by John Gardner
In a matter of seconds, the girl who had been all things happy was crying. George made noises. (“I was still not very good at giving comfort to women. Particularly when I didn’t understand the mainspring of the grief.”)
Then, the sobs stopped almost as quickly as they had started. With a sniff, she pulled herself together and began to offer profuse apologies. “You might as well know. Then you won’t have to ask again.”
They stood in the small kitchen, the dishes washed and only half dried, some already piled on the bare table, while Angelle told George—in simple sentences, leaving out the minute detail—of how she came to be in Paris, and in Downay’s apartment.
She was a teacher. Graduated from the Sorbonne in 1939. She had known Michel Downay slightly then, though she did not attend any of his classes. “He was a very romantic figure to us girls.”
The post she was after was that of junior assistante at the village school where she was born, near Reims. She had been there for less than a year when the Germans swooped into France.
At first it seemed better to stay put; where they were. But, as rumours and the sound of fighting all around them became worse, Angelle Tours decided to move. It was some time during the first week of June that she spoke to the head of the school. He in turn talked to the parents and children.
Many of the families were already gathering their belongings in readiness. They decided to go together—parents, children, the head of the school, and his three assistantes.
On the first day they were bombed and machine-gunned along the road. It was pitiful, horrible enough to drive a young woman insane. Out of seventy men, women, and children from the village, only she was left with fourteen children. They had been together in a ditch. Nobody else made it, caught in the open as the waspish fighters came down over the trees and sprayed the road. George knew about that kind of thing: had experienced it on the long trek back to Dunkirk.
“We had to give up using the main roads,” he told her.
“We also.” She nodded once, a brief downward motion. The head stayed down, eyes on the floor. “I took the little ones and we went by devious routes.”
The children were frightened, some of them in acute mental agony, having seen their parents obliterated on the road. They were all tired, thirsty, and hungry. Some of the time, Angelle carried the smaller ones. “We made very bad going. In any case, by then I did not know where I was taking them.”
A couple of days after the strafing on the road, they turned up in a tiny hamlet—a church, farm, and a few cottages. The cure was still there, bewildered but praying and going through his religious offices, measuring the days in prayer. He thought the end would come soon. Everyone had left, he said, except the farmer, who was an old skinflint and went on running his farm almost oblivious of what was happening.
The curé took the children into the church, where, he said, they could spend the night. It was about five in the afternoon, and Angelle crossed the road towards the farm hoping to beg milk, and possibly some vegetables, from the farmer. Skinflint though he was, she thought it would be possible. The curé did not want her to go, implying that the man was a lecher. Yet, if need be, she would sell herself for the sake of the children.
She almost reached the farm, stopping to look back as she heard the sound of engines. A small convoy of French lorries was winding down the narrow dusty track, only about half a kilometre from the hamlet. “It was like you have in the cowboy movies”—she smiled, wry and painful, lifting her head to look at George again—“the Fifth Cavalry coming to the rescue.”
Then, above the rumble of the trucks, came another noise. Stukas. Six of them, peeling off and diving unmistakably towards the trucks. She saw the first bombs come away from under the aircraft, and threw herself to the ground. “I clawed it with my fingers. I wanted to get right down inside the earth.”
The rest was as always: the ground shaking; explosions following one another, getting nearer and louder. The smell and heat. Screams. That particular thunder and wind of destruction. Then the terrible silence.
Six Stukas can do a great deal of damage to a small and concentrated area. The cottages were gone. All that was left of the trucks was a couple of burning frameworks. There were no cries: only the snarl of departing aircraft. Above all there was no church: only a pile of masonry and one wall with its window still intact.
She wandered for a couple of days, the most vivid memory of the aftermath being the farmer, still alive; with his farm buildings standing, driving some animals into the yard and calling out something obscene to her. He must have already been mad, or sane enough to split his mind from reality.
In the end, she decided to head for Paris. There were lifts from stray army trucks, and days of walking. She arrived one day ahead of the Germans to find Paris almost empty. Out of habit she wandered down to the Sorbonne and met Michel, who only vaguely remembered her. He brought her back to the apartment, put her to bed, fed and nursed her.
“I live here because there’s nowhere else. I’ll die for those children yet. I laugh as much as possible, because what else is there but to laugh?”
And Michel? George did not dare ask, but she must have seen the question in his eyes. “He has a lot of women.” She laughed again, a little too loudly. “That’s the work he’s on now. It’s me when he feels like it. Or when I ask him. But he’s a bastard with women.”
She stopped there, suddenly, as though realising she had been indiscreet, then launched into a story currently going the rounds. The Luftwaffe had built a dummy airfield—to the north, somewhere near the coast. There were canvas hangars and wooden airplanes. According to the tale, the RAF had bombed it during the previous week. Four planes, she said, planes with two engines, flying low they had dropped sixty or seventy bombs. Wooden bombs. Her head went back, straining her small breasts against the grey dress, and she laughed as though this was a joke which should be enjoyed by everybody.
