Sins

by Gould, Judith

  'Sit!' Roebuck commanded. The dog sat, and he scratched it behind the ears. 'Good boy, Rufus,' he said gently. 'Good boy.'

  The Chameleon's eyes wandered down toward the end of the pen. Edward was getting nimbly to his feet, unbuckling the padding.

  Roebuck turned to the Chameleon. 'Satisfied, Mr. Samuels?'

  The Chameleon suppressed a smile. Was he satisfied! That dog was perfect! It was a walking time bomb. It would tear Hélène Junot to shreds.

  His voice soft, the Chameleon looked Roebuck deep in the eyes and said, 'Sure thing, Mr. Roebuck. I'll take Rufus—he's exactly what I want.'

  YESTERDAY

  V Blackmail

  1

  Paris, 1958

  Lubov Tcherina, editor-in-chief of Les Modes, knocked on the door with her characteristic impatience, flung it open, stalked briskly into Hélène's office, and shut the door behind her with a decidedly firm snap. Hélène smiled up at her and put aside the marketing report she had been studying. She folded her hands on the desktop. 'You wanted to see me, Luba?'

  Luba's cracked-plaster face, with its apple-red rouged cheeks and most determined of determined chins thrust indignantly forward, was set into the haughtily ominous expression that Hélène knew could only mean she was on the warpath. With a quick motion of her hand, Luba snatched her shocking pink framed glasses off her regal nose. She threw the layouts she was carrying under her arm down on Hélène's desk.

  'Yes!' Luba's voice was shrilly dramatic. She waved a quivering red- lacquered finger at the layouts. 'These. . .these things!' she said, her red cheeks getting even redder under the flush of her outrage. 'You're not really serious about printing them!'

  Hélène smiled at her and picked up the artboards. Quickly she glanced through them. They were for the June-July issue and showed the summer collections. The photos were crisp and clear, the vacant-eyed models in starkly dramatic poses. Jacques had them wading around in the Neptune basin at Versailles, hiking their chic dresses and skirts up above their knees.

  'Yes,' Hélène said. 'I think they're very good.'

  Luba vented a volcanic sigh. 'Don't you see?'

  Hélène looked at her with a puzzled expression. 'See what?'

  'They're so. . .so ordinary.' Luba rolled the distasteful word on her tongue as if it were poison.

  Hélène couldn't help smiling at Luba's overdramatizations. Everything about the woman was bigger than life. Her voice, her gestures, her looks. A White Russian refugee, whose voice was a strangely exotic mixture of mispronunciations and foreign dialects, Luba possessed a face and figure that were one of a kind. Ordinarily she would have been a tall, bone-thin woman with a long neck like all other tall, bone-thin women with long necks. But Luba was not content with that. She worked at her looks. She dyed her hair so pitch black that it gleamed like shoe polish, she painted her eyes with an astonishing amount of mascara, shadow, and eyeliner, and she used rouge like it was going out of style. Most important, she knew how to look vibrant, and that was what made the ugly duckling into a swan. She could never be a beautiful swan, but she settled for second best by becoming an exceptional swan. She shone like ten layers of lacquer, dressed herself in the most unusual finery—Japanese kimonos, Persian robes, Prussian boots trimmed with gold lace, scarlet dresses with purple furs—and could command the attention of an auditorium full of people. If Luba ever went to an auditorium, that is. She went to theaters, fancy-dress balls, important openings. People might have laughed at her, but her style was so deadly serious, so highly original, so indisputably tasteful despite the costumy effects, that she created new trends and styles wherever she went. One word from Luba could make or break a designer's collection.

  Being editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine was a natural for Luba. The only pity was that the world lost a potentially great couturiere or costume designer in the process. Still, she was already a legend in her own time. In the trade, she was reverently nicknamed 'The Czarina.' She had been editor-in-chief at Marie Claire, Elle, and L'Officiel for years at a time. She had charted bold new courses in fashion reporting with the same inimitable flair she used in transforming herself.

