The rice was taken with the right of hands that had first been washed. It was then rolled into a tight little ball and the fingers of the right hand then transferred to the sauce, which was scooped out as it was added.
Then one sat back and ate slowly, enjoying the meal and the company. Kohler couldn’t help but recall those early days of September and October 1940 with Louis guiding him along the muddy roads in the suburb of Saint-Denis to the north of Paris. A little field trip for this Kripo to get to know the city better. Filth, no sewers or running water, ramshackle huts, and kids-kids everywhere-smoke, too, from the ash and slag heaps as well as from the stovepipes.
Asnières had been no better, nor Villejuif and Vitry-sur-Seine to the south of the city. Fully sixty percent of all common crime in the Département de la Seine had been laid at the feet of men like these, Louis had said, and had gone on to add, “Yet in the last half of 1917 who was it who showed the rest of us they still had the stamina and will to fight?”
And having all but come through a winter like no other but this one.
‘Sergeant Senghor here holds the Croix de Guerre with two palms, Hermann, but doesn’t wear its rosette.’
Since the guards and their officers would get upset, and he was needed by the others.
‘He was just telling me how they came by the tinned beans and the rice.’
That one’s grin grew even bigger, yet his gaze passed momentarily over this Kripo to settle on the meal.
‘It’s a slinging match of the good God, Boss,’ said Senghor.
The patois was something else again, thought Kohler, but unlike the French of the middle and upper classes-somewhat easier for a foreigner like him to understand. ‘A little barter and on the quiet, eh?’
Had this one really been a prisoner of war as the sûreté had said? wondered Senghor. If so, it could only mean trouble, but had it been said as a warning and bargaining chip?
‘The guards do it,’ said one of the others. Bamba Duclos, thought Senghor.
‘Every man for himself, Boss,’ said another. Blaise Guéye for sure. ‘We defend our beefsteak.’
We’re only standing up for our rights. ‘And you have a system just like everyone else, eh?’ asked Kohler.
‘Are not all circumstances to be beaten, Boss, by those over which they form a lid?’ replied Senghor.
And no fool. ‘Did any of you agree to meet with Caroline Lacy at the Chalet des Ânes?’
‘Hermann, go easy. The negotiations are at a delicate stage.’
Still there was that grin, the teeth really very white and big.
‘No, Boss. None of us talked to that girl. Les Américaines. . ’
‘They call us lazy niggers,’ said one of the others, also with a grin.
‘Even though you cut and haul the firewood and do all the other heavy chores?’ continued Hermann, bent on unwittingly laying to waste all that had been gained.
‘Ah, oui, oui, Boss,’ said Senghor, ‘but not all of those girls are like that. Only some. The mademoiselle Lacy was young and pretty, and for her sake as well as for our own, none of us would have spoken to her.’
‘When others were nearby, eh?’
‘Hermann. . ’
‘Louis, leave it. Let him answer.’
And spoken like one of the Occupiers: ‘For fear of reprisals, Boss. Herr Weber is a tough, hard person.’
‘Who remembers well the occupation of the Rhineland, Hermann.’
In 1919, when the Allies moved into the area, France, thinking it best, had sent the Tirailleurs sénégalais and other coloureds as their contingent, thus spawning hatred from the occupied Rhinelanders then and retribution now.
‘The usual distressful stories of rape, Hermann. Herr Weber had a sister who was found amongst some ruins. Her clothes had been torn, her neck broken.’
‘Half our number are out in the forests, Boss, cutting and hauling firewood and logs for lumber,’ said Senghor. ‘Half are here, and every two weeks we change. Those that are left come home and those that sometimes don’t must wait for spring until the ground becomes unfrozen.’
‘Hermann, some of the Americans are fond of calling them “fresh.” Herr Weber knows this and waits for it.’
‘Even though some will wiggle their breasts and bottoms at us, Boss, and try to play us up in other ways, are we not men?’ asked Senghor, still with that grin of his.
‘And the British?’ asked Hermann, wanting to air all the linen.
‘What do you think, Boss?’
‘That they’re far more friendly.’
‘Since many of them come from slums like us?’
‘And like a bit of fun?’
This Gestapo wasn’t going to be easy, thought Senghor, his collaborator of a partner no pushover either. ‘They love to haggle, and always it is best that they think they’re getting the better of us, so we let them.’
A man of truth, was it? ‘And Madame Monnier?’
Hermann still wasn’t going to leave it.
‘The juju lady’s lead henchwoman. With her we must be very careful, Boss, so if we can, we do as asked and get her whatever she wants.’
‘Chocolate, Hermann. She has a sweet tooth.’
‘The juju lady or Madame Monnier?’
‘Both.’
‘Extra firewood,’ said someone, reaching for more sauce.
‘Wallpaper,’ offered another, thinking to help his sergeant.
‘Paper, Corporal Rivette, to light their stoves and cooking fires.’
‘Ah, oui, oui, mon sergent. For the fires.’
And for a little something else? wondered Kohler. And where, please, would they be getting it when the rest of the nation couldn’t? ‘Those golf balls,’ he said, pointing to a string bag that held a good hundred and far too many for one game unless an absolutely lousy golfer.
One had best heave a sigh. ‘The former Kommandant, Hermann. One or another would caddy for him.’
Was it safer ground, wondered Senghor, or was it more likely that one would never know with these two until it was too late? ‘As many days as possible in summer and autumn, Boss. In the spring, too, once the rains had stopped and the ground had dried a little, but he wasn’t like the new one. If he had a good day on the course, we were always given a little something.’
‘Colonel Kessler tended to spend a lot of time in the rough, Hermann, so they always kept themselves prepared.’
And don’t you dare ask where the golf balls came from!
Coffee, made from wild rose petals gathered in summer and dried before roasting, fortunately intervened and was passed round to be sweetened with Borden’s condensed milk courtesy of a Canadian Red Cross parcel.
‘The Americans distribute all parcels for the Western Allies, Hermann, except for those of the British.’
The things one had to learn. ‘Are there Canadians here?’
‘Australians, too, and others from the Dominions.’
‘But only a few of them, Boss,’ said Senghor. ‘Mostly the British internees are British but married to Frenchmen, the Frenchwomen in the Grand married to Britishers or widowed, but then there are also the British-British, like the English girls.’
As chorus girls were known in France, since they had invariably come from Britain.
‘There is also bishap, if you would prefer it, Inspector,’ said Louis. ‘A tisane of hibiscus leaves, a favourite from the homeland some of them left a good many years ago, but a local source.’
‘Brother Étienne again?’
‘But of course.’
Woodbines, Players, Chesterfields, Pall Malls, and Camels circulated. Having none to offer and having shared the meal, Hermann hauled out the partnership’s bankroll and, peeling off not one but two one-thousand-franc bills, added a further five hundred!
‘Louis would have left you a paltry fifty, if that,’ said the banker.
To all things from the Reich come all things good, was that it? ‘You’re very free with our money, Inspector.’