He picked up some more papers from the table in front of him. ‘Now then, Monsieur Vallat was replaced at the GCJQ in the summer. It is hardly for me to comment, but it seems he had become somewhat competitive with the Occupier. Apparently he told one of Herr Dannecker’s SS officers that he had been an anti-semite far longer than the German gentleman. This was perhaps the last straw for Herr Dannecker.’
Pichon gave a little laugh in which Benech briefly joined. Lindemann looked at his watch as Pichon set off again on an exposition of the French government’s policy, which he explained had first been set in place in response to the refugee crisis of a few years earlier, when Jews began arriving in France from Eastern Europe. Occupation by the Germans forced certain changes in policy, and men such as Vallat objected to having their own solution to the Jewish problem influenced by outside agencies who were less strict in their definitions but probably more crude in their aims.
Eventually, Lindemann interrupted him. ‘It’s after one o’clock,’ he said. ‘I want to finish tonight. Please talk to Monsieur Levade.’ Lindemann’s voice for the first time sounded decisive.
‘Very well,’ said Pichon, ‘but I insist that this is done correctly. The difficulty of course is in establishing the religion of the grandparents. However, in recent cases of foreign Jews, the courts have been persuaded to accept a presumption of Jewishness where non-Jewishness cannot be proved by baptismal certificate or similar. This is likely to set a precedent in the case of French Jews as well. The degree of assimilation of a Jew is not necessarily relevant. Monsieur Vallat in theory was prepared to tolerate certain Jews who had been subsumed into French culture – though not all, it must be said. The Prime Minister Monsieur Blum epitomised all that he disliked. Monsieur Vallat was again a little inconsistent on this point. Not so Monsieur Darquier de Pellepoix, who shares the Occupier’s view that the Jewish influence is a racial not a cultural one, and that the most assimilated Jew is therefore the most dangerous. This has made for a greater congruence of outlook with the Occupier, and a greater efficiency. Our department has in fact been sent a copy of a telegram of congratulation received by Monsieur Bousquet, the police chief, from his opposite number in the SS, General Oberg.’
All the time Pichon was speaking, Charlotte was watching Levade’s back and thinking of the painting of the deserted square, with the clock at twenty to four and the two figures with their sense of imminent separation. Her feeling for Levade had utterly changed; all trace of censure had now gone from it. It was partly that, since sleeping with Julien, she no longer felt in a position to disapprove of his amorous past, but more that she no longer feared him. Instead, she saw that the events of his life had not been easy, the crawling through the mud with loaves and wine roped round him, the interior battle with his art and his patient knocking at the door of his unconscious. Approval of him, or its absence, now seemed like a trivial issue; when she looked at his bowed head, she felt a horrified compassion.
Pichon’s skin gleamed softly in the light from the shaded lamp on the table in front of him. Charlotte thought it was the face of a man who had always been right, who as a schoolboy had had all the answers and was puzzled that his demonstrable success brought him fewer friends than he might logically have expected. The adult world to him, however, had not been disappointing; there were systems he could operate and areas of work in which his precision was valued. Behind him, painted in the plaster just above the wainscoting, were various heraldic shields, extravagant family claims and noble mottoes, bleached over by a later decoration and now showing through only as little patches of distempered colour; and over them was an oil painting, clotted with dark grease and smoke, of a traditional château in the Limousin.
Pichon replaced his glasses which he had been polishing with a white handkerchief. His little face looked soft and vulnerable for a moment, as he blinked his eyes rapidly like a new-born creature. ‘Monsieur Levade, there are a number of courses open to me. Which one I choose depends on the degree of your co-operation. I am entitled to order your arrest and trial in the usual way, but I am also empowered to order your detention in one of a number of camps, and can further recommend whether you should be removed from there to Paris.’
‘And what happens in Paris?’ said Julien.
‘Railways, Monsieur Levade. Trains.’
‘If you’re threatening us, Monsieur,’ said Julien, ‘it would be better if you spelt it out.’