  A little over a year ago, Lubov Tcherina had been fired from her last job—legend had it she had been vacationing at a posh villa in Costa Smeralda when one of the houseboys brought a telephone to the poolside. She swam over and picked up the receiver. It was her magazine. It had just undergone a change in management. 'You're fired,' she was told, and Luba promptly sank to the bottom of the pool and nearly drowned. Hélène considered herself lucky on two counts. The houseboy was alarmed by the bubbles rising from the bottom of the pool and dived in. The Czarina was saved by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and joined the staff at Les Modes.

  Now Hélène carefully studied the artboards Luba had brought in. 'I don't see anything wrong with them,' she said carefully.

  Luba threw her hands up in the air in frustration. 'Summer dresses in the Neptune basin? No no, no! They should be on a glacier. On a mountain peak. An ice floe. In a refrigerator. This is too ordinary. Too trite.'

  Hélène slowly nodded and pursed her lips thoughtfully. She could see what Luba was getting at. More drama was called for. These photos were good, but they were staid. Almost benign. Elle and L'Officiel might have done them. And if that was the case, then Les Modes was certainly not going to become the leader of the world's fashion magazines.

  Still, these boards had already been laid out, the copy written. Everything was ready to go to the printer in two days' time. Already the August Les Modes was being worked on. Each issue was completed six months before the public ever saw it. Hélène gestured for Luba to stay put. She thought for a moment, frowned, and quickly pressed down on her intercom buzzer.

  Her secretary's efficient voice came over the wire like a distorted squawk. 'Oui, mademoiselle?'

  Hélène was now going by her maiden name and insisted on being called mademoiselle instead of madame. She leaned forward and spoke directly into the box. 'Eleonora, call up the travel agency. Make arrangements for. . .ten?' She glanced at Luba, who nodded pontifically. 'For ten to. . .' She thought quickly.

  'Chamonix,' Luba said in a stage whisper. 'I've already checked. They have plenty of glaciers and cable cars.' Her dark eyes glittered wickedly.

  'To Chamonix, Eleonora. Leaving tonight, returning the day after tomorrow. Make overnight arrangements at a decent hotel.'

  'Oui, mademoiselle.'

  'And, Eleonora?'

  'Oui?'

  'Order me a new intercom,' Hélène said irritably. 'One of the new American ones. I like to be able to hear what you're saying.'

  'Oui, mademoiselle.' Eleonora buzzed off.

  Hélène looked up at Luba sternly. 'Now, about those cable cars and Jacques. I want no accidents. No scandals. No broken bones. And no hysterical models marching in here in tears. I know the way Jacques works only too well.'

  Luba smiled malevolently and picked up the artboards.

  'You may throw those away,' Hélène said.

  Luba sniffed the air disdainfully. 'Gladly' she announced, as if it were her moral duty to march straight to the nearest trashcan.

  Hélène watched her leave. She knew that Luba's taste was unerring, as inbred as a champion's pedigree. Still, she couldn't get over the feeling that the older woman was constantly testing her. Almost challenging her power to see how far she could go. Hélène sighed. As far as her work was concerned, she trusted Luba explicitly. The only thing Luba would have to learn was how to descend from her lofty heights every once in a while and show a little more respect for those she worked for.

  Hélène pushed her chair back and got to her feet. She came around from behind her desk and walked over to the wall where a blowup of this month's Les Modes cover was carefully spotlighted. She stared up at it. She had now seen it hundreds of times. During production, on the printer's proofs, on every kiosk she passed in the streets. It was the twelfth issue. Could that be possible? she wondered. Had Les Modes a
lready been going strong for over a year? They put out ten issues annually; June-July and December-January were counted as one each. That meant they had been covering the French fashion scene for fourteen months already.

  She studied the oversized cover as critically as she had studied all the others. She liked seeing them this big. It was easier to recognize the flaws and make certain they did not recur in the future. This particular enlargement was from the December-January issue. The glossy logo had been specially done to look like clear ice. It read:

  LES MODES®

  Paris

  Decembre-Janvier

  Centered at the bottom were more ice-cube block letters:

  Special

  Pour une nuit d'hiver

  For a winter's night. She liked the theme. She herself had come up with the idea. The glossy close-up photo showed a model from the neck up. The huge stand-up collar of a Max Reby Chat lynx framed her leonine face. Her dark hair was like a mane speckled with glistening snowflakes, and her makeup was frosty, the lipstick almost pinkish-white, the Lancôme eye shadow glistening frost against the rich bronze makeup cream. The combination was tawny; the model looked like an aggressive tigress ready to stalk the night.

