‘Ticks for what?’ he hazarded.
‘For the things a girl does when a man wants a little something different. Actually, those times, they are often much quicker and a lot easier.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh yourself. You will not find everything in there, my Hermann. Most of it will be the straight in and out with quantities of Vaseline or olive oil. Please see that you are not tempted even if it is necessary!’
In tears, she stamped on his toes and left him in the cold with only the sweet scent of her, bathed regularly because Oona insisted on it, touched with Mirage, that delicate perfume Louis’s chanteuse wore, and warm if only in memory, her violet eyes no doubt flashing daggers of warning.
Half-Greek, half-Midi French and with skin so soft against the straight jet black hair, and cheeks as rosy as her nipples. A perfect hourglass in black mesh stockings and nothing else at times. Sweet heaven with strongly decisive brows and a mind of her own. She’d make one hell of a shopkeeper or barkeep and absolutely right for that little place in Spain or Portugal when the time came to start another family. Ah yes, and ah damn. The Occupation couldn’t last for ever and he knew it, but would they be allowed to leave and would she really want to run a shop? Of course not.
Crossing the road, he spoke in German to the nearest Feldgendarm. ‘Kohler, Gestapo Paris-Central, here to ask Madame Morelle a few questions.’
A breath of sauerkraut, boiled leeks and sausage overwhelmed him. ‘Then wait in line. Take your turn. Hey, my fine Gestapo dick, do you want us to have a riot on our hands?’
Ah Gott im Himmel! ‘Five hundred francs. Will that stop the riot?’
‘Five thousand.’
He could tell the bastard was grinning, and waited for the rest. ‘Und you pay for all who have to let you go ahead of them.’
‘Now, look—’
‘Then wait in line. Heinrich, Martin, Klaus,’ he called out. ‘Hey, it’s early yet, but already we have a troublemaker on our hands.’
‘I’ll wait in line.’
‘You do that. We lock the doors at midnight and it all begins again at five a.m. Seven days a week.’
The thought of Hermann in there was worrisome. Faint blue pinpricks of light fevered the frigid darkness of the rue Chabanais as fireflies would the other side of the moon. Breath billowed, shoulders touched—Giselle’s wooden-soled shoes kept up a constant click-clack on the icy pavement. No one gave way. People collided. The sound of bicycles out on the street was their only warning, their bells too late.
Unfamiliar with the area—ah! it had always been far too high-class a district for her—she much preferred Montparnasse, the boulevard Saint-Germain and the house of Madame Chabot on the rue Danton. There, in her own little world, she had been content and welcomed always as one of the regulars. But here? she asked, feeling suddenly lonely. Here I am nothing. The rue de Rivoli, the Palais-Royal, even the Bibliothèque Nationale were all very near and nice, of course, but had always exuded vibrations of ‘Stay away. You don’t belong’.
Reaching the corner at last, she found a lamppost against which to lean and get her bearings.
‘How much?’ asked a voice out of the darkness, too near.
‘It’s not for sale.’
She felt a hand explore her seat and hip, a shoulder, the breath of him on her cheek, and said softly, ‘I have a straight razor in my hand, monsieur. Please don’t make me use it.’
‘Putain!’ he hissed and drifted off into the ether. Two others made their tries—did she telegraph vibrations of her own even after nearly six months of near-chastity with Hermann?
When she found the café, it was down two sets of iron-railinged stone stairs into an even deeper darkness from which the stench of urine, sour wine and cheap perfume rushed at her. Girls and their pimps kissed and made love against the walls in spite of the cold or perhaps because of it. She could hear them whispering, sighing, moaning urgently even as the muted sounds of the traffic from above came to her. The Café of the Turning Hour—she could just make out its name when a match was struck and a burly, pockmarked little maquereau glared lewdly at her and grinned.