‘The law carries no threats, Monsieur Levade, only procedures. Now,’ said Pichon, turning to Levade, ‘will you help me?’
Levade sighed heavily. ‘I’m a painter. That’s all I have to say.’ He lifted his hand to his mouth as he began to cough again.
Charlotte was watching Julien, who seemed to be trying to catch his father’s eye. Levade, however, stared either down towards his feet or straight at his accuser.
‘I’m going outside for a minute,’ said Julien. ‘I’m going to find a cigarette.’
Pichon gestured to Bernard to go with him, and Benech rose clumsily from the table. ‘I’ll go too,’ he said. He walked quickly across the room, and Charlotte heard his footsteps in the corridor as he hurried to catch up with the others.
Lindemann spoke rapidly to his corporal; Charlotte did not understand what he said, but his attitude expressed impatience. The gilded clock on the mantelpiece showed it was nearly half past one.
When Julien returned, his face had gone a peculiar grey colour; his eyes seemed focused on some invisibly far horizon. ‘Are you all right?’ said Charlotte as he went past her place at the fireside, but he appeared not to notice her. It was clear to Charlotte, from her knowledge of Julien, that something dramatic had taken place outside the room.
‘I want to explain something to my father in private,’ he said.
‘No,’ Benech said.
Benech whispered in Pichon’s ear, and Pichon said something inaudible to Lindemann, who gestured to the German private by the door into the library.
Lindemann gave an order; the private crossed the room and pushed Julien back into his chair with the butt of his rifle.
Julien’s voice was shaking when he managed to speak. He said to Lindemann, ‘You’re going to lose this war. You know that, don’t you?’
The private raised his rifle, but Lindemann motioned him back to the doorway. He seemed amused. ‘Not in France, I think,’ said Lindemann. ‘Not here.’
‘Yes,’ said Julien. ‘Even here eventually.’
‘I think not,’ said Pichon. ‘People prefer order to resistance, as we have seen. Acts of sabotage merely lead to reprisals by the Occupier: ten hostages shot for every German killed. Any organised resistance would also open the gates to the Communists. It would mean the Americans and English would have to invade, which no true Frenchman wants. The upheaval would be terrible, especially at a time when the Marshal has just managed to set France back on a stable course.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Julien. ‘Resistance will come in the end. It will come when people see that they’ve been misled. Your problem, Monsieur, the problem of the government you support is this – that you took a gamble. You decided to act in a way that you considered practical. All considerations of honour or morality were put to one side because they looked subsidiary in the light of events – the overwhelming probability that Germany would win the war. And that, Monsieur, is the danger of that kind of politics. If its practical assumptions prove to be false, you have nothing left to fall back on, because you have already sacrificed morality. You were not just immoral, Monsieur, you committed the unforgivable crime of practical politics – you got it wrong.’ Julien’s voice caught on the contempt with which he spoke the final word and for a few moments his breath would not come.
Pichon laughed. ‘Every plan has occasional setbacks, but there is no doubt that we will play an important part in the new European alliance.’
‘You will lose in Russia and you will lose to the Americans and the English in Europe.’
Lin
demann said, ‘And France? Who will rescue France?’
‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Julien. ‘Provided there is still something that has not been corrupted, provided there is something worth rescuing.’
Lindemann said, ‘We must finish. Monsieur Pichon—’
‘Tell me one thing,’ said Julien. ‘If the people you deport are going to work for Germany, why do you take them to Poland?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lindemann. ‘That’s enough.’
‘And if they are going to work, why do you take children and women?’
‘That’s enough,’ said Lindemann.
‘There were two people in Lavaurette who were dragged off in the summer,’ said Julien. ‘What did you do with them? They were French, too.’
‘I believe not,’ said Pichon, going through his pile of papers. ‘Are you referring to Monsieur and Madame Duguay? They had come from Alsace-Lorraine, like many Jews down here. She was of Belgian origin. There were fewer Jews in the camps than the Government had thought, but Monsieur Laval insisted on honouring his pledge on numbers to the Germans. These people were classed as refugees. You can see here. Look.’
