The Forger

by Paul Watkins

  “Quite something.”

  I nodded. “It certainly was.”

  Fleury looked around, as if tracking the flight of an invisible insect. “I got a bit carried away last night,” he said.

  “Can’t say I blame you,” I replied. I leaned against the doorframe with my hands in my pockets. “All that stuff Dietrich said about paying you back. About you owing him. It was all just talk. You know that.”

  “Do I?” he asked. “Do you?”

  Conscious that someone might be listening, I stepped into his apartment. Morning sunlight filled the space. The bed was neatly made and the air smelled of the sweet-dryness of the soap he used. I could see through to his tiny bathroom, the shaving soap and mug and bristle brush all laid out on a towel, the way he liked to keep them.

  “Well,” he asked again. “Do you think it’s just talk?”

  “If he’d wanted us dead, we’d be dead by now.” I clicked my tongue. “The one time we give him an original, Touchard gets it wrong.”

  “I wonder if Touchard is really that much of a fool,” said Fleury. “I think perhaps he’s not.”

  * * *

  WE SET UP A meeting with Madame Pontier at Pankratov’s warehouse for later that day.

  Pankratov, Fleury and I had been waiting several hours when we at last heard a car pull into the alleyway. When the engine quit, I heard Madame Pontier swearing and the low murmur of Tombeau as he offered up excuses about his driving.

  Pankratov swung the doors wide. Magnesium sunlight flared across the sloping walls of the warehouse.

  Fleury and I shrank back from it, shielding our eyes.

  Pankratov showed them inside.

  Fleury explained the situation to her, while Pankratov switched on the electric lights. Tombeau and I hung back in the shadows. I kept thinking of him standing by the table at La Mère Cathérine, the gun in his hand. We had not spoken about it. I doubted if we ever would.

  Madame Pontier stared hard at Fleury while she listened. She kept her arms folded, as if she felt the damp in this cramped space.

  Fleury handed her a sheet of paper with the names of the two works we had received in trade for the Penni drawing.

  I hadn’t seen the list or the works. All I had seen was the Penni, and each time I thought of it, I saw the shredded paper twitching in the air as it fell from Dietrich’s fingers.

  Madame Pontier looked at the list. She seemed to be spending a very long time reading it. Then she raised her head suddenly and folded the paper in half. “These are valuable works,” she said. “They’ve already cost us that Penni drawing.”

  “There are bound to be some losses,” said Fleury, his voice gentle and reasoning.

  “I can’t just give back the works,” she told him. “It makes no sense.”

  I felt my heart jump when she said this.

  “You can, Madame Pontier,” replied Fleury. “It makes all the sense in the world.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I simply can’t. What I will do is give you some other paintings. Some things we are more able to spare. You’ll just have to make Mr. Dietrich happy with that. I’m sure he will be, given the right explanation.”

  Fleury pressed his hands to his face, then slowly dragged his fingers down his cheeks. “You hand back those works this instant,” he said quietly, “and I’ll pretend I never heard what you just said.”

  “That’s it!” she snapped. “Come along, Tombeau. We’re leaving.” She took three paces toward the door, then stopped.

  Tombeau was not following.

  “Tombeau,” she said, without turning around.

  “Madame,” said Tombeau.

  I felt his breath brush by my face in the still air.

  “You must return the works to Monsieur Fleury,” said Tombeau. “I know this man Dietrich. I know what he is like. It isn’t the work he cares about. He feels that Fleury has insulted him. If Fleury tries to give Dietrich something different in return, it will only make the insult worse. You know what will happen then. We have already seen it happen several times.”

  This was the first I’d heard about other cells being broken.

  “Madame Pontier,” continued Tombeau, his voice stiff with formality, “in having to give back these works, I know you also feel as if perhaps you are being taken advantage of. But Madame Pontier, you will give them back, because you see more clearly than he does what is really at stake and what the consequences would be to you.”

  She spun around. “What consequences are those?”

  Tombeau did not reply. His eyes were gleaming in the sharp-shadowed lights.

