The Other Side of Midnight (15 page)

“Your friend answers the description of a criminal we are looking for. He was reported seen in the vicinity of the place St. Germain des Prés this afternoon.”

Noelle stood watching him, her mind racing.

“What is the name of your friend?” Colonel Mueller’s voice was insistent.

“I—I don’t know.”

“Ah, then he was a stranger?”

“Yes.”

He stared at her, his cold pink eyes drilling into hers. “You were sitting with him. You stopped the soldiers from looking at his papers. Why?”

“I felt sorry for him,” Noelle said. “He came up to me…”

“Where?”

Noelle thought quickly. Someone could have seen them going into the bistro together. “Outside the café. He told me that the soldiers were looking for him because he had stolen some groceries for his wife and children. It seemed such a minor crime that I…” She looked up at Mueller appealingly, “I helped him.”

Mueller studied her a moment and nodded his head admiringly. “I can understand why you are such a big star.” The smile died from his face, and when he spoke again his voice was even softer. “Let me give you some advice, Mademoiselle Page. We wish to be on good terms with you French. We want you to be our friends as well as our allies. But anyone who helps our enemy becomes our enemy. We will catch your friend, Mademoiselle, and when we do, we will question him, and I promise you he will talk.”

“I have nothing to be afraid of,” Noelle said.

“You are wrong.” She could barely hear him. “You have me to be afraid of.” Colonel Mueller nodded to the corporal and started toward the door again. He turned once more. “If you hear from your friend, you will report it to me at once. If you fail to do so…” He smiled at her. And the two men were gone.

Noelle sank into a chair, drained. She was aware that she had not been convincing, but she had been caught completely off guard. She had been so sure that the incident had been forgotten. She remembered now some of the stories she had heard about the Gestapo, and a small chill went through her. Supposing they caught Israel Katz and he did talk. He could tell them
that they were old friends, that Noelle had lied about not knowing him. But surely that could not be important. Unless…the name she had thought of in the restaurant popped into her mind again.
Le Cafard
.

Half an hour later when Noelle went on stage, she managed to put everything out of her mind but the character she was playing. It was an appreciative audience and as she took her curtain calls, she received a tremendous ovation. She could still hear the applause as she walked back to her dressing room and opened the door. Seated in a chair was General Hans Scheider. He rose to his feet as Noelle entered and said politely, “I was informed that we have a supper date this evening.”

They had supper at Le Fruit Perdu along the Seine, about twenty miles outside of Paris. They had been driven there by the General’s chauffeur in a shiny, black limousine. The rain had stopped, and the night was cool and pleasant. The General had made no reference to the day’s incident until they had finished eating. Noelle’s first impulse had been not to go with him, but she decided that it was necessary to learn how much the Germans really knew and how much trouble she might be in.

“I received a call from Gestapo headquarters this afternoon,” General Scheider was saying. “They informed me that you told a Corporal Schultz that you were having supper with me this evening.” Noelle watched him, saying nothing. He went on. “I decided that it would be most unpleasant for you if I said ‘No,’ and most pleasant for me if I said ‘Yes.’” He smiled. “So here we are.”

“This is all so ridiculous,” Noelle protested. “Helping a poor man who stole some groc—”

“Don’t!” The General’s voice was sharp. Noelle looked at him in surprise. “Don’t make the mistake of believing that all Germans are fools. And do not underestimate the Gestapo.”

Noelle said, “They have nothing to do with me, General.”

He toyed with the stem of his wine glass. “Colonel Mueller suspects you of having helped a man he wants very badly. If that is true, you are in a great deal of trouble. Colonel Mueller neither forgives nor forgets.” He looked at Noelle. “On the other hand,” he said carefully, “if you should not see your friend again, this whole thing could simply blow over. Would you like a cognac?”

“Please,” Noelle said.

He ordered two Napoleon brandies. “How long have you been living with Armand Gautier?”

“I am sure you know the answer to that,” Noelle replied.

General Scheider smiled. “As a matter of fact, I do. What I really wanted to ask you is why you refused to have dinner with me before. Was it because of Gautier?”

