Hunting Ground

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Simone was dizzy. She’d had constant dysentery. Months on end of it, poor thing, but she didn’t slip, André. We didn’t let her fall. Please, you must understand this. The three of us had stuck together through so much.

  ‘There was a shriek from one of the guards. We had to let go of her. She simply fell back into that cesspool, but if you ask me, I think she wanted to. The alternative for her was to be injected with phenol.’

  His mouth gapes. A breath is caught and held. There are tears. He wants to hear the last of it and begs me to tell him.

  ‘She drowned. She threw up her arms in panic but never cried out, simply tried to swim to the edge, to claw at the mud and drag herself out, but they pushed her away, André. They laughed. Everyone watched her die like that—all of us, the women in their rags, the guards who’d pushed her back, the blockovas. A great circle of people, the fog of the ammonia rising all around her.’

  He breaks at last and blurts, ‘I didn’t want them to take her away. I tried to kill myself, but they threatened to kill her if I did.’

  He’s weeping now, but I won’t go near him. ‘They beat me terribly, André, for having tried to help her, but they let me live. Why I don’t know and I never will, for I wanted only to die.’

  The wind fans the embers. There’s a spurt of flame that lets him see the Luger in my hand. That last plea of Simone’s comes back to me, and I know that before she went under, she begged me to forgive him. ‘Go and tell the others to come out one at a time. I want to talk to each of them alone.’

  ‘They’ll never agree to that. This was your only chance. Come and settle things now.’

  ‘I’m setting the terms, not them, and definitely not you.’

  Again, he’s irritable. Again, he says, ‘Let it go, Lily. Forget it. You need psychiatric help. You’re suicidal.’

  ‘Simone was my friend long before she ever met you. When she died, a part of me went with her.’

  There’s no response. He thinks I’m going to kill him, but again I remember that final look of hers and ask, ‘Who else is in there with Dupuis?’

  ‘The Vuittons.’

  ‘And Jules?’

  ‘Yes, Jules. Lily …’

  ‘Who else? There’s someone else.’

  Something moves off to my right, another to my left. It’s Schiller. I know it is and hear it on André’s lips even as I fire.

  The sound of the shot is all around us, flat and hard and echoing in the night. I run, slip, and fall, scream at them to leave me alone and fire blankly, once, twice, three times before sense returns and I hear Dupuis calling, ‘Madame … madame, come back. There’s something you should know.’

  Schiller’s with them. Schiller! What am I to do? There are only two bullets left, and my chest aches so much I think I’m going to die.

  Still they search for me, and I wait for it all to end, but finally they give up and go back to the house.

  The slug has taken the back off André’s head. The hole in his forehead is really very small, just an entry—an excellent shot. Putting on those socks and shoes, I kick ashes over him as we did in the camps, then look for the lime but finally realize there just isn’t any.

  Schiller … so Schiller has come back to join forces with them. Thinking of him puts me right back in Paris, just after that little episode of the broken glass, 3 June 1941. Me, I remember the date because it was Simone’s birthday and I hadn’t expected to find her hauled in with the rest of us.

  The small hotel Dupuis took me to was on the avenue Matignon. A swastika hung above the entrance, but there were no guards standing in the rain, so I knew it wasn’t one of their major centres of interrogation. Indeed, except for the flag, you wouldn’t have known it was anything other than a delightful little hotel. Very upper class, very posh and convenient, and once an hôtel particulier, a private mansion.

  Would we have to take the lift? I wondered. So many crazy things ran through my mind. The rue du Faubourg St-Honoré was at the corner, and just around it was the shop of Monsieur Langlois, where I had first met Tommy.

  ‘Madame,’ said Dupuis, tugging at my sleeve.

  Tommy caught up with me there. It was there, in front of that very hotel, that I threw the ten thousand francs into his face and slugged him. Dear God, how our lives had changed since then.

  Dupuis shoved me ahead, but suddenly I wanted to throw up, though knew I mustn’t. That place was only one of several the Gestapo used. Their real headquarters were at 11 rue des Saussaies, in the offices of the Sûreté Nationale, so I knew they’d take me there afterwards. Then it was prison. The children … what was I to do about them?

