The house had arched French windows, all but one of whose shutters were closed. There were two round windows to the left of these, and at the base of that wall, there was a heap of broken boards. Iron grilles guarded the cellar windows while a broken down-spout hung precariously from the eaves, and children played in the ever-damp and freezing cold as an old woman rinsed pots at the courtyard tap, behind which thin frozen dishcloths hung, and there were cats, cats and a dog that was afraid.
There was a carpenter’s shop for the picture framing, so that was handy unless the credit had all run out. Practically all of the other windows were tall and narrow, some with curtains, their shutters open. Others were with their shutters closed, those, too, of the concierge’s loge. Marcel’s window faced straight down the length of the courtyard, and I gave it a last glance before pulling the rusty chain that would, I hoped, ring a bell.
Of course, nothing happened, and when I stood back to look up again at that window behind which some shreds of gauze hung, I noticed that half the louvres were missing from the shutters. Frost was on the glass. Icicles lined the sill.
‘Marcel, it’s me. Oo-oo. Hey, up there, Marcel!’ My breath steamed. The children stopped their games as I yelled again.
Finally, a small boy with a runny nose and hair down over his eyes, handed me a small stone. ‘Not too hard, madame. He’s painting the lady again, and you mustn’t break the window.’
The stone hit the glass. Several seconds passed until there’s a bellow, ‘Nom de Jésus-Christ, can’t a man work in peace?’
It was the first time I’d ever heard Marcel talk like a real artist. Even in my troubled state of mind, I was humbled.
‘Lily …?’
‘Marcel, I need to talk to you.’
He had a paintbrush in hand, and I heard him saying, ‘Merde!’ just under his breath but not under it enough. ‘A moment then.’
The woman was the mother of the boy who handed me the stone. Shyly, she smiled at me and reached for her clothes. She was chunky, big-breasted, had hips and a seat that flared, was all woman. We waited while she got dressed. Marcel asked me if I’d any money. ‘Just a little, Lily, for the boy.’
I wanted to say, I’m sorry I spoiled your fun, for I know he and the woman would have gone to bed later, but I gave him a hundred francs of Tommy’s money. ‘For the boy. Ask her to buy him a hat and a scarf.’
The woman disappeared, and for a few moments silence reigned as we sat among the clutter of paints, brushes, and canvases, the two of us staring into our glasses at the cheap vin rouge he had offered.
‘Nini’s in the hospital now. I’ll ring them later.’
He tossed off the wine and wiped his lips on the back of a hand. ‘For what it’s worth, I tried to get Jules to help her and when he wouldn’t, I tried to get her to go to a doctor.’
‘I know. I wanted to thank you. Marcel …?’
‘Oui.’
‘How deeply is Jules involved with those people?’
‘Don’t question things, Lily.’
‘I have to! They tried to kill my …’
‘Lover? The American …’ Marcel nodded and set his glass aside. Again, I heard him say, ‘I shouldn’t tell you, but I will. The robbery was to gain them money with which to buy guns and explosives since they are no lovers of the Third Republic. Half the loot came here to Paris in a van, the other half …’ He gave a shrug. ‘Those paintings and things could be anywhere.’
‘Brussels, I think.’
‘Perhaps. Who knows? Vuitton and that wife of his are in very deeply. It was she who convinced Jules to put the money up for the tiara so that they could hold it out to the new France as a reminder of a heroic, regal past, once the country has been defeated.’
‘Hence the mortgages on the house.’
‘And his anger, Lily. They’re afraid of what you and Thomas Carrington might do. If I were you, I’d take the children and try to get back to England. The Boche are coming, and when they do, the Channel will be closed and the door shut so tightly no one will get out.’
‘Have you been to any of the Action’s secret meetings?’
‘Me? That bitch would never allow such a thing.’
Then Jules had tried to get him in, and Marcel had been turned away. ‘Where do they hold such meetings?’
‘Never in the same place, so it shouldn’t matter to you, and I wouldn’t ask if I were you.’
‘Have you seen this man with the scar?’
‘Schiller? Ah, merde, I’m such a fool, aren’t I? Yes … Yes, of course, I’ve seen him. He was here with Jules not long after you had your little “accident.”’
‘Is the Swiss frontier such a sieve to the Nazis?’
‘His French is very good, very Parisian. He’s a real organizer, too. Probably a different passport every time.’
‘Was he with them when they tried to kill Tommy?’
Marcel shrugged and asked, ‘How should I know?’
‘Because I’m asking, mon ami, not accusing you of having been aware of it beforehand. I simply need to know.’
‘Then yes. Yes, I think he was, but he would have let the Action gang do the dirty work. Who was he, the one they claimed your lover had killed?’
‘I don’t know. Just somebody who stuck his head out of a room. They needed a body and they got one.’
‘And the American?’
‘Gone back to England, I think, but may never know if he got safely away.’
‘Then don’t wish for letters that can be opened and read. They’ll kill you, too, if you’re not careful. They won’t even ask Jules. They’ll just do it, the children or not, even them if they have to.’
‘Are some of the things they took hidden away among those crates from the Louvre?’
Marcel dragged out his cigarettes and offered them, but I shook my head, for I didn’t use tobacco back then.
He struck a match and let the flame burn down a little as he thought things over. ‘Those crates …’ he said. ‘Yes, yes, I think they could well have done that, now that you mention it.’
I asked him about Dupuis and he said there was a good chance someone from the Sûreté could be working with this Nazi and the Vuittons. ‘The Action française have lots of such connections, even within the Church.’
‘And this war the Boche have started?’
‘Here very soon, I think, but not soon enough for them.’
‘And Jules, my husband?’
‘Every bit as anxious as they are. He has to be, doesn’t he, with a mortgage like that?’
Number 104 rue des Amandiers is in Belleville, the Twentieth Arrondissement, a place of hills, narrow streets, and hastily thrown-up houses of long ago. Originally, there were three villages-peasants, small landholders, truck gardeners, a few pigs, vines, some fruit trees, that sort of thing. Paris overtook the place. Peasants from the Auvergne came, then Russian and Polish Jews, Ionian Greeks, Armenian Communists and, more recently, German Jews.
It was a melting pot with the largest cemetery, and I was struck by the thought that Marcel also lived near a cemetery. The room of Michèle Chevalier was above the clothing shop of a Russian Jew who had taken a French wife, his third or fourth, I think, for the place looked as if he’s given to drink and still wished he was home in Mother Russia.
The shop was not far from the gully through which the ceinture ran day and night, so that Michèle and all others there had the sounds of whistles in the night and the shunting of freight trucks.
She would also hear them on her way to Germany but later, you understand.
The Russian looked like Tolstoy but was all gush when it came to his beautiful princess. ‘The virgin,’ he said, fingering the cloth of my coat. ‘You’re in luck, madame. She’ll be sitting up there all alone, wringing her hands instead of practising for the concert. She’ll have counted her sou for the tenth time and realized that all things must have their price, even her little capital.’