  “Choose your words carefully, Monsieur Tombeau,” she said. “They might be misinterpreted.” She walked out and kicked the door shut.

  The slam of the huge-timbered door boxed our ears.

  After a few seconds, Tombeau followed her out. He didn’t say good-bye to us. It was as if he’d been leaving an empty room.

  In the silence that followed, Fleury fished out a cigarette from his old tin, the image of the Craven A black cat almost chipped away now by the coins he carried in his pockets. While he smoked, he polished his glasses with the end of his tie. He polished the lenses beyond the point where they would be clean. The strain was breaking him. He knew his job was the hardest. He had to do the lying and not blink. If anything went wrong, he would be the first to find himself in that basement on the Avenue d’Iéna.

  The next day, Tombeau returned with the works. The drawings were both by Lautrec. One was of a black man in a cap dancing in a café, done in pen and watercolor. Fleury said the man had been a popular dancer named Chocolat. The other was also a café scene—a heavyset bartender with a handlebar mustache. This one had a tag on the back, which gave the title as La Caissière Chlorotique. As with most of the other works we received in trade from Dietrich, these showed ERR inventory marks, along with the small swastika inside a black circle.

  “She didn’t understand about Dietrich,” said Tombeau. “About what kind of man he is. I explained it to her. It’s all been straightened out.”

  “I wouldn’t mind hearing an apology from her,” I said.

  “The fact that you have the drawings back is her apology.”

  “Thank you for helping us,” I told him.

  “It was not personal,” replied Tombeau.

  I breathed out and looked away, wondering why I had bothered. But when I looked back, I saw Tombeau smiling. It was the first genuine smile I had seen from him. It creased his face like a sliver of new moon.

  Fleury gave the works back to Dietrich, and all his anger seemed forgotten.

  Two weeks later, after another exchange, Madame Pontier had the Lautrec drawings once again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  IN THE LAST WEEK of May 1944, I received a call from Dietrich. There was a phone at the end of the hall on my floor, and somehow he had gotten the number, even though I never gave it to him. He said he would pick me up at the apartment in one hour. “We’re going to lunch,” he said. “Can you make sure Fleury and Pankratov are there, too?”

  “Pankratov?” I asked uncertainly. “All right.”

  “Valya’s idea of a joke,” he explained. Then he hung up, saving me the awkwardness of trying to think of something else to say.

  Dietrich arrived in his magnificent but dusty Horch, Grimm at the wheel as usual. Dietrich had on a plain gray suit with a red tie and his small round Nazi Party badge on his lapel. Valya was there, with white gloves and a salmon pink dress that buttoned at her throat.

  Once we were inside, the Horch set off fast through the streets. We sat facing each other, Dietrich and Valya on one side and me, Pankratov and Fleury on the other.

  “So what’s this all about?” asked Fleury.

  Valya giggled. “We’ve been drinking champagne,” she said.

  There was an open bottle of Clicquot on the seat between them.

  “You’ve been drinking champagne,” Dietrich corrected her. He smelled of aftershave. “I’m
taking you three to meet the boss,” he said. “Your presence has been requested.”

  “Which boss?” asked Pankratov.

  “Göring,” said Valya, in between her giggles. “Hermann Göring wants to see you. Originally he only wanted to see Fleury and Halifax, but then I put in a call and made sure you were invited, too, Daddy. I think that’s so funny. I can’t believe it! The Reichsmarschall is having lunch with Alexander Pankratov.”

  “I’ll try not to embarrass you,” said Pankratov in a monotone.

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll try!” Valya laughed.

  Dietrich glanced at us apologetically.

  “Why does he want to see us?” I asked.

  “To be honest,” replied Dietrich, “I don’t know.”

  Valya puffed up her cheeks and swayed her body from side to side, in her imitation of a fat man walking down the street. “Bring me this painting!” she said in a low voice. “Bring me that painting!” Then she swung her arms up and down in an awkward imitation of marching.

  “That’s enough,” said Dietrich again, not looking at her. “Some things we do not joke about.”

