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

by Richard Wake

  “Week after next, right?” I said.

  “Yes. That’s all I saw.”

  “You saw plenty,” I said, and then I put my arm around her again. Nancy scored twice more and the final score was 4-0. As we got up to leave after the final whistle, the guy in the row in front of us caught my eye and gave me that “poor bastard” look again.

  Part III

  26

  I passed the information on the orphanages, as oblique as it was, up the chain after speaking to Leon. He agreed with Alicia, that there was no responsible reaction other than to assume the worst. Two days later, we were summoned to the meeting by way of a note slipped under our door. “7 p.m.” is all that it said. It was written in reddish ink.

  The basement of the cafe was more crowded than usual — 20 people, maybe more. Hannah was on the far side of the room with her group, including the poor fool whose balls she had adjudged to be the size of mouse droppings. I stared at her until she saw me, and she stared back for a second before showing the briefest of smiles. I felt that smile in my chest, and lower down.

  “You want to join her, lover boy?” Leon said.

  “No, let’s stay here.”

  “Cold feet already, huh?”

  “The opposite, actually,” I said. “But there’s no room over there. I’d look desperate.”

  “You mean more desperate than usual.”

  “Whatever.”

  Crowded, smoky — and no alcohol, either. Once again, I was pretty sure I was the only Gentile in the place. From what I had gathered in the previous weeks, this was — based on the faces and backstories that I knew, or thought I knew — a collection of the most rabid of the rabid Commies in our corner of the Resistance, the reddest of the red. Even Leon said something about it after he took a quick scan. “Holy shit,” he said. “Everybody’s here but Stalin himself.”

  “I think that’s who we’re waiting for,” I said.

  “Whoever we’re waiting for, I hope he brings a few bottles.”

  A minute later, Brick — wearing the same gray coat and black fedora — walked in empty-handed. This was not a social occasion, clearly. A dozen conversations stopped when they saw him.

  Brick looked at me and then began, “It’s come to our attention that the Gestapo is considering a raid on the orphanages.”

  A burst of invective filled the room, then died almost as quickly as it was born. Five seconds, 10 seconds, and then it was quiet again.

  “We have compared notes with some others,” Brick said. “And our whiff of information agreed with their whiff — or at least close enough to be a real concern. So we’re working on a plan with them now.”

  “Who’s them?” It was a woman’s voice in the back. Hannah. Even if I hadn’t recognized her voice, I’m pretty sure she was the only woman in the cellar.

  “Who? You know,” Brick said, and there was another burst from the room. It must have been the Gaullists.

  “It’s not that simple,” he said. Then he turned his head and explained more to placate the nosiest corner of the cellar, on the far right where Hannah was. I didn’t hear what he said, but by the context of the questions, he had mentioned a name — a woman’s name.

  “What kind of name is that, anyway? Is she French?”

  “Belgian, I think,” Brick said.

  The reaction was quick, and not positive.

  “Jew?” someone shouted.

  “Catholic, I think,” Brick said.

  More negative rumbling, except that it was louder than rumbling. Brick waited for it to subside on its own rather than shouting it down. He had obviously done this before. The passions were real and Brick clearly understood them and shared them. They were Jews, and they were Communists, and if they were going to risk their lives, Jews and Communists were going to be making the decisions. At the same time, though, Brick’s face betrayed the weariness that leaders all shared. He knew more than we did, and it wore on him.

  “Look, I don’t like this, either,” he said. “But unlike you, I don’t always have the luxury of telling people I don’t agree with to go fuck themselves.”

  Somebody shouted, “Only most of the time,” and everyone in the room laughed, including Brick.

  “Look, this one is bigger than us,” he said. “This is more than we can handle on short notice. We couldn’t do it alone. And the children… we’re talking about children…”

  Brick’s voice caught. He took off his hat and rubbed his face for a second, but only a second. The wave of emotion passed like that.

  “This isn’t a dictatorship, but it isn’t a democracy, either,” he said. “I’m doing this and we’re doing this — that’s my decision. But anybody who wants out can leave now, with no repercussions. You’ve all risked your lives and I know you’ll all do it in the future. But before we start sketching out the plan, I have to know if you’re in or you’re out.”

  Brick took off his hat and rubbed his face again. The room was silent. Then there was the scraping of a chair and one man stood up and left without saying a word. It was the guy with the mouse dropping for balls.

  He left, and the door shut behind him, and Brick waited another 30 seconds or so. Then he said, “Okay, we’re a little short on details, but here’s the general outline. Basically, we take the kids from the orphanages and deliver them to what I’ll call a staging area. From there, our Resistance brethren will take over and handle the evacuation.”

  “Where are they going?”

  “Don’t know,” Brick said. “Not our issue for now.”

  “When?” It was the same voice who had shouted the previous question.

  “Not sure of that, either. The plan is for us to have another meeting in three days. Then I’ll have the details.”

  “And when does it actually happen?”

  “Soon after that, I’m pretty sure,” Brick said. “A day or two, probably.”

  The meeting ended soon after. The protocol was for everyone to leave in pairs, and to space out the departures by about five minutes. Leon and I were by the door and among the first to leave.

