by Jan Harvey
‘And if I’m here when he visits?’
‘The chances are you will be, but I don’t care. If he can screw you he’ll maybe make life easier for us, I really don’t know how his mind works.’
‘Why don’t you give the boy to him?’ asked Claudette.
‘Because he would win, and it is my meal ticket, the reason I have been able to run this place and not lose my sister or my nephew.’ There was a catch in her voice, emotion being swallowed back. ‘Only Keber outside this house knows about this, no one else. The boy has never been out of doors, he would not be safe if anyone knew he was a German’s bastard. It is for his sake you must tell no one.’
‘And everyone else in the house?’ asked Claudette. ‘Do they all know?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. Claudette suddenly realized it all made sense.
‘Here is the key to the door, it must stay locked at all times, I have another,’ Madame Odile dropped the key into Claudette’s hand. She raised her eyes, her gaze was steely, uncompromising. ‘I don’t like you, Françoise, I never have, but I have few options these days.’ She turned on her heel and Claudette was left in the stench and half darkness.
She cast her eyes over everything, the shapes of furniture and old cardboard boxes in the recesses of darkness and the ridges of filthy coal dust that lay on the old rug in front of the fire. There was nothing for it but to sort out the room and see if the boy needed changing. There was a smell that suggested he did. As Claudette lifted Daniel from his cot Lilia stirred but went back to her strange half awake doze. The boy felt thin, underweight. His eyes were too big for his head.
As she held him he sank his little body into her and buried his head in her neck. She pressed his head to her and hummed a tune that came to her from a distant memory of her own childhood.
There was a small bathroom at the end of the eaved room where Claudette changed and cleaned the boy. A heap of dirty nappies were piled into a bucket. She carried them out and placed them outside the room, the smell made her eyes water.
In the armoire she found bedlinen for the cot and some clothes for Daniel. She changed him and gave him a bottle of milk that had been standing next to Lilia’s bed. He lay back in his cot and suckled, his eyes staring through the bars of his little prison.
Claudette woke Lilia. Slapping her face, she said roughly, ‘Come on, up you get!’ as she hauled her out of bed and towards the door. She half walked, half dragged the woman down the corridor and into the lift. Eventually, she had her back in her own bed and away from the sad little room where her son lived. Lilia fell onto the bed and into a deep unconsciousness.
Claudette took all the cleaning equipment from Lilia’s cupboard and put it in the lift. She rolled up the Indian bedside rug and took spare linen out of the drawers. Then she took everything upstairs. Two hours later Daniel’s room was clean, the bed aired and remade. The rug gave her somewhere to play with the boy and she was ready for Agnès who arrived at five.
‘I will bring a tray of food for you and Daniel,’ she explained. ‘I am now in charge of the boy and this sorry excuse for a room and I will organise everything from now on.’ Agnès nodded, saying nothing, and took a seat on the rough wooden chair where she sat with a vacant expression, staring at the child in his cot
‘Play with him,’ Claudette ordered. ‘Amuse him, the poor little mite is desperate for attention.’ Claudette took up the bin of nappies and the tray of leftovers from the last meal. As she walked downstairs anger rose up inside her, and she felt nothing but loathing for Fritz Keber and his ghastly secrets.
Chapter Forty One
Gaël Henri spoke no English so our conversation had to be translated by Matt. We had met in a café close to the Padlock Bridge. The sun was beating down on us and we’d both asked for mineral water with plenty of ice. Theo had very kindly walked with us telling us about the architecture and the history of the Île de la Cité as we went.
He was a lovely man. As we talked he asked us about Oxfordshire and Freddy. I described my cottage and the village and he listened graciously, asking me to expound on it. In turn he showed us the secret places of Paris, the bar where Hemingway and James Joyce ate and the site of the garage where Gertrude Stein first heard the words “Lost Generation” spoken by the owner.
Gaël, his friend, although much more busy and fast-talking, turned out to be just as helpful. He was a small rotund man with a gallic face and slick black hair. His skin was heavily tanned as if he worked outside a lot, but he carried a briefcase with a Paris crest embossed on it. He told us he was a civil servant.
