Two plates of giant ravioli arrived. There were three on Lydia’s plate, two white and one black, with some overflow calimari nestling against some shredded tomatoes with white slivers of garlic peeking above, like snowfields on summer mountains. It smelled divine.
“Bon appetit,” she said, and took a bite. Delicious. “The war records?”
“Thin. He was in a Jedburgh team, one of three. Most of the Jedburgh teams were set up in the same way. One Brit, one Yank, and one Free Frenchman, who in my father’s case appears to have been Malrand,” he said, and took a forkful of his food. Silence. Evident appreciation. He had not been this attentive to his food at the Savoy Grill.
“Jolly good grub,” he said, as Lydia continued to eat. He put down his fork and carried on talking.
“They trained together in 1943, and dropped into France together early in 1944. The record is unclear about the date, but in French accounts Malrand is given credit for some sabotage operation against a propeller factory in February. Most of the Jedburgh teams arrived much later, with the invasion in June. But one or two of the earliest trainees were reassigned to SOE and were sent in early, where there was a particular problem of local organization. My father’s team was the earliest of them all. They were assigned to a network called Digger, and did a lot of demolition work before the invasion. My father got a DSO and a Croix de Guerre for operations against an SS panzer division. He then got his Legion d’Honneur for helping to liberate Toulouse in July, which is a long way south of Perigord. By October 1944, he was back in England and assigned to the team setting up the military government in Germany. That was the end of his French adventure. So whatever he did here took place between January and October of 1944. Nine months. People can have a baby in that time.”
“Well, that all fits with what I found out,” said Lydia, who had eaten as much as she dared, with a fish in beurre blanc to follow, no fitness center in sight, and a presidential informal lunch looming menacingly on the horizon. “Your ravioli are getting cold. You eat, my turn to talk.”
“The Digger network was run by Malrand’s brother, Christophe,” she said, “as a kind of subsidiary of a much bigger network called Wheelwright that was one of the great triumphs of SOE, the British effort to help the Resistance. Wheelwright was run by a man called Starr, one of the top agents of the war. He used the cover of a Belgian mining engineer who retired with his loot from the Belgian Congo. He settled into France so well that he was elected deputy mayor of a tiny place called Castelnau-sous-l’Auvignon, which gave him the right to issue all sorts of genuine identity papers and ration cards and petrol coupons. For the Resistance, this was like a bank robber having the keys to the Bank of England. Starr was, in fact, a star. He held the highest rank of any SOE man in France, and was one of the very few who was able to combine Communists and Gaullists into a single network without friction. At least until de Gaulle showed up, well after the liberation, and had a huge row with Starr. De Gaulle insisted that he be evicted from French soil within twenty-four hours. But of course by then, the French civil war with the Communists was well under way.
“Starr was the uncrowned king of southwestern France,” she went on. “He got more arms and supply drops than anyone else, over two thousand of them, and lost hardly a one. He built a private army of nearly ten thousand Maquis guerrillas, which your father helped train, and together they liberated the city of Toulouse. You’ll see why that’s important in a moment. But what I hadn’t realized was what an extraordinary job they did. I made a note of one German report I came across. It was from Field Marshal Von Runstedt, the German Supreme Commander in the West.” She pulled out a notebook and began to read aloud, “‘The HQ of Army Group G near Toulouse was at times cut off-he’s talking about late 1943 and early 1944, six months and more before D-Day,” she interjected. “‘It was only with a strong armed escort or by aircraft that they could get their orders through to the various armies under their command. The main telephone lines and power stations were frequently out of order for many days.’ How about that?”
“Very impressive indeed-I had no idea the Resistance was that effective before the invasion.”
“Anyway, back to the smaller Digger network. It was based around the city of Bergerac and the Perigord, and operated all the way to the remote uplands of the Massif Central. Malrand himself was part of it, until he was wounded and captured in a German ambush not long after the invasion. Led by your father, Resistance fighters from brother Christophe’s network rescued Malrand from the prison in Toulouse, as the Germans were pulling out to the north. Your father saved the life of the current President of France, which is presumably why he came to the funeral.”
“That’s amazing, Lydia. You have done well.”
“No. It’s all in the published record, in the official history and Malrand’s irritatingly oblique memoirs. And the bad news is that it is only context, more than the kind of detail we need. Apart from the names of Starr, Malrand, and his brother Christophe, and a few radio operators who are all dead, I have found absolutely nothing that will tell us more about your father’s time in Perigord. The American member of their Jedburgh team is a dead end. His name was McPhee, but he didn’t survive the war.”
The fish in beurre blanc arrived and with it a bottle of Chateau de la Jaubertie, of which Lydia had never heard, but which was so glorious that she asked Manners how he had known to order it.
“I didn’t,” he confessed. “I just asked the people here to serve what they thought best. They said it was a dry Bergerac, where they come from, which also happens to be the area we are heading toward, so it seemed the right thing. Seems to go with the fish all right.”
