J. Janes - Tapestry

‘If my partner shows up, madame, please tell him I’ve gone to find Giselle. First to their flat, then to the House of Madame Chabot and then to the Club Mirage, unless he catches up with me beforehand. Let’s hope he does.’

And then to the Ritz? she wanted so much to ask but knew she mustn’t, that they would go there soon enough. Adrienne had had to sell the use of her body but should never have been condemned. Many had had to do it during that other war, though many had also resisted, herself among them, but each day the loneliness had become harder to bear. Then in 1918, on 4 October, a Friday, and right near the end, the notice had come and she had found that the waiting, it had all been in vain and she was a widow.

And afterwards? she asked, still finding it hard to resist not being bitter. Afterwards so few men had remained, God had left no one for her. Two casualties: the husband and the wife.

One by one the girls came down to the viewing room at the House of Madame Chabot. Some wore slippers and a flimsy chemise or see-through negligees, one a dishevelled schoolgirl’s tunic. They didn’t cry as friends should over Giselle’s not being found. Their expressions were hard and watchful, the odours of them mingling with the ever-present fug of Gauloises, the acid of vin ordinaire and the perfume each had chosen as her own little signature but Hermann hadn’t come by. ‘I want answers, damn you,’ rebelled St-Cyr. ‘Giselle is not at the flat, as Madame Chabot has claimed!’

That one, that fifty-eight-year-old with the made-up eyes, blonde wig, round rouged-and-powdered cheeks, vermillion lips and double chin who still insisted on claiming she was thirty-eight, gave but the swiftness of a green-eyed gaze that would have startled a cobra.

‘She has said she would spend the night there, Inspector. Who am I to …’

‘It’s Chief Inspector!’

Ah, bon , he was now shouting. ‘That’s a zero to me, you understand. The police are the police, but the girl came to the house asking of Herr Kohler and expecting-yes, expecting, I must emphasize-to pass the time of day with friends? What friends?’

‘Now, listen. Giselle le Roy was one of your girls. My partner …’

‘Decided to make a petite amie of her and rob the house of one of its top earners? Rented a flat around the corner to constantly remind me of my loss and to tempt others into giving up the profession and moving in with another of les Allemands ? Pah, quelle folie ! When spring comes, the Resistance will strip her naked and cut off that jet-black hair your partner loves to rub his fingers and other things through.’

And never mind Hermann’s sex life, interesting as that might well be. ‘When spring comes’ meant the Allied invasion. It could be years away and yet …

‘That is,’ she said tartly, ‘if the blackout sadists who prowl the streets in search of such women don’t get to her first!’

‘She’ll try to hide in the darkness of a passage like the Trinite,’ muttered one of the girls.

‘He’ll ram a table leg up her for good measure,’ said the brunette called Gege.

‘But first, he’ll give her a terrible beating,’ said Bijou.

‘He’ll not stop until her throat has been slashed,’ said another, clasping her own as the cat wandered in to lift its tail and rub against her legs before arguing with a pom-pom.

‘I can’t afford to have the house endangered, Inspector,’ went on Georgette Chabot. ‘This house-any such house-must always guard its peace. The girls move around enough as it is and are subject to temptation that needs no further encouragement.’

‘Giselle didn’t encourage us to leave, madame. I swear it,’ blurted Didi.

‘ARE YOU TO PACK YOUR BAGS OR DO YOU WANT ME TO PUT YOU ON THE STREET WITHOUT THEM?’ shrilled the woman.

‘Madame, please! I only meant…’

‘SEE THAT YOU MAKE UP FOR IT! Here the house and the licence are French for French, Inspector. Citizen with citizen, patriot with patriot, and that is all there ever has been or ever will be. When that Le Roy person showed up late this afternoon, I told her to get lost and not come back. I can’t afford to endanger my girls.’

‘You did what?’

‘Are your ears not sufficient?’

Threatening her would only prolong the agony. Oh for sure, two of the German military police often paid prolonged visits and the house was heated, its larder sufficiently supplied at a cost, no doubt, to feed the girls, but … ‘Look, Madame Cliquot, the concierge of that building where Hermann insists on renting a flat, has said the girl never went there today.’

‘That woman would say anything,’ chided Georgette. ‘Frankly, she doesn’t want your partner and his women as tenants and is determined to have the owners cancel their lease. She doesn’t want trouble either, does she, a French girl who offers herself entirely to one of the enemy?’

‘Since when was Hermann ever considered one of those?’

‘Since June of 1940, I think. I do know, also, you understand, that Irene Cliquot is intelligent enough not to want such scores settled in her house.’

‘And Hermann?’

‘Isn’t welcome. The law is the law, isn’t it? Who am I to challenge it?’

At 10.37 p.m. the little blue lights that dimly marked the most important street corners suddenly went out. The last trains of the metro would have begun their runs at ten and maybe the most distant ones still had a ways to go.

One thing was certain. The Occupier had again ordered that the plug be pulled. Kohler stood a moment at the corner of the rue La Boetie and the Champs-Elysees. Louis must have known who Denise Rouget’s father was, but Louis wasn’t here.

‘I have to do it,’ he breathed, the street suddenly damned lonely. ‘Either I’m finished as a detective and ripe for the Russian front, or I’m not. That petite amie of the judge’s may have made our phone call.’

Feeling his way in the rain, he started up the rue La Boetie. Through the hush of the city, sounds came. The throb of a distant motorcycle patrol, the squeal of Gestapo tyres, the clip-clop of high heels with their hinged wooden soles one hell of a lot closer, the heavy scent of too much perfume mingling with that of fresh tobacco smoke.

A lonely car, an Opel Tourer by the sound, turned off the rue de Ponthieu to begin its pass as a figure darted from the shelter to urgently rap on a side windscreen. ‘There’s some bastard lurking around here,’ shrilled the girl as she scrambled in, and didn’t the Occupier drive virtually all the cars, and wasn’t that one just as capable of attacking her?

A cigarette was accepted and a light. The blinkered headlamps went out. The engine continued wasting petrol. Kohler left her to get on with the client’s little moment and went along the street thinking of Giselle and how he had saved her from just such a life. No matter what Louis said, she’d be perfect for that little bar on the Costa del Sol, but the sooner they were out of France and into Spain, the better. ‘False papers,’ he muttered. ‘Cash, too, and plenty of it.’ The lament of the damned.

When he came to what must be the rue d’Artois, he backtracked. Each of these former mansions was cloaked in darkness but at one, the concierge had lit the stub of a candle and that could only mean one thing, of course. The house was warm, too. Though this last didn’t surprise, it did raise a note of caution, but once committed, always committed.

‘Monsieur …’

He would have to say it firmly, couldn’t waver, not with a tenant or tenants from among the Reich’s most privileged. ‘Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central. The flat Judge Rouget leases. Gestapo HQ have ordered me to take a look around. Lead me to it, then wait down here. Lend me that torch of yours and forget you ever saw me.’