by Kurt Magenta
‘But you’re only sixteen years old!’
‘Seventeen, thank you.’ As if to demonstrate her maturity, she produced a cigarette and let Yvonne light it for her. ‘Eighteen according to the rather lovely papers furnished by Dédé. I started two months ago as a secretary.’ She blew smoke, cool as a gangster. ‘But, as you know, we have journalism in our blood.’
He felt like rubbing his eyes. ‘So you were Dédé’s source?’
‘One of them. For every nugget of propaganda there’s a grain of truth. The boss trusts me. He told me things. I made my eyes all wide. “Really? But that can’t be possible!” He went on and on.’
‘Notice the past tense,’ said Dédé. ‘Awkward questions were being asked.’
‘Not by the boss – he’s a sweetheart. By his deputy. A Frenchman, Caradec. He’s an ogre. Caught sight of a notebook in my handbag when I was packing up one night. Silly me. Demanded to see it. Luckily it reads like a diary, full of boyfriends and daydreams.’
‘So that’s when we decided to stop,’ Dédé said. ‘For now.’
‘But there are others?’
‘We’re setting up a network. Railway officials. Factory workers. Bureaucrats. I relit a few fires from the old days. But after Caradec I developed an itch, as if someone was looking over my shoulder. Decided to go dark for a while.’
‘You two are even beginning to sound the same. I can’t believe it.’ He glared at Dédé. ‘I can’t believe you put her through this.’
He threw down his napkin and made his way to the bathroom. Typically, despite the size of the brasserie, it was small. Just two doors, mesdames and messieurs, both engaged. But there was a basin under a mirror and he washed his hands to compose himself. The face in the mirror – with its spectacles and stubble, its signs of strain – was only partly familiar, as if a child had defaced a picture of him with cartoonish additions.
His fury began to dissipate. Lili was in no immediate danger; all he had to do was convince her to give up this foolish business and go back to La Rochelle.
Easier said than done. She was nothing if not stubborn. Despite himself, he began to smile. Mon Dieu, the backbone of the girl!
His hands were gripping the sides of the basin. He unhooked them, dried them and headed back to the table.
‘Fish for supper,’ Dédé cheerfully informed him. ‘Filet de sandre, although these days the food on your plate doesn’t always match the description on the menu. They probably fished it out of the Seine this morning.’
‘I’m sure I’ve eaten worse. In London the shortages are beginning to bite.’
‘As if their food was edible in the first place. Fortunately I managed to secure a carafe of Côtes du Rhone.’ He refilled their glasses. ‘It may improve the taste.’
He hesitated when he reached Lili’s glass, then poured her a little anyway.
‘This has to stop,’ Lucien told him.
‘She’s almost a grown woman,’ said Yvonne. ‘And we’re celebrating.’
Lucien shot her a look and turned back to Dédé. ‘She has to go back to La Rochelle.’
‘Not a chance,’ said Lili. ‘I can’t do anything there. Here I can make a difference.’
‘Here you can get arrested – or worse. Dédé, tell her.’
He shrugged. ‘I told her long ago, when she came looking for me. Now I’ve given up. You are not so different, tous les deux. And, Lucien, she’s good at this. She’s valuable.’
‘I can take her place.’
Dédé shook his head. ‘You can’t do what she does. People confide in her. The right sort of people. Or the wrong sort, depending on your perspective. Besides, you’re needed elsewhere.’
Lucien sighed. Their meals arrived and Dédé gave a grunt of satisfaction. As he picked up his cutlery, he said, ‘There is one thing you can do for me. It certainly won’t be possible for Lili.’
‘Yes?’
Dédé pronged the fish with his fork and began slicing it. ‘I need you to collect something. And take it back with you to London.’
‘To London? What is it?’
He looked up. ‘It is a book, naturally.’
Chapter 18
Twilight Publishing
The sign jutting from the side of the building read: ‘Photographie Industrielle.’ It had been put up sometime in the 1920s, to judge by the typeface, but the building itself was at least forty years older. Although the grey brick walls were windowless, there were slanted skylights at the top, as if the entire roof was made of glass. The double metal doors, painted maroon long ago, were now the colour and texture of rust. And firmly closed.
