Sandman

by J. Robert Janes

  They hoped it wouldn’t be Madame Morelle. They had heard no police vans turn into the street, so knew it was not a raid.

  The place was crowded, full of tobacco smoke and ripe with the stench, and through this boozy haze, and seen against the overflowing, bulging pulchritude, the voluminous black lace of Madame Morelle circulated. To her, arrest was the furthest thing from her mind. These two could prove nothing. Ignoring them, she sat down and spoke softly to an SS major, offering pleasures he could not find in one of the two houses the Generalmajor und Höherer-SS Oberg had reserved for his kind.

  ‘Ah!’ she said, as the two of them strode into the waiting room where the girls waited, too, until enlivened by this little interlude. The din from the staircase only grew louder.

  ‘Madame Morelle?’ began the Sûreté, using the voice of Judgement.

  Her pudgy, be-ringed left hand lingered on an SS-trousered thigh to get the feel of it, then patted the knee sharply as if to say, Leave this to me. ‘Brigitte, please take the Major up to Violence’s room. Ask her to let him watch. It’s all been arranged. If he likes what he sees, he is to enjoy himself and we will discuss things further.’

  A schoolgirl, was that what the smirking son of a bitch was after, wondered Kohler, or was he a reminder sent to them from the avenue Foch via the escort service on the Champs-Élysées and an urgent plea for help from Debauve? Ah merde, that must be it. ‘Just a minute. No one visits Violette.’

  ‘What’s she done?’ hissed Madame Morelle, raking them with kohl-rimmed eyes. She wet her ruby lips. ‘Well, eh? Come, come, my fine messieurs,’ she shrilled. ‘I demand an answer. I have a right to see the magistrate’s order, and please do not tell me you haven’t one!’

  Snap, snap went her fingers.

  ‘Look, we only want to talk to her about a missing child,’ sighed Kohler.

  ‘Talk!’ shrilled the woman. Her hands were tossed, her shoulders shrugged. ‘Who has time to talk to such as you in a place like this? Violette was here all day and all last night. She has not left the premises. Not for one minute. This I will swear on my father’s grave.’

  ‘But not on your mother’s,’ sighed the Sûreté, forgetting his sore knuckles at last to run his eyes over her. ‘Madame Berthe Morelle … Berthe Lefebvre of the rue Saint-Denis and les Halles. The jet-black hair, it is a wig needed due to recurring bouts of la syphilis; the cheeks, they are fleshy and deeply rouged to hide the sugar scars of displeased maquereaux. Gone are the days of your youth. Please let me see your licence, madame, so as to remind myself and refresh your memory.’

  Ah no … ‘The rue Saint-Denis?’ she bleated, still slow to tumble to it.

  ‘And an arrest that was made more than thirty years ago in a house on the corner of the rue des Precheurs [the street of the Preachers]. A prostitute you helped. A friend, you said, and like a sister to you—wasn’t that it, eh? An unwanted child she had refused to bear—ah, of course nothing could be proven. You had arrived too late to caution the girl and could not hold the abortionist for the gendarmes you yourself had summoned because that one, she had vanished. Others swore to it. There was little we could do, since you willingly slept and did other things with the presiding magistrate, who had a taste for whores that were cheap. You’ve changed. You’ve grown older. One would have hoped, wiser.’

  St-Cyr … St-Cyr …? A blue cape and képi then and no moustache but boots and a persistent air that could not be bought off. Ah, why had Madame Rébé not forewarned her of this one at their last reading? ‘You’ve changed yourself,’ she said tartly. ‘Violette has done nothing. She was here all day and last night, and others will swear to this.’

  ‘Swearing’s in your blood,’ he snorted lustily. ‘We’ll ask them, of course, but first, madame, please take us to the room and leave that one here unless he wants trouble. We will question the two of you upstairs where you belong.’

  She tossed her head as if wounded. ‘There is no need to be offensive. The past is over. The legs, they are closed, and the door to heaven, it is shut. We’ve both come up in the world.’

  ‘Good! I’ll bring you down, then, shall I? You’re wanted on the charge of abortion and causing the death by it of Liline Chambert. Please save your breath for the stairs.’

