He shrugged. "Sarah," he said, putting his arm around her waist. "Ja, your guest has few manners."
Her cheeks were on fire. Lili looked jealously at the two of them. She realized Lili viewed them as lovers.
"Tell him thank you and leave quietly," Sarah said, averting her eyes from Lili's face.
"Merci," came out of Lili's mouth in a high-pitched squeak. She quickly scrambled up the ladder rungs.
Helmut asked, "Who is she?"
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Just my schoolmate, silly and stupid, she wears a yellow star. Don't worry." She pushed Lili's expression out of her mind.
Helmut looked at his watch. "I just came to say I've something to pick up then I'll be back." He'd traded his shift because he hated leaving her alone at night.
He pulled out a string of oily bratwurst from his SS kit bag and winked. "Some butcher in Hanover's contribution to the war effort."
Later he returned with duck terrine marbled in aspic and herbs. They ate while candle wax dripped lazily across the tea box. She tutored him in French after they ate, as she usually did. Her large wool sweater fell off her shoulders as she corrected his verb conjugations with a thick pencil.
"Très bien, Helmut, good work." She smiled. "Bravo."
He set the notebook down and pulled her toward him. Unbuttoning his uniform with one hand, he spread the jacket down as a pillow over the dense earth. She grew alarmed and gripped her fingers in the dirt. She'd had no brothers, never even seen her own father without his shirt. Taut muscles spread above Helmut's lean chest, his skin glistened.
Torn between gratitude and fear, she was paralyzed. Wasn't he looking for her parents? Giving her food? The Nazis who'd supervised the police roundups in her neighborhood hadn't been like him. Helmut was always so funny and generous with food. Under the flickering candlelight he laid her down and her black hair tangled in the storm trooper insignia glinting off his jacket. She went rigid.
She shook her head. "Non, Helmut."
Tracing her features with his finger, he cupped her face in his other hand. As he opened his mouth to speak, she winced. She wanted him to stop.
"Don't worry, Sarah, I won't h-hurt you." He drew close, rubbing her pearl white cheek with his.
She inhaled his smoky scent as he burrowed his face in her neck. He gently brushed the side of her neck with his lips, his kisses went down the front of her throat.
Tears welled in her eyes. Why was he doing this? His lips trailed down her navel and waves of heat passed through her. He kissed under her nipple and up the side of her breast, all the time caressing her face. For a long time he stroked the hollows of her cheeks and kissed behind her ears and her eyes, just holding her. She moaned. Now she didn't want him to stop. Finally their shadows entwined and rocked back and forth on the cavern walls of the old Roman catacomb.
On her way to school the next morning, she thought everyone would notice the straining seams of her school uniform. Too much rich food. But they only noticed the star. She entered the "synagogue," the last Metro car and the only one Jews were allowed to ride in, feeling so tired. She'd only fallen asleep at dawn when Helmut left. In her classroom there was a new teacher and an empty desk. Madame Pagnol was gone. So was Lili.
TUESDAY
Tuesday Morning
AIMÉE WOKE UP AND pulled on a crumpled T-shirt full of Yves's musky smell. He'd gone. Part of her felt angry with herself for jumping in his bed last night. And part of her purred contentedly. A year had passed since Bertrand, her hacker boyfriend, had waffled on his commitment and moved to Silicon Valley.
She and Yves had spent a lot of time in the tub again. Things had only gotten better. La relation fluide seemed a good term to describe their involvement. She decided to mop up the tiled bathroom.
Aimee paused to savor the previous night's pleasure. Yellow sunlight streamed from the street-level windows above the bed. Mentally and physically they'd moved in rhythm, which so seldom happened to her. Something felt right about him. Except for his Nazi affiliations.
There was no way to get around that.
Her bare leg scraped something and she reached to move it. Her state-of-the-art tape recorder, out of its plastic bag, came back in her hand.
How long had this been here? She'd been concentrating on the videos and had forgotten this the other night. She must have been drunker than she'd thought. Had Yves noticed? She clicked the play button and the tape started. The tape had definitely been rewound to the beginning.
Her heart sank. Yves must know she wasn't who she pretended to be. Had he planned on confronting her but got carried away? Had he told the others? If he'd known, why hadn't he told her? What an idiot I am, she thought.
Disgusted with herself, she bolted from the bed and pulled on her black jeans and jacket. Whatever game he'd been playing, she quit. Perhaps he'd been about to expose her tape recorder and illustrate his loyalty. Lili's mutilated forehead swam before her eyes. All the way to her office, she wondered how she could have been so wrong.
Tuesday Afternoon
RENÉ FOLDED THE CORNER of the page and slammed the paperback down as Aimee entered the office.
"I've got a bank promissory note from Eurocom. Twenty thousand francs," he said.
Aimee hugged him. "Superbe!" She picked up the book, The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, flipping the pages. "You read too much, Rene."
"Nom de Dieu!" Rene covered his eyes with his short arms. "This is a classic, Aimee. You might pick up some pointers."
"Pointers?" She snorted. "I thought I got lucky last night. Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong."
She chewed her Nicorette gum furiously. "Why don't you badger our overdue Lyon account? Explain it to that nice director, face to face. It would be hard to throw you out of the office," she said.
"Are you trying to get rid of me?" Rene said.
She threw his Citroën keys at him. "Go on. You love to drive. Just don't kill yourself. And while you're there, get an advance out of him."
He grinned. On his way out, he looked back over his shoulder. "Where's your protection?"
She patted the pistol bulging in her silk pants pocket. "Here."
BY 3:00 P.M., Aimee had obtained permission from Abraham Stein and the other tenants, a clearance from the MCCHB (Marais Citizens' Council of Historic Buildings), a writ of permission from the 4th Arrondissement Supplemental Housing Federation, and the required demolition permit to expose the wooden staircase. Having a search warrant from Morbier certainly had expedited the process. He was grumbling because he couldn't smoke. Luminol was highly flammable.
"Where the hell is that crowbar, Leduc?" he said.
But she couldn't hear. Inside the tent in the darkened courtyard of the Steins' apartment on rue des Rosiers, Aimee and Serge, the middle-aged, bearded criminologist, were busy. Wearing fluorescent Day-Glo jumpsuits to avoid the chemical's being absorbed into their skin, they sprayed Luminol on the old oak boards exposed in the courtyard by the sink. Luminol showed blood and its traces on any porous surface. Despite whatever had been painted or scrubbed over it, traces of blood would remain.
"An unsolved homicide fifty years ago and you think you'll find the murderer's footprints?" Serge's voice was muffled through his mask. "Seven years is the outside edge, maximum has been shown at eleven years. Why do you think it'll show traces?"
"If it's worked on a seven-year-old stain, why couldn't it work on a fifty-year-old one as well?" she said. "No one has ever proved it wouldn't."
Her arguments for using Luminol had been predicated on that assumption. But now she wondered if it would work. And what if it didn't?