He fixed them each with a last glance, hesitating but a fraction longer with St-Cyr.
Then he turned and left them.
‘Probably going to inspect the brothels,’ snorted Kohler. ‘That always gets him in an uproar.’
‘You didn’t say anything about the possibility of the boy being a priest,’ offered St-Cyr.
‘Did I have a chance? The Jew business was better.’
‘Von Schaumburg’s no fool, Hermann. He knows far more about this than he’s saying.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
St-Cyr ran his eyes over the boy. A name had been called out into the darkness as the sound of the bicycle had approached. Then the brakes had been applied. There’d have been hesitation, the boy searching the roadside before saying softly, --is that really you?
Yes … Yes, it’s me,--
But you were supposed to meet me at--. Why didn’t you?
We were late. Something came up. Did you bring the purse?
Yes … Yes, I’ve got it.
Then the boulder – grasped fiercely in both hands and smashed against that forehead with all the strength of her tender years.
Or did they argue first? Did the boy not demand something in exchange for the purse?
Did he honestly have that look about him? A blackmailer? Ah no, not him.
A priest, a saint, a novice.
Tears … terror – the realization of what she’d done. A torn stocking. No time. Must climb. Must run!
Now wait – wait, Louis. The position of the hands, eh? The hands, my friend.
The forest then, and then, at the end of that footpath, scraped and bruised and still in tears, she would have yanked the car door open. Madame … Madame, I have lost the purse!
Idiot! Go back and find it. You must!
No … No, I can’t, madame. I have hit him. He’s dead. I know he’s dead!
Weeping, the girl collapses on the seat.
End of scene, end of frame. No splicing needed yet. But why madame? wondered St-Cyr, strangely exhausted by the film his imagination had conjured for him.
Why not mademoiselle?
It was an excellent question for which he had no adequate answer, only a feeling that was so hard to explain.
‘Louis, I hate to interrupt your thoughts, but have a look at this.’
Kohler came back into focus through the misty eyes of the cinematographer. There were three small bruises in a tight little row on the fair skin of the boy’s upper right thigh.
‘Were you thinking what I am?’ asked the Bavarian. ‘If so, von Schaumburg’s interest may not be out of place.’
St-Cyr smoothed a thumb over the marks as a wave of sadness engulfed him. ‘No … No I wasn’t, Hermann. My film was quite different and only of the boy’s last moments.’
* The most notorious of the Intervention-Referat gangs.
2
Les Halles had once been the belly of Paris, full of shouts, full of produce, but now … ah, Mon Dieu, it was such a shame, a mere vestige of its former self.
Pathetic! Yes, that’s what it was. And all because of the curfew! And the gasolene and diesel fuel restrictions, of course.
St-Cyr flung the cigarette butt away as he strode beneath the first of the colossal iron-and-glass pavilions that had once contained the heart and pulse of Paris and its environs.
Because of the curfew, the farmers couldn’t get their produce to market until two or three in the afternoon when, normally, they would have started the long journey homeward.
Because of the fuel restrictions and the requisition of virtually all motor vehicles, only a paltry number of gasogenes struggled into the city, to here.
Others, of course, had better luck but they unloaded at the best hotels and restaurants, or sold straight off the back and quickly.
As a result, a flourishing black market existed and those without the cash or trade went hungry while in the north, milk was being fed to the pigs and the potatoes were all being shipped to Germany.
‘The Boches are fools,’ he said to the cavern of that empty place. As in the morgue, his steps echoed and seemed to follow him as a man’s conscience should.
Hermann had gone to his hotel to collect the address book. The Bavarian would stop in at the office to pick up the purse and to check with Records. They’d meet later at Fournier’s.
He, himself, would try to settle the perfume business.
Let’s face it, my friend, he said to himself, we’re running scared. This whole thing is beginning to smell.
There were no vegetable sellers, no carrots to be had, no cabbages, no apples either. As he passed the Bistro St Ruby-Martin, he recalled the 5 a.m. onion soup, the steaming vapours of a late night’s ending over wine as well as coffee and a marc. Sipping and sorting his notes while listening to the background shouts of the market and drinking in the aromas.
Out on the rue St Denis, he headed for his second choice: the Taverne Moderne, cast out of the 1870s, still complete with its gaslights and Belle Epoque etched windows.
Subdued lighting and crowded little tables with red chequered cloths. Water and ration tickets and maybe … just maybe a bowl of their leek soup with a few croutons to raft about and make the memories come.
‘Hello, Henri. Can you look after me, eh?’
‘The soup is very good today, monsieur, as is the lamb casserole.’ (The two items were scrawled in chalk on the blackboard.)
Lamb, squirrel or cat – was it cat? ‘Excellent!’ exclaimed St-Cyr with a famished grin. ‘My wife and little son have gone to see her mother for a few days, so I must fend for myself.’
Henri couldn’t have cared less. Courville, the great talker and former owner of the Taverne, had sensibly sold up on the day before the Defeat and hadn’t been seen since.
We’re all new to each other, no matter how many years we’ve known each other, said St-Cyr to himself as he crowded into a shared table with a heavy-set businessman who liked to have the table for his elbows and was forced to move his plate and cutlery into full retreat.
‘Monsieur,’ acknowledged St-Cyr with a curt nod, while smoothing out the recovered territory.
The man merely grunted and continued breaking bread into his casserole. Not a crumb was wasted.
Water in the lamb. Was it a stew, then? wondered St-Cyr. These days one took what one got.
He spread two bread tickets and one meat coupon on the table only to hear his other half grunt, ‘You’ll only need the one for bread. Don’t tempt the bastard with two. There’s no wine, so forget it.’
No wine. The blood of France. He thought to ask, just in case, then looked around and thought better of it. To a man, the patrons attended to their lunch with dogged determination.
So what are we to do? he asked himself. That business of the tiny bruises was not healthy, nor was the business of the negative Barbizon’s photographer had retained.
He would send a money order off from the post office, then he’d head for the classy shops of the Place Vendome. But would knowing the perfume lead to the woman, and what if she were found, what then?
The leek soup was perfect. Magnificent! Such an aroma, one could derive sustenance from its vapours alone.
He longed for a little grated cheese.
The man across the table said, ‘Use some of your bread. You’ll get no croutons from them.’
St-Cyr wished he’d go away.
Two days … that’s all they had. Perhaps a third if there was significant progress.
He hoped the thing really had nothing to do with the Resistance. Hermann couldn’t be expected to tread lightly.
So far they had avoided the inevitable. Each day, however, had brought them closer and closer to that final moment of decision.
To kill or not to kill Hermann. He’d hate to have to fire the shots. The Resistance would hunt him down in any case. They’d never listen. Not to him.
I live on the edge of a chasm, he said to himself. Is it any wonder Marianne could no longer stand it?