B004U2USMY EBOK (39 page)

She turned. “What?”

“We’re still alive.”

“Yes.” She loaded bullets.

“My god, you were right, it’s just like
screwing the
boches
. I didn’t think I could do it, but I
did. I killed that man, I shot him.”

There was a set of stairs. Upstairs, a man
shouting in German. It sounded like Colonel Hoekman.

“Stay here,” Gabriela said. “If anyone comes
through the door, shoot him.”

She climbed the stairs two at a time. When
she reached the top, she burst in, gun outstretched.

Colonel Hoekman was waiting for her.

Chapter Thirty-two:

“You?” Hoekman asked, his voice heavy with
disbelief. “Your
whore
came to rescue you?”

For one horrible moment she thought she’d
caught him in the act of sodomizing Helmut. Helmut was naked, head
slumped forward. Hoekman stood behind him, with his arm around the
man’s neck. But he was propping Helmut up and holding a gun to the
back of his head.

“Move out of the way,” she said.

He laughed. “If I’d known it was just you, I
wouldn’t have bothered. I thought there might be a band of
maquis
or some wharf rats, bribed with a few gold coins. I had no idea it
would be a whore in love.”

Nevertheless, he didn’t remove his gun from
the back of Helmut’s head.

“I’ll kill you both if I have to. I killed
those soldiers outside. I liked it.”

“You would kill your lover?”

“He’s not my lover. Just another
boche
.”
She thought she saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “You don’t get
it, do you? I don’t care about any of you. Germans, I want them
all to die, every last one. You, von Cratz, Major Ostermann, all
of them. I don’t even care what happens to the French. Not really.
The only person I care about is my father and you cut out part of
his brain.”

“Ah.”

“And the only thing I want you for is to kill
you, that’s the only reason I did any of this.”

“So shoot us.”

“I’d prefer you put down your human shield
first.” She smiled. “I can shoot, but I’m not so confident as
that.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What don’t you believe,
boche
? That
you are like that mouse in the cage and I’m the snake and there’s
no way out?”

“I think this man is your lover and you want
to save his life.” The uncertainty grew in Hoekman’s voice. “I
will make you this promise. If you put down your gun and walk
downstairs, I will leave him and you alone.”

In response to this pathetic offer, she
lifted the gun, sighted it at his head. He ducked lower, trying to
get as much of himself behind Helmut’s head as possible.

As she squeezed the trigger, she let the gun
buck in her hand. The shot went high. “
Merde
.”

Hoekman fell for the trap. He moved the gun
from Helmut’s head, leaned around and aimed. Helmut gave a jerk,
pulled free. He threw himself to the ground. She fired a second
time. She kept her hand steady.

Hoekman screamed. Fired a shot. It went wild.
He collapsed to the ground. His gun dropped from his hand.

Gabriela didn’t lower the gun as she made her
way to his side. He was still alive. Blood soaked through his
uniform on his chest. Red foam flecked his lips. His gun lay just
beyond his outstretched hand.

Gabriela leaned down, met his gaze. She put
the gun to his forehead. “Who is the snake now? And who is the
mouse?”

She pulled the trigger.

#

“Oh, god,” Helmut said. “That hurts.”

Gabriela tucked the gun into her belt. “Are
you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re talking, that’s good.” She worked at
the knots behind his back. “You looked terrible, and you didn’t
say anything. I was worried I was too late.”

“Decided to keep my mouth shut and hope you
weren’t planning to kill me.”

“It looked like he was raping you.”

“He was, in a way. I didn’t care for it
much.” He groaned as the knots came loose. He brought his hands
around and felt at his groin. “Both still there. I wasn’t sure.”
He looked up. “Did you mean that, about wanting all Germans to
die?”

“I’d never hurt you. But some Germans could
die horribly, and I wouldn’t feel overly sorry. What do I know,
I’m just a whore.”

“He’s a liar, you’re not a whore. You never
have been.”

“I don’t care about that, it doesn’t matter
anymore. But Hoekman was right about one thing, I do love you.
Now, can you get up?” She looked for his clothes.