  “I’ll do whatever I want, you old Nazi.”

  Dietrich’s lips grew pale.

  I clenched my jaw, waiting.

  “I know what you are behind that suit.” She flicked at him with the tips of her fingers.

  “Grimm,” said Dietrich. “Pull over.”

  Grimm pulled fast and hard toward the curb, as if he’d been expecting the command.

  “Get out,” Dietrich told her quietly.

  “I will not!” she shouted. “I’m coming to this party and when I get there—”

  “Valya!” boomed Pankratov.

  His voice stunned everyone in the car. Even the immovable Grimm flinched.

  Valya stopped. She turned toward Pankratov, eyes blazing. For a moment, it looked as if she were about to attack him. Then, slowly and shakily, she opened the door and got out.

  Dietrich reached across and shut the door.

  Grimm didn’t wait for the order to drive on. We sped off down the street.

  I looked back at Valya. She stood on the pavement, hands covering her face.

  We drove the rest of the way without speaking, looking anywhere but at each other, eyes craning awkwardly around in their sockets.

  It seemed to me that Dietrich and Valya were determined to destroy what they had together, to see how much they could take before love inverted into hate. They would never have anything in between. It would always be one extreme or another. I wondered if they’d gone too far this time.

  The Horch pulled up outside the Hôtel Continental on the Rue Castiglione. On one side was a long covered walkway, separated from the street by pillared arches. A globe light hung from each arch. The entire hotel had long ago been taken over by the Germans and their flags hung out front.

  Grimm opened the door for us.

  Inside the Continental, footsteps echoed on the marble floors. Dietrich shepherded us toward an elevator and we rode up to the third floor. We walked down the pale green–carpeted hallway to a set of doors at the end, in front of which stood a guard in air force uniform. He had a submachine gun slung across his chest.

  When we got to within a couple of paces of the guard, he smacked his heels together and opened the door.

  The room inside was a small waiting chamber, with another set of doors at the far end. These doors were closed. Dietrich walked up to them and raised his hand as if to knock, but then thought better of it. He turned to us. “Maybe we’re a little early,” he said.

  While we waited, Dietrich stood and smoked a cigarette. He looked nervous.

  Fleury and I sat down on an overstuffed crushed velvet couch, done in the same pale green as the hallway.

  Pankratov tried to make himself comfortable in a chair with ornately carved wooden arms. But the cushion was too puffy and he stood up again.

  Dietrich sucked the smoke hard into his lungs. There was no ashtray, so he tapped the ash into his palm and then into his coat pocket.

  We waited for half an hour in the airless, windowless space.

  Nobody mentioned Valya.

  Dietrich puffed down half a dozen cigarettes. The room was tinted gray with smoke.

  Then the door into the rest of the suite opened and a short, elderly man in a white coat and black trousers poked his head in. He looked very patient and dignified, with watery blue eyes and thin hair sharply parted down the middle.

  “Finally,” muttered Dietrich.

  “The Reichsmarschall is sleeping,” said the old man.

  Dietrich looked at his watch, which was a black-faced Hanhart chronograph. “We have an appointment for one o’clock. It’s almost two now.”

  “The Reichsmarschall is sleeping,” said the old man again, as if perhaps Dietrich hadn’t understood the first time. He ducked back inside and closed the door again.

  Another half hour of waiting.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Dietrich quietly. He slumped down next to us on the couch.

  Pankratov stayed on his feet, picking at the wallpaper with his thumbnail.

  When the door opened again, Dietrich jumped up. “All right,” he said.

  “Still sleeping,” said the old man.

  “Look,” snapped Dietrich, “we had a one o’clock appointment.”

  The old man sighed.

  “One o’clock,” repeated Dietrich.

  “You would ask me to wake the Reichsmarschall?”

  Dietrich fell silent.

  “I didn’t think so,” said the old man.

  At this, Dietrich lost his temper. “You thought wrong,” he snapped. “I am a Stürmbannführer of the SS and I didn’t get to be one by waiting around in hotels. Now wake him up and tell him Thomas Dietrich is at his door.”

