The man’s ear was in front of Lanny’s lips, almost touching them; and Lanny murmured three French syllables, slowly and distinctly, so low that it might have been a memory of speech. “Cent—mille—francs.”
A hundred thousand francs was less than a thousand dollars as they stood in Vichy France, and that surely wasn’t high ransom for the life of a millionaire, or even a motion-picture imitation. Lanny was prepared to bid up to five hundred thousand francs, or even a million; but the next thing he knew, the man was working at the ropes which bound Lanny’s hands. He must have had a sharp knife, for one or two movements cut those which bound the wrists together; he did not try to cut those which were about each wrist, for that obviously would have been difficult. With great caution he crept toward Lanny’s feet, and first he cut the rope which connected him with the sleeping guard, and then he cut those which bound the two ankles together.
He moved back to Lanny’s ear, and whispered: “Venez!”—then arose and stole back into the shadow. Lanny, with the utmost care, rolled himself over. He found that his wrists were so weak they wouldn’t hold him up. He got on his knees and elbows, and thus, with agonizingly slow movements, he got away from the dim firelight. At last he got up, and found that he could stand.
His deliverer was a dim shadow, and Lanny tiptoed after him. He had no idea in what direction they were going, but the man put one arm around him to aid his tottering steps, and together they followed a path through the thicket. The man seemed to have a cat’s eyes; or perhaps he had been through it so many times that he knew every dip and turn. They did not speak a word; their bargain was made, and they had only to put as much distance as possible between them and the camp.
Before long the cords around Lanny’s ankles hurt so that he had to stop and ask the man to cut them. That was pretty nearly a surgical operation, and the man performed it with care and skill, working a little slack into one cord and pressing the flesh down, so that his cut would be away from the flesh and not toward it. He did the same for the wrists, and it was a blessed relief. Circulation would come back, and pretty soon Lanny would be his active self again. “What do you plan to do?” he whispered, and the man replied: “They know all the paths, and will travel faster than you can, and their bullets faster still. We must get up into the hills and hide over the day.”
“Won’t they be able to track us?” Lanny asked and the answer was: “Not if we get up among the rocks. The thing is to get as far as possible before dawn.”
XII
The late and waning moon was hiding behind a steep escarpment. Lanny could see that it was a wild region, with piled-up rocks and cliffs, and pine and cedar trees clinging here and there. They waded a little stream, and the man said: “Get a drink, for it may be all you will have through the day.” He added: “We’ll have to go hungry,” and Lanny replied grimly: “I can stand it.” They waded downstream for a while, to conceal their tracks.
They plodded on, with brief stops for Lanny to rest, until daylight began to appear. As soon as they could see well enough, the guide picked out a spot where a dry bed of rocks made it possible to leave the path without leaving any footprints. They clambered up a steep hillside, from rock to rock, and just as Lanny was about to gasp out that he was at the limit of his tortured limbs, they came upon a sort of little niche in a cliffside; not a cave, but enough to shelter them from sight, so long as they were content to be still. Lanny was more than content; while his rescuer sat with one ear cocked, listening for sounds of pursuit, he stretched himself out and made up for lost sleep. He was quite sure that no pursuer would find them in this eagles’ roost, and he decided that he would stay a couple of days and call it a fast, something he had read about and been interested in.
The name of the rescuer was Gigi; at least that was the name he gave, pronouncing it with the Italian “g,” like the American “j”; he didn’t say how he had got it and Lanny didn’t ask. He had been conscripted into the French Army, and had decided for himself that the war was over. He had joined the rebels, not because of political convictions but because of a girl—again that was what he said. What he wanted was to get away from all fighting, and it was his plan to take his money and smuggle himself onto a ship for South America, any country that would permit a fellow to live his life in his own way. Lanny was sympathetic, and of course kept his pose as a misunderstood art expert. He gave the man his address, and assured him that the money would be forthcoming; if they became separated Gigi was to find his way to Juan-les-Pins, where Lanny would wait for him. “Take my advice,” the man said, “and don’t go back into Toulon, or somebody there will surely stick a knife into your back.”
“And how about Juan?” Lanny asked. The answer was: “I wouldn’t stay anywhere in the Midi. Things are hot as hell here, and nobody knows who can be trusted. They surely won’t trust either of us again.”
XIII
Gigi took off his mask and hid it under a rock; it would be no help to him now, but on the contrary a mortal danger. So when Lanny opened his eyes he had a chance to observe what his rescuer looked like: a fellow in his early twenties, swarthy and weatherbeaten but not especially sturdy. His father had been a railroad worker, his mother had come from Liguria, the westernmost province of Italy, adjoining France. He himself had been to school, and had got a job as shipping clerk; after quitting the army, he had found there were no jobs, and so he had joined the partisans.
This he narrated to Lanny in whispers, after Lanny had had his sleep. Gigi had helped to carry supplies up to the hide-out of his band; there were other bands, he said, but only the leaders knew where. The supplies had come from the hijacking of a government truck, but Gigi had had nothing to do with that, he insisted. Perhaps they hadn’t trusted him enough.
