The Betrayal

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘Of course.’

  But she doesn’t let go of me.

  ‘Did you tell Roland what happened?’

  I disentangle myself from her arms. ‘No.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘The body has been removed, don’t worry. But I arranged for someone else to deal with it. A professional cleaner. The Intelligence Service.’ I look away from her. ‘I didn’t want to tell Roland.’

  ‘Oh Florence.’

  I see Chloé watching us carefully, so I smile. ‘Anyway, what happened to you?’

  She touches the graze on the corner of her jaw. ‘I was with Horst.’ She shrugs.

  ‘Oh Romaine.’

  We can say no more in front of Chloé, but we give each other the look we used to give each other as children when one of us got into trouble. Part sympathy and part I’m glad it wasn’t me. We haven’t used that look in eight years. But I see the flame behind her eyes and I need to know what is burning in there.

  Chloé slips her hand into her aunt’s. ‘Can we go now, please?’

  ‘Of course, ma petite. Go fetch your cardigan. There’s a cool breeze outside.’

  The moment we are alone my sister takes hold of my wrist. ‘Florence, I have heard things about Roland.’

  My face freezes. I say nothing.

  ‘Be careful, Florence. People opposed to collusion with the Nazis are getting killed in this city.’ Tight lines of concern pull her mouth out of shape. ‘Roland’s name is being mentioned as being responsible. Please, be careful. He may be a danger. To you.’

  I snatch back my wrist. Rage, hot and primal, churns through my stomach. ‘That is absurd. Vile lies. Put a stop to them immediately before . . . ’

  Chloé skips back into the room. She is always an observant child, and she stands uncertainly between us, wide eyes flicking from one to the other.

  ‘Are you arguing?’

  ‘No, my darling,’ I say. ‘Just discussing where you will go with Tante Romaine today. To the Tuileries, I think.’

  ‘I have a bodyguard for us today,’ Romaine announces and without another word heads quickly for the door. I accompany them and relish the feel of my child’s arms around my neck as she says goodbye.

  ‘No swimming,’ I say. To Romaine.

  From my balcony I watch their two golden heads emerge on to the pavement of Avenue Kléber below me. They are holding hands. I cannot rid my head of the image of my sister in her stinking little room, the jagged necks of the broken whisky bottles in her hands, breathing flames of fury over the man who would have raped me. That is an image that will not leave me.

  As they move off down the road, a dark head crosses the road to join them, a big man in a black shirt and with a bright pink kite tucked under his arm. Even from here I can see that Chloé is excited. She is bouncing up and down and touching her small fingers to the kite. So this is the bodyguard. I narrow my eyes to bring him into sharper focus and I get an impression of strength and confidence, not just in the width of his shoulders or the straightness of his back. It is in the way he walks. Despite a limp, he prowls, rather than walks. Something about him does not belong in the narrow streets of Paris.

  This, I am certain, is the one who has set something alight in my sister, the one who seduces my daughter with a kite the colour of her dreams. I watch her grow smaller but I do not fear for her safety because everyone knows that if they touch a single hair of her head, they will have to deal with me.

  The little threesome disappears from sight and I despise myself for the tears rolling down my cheeks.

  I meet Gustav Müller in the Louvre. Voluptuous women watch over our every move, their ample flesh lush and translucent and somehow so indecent that I look away. I have never been a fan of the Flemish artist Rubens who painted for Marie de’ Medici these vast monumental canvases rippling with female flesh, but Müller is clearly enamoured. He cannot keep his steely eyes off the abundance of rosy nipples.

  Maybe it’s a Germanic thing. Breasts like creamy pumpkins and faces that belong to angels. The Hitler ideal of womanhood. I shudder. French artists are more to my taste. David and Degas are my favourites. One painted with a classical austerity that appeals to me, while the other depicted studies of women at work in ballet studios where he uncovered the bones inside the flesh. To see what holds a woman together.

  ‘So why are we here?’ Müller asks.

  His manner is curt. Did I interrupt Sunday lunch with his family? Surely not. His family is far away in Berlin, scoffing sauerkraut and bratwurst no doubt. Did he have a high-class putain booked to entertain him this afternoon? I hope so. I smile. I like to tweak his tail occasionally.

