A Hero of France: A Novel

by Alan Furst

  Some way down the beach, a German officer and his French girlfriend were lying on a blanket, snuggling, waiting for the privacy of nightfall. Even so, the German wished them a good afternoon, though the young girl beside him looked away, pretending she wasn’t there. Mathieu took Chantal’s hand in his, while Chantal, with her other hand, swung her shoes back and forth, which made her seem happy and carefree, out for a walk with her man.

  “How far is it to the reception site?” Chantal said.

  “From here? Maybe thirty miles or so—today I just wanted to get a sense of the shoreline. According to the instructions left at Madame Vigne’s shop, there’s a fishing village outside of Arromanches, then I have to find a black rock formation on the waterline at low tide. By the way, do you have the spare batteries for the flashlight?”

  Chantal patted her shoulder bag, saying, “They’re in here, as I told you when you asked this morning.”

  Mathieu was about to apologize when they heard a shout and turned to see the German officer trotting to catch up with them. He waved his hand down the beach and said, “Nein, nein,” waggling his index finger as though to naughty children. Saying “Verboten,” he pointed at an empty sentry post, a wooden hut open to the sea set high on a grassy dune. Then he smiled with regret and spread his hands—What can you do, that’s the rule.

  Mathieu said thank you and the two headed back toward the casino. The officer walked along with them and, as they approached the blanket and the waiting girlfriend, tried to say something in French. Mathieu, who hadn’t understood a word of it, replied by saying, “Oh yes? Well…,” his voice barely audible above the crash of the waves but the answer seemed to satisfy the officer.

  When they were beyond the blanket, Mathieu said, “Any idea what he was trying to say?”

  “Can’t imagine…they do have such a hard time with the language.”

  Mathieu laughed, amused by a memory. “I was in a café somewhere, and a German asked directions to the salle de nains.”

  From Chantal, a bark of laughter, then she pressed her hand to her mouth. The German had wanted to visit the bathroom, the salle de bains, but nains meant dwarves, so he was headed to the dwarves’ room.

  “Oh that’s funny,” Chantal said. “I can see them, the dwarves in the Snow White cartoon, all in a row, sitting on the pot.”

  “Yes, and maybe a couple of them would need new names.”

  Mathieu and Chantal waited in the casino parking lot until the bus for Deauville showed up—not a wood-fired bus, since the traffic between the two casinos was mostly German, gasoline-powered transportation service had been arranged. As the bus rattled along the beach road, the German officers began to sing—loud songs that sounded like marching music—while their French girlfriends looked out the window. Raising her voice above the song, Chantal said, “How is your apartment?”

  “Crowded, four beds to a room, so there are twelve of us. The croupiers spend a lot of time on their looks, shaving and powdering and snipping off the stray hair. I’d guess the casino bosses insist on that—if someone takes your money, they at least ought to be well groomed, therefore trustworthy, and not too handsome, no gigolos. What about the women?”

  “They’re young, a lot of them from Paris, who spend the summer season working as maids, and they like to have a good time when they aren’t cleaning rooms. Women in a group with no men about don’t have to be so ladylike. The girls lie around in their underwear, cursing, smoking, drinking whatever they can get their hands on—mostly by flirting with the bartenders—and they tell dirty stories about men they’ve known and laugh like hell.”

  “Well, after tonight we’ll move to our hideout.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “Ghislain, always Ghislain, what would we do without him. He forever pursued, before the war, elevated social connections, one of those professors who collects fancy company—aristocrats, lawyers, merchants, the idle rich. But this sort of climbing turns out to be very useful in a country with a resistance underground.”

  “Can we have dinner at the casino?”

  “I wish we could, but the less we’re seen the better.”

  “Oh well, the food in the apartment isn’t so bad, there’s plenty to eat, a lot of it stolen from room-service trays. Last night I had some little lobster legs from behind the claw, a chicken wing, and veal in tomato aspic—most of the veal had been eaten but the aspic was good.”

  When the bus stopped near the apartment where Mathieu was staying, he kissed Chantal on both cheeks, goodby Parisian-style, and said, “Ten in the morning, tomorrow, we’ll meet here.”