He was a shifty-eyed fellow, good-looking in a crude sort of way. Lanny knew the type well. He had no politics, save that he distrusted the rich and feared the authorities; he wanted to be let alone and to enjoy himself. What troubled him more than anything at the moment was that he did not dare to smoke, lest it should give them away to a keen-eyed pursuer.
The more he thought about it, the more worried Gigi became over what he had done; the partisans would publish him among themselves as a traitor, and the first one who saw him would shoot him like a dog. They would be certain that he would give them away to the authorities, and Gigi lamented in loud whispers about this—it was most unfair, for he wouldn’t do such a thing—how would it help him? He hoped Lanny wouldn’t do it either, and Lanny said that under no circumstances would he get himself mixed up in any political dispute. His willingness to leave fifty thousand francs behind him without complaint, and to promise to part with twice as much—this impressed the Frenchman greatly, and doubtless in his secret heart he wished he had asked a higher price for his dangerous service.
Lanny tried to find out what was behind this strange misadventure. Why had the partisans picked on him? Gigi was vague, and apparently didn’t really know. A messenger had come up from Toulon and had had a long conference with the leader; all the others had been told was that they were going to arrest an agent of the Nazis who had done great harm to the people’s cause. Lanny tried to find out about Marie Jeanne Richard, but the other insisted that he knew nothing about any such woman; certainly she wasn’t his girl, who was the daughter of a shipworker in the port, a member of the syndicalist union the Vichy Government had suppressed.
Very tactfully Lanny approached the subject of the bookstore in Toulon. He had visited the city some time ago, he said, and had there met a clerk whom he took to be of Spanish nationality; a good-looking and intelligent man in his thirties who had undertaken to find some rare books for him. But this hinting did no good, for Gigi said he had seen the bookstore but had never entered it; he was not a reading man. Lanny said the clerk had given him the name of Palma, and the other replied that he had heard the name spoken, but didn’t know anything about the man. If he was a member of the partisans, Gigi wouldn’t necessarily know it; they we
re organized in small sections and the members of one section did not know those of another. This was to make things a little harder for the flics.
XIV
What concerned this average sensual man was how to get himself out of great danger. He wanted information and advice, and Lanny thought it the part of wisdom to give what he could, for if this fellow were to be arrested with a hundred thousand francs on him, he would have to tell how he had got them, and that would be awkward indeed for a visiting art expert. Lanny warned him to sew the bills up in the lining of his coat as soon as he got them, and that his next step should be to purchase himself an outfit such as would be worn by a gentleman of leisure. When Gigi asked, with much concern, “How can I pass for a gentleman?” Lanny replied: “Just hold yourself straight, look dignified and important, and don’t say anything except when you have to.”
The man’s idea was to get to Marseille, where he had knowledge of a group of Americans who were assisting refugees to escape the clutches of the Gestapo. It appeared that he had been assigned to escort two leftwing writers, German Jews, and turn them over to the leader of this group, a young man named Varian Fry. Gigi didn’t know the exact situation, but Lanny could explain it. Under the terms of the armistice the Vichy Government was required to “surrender on demand” any opponents of Nazism who might have sought refuge in their territories; but among the Vichyites, especially of the lower ranks, were some who had secret sympathies for the victims and were willing to wink at their escape. Gigi said this might be so, but the Americans were operating underground so far as possible; they carefully kept up the pretense that they were affording only food and medical care to the refugees, and nobody was supposed to know that they were also handing out forged visas and travel permits.
It was a worried Frenchman’s idea that the news of his treason might not travel as far as Marseille, and that the Americans there would remember his previous visit and help him on his way. They had a plan by which Frenchmen and others who could pose as Frenchmen were dressed in uniforms and smuggled on board transports with troops going to North Africa, and to work on the railroad which, under Nazi direction, was being rushed through the Sahara desert to the port of Dakar. Once in Algiers, and with plenty of funds, Gigi could be fairly sure of getting on board a ship. But he was tormented by his fears, and he wanted help from Lanny which was no part of their bargain. These times were hard upon men who wanted to live their own lives.
XV
They neither saw nor heard signs of pursuit, and since hunger and thirst are sharp spurs, they crept forth from their hiding place before sunset. In this rugged country it would be dangerous to travel unknown paths in the dark. Lanny had but a vague idea where they were, but Gigi said it was somewhere between the Gapean River and the coast, and that if they kept moving in one direction they would be bound to come upon a road. They passed through a forest of immense gnarled cork oaks, and soon they heard sounds of traffic; they hurried in that direction. When they reached the road they did not dare go out on it but hid in the underbrush, waiting for darkness. Heavy trucks passed now and then, and Lanny observed that they were red trucks, driven by red men wearing red clothes. His companion explained that they were carrying bauxite, the ore from which aluminum is made. Lanny recalled that in his boyhood he had been taken to visit these very quarries; the red-colored material had been going to Germany then, and Gigi said it was going there now. “Les boches sont voraces!”
