“And how do we do that?” said Renard. “How do we find him?”
Jean poured himself another glass of whiskey. He looked at Renard. He smiled slightly and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said.
* * *
“Louis,” said Isabelle, “what is your interest in the resistance?”
“Mysteries of this sort have always interested me,” said Louis.
“Of what sort is that?” said Solesme.
“Of the iceberg sort,” said Louis. “Where most of the mystery is out of sight. Under frigid water.”
“Of the iceberg sort,” said Solesme. “Are there any mysteries that are not of the iceberg sort?”
“Louis,” said Renard, “I appreciate your help—”
“No you don’t,” said Louis. “You wish I would go away.”
Renard hated being that transparent. He drew deeply on his cigarette and blew smoke in Louis’s direction.
“You can of course order me to stop trying to help you in your investigation,” said Louis. “But if you do, you know I’ll continue to investigate anyway, on my own. Not of course in any official way. But as a kind of historical, intellectual exercise. At least that.”
It was September. The first intimations of fall were in the air: the morning fog, the cooler nights, the plaintive calls of an owl. But this day was sunny and warm, and Louis had made lunch for his friends. He rose to clear the table while Renard, Isabelle, and Solesme sat in the sun and finished their coffee. Solesme closed her eyes and sipped the delicious bitterness. She was amazed that an American could make good coffee, and she had told him so.
Renard had been busy with other things. He had not made any progress on the case in weeks, and Louis was growing impatient. “We need to find Simon. Or someone. Maybe we should talk to Jean Josquin again.”
“I have other work I have to do,” said Renard. “Besides I thought you were going to start painting.”
“I have,” said Louis.
“May we see?” said Isabelle.
“Not yet,” said Louis. Then he thought for a moment. “Yes. Sure. Why not? But what you see won’t be paintings. It will only be the beginning of paintings. The below-the-surface business that goes on before a painting can become a painting.”
“More icebergs,” said Renard.
Louis led the way into the barn and turned on the lights. He was right. The paintings did not amount to much. Indistinct meanderings in murky colors on raw canvas. “You’re right, Renard,” he said later. “They’re like icebergs. But with these, all I can see is what’s below the surface. I have to intuit what will be above the surface from studying what’s below it. And—”
“And you’re going to say that police work is the same. But it’s not. All I’ve got is what’s above the surface.”
“Well,” said Louis. “It depends on how you read what you’ve got.” And so their discussion continued, until Renard stubbed out his cigarette and said, “I have to go.”
It was a surprise to Louis then when his phone rang a short while later and it was Renard on the line. “Remember the name Piet Chabrille? The collaborator who turned resister at the end?”
“Yes. What about him?” said Louis.
“I found him,” said Renard. “Or rather, he found me.”
Renard was enjoying being mysterious, and Louis tried not to spoil it for him. “And how did he find you?”
“By dying,” said Renard.
“Ah,” said Louis. “He was old?”
“Seventy-five or so. But in poor health.”
“Well, then,” said Louis. “And is his death of the interesting or the uninteresting kind?”
“Interesting,” said Renard. “A bullet in the back of the neck.” Renard could almost hear Louis rubbing his hands together.
Piet Chabrille had been found in an alley in Tours not far from where he had lived for the past thirty years. The police report indicated his death had occurred in the night. Piet had been drunk at the time. His watch and wallet had been stolen. There were no witnesses to the murder.
The coroner took Renard into the keeping room and slid open the drawer. He pulled back a plastic sheet. Piet Chabrille had a large bony head, a large nose, and a fringe of colorless hair. His skin was gray, and his blue lips were peeled back slightly to reveal long, yellow teeth.
“What is your interest in this case, inspector?” said the coroner.
“He used to live in Saint-Léon,” said Renard.
“Thirty years ago,” said the coroner. “Long before your time.”
“Yes,” said Renard. “Long before my time. That’s true. What do you have on him?”
“Not much,” said the coroner, looking through the forms. “Address. Date of birth. Talk to the police. Maybe they can tell you something.” He gave Renard the case officer’s name.
The case officer did not know much about Piet. “Looks like a robbery. He shouldn’t have been out alone at that hour. That’s a nasty way for an old man to die.”
Renard was allowed inside Piet Chabrille’s apartment. He had lived alone in a building near the train station in Saint-Pierre-des-Corps. There were few clothes in the closets, little food in the refrigerator. There was a small battered desk, but the drawers were mostly empty. There was nothing of interest, as far as Renard could tell. And Piet’s neighbors did not know anything about him either. “He kept to himself,” one of them said.
“He said hello, but that was about all he said. Why would they do that to an old man—rob him and then kill him like that? What’s the world coming to?”
* * *
“This may be one of your iceberg murders,” said Renard.
“Do you think so?” said Louis.
“I don’t really know. But I went back to see Jean Josquin again.”
“And what did he say?” said Louis.
“He said to go away,” said Renard. “And not to come back. He got scared after I told him about Chabrille.”
“So you think he wasn’t just killed in a robbery?”
“Two things seem wrong,” said Renard. “First, why shoot him at all? He was an old man; just knock him down and take his stuff. And then, why in the back of the neck? Like an execution? He had enemies. I would like to have talked to him.”