Entering after the swift little parasite in his tight-fitting overcoat and fedora, she saw at a glance that the place was nothing more than a hole in the wall, a slot down which the zinc counter ran endlessly to one side, and at this, elbows touched as bankrolls were flashed to impress each other and apéritifs were sipped. A cosy place, the smell of oily onion soup mingling with that of cigarette smoke, vin ordinaire, pastis and brandy. A place where one could not simply ask for the name of a girl’s pimp, since too many questions would be asked in return.
Squeezing between the clientele and the wall to whose flaking plaster clung the peeling posters of another age, she made her way until at last, all eyes watching, she was able to take a place at the zinc. ‘Un café noir avec un pousse-café, s’il vous plaît,’ she said. A coffee with a liqueur on the side. Ah merde, they had all stopped talking in order to listen.
‘You’re not from here,’ said the patron, bald-headed, cruel and swift, about fifty and no taller than herself but muscular. A displaced Savoyard with a full and bushy grey moustache he must spend hours preening. An accent that would break glass.
‘Me? Ah! I’m looking for work but cannot seem to find the house. My feet are killing me. I’m more than half-frozen.’
‘The house of Madame Morelle?’ asked the patron, wiping his runny nose with the back of a hand. Everyone had colds these days. Everyone.
‘Yes. I’ve two kids and a dead husband. Someone has to support them.’
They looked her over, these sharks and barracudas in their pin-striped suits with big lapels and loud ties with gold studs. They sniffed the air of her, measuring the number of tricks she could handle. They even stripped her naked with their eyes. They were not young, most of these men who controlled the girls of the rue Chabanais. Some were middle-aged, some even older, so their assessment was not kind but harsh, and several found her wanting.
Ignoring her, those types turned their greasy, slicked-back heads away and continued on with their arguments, their bragging and their schemes.
‘Look, I have to see Madame Morelle, but she sees no one until she needs another. I just want to get my name on the list.’
‘Have you a licence?’ asked the patron.
The yellow card all prostitutes must carry. ‘Of course.’
Impatiently he snapped his fingers and reluctantly she dragged it out, knowing he would see that it had lapsed. ‘I … I had to stop for a while, but I’m clean now.’ She’d been lucky and had never had a venereal disease, but …
‘Then let’s see your health card.’
‘He screens them for her,’ confided the pockmarked one. ‘He’s married to her, though you wouldn’t know it for all she cares about him.’
‘Yvon, that is once too much!’ shrieked the patron, getting red in the face and lunging across the zinc. ‘Bite your tongue or I will bite it off for you. SHOW me the blood this instant or I will banish you forever!’
Ah merde … ‘The … the health card is at home.’
‘At home?’ Snap! ‘Then let’s have the photos of your kids. Two, was it?’
Blood was smeared across the four fingers of the mackerel Yvon’s left hand. The patron nodded curtly at him, the argument settled.
With a sinking feeling, Giselle wondered if they would ever let her go. ‘I haven’t got any snapshots of them.’
She’s a good-looking kid,’ said someone, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling.
‘Hey, Henri, undo her coat and let’s have a look in the cupboard. She might do for the schoolroom, eh?’
There was laughter. ‘Does she know the Mass?’ asked another.
‘The Angelus, eh, Henri? Get her down on her knees and we’ll examine the bakery. Let’s hear how she says the Our Father in Latin.’
The patron slid her coffee and the pousse-café across the zinc and, when she dumped the liqueur into h
er cup, stopped her hand and said, ‘You really didn’t come looking for work. You’d have had your coat off long ago—ah! we’ve a stove that fills the place with so much heat you’re sweating. You’d have asked for a light, my fine mademoiselle, and would have made yourself right at home on the nest. So, why are you here?’
She could throw the coffee in his face and try to make a run for it but would never reach the door. Hermann, she wanted to cry out. Hermann, why have you asked me to do this?
‘I … I really do have to see your wife, Monsieur Morelle. I … I may be able to help her. A little confidence, you understand. A little something I heard the other day.’
‘From her astrologer or her fortune-teller?’
‘Is the fortune-teller the same one Violette Belanger uses?’ she asked curiously.
His eyelids narrowed. ‘Who says Violette uses a fortune-teller?’
