Egyptian alabaster vases, Greek sculptures, Boulle armoires, vitrines full of enamelled silver and/or gold music boxes, snuffboxes, jewellery boxes, Augsburg silver tureens and silver-gilt pilgrim bottles, Sevres porcelain and Meissen figurines, Regence mirrors, lacquered Chinese screens and those whose many-coloured silk birds seemed to fly up into the electric light from above …
‘And no one about, Hermann. Not a soul but ourselves.’
‘It isn’t right, Louis.’
‘Are we not expected?’
Could they be so lucky? ‘What’s that smell?’
There wasn’t time to answer. Galle glass figurines, vases and bowls, with Daum, Lalique and other pieces made a floor-to-ceiling rainbow through which stared the silent ebony and teakwood faces of African sculptures, absolutely exquisite works beyond which, they having reached the ground floor at last to be hidden by its contents, were rock-crystal, Baccarat and Venetian chandeliers that hung as if from a gallows or lay draped over Louis XIV and XV settees and sofas, or prostrate at the feet.
‘Velum-bound illuminated Renaissance books of hours with their calendar pages from the early 1500s, Hermann. Old-Master sketches … Pour l’amour de Dieu, how the hell could Petain or anyone else in Vichy or Berlin have sanctioned such robbery?’
‘Coins, Louis. Drawers and drawers of Roman coins.’
‘Used postage stamps?’
‘Most certainly.’ And this was only a portion of the loot that was constantly being gathered. Roll-topped desks and others, still with their fountain pens and inkstands, waited in long rows, their letters and account books still evident. ‘A marriage licence,’ said Louis. ‘The deed to a flat in Passy. Another in Auteuil.’
Swords, matched pairs of pistols in their velvet-lined cases, battle-axes … There was still no sound other than the careful passage of themselves, the time 5.57 a.m.
Bedroom suites gave the dressing tables of the once-wealthy, blonde hairs still clinging to a hairbrush and comb, a spill of rings and earrings as if but taken off and left frozen in time but scattered deliberately, for the piece and its chair and mirror couldn’t have been moved otherwise and brought here from wherever.
‘Set out again, Louis, even with the silk sheath of a nightdress so as to amuse and intrigue those who come to see what the Baron von Behr and the ERR are up to.’
That one and his British wife often did bring their after-dinner, after-theatre parties here and for just such a purpose and to sell items on the side. ‘Far too much is at stake for us to be allowed to interfere, Hermann.’
‘We’ll try talking to them anyway. We’ll lay out our cards and see what theirs are.’
‘What cards?’
They entered a ground-floor carpentry shop where pieces awaited further repairs, found wood shavings and sawdust in plenty, hardwoods of various kinds. Tapestries were awaiting further restoration in another room, laundry its ironing in yet another, carpets their cleaning in yet another.
‘And the stuff they use for packing, even the wood shavings, returned, Louis, to be used again and again.’
It wasn’t a brass gong that rang, nor some relic that had been brought back from the Far East, but a washtub that was being beaten furiously by a soup ladle. At once there was commotion from underfoot-shouting, grumbling, moaning, swearing in Yiddish, Hebrew, Spanish, Polish, German, French, Russian and Czech-Hungarian too, until silence of a sort was restored, the shrieks of, ‘RAUS! RAUS! SCHNELL! ALLES!’ echoing. ‘ZUM APPELL!’ Roll-call, too, and then … then, ‘EINS, ZWEI, DREI …’
They took the back stairs down, the stench of toasted, burned, sour black bread and ersatz tea of boiled hay, weeds, roots and other things mingling with those of the washed, the still unwashed and the latrines.
The cellars were a prison. Timber-held wire mesh ran from the floor to a bricked and ogive ceiling, and in this fetid cage which stretched on and on, one hundred and fifty … two hundred souls slept on tiered, grey blanket-draped bunks whose mattresses leaked sawdust and wood shavings as the prisoners stood to greet the dim electric light of day by lining up to be counted and then given their breakfast.
Men, women, old, young, middle-aged mostly, some in the stiff, still heavy black woollen suits and broad-brimmed black felt hats of the Marais, many not, some of the men even wearing their yarmulkes, defying the guards to snatch them off.
A spatula-wad of stiff grey-white grease-margarine, verdammt-from a galvanized bucket, was being slapped on to each thick slab of black bread to be finger spread later on. The canteen trolley was one of the Wehrmacht’s mobile soup kitchens, but the three behind it were not in uniform, the one with the ham cheeks and gut of a big bass drum, the resident cook among his other tasks, and wasn’t it interesting that the sous-chef immediately beside him was also of medium height and built like a wedge whose big hands must have lost part of a fingernail?
‘Fish oil, Louis. If only Marie-Leon Barrault and Gaston Morel could see that cook and Adrienne Guillaumet, the one in the middle. Steal the taxi, collect the victim and take her to the passage de la Trinite while the big one heads for the Drouant.’
‘And the other one, the second of the sous-chefs, having called out her name as if to help her to that taxi, then sinks his fists into the mud.’
‘With a certain safe in mind and Au Philateliste Savant not far a walk.’
‘And with time enough for the one in the middle to have come from the Trinite attack to make sure those stamps were recovered.’
Five Wehrmacht guards were behind them, two with shouldered Schmeissers, a sergeant, a Lagerfeldwebel, in charge. ‘It’s Sunday, Louis. They’ve toasted the bread as a little treat to make it taste better. They must have given the prisoners an extra hour of sleep.’
They didn’t talk, these sorters, shippers, needlewomen, laundresses, tailors, carpenters, furniture restorers and other artisans, some no doubt former Levitan employees. Each awaited his or her turn until all the bunks but one were empty. ‘Oona …’
She was sitting on the edge of a lower bunk, was clutching herself tightly by the shoulders and rocking back and forth, had been badly beaten. ‘Hermann, don’t say anything.’
‘You to the right, Louis. I’ll go left. We’ll cut this lot loose and see what happens.’
‘Ah, merde, don’t be an idiot! They’ve nowhere else to go without a great deal of outside help and you know it. Aren’t concierges shy; who look the other way in short supply? Aren’t flats that are now empty and might be used if a cooperative concierge could be found, too often having neighbours who would simply report such new occupants? Too many would be killed in any case, or wounded. Besides, they’re hungry.’
‘Don’t argue.’
‘Then listen to me. We’ve not been expected, not yet.’
‘Oona’s clothes are torn. Was she …’
Hermann couldn’t bring himself to say it, but Hubert Quevillon was standing to one side of the machine pistols and so was Flavien Garnier.
The first was amused by the roll call, the second couldn’t have cared less, but when seen through this mesh of wire and its crowd of faded yellow stars and grey-striped shirts and trousers on some, dresses of the same on others, it was enough.
‘A waterproofing compound, Louis, when there are raincoats, capes and boots in plenty in this place.’
‘Unlike Max Auger, they know enough not to take anything.’
‘Hubert Quevillon having been later told all the lurid details of Madame Guillaumet’s attack and that of the Drouant. If he’s raped Oona, I’ll kill him.’
‘That’s for the courts to decide and you know it.’
‘What courts? Hercule the Smasher’s? If we’re going down, we’re going down hard.’