Agent of Fortune

by Kurt Magenta

  ‘Is it safe?’

  ‘This is Clichy, son. You know what happened here in ’37?’

  Lucien nodded. ‘Were you there?’

  ‘Took a bullet in the arm. Best mate got one in the face. I doubt there’s a place in France where the fascists are hated more. Don’t worry, the Boche wouldn’t dare to look for you here.’

  It was a curious adventure – like camping out in some strange urban forest. He made a nest for himself beside the trestle table, using the bedroll and a stubby stool that served as a nightstand. Ferrandier gave him a torch but warned him to use it sparingly, in case anybody saw a glimmer of light through the darkened windows.

  In fact the nights were the easiest part, lying there on his back, inhaling the place’s strangely reassuring odour and listening to the weather. Rain the first night – its comforting drumbeat. None the next. He imagined the mist again. It was getting colder.

  Daytime passed slowly. He ventured out to stretch his legs and buy bread, but returned to the garage as soon as he could, by tortuous routes. In the dim aquatic light he read the poems in Grosselin’s book, trying to decipher their hidden meanings of defiance and hope. He made his way through a pulp paperback called Sarabande Au Colt, stacks of motoring journals, even a couple of adult magazines that managed to be both pornographic and prudish.

  He was getting scrawny but he tried to stay fit: push-ups and sit-ups and shadow savate moves. He wondered if his escape would involve violence. Part of him hoped so.

  On the morning of the third day, Ferrandier returned with a bowl of rabbit stew under a cloth – rabbits had become popular pets since rationing began – and an illicit bottle of wine. ‘Things are moving,’ said the mechanic. ‘Be patient.’

  Lucien ate the stew cold; a little for lunch and the rest for dinner. The wine was rough and belly-warming.

  The fourth morning. He needed food again. A quick foray to the boulangerie resulted in half a stale baguette, which was all he could afford – and which in any case was what most of the population was expected to live on.

  When he got back he was almost exhilarated by the thought of the bread and the last swallow of wine. He let himself in and headed for his table and a figure stepped from the shadows. A steel trap snapped shut around his heart.

  Chapter 24

  Cold Harbour

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the woman said. ‘I’m one of us.’

  She wore a battered black fedora hat and a belted navy overcoat, and her intense dark gaze and aquiline nose gave her an assertive look. Even the leather bag slung over her shoulder was of a utilitarian, satchel-like design. He could easily imagine her toting a sub-machine gun.

  ‘I’m called Sestine,’ she added.

  ‘Of course you are,’ he said. ‘Excuse me while I learn how to breathe again.’

  ‘The Mechanic gave me a key. I would have looked suspicious loitering outside.’

  ‘What about the phone?’

  She shook her head. ‘One never knows who’s listening.’

  ‘Of course. Please, take the stool.’

  ‘I’m not staying.’

  ‘Then I’ll take it if you don’t mind.’

  He sat and put the bread down next to the almost empty wine bottle on the table.

  Sestine said, ‘We managed to reach your friends in London. They seem to think you’re important. So we’re getting you out of Paris tomorrow. You’ll go to the coast in Brittany. One night in a safe house, then a fishing boat for England.’

  ‘Simple as that. How am I making the journey?’

  ‘By train, with false papers. We’ll be travelling as man and wife, visiting my ailing mother.’ From the bag she produced a 35 millimetre camera with a Bakelite casing. ‘It’s German,’ she said, smiling faintly. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to step into the light.’

  ‘What there is of it. Will that thing work?’

  ‘Let us hope so.’

  When she was done she said, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow morning at six with the documents. Be ready.’

  He glanced around. ‘I’ll start packing.’

  ‘Very droll. But you will in fact be carrying a heavy suitcase, to back up our story.’ She paused. ‘The Mechanic mentioned a certain book. Is it safe?’

  ‘It’s safe.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  Now it was his turn to hesitate. But in the end, what harm could it do? He slid it from its hiding place beneath a pile of old motoring magazines. She took it and leafed through it. Here and there, she paused.

