Intelligent? he asked. But of course. Daring? That too. Why else the diamonds?
Someone’s wife? he asked and thought not. The condoms in their little silk sleeves revealed a woman who not only knew what she wanted but went after it.
‘Trouble,’ Julian Nadeau had said. A customer of his shop only once, and trouble even then. ‘A referral.’
Firefly lights and tiny blue flames broke the ever-present darkness of the streets. Occasionally a Gestapo car roared by or that of some German officer, but even then the black-out regulations called for tape across the headlamps and only thin slices of light.
All too soon the bicycles disappeared and the silhouettes of the pedestrians hastened to the nearest entrance to the Metro as the curfew hour approached.
St-Cyr was conscious of the two sets of footsteps: one ahead of him but across the street; the other behind him but on his side of the street.
Like Eros in the ether, we hunt each other, he said.
He hadn’t been able to shake them. Glotz had really done a job this time.
A patrol approached – still some distance from them. Jackboots turned a corner. Their hobnails hammered, hammered at the dank, damp air through which the flakes of falling, melting snow gave but their hush of misery.
Suddenly a figure bolted out of the darkness ahead, and the sound of his shoes clattered on the paving stones. Running … running now for his life.
St-Cyr flattened his back against a wall. A whistle blew – shrill and hurting the ears, alarming everyone. A couple began to run – had they been necking in some doorway? The girl cried out, ‘Henri, my heels …’
Her voice was filled with despair.
The boots hammered, hammered. The patrol broke into chase. Shouts of, ‘Halt! Halt or we’ll fire!’ shattered the night.
Footsteps thundered past. The girl fell sideways into him, only to bounce away and hit the pavement, her boyfriend gone. ‘Henri … Henri … Don’t leave me!’
St-Cyr swore and leapt to grab her. ‘In here. Quickly. Quickly. Sh!’
Lights were flung across the walls. The butt of a rifle hit the courtyard’s wooden wall and burst the door open with a crash.
More lights. More shouts.
Now only this: a German corporal with a torch. He shone it into each nook and cranny. Garbage tins, littered refuse and empty, empty doorways began to appear with excruciating regularity.
Gunfire came from the corner of the street. The girl lunged! St-Cyr clamped his arm more tightly around her waist. She kicked him hard. She bit the hand that stifled her screams. He let her bite him.
‘Don’t. Please don’t,’ he hissed into her ear. ‘There are Gestapo in the street. Gestapo!’
Her hair was soft and it smothered his face.
The corporal’s torch settled on a cat which bolted as the sounds of gunfire came again.
Then there was only silence and the falling, melting snow.
The corporal stepped through to the street, accidentally hitting the courtyard’s wooden wall with the butt of his rifle. Cautiously St-Cyr eased his grip on the girl.
When released, she didn’t run. ‘I’ve hurt your hand,’ she said, still shaking.
‘It’s nothing,’ he sighed, searching for his handkerchief and then wrapping it around his left hand. ‘The boy will have got away. He’ll be all right. You mustn’t worry.’
‘I’m not. He’s a pig to have left me like that.’
‘Have you far to go?’
They were so close. It was so dark. ‘The rue Vavin. It’s on the other side of the Luxembourg Garden. Number 23. Upstairs. At the top. I live with my sister and her husband. They’ve two kids, a boy and a girl.’
‘Are you a student?’ he asked.
‘Yes … yes, I’m a student. You’ve no need to worry. I’m not a prostitute. I’ve no diseases but you must wash the cut and put some antiseptic on it as soon as possible.’
He’d do that of course, and he told her this. ‘Let’s go together then. The rue Vavin is on my way.’
She seemed relieved.
‘You’ve broken a heel,’ he said, cursing his luck.
The girl removed her shoes. ‘This way I can run better. Have you a spare pocket? Mine, they are not big enough.’
He shoved the shoes into his overcoat and they started out. Her feet would be freezing. ‘You’ll catch a cold,’ he said.
Once on the street, the steps began again. One set ahead of them, the other behind.
At first the girl tried not to notice them. They darted across the boulevard St Michel, leaving the Sorbonne behind them.
The steps were still there on the rue Racine. She gripped his arm. She said, ‘Do you hear them?’
He answered, ‘Yes … Yes, I hear them. Do you know the statues of the queens of France in the Garden?’
‘Who doesn’t?’ she said tensely.
‘Could you become one of them for a little while?’ At this rate he’d never get to the Club Mirage. It would be out of the question.
They passed the Odeon, passed several staff cars with their dozing drivers, and headed down the rue de Medicis towards the entrance to the Garden.
The steps ahead quickened; those behind settled back a little. These boys were good, very good. They had anticipated the Garden; they’d even accepted the girl and had figured it all out.
As yet he hadn’t seen or heard the third man Kohler had mentioned.
‘So, okay, my friends,’ hissed St-Cyr to the girl as their steps speeded up. ‘In and to your left. Find the statues and let me find you there.’
He was gone for ever and when he came back, he moved so silently it was only by the smell of the stale pipe smoke that had clung to him in the courtyard that she realized he was there.
The girl had used her head and had stood directly behind one of the statues that looked down on the Medicis Fountain, wrapped in its cocoon of winter.
Quietly and calmly he said, ‘They’re gone. I’ve lost them, but there is still one other.’
He took her by the hand, and when she stepped down, she stood so close to him she could feel his breath on her face. ‘Who are you?’ she asked. He was a little taller than she.
‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s just say, a fellow creature of the night.’
Her hand wrapped itself more firmly around his. Walking among the frozen flowerbeds – shivering, it was true – she felt a strange elation. Fear, yes – there was still some distance to go, but with this ‘creature of the night’ she knew she’d get home safely.
As to his ‘other one’, there were no steps that she or he could hear, and standing together, searching the darkness over the Garden, nothing but the silhouette of the Palais, the line of the roof tops, and the night sky above.
No bombers tonight. No air-raid sirens. The city was so quiet.
At the entrance to number 23, the girl asked if he’d come up, and he heard himself saying, ‘I can’t. I’ve something that has to be done.’
Again he was so close. She let a breath escape and quickly slid her arms about his neck. ‘Hey … Hey,’ began St-Cyr. Ah, Mon Dieu …
Her lips found his. His moustache tickled. Clinging to him, she pressed her eager young body to his and when they parted, he felt her breath against his chin and heard her softly saying, ‘Thanks … Thanks for seeing me home.’
The third man stood alone by a darkened lamppost and when St-Cyr came along the street, Kohler stepped out to join him. ‘You should have gone upstairs with her, Louis. That little piece of ass had the hots for you.’
‘Me, I don’t even know her name.’
‘Since when did names have anything to do with it, eh?’
‘Since when did you start working for Glotz?’
‘I’m not. Boemelburg gave me the order.’
‘Where’s Glotz’s third man then?’
‘Lying in a gutter, kissing the pavement. If he asks, I’ll say it was you.’
More trouble! ‘Well, come along, my friend. Me, I’m too tired to argue.’
Kohler let out a snort. ‘Admit it, Louis, I had you nailed.’
‘If I’d known it was you, Hermann, I’d have lost you first and then the others.’
‘Where to?’ asked Kohler blithely.