As she stabbed at the photos, Sandrine Richard sucked in a breath and said, ‘A bordel, Inspector? A maison de tolerance? Oh for sure in such places these things go on, but here? Here in an official residence of the German Ambassador?’
‘Calm down, please.’
‘Why should I? Look, damn you! See for yourself what those bitches were up to with our husbands. Feathers … torn pillows? Does she have to pee? Is that why she holds a fistful of feathers against herself and also blows them from her lips?’
Jesus, merde alors, Bousquet and Camille Lefebvre had been caught in a state of total undress and more than a little drunk, their laughter frozen by the camera’s intrusion!
Deschambeault and Lucie Trudel were tout nus also, the shorthand typist stretched up on tiptoe, her wrists bound tightly together to an iron ring in the wall of a tower room or dungeon, the sous-directeur with the riding crop raised to fiercely strike her shapely but already welted buttocks. Fear, tension, excitement and apprehension — lust, that pent-up urgency for the grand frisson, the great shudder — were only too evident in her expression as, puzzled that her lover had paused, she had looked over a shoulder past him and into the camera.
Honore de Fleury and Celine Dupuis had been caught on their hands and knees on a leopardskin throw before a roaring fire, the Inspector of Finance having taken the dancer and instructress from behind while tightly gripping her breasts, her hair in his teeth and her head thrown back as if in ecstasy.
‘Can you imagine how Elisabeth must have felt?’ shrilled Madame Richard.
Celine’s eyes were closed and there were tears, but it would be best to say nothing of them.
‘Monique de Fleury is fifteen years old, Inspector,’ seethed Sandrine, ‘but now no longer wants to dance or strive for excellence in anything, her schoolwork especially. Endless tears for the mother who was betrayed; floods of them for herself because, like girls of that age, she adored her father and idolized him. Must Vichy corrupt everything? That child worshipped Celine Dupuis only to discover her father was fucking the woman!’
‘But surely she needn’t have been told?’
‘Then you don’t know Vichy and how crowded are the rooms in which we live! Madame Petain, who is presidente of the Committee on which Elisabeth and I serve, has tried repeatedly to get better housing for us, but all our complaints only fall on deaf ears. “It’s the Occupation and we must set an example.” Some example!’
Caught among the onlookers at the fight between this one and Marie-Jacqueline were several whom St-Cyr recognized from their photos in the Paris press and other sources. Leon Aubriet of Aluminium Francais, the giant cartel that had been set up to guarantee the country’s former position in producing the metal business and to supply the rapacious appetite of the German aircraft industry, was with the Blitzmadel who had guided Hermann and himself to this very room. That one had a pleasing figure and a lingering hand on Aubriet’s bare shoulder. His arm was still around her naked waist. Antoine Chaudet, of La Samaritaine — the Paris department store which, with Le Printemps, Les Nouvelles Galeries and others, had entered into agreements with Karstadt, Erwege and Hertie, their German counterparts — was with a girl far less than half his age. Charles Lenoir of Materiel Electrique and Pierre-Denis Martin of the Compagnie Generale du Telephone were there with older girls that had, no doubt, been brought in especially for them. So many prominent men were in states of undress and drunkenness, the girls with their garlands of ivy having slipped.
‘There’s more!’ hissed Sandrine Richard, finding a stark photo of Abel Bonnard, Minister of Education and Member of the Academie Francaise, whose tear-streaked baby cheeks were stained with mascara. Bonnard had frantically thrown up a hand to shield himself from the camera’s flash. This little man with downy, snow-white hair, this asthmatic, part-time poet and collector of porcelain whose blatant love of high living was legendary, was with two naked schoolboys both of whom had obviously been recently fondled.
‘It’s disgusting!’ spat Madame Richard. ‘He takes care of them and they take care of him, and we have that on photo too!’
‘Ah merde, if I don’t confiscate these and destroy the negatives, madame, all hell will break loose!’
Standing behind the crowd of onlookers, a head and shoulders taller than most and fully dressed, were Blanche and Paul Varollier. Both translator and croupier were withdrawn from the proceedings, their expressions passive and yet … and yet so much a part of things.
‘Ich heisse Ellinor Schlesinger, Herr Inspektor Kohler.’
The kid handed over her passport and ID as a good German maiden should. The room, in a newer part of the chateau and above the present kitchens, was plainly furnished but private, considering the crush in Vichy. The single, iron-framed bed, small desk, washbasin and jug, lamp and chair, armoire, vase de nuit and throw rug were neat as a pin.
Even the shrine could pass the stiffest of inspections. Crossed swastika flags flew over carefully laid-out knick-knacks. The stainless-steel Victory Rune of the SS; the Mann Rune, the sign of the German Women’s Corps; the red lanyard, whistle and badge of an Untergaufuhrerin, an under-leader of a group of BdMs, Bund Deutscher Madel, the League of German Girls; sayings of the Fuhrer on printed, unbleached cards in black Gothic script: Strength Through Joy; Blood and Honour; Learn to Sacrifice for your Fatherland; Who wants to Live has to Fight, and Whoever refuses to Fight in this World of Eternal Challenge has no right to Live.
‘In your Race is your Strength,’ he read aloud, picking up the card as if impressed.
There was the usual portrait photo of the Fuhrer under the crossed swastikas and he knew that this carrier of National Socialist dogma, this little Nazi, would stand stiffly to attention on waking to the cold light of dawn or clanging bell from Herr Whatever, the major-domo, to proudly say, ‘Morgens grusse ich den Fuhrer,’ et cetera, and before bed — this bed — ‘Und abends danke ich dem Fuhrer.’
In the morning I salute my Fuhrer. And in the evening I thank him.
‘My boys grew up with this, too,’ said Herr Kohler, having only glanced at her papers. He did not explain further, this giant with the cruel scar, but was, Ellinor said to herself, much saddened. Had he lost someone dear? she wondered.
He opened the little drawer of her bedside table but found no prayerbook or Bible, though the rest of her family were still staunchly Lutheran. He said, ‘I remember Strasbourg as being a lovely city. Number 42 rue des Hallebardes … the street of the pikes with the battleaxes at one end … It’s near the cathedral, your home?’
What did he want of her? she wondered. He had such a way with him. Easy-going and then suddenly he’d be after something, but would sometimes come at it obliquely. ‘It’s right in the cathedral’s shadow, Herr Inspektor.’
‘Born 7 September 1925. That was quite a year.’
He gave no further explanation of why the year of her birth had been so notable, but leafed through the thin pile of letters from home in that drawer, found her pessary and took it out, found the jar of petroleum jelly, too, and a clutch of Kondoms and, laying them with the other things, said, ‘Four have been murdered, so you know why we’re here and had best answer truthfully. Is that understood?’
There was nothing in his pale blue eyes but an unsettling emptiness. ‘I know little, Herr Inspektor. The girls of whom you speak were informants, yes, but Herr Schleier was always wondering if they had given him everything they had overheard their lovers say when among themselves. Marie-Jacqueline seemed to treat it all as a joke — saying the pay was never enough for such a risk, and she constantly threatened to go on strike even though Herr Schleier could have had her taken away to one of the Konzentrationslager. Camille Lefebvre was quite possibly the best, he thought. Everything of interest that Bousquet said in her company she would dutifully report in hopes that her husband would be freed and sent home, but that was not possible, though we were to continue to encourage her to think it was. Lucie Trudel had much to offer also and often brought papers and documents from the bank, but of late, she and the others had become “hesitant”, he said, and needed to be reminded.’