Carnival (30 page)

‘
Ach
, just answer. Did you take anything from it?'

‘And if I did, what of it?'

‘No one must suspect that you did.'

Alone at last, she took down one of the biscuit cutters that hung in a row before her: the mayor, the priest, the schoolmaster, others too. With each of them the child had first admonished the biscuit for crimes committed and then had explained the sentence before apologizing and eating it.

‘They are so perfect, aren't they,
maman
,' Geneviève had often said as she had cut them out or sprinkled sugar decorations on them, sometimes chips of candied fruit. ‘How could such good citizens possibly do the bad things they do?'

A
Jeu de massacre
of her own.

‘Geneviève,' she said and wept, only to feel Werner pull her round to let her bury her face against him.

‘
Doucement, mon amour
.
Doucement
,' he said in the French he had sometimes used for Geneviève's benefit. ‘Go easy. Don't panic. Kohler and St-Cyr were not asked to come here without good reason.'

Little by little the eyes became accustomed to the lack of light in Frau Oberkircher's flat. An armchair had been tipped over, a gramophone also. Bakelite recordings had been smashed.

‘Her
Deutsche Grammonphon Platten
,' said Victoria, drawing in a breath as he pressed a finger to her lips. ‘Claudette …' she managed, her voice seeming to shock the silence.

A cheek was touched, and only then did she realize St-Cyr had a cutthroat and not a gun.

He left her. At first she thought he must be close but soon realized that he must have moved well away from her, but he didn't show himself against the leaded windows that overlooked the street below. He made no sound at all. Claudette, she silently cried. Claudette, forgive me.

How many times had she climbed those stairs as a child? How many times had that good woman shown surprise and delight as she had welcomed her in and they had sat at the table here and had a tisane of camomile or linden or rosehips sweetened with honey? Biscuits too, they playing a game of cards, herself as a young child and then as a teenager? The three of them close. The three!

Maman
often in the bookshop or out on an errand.

Der Ring des Nibelungen
, Inspector, said Victoria silently. Claudette listening to those treasured recordings, not just those of Herr Wagner's music, but also of Chopin, Camille Saint-Saëns, Bela Bartok and many others. Recordings that brought back memories of a husband who had been killed in that other war but had loved opera with a passion and all that was beautiful in music, and had played third violin in the symphony orchestra and the lead in a trio of his own, with cello and piano at weddings, anniversaries and whatever for a little extra cash. ‘To be a musician is to always embrace poverty,
mes petits
,' Claudette had often said, ‘but to possess far greater riches.'

Fruit leathers and boiled sweets, said Victoria silently. I betrayed you and for this I beg forgiveness.

St-Cyr would have to hand her over to the Gestapo. He would have no other choice; Sophie wouldn't, couldn't, mustn't intercede.

They'll kill me—she knew it absolutely. They would beat her senseless, bring her round and start in again, trying to force her to tell them what she knew must never be yielded.

‘I should have killed myself,' she whispered.

By the smell alone, St-Cyr knew Frau Oberkircher was in the pitch-dark bedroom. As elsewhere in the flat, the room was a shambles but here there was someone else—he knew it, felt it, could not avoid it.

‘Hermann,
c'est moi, mon vieux
.'

‘Louis, I can't take any more of this. I can't!'

Firmly but gently the chief inspector spoke to him as one soldier would to another over fallen comrades. Perhaps ten minutes passed, Victoria felt. Perhaps a little more. One thing was certain: St-Cyr had been the one to examine Claudette's body.

With a finality that hurt, he closed the bedroom door behind him, nudging his partner ahead, that one much taller and bigger and, now with a bit of light, appearing ashen and badly shaken by what had happened.

The chief inspector set the table upright and placed the
chaise de mariage
at it, the chair Claudette had been given as a young girl for her dowry. ‘Sit,' he said.

Half a glass of milk was set before her. Miraculously the blue stoneware jug with its raised design of daisies hadn't been smashed. The triangular earthenware dish Claudette had bought years ago held a clutch of the small round biscuits she had always kept on hand. Not dusted with sugar, though, for that could no longer be easily obtained and what Claudette had managed had had to be saved for ‘the shop.'

