Quickly crossing himself at the thought, and the traffic circle to its island, he walked beneath the lindens searching for a cafe that would give him a view of the Faubourg Saint-Honore. Every week, though not on Sundays, there was a flower market here, but now not even that and far too few pedestrians.
Bicycles and velo-taxis did go round and round the circle. Wehr shy;macht shy; shy; trucks and staff cars would speed ahead of the gazos but with everything else, did give some semblance of cover. Tattered shy; and faded, last year’s poster still proclaimed the Salle Wagram’s International Exposition, LE BOLSHEVISME CONTRE L’EUROPE. Lots had attended, but now the war in Russia had progressed to such a point, using that threat would avail the Occupier little.
Satisfied, he retraced his steps but would first head for Chez Kor shy;nilov where a velo-taxi and a Mercedes were dropping off a few early diners, the women beautifully made-up and clothed in nothing but the latest the marche noir had to offer, the men perfectly dressed in suits, ties and polished leather shoes, their fedoras freshly blocked.
Anna-Marie Vermeulen had lived right across the street, a girl with a kilo of boart and another of borderlines, something those at Munimin-Pimetex would be more than anxious to obtain before any other purchasing agency did; the same, too, of course, for Lebeznikov and Rudy de Merode and all the more reason to somehow convince her to meet with him.
Very quickly he would have to cross the street and duck into that artists’ entrance, all the while wishing that Hermann was watching his back.
Lighting yet another cigarette for Herr Kohler, Evangeline knew her lipstick would again touch those lips and perhaps he would think of her in that way. Attentive, considerate, an excellent listener and always conscious of her presence, he had quickly shown her as much of the city as possible. Pausing on the place de la Concorde, he had let her see the obelisk with its strange and wondrous writing from the temple at Luxor in Egypt. ‘More than 3,000 years old,’ he had said. ‘Imagine having to write like that. Slaves, concubines, pyramids, pharaohs and Cleopatra who came lots later but killed herself with an asp because she wasn’t able to seduce Octavian who became emperor anyway. Look right down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, Evangeline. My partner tells me this is by far the finest view and that it was a Frenchman, Jean-Francois Champollion, who, having dedicated himself to it at age sixteen, finally figured out how to read those and lots of other hieroglyphs on 14 September 1822.’
She had asked of an asp, and he had enthusiastically told her it was either one or the other of the Egyptian cobra or the horned viper. ‘Instant, but painful,’ he had said. ‘I don’t suppose anyone even held her hand.’
Outside the cafes and bistros, the waiters were now stacking the tables and chairs or stringing chains to be locked among those as darkness came on. Lots of pedestrians and cyclists were still about, a few German cars and trucks, two old wagons, one being pulled by an elderly couple, the other by a mare that desperately needed feed and water, and then a hansom being used instead of a bicycle taxi, and with two German officers sitting in the back, talking and smoking cigars and taking in the scenery as if it was the most usual of things.
Magazines, newspapers, posters and films, Paris seemed to have everything. On the Ile de la Cite, they had both stood side by side gazing up to where the rose window of the Notre Dame had once been, that ‘eye’ as he had said, ‘having been carefully packed away in case of a bombing raid.’ Lots of the ‘green beans’ and the ‘grey mice’ had been around. ‘Tourists,’ he had said of the secretaries, typists and such from the Reich who had been very spiffy in their neat grey uniforms, their caps perched at absolutely the same angle, the hair never once touching the shoulders, but pinned up, tied up or simply cut short. ‘And otherwise forbidden,’ he had said. ‘Love affairs, too, but girls will be girls, and everyone knows love never pays any attention, does it?’
Merde, did he know what she herself was thinking, but … but was he also asking?
Turning onto the rue de la Boetie revealed, through the growing darkness, she felt, the family mansions and former maisons de maitre of the wealthy, many of these now offering a choice of hotel. But which would he choose for Eugene and herself, and would he take her up to the room to tip the porter and close the door behind himself? Would they face each other at last and in private? Eugene, he had never taken the time with her like Herr Kohler must with his two women, one at a time, of course. Always with Eugene it was in and out, on and off, his jumping from the train at the last moment to shoot the stork in flight, Maman always listening from the next room to hear her daughter’s desperate sighs of unfulfilled longing.
‘The Wildenstein Gallery is in that hotel at number fifty-seven,’ said Herr Kohler, glancing again into the rearview mirror. ‘It’s being run by a very trusted employee, Roger Dequoy, who sells scads of fabulous paintings and drawings for Wildenstein to scads of buyers from the Reich and Switzerland, among others like Spain, Portugal and Argentina-you name it and they come, even with the war and especially because of it and the bargains. But at number twenty-one, the former Rosenberg Gallery is now the Institute for Study of Jewish Questions. Rosenberg was the agent for Picasso, Braque, Matisse and others.
‘Ach, there’s the Hotel Excelsior,’ he said, glancing again into the rearview, ‘but there are also the Hotels Rochester, Angleterre and d’Artois, and lots of choice.’
He had slowed the car beside a fabulous house with white pillars yet had said nothing of it, simply glanced again at it and then into that rearview, and when she started to turn to have a look behind, said so very gently, ‘Just be the sensible woman you are, Evangeline, and leave this to me.’
He’d drive right up the street and turn around and come back at them, thought Kohler. Nicole Bordeaux lived in nothing but a perfect mansion, defying change, the Occupation, the charges of collabo and everything else. Unfortunately those two cars that had picked them up at the Pantin entrance had stuck to him like glue, and the worst of it was that the moment he parked Madame Rocheleau in one of these hotels, they’d pounce to find out who the hell she was and what he was up to. Having failed to remain silent, that husband of hers had told her all about those shoes and that bit of embroidery Louis was carting around.
There was only one thing to do. Park her where they couldn’t get at her without a hell of a lot of trouble.
‘Now don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I know just the place. It’s not far and you’ll be right in the centre of things so that when the shops open tomorrow, you and the garde champetre can have a field day. Breakfast first, though, overlooking the central courtyard and its garden. They’ve a fabulous restaurant.’
Strung with gold, there was a glass roof over the entrance whose brass doors shone, and a doorman in uniform with white gloves, all of which said that it must cost a fortune. ‘Me, I … I couldn’t stay in a place like that, Herr Kohler. I’ve not the clothes, nor the way of speaking like the people in there. Everyone would stare at me.’
A realist. ‘Royalty, that’s what you are,’ he said, having laid a reassuring hand on hers, the car at idle, the doorman glaring at them. ‘It’s all in the mind, n’est-ce pas? Believe me, you have something many of those who are staying in there don’t and want very much, so always keep that in mind. You’re what you are, a woman of mystery.’
Ah mon Dieu, was it really happening? Bien sur, the Hotel Bristol, at 112 rue de Faubourg Saint-Honore, was five-star and the room and the bed would be perfect, but … ‘Won’t I have to leave my papers at the front desk?’