  Michèle Chevalier was sitting at the near end of a long wooden bench. She was the first I saw, but there were benches on either side of the marble corridor with its fake Roman friezes and columns. All the places had been taken. On one side were my friends and people I thought I might be able to trust or simply didn’t know. On the other were a few of the dealers they’d managed to drag in, a few of the girls, and even some of the women of substance—all of them were guests at Jules’s dinner party for Göring, all were French, too, and therefore under suspicion.

  Michèle was terrified. Looking the thin, bespectacled student of philosophy and politics he never was, Henri-Philippe was guarding her violin in its case and holding her by the arm. His glasses winked in the unnatural light.

  We were forbidden to speak but, when I walked past my sister, she smiled and jerked a thumb-up and made all kinds of signals to say, It’s okay. They know nothing. Dupuis took it all in and let me wonder how long they’d all been cooped up and what they’d told them.

  Simone and André were next. He was angry with me, but Simone, she had a calmness I can see even now. Remember, please, that she’d hidden Tommy and Nicki and that Tommy was probably again back with her, hence André’s anger.

  ‘Lily, it’s so good to see you.’

  ‘Chérie, it’s your birthday. Ah, mon Dieu, I’ve forgotten to bring your present. Dinner … can we have dinner together? I think I have enough coupons. Yes … yes …’ I fumbled in my handbag. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Her long black hair was all frizzed out. She’d been drying it much to André’s dismay.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ he said, knowing we were breaking the rule of silence.

  ‘Oh, but we are,’ said his wife and laughs.

  We kissed, we hugged. Dupuis was embarrassed. ‘Madame, it is forbidden. Please, Obersturmführer Schiller is waiting.’

  Simone touched my cheek and gripped me by the hand to reassuringly squeeze the fingers. ‘Don’t worry, darling. Everything is okay. It’s only routine. Someone stole the Reichsmarschall’s things but us, ah’—she shrugged her slender shoulders and threw out open hands, palms up,—‘how could we be involved in such a thing? You’ll stay with us tonight, of course?’

  Dupuis hustled me along to an office as I looked back at her and said, ‘We’ll have a little party for you.’

  I had with me an overnight bag, which I’d been allowed to pack. A change of underwear, a nightgown, and toothbrush, my cosmetic case, a few other things, all quite civilized. Dupuis demanded that I hand it over before entering the office, and it was taken by an orderly in jackboots and the black uniform of the SS, but he was not armed, and I had to wonder if the guards had been hidden and if they wanted us all to make a run for it?

  Yes, that was exactly what they’d done, for once again that corridor was like a cage of frightened mice. No one knew whether he or she would be the first to bolt, but several knew for sure they’d follow if given but half a chance.

  Schiller was in uniform, smoking a cigarette, lost in thought, perhaps, and standing over by one of the windows down whose sides heavy blackout curtains hung. He was looking out at the street, was immaculate—tall, slender, well built, the flaxen hair catching the light.

  There was a desk, big, wide, a hectare or two of misplaced Georgian antiquity. Miscellaneous chairs, a carpet, et cetera, beca
use none of it really mattered except for this: the desk, his chair behind it, the one that was directly in front, and the one that was behind that one.

  Dupuis cleared his throat and said something subservient but was embarrassed to let me see him like this.

  ‘Frau de St-Germain,’ said Schiller. ‘A seat.’

  ‘Which one?’

  It was that shabby, collaborationist gumshoe’s turn now, and he said, ‘Madame, you’re in grave trouble. Behave accordingly.’

  I sat where I was supposed to. Dupuis pulled off his coat and hat, and sat directly behind me while Schiller built church steeples with his fingers, and that duelling scar had a paleness that emphasized the narrowness of his face, the lips especially. ‘Katyana Lutoslawski,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you had better tell us about her.’

  ‘Me? Perhaps first, Lieutenant, you had better tell me who this person is.’

  ‘But surely you remember,’ said Dupuis. ‘How could you forget?’

  The dinner table, the supposed white arsenic. ‘Ah, mon Dieu, Lieutenant, I honestly don’t know who you mean.’

