Goodbye, Janette (2 page)

He thought of his own two children, going to school in Bavaria, far from the war and untouched by it. He turned away, so that she could not see the expression in his eyes. What was it that Schwebel told him she had said? Six weeks could be a lifetime. It was only six weeks. There was no reason why she could not have it. He turned back to her. “You have my permission to bring the child.”

He saw the sudden mist in her eyes but her voice was controlled. “
Danke schön, Herr General.
”

“Do you have any other clothing?”

She shook her head. “They took everything away when I came to the camp.”

“We’ll have to get some for you,” he said. “It will be up to you to receive guests and make them comfortable. We’ll also need two more women. A cook and a maid for cleaning and laundry. You choose them.”

“
Jawohl, Herr General.
”

“I’ll have Schwebel write an order approving the child and the others. Then you will go shopping with him. You will buy clothing for yourself and uniforms for the others. You will have everything in order for dinner tonight, which will be at eight o’clock. I will leave the menu up to you.”

He watched the door close behind her, then went back to his desk and sat down. What was it Schwebel had told him? Fifteen men. He couldn’t believe it. None of it showed on her face. No anger, resentment, subservience. It was as if nothing could touch her that she did not want to feel.

Dinner surprised him. Vichyssoise.
Gedämpftes kalbfleisch
, with a delicate horseradish dressing, boiled potatoes, fresh string beans. A garden salad with cheese. Finally, coffee and cognac.

At the end of the meal she came into the dining room. “Was the dinner to your satisfaction,
Herr General
?”

“Very good.”

She allowed herself a reserved smile. “I am pleased. Thank you. Is there anything else I can get you?”

“That will be all, thank you. Good night.”

“Good night,
Herr General
.”

It was almost midnight and he still tossed sleeplessly on his bed. Finally, he got out of bed and put on his robe and went out into the hall. The light still shone from under Schwebel’s door. He opened it.

Schwebel jumped to his feet from his bed, the book he was reading still in his hand. “Herr von Brenner,” he stammered. “I mean,
Herr General
.”

“Her room,” Wolfgang said.

“The first one at the top of the stairs on the next flight up.”

He closed the door behind him and went up the next flight of stairs. No light came from under her door. He hesitated a moment, then opened it and stepped inside.

In the faint moonlight from the window, he saw her sit up suddenly. A moment later a small light from the bed lamp went on. Her hair was long and dark, falling well below her shoulders, her eyes wide. She did not speak.

He saw the makeshift crib next to the bed and went to it and looked down. The infant was sleeping peacefully, her thumb in her mouth. He bent over the crib and gently withdrew the thumb. “It’s bad for her teeth,” he said, straightening up.

She still did not speak.

“What’s her name?”

“Janette.”

“It’s a pretty name,” he said. He looked down at the child again. “She’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,
Herr General
.” She looked up at him. “You have children?”

“Two,” he said.

“It must be difficult being away from them.”

“It is.”

“And your wife?”

“That, too,” he said. Suddenly he felt awkward. He turned back to the door. “Well, good night.”

He had been back in his bed for about ten minutes when she came into his room. He sat up. “Yes?”

“Turn on the light,” she said. “I want you to see me.”

He pressed the switch on the bed lamp. She was wearing a full-length white nightgown, her hair falling around it. “Look at me,” she said softly, beginning to slide the gown off one shoulder.

His breath caught in his throat as one breast appeared, full and strong, the strawberry-like nipple jutting forth from the purple-red areola, then the other breast leaped free as she pushed the gown down to her waist. His eyes followed her hands as she slowly moved them down across her rib cage past her flat, softly muscled belly, pushing the gown suddenly tight across her wide hips until at last it fell to the floor around her, her dark curly pubis pointing like an arrowhead down between the columns of her legs.

She came close to the bed and moved the sheet away from his legs. She pulled at the tie string of his pajamas and his phallus sprang free. She knelt beside the bed, looking into his eyes for a moment, then down at him. Gently she peeled the foreskin back from his throbbing red glans. Her tongue flicked snakelike over it.

