Charlotte Gray (49 page)

However, the course of events in the summer has imposed a degree of urgency.

In June, there was a visit to Paris from Herr Eichmann, in which he proposed that a total of one hundred thousand Jews be deported from France, half of them to come from the Free Zone. In case you are still wondering about what we call the authority for such measures, you might like to know that the inclusion of Jews from the Free Zone was the suggestion of the Head of Police, Monsieur Bousquet."

"I don't believe you," said Julien.

Pichon shrugged.

"Monsieur Bousquet's deputy, Monsieur Leguay, was informed by Herr Rothke of the German Military Command in July that French nationals of Israelite stock would be included in the deportations and that Monsieur Laval had not demurred. There have been some minor administrative difficulties in dealing with families, as you can imagine.

Children have been left behind and this has caused some confusion. However, Henri Dannecker, who as most people know though perhaps not you, Monsieur is head of the German Section for Jewish Affairs in Paris, reported to Berlin on 6 July that Monsieur Laval himself had suggested that, in the case of families being deported from the Free Zone, the children under sixteen could also be taken."

Pichon looked round the silent room and smiled.

"I have a confession to make. I am a lawyer. And the neatness of the arrangement pleases me, I am bound to admit. One has so many difficulties with the question of the sphere of jurisdiction that it is a pleasure to come across a case in which everything has been done in such an orderly and co-operative way." Julien spoke in a voice that seemed blanched and weak compared to its truculent tone of a few minutes earlier.

"Laval volunteered the children?"

"Yes," said Pichon.

"I have a copy of Henri Dannecker's report to Berlin." He began to search among the papers on the table in front of him.

"It intrigued me, and I had a clerk write out the actual text. Here, if you'd like to.."

Julien shook his head.

No one spoke. Benech fiddled with some papers he had placed on the table in front of him; he seemed to be finding it difficult to suppress a smile of some kind. The corporal on Lindemann's right stared straight ahead of him.

Eventually, Julien said, "Why all this talk about deportation anyway?" Lindemann turned to Pichon.

"Please continue." He seemed to be the only person with any sense of urgency.

Pichon cleared his throat.

"One of the inevitable results of such a formal system of co-operation is that it does generate a large amount of paperwork. Many local mayors have not been able to deal with all the directives they have received from the departmental offices in Vichy, which is why various people such as myself have been dispatched to help them. The mayor of Lavaurette, for instance, an estimable man no doubt, has been grateful for our assistance. I understand that by profession he is a smallholder."

"He grows melons," said Bernard from the doorway.

"Thank you, Monsieur," said Pichon.

"Now, Monsieur Levade, we come to your case." Pichon pulled out a single sheet of paper from the pile in front of him, smoothed it down, then held it a little away from him so that it came into the long-sighted focus of his sparkling glasses.

"Absence from the census we have dealt with. Now I must ask you to show me your documentation, please."

"My what?"

"Identity card, work permit and ration card. Please don't tell me you don't possess any. Every French citizen has been issued with them. How else have you bought food?"

"I really don't know. It's possible that there's something in a drawer."

"Go and look." Pichon's voice became sharper as he nicked a dismissive hand at Bernard to indicate that he should go with Levade.

Charlotte watched as Levade stood up and crossed the room.

"Her." Lindemann nodded in Charlotte's direction.

"She shouldn't be here. Nor should he, the son," he said, looking at Julien.

"Oh, I rather think he should," said Pichon smoothly.

"I think the presence of Monsieur Levade junior is entirely ... germane. As for the maidservant, I have no objections. I think it is a good idea that the lower orders should see the proper working of the legal process."

"So do I," said Benech, fixing Charlotte with a slow, conniving smile. Levade returned to the room with an envelope which he dropped on to the table in front of Pichon.

"I don't know if this is what you mean," he said. "It's all I could find." He began to cough violently and turned his head away from the men at the table.

Pichon pulled out the contents of the envelope and inspected them.

"Indeed," he said.

"As I thought. Why are they not properly stamped?"

"I don't know what you mean." Pichon said, "I think you do. Monsieur Levade. On 11 December the Government ordered that all relevant identification cards be stamped with the word "Jew" Everyone knows that. There are notices in town, there were broadcasts.

It's the law."

Levade shrugged.

"I don't know anything about these German things, these--"

" It is not German," Pichon said, standing up and spitting out the negative across the table at Levade.

"It is a law passed by the French government which, if you had any idea of citizenship, you would have obeyed."

Lindemann cleared his throat.

"Are there other things? It's late."

Pichon sat down again. Levade shook his head slowly from side to side. Charlotte, who could only see him from behind, thought from the gurgling noise she heard that he was crying. As she went over to comfort him she recognised that the sound was of soft laughter.

"Sit down. Mademoiselle," said Pichon.

"The list of charges here is enough for me to recommend any disposal. It is only a question of what route we choose."

Julien walked over to the table. Charlotte could tell that he had made an effort to restrain himself and was going to speak carefully.

"There seems to be one thing missing from your case. Monsieur, and that is any proof that my father is Jewish. I think you will find if you take a look round the house that the evidence is that he is in fact a devout Catholic."

"Ah, indeed. The question of definition. The precedents are very interesting, and the law is developing all the time, though its basis remains perfectly clear. It is a matter of ancestry."

"My father is a second generation Frenchman," said Julien.

"He is also a war veteran."

"How admirable. When Monsieur Vallat was head of the Commissariat General for Jewish Questions he was inclined to look tolerantly on such cases; his successor. Monsieur Darquier de Pellepoix, rather less so.

Under the first Jewish statute a Jew was defined as someone with three Jewish grandparents.