Noelle shook her head. “No.”

“I see,” he said stiffly. There was a note in his voice that surprised her.

“Paris is full of women,” Noelle said. “I am sure you could have your pick.”

“You don’t know me,” the General said quietly, “or you wouldn’t have said that.” He sounded embarrassed. “I have a wife and child in Berlin. I love them very much, but I have been away from them for more than a year now, and I have no idea when I will see them again.”

“Who forced you to come to Paris?” Noelle asked cruelly.

“I was not making a bid for sympathy. I just wanted to explain myself a little. I am not a promiscuous man. The first time I saw you on the stage,” he said, “something happened to me. I felt I wanted to know you very much. I would like us to be good friends.”

There was a quiet dignity about the way he spoke.

“I can promise nothing,” Noelle said.

He nodded. “I understand.”

But of course he did not. Because Noelle intended never to see him again. General Scheider tactfully changed the conversation and they talked of acting and the theater, and Noelle found him surprisingly knowledgeable. He had an eclectic mind and a deep intelligence. Casually he ranged from topic to topic, pointing out the mutual interests that the two of them shared. It was a skillful performance and Noelle was amused. He had gone to a great deal of trouble to learn about her background. He looked every inch the German General in his olive-green uniform, strong and authoritative, but there was a gentleness that bespoke another kind of man altogether, an intellectual quality that belonged to the scholar rather than the soldier. And yet there was the scar running across his face.

“How did you get your scar?” Noelle asked.

He ran his finger along the deep incision. “I was in a duel many years ago,” he shrugged. “In German, we call this
wildfleisch
—it means ‘proud skin.’ ”

They discussed the Nazi philosophy.

“We are not monsters,” General Scheider stated. “And we have no wish to rule the world. But neither do we intend to sit still and be punished any longer for a war we lost more than twenty years ago. The Treaty of Versailles is a bondage that the German people have finally broken out of.”

They spoke of the occupation of Paris. “It was not the fault of your French soldiers that it was so easy for us,” General Scheider said. “A good deal of the responsibility must fall on the shoulders of Napoleon the Third.”

“You’re joking,” Noelle replied.

“I am perfectly serious,” he assured her. “In the days of Napoleon, the mobs were constantly using the tangled, twisted streets of Paris for barricades and ambushes against his soldiers. In order to stop them, he commissioned Baron Eugene Georges Haussmann to
straighten out the streets and fill the city with nice, wide boulevards.” He smiled. “The boulevards down which our troops marched. I am afraid history will not be kind to planner Haussmann.”

After dinner, driving back to Paris, he asked, “Are you in love with Armand Gautier?”

His tone was casual, but Noelle had the feeling that her answer was important to him.

“No,” she said slowly.

He nodded, satisfied. “I did not think so. I believe I could make you very happy.”

“As happy as you make your wife?”

General Scheider stiffened for a moment as though he had been struck and then turned to look at Noelle.

“I can be a good friend,” he said quietly. “Let us hope that you and I are never enemies.”

When Noelle returned to the apartment, it was almost 3:00
A
.
M
., and Armand Gautier was waiting for her in a state of agitation.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, as she walked in the door.

“I had an engagement.” Noelle’s eyes moved past him into the room. It looked as though a cyclone had struck. Desk drawers were open and the contents strewn around the room. The closets had been ransacked, a lamp had been overturned and a small table lay on its side, one leg broken.

“What happened?” Noelle asked.

“The Gestapo was here! My God, Noelle, what have you been up to?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why would they do this?”

Noelle began to move around the room, straightening the furniture, thinking hard. Gautier grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. “I want to know what’s happening.”

She took a deep breath. “All right.”

She told him of the meeting with Israel Katz, leaving
out his name and the conversation later with Colonel Mueller. “I don’t know that my friend is
Le Cafard,
but it is possible.”

