‘How long have you been coughing like that?’ said Julien, laying his hand on his father’s arm.
‘A couple of weeks. It’s nothing. The house is draughty, that’s all.’
Julien raised his eyebrows. His attitude to his father was of slightly teasing reverence. Levade was not old enough to need concern or looking after, but Charlotte sensed that Julien was in some way preparing for the day when he would be. In Levade’s manner towards his son there was that moving indulgence Charlotte had so missed in her own parents: he disagreed with him, shrugged off Julien’s humorous remarks, but looked at him throughout with a passive and slightly incredulous pride.
In a few days’ time, Charlotte thought, she would be back in London, and then she would really have no excuse for not making the long journey north to Scotland. For all the danger of her position, she found the thought of leaving unbearable.
The food she had prepared was quickly finished. Levade asked her to bring more wine and anything else she could find to eat in the kitchen. There was a tin of sardines, some macaroni, a couple of handfuls of which she set to boil on the range, three apples and a bowl of walnuts from the garden. With these and the wine she returned eventually to the dining room, where dinner started up again.
Charlotte had recovered her composure. As she sat with the two men, prising open a nut with an old oyster-knife, she was calm enough to know that this would be her last night at the Domaine, and she was saddened by the thought.
It was almost midnight when there came a thunderous hammering on the double doors of the house.
‘My God,’ said Levade, pulling a watch from his pocket.
‘Wait here.’ Julien had already pushed his chair back. There was something anxious in his voice that made Charlotte feel nauseously sober.
There were voices from the hallway, then the sound of numerous pairs of feet coming towards them. Julien was followed into the dining room by two men, one of whom was a uniformed German officer. ‘I am Oberleutenant Lindemann,’ he said. ‘Are you Monsieur Levade?’
‘Yes.’
Lindemann nodded to a small man standing next to him. He was wearing a fawn raincoat over a stiff collar and dark blue tie; he was of middle age, almost bald, with a little shiny dark hair above the ears, and a round, soft face, in which was set a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Charlotte recognised him as the man who had been watching while Bernard put up the posters outside Madame Galliot’s.
He came towards Levade and held out his hand. ‘My name is Paul Pichon. I work for the Inquiry and Control Section.’
Levade gave a thin smile. ‘That’s a distinguished-sounding organisation.’ He declined the offered hand.
Monsieur Pichon said, ‘We have taken over some functions of the Police for Jewish Affairs, which, as you probably know, has been disbanded in all but name.’
Levade raised his eyebrows in a gesture of ignorant indifference.
Lindemann coughed. ‘We must go into a different room. There are some questions to be answered.’ His voice, despite its clumsy accent, was curiously diffident, as if he was not sure who was in charge.
‘We’ll go into the drawing room,’ said Levade. ‘Is it open?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlotte. ‘I’ll go and turn on the lights and make a fire.’
Charlotte’s heart was big inside her ribcage as she went down the corridor. The lights came on dimly in their gilded wall mountings. She went to the long desk at the far end of the room and turned on the lamp. The room had its usual smell of fine, old dust. Behind her she heard the tramp of footsteps on the uncovered parquet. Why were there so many people there? There must be at least four others on their way from the hall that she had not yet seen.
Levade came into the room and gestured towards the fussily upholstered nineteenth-century furniture, but Lindemann made for the far end of the room. Charlotte busied herself with the fire, which had not been lit during the winter, and when she looked up she found the men had arranged themselves at the long desk. In the middle of one side sat Lindemann, with Pichon on his left; on his right was a German corporal, a small, sour-faced man with grey hair; on Pichon’s left was a man with mealy skin, a moustache and a nervous smile. It was Claude Benech, and Charlotte found that his smile was directed at her.
