Chasing Mona Lisa

by Tricia Goyer

  Her colleague stopped typing and rose from her desk to join Colette at the window. “Where do you think they’re going?”

  Colette’s ears tingled from the exhaust notes of the powerful diesel engines. “When I got off the Métro, we saw a huge convoy of troop trucks. They had to be heading to the Hôtel Meurice.”

  “Yes, I heard them pass too.”

  “And now these tanks are moving in the same direction. Maybe an Allied attack is imminent.”

  As a rule, Colette kept her distance from where the German High Command was posted. Most Parisians did the same, although some parents still visited the lovely sculptured Tuileries Garden opposite the hotel, where their children played by the pond with wooden sailboats. She leaned out the windowsill and regarded how the tanks purposefully maintained a straight line down the middle of the boulevard, which had emptied in the last twenty minutes. The few Parisians out and about skirted underneath the alcoves or slipped into the background.

  Easy now, she thought. All it took was a Resistance member to fling a Molotov cocktail at one of those tanks, and a trigger-happy tank gunner could punch a grotesque hole in the nearest building—or her office.

  Anne stood on her tiptoes and leaned out the window. “I’m looking for Allied tanks, but I’m not seeing anything.”

  Colette mirrored her movement. “Me neither. I’m sure we’ll hear shooting once the Allies are in Paris. This certainly is nerve-racking, waiting for something to happen.”

  “What are you going to do when the shooting starts?”

  “Stay here as long as I can. I would imagine that the Louvre would be one of the first places the Allies want to secure.”

  Colette closed the window, which cut down the cacophony of sound considerably. Anne returned to her desk, while Colette turned to the wooden file cabinet and unlocked the second drawer. The file she sought was one she could find blindfolded. She bent over, let her fingers count off six files, and pulled out a binder marked La Joconde.

  She carried the thick file back to her desk and untied the string holding its contents. Henri Rambouillet, her department head and senior curator, had given her a promotion that carried responsibility for the Mona Lisa back in 1942, one which raised eyebrows among other Louvre curators since she only had two years of experience. The hallway gossip was horrible. Some said the German cultural minister pressured Rambouillet because she had slept with him, but that was a filthy lie. It was her mother-tongue fluency in German that leapfrogged Colette over other applicants.

  Colette skimmed the first few pages, which she could practically recite by heart. When Hitler was rattling sabers in the summer of 1939, at least one segment of the French elites believed him—the arts community. August vacations were canceled at the Louvre, and packing and crating started in earnest. A plan was formulated to safeguard priceless works of art like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo by removing them from the Louvre and hiding them outside of Paris for safekeeping.

  Over the next four years, the famous painting moved more often than a green pea in a shell game. Currently, she was resting in a chateau outside the medieval town of Annecy, not far from Geneva.

  Colette smiled and gathered the papers in the file and straightened the bottom edges. Keeping up with the wry smile of a Florentine merchant’s wife and her constant moves caused Colette to rub her temples. But based on the events of the last few days, soon she—and all of France—could breathe a collective sigh of relief.

  Colette looked up from her file. “It will be nice to get La Joconde home where she belongs,” she said to Anne.

  The phone jangled, which Colette picked up.

  “We have a problem,” a voice announced.

  She immediately recognized the voice of Monsieur Rambouillet, her superior, a few offices away.

  Rambouillet cleared his throat. “There’s a German major in my—”

  The phone line went dead. Seconds later a commotion of guttural German shouts and heavy boots filled the hallway.

  “What’s happening?” Anne asked, the color draining from her face.

  “I’m not sure.” Colette set the black handset back in its cradle and stepped out into the hallway. Monsieur Rambouillet scrambled her way. A German officer and a soldier holding a bayoneted rifle followed with heavy steps.

  Rambouillet, pale and clammy, mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “I can’t understand a word this crazy German is saying!” he cried. “You have to help me.”

  Colette stepped in front of her superior. She squared her shoulders and gathered her courage. “There seems to be a misunderstanding, Herr Oberst. How can I help?” she asked in crisp German that bespoke authority.