  “You want to wait for her?” Leon said.

  “No, it’ll be close to an hour before her side of the room gets out.”

  “I’m okay if—”

  “No, let’s make sure we beat the curfew,” I said. The truth was, we had plenty of time. For some reason, I just didn’t feel like waiting.

  “What if she’s expecting you to wait? You think leaving is smart?”

  “Don’t know,” I said, and started walking.

  27

  Back in the flat, Leon started in almost immediately. It was as if he had kept it all bottled up during the walk from the meeting, and then the cork popped.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” he said.

  “Get what?”

  “Why we’re upset.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The meeting,” he said. “Why we’re all so pissed, so reluctant.”

  “I think I do,” I said, and I was being honest. I thought I did. Jews taking care of Jews — I got it.

  “But still,” I said.

  “Here we fucking go.”

  “But still. It’s an emergency. It’s a big operation. There’s no shame in looking for help.”

  “We don’t need their fucking help,” Leon said. The volume was growing with each expletive. “You might remember that I managed to smuggle an awful lot of Jews out of this godforsaken fucking city, and I didn’t need any help from those stick-up-their-asses de Gaulle assholes.”

  “That’s true,” I said. I bit my tongue after that, almost literally, to avoid pointing out that, not a year earlier, Leon and I had been on the opposite sides of the Gaullist issue. He worked for them in Limoges and I hated them, and then we gradually began to take each other’s position. It made no sense, in some ways — and I liked to think that at least some of it was initially fueled by alcohol, and then by pride. Whatever.

  The other reason I bit my tong
ue was to avoid pointing out that he not done it alone, that his smuggling operation was not exactly a one-man band, that I had helped him. It’s true that it was detail work and not the actual rescue work — when I lived in Lyon, I gave some of his refugees a temporary home while I arranged for their new paperwork from a local forger. I didn’t take the risks he took, and I didn’t do anything like the planning and scheming that he did, but I didn’t do nothing, either.

  Which dawned on him, belatedly, seconds after I put on a hurt-puppy face that was about one-quarter real and three-quarters for effect.

  “I know you helped,” Leon said. “And you know how much I appreciated it. Fucking asshole. But you have to get it. I mean, you have to. For all the time the Germans have been here, the Jews have been the victims, the No. 1 victims. But have we ever been the No. 1 priority for the Resistance? How about when you were in Lyon? Admit it. Did you ever run an operation specifically aimed at saving Jews? You blew up a bunch of bridges and telegraph lines and shit, but Jews? Ever?”

  My silence was my answer. It was an answer he already knew because we had talked about it before, usually drunk.

  “The de Gaulle assholes,” he said. “They couldn’t spell Jew if you spotted them the J and the E — and before they even tried, they’d have to radio London first for permission. And then they’d have to wait for a detailed set of instructions. So we have to take care of it ourselves. We can and we will take care of it ourselves.”

  “Just maybe not this time,” I said.

  “We don’t need their fucking help.”

  “But how do you even know?” I said. “If it’s eight or 10 kids, you would have to hide and then move south, you could handle that. I’m confident you could handle that. But what if it’s 20 kids?”

  “I could do it.”

  “I’m less sure than you are. And what if it’s 50? What if it’s 100? There’s a point where it would be too many for you, and even you would admit that. And we don’t have any idea how many orphans they’re talking about.”

  “Brick does,” Leon said. “He knows.”

  “Exactly. Brick knows. And Brick thinks we need some help.”

  I had made my point. Leon had heard me. There wasn’t a lot left to say on the topic. At the same time, there wasn’t a convenient way to pivot to some kind of mindless conversation. Even though I figured, under normal circumstances, that he might enjoy busting my balls for a few minutes about Hannah, I didn’t feel like going there because, well, I didn’t know how I felt about anything regarding Hannah.

  So we sat in silence. I was bored and trying not to have the same argument with myself about Hannah that had been consuming hours of my recent days. Leon, though, looked morose.

  “I can’t believe you don’t see it,” he said. “We’ve always been responsible for our own survival. Why should this be any different? We’re the masters of our fate. We’re the fighters of our fight. And fuck you and the rest of them.”

  “Hey, I’m on your side. I mean, you do know that, beneath all of this bullshit, right?”

  “Yeah,” Leon said. “It’s not bullshit but, yeah, I know. But I need to beat up on somebody and you’re the only goy who’s handy at the moment.”

  “Glad to be of service.”

  “A full-service fucking goy,” he said. “If this thing goes bad, we’ll put it on your tombstone.”

  28

  After a tour of the neighborhood shops, I managed a loaf of bread that was probably two days old, two turnips, a can of peas, and two Jerusalem artichokes. For some reason, they were always available, the Jerusalem artichokes. The two promises I had made myself, for when the war ended, was that I would never complain about the quality of a bottle of wine and that I would never again eat another Jerusalem artichoke. But that was for then.