‘I will leave you in the trust of my good friend Gaël,’ said Theo, shaking our hands. ‘I go to the theatre tonight, I must not stay longer.’ I felt the prickling of a tear in the corner of my eye. I would have liked to spend more time with him, possibly meet again for dinner. He was such a gentle soul. All at once I was feeling emotional about everything, perhaps because we’d talked so much about Freddy.
I watched him walk away, his tall body standing out above a group of Japanese tourists who were milling around studying guidebooks. As I turned back to talk to Gaël, Theo turned to look at me a final time, his smile accompanied by a brief wave of the hand.
‘Gaël says Theo is a very good man and a fine architect, but he’s never been the same since his wife died, very sad. He says they were made for each other.’ Matt gave me that knowing look that reinforced us as a couple.
‘What did she die of?’ I asked.
Matt asked and Gaël said: ‘Cancer du sein,’ then in English he said, ‘Breast Cancer.’ He sat down with us and unpacked his briefcase telling Matt that he’d brought some books that might be of interest to us. Matt picked up a small hardback called ‘The bordellos of Paris’ and thumbed through it. I saw him check the index but Rue Ercol was obviously not there.
‘Listen to this, it’s about our King Edward the Seventh: “Edward who was morbidly obese had a love seat or Siège d’Amour made for him. It was manufactured by Louis Soubrier, Cabinet Maker of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. It allowed easy access for oral, and other forms of sex, with several participants.”
Gaël was grinning and he said: ‘Oui, Oui, le Roi he was bad no!’ That made me laugh. I told him in English that our King Edward the Seventh had been a very bad man. He understood and smiled. The waiter arrived and took our order for drinks. Matt and I opted for more water, I literally felt as though my clothes were sticking to me. Matt and Gaël began to talk and I was lost, so I picked up the book Matt had been looking through. There was a photograph of three women, bare breasted, on a marble balcony; two brunettes each side of a platinum blonde. A leopard skin was slung over the balcony in front of them. Their faces were beautiful with heavily painted lips, and I got the impression they were sharing a joke. Their lack of any modesty and sheer brazenness left me with the feeling that they were in charge, it rang out from the picture. The drinks arrived and Matt used the break in the conversation to tell me what Gaël had said.
‘Gaël is part of the history preservation team with the government. They are working on a project for the World War Two commemorations in two thousand and nineteen. He’s taken an interest in the Maison Closes because they were part of the German occupation. A lot went on in those places.’
‘I’ll bet,’ I said, raising my eyebrows. Gaël found my expression very amusing and raised his glass to me.
‘They were allowed to trade all through the conflict, but only with Germans and selected French officials. The houses were anonymous from the outside and lots of the French thought they were meeting rooms for the Nazis. The women inside were not allowed to go out, but the Nazis saw they had everything they could wish for – food, champagne, clothes, furniture. They were opulent and no expense was spared on their interiors. They were operated mainly by Madams, who had been former prostitutes themselves.’
‘And does he k
now anything about the house in Rue Ercol?’
‘He’s coming to that,’ said Matt and he began speaking French again with Gaël. A man and woman sat down in front of us. He was Chinese and his head was shaved except for a strip through the middle, which ended in a small plait. I was studying him intently as he talked to the woman next to him. His lips were pierced and the studs looked like little boils waiting to burst. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
‘The house was one of twenty-two operating during the war. It was extremely opulent and smart with themed rooms and an exclusive German clientele. It was run by a very fierce woman known as Madame Odile, she selected the prostitutes and made everything run like clockwork. Some of the women in there could demand a week’s salary from a German officer for just one session of how’s your father.’
‘How’s your father?’ I raised a quizzical eyebrow at Matt. ‘That’s very nineteen seventies.’
He stifled a smile and carried on. ‘The downfall came when a high-ranking officer called Rechtstein found out he had been sleeping with a Jewess. This was nineteen forty-four. He murdered her and threw her body into the street. After that the place was run into the ground and sacked by the French at the end of the war. The prostitutes were hounded out by the Parisians and some of them were branded in the street. In those days they used to shave the heads of what they called Horizontal Collaborators.’