  He’d make it stick, she knew he would. ‘Abortion?’ she snorted. ‘I did no such thing. Pah! the years have addled your brain, my fine Sûreté. Why would I indulge in such an illegal practice when I have all this raking in so much more?’

  ‘That is just what we’d like to ask you. Now move.’

  ‘Louis …’

  ‘Not now, Hermann. Get her upstairs.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts. Just do as I say.’

  ‘Okay, Chief, you’re the boss but that one’s SS.’

  ‘Idiot! did you think I hadn’t noticed?’

  They were on the stairs and moving. They were on the first floor and heading up five flights. Big men, little men, some with grins, stood on each step of the way. Whores came down, whores went up. Peignoirs were open, some wore none at all … One said, ‘Ooh, they are in such a rush, those two, madame. You haven’t lost your charm. The older the sweeter, eh, my fine messieurs?’

  ‘And both at once!’ hooted another. ‘Give her port and advocaat, the half-and-half, messieurs. By midnight she’ll be opening all the doors and you can enter where you please!’

  ‘But not both in the same place!’ tossed the other one over her shoulder as Louis tripped and piled into a brunette, grabbing her bony hips for support.

  ‘Have you paid?’ she hooted, her face overly made-up, the lipstick smeared, the hair dyed a violent red.

  By now the Wehrmacht’s finest had got the message and all were shouting, ‘Get them. Stop them. Throw the bastards out.

  ‘OUT! OUT! RAUS! RAUS! RAUS!’

  They stamped their boots each time they said it. They pushed, they shoved, they heaved on the line, and the ripple of their pent-up dislike of the police raced on and up … up.

  Madame Morelle burst on to a landing, threw out her black, lace-clad arms and went down in a welter of other legs, arms, breasts and bare buttocks. Now everyone was laughing and shouting, ‘Grab them. Hoist them. Pick them up and pitch them out.’

  ‘OUT! OUT! RAUS! RAUS!’

  Kohler dragged the woman up and grabbed Louis by the overcoat collar. She gasped and rolled her dark eyes in panic. ‘My heart,’ she managed, placing the flat of a be-ringed, pudgy hand on her heaving chest.

  He shoved, and the ripple on the staircase behind them reversed itself as they raced upwards, pushing the woman ahead of themselves. Couples began to leave their rooms, only to hesitate, some clutching their clothes or a bedsheet, others trying to get dressed until …

  ‘Violette, no! No, do you hear me?’ shrilled Madame Morelle.

  They had reached the fifth floor, were right at the top of the stairwell. Wild-eyed and desperate, the schoolgirl, her white shirt-blouse torn open down the front, her breasts hanging out, the dark blue pleated skirt and kneesocks stained and dishevelled, faced them. Arms out, feet out and planted, panic in her deep brown eyes, the shaggy mop of dark brown hair now braided so that she looked not twenty-three years old or seventeen but no more than thirteen or fourteen.

  ‘Violette …’ said Madame Morelle, catching a breath and trying to hold the detectives back. Everyone was watching. No one made a sound. ‘Violette, chérie, come to mother.’

  With the back of a hand the girl wiped her mouth and spat furiously to one side before repeating the gesture. ‘You’re not my mother.’

  ‘Don’t jump. Please don’t. It’s too far even for angels.’

  ‘I want my little farm, damn you. I want to leave this place and raise flowers and birds to sell in the market. I want to taste honey, not cloud-custard. I’m sick of men jerking off into my mouth.’

  ‘Chérie, please don’t do it. Please. I swear I’ll take you to Spain with me. From there you can go to Provence, to your little farm if yo
u wish.’

  ‘Father Eugène has the money. He really has it, hasn’t he? Tell me, damn you! Tell me he hasn’t stolen it all.’

  Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, why did she have to ask? demanded Madame Morelle of herself. There were only the two of them facing each other in this impasse. The child climbed up on to the railing and clutched a support. It was a long way down the spiral of those stairs, and as all looked up at her and craned their necks to watch their little bird fly, Violette looked down at them.

  She’ll push me, said Violette to herself. She’ll have to do it.

  ‘Madame,’ breathed St-Cyr, ‘please step aside.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ hissed the woman, her bulk stubbornly blocking their way, all lace and flesh, perfume, jet-black beads and dangling jet-black ear-rings. ‘Darling,’ she crooned to the child, ‘be sensible. Take me by the hand and come down from there.’

