The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (33 page)

Fifty-five thousand in Hamburg alone.

Or was it fifty-eight? You could lose three thousand people in a mere slip of the memory.

The bear laughs at her out of her dreams.
It means the end of the war; maybe the end of the world
.

The café is a short walk from the river in the rue Saint-André des Arts. As she opens the door a bell tinkles somewhere in the back and the man at the bar looks up from wiping glasses. The place is undistinguished inside – brown wooden panelling; some photographs on the wall, scenes of a Paris from before the First War; a poster for
Byrrh
, a chalk board with the word
Menu
but nothing else written on it. She sits at a corner table and orders a coffee. When the barman brings it over she says, ‘I’d like to speak to
la patronne
. Is she around?’

He looks her over thoughtfully. ‘She may be.’

‘Tell her that my aunt in Marseilles sent me.’

The man sniffs, as though there is something implausible about aunts of any kind but especially aunts from Marseilles. Behind the bar he talks on the phone for a few moments. ‘You’ll have to wait,’ he says as he puts the receiver down.

She nurses her coffee. The barman reads a newspaper, the latest edition of
La Gerbe
, running the headline
Le Maréchal Parle à la Nation
. A few people pass by outside; one or two peer in. She stares out into the street and wonders. She wonders about Yvette and she wonders about Clément. In the Southwest there was little time to wonder, but here in the city it is different: you have to wait, and waiting brings thoughts and concerns and anxiety. In peacetime the countryside was still and the city a hive of activity; in wartime the circumstances are reversed.

‘How long?’

‘How long what?’

‘Will I have to wait?’

The barman shrugs. ‘It all depends.’

La patronne
arrives half an hour later. She is a middle-aged woman with the relics of beauty in her face and a faint air of concern in her expression, as though she has mislaid something but isn’t quite sure what. ‘My Aunt Régine in Marseilles sent me,’ Alice explains.

The woman purses her lips. ‘I haven’t heard from her for ages. How’s her rheumatism?’

‘It only plays up when there’s the sirocco. Otherwise she’s fine.’

She nods. ‘You’d better come round the back.’

Behind the bar is a small room that is part storeroom, part kitchen. There’s the ubiquitous picture of Marshal Pétain on the wall and another of Maurice Chevalier. A wall calendar advertises Peugeot bicycles. The woman pulls out a chair and then
stands watching as Alice sits, as though this is some kind of interrogation. This isn’t how it was meant to go. There was meant to be something more, a sense of welcome, some hint of camaraderie, of shared fear and shared determination. Alice glances back to the doorway. She can see the barman’s back blocking any exit.

‘I’m Alice,’ she says.

‘Claire.’

‘They told me to come here.’

The woman watches her. It’s impossible to work out what she is thinking. Finally she says, ‘I heard about you. A week ago. When did you get here?’

A small surge of relief, but relief tempered with caution: they can pull you in, lead you on, drag you so deep in that you’ll never get out. ‘Two days ago. I’ve been in the South-west.
WORDSMITH
. Do you know
WORDSMITH
?’

The woman shrugs. ‘What do you want with us?’

‘I need a pick-up. Can you arrange that?’

‘Why from here? If you’re in the South-west, Spain’s only over the border.’

‘It’s for people here in Paris.’

‘How many passengers?’

‘Two.’

‘Who are they?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Are you one of them?’

‘No, I’m not.’

The woman chews her lip thoughtfully, then turns to the calendar on the wall. There are a few pencil scribbles – bills to be paid, deliveries made, things like that. But what is most obvious is that it’s one of those calendars that has the phases of the moon marked above the date: a black spot for new moon, crescents waxing and waning, a white circle for the full moon. Claire points to the next full. ‘Even if we can do it, you’ll have to wait at least ten days. Can your passengers manage that?’

‘I think so.’

‘I’ve got a flat you could use, but who knows how safe it is these days?’

‘They’re all right as they are.’

The bell sounds in the bar and some customers come in. Claire pushes the door closed and lowers her voice. ‘It’s dangerous here in the city, you know that? Not like the countryside. Here everything’s in chaos. This place may be under surveillance.’