‘Most girls do. I just wondered, since Violentte’s was the name that came up—well, actually, the confidence referred to her maquereau. He’d do just as well, I suppose.’
The patron did not give her that name—another mistake for her. Instead, he said, ‘Then maybe if you can find my wife’s fortune-teller over in Saint-Germain, my little pigeon, she will tell you when my wife will pay her a visit and that way you’ll be able to give Berthe your little confidence.’
He wasn’t buying a thing. She went to take up her cup, only to realize that he had somehow signalled to the others, who now closed in behind and to the sides of her. As anger rushed into her cheeks and eyes, the buttons of her coat were undone, and when it was pulled down behind her back so that her arms were pinned behind her, the patron explored her breasts and, satisfied, ran a hand under her chin to feel the softness of her throat. ‘Just what’s your game?’ he asked.
‘LET ME GO! COCHONS—PIGS! HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME?’
‘Henri, please. Enough is enough.’
‘Ah! Father, forgive me. I didn’t see you come in. It’s just a little game of our own. A new prospect for my wife to consider, but the engine of this one doesn’t look as though it can take the hills. She doesn’t even swear like a whore. Tender, yes, and succulent—a breeder perhaps or a schoolgirl but—’
‘Henri, I thought I said enough?’
‘Forgive me, Father. You’re always welcome, but the tongue …’
Morelle shrugged and, seemingly gruff in embarrassment, turned away to serve the silent others.
‘My child, please allow me,’ said the priest.
She felt her coat being lifted back over her shoulders. She turned and in that instant felt relief flooding through her as she looked into sincere and compassionate blue eyes. Grave, yes, and watery from the cold outside. A man of nearly sixty, she thought. Somewhat taller than herself and not unhandsome, though grey and ravaged by time. A real priest of the quartiers, a no-nonsense man, humble and kind.
‘Father Eugène Debauve at your service, Mademoiselle …?’
‘Le Roy. Giselle.’
‘Giselle, I like that. Come and I’ll get you something decent to drink. This place is not for girls like yourself, but you must find it in your heart to forgive them. We’re all God’s sinners, only some more so than others.’
The house on the rue Chabanais stank to high heaven.
‘Monsieur, what is it you want? Be truthful.’
‘Me?’ snorted Kohler, indoors at last but just. ‘Ah, I’m looking for something a little special.’
‘Yes, but all who come here seek the same,’ said Madame Berthe Morelle, throwing him a sideways glance from behind her cage.
‘Something young—about twenty-three perhaps, but looking much younger.’
The black curls shook. The large and deep brown, heavily-kohled eyes widened. ‘Ah! that’s just not possible. Experience is always an asset. Increase the years to sip the wine of success.’
Bravo! madame, he wanted to cry out, but business was business, and behind all that lace-clad ample flesh lay a heart of utter ice. ‘Then try Violette Belanger. She’ll do.’
The apple cheeks tightened, the thick ruby lips were impatiently compressed. ‘Violette?’ she shrilled. ‘But … but it’s her little holiday, mon pauvre garçon. Ah, I know how disappointed you and many others are. You all ask for her and me, I am left to convey the sad truth.’
What a catastrophe, thought Kohler, pleased again. Both of her pudgy, capable hands had been tossing the words about.
‘Violette is in Marseille visiting her sister,’ she said briskly. ‘A week, or was it ten days …?’ she asked herself, and began to search for the schedule if such existed. Perhaps it was among the freshly laundered stacks of hand towels, perhaps among the boxes of condoms …
Kohler reached through the gilded bars to pluck her little black notebook from the counter, but she struck so swiftly with her fan his fingers stung. ‘Now, please, monsieur,’ she hissed, sizing him up yet again. ‘Before I call the boys to throw you out, what is it you want of my Violette?’
He’d hate to meet her in a darkened alley. ‘A word, that’s all. My partner and I are working on the Sandman thing. Violette may be able to help us.’