  Perhaps five metres separated them and this was clear, except for the open doorway from which the schoolgirl had come.

  ‘You did it,’ she said. ‘You killed that girl who was pregnant. You pumped air into her passage de Vénus and she died from the shock. How did it feel to have her die so suddenly?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, chérie. I did no such thing. These men, they speak lies.’

  ‘Where is Father Eugène? Why isn’t he here to tell them that you owed him money, mother, and that, with one bold stroke, one gamble, all your debts to him would be erased? Is he the Sandman, do you think, messieurs?’ she taunted. ‘Is he the one who violates little girls like me and then kills them?

  Little girls …

  Frantically Kohler searched for a way to get at her. Had her clients beat it? he wondered. Was that room of hers now empty, that schoolroom? Was there another way into it?

  ‘She’ll see you leave,’ confided the Sûreté softly. ‘This matter has, unfortunately, to be settled by the two of them.’

  The girl looked down, and as she did so, she dragged off one of the elastics from her braids and let it fall.

  There was a hush that only got deeper and deeper. ‘If I could undress, I would,’ she said, ‘so as to be that much closer to heaven. I’ve done nothing that can’t be forgiven—my sister tells me this constantly, messieurs. “You will be accepted into the Kingdom of Everlasting Love,” she says, “but only if you ask for His forgiveness instead of praying He will fuck you.” The grand frisson of frissons, eh? The one a girl would feel all the way up her spine and into her brain if only she could feel anything at all At all!’

  Ah nom de Dieu, de Dieu …

  ‘She thinks all girls of my age have the devil in their bodies, messieurs, but please, is it not the devil in the minds of men to which she refers? Is it not they who want to undress and violate girls like me? Ask her. Ask Céline. See what she says. Tell her that’s what the father we shared did to me. To me!—at the age of eight. Have her anoint my naked body before she drives the skewer into my heart.’

  Plunged into darkness, the house waited a split second, its breath held for the shrill scream that lasted long after the floor below had been solidly struck and the rain of wooden balusters had ceased. Everyone cried out. A great, sad sigh went up. They began to move, to panic in the darkness. Someone shouted, ‘The electricity has gone off!’

  Arrondissetnent by arrondissement, the Occupier could do such a thing without notice.

  ‘The SS,’ breathed Kohler, moving forward with Louis’s shoulder under one hand. ‘The railing’s gone. Ah merde, Louis … L … O … U … I … S!’

  Dragged back, they lay there propped against the wall. Candles were lighted. Matches struck. One by one these tiny lights grew into a softly fluttering glow that filled the stairwell.

  The property in Spain, the bank accounts, too, would be of little use. Madame Berthe Morelle, blood gathering in a large dark pool about her head, was spread-eagled on the floor. Her wig had flown off. Her head was totally bald. The ripples on the back of her neck were pale and flaccid.

  ‘Louis, the schoolgirl …’

  ‘Across the roof-tops, I think.’

  ‘Ah merde … It’s too icy.’

  Ice or not, there she was caught momentarily in the beam of Hermann’s torch and then fixed more firmly, perched up by the chimney pots, daring them to follow.

  Pale, greeny-blue beneath the ice and encrusted snow, the copper sheathing sloped steeply past another flimsy skylight to her feet. Walls separated the houses. Some roofs were higher, others lower. The wind was increasing, the cold was fierce. Above them the stars climbed into the heavens. Smoke from the coal fires of the brothel drifted past.

  When they found a torn patch of skin, they knew she had clutched an iron pipe. When they saw her again, she was trapped against a dividing wall, the roof between them sloping away on either side while that behind her rose up a storey higher.

  ‘Father Eugène does things for the SS,’ she shouted tearfully. ‘He is a spy for them. A spy! He hears the confessions of the really sick ones they send him. You should talk to some of those, messieurs. Ask them about schoolgirls. Ask what they’ve done in the past and still want to do. He doesn’t send them to me. He says I’m not suitable, that we must be discreet. They’re officers. Officers, damn you!’

  Blood was frozen to the bare flesh of her left palm. Her skirt clung to her thighs. Louis started forward, balancing. Kohler kept the light on her as best he could. ‘Mademoiselle,’ began the Sûreté. ‘Please, it’s over. We desperately need information …’

  ‘Over, is it?’ she cried. ‘The SS are using him. He reports to them!’

