Three Hours in Paris

by Cara Black

  She splashed water on her face, opened her compact to discover the mirror had cracked; the flaking powder granules shimmered over the sink. Seven years bad luck, her Auntie Mae would say.

  Sunday, June 23, 1940

  Requisitioned Kommandantur Office, Paris

  12:45 p.m. Paris Time

  Gunter set down his case on the desk, so recently vacated by a French official that it still held a desk calendar agenda with appointments dated yesterday on the ink-stained blotter. He had barely caught his breath before he had to answer the ringing phone.

  “The Führer is pleased,” said Jäger. “Report back to me immediately after you interrogate the parachutists.”

  How could Gunter tell his boss that he doubted any of the parachutists were the assassin? Enlisting the arriving troop sergeant’s assistance, Gunter had dismantled the four found rifles in a room at the village gendarmerie. They’d found no residue fouling in the barrel, no traces of powder on the breech face, no fresh scraping on the ejector. Gunter was certain none of the rifles had been fired since the last time they had been thoroughly cleaned.

  Following his policeman’s training, he’d sent them to the ballistics lab. But he knew what the technicians would find.

  “Of course, Gruppenführer.” That at least was the truth. His mind went back to that faint garden whiff he had picked up from the Montmartre apartment’s wood floor. The familiar scent had been nagging at him. And now, suddenly, he put his finger on it: a childhood memory, a school hiking trip in the Bavarian Alps—he must have been eleven or twelve. There had been a group of British women bird watchers staying in the lodge, and they had been annoyed by the noisy schoolboys. It was the first time he’d ever seen binoculars; he’d thought they looked like little telescopes. One lady complained to the teacher that Gunter and his mates stole her Pears soap, insisting their teacher search their bunks in their dormitory. The soap was for women only, she declared. The boys made fun of the Englishwoman until the landlady confessed.

  One of the British women said, “Let her keep it; we won the war and they don’t even have soap.” But the landlady was so ashamed she’d tossed it in the garbage. Gunter and his mates recovered the soap and kept it like a treasure, dividing it into slivers.

  Gunter dredged that fragrance from his memory, the translucent amber bar. Pears soap, for women only. The lipstick signal the dead radio man had alerted them to reinforced Gunter’s suspicion: he had a hunch he was looking for an English female assassin.

  He had to get to that 1 p.m. meeting.

  Gunter checked his watch, anxious to end this call.

  “No one will ever know about the assassination attempt, Gunter,” Jäger was saying. “Goebbels informed me the official cameraman destroyed that section of film.”

  Gunter had expected no less. All newsreels were doctored. The last thing Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, wanted was for the world to see that not all the French citizens welcomed the Reich. If the Parisians knew, it could signal a call to arms. The footage of the attempted assassination no doubt was already nothing more than celluloid bits on the editing room floor.

  “Of course, Gruppenführer. But how will we explain Admiral Lindau’s . . . ah, untimely death?”

  Jäger snorted. “Lindau had angina and suffered a crippling heart attack in the company of his beloved Führer,” he said. “The Führer’s very upset about the admiral’s passing. Lindau’s invasion campaign has had to be handed over to a U-boat captain. And of course, his plans for Lindau’s birthday party at Berchtesgaden have been ruined.”

  So Hitler still planned on invading Britain by sea when he already had troops across Poland, Holland, Belgium and half of France?

  Gunter checked his watch again. He cradled the phone receiver between his neck and shoulder, stuffing files inside his case.

  “Keep me informed, Gunter.” Jäger hung up.

  Gunter raced out of the office and beckoned Niels.

  Sunday, June 23, 1940

  South Coast of England

  1:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time

  Posted signs on the shale beach and abandoned pier read keep out. military area. off limits.

  “Grandma,” said nine-year-old Robbie, standing in the shallow surf, “look at what I found.”

  “More cockles, I hope.” His grandmother, skirt rolled up, stood by the old pier in the low tide, stuffing cockles into her hip basket. The sand around the pilings was thick with them. Beige striped whelks, too.