To get here he had taken the métro to the ninth arrondissement and made his way down a narrow market street. Shouting and bustle, smells of straw and vegetables, water running in the gutters. He recognised some of the shop fronts: the green-tiled boulangerie; the butcher’s with the brown plaster horsehead jutting from its façade. This was dangerously close to his family’s home, and he felt like a compass needle fighting the pull of north. He had spent the night at a shabby hotel near Gare Montparnasse, the third such establishment in as many days. Places where they didn’t ask questions.
At the end of the street, a porte cochère let him into a grimy flagstoned courtyard, dampened to black by the night’s rain. Leering over the courtyard was the monolithic building with its impassive doors. He pressed the bell beside them. Waited a long time. Pressed again.
They opened a crack. A glittering dark eye – somebody shorter than him. A non-committal grunt.
Lucien said, ‘Madrigal sent me.’
‘Who’s Madrigal?’
Lucien sighed. ‘You were expecting somebody called Kyrielle.’ His sister’s code name. ‘I’m her brother. They call me Cadet.’
‘Monsieur, I don’t know what you’re talking –’
‘It’s all right,’ a gruff voice snapped from the interior. ‘Let the boy in.’
The door opened just enough to let him through. Behind it, a small wiry man in blue overalls, black hair a mess and, held at his side, a large wrench. His hairy knuckles were white around it.
Then, behind him, a familiar hulking figure, slightly stooped. Claude Grosselin.
‘Mon Dieu,’ said Lucien.
‘Hardly – but accuracy was never your strong point.’
They grinned at one another and he stepped into the big man’s hug. The smell of stale alcohol and something else, not quite petrol but of the same family. Lucien pulled back to get a better look at him. ‘I see you didn’t venture too far away from the old neighbourhood.’
‘You did, though. Better have a drink. It’s almost the hour.’
‘It’s eleven in the morning.’
‘Exactly. A glass before lunch.’
No old acquaintances, Dédé had instructed, and yet the past kept popping out of every corner, reconfigured as if a play had started its second act with the same actors in new roles.
The room was large and bright and sparse, dominated by a huge steel table that glistened in the silvery luminescence afforded by the skylights. An ancient bellows camera on a stand craned its head over the surface like a predatory reptile. Lamps on tripods guarded its perimeter. Off to the left there were two doors with red lights beside them, currently extinguished. Darkrooms, he supposed.
Grosselin led the way to the glassed-in office at the back of the room. The concrete floor was gritty under Lucien’s footsteps.
The other man did not accompany them, instead disappearing into one of the darkrooms. The red bulb remained off.
‘Now then,’ said Grosselin. In the office there was an open roll-top bureau, a swivel chair and a metal stool. Lucien took the stool, gazing for a moment through the glass wall at Grosselin’s new domain and wondering what the old journalist was doing here.
Grosselin rooted about in the bureau�
��s depths and came up with a decanter and two heavy-bottomed glasses. Splashed some amber liquid in them and handed one to Lucien. They touched glasses and sipped. Lucien managed not to wince.
‘I wondered if you’d turn up one day,’ Grosselin told him, ‘bearing in mind your father’s connection with Dehix.’
‘He’s always been around.’ Lucien shrugged. ‘They did something together in the war, first here and then down south. Papa was pretty vague on what it was. Of course he made it sound mysterious and exciting – but he did that with a lot of things.’
‘Chasing gun-runners, some said. The Irish Unionists were scrounging around for weapons in those days. But it’s no more than a rumour. He didn’t know me well enough to tell me his secrets.’
‘Don’t worry, he didn’t tell me either. So how did you get mixed up with Dédé? At least I’ve got an excuse.’
‘By increments. After the Germans marched in I hid in my apartment for a while. When things quietened down I began to venture out, mostly at night. One hears talk, in certain bars. I made it known that I wanted to help. So they found me a job that suited my temperament.’
‘Which is?’
