The Seven Letters

by Jan Harvey

  ‘Madame Odile wanted it that way,’ said Perrine. ‘She only tells people she trusts.’

  ‘Like everyone else in the house except me?’

  ‘Well, if the cap fits,’ Perrine replied. All eyes returned to Claudette, like spectators at a tennis match. She walked over to the cabinet and began collecting together a tray of food for the boy and a drink for Agnès.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Madame F with indignance.

  ‘I’m doing my job. That poor child has had no-one to give him love and I intend to change that, it’s criminal.’

  ‘No, what is criminal is shagging a Boche,’ shouted Perrine, her voice bitter and hard. ‘That is criminal!’

  ‘What Boche?’ asked Madame F; she beat Jacques to the question by a second.

  ‘Keber, she’s bedding Keber!’ Perrine spat the words at Claudette whose hands were shaking as she cut the bread.

  ‘No, she hasn’t!’ Jacques exclaimed. ‘Don’t tell such lies, Perrine.’

  ‘Ask your little sister, Jacques, why don’t you ask her, she’s there?’

  ‘Is it true?’ asked Madame F, wiping her hands on her apron and moving across the kitchen to Claudette. She took hold of the girl’s upper arm and shook it. Claudette dropped the knife and spun around to face them.

  ‘Yes, it’s true, I fell in love, that’s all, but it’s over. I didn’t know about the boy.’

  ‘Well, that’s a fine mess,’ said Madame F. ‘I knew this was all going to end in tears. You stupid girl! What do you think, Jacques, she’s your sister – has she put us more at risk?’

  ‘It depends on what my sister does now,’ he said coldly, emphasising the word sister. His expression had completely hardened against Claudette. ‘If you give him up you’ll make him mad and no doubt he’ll take it out on all of us. If you keep him, the ladies upstairs will revolt, I’m bound to think. So, what are you going to do, for certain, I need to know?’

  ‘I’m going to tell him it’s over. He has a child that he should be taking care of now that the poor thing’s mother is a lost cause.’ Claudette reached for the milk jug and poured a small glass for Daniel.

  ‘Then you will be condemning us to his whim,’ Jacques stood up. He moved nearer to Claudette as Madame F stood back.

  ‘The girl has no sense and she is not a good Catholic girl to be doing it with anyone before she’s married. I’ve said it before but I’m bound to say it again, it will end in tears one way or another.’ After her pronouncement Madame F bustled back to the table and the dough she was making. ‘I’m ashamed on your behalf, Françoise.’

  ‘She has no shame,’ Perrine added as she put on her apron. ‘And she has no thought for our poor soldiers in the camps in Germany. Or for that poor girl lying outside our door.’

  Claudette took the tray upstairs biting her lip instead of replying. And what would she have said if she had spoken? She was in love with a man who was totally unsuitable for her in every way, a man they called evil and she was now looking after his love child.

  Weeks passed and the house changed. Suddenly flour was unavailable, then sugar, then there was no fuel. The soldiers arriving at the house started turning up day and night. The women were expected to be on call at all times even when the Germans were raucous, or violent, or drunk. Soon enough, each woman became morose, frightened or lethargic, depending on how she had been treated. There was a sentry on the front door day and night.

  Claudette picked up Keber’s notes from under the lamp in reception and threw them away. She hid from him when she heard he was in the house and she made sure she was not in Daniel’s room when he was around. Madame Odile saw him in and left him with the boy.

  The night the car arrived she was in the salon, tidying the mess left by a party of officers who were being moved out of Paris. It was their final taste of a bordello and they were acting like it. They had spilled wine, one of them had knocked over an expensive glass vase that had smashed into tiny fragments on the floor. One of the cushions had been slashed with a knife.

  ‘Françoise,’ Perrine’s face was ashen, ‘there is a soldier here with a car, his orders are to take you to the Hotel Meurice.’ Claudette put down the cushion she was plumping. Her eyes darted to the clock, it was a little after seven. She knew it was the hotel used by the SS. ‘Should I get Jacques?’

