B004U2USMY EBOK (6 page)

There was no cold distance. There was no
disengagement. When the time came, she shivered under Alfonse’s
touch, felt her body respond in every way. It was a lie to blame
the wine.

He took her there on the couch, gently, like
a lover. And then later, in the bedroom, harder, faster, more
urgently. There might have been one more time, but she’d had too
much wine by then and couldn’t remember the details. But she had
been willing, she knew that much.

“Where is Major Ostermann?” Helmut asked from
the doorway.

She gripped the sheet more tightly. “How
would I know?”

“Yes, I know. You’re just the prostitute who
spent the night. But my friend talks too much.”

“I’m not a prostitute.”

Helmut stepped into the room, made his way to
the night stand. He picked up the folded German marks, sitting on
a plate next to one of last night’s half-eaten pastries, and
tossed them to her. “Your pay. For services rendered.”

She looked down at the money. It was quite a
lot. In fact, if she was figuring the conversion right, it was
only about five francs short of what she owed Christine for the
dress and shoes.

“With that kind of money, you must have
pulled a double shift. How many times did you give yourself to
him?”

Oh, god. She was a whore. A filthy whore to
the
boches
. What would her father have said?
I didn’t
leave Spain so you could whore yourself to fascists.

No, he would have never judged her. Papá
would have told her to do what it took to survive. But that didn’t
mean she hadn’t shamed him.

“Go buy yourself a good meal,” the German
said. “You’re too skinny. Too many bones, too few curves. It’s not
attractive.”

“I’m skinny because the goddamned
boches
are stealing all our food.” The words came out before she could
reconsider. “You, you’re personally responsible. I know what your
business is. You steal the riches of France. That’s your job.”

“I pay money for everything I buy,” he said.

“At the price you set. You buy up everything
for nothing and you ship it off to Germany. Do you have a wife and
children there? I bet they don’t go hungry at night. Well here, in
France, there are hungry children sleeping in the streets because
of your job.”

“Where did you hear that? The so-called Free
French from London? Don’t believe everything you hear from the
BBC. It’s propaganda.”

“I don’t have to listen to the radio to see
what’s right in front of my eyes. To see the little crusts on my
plate while the German trucks rumble off from the bakeries every
morning, loaded with bread for your soldiers.”

Helmut pointed to the half-eaten pastry.
“Wonder what the suffering children of France would say if they
could see that. There goes a true patriot, stuffing herself with
pastries and German sausage. She must truly love France.”

This stopped her.

“What do you want?” she said at last. “Just
to see me naked? Are you waiting until I get dressed so you can
sit and gawk?”

“Yes, I know. One usually pays for that
privilege.”

“Are you just cruel by nature? Can’t you see,
I’m doing what it takes to survive, that’s all.”

And this seemed to stop
him.
“Yes, I
guess you are.”

“What is it you want?” Gabriela asked.
“Please, just tell me and then leave me alone.”

“I need to find Major Ostermann. I have
business to discuss and it is rather urgent. The sooner you tell
me what you know, the sooner I’ll leave.”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know.”

Helmut clenched his jaw. “God, this is
annoying. He knew I was coming. I told him three times.”

He turned, scanned the room, fixed on the
major’s desk in the corner. He flipped through a stack of papers
on the desk. It was a familiar gesture, yet she caught him
glancing back to see if she was watching. As if considering
whether to break into the desk itself and if it would get back to
the major if he did.

“Are you sure he’d want you to do that?” she
asked.

“Mind your own business.” He let out an
exaggerated sigh. “Looks like my trip is wasted. Good day.” To her
relief, he turned to go.

Someone cleared her throat. It was the maid,
standing in the hallway. “Excuse me,
Monsieur
,” she said
in a tentative voice. “The major left a note.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first
place?”

“I wasn’t sure who. . .I—”

“Never mind, hand it over.” He took the
envelope, opened it and read with a frown. “Ah, I see now.” He
tossed the note to the bed. “It’s for you. You must have been
impressive.”

Gabriela unfolded the paper.