  Robbie was holding a dark green buoy. Blue blinks came from what looked like an eye in its metal casing. Fizzing bubbles trailed from it, disappearing in the sea foam.

  It looked like a machine from one of his Flash Gordon comic books. Or that picture in that book Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea that Grandad read to him.

  “Grandad should see this,” he said.

  “What’s that you’re holding?”

  He lifted it up. It was heavy.

  And his grandmother was splashing toward him. “Never you mind about Grandad,” she said, panting. “Put that down.” She took his hand, seeing the military trucks approaching the old pier. This was a restricted area patrolled by the Home Guard. Still Grandma and the villagers would sneak in to fish and collect cockles as they always had. “Time to go.”

  “Will we get in trouble?”

  “You let me do the talking, Robbie.”

  That she did.

  Ten minutes later, the Home Guard squad commander in charge had conferred with his squad, who’d stowed the buoy-like thing in the back of a jeep. “Mrs. Whately, we need Robbie to answer some questions,” he told Robbie’s grandmother.

  Robbie’s eyes brightened. “To help the war effort, sir?”

  His grandmother’s work-worn fingers twisted on her basket. “Robbie, keep quiet.”

  “You’ll sign the Official Secrets Act. And this never happened.”

  “Can we tell Grandad?”

  “You’ll need to speak with the group commander.”

  She sighed. “Understood.”

  In the truck Robbie looked at his worried grandma.

  Sunday, June 23, 1940

  Café Littéraire, Place de la Sorbonne, Paris

  12:50 p.m. Paris Time

  Seven years bad luck? Kate hoped not, staring in dismay at the cracked mirror in her compact. On the bright side, she wouldn’t mind knowing she had another seven years to live, bad luck or not. At the moment she couldn’t even guess whether she’d survive the next ten minutes.

  She dipped her finger in the rouge, which had melted then caked in the heat. She ran a comb through her dirty dark blonde hair, parting it on the side, clipped it back with a tortoiseshell comb. Not too different from how she’d looked when she’d sat down, but primped enough for the waiter to sense un rendez-vous amoureux.

  “The trick is to blend in, not stand out,” Stepney had told her, over and over. “That is crucial.”

  On the morning of what had been her last day of training, she’d been taken to another mansion, this time on the outskirts of London. One of those places royalty lived with servants, drafty and unheated. Stepney ushered her up a grand staircase to a suite of rooms and into a long rectangular dressing room with closets, a full-length mirror and a vanity dresser lined with perfume bottles and lotions. Uneasy, she wondered why Stepney brought her into a woman’s intimate boudoir. She felt like more of an outsider than ever, wondering how this fit in with her mission.

  Peter, a Shakespearean actor, sat at the vanity with a stage makeup kit compact. “We call it our palette, like an artist’s.” Peter appeared to be in his thirties. He had a craggy face, prominent chin. He studied her thoughtfully. “As I illustrate and explain I’ll be assembling your palette to use on the spot. Your own kit.”

  Stepney had lingered at the door. “You’ve got two hours, Peter. See that she passes this postgraduate course wit
h honors.”

  Peter began by taking a thin makeup brush and dipping it in alcohol. “An agent’s cover involves the use of quick disguises. But a disguise doesn’t mean a false beard.”

  Kate smiled. “So a mustache in my case?”

  Peter took her hand and squeezed it. Smiled. “Avoid thinking theatrically. Instead make small changes to your appearance.” He put a brown-framed pair of glasses on the vanity. “Try this. Now part your hair differently—on the left.”

  She did. She could be a librarian, a shop clerk, a teacher.

  Amazing what a little change could do.

  “Now stand up.” Peter had her turn around in front of the mirror, all fingernail-bitten five foot six inches of her. “You’re a big-boned girl.”

  Did he mean her looks doomed her mission? All of a sudden dread overwhelmed her. “You’re saying I’ll stand out. It’s hopeless.”

