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Authors: Aleksandr Voinov

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BOOK: Nightingale
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The German briefly pursed his lips. “You’ve caught me without a riposte.”

“Ah, so you fence?”

Von Starck straightened, squared his shoulders. “I was local champion in Heidelberg.”

A prestigious university town. But the sincerity in von Starck’s demeanor was so German it was comical. Gone was all lightness once you asked a personal question, and especially when the possibility arose to impress with achievement. German to the very core. Predictable, too.

“My congratulations.” Yves smiled, noticing how Julia pulled back, leaving him alone with the oberst as if they needed privacy.

“Oh, but that was fifteen years ago,” von Starck said with an air of—not humility—irony that caught Yves off-guard. Self-deprecation was entirely un-German, and he noticed, again, the clever, perceptive eyes, but with them, the intelligent forehead, the long, strong nose, a mouth that hinted more at determination than passion. His dark brown hair was cut neatly and not particularly like the hair of a soldier.

Von Starck filled out the gray and green uniform well—he had the physique of a bull, and at the same time he resembled something unmovable, something, once left alone, that would grow roots and span open an enormous canopy if nobody took an ax to it.

“I heard you sing . . . I believe it was in the Licorne? There are so many establishments in this city, it might have been a different one.”

“Blue and golden décor? Menus in German and French?”

“I believe that would be the place.” Von Starck smiled. “You haven’t appeared there for a while, or maybe I kept missing you.”

“No, that is correct. I was standing in for Charles Gutman.” Yves knew he shouldn’t have mentioned the name, because this could only end badly.

“What about him? Has he fallen ill?”

“No. He’s a Jew.”

Von Starck straightened, then turned to take two champagne glasses off a passing tray, offered him one. Yves was tempted to refuse, but von Starck took hold of his elbow. Yves moved along, attempting to not spill the champagne and too surprised to resist.

Von Starck opened the door to the balcony and motioned him outside. “What do you want?” Yves asked, now putting the glass down on the stone rail.

“Was Gutman a close friend of yours?”

Yves lifted an eyebrow at the use of ‘was.’ The German was too precise to have chosen the tense by accident. “He’s a gifted singer.” And a special friend of Maurice’s, but that was more than he was willing to admit.

Von Starck seemed to consider that for a while and took a mouthful of champagne—to win time, maybe. Or for the benefit of any onlooker several floors down on the street. “When did he leave?”

“Last month.”

“Where did he go?”

“You tell me. His apartment was trashed. Half the furniture stolen, the rest ruined.” Yves tensed his jaw, felt that familiar tightness in his chest that came from swallowing anger, annoyance, and, truth be told, fear. He’d eaten so much fear in the last eighteen months that he barely noticed the taste anymore.

Von Starck straightened abruptly. He seemed to try to find additional inches every time he did that, while Yves was convinced he already displayed himself at his full height. “I am sincerely sorry,
monsieur
.”

Yves shrugged and pushed his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Yes, Jews don’t have any good press in France, either.” But losing the singers, dancers, writers, musicians left scars all over Paris. He hadn’t even known Gutman had been Jewish until Maurice had told him. With his matinée idol looks and easy smile, he couldn’t have been further removed from the hook-nosed, foreign-looking threat of the posters.

He turned to look down at the street, people walking on foot, a few
vélo
-taxis and bicycles, but the streets were quiet. He could see a hint of the Seine beyond the block of houses and a shadow of the Île de la Cité. This, he thought. Not the man at his back. He took a strange solace from that thought when he suddenly felt a touch on the arm. There was nobody else on the balcony to take that liberty.

“So where do you sing these days?” The hand didn’t move away from his arm, and Yves refused to acknowledge it with a glance or protest.

“Chez Martine, most days. Bars, cafés.”

“I’d expect you in the Palace or Folies Bergère
.

“There is a lot of competition for those places. You’d need a friend to get a contract.”

“Ah, I assume that is true.”

Yves finally turned around and saw an odd concern in the officer’s face. “If you want to hear me, you’ll have to come to Chez Martine.”

The man straightened
again
, like he had received a challenge, but he took his hand off. “Have you heard anything from your friend? Where they took him?”

“No.” Yves pushed away from the rail and glanced through the glass windows in the door. “You might want to meet Maurice. It seems he’s just arrived.”

Chapter 3

 

There was always noise when Maurice arrived—noise and uproar, always causing a riot and sensation. Maurice effortlessly swept up his surroundings and pulled them along, not slowing down in the least.

“Yves, darling, you look gorgeous tonight,” Maurice boomed, as he drew Yves into a tight hug against his much larger frame. “Who’s your handsome officer?” he whispered near Yves’s ear. “Should I be jealous?”

