Dark Summer in Bordeaux (32 page)

‘I understand only that you are being obstructive, and appear to have forgotten the relationship in which you find yourself with regard to the forces of the Reich.’

‘I am sorry to hear you say so, being well aware of the requirement to collaborate, and of my superiors’ orders that I should do so. However, I have some information which may be useful to you. It seems likely that Lieutenant Schussmann killed himself either because he was being blackmailed or because he feared exposure. These are two possibilities.’

‘Superintendent, pray don’t insult me by stating what would be obvious even to a blind man.’

Lannes paused. He wondered how clever Kordlinger was, what he could get away with, how close he dared edge towards the truth.

‘Schussmann was not careful,’ he said. ‘Indeed he was rash. He frequented certain bars, places which are not illegal, where people of his tendency gather and recognise each other. I may say he was not the only member of the Occupying forces to do so. It is possible that he may have learned, suspected or feared that he was being spied upon by one of his colleagues, even perhaps an agent of the military police. My investigation leads me to believe that this was so. He may therefore have panicked, being well aware that the Wehrmacht does not tolerate such depravity.’

‘This is mere speculation,’ Kordlinger said. ‘Meanwhile I insist that such establishments must be closed,’ Kordlinger said.

‘That would be a matter for the Prefecture, not for the PJ.’

‘Very well, I shall speak to the Prefect. It is of course within my power, as a representative of the Occupation, to act unilaterally in such matters. Nevertheless I am content to leave it in the Prefect’s hands. Meanwhile you have not only failed to arrest any of these degenerates, as I requested, but it appears that you have not even identified them.’

Lannes spread his hands, conscious that he was behaving like a Frenchman in a stage farce.

‘Lieutenant Schussmann frequented these bars, but my investigations have established that he was careful to this extent, in that he always left alone. No doubt he may have made assignations to meet elsewhere, but I have found no evidence that he did so. I am sorry to disappoint you.’

Kordlinger clenched his fist and banged it on Lannes’ desk. It was not an impressive gesture, not one, Lannes thought, that came naturally to him. Kordlinger too was playing a part and one in which he was less comfortable than he would have wished. No doubt he was afraid of his superiors.

‘I am sorry,’ Lannes said again. ‘My investigation might have been more fruitful’ – he hesitated – ‘more fruitful if it had been possible to accede to my request, which Commissaire Schnyder will have relayed to you, that any diary or private papers which Lieutenant Schussmann kept should be made available to me.’

Kordlinger got to his feet.

‘There were no such papers,’ he said. ‘None at all. Only some embers in a fireplace. Schussmann died as he had lived, guarding the secret of his degeneracy. Superintendent, you have failed me. I was advised to put my trust in you and you have betrayed it. Rest assured, you have not heard the last of this matter. Heil Hitler!’

Not heard the last of it? That was only too probably true. He hadn’t played the scene as he had intended. But he had avoided giving anything more than a hint of the involvement of the spooks – which hint Kordlinger hadn’t picked up on. Apart from that, would it have been any better if he had named Karim – or at least indicated that he knew a boy whom Schussmann had picked up but that the boy had gone to ground or slipped out of Bordeaux? He had meant to give him that much. Then it had stuck in his gorge. Kordlinger hadn’t even asked for the name of the bars. Because he knew them already? Because there had indeed been a German officer or NCO, or even someone from the Gestapo, spying on Schussmann? But if that had been the case, wouldn’t they have identified Léon and arrested him? Or had Kordlinger’s intention been to put him to the test?

One thing was clear. He was a marked man himself, from now on. Bracal had warned him not to push the impression of his incompetence beyond the limits of Kordlinger’s credulity. Was that what he had done? Or worse, had he simply shown himself to be defiant, determined to obstruct Kordlinger? He had been stupid, had let himself be carried away. And why? Because he had been enjoying himself, taking pleasure in this little act of resistance. Yes, he had been a fool. He couldn’t deny it.