He closed his eyes and grimaced. “Give me a
minute.”

“We don’t have a minute.”

#

Word had spread along the old port and lower
Marseille. Thousands of people clogged the docks. The gold coins
were long gone, but still they kept coming.

Nine Germans lay dead. Their bodies slumped
where they’d fallen, except for one, who bobbed face-down in the
water, pushed against the filth collected at the end of the
harbor.

Soon the Germans would arrive and take their
revenge. Probably be a massacre. The Vichy officials would be
helpless to stop it. That’s how these things went.

But how to decipher what had happened?
Something about gold coins and a riot and gunmen. An old German
dead from cyanide poisoning. A Gestapo colonel killed with a
bullet to the head.

Gabriela, Christine, Brun, and Helmut left
the port on foot. No way to get the truck out with the crowds.
Helmut moved slowly, grasping his groin and wincing.

“Maybe they’re all dead,” Gabriela said.

“Who’s all dead?” Helmut asked.

“Colonel Hoekman and his men, anyone who
would know you were a part of this. He wanted to hog the glory, or
at least solve the crime before anyone else got involved.”

“Maybe. But they’ll want to know what
happened. The story of the gold coins might confuse them, but they
won’t let it drop. Not with gold. And there were eyewitnesses.
Some might even be reliable. We need to cover our tracks or we’re
all dead just the same.”

“What about the gold?” Brun asked. “You still
have most of the coins.”

“It’s French. And I don’t just mean the coins
were made in France. Most of it was bought with French wealth. You
take it.” There was a worrying flatness in his expression. She
didn’t think it was the pain talking, she thought he’d given up.

“You want me to take it all?” Brun asked.
“But I don’t. . .that is, the plan, it failed.”

“The war isn’t over. You’ll need it for
something else.”

“So why don’t you keep it,” Gabriela urged.
“You don’t know what will happen in six months. The Americans
might change their minds or there might be something else you
could do. There’s so much money. Think of the possibilities. You
worked too hard to give up now.”

“If there’s a use for them, someone else will
find it.”

“I’ll keep them,” Brun said, “but only until
you figure out what you want. Then they’re yours.”

Helmut said nothing, just leaned his weight
on Gabriela and Christine as they cut down an alley. The clamor
from the docks receded in the distance.

Chapter Thirty-three:

The old man stepped out of the building and
blinked at the strong light. He looked up at the sky, a puzzled,
but not unhappy expression on his face. It was October and a gust
of wind blew a cascade of leaves over the fence and into the yard.
He stared at a reddish gold leaf, spotted with brown, as it landed
on an outstretched hand.

The nurse tugged his arm to get him moving. A
pair of German soldiers watched with sideways glances from their
post by the asylum door. He shuffled toward the gates.

Gabriela watched the nurse lead her father
across the yard. Her heart pounded, she felt dizzy.

Helmut put a hand on her arm. It was
steadying.

She turned over his pipe in her hands. Her
fingers rubbed the soft meerschaum stone.

Guards unlocked the gates and the nurse led
him through. She wore a sour, pinched expression, as if turning
over her charge only under duress. Helmut had brought a wheelchair
and he helped Gabriela ease her father into the chair.

Her father looked up with watery eyes. “
Hija.
”

Hearing his voice, seeing the recognition,
she felt like she would explode with emotion. “Oh, Papá.
Que
tanto te quiero.
”

“I love you too.”

He recognized her, thank god, he recognized
her. But there was a childish expression on his face,
unsophisticated, barely comprehending. There would be no more
witty comments, wry observations about the world, deep
conversations over a cloud of pipe smoke. She wanted to fall into
his arms and weep.

Gabriela handed him the pipe. He turned it
over in his hands. No recognition on his face, no spark.

“What is this?”

“It’s your pipe.”

“Oh, do I smoke?”

“Sometimes.”

When you are reading philosophy. When you
are writing. When you are railing against the injustices in the
world. When you are yourself.

“I did not know that.”

“Come on,” Helmut murmured. “We have a train
to catch.”

“A train?” her father asked. “May I come?”