‘The Sandman …?’ The woman clucked her tongue and, deep under the thick, jet-black curls and waves of a hairdo that did little to stay the years—fifty, was it? he wondered—her mind began to weigh the matter. Caution would be called for, of course—to help the police with such a matter, ah! could it bring credit or trouble?
Suspiciously she asked, ‘How could Violette provide you with information? In winter she never leaves the house except to visit with her maquereau or her parents. Her sister comes once in a while and causes much trouble.’
He struck, ‘The name of her maquereau, please?’
Ah, what was this? ‘Such things, they are difficult.’
‘Difficult? We have information that leads us to believe the most recent victim knew her killer. That information has directed me here.’
He could know nothing. Nothing! ‘What information, please?’ she asked slyly.
It would only go round and round and all the while Giselle was out there on the street or in that café. The line-up outside had stalled and the unoccupied whores, so undressed they lounged in virtually nothing but boredom, waited in the anteroom just off the hall. Smoking, exploring their nether regions, a breast, a crotch, a rump, an armpit …
‘We report directly to the General von Schaumburg, madame. If you like, I’ll get him to inspect the house and condemn it.’
She tossed her curls. ‘Ah! that’s an empty threat. He already does. Once a month, and always on the first Monday, so we have just passed the Blitzkrieg with flying colours, and the kettledrums, they are still banging. The doctor attends as well. Both are old friends.’
Her pudgy fingers strayed to the push-button bell that was mounted on the counter. The black lace glove that all but encased them hesitated. Was she of Spanish descent, he wondered, or did she just like to do the flamenco or simply wear the dress and dream of faraway places? ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ he said of the bell.
A flic, a detective, a Bavarian who spoke excellent French for such a one. A womanizer, a frequenter of brothels—ah yes, yes! Formidable also, a giant with a terrible slash down the left cheek. How had he got that thing? By duelling? she wondered. ‘Violette is occupied. If you would care to wait, I will see that she comes to you in …’ She glanced at the gold pocket-watch that hung by a chain around her ample neck. ‘In about ten minutes.’
‘Just give me the floor and the room.’
‘And two towels?’ she shot back.
He shook his head. ‘Not this time.’
‘Then how long do you require?’
‘Twenty minutes.’
‘Fifty francs—no, two hundred. She’s special, and ah! I have forgotten you can well afford it.’
‘Then ring up Gestapo Boemelburg and tell him I require special dispensation of the funds. He’ll send it right over, and I’ll tell them to raid the p
lace.’
‘Your threats are hollow. I push the bell.’
‘Now, wait …’ he managed.
Her eyes snapped vengeance. ‘Scoundrel, bloodsucker, ruffian,’ she shrilled. ‘I wait for no one. Not when I am insulted and the character of my house is called into disrepute!’
‘Five thousand.’
‘Ten!’ she hissed, ‘and Violette comes to you to be questioned in my presence!’
Ah merde … Two burly Feldgendarmen in their shirtsleeves had come thundering up from the cellars where they had been toasting their heels beside the furnace. ‘All right, I’ll wait.’
‘Then sit with the girls,’ she said. ‘Find your place among them but please do not be tempted. That would cost you extra.’
Father Eugène Debauve placed his big, work-worn hands over Giselle’s in friendship as his glasses winked in the pale light of oil lamps that had just been lighted. ‘I’m the Bishop’s emissary among the lorettes of the brothels that are reserved for the Germans, my dear. I hold Masses for them, hear their prayers and confessions, providing help whenever I can.’
A big, strong man, a good man who had unerringly known his way in the dark and had known his restaurants, too. The Brasserie de Tout Bonheur (of All Good Luck) was a turn-of-the-century place with dark, gleaming wood, etched glass panels, minors and a spiral staircase at the back that led to the private rooms and tables above. There were other customers, Germans, yes, and as it was early yet, not so many.
‘If there is a word of advice I could give, my child,’ he said, still warming her hands, ‘it would be that you do not throw your life away. Ah! I know what you’re going to say. A shopgirl’s life is ten or twelve hours of absolute drudgery for very little, but it is honest and your children would always be able to worship their dear mother.’
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