Simone touched my cheek and gripped me by the hand to reassuringly squeeze the fingers. ‘Don’t worry, darling. Everything is okay. It’s only routine. Someone stole the Reichsmarschall’s things but us, ah’-she shrugged her slender shoulders and threw out open hands, palms up, — ‘how could we be involved in such a thing? You’ll stay with us tonight, of course?’
Dupuis hustled me along to an office as I looked back at her and said, ‘We’ll have a little party for you.’
I had with me an overnight bag, which I’d been allowed to pack. A change of underwear, a nightgown, and toothbrush, my cosmetic case, a few other things, all quite civilized. Dupuis demanded that I hand it over before entering the office, and it was taken by an orderly in jackboots and the black uniform of the SS, but he was not armed, and I had to wonder if the guards had been hidden and if they wanted us all to make a run for it?
Yes, that was exactly what they’d done, for once again that corridor was like a cage of frightened mice. No one knew whether he or she would be the first to bolt, but several knew for sure they’d follow if given but half a chance.
Schiller was in uniform, smoking a cigarette, lost in thought, perhaps, and standing over by one of the windows down whose sides heavy blackout curtains hung. He was looking out at the street, was immaculate-tall, slender, well built, the flaxen hair catching the light.
There was a desk, big, wide, a hectare or two of misplaced Georgian antiquity. Miscellaneous chairs, a carpet, et cetera, because none of it really mattered except for this: the desk, his chair behind it, the one that was directly in front, and the one that was behind that one.
Dupuis cleared his throat and said something subservient but was embarrassed to let me see him like this.
‘Frau de St-Germain,’ said Schiller. ‘A seat.’
‘Which one?’
It was that shabby, collaborationist gumshoe’s turn now, and he said, ‘Madame, you’re in grave trouble. Behave accordingly.’
I sat where I was supposed to. Dupuis pulled off his coat and hat, and sat directly behind me while Schiller built church steeples with his fingers, and that duelling scar had a paleness that emphasized the narrowness of his face, the lips especially. ‘Katyana Lutoslawski,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you had better tell us about her.’
‘Me? Perhaps first, Lieutenant, you had better tell me who this person is.’
‘But surely you remember,’ said Dupuis. ‘How could you forget?’
The dinner table, the supposed white arsenic. ‘Ah, mon Dieu, Lieutenant, I honestly don’t know who you mean.’
‘The redhead,’ said Schiller, still with church-steeple fingers tapping themselves impatiently.
‘The one who called herself Giselle,’ said Dupuis, causing me to turn to look at him, something I should never have done, for the shriek that lifted from Schiller made me jump.
‘The wife of Alexis Nikolai Ivanovich Lutoslawski!’ he shouted, was suddenly red in the face and on his feet with a threatening fist, and I knew for sure for me it had begun. The tiara and all that ancient history was soon pouring from him, everything the Action française thugs pried out of me in the forest. ‘Thomas Carrington, your lover!’ he shrieked.
‘My ex-lover. That business was over before it began, and if you can prove otherwise, Lieutenant, then you will only prove yourself wrong. And as for this … this woman, I never met her.’
‘And Lutoslawski?’
‘The robberies are linked to him, to objects he once possessed,’ said Dupuis.
‘Stolen from the Russians, our ally,’ said Schiller. ‘They want them back.’
‘You two are crazy. I’ve nothing to do with this. Why not ask my husband? Ask the Vuittons, eh? They’ll tell you all you need to know, and as for Russia being an ally, if you Germans keep saying the things you do, I think you can forget it soon.’
‘You were seen talking to that woman,’ said Schiller.
‘By your sister,’ added Dupuis.
‘Why not? I was the hostess, wasn’t I? Should I have ignored her?’
‘When did you notice she had left the party?’
‘I didn’t. I was in the library with everyone else, but personally, after what happened to her, I’d have left a lot sooner.’
‘The loot, madame. Where did you people hide it?’ asked Dupuis.
‘You’d better tell us,’ said Schiller. ‘It’ll go a lot easier on you.’
‘Listen, you two, I know nothing of this.’
‘Your papers … papers,’ snapped the lieutenant. ‘You’re English.’
I handed them over, but he knew all about them. ‘I have a cancer,’ I told him of the letter he was opening.
‘De Verville … yes, yes, I can see that he’s signed it. A German specialist will have to be consulted. I’ll see that we find one to examine you.’
Me, I was done for-finished-and I knew it, but realized then that he’d led me to this little point, the cancer of my womb. ‘Your sister, Frau de St-Germain, why is it that she has French citizenship and you don’t?’
My shrug was automatic, and I don’t think I could have stopped it had I wanted to. ‘Janine has always considered herself to be one hundred percent French. For myself, I’m fifty- fifty.’
‘A lover of the British. We can prove that Janine Marteau was involved in the robberies,’ said Schiller, still caressing my papers.
He let me think about it, then said, ‘Marteau is the last name of a former lover of that mother of yours. He’s the father of that illegitimate bastard you call a sister.’
There had been one slip-up, Nini the result, but our father had never held it against maman. Janine he loved as if his own, as did maman.
‘The paintings,’ said Schiller, ‘and the other things that were stolen. Where are they?’
He’d a short, black leather strap folded over once, its two ends clutched in the right hand. Maybe it was five centimetres wide, maybe six, but it was thick enough to do lots of damage, and I had to wonder if Dupuis was the one who would have to hold me.
But there was a knock at the door. It was the orderly who took my suitcase. He crossed the room to confide something to Schiller who looked at me and smiled. ‘Your children, Frau de St-Germain. Apparently, they have more to say about this than yourself.’
‘A coffee, please, and some soup-thin soup, you understand. Put lots of water in it. And … and I’d like some bread. White, if you have it. Not black.’
The little restaurant is on a side street in Fontainebleau. If you want the truth, the thought of Schiller being with Dupuis and the others has really unsettled me. I also couldn’t take the cold and the loneliness after what happened with André. I had to come in for a while.
‘Madame, is it really you?’
Matthieu Fayelle is just the same, complete with thumbprints on his apron, the stomach of his wife’s good cooking, the moustache, and thick brown hair that’s still a little too long.
‘It’s me. I have to get warm. I need a bit of rest.’
‘Are you on the way out to the house? Madame, there’s nothing left. The Germans …’
‘Have taken everything. Yes … yes, I’m on my way for a last little visit. Matthieu, I need to be quiet. Look, Tommy was your friend, isn’t that right? He helped you, so now you must help me.’
‘A table in the sun. I’ll make sure no one sits nearby, but the soup, madame? Surely …’
‘Just the thin soup and a half-and-half coffee and water, no milk, no sugar. I’m still not used to things.’
He wipes his eyes, this great big guy who once drove a gazogène lorry for us. ‘We thought you dead,’ he says. ‘Finie!’
‘And me, I thought you also,’ I say, looking up at him in warning.
He ducks his moist brown eyes and mutters, ‘It’s over, madame. They’ve all gone. We can begin to live again, eh? A little place … If you need a bed, a room, you have only to ask.’
‘I may need help. Please don’t forget this.’