Sandman (14 page)

‘I … I think so. I do! But … but he was well behind her and … and I think she … she must have been running from him.'

‘A man in a black overcoat?'

‘Yes.'

Ah
nom de Jésus-Christ
, Hermann! he cried inwardly. Why are we not together when that is most needed?

From a block away, the bell of the Bibliothèque Nationale gloomily shattered the frost and brought the night down. It was 5.00 p.m. Berlin Time and the narrow pavement next to the house on the rue Chabanais was awash with a constant tide of battle-weary men fresh in for release. They did not joke or laugh or even grumble like soldiers and sailors on leave. Stolidly they smoked their cigarettes and waited, two by two in line, patrolled by tough Feldgendarmen with chains and miniature breastplates clinking softly against coat buttons and batons beating into mailed leather gloves.

Nur für Deutsche—
Only for Germans, read the Gothic letters on a white signboard under a pale blue electric bulb that was caged in wire above a door that was now absolutely dark.

Several coughed. One nervous boy panicked and left the line. Immediately his place was taken by another.

Kohler was impressed by the control the Military Police exerted, but were they stationed inside as well? Were they standing on the staircase that must rise six storeys up the central well to attic dormers, no bed unused for more than a few moments? The girls ate, slept and lived most of their tiny lives in there, often doubled up for comfort and consolation in their off hours, sharing their tears, their colds and coughs or dreams and only going out now and then to see their pimps for an hour or two of coaxing or a beating, depending on the need to produce.

‘The day-shift is ending,' whispered Giselle le Roy, and he felt the trembling in her, felt how terrified she was of this place. ‘Broken, my Hermann. Most of the girls who work here are finished after six months. Two I know of went mad after only a week. One killed herself in the bathtub with electricity. There were three German soldiers with her and it caused a terrible scandal. The General von Schaumburg had the house closed for five days and Madame Morelle carted off to prison, but the demand is so constant he was forced to back down and have her released. Now she reigns in triumph and they're the best of friends. Ah! those few days she spent between sheet metal were far better than any medal he could ever have pinned to her.'

They were jostled by pedestrians, all of whom were forced to use the opposite of the street. Giselle's cheeks were cold. As she clung to him, her lips quivered with each urgent kiss until she whispered at last, ‘Please be careful. Don't ever force me to work in there.'

‘“Force you to work”? Hey, how could I do a thing like that to you or to anyone? Just wait in the café around the corner, eh? See what you can pick up. I want Violette Belanger's pimp.'

This was not the first time Hermann had used her for such things, and none of those times had been very good. Ah no, they hadn't. But this …? Her horoscope hadn't been right. Her skin still crept. A killer with a knitting needle—the Sandman—ah! there could be no connection to the mackerel, the pimp, but still her apprehension would not leave her. ‘I will see, that is all I can promise, but if you feel the need to release your little burden in there because duty demands it, me, I shall try to understand.'

‘Hey, you're the only one for me.'

‘And Oona, please? What of her? Is she not also the only one for you?'

They had been all over this too many times. ‘Relax. Aren't I looking after both of you?'

‘You're never home, and when you are, you are either too busy visiting
les maisons de tolérance
or sound asleep!'

Each time the door opened to let someone in or out, the black-out curtains hid everything but the impatient shuffling of cleated boots on uncarpeted stairs.

‘Sixty-seven girls,' said Giselle tartly. ‘Twenty to a shift with seven in reserve and each will have between fifteen and thirty, maybe even
forty
slashes in Madame Morelle's little book when her working day has ended. Even the graveyard shift here is busy, since at curfew the doors, they are locked and all must stay within, and that is when the fun really begins. Ticks also, yes, in lieu of slashes.' She clucked her tongue and sucked in the breath of practicality as she tallied the take.

‘Ticks for what?' he hazarded.

‘For the things a girl does when a man wants a little something different. Actually, those times, they are often much quicker and a lot easier.'

‘Oh.'

‘Oh yourself. You will not find everything in there, my Hermann. Most of it will be the straight in and out with quantities of Vaseline or olive oil. Please see that you are not tempted even if it is necessary!'

