The Agony of France (Alex Kovacs thriller series Book 6)

by Richard Wake

  “Now?” she said. Again, she was reaching into her pocket, but I stopped her.

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” I said. I leaned over and kissed her, and then, seconds later, she understood. During our kiss, which was a pleasant diversion, the newsreels started and, with the sound of the first note of music, a guy who looked like a theater manager and a gendarme were in the aisle, scanning the crowd. On the screen, there was some bullshit playing about the glorious bravery of the men fighting in Stalingrad, or some such hell. Parisians had taken to whistling at this news from the front, or sneezing repeatedly, or coughing, or standing and banging their chairs up and down — anything to drown out the commentary. It got to the point where the Germans threatened theaters with closure if it continued — hence the manager and the gendarme. They scanned the theater looking for sneezers like a nun at the front of a room of eight-year-old boys, attempting to discern which of them had just made the fart noise while her back was turned to the blackboard.

  So it was mostly quiet as the glory of the Nazi war machine was portrayed. Only when the newsreel was finished did the lights go down. As the movie started, I leaned in for another kiss and then said, “Okay, what?”

  “It’s about the reprisals,” she said.

  “What about them?”

  “I have some names. They came across my desk this morning by mistake. There were a lot of them but I could only memorize four before I had to give the list back.”

  She slipped me the small piece of paper that she had been keeping in her pocket.

  “Paper’s too dangerous,” I said.

  “I was afraid I would forget.”

  “But you didn’t, did you?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Trust your memory,” I said. “This little scrap could get you killed. And it’s too dark for me to read in here, anyway. Just tell me.”

  She did. Four last names, and four addresses. She reeled them off easily. They were four Jewish families, and she said the addresses were within blocks of each other. I repeated them back to her.

  “You’re a quick study,” she said.

  “You remembered them, too. If you concentrate, you can print important things on your brain. Now I’m going to eat the evidence. It’s usually the best way.”

  The paper was so tiny that I got it down in a gulp. Then I asked, “But when?”

  “That’s the thing,” she said. “Tonight.”

  “Any specific time?”

  “Not that I could see. Just tonight.”

  I wanted to leave the movie immediately but didn’t dare — it would draw too much attention to us, and attention was my greatest enemy. The movie was supposed to end at 4:30, and I would have Alicia home by 4:45. Depending upon the definition of “tonight,” I had a chance.

  “It was a lot more names than four names,” she said. This was after she initiated a kiss. I was not hating this, except for the moment of guilt that flashed through the part of the brain in charge of telling you that fear about Jews in danger is not permitted to coexist with lust, however fleeting.

  “It might have been 20 names,” she said. “I wish I could have memorized more. But I wasn’t supposed to have the list in the first place. It came to me by mistake, in a pile of other typing. If I kept it too long, it would have been suspicious — it was obviously meant for somebody else. So I got the four, but I could have done so much more—”

  “Stop that,” I said. “You might have just saved the lives of four families. Don’t let yourself be tortured by the fifth.”

  Of course, I couldn’t admit to her that I spent my nights — the ones when I wasn’t able to drink myself to sleep — tortured by my versions of the fifth. I almost never dreamed about the ones I did save, only the ones that I didn’t.

  I put my arm around her and watched the rest of the movie in a daze. I had Alicia back to her house at 4.45. Her father again peered through the curtain as I turned and walked down the steps.

  16

  I had four names, four addresses, and a vague deadline. But given that I didn’t own a map of the city, and that I had no idea where the streets were, and that the sun had fallen behind the six-story apartments, I could not do this alone. On the one hand, I figured that the roundups would be in the middle of the night because, well, that’s when most of them were. But I couldn’t be sure and I couldn’t run the risk. It had to happen now. I needed Leon, at least.

  When I reached our flat, I took the steps two at a time and burst into the door, but the place was empty. Leon had left a note, though: “Lamb at Max’s.” And when I got to the Greens’ flat, I walked in on Max’s father telling a naughty story about a redhead who lived on a farm outside Strasbourg where his unit in 1917 caught a night’s sleep, “among other things” the old man said. Yes, Hannah was there, too, laughing along, one naughty redhead to another. How she became part of the group, I still wasn’t sure.

  “Ah, you again,” the old man said.

  “A warm welcome, as always,” I said.

  “Let me get an extra chair for the table,” he said, getting up and leaving the four of us. I immediately filled them in, names and street addresses. Max gasped.

  “The Richters? My God. Pop’s known the old man since they were kids.”

  “Is it far?” I said.

  “It’s my old neighborhood,” Leon said. “The one family — the Bauers — I used to live on the same street.”

  “Walk or Metro?”

  “Metro,” the three of them said simultaneously.

  “How much time do we have?” Hannah said.

  “Don’t know. All my contact could tell me was, ‘tonight.’”

  We all traded glances, then Leon shrugged and stood up. We walked out past the kitchen. The smell of roast lamb and potatoes was intoxicating. Max’s father looked up from the drawer from which he had just withdrawn a carving knife and asked without asking.