You were wonderful last night. Please,
stay in the apartment. Help yourself to whatever food you find
in the flat. The maid will bring you anything else you may
require. I shall be back after dark. I hope to see you then.

A.

“Congratulations,” Helmut said, “you’ve
secured full-time employment.”

Chapter Five:

“I am an American spy. I know when the
Americans plan to invade France and how. I can either betray the
Fatherland if I choose, or I can sell this information to the
German High Command.”

Helmut von Cratz talked out loud to himself
as he drove down the motorway and into the Loire Valley. There was
nobody else in the car to hear. A light snow fell from the sky and
the bald tires slipped as they tried to grip the turns. Goddamned
rubber shortage.

He came around a corner to see a farmer in
the middle of the road, leading a donkey that pulled a cart.
Helmut punched the brakes. The tires locked and he started to
slide. The man must have heard him coming, because he was trying
to pull the donkey onto the shoulder. He looked up, and a shared
moment of terror seemed to pass between the two men.

Helmut caught control and slid around the
cart, prepared to fly off the road and slam into the trees. There
was a sickening moment when he could feel the future: car
crumpled, head slammed into the windscreen, the steering wheel
crushing his sternum. But the bumper caught the edge of the cart,
spun both the car and the cart around, and he came to a stop.

He was sweating, his heart pounded. He looked
out the window. The donkey jerked and tossed. The wood rail at the
back of the cart had splintered from the impact. The farmer sat on
his backside in the road, but appeared unhurt. He rose shakily to
his feet, grabbed the reins and tried to calm his animal.

Helmut rolled down the window. “That was
close.”

The farmer looked terrified, as much to be
talking to a German—probably the first he’d ever met, this being
so far into the countryside—as over the near-fatal collision. “So
sorry,
monsieur
.” His French was so thick that Helmut
could barely understand. “So very, very sorry. Please, I have a
family. Do not report me, I beg you.”

He answered in German, recklessly. “I possess
the Soviet battle plans for the spring of 1943. I can deliver the
full blueprints of the new British super weapon.”

The farmer gave a confused shake of the head.
“
Monsieur? Je n’ai pas compris.
”

He switched to French. “I said never mind, it
was my fault. I was driving too fast for the conditions of the
road. If you’re all right, we can both forget this ever happened.”

“I am fine,
monsieur
. Thank you, you
are very kind. Thank you.”

Helmut rolled up the window and continued
into the snow. Lies. What he needed were some even more outrageous
lies. The more fantastical, the better.

“I once slept with my own mother. Josef
Stalin is my godfather. Once, when I was little, I tortured a dog.
I dropped it in the well and watched it try to climb out until it
drowned. Did I tell you I love Jew girls? My secret desire is to
father a half-Jew bastard and pass him off as fully Aryan. I will
teach him to hate Jews and then, when he’s an adult, I will tell
him the truth and watch him suffer.”

As he invented lies, he modulated his voice,
to make it sound as convincing as possible. He would repeat a
phrase with the emphasis on different words. This time sound
self-hating, this time boastful, this time as if he were
confessing under torture.

It was like practicing for a play. When the
time came to step on stage, you would be ready. You would not feel
stage fright and you would deliver your lines in such a convincing
way that you’d forget, for a moment, that you were acting.

He had recovered his composure by the time he
reached the next road block, some twenty kilometers south of his
near accident. He handed over his papers. The soldier thumbed
through without comment, then said, “You are from Bavaria?”

“
Ja.
”

“My mother was from Mittenwald. Have you ever
been?”

“Of course. My wife and I have visited many
times. I love the pink church. Very charming.”

The nature of the question was not important.
The important thing was for the inspector to ask a question, watch
to see how the questioned individual responded. Did he look away,
talk too fast? Was there something in his accent that sounded
suspicious? Maybe he sounded Austrian or even had a hint of a
French accent that no length of time in Germany could erase. Did
he sweat? Glance over his shoulder at a bag in the back seat?

Helmut knew all of this and he knew, too, how
to defeat such simple interrogation techniques. In theory, at
least.

