J. Janes - Tapestry

But where was he when most needed? Had he found Giselle?

The bed was Empire and of mahogany that gleamed but Elene Artur wasn’t in it. She had spun away to the far side, had been caught by an ankle, had kicked, scrambled up, run to the dressing table and seized something-a letter opener. Had she defied her assailants with it? She had knocked over a perfume bottle, the toilet water, rouge, talcum powder, face cream and other things. A hand mirror had then been thrown. Where … where the hell had she got to? Had she managed to get away?

They had caught her by the hair and had thrown her down. One had pinned her head and hands against the carpet, but she’d bitten his left wrist or hand, had bitten deeply-there was blood on the carpet, not much, but enough.

The door to an adjacent room was all but closed … ‘Go on, you must,’ he said aloud. Louis wouldn’t expect it of him. Louis would say, Hermann, leave this to me!

But Louis wasn’t here and all the sounds of that other war were coming at him now, the stench, too, of cordite and of mouldering earth and entrails. The blast had been so loud the ears had been stunned and they hadn’t heard the humming of the shrapnel as it had filled the air. Young Heinrich-Grenadier Oberlan and one hell of a shot, age eighteen who had never been with a girl, let alone the one whose photo he carried-had run blindly through the deep snow among the shattered, decapitated fir trees at Vieil Armand on that mountainside to the west of Colmar in Alsace in that first winter of 1914-1915, his hands desperately trying to contain the guts that were spilling from him.

Heinrich had tripped on them and had lain there blinking up at the one who had always told him, Hey, mein Lieber, don’t worry. I’m going to look after you.

His legs had still been moving. ‘You promised,’ he had managed. Nothing else, the bright red, grey to plum-purple, net-veined, sticky tubular coils slithering flaccidly from between slackening fingers, the heart beating and then not, the uniform in shreds.

‘Louis … Louis, they cut her open and let her run.’

‘Giselle … ? She hasn’t been to the club, Jean-Louis.’

Gabrielle struck a match, the sound of it reverberating throughout the dressing room, she to fix him with a gaze that said, as the match was extended to light the cigarette she had given him, Look after my Rene Yvon-Paul. I don’t know what this one wants of me.

Her son was only ten years old and lived with his grandmother at Chateau Theriault, but Langbehn was watching closely.

A wrap was found, the Standartenfuhrer putting it about her shoulders then taking her overcoat from its peg, she slipping into it as that one held it for her, she knowing there was little she could say, not even, Jean-Louis, how I’ve missed you, only, ‘I understand from the colonel that you and Herr Kohler are working around the clock.’

Herr Kohler, not Hermann. ‘As always.’ They couldn’t signal to each other, nor could he warn her of just how desperate things had become.

Alone, St-Cyr budgetted the cigarette. She didn’t use them often, but when she did, the tobacco was invariably Russian. There was, of course, a phial of Mirage on her dressing table. In the old days, the good days between the two most recent wars, Muriel Barteaux, the source of that perfume, had been a regular patron of Gabi’s, listening to her at the Lune Russe and others of the chanteuse clubs, but then there’d been a long hiatus: marriage and motherhood for Gabi, and then the Defeat and widowhood had come and, miracle of miracles word had spread, and there that voice was again, so much so that Muriel had created Mirage for what had appeared on the stage of this club.

Muriel and Chantal Grenier were old and dear friends, well into their seventies, their shop Enchantment on place Vendome-exquisite lingerie and perfumes, bath soaps and salts and much, much more but always crowded with German generals, et cetera since the Ritz was right next door. Had the location meaning for Hermann and himself, especially as the Trinite victim had planned to go to that hotel?

Though he had spoken often of the shop, Giselle wouldn’t have sought refuge there. She didn’t even know her way across the Seine from the Sixth into the First. The river was like a moat to her.

Sonja Remer’s handbag haunted him and he unbuttoned his coat, took it out, held the Tokarev, checked it as one always should and wondered again where it all must lead. No note or word of warning could be left for Gabrielle, lest it be found or heard by others. The Standartenfuhrer’s little visit could mean nothing or everything. Hermann might know something but where had he got to? Had he found Giselle safe?

The girl would have been distraught. Being banished couldn’t have sat well with her. She’d have gone in search of a friendly face-some of the nearby shops specialized in magic and the reading of fortunes. A realist, she liked at times to kid herself but wasn’t overly superstitious, as were many prostitutes, and why must the cop in him never forget where she’d come from? She was far too intelligent for such a profession anyway, far too sensible but of her own mind always. She would have found those other doors just as shut to her in any case, since the House of Madame Chabot serviced the neighbourhood and what that one said, others obeyed or else.

It would still have been daylight. The cafe Les Deux Magots was a little to the west but she could easily have gone there, it being on the corner opposite the Eglise de Saint-Germain-des-Pres. One of the largest Soldatenheim, the troop hostels, was on the rue Saint-Benoit and just around the corner. Lots of friendly faces, lots of interest in her, or had she gone into the church to beg forgiveness for having slept with one of the enemy, only to then catch the metro and try to find her way back to Oona? Had she impulsively caught a velo-taxi , been followed, been taken into one of the air-raid shelters to be beaten, raped, murdered-terrorized first? There’d been no alerte but those doors were never locked. She was street-wise- mon Dieu, she’d have had to be. Hadn’t Hermann used her in more than one investigation?

Had he gone to the rue des Saussaies to see if she’d been picked up and taken there? Was he even looking for her?

‘Giselle … ?’ It couldn’t be her, thought Kohler, and yet the feet were as hers, the small of this one’s back, the shoulders, the way she had run, had suddenly stepped up on to the chaise longue and then had stepped down to the carpet on the other side, all in a hurry, all in terror, she then tripping to fall to her hands and knees, to pause, to try to understand …

‘Giselle,’ he heard himself saying again as if dazed and wandering among shell-shattered trenches and through the acrid fog of no-man’s-land. ‘Giselle?

‘It’s Elene Artur, damn it.’

Pale and flaccid, glistening still, net-veined, dark-red, blood-red, grey-white and blue-pale yellow where there was a little fat-intestines were coiled about her left ankle. At first, on being disembowelled, she had tried to catch herself, to stop the viscera from spilling from her. In shock, some sense of what was happening must have come but then she had collapsed on to her left side, the legs fully extending only to be drawn in and up.

Faeces and urine stained the carpet to mingle with the blood and other fluids that seemingly were everywhere. ‘Elene Artur,’ he said again, the voice a broken whisper, for the jet-black hair he mustn’t touch was that of Giselle and so like hers, the image of her kept coming at him.

Rigor was still present. The eyes were wide and clouded-dust would have collected. Blood had erupted from both nostrils. The teeth, what could be seen of them, were very white and straight-she’d not used tobacco, couldn’t have drunk much coffee, real or ersatz, or black tea-had been gagged by a silk stocking that had been forced between the jaws and tied behind the head. Tied tightly-too tightly. They’d done that after she’d bitten one of them. After.