  His brown eyes danced. “I’m saying use it. Actors plays many roles by changing appearance to alter audience perceptions. We do it all the time.” He lifted a photo of a bent old man from his case. “That’s me in The Merchant of Venice.” He showed her another of a young straight-backed warrior. “As Banquo in Macbeth. In repertory especially, actors play all kinds of roles, young and old.” He squeezed her hand again. Reassuring. “Remember, it’s how you play with what you’ve got to alter perceptions. So use it.”

  Peter handed her a blue cardigan from the wardrobe. “Try a different gait. Walk with a slouch to the door and watch yourself in the mirror.”

  Kate fit her arms in the sweater, buttoned it, hunched her shoulders and slouched. It felt so awkward. So false.

  “Now inhabit this woman wearing this sweater whose back gives her trouble. Be her. Believe it.”

  Kate remembered how her back ached after a long day standing at the munitions factory. That long trudge home on the rutted dirt road to the cottage. Then her world brightening as she picked up Lisbeth at Mrs. McLeod’s, twirling the little girl through the air despite the twinge in her back. She let her mind go there and crossed the carpet.

  “Good.” Peter smiled in encouragement. “Walking is one thing you can change right away. Putting a pebble in your shoe is guaranteed to make you walk differently. Height is harder to disguise, although you can make yourself even taller with heels.”

  He waved the thin makeup brush. “Don’t rely on one of these. Use your fingers. And never use perfume. Or nail polish, ever. And file those jagged nails.”

  He demonstrated how to use liquid collodion that dried into a wax-like substance to create scars. A simple scarf could be worn several ways, creating a new look each time.

  “A stub of charcoal or soot darkens hair. Or you can give yourself shadows under your eyes. Try it with me.”

  Beside him at the mirror, she brushed the charcoal stub into the laugh lines around her eyes as Peter did. Blended it in with her fingers, watching him and following his lead. Smudged it under her eyes.

  “I look ancient,” she said. “So do you.”

  “See.” He grinned. “A haggard, tired appearance in less than a minute. Remember, if you want to be invisible go old. No one notices old people.”

  In two hours he’d shown her how to use lip outlining pencils to thicken brows and change the shape of her mouth, rouge for cheeks and lips, saltwater drops to make her eyes bloodshot and watery, and an array of other subtle tricks.

  “Minimalist and effective. We use these on stage every night, several times during a single performance if you’re playing more than one part. Changing your appearance and your walk helps you get into character.” Peter lifted her chin. Stared straight in her eyes. “Most important, believe and be the character. If you do, others will.”

  A knock on the door and Stepney came in. “Ready?”

  “Remember—in the field, a quick and simple disguise works best.” Peter handed her a Gauloise Caporal tobacco tin, inside a tiny palette arranged with a piece of charcoal, rouge, lip pencil stub, a vial of drops, collodion, hair combs and coiled blue ribbon. “Your kit. Believe. Best of luck.”

  Back upstairs in the café, Kate scanned the crowd again, then sat down at the outdoor table just at the moment the waiter brought her coffee. He gave her an approving smile and she handed him three francs from the money prepared in her jacket pocket. When he left, she set a few sous—about ten cents, the customary pourboire the French refused to call a tip—on the table.

  Now she rested her canvas bag under the rattan chair between her feet. Checked the time. The distant church bell of Saint-Séverin in the Latin Quarter chimed the three-quarter hour. To her left on boulevard Saint-Michel was the bus stop where, if all went well and according to the instructions, she’d meet her contact.

  She opened the book she had pulled from the bike basket—tough going in classical French. She concentrated on her breathing. She kept her eyes half-lidded so her gaze appeared focused on the page to anyone who was watching her; meanwhile she continuously scanned the area—for trouble or for her contact, whoever that was.

  Welcome mist from the fountain hung in the dense heat. The laughter of the red-faced beer-drinking Wehrmacht filled the terrasse. Which of the waiters had left the door unlocked and message in the hollow key, she wondered? Which one could she trust?