The soldiers were all older than Helmut; not
a one looked younger than forty. The young men were on the Eastern
Front, getting killed by Russians and eating boot leather, if
rumors about the ferocious battle at Stalingrad had any truth to
them. Another year of this war and they might as well set up
recruiting offices in the retirement homes.

The man thumbing through his papers was the
oldest of the bunch. Most likely, his mother from Mittenwald was
born before Bavaria had been absorbed into greater Germany. But if
he was old, he didn’t look soft. Helmut suffered no illusions as
to what would happen if the man discovered the true nature of his
business.

“Have a good day, Herr von Cratz. I hope your
business in Tours is profitable for you and for the Reich. Heil
Hitler.”

In France, the Wehrmacht still used the
traditional military salute, for the most part, and the old
soldier’s zealousness caught him off guard. In his mind, he heard
his wife’s irreverent joke.
Heal Hitler? Is he sick?

He’d heard this same joke once while he and
Alfonse were listening illicitly to the BBC one night, but it
didn’t carry the same weight since ’heil’ and ’heal’ didn’t sound
exactly the same in English. Nevertheless, the major had roared
with laughter as if he’d never heard the joke before.

Helmut returned the salute. “Heil Hitler.”

There would be another, more serious
checkpoint outside Tours. Helmut continued toward it.

He was troubled by the girl in Alfonse’s
apartment. Gabriela. Was she a danger?

There was a hint of Spanish in her accent,
although Alfonse seemed blind to it. Half a million Spaniards in
France when the war started—mostly Republicans and Communists.
Likely, she was one of the refugees, but he wasn’t sure. It had
occurred to him that the whole scene in the restaurant with
Leblanc’s son could have been a farce.

First Colonel Hoekman comes, arrests
Leblanc’s son on some pretense. The restaurant hostess mounts a
spirited defense. Hoekman lets her off with a warning. She goes
home with Major Alfonse Ostermann. Who now trusts her. She is
pretty, Alfonse is weak and talks too much. And what does she
report back to the Gestapo?

Helmut shook his head. No, that was just
paranoia. She was a prostitute.

“I am feeding information to the
maquis
.
They are planning to bomb the Gare du Nord tomorrow night when the
munitions arrive.” He licked his lips. “I would kill the Fuhrer if
I could. He is a blight upon the German nation.”

He paused after saying this last part.
Considered.

Not all of his lies were one hundred percent
false.

#

Helmut was stopped at the bridge over the
Cher near Chenonceau. To the south, the Vichy regime. Germans had
recently occupied the south, but they were concentrated on the
coast opposite the Americans in Algeria. Someday, everyone knew,
the Germans and the Americans would lock in mortal combat, but for
now the two armies glared at each other across the Mediterranean
like a pair of big, mean dogs before a dogfight, wanting to go
after each other’s throats, unable to do so.

How would the Americans fight? They’d done
well in North Africa, but they’d started with a huge advantage.
The groundwork had been laid by their British cousins and the
Vichy French had gone into full boot-licking mode as soon as the
Yanks showed up with their tanks and guns. And the Germans were
handicapped by that inconvenient barrier to logistics known as the
Mediterranean Sea. Rommel couldn’t keep his army supplied.

When Helmut and Alfonse were alone, the major
opined often and strenuously that the Yanks had no stomach for
fighting Germans on European soil. Americans preferred to let
Russians die on their behalf and would keep supplying Stalin with
tanks and jeeps and planes and the petrol to run them until the
Russians started to win. And then the Americans and the Germans
and the British would sit down over a hock and seltzer and work
things out like civilized people.

“Roosevelt, that’s a Dutch name, isn’t it?”
Alfonse told him once. “And that’s just how a Dutchman would
think, isn’t it? The Dutch are cunning bastards, but they’re just
Germans at heart, aren’t they? This Roosevelt wants to weaken us,
but he sure as hell doesn’t want to see Russians in Berlin and
Paris. God, no. When it comes right down to it, the Americans will
be on our side. The Brits, too. You’ll see.”