“Of whom?” Yves asked, earning him an almost painfully loud laugh, but he managed to escape before Maurice slapped him on the back. The man didn’t know his own strength at times. “Maurice, Oberst Heinrich von Starck.”

“Ah, one of our gallant conquerors.” Maurice’s tone lingered somewhere between irony and innuendo, and he smiled when von Starck immediately clicked his heels. Any moment now Maurice would offer his hand for a kiss, Yves feared, but Maurice seemed to think better of it. “Maurice Lefèvre.”

Yves looked around for a drink, then noticed that Julia was beginning to usher her guests to the dinner table. He turned and indicated her, cutting short the pleasantries exchanged between the two.

That, however, did nothing to extricate him from the situation. Sure enough, Maurice planted Yves between himself and von Starck, so much like the Ardennes Forest—the French on one side and the German on the other.

The food and wines were excellent as always. Julia prided herself on the quality and abundance of what was served, as if ration cards didn’t exist and money didn’t matter, but nobody commented on it. Not even those writers who were no longer allowed to publish and refused to sell stories to the German-controlled press. Levoisin, especially, looked like the monthly outings at
Madame
Julia’s salon were the only times he got a decent meal. Yves knew Julia had the cook pack him some leftovers, which by all accounts he had either to eat himself on the following days or share with his pug dog, a beast as destructive as it was cute.

“We should really talk business, Yves,” Maurice said when the servants began gathering the dishes.

Von Starck reached for his wine glass, but Yves noticed the flickering attention from him at those words.

Now it was a matter of not being caught lying. “I’m fully engaged at the moment.”

“Aren’t you involved with the Palace, Monsieur Lefèvre?”

Maurice glanced at Yves as if to make sure he wouldn’t use the distraction to flee, then smiled widely at von Starck. “Few things I’m not involved in.”

“Wouldn’t you agree that Monsieur Lacroix would make a fetching addition to your roster?”

Maurice’s grin only grew sharper. “I’d never disagree on that count. It’s getting Yves here to sign a contract with me that’s the trouble. Short of chloroforming him and dragging him off, I’ve tried everything else.” Maurice turned to Yves. “And all that, even though you know I pay more than Martine or any of the others do. We draw a completely different quality of crowd.”

Which was true. Before the invasion, the Palace served Parisian notables, politicians, bankers, actors, directors, and everybody with large pockets and a larger desire to have a good time. Allegedly, they still came. Or, as Maurice had said the last time they’d had this conversation, “Everybody who hasn’t pissed off to Cannes or Vichy at the sound of rolling tanks.”

“I’m trying to stay humble,” Yves said. “Which isn’t easy in your venues . . . or your company.”

Von Starck made a sound as if clearing his throat, but Yves was fairly sure it had actually been a chuckle.

“Ah, my boy, I’m sure, if given half a chance, they’d worship you no less than I . . .
worship
you.”

The sly glance over the wine glass ran like clear, hot burning spirit down Yves’s spine. Damn Maurice for bringing that up, and in company.

“You’re making me curious,
Monsieur
Lefèvre,” Von Starck said in a warm, low tone.

Maurice grinned at him. “Yes, I assumed you were.” A hint of a pause, a flutter of dark eyelashes. “Curious, that is.”

For such a large man, Maurice could be intensely sensuous and flirtatious, and Yves’s breath caught while he watched the German respond to it. Maurice was at least two inches taller and thirty kilos heavier than von Starck, who looked very much the settled warrior, while Maurice was all showman and business.

Von Starck leaned back, then glanced over his shoulder when a waiter approached with dessert. Ice cream and pears, served in crystal bowls and with a polished silver spoon. “I would assume that a man such as you would be well served to be a good judge of character.” The hint of an emphasis on “man” imbued an impressive amount of double meaning for the German.

Maurice received his dessert with the dignity of royalty. “I would think you’d make a beautiful addition to my guests at the Palace.”

Yves glanced up, alarmed at the proposition, but Maurice lifted his meaty hand off the white tablecloth as if to silence him.

Von Starck eyed him, cautiously, thoroughly now, and clearly judging Maurice’s character. “I’m here to embrace French culture, and learn as much as I can.”

Maurice laughed. “And some French are willing to be embraced.” He dug into his pears with obvious glee, while Yves wondered if von Starck would finally be scandalized and call him out, but no such thing happened. Von Starck, while not quite as quick on the draw as Maurice—especially in his non-native language—wasn’t that easily caught on his wrong foot. Maybe the innuendo just didn’t translate into German. It seemed like a language to give orders in rather than make love or speak of desire.

“Then I’ll gladly accept your invitation.” Von Starck looked like he was about to click his heels even while sitting, returning to that stiff officer pose.