By the door into the library Lindemann stationed a single German private, while Pichon indicated to the gendarme, Bernard, that he should remain by the principal door leading back into the house. Bernard gave Charlotte a self-conscious grimace as he took up his post. Julien sat on the edge of an armchair towards the centre of the room, while Lindemann told Levade to take a seat on the other side of the desk, so that he faced, from left to right, the corporal, Lindemann, Pichon and Benech.
Charlotte was still kneeling by the fire, unable to move, when Lindemann spoke. ‘I am for the moment the commanding officer in Lavaurette. I shall leave soon when . . . others arrive from Paris.’
‘You mean the SS?’ said Julien.
‘I believe so. I have orders from our Military Command in Paris. I don’t need to tell you the details. The administration of law during the Occupation has been carried out by the French police. You know that.’
‘Why don’t you tell us what you’re doing here?’ said Julien.
Lindemann opened his left hand to Pichon, who cleared his throat. Lindemann seemed relieved to stop talking; and where his voice had carried a degree of uncertainty, Pichon seemed calm and authoritative. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘There appears to have been some procedural irregularities with your papers, Monsieur Levade. In June last year, as you are no doubt aware, there was a detailed census carried out by the Government of all Jews in the Free Zone. I have here the lists for this commune and your name does not appear on it. Do you have a certificate of non-belonging to the Jewish race?’
Levade spread his hands in a small, contemptuous gesture of dismissal. ‘A certificate of what?’
‘Such papers were freely available from the Commissariat General for Jewish Questions.’
‘I don’t know anything about these German bodies.’
‘It’s not a German body, it’s a Government department, Monsieur Levade, responsible for the various Jewish statutes. Surely even you have heard of those?’
‘Confiscation of property, you mean, wearing the yellow star, persecution of—’
‘The policy is called “Aryanisation”,’ said Pichon. He paused for a moment and Charlotte saw him peer closely across the table into Levade’s face. ‘I think you would do well to adopt a less remote attitude, Monsieur. Ignorance, even credible ignorance, has never been a defence before the law. In difficult times citizens more than ever owe a duty of conformity and awareness. Full citizenship carries obligations. That, Monsieur, is the nub of the whole Jewish question.’
Levade said nothing, but glanced across at Julien, who seemed to be holding himself back with difficulty, convulsively clenching and unclenching his fists.
‘Let me explain a little further,’ said Pichon. ‘I have no wish to surprise or intimidate you. I want you to understand the full authority of these proceedings.’
Charlotte stood up from the gently smoking fire; Pichon’s voice carried no obvious emotion, but it made her feel sick with foreboding. Her initial relief that no attention was being paid to her was replaced by a fear that some worse fate was being prepared for Levade.
‘Authority?’ said Julien. ‘Authority? What on earth authority can you have, some fabricated organisation who—’
‘We have the authority of the French government, Monsieur. The law of 2 June 1941 gives the right of internment to the local prefecture of any Jew, foreign or French. Juridically,’ said Pichon, removing his glasses as though to savour the word better, ‘the distinction between native Jews and refugees collapsed with that statute.’
‘But in the Free Zone,’ said Julien, ‘you can’t—’
‘There is no longer a Free Zone,’ said Pichon. ‘Surely even here in Lavaurette you have noticed that. Please le
t me continue. Since the events of 1940 the government, as you know, has endeavoured to maintain the sovereignty of France by vigorous independent action. The principal aim has been to collaborate with the Occupier in order to safeguard more completely that independence and, in the fullness of time, to extend its limits. All this has been successfully achieved by the Government, acting in the interests of its citizens, though the full rewards for such negotiation will not be apparent until the Allies are defeated. However, the course of events in the summer has imposed a degree of urgency. In June, there was a visit to Paris from Herr Eichmann, in which he proposed that a total of one hundred thousand Jews be deported from France, half of them to come from the Free Zone. In case you are still wondering about what we call the authority for such measures, you might like to know that the inclusion of Jews from the Free Zone was the suggestion of the Head of Police, Monsieur Bousquet.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Julien.
