April in Paris (9 page)

“How do you make a living?” the old man asked.

“I manage to get by.”

He tilted his head to one side. “You recently paid for something with a large bill.”

I felt the knots loosening. “Wasserlof gave me some money.”

“The bill was freshly printed.” Joffo’s voice sounded more suspicious.

My hands were almost free. “So what?”

“I didn’t know about the money,” the barber said.

I stood up and took a step toward the stairs.

“Just a minute, my friend!” All of a sudden, I was gazing down the barrel of an army pistol. I reached the bottom stair in one bound, throwing off the rope as I moved.

“Halt!”

I ran up the stairs without looking back. Above my head, the dark rectangle, outlined in light. I raised the trapdoor with my shoulders. Felt something strike my leg and, simultaneously, heard a shot. Although the impact almost knocked me down, I scrambled up through the opening, heaving the trapdoor aside. It 78 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

struck the floor with a crash. I was in the stockroom; the barber’s head emerged behind me.

“Freeze!”

“I’ve told you everything!”

Another shot rang out. The bullet struck some books near me.

I dashed into the shop, jumped behind some bookshelves, and crept toward the door. The barber took aim at me from behind the counter. Still crouching, I tore the door open; the bell sounded. The last time I looked, the bookseller was pushing down the barber’s hand.

“Not here,” Joffo said.

I ran out and sprang down the steps. I sprinted past the big rock and down rue de Gaspard, noticed the surprised look on the junk dealer’s face, opened the black gate, and reached the street, the boulevard, on the other side. Once I was among the crowd, my breathing grew calmer. I passed the Lubinsky slowly. On the Pont Royal, I looked around. There didn’t seem to be anyone following me.

It was getting dark. Only then did I notice that it hurt to walk.

A dark spot on my trouser leg, gradually spreading. The bullet had ripped a chunk of flesh out of my calf. I reached the ruined building, tore my shirt into strips, and bound up my wound.

Then I put my checkered suit, my soft shoes, and my hat in the laundry bag and closed it up as though I never wanted to open it again.

Roth, Wehrmacht soldier, summer 1943. On my way back to the hotel, I thought, the fellow has a nationality. In which he consists. The gray uniform, the hooked cross, the flag. As long as the A P R I L I N PA R I S . 79

war lasted, those things were my reality. Oddly relieved to have come through my adventure practically in one piece, I limped back to the hotel, dropped off my bag in my room, and went upstairs to see Hirschbiegel. I intended to propose something to the lieutenant: a fun-filled boys’ night out. Two Germans in enemy territory.

Two weeks later, just before I went on duty, Leibold met me in the hall.

“I was right!” He appeared to be in unusually good humor as he pushed back his cap and rubbed his shiny pate. “The Gascon has led us to his rat hole.”

Only now did it occur to me that I hadn’t seen the offender’s face for days. I remembered the amazing patience Leibold had shown while interrogating this man, without obtaining any worthwhile result. Hunkered down like a mossy stone, the Gascon made his stolid denials; even the corporals’
techniques
made no impression on him.

“I let him go,” Leibold said affably, “and that’s where he went.

It’s a shop we’ve had our eyes on for a long time. A barbershop.”

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 81

For a moment, I had the feeling that the dead-level floor in front of me was sloping downward. Leibold walked on, thereby forcing me to accompany him.

“Our friend thinks he’s clever,” he said with a big smile. “He got a haircut, paid, and left. Shortly afterward, he sneaked back in through a neighboring house.”

An unexpected ray of light struck me; outside, it was a most gorgeous day.

“And have you already … taken action?”

“There’s no hurry.” We reached the orderly room. “My people are watching everyone who goes in or out of the shop. In a few days, we’ll strike.” Leibold grabbed the door handle. “And then, the barber’s going to get a very close shave!”

“And where is this shop?” I asked a touch too hastily.

“In the sixth, close to the river.” Leibold turned around. “Do you know the area?”

I pretended to give this question some thought. Without waiting for my answer, he disappeared into his room.

