Aurore

by Graham Hurley

  ‘A bit. I like a landscape.’

  ‘You know the Mona Lisa, of course?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Huber wants me to find it, to lay hands on it. Can you believe that? A grown man? It’s nonsense, of course, a pretext, an opportunity to break me, and he knows it.’ She shook her head, despairing. Then she reached for the bottle again.

  They drank in silence. Hélène was brooding.

  ‘Everything goes back to the débâcle,’ she murmured. ‘Our army may have done brave things in the field but we made the Germans a present of Paris. This is our jewel, the most precious thing we possess, and we handed it over to the burglar with a pretty curtsey and a smile. Most people I know went south, took to the roads, fled. That first winter I stayed. But to survive in Paris you had to become invisible. This is something for which no Parisian was prepared. We’re pavement people. Café people. Outdoors people. And then all of a sudden, monsieur, you find yourself locking your shutters, and filling your bath, and hiding the good linen. That’s terrible. That’s hopeless. That turns us into people we’re not. We used to be compassionate with each other. We used to help each other out. Now my friends in Paris huddle at home and don’t allow themselves to know anyone anymore. Because it’s too dangerous. Because it’s too depressing. And because defeat brought out the worst in us. You know what happened to the Germans the moment they arrived in Paris? They were swamped with paperwork. It was all denunciations. And it was all in French. No wonder the Germans smile and salute while they rob us blind. They have no respect. Because they know who we really are.’

  ‘And here? In the countryside?’

  ‘Here is different. People are tougher. They understand time. They live by the seasons. They know that one day the Germans will be gone so all you need to survive is somewhere to hide your beets. A great deal of patience is also useful. These people are bred to be patient. They’re good at it. And they’re hard to fool, too. There was an old lady down in the village who watched the Germans arrive. They drove through in their lorries, tossing bonbons to the children. She thought that was kind until her husband picked one of them up and realised they came from a sweetshop they’d looted in Tours. Thieves in uniforms, monsieur. And all the handsome ones have gone to Russia.’

  Billy nodded. He wanted to know about Agnès. About the Résistance. And about the decision to turn the chateau into a place of sanctuary.

  ‘That happened by accident. Malin was the first. I decided to leave Paris in the end and when you do that you take your most precious possessions. Malin was precious to us. My husband loved him. He’s a Jew, just like Nathan. Jews had to register by now but Malin was too old and too wise to do that. He was Polish but he’d lived in Germany in the years before the war when they were making life hard for the Jews. He knew how much the Germans depended on their paperwork. He knew where registration led. He knew it would never be just a question of wearing a yellow star. And so he ignored all the rubbish they stuffed under his door and when the time was right he came down here. The Spanish couple were next. They just appeared one morning. It was the middle of the winter. They’d walked from the Pyrenees. They were like ghosts. They had nothing. And so I took them in. Agnès was more recent. She’s still a child, which perhaps makes her more difficult.’

  ‘She told me she was with the Résistance.’

  ‘That’s true. And she still is. Those people are like the Jesuits. Once they have you, you’re theirs forever.’

  ‘She says she has a radio.’

  ‘That’s true. She does.’

  ‘She’s still in touch with her people? With the Résistance?’

  ‘I don’t know. I expect so.’

  ‘Have you heard her tapping at all? Sending a message?’ He mimed an imaginary Morse key on the table.

  ‘No. But that means nothing. It’s a big house, monsieur. You might have noticed.’

  Her glass was empty again. She poured another. Billy wanted to know what questions she might expect tomorrow.

  ‘I have no idea. The Germans know a lot about me and so do the French. I lead a charmed life, monsieur. I have no secrets and that may be the end of me. If they want to put me against the wall and shoot me they could do it tomorrow, tonight, whenever. A wine like this, I probably wouldn’t mind.’

  She contemplated the glass, then took another mouthful.

  ‘So why don’t they?’

  ‘Why don’t they what?’

  ‘Shoot you?’

  She didn’t answer. Her eyes were moist now but her words were clear and Billy guessed she’d need a great deal more wine to soften the memory of the last few hours.

  Billy put the question again.

  ‘Why do they let you get away with so much? Why weren’t you arrested long ago?’

  ‘Because I’m a woman. Because I’m as clever as they are and because certain kinds of men find me attractive and because luck had one of these men cross my path. I liked him a great deal. I still do. Do you call that love? Maybe you do. Does that make me a putain? No.’

  There was a long silence. Far away, Billy could hear the hooting of an owl.

  ‘Klimt?’ he said softly.

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘For a man you have good instincts, Monsieur Ange. Was it that obvious?’

  ‘He’s in trouble, isn’t he? Like you?’

  She nodded, fingering the glass. Then she peered round, as if the kitchen was suddenly new to her.