Pichon shrugged. ‘Monsieur Bousquet’s deputy, Monsieur Leguay, was informed by Herr Rothke of the German Military Command in July that French nationals of Israelite stock would be included in the deportations and that Monsieur Laval had not demurred. There have been some minor administrative difficulties in dealing with families, as you can imagine. Children have been left behind and this has caused some confusion. However, Herr Dannecker, who as most people know – though perhaps not you, Monsieur – is head of the German Section for Jewish Affairs in Paris, reported to Berlin on 6 July that Monsieur Laval himself had suggested that, in the case of families being deported from the Free Zone, the children under sixteen could also be taken.’
Pichon looked round the silent room and smiled. ‘I have a confession to make. I am a lawyer. And the neatness of the arrangement pleases me, I am bound to admit. One has so many difficulties with the question of the sphere of jurisdiction that it is a pleasure to come across a case in which everything has been done in such an orderly and co-operative way.’
Julien spoke in a voice that seemed blanched and weak compared to its truculent tone of a few minutes earlier. ‘Laval volunteered the children?’
‘Yes,’ said Pichon. ‘I have a copy of Herr Dannecker’s report to Berlin.’ He began to search among the papers on the table in front of him. ‘It intrigued me, and I had a clerk write out the actual text. Here, if you’d like to . . .’
Julien shook his head.
No one spoke. Benech fiddled with some papers he had placed on the table in front of him; he seemed to be finding it difficult to suppress a smile of some kind. The corporal on Lindemann’s right stared straight ahead of him.
Eventually, Julien said, ‘Why all this talk about deportation anyway?’
Lindemann turned to Pichon. ‘Please continue.’ He seemed to be the only person with any sense of urgency.
Pichon cleared his throat. ‘One of the inevitable results of such a formal system of co-operation is that it does generate a large amount of paperwork. Many local mayors have not been able to deal with all the directives they have received from the departmental offices in Vichy, which is why various people such as myself have been dispatched to help them. The mayor of Lavaurette, for instance, an estimable man no doubt, has been grateful for our assistance. I understand that by profession he is a smallholder.’
‘He grows melons,’ said Bernard from the doorway.
‘Thank you, Monsieur,’ said Pichon. ‘Now, Monsieur Levade, we come to your case.’ Pichon pulled out a single sheet of paper from the pile in front of him, smoothed it down, then held it a little away from him so that it came into the long-sighted focus of his sparkling glasses. ‘Absence from the census we have dealt with. Now I must ask you to show me your documentation, please.’
‘My what?’
‘Identity card, work permit and ration card. Please don’t tell me you don’t possess any. Every French citizen has been issued with them. How else have you bought food?’
‘I really don’t know. It’s possible that there’s something in a drawer.’
‘Go and look.’ Pichon’s voice became sharper as he flicked a dismissive hand at Bernard to indicate that he should go with Levade.
Charlotte watched as Levade stood up and crossed the room.
‘Her.’ Lindemann nodded in Charlotte’s direction. ‘She shouldn’t be here. Nor should he, the son,’ he said, looking at Julien.
‘Oh, I rather think he should,’ said Pichon smoothly. ‘I think the presence of Monsieur Levade junior is entirely . . . germane. As for the maidservant, I have no objections. I think it is a good idea that the lower orders should see the proper working of the legal process.’
‘So do I,’ said Benech, fixing Charlotte with a slow, conniving smile.
Levade returned to the room with an envelope which he dropped on to the table in front of Pichon. ‘I don’t know if this is what you mean,’ he said. ‘It’s all I could find.’
He began to cough violently and turned his head away from the men at the table.
Pichon pulled out the contents of the envelope and inspected them. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘As I thought. Why are they not properly stamped?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Pichon said, ‘I think you do, Monsieur Levade. On 11 December the Government ordered that all relevant identification cards be stamped with the word “Jew”. Everyone knows that. There are notices in town, there were broadcasts. It’s the law.’