“I’ll have you added to the guest list.”

“Thank you. It’s much appreciated.”

Maurice smiled, radiating smug satisfaction. “Now I’ll have to wear down Yves’s resistance to the idea of appearing on my stage.” He turned toward Yves, who knew when he was trapped. He was already nearly exposed as a liar, though he appreciated that von Starck didn’t call him out on it. “I’ll double your fee if you appear on Saturdays.”

“I’m engaged at Chez Martine on Saturdays.”

“Every second week, then. Come on, Yves. You’re better than that. He’s really funny when he manages to not look sick onstage,
Herr Oberst
.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed he is anything but in command.”

Yves sighed and lifted his hands. “I can’t make it. I often sing right until curfew.”

“Then come after curfew.”

Yves shot him an ironic glance. “They call it ‘curfew’ for a reason. And if I stay up until the morning, I’m wrecked for days. I’m not eighteen anymore.”

“No, that’s true, but you’re maturing quite nicely.” Maurice reached over to pat his hand.

“I could pick you up at Chez Martine and take you to the Palace,” von Starck said. “And get you home after the performance.”

“Ah, such a gentleman,” Maurice called out in delight, making Yves want to hide. It would be very difficult to get out of this now.

“It’s the least I can do for the invitation,” von Starck said smoothly.

“Well, then. Seems you both have decided.” Yves couldn’t help but laugh at the thought that these two had conspired to get him into the Palace. And while he resented being steamrolled, the money was excellent, and it was flattering. He’d just have to live with the fact that the stage fright at such a grand venue could very well be the death of him.

Chapter 4

 

Only when he’d arrived home, belly full of red wine and more food than he was used to, did he remember that Maurice might have been able to help him with the soldier’s hat. He couldn’t trust von Starck with this; the risk was too enormous. After all, despite the man’s obvious qualities and even more obvious desire to please, he was still one of
them
.

He put the hat down on the kitchen table like some meat he’d managed to acquire on the market. In stark contrast to the bustle and noise and smoke at Julia’s, his own flat was small and silent. A bit shabby, too, because somehow he’d never really felt at home there. He’d rented the place after returning from the camp and had never gotten around to throwing some fresh paint on the walls or rearranging the furniture. It suited him, though, as a place to sleep and sometimes write.

He had a desk in the living room, but for whatever reason, despite the beautiful view that included la Tour Eiffel, Paris’s Iron Lady, the muse refused to kiss him there. He ended up writing his best material in the kitchen, looking at nothing but a crammed-in backyard, surrounded on all sides by high, gray facades. Invariably, the view filled him with a desire to escape to his mother’s house in the countryside where he could see more sky and rolling fields. And yet, the thought of leaving Paris made him sick to his heart. Until his soul had decided between the two, he’d stay put.

Barely bothering to undress, Yves fell into bed.

He lay there, willing the room to settle down and stop lurching. It proved unwilling to obey. He was drunk and by all rights should be exhausted from the performance and the crowd at Julia’s, but something kept him awake.

He got up again to pick up the hat and stuff it into the bottom of his wardrobe.

Yves remembered well how he’d come to Maurice the first time, auditioning for a part of a bill in one of Maurice’s various clubs. Any part, really. He’d hoped that returning to the stage would get him back on his own two feet after his release from the camp, allow him to pay rent, eat, maybe move on with his life. Everybody he’d asked had told him that Maurice was the man to impress, especially after he’d bought a controlling interest in the Palace. And Maurice was as intrepid a nightclub owner as he was everything else. For one, he’d reached some level of infamy for being the first to put on a show after the months that Paris’s nightlife had been shut down after the invasion.

“They like looking at naked dancers, too,” he’d said. “Even the Germans are just men.”

Yves’s heart had sunk when he’d seen the long line of singers and entertainers queuing up for an interview. Surely, all the places would be taken before it was his turn, but a mixture of dogged despair and a modicum of hope anchored him in the queue.

When the door opened, Maurice had looked past all their faces, sighed dramatically, and rather than admit the next one in the line, he, seemingly at random, chose a young man standing just before Yves, and called him into the office. Yves expected to hear singing next, but nothing. Five minutes later, the door burst open, and the young man came running out, almost falling over his own legs.

Maurice appeared a little later, grinning like a cat, and lifted an eyebrow at the disquieted queue of prospective employees. “One singer. Male.” Barely glancing at the young ladies who turned and left now, Maurice then swaggered over to Yves’s side. “You. And don’t waste my time.”

Yves had stepped out of the line and walked into the office. Maurice came after him, closed the door, and studied him. “Where are you from? The South?”

“Paris,
monsieur
.”

“Your parents, then?”