  Müller is good at his job, very good at it. Roland speaks highly of him. He has informers in his pocket at every level of French government and knows exactly what plans Daladier is hatching with Winston Churchill, the cunning scourge of the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Müller feeds information back to Berlin almost before Daladier has finished speaking, sent in encrypted form to Hitler’s private office.

  I may not agree with all the Führer’s methods, but only Fascism is the answer for this age. He understands that. It is our only weapon against the evil sweep of Communism across Europe. Adolf Hitler is truly our Führer, our Leader, the one who is prepared to stand against it and transform his country in a way that France must copy. It is our only hope. My sister is a fool to throw her lot in with the Republicans in Spain who would have us all following in Stalin’s footsteps before we can blink.

  I stare at the painting in front of me. It is overpowering, not only in its enormous size but also in its fleshy triumphalism. Rubens depicted Marie de’ Medici, Queen of France in 1617, as Justice itself. Breasts on full view, she is flanked by Greek and Roman gods bestowing their gifts on her.

  Is Müller trying to tell me something? That France will benefit from the gifts of Germany? Is that why he asked to meet here?

  Minerva is there in her helmet, the goddess of wisdom, and I notice with a jolt that Cupid is present too with his arrow.

  Cupid.

  My heart slows. Is this a warning?

  ‘I wanted to know for certain,’ I say, ‘that the body has been removed. Is it safe for my sister to return to her room?’

  ‘It’s safe.’

  I switch my gaze back to Cupid’s cherubic face. To his arrow.

  ‘No more rapists,’ I say flatly.

  ‘No more rapists.’

  He comes to stand beside me and shoulder to shoulder we study Rubens’ painting. His voice is soft as a snake’s.

  ‘But she is too close. She is dangerous. Your husband should be worried.’

  I look at the tip of Cupid’s arrow for blood. There is none.

  ‘Roland knows how to take care of himself,’ I smile. I can smile for France when I have to.

  He nods. ‘I am concerned for his welfare, that’s all. Roland is my friend.’

  ‘Like Horst Baumeister was your friend.’

  He shrugs one muscular shoulder. ‘He was. But he forgot who he was working for.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Ja! Horst was all set to betray us. He was blindly enamoured of your sister and her Communist friends. He had become too much of a risk.’

  ‘I liked Horst.’

  ‘So did I. But sentiment is a luxury we cannot afford in this business.’ He turns to face me full on, ramrod straight, eyes sharp. ‘You understand?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘That includes sentiment for sisters.’

  I slowly swivel round so that we are standing toe to toe and give him one of my smiles, chipped out of ice. ‘If you touch a hair on her head, I will kill you.’

  He laughs, a loud mocking belly laugh that makes me want to smack his teeth out.

  ‘My dear Madame Roussel, don’t overestimate yourself.’

  My daughter comes home full of laughter. Her shoes are scuffed and her dress is streaked with grass stains, and she is carrying the pink kite in front o
f her with all the pride of a sports champion displaying a trophy. She is shining. So bright I could sunbathe in her smile.

  I kiss her flushed cheeks and fuss over the kite with amazement as if I have never seen such a creation before. She tells me that it came from Tante Romy’s friend, Monsieur Martel, and I listen to tales of its magical feats of flying, then send her off to wash her grubby hands. But I memorise his name. The second she is out of the room, my sister and I come to each other, voices low and urgent.

  ‘Who is this Martel fellow?’ I demand. ‘One of your drinking companions?’

  Why did I say that?

  It is the flame in her eyes. It drives me to strike out at it. I regret it immediately.

  ‘Léo is my boss at the airfield,’ she tells me.

  She cannot even say his name without the flame scorching her cheeks.

  ‘That’s not all, is it?’ I ask.

  But she turns the subject aside. ‘We must speak about Roland.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask coolly. Roland is none of her business.

  ‘Because he is so involved with the Germans. Maybe he was equally involved eight years ago too, Florence. Maybe he was involved in Papa’s death somehow.’