‘Heavens,’ I replied, thinking of Freddy and his poor mother. ‘Does Gaël know anything about the maids?’
Matt duly asked him. ‘No, he has no idea.’
‘Has he heard of Madeleine March?’
Matt asked. ‘Apparently not, but he knows someone who used to work there.’
‘Can we meet her…or him?’
‘Est-il possible de rencontrer cette personne?’
Gaël looked at his watch and pursed his lips, for a minute it occurred to me he might be after a payment for his services. I think it occurred to Matt too. At length he said; ‘Oui, oui, bien sûr, avez-vous le temps maintenant?’
‘He’s asking if we’d like to go now?’
‘Yes, is it far?’
Gaël seemed to understand my question. He shook his head. ‘Is near,’ he said.
Gaël’s idea of near, it transpired, was a bit further than my own idea of near. He threaded us through the streets of the Temple area, past crowds browsing in shops and sitting outside restaurants. Friends greeted each other with air kisses and there was a throb of excitement in the possibilities of a Saturday night. We felt business-like as we pressed through crowds of dawdling tourists, Matt turning every so often to see if I was keeping up. Our friend was very fast on his feet. ‘I suspect it’s because he’s a civil servant,’ Matt suggested. ‘He sits all day so he makes up for it by running everywhere.’
After twenty minutes we reached a row of shops, one with a huge pencil portrait of a woman covering the entire window. I had to stop to take it in because it was so beautiful.
In between the next shop, a men’s underwear shop and a boutique selling very expensive scarves, was an open archway, its huge medieval doors folded back against the walls. It opened into a small courtyard with a stone tiled floor and whitewashed walls. Numerous long grey planters, all empty or sprouting weeds, formed a funnel to guide people towards a fashion shop that had ‘Solde, Solde, Solde’ plastered across its windows. Inside I could see all kinds of cheap, glittery clothes, skyscraper heels and neon handbags. I couldn’t, for a minute, work out why we were here.
Then I realized Gaël was knocking on the door of a small house, so small it looked like part of the archway. The grey door had chipped pots each side, one had a small dead tree in it, its branches long past budding. He must have heard a reply from inside, but the chatter of passing shoppers meant I heard nothing. He opened the door towards him and stepped inside, beckoning us to follow. I looked at Matt, unsure of how we were all going to fit inside.
The woman was sitting on a camp bed, her head wrapped in a scarf. Her widow’s peak was grey. She had thin, wrinkled skin that puckered around her mouth because her teeth were all missing and her breasts sagged down to her waist. She was wearing a flowery blouse and skirt. The busy patterns jarred angrily against each other. The bed was low to the ground and had no sheets. There was an old blanket and a heavily stained pillow. Her eyes drew me in, a deep penetrating green, in spite of the cataracts that made them cloudy.
Gaël introduced us and Matt bent down to shake her hand, but she didn’t move. There was nowhere else to sit, so we stood. A quick glance around the rest of the room and I saw that it had a small oven, a fold up table and a tap above a bucket. Everywhere was filthy, flies gathered on a plate of leftover food.
‘This is Marie-Celeste, she used to work at the house in Rue Ercol,’ Matt said. We both nodded. ‘Marie-Celeste was one of the ladies.’ I stared down in disbelief. The woman could not have been more different from the beautiful women on the balcony in the book, and I thought of Bette Davies who said that old age is not for sissies. She was right.
Gaël began talking very rapidly and I pretended to understand, to be polite, nodding along. Matt turned to me after what seemed a very long time. ‘Marie-Celeste worked for Madame Odile from forty-two to forty-four. She was at Le Chabanais for two years before that. When Madame Odile walked out she came back for Marie-Celeste. She says she was head-hunted.’ Marie-Celeste began to talk, waving her hands to illustrate her story. Matt listened, but he found it hard to understand her French. Gaël translated and Matt passed it on to me.