  —

  The next day, Mathieu met the couple who owned the house that would serve as a base of operations. They came by taxi to collect Mathieu and Chantal and the first time he saw them his interior warning alarm lit up: not red, but certainly amber.

  He had intended to use Daniel for the landing reception but, three days after Daniel’s escape from Rouen, Mathieu had received a letter at the Café Welcome. In very oblique language, Daniel had let him know that there had been “some trouble, a bicycle accident near the Carmelite convent north of Rouen,” and he went on to say his return to Paris would be delayed, and the friend he’d come to see in Rouen was still there. Mathieu had telephoned the convent, to learn that Daniel had contracted pneumonia, probably from the immersion in icy water during his escape, and would be in bed for some time. Four days before Mathieu took off for Deauville he called again and Daniel was in Paris a day later; but he was still pale and weak, in no shape for the beach operation. So, Mathieu had to improvise, and decided to use Émile, Ghislain’s friend who owned the house at Deauville. Émile was now seen climbing out of the taxi to open the door for his wife, Claudette.

  The de Boiselliers. Mathieu had heard about them more than once: the most charming couple, tout Paris adored them. Seen, before the war, at the best restaurants that nobody yet knew about, where the chef would come out to greet them after the meal. They attended the most exclusive dinner parties, with the politician or intellectual of the week telling confidential stories at the table. They played tennis—well, they skied, they had a box at Longchamp for the horse races.

  Émile was a partner at a prominent Parisian advertising agency. Likely he never wrote an advertisement but was brought out to lunch with important clients and he was good at it: he listened graciously, he told funny stories, and it did not hurt that he was an incredibly beautiful man, with extraordinary green eyes, a golden green, set off by the dark complexion of southern Europe, and fine features. He dressed with perfect taste, tending away from formality, and had the softest, most welcoming smile, which made him seem comfortable with whatever was going on around him. What he did to women would not bear description, and it was not so different for men, who are often drawn to the handsomest among them.

  And then there was Claudette, who wore her chestnut-brown hair cut short, close to her head, a style complemented by tiny gold-hoop earrings. She had brown eyes, a suntanned face, with lips emphasized by dark red lipstick, all of it perfected by the magicians at the beauty salons of the Sixteenth Arrondissement. Seductive, Mathieu thought, as he watched her glide out of a taxi, but a handful. What word had Ghislain used? Barracuda, as Mathieu remembered it. Shaking hands with Mathieu, she looked hungrily into his eyes, mouth partly open. Yes, she was married to a Parisian god but here was something rougher, something rather interesting.

  In the small Renault taxi, four people and the driver made for close proximity—Chantal in front, Mathieu in the backseat, a de Boisellier on either side, his cologne and her perfume heavy in the air, her body, thigh and shoulder, much closer to him than it needed to be, her eyes looking innocently out the window but for a conspiratorial glance when the driver took a curve too fast and she was thrown against him and said, “Oh-la-la.”

  On Mathieu’s left, Émile started a conversation. “I want to tell you—Mathieu, right?—how grateful I am to…”

  Mathieu nodded
his head toward the driver—meaning Let’s not use that name in public—while Chantal cut Émile off by saying, “Oh that’s a lovely statue! Do you know who it is?”

  “A statesman of the last century,” Claudette said. “I’m sure he had a name, but…”

  When Émile cleared his throat and started to complete his earlier statement, Mathieu cut him off. “Let’s wait, Émile—we’ll have a good, long talk when we get to your house.”

  Émile said, “Ah, yes, the house…we shall have a glass of wine…” As Mathieu had turned his head when Émile spoke, the Parisian god gave him a wink.

  It took some time to reach the de Boisellier house, in the countryside south of Deauville, set among orchards and grazing land. Now Mathieu, in his other life, had visited some stately and spectacular homes—sometimes a château, sometimes a grand apartment—but never anything like this. As they rounded a curve in the boxwood-hedged driveway, and the house came into view, Émile saw that Mathieu was impressed and said, “A miracle it’s still here—built in the sixteenth century.”