  “It’s important, Pop,” Max said.

  “Anarchists. Don’t come back.”

  “It’s not that—”

  “Don’t come back,” the old man said again. He slumped back against the kitchen counter. Max looked as if he was about to start yelling and Leon stopped him with a hand on the kid’s shoulder.

  “Later.” It was the only word Leon said, but it was enough. Max turned and led us out the door of the flat. We were three blocks from the Metro and no one said anything during the walk. Four stops later, at Reaumur-Sebastopol, we were out and on the street.

  “OK, repeat the names and addresses again,” Leon said, and I did. He doled them out, one apiece. Max took the family he knew, the Richters on Rue Papin, Hannah the Moskowitzes on Rue du Vertbois. Leon took the Bauer family, who lived on Rue Saint-Martin, his old street. They gave me the Millers on Rue de Turbigo.

  “Where?” I said.

  “Two blocks that way, then right, I think,” Hannah said.

  “Back here when we’re done,” Leon said. He pointed back over his shoulder. We were standing outside of The Flip, the cafe he’d told me about from before the war.

  We walked away in four different directions. Rue de Turbigo was, indeed, two blocks away, two blocks and then a hard right. I was at the Millers’ building in five minutes. I leaned on the bell until a woman in a torn housecoat opened the door with a practiced snarl that served as a greeting — the concierge, no doubt.

  “The Millers,” I said.

  “What about them?” she said.

  “Are they home?”

  “Who needs to know?”

  “A friend,” I said.

  “Not good enough,” she said, turning and closing the door. I jammed my body into the empty space.

  “Now, listen here,” she said.

  “It’s important.”

  “I need more,” she said.

  “You know the reprisals?” I pointed to the newspaper folded in the pocket of her housecoat.

  “I’ve read.”

  “That�
��s what this is about.”

  She looked at me, staring for maybe 15 seconds, which seems like 15 minutes when you are the one having the holes burned into you by someone’s eyes. Seeing as how she had countered everything I had said up to that point, I chose silence. She would have to be the next one to speak.

  Fifteen seconds became 20, and 20 seconds become 30. And then the concierge said, “Second floor, front.” I rushed past her without saying thank you.

  I banged hard on the door of the flat, twice. I had not had much time to think about how I would say what I needed to say. The door opened a crack as I was considering a third knock, and the woman inside — about my age, probably — said, “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Miller?”

  “Yes.” She barely got it out.

  “I am a friend, but you are in grave danger.” That is what I managed to blurt out.

  At that point, the woman was joined by her husband. He swung the door open wider.

  The woman looked up at her husband and said, “He says—”

  “Sir, your family is in danger and I am here to help.”

  Again, silence and staring. The couple looked at me, and then at each other, and then at me again.

  “I’m not sure we have much time,” I said. “If you would let me come in and explain.”

  They looked at each other again, before Mr. Miller opened the door wider and motioned me in. Their sitting room was small but neat. I perched on the chair in the corner. The Millers sat on the couch and held hands.

  “Do you know about the latest reprisals?” I said, beginning the story. There was no sense lying to them, so I told them everything but my name — that I was in the Resistance, and that we had an agent who was in possession of information about the reprisals for the murder of the soldiers in the bus, and that their name was on the list.

  “But why?” It was the wife, the horror on her face matched by the resignation on her husband’s.

  “Because it’s our turn,” he said.

  “The truth is, we don’t know why and it really doesn’t matter. All I know for sure is that you need to get out of here.”

  “When?” The wife, again.

  “Now,” I said.

  I explained that all we knew was “tonight,” and that while I expected they might have a few hours, they also might not. The wife began to cry. The husband stood up.

  “What should we take? A suitcase each?” he said.

  “I wouldn’t,” I said.

  “But—” It was Mrs. Miller. She was sobbing.

  “I would put on a second layer of clothes over your first, and then a sweater, and then a coat over that.”

  “But where?” Mrs. Miller said.

  “Family? Friends?” her husband said.

  “Here’s my thinking,” I said. “We’re after the Jewish curfew, so you run a risk for every minute you’re on the streets — and an arrest on a curfew violation will be a death sentence, even if the gendarme who grabs you doesn’t know about your name being on the list. They’re just going to empty the jails of all Jews for the reprisals. It’s just easier.”

  “Goddamned Communists,” Mr. Miller said. I did the best I could not to react either way, just ignoring what he said and continuing.

  “So you need to find someplace close, but just for tonight. A friend is probably better than a family member. But just for one night.”

  “And then?”

  “Then, during the day, you make your way out of this neighborhood — way out of it. Do you have friends where you can stay in a distant part of the city, or outside?”

  The Millers looked at each other and simultaneously asked the same question, “Ida?”

  I waited in the sitting room while the Millers added on their extra layer of clothes in the bedroom. They came out looking like little kids stuffed into snowsuits — snowsuits with a yellow star sewn onto the outside.

  “But what will we do for food?” Mrs. Miller said. “Our ration tickets—”

  “You can’t come back to pick them up. The Gestapo will be waiting for you,” I said.