‘Marie-Celeste was a favourite. She charged a lot of money because she was very beautiful.’ Matt smiled at her kindly. ‘When the war ended they took her out and paraded her in the streets naked, then they branded her. The other women who didn’t escape were all treated the same. One of them committed suicide and another was beaten up in the street.’
Marie-Celeste opened the top of her blouse and there were the rough edges of a scar on the left of her chest, exactly like the taxi driver’s tribal scars, but on softer, wrinkled skin.
‘It’s a P for Putain, prostitute,’ said Matt translating Gaël’s words. ‘It’s just a scar now.’ Marie-Celeste closed her blouse, muttering to herself. There was no need to translate, she had bad, bad memories.
‘Ask her if she knew anyone called Madeleine March.’ I said. Gaël worked out what I was asking and he put it to Marie-Celeste. She shook her head. ‘Ask her about the maids.’ Matt did so. She told us that there were three maids, a cook and a handyman. She hated one member of staff in particular, a maid called Françoise Favelle. She was the sister of the handyman, a really nasty piece of work. She had burnt Marie-Celeste’s foot in the bath once for no reason at all.
I looked down at the old lady; her small frame was so bent and crooked, her skin papery and marked all over with age spots. The air was putrid in her little hovel, unwashed clothing, urine, layer upon layer of dirt. She had nothing. I felt terribly sorry for her, for what she had been to where she had come to now. What an awful life.
Marie-Celeste began talking again, angrier, her voice rising in pitch. Matt was following her better now. ‘She says we should know that she was once very beautiful, her hair was the colour used by Titian. She was once the most expensive woman in the place, Madame Odile’s favourite. Then they took it all away and it was never the same. She says she used to be paid hundreds of francs a week for one man a night, but after the war she was sleeping with hundreds of men for a few francs.’
Her eyes began to mist over, there were tears waiting to fall. I knelt down and took her hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said as kindly as I could. Matt put a hand on my shoulder whilst Gaël watched with pity. The woman gazed at me, her hands tightening around mine.
‘Ce furent mes jours de gloire,’ she said, her head shaking with emotion from side to side. ‘J’en suis fière.’
‘They
were her glory days, she’s still proud of them,’ Matt translated.
‘Please ask her if there was anyone else in the house.’
Matt spoke softly and Marie-Celeste replied that yes, there was a boy. A baby called Daniel, he had been kept hidden from sight. One of the maids had rescued him because his mother was a druggie. It was the one she didn’t like, Françoise Favelle. The irony was that it turned out she was with the Resistance, but they didn’t know that until after everything was over. Favelle had worked for the notorious Black Jack Cell; they worked with Communists. She didn’t tell them, it became known afterwards. It was the one that included a young doctor, Gabin, who was killed by the Nazis. People talked about it for a long time.’
‘How did they find out she was with the Resistance?’ I asked.
Matt translated, asking her. ‘She doesn’t remember,’ he said.
‘Did she know where they went?’ Matt asked, but I knew by the shake of the head that Marie-Celeste had no idea. She started speaking again, her small fingers clutching my arm as she looked at me. She was trembling and Gaël stepped forward, worried that she might be getting overwrought. Matt continued to translate. ‘She was bedding a German, all along, none of us knew. An evil man, he was in charge at the end.’
‘What was his name?’ Matt asked.
She spat the name out like it tasted foul on her tongue. ‘Fritz Keber, evil!’ She said “evil” in English it made for greater emphasis. I stepped back, the threads had come together and I could feel that Matt was thinking the same thing.
‘We must go now,’ said Gaël, pulling gently at my elbow. I reached into my bag and fished out a bunch of notes from my purse. I pressed them into Marie-Celeste’s hands. ‘Pour vous, Madame.’ She wiped away a tear and said thank you. Then she held up the money close to her eyes and started to count it.
Chapter Forty Two
‘I’ve just found out about the boy,’ Claudette stood in the kitchen looking at Madame F, Jacques, Perrine and Marie. ‘And now I’ve been made a nanny.’ They all looked at her, each wondering what to say. ‘So thank you for letting me in on that little secret.’
