‘Someone … someone threw sulphuric acid into her face, Jean-Louis. Where once there had been beauty and such inner calmness, there was now destruction, the end of a promising career, and … and the banishment of her young life to the house of her parents in Dijon.’
5
All along the Champs-Elysees, the rush-hour traffic struggled valiantly against the darkness and the ice, while up from the Seine came a freezing ground fog that gave the ether of surrealism to the fatalistic winkings of so many pinpricks of light. Still deeply troubled by the shootings of the two engravers, Kohler watched the traffic for a chance to cross. Swarms of bicycles and velo-taxis were forced to part for occasional cars and gazogene buses or lorries. White studs on the paving stones formed a passage cloute, a miniature runway beckoning pedestrians to take their chances.
Occasionally there was the sound of a bell or a shout. For the most part, though, progress was mute and determined. Several thousand people were on the avenue. All over Paris, along every major artery, it would be the same, but now even the passengers in the velo-taxis had ceased to laugh and think it all a great joke.
Had the Sixth Army fallen? he wondered apprehensively. Had his two sons been killed or taken prisoner?
Suddenly the need to know was too great. Recklessly pushing through the crowd, he started to cross the avenue. The Propaganda Staffel could never keep a lid on news like that. The BBC London would trumpet it loud and clear, ‘Ici Londres,’ Here is London calling …
Though it was illegal to tune into that waveband, lots did. There would be whispers-open hostility among the French and smug looks of triumph that would say, Now it is our turn, monsieur. Our turn …
He was nearly hit by a bicycle. The man skidded onto his side, the crate clattering beneath the wheels of a honking bus.
‘Monsieur, attention!’ shrieked the traffic cop, the shrill blast of his whistle and frantic flagging of the arms somehow bringing traffic to a standstill.
‘My sons,’ blurted Kohler. ‘Jurgen and Hans, they’re … they’re only boys.’
He hadn’t realized he’d spoken deutsch. For a moment he stood in the centre of the avenue, collared by a French flic nearly half his size. Ah nom de Jesus-Christ, the lights, the pinpricks-everyone was watching. Breath billowing. Waiting. Poised. Angry …
The man whose bicycle had been ruined, dragged it up and began to scream invective. A woman went to calm him. ‘Gestapo!’ she shrieked and the street went to silence.
Nearly 150,000 Wehrmacht troops had been killed at Stalingrad in what must surely be the fiercest campaign of the war. House-to-house fighting, unbelievable hatred on both sides, and still there were nearly 100,000 men trapped in a pocket no more than 50 kilometres in diameter with all their equipment and virtually no supplies.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said to the flic. ‘If he’ll give me his name and address and not think he’s about to be arrested, I’ll see that he gets another bike.’
The flic raked him savagely with a glance. ‘Beat it, idiot! Can’t you see you’re but one against many?’
The Feldwebel on the desk at number 52 gave him the latest news. ‘No change, Haupsturmfuhrer. We’re still waiting for a miracle.’
They were still holding out. Ah damn Goering and his fucking Luftwaffe, ah damn the Fuhrer for biting off too much and not realizing gains should always be consolidated.
The Propaganda Abteilung was spread over several floors. Newspapers, films, books, radio broadcasting, the theatre and the arts-even the allocation of paper-had offices here. News bulletins streamed in from the Reich. The Staffel selected these for distribution, censored the French reporters’ columns and told them what and what not to print or say, then rewarded those who obeyed and punished those who didn’t. Anyone who was anyone in the media and the arts had to come here for permission. But at 1800 hours, though there were staff about, and the censors worked in shifts until midnight, the place had emptied like a sieve.
Sonderfuhrer Kempf was in charge of Luftwaffe news releases from an office on the fourth floor at the back. Never one to trust the elevators-the French ones particularly-Kohler climbed the stairs and fought to overcome the sudden weariness of it all.
The boys would die at Stalingrad-he had that feeling. Christ! why did it have to be that way?
Gerda … his Gerda … would leave him for a conscripted French farm labourer.
There would be nothing for him back home when this lousy war was over, just as there would be nothing for the Sonderfuhrer Kempf, ah yes.
One of the grey mice, the Blitzmadchen from home, held the fort in an outer office. She had started in on the hors-d’oeuvres- a custard tart with blackberry jam and white icing sugar-while having a coffee and typing up yet another heavily censored news release.
Wiping jam from her hairy upper lip with the back of a hand, she threw him a watery look of surprise and said, ‘He isn’t here. What … what has he done now?’
Kohler gave her a wolfish grin of thanks for such a choice little insight. ‘Relax and finish your supper. It must be a bitch having to work late every night.’
She thought this over while tidying her hands. He asked her name.
‘Fraulein Schlaak, Herr …’
‘Kohler, Kripo. Gestapo Central.’
Common Crime … A giant with a savage scar-had he been a soldier? Had it been shrapnel? There were the scars about the face and hands but shrapnel had not caused the one from the left eye to chin. A duelling scar …?
‘Barbed wire,’ he lied, throwing himself into a chair. ‘Ah Gott im Himmel, Fraulein Schlaak, I’ve just seen some poor bastard crushed to a pulp under the wheels of one of their lousy buses. You wouldn’t have a drink handy? I’m about done in.’
He did look badly shaken. Sonderfuhrer Kempf would not even notice a drink was missing. ‘Schnapps?’ she asked. ‘There is a bottle in …’
‘Hey, that would suit me fine. Stay right where you are and I’ll get it. The bottom right drawer?’
‘The … the cabinet.’
As she watched from the doorway, the giant downed three straight glasses and then took another before offering her some, to which she vehemently shook her head and gushed, ‘The reports. I … I must finish them.’
‘A cigarette?’ he asked.
She indicated the desk and watched helplessly as he took a fistful, then lit up. ‘So, take your mind back to last Thursday the 24th, fraulein, and tell me where he was.’
Wariness showed in her dark blue eyes. ‘The truth, eh?’ he asked. ‘Hey, it’s not too hard, seeing as he isn’t around and will never know I’ve been here if I put these back.’
One by one he replaced the cigarettes and tidied the desk.
‘The … the press briefings are always on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Herr Kohler. Sonderfuhrer Kempf, he … he must always be on hand for those.’
Kohler blew smoke towards the ceiling. He’d try a long shot and see what happened. ‘But he wasn’t here last Thursday, was he?’
Her throat rippled. The tightly corseted bosom swelled then deflated with a sigh. ‘No … no, he … he was called away but Harald, his driver, had the car and that one, he … he was kidnapped.’
‘The robbery, Ja, ja, we know all about it. So, where was the Sonderfuhrer when the bank was being robbed?’
‘I … I don’t know, Herr Kohler. The …’ She thought madly. ‘The dentist, I think.’
‘Did he come into the office at all on that Thursday?’
‘No … no, he didn’t. I … I gave the releases to one of the others.’
‘Then let’s have a look at his appointment book. Maybe that’ll refresh your memory.’