Reginald Hill - The Collaborators

Behind him, Louise re-entered, her face pink with emotion.

‘Has he gone? Such behaviour! I don’t know where she gets it from, not my family, I’m sure. She’s never been the same since she married that Jew.’

She sank to her knees and began collecting chocolates. Janine came in. Ignoring her mother, she said, ‘Christian, no need to worry about Sophie. Soon as the children are well enough, I’ll be coming to stay with her. Will you tell her that, please? I’ll be round later to sort things out.’

60

’It’s a very small flat,’ said Valois. ‘You’ll be awfully crowded.’

‘Not as crowded as we are here, knee deep in Boches and their hangers-on.’

‘Listen to her. Such ingratitude, she’ll get us all killed,’ muttered Louise, crawling around in search of stray chocolates.

Pauli came in and looked curiously at his crawling grandmother.

‘What’s gramma doing?’ he asked.

‘Rooting for truffles,’ said Janine. ‘Goodbye, Christian.’

Stepping gingerly over Louise, Christian Valois left the bakery. As he walked along the empty street, he began to smile, then to chuckle out loud.

Unobserved in a doorway on the other side, Günter Mai smiled too.

In October, a census of Jews was announced. They were required to report in alphabetical order to their local police station. When Janine expressed unease, Sophie laughed and said, ‘It’s our own French police I shall see, not the Germans. In any case, would the Marshal have met with Herr Hitler and shaken his hand if there was need to worry?’

Janine too had taken comfort from the meeting at Montoire. If things were getting back to normal, surely prisoners must soon be released? He wasn’t dead…he couldn’t be dead…

At the police station there was a long queue. When she reached its head, Sophie filled in her registration form with great care. Only at the Next of Kin section did she hesitate. Something made her look over her shoulder. Behind her, winding around the station vestibule and out of the door, stretched the queue. Conversation was low; most didn’t speak at all, but stood with expressions of stolid resignation, every now and then shuffling forward to whatever fate officialdom had devised for them.

‘Come on, old lady,’ said a gendarme. ‘What’s the hold-up?’

She put a stroke of the pen through Next of Kin.

‘What? No family?’

‘A son. Until the war.’

‘I’m sorry. Thank God it’s all over for the rest of us. Now sign your name and be on your way.’

It felt good to be out in the street again and her confidence rapidly returned as she walked home as briskly as her rheumatic knee permitted.

As she reached the apartment building, Maurice Melchior emerged, resplendent in a long astrakhan coat which he’d been given by accident from the cloakroom at the Comédie-Française the previous winter and at last felt safe in wearing.

‘Good day, Madame Simonian. And how are you? Taking the air?’

Piqued at being accused of such unproductive activity, Sophie said sharply, ‘No, monsieur. I’ve been to register.’

‘Register?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘How quaint! Good day, madame!’

Melchior set off at a brisk pace, eager to put as much distance as possible between himself and this silly old Jewess who’d gone voluntarily to put her name on an official census-list. How desperate people were to convince themselves that everything was normal. Normal! All they had to do was stroll along the boulevards and look in the shop windows. Everything had gone. Ration coupons had been introduced the previous month. And the forecast was for a long, hard winter. The only people who had any cause for complacency were the black-marketeers.

I must make some contacts, thought Melchior. But not today. Today he had more immediate and personal worries.

Bruno was close to dumping him, that was the brutal truth. A couple of nights earlier they’d visited the Deux Magots where Melchior, rather full of Bruno’s excellent brandy, had spotted Cocteau in a corner.

‘Do I know him? Blood-brothers, dear boy! Of course I’ll introduce you.’ And he’d set off across the room, big smile, outstretched hand, with Bruno in close formation. The Great Man (pretentious shit!) had thrust an empty bottle into the outstretched hand and said, ‘Another of the same, waiter. A bit colder this time,’ and all his arse-licking cronies had set up a jeering bray.

Zeller turned on his heel and stormed out of the door. By the time Melchior got out, he was in his car. The engine drowned Maurice’s attempts at explanation and apology, and as he grasped the door handle, the car accelerated away, pulling him to his knees in the gutter.

Perhaps it was the supplicatory pose; or perhaps Zeller was reminded of the circumstances of their first meeting. He stopped the car, reversed and opened the door.

‘Get in,’ he said.

They drove away at high speed up the Rue de Rennes and turned into the Boulevard Raspail.

‘Are we going to the Lutétia?’ asked Melchior.

‘Yes.’

Melchior relapsed into a nervous silence. Once before he had suggested provocatively that Bruno should take him to dine at the Lutétia. The German had said coldly, ‘The only Frenchmen who come into Abwehr Headquarters are agents or prisoners. It can be arranged.’

Now Melchior recalled that moment and shivered.

The trouble was things hadn’t been going well for some weeks. As life returned to something like normal it had grown increasingly difficult to maintain his claim to be at the artistic heart of things. Name-dropping was only successful if the names dropped kept a decent distance from the city. But many had returned, and even when they were polite, they made it very clear they were not intimate with him. Usually he was able to bluff it out but a snub like tonight’s was too unambiguous for bluff.

They entered the hotel by a side-door. It was clear he wasn’t going to see the public rooms. ‘Who’s duty officer?’ Zeller demanded of an armed corporal.

‘Lieutenant Mai, sir.’

‘Fetch him.’

When Günter Mai arrived, annoyed at having been dragged from his dinner, he recognized Melchior instantly but concealed the fact. His superior’s sexual impulses were his own affair as long as they didn’t compromise the section’s security. As soon as the inevitable happened and Zeller found himself a ‘friend’, Mai had done a thorough check. In the light of official Party attitudes to Jews and perverts, Maurice Melchior was not an ideal companion for a German officer. But it was clear he hadn’t a political thought in his head. Motivated entirely by hedonistic self-interest, conceited, cowardly, the little queer posed no security risk at all. But what on earth was he doing here?

‘This is Monsieur Melchior,’ said Zeller. ‘I’ll be interviewing him immediately. Is there a room?’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Mai. ‘This way.’

In the sparsely furnished room, Zeller waited till Mai had closed the door behind him, then said, ‘Let’s talk seriously, Maurice.’

‘Delighted. But why have you brought me here?’

‘So you’ll understand quite clearly what I’m saying to you,’ said Zeller softly. ‘Maurice, you haven’t been honest with me, have you? You’ve been a naughty boy.’

‘Always willing to oblige,’ laughed Melchior.

‘Shut up! It seems that far from being the celebrity you claim, you’re a nobody. Worse, you’re a bit of a laughing stock. That’s your bad luck, but by your idiocy, you’ve got me involved in it too. I don’t care to be made to look ridiculous, Maurice. Getting mixed up with you was a mistake. Some people can forget mistakes. I can’t. I need to correct them.’