They sat and talked in the kitchen until Downay returned saying that George had only an hour before his rendezvous with Balthazar. He still seemed worried by George’s apparent reluctance to tamper with the prophecies, because he made a long speech about the necessity of giving the Nazis what they wanted to hear. “That’s the trick. It’s deception for the common cause. They must hear what they wish. They are like greedy children. We only give them cream. Understand?”
Sure, George understood. “We’ll talk when I get back from the Boul. Mich.”
“And tell Balthazar I want to send a message to London,” Downay snapped. Behind him, in the kitchen door, Angelle seemed to be signalling danger with her eyes.
Back in the present, in Herbie Kruger’s flat, the telephone buzzed again. This time his office in the Annexe with some query.
“No calls,” Herbie growled. “I want no more calls here today. Tell them I’ll let the duty officer know when I’m free. Keep a list.”
He lumbered back. “Sorry, George”—looking at his watch—“not time for lunch yet. Please go on. I’m sorry.”
26
PARIS 1941
BALTHAZAR’S REAL NAME WAS Bill Keefe and he originally hailed from Epsom (“Where the salts come from. You’ve probably got it all on file”). For years he’d had deep cover in Switzerland. Like George, he was a French and German speaker. The Rammer and Fenice had sung his praises loudly. After the 1938 fiasco at Munich, he had been brought back to London and given a radio course—though he’d done trade clandestines for years.
His cover was so deep he didn’t really need it. He had managed to get himself put into Paris by his firm. All legit, except his name—Robert Moutray—and he’d been using that for aeons. He was, as far as everyone but the Rammer’s team knew, a bona-fide Swiss rep, selling to the new regime.
The bar was crowded: civilians and troops alike, and George recognised Balthazar immediately. He sat in a corner where there was an unrestricted view of all the exits—even the communal toilets. Keep your sight lines clear, they taught at the
Abbey. Like when you’re sixty days at sea—backs to the wall and every exit blocked. (They still teach it.)
Balthazar was short and fat, sweated a lot, and had his spectacles in a neat case on the table pointing directly towards his glass of Pernod.
George pushed his way over, paying no attention to anyone else, having gone through all the routines on the way over. (“But, then, I thought I knew it all within ten minutes of hitting the street. You do at that age. Amazing how quickly confidence comes—back doubles, reverses, standing alone and palely loitering at the odd street corner.”)
“You are Moutray, aren’t you? Robert Moutray. We met at a conference once. Your firm was thinking of publishing something of mine. Astrology. Thomas. Georges Thomas.”
Slowly he picked up his spectacles, placed them on his nose, grinned, and spoke low, in English. “Thought you’d never get here. Haven’t got long and don’t want to hang about.”
“Have care.” George stuck to French.
“Have care my arse. Half are bloody Frogs, and the rest are Krauts, don’t give a bugger for either.” For a deep-cover man he had the security instincts of an absent-minded explosives expert. Or so George thought. Balthazar must have seen the expression in his colleague’s eyes, for he grinned again and went into French, calling for the waiter. George said he’d have a Pernod, realising that Balthazar had already established himself as something of a regular in the bar. Living the cover.
“Downay—Melchior—says that you’re just in. The Abbey gave me to understand you’d been around some time.”
“Abbey’s right.” He wiped his face with a large handkerchief. “Wanted to fix up a bolt-hole. Must say I don’t want to use it. That Downay’s set me up a treat. Only nineteen, she is, and does it in twelve languages. Likes little fat men like me. Says there’s more to get hold of. You okay?”—as though asking if Downay had attended to George’s sex life also.
“I’m in and we’re operating. Should have something for you in a couple of days, if not before.”
Very quickly (“I’m only going through it the once”), he gave George the contact procedures, signals, and alternates. Just in case.
When he had finished, George told him that Downay wanted him to talk to London. He had a message.
The Pernod arrived. They still served lump sugar with it. Amazing. George dribbled water through two cubes balanced on a fork, drop by drop into the yellow murk, thinking involuntarily of Maman and himself one winter—the thaw and a snowman they’d christened Hiram sliding into a white blotch on the tiny lawn. The old, recurring dream passed through his head.
“You’ll have to vet it.” Balthazar sounded almost stern. “I’ve had a return about that. Said I wasn’t happy about Downay’s associates. London says that you have to see everything—without Downay’s knowledge. If he’s got a message I need comment from you.”
George asked which associates he wasn’t happy with—thinking about the SS.
“That girl of his, for one. The tart that lives with him. She’s a mystery. Don’t like it; nor a couple of others.”
“Women?”
What other kind of trouble was there? he asked, and said, yes, of course women: one young, the other older. He was very unhappy about Downay’s motives. He began to explain, when there was a hubbub at the bar entrance and the sound of cars stopping outside, with urgent brakes and a quick slamming of doors. A pair of customers at the bar made for the door, fast.
“Jesus Christ,” puffed Balthazar. “No heroics, Sunny Jim, but this is where we find out how good your papers really are.”
There were four plainclothesmen and two pairs of uniforms: police. Not a Nazi in sight. They told everybody to stay where they were. This was a routine check. It was like a Hollywood version of a Prohibition raid, but done in French.
All four were tough, sharp men. A breed, George thought. Could be nasty in a cellar with rubber sticks. They worked in pairs with a uniformed man accompanying each pair, and a couple standing by the door for good measure.