In tears, she stamped on his toes and left him in the cold with only the sweet scent of her, bathed regularly because Oona insisted on it, touched with Mirage, that delicate perfume Louis's
chanteuse
wore, and warm if only in memory, her violet eyes no doubt flashing daggers of warning.

Half-Greek, half-Midi French and with skin so soft against the straight jet black hair, and cheeks as rosy as her nipples. A perfect hourglass in black mesh stockings and nothing else at times. Sweet heaven with strongly decisive brows and a mind of her own. She'd make one hell of a shopkeeper or barkeep and absolutely right for that little place in Spain or Portugal when the time came to start another family. Ah yes, and ah damn. The Occupation couldn't last for ever and he knew it, but would they be allowed to leave and would she really want to run a shop? Of course not.

Crossing the road, he spoke in German to the nearest Feldgendarm. ‘Kohler, Gestapo Paris-Central, here to ask Madame Morelle a few questions.'

A breath of sauerkraut, boiled leeks and sausage overwhelmed him. ‘Then wait in line. Take your turn. Hey, my fine Gestapo dick, do you want us to have a riot on our hands?'

Ah
Gott im Himmel!
‘Five hundred francs. Will that stop the riot?'

‘Five thousand.'

He could tell the bastard was grinning, and waited for the rest. ‘
Und
you pay for all who have to let you go ahead of them.'

‘Now, look—'

‘Then wait in line. Heinrich, Martin, Klaus,' he called out. ‘Hey, it's early yet, but already we have a troublemaker on our hands.'

‘I'll wait in line.'

‘You do that. We lock the doors at midnight and it all begins again at five a.m. Seven days a week.'

The thought of Hermann in there was worrisome. Faint blue pinpricks of light fevered the frigid darkness of the rue Chabanais as fireflies would the other side of the moon. Breath billowed, shoulders touched—Giselle's wooden-soled shoes kept up a constant click-clack on the icy pavement. No one gave way. People collided. The sound of bicycles out on the street was their only warning, their bells too late.

Unfamiliar with the area—ah! it had always been far too high-class a district for her—she much preferred Montparnasse, the boulevard Saint-Germain and the house of Madame Chabot on the rue Danton. There, in her own little world, she had been content and welcomed always as one of the regulars. But here? she asked, feeling suddenly lonely. Here I am nothing. The rue de Rivoli, the Palais-Royal, even the Bibliothèque Nationale were all very near and nice, of course, but had always exuded vibrations of ‘Stay away. You don't belong'.

Reaching the corner at last, she found a lamppost against which to lean and get her bearings.

‘How much?' asked a voice out of the darkness, too near.

‘It's not for sale.'

She felt a hand explore her seat and hip, a shoulder, the breath of him on her cheek, and said softly, ‘I have a straight razor in my hand, monsieur. Please don't make me use it.'

‘
Putain!
' he hissed and drifted off into the ether. Two others made their tries—did she telegraph vibrations of her own even after nearly six months of near-chastity with Hermann?

When she found the café, it was down two sets of iron-railinged stone stairs into an even deeper darkness from which the stench of urine, sour wine and cheap perfume rushed at her. Girls and their pimps kissed and made love against the walls in spite of the cold or perhaps because of it. She could hear them whispering, sighing, moaning urgently even as the muted sounds of the traffic from above came to her. The Café of the Turning Hour—she could just make out its name when a match was struck and a burly, pockmarked little
maquereau
glared lewdly at her and grinned.

Entering after the swift little parasite in his tight-fitting overcoat and fedora, she saw at a glance that the place was nothing more than a hole in the wall, a slot down which the zinc counter ran endlessly to one side, and at this, elbows touched as bankrolls were flashed to impress each other and apéritifs were sipped. A cosy place, the smell of oily onion soup mingling with that of cigarette smoke,
vin ordinaire
, pastis and brandy. A place where one could not simply ask for the name of a girl's pimp, since too many questions would be asked in return.