‘I didn’t notice anyone—’

The woman laughs. ‘You wouldn’t. They let you get on with things and then pull you in when they wish. A lot of the time the only reason you are operating is because they allow it. Do you know about
PROSPER
?’

‘I’ve heard something.’

‘Well, it’s been blown. Dozens of arrests. Hundreds. And others.
INVENTOR, CINÉASTE
.’ She looks round the tiny room as though in surprise to find the walls still standing. ‘At the moment we’re lucky.’

‘One of my passengers is from
CINÉASTE
.’

The woman looks incredulous. ‘That’s impossible. Everyone was taken.’

‘Her field name’s Marcelle.’

‘The pianist? Surely she was picked up with the rest of them.’

Alice shakes her head. ‘I’ve found her. She’s been in hiding. Apparently she was late for the rendezvous when the others were arrested …’

‘Do you
know
her? I mean, would you recognise her?’

‘Of course. We trained together.’

‘Where?’

‘Scotland.’ But the woman seems to want more. ‘Meoble Lodge on Loch Morar,’ she adds, and Claire digests this extra piece of information, turning it over in her mind like a dealer turning over a piece of porcelain in his hands. Is it fake or is it genuine? Is it whole or is it damaged?

‘How did you find her?’

‘Marcelle? She’s pretty scared. At least she seems scared—’

‘I mean, how did you know where she was?’

‘Oh, I see.’ Alice smiles at her misunderstanding but searches in vain for a corresponding smile on the woman’s face. ‘The address came from London. They contacted
WORDSMITH,
because they knew that I would be able to recognise her. She told me the last thing she gave them was her new address – it’s a new place she had just found, so she hadn’t told anyone else. Then she went off the air. I’ve got her wireless now.’

‘It’s my understanding that she was arrested with the others.’

‘It seems not.’

‘Can you trust her?’

‘Of course I can trust her. She’s more than a colleague, she’s a friend.’

Claire is silent for a while, as though considering the value of friendship. ‘What about the other passenger?’

‘Nothing to do with
CINÉASTE
. Nothing to do with any circuit. London want him out.’

‘Safe?’

‘I can vouch for him, but I can’t tell you who he is.’

Claire shrugs. ‘Some shitty politico, I expect.’ Then an idea occurs to her. ‘If you’ve got Marcelle’s wireless you can ask for a message from London. Do that. Have a message broadcast over the BBC.’

‘What message? Why?’

The barman puts his head round the door. ‘I’ve got to go in ten minutes,’ he says. ‘You’ll have to take over.’

‘Paul is going in ten minutes,’ the woman tells Alice. ‘That way I’ll know that I can trust you.’ For the first time she smiles.

Once more she takes the
métro
across the city, and this time leaves a message with the fat man called Boger at the café, to meet Yvette at the entrance to the cemetery. It’s safer like that, out in the open away from eavesdroppers. They walk at
random through the city of the dead, past tombs and memorials and epitaphs. Some of them bear sad bunches of decaying flowers. One or two are names one recognises, a poet here, an artist there. Others have lists of letters after their names, as though you ought to recognise them even if you don’t.

Alice says, ‘I’ve been speaking to people.’

There’s a lurch of anxiety in Yvette’s expression. ‘What people?’

‘People who work for the Organisation.’

‘Who are they?’

‘It doesn’t matter. But they say that every member of
CINÉASTE
was picked up. Including you.’

‘Well, it’s not true, is it? I’m here.’ There’s a snap in her voice, a sharp edge of temper. ‘What are you saying? Are you accusing me of something?’ Yvette’s voice rises up the register. Is it anger or panic? The two emotions feed off each other in a grim symbiosis. ‘I’m on my own, Marian. You can see that. I’m alone. Christ, don’t you believe me?’

‘Calm down. I’m just saying people are suspicious.’

‘But who are these people? Who the hell knows anything about me? What have you told them?’

For a moment the whole conversation teeters on the edge of chaos. They seem about to have a shouting match, an inchoate row of recrimination and accusation there among the memorials and the mausoleums. ‘It’s all right Yvette,’ Alice says soothingly. ‘I believe you. But you know what it’s like. You know how afraid everyone is. Particularly now, particularly with what happened to
PROSPER.
’

Yvette calms down.
PROSPER
and the fate of
PROSPER
bring with them a sudden tide of fear, and fear conquers anger. ‘You know what Emile told me? Before they were all arrested, you know what he told me?’