  I carried my meager provisions to the flat where Izzy and Max were stashed. Izzy and Max. Every time I thought of them, I smiled, mostly because I couldn’t imagine how they were coexisting. Izzy, it seemed to me, relished the quiet time, the introspection, where he could beat himself up some more for the choices he had made. Max, on the other hand, was likely bouncing off the walls and babbling nonstop about whatever. As I walked up the steps, I would not have been shocked if one of them had punched out the other, or left entirely.

  But when I knocked and said, “It’s me,” the lock turned and they were both standing there. The look on their faces was like that of a dog greeting its master after a long absence, a dog desperate to get out for a piss.

  They spoke at once.

  “Thank god,” Izzy said.

  “Thank fucking god,” Max said.

  Which about summed up the difference between the two of them, between a man in his fifties who was full of regret and a boy of 19 who couldn’t spell the word regret, whose only vision was forward.

  I went into the kitchen and started to prepare the food and tried to make conversation. I asked them if they’d heard anyone on the stairs or been bothered in any way.

  “All quiet,” Izzy said.

  “Dead fucking quiet,” Max said.

  “A good thing,” Izzy said.

  “I’m going crazy,” Max said.

  “You need to relax,” Izzy said.

  “You need to develop a pulse,” Max said.

  My idea of what the meal might consist of changed as I listened. I wasn’t slicking up any vegetables and waiting for them to cook. I would leave them the turnip and the Jerusalem artichokes for later. If they didn’t want to eat them, perhaps they could use them for weapons.

  Instead, I went with pea sandwiches. I sliced the bread, opened the can, and smashed the peas and spread them like a kind of bastardized green jam. I had done it before, and it actually wasn’t bad. And if it was better if you toasted the bread first, well, it was good enough the way it was. Even the couple of minutes it would take to make toast seemed unendurable.

  “Don’t you ever talk?” Max said.

  Izzy just looked at him.

  “See? It’s goddamned unbearable.”

  “Why don’t you just go in the other room and entertain yourself?” Izzy said. Izzy looked at me and made a wanking motion with his right hand. He thought he had shielded what he was doing with his body, but Max saw it.

  “At least I’m alive,” he said. “Did you bring a mirror to put under his nostrils, Alex? I’m not sure he’s breathing. At least I know I am.”

  “Three times a day,” Izzy said, wanking again.

  “Here, eat,” I said, handing them each an open-face pea sandwich. My intention was to leave as soon as I had inhaled my portion. As it turned out, Max ate his even faster than I did. Izzy ate half of his, maybe a little more, and then handed the rest to Max. A peace offering of sorts, I guessed. Max didn’t even say thank you, though. I really needed to get out of there.

  Max grabbed my elbow and walked me into the kitchen.

  “Seriously, when can I get the hell out of here?” he said. His mouth was still half full, and he was licking a bit of stray pea paste off his thumb.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “For it to cool down.” I handed him a copy of Le Matin that I had found the previous day on the Metro. “See there — your little escapade is still front-page news. They’ve already executed three people as reprisals.”

  That fact went completely over Max’s head, the part about innocent people being killed because he had felt the need to pop a German soldier on the street. All he said was, “But the paper is from yesterday. It might have cooled down some.”

  I pointed to the paragraph in the story that described the suspect as “a dark-haired youth, likely aged from 12 to 15.”

  “I don’t look like I’m 12,” Max said.

  “You don’t look like you’re 25, either.”

  “But this is bullshit. How many—”

  “At least a couple more days,” I said. “This is too important to fool around with. A couple more days, and then we’ll
get you back in circulation.”

  I handed him the newspaper and motioned him into the other room, then I waved at Izzy to join me.

  “So, what, are you throwing me out?” he said.

  “Not today,” I said. “But yes. Soon. Have you come up with a plan for what’s next?”

  “Not really, no. I do want to make amends, but I don’t know how.”

  “Do you have any money?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Can you get your hands on it?”

  “I can. It’s at the foundry. It’s closed, but I have some emergency funds hidden there.”

  “If you can get it,” I said, “I can get you to a forger. He can make you a new identity card. After that, I don’t know what to tell you. You’ll be on our own from there.”

  “Are you sure he’ll help me?”

  “As long as you bring money, he’ll help you — Christian, Jew, doesn’t matter. He’s pretty non-denominational that way.”

  “How about UGIF?”

  “Really, he couldn’t give a shit if you have the money,” I said.

  We talked some more. Izzy mentioned the possibility of going south, maybe to Bordeaux, and joining a Resistance group there. How he was going to manage it by himself was beyond me, but at least he was thinking.

  Out of nowhere, he said, “We really didn’t know at the beginning. You have to believe me.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “I mean, we were naive, I guess. I was naive. But you have to believe me — I really just wanted to help my people. That was most of my motivation — truly. I never would have done it if I thought—”

  “I believe you,” I said. The truth was, I sort of believed him. I also believed that he knew about the transport trains, and the possibility of death camps at the end of the line, a lot sooner than he was admitting.

  But better late than never, right? Isn’t that how the saying goes? Leon would tell me that I was a naive fool, and that all Izzy was doing was trying to save his own pathetic ass. And maybe he was right.