"Go upstairs," Brandt said, "and read the Lieutenant that lecture."
The door of the building opened and Himmler waved to them. They got out of the car and went in. A Moorish-looking lamp cast a heavy purple light over the staircase and hanging tapestries along the walls inside.
Himmler pushed open a door and there was the Lieutenant, his gloves and helmet off, sitting on a stool with his legs crossed, delicately picking at the gold foil on a bottle of champagne. The bar was a small room, done in a kind of lavender stucco, with crescent-shaped windows and tasselled hangings. There was a large woman who seemed to go with the room, all frizzed hair, fringed shawls and heavy painted eyelids. She was behind the bar, chattering away in French to the Lieutenant, who was nodding gravely, not understanding a word of what she was saying.
"Amis," Himmler said, putting his arms around Brandt and Christian. "Braves soldaten."
"The French," the Lieutenant was saying, sitting stiff and correct, his eyes now dark green and opaque, like sea-worn bottle glass. "I disdain the French. They are not willing to die. That is why we are here drinking their wine and taking their women, because they prefer not to die. Comic…" He waved his glass in the air, in a gesture that was drunken but bitter.
"This campaign. A comic, ridiculous campaign. Since I have been eighteen years old, I have been studying war. The art of war. At my fingertips. Supply. Liaison. Morale. Selection of disguised points for command posts. Theory of attack against automatic weapons. The value of shock. I could lead an army. Five years of my life. Then the moment comes." He laughed bitterly. "The great moment. The Army surges to the battle-line. What happens to me?" He stared at the Madam, who did not understand a word of German and was nodding happily, agreeing. "I do not hear a shot fired. I sit in an automobile and I ride four hundred miles and I go to a brothel. The miserable French Army has made a tourist out of me! A tourist! No more war. Five years wasted. No career. I'll be a Lieutenant till the age of fifty. I don't know anyone in Berlin. No influence, no friends, no promotion. Wasted. My father was better off. He only got to the Marne, but he had four years to fight in, and he was a Major when he was twenty-six, and he had his own battalion at the Somme, when every other officer was killed in the first two days."
Two girls came into the room. One was a large, heavy blonde girl with an easy, full-mouthed smile. The other was small and slender and dark, with a brooding, almost Arab face, set off by the heavy make-up and bright red lipstick.
"Here they are," the Madam said caressingly. "Here are the little cabbages." She patted the blonde approvingly, like a horsedealer. "This is Jeanette. Just the type, eh? I predict she will have a great vogue while the Germans are in Paris."
"I'll take that one." The Lieutenant stood up, very straight, and pointed to the girl who looked like an Arab. She gave him a dark, professional smile and came over and took his arm.
Himmler had been looking at her with interest, too, but he resigned immediately to the privilege of rank, put his arm around the big blonde, and went off with her saying, in his ferocious French, "Cherie, I love your gown…"
The Madam made her excuses and left, after putting out another bottle of champagne. Christian and Brandt sat alone in the orange-lit Moorish bar, staring silently at the frosted bottle in the ice bucket.
"I feel sad," said Brandt. "Very sad. What was it the Lieutenant said?"
"Today is the dawn of a new era."
"I feel sad at the dawn of the new era." Brandt poured himself some wine. "Did you know that ten months ago I nearly became a French citizen?"
"No," said Christian.
"I lived in France for ten years, off and on. Some other time I'll take you to the place on the Normandy coast I went to in the summers. I painted all day long, thirty, sometimes forty, canvases a summer. I was developing a little reputation in France, too. We must go to the gallery that showed my stuff. Maybe they still have some of the paintings, and you can take a look at them."
"I'll be very happy to," Christian said formally.
"I couldn't show my paintings in Germany. They were abstract. Non-objective art, they call it. Decadent, the Nazis call it." Brandt shrugged. "I suppose I am a little decadent. Not as decadent as the Lieutenant, but sufficient. How about you?"
"I am a decadent skier," Christian said.
"Every field," said Brandt, "to its own decadence."
The door opened and the small dark girl came in. She had on a pink wrap, fringed with feathers. She was grinning a little to herself. "Where is the Boss?" she asked.
"Back there somewhere." Brandt waved vaguely. "Can I help?"
"It is your Lieutenant," the girl said. "I need some translation. He wants something, and I am not quite sure what it is. I think he wants to be whipped, but I am afraid to start unless I know for certain."
"Begin," said Brandt. "That is exactly what he wants. He is an old friend of mine."
"Are you sure?" The girl looked at both of them doubtfully.
"Absolutely," said Brandt.
"Good." The girl shrugged. "I will essay it." She turned at the door. "It is a little strange," she said, a hint of mockery in her voice, "the victorious soldier… The day of victory… A curious taste, wouldn't you say?"
"We are a curious people," Brandt said.
He stood up and Christian stood with him. They walked out.
It was dark outside. The blackout was thorough and no lights were showing. The moon hung over the rooftops, though, dividing each street into geometrical blocks of light and shadow. The atmosphere was mild and still and there was a hushed, empty air hanging over the city, broken occasionally by the sound of steel-treaded vehicles shifting in the distance, the noise sudden and harsh, then dying down to nothingness among the dark buildings.
Brandt led the way. He was wobbling slightly, but he knew where he was and he walked with reassuring certainty in the direction of the Porte Saint Denis.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE radio dominated everything. Even though it was sunny outside and the Pennsylvania hills were green and crisp in the fair June weather, and even though they kept saying the same thing over and over again in the little static-tortured machine, Michael found himself sitting indoors all day in the wallpapered living-room with its spindly Colonial furniture. There were newspapers all around his chair. From time to time Laura came in and sighed in loud martyrdom as she bent and ostentatiously picked them up and arranged them in a neat pile. But Michael hardly paid any attention to her. He sat hunched over the machine, twisting the dial, hearing the variety of voices, mellow and ingratiating and theatrical, saying over and over again, "Buy Lifebuoy to avoid unpleasant body odours," and "Two teaspoonsful in a glass before breakfast will keep you regular," and "It is rumoured that Paris will not be defended. The German High Command is maintaining silence about the position of its spearheading columns against crumbling French resistance."
"We promised Tony," Laura was standing at the door, speaking in a patient voice, "that we'd have some badminton this afternoon."
Michael continued to sit silently hunched up, close to the radio.
"Michael!" Laura said loudly.
"Yes?" He didn't look round.
"Badminton," Laura said. "Tony."
"What about it?" Michael asked, his forehead wrinkled with the effort of trying to listen to her and the radio announcer at the same time.
"The net isn't up."
"I'll put it up later."
"How much later?"
"For God's sake, Laura!" Michael shouted. "I said I'd do it later."