They hardly paid any attention to Balthazar’s papers, but huddled over George’s for a long time. Too long.
“Thomas?” one of them asked.
“It’s there. That’s me.”
“Georges Thomas?” The other.
“Yes.” He had the feeling that people were edging away from him.
“He with you?” the first flic shot at Balthazar.
Balthazar made a noise which said nobody in their right mind would be with George. In real words he told them he’d never set eyes on George until he sat down a few minutes before.
“Just a formality.” The first flic, who was tall and had a mole on his left cheek, put a hand on George’s arm.
“My papers are in order.” He drew away, trying to shake off the hand.
“A formality.” The flic dragged George out of the chair and his partner caught the other arm. “We’re collecting letter Ts tonight.” He laughed and they edged him out of the bar.
There was no time to be afraid until they got him into the back of the car. He tried to talk to them, but they spoke only to one another, across him, paying no heed. He asked where they were going, but the pair of flics had become suddenly deaf. Five minutes later, the fright flies in George’s guts turned to fireflies. They were heading for the Arc de Triomphe and turning into the Avenue Foche. Ramilies, Fenice, Marc—at the landing point—and Downay had told him about the Avenue Foche and the SS headquarters there—and that part of the SS which was the Gestapo.
They pulled up outside the building, and an SS sergeant leaped forward to open the door. One of the flics muttered that he was sorry but they were only obeying orders. The weak cry of many murderers.
There was a small signing ceremony as they handed him over, and a pair of muscular SS boys in open-necked shirts led him upstairs and along several passages to a door.
“Herr Thomas, thank you for coming to see us.” Kuche lounged behind a desk. In the corner, peering out of the window and drinking from a long-stemmed glass, stood Wald, scar and all. They both looked relaxed. George was sweating; wishing he had never met or seen Ramilies.
Far in the future, Big Herbie Kruger shifted in his chair, turning his head and concentrating. This part had not been in the file. Not in detail anyway.
27
PARIS 1941
THE BRAWNY LADS PUSHED him into a chair. Kuche nodded them away and George heard the door thud behind him. He looked into Kuche’s eyes to see if there was any hint of what was to come.
“What is…?”
“A few questions, that’s all.” Wald came over from the window. “Nothing to be worried about, Herr Thomas. We are—how would you say it?—protecting our investment?”
So the long quiz started. Nothing nasty. No threats. Smooth tongues and constant backtracking. To start with they asked the expected questions. Where was he born? What happened to his parents? How did he tie his shoelaces as a child? Who was Claud Grenoir?
“He owned a garage in the village. Died when I was about sixteen.” Thank God for the cover that had been constructed via the newly formed French Section. These two had been checking him out thoroughly, and George hoped that Downay had been briefed as well as himself.
When did you first come to Paris? Where did you live then? When did you first work with Michel Downay?
“When he started the book—The Prophet of Salon—in the summer of 1937.”
“Why did he choose you?”
“He said I had a natural aptitude for the whole spirit of the prophecies.”
“Did you do all the groundwork?”
“Yes.”
“Did you not feel cheated, doing all that work and then watching Downay construct it into a book and get all the applause?”
“Of course not. It wasn’t like that.”
Break. Nods. Smiles. He could sleep. They gave him a bare room with a cot; fed him frugally. Still no threats. Tomorrow they would talk again. Live it, Fenice had constantly said about the co
ver. Get inside it and be the man we’re constructing in you. The man, Georges Thomas, whom they had constructed, did not sleep well. There were sounds within that building not calculated to make one feel at ease. Laughter. Two German voices, raised as though in quarrel. A snatch of song sometime in the early hours and, twice, the tramp of feet, not marching, but walking with purpose along the corridor—then stopping outside the door. Pausing and continuing.
George took a couple of reverse courses on the cover, decided that he had got it right, felt the churning of his stomach and the sweat on brow and under armpits; dipped into sleep and then out of it again.
Downay kept coming back into his head, and Balthazar’s words of warning:…not happy with Downay’s associates. Ramilies, and the long secret night at the Abbey: If he is one of theirs they’ll use you to a purpose, dear heart. They’ll have method. They always have method.
Then Angelle came to mind—her laugh and the long thighs under her dress; her tears; the bullets and bombs ripping over that road, metal carving up the kids and their families. Quite suddenly George wanted her. The raging fear turned into a different kind of fire.
In the morning they brought foul coffee and good croissants. Then, back to the same office, to the same smooth, arrogant Kuche and Wald. Freshly shaved, Wald’s scar looked as though it had been sprinkled with powder because it still hurt to take a razor over it. He got drunk and fell downstairs, George thought.
They went through exactly the same questions as the previous night, only in a different wording and order. They stayed courteous, and, when it was over, a soldier brought coffee.
“It’s good,” Kuche pronounced, and George thought he meant the coffee, which was certainly better than the slop they’d fed him for breakfast.
“He means”—Wald smiled, the weak sun slicing through the window to make his blond hair a halo—“he means that we are satisfied. Now we get down to the talking. Doktor Downay has told you what is required?”