  “I’m here to move a few paintings.”

  Colette regarded the intruder. His uniform was all starch and shiny brass. Slight of build with a face pockmarked from scarred acne, the Prussian exuded arrogance. His pinpoint eyes made her skin crawl.

  “Sir, this is the Louvre, and we work under the German Ministry of Culture. May I see your requisition documents, please?”

  “Will this suffice?” The major unbuttoned his leather holster and pointed a pistol at Colette and then Rambouillet, who instinctively held up his hands at chest height.

  Colette’s heart skipped a beat, then she steadied her nerves and took a long moment to study the German major, whose exertion had prompted two lines of perspiration to roll down his craggy face. To Colette, he reeked of desperation, which was the picture of a proud and boastful enemy teetering on defeat.

  “But Herr Oberst, how will I explain this to the Cultural Minister?”

  Without moving his gaze from Colette, the major aimed his Luger in Rambouillet’s direction and fired a single round. Rambouillet winced as powder stung his bald head. Behind him, wood splintered and scattered to the floor. Shock hung in the air with the acrid aroma of spent gunpowder filling the hallway.

  Colette maintained her composure. “Herr Major, surely you’re aware that I’ll need to answer to the Ministry for any pieces of art released without the proper paperwork.”

  This time the major slowly lowered his outstretched arm and pointed the pistol directly between Rambouillet’s eyes. “I’m sure the Ministry has more pressing matters to tend to at the moment . . .”

  Colette stiffened. “Very well,” she said in a steady voice that surprised even her. “What do you have in mind?”

  “A few souvenirs of my time in Paris. I’d like to see what you have in the Sully Wing,” he replied, while returning the sidearm to his holster.

  Colette’s gaze narrowed. “Yes, let me see what I can arrange. You can follow me.” She turned to Rambouillet and switched back to French. “You may go back to your office. I’ll handle this.”

  She had never seen a more grateful look in her life. Anne, who’d watched the encounter from the doorway, slipped away and joined Rambouillet down the hall.

  Colette had trained for moments like this and knew exactly what to do. She stepped back into her office, and with a demure smile to the major, she lifted the phone. “I’ll just call the custodian and ask him to meet us at the storage area.”

  The connection was made after two short rings. “Je cherche Monsieur Monet. J’ai besoin de le recontrer dans l’aile Sully,” she said. I’m looking for Mr. Monet. I need to meet him in the Sully Wing.

  A brusque, deep voice replied that Monsieur Monet wasn’t available. She hung up the handset. “He wasn’t there,” she said in German to the two men occupying her office. “I can try someone else—”

  The German officer placed his left hand over hers before she could lift the phone to place another call. Her body shivered in response to his cold touch.

  “That won’t be necessary. I’m sure you know the way.”

  The major had good information, Colette thought. The Sully Wing was the easternmost annex of the Louvre, ringed by a thirteenth-century moat, and showcased invaluable eighteenth-century paintings from French artists like Fragonard and Watteau. Many had been wrap
ped, boxed, and shipped out in the fall of 1939, but with 15,000 works of art in the Louvre’s possession at the start of the war, thousands of paintings had to be left behind in the Louvre’s basements.

  And now some rogue Nazi was treating the most famous museum in the world like a shopping gallery. She wished her boyfriend, Bernard Rousseau, had picked up the phone when she dialed Maintenance.

  She led the Germans from the Richelieu Wing into the main palace courtyard, which was empty except for a pair of gardeners clipping potted hedges to the left of the Sully Wing entrance. The German major was a step behind her, followed by the soldier who had shouldered his carbine.

  As they approached the ornate double doors, the German major called to her, “Fräulein, one moment.”

  Colette came to a stop in the magnificent courtyard and turned to face him. The major paused his steps and leaned in slightly.

  “We will keep this our little secret, ja? If not—” The officer tapped his black leather holster, a visual reminder to Colette that he was prepared to use his Luger.