  ‘The redhead,’ said Schiller, still with church-steeple fingers tapping themselves impatiently.

  ‘The one who called herself Giselle,’ said Dupuis, causing me to turn to look at him, something I should never have done, for the shriek that lifted from Schiller made me jump.

  ‘The wife of Alexis Nikolai Ivanovich Lutoslawski!’ he shouted, was suddenly red in the face and on his feet with a threatening fist, and I knew for sure for me it had begun. The tiara and all that ancient history was soon pouring from him, everything the Action française thugs pried out of me in the forest. ‘Thomas Carrington, your lover!’ he shrieked.

  ‘My ex-lover. That business was over before it began, and if you can prove otherwise, Lieutenant, then you will only prove yourself wrong. And as for this … this woman, I never met her.’

  ‘And Lutoslawski?’

  ‘The robberies are linked to him, to objects he once possessed,’ said Dupuis.

  ‘Stolen from the Russians, our ally,’ said Schiller. ‘They want them back.’

  ‘You two are crazy. I’ve nothing to do with this. Why not ask my husband? Ask the Vuittons, eh? They’ll tell you all you need to know, and as for Russia being an ally, if you Germans keep saying the things you do, I think you can forget it soon.’

  ‘You were seen talking to that woman,’ said Schiller.

  ‘By your sister,’ added Dupuis.

  ‘Why not? I was the hostess, wasn’t I? Should I have ignored her?’

  ‘When did you notice she had left the party?’

  ‘I didn’t. I was in the library with everyone else, but personally, after what happened to her, I’d have left a lot sooner.’

  ‘The loot, madame. Where did you people hide it?’ asked Dupuis.

  ‘You’d better tell us,’ said Schiller. ‘It’ll go a lot easier on you.’

  ‘Listen, you two, I know nothing of this.’

  ‘Your papers … papers,’ snapped the lieutenant. ‘You’re English.’

  I handed them over, but he knew all about them. ‘I have a cancer,’ I told him of the letter he was opening.

  ‘De Verville … yes, yes, I can see that he’s signed it. A German specialist will have to be consulted. I’ll see that we find one to examine you.’

  Me, I was done for—finished—and I knew it, but realized then that he’d led me to this little point, the cancer of my womb. ‘Your sister, Frau de St-Germain, why is it that she has French citizenship and you don’t?’

  My shrug was automatic, and I don’t think I could have stopped it had I wanted to. ‘Janine has always considered herself to be one hundred percent French. For myself, I’m fifty- fifty.’

  ‘A lover of the British. We can prove that Janine Marteau was involved in the robberies,’ said Schiller, still caressing my papers.

  He let me think about it, then said, ‘Marteau is the last name of a former lover of that mother of yours. He’s the father of that illegitimate bastard you call a sister.’

  There had been one slip-up, Nini the result, but our father had never held it against maman. Janine he loved as if his own, as did maman.

  ‘The paintings,’ said Schiller, ‘and the other things that were stolen. Where are they?’

  He’d a short, black leather strap folded over once, its two ends clutched in the right hand. Maybe it was five centimetres wide, maybe six, but it was thick enough to do lots of damage, and I had to wonder if Dupuis was the one who would have to hold me.

  But there was a knock at the door. It was the orderly who took my suitcase. He crossed the room to confide something to Schiller who looked at me and smiled. ‘Your children, Frau de St-Germain. Apparently, they have more to say about this than yourself.’

  ‘A coffee, please, and some soup—thin soup, you understand. Put lots of water in it. And … and I’d like some bread. White, if you have it. Not black.’

  The little restaurant is on a side street in Fontainebleau. If you want the truth, the thought of Schiller being with Dupuis and the others has really unsettled me. I also couldn’t take the cold and the loneliness after what happened with André. I had to come in for a while.

  ‘Madame, is it really you?’

  Matthieu Fayelle is just the same, complete with thumbprints on his apron, the stomach of his wife’s good cooking, the moustache, and thick brown hair that’s still a little too long.

  ‘It’s me. I have to get warm. I need a bit of rest.’