  ‘It is very beautiful,’ she said. ‘“What subtle agency holds me in your gilded thrall?”’ You can see how it might have a double meaning.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope the Nazis don’t get the joke if they find it in our luggage.’

  ‘Have courage.’ She handed the book back to him. ‘Until tomorrow morning.’

  The suitcase was indeed heavy, but now it lay perched in the netted rack above their heads. Paris was far behind them, their train steaming through green and sable countryside. Sestine was by his side, deliberately less fierce-looking today. Hatless, it transpired that her dark brunette hair was cut in a tousled bob. She was dressed for the season in a red-brown pleated dress with a pattern of tiny white flowers, court shoes of a darker brown. Her coat was folded, like his, on top of their case. She had put on some make-up and together they did their best to look like a respectable young couple. Their passports identified them as Monsieur and Madame Lemoine, and raised his age by four years.

  At one point she took his hand. He covered his surprise, the memory of Anna coursing through him.

  As if she detected his discomfort, Sestine let go.

  There had been a cursory identity check at Montparnasse station, but they were one drab couple among many. The soldier had barely glanced at their papers and looked thoroughly bored by the whole affair. They were joined in their compartment by an older couple who had probably been visiting family in Paris. Probably also, Lucien thought, delivering black market meat and vegetables. Nobody who lived near a farm went hungry, and relatives from the countryside were suddenly very popular with citadins – townies.

  When they changed trains at Rennes it was a different story. Soldiers herded disembarking passengers into a line so their papers could be examined. ‘Papers! Papiers!’

  Sestine took his hand again, gave it a squeeze. It’s going to be fine.

  Soon they reached the head of the queue. The soldier loomed over them in his field grey uniform. He extended his arm and clicked his fingers. Big, young, dairy-fed.

  They handed over their documents. ‘You are going?’ he asked Sestine.

  ‘To Quimper. To visit my mother. She is unwell.’

  The soldier grunted – this was of little interest to him. He studied Sestine’s features. ‘You are Jewish?’

  It suddenly occurred to Lucien that, yes, she almost certainly was. He felt heat rising into his face. Stay calm. Breathe.

  ‘No, monsieur,’ said Sestine. ‘I am Breton.’

  ‘Indeed.’ He handed back her identity card. ‘And you, monsieur. You are accompanying your wife?’ Lucien nodded. The soldier studied the somewhat blurred photograph on the ID card. ‘You are young. Do you not wish to join our workforce in Germany?’

  ‘I work in a factory, monsieur. We make undersea cables, for telegraphic transmissions.’ Cables, he might have added, that the Nazis were slurping up like spaghetti.

  ‘Important work.’ The soldier handed the card back. ‘Very well.’ He touched his cap. ‘Good day to you.’

  And now he looked over their shoulders for the next victim. ‘Papers! Papiers!’ As they walked on the ringing words faded into the distance like a passing police siren.

  They left the train at Quimper. At the barrier a pair of soldiers were making random checks, but Lucien and Sestine passed through without
incident.

  ‘Where are we going now?’ he asked, as they left the station – a dainty structure of salmon pink bricks with a low slate roof. The air was fresh and damp, extravagant white clouds foaming into a pale blue sky. La Rochelle weather, he thought.

  ‘A place called Brezillac. There’s a bus.’

  Indeed there was. A very crowded and rattling bus, whose interior carried a compound odour of tobacco, fish and farmyard. The landscape scrolled past: fields of chartreuse green, softened by the reds and golds of turning leaves. Occasionally a solitary off-white farmhouse.

  Excitement charged into his veins as the bus traced a long curve towards the coast, hills sliding apart to reveal the sea blue-grey to the misty horizon. The slate rooftops of the town came into view, gathered at the shore like rocks around a tide pool.

  Soon the bus shuddered to a halt outside the half-timbered plaster façade of an auberge. Lucien followed Sestine, lugging the suitcase. When he stepped down from the bus she flicked him a quick smile and led the way.