  ‘We got to know each other in Paris. We shared the same apartment block. I paid my rent. He’d evicted the previous owner. For a while we stayed in our separate apartments but then the time came for me to be down here and I asked him to move into mine. That’s where he lives now. My foreign lodger, n’est-ce pas? Paying the bills and fighting off the mice and keeping everything in good order. Collaboration? Of course. But of the very best kind.’ She was smiling again. ‘I remember the first time he came down here. The chateau was a present from my husband. He knew about that and he knew about my husband, too. And so he arrived and I brought him in through the front door and he took a long look round, room after room, floor after floor, upstairs, downstairs, even the cellar, and watching him it was as if he’d come to buy the place, as if he’d come to make it his own. And, in a way, that’s what he’s done. Without Klimt, I wouldn’t be here. Without him I’d probably be dead.’

  ‘So what next?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘It must depend on your friend?’

  ‘On Klimt? It does. And in ways you probably can’t imagine.’

  Another silence, longer this time. Billy listened hard for the owl but heard nothing. The wind was beginning to stir the nearby stand of trees and he’d been right about the rain. He imagined the Germans in their capes standing guard around the estate. At least he wasn’t out in the open.

  He asked about radio detector vans. Were there any in the village?

  ‘There was talk of one recently but I think it’s gone. This afternoon Müller asked for another.’

  ‘Has it arrived?’

  ‘No. It was coming from Nevers. It broke down near Chinon.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Müller told me. I think it was a bid for sympathy. He likes to tell me how hard he has to work to keep us all in order.’

  ‘Are you sure he’s not lying? Not laying a trap?’

  ‘Müller?’ She laughed. ‘My fat little Hans? He wouldn’t have the wit. Or the imagination.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m certain. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I’d like to send a message.’

  ‘A radio message?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To who?’

  Billy repeated the story about getting in touch with his airbase in England. There were people who might want to know he was still alive.

  ‘Including your mother and father?’

  ‘I never knew my father. He died in the first war.’

  ‘In France?’

&n
bsp; ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just as well, perhaps. How will your mother view your desertion?’

  ‘My mother has remarried. She has other things on her mind.’

  ‘You have a wife of your own? A girlfriend, perhaps?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Someone else?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Someone who matters to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked at him, a new expression on her face. Billy knew she wanted to trust him. He sensed a thousand and one questions she wanted to ask, but she was a gambler as well, and it showed. She’d been lucky all her life. One last throw of the dice.

  ‘The radio’s in the cellar,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you know what it looks like.’

  Billy found it without difficulty, hidden in a cobwebbed corner of the cellar beneath an old blanket. He hauled it out and took it upstairs. It was a Paraset of a kind he’d never seen before but relied on the same principles he’d mastered in training.

  Hélène watched him as he unravelled the aerial and plugged in the valves. They’d given him frequencies and time slots during his preparation but there was a procedure for emergency calls and he used it now. He’d been careful to memorise every detail, just the way he’d always taken a script and turned words on the page into flesh and blood on the stage.

  He gave some thought to the message he’d be sending. Agent protocols limited any message to no more than a minute. His keying skills were excellent, way above average, and unless she knew Morse code there was no possibility of Hélène making any sense of what was to follow.

  The transmission was routed through a central control room in a rambling old country house north of London, manned twenty-four hours a day. Priority Black would take it straight to Tam. Billy made a last adjustment to the aerial, slipped on the headphones and then hit the keypad. Agent Thesp in place, he tapped. Principals in jeopardy. Script delivered. Intense pressure. Ends.

  Billy sat back from the set. He’d checked the battery and he could afford to keep the radio in listening mode. He’d no idea what Tam might be doing at half past midnight but he’d been assured that Priority Blacks earned a swift response. It came within minutes. He noted down the letters. A single word. Jeopardy?

  He bent to the radio again, unsure how much detail to include. You tried to avoid real names or places in case of interception. Principals was the agreed code for Hélène and Klimt. Hélène was Female Lead, Klimt Male Lead. The chateau was the Theatre. Script was the news about Dunkirk.

  Male Lead under threat. Female Lead facing arrest. Situation critical. Curtain call?

  Curtain call was code for immediate extraction. It meant that Billy had done his job and would like to come home. Tam, a master of understatement, would, he hoped, understand. Another trip with Stanislaw would be more than welcome.

  He waited for a response. Nothing. He poured himself another glass of wine. Still nothing. An hour later, he returned the radio to the cellar. When he got back to the kitchen Hélène was at the sink, sluicing her face with cold water. When she turned round, her face was shiny in the candlelight.

  ‘Your friend is relieved?’ she enquired drily.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Billy nodded at the radio. ‘That was the operator at my airbase. He needed to check something.’

  ‘He’ll pass the message on?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  She nodded. Her face was a mask but Billy sensed she’d seen through his tissue of small deceits.

  ‘It would be good to meet this friend of yours one day,’ she said at last.

  ‘Then maybe you will.’

  ‘You could make that happen?’

  ‘I could try.’

  ‘In England?’

  ‘If that’s what you wanted.’

  ‘Both of us?’ She reached for a towel at last. ‘Myself and Klimt?’

  29

  Hélène, to everyone’s relief, never left the house next morning. There were no military vehicles grinding up the drive, no invitations to attend another session in the village, not even a phone call. Hélène lifted the telephone herself at midday and put through a call of her own. The phone was in the hall. Billy heard her from the landing above. He had no idea whether it was a Paris number, nor did he understand a word she was saying, but he assumed the conversation was with Klimt. The call at an end, she announced her intention to exercise Valmy. She appeared to believe the soldiers around the estate had been withdrawn.