Monsieur Vallat was prepared to allow religion to play a part, so in his second statute someone confessing to a recognised non-Jewish religion might be deemed to have ceased being Jewish, provided he had only two Jewish grandparents. Those with three remained Jewish whatever religion they claimed. In Monsieur Vauat's view Baptism was not conclusive, because Jewish tradition is passed down racially. Heredity is stronger than holy water. He began to talk of families in which the hereditary atmosphere was " predominantly Jewish". It is fair to conclude that Monsieur Vallat had become somewhat confused by the time he left office, though the provisions of his statute remain useful. Let us look at your family. Monsieur Levade."

Charlotte glanced expectantly at Levade. At last he was being given a chance to speak for himself, and surely he would now understand the horror of his situation. Surely he would now shake off the amused torpor in which he seemed sunk. He looked feverish and unwell.

"Come now. Monsieur Levade, would you not like to tell us a little about your ancestors, your very French ancestors?"

There was a silence in which Charlotte could hear the clock above her head. Levade began to cough again. Eventually, he spoke.

"My father was a schoolmaster in a small town near Paris. He was the most patriotic person I've ever known. He used to quote that little saying, "As happy as God in France" He was perhaps a rather innocent man, now I come to think of it, but he was very contented. He had very little religious belief. I suppose he must have been nominally Jewish at least, because his mother was, but he seemed to lack any spiritual life.

I never saw him go to a synagogue or to a church. His joy came from his family and from his country. He was always involved with Saints' Days and public meetings and celebrations. He was very conservative about the old ways." Levade smiled.

"Like a lot of fairly recent arrivals."

"Would you care to be a little more specific about your origins?" Pichon's voice had taken on a light, ironic edge.

"I think not. Monsieur. I have told you all I want to."

"I'm not sure such reticence is a very good idea for someone in your position. Monsieur Levade. Perhaps your son would care to be a little more forthcoming." Pichon looked over the top of his spectacles towards Julien, who had resumed his seat on the edge of an armchair.

Julien shook his head.

"Not if my father doesn't want to."

"Very well," said Pichon, 'let us continue with the question of definition." Charlotte noticed how much Pichon was enjoying himself. There was a forensic construction to his sentences which obviously gave him pleasure. He picked up some more papers from the table in front of him.

"Now then. Monsieur Vallat was replaced at the GCJQ in the summer. It is hardly for me to comment, but it seems he had become somewhat competitive with the Occupier. Apparently he told one of Herr Dannecker's SS officers that he had been an anti-semite far longer than the German gentleman. This was perhaps the last straw for Herr Dannecker."

Pichon gave a little laugh in which Benech briefly joined. Lindemann looked at his watch as Pichon set off again on an exposition of the French government's policy, which he explained had first been set in place in response to the refugee crisis of a few years earlier, when Jews began arriving in France from Eastern Europe. Occupation by the Germans forced certain changes in policy, and men such as Vallat objected to having their own solution to the Jewish problem influenced by outside agencies who were less strict in their definitions but probably more crude in their aims.

Eventually, Lindemann interrupted him.

"It's after one o'clock," he said. "I want to finish tonight. Please talk to Monsieur Levade."

Lindemann's voice for the first time sounded decisive.

"Very well," said Pichon, 'but I insist that this is done correctly. The difficulty of course is in establishing the religion of the grandparents. However, in recent cases of foreign Jews, the courts have been persuaded to accept a presumption of Jewishness where non-Jewishness cannot be proved by baptismal certificate or similar.

This is likely to set a precedent in the case of French Jews as well. The degree of assimilation of a Jew is not necessarily relevant.

Monsieur Vallat in theory was prepared to tolerate certain Jews who had been subsumed into French culture though not all, it must be said. The Prime Minister Monsieur Blum epitomised all that he disliked. Monsieur Vallat was again a little inconsistent on this point. Not so Monsieur Darquier de Pellepoix, who shares the Occupier's view that the Jewish influence is a racial not a cultural one, and that the most assimilated Jew is therefore the most dangerous. This has made for a greater congruence of outlook with the Occupier, and a greater efficiency. Our department has in fact been sent a copy of a telegram of congratulation received by Monsieur Bousquet, the police chief, from his opposite number in the SS, General Oberg." All the time Pichon was speaking. Charlotte was watching Levade's back and thinking of the painting of the deserted square, with the clock at twenty to four and the two figures with their sense of imminent separation. Her feeling for Levade had utterly changed; all trace of censure had now gone from it. It was partly that, since sleeping with Julien, she no longer felt in a position to disapprove of his amorous past, but more that she no longer feared him. Instead, she saw that the events of his life had not been easy, the crawling through the mud with loaves and wine roped round him, the interior battle with his art and his patient knocking at the door of his unconscious. Approval of him, or its absence, now seemed like a trivial issue; when she looked at his bowed head, she felt a horrified compassion. Pichon's skin gleamed softly in the light from the shaded lamp on the table in front of him. Charlotte thought it was the face of a man who had always been right, who as a schoolboy had had all the answers and was puzzled that his demonstrable success brought him fewer friends than he might logically have expected. The adult world to him, however, had not been disappointing; there were systems he could operate and areas of work in which his precision was valued. Behind him, painted in the plaster just above the wainscotting, were various heraldic shields, extravagant family claims and noble mottoes, bleached over by a later decoration and now showing through only as little patches of distempered colour; and over them was an oil painting, clotted with dark grease and smoke, of a traditional chateau in the Limousin.

Pichon replaced his glasses which he had been polishing with a white handkerchief. His little face looked soft and vulnerable for a moment, as he blinked his eyes rapidly like a new-born creature.

"Monsieur Levade, there are a number of courses open to me. Which one I choose depends on the degree of your co-operation. I am entitled to order your arrest and trial in the usual way, but I am also empowered to order your detention in one of a number of camps, and can further recommend whether you should be removed from there to Paris."