  Hélène congratulated herself. It was the best cover to date. Much better than the current Vogue. Quickly she crossed over to her desk and pushed down on the intercom again. 'Eleonora?'

  'Oui, mademoiselle?'

  'Call the art department. Tell them to put a hold on the June-July cover.'

  'Consider it done.'

  Hélène smiled to herself. She could count on Jacques and Luba coming back from Chamonix with a spectacular new cover shot. On an impulse, she lifted a current copy of Les Modes off the stack beside her desk. She opened it, and as her eyes skimmed the masthead, she felt a rush of proprietorial authority and pride.

  Decembre 1957/Janvier 1958 No. 12

  LES MODES

  est publiepar Les Editions Hélène Junot S.A.

  President-Directeur General: HÉLÈNE JUNOT

  Directeurdes Editions: NICOLAS DUCOUT

  Redactriceen Chef: LUBOV TCHERINA

  She smiled. No matter what anyone tried to tell you, there was nothing like seeing your name in print. Slowly she flipped through the 168 pages. Even now, she could still feel a surge of electricity every time she turned a page.

  To date, each issue of Les Modes had sold out before the first half of the month was over. Not a single copy had ever been returned from the newsstands. In fact, there was such a demand for Les Modes that the distributor was pressing Hélène for an increased run each printing. But Hélène was playing it cautiously. When they'd begun, it had been with a small first run of thirty thousand copies. Even then, she'd kept her fingers crossed. Now they were printing and selling out almost seven times that number. She knew that it was better to have people clamoring for more copies than being stuck with a warehouse full of unsalables. She was cautious, but she shrewdly coupled caution with daring. It was paying off. The first ten issues had been in the red, issue eleven had broken even, and now Les Modes was truly in the black for the very first time. Hélène knew that that wasn't bad for a magazine starting off from scratch. In fact, it wasn't bad for any new business. Sometimes it took three to five years before they showed a significant profit. She was very pleased. Les Modes was turning out to be a good investment.

  Hélène nodded to herself. All in all, it was a magazine to be proud of. And slowly the monopoly of fashion publishers—Vogue, L'Officiel, Elle, and Marie Claire—who in the beginning had sneered contemptuously at her, were now starting to sit up and take notice. And well they should. A good number of their previously ardent readers were deserting them for Les Modes. Already they were feeling the bite.

  The intercom sounded noisily. 'Yes, Eleonora?'

  'Monsieur Ducout is here. And there's a message from a Karl Haberle. He said to tell you that he's here in Paris and staying at the Seze.'

  Karl Haberle was in Paris? That took Hélène completely by surprise. Suddenly she stiffened. He had found something. Why else would he have come? She knew of the Seze. It was one of the moderately priced tourist hotels. She thought quickly.

  The man awaiting her was Nicolas Ducout, her managing editor. Excepting herself, he was the most important person on the staff. Even more important than the Czarina. Because when it came down to brass tacks, it was circulation, money, and power that really counted. The first-rate quality, art, and layout were important, but the salesmanship had to come first. She had set up this meeting with him in order to discuss foreign distribution of Les Modes and the possibility of planning an Italian-language edition within a year.

  She came to a swift decision. 'Eleonora, tell Nicolas to have a seat and wait. I won't be long. Then call the Seze and get hold of Karl Haberle. I need to talk to him right away!'

  2

  'I don't know what to do,' Hélène said quietly. She got to her feet and paced the room restlessly. 'At first, I thought it would be clear-cut and simple. But now?' She clenched one of her fists and smacked it into the palm of her other hand. 'Now, I just don't know'

  Dr. Rosen took a deep breath as he looked down at the papers scattered across the scarred desktop. He was sitting stock-still on one of the cane-backed chairs in his book-lined study. From the distance came the muffled sounds of traffic. Behind him, the curtains drawn across the window shifted slowly as they caught an elusive draft. Outside, it was dark already. Night came early in winter.