  According to the Maquet wristwatch Stepney had given her, eight minutes had passed when a new patron, a mustached man reading Signal, claimed a table. The Wehrmacht’s voices had grown even louder. A good blind—protection, unless they scared her contact off. But she couldn’t control that.

  She glanced inside the café. The young couple nestled against each other; the student bent over his notebook; the workman nursed another beer at the counter. She turned the page as if engrossed in the book.

  RADA, she could hear Stepney’s voice in her head; read the terrasse activity—normal; continue to closely assess the patrons; decide if it felt right and according to plan; prepare to act at the scheduled time.

  The fish-eyed waiter was washing glasses; the other waiter stood at the chalkboard by the window, adding today’s menu. Her contact could be any of the patrons inside, or either of the two professors sitting outdoors on the terrasse. The young one’s face rarely looked up from his wine glass and the older one intently rolled his cigarette with shaky hands. All she knew for sure was that it wasn’t one of the loud Germans in front of her.

  Sunlight glinted on the window of the Latin bookstore under the striped awning directly across from her. She yearned to visit the dusty aisles piled high with books, inhale the smell of old paper the way she had done so many times during her Sorbonne days, talk with Madame and . . . what? Exchange pleasantries?

  Sweat formed on her brow. Not a hundred yards away she spotted Max, the French tutor she had spent so many hours with in ’37, pausing at the Latin bookstore window. Wispy brown hair, full cheeks, those rimless spectacles and jacket with elbow patches—he hadn’t changed.

  She caught herself just before she raised her arm to wave to him. If Max recognized her, her cover was blown. She tipped her head down, her heart pounding, wishing she could make herself invisible. Why did he have to show up here now? What were the chances? But Max had always haunted the bookstores during the lunch hour. For God’s sake, he’d been the one who had first introduced her to this one.

  He entered the store now. No time to worry over him.

  Two girls speaking what sounded like Swedish were smoking by the fountain. A young woman walked by with a shopping bag full of leeks hanging from a baby carriage. Leeks? The nearest market was at Maubert, downhill and six or seven blocks away. How many times had Kate shopped there before class?

  Head down, Kate turned the book’s page and followed the woman’s progress from the corner of her eye. Could that be her contact? The woman slowed in the heat, stopping at the fountain and patting the back of her neck with a handkerchief. She draped her s
weater over the buggy, then sat on the fountain’s edge, fanned herself with the handkerchief and rocked the carriage. Nothing unusual in taking a break in the heat. A perfect cover.

  Reassured, Kate flicked her gaze over to the professors, then the Latin bookstore where Max had gone inside. It was 12:59. Time for one last check before giving the signal.

  Her fingers shook as she set down the book and reached into her canvas bag for the compact. She opened it, checked her face in the cracked mirror, then tilted it to see the waiter behind her through the open window. He was still washing glasses. The couple seemed engrossed in each other; the student sipped a limonade. She shut her compact. Almost one o’clock.

  Kate took a deep breath. It was time to take out her lipstick, apply it and blot her lips. The signal. Hyperalert to her surroundings, Kate tried to focus on the task at hand. But she was filled with unease. Her arm tingled, a shiver in the heat.

  The woman leaned down toward the carriage. If she was the contact, shouldn’t she have started to walk in Kate’s direction by now? The plan had been that Kate would apply lipstick to signal her contact, who would then meet her at the bus stop.

  But the woman wasn’t standing. A warning jolt shot up Kate’s spine. If the woman had just come from shopping at the Maubert market, she would have come from rue de la Sorbonne, not as she had from boulevard Saint-Michel, the opposite street. A Parisian wouldn’t have taken any other route; neither would an agent with a good cover.

  Her gut told her something was wrong.

  Had Jean-Marie given her away?

  What should she do? Give in to fear and jump ship? Sabotage her only escape route?

  She needed to signal now or the whole rendezvous would be off. She made up her mind and reached for the lipstick tube in her bag. And her hand froze.

  The woman at the fountain took a makeup compact out of the baby carriage, a makeup compact just like Kate’s. She angled the mirror and it flashed in the sun, not once but twice.