Suddenly her hand tightened over his phallus, holding it in a viselike grip. She looked up at him. Her voice was imperious. “Don’t come yet.”

He couldn’t speak. All he could do was nod.

Her face bent back to him. “I’ll tell you when,” she said as she once again took him in her mouth.

Six weeks later when he boarded the train for Paris, she and the child went with him.

***

Silently, Wolfgang finished signing the last of the documents. He looked up at Maurice. “I think that does it,” he said.

“Technically, yes,” Maurice answered. “But there are other problems.”

Wolfgang looked at him.

“Her French resident’s permit was issued by the Pétain government. It may not be acceptable to the present regime.”

“Why not? It was a permanent permit recognizing her status as a displaced person. She was even graduated from the Sorbonne before the war. Besides, her daughter was born in France before the occupation.”

“There have been many cases where they have withdrawn permits because the holders were considered collaborationists. And there are many in Paris who know of her relationship with you.”

Wolfgang thought for a moment. “What can we do about that?”

“I’ve given it some thought, but I’ve come up with no firm solution. The only thing that could work is if she held a valid French citizenship.”

“Shit.” Wolfgang got to his feet. “What do we do now?” He crossed to the sideboard and poured himself another schnapps.

Maurice turned and looked at Anna, who had been sitting silently while Wolfgang had been signing the papers, the coffee service on the small table in front of her. She raised her head from the needles in her hands and met his eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment, then his eyes fell away and she returned to her knitting.

Wolfgang swallowed his schnapps, refilled his glass, came back to the couch and sat down heavily. “Maybe it’s not worth the effort. Maybe we should just sell the companies and get rid of them.”

“You’d get nothing for them right now,” Maurice said. “The French are bankrupt. Five years from now, when things are normal, they’ll be worth a great deal of money.”

“Five years,” Wolfgang said. “Who the hell knows where we’ll be in five years?”

“If we’re dead it won’t matter,” Maurice said. “But if we’re alive, it will.”

“If they withdraw her permit, we lose it all anyway. They’ll take the companies back.”

“It’s a chance we have to take,” Maurice said.

Anna spoke softly without looking up from her knitting. “If I were married to a Frenchman, I would automatically have citizenship.”

Wolfgang stared at her for a moment, then turned to Maurice. “Is that true?”

Maurice nodded.

“Then find someone we can trust and Anna will marry him.”

Maurice gestured to the papers. “I know of none I can trust with these. Do you?”

Wolfgang looked down at the papers, then up at him. “You’re not married.

Maurice shook his head. “It would be too dangerous. There are still many Gaullists who are suspicious of me. After all I still did not jump across the Channel until the last possible moment.”

“But they bought your story. And the information you brought them as well as the explanation that you stayed undercover in order to help them.”

“True. But that was while the battle was still going on. Now questions are beginning to be asked.”

“I’m sure your uncle could take care of that,” Wolfgang said.

“My uncle is dead. He died four months ago.”

“Then who is the Marquis de la Beauville now?”

“There is none. He died without issue.”

“What happens to his property?”

“It will go to the state. Unless someone comes forward to pay the inheritance taxes on it. Someone in the family, of course.”

“Do you think anyone will?”

Maurice shook his head. “I’m the only one left. If my father, his brother, were alive, he would have succeeded to the title. But now it will all be gone—property, title, everything.”

Wolfgang pursued it. “If you paid the tax, could you claim the title?”

Maurice thought for a moment. “If the government accepted my payment, I suppose I could.”

“How much is involved?”

“A lot of money. Five million francs. Nobody really knows. The government records are hopeless.”

Wolfgang got to his feet. He was excited. “Let me think for a minute.”

They watched him walk back and forth across the room and finally come to a stop in front of Maurice. “If these companies were in the estate would their ownership be valid?”