  From an upstairs window, Billy watched her lead the horse across the courtyard and out to the bridle path that led away towards the forest. She adjusted the reins, gave the stallion a pat and then swung herself into the saddle. Moments later she was away, raising a pair of pheasants hiding in the hedge.

  The radio was exactly where Billy had left it. He could have sent another message from the cellar but he didn’t want to be disturbed. Malin was tending a rose bed out in the sunshine. Of Hélène’s other refugees there was no sign. He carried the radio up to his bedroom and wedged the door shut with a sliver of wood he’d found in the cellar. Setting up the radio, in broad daylight, was a piece of cake. Priority Black again.

  Male and Female Leads request immediate curtain call. Thesp.

  Again he waited, sitting on the bed, crouched over the radio. Again, nothing. The battery was beginning to run down. He waited another five minutes and then disconnected the power feed. At this time of day, Tam should be at his desk. So why the lack of response?

  One more try, he told himself. Half an hour went by before he tried again. He double-checked the aerial and the seating of the valves, and then sent the same message, same priority. Time and again, he made tiny adjustments to the frequency tuner, raising bursts of static, searching in vain for some ghostly evidence that Tam had picked up the message. As an experienced Wireless Op, Billy knew there were dozens of reasons why a message might not get through but silence after two attempts was unusual. Atmospheric disturbance over the Channel? Maybe some kind of jamming operation? He didn’t know. One more try later, he promised himself.

  He packed the radio away and thought about a walk in the sunshine. The flower beds were a riot of colour after the overnight rain and his right foot was almost back to normal. He picked up the radio and stooped to release the wedge beneath the door before opening it. Agnès was sitting on the floor across the landing, her back resting against the wall. With her was Malin. He was carrying a shotgun.

  Agnès didn’t move. Just stared up at Billy.

  ‘Espion,’ she hissed. Spy.

  Malin gestured him back into the bedroom. The shotgun was inches away from his chest.

  ‘Sit,’ Malin nodded at the bed. ‘Explain to us about the radio.’

  Billy couldn’t, didn’t. He shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s complicated. And because it’s none of your business.’

  ‘Everything that happens here, my friend, is our business. You’re a flier. Your leg is better. You need to get to Spain. You need to escape. And yet you’re still here. Why?’

  Good question. Just now Billy would have paid any price for another thirty miles on the road with Alice. Anywhere but here in this madhouse, he thought.

  ‘You’re talking to the Germans?’ It was Agnès. Malin translated.

  ‘No. Never. Why would I do that?’

  ‘Because Madame Lafosse has been betrayed. Because we’ve all been betrayed. And you know the penalty for that? For selling us to the Germans?’

  Agnès wanted to search him. Malin stood aside, the gun still pointed at Billy’s chest. From a pocket in his trousers she extracted a thick wad of notes. She counted them on the bed.

  ‘Seven thousand three hundred.’ She looked up. ‘Do English fliers always carry Reichsmarks?’

  Billy knew he was in trouble. He shook his head. Said nothing. Hopeless, he thought.

  Agnès wanted to sh
oot him. The expression on her face – vengeful, contemptuous – needed no translation. Malin shook his head. He wanted to know more. And he wanted to wait for Madame Lafosse.

  *

  It took Hélène more than an hour to ride to the Deschamps’ farm. This was the first time she’d given the stallion a proper workout since bringing him back from Benoit’s place and she was pleased with his performance. From the moment she’d slung a bag over her back and urged him into a gallop, he’d lunged ahead and she’d flattened herself against his flying mane, hearing the thunder of hooves beneath her, enjoying the rush of warm air as she spurred him faster and faster down the bridle path.

  They skirted the forest, the trees a blur in the sunshine, and then they were out into open country, greens and yellows rolling north towards the Loire, towers of cloud on the far horizon. There was thunder in the air. Fields of wheat shivered in the gathering wind and the sight of women with baling hooks told Hélène that the harvest was already upon them. Not once did she see anyone in uniform.

  Georges Deschamps had a handful of meadows on rich soil near the village of Moines. More ambitious than most farmers in the area, he bred fine cattle for beef, and he also ran a flock of sheep on the higher ground where the vegetation was sparser. Hélène had got to know him through a local butcher during the long summer before the war broke out. Nathan, who loved her version of Chateaubriand, had taken a single mouthful of Georges Deschamps’ beef and insisted they pay him a visit. Since then, thanks to Nathan’s charm, they’d become friends.

  The track to the farm was puddled from a recent shower. Hélène slipped out of the saddle and led the stallion towards the cluster of outhouses. The lush meadows lay beyond but Hélène could see no cattle.

  Georges emerged from the barn he used as a workshop. He was in his late sixties, a giant of a man, stooped, gruff, weather-beaten, with a mane of white hair and – according to Nathan – a crushing handshake. The sight of Hélène put a hint of a smile on his face. A retired boxer, she’d always thought. Battered but indomitable.