‘Eat something,' muttered Herr Kohler, the blackout drapes now drawn.

‘I can't. I couldn't.'

‘Just take a bite and have a sip. They'll help to settle your nerves.'

My terror, Inspector? she silently demanded, quickly doing as told and setting the biscuit down to scatter crumbs, Claudette always saying, ‘Crumbs,
ma petite
? Won't they taste as good if not better than before, when you gather them?' Or, ‘Those biscuits of mine, have I not followed the recipe correctly? Come, let's go over it again.'

‘I loved her. She was like a second mother to me.'

When they didn't respond, she asked, ‘Why won't you let me see her?' but found she couldn't face them anymore, for they were standing at the other side of the table, looking down at her and St-Cyr had placed pieces of broken recordings in front of her:
Das Gotterdammerung
,
Das Rheingold
and
Die Walküre
.

Again she heard herself asking why they wouldn't let her see Claudette. Moisture in her deep brown eyes made her appear
très tragique et vulnérable
, thought St-Cyr.
Bien sûr
, the tears emphasized despair and of course Hermann, still in his present state, would perhaps weaken even more. That page-boy fringe of auburn hair …

Defiantly her gaze grew unwavering but was there now also an emptiness? ‘We need answers, mademoiselle, and haven't much time. Start talking.'

Or else—was that it, eh? ‘
Sprechen Sie Deutsch, Herr Oberdetektiv
. Otherwise I won't be able to understand you.'

‘Louis, if she tries that with the resident Gestapo, we'll never be able to save her.'

‘Perhaps she's beyond saving, Hermann.'

‘You were moving deserters through Alsace, Fräulein,' said Herr Kohler.

‘Is that what Sophie told you?' she asked.

‘This one skied out to the
Karneval
, didn't she, Louis?'

‘What if I did? It's not against the law, is it?'

‘But avoiding arrest is,' countered St-Cyr.

‘You ran,' added Herr Kohler, now looking her over carefully.

‘I ran because of what you must have found in there.'

From a coat pocket, the chief inspector took her school notebook, and opening it at a page whose corner had been torn away, fitted a scrap back into place.

‘That notebook has always been kept in my mother's desk for when I might again be allowed to teach.'

‘When Elsass is returned to France?' he asked.

‘I didn't say that. You know I didn't!'

‘Louis, her lips are sealed. We'd best leave while we can.'

‘And leave the Primastella for others to find.'

‘Cuff her then and let them have her, eh?'

‘Why not? She might hold out. It's possible.'

‘But not probable.'

‘Some clothes,' she said. ‘These … these things are fine for skiing but not for …'

‘One of the camps?' asked Kohler. ‘Don't worry about it. Believe me, Fräulein, you won't get a chance to leave Kolmar.'

They'd let her take a moment to think about it. She could see this in the way they glanced at each other, but then St-Cyr dragged out the framed photograph Claudette had kept beside her bed.

The glass had been broken. Droplets of blood had been sprayed across the photo and these had congealed and frozen, but still the faces in the photo grinned up at her, still there was that moment's sharp happiness to mock her.

‘That is Blaise Oberkircher and myself, 15 June 1938. We had just become …'

‘Engaged, Fräulein?' asked St-Cyr.

‘I'd known him all my life. He became a fellow teacher until called up but was killed during the Blitzkrieg. Along the Meuse, I think. At Monthermé most probably, and on 12 or 13 May 1940. I don't know for sure. No one really does.'

Whether the Lutze house slept or not was of little concern to the chief inspector, thought Victoria. Alone with him in the bedroom Renée had used, she waited for his questions to begin again.

Still wrapped in tissue and never worn, the brassiere Alain Schrijen had given Renée on Christmas Eve was of the sheerest white Calais lace, the step-ins of silk but trimmed with that same lace. Beneath them, in the bureau, she knew there was other lingerie. A fortune these days, things so hard to come by, few even bothered to think of them.