Staring at the scuffed stone floor, I noticed a first lieutenant too late and saluted when he was already past me. Slowly, I took off my forage cap and clamped my case under my arm. A PFC

snatched the office door open right in front of me and nearly ran me down. I stepped in and said, “Good morning.” A mumbled

“Morning” from every table. I took out my writing pad and sharp-ened my pencil. Rieleck-Sostmann gave me a provocative look.

There was something different about her. Her hair was gathered into artificial curls on the sides of her head. French girls had recently started wearing their hair like this, but it wasn’t a look that 82 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

suited a tall German woman. I nodded, acknowledging her coiffure, and she smiled at me and patted her new curls. Without exchanging a word with her, I kept moving, crossed the room, and sat down at my little table. The corporals were sweating already, and they hadn’t even gone into action yet. I watched Leibold’s booted legs walk past me with measured steps. I couldn’t bring myself to look any of the culprits in the eye.

During the midday break, Anna Rieleck-Sostmann joined me and ate her black-bread sandwich. “So how are your French promenades going?” she asked.

I sat there with my eyes closed, as though enjoying the sun.

“I’ve given them up,” I replied quite truthfully.

“No more rambling?”

It was impossible not to think about Chantal. Her cheerfully bobbing walk as she hurried through the narrow streets ahead of me. The last look she gave me before I marched into the trap. The way she smelled the one time she opened her lips for me.

That evening, I lay in Rieleck-Sostmann’s energetic arms and touched Chantal at the same time. Frau R. noticed the difference and spurred on my despairing passion. She grew so loud in this en-deavor that my telephoning neighbor pounded on the wall. I wasn’t able to hold on to Chantal for very long. I was left alone with Rieleck-Sostmann. She cut up a strudel someone had sent her from the Reich. I lay on my back, chewing the raisins, and watched the big girl get dressed. One floor above us, the gramophone began to play. I moved my lips to the words of “Ma Pomme” and smiled at A P R I L I N PA R I S . 83

the realization that Hirschbiegel was now my only ray of hope. The fat lieutenant with the childish conception of women had become my friend.

“What are you smiling about?” Rieleck-Sostmann was tightening her garter straps.

“Your new hairdo looks good.” I looked away.

After she left, I went upstairs to visit the lieutenant. In the hall, my neighbor from the next room looked at me respectfully.

Hirschbiegel was already out of his bath. “Tonight’s the night,”

he said, beaming. “My luck’s about to change. You’ll see!” He held his breath and buttoned his pants.

The cognac was warm. Hirschbiegel added some cold water to it, and we drank.

“Tell me what you think about my latest treasure.” He proudly picked up a brown record sleeve from the table and extracted a gleaming disk. “Bought it yesterday!” He set his machine in motion and placed the record on the turntable.

“So now you’ve doubled your collection,” I said with a smile.

“What’s this?”

A musette band played café music. I poured myself some more cognac and made myself comfortable on Hirschbiegel’s bed.

Maurice Chevalier sang about a girl he fell in love with in April; in the summer, he left her for someone else. The girl was sad, but Chevalier consoled her. She’d be his April girl. He’d come back next year.
“Avril prochain—je reviens!”

“What will next April be like?” I said.

We listened to the rest of the song in silence.

When we left the hotel, Hirschbiegel smelled of violet water 84 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

and had tamed his curls with brilliantine. “Let’s paint the town,”

he said, his face full of hope.

We strolled toward the Seine, had a meal in a riverside restaurant, and walked west along the bank. The rear view of a buxom flower girl attracted the lieutenant’s interest; we followed her for two bridges. He bought one of her little bouquets but didn’t have the nerve to make her any further offer. Flowers in hand, he came back to me.

“At least it’s a start,” he said shyly.

A soft evening; summer was already on the wane. You couldn’t see it fading anywhere yet, but you could feel it. The heat had rolled up the chestnut leaves. In the overgrown gardens that sloped down to the river, women were at work, bent over or on their knees, tending potato plants, pulling up weeds and burning them. Stinging nettles overran the meager, narrow flower beds on the bank. There was a baby carriage in the shade of a tree, and next to it the child’s mother huddled, dressed in black; another woman was cutting grass with a sickle. A worker glided past on a clattering bicycle. Tree limbs, thick as arms and marked with fresh ax cuts, were tied to his handlebars, forming a swaying bundle that stuck out like spears for several feet on either side. I watched my shadow creep along ahead of me with slumping shoulders.