Lydia cocked a skeptical eye at him. She was learning that Manners was seldom so deviously formidable as when he pretended to be just a bluff English simpleton. This was Bordeaux, heart of the proudest wine region of France. A decent restaurant in this city would no more offer a wine from a little-known appellation like Bergerac than they would recommend Coca-Cola.
She opened her mouth to say: “Bullshit, Manners-you ordered this and you knew what you were doing.” But she paused and wondered what Clothilde might have done in such a situation. She would have accepted what he said and stored up the useful knowledge for the future, and appreciated a man who had obviously taken some care to provide her with a memorable lunch. Thank you, Clothilde. Now all I have to do is ask you what on earth I wear to lunch with your President.
“You did choose well, Manners, coming to this restaurant,” she said, calculating that he must have reconnoitered the place, and the street, and discussed the meal and planned his parking in advance. Very flattering that he was going to such pains.
“Picked it out of the guidebook,” he mumbled. “Lucky, really.”
Manners gasped with pleasure as they climbed the steps into the Jean Moulin building, and found a small exhibition spread before them. He pounced at once upon a tiny motorcycle that looked like a child’s toy. The label said that it was a type developed to be dropped by parachute to help the Resistance leaders get around.
“I learned to drive on one of those,” he said fondly. “My father brought one back from the war. It’s still in one of the outbuildings somewhere. Made a fearful racket, and pumped out tons of gray smoke.” He squatted down to peer more closely, occasionally glancing up at her with enthusiastic delight. Lydia found herself smiling back in what felt like genuine affection. Friendliness, perhaps, she told herself. He was very appealing in this boyish mood.
“The old man never said it was a Resistance bike,” he said, rising. “I remember when the tires rotted, and I tried to fit an old set of scooter tires. No good-too fat.”
Lydia steered him toward the reception desk before some other military antique drew his attention. She had made an appointment with the curator of the museum library, an elderly man with a small red ribbon in his lapel. He came down to greet them, casting an appreciative glance at her before clasping Manners’s hand in both of his.
Once in his small office upstairs he poured three small glasses of a golden wine, insisting that they drink to the honor of the late capitaine.
“He was always the capitaine to us,” said the old Frenchman, speaking serviceable English. “Whatever rank he reached later. We all liked him, because he was always cheerful, and could make us laugh. He was a very good leader, the kind who led without your noticing that he was in charge. He taught me how to strip a Sten gun. That was in Toulouse, when we liberated the city.”
“I had no idea you knew my father,” said Manners. “That makes our job a lot easier. He never spoke much about the war, so I’m really trying to find out more about what he did, the people he knew, and whether any of them could still be found. I’m very pleased indeed to meet an old comrade-in-arms-and hope to meet some more.”
“We are very few, those who remain,” said the old man. He looked at Manners neutrally, then at Lydia-the look of someone who had learned caution in a hard school. “Not everyone wants to remember. The war was a long time ago. So long, we even get Germans coming here now. There was a time we would have kicked them out, but you cannot blame the young ones. And half of the people in Wehrmacht uniform weren’t Germans at all. There were Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, Poles-all hauled into the German Army. Some of them even joined us. And some of our worst enemies were other Frenchmen.”
“You mean the Milice?” asked Lydia, thinking he might need some gentle prodding. She had read about the pro-Nazi militia who supported the Vichy regime.
“Not just them. But they were bad. They and the Gestapo were the worst. We had political problems too, in those weeks around the Liberation. The Communists, mainly, and some black market people. A long time ago.” He shrugged and pushed across the desk toward them a small pile of books in French, and a folder containing some microfiche.
“I prepared this for you, after Mademoiselle telephoned me,” he went on. “I knew your father from late June of 1944, when he came south to help train us in the Maquis and take us into Toulouse. But he was in Perigord and the Massif for months before that, so I have put some books and memoirs together about the Perigord networks, not just the Berger network that he worked with, but le Reseau Soleil as well, a separate network. And then in the microfiche, there are transcripts. We did a lot of oral interviews with old Resistance members, making sure we have their memories before they died. We have them on cassette, and these are the transcripts. There are three who knew your father, including Berger himself, God rest his soul. I still don’t have on tape the one I want most, but it takes a lot of time, being President of France.” He grinned. “Malrand has promised to do an oral interview once he retires after the next election. But you’ll find a copy of Malrand’s final report to the FFI in the folder.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Lydia. “You mentioned le Reseau Soleil-were they attached to the Berger group? I thought Soleil was more of an independent.”
“Some might call him a gangster, or a black Marketeer, mademoiselle,” shrugged the old man. “I think of Soleil as a good resistant because he killed Germans, and he fought for France. You are right to call him independent. He didn’t take many orders, neither from us in the FFI nor from the Reds in FTP, nor from London. But gangster-not really, except that we were all gangsters part of the time. I did a few armed robberies, but only of the bureaux de tabac. You can imagine how desperate we were for tobacco and cigarettes in the Maquis. It was always tightly rationed, and London never sent us enough, so we used to raid the shops. Except that time when Malrand and your father stole the German cigarette ration from the stores at Brive. We had a lot of smokes then.”