“Well,” said Louis, “he might turn out to be more informative dead than he would have been alive.”
* * *
Renard was alone in his office a few days later when the door opened and an elderly woman came through the door. She was thin and she looked frail. And yet she walked unhesitatingly and stood erect before him.
“Madame?” said Renard. He stood up. “How may I help you?”
“I am Edith Troppard,” she said. “I read in the newspaper about the robbery and murder of Piet Chabrille in Tours. Do you know who Piet Chabrille is?”
“I do, madame. Jean Josquin has spoken to me about him. Please sit down.”
“Ah. Jean,” said Edith. “How is he?” Her hand rose and brushed her white hair aside in an absent gesture. “Then you are investigating Chabrille’s murder?”
“No, madame, not exactly. I am investigating some murders from long ago.”
“I see,” she said.
“Onesime Josquin, Marie Livrist,…”
“I understood what you meant,” she said. “And may I ask, Monsieur Renard, why you are investigating these … deaths now, after thirty years?”
“It is complicated, madame. The short answer is that there are many unanswered questions that should be answered.”
“Well, then I am glad I have come. I thought I could help you with the Chabrille case, but I would rather help you with the case of … your father.”
“My father?”
Edith Troppard did not answer.
“Do you think they may be connected, madame?”
“Do you think so?” said Edith. “The newspaper said Chabrille was robbed. I wondered about that.”
“Do you know someone named Simon, madame?”
“I did once. In fact, it was your father who sent him to me.”
“Would you mind telling me how that happened, madame?”
“Not at all. I came to see him, your father that is. Here, in this very office”—she paused and looked around the room—“demanding to be directed to the maquis. It was a crazy thing to do. But I was desperate. I didn’t know your father then. As far as I knew, he was a collaborator. Everyone thought he was; some probably still do. After all, most police and town officials were. That was the law. Anyway, I told Yves I wanted to join the resistance. He could have turned me in, and that would have been the end of me. But instead he sent me to see the Count de Beaumont, who directed Simon to me.
“I arrived at Beaumont’s gate and rang the bell and waited. After a long while the gate opened and the Count de Beaumont stood there looking me up and down while he held a large dog on a lead. He was a tall, handsome, but severe-looking man, a very serious man. He never smiled.”
* * *
It was a hot, sultry day. The Count de Beaumont had stood at his gate and studied Edith Troppard. Colonel Büchner had spoken well of her. And Yves Renard had called to tell the count she was coming.
“Madame Troppard,” he said, and offered his hand.
“Yves Renard sent me,” she said. She thought again how dangerous it was to trust a stranger this way. But, oddly enough, it had been Colonel Büchner’s assurances about the count that had made her believe he could be trusted.
Edith followed the count through the château park between the giant oaks and plane trees. The sunlight falling between the leaves left golden spots on the grass. The air was still. The back of the count’s shirt had spots of sweat in the middle. He walked looking neither left nor right. She followed him onto the terrace and into the house.
“Please wait here, madame,” he said, opening the door to a small office. He and the dog disappeared down a dark corridor.
Edith sat for what seemed like a very long time. The count finally reappeared wearing a fresh shirt and a pale linen jacket. He sat down at the desk and took out a bottle and two glasses. “May I offer you a drink, madame?”
Edith told the count what she had told the policeman. “Colonel Büchner is dead,” she said. “I loved him,” she added.
“He spoke highly of you, madame.”
“I make no apologies,” she said.
“No apology is necessary.”
Maurice de Beaumont took a sip from the cognac he had poured himself. “May I have directions to your house, madame? A man who can help you will come to you. He will introduce himself as Simon.”
* * *
“And a few weeks later he showed up,” said Edith Troppard. “Simon. I was walking home from the market, and he fell in beside me. He lifted his hat, said his name—Simon—and offered to carry my groceries.”
“And what did you do for him, madame?” said Renard. “What was your assignment? And where did your assignment come from? How exactly did that work?”
“Well, as far as I could tell, Simon had a contact higher up in the organization. This contact—”
“Savanne?”
“Savanne? I don’t know. Quite possibly. It doesn’t sound familiar. I don’t remember that I ever heard. I never knew whether the assignments came from Simon or from his higher-ups.”
“Did you know others who were working with Simon?”
“Yes, I knew them, although in most cases I didn’t know until later that they were working for Simon. I didn’t know that Jean and Onesime Josquin were working for him until after Onesime and Anne Marie were killed. I knew about Anne Marie Josquin, their mother. She and I were friends. We had been since the deaths of our husbands in the First World War.
“It was against the rules, but she and I confided in each other. You could only stand to keep so many secrets. Keeping everything inside isolated you even more than you already were.
“Anne Marie gathered information on German installations. She hid and guided British spies. She participated in sabotage operations. It was terrible for me when she was killed. I still miss her today.”
“Did you tell her about your assignments?”
“I did. I had to tell someone.”
“And what were your assignments, madame?”
“I cannot tell you, monsieur.”
“You cannot tell me?”
“No, monsieur.”