He sat for a long time smoking and thinking. Then he called Moncerre in and went over the meeting with him.

‘You might just as well have punched him in the face,’ Moncerre said.

‘That’s how it looks to you?’

‘Can’t look any other way. You’ve made a pig’s arse of it. You don’t think the Alsatian will defend you, do you? Not bloody likely.’

‘Things are as they must be,’ Lannes said.

‘And that’s consolation?’

‘Not a lot. You know that queer bar, used to be called ‘The Wet Flag’ now ‘Chez Jules’? I can’t approach it myself, not again. And it’s safer if you don’t either, not now. So I want you to get hold of one of your snouts and have him take a message to Jules. Tell him the dead German – he’ll know who’s meant – was never in his bar. He doesn’t recognise his photograph, sorry. And I never came to interview him either.’

‘And you think that’ll help you.’

‘Not a lot. Not at all really. But it’s the best line to follow. You’ll understand why.’

‘So collaboration’s off the menu. The Alsatian won’t like that either.’

‘He doesn’t have to.’

‘And we’re resisting?’

‘That’s up to you, my old bull-terrier.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

XLV

For most of the train journey to Vichy Dominique kept his eyes on his book, while Lannes looked out of the window. There was constraint between them. Marguerite had kissed Dominique with tears in her eyes, and spoken lovingly to him. She had said nothing to Lannes, turning her head aside and looking downwards when he moved to embrace her, so that his lips had done no more than brush her cheek. It’s as I feared, he thought, she’ll never forgive me, or not for a long time, no matter how things turn out. He felt sad and resentful at the same time; she might have made an effort to understand. But that wasn’t quite true. She understood one thing only too well: that he had put loyalty to Alain above loyalty to her.

German field-police had boarded the train at Bordeaux, checking that the passengers had an ‘ausweis’. As Lannes presented his, it was as if he himself, the policeman, was now a suspect. He wondered if Alain and Léon and Jérôme had each felt his heart race while their documents were being examined. But probably the glance given their papers had been as cursory and perfunctory as the one given his and Dominique’s now. There was no reason why it shouldn’t have been.

It was a long journey. They had to change twice, at Brive la Gaillarde and Clermont-Ferrand. The hour between trains at Brive gave them time to eat lunch in the station buffet, an omelette for each, a quarter-litre of white wine for Lannes and a bottle of Châteldon mineral water for Dominique. The company which produced it was owned by Pierre Laval, who had masterminded the dissolution of the Third Republic and the naming of the Marshal as Head of State. He had been Pétain’s first Prime Minister before being ejected the previous December in a coup organised by the Catholic Right. It was as a successful businessman and Republican politician that Laval had persuaded the national railways – the SNCF – to grant him a monopoly of the supply of mineral water for its restaurants and station buffets. Lannes spoke of this to Dominique who made no reply.

‘At least we’re relieved of a German presence,’ Lannes said. Dominique merely nodded. The rest of the meal passed in silence.

Maurice de Grimaud was waiting for them on the platform at Vichy. He shook hands with Lannes and embraced Dominique.

‘It’s so good to see you,’ he said. ‘I’ve really been looking forward so much to your arrival and to working with you.’

He explained that for the moment he had arranged that Dominique should share his room.

‘You’ve no idea how hard it is to find accommodation here,’ he said. ‘The town’s simply packed, it’s exhilarating. I hope you didn’t find difficulty, sir, in obtaining a hotel room?’

It was obvious that Dominique was eager to be off with his friend. He submitted to Lannes’ embrace and to the suggestion that they should meet the following evening before Lannes returned to Bordeaux the next morning.

Maurice said, ‘I understand you are meeting my father for lunch tomorrow. He asked me to confirm that with you.’

The boys set off, chattering, Dominique evidently relieved to be free of his father.