  As she marched briskly through the town’s little streets, Lucien registered the familiar tang of sea air, the keening of the gulls that echoed around the solid walls. He was determined to match her pace despite the heavy load. ‘You’ve been here before?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. To plan for exactly this eventuality.’

  They stopped at a grey stone house set in a line of similar dwellings one street back from the harbour. Sestine rapped the knocker on the faded blue door. After a couple of moments a woman appeared in it, small and grey like a mouse peering from a hole. Her sage blue eyes glinted and her smile was friendly.

  ‘You’re here at last! Vite! Vite! Not many folks to worry about around here, but you never know.’

  Inside, the smell of dried flowers barely masked the odour of a fish lunch. Flagstones on the floor, dark lugubrious furniture. Lucien and Sestine were ushered into the kitchen. With its stocky black stove, towering dresser and broad oak table, it was clearly the focal point of the house. ‘Thank you Madame Quentel,’ Sestine was saying. ‘Merci beaucoup.’

  ‘Je vous en prie. Can I pour you a glass of water? Or something stronger? Loïc is out with his pals, but he’ll be back later.’

  Pouring water from a white enamel jug, she informed them that Sestine would sleep in the spare room, while Lucien would have to ‘take his dispositions’ on the couch downstairs.

  ‘I’ll help you with your suitcase,’ he told Sestine after a moment. He followed her up the stairs into a sizeable room with a sloping ceiling. Pallid sunlight freshened the white distempered walls; the bed was adorned with a patchwork quilt.

  ‘Charming,’ he said. ‘But how the hell did these people get involved in smuggling agents out of France?’

  ‘Their son was one of the first Bretons to sail across to England and volunteer. He wanted to join the RAF, ironically. He told us his parents would be willing to help – we’ve used them once or twice before. There are others like them dotted along the coast.’

  ‘Extraordinary.’ He glanced around again. ‘I like their home. It feels solid, secure.’

  ‘Don’t get too comfortable. We’re leaving at dawn.’

  Quentel was a hefty, big-shouldered man, somewhat running to fat but still tough and capable. His white hair clung to his tanned skull like the wispy down of a juvenile gull, and his eyes were a faraway blue in his lined face. There was no trace of stiffness in his movements as he led them on foot across a headland and down to a crescent of shingle beach. It was a rugged hike and when they descended Lucien was sweating despite the chill. By now he had ditched his Parisian clothes and was dressed like a fisherman in a heavy pea-coat, a coarse wool jersey, wide canvas trousers and battered leather boots. The precious book was wrapped in oilskin and concealed inside the coat.

  Sestine had insisted on coming too, shearing off her short hair into a masculine style and donning a similar outfit. Without makeup she could pass for an adolescent boy, if nobody spoke to her.

  The darkness was receding to reveal a blurred grey world: a wash of sky and sea and mist. The sea was flat calm, soughing benignly against the shore.

  ‘Bien. This weather is good for us,’ said Sestine.

  Quentel passed her his binoculars. She focused them out to sea, waiting for the signal.

  Lucien glanced at his watch. Just after six. When he looked at it again, five minutes had passed. Then ten.

  Quentel offered him a cigarette. He took one to kill time. Drawing on it made him feel light-headed. When he was finished he mashed it out on the shingle but was careful to transfer the butt to his coat pocket. There should be no trace of their presence.

  Twenty minutes. He could feel the tension flaring off Sestine like heat. He strained his ears for the sound of a marine engine, the knock of oars against rowlocks.

  Half an hour. Sestine lowered the binoculars.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘They’re not coming.’

  Chapter 25

  ‘He who sees Ushant…’

  ‘We go back tomorrow,’ said Sestine. ‘That’s the protocol. Then the day after that.’

  They were sitting in the kitchen over steaming bowls of Madame Quentel’s home-made herbal tea.

  ‘What d’you think happened?’

  ‘No use speculating.’ She shrugged. ‘They’ll tell us when they see us.’

  ‘And if they don’t come?’

  Sestine admonished him with a dark glance. ‘I have confidence in them.’