Squeezing between the clientele and the wall to whose flaking plaster clung the peeling posters of another age, she made her way until at last, all eyes watching, she was able to take a place at the zinc. ‘Un
café noir avec un pousse-café, s'il vous plaît
,' she said. A coffee with a liqueur on the side. Ah
merde
, they had all stopped talking in order to listen.

‘You're not from here,' said the
patron
, bald-headed, cruel and swift, about fifty and no taller than herself but muscular. A displaced Savoyard with a full and bushy grey moustache he must spend hours preening. An accent that would break glass.

‘Me? Ah! I'm looking for work but cannot seem to find the house. My feet are killing me. I'm more than half-frozen.'

‘The house of Madame Morelle?' asked the
patron
, wiping his runny nose with the back of a hand. Everyone had colds these days. Everyone.

‘Yes. I've two kids and a dead husband. Someone has to support them.'

They looked her over, these sharks and barracudas in their pin-striped suits with big lapels and loud ties with gold studs. They sniffed the air of her, measuring the number of tricks she could handle. They even stripped her naked with their eyes. They were not young, most of these men who controlled the girls of the rue Chabanais. Some were middle-aged, some even older, so their assessment was not kind but harsh, and several found her wanting.

Ignoring her, those types turned their greasy, slicked-back heads away and continued on with their arguments, their bragging and their schemes.

‘Look, I have to see Madame Morelle, but she sees no one until she needs another. I just want to get my name on the list.'

‘Have you a licence?' asked the
patron
.

The yellow card all prostitutes must carry. ‘Of course.'

Impatiently he snapped his fingers and reluctantly she dragged it out, knowing he would see that it had lapsed. ‘I … I had to stop for a while, but I'm clean now.' She'd been lucky and had never had a venereal disease, but …

‘Then let's see your health card.'

‘He screens them for her,' confided the pockmarked one. ‘He's married to her, though you wouldn't know it for all she cares about him.'

‘
Yvon, that is once too much!
' shrieked the
patron
, getting red in the face and lunging across the zinc. ‘
Bite your tongue or I will bite it off for you. SHOW me the blood this instant or I will banish you forever!
'

Ah
merde
… ‘The … the health card is at home.'

‘At home?' Snap! ‘Then let's have the photos of your kids. Two, was it?'

Blood was smeared across the four fingers of the mackerel Yvon's left hand. The
patron
nodded curtly at him, the argument settled.

With a sinking feeling, Giselle wondered if they would ever let her go. ‘I haven't got any snapshots of them.'

She's a good-looking kid,' said someone, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling.

‘Hey, Henri, undo her coat and let's have a look in the cupboard. She might do for the schoolroom, eh?'

There was laughter. ‘Does she know the Mass?' asked another.

‘The Angelus, eh, Henri? Get her down on her knees and we'll examine the bakery. Let's hear how she says the Our Father in Latin.'

The
patron
slid her coffee and the
pousse-café
across the zinc and, when she dumped the liqueur into her cup, stopped her hand and said, ‘You really didn't come looking for work. You'd have had your coat off long ago—ah! we've a stove that fills the place with so much heat you're sweating. You'd have asked for a light, my fine mademoiselle, and would have made yourself right at home on the nest. So, why are you here?'

She could throw the coffee in his face and try to make a run for it but would never reach the door. Hermann, she wanted to cry out. Hermann, why have you asked me to do this?

‘I … I really do have to see your wife, Monsieur Morelle. I … I may be able to help her. A little
confidence
, you understand. A little something I heard the other day.'

‘From her astrologer or her fortune-teller?'

‘Is the fortune-teller the same one Violette Belanger uses?' she asked curiously.

His eyelids narrowed. ‘Who says Violette uses a fortune-teller?'

‘Most girls do. I just wondered, since Violentte's was the name that came up—well, actually, the confidence referred to her
maquereau
. He'd do just as well, I suppose.'

The
patron
did not give her that name—another mistake for her. Instead, he said, ‘Then maybe if you can find my wife's fortune-teller over in Saint-Germain, my little pigeon, she will tell you when my wife will pay her a visit and that way you'll be able to give Berthe your little
confidence
.'