Gabriela would have declined out of polite habit, not to mention the punishing urge to go back to her cramped, dingy flat she shared with her landlords and curl into a ball, but her stomach growled so loudly at the mention of sausage that she thought it must have been audible over the shouting touts, the haggling, the crying children. “Yes, please. That would be very nice of you.”
The sausage, when tracked down from the illegal vendor, was obscenely expensive compared to pre-war prices, and just as obscenely good. It had been weeks since Gabriela had tasted meat and that had been a scrap of chicken, so dry it was almost desiccated. This was thick and juicy. She took a bite and rich fat, hot and delicious, slid down her chin. Christine laughed and helped her clean it up with her handkerchief.
“I’m sorry,” Gabriela said around mouthfuls. Her fingers were burning on the wax paper, her tongue burning too, but she didn’t care. “I haven’t had lunch. In fact, I haven’t had a proper meal for about three weeks.”
A thin girl of four or five stared at them eating. She clutched her mother’s dress. The mother tried to sell bunches of daisies to passersby.
Christine took her elbow and led her away. “I know what that’s like. Times are tough.”
“Times are tough?” Gabriela put a smile into her voice. “Isn’t that like observing there are Germans in Paris? Or saying a lot of Catholics hang around Notre Dame?”
Christine laughed. “Well, I hope the money comes in handy. Hey, are you waiting for someone?”
“What? Oh, no. Not really.” Gabriela realized she had been scanning the crowd again. Looking for the Gestapo agent who could help her find her father.
“Who do you live with? Your parents? Husband?”
Gabriela shook her head. “I don’t have anyone. I’m fighting it out by myself.”
“But where do you live?” Christine asked.
“With my landlords in the 14th Arrondissement. Not so nice, but it keeps me warm.”
“You may not believe it, but I know what that’s like. I have to work to keep fed.”
“Oh, you have a job?” Gabriela found herself reappraising Christine. Not a rich girl then. But what kind of job paid well enough to buy black market sausages for strangers?
“I grew up near Marseille. Came up with my sister a couple of years ago, but her husband went east on a work crew—POW, you know—and she got permission to join him in Germany. My mother wants me back in Provence. Probably to get married, but she won’t admit it. I don’t want to go, so I got a job in a restaurant called Le Coq Rouge, in the 4th. You know the place?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good food, nice people. You should stop by some time. Maybe you could, I don’t know, get a job.”
Work in a restaurant sounded perfect. Something to feed herself while she continued her search for Papá. Gabriela had already scoured the city for work, of course, but never managed to find anything, and wondered how Christine had managed.
“What do you do, wait tables?” Gabriela asked.
“Not exactly. I’m more of an entertainer.”
“And that’s what you do at the restaurant? Entertain Germans?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Christine said.
“But how, exactly? Is it singing or something?”
“No, not exactly. Companionship, more like. They’re a long way from home and you know, the boches aren’t monsters. Most of them, I mean. They get lonely like anyone else.”
“Ah, I see.”
Her new-found friend must have caught something in her tone. “No, it’s not like that. You know how it is when you get a boyfriend? Maybe you like him because he’s cute and you think you want to marry him, but that’s not always what it’s like, is it? Sometimes you’re just bored and you think it would be fun to walk along the canal holding hands and stopping under the bridges to kiss. Or maybe he’s kind of dull, but he’s rich and he buys you nice things. It’s kind of like that.”
“So they buy you nice things?”
“Sometimes,” Christine said. “And sometimes it’s just good food and wine and the chance to feel pretty again, like a woman, a real woman. You understand, it’s not like those en carte girls, who work for money. It’s not like a job.”
“I don’t know.”
She did know, actually. It sounded disgusting.
“Try to be open minded,” Christine said.
“But if it’s not a job, why does the restaurant let you in?”
“Pretty girls attract business, and besides, Monsieur Leblanc puts us to work and doesn’t have to pay us. It’s better than it sounds. Besides, one doesn’t have to work as a hostess. Sometimes girls help in the kitchen while they figure out what they want to do.”
“Kitchen work doesn’t sound so bad.”
“You know, he’s looking for another dishwasher. I could introduce you.”
Gabriela was suspicious enough of the whole arrangement that she started to say no, but then thought about the Germans who made up the restaurant’s clientele. Could it be a new place to search?
The truth was, she’d run out of places to look. Over the last two years, she’d worn holes in her shoes walking back and forth to the German embassy where she’d queue in the drizzling rain only to be turned away. She’d written stacks of letters to Vichy officials, to work-camp officers, to Topf representatives. To anyone and everyone who might have news of her father. No word of him or the man who’d arrested him.
And food. The restaurant would mean a break from the ever-present gnawing, that feeling of being eaten alive from the inside.
“Hey, come over here,” Christine said. “I want to show you something.”
The something turned out to be the art Christine had discovered in an outdoor shop, tucked behind an armoire that smelled like mothballs. The paintings should have been hanging in some gallery, rather than stuffed into a dented metal footlocker. By the time they finished admiring the art, Gabriela had decided to take Christine’s advice and stop by Le Coq Rouge, to see if this Monsieur Leblanc needed help.
“That’s great,” Christine said. “It’ll be so much better than surrendering your treasures to thieves in the flea markets. You’ll see.”
“But in the kitchen, you understand.”
“The what?”
“Working in the kitchen,” Gabriela repeated. She spoke as firmly as possible. “I’ll wash dishes, but I’m not going to be a hostess.”
“Oh, that. No one will ever make you. I promise.”
-end of excerpt-
The Red Rooster, available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other ebook formats.
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