“Of course.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the asylum. A
confused look clouded his face, then passed. “What is your name
again,
hija
? I’m sorry, I forgot.”

“Gabriela,
Papá
.”

“That is a beautiful name.”

“You gave it to me, that’s why it’s so
beautiful.”

This brought a smile to his face.

#

Her father was worn out by the trip to
Helmut’s car, and then again to the train station where he had to
get out of the chair to climb stairs to the platform. As soon as
they were in the private compartment, he slumped back and fell
asleep.

Gabriela sat next to Helmut. They held hands.

“I was so worried about you,” she said. “I
didn’t hear from you all summer.”

“I’m working on the Eastern Front. The war is
going badly.”

“But nothing happened, no interrogation?”

“Briefly questioned, that’s all. Alfonse
covered for me, can you believe it? General Dorf protected him.
All that time, I thought he was just bragging, you know how he is.
But apparently they really are good friends. Took care of me, too.
It helped that Hoekman was dead and all their evidence was
innuendo, but still, I owe Alfonse for what he did.”

“Good for him.” She hesitated. “How is your
wife?”

“Sick, getting worse. But Loise is a
Valkyrie, she’ll keep fighting it. Maybe one day we’ll get to this
surgeon in Vienna who can help.”

“I hope so.”

The train whistled and pulled out of the
station. Out the window, she could see another train arriving.
More German soldiers with heavy packs, coming, going. Smart men in
suits—the kind of men who profited from the war. Women with
bundles and children in tow. Twenty, thirty men in manacles being
loaded onto a prison car by a pair of soldiers. Did it never end?

They were shortly leaving the bustle and
grime of industrial Strasbourg behind.

“How is Christine?” Helmut asked. “Did she
stay in Provence?”

“No, she’s in Paris again. Returned to the
Egyptienne
, but got in
another argument, so she’s back with Monsieur Leblanc at Le Coq
Rouge, back sleeping with German officers. She got pregnant over
the summer, ended it.”

“Ah, that’s too bad. I was hoping. . .”

“Yeah, me too. We divided the money you gave
us and she spent her half the first six weeks. Gave most of it
away, in fact. So that’s some of it, but I don’t think it’s
everything. She stops by my flat every Sunday afternoon and drags
me out to the
Bois de Boulogne
, so we can look for Roger
Leblanc. No sign of him, or his friends either. The zazous have
either been deported or gone so far underground nobody will ever
find them.”

“Their day will come.”

“As for the Germans in the city, they’re
older, less numerous, but more and more frantic to celebrate the
good life of Paris.”

“Like a last meal before an execution,”
Helmut said.

“Christine says the restaurant is packed. I
couldn’t say, I haven’t been back.”

“That’s good.” He turned and looked out the
window.

“Your business is going well?” she asked,
when the silence became too much to bear.

“Terrible.” He turned back. “Lost most of my
workers, of course. I couldn't pay half of them. Others got sent
off as so-called volunteers to Germany before I could put them
back to work. Still, there’s always need for my skills, and I set
some aside for emergencies, so I’m not hungry.”

“But what about the gold?”

“That’s Philipe Brun’s now.”

She tried to press him on that, but he
started giving one-word answers or shrugs and they lapsed into
silence again. Her father woke and looked out the window. He
looked sad.

#

The Swiss crossing was as heavily armed as
anywhere she’d seen. The border on the Swiss side was a porcupine
of casements, bunkers, and gun emplacements. Armed Swiss guards
searched the train, inspected papers. They were interrogated in
both French and German before being allowed to enter the country.

David Mayer met them at the train station in
Geneva. He embraced Helmut. “Hey, boss. Good to see you again.”

“How do you like Geneva?”

“C
omme ci
,
comme ça
.
What do you know, the Swiss don’t like Jews, either.”

“I keep telling you,” Helmut said. “You need
your own country. This Palestine thing the British keep talking
about.”

“And live with a bunch of Arabs? No thanks.”

“Hey, the Arabs get along with anyone. Bet
they’d be happy to take the Jews, especially if it means swapping
them for the British.”