  “At my door,” said a voice. The door swung wide and there stood Hermann Göring. He was smiling the smile of a man with limited patience. He had a broad, severe face. He was a little under six feet tall, and badly overweight. His big barrel gut was hidden under a double-breasted tunic that was gray like the feathers of a dove except for the lapels, which were white. He wore a white shirt with a pointy collar and a blue and gold cross, which I knew was a Blue Max, at his throat. Then, tacked onto his left side, were more medals, another cross and a circular wreath with an eagle in the middle. His trousers had two wide lines running down the seams.

  Behind him was a view out to the Tuileries Gardens. In the distance stood the Eiffel Tower. The room was carpeted in pale green and there were several doors leading off into other rooms. In the center of the room behind Göring a table had been set with a white cloth and silver cutlery. A bottle of white wine was chilling in a bucket beside the table.

  Dietrich straightened his back in a fast and almost violent gesture, as if an electric current had rushed painfully down the length of his spine. He cracked the heels of his boots together in one precise movement.

  “Thomas.” Göring’s voice was deep and slightly drawling. He shook Dietrich’s hand, placing his left hand over their hands when they were shaking. “You are as obnoxious as ever. Can’t I even take a nap?”

  “Yes, Herr Reichsmarschall. Of course.”

  I waited for Göring to tell Dietrich to call him something else, Hermann or something. But Göring seemed to like calling Dietrich by his first name and being called “Herr Reichsmarschall” in return.

  “These are the people you wanted,” said Dietrich, and stepped aside to give Göring a clear view of us.

  Göring nodded at me and at Fleury, but when his eyes came to Pankratov, Göring raised his head slightly and did not seem to know what to make of him.

  Pankratov returned the same confused stare.

  “Are you an old soldier?” asked Göring.

  “Yes, sir,” said Pankratov. “Cavalry of the Tsar.”

  Göring nodded. “And were you an officer?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pankratov. “As a matter of fact.”

>   “I knew it,” said Göring. Then he turned to the rest of us. “Old soldiers get like this.” He held his hand out to Pankratov, who stood there in his ratty canvas coat. “They spend half their lives dressing up for people and then when they are done with the army, they refuse to smarten up for anyone. Ever. Not even for me.”

  “That is exactly right,” said Pankratov. “I have tried to explain it—” Göring brushed aside the idea with a sweep of his hand. “Only an old soldier would understand.”

  He insisted that Pankratov sit beside him. The two of them walked off toward the window, speaking in lowered voices. Göring made some expansive gesture at the skyline, and when he heard Pankratov’s mumbled reply, burst out laughing so loudly that it made the rest of us flinch. Göring pounded Pankratov on the back with the flat of his hand, as if he were trying to save him from choking. A small puff of dust rose up from the place where Göring’s hand made contact with Pankratov’s jacket. It caught Göring by surprise at first, but then he laughed even louder.

  Dietrich stared at this in disbelief. The rest of us stood by our places at the table. Place cards had been made for us, which the old man in the short double-breasted jacket had immediately shuffled around when Göring changed his mind about Pankratov. Now, instead of the choice seat, Dietrich was placed at the other end of the table.

  The old man opened the wine. Even though he appeared to be concentrating on the task, the corners of his mouth were turned up, enjoying Dietrich’s discomfort. Göring and Pankratov reached the table, sat down and then the rest of us sat. Soup dishes with one thin blue line around the rim were set in front of us. The old man served us lobster bisque, with bread still warm from the ovens and a huge block of real butter on a bed of ice which he set down in a glass dish on the table.

  Göring stabbed a chunk of butter off the block and set it onto a piece of bread, folded the bread around it in an envelope and ate it.

  When the wine was poured, it beaded condensation on the glasses.

  Göring raised his glass to toast us. “I would like to thank all of you,” he said, “for allowing me to share in your success.”

  We drank to that and then Dietrich made some toast in return and we drank to that, too, and then Göring decided that we ought to be drinking vodka to remind Pankratov of the good old days, whatever they were.