  “But—”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “One thing at a time. And the first thing is getting you out of here.”

  It was time to go. Mrs. Miller insisted on taking a minute to remove some photographs from their frames — one of their parents, their wedding day, two teenage boys.

  “Your sons?” I said.

  “Jacob and Jared,” she said. “Grown and married.”

  “Grandchildren?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Thank God,” Mr. Miller said.

  He was interrupted by the sound of squealing tires in front of the building. He peered through the curtains.

  “Gestapo?” I said.

  “Gendarmes,” he said. “Even worse. Our own people.”

  “Now,” I said. We were out the door and down the stairs to the first floor in seconds. The concierge was at the front door of the building, looking back toward the stairs, motioning us out the back door of the building while she waited to open up to the banging at the front.

  I walked them out, and then the three blocks to their friends’ building. They offered their thanks when we arrived. I had nothing for them but, “Good luck.”

  Five minutes after that, I was at The Flip. The four of us shared our stories as the adrenaline ebbed. We had all been successful, and I was the only one who’d had a close call. It had been a good day by any measure. Between the four of us, we had saved the lives of 11 people. We all knew that.

  “But what lives?” I said. “What do they have left?”

  “I can’t listen to this,” Leon said.

  “Fuck, you know it’s true,” I said.

  “Not tonight,” Leon said. “Max, let me walk you home. Maybe I can help with your father.”

  Hannah and I were left with a half-bottle of something to ourselves. I’m not sure what we talked about. All I know for sure is, when it was empty, she grabbed my hand and led me to the upstairs room where, according to Leon, she had led so many others — the upstairs room where Henri the owner had drilled the holes in the wall.

  17

  The morning, which could have been awkward — should have been awkward — was anything but, mostly because Hannah was gone before I woke up. I was left to guess at her feelings. History suggested that there were no real feelings beyond lust. I thought that was where I was, too, although I wasn’t 100 percent sure. Because while Hannah was nothing like Manon, except for her assertiveness, Leon was still right — I clearly was attracted to women with opinions, and Hannah had even more than Manon did. So this was a lust-plus situation for me. Lust-plus-what, I didn’t know, though. And as for her feelings, if any, I had no clue.

  I wasn’t sure what to do, so I decided just to keep busy. I had not been back to the old flat to check in on Izzy since I had parked him there. It had been four days. If he had been careful with the food, he would be just about to open the last can of peas. If he had not been careful, he was likely surviving on the water from the tap and the bile in his throat.

  So I pawed through the handful of ration tickets in my pocket and came up with a couple of rutabagas, a single carrot and a can of peaches. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. Part of me wanted to throw Izzy out, but I figured I could at least listen to him before I did. When I arrived at the flat, before opening the door, I said, “Izzy, it’s me,” just to warn him, and then entered to find him brandishing a frying pan.

  “A frying pan against a Gestapo Luger?” I said. “What is this, a drawing room comedy?”

  “Yeah, it’s really fucking funny,” he said.

  I handed him the meager supplies I had brought. He thanked me and stacked them in the kitchen with the cans of food he had not already eaten, which was most of them.

  “How—”

  “Not hungry,” Izzy said.

  “But that’s absurd.”

  “What can I tell you? I’m not hungry.”

  “You must no
t be interested in living, either.”

  “The thought has crossed my mind,” he said.

  I grabbed a can of peas and opened it. Then I handed it to Izzy with a spoon and a look that was equal parts stern and scared — although why I should actually care if he killed himself was beyond me. I mean, I didn’t even know Izzy, not really. All I had was those two words from the rabbi: “Help him.”

  He took the peas and slurped down a spoonful, and then another. Two peas went overboard, and he immediately dropped to the floor to retrieve them. There were in his mouth within a second.

  “Floor is filthy,” he said, almost under his breath.

  “Lesser of two evils.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Better dirty food than no food,” I said.

  Izzy slumped into the chair, and I sat on the edge of the bed. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to know about him, but I definitely wanted to know something. He read the silence and the unspoken questions that filled it, and he just began talking.

  “You know UGIF, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “I had a title with UGIF — deputy director in Paris. There were four deputy directors. None of us really had a specific function — we were all kind of ‘without portfolio.’”

  “Meaning?”

  “We put out fires as quickly as we could,” Izzy said.

  “Fires?”

  “Opening new canteens when the Germans would close one for no reason. Finding space in the orphanages for the children. Things like that. And…”

  His voice trailed off. Again, I just trusted the silence would pry open his mind, and it did.

  “You have to understand,” he said. “And I’m being as honest with you about this as I’ve been with anyone, even my wife. There were a couple of reasons why I agreed to get involved. One was legitimate. I own a small foundry. I employed Jews. I paid well. I arranged for someone to care for children, right at the foundry, if the family needed it. I provided a midday meal to my workers. I represented other businessmen in municipal council meetings. I am someone our community looks up to — or looked.”

  His voice choked. He was crying, but the emotion did not stop him.