As for Lannes himself, what was left to him but the opportunity to do nothing, to walk the streets of the spa town on a beautiful summer evening? It was all a sort of make-believe. He could pretend that he was on holiday, carefree, just as all the functionaries gathered here could pretend that they constituted the government of France. No doubt they were fully occupied, drafting minutes and papers, in the manner of functionaries, and plotting against each other, in the manner of functionaries; but it amounted to nothing. Which was not to say that Vichy hadn’t, in the eleven months of its existence, passed innumerable laws and issued countless decrees. Oh yes, it was a busy little world, no matter how futile. ‘Achtung,’ the Boches snapped, and Vichy sprang to attention.

Lannes settled himself on the terrace of a café and ordered a beer. The terrace was crowded, as it would have been before the war, but with this difference. Many of its clients were young – younger than Lannes anyway – and some were in uniform. In the days of peace the clientèle would mostly have been in Vichy to take the waters, sick people or rich ones who had been persuaded by their expensive doctors that their health required a sojourn in the spa town.

A girl at the next table laughed. She was leaning back in her chair, her glossy black hair resting on her shoulders. The movement of laughter had pulled her skirt up to reveal a stretch of thigh. Her companion – husband? lover? – reached forward to tug the skirt down. The morality of the National Revolution? Not so: his hand rested there, pressing on her thigh. She swung forward, bringing her elbows down on the table and cupping her chin in her hands. They gazed into each other’s eyes. The man – scarcely more than a boy – took one of her hands and raised it to his lips. He wore the blue uniform of the Service de l’Ordre Légionairre. He was telling her how he and his mates had ‘turfed’ a Jewess out of her apartment and taken it over. ‘So we can go there,’ he said. The girl crossed her legs, trapping his hand between them. ‘That’s good,’ she said, and her forefinger played lightly on his mouth.

Lannes thought of them as he lay in his hotel bed. It was a hot night and he could not sleep. They would be making love now, happily, perhaps in the bed which belonged to the evicted woman. And where would she have found to rest? The girl had been lovely, and the boy, with his smooth skin and laughing eyes, nice-looking. Were they naturally vicious, or were they infected by the mood of the times? Neither thought was agreeable.

It still felt like holiday in the morning. The sky was blue, with only a few little wispy clouds, and a gentle breeze blew from the mountains. A troop of schoolchildren passed chattering as he took his coffee on the terrace of a café next door to his hotel. It was strange to see no German uniforms in the streets. When he went to be shaved, the barber was eager to talk about football. ‘I’m a rugby man myself,’ Lannes said, ‘from the south-west,’ and wondered if he would ever watch Alain play again. He had half an hour before his appointment with Bracal’s friend; nothing to do but stroll, as aimlessly as visitors to the spa must often have strolled on summer mornings to fill in time before they were due to take the waters or have their next appointment with their doctor. He admired the flower-stalls in the square in front of the monument to the fallen in his war, and thought how they would have delighted Marguerite. Vichy was really charming, he had to admit. There was a light-opera feel to the town; it was as if the air was filled with music by Offenbach.

The office occupied by Travaux Rurales was, suitably, above a branch of the Crédit Agricole, and the secretary at the desk was a burly young man who looked as if he would be at home behind a plough. And why not, in this town where everything seemed to Lannes to belong to the theatre, where the Marshal was playing at being a Head of State and where one day the curtain would descend, bringing an end to the make-believe?

Naturally he had to wait; it would not do for someone playing the role of a zealous official to receive him on time, destroying the illusion that he was overburdened with work. Lannes was content to play his part too and sat and smoked three or four cigarettes while the fan suspended from the ceiling turned slowly. The burly young man stamped papers and sighed. Then he got up and disappeared, leaving Lannes alone. Eventually he returned and said, ‘He can see you now.’

‘Ah, my friend Bracal’s friend.’

Lannes was surprised to find that the man greeting him looked no more than thirty. He was short, thick-set with a broad face dominated by a huge nose. He had bounded from his desk to shake Lannes’ hand, with none of the lassitude Lannes already associated with Vichy. The handshake was vigorous, even crushing, and there was a sparkle in his brown eyes. His accent was of the Midi and his smile was welcoming.