He poured another glass for each of them, took out one of the old-fashioned Gauloises packs, a flash of bright blue, lit it, coughed, and sat down. “At my age, you need a little vice,” he wheezed. “Those books-I kept them for you, although there are people here who want them. You’ll find one of them in the library. An American, I think, but speaks good French. He’s looking at Perigord, as well, at what we have on the Jedburgh teams. I told him the material was reserved for a special project, and he’d have to wait. You’ll find the microfiche reader in the library-I presume you know how to work it, mademoiselle? I know your French is more than good enough to read the instructions.”
“Lydia,” said Manners. “I wonder if we could do two things at once. If you tackle the microfiche in the library, I can carry on talking to our friend here about his memories of my father and pick his brains about other old comrades. We’d get on twice as fast.” His tone was as friendly as ever, but there was just a touch of briskness about it, of someone accustomed to delegating matters, that Lydia realized she had not heard before. But the suggestion made sense. She nodded coolly.
“At what time does the library close, monsieur?” she asked.
“Officially, at five P.M. In fact, as long as I’m here, you may stay. But not the other members of the public, of course. But then, we keep special hours for old comrades, and the son of Capitaine Manners …” He gestured grandly.
As Lydia left with her pile of books and files, she noticed that Manners had taken one of the old Frenchman’s cigarettes, and they were pouring yet another glass of the sweet golden wine. Officer’s privileges, she grinned to herself. If they drank the afternoon away, then Manners would have to let her drive the Jaguar on to Les Eyzies. She was still smiling when she entered the library to find Horst perched on a desk and glowering at her.
“So you are the special project for whom the Perigord materials are reserved,” he said coldly. “There must be more money at stake than I thought in this cave painting if an auction house is investing its time like this.”
“I’m on vacation,” she began, then brought herself up short. She owed him no explanations. “And you must be convinced that this rock of mine comes from Lascaux, or you wouldn’t be here, pretending to be an American.”
“Not your rock, Miss Dean. The Manners rock, or, should I say, France’s rock? But yes, I think it’s real. I told you that. And the only place we are likely to find out where it comes from is to look into the wartime exploits of Mr. Manners. It was not difficult to find that he was in the Jedburgh teams in Perigord, and this is probably the best library on the Resistance in Perigord, so this is the place to start.” He pushed himself off the desk, a lithe movement, and gave a friendly smile that reminded Lydia that this man had been Clothilde’s lover for some time, and she was not a woman to waste her time on uninteresting men.
“May I look at the books that you aren’t using?” he asked, courteously enough. “I quite understand that a beautiful young woman will always take precedence in France, even leaving aside the fact that this is a Resistance shrine and I am a German.”
“Don’t be silly, Professor,” Lydia said. “Of course you can look at the books while I’m using the microfiche. And the librarian thinks you’re an American. I won’t give away the little secret of your nationality-if you think it still matters.”
“Among these old Resistance types, it certainly matters. And so it should. My countrymen behaved monstrously around here. I understand their attitude, and have to live with it. But let’s be practical. Have you heard anything more from the London police about the theft?” he asked. “It seems very suspicious, the rock disappearing almost on the very night that it is brought in.”
“It is suspicious, even though it was the next night. And all the police have told us so far was to give us the authorization to make the insurance claim. The whole art world and auction community know about the theft, so I doubt that it will surface in the salesrooms. We hope that the reward offer will persuade the thief to make a discreet approach in the usual way.”
“But you have heard nothing as yet?” he asked, leaning forward to leaf through the books she had brought.
“Not when I left London. I have been in Italy, but if there had been an approach, I would have known. I’m surprised-I’d have thought a thief would have worked out by now that twenty thousand pounds
is about the best he’s going to get.”
“Perhaps the French will offer more.” He was riffling through the index of a book about Soleil, put it down and picked up Malrand’s memoirs.
“I doubt it-half of the reward money comes from the museum at Les Eyzies. The French won’t bid against themselves.”
“If the President of the Republic takes a personal interest, you might be surprised at what the French can do, Miss Dean. The Perigord is Malrand’s home region. This was his war. Manners was his comrade, and now it looks as if Manners was looting France’s heritage when he was meant to be fighting Germans. Did Malrand not know what his British friend was doing? Did he not care? Malrand’s war record as a Resistance hero was the key to his political career, and now this comes along to cast a shadow over the presidential past.”
“That seems a bit fanciful, Professor. You may be convinced that this rock is Lascaux work, but I’m not half so certain, and I have seen it. You have only seen the photos.”
“So why, my dear Miss Dean, are you wasting your holiday in the Resistance library?”
“Because I feel responsible,” she burst out. Calm, Lydia, calm. The man was only scoring points, infuriating and perceptive points. And surely that was a mocking smile on his face, the self-satisfied beast! Whatever had Clothilde seen in this fellow? She went on evenly. “What may have been an extraordinary piece of cave art was entrusted to us, and we lost it, and we have a duty to try and put that right. At least, I think we do. But I don’t see that presidential politics comes into it. And I came here because this was where my plane landed. I’m off to the Perigord region to look at lots of caves because I now think I don’t know nearly as much about them as I should.”
The Caves of Perigord Page 11