Grosselin drained his glass. ‘Come with me.’
They left the office and walked across to a darkroom, the same one the man with the wrench had vanished into. The interior was bathed in a queasy red light. Trays of liquid sat on a central cabinet with many drawers. It looked solid and immobile but swung easily aside on casters when Grosselin pushed it. Beneath it, a trapdoor.
Grosselin tugged it open. A ladder led down into the murk. ‘I sincerely dislike this part,’ said the journalist, easing his bulk into the gap. Like a drowning man he sank first to his chest, and then his head disappeared below the floor. Lucien followed him down the ladder.
As he turned to face the room below, he heard Grosselin saying, ‘How’s she looking, Régis?’
The room was a large redbrick cellar, dimly illuminated by two bulbs under cages on either side of the space. Grosselin was addressing the dark-haired man, who was oiling an ancient letterpress printing machine – tucked into the corner near the wall, as if it was trying to hide – with gestures that were almost tender.
‘Une merveille, that’s what she is,’ Régis replied. A marvel. Lucien could believe it. The machine looked as if it was about hundred years old, but it gleamed black and silver. Roughly chest height and as wide as a substantial desk, with a large spoked wheel on the side facing them and rollers and plates that were baffling to look at. It cast insane jagged shadows on the brick walls, like the offspring of a locomotive and a praying mantis.
Grosselin said: ‘Régis is our own printing press tamer. He can tell you all about beds and spindles and flywheels.’
‘How the hell did you get it down here?’
‘Not us. Been here for years, according to the owner of this place. Perhaps they assembled it down here.’ Grosselin shrugged, looked up. ‘Or perhaps they pulled up the floorboards and lowered it down. Either way, it suits our purposes nicely.’
A loud grating and rumbling commenced, peaking to a volume that was barely comfortable – shaking the floor beneath their feet – before slowly subsiding.
‘The métro,’ Grosselin explained. ‘That’s what makes it so perfect. When old Florence here is churning away, they can’t hear a thing in the outside world.’
‘Florence?’
Régis smiled for the first time. ‘After my grandmother,’ he said.
‘Welcome to Les Éditions du Crépuscule,’ said Grosselin, spreading his arms. Twilight Publishing.
‘And what exactly are you going to publish?’
‘Pamphlets. Propaganda. Material that will stir the populace against the Nazis. And this.’
He crossed to a cardboard box tucked behind the press. From it he took a book, roughly bound. He handed it to Lucien. The cover was of a fine cream material that felt almost warm to the touch. There was no illustration, merely text in an elegant serif, deep black, that read: Songs of Twilight. And then, just underneath: Poems.
The inside pages were cheaper, rawer. Lucien flicked through them, glanced at a few lines. They were beautiful but opaque.
‘A poetry book?’ he asked sceptically.
‘A rather magical poetry book,’ Grosselin replied. ‘Contributions from some of our finest pens. Every text a metaphor. A hymn to resistance, if you read between the lines.’
‘Which is why Dédé wants me to take it to London.’
‘Yes.’ He tapped the cover. ‘This is a message. A way of telling England we’re still here. That France, the true France, is ready to fight. They simply have to help.’
‘I’ll do everything I can to convince them.’
‘I believe you will.’ Grosselin sighed. ‘Heavens, this war has made us pompous. Let’s go back upstairs. The damp down here is seeping into my bones. We’ll leave Régis to tend to his grandmother. I’ll pour us another glass and you can tell me exactly what you’ve been up to.’
Lucien emerged from the old industrial building with the book wrapped in brown paper and twine, as if it were a gift. Walking quickly – but not fast enough to attract attention – he made his way back towards the river. There was something he needed to do before his next rendezvous with André Dehix.
Somebody had once written that the Seine was the only river that wound between two bookshelves. Lucien thought of this as he approached the Pont des Arts, heading once again for the hatched green cases of the bouquinistes. A cold wind whipped off the water and the sky was a very Parisian shade of pale grey chiffon.