  ‘No, he’ll only get hurt, I’ll go.’

  ‘I’ll get your handbag, you’ll need money to get home,’ said Perrine, reverting to her practical self before she hurried away. Claudette stepped through the door and found herself facing a young officer. His face gave nothing away.

  ‘Are you Miss Favelle?’ he asked. His French accent was perfect.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied.

  ‘I have orders to take you to the Hotel Meurice for questioning.’

  Perrine reappeared with Claudette’s handbag. ‘Do you have enough money to get home?’ she asked with concern, in spite of herself. Claudette nodded. There was a frisson of fear spiking her backbone, but she tried to remain calm. The soldier indicated to her to open her bag and he put a hand in to feel for a weapon, then he handed it back, all without a change of expression.

  Notre Dame looked broody and inky black against the gathering clouds above it. Under the dull sky Paris looked devoid of colour. The people were just as drawn and grey. The soldiers were businesslike, no longer sitting in cafés or standing about laughing; instead they were stopping people randomly on the streets and checking papers. Something was afoot, talk was of the Resistance growing in strength. Everyone was looking at everyone else and wondering.

  When the car pulled up outside the Hotel Meurice, the soldier jumped out, walked round and opened her door. She stepped out, wondering what would happen if she just ran now, broke free and disappeared into the crowd. He would shoot her, that is what would happen. Instead, she took a deep breath and walked through the revolving doors.

  She had never seen anything like it. Around her, huge gilt-edged mirrors reflected the cool onyx and marble of a place so opulent it could have been Versailles itself. Gold painted salon chairs and large lamps were set beneath a ceiling with magnificent trompe l’oeil ribbons and sashes painted on it.

  German officers sat in groups dotted around the great lounge. They were talking with solemnity, no laughing or gesturing. She was told to follow an administrator, a small man with a slick of hair across his forehead, who walked in front of her.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked him, but he ignored her and marched onwards up the wide staircase and along corridors of endless doors. Françoise tried to memorise the layout. They took a lift to the third floor. Her heart was pulsing, the adrenalin rising in her body made everything sharper, more colourful. She could smell stale food on the man’s breath. The administrator opened the door of room fifteen and let her in. ‘Wait here,’ he told her. She stood holding her handbag in front of her and looked around the room. Unlike the Rue Ercol, this room, even in one of the best hotels in the city, seemed faded and worn. The pattern on the carpet was bleached out. It had been a beautiful room, but now it was uncared for, used as an office dominated by a large incongruent desk.

  The double doors opened, there was a man standing in front of her with a woman in uniform at his side.

  It was Rechtstein.

  Chapter Forty Three

  Coming out of Marie-Celeste’s hovel into bright sunshine was a shock. I wanted to round on Gaël and ask him how the government he worked for could let someone live in those conditions. I was seething with anger. Matt’s hand slipped into mine, he was reading my thoughts. He thanked Gaël, who didn’t seem to think the old woman’s plight was such a big problem. Gaël told Matt he was glad to be of service and handed over his business card as if some deal had been done.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I said as he left us. ‘I cannot believe an old lady can li
ve in those conditions in the twenty first century.’

  ‘Then I’ll take you to Waterloo Bridge in London on a Saturday night,’ Matt touched my cheek and pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. ‘It’s the same all over the world. And, it’s wrong.’

  We found a café in a quiet backstreet, four tables lined up outside with crisp white linen and green glass tea-light holders twinkling brightly. ‘Sit down here and rest your bones.’ Matt pulled out a chair for me. I still felt dirty from Marie-Celeste’s place. ‘Dinner’s on me.’ I took a look at the menu; snails, not good, but then there was lobster ravioli and roast lamb, for me that was perfect. The waitress came out with a magnum-sized bottle.