  Half-way along the crown of the roof, the ice was thick. Louis slipped. He went down hard and cried out. She screamed and, turning, nimbly climbed the wall, to look back once and then to cry out, ‘I SAIL TO HEAVEN!’

  And was gone. No sound. No scream.

  Louis cautioned his partner. ‘Stay away, idiot! You’ve Giselle and Oona to look after. Me, I am alone but for Gabrielle. Say goodbye for me. My shoes, they aren’t up to this. My hands, they are freezing.’

  He had pulled off his gloves and had thrown them away.

  Madly the torch beam danced over him as he clawed his way back up to the crown of the roof. Then, balancing again, he stubbornly went on.

  ‘She’s gone across the next roof,’ he shouted, having climbed the wall. ‘She’s left a skylight open in her haste and is safe.’

  Back in the house on the rue Chabanais the lights had come on, and they knew the SS major had been the one to switch them off.

  He was standing on the ground floor next the body. He was grinning up at them.

  ‘Hasse, Louis. The escort service,’ cursed Kohler. ‘Debauve must have found things out about him the SS now know. They must believe the Attack Leader is the Sandman.’

  ‘Perhaps but then … ah mais alors, alors …’

  ‘Save it. We haven’t time.’

  There were no lights at all in the impasse Maubert where the SS-Attack Leader had his atelier. Come to think of it, there hadn’t been any at all on the Left Bank. The houses on either side of that narrow slot crowded closely. The one at the far end showed only the dark silhouette of its roof-top against the night sky of stars.

  They paused. They did not like the situation at all. They had to find Nénette Vernet but feared they were too late.

  The Daimler wasn’t there, the entrance to the house was locked. All window grilles were bolted solidly.

  When they rang the bell, they had to wait, and the sound of it, escaping into the impasse, was overly loud. ‘Ah merde, Louis, why does that God of yours have to do this to us?’

  God had nothing to do with it, and Hermann knew as much. ‘Maybe He’s trying to tell us something about the SS.’

  ‘As if we didn’t already know enough! Verdammt, where the hell is the piss-assed concierge?’

  He rang the bell again, yanking so fiercely on its chain the damned thing snapped, and for some reason the bell-stop jammed and the bell rang and rang until it
s ancient spring finally tired itself out.

  At last the thing shut up. Sometime later a bolt was slid back, another and another.

  From the darkness, a voice said, ‘He’s not here. He has gone to his lesson.’

  They moved aside. They shone their torches into the concierge’s face, causing him to blink and yelp and duck away in fear. Kohler towered over him. St-Cyr simply said, ‘Take us up to his rooms. Open the flat and wait in the corridor. We haven’t time for magistrate’s orders. Not now, so do not bother to ask.’

  ‘The … the electricity in this quartier has been off for some time, messieurs. There … there are no lights.’

  The SS again.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ breathed Kohler. ‘We’re getting used to the dark. Now move.’

  ‘A child of eleven,’ hazarded St-Cyr as they went up the stairs. ‘Has he been keeping her here?’

  ‘How should I know? I don’t live in the front of the house but in the cellars. I can’t watch everyone.’

  ‘Yet you knew he had gone to his lesson.’

  ‘Because I had heard the car start up and every Tuesday night he takes the life-drawing class at the Grande-Chaumière.’

  ‘And afterwards,’ asked Kohler, ‘where does he go?’

  ‘To be with the older ones, les filles de joie perhaps. One does not ask of such as him. One only tries not to notice.’

  ‘How many schoolgirls has he had visit him up there?’

  ‘Lots. This I do know. He pays them. He tempts them. Most are from the streets and so poor he can do what he wants with them.’

  ‘Merci, that is just what we needed to hear,’ said the Sûreté grimly. ‘Please wait for us. We will close the door but will not be long.’

  ‘You won’t touch a thing, will you?’

  ‘Ah, don’t be silly. We will only touch what is necessary.’

  As before, the place was pungent with turpentine and oil paints and cluttered with canvases, but it was to the storeroom they went, not to the studio.

  On canvas after canvas there were schoolgirls, most with their hair in braids but few with smiles, for here most had been captured, here most had been terrified.