‘I’ll do it.’
‘No, let me! I need the exercise,’ said the officer on his right.
‘No, Isaac! It’s my turn. You got to beat the shit out of the English Jew last night. This one’s mine.’
‘Apparently this one’s a French Jew.’
‘That’s weird. Why don’t we call him Marcel Proust?’
Isaac gave him a brutal punch in the stomach.
‘On your knees, Marcel! On your knees!’
Meekly he complied. The back seat made it difficult. Isaac slapped him six times.
‘You’re bleeding, Marceclass="underline" that means you’re still alive.’
Saul whipped out a leather belt.
‘Catch, Marcel Proust,’ he said.
The belt hit him on the left cheek and he almost passed out.
‘Poor little brat,’ said Isaiah. ‘Poor little French Jew.’
He passed the Hôtel Majestic. All the windows of the great façade were dark. To reassure himself, he decided that Otto Abetz flanked by all the jolly fellows of the Collaboration were in the lobby for him, the guest of honour at a Franco-German dinner. After all, was he not the official Jew to the Third Reich?
‘We’re taking you on a little tour of the area,’ said Isaiah.
‘There are a lot of historical monuments around here,’ said Saul.
‘We’ll stop at each one so you have a chance to appreciate them.’
They showed him the buildings requisitioned by the Gestapo: Nos. 31 bis and 72 Avenue Foch. 57 Boulevard Lannes. 48 Rue de Villejust. 101 Avenue Henri-Martin. Nos. 3 and 5 Rue Mallet-Stevens. Nos. 21 and 23 Square de Bois-de-Boulogne. 25 Rue d’Astorg. 6 Rue Adolphe-Yvon. 64 Boulevard Suchet. 49 Rue de la Faisanderie. 180 Rue de la Pompe.
Having finished the sightseeing tour, they headed back to the Kléber-Boissière sector.
‘So what did you make of the 16th arrondissement?’ Isaiah asked him.
‘It’s the most notorious district in Paris,’ said Saul.
‘And now, driver, take us to 93 Rue Lauriston, please,’ said Isaac.
He felt reassured. His friends Bonny and Chamberlin-Lafont would soon put an end to this tasteless joke. They would drink champagne together as they did every night. René Launay, head of the Gestapo on the Avenue Foch, ‘Rudy’ Martin from the Gestapo in Neuilly, Georges Delfanne from the Avenue Henri-Martin and Odicharia from the ‘Georgia Gestapo’ would join them. Order would be restored.
Isaac rang the bell at 93 Rue Lauriston. The building looked deserted.
‘The boss is probably waiting for us at 3 bis Place des États-Unis for the beating,’ said Isaiah.
Bloch paced up and down the pavement. He opened the door to number 3 bis and dragged the young man inside.
He knew this hôtel particulier well. His friends Bonny and Chamberlin-Lafont has remodelled the property to create eight holding cells and two torture chambers, since the premises at 93 Rue Lauriston served as the administrative headquarters.
They went up to the fourth floor. Bloch opened a window.
‘The Place des États-Unis is quiet this evening,’ he said. ‘See how the streetlights cast a soft glow over the leaves, my young friend. A beautiful May evening. And to think, we have to torture you. The bathtub torture, as it happens. How sad. A little glass of curaçao for Dutch courage? A Craven? Or would you prefer a little music? In a while, we’ll play you a little song by Charles Trenet. It will drown out your screams. The neighbours are sensitive. They prefer the voice of Trenet to the sound of you being tortured.’
Saul, Isaac and Isaiah entered. They had not taken off their green trench coats. He immediately noticed the bathtub in the middle of the room.
‘It once belonged to Émilienne d’Alençon,’ Bloch said with a sad smile. ‘Admire the quality of the enamelling, my friend, the floral motifs, the platinum taps.’
Isaac wrenched his hands behind his back while Isaiah put on the handcuffs. Saul turned on the phonograph. Raphäel immediately recognised the voice of Charles Trenet:
Formidable,
J’entends le vent sur la mer.
Formidable
Je vois la pluie, les éclairs.
Formidable
Je sens bientôt qu’il va faire,
qu’il va faire
Un orage
Formidable. .
Sitting on the window ledge, Bloch beat time.
They plunged my head into the freezing water. My lungs felt as though they might explode at any minute. The faces I had loved flashed past. The faces of my mother and my father. My old French teacher Adrien Debigorre. The face of Fr. Perrache. The face of Colonel Aravis. And then the faces of all my wonderful fiancées — I had one in every province. Bretagne, Normandy, Poitou. Corrèze. Lozère. Savoie. . Even one in Limousin. In Bellac. If these thugs spared my life, I would write a wonderful noveclass="underline" Schlemilovitch and the Limousin, in which I would show that I am a perfectly assimilated Jew.
They yanked me by the hair. I heard Charles Trenet again:
. . Formidable.
On se croirait au ciné-
Matographe
Où l’on voit tant de belles choses,
Tant de trucs, de métamorphoses,
Quand une rose
est assassinée. .
‘The second dunking will last longer,’ Bloch explains wiping away a tear.
This time, two hands press down on my neck, two more on the back of my head. Before I drown, it occurs to me I have not always been kind to maman.
But they drag me back into the fresh air.
Et puis
et puis
sur les quais,
la pluie
la pluie
n'a pas compliqué
la vie
qui rigole
et qui se mire dans les flaques des rigoles.
‘Now let’s get down to business,’ says Bloch, stifling a sob.
They lay me on the floor. Isaac takes a Swiss penknife from his pocket and makes deep slashes in the soles of my feet. Then he orders me to walk across a heap of salt. Next, Saul conscientiously rips out three of my fingernails. Then, Isaiah files down my teeth. At that point Trenet was singing:
Quel temps
pour les p’tits poissons.
Quel temps
pour les grands garçons.
Quel temps
pour les tendrons.
Mesdemoiselles nous vous attendrons. .
‘I think that’s enough for tonight,’ said Elias Bloch, shooting me a tender look.
He stroked my chin.
‘This is the prison for the foreign Jews,’ he said, ‘we’ll take you to the cell for French Jews. You’re the only one at the moment. But there will be more along soon. Don’t you worry.’
‘The little shits can sit around talking about Marcel Proust,’ said Isaiah.
‘When I hear the word culture, I reach for my truncheon,’ said Saul.
‘I get to deliver the coup de grâce!’ said Isaac.
‘Come now, don’t frighten the young man,’ Bloch said imploringly.
He turned to me.
‘Tomorrow, you will be advised about the progress of your case.’ Isaac and Saul pushed me into a little room. Isaiah came in and handed me a pair of striped pyjamas. Sewn onto the pyjama jacket was a yellow star of David on which I read Französisch Jude. As he closed the reinforced door, Isaac tripped me and I fell flat on my face.