  ‘No need for choosing drink, we have wine special for you.’ With a beaming smile, she proceeded to pour us both a white wine; it was crisp, light and delicious. ‘See no need for aperitif, and it is for our restaurant,’ she said proudly. Matt thanked her, complimenting her and saying her English was very good. She was very pleased with that and sashayed back inside.

  We were waiting for our entrées when I said, ‘Well, did we get anywhere with this whole Freddy thing?’ I tore off some of the homemade walnut bread from the basket in front of me. It was divine.

  ‘I’m very puzzled,’ said Matt, taking a sip of the wine. He closed his eyes and let the flavour of it hit his tongue. ‘This is beautiful wine, heaven knows what we’re paying for it, though.’

  An old man passed by, he tilted his Panama hat at us and gave us a kindly smile.

  ‘We know that Freddy and Daniel’s mothers worked in a house of ill repute.’ Matt’s old-fashioned expressions did make me laugh. ‘And we know that they both had the same name, which is really weird, but not if they were in hiding or something. I don’t know, it sounds strange.’

  I looked down at the address Daniel had written down for me at the end of our visit, his father’s address in Interlaken. ‘They both are linked to Fredrik Keber. Freddy seemed convinced and he’s named after him too, but why didn’t Keber write back and acknowledge him?’

  ‘I really wish I had talked to Freddy about his past. Poor man, losing your mum in that way and never having contact with a father he so dearly wanted to know. It makes your heart bleed.’ I was staring into the middle distance.

  ‘The Cell, the one the maid Favelle belonged to,’ said Matt suddenly, ‘Google it, see which one. I remember there was a list in one of my history books at school. God, where did that come from? I’d forgotten about it. When we did the Second World War there was a list of Cells of the Resistance. I remember thinking how strange it was they knew information about what was a secret organisation.’

  I tried, but there was no reception, Matt had nothing too. Our starters arrived and reluctantly we put the subject to one side while we talked about other things.

  When we were back in the hotel I tried Googling on my ipad. I typed in Black Jack Cell and there they were, lists of all the cells and their members, though not in alphabetical order. I ran my eyes over them until they rested on the words Black Jack. I clicked on the blue type and a list of members came up, including Gabin, Vincent Gabin, the doctor. The cell was mainly communist and operated out of a small town in Normandy called Vacily, and there was one female member, Claudette Bourvil.

  ‘That’s her, the only woman in the Cell,’ said Matt, ‘she was in the Resistance using Françoise Favelle as a pseudonym.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a simple deductive leap. Think about it, according to Marie-Celeste, Françoise Favelle saved Daniel’s life after his mother died. She was with the Resistance, and we’re pretty certain she was there in the house in Rue Ercol. ’

  Finally, we had got somewhere, but had we really found Freddy’s mother?

  Chapter Forty Four

  Rechtstein leaned against the front of the writing desk. His breeches splayed out, giving him a strange shape. The boots were highly polished. She thought about the rows of shoes she and Perrine worked their way through on a Thursday morning every week. How she would love to be back there now, she would have happily cleaned a thousand pairs of shoes to not be here in this room.

  Rechtstein was short, about five seven, his face round and skin freckled. He had dark auburn hair, almost red, cut close to his scalp, and cold grey eyes. He was wearing a wedding ring. She looked straight at him, face to face, keeping herself as calm as possible. Behind her left shoulder was his secretary, her large bosom covered in the grey-green of her jacket, her face stern, unkind.

  ‘So, Miss Favelle,’ said Rechtstein slowly, ‘do you have any idea why you might be here?’

  ‘No,’ she replied, trying to keep her voice neutral. Yves had taught her to say as little as possible and to remain calm. In the small compartment of her handbag there was a lipstick and inside the tube was her cyanide pill.

  ‘You are a maid at Madame Odile’s house?’ His French was very good, but not impeccable like Keber’s.

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Claudette could hear the scratching sound of the woman’s pen as she wrote notes.