  Colette did not respond. Her attention was directed elsewhere—to movement behind the Wehrmacht soldier. In one fluid motion, one of the gardeners swung a short-handled tool into the back of the unsuspecting infantryman.

  With a muffled grunt, the soldier fell face-first to the cobblestone square, the blunt end of a pickaxe extruding from his back.

  The German major swiveled and fumbled for his Luger as a shadow of a shovel darted across the walkway ahead. The broad blade of the tool struck him square in the face. The sharp crackling of bone and cartilage was muffled by splitting skin. The dazed officer covered his face and doubled over in agony, blood dripping between his fingers. Colette placed her hands over her mouth and stepped back.

  Windmilling the shovel, the gardener brought the blade down hard against the back of the major’s head, flattening the base of his skull. The German crumpled to the ground. Colette stared in horror as the gardener delivered the coup de grâce—a pair of hedge shears ferociously driven between the officer’s shoulder blades.

  A grotesque sucking sound caused her stomach to lurch as the long-handled shears were pulled from the dead officer. The gardener quickly removed the Luger from its holster and tucked it under his belt.

  “Et voilà,” he said, breaking the silence with his gruff voice. There you have it.

  Colette felt her world spinning. She knew that her code phrase—“Je cherche Monsieur Monet”—would alert the maintenance crew that she was in danger, but up until today, she had never needed to make that call. She moved to a nearby bench and sat down, taking several deep breaths to steady herself.

  “Quick—help me load this pig.” The gardener beckoned his partner to give him a hand.

  Within seconds, the second gardener wheeled a wooden handcart out from behind the potted hedges. Together, they heaped two bodies onto the cart and covered them with a green canvas tarp.

  “Go back to your office,” the gardener said to Colette. “We’ll tell Bernard you’re okay.”

  “Where is he?”

  He adjusted his brimless beret. “I’m sorry, Mademoiselle, I don’t know where he is, but he is fighting for our liberation. Vive la France!”

  “Oui, vive la France.”

  Colette looked up at the summer sky, tarnished with smoke and haze in the distance. She could only wonder what Bernard was doing at that moment.

  3

  Four years of Nazi rule in Paris had not sanded off the corners of Bernard Rousseau’s resolve.

  For this member of the Resistance, fighting back against evil was a core value firmly lodged in the center of his being. That’s why he had volunteered for this early morning mission in the 6th arrondissement not far from the Latin Quarter.

  As the cool morning air caressed his cheeks, his thoughts turned to Colette. He knew it wasn’t wise to have allowed himself to fall in love, but he could not deny the solace, the comfort he found in her arms. In the moments when he looked into her gentle gaze—or when his lips touched hers—he could forget that their nation was no longer their own.

  Or maybe it was because each day could be his last that he allowed himself the pleasure of her company. It was selfish, he knew, especially since he never let his mind wander to the future. He never offered Colette more than today. She never asked.

  As Bernard quickened his steps, he mentally prepared for the possibility of sacrificing everything for a higher ideal—a Communist France where the proletariat was no longer exploited by the bourgeoisie. Where common man could determine his own future, and all men care for their neighbors as seemed only right.

  And kill as many Germans as he could along the way.

  On a brisk June afternoon in 1940, Bernard had stood stoically on a crowded sidewalk along the Champs Élysées and cursed under his breath while the victorious German Army marched on cobblestones that hadn’t yielded to the leather soles of a foreign invader since the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. Their synchronized goose steps and collective smugness nauseated him that dark day, but it wasn’t until his father’s shocking death that he was motivated to fight the Aryan conquerors.

  He eagerly fell in with the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, a Communist-run Resistance group that sabotaged German capabilities, fabricated false identity documents, and generally made themselves a pain in the derrière to the occupying force. The FTP and other confederate Resistance groups kept the candles of liberté, égalité, and fraternité—the tripartite motto of liberty, equality, and fraternity—lit during France’s darkest days.

  Their illumination was increasing with each hour. On this cloudless Friday in August, four years and two months after the fall of France, the libération of Paris was imminent. He could feel it in his bones. If things fell as planned, the hated Nazis would be driven out, setting the stage for France’s Fourth Republic to become the world’s second Communist nation, united under Russian hegemony.