“So look, buddy, what’s wrong?” The lieutenant stood in my way.

“What could be wrong? It’s hot.” I fixed my eyes on the shadow.

“You’re the picture of misery, do you know that?” He furrowed his brow and looked worried. “Come on, tell me what’s bother-ing you.”

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 85

I tried to get around him by moving toward the river. “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

“Is it the death’s-head boys?” He stumbled along beside me.

“And the prisoners, right? Is all that getting to you?”

I wiped my hand across my forehead. Things were very busy in rue des Saussaies. The interrogations had multiplied by leaps and bounds. Executions were more frequent. The prisons were bursting at the seams. New camps had been set up. Shots rang out in the night. Leibold, under pressure, was becoming grim-mer. He allowed the corporals to hold their “physical education classes” more and more often. The marble building was swarm-ing with Gestapo. Leaves were being canceled. The general nervousness seemed to be growing with each passing day. But that wasn’t it.

To change the subject, I asked Hirschbiegel, “Is your unit supposed to move out?”

He nodded. “We’re waiting for marching orders from one hour to the next. They won’t affect me. The colonel owes me about a thousand from bridge. He wants to win his money back.”

At this point, words failed him, and so the lieutenant poked me in the side. “Say, come on, now … I don’t like it when you’re down in the dumps. You lead a charmed life.”

Surprised, I looked my good-natured companion up and down. There were patches of sweat all over his uniform jacket; the massive fellow was positively streaming. “Guys like you get all the breaks,” he said. “You’re a lucky stiff, Roth. Don’t you know that?”

I sighed. “But what’s going to happen?” I replied softly.

“A woman?” He laughed out loud. “I would never have 86 . M I C H A E L WA L L N E R

guessed! The ladies’ darling has it bad for someone? Who? A Frenchwoman?”

I nodded.

“Married?”

“Worse.”

“Nothing’s worse.”

“She thinks I’m a swine.”

“You?” He stopped short. “Then she doesn’t deserve you. Or did you try something disgusting?”

I said nothing. The pounding in my temples came back.

“What went on with you two?” Hirschbiegel insisted.

“I pretended to be a Frenchman.”

I searched his eyes carefully; I had put myself in his hands.

What I’d done was so outlandish that I had to explain it in exhaustive detail before Hirschbiegel could understand it. In the ensuing silence, we ducked under the arches of a bridge.

“Do you know you could be shot for that?” he blurted out. He braced his hands against his hips.

“First something happens,” I murmured. “Some random thing.

Then the next thing happens. And then the next.” My words rang hollow under the damp vaults. “One thing after another, deeper and deeper.”

The stones reflected the movements of the water.

“Do you love her?”

I looked for a hint of irony in his face. “These aren’t the times for love.”

“What can you do, then?” He licked the salt from his upper lip.

A P R I L I N PA R I S . 87

“At best, you can focus on the next day,” I said. “Every time you tear a page off the calendar, that’s another victory.”

“Will you see her again?”

“As what? As a Frenchman, a German, an SS translator?”

“As you,” Hirschbiegel replied.

“There’s nothing to be done.” I shivered in the shade. “I tear off calendar pages.”

“And I play bridge,” the fat lieutenant said. “It’s a strange war.”

We walked on. I listened to our footsteps, sounding in unison.

We took the next steps leading up from the riverbank and climbed back to the street.

Iput on the better uniform and considered myself in the mirror as I straightened my belt. The Wehrmacht corporal, a young man with anxious eyes.

I wasn’t doing it out of concern, which is what I’d told myself at first. I wasn’t doing it to protect myself against possible discovery. I was doing it so I could see her again.

Slowly and thoughtfully, I had something to eat in a little restaurant around the corner. Uncharacteristically, I drank three glasses of red wine with my meal. Then I set out on my walk. I went a few blocks beyond the avenue de l’Opéra and passed the open area the Wehrmacht used as a parking lot. The pasty-white sentry posted in front of army headquarters had a damp forehead and seemed about to keel over on the spot. I turned north. The soot from the old chimneys was being washed into the gutters. A beanpole SS lieu-A P R I L I N PA R I S . 89