  ‘And your duties include cleaning, some food preparation and looking after the…shall we call them… ladies, am I correct?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Claudette felt a knot forming in her throat. She tried to swallow it down. She concentrated hard on Rechtstein’s face, looking at his lips when he spoke, wondering if anyone kissed them lovingly, trying to conjure up what his wife might look like.

  ‘And, you have come from a farm near Vacily?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And Jacques Favelle?’

  ‘He is my brother.’

  ‘And you are very close?’

  ‘No, not really. We have never had a close relationship, he is much older than me.’ Suddenly she couldn’t remember his birthday. Dates washed through her mind, fading in and out. March 8th, June 20th, May 11th. A spike of nerves rose up through her. She tried not to react, to stand perfectly still.

  ‘Cigarette?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  He lit one for himself, shaking the match so that the flame was extinguished, then he threw it into the waste paper basket. Everything he did was measured, deliberate. The plume of smoke rose up between them as he first inhaled then breathed out. He stood up straight.

  ‘You see,’ he said. ‘I have a problem, Miss Favelle.’ She closed her fingers around the handle of her bag. He took three steps until he was alongside her and leaned in towards her ear. ‘Would you like to know what my problem is?’ She refused to react, to give him any quarter. ‘I shall tell you, shall I? The problem I have is that we can’t find a farm in the vicinity of Vacily that has been inhabited by a Family Favelle, not currently, nor, in fact, going back a hundred years.’

  Claudette swallowed hard as he walked behind her, the trail of cigarette smoke following him. Her mouth was dry, she needed a glass of water.

  ‘Do you know what we do with people we can’t reconcile to our satisfaction, Miss Favelle?’

  ‘No, no, I don’t.’ Her throat was catching on the words. The smoke and the dryness of her mouth, as she became more and more nervous, were working against her.

  ‘Well, let me tell you that our interrogation procedures are very thorough and gain excellent results, very quickly.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I come from a small farm two miles from Vacily, on the road to Fourgieres.’ She tried hard to recall the road, the lake to the side of it, the forest, and then there was the smaller dusty lane running up to a farm, the abandoned farm with the old pink stucco barn and an orchard run wild. There used to be a black horse in the meadow.

  ‘The name of the farm?’

  ‘It is known as the Farm Favelle, it has never had another name.’

  He withdrew from her and went back to his desk and leaned against it, his eyes resting on her. ‘Tell me, Miss Fa
velle, do you think I am stupid?’

  ‘No. I am telling you the truth.’

  ‘Sadly, I don’t believe you. You see, we come across this a great deal, Miss Favelle, people here in Paris who tell us they are something they are not.’

  ‘I am a maid, I work at twelve Rue Ercol, I have nothing more to tell you.’

  ‘Really.’

  She tightened the grip on the handle of her bag.

  ‘Put your bag down.’

  Claudette lowered it to the floor and stood up, her legs starting to shake. The woman watched, her notepad perched on her lap, pen waiting for more words.

  ‘Perhaps I should explain,’ he said, ‘people who tell us lies have terrible things done to them, things that would set your teeth on edge. So you can imagine I’m sure that telling us the truth is by far the best option for you.’

  She nodded.

  ‘So, shall we start with your name?’ She was silent. ‘Your real name?’ Claudette was looking at the curtains, the roses that someone, very far away from this room, had woven into the fabric.

  The cigarette burn was such a shock that she fell away sideways. The pain so sharp and intense that at first she didn’t register what he’d done. She put her hand to the side of her neck; the pain was horrendous. She expected the woman to react, to find some water, hand her a wet cloth, but she sat expressionless, her hand poised over the pad.

  ‘Please stand back here,’ said Rechtstein, pointing to where Claudette had been standing. He was acting as if nothing had happened. ‘Let’s start again, shall we?’

  She felt a tremble in her body that she couldn’t control. ‘I come from a small farm near Vacily, on the road to Fourgieres. There is a road out from the village past the lake and through the forest. On the right, after a stone cross, there is a small lane running up to a farm, it has a pink barn.’