Something had changed, although he wasn’t sure what. Without being consciously aware of it he counted seven stalls down from the bridge and stopped at his destination. He would have known it from the book covers: more Agatha Christie and Eric Ambler this time, plus a few titles in German.
A man in a tweed cap, a home-kitted woollen scarf and a heavy brown overcoat was sitting on a wooden folding chair next to the stall, beaky nose buried in a book. By Maurice Leblanc, naturally.
‘Keep the customers happy, eh, J.V.?’
The man’s head jerked up. Bright, bloodshot blue eyes to go with the red-tipped nose and the spidery broken veins on his cheeks: the price paid for a lifetime in the cold and the nips of cognac that made it bearable.
‘My boy,’ said Jean-Vincent, standing up. ‘I thought you’d left us for good.’
‘No chance of that.’
A quick, clumsy hug – they were not quite friends, after all, although the many years Lucien had been visiting the stall had bred an easy affection between them.
‘So how goes it?’ Lucien asked.
The bouquiniste shrugged. ‘Everyone needs something to read, even the Nazis. But they made us separate our stalls by a few extra feet, cutting our pitches from ten metres to eight. They need to be able to see the river, they said.’
‘Ah, I knew there was something different.’
‘And yet, everything remains the same. What’s that you’ve got there? Not trying to sell me a book are you? You wouldn’t be the first – cash is scarce these days.’
‘I need you to look after it, just for a little while.’
Jean-Vincent eyed the package. ‘Dangerous?’
‘Not necessarily. Very few people would even realise its significance. But it is a responsibility, yes.’
‘How long?’
‘A couple of days. Certainly no longer than a week. I can’t think of a better place to hide a book.’
‘In plain sight. Very Edgar Allen Poe. Hand it over then.’ Jean-Vincent took the package and weighed it in his hand. ‘A slim volume. I’ll stash it in the back there behind Gaston Leroux.’
‘Thank you, mon ami.’
‘A pleasure for a good customer. Talking of which, is there anything you’d like to take with you? I have some Dornf
ord Yates. For an Anglais, the man is positively French.’
‘Perhaps when I return.’
‘Very well. A bientôt, alors.’`
‘In a few days.’ He gave a jaunty half-salute and walked away in the direction of Pont Neuf, wondering if he was doing the right thing.
The Ile Saint Louis was almost a town in itself, a combination of floating citadel and giant paquebot – ocean liner – moored in the middle of the Seine. Lucien had always thought of the island as the epicentre of Paris, yet paradoxically a good place to disappear. As such it was a Dédé haunt par excellence.
They took ersatz coffee at the counter in a steamy café on the Quai de l’Horloge. Lucien understood that this was Dédé’s way of making brief, damage-limiting contact: little more than a touch on the elbow and a couple of cryptic phrases.
‘Tonight, around nine,’ Dédé said, pushing over a fragment of paper napkin with an address scrawled on it in tiny letters. ‘Lili wants to show you something.’
Lucien screwed the paper into a pellet and shoved it in his pocket. Later, after a quick glance, he took the precaution of throwing it into the river.
Then he was free to wonder exactly what his sister had found in the fifth arrondissement.
Chapter 19
Passage des Patriarches
Rue Mouffetard and the area around it was a place of survivors. When Baron Haussmann had carved out a new, symmetrical Paris in the middle of the 19th century, replacing tangles of slum with wide, bright boulevards, ‘La Mouff’ had escaped unscathed. The quartier still felt cramped, medieval and watchful. Most of the buildings were no more than two or three storeys high, but their narrow grey façades and sloping rooftops gave them a skinny, malnourished look. In various states of disrepair, they slumped against one another for support. Even the names of the streets had a gimcrack poetry to them, with references to wooden swords (rue de l’Epée de Bois), crossbows (rue de l’Arbalète) and cooking pots (rue du Pot de Fer).
The bar Dédé had directed him to was not so different from the rest in the neighbourhood; perhaps slightly more dilapidated. Tucked away in a backstreet that was almost an alley, it would have been hard to find if you weren’t looking for it. There was no sign outside, and he never learned its name.
