J. Janes: Carnival

‘There was to have been a brazier at each table, Hermann.’ He pointed them out. ‘The torches at either side of the booths. Torches dipped in tallow and beeswax, and containing guncotton no doubt.’

The torches were to have been held in place by ropes that ran from side to side above the Wheel of Fortune’s booth and that of the Jeu de massacre , but those ropes were then to be linked to another that made its way to the back above the table that separated the two booths. ‘When lit by the Gauleiter shy; Wagner and Lowe Schrijen, Hermann, they would have torched the sky before toppling inward to shower flaming debris shy; onto the pyramids of papier-mache balls to trigger the trinitrophenol.

‘Boudicca,’ he said, and picking up the little carving, held it a moment as if undecided, for always he liked to have a memento of each investigation, yet now of course, there would be no sense in that. ‘ Adieu , my queen. I regret that I met you only in my imagination.’ Dropping it into the stove, he quickly pocketed the watch and tossed everything else in except for the ampoules and the cutthroat. These he would keep.

‘For later, mon vieux . For later.’

At first light, the memories came hard and fast, but it was bitterly cold. Hermann would have said, Why wait out here when you can stay by the stove?

Hermann …

So hard was the frost, a three-metre thick blanket of icy fog shrouded the carnival and adjacent fields, the Kastenwald also. When sunlight finally touched the topmost girders of the Ferris wheel, St-Cyr started out. He would have to find Hermann’s body, would have to see that it was laid out properly and covered with something. He couldn’t leave him and simply walk away to be arrested.

Silent as always at such times, three ravens took flight. Startled, he watched them, the heart racing. Would they lead him to Hermann, had they pecked out his eyes?

All too soon he lost sight of the Phantom Queen. ‘It’s that kind of place, Hermann,’ he said.

One brightly painted iron standard lay on the ground, and then another, and through the fog, he could see that they were bent and twisted and blood-spattered. The village cop, the priest, the bailiff and schoolteacher. ‘Hermann,’ he cried out. ‘Hermann, where are you?’

As if he could have answered.

A crater was all that was left of the wagon that had held the Jeu de massacre . Debris was scattered. Sophie Schrijen lacked both face and hands and most of her clothing. Had Hermann found her, he would have gone right out of his mind. Frost-numbed Surete fingers dragged a bit of frozen canvas over her, St-Cyr making the sign of the Cross, though would it do any good? ‘God has forgotten us, mademoiselle. The SS won’t. At 1000 hours they’ll be here in force.’

Sounds were muffled, blood was everywhere in the snow, this life of theirs, no life at all. ‘Hermann,’ he said.

The sound grew but faintly, and when he stumbled toward it, he passed by the House of Mirrors, much of which had been flattened, found the Ideal Caterpillar ghostlike in the fog, the Noah’s Ark no better.

‘Colonel,’ he heard himself saying as Rasche got out of that little car of his.

There wasn’t any sense in asking St-Cyr where Kohler was. It was written in the way he stood, the tears that were frozen to his cheeks. ‘Get in and I’ll take you to the station at Rouffach. It’s to the south of Kolmar where, hopefully, you won’t be stopped from boarding.’

‘Not until we find my partner. You sent Herr Lutze out here on that Saturday afternoon but didn’t bother to discover Renee Ekkehard’s body until the following Tuesday?’

‘I needed time.’

‘You knew Victoria Bodicker would come out here on that Sunday, that Alain Schrijen would also have been here with his sister.’

‘He killed Renee, didn’t he? He and that father of his.’

‘They had to stop them, Colonel, and those three women knew it and lived in terror until the one begged her friend to help her, that friend now having paid for it.’

‘And the other?’

‘Why not come and see for yourself?’

The ravens had returned. Two of them flew silently from the body while a third watched from a nearby branch at the very edge of the Kastenwald where a field-grey giant madly shooed them away, waving arms and gloved hands but making no sound whatsoever.

Still dazed, Hermann broke through the edge of the woods. Wandering uncertainly toward them, he looked frightened, lost, puzzled-ah, so many things-had bound his head with his scarf, had pulled the collar of his greatcoat up and had buttoned it tightly. Bloodstains were everywhere on him; the cuts and nicks having congealed. ‘Hermann,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Hermann …’

‘He’s in shock,’ grunted Rasche. ‘He can’t hear you.’

‘He’s frozen. He’s hungry and exhausted, has had nothing to eat but Benzedrine and snow.’

‘Get him into the car. Get him out of here now. You mustn’t miss that train. This is perfect. Lowe Schrijen will cry foul about the resistants and terrorism and claim his daughter had to put a stop to it but died in the process.’

‘Colonel, you came out here to find out what had happened to us and to them.’

‘Listen, you, get in. With luck we’ll make it and you’ll be well on your way to the frontier before Meyer and the others find out. I’ll stall them all I can.’

‘Papers … The Ausweise and safe-conducts we’ll need?’

‘In your grip, your weapons also. Alain Schrijen found he had no choice but to give them to me.’

‘ Danke , Colonel. It … it was the least you could do.’

‘There are some sandwiches and a vacuum flask of soup Yvonne insisted she pack in case you had …’

‘Solved the matter and survived? Settled it as best we could, given the circumstances? But, please, what has happened to those men who were being held in Straf? ’

‘When I sent the ones I had here to the front, I sent them along to stalags. I couldn’t let Lowe Schrijen pry answers from them.’

‘Be honest, Colonel. You needed the insurance their continued presence on this earth would provide to keep him from pointing the finger at yourself for allowing it all to happen.’

‘He’ll have dealt with Deiss and Paulus.’

‘No, Colonel, you will already have had that taken care of. Seeing as Herr Lutze did not accompany you this morning, I assume he has …’

‘Silenced them. As it turns out, another “terrorist” attack.’

‘And the watchmaker?’

‘Yvonne insisted I send him to relatives in Provence.’

At Belfort there was an hour-long stopover. Leading Hermann by the hand, St-Cyr took him into the station and sat him down next to the stationmaster’s stove. Everyone went out of their way to be kind. ‘Shell-shocked,’ they whispered. ‘An RAF bomb. A stray one, hung up in the bomb bay and finally jettisoned.’

Cigarettes, one after another, were found and lit and placed between his lips, those faded blue eyes still vacant, the continued silence a tragedy to compound tragedies.

In silence, they ate. What Hermann needed most was sleep.

‘Don’t even think of it, Louis. If you feed me Evipan, I’ll never thaw out.’

‘Hermann …’

‘ Shh! You’re across the frontier, aren’t you? You’re on your way back to Paris. Paris , Louis.’

Ah, merde , he had been faking!

At Dijon a telex from Gestapo Boemelburg, Hermann’s boss at 11 rue des Saussaies, caught up with them. Return HQ immediately. Streets being terrorized by blackout crime. Heil Hitler .

A tapestry … that’s what this life of theirs was like. A wall-hanging to keep out the cold until the fortress on high was finally taken and its occupants thrown from the walls.