  As they left the taxi, Claudette meant to push against the leather seat in order to stand up but, by happenstance, her hand found Mathieu’s thigh. “Pardon,” she said. Had, Mathieu wondered, Émile seen this? Or did he not care? No reaction from Émile, holding the door and taking his wife’s hand to help her out of the taxi.

  It was a proud couple who gave them the tour: the half-timbered Norman farmhouse with a steeply pitched roof was only fourteen feet wide, with one room leading to the next. There was a double fireplace, to warm a room on either side, and, since there wasn’t much space for furnishings, the de Boiselliers’ decorator had covered the walls, and the sofas and chairs, with fabric, cotton toile—a rustic scene in cornflower blue and cream.

  They settled in the small parlor and Émile produced a bottle of Échezeaux and four crystal glasses. “Shall we drink to our success?” Émile said. After they’d had a sip of wine, he said, “Ghislain didn’t go into the details of…of what you will want from me. I work in an office in Paris and I know how to do that, but this…”

  “It won’t be so difficult,” Mathieu said. “You and I will reach a rendezvous point about two-thirty in the morning—it’s just west of the fishing village called Arromanches. We’ll wait for a signal from a Royal Navy submarine, then we’ll confirm the signal and we’ll bring two people, secret operatives, back here and wait for daylight, when Chantal and I will escort them to Paris.”

  “It doesn’t sound, complicated. Do you always have two people, doing these…things?”

  “These operations, yes, always.”

  “The way it sounds, well, it could be done by one person.”

  “There will be heavy duffel bags, we will help to carry them.”

  Émile nodded, that made sense. “I’ve never done anything like this in my life, you know, I just hope I don’t make a mistake.”

  “That’s not unusual, we’ve all had to learn as we go, and we’ll be helping our country.”

  “I expect,” Chantal said, “that the man who built this house had to bear arms for the king.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Émile said. “Drink up, everybody, there’s another bottle waiting.”

  Scared, Mathieu thought, but then who wasn’t. Changing the subject, Chantal said, “Tell us how you found this wonderful house.”

  The couple brightened and, taking turns, began to tell a complicated and amusing anecdote, while Mathieu and Chantal—native Parisians, thus adept at conversation—laughed or exclaimed in all the right places. Which led to other avenues of small talk, and so they entertained themselves for an hour and a second bottle of the magnificent Échezeaux. Then, true to the unwritten law of the visit to the country house—they may have gathered at a secret hideout but it was still a visit to a country house—Mathieu and Chantal excused themselves and were led to a guest room. As Claudette stood in the doorway, she said, “I’m going to take the sun on the terrace, would anyone care to join me? Mathieu? Chantal?”

  “Thank you,” Mathieu said, “but I think we’ll stay here.”

  When Claudette had gone, Chantal said, “That pretty man is one very frightened man, Mathieu, can we rely on him?”

  “He will do what needs to be done, frightened or not. And remember, Chantal, he’s French—not so much afraid of dying as afraid of doing something wrong.”

  The guest room—walls and coverlets in blue-and-cream toile—had two narrow beds and two windows: one with a view of an apple orchard, the other of a stone-block terrace. While Chantal sat on the room’s only chair, taking off her shoes, Mathieu stared out the window. “Look who’s here,” he said. Chantal joined him and they stood side by side as Claudette, wearing a tiny two-piece bathing suit, walked across the terrace, holding a towel in one hand, a book and eyeglasses in the other. She then commenced to organize herself for sunbathing; spreading the towel, setting book and glasses next to it, taking off her bathing suit, then lying on her right side, facing away from the window. She put on her glasses, found her place in the book, and began to read; a few seconds later, she drew her left leg up, then rested her bent knee on the towel. As the window was open, and Claudette was only thirty feet away, Chantal spoke in a whisper. “Now we have it all, don’t we.”

  Mathieu nodded and said, “We do indeed.”

  With her clothes off, Claudette had grown smaller, her shape well proportioned, her skin smooth and perfectly tanned. From somewhere beyond the house, cicadas had started up, whirring in the afternoon calm. Claudette turned a page.

  “Should I close the curtain?” Mathieu said.

