If he stood on the window ledge . . .
He had to force his body to move—he was trembling with fear. He got himself turned around, feet dangling into space, pulled himself to his knees by using the inside handles of the window, then stood up, back to the courtyard. The rain was cold on his face, he took a deep breath. The gutter ran to a perpendicular roof. He could inch over—feet on the gutter, body pressed flat against the slate—and climb the angle. He would then be—he would then be somewhere else.
He heard the bathroom door open, heard Werner cry out. He let go of the window handles, lifted his right foot from the ledge and placed it on the gutter. Werner ran toward the window, Casson left the ledge and let his weight shift to the gutter. It rolled over, dumping its water, then dropped three inches. Casson bit down against a scream and clawed at the wet slate for traction.
Werner’s head appeared through the window. He was pale with terror, his carefully combed hair hanging lank from its center parting. Suddenly he leaned out, took a swipe at Casson’s ankle. Casson crabbed sideways along the gutter.
From Werner, a taut little laugh—just kidding. “Tell me, what on earth do you think you’re doing out there?”
Casson didn’t answer.
“Mm?”
Silence.
“Perhaps you will end it all, eh?” His voice was low, and edged with panic. It was, at the same time, hopeful. To allow an escape was unthinkable, but suicide—maybe they wouldn’t be quite so angry with him.
Casson couldn’t speak. He closed his eyes, felt the rain on his hair and skin, heard the storm in the distance. From the darkness, from the very root of his soul, he said slowly, “Leave me alone.”
A minute passed, frozen time. Then Werner gave an order, his voice a shrill whisper. “You come back in here!” Casson could hear a life in the words—all the failures, all the excuses.
Casson moved another step, the gutter sagged. He stretched his arms as high as they would go, discovered a mossy crack between the slate tiles. He tried it—it was possible, just barely and not for long.
Now Werner saw everything he’d worked for about to fall apart. “One more step,” he said, “and I call the guards.”
Casson counted to twenty. “All right,” he said. “I’m coming back.” But he didn’t move. He could imagine Guske in his office, looking at his watch.
“Well?”
“I can’t.”
“You must try!”
“My feet won’t move.”
“Ach.”
Teeth clenched with fury, Werner wriggled through the window then stood on the ledge. “Just stay still,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
Casson drove the tips of his fingers through the moss, into the shallow crack. Werner stepped daintily off the ledge, made sure of his balance, then, leaning his weight on the roof, began to move slowly sideways. Casson shifted his weight to his hands, lifted his right leg as high as it would go and rammed it back down against the gutter.
Nothing happened.
Until Werner’s next step—then he mewed with fear as the gutter came away. Then he vanished. For part of a second he thought it over, at last allowed himself a loud whine of indignation that ended, briefly, in a scream. The lead gutter hit the cobbles with a dull clatter.
Thirty seconds, Casson thought, no more. The crack between the tiles deepened, and he moved along it quickly. Reached the corner where the two wings of the building met, shinned up the angle to the peak, lay flat on the copper sheathing and tried to catch his breath. As he looked over the other side he saw a row of windows—the same type he’d just crawled out of. The only difference was a narrow spillway, wedged between the slanted roof and a stone parapet.
Now they discovered Werner.
He heard shouts from the courtyard, somebody blew a police whistle, flashlight beams swept everywhere, across the façades of the building and the roof. He rolled off the peak and let himself slide down to the spillway. There he stayed on his knees, looked over the parapet, saw a sheer drop to a narrow street. He had no idea what it might be, the city was a maze—secret courtyards, blind alleyways, sense of direction meant nothing.
He ran along the the spillway, looked in the first window. Blackout curtain. At the next, the curtain was slightly askew. He could see an office in low light, a cleaner in a gray smock was polishing the waxed parquet with a square of sheepskin tied to a broom. Casson tapped on the window.
The man looked up. Casson tapped again. The man walked slowly to the window and tried to see out. The Lost King, Casson thought. An old man with snow-white hair and thin lips and rosy skin. He moved the blackout curtain aside and cranked the casement window open a few inches. “What are you doing out there?” he asked.
“I escaped. Over the roof.”
“Escaped? From the Gestapo?”
“Yes.”
“Bon Dieu.” He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it back, thinking. “Well, over here we’re the National Meteorological office, but, we have our Germans too, of course.” He stopped, the shouts from the courtyard on the other side of the building could just be heard. “Well, then, monsieur, I expect you may want to climb in here, and permit us to hide you.”
25 June, 1941.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning. I was wondering if you have, a certain book.”
“Yes? What would that be?”
“An atlas.”
“Yes? Of what country?”
“France.”
“Perhaps, we could call you back?”
“No. I’ll be in later.”
“But sir . . .”
He hung up.
Not the same person, and, he thought, not French.
German.
25 June, 1941.
The baroness answered the phone in a cool, distant voice. “Hello?”
“Hello. This is your neighbor, from upstairs.”
“Oh. Yes, I see. Are things going well? For you?”
“Not too badly. My friend?”
“Your friend. Has returned to Lyons. I believe, without difficulties.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“You are, you know, very fortunate to have such a friendship.”
“Yes, I do know that.”
“In that case, I hope you are careful.”
“I am. In fact, I ought to be going.”
“Good-bye, then. Perhaps we’ll meet again, some day.”
“Perhaps we will. And, madame, thank you.”
“You’re welcome, monsieur.”
25 June, 1941.
“Galéries Lafayette.”
“Good morning. I’m calling for Véronique, in the buyers’ office.”
“One moment, please.”
“Hello?”
“Hello, may I speak with Véronique, please.”
“I’m sorry, she hasn’t come in today, perhaps she’ll be in tomorrow. Would you care to leave a message?”
“No, no message. I’ll call back tomorrow.”
“Very well. Good-bye,”
“Good-bye.”
A café in the Tenth, busy and crowded. Casson went back to his table. Took a sip of his chicory-laced coffee. The Lost King and his colleagues had been very generous, had given him a shirt, a cap, an old jacket, and a few francs. They had even hit upon a scheme to persuade the Gestapo that their intensive search of the building was likely to prove fruitless— one of the men who took care of the furnace had snuck upstairs to the street floor of the Interior Ministry and, simply enough, left a door open.
Still, kind as they’d been, Casson was in some difficulty. Everything was gone: apartment, office, business, friends, bank accounts, passport. He was down to fourteen francs and Citrine—who would be safe, he thought, as long as she stayed in Lyons and didn’t call attention to herself.