‘But they were French, they—’
‘That is enough,’ said Lindemann, suddenly standing up. ‘Is this man a Jew or not?’
There was a heavy pause before Julien eventually pulled himself to his feet. He was staring at Benech, Charlotte noticed, with a violent hatred. Something had passed between them.
‘Yes,’ Julien said at last. ‘My father is a Jew. Three of his grandparents were Jewish. It’s in his blood, in his mind, in his culture, in the essence of who he is. It’s in mine, too.’
Levade’s hand was inside his shirt. He had been gently rubbing the skin below his collarbone, and Charlotte pictured his fingertips going over the risen seams of his wound. When Julien spoke, his hand stopped moving.
He turned sideways in his chair to look at his son, but, having spoken, Julien turned his head away and looked down at the floor.
Charlotte held her hand across her mouth.
It was Claude Benech who eventually dared to break the silence. ‘So that makes two for the quota.’
Pichon lifted his head from his papers and looked at Julien. ‘I understand that your mother was French, a good Catholic.’
Julien kept his head averted. ‘I’m a Jew,’ he said.
‘I suggest this is something we might resolve at a later date,’ said Pichon.
‘Take the old one,’ said Lindemann. ‘The train leaves at two o’clock tomorrow.’
Pichon gestured to Bernard. ‘Take him to the police station and keep him in the cell.’
Charlotte stood up. ‘Let me put some things in a case for him.’
Lindemann nodded. ‘Quickly.’
Charlotte ran upstairs to Levade’s bedroom, where she found an old suitcase. With shaking hands she threw in shirts, underwear, a thick tweed jacket she found in the wardrobe, washing things, the books on the table and, from by his bed, the pad of paper and the pen. She ran to the studio, where she took a Bible, a missal, a crucifix, a sketch pad and pencils. Then she rummaged through the canvases stacked in the corner until she found the one he had shown her. It would not fit in the case, and she could not prise out the nails by which it was attached to the back of the stretcher. She began to pull at it in a frenzy; then she heard footsteps and voices calling her from the stairs. She ripped the canvas clear of the stretcher, tearing it along the edges, rolled it up and stuffed it down inside the suitcase.
She arrived breathless in the hall to find Bernard with his arm linked awkwardly through Levade’s. She put the case down on the floor and threw her arms round Levade’s neck, holding him close to her. She felt his touch on her back, his hand gently patting her shoulder blades, as though it was she who needed consolation.
She pulled back and he looked into her face. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I have faith in God. I’m not afraid. See that Julien’s all right.’ His voice was calm.
Charlotte went back reluctantly down the passage to the drawing room.
Pichon was speaking. ‘I really think it would be better to have the proper documentation. By tomorrow lunchtime, I’m sure we could—’
‘Do you want me to stay or go?’ said Julien. All three men were now standing in front of the fire.
He looked towards Lindemann, who was clearly undecided. ‘I . . . I don’t know. I have to fill a quota. I wish I could leave it. Very soon all the prefectures will have officers of the SS and they can decide . . . I . . .’
He seemed at last to remember that he was no longer a drama critic but a soldier. He stood up a little straighter and spoke briskly to the German private. Then he translated, ‘I told him to stay and watch tonight. We come tomorrow.’
Benech’s nervous smile became a grin of wide relief; Pichon began methodically and contentedly to clear his documents with the air of a man who has completed a demanding task, the onerous nature of which has gone unappreciated by his colleagues.
He looked at his watch and lit a cigarette that smelled powerfully of real tobacco; then he turned to Charlotte with a smile. ‘There, young woman, you have seen an example of correct procedure. Remember it. Our domestic problem solved by legal co-operation, and at no cost to ourselves.’
Lindemann began to laugh. It was the first natural emotion he had shown, and it made a curious sound in the echoing room, surrounded by the silence of the winter night.
‘No cost? I’m afraid not. The cost of the deportations is paid by the French government. It is seven thousand Reichsmarks for each Jew, and food for two weeks at their destination.’