  Hélène stopped pacing and watched him in silence. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his heavily hooded eyes were wide in horror. For the first time, she was aware of how old he really was, how truly overburdened his narrow, stooped shoulders must be. Perhaps she had been wrong in coming to him, she thought suddenly. He had already suffered so much. She should never have added to it with this. Right in front of her eyes, he seemed to have aged ten years. Even his black-and-gray hair and beard now looked much more gray than before, and the deeply furrowed skin of his face seemed to be stretched tightly across his bones. The muscles in his temples did a series of twitches.

  For a moment Dr. Rosen could not speak. It was as if keeping himself under control was all he could hope to do. When he looked back up at her, she could see the tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. Once again he looked down at the papers. Everything blurred. He couldn't even see the papers on the desk clearly. Slowly he reached up and lifted his glasses off the bridge of his nose, wiped the tears from his eyes with his fingertips, and let the glasses sit back down on their prominent Roman perch. Then with a trembling hand he somehow summoned the courage to reach out and shuffle through the papers.

  Hélène had never expected Haberle to come up with what he had. She had seen to it that the two hundred thousand deutsche marks she had deposited in the Dresdener Bank in Cologne had been released to him. He well deserved the reward. She wondered how he had ever managed to dig up this much dirt.

  There were several photos. One had been taken recently with a telephoto lens. It showed a man in a business suit stepping into a late-model Mercedes-Benz limousine. Despite the graininess of the blowup, she had no doubt who it was. The colorless skin, the skull-shaped head, the bloodless cruel lips spoke for themselves. He was the white-faced one. Karl von Eiderfeld. The one who had ordered Schmidt to burn Marie. The one she herself had seen through the knothole of the dumbwaiter as he had ordered Maman to be 'punished.'

  There were three other photos. Older photos, with dog-eared corners and ragged edges. All of them showed von Eiderfeld in the sleek black uniform with the silver piping. In one, he was standing among a group of men posing for the camera. Written on the back in neat Gothic script was the legend: (Links zu Rechts): Goebbels, von Eiderfeld, Goring, Hitler, Himmler. The photo was dated 1935 and von Eiderfeld looked almost youthful. In another, he was standing in an open SS staff car parked by a roadside, watching as an SS unit went by in single file. The men had rifles slung over their shoulders and were pushing bic
ycles. The third photo showed him with two other officers inspecting a platoon of rigid infantrymen. That one was taken in 1944, and he looked considerably older.

  Just seeing those photographs was enough to make Hélène feel a terrible rage. It was poetic justice, she thought, that another German with the same first name as his should have come up with all this evidence.

  But there was much more than just the photos. Haberle's search had turned up nineteen different documents, which he had painstakingly translated into French. Most of them were Nazi reports and requisition forms, but one was a copy of Karl von Eiderfeld's military record. Hélène had studied it closely. Karl Jurgen von Eiderfeld had been born in Rudesheim on the Rhine in 1915. His father had been a general in the Kaiser's army and his mother had been the daughter of a Viennese merchant. In 1932 Karl von Eiderfeld had joined the SS. Almost immediately, the organization had been officially disbanded by the Weimar government. Three months later, when the SS was reinstated, Karl von Eiderfeld had joined once again. He started off on the right foot. Hitler had tried to gain an aura of respectability for the SS by recruiting members of the aristocracy, church dignitaries, and former generals to hold honorary rank. Von Eiderfeld's long-retired father had taken one such rank and had thereby managed to pull enough strings that his son rose quickly within the rigid hierarchy of this army which had been built upon a bastardization of the principles of the Order of the Jesuits. Karl von Eiderfeld had everything going for him. He was considered an outstanding officer and had been decorated numerous times. Then, in 1944, his promotions stopped abruptly and he had been transferred to the Belsen Concentration Camp in Poland. The new job was punishment for having failed what had been considered a simple mission: despite all the resources available to him, he had been unable to find two of four French children who had fled a house in Paris after wounding one German soldier and killing another.