And what better way to hide things. ‘Well, at least you’re being honest.’
‘Then I’d better tell you that Jules has remortgaged the house to the tune now of twelve-and-a-half million francs.’
‘He what? But why?’
‘Why, indeed?’
‘Have the taxes not been paid?’
‘Your husband doesn’t think it will be necessary, since the house has been designated a repository.’
Even though mortgaged for such a sum. Charles Edward Gordon had told me that the Empress Eugénie’s tiara had been bought at auction for one hundred thousand pounds sterling in 1870. Had Jules borrowed roughly two-thirds of that to buy it, only to discover it had been a fake?
The cognac in my glass, the tiles of the hearth, the flames that ran along the logs … I saw all of these as I tried to figure out what it must mean. ‘The Action française …’
‘Its Comité Secret d’Action Révolutionaire.’
The armed faction. ‘But … but that was broken up by the Sûreté in 1937?’
‘Only to go underground, Lily. Just like in 1937, Vuitton and that wife of his can hardly wait until the Third Republic and all it stands for are gone.’
‘And Jules?’
‘Like I’ve just said, doesn’t think he will ever have to pay the taxes.’
‘Or that mortgage?’
Marcel didn’t smile. I think it was then that I realized how much he had valued the friendship and encouragement of my husband. ‘They wanted him to put up the money for that thing and he did, which sealed-if I may say so-the house being designated a repository.’
Even though they must then have found out it was a fake. ‘And the visitors?’ I asked. ‘Who were they?’
At other times, that shrug of his would have infuriated me, but now I simply didn’t know what to think.
‘Three Germans, this much I do know, but your husband, madame, insisted that I leave by the back door like a dog of which he was ashamed.’
Poor Marcel, his feelings had been hurt, but unwittingly he had given me the key with which to unlock his secrets. I couldn’t sleep that night. At two a.m.-or was it three? — I pulled on my things, took torch in hand, and plodded out through the icy mizzle.
It was strange to see all those crates from the Louvre lined up in rows and often stacked several high in the coach house. Good and dry, locked up, and protected by sheaves and twists of straw, each crate bore a number and letter boldly on one side and at the top. There was no other identification. I could only think I was in some Aladdin’s cave. Rodin, Bourdelle … Carpeaux’s The Three Graces, Michelangelo’s The Slaves.
Only sculptures, you understand, because of the lack of climatic control. But there were other crates, flat ones-paintings-in the attic of the house, and wasn’t that a good place to store such things? Out of sight and out of mind?
I walked among the centuries of those crates, passing the beam of light over them. Shadows fell or were thrown upon the walls and the timbers above. My breath billowed with hesitation, and I knew I was afraid, for I remember touching the rough boards and thinking that if they’d emptied the Louvre and scattered its treasures, had they not done the same with all the other museums in Paris and other cities and towns? And why, please, had they done this if the government and all those concerned believed so firmly in the invincibility of the armed forces?
Paris alone had so many beautiful museums, so many treasures-the private collections of the rich as well. Jules had his lists of those. It would be so easy to hide things among the others. Nicki’s treasures-some of them perhaps? The paintings … Botticelli, Raphael, da Vinci, Gauguin, Matisse, Degas, and Van Gogh, Cézanne, aussi. Tapestries, small pieces of sculpture, the icons? I asked myself. The Roman and Etruscan glass. Collections of rare coins.
Jean-Guy was the one to tell me of the duelling scar, Marie …? Well, Marie told me that the lady with the funny eyebrows and the curious beads had asked her about Monsieur Tommy.
‘Is he with the police?’ she had asked.
Marie had shaken her head and had no doubt rolled her eyes as she had said, ‘Ah, no, madame. He is a hunter of wolves especially.’
The front hall is littered with debris. The walls are full of bullet holes. Everything of consequence is gone, even the newel posts and the railing down which the children would slide.
Suddenly, I can’t take it anymore and have to have a cigarette. Shaking, my hands can hardly keep still, and I fumble with the matches, stare at them and at all the trash. The black and shrivelled gauntlet of a dispatch rider lies beside a hobnailed jackboot. Bloodstains are on the stairs, and in the litter of papers at the foot of them are the beginnings of a last letter home, dated 20 August 1944, as well as the maps and things that soldier was carrying.
Finally, the cigarette is lit, and I’m coughing and holding my chest, for I mustn’t inhale. Looking up the stairwell to where the crystal chandelier once hung, I catch the head of another match under my thumbnail-I still have my nails, you understand. They’ve not been yanked, though why or how this could be, I can’t imagine, given all the other things those salauds did to me.
There’s now quite a heap of papers at my feet-unconsciously, I must have been gathering them-and to the sulphurous odour of the match, comes the stench of cordite, mould, blood, puss, and urine.
Agitated, I stub out the cigarette and grind it under the toe of one of those shoes they’ve given me. God only knows where they got them, but am I thankful for them? This I really don’t know. There’s a dark side to those shoes, something I don’t want to think about. Not yet.
I step gingerly over that heap of papers-I can come back to it. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll wait until they’re all upstairs looking for me and then I’ll light the place on fire and wait to shoot them as they try to escape.
Going into the main dining room, I even close the doors, though this is difficult. Again, there’s nothing. Wine stains, food stains, pus stains, urine stains seem everywhere. Excrement has been smeared on the patterned silk of the walls where Chinese birds once sang amid cherry orchards that blossomed by green-latticed houses and pagodas.
But even so, I’m back here then, in that January of 1940. Jules had wasted no time in paying us a visit. He had brought the Vuittons, that woman bundled in grey furs with tiny silver bells dangling from the chains about her scrawny neck. The husband was in severe mink to which a broad collar, thick gloves, and a freshly blocked fedora gave a glacially added touch. Marcel was still with us, so it must have been Georges and Tante Marie who informed Jules that I was back.
They crowded into the dining room. They shoved everything aside and dumped that treasure chest of Jean-Guy’s on to the middle of the table. That sea of polished mahogany had waves and scatterings of antique jewellery: diamonds, opals, rhinestones, and all the rest.
The tiara. Ah, mon Dieu, how anxious they were. They passed it from hand to hand without a word to me, but was there doubt in madame’s eyes? There was nothing but a heartless appraisal in the dark blue eyes of the husband.
Jules left the tiara with them and strode towards me, and as I backed away, I told him, ‘If you think you’re going to get rough with me, forget it. That thing really is a fake, just as you told me. Royal families always had such duplicates made to fool would-be thieves. Is it that you paid far too much for something you thought was still a bargain, my husband? Is that why you mortgaged the house of your father to the tune of twelve-and-a-half million francs?’
The blow when it came caught me by surprise and knocked me against one of the sideboards. A decanter fell. I really hadn’t thought he would do such a thing. ‘So you got taken, eh?’ I shouted. ‘Well, I’m glad, my husband. Glad, do you understand?’