they were doing there when there wasn't another flight until seven o'clock.

  Giraud wandered across the vast room to the front wall windows, to look out at the parking area and street. Where was he? If he didn't get there quickly, everything was going to go south. He looked around the room for the payphones. Perhaps he could get the operator to connect him...

  Across the room, Rousseau's parents were whispering to each other again. The father nodded a couple of times, as if agreeing with her, then shrugged as if to say 'why not?' He leaned past her and said something to the younger woman and her children. All five began to rise, then to walk towards the airport doors.

  'A moment, please...' Giraud said, before realizing they were too far away, and that he would have to speak undiplomatically loudly. He crossed the room again, the soldiers watching him vigilantly. 'Excuse me, but where is everyone going?' he asked the old man.

  'We are leaving,' he said. 'It is obvious he is not coming back.'

  'But...there are still a few minutes.' He looked over at the clock. It was four-fifty-five.

  The man gave the barest twitch of a shrug. 'He will not be back by five, and he only paid us to wait here until five o'clock.'

  'Wait... what?'

  'The man. The one you were talking to earlier.'

  'What do you mean he 'paid' you?'

  'To sit here until five o'clock.'

  Giraud was confused. 'To ... I'm lost. You were looking after his family? He told me you were his father.'

  The man was taken aback. 'His father? Sir, I never saw him before today. We were all at the poor house, looking for food and charity... he offered us each fifty francs to wait here until five o'clock.'

  The policeman felt lost. Why would he ... He thought back to the sequence of events. The bank draft. The money. He's stealing the money.

  He headed for the exit, keeping his pace even. At the door, he nodded at the guard. 'There's a CNEP branch near here is there not?'

  'The bank?' the German said in fluent French. 'Head out the doors, turn left, two blocks. But you won't make it...' He nodded towards the oversized clock, which sat under mesh above the main doors. 'It closed at four-thirty, I think.'

  Giraud headed out the doors and down the street. He could scarcely believe the man's gall; surely Rousseau did not think he would give up the hundred thousand that easily? That he would ignore such an action just because the man worked at a bank?

  The Dugny branch was, as predicted, closed. He had no idea where Rousseau lived but assumed it was somewhere near the Eighteenth. But he was miles northeast of there. He gazed back the way he'd come, towards the airport terminal. There was a black Daimler truck on the road a few blocks away; it had a publi
c address speaker attached to the roof of the cab, and when it came with a hundred yards, the speaker crackled to life, first in German, then in French. 'You there, by the bank: stop what you are doing and prepare for questioning.'

  His breath shortened and the thumping in Giraud's chest quickened. Were they just being curious, or looking for him specifically? The transit passes had been in sequence, and Obst had warned him that they might be quickly flagged.

  He turned up the street and began to slowly walk in the other direction.

  'You, by the bank, halt!' the speaker blared.

  He quickened his pace, head down and hands in pockets. He heard the truck accelerate, the brakes squeal as it stopped in the middle of the street just a few dozen feet away. He looked over his shoulder to see both doors flung open. Men began to jump from the vehicle.

  Giraud began to run, scurrying for dear life away from the German soldiers.

  'Halt! Stoppen sie dort! Halt!' An officer began to blow a whistle, and Giraud could hear jackboots pounding the pavement behind him. A bullet whizzed by his ear at the same time as the crack of the rifle. He knew he needed to get out of the open. He cut down the nearest alleyway, darkened by the shadows from a corrugated fence to his left and towering building to his right. The end of the alley was blocked by a chain-link fence from another just like it, and he used an old delivery crate to vault up and pull himself over, the links shimmering like a cymbal as he dropped to the cement. A bullet splintered off the wood fascia of the building wall to his right. Up ahead, another truck pulled quickly into place to block the end of the alley; Giraud improvised, turning right to run through a small gap that led to a building's interior garden courtyard. On the other side of the yard was a thicket of hedges, and he pushed his way through them, praying the Germans didn't have nearby dogs. Once they had his scent, he knew, it would be all over.

  Dugny was a small suburb and there were not many places to hide. The smattering of business and office buildings were already behind him, and he cut across a pair of home lawns, looking for the next street up. Soon they would get the word out over radio and begin to close streets with road blocks. He needed to get out of the village quickly, back to Saint Denis or the city proper.