  ‘Of course he wasn’t. He was with me. In the garden. Remember?’

  She gives me a long stare until I itch to turn away from her, but my gaze remains steadfastly on her.

  ‘So was I. In the garden,’ she says at last. ‘With you and Roland. Remember?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’

  ‘He knows something. I feel certain. I am remembering pieces. Another man in the room.’ She flicks her face away.

  ‘You are mistaken, Romaine, I promise you.’

  I almost take hold of her to shake more words out of her, but Chloé skips into the room, waving her clean hands at us, and my sister and I back away from each other. Both smiling. Smiles that look like snarls.

  ‘Roland, my sister isn’t drinking.’

  We are in bed now that Chloé is asleep, the warm fingers of evening sunlight stroking our naked skin on the sheet. Roland is gripping my hips with both hands and with his lips he paints kisses across my stomach. The heat of them shoots straight to my groin. He rolls his head sideways to look up at me.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of this Léo Martel friend of hers. She’s not drinking, so she’s remembering.’

  ‘Simple. Send her a bottle of whisky. It has worked in the past.’

  ‘It’s not as easy as that this time.’

  His lips are gliding up to my breast but stop abruptly. I feel his breath heavy on my skin.

  ‘What is she remembering?’ he asks.

  ‘She doesn’t really know. It’s all a muddle inside her mind. But now she is thinking a German was involved. And you. She thinks you were involved, Roland.’

  He lifts his head. His eyes fix on mine and his face comes close. I see the silvery specks on his chin where shotgun pellets once grazed him.

  ‘Why me?’ he asks. ‘I was in the garden.’

  ‘That’s what I told her.’

  ‘So tell her again.’

  I slide my palm down the tendons of his throat. They are tense and I can feel his pulse racing.

  ‘She was in the street when Horst Baumeister was run down last night.’

  ‘Mon dieu!’

  We say no more. I tap my fingers rhythmically down the sides of his ribs. He likes that. He reacts as if each fingertip administers a tiny electric shock and I feel him hard against me. I take his collarbone in my mouth and set my teeth to the bone, though I do not bite. Not yet. My tongue flashes over it. I love the taste of his skin. I have never been with any other man, only Roland, but I cannot imagine that any other man tastes as wonderful as my husband. I know what he is about to say before he says it.

  ‘You must control her, Florence. Or I will do it.’

  I bite him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Was the car meant for her? The one that killed Horst Baumeister. Romy had been over it a thousand times in her head, unfurling each second of that moment of violence. A deliberate act, she had no doubt of it. The black car with the long bonnet had mounted the pavement and come at them, its chrome radiator glinting like teeth in the lamplight. A Mercedes, one witness had stated. A German car.

  Romy was sitting bolt upright in bed. The dreams were ferocious tonight and she didn’t want to wake Léo beside her. Best to forget sleep. Instead she backed her memories into a corner from which they couldn’t escape and with a needle-sharp mental ice pick proceeded to take them apart.

  Papa, what had I done to make you so angry?

  She chipped away, cutting right through the membranes of protective memory till sweat coated her palms and dripped down her neck. She needed a drink. So bad it was making her eyeballs ache.

  She heard her father’s words sound clear as a bell in her ears. ‘Romaine, I will swear that you are lying. Now get out.’

  But another voice broke through it. ‘Nein.’

  Her heart stopped. Her mind froze. She listened again to that German voice, more carefully this time, straining to recognise it.

  ‘Nein.’

  A moan escaped her lips. She clapped a hand over them but too late. Léo’s warm arm wrapped itself around her waist, solid and comforting. His lips brushed her skin.

  ‘Tell me,’ he murmured. ‘What is it?’

  She was frightened. If she told him that the shark car was meant for her, he might kill someone.

  Martel left at dawn.

  At the door he’d said simply, ‘Stay safe.’

  She’d kissed him. ‘And you.’

  ‘I have two Tiger Moths and a Miles Hawk being delivered today from my brother in England as Jerome has done such a good job of raising funds. I need to check them over.’

  ‘Who will fly them down to Spain? I can do it.’