They summoned their courage to walk on the road in the darkness, dodging out of sight whenever they heard a vehicle approaching. They had come to a stream, so thirst no longer troubled them; but hunger is a powerful enough urge, and when after a couple of hours a great mass of buildings loomed up in the starlighted sky they went toward them. Gigi said there was in the vicinity a very old abbey, long since abandoned; Le Thoronet was its name, and this proved to be the place. Some of the buildings were ruins, others appeared to be intact, and presently they observed a feeble light shining from a small cottage adjoining one. It was the home of a custodian, and when they told him they had lost their way he invited them in and set before them a meal of bread, onions, dried olives, and red wine. Lanny could not recall when any food had ever tasted so good.
The host, gruff in manner but kindly in soul, required only a robe and a cowl to make him a perfect monk. He informed them that he had that day celebrated the eight-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the abbey; he had had to celebrate all alone, but now that he had guests he would celebrate a second time, with a goblet of wine filled to the brim. He was there to show tourists about, and that was how he lived; it must have been a scant living, because they came only once a week on the average. Even so, on account of the anniversary he wouldn’t take anything from the two wayfarers—which was fortunate, for Lanny didn’t have one sou on his person. The old fellow asked no questions, but delivered free of charge his well-learned recital about the glorious old days when this monastery had been a landmark of France, and the monks had feasted on fat geese and game, fish from the sea and from the river, chestnuts and melons, “figs from Salerne and plums from Digne.” These good times had been ended by the Revolution, when the monastery had been abandoned.
The old monk-at-heart offered to put them up for the night, but no, they wanted to be on their way. He gave them traveling directions and suggested that they might beg a ride on one of the bauxite trucks, which oddly enough had been brought to France by the United States Army in World War I and now were serving the Nazis. When the travelers were alone Lanny voted against getting his only suit of clothes impregnated with the red dust, for his chances of getting back to Juan without money and without identifying himself depended upon his appearance. Fortunately Gigi had a few francs on him and Lanny said that would enable them to get a shave.
They had the good fortune to encounter a truck taking a load of cork down to Toulon; the driver had stopped with tire trouble, and they helped him and got invited aboard. They didn’t dare go into the city, but a few miles outside they parted from their host and took a side road to the southeast. This time they flagged a peasant cart which was taking vegetables to market. It was downhill, and the man let them climb aboard; Lanny sat in Gigi’s lap, and so in the early morning they rode in state into the fashionable tourist resort of Hyeres.
XVI
Lanny got his shave and had his shoes shined and his clothes well brushed. Sleeping two nights in a brown tweed overcoat hadn’t ruined it entirely, and he could still be the elegant American. He might have identified himself at a hotel or a bank, but he was afraid to do so; who could tell where he might encounter a friend of the partisans? What he wanted was to get transportation and get it quickly.
He went looking for a garage or filling station—or rather for some man who had formerly been in that business. He explained that he had urgent affairs in Cannes, and wished to be driven there this morning. The man threw up his hands. “Impossible, Monsieur!” But the grandson of Budd Gunmakers had been taught the power of money in childhood; he felt pretty sure there would be some gasoline hidden away in this town, and when he talked about three or four thousand francs for a two- or three-hour drive, the man said he would see what he could do. When Lanny raised the offer to five thousand, he said he could do it.
Gigi had followed behind, being afraid to let his millionaire out of his sight, but afraid to be seen with him on account of the partisans. In making his bargain Lanny said he had “un compagnon,” and when the car was ready the “compagnon” appeared and climbed in. Away they went, and got to Cannes before the close of banking hours; the car stopped in front of Lanny’s bank and he went inside and wrote a counter check and had laid into his hands one hundred and ten crisp new thousand-franc notes. (The banks were stuffed with them—it was all they had.) Lanny tucked one hundred of them into an inside coat pocket, and with five in his hand he went out and paid the chauffeur.
Then he and Gigi took a walk, and when they had come to a solitary spot Lanny took out the hundred
notes and counted them one by one into the hands of the pop-eyed ex-shipping clerk. “There you are,” he said. “Thanks ever so much and good luck to you.” They shook hands and Gigi walked down the street, looking this way and that very nervously, and so passed out of the life of Lanny Budd. Now and then the P.A. would wonder: had some woman got the money away from him the first night, or had he been impressed into those labor gangs which the Nazi-French were driving to quick death in the hot wastes of the Sahara? Now and then Lanny would shiver at the thought of one of those râfles which the police were conducting everywhere throughout Vichy France, rounding up all the men in some public place, a cinema or bistro or café, inspecting their papers and perhaps shipping them off to work in the Sahara. Suppose the police should find that money, and trace the bills by the serial numbers—what would Lanny tell them had been his reason for paying such a sum to an exshipping clerk and army deserter? For a painting, perhaps? And what painting, Monsieur?
XVII
Even more serious was his worry when he got back to Bienvenu and found there a letter from “Bruges.” The postmark showed that it had arrived on the very morning that Lanny left; the postman didn’t get to Bienvenu until midmorning, and Lanny had made an early start. The letter said: “I am sorry to have to tell you that the Daumier drawings of which I wrote you have been sold; all except one which is not representative of his best work. Its subject is a rather unpleasant one, of a man being tortured by bandits, and I doubt very much if it would please you, so it will not be worth while for you to come.”
A World to Win Page 30