“Absolutely,” Maurice said. “There is no one who would dare to challenge my uncle’s integrity and loyalty. After all, he was one of the few Frenchmen who dared to remain in France, still defying Pétain’s authority. And even they did not dare touch him, though he remained virtually a prisoner in his country home.”

Wolfgang smiled with satisfaction. “That’s it then. All our problems are solved. You and Anna will be married. I will see to it that you have the money to pay the taxes and claim the title. Then the companies will be transferred into the estate and everything will be in order.” He picked up his schnapps and tossed it down his throat. “I dub thee the Marquis de la Beauville,” he said, tapping Maurice lightly on both shoulders.

Maurice looked past him at Anna. He thought he saw a faint smile on her lips as she continued to look down at the knitting needles flying in her hands. It was the same enigmatic smile that very first time they had met in Paris, in the autumn of 1940.

***

He walked up the small flight of steps from the street to the door of the small townhouse, sandwiched and almost lost among the large apartment buildings on the avenue d’Iéna, and pressed the doorbell.

A maid in uniform opened the door and looked out at him. “Monsieur?”

He took a card from his pocket and gave it to her. “I have an appointment with General von Brenner.”

She glanced down at the card. “
Entrez
, M’sieur.”

He followed her into the hallway and waited while she disappeared into another room of the house. He looked around the walls. They were bare and there were still faint discolorations where pictures had once hung. Idly, he wondered what unlucky French family had been summarily evicted from their home to make way for their Prussian conquerors. And the paintings that had once adorned the walls—had the Frenchmen been able to take them or were they now somewhere in the general’s house in Germany?

The sound of a man’s footsteps came from behind him. He turned. The soldier wearing a Wehrmacht sergeant’s uniform raised his hand in a salute. “Heil Hitler.”

Maurice raised his hand. “Heil Hitler.”

“The general will be with you in a few minutes.” Schwebel opened a door. “Would you be kind enough to wait in the drawing room?”

“
Avec plaisir.
” Maurice went into the room and the door closed behind him. The furniture in this room seemed to be untouched, as were the paintings on the wall. A small fire burned in the fireplace.

He crossed to the fire and warmed his hands in front of it. Even now, in early fall, when Paris was normally warm, there always seemed to be a northern chill in the damp air. The French were sure that it was the Germans who caused it.

He heard the door open and turned back to it, expecting the general. Instead, it was a tall young woman, her long brown hair brushed carefully back in a quiet chignon that accented her high cheekbones and large dark eyes. She was wearing a chic dark afternoon dress that accented her full figure while at the same time playing it down.

“Monsieur de la Beauville?” She spoke in accent-free Parisian.

He nodded.

She came toward him. “I am Madame Pojarska. The general asked me to make you comfortable. He may be detained longer than he thought. May I order coffee or a drink for you?”

“Coffee would be fine.”

“And some pastry perhaps. Our
pâtissier
is one of the finest in Paris.”

He smiled. “You have uncovered my weakness, Madame.” It was true. Since the Germans had come to Paris there wasn’t a decent piece of pastry to be had anywhere.

A few moments later, he was seated on the couch, a cup of fragrant real coffee in front of him, his fork crinkling through the flaky leaves of a
mille-feuille
. “This is delicious,” he said.

That faint smile curved the corners of her mouth. “Some things in France will never change.”

He looked at her in surprise. It was not the kind of remark he had expected to hear in the home of a German general. “You lived in France before, Madame?”

“I went to school here,” she answered. “The Sorbonne.” She placed another
mille-feuille
on his plate. “My daughter was born here. Just after the war broke out.”

“Then your daughter is French,” he said.

“Polish. My late husband and I are Polish.”

“Under French law your child has the right to French citizenship unless her parents have notified the authorities differently.”

She thought for a moment. “Then she is French, because my late husband went back to Poland the day war broke out and we never filed any papers at all.”

He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Your late husband?”

She nodded. “He died defending his country.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She was thoughtful for a moment. “It was fated,” she said. “I am not the only widow this war had produced, and I will not be the last. Poland was not the only country to fall before the Germans, and France will not be the last.”