  When she had made her announcement on the beach, Quentel had simply stated, ‘Merde.’ Which seemed to sum up matters, because they had barely exchanged a word as they trudged back to the house. Now Lucien felt adrift, anxiety still knotted in his shoulders and banded around his chest. He needed to move, not drink this noxious tea filled with clippings from Madame Quentel’s garden.

  He stood. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

  Sestine shook her head. ‘We should stay inside.’

  He raked his hand through his tangled hair. ‘Very well. Just give me a minute.’

  He climbed the stairs to the spare bedroom, threw himself down and did push-ups until his arms shook. Then he twisted to lie on his back, feeling the boards through the thin rug. Part of him believed the boat would come tomorrow. There was no alternative, because the thought of going back to Paris was unbearable. All that effort, just to get stuck here! And suddenly everything he’d been through seemed to pour in on him, liked water into a holed ship, making him feel sick and ragged. He closed his eyes.

  He awoke to the touch of a hand on his. He turned and found Sestine sitting beside him, her knees drawn up to her chest.

  ‘Stop being a child,’ she said. ‘It will be all right.’

  ‘Just this? Or everything?’

  She looked at him. ‘Everything is a bit too much to ask for. Let’s just get through today, shall we? If we’re ambitious we can even think of tomorrow.’

  He said in English, ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Shakespeare. It ends badly.’

  She smiled. ‘The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.’

  ‘Molière.’

  ‘Like your Shakespeare, he has an answer for everything.’ She stood up, extended her hand. ‘Come on. Time to get off the floor.’

  Madame Quentel went into town for supplies. Shortly before noon, she hurried into the kitchen with lunch and news. Unwrapping two plump glistening fish on the wooden countertop, she said, ‘A couple of new Germans are skulking around. They took a coffee at the Café du Commerce.’ She started gutting the first fish with deft slashes of her blade. ‘They told Marie they’ve requisitioned a villa further up the coast, near Pointe du Raz.’

  ‘And that’s exactly why we have to stay inside,’ said Se
stine.

  ‘Any chance they’re looking for us?’ Lucien asked.

  Madame Quentel shrugged, wiped the knife on her apron. ‘Marie said they seemed relaxed. Not in that prickly search mode.’

  ‘Just a coincidence, then.’

  Sestine nodded. ‘If they’re not doing a house-to-house, we’re fine. But let’s hope the boat comes tomorrow morning.’

  The boat did not come the next morning.

  After that, the atmosphere in the house was sombre. Lucien sat at the kitchen table, killing time by trying to translate some of the poems from Grosselin’s book. Sestine read old newspapers and helped Madame Quentel around the house. In the afternoon she joined Lucien at the table with a stub of pencil and an envelope and surprised him by making a quick accurate sketch of him. The hollows around his eyes looked darker than he remembered.

  ‘You’re talented,’ he said.

  ‘Used to be. I wanted to be an artist, once. Now I work in an art supply shop.’

  ‘Isn’t your real life supposed to be a secret?’

  ‘It can’t hurt now. You’ll be gone tomorrow.’

  Dinner was a fish called Saint Pierre; so named, Monsieur Quentel told them, because the dark smudges behind its gills were the traces of the thumb and fingerprint left by Saint Peter, when he had plucked one from the sea.

  ‘Perhaps he’ll come and pluck me out too,’ commented Lucien.

  The third morning. The weather was deteriorating; the sea dark and swollen, waves smashing themselves into icy spittle on the beach. Last chance, Sestine had said. After this they would have to return to Paris, try to re-establish contact and find out what had gone wrong.

  Once again, Lucien saw the hand of his wristwatch creep past six. Because of that he almost missed the signal. But he saw it all right, out beyond the heaving sea, the briefest of bright flashes.

  ‘They’re here!’ Sestine grinned, her hair wild in the wind. He felt like hugging her. Instead he let her signal back.

  It seemed an eternity until they saw the little rowboat lift over the swell, a burly figure hauling at its oars. They watched it rise and fall; until finally they plunged into the churning surf to drag it up onto the shingle.