Gautier sank into a chair, stunned. “My God!” he exclaimed. “I don’t care
who
he is! I don’t want you to have anything more to do with him. We could both be destroyed because of this. I hate the Germans as much as you do…” He stopped, not sure whether Noelle hated the Germans or not. He began again, “Cherie, as long as the Germans are making the rules, we must live under them. Neither of us can afford to get involved with the Gestapo. This Jew—what did you say his name was?”

“I didn’t say.”

He looked at her a moment. “Was he your lover?”

“No, Armand.”

“Does he mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Well, then.” Gautier sounded relieved. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about. They can’t blame you if you had one accidental meeting with him. If you don’t see him again, they’ll forget the whole thing.”

“Of course they will,” Noelle said.

On the way to the theater the next evening, Noelle was followed by two Gestapo men.

From that day on Noelle was followed everywhere she went. It first began as a feeling, a premonition that she was being stared at. Noelle would turn and see in a crowd a young Teutonic-looking man in civilian clothes who seemed to be paying no attention to her. Later, the feeling would return, and this time it would be another young Teutonic-looking man. It was always someone different and though they were in plain clothes, they wore a uniform that was distinctively theirs: an attitude of contempt, superiority and cruelty, and the emanations were unmistakable.

Noelle said nothing to Gautier about what was happening
for she saw no point in alarming him any further. The incident with the Gestapo in the apartment had made him very nervous. He could talk of nothing but what the Germans could do to both his and Noelle’s career if they wished to, and Noelle was aware that he was right. One had only to look at the daily newspapers to know that the Nazis showed no mercy to their enemies. There had been several telephone messages from General Scheider, but Noelle had ignored them. If she did not want the Nazis as an enemy, neither did she want them as a friend. She decided that she would remain like Switzerland: neutral. The Israel Katzes of the world would have to take care of themselves. Noelle was mildly curious about what he had wanted from her, but she had no intention of getting involved.

Two weeks after Noelle had seen Israel Katz, the newspapers carried a front-page story that the Gestapo had caught a group of saboteurs headed by
Le Cafard.
Noelle read all the stories carefully, but nothing was mentioned about whether
Le Cafard
himself had been captured. She remembered Israel Katz’s face when the Germans had started to close in on him, and she knew that he would never let them take him alive.
Of course,
Noelle told herself,
it could be my fantasy. He is probably a harmless carpenter
,
as he said.
But if he was harmless, why was the Gestapo so interested in him? Was he
Le Cafard?
And had he been captured, or had he escaped? Noelle walked over to the window of her apartment that faced on the Avenue Martigny. Two black rain-coated figures stood under a streetlamp, waiting. For what? Noelle began to feel the sense of alarm that Gautier felt, but with it came a feeling of anger. She remembered Colonel Mueller’s words:
You have me to be afraid of.
It was a challenge. Noelle had the feeling she was going to hear from Israel Katz again.

The message came the next morning from—of all
the unlikely people—her concierge. He was a small, rheumy-eyed man in his seventies, with a wizened, leathery face and no lower teeth, so that it was difficult to understand him when he spoke. When Noelle rang for the elevator he was waiting inside. They rode down together, and as they neared the lobby, he mumbled, “The birthday cake you ordered is ready at the bakery at rue de Passy.”

Noelle stared at him a moment, not sure whether she had heard him correctly, then said, “I didn’t order any cake.”

“Rue de Passy,” he repeated stubbornly.

And Noelle suddenly understood. Even then, she would have done nothing about it if she had not seen the two Gestapo agents waiting for her across the street. To be followed around like a criminal! The two men were in conversation. They had not seen her yet. Angrily Noelle turned to the concierge and said, “Where is the service entrance?”

“This way, Mam’selle.”

Noelle followed him through a back corridor, down a flight of stairs to the basement and out to an alley. Three minutes later she was in a taxi, on her way to meet Israel Katz.

The bakery was an ordinary-looking shop in a rundown, middle-class neighborhood. The lettering on the window read
BOULANGERIE,
and the letters were flaked and chipped. Noelle opened the door and stepped inside. She was greeted by a small dumpling of a woman in a spotless white apron.