Pichon began to stammer. ‘Surely, the Occupier would not—’
‘Look in your papers,’ Lindemann said, still snorting. ‘You’ll find it somewhere.’
Pichon set his lips together tightly, as he followed Lindemann and Benech from the drawing room. Benech turned on the threshold and looked at Charlotte. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he said quietly.
When the sound of their footsteps had died away, Charlotte went over to Julien. He could not look at her.
She put her hand on his arm. ‘Are you going to say goodbye?’ she said.
Julien shook his head and bit his lip while tears flowed from his eyes. ‘Give him my love.’
Charlotte returned to the hall and embraced Levade for the final time. She whispered Julien’s message.
Levade said nothing, but the serenity of his expression was undisturbed. Bernard went to the door, then glanced down at his gendarme’s uniform as though unsure of some order of precedence and etiquette. He stood back for the others to leave, then, when they had gone down into the cold darkness, he took Levade once more by the arm and ushered him out through the double doors of the Domaine.
Charlotte stood alone in the empty hall. She remembered the first day she had come to be interviewed, how she had looked up to where the staircase doubled back to a remote ceiling and seen Levade’s bare feet quietly descending. Around her now the white stone and faded pink plasterwork had a cold, deserted feeling, as though they had never truly enclosed human activity and the paintings of family forebears on the walls belonged to a line long defunct.
She shivered in the night air that had come in through the open front doors; then, wrapping her arms around her, she went slowly and reluctantly down the corridor towards the drawing room.
The fire had gone out and the room was cold; the chairs at the long desk were left untidily at the angles to which the men had pushed them in their hurry to leave. A piece of paper from Pichon’s pile had fluttered clear of his precise tidying and lay alone on the floor beneath the chair in which Benech had been sitting. Julien was in the armchair, his elbows on his knees, holding his head in his hands.
Charlotte felt wary; she did not know how to approach him, so stayed a little distance away, her back to the extinguished fire.
Julien said nothing. He did not move. To Charlotte it looked as though his body were immobil
ised by the weight of some crushing force. Eventually, she went to a small table by his chair and lifted his packet of cigarettes; she moved it in an interrogative gesture towards him, asking his permission, and he waved his hand.
She had no matches. She looked round the room and only at that moment became aware of the German soldier, who was standing where he had been left, in the doorway through to the library.
Charlotte went towards him. He seemed quite old to be a private soldier; his demeanour held nothing of the youthful pride and snap she had heard French people admire in the young men who had first taken Paris and Bordeaux. She put the unlit cigarette in her mouth as she approached, and he produced some matches from the breast pocket of his tunic.
Charlotte smiled and thanked him in one of the few German words she knew. The man nodded uneasily and shifted his weight.
She felt strong enough to go and sit on the arm of Julien’s chair. She put her hand tentatively on his wrist. ‘What happened?’
Julien put down his hands and turned his face up towards Charlotte. His complexion had the same grey colour she had noticed when he had returned to the room after briefly going out, and his eyes still seemed to be gazing beyond the walls. He coughed, and with an obvious effort brought his eyes to focus on her face.
‘Benech. That man.’ He waved his hand in the direction of the chair Benech had occupied. ‘When I went out to find cigarettes I was really going to make a telephone call, but I couldn’t because of the gendarme coming with me. And then this . . . this creature, Benech.’
Julien’s voice was toneless and flat, but at the second mention of Benech’s name a trace of colour returned to his face. ‘I went to the desk, I fumbled about in a drawer pretending to look for cigarettes. Benech came hurrying up behind me and pulled me over into a corner so Bernard wouldn’t hear. He put his lips against my ear and said, “If you don’t tell the truth, we’ll have to look elsewhere.”’
‘What did he mean?’
Julien sighed and shook his head. ‘He stood away from me a little and smiled. It was a big, broad smile. He said, “I’m a schoolmaster. It’s my business to know the whereabouts of children.”’
Charlotte Gray Page 38
