“As soon as I can.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“I’ll let you know when.”
“I’ll wait.”
“I have to say good-bye.”
“Yes. Until then.”
“Until then.”
16 April, 1941.
Now the trees had little leaves and clouds of soft air rolled down the boulevards at dusk and people swore they could smell the fields in the countryside north of the city. Casson bought a train ticket, and made an appointment at the rue des Saussaies to get an Ausweis to leave the occupied zone and cross over to the area controlled by Vichy.
A warm day, the girls were out. Nothing better than Frenchwomen, he thought. Even with rationing, they insisted on spring—new scarves, cut from last year’s whatever, a little hat, made from a piece of felt somebody had left in a closet, something, at least something, to say that love was your reward for agreeing to live another day and walk around in the world.
On the top floor of the old Interior Ministry building, even SS-OBERSTURMBANNFÜHRER Guske knew it was spring. He came around the desk to shake hands, as tanned and well-oiled as ever, every one of his forty hairs in its proper place, a big leathery smile. Then, with a sigh, he got down to business. Made himself comfortable in his chair and studied the dossier before him, a sort of now where were we feeling in the air. “Ah yes,” he said. “You went last to Spain to see about locations for a film. So, how did it go for you?”
“Very well. One or two villages were, I can say, perfect. Extremely Spanish. The church and the tile roofs, and the little whitewashed houses.”
“Indeed! You’re making me want to go.”
“It’s a change, certainly. Very different from France.”
“Yes, here it is, Málaga. My wife and I used to go to Lloret-de-Mar every summer, until they started fighting. Find a pension in a little fishing village. What dinners! Besugo, espadon, delicious. If you can persuade them to hold back a little on the garlic, excellent!” He laughed, showing big white teeth. Looked back down at the dossier. Read for a moment, then a slight discomfort appeared on his face. “Hmm. Here’s a memorandum I’d forgotten all about.”
He read carefully, perhaps for three or four minutes. Shook his head in pique at something small and irritating. “I know you are famous for petty bureaucrats in France, but I tell you, Herr Casson, we Germans don’t do so badly. Look at this nonsense.”
“Sir?”
“I don’t have the faintest recollection of anything, you understand, I see people from dawn to dusk, of course, and I only remember the, well, the bad ones, if you know what I mean.” He raised his eyebrows to see if Casson had understood.
“What’s happened is,” he continued, “you told me, or, I thought you told me, that your army service was back in the 1914 war, but here it says that you—well, the people down at the Vincennes military base sent on to us a record that says you were transferred to a unit that was reactivated in May of 1940. Could that be right?”
“Yes. I was.”
“Well, I apparently got it wrong the last time we talked because now somebody’s gone and written a memorandum in your file saying that you, well, that you didn’t actually tell the truth.”
“I don’t really know what I . . .” Casson felt something flutter in his stomach.
“Ach,” Guske said, quite annoyed now. He stood up, walked toward the door. “I’m going to go down the hall and have this put right. I’ll be back in a minute.” He opened the door and gestured toward a chair in the hall. “Please,” he said. “I’ll have to ask you to wait in the corridor.”
Guske marched off down the hall. Casson wanted to get up and run out of the building, but he knew he’d never make it, and when they caught him he wouldn’t be able to explain. He wasn’t being threatened, exactly. It was something else—he didn’t know what it was, but he could feel it reaching for him.
Hold on, he told himself.
He very nearly couldn’t. He closed his eyes, heard typewriters, muted conversations, doors opening and closing, telephones. It was just an office.
Forty minutes later, Guske came back down the hall shaking his head. In a bad humor, he waved Casson into his office. “This is extraordinarily irritating, Herr Casson, but this man at the other end of the hall is acting in a very unreasonable fashion. I mean, here we’ve had a simple misunderstanding, you gave me some information and it didn’t happen to hold with some piece of paper that somebody sent here, and now he’s going to be difficult about it.”
Casson started to speak, Guske held up his hand for silence.
“Please, there’s nothing you can say that will help. I am certainly going to take care of this problem—you can have every confidence in me—but it’s going to take a day or two, maybe even a little more. Your trip to Lyons, is it so very urgent?”
“No.”
“Good. Then I’m relieved. And you’ll appreciate I have to work with this fellow, I can’t be getting around him every five minutes. But he’s going to have to learn to separate these things—here is something that must concern us, over there is just a nuisance, a little pebble in the shoe. Eh?”
Guske stood and offered his hand. “Why don’t you call me back a week from today? Yes? I’m sure I’ll be able to give you the answer you want. These telephone numbers in your file, for home and office, they’re correct?”
“Yes.”
“Very good. Then I’ll see you in a week or so. Good day, Herr Casson. Please don’t think too badly of us, it will all be made right in the end.
Two days later, a Friday afternoon, a commotion in the réception of his office. Casson threw open his door, then stared with astonishment. It was a man called Bouffo—a comic actor, he used only that name. A huge man, gloriously fat, with three chins and merry little eyes— “France’s beloved Bouffo,” the publicity people said. Casson’s secretary, Mireille, was standing at her desk, vaguely horrified, uncertain what to do. Bouffo, as always in a white, tentlike suit and a gray fedora, was leaning against the wall, fanning himself with a newspaper, his face the color of chalk. “Please, my friends,” he said. “I beg you. Something to drink.”
“Will you take a glass of water, monsieur?” Mireille asked.
“God no.”
“Mireille,” Casson said. “Please go down to the brasserie and bring back a carafe of wine, tell them it’s an emergency.” He handed her some money.
“Now Bouffo,” he said, “let’s get you sat down.” Casson was terrified the man was going to die in his office.
“Forgive me Casson—I’ve had the most terrible experience.” Casson took his arm—he was trembling—and helped him onto the couch. Up close, the smell of lilac-scented talcum powder and sweat. “Please,” Casson said, “try to calm yourself.”
“What a horror,” Bouffo said.
“What happened?”
“Well. You know Perlemère?”
“Yes. The agent?”
“Yes. Well, some time ago he represented me, and he owed me a little money, and I thought I’d just kind of drop in on him, unannounced, and see if I could collect some of it, you know how things are, lately. So, I went over to his office, which is just the other side of the boulevard. I was in that little lobby there, waiting for the elevator, when there was a commotion on the staircase. It’s Perlemère, and there are three men with him, a short one, very well-dressed, and two tough types. Detectives, is what they were.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. One knows.”
“German?”
“French.”
“And?”
“They’re arresting Perlemère.”
“What?”