Reginald Hill - The Collaborators

Janine glared at her mother, then turned and ran back into the shop. A moment later they heard the shop door open and shut.

She met her cousin as he came out of the passage which led into the rear yard.

‘Here,’ she said, stuffing a note into his hand. ‘It’s not much, but I haven’t got much.’

He looked at the money, making little effort to hide his surprise.

‘Thanks, cousin,’ he said. ‘Things have changed, eh?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Last time we met, you were still at school, I think. You told me you weren’t permitted to speak to degenerates. Exact words!’

Janine flushed, then laughed as she saw Boucher was laughing at her.

‘People grow up,’ she said.

‘Not me,’ he said. ‘Not if I can help it.’

‘What are you doing, Miche?’

‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘I thought somehow, when this lot started, I’d be fighting the Boche, slate wiped clean sort of thing. But the first flic who recognized me came charging after me waving his cuffs! So I’ve had to keep my head down. It’s been a bit rough, but it’ll get sorted sooner or later I don’t doubt.’

‘Haven’t you got anywhere to stay?’ asked Janine sympathetically.

‘No. Well, I was all right at first. I shacked up…I mean lodged with an old friend. Arlette la Blonde, stage name, does an exotic dance at the Golden Gate, I don’t expect you know her. Well, that was all right, only a few days back, they opened up again and well, late hours and that, it wasn’t convenient, you know these show people…’

He tailed off as he realized that this time she was laughing at him.

‘You mean she brings friends back for the night and they don’t care to find your head on the pillow already!’

‘Yeah, that’s it,’ he said grinning. Then he stopped grinning.

‘I could have hung on there, slept days. Only I found she was bringing back Krauts! That really got up my nose! So I slung my hook.’

‘You won’t have to be so choosy, Miche. Not now they’re our friends.’

‘Friends? What do you mean?’

‘Haven’t you heard? It was on the radio this morning. An armistice was signed yesterday.’

‘Armistice? Signed by who? Not by the Marshal! He’d not sign an armistice with these bastards. Not the Marshal.’

‘Yes,’ said Janine. ‘Pétain signed it. At Compiègne. In the same railway carriage.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Boucher shaking his head in bewilderment.

‘Janine!’ called her mother’s voice from inside.

‘I’d better go.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Thanks, cousin. We’ll keep in touch, eh?’

She smiled, pecked his cheek and went inside.

Boucher turned and walked away, not paying much attention to direction. Despite his experiences, he’d still gone on hoping that somewhere in this mess there was going to be a chance for a sort of patriotic redemption. But now it was over before it had really begun and he was back to being a full-time wanted man.

He paused to take stock of his surroundings. He’d almost reached the Boulevard Raspail. There was a car coming towards him. It didn’t look particularly official, but any car you saw on the streets nowadays was likely to be official. He coughed in his hand, covering his face, just in case.

But the car was slowing. It pulled into the kerb just in front of him. His head still lowered, he increased his pace as he went by. A door suddenly opened. His legs tensed themselves to break into a run.

‘Miche? Miche Boucher? It is you!’

He paused, glanced back, turned.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Pajou.’

Maurice Melchior carefully examined his black velvet jacket for dust or hairs. Satisfied, he slipped his slender arms into it, spent some time adjusting the angle of his fedora, then stood back from the mirror to get the total effect.

Stunning, was the only possible verdict. He was a creature perfectly in balance, at that ideal point in his thirties where youth still burnt hot enough to melt the mature, and maturity already glowed bright enough to dazzle the young.

He tripped light as a dancer down the rickety staircase in this tall old house. On the floor below he met Charlot, the ginger cat belonging to old Madame Simonian. Charlot wanted attention. It was hard to resist those appealing eyes, but, ‘Not when I’m wearing the black velvet, my dear,’ explained Melchior.

A few moments later he was out in the sunshine.

This was not the first time he had been out since the Boche came, but his previous expeditions had been furtive, frightened things, at dusk, well wrapped up, to buy a few provisions and scuttle back to his lair. Really, a man of his sensibility should have fled as soon as the invasion became a certainty, but as usual he’d put off the decision till the sight of all those jostling refugees made it quite impossible.

And what had happened? Nothing! Life, he had gradually been reassured, was going on much as before for those courageous souls who had refused to be panicked into craven flight. Today he was going out in broad daylight and not just round the corner to the grocer’s shop. Today he was strolling south, leaving the Marais behind, and heading where he truly belonged.

The Left Bank! Saint-Germain-des-Prés! Everything he dreamt of was here…to hear his wit applauded at the Deux Magots, to have his custom valued at the Tour d’Argent…Dreams indeed. But even though he could rarely afford the latter and was barely admitted to the outermost circles of the former, merely to cross the river once more felt like coming home. If it hadn’t been that the dear old man who had set him up in his little flat in the Rue de Thorigny all those years ago had arranged in his will for the rent to be paid as long as he stayed, he’d have moved across the river long since.

After his first exhilaration at being back in his old haunts, a certain uneasiness began to steal over him. Everything was so quiet. Not many people about and next to no traffic, except for the odd German truck which still sent him diving into the nearest doorway. He found himself thinking of going home.

Then he drew himself up to his full five feet seven inches and cried, ‘No!’

Whatever this day brought forth, Maurice Melchior, aesthete, intellectual, wit, man of letters, gourmet, not to mention homosexual and Jew, would be there to greet it.

Overcome with admiration for his own courage, he stepped unheeding off the pavement. There was a screech of brakes and a car slewed to a halt across the road. It didn’t actually touch Melchior but sheer shock buckled his knees and he sat down. Out of the driver’s window a man in grey uniform began to shout at him in German. It wasn’t difficult to get his gist.

‘Be quiet,’ said an authoritative voice. ‘Monsieur, I hope you’re not hurt.’

And Maurice Melchior looked up to see a Nordic god stooping over him with compassion and concern in his limpid blue eyes.

‘My name is Zeller. Bruno Zeller. Call me Bruno. And you, monsieur…Melchior?’

They had come to a café on the Boulevard Saint-Michel where Melchior used to meet, or seek, student friends. The vacation and the situation combined to make it empty at the moment and the patron had been delighted to have their custom, greeting Melchior by his name, a fact which seemed to impress the German.

‘Yes. Melchior’s my name! Magus that I am! Bearing gifts of gold! From the East I come!’

It was a little verse from a Nativity Play which he used occasionally to quiz his Christian friends. Zeller laughed in delight.

‘But call me Maurice,’ he went on. ‘Cigarette?’

He offered his gold case, inscribed (at his own expense) ‘To Maurice - In remembrance of times past - Marcel.’