  “Not for my sake,” Chantal said. “Surely you are enjoying this.”

  “I am, yes. I never tire of an interesting view.”

  “Perhaps there is more to come,” Chantal said. “Perhaps it is a stimulating book—one wouldn’t want to miss that.”

  Mathieu turned toward Chantal, who had a knowing, woman-of-the-world smile on her lips. When he again looked out the window, Claudette was smoothing her hair back, then her hand disappeared.

  “Alas,” Mathieu said, “now we’ll never know.”

  “Oh we’ll know alright. One’s hips move in a very particular way when one is engaged in…whatever you like to call it.”

  “Is it me she wants?” Mathieu said. “Or you? Or both?”

  “Perhaps both,” Chantal said. “An afternoon treat.”

  “Have you ever…?”

  “I haven’t, though I will confess I’ve thought about it. You?”

  “No, more from lack of opportunity than reluctance.”

  “It’s the same for me.”

  Neither of them made a move to leave the window. Mathieu sensed that Chantal was excited, and wondered how he knew. He was close enough to her that he could hear her breathing, which seemed normal. “Are you also enjoying this, Chantal?”

  “Naughty boy, you’re not supposed to ask a lady about things like that.”

  “Even so…”

  “You’ll never know,” Chantal said, teasing him, meaning Yes, I am.

  A few minutes passed, Claudette turned another page, the cicadas whirred. Then Chantal sighed and said, “I guess I’ve had my moment as voyeur, now I’m going to take a nap, a nap in my underwear, so you will be twice blessed today, Mathieu.” She patted him on the arm, then walked over to the narrow bed.

  —

  Late that afternoon, Émile telephoned for a taxi, which showed up in a few minutes. As Mathieu climbed into the back, he checked the name and address he’d received in the instructions from Edouard. “The Boucherie Borbal,” he told the driver. “In Honfleur, on the Rue de…”

  “I know where he is, monsieur.” This was the same driver they’d had on the previous trip. Shifting up through the gears, then speeding along a country lane, he said, “Nice people, the de Boiselliers.”

  “They are,” Mathieu said, not encouraging conversation.

  “Generous people.”

  “I�
�m sure.”

  The driver gave up and, twenty minutes later, they reached Honfleur. Across the Seine estuary from Le Havre, Honfleur was a fishing village with tourist hotels spread along the waterfront. The Boucherie Borbal, on a market street in the town behind the port, had a gold-painted horse’s head above the entry, signaling a boucherie chevaline, a horsemeat butcher. Inside, the shop smelled like old meat and had abundant flies, despite well-visited strips of flypaper dangling from the ceiling. Behind the counter, Borbal himself, Mathieu guessed, a giant of a man with ears flat to his head, a thick neck, red face and red hands, who wore a bloodstained apron. Mathieu waited for him to finish serving a customer, then said, “Are you Monsieur Borbal?”

  “That’s me. What can I get you? I’ve plenty of offal, some sausage, and, as you see, rabbit.” Skinned rabbits, a fresh pink, with fur left on the feet to prove that the rabbit was in fact a rabbit, hung from hooks above the counter.

  Mathieu used the identification protocol specified in Edouard’s instructions: “Do you sell newspapers here?”

  Borbal was lost for a moment, then, as recognition dawned, said, “Ahh, so it’s that sort of affair.” He closed one eye and tapped his index finger on the side of his nose—You and I share a secret—then said, his voice lowered, “Let’s go out back.”

  Parked in a courtyard behind the shop, a butcher’s van: a small, boxlike vehicle with a blunt hood, tall enough to appear unstable, that was colored a grimy white and had BOUCHERIE BORBAL painted on the side. Borbal took a jerrycan from a shed built against the wall of the courtyard and began filling the van’s gas tank. “How long will you want it?”

  “Tonight and tomorrow night. Maybe longer.”

  “Well, you can have it for a few days, but I’ll need it later in the week. The price for two days is ten thousand francs—more if you keep it longer. And, I’m telling you, mon ami, take care of it. I won’t ask where you’re going.”

  Mathieu reached into his pocket and, from a fat wad of francs, counted out ten thousand, some two thousand American dollars.