“But why, Madame Troppard? It has been many years, the war is over.…”
“That is why I won’t tell you. I know it’s hard for you to imagine, but during those years—it was less than five years, but it seemed like a lifetime—during those years we lived in a state of absolute moral anarchy. The only way you knew right from wrong was to examine your own conscience. And yet, if you did so—examined your conscience—you found yourself in mortal danger. Examining your conscience was, in effect, a crime.
“What had been evil was now the law, and what had been good was now punishable by death. It was a time when to obey the law was to do terrible things or at least to be complicit in terrible things. At the same time, to resist often meant doing equally terrible things. All I will say is that I resisted, and I did terrible things.”
“But, madame—”
“Please try to understand, Monsieur Renard,” she said. “I have to leave it there.”
“What can you tell me about Piet Chabrille?” said Renard.
“A detestable man,” said Edith Troppard, without hesitation. “I did not know he was still alive, until I read about his murder. He worked in the mechanic’s shop alongside Jean Josquin. I forget the owner’s name. I think he was a militia man.”
“Melun, Claude,” said Renard.
“Ah, yes, Claude Melun. Anyway, there was a local cell of fascists—Pétainists and others—who terrorized the locals. Your father went to their meetings sometimes. I figured he was spying. The mayor went to the meetings too, a man named…” She searched her memory. “Schneider. That’s it. Michel Schneider. And others were involved. But Piet Chabrille was the cruelest of the bunch. He was a genuine enthusiast. I doubt that he cared about the politics. But I think he loved the cruelty. He wanted to be on the side of cruelty.”
“When the Americans arrived, Piet suddenly claimed to be a resistance partisan. And he and others like him began taking ‘revenge’ on those who were accused of collaborating. They beat up some men and killed some others. I don’t think the ones they killed were really collaborators. Certainly not to the extent that Piet had been.” Edith stopped talking.
“Please go on, madame. What you are saying about Piet Chabrille is very useful.”
“Useful?” she said.
“Knowing about Chabrille gives me a glimpse of what sort of person might want him dead. And why.”
Edith studied Renard for a moment. She smiled. “You remind me of your father,” she said. “He could think that way.” Edith sat up even straighter in her chair. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She seemed to be gathering her strength for what she had to say next.
* * *
It had been a sultry summer evening in August 1943, long before the invasion, before anyone could even imagine the invasion would ever come. The sun had set, but the evening seemed even hotter than the day had been. The moon had risen, and the evening star. It was cloudless.
It was late evening and getting dark, but Edith was still working in her vegetable garden. She was on her hands and knees pulling weeds. An owl made its quivering sound. When the sound came a second time, Edith looked up and saw that there was a man at her fence not five meters away. He stood watching her, his hands on top of the pickets.
Edith stood up quickly, dusted her hands against each other and then on the skirt of her dress. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. The man’s face was partly in shadow. From what she saw, she didn’t think she knew him.
“Monsieur?” she said. “Good evening.”
“Good evening,” he said. “It’s hot.
” He gave an odd, nervous laugh.
“Yes, it—”
He did not allow her to finish. “Water,” he said. “Could I have some water?”
“Of course,” said Edith. She stepped into the kitchen, took down a glass, worked the pump until the water started, and filled the glass. When she turned, the man was right behind her, already reaching for her. He grabbed the collar of her dress in his fist and tore it down, pulling it back over her shoulder, revealing her breast, the sight of which seemed to drive him into a frenzy.
“Is this what you want, you German whore? Is this how they do it, the Germans?”
Edith fought to get her hands free, but the man—Piet Chabrille—was strong. He pinned her against the front of the sink and tried to kiss her mouth. His breath was hot and it stank. Edith twisted her head violently from side to side, but he finally caught her mouth with his own mouth and bit into it hard.
“How’s that, you fucking bitch? Is that what you want, German cunt?”
He lifted the skirt of her dress above her waist, used his fist to force her legs apart, and then, using his erection as though it were a knife, stabbed at her wildly, again and again and again, against her legs, against her belly, until he finally drove his way inside her.
His heavy boots crushed her toes; her back slammed against the granite sink with each thrust. Her lips were bleeding from the ferocity of his bites. He bit her cheek, her eyebrow, her neck, her breast.
He came with a great shuddering groan, and when he finished he raised his arms out to the side and away from her and stepped back, as though he were letting go of something unspeakably filthy. Edith dropped to the floor, hitting the back of her head on the edge of the granite sink.
Piet screamed at her. He pulled his boot back as though he were going to kick her. But he didn’t. He only screamed, about her being a German whore, about her being disgusting, about how he would kill her if she breathed a word.
* * *
“After the Germans left and the Americans had come and gone, he found me again, this time with his new ‘resister’ friends. They cut off my hair and marched me through the crowded streets of Saint-Léon with other ‘German whores,’ as they called us, other women who had loved German men. I remember him sticking his face up close to mine and screaming ‘German whore! German whore! German whore!’ over and over until the crowd—my neighbors—took up the chant. I know it doesn’t seem possible, but I had the sense that he didn’t even remember that it was me he had raped the year before.”
The Resistance Page 27