‘Emile is a bloody know-all.’

‘But you know what he told me? He told me that there was a traitor in
PROSPER
.’

‘If he was clever enough to know that, why wasn’t he clever enough to avoid being caught?’

Yvette gives a little, apologetic laugh. ‘You know what?’

‘What?’

‘Emile and I …’ She tries a smile but it doesn’t really work. ‘We were sleeping together.’

‘
Sleeping
together?’

Yvette giggles. A hint of her old self. ‘Does that sound dreadful?’

Alice smiles. ‘He wouldn’t be my choice.’

‘But he was a comfort. It’s a lonely job being a pianist …’

They reach the tomb of Balzac. There’s the writer’s head staring imperiously over the city he had once dissected. A single mourner stands in front of it, a long-haired man in a crumpled black suit who stares at the memorial with all the fixation of the mildly deranged. When the man has moved on out of earshot Alice says, ‘Anyway it’s all organised. The pick-up, I mean. But we’ll have to wait. You understand that, don’t you? Until the next moon.’ It’s like talking to a patient, explaining the prognosis, repeating her words to make sure they’ve been understood. ‘Do you understand? We’ll have to wait for the next moon period. Meanwhile continue to do what you’ve been doing up to now – lie low and keep out of harm’s way. Have you got money?’

Yvette lights a cigarette, eyeing
Honoré de Balzac
,
mort à Paris le 18 août 1850
through a pall of smoke. Her fingers – delicate, slender, expert with a knife – are stained yellow. ‘I have to buy on the black market. I don’t trust my ration cards.’

‘I’ll give you some cash. All you’ve got to do is wait for me to contact you again.’

Somewhere in the cemetery a bell begins to toll. People are walking towards the crematorium at the top of the slope. ‘There’s a funeral,’ Yvette says. She tosses her cigarette end away. ‘Let’s go. The last thing I want to see is a funeral.’

She pulls the suitcase out and puts it on the bed. Clément is standing at the door, watching. She opens the case and stands back for him to see.

‘There.’

The dull gleam of black metal, of glass dials and Bakelite knobs. He peers at the thing as though it were a new piece of research apparatus. ‘You know how it all works?’

She shrugs. ‘I hope so. I did the basic course, not the full WT School. My Morse is useless.’ She closes the lid and looks up at him. ‘So what do I say to them?’

‘I’ve spoken with Fred. I explained about the letter from Chadwick.’

‘You’ve done
what
? What did you tell him?’

‘You can trust Fred. He can keep a secret. We all live with our secrets these days, Marian.’

‘But I don’t want
him
to be living with
mine
. Don’t you realise how dangerous this is? For Christ’s sake, what else did you say to him?’

‘Squirrel, you’re becoming heated.’

‘Don’t call me Squirrel! I’m not a child any more, Clément.’

‘Don’t worry, I didn’t mention you. I told him in the vaguest terms. A letter has come into my possession, that kind of thing.’

‘So what did he say?’

‘He’s been very shaken by Bohr’s going over to the Allies. He said that he would go himself if it weren’t for Irène and the children. At least he would be able to find out what’s going on, that’s what he said.’

‘Is that all?’

‘He thinks I should go in his place. His representative, if you like.’

She can see the conflict in his expression. ‘But what do
you
think, Clément? What are
you
going to decide? Because you’ve
got to make a choice. That’s the one positive thing that this war has brought: we have to choose. The French more than anyone.’ She’s angry – at him, at the city, at the whole damn country with its sullen acceptance of its fate, resignation that leaks over into accommodation and becomes, when you look away for a moment, collaboration. When he doesn’t answer, she turns away. There is an escritoire in the corner of the room, an elaborate affair with inlaid wood and delicate cabriole legs. Perhaps it is where Madeleine used to sit to write letters. There are paper and pencils in the various little compartments, and a diary with some addresses in it and a photograph of a dark and handsome young woman – Augustine – proudly showing a baby to the camera. She draws up a chair, places a sheet of paper on the desk and sits down to write: