He couldn’t have. He would have had the combine put on Straf and would have cleaned this place out.
A much needed pair of work gloves awaited further stitching, having been fashioned out of scraps of cloth. A bit of grey-green fabric-nothing more than a tunic’s lapel in size-matched the shade of the uniforms of those the French had come to call les haricots verts, the green beans, the Wehrmacht’s finest.
Newspapers had been sewn into a hood to give warmth-he and others had done the same in that other war. The smell of a smashed bottle of cheap scent rushed at him as he lifted a soggy wad of newspaper from the remains of that hood, dehydrated peas and carrot cubes now underfoot.
Caught among the rubbish, the fist-sized carving of a long-haired, voluptuous naked woman gazed fiercely up at him from her chariot. Armbands of beaten gold, a torque of the same and a quiver of javelins completed the attire, the one in her hand broken off during the search.
Rescuing the carving that the assistant machinist must have done, he cleaned it off with pages from the Kolnische Zeitung of Monday, 4 January 1943, only to hesitate, to pocket the carving and to quickly scan the columns. Kathe … Maria … Angela … ‘Karen is at the age where a girl desires children. She is 175 cm tall (5’9”), weighs 54.4 kgs (120 lbs.), has a good figure if just a little big in the bust, likes to dance and to party, to go to the cinema and take long walks …’ Ach, hadn’t he read this before? ‘Reads romance novels but finds them insufficient for her needs. Wishes to meet a man who is gentle and kind and older than herself so that a mature hand can give guidance to a sometimes frivolous nature. Preferably he will appreciate Herr Wagner’s music as much as she does. Der fliegende Hollander perhaps.’ The Flying Dutchman. ‘Apply Box 1043.’
Pages from the Berliner Morgenpost were here too, from the stuffing of that hood. Those of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and Tageblatt but earlier issues, and then … Wednesday, 20 January 1943, the Munchner Neueste Nachrichten. ‘Beate is blonde, blue-eyed and lonely. At the age of 27, she finds herself still a virgin. Friends say she is too rambunctious, that she needs guidance and should seek someone much older. One who likes swimming, sunbathing and the superb Deutsche Grammophon recordings of Das Rheingold and Die Walkure. If you are that man, apply Box 1379 and include a snapshot, please.’
Dorsche hadn’t seen this either.
From one of the wire-meshed windows there was a view of the root cellar’s entrance, still closed-Louis could take forever talking to a corpse. There was also a view of the administrative block and all the way down it to a garage.
To his right, to the south and just beyond the outer perimeter, a goods train was backing along a siding, the slogan RADER MUSSEN ROLLEN FUR DEN SIEG! splashed in sooty white paint on its engine and coal tender. Wheels must roll for victory.
These boys would have worked out the schedules. Once loaded, that train would go to the station where Louis and he had waved auf Weidersehen to Frau Oberkircher only to find that it hadn’t been good-bye after all.
Astounded by what he had inadvertently come upon, St-Cyr took a moment to survey the barbershop. There were four reclining chairs with cushioned leather upholstery, hand-lever controls and nickel-plated footrests that gleamed. Bevelled wall mirrors, all but to the ceiling, were behind a countertop of variegated grey marble with inset basins, taps and retractable shower-hoses.
‘Merde, why send it here and not use it?’ he sighed. Individual cabinet sterilizers were also on that counter, atomizers too, each with its little plunger-pump. Bay Rum, cologne and hair oil, the standard three bench bottles every coiffeur had for men’s hair, were here, but these bottles, and many more of them, were of cobalt-blue glass webbed with silver to give a decidedly spice-trade look. Everyone who sat in any of these chairs would automatically see those elixirs and think of Arabia and of desert caravans, of dusky-eyed maidens bathing toutes nues in palm-treed oases or plump, honey-skinned Turkish belly dancers in an Istanbul cafe whose aroma would most certainly be of pungently black tobacco and strong, dark coffee.
There were bars of scented Castile soap that had been made in Aix from ‘pure olive oil’ before the Defeat. These days to get anything like this in Paris, or that oil, was to get the impossible. ‘Would the monsieur like the lemon-, the rose-, or the lavender-scented?’ he taunted. ‘A coconut shampoo, peut-etre? A little of the Old Master Brilliantine for glossing the moustache? The Vieux Seigneur?’
Tweezers, nail clippers, hairdresser’s smocks of white drill were here and had never been used. A honed, brand-new cutthroat razor gleamed, its balance perfect, the blade of Damascus steel.
Cutthroat in hand, he couldn’t help but see himself in the mirrors: jaundiced, hollow-eyed, no light in his eyes anymore, just the fear of defeat, of worry too, eh? Worry over Hermann and his Giselle and Oona in Paris, worry over Gabrielle and her son too, and what was to become of them all and, yes, worry over trinitrophenol and just how was he to find it, yet not let anyone know he was searching for something like that?
Among the cutthroat razors there was a choice like no other and one would not be missed. Had Eugene Thomas managed to pocket it and then taken it to the carnival against all risk of discovery?
‘Like the colonel, we’re digging a hole for ourselves and it just gets deeper and deeper.’
Choosing the Creme de Vichy, silk-velvetine shaving soap and using a brand-new badger-haired brush from … ‘Harrods of London,’ he said, and fleetingly had to smile at the magic of a war that could be so utterly tragic. Lathering up, he was careful with the razor.
When Lucien Weber rejoined him, the chief inspector favoured cheeks that hadn’t been shaved as closely in years.
‘My partner must see this,’ he said, patting them a last time and feeling like a new man. ‘He’s always going on about setting up some little business. A bar, a cafe …’ And never mind that it was to be on the Costa del Sol and well out of France before it was too late. ‘A small hotel perhaps, of which business he knows nothing though thinks he has all the answers. Something like this would suit him far better. If he was with us, I’d get him to give me a proper trim just to prove he really can do such a thing when he puts his mind to it. By the way, that lavender aftershave you mentioned is perfect, but I prefer the jasmine. Ah, my shoes. Danke.’
‘I’ve found you some overboots as well, from the Volksopfer. Alain … the Fraulein Schrijen’s brother brought them for the collection the last time he was here. Sophie …’
‘Is chairperson of that committee also. The people’s offering of winter clothes for the boys along the Russian front.’
‘You may choose others if you wish, Inspector. I don’t think the Fraulein Schrijen will mind. The pair I’ve selected should suit but …’
They did. They weren’t new, of course, had been purchased in ’39 probably, and from the Bon Marche in Paris, so not expensive yet still with years of life. A full thirty centimetres high and of natural rubber, with a fleece lining, they even had snow excluders, and when the trousers were tucked in, why no less than five buckles had to be done up.
The storeroom, just beyond the barbershop and complete with sorting tables, shelves and boxes, held not only overboots and shoes, but overcoats, scarves, hats, heavy pullovers, shirts, blouses, trousers and skirts even underclothes both male and female, though there were far fewer of the latter and certainly BDMs and nurses would also be stationed near the front.