  He ran a thumb over the graze on her jaw. ‘I know you can, my love, but you have been in enough danger. Wait a while. Keep your head below the parapet. I would say stay here but I know you will go crazy cooped up, so go to the cinema. Somewhere safe. See Marie Antoinette.’ He drew her to him and rested his forehead against hers, as if he could slide the thoughts from his head into hers when words were too flimsy. ‘Stay safe. Keep away from all your old haunts.’

  She kissed him to silence his words and his fears. ‘Give the new aircraft my love. Tell them I’ll see them soon.’

  He laughed. And then he was gone and without him the gloomy basement room felt like a prison cell.

  Louis Capel frequently slept in his shop in rue Lamarck. Friends would drift in with a bottle of wine or cognac under their arm and a discreet little package of pills or white powder to liven up the evening. Impromptu parties ignited most nights. Romy had been to a few of them herself in the past, waking with eyes like fireballs and in bed with someone whose name she couldn’t remember, but since selling Louis the guns from Spain she had not been around.

  The shutters were down; nevertheless she banged on the door. No response. She banged again, harder this time, a relentless tattoo that wasn’t going to stop. When finally the door burst open it was accompanied by a stream of curses.

  ‘It’s me, chérie,’ she said.

  The cursing ceased. Louis Capel was standing in front of her wearing a dishevelled Marie Antoinette wig and a brocade gown that stank of brandy.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he groaned, ‘it’s only six thirty in the fucking morning, so this had better be worth it.’

  ‘It is, I promise you.’

  With a melodramatic sigh he swept back inside the shop. His mascara had run and there were lipstick smears on his neck but he looked ridiculously happy. The interior was as usual crammed with the clothes and other items that Parisians were obliged to pawn in their hour of need and on a moth-eaten Louis Quinze chaise longue languished a beautiful young blond youth of about eighteen. He was naked and unabashed, stretching lovely limbs like a cat.

  ‘Don’t mind him,’
Louis grinned. ‘He likes to purr.’ He drew Romy over to the counter. ‘Show me what treat you have brought me.’

  ‘You’ll like it,’ she said and placed on the velvet pad her father’s gold watch.

  Clouds had crept over the city. They had stolen the sun so that this Monday morning felt dull and ragged at the edges. Romy hurried through the Arab quarter, head down, eyes meeting no one’s. She was wearing the ugly black dress and had wound a dark scarf around her blonde curls to make herself less conspicuous, but out of the corner of her eye she was aware of men looking in her direction and occasionally a sharp guttural comment came her way in a language she didn’t understand.

  She stood in the deeper shadows of a doorway, her back to the wall, and waited. She would have bargained her soul for a cigarette right then but kept her hands in her pockets. Louis had poured a shot glass of brandy down her throat. To celebrate, he said. She didn’t ask what exactly they were celebrating.

  She could smell strong Turkish coffee and it made her stomach growl. After an hour she thought she might have missed him and contemplated knocking on the door, but counted the cobblestones along this stretch of street instead. When she got to 1,379, the door swung open. She fell into step beside the hurrying figure.

  ‘Hello, Samir.’

  He jumped as though scalded. Though only thirteen, he needed a shave.

  ‘Are you off to work at the airfield?’ she asked pleasantly.

  He nodded and lengthened his stride, trying to pull away from her. She matched his pace and for a while neither spoke, until they came abreast of a small patch of wasteland that someone had forgotten to build on. Romy had more sense than to touch him but she barred his path and steered him on to the dusty patch of weeds.

  ‘I have something for you, Samir.’

  His black eyes darted to hers.

  ‘I promised you,’ she said and held out the envelope she had received from Louis. ‘For your mother’s operation. I didn’t knock on the door in case she didn’t want to talk to me.’

  The solemn young man opened the envelope and looked inside. It was full of banknotes. He shut it quickly, nervous, as if it might vanish. He stood frozen in that unstable moment of time. A boy, with a man’s decision to make. Romy did not press him. There was a shout from the market nearby and she glanced over to see a man wearing a fez and a huge beard juggling grapefruit and flashing gold teeth. When she looked back she found huge fat tears rolling down Samir’s face, laying tracks on his swarthy skin.