Levade shrugged. ‘I don’t know anything about these German things, these—’
‘It is not German,’ Pichon said, standing up and spitting out the negative across the table at Levade. ‘It is a law passed by the French government which, if you had any idea of citizenship, you would have obeyed.’
Lindemann cleared his throat. ‘Are there other things? It’s late.’
Pichon sat down again. Levade shook his head slowly from side to side. Charlotte, who could only see him from behind, thought from the gurgling noise she heard that he was crying. As she went over to comfort him she recognised that the sound was of soft laughter.
‘Sit down, Mademoiselle,’ said Pichon. ‘The list of charges here is enough for me to recommend any disposal. It is only a question of what route we choose.’
Julien walked over to the table. Charlotte could tell that he had made an effort to restrain himself and was going to speak carefully. ‘There seems to be one thing missing from your case, Monsieur, and that is any proof that my father is Jewish. I think you will find if you take a look round the house that the evidence is that he is in fact a devout Catholic.’
‘Ah, indeed. The question of definition. The precedents are very interesting, and the law is developing all the time, though its basis remains perfectly clear. It is a matter of ancestry.’
‘My father is a second generation Frenchman,’ said Julien. ‘He is also a war veteran.’
‘How admirable. When Monsieur Vallat was head of the Commissariat General for Jewish Questions he was inclined to look tolerantly on such cases; his successor, Monsieur Darquier de Pellepoix, rather less so. Under the first Jewish statute a Jew was defined as someone with three Jewish grandparents. Monsieur Vallat was prepared to allow religion to play a part, so in his second statute someone confessing to a recognised non-Jewish religion might be deemed to have ceased being Jewish, provided he had only two Jewish grandparents. Those with three remained Jewish whatever religion they claimed. In Monsieur Vallat’s view Baptism was not conclusive, because Jewish tradition is passed down racially. Heredity is stronger than holy water. He began to talk of families in which the hereditary atmosphere was “predominantly Jewish”. It is fair to conclude that Monsieur Vallat had become somewhat confused by the time he left office, though the provisions of his statute remain useful. Let us look at your family, Monsieur Levade.’
Charlotte glanced expectantly at Levade. At last he was being given a chance to speak for himself, and surely he would now understand the horror of his situation. Surely he would now shake off the a
mused torpor in which he seemed sunk. He looked feverish and unwell.
‘Come now, Monsieur Levade, would you not like to tell us a little about your ancestors, your very French ancestors?’
There was a silence in which Charlotte could hear the clock above her head. Levade began to cough again. Eventually, he spoke. ‘My father was a schoolmaster in a small town near Paris. He was the most patriotic person I’ve ever known. He used to quote that little saying, “As happy as God in France”. He was perhaps a rather innocent man, now I come to think of it, but he was very contented. He had very little religious belief. I suppose he must have been nominally Jewish at least, because his mother was, but he seemed to lack any spiritual life. I never saw him go to a synagogue or to a church. His joy came from his family and from his country. He was always involved with Saints’ Days and public meetings and celebrations. He was very conservative about the old ways.’ Levade smiled. ‘Like a lot of fairly recent arrivals.’
‘Would you care to be a little more specific about your origins?’ Pichon’s voice had taken on a light, ironic edge.
‘I think not, Monsieur. I have told you all I want to.’
‘I’m not sure such reticence is a very good idea for someone in your position, Monsieur Levade. Perhaps your son would care to be a little more forthcoming.’ Pichon looked over the top of his spectacles towards Julien, who had resumed his seat on the edge of an armchair.
Julien shook his head. ‘Not if my father doesn’t want to.’
‘Very well,’ said Pichon, ‘let us continue with the question of definition.’
Charlotte noticed how much Pichon was enjoying himself. There was a forensic construction to his sentences which obviously gave him pleasure.
Charlotte Gray Page 37