‘My partner is a connoisseur of such,' muttered this Sûreté who had insisted, step by agonizing step, that she examine with him everything in the room, even if it took the rest of the night. ‘The Textilfabrikschrijen's ex-assistant manager has taste or access to someone who does.'

She had to stop him from prying further. ‘Why not ask Frau Bisch of the
Naturfreundeklub
(the Nature-lovers Club).
Die Erektion
is how it's known to those who regularly visit it, as Alain Schrijen does, or you might try Frau Voigt, of the
Goldene Adler
(the Golden Eagle). The woman took the name from the inn where Goethe is rumoured to have written some of his best works. The
Götz von Berlichingen
or
Faust
, who knows? Certainly I couldn't find out when I was there in …'
Ah,
merde, merde
, why had she said it?

‘Fräulein, when were you last in Innsbruck? Come, come, we haven't time to waste.'

He would think the worst of her now. ‘In the summer of 1938. Hiking. A fortnight. Blaise … Blaise Oberkircher took the train first and then I followed. Claudette … I think she always knew but never once said a thing, was simply content that we were happy as was my mother.'

But to have entered Austria in that summer was to have entered a nation that had only just been absorbed by the Third Reich during the Anschluss of 12 March. Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland crisis had remained very much in the news until 29 September when, after the Munich Conference, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had returned to London promising ‘peace for our time' and waving a guarantee the Führer had signed on the thirtieth.

Two teachers, two hikers. ‘You took a chance in going there, Fräulein.'

‘Blaise belonged to an international hiking club. I … Well, I simply tagged along.'

He dragged out her school notebook, quickly thumbed through pages until he had what he wanted.

‘“Is self-reliant and exceedingly capable,” mademoiselle. “As a student spent her summer holidays camping and orienteering.”

‘And then there is this,' he went on. ‘ “Refuses to adhere rigidly to the dictums of the Ministry of Education. Looks for ways to enhance and enliven the learning experience? Children are happiest then,” she says. “Shouldn't learning be among the happiest of experiences?”

‘ “Is far too rebellious,” one inspector has noted. “I'm not a monkey with a tin cup. If you want a robot, get someone else.”'

But those inspectors had all been French.

There were other things in the notebook, Victoria knew: “Smokes cigarettes; wears roll collars and Norwegian trousers, yet uses expensive perfume; is happy; is in love and lets it show,” and then … “Is engaged to be married. Is inclined to let misdemeanours pass. Stresses comprehension not the rote memorization, as demanded by the curricula. A love of each subject is, to quote her, the truest route to learning.”

‘Is rebellious, mademoiselle,' said St-Cyr, putting it away for now, not mentioning anything else. ‘You were telling me about Alain Schrijen's leisure activities in Kolmar.'

‘Der Goldene Adler is known for its
Sonnenanbeterinen
.'

Its habitual sunbathers of the female kind. ‘
Gruppensex?
' he asked as Hermann would have done, and saw her suck in a breath and nod a little too quickly.

‘The men who frequent it watch them first and then … then choose the one or more they want to share.'

Hermann would also have asked, as would this partner of his, ‘Is it a rough house?'

She seemed relieved that he had asked it.

‘Personally I wouldn't know, Inspector, but it's rumoured that sometimes things have to be hushed up.'

‘Then is it true to say you've made a point of finding out all you could about Alain Schrijen?'

‘Only what his sister has told me.'

‘And no impressions of your own from the picnic the four of you had out at the
Karneval
in early November?'

‘None. He … he spent most of his time with Renée.'

The chief inspector did not say, You're lying, mademoiselle. He simply dug deeper into that bureau drawer, lifting the neatly stacked lingerie out until she heard him suck in a breath and say, ‘Fräulein, what is this, please?'

The blouse Renée had worn to that party at Natzweiler-Struthof was torn and missing several of its sky-blue buttons. Though laundered, no attempt had been made to mend it.

‘Bloodstains are often among the hardest to remove,' he said, gingerly unfolding it and then … ‘
Evipan
, Fräulein? Two ampoules lying side by side and cushioned, but leaving vacant what would not be noticed by most, the impression of a third?'