  ‘Are you on the way out to the house? Madame, there’s nothing left. The Germans …’

  ‘Have taken everything. Yes … yes, I’m on my way for a last little visit. Matthieu, I need to be quiet. Look, Tommy was your friend, isn’t that right? He helped you, so now you must help me.’

  ‘A table in the sun. I’ll make sure no one sits nearby, but the soup, madame? Surely …’

  ‘Just the thin soup and a half-and-half coffee and water, no milk, no sugar. I’m still not used to things.’

  He wipes his eyes, this great big guy who once drove a gazogène lorry for us. ‘We thought you dead,’ he says. ‘Finie!’

  ‘And me, I thought you also,’ I say, looking up at him in warning.

  He ducks his moist brown eyes and mutters, ‘It’s over, madame. They’ve all gone. We can begin to live again, eh? A little place … If you need a bed, a room, you have only to ask.’

  ‘I may need help. Please don’t forget this.’

  ‘For me, for us that are left, you have only to ask.’

  ‘Good.’

  I sit in the sun and warm myself. Just a corner of the town hall can be seen, the hôtel de ville et Feldkommandantur, and I remember Matthieu and the others, but they came later. First there were the two robberies, then the interrogations, then my children and what they had inadvertently revealed to Georges and Tante Marie.

  The soup is thin, as I’ve requested. Just a few slivers of onion, a little grated pepper, cheese baked on top, with butter, real butter. This I can’t believe. It hurts to look at it, to smell the aroma. Such simple things we all took for granted.

  The bread is crusty. When broken, it soaks up the soup. The coffee is real. Matthieu flutters around. His wife has come out of the kitchen but is afraid to approach.

  I tell him the soup is excellent, exactly what I need.

  ‘Was it hard for you?’ he asks. He’s all upset and twisting his hands in that apron of his.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Look, I need some quiet, eh? I must think things through. I have a job to do and must be careful.’

  He nods. Ah! he understands and says, ‘I’ve heard that Monsieur Jules and his friends are back.’

  ‘Then you know it will be wise for you and your wife to say nothing of me. Not until I make contact with you again. Hey, listen, my friend, can you get me some nine millimetres?’

  He understands and leaves the restaurant. I finish the soup by running the bread slowly around the plate so as
to catch the last droplets. Memory comes.

  I drain the coffee cup.

  Dupuis waited. He was very grave. He knew and I knew that somehow my children had betrayed me and that Georges and Tante Marie had much to say.

  I’m right back there: 3 June 1941. In a gesture of sympathy or whatever—me, I don’t know—Dupuis had taken this opportunity to show a little compassion.

  Before witnesses, of course, he fed me a bowl of soup and a coffee. A last supper.

  ‘Madame, please, it’s time to go.’

  I got up and walked out to his car and we drove to the house. Marie … I remember that she was wearing her pink dress, with the white socks and glossy black saddle shoes. She was getting tall—growing like a weed. Her hair had been severely brushed, and it glistened as it fell below her shoulders.

  She was so pale and frightened she didn’t say a thing. Jean-Guy eyed me suspiciously. No doubt Georges had been filling him full of things—adultery, the de St-Germain name, et cetera.

  ‘Monsieur Tommy,’ said Tante Marie. That old hen was bristling by the stove, just waiting to spill it all.

  ‘What about him?’ I asked.

  ‘He was here,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that correct, my husband?’

  Georges nodded. ‘The boy has told us, madame.’

  ‘Of course, Monsieur Carrington was here, but that was ages ago, and the inspector remembers this.’

  It was a gamble, but it worked. Luck was with me again. Jean-Guy had told them of Tommy’s earlier visit, when Dupuis had first come here looking for him on a charge of murder, February 1940.

  ‘But he’s been back since?’ hazarded Dupuis.

  Both of my children shook their heads. ‘Ah, no, monsieur, he couldn’t have. He would’ve gone to prison, n’est-ce pas?’ said my daughter, widening her lovely eyes.

  ‘Prison,’ said my son. ‘He’s a bad one, Inspector. A number. I hope you catch him.’

  Dupuis was exasperated with that old couple and gave them the blazes for being so stupid, but at the door he said, ‘We both know it won’t be so easy the next time.’