They found themselves outside on the Rue Pigalle. Commandant Bloch gestured to the three white Delahayes and the black Citroën parked outside the club.
‘These all belong to our little gang,’ he explained. ‘We use the back Citroën for the round-ups. So let’s take one of the Delahayes, if you don’t mind. It will be more cheery.’
Saul got behind the wheel, he and Bloch sat in the front, with Isaiah, Rebecca and Isaac in the back.
‘What were you doing at the Grand-Duc?’ Commandant Bloch asked him. ‘Don’t you know the nightclub is reserved for French Gestapo officers and black market traffickers?’
As they approached the Place de l’Opéra, he noticed a large banner that read ‘KOMMANDANTUR PLATZ’.
‘How glorious to be riding in a Delahaye,’ said Bloch, ‘especially in Paris in May 1943. Don’t you agree, Schlemilovitch?’
He stared at him intently. His eyes were kindly and compassionate.
‘Let’s make quite sure we understand one another, Schlemilovitch, I have no wish to thwart your vocation. Thanks to me, you will almost certainly be awarded the Martyr’s Palm you’ve aspired to since the day you were born. Oh yes, a little later, I plan to personally give you the greatest gift you could wish for: a bullet in the back of the neck! Beforehand, we will eliminate your fiancée. Happy?’
To ward off his fear, he gritted his teeth and summoned his memories. His love affairs with Eva Braun and Hilda Murzzuschlag. His first strolls through Paris, summer 1940, in his SS Brigadenführer uniform: this was the dawn of a new era, they were going to cleanse the world, cure it forever of the Jewish plague. They had clear heads and blond hair. Later, his Panzer crushes the meadows of the Ukraine. Later still, here he is with Field Marshal Rommel striding through the desert sands. He is wounded in Stalingrad. The phosphorus bombs in Hamburg will do the rest. He followed the Führer to the last. Is he going to let himself be intimidated by Elias Bloch?
‘A burst of lead in the back of the head! What do you say, Schlemilovitch?’
The eyes of commandant Bloch are on him again.
‘You’re one of the ones who takes his beating with a sad smile! A true Jew, the genuine, hundred per cent, made in Europa Jews.’
They turned into the Bois de Boulogne.
He remembers afternoons spent at the Pré-Catelan and the Grande Cascade under the watchful eye of Miss Evelyn but he will not bore you with his childhood. Read Proust, that would be best.
Saul stopped the Delahaye in the middle of the Allée des Acacias. He and Isaac dragged Rebecca out and raped her in front of my very eyes. Commandant Bloch had already handcuffed me and the car doors were locked. It hardly mattered, I would not have lifted a finger to protect my fiancée.
We drove towards the château de Bagatelle. Isaiah, more sophisticated than his two companions, gripped Rebecca by the throat and forced his penis into my fiancée’s mouth. Commandant Bloch gently stabbed me in the thighs with a dagger and before long my immaculate SS uniform was drenched with blood.
Then the Delahaye stopped at the junction near Les Cascades. Isaiah and Isaac dragged Rebecca from the car again. Isaac grabbed her hair and tugged her head back. Rebecca started to laugh. The laugh grew louder, echoing around the woods, grew louder still until it reached a dizzying height and splintered into sobs.
‘Your fiancée has been liquidated,’ whispers Commandant Bloch, ‘don’t be sad. We have to get back to our friends!’
And indeed the whole gang is waiting for us on the Place de l’Étoile.
‘It’s after curfew,’ says Jean-Farouk de Mérode, ‘but we have specially-issued Ausweise.’
‘Why don’t we go to the One-Two-Two,’ suggests Paulo Hayakawa. ‘They have sensational girls there. No need to pay. I just have to flash my French Gestapo card.’
‘Why don’t we conduct a few impromptu searches of the bigwigs in the neighbourhood?’ says M. Igor.
‘I’d rather loot a jeweller’s,’ says Otto da Silva.
‘Or an antiques shop,’ says Lévy-Vendôme, ‘I’ve promised Göring three Directoire desks.’
‘What do you say to a raid?’ asks Commandant Bloch, ‘I know a hideout of Résistants on the Rue Lepic.’
‘Wonderful idea!’ cries Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff. ‘We can torture them in my hôtel particulier on the Place d’Iéna.’
‘We are the kings of Paris,’ says Paulo Hayakawa.
‘Thanks to our German friends,’ says M. Igor.
‘Let’s have fun!’ says Sophie Knout, ‘we’re protected by the Abwehr and the Gestapo.’
‘Après nous le déluge!’ says the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames.
‘Why not come down to the Rue Lauriston,’ says Bloch, ‘I’ve just had three cases of whisky delivered. Let’s end the evening with a flourish.’
‘You’re right, commandant,’ says Paulo Hayakawa, ‘after all, they don’t call us the Rue Lauriston Gang for nothing.’
‘RUE LAURISTON! RUE LAURISTON!’ chant the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames and the Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff.
‘No point taking the cars,’ says Jean-Farouk de Mérode, ‘we can walk there.’
Up to this point, they have been kind to me, but no sooner do we turn into the Rue Lauriston than they turn and glare at me in a manner that is unbearable.
‘Who are you?’ demands Paulo Hayakawa.
‘An agent with the Intelligence Service,’ says Sophie Knout.
‘Explain yourself,’ says Otto da Silva.
‘I don’t much care for that ugly mug of yours,’ declares the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl.
‘Why are you dressed as an SS officer?’ Jean-Farouk de Mérode asks me.
‘Show me your papers,’ orders M. Igor.
‘Are you a Jew?’ asks Lévy-Vendôme. ‘Come on, confess!’
‘Who do you think you are, you little thug, Marcel Proust?’ inquires the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames.
‘He’ll tell us what we want to know in the end,’ declares Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, ‘tongues are loosened at Rue Lauriston.’
Bloch puts the handcuffs on me again. The others question me with renewed vigour. I feel a sudden urge to vomit. I lean against a doorway.
‘We don’t have time to waste,’ says Isaac, ‘March!’
‘Make an effort,’ says Commandant Bloch, ‘we’ll soon be there. It’s at number 93.’
I stumble and collapse on the pavement. They encircle me. Jean-Farouk de Mérode, Paulo Hayakawa, M. Igor, Otto da Silva and Lévy-Vendôme are all wearing striking pink evening suits and fedoras. Bloch, Isaiah, Isaac, and Saul are more austere in their green trench coats. The Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, Sophie Knout and the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl are each wearing a white mink and a diamond rivière.
Paulo Hayakawa is smoking a cigar and casually flicking the ash in my face, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff is playfully jabbing my cheeks with her stiletto heels.
‘Aren’t you going to get up, Marcel Proust?’ asks the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames.
‘Come on, Schlemilovitch,’ Commandant Bloch implores me, ‘We only have to cross the street. Look, there’s number 93. .’
‘He is an obstinate young man,’ says Jean-Farouk de Mérode. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to drink a whisky. I can’t bear to be parched.’ He crosses the road, followed by Paulo Hayakawa, Otto da Silva and M. Igor. The door to number 93 closes behind them.
Sophie Knout, the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, and the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames quickly join them. The Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames wraps her mink coats around me, whispering in my ear: