Patrick Modiano - The Occupation Trilogy - La Place de l'Étoile – The Night Watch – Ring Roads

They were quickly surrounded by a group of revellers who clapped them on the shoulder. He recognised the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames, Vicomte Lévy-Vendôme, Paulo Hayakawa, Sophie Knout, Jean-Farouk de Mérode, Otto da Silva, M. Igor, the ageing Baroness Lydia Stahl, the princess Chericheff-Deborazoff, Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

‘I’ve just sold fifty thousand pairs of socks to the Wehrmacht,’ announced Jean-Farouk de Mérode as they sat down.

‘And I’ve sold ten thousand tins of paint to the Kreigsmarine,’ said Otto da Silva.

‘Did you know those boy scouts on Radio Londres have condemned me to death?’ said Paulo Hayakawa. ‘They call me the “Nazi brandy bootlegger”!’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Lévy-Vendôme, ‘we’ll buy up the French Résistants and the Anglo-Americans the same way we bought the Germans! Always keep in mind this maxim by our master Joanovici: “I did not sell myself to the Germans. It is I, Joseph Joanovici, Jew, who buys Germans.”’

‘I’ve been working for the French Gestapo in Neuilly for almost a week,’ said M. Igor.

‘I’m the best informant is Paris,’ said Sophie Knout. ‘They call me Miss Abwehr.’

‘I just love the Gestapo,’ said the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames,‘they’re so much more manly than everyone else.’

‘You’re so right,’ said Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff, ‘all those killers make me so hot .’

‘There’s a lot of good to be said for the German occupation,’ said Jean-Farouk de Mérode, flashing a purple crocodile-skin wallet stuffed with banknotes.

‘Paris is a lot calmer,’ said Otto da Silva.

‘The trees are blonder,’ said Paulo Hayakawa.

‘And you can hear the church bells,’ said Lévy-Vendôme.

‘I hope Germany is victorious!’ said M. Igor.

‘Would you care for a Lucky Strike?’ asked the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames, proffering a cigarette case of emerald-studded platinum. ‘I get them regularly from Spain.’

‘No, some champagne! Let’s drink to the health of the Abwehr!’ said Sophie Knout.

‘And the Gestapo!’ said Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff.

‘A little stroll in the Bois de Boulogne?’ suggested Commandant Bloch, turning toward him, ‘I feel like a breath of fresh air! Your fiancée can join us. We’ll meet up with our little gang on the Place de l’Étoile at midnight for a last drink!’

They found themselves outside on the Rue Pigalle. Commandant Bloch gestured to the three white Delahayes and the black Citroën parked outside the club.

‘These all belong to our little gang,’ he explained. ‘We use the back Citroën for the round-ups. So let’s take one of the Delahayes, if you don’t mind. It will be more cheery.’

Saul got behind the wheel, he and Bloch sat in the front, with Isaiah, Rebecca and Isaac in the back.

‘What were you doing at the Grand-Duc?’ Commandant Bloch asked him. ‘Don’t you know the nightclub is reserved for French Gestapo officers and black market traffickers?’

As they approached the Place de l’Opéra, he noticed a large banner that read ‘KOMMANDANTUR PLATZ’.

‘How glorious to be riding in a Delahaye,’ said Bloch, ‘especially in Paris in May 1943. Don’t you agree, Schlemilovitch?’

He stared at him intently. His eyes were kindly and compassionate.

‘Let’s make quite sure we understand one another, Schlemilovitch, I have no wish to thwart your vocation. Thanks to me, you will almost certainly be awarded the Martyr’s Palm you’ve aspired to since the day you were born. Oh yes, a little later, I plan to personally give you the greatest gift you could wish for: a bullet in the back of the neck! Beforehand, we will eliminate your fiancée. Happy?’

To ward off his fear, he gritted his teeth and summoned his memories. His love affairs with Eva Braun and Hilda Murzzuschlag. His first strolls through Paris, summer 1940, in his SS Brigadenführer uniform: this was the dawn of a new era, they were going to cleanse the world, cure it forever of the Jewish plague. They had clear heads and blond hair. Later, his Panzer crushes the meadows of the Ukraine. Later still, here he is with Field Marshal Rommel striding through the desert sands. He is wounded in Stalingrad. The phosphorus bombs in Hamburg will do the rest. He followed the Führer to the last. Is he going to let himself be intimidated by Elias Bloch?

‘A burst of lead in the back of the head! What do you say, Schlemilovitch?’

The eyes of commandant Bloch are on him again.

‘You’re one of the ones who takes his beating with a sad smile! A true Jew, the genuine, hundred per cent, made in Europa Jews.’

They turned into the Bois de Boulogne.

He remembers afternoons spent at the Pré-Catelan and the Grande Cascade under the watchful eye of Miss Evelyn but he will not bore you with his childhood. Read Proust, that would be best.

Saul stopped the Delahaye in the middle of the Allée des Acacias. He and Isaac dragged Rebecca out and raped her in front of my very eyes. Commandant Bloch had already handcuffed me and the car doors were locked. It hardly mattered, I would not have lifted a finger to protect my fiancée.

We drove towards the château de Bagatelle. Isaiah, more sophisticated than his two companions, gripped Rebecca by the throat and forced his penis into my fiancée’s mouth. Commandant Bloch gently stabbed me in the thighs with a dagger and before long my immaculate SS uniform was drenched with blood.

Then the Delahaye stopped at the junction near Les Cascades. Isaiah and Isaac dragged Rebecca from the car again. Isaac grabbed her hair and tugged her head back. Rebecca started to laugh. The laugh grew louder, echoing around the woods, grew louder still until it reached a dizzying height and splintered into sobs.

‘Your fiancée has been liquidated,’ whispers Commandant Bloch, ‘don’t be sad. We have to get back to our friends!’

And indeed the whole gang is waiting for us on the Place de l’Étoile.

‘It’s after curfew,’ says Jean-Farouk de Mérode, ‘but we have specially-issued Ausweise .’

‘Why don’t we go to the One-Two-Two,’ suggests Paulo Hayakawa. ‘They have sensational girls there. No need to pay. I just have to flash my French Gestapo card.’

‘Why don’t we conduct a few impromptu searches of the bigwigs in the neighbourhood?’ says M. Igor.

‘I’d rather loot a jeweller’s,’ says Otto da Silva.

‘Or an antiques shop,’ says Lévy-Vendôme, ‘I’ve promised Göring three Directoire desks.’

‘What do you say to a raid?’ asks Commandant Bloch, ‘I know a hideout of Résistants on the Rue Lepic.’

‘Wonderful idea!’ cries Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff. ‘We can torture them in my hôtel particulier on the Place d’Iéna.’

‘We are the kings of Paris,’ says Paulo Hayakawa.

‘Thanks to our German friends,’ says M. Igor.

‘Let’s have fun!’ says Sophie Knout, ‘we’re protected by the Abwehr and the Gestapo.’

‘ Après nous le déluge! ’ says the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames.

‘Why not come down to the Rue Lauriston,’ says Bloch, ‘I’ve just had three cases of whisky delivered. Let’s end the evening with a flourish.’

‘You’re right, commandant,’ says Paulo Hayakawa, ‘after all, they don’t call us the Rue Lauriston Gang for nothing.’

‘RUE LAURISTON! RUE LAURISTON!’ chant the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames and the Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff.

‘No point taking the cars,’ says Jean-Farouk de Mérode, ‘we can walk there.’

Up to this point, they have been kind to me, but no sooner do we turn into the Rue Lauriston than they turn and glare at me in a manner that is unbearable.