  “When do you think we’ll see the first patrol?”

  The question from Alain Dubois startled Bernard, who willed his mind back to the task at hand.

  “Not too much longer.” Bernard smirked. “You know les boches. Regular as clockwork. Since they clocked in at 8 a.m., we should see them stirring at any moment.”

  Their perch inside a second-story apartment overlooked the Jardin du Luxembourg, where symmetrical gravel footpaths and scrawny lawns ringed the Luxembourg Palace. Luftwaffe Field Marshall Hugo Sperrle—one of Hermann Göring’s subordinates—commanded this stronghold for German forces that had occupied Paris like an iron fist in a velvet glove. Bernard was directed by his superiors to keep an eye out for anything beyond the usual troop movements. He and Dubois were positioned along the Rue de Vaugirard, which bordered the Luxembourg Garden’s northern flank.

  Bernard pulled back a light curtain and held up a pair of binoculars. He scanned the palace grounds before locking on a wooden barrack situated in a rectangular orchard of apple and pear trees about a half kilometer in the distance. Clusters of German soldiers, with rifles slung over their shoulders, milled around a lineup of troop trucks. They were undoubtedly waiting for orders of the day. Or maybe they were being held in reserve to put down the latest insurrection hot spot.

  Bernard inhaled a quiet breath of warm summer air—and then heard the unmistakable sound of a diesel motor. He didn’t need binoculars to spot a gray Panzer rumbling toward their position, crawling in low gear and making a racket from the metal caterpillar treads grinding on the granite cobblestones.

  “A Panzer III,” he announced. He and Dubois were quite familiar with the medium-sized enclosed armored military vehicle, an obsolete battle tank of the German forces that was seriously outgunned by Russian T-34s on the Eastern Front. In urban hot spots like Paris, however, the Panzer III proved to be a formidable foe against a relatively unarmed citizenry. The only weapon available to partisans was Molotov cocktails.

  The next sight caused Bernard’s stomach to tighten. Lashed to the tank turr
et was a French hostage. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen Panzers use a human shield to protect themselves from crude homemade fire bombs.

  Bernard looked down at a wooden crate containing a half-dozen incendiary devices. “I guess we won’t be needing those.”

  Dubois swore in frustration. He leaned in for a closer look as the Panzer approached at low speed. “It’s Louis Michaud!”

  Bernard nearly pushed Dubois to the floor to get a better look. Louis Michaud worked on the same maintenance crew at the Louvre Museum, but he had disappeared four days earlier. One of the guys at work said he had answered the call of the French Forces of the Interior—the Resistance group loyal to General Charles de Gaulle. The apolitical Louis, loyal and brave, had bounced from one Resistance group to another during the Occupation. The Germans must have captured him. And now this indignity—being used as a human shield to stop any attacks from the Resistance or citizenry.

  “I’ll wager a sou the Panzer is headed toward the Sorbonne.” Bernard mopped a layer of sweat off his forehead with the back of his grimy hand.

  “That’s a sure bet,” Dubois said. “Probably going over there to smash a few barricades set up by the students.”

  They watched the German tank pass below their perch and rumble east toward Boulevard Saint-Michel. The Panzer commander stood in the gun turret to direct the driver. All tanks had notoriously restricted views when buttoned up in battle, which meant the tank commander was the eyes and ears when the Panzer was on the move. One of the gunners had opened the escape hatch, no doubt to help with circulation of air.

  Louis Michaud came into focus, a black armband of the Resistance on his left sleeve. His face was a mask of fright. The Panzer crew members had secured his torso with ropes to the main turret and pinned his arms behind him. At least they weren’t dangling him from the 75-millimeter howitzer, letting him hang like a pig on a pole being led to the fire. Bernard had seen Panzer crews do that before, often for the sport of it. He shuddered at the memory of watching one of his comrades fall off the gun barrel, only to be chewed up by the metal tire tracks like a hand-powered meat grinder.