“No.” Yves was undecided whether disclosing the name of his mother would get him a job, but decided he didn’t want to embarrass either of them.

“I have to say, I like your hair.”

Yves blinked and didn’t quite understand when Maurice ran a finger through his hair.

“You’re not curling them, are you?”

“No,
monsieur
.”

The fingers in his hair tightened, and suddenly Maurice’s lips pressed to his. Yves was too surprised to resist, giving a start, but he didn’t fight the man off. Something thrilled him, maybe the strong hand that held him in place, maybe the shocking proximity, and definitely the other hand pressing flat against his groin, rubbing him through his trousers, wanton and forbidden, yet arousing him immediately. Maurice broke the kiss to breathe into his ear: “If you want to sing, you’ll have to sing for me first.”

The hand stroking him left no room for interpretation, and Yves was breathless, confused and excited—and quite possibly too stupid to tell him to stop and that he wasn’t—

He could almost lose himself in those deft touches. He didn’t resist when Maurice pushed him toward the leather sofa and then down on it. “Open your legs.”

Yves obeyed, watched, almost impassive, how the man opened his trousers and pulled them down just enough to bare his groin.

“Oh, but this is your most beautiful part,” Maurice said in a sing-song, pressed a hand flat on his belly and opened his lips to engulf him. Yves almost cried out, the feeling was just too intense, wetness and heat and strength, the man on his knees before him, suckling on his dick with a passion and enthusiasm that made Yves feel almost more helpless than he already was.

He couldn’t have broken away even if he hadn’t fully enjoyed this, as mortifying as it was, letting a man he’d never met before do this to him. Do something he’d known existed, but not between men. Not like this, in return for employment. But at the same time, it felt so good, the small wet sounds from Maurice only heightening the pleasure, the feeling of breath on his wet skin, tongue snaking around the very top of his dick, rubbing him there, while the strong hand kept sliding below. He gritted his teeth when his muscles all locked, his head arched back into the leather cushions, and he reached a sudden, almost violent climax, noticing, but only barely, that Maurice kept sucking on him throughout the dizzying moments.

He relaxed back into the couch, ready to fall asleep then and there, when Maurice stood, delicately wiped his mouth on a white handkerchief, and patted his cheek. “I believe you’re suitable, my boy.”

“What about . . . the singing?”

“Oh, I have no doubt you can sing.” Maurice brushed a thumb over his lips. “I’ll teach you what else you need to know.”

And that he certainly did. Maurice often referred to himself as a showman, but his greatest skill was to pleasure another man with his mouth. Back then, Yves hadn’t been aware that he was merely one in a long line of men who received that kind of attention—and was painstakingly taught how to please Maurice back. To him, that particular practice would forever be tied up in the taste and color of absinthe, as they’d traded shots of alcohol and blowjobs in Maurice’s outrageous villa stuffed full of paintings and sculptures and, in secret places, whole bookshelves of erotic art.

Maurice introduced him to a lot of other men, who, Yves understood, shared their particular tastes, but often enough, Maurice simply trawled the bars that catered to their kind. Maurice didn’t care whether he made love to a ballet dancer of the Paris Opera or a street hustler. “Cock is cock,” he’d say, making Yves laugh when he was drunk and wistful when he’d sobered.

It became clear after a few weeks that Maurice moved on easily. He was like that with food, too. He could be insatiable for one dish, eating barely anything else for two or three weeks, then losing interest as suddenly as completely. That was the way things went—with so many words, he indicated that he was done with Yves, and Yves wasn’t even sure how he should feel about it. What else had connected them but pleasure and money? Nothing really.

Yves opened the window to his balcony, letting the cool autumn night in. Absolute silence. No car horns, not even drunken singing. The only people now on the street were soldiers and policemen, ready to grab anybody violating curfew. Back before all this had happened, Paris had been a city that never slept. Even now, it didn’t sleep—merely cowered under the boot of the invader.

Urgent knocking on his front door tore him out of the gloom, and he went to open it before he had weighed the options or dangers. After curfew. Whoever was outside needed to get off the street as quickly as possible. He stopped himself and glanced through the peephole, half-expecting to see uniforms or Gestapo outside, ready to take him away for talking like he had to a German officer.

“Open the door,” Édith said as he made out her pale face in the darkness of the corridor.

He obeyed and she pushed in, closing the door behind herself. She wore a flat cap like just any Parisian worker, along with baggy trousers and a blouse, giving her a mannish look with her short hair.

“What are you still—?”

“Why are you—?”

Yves stopped himself and waved for her to finish her sentence.

“You should be asleep.”

“I wasn’t.” Yves shrugged. “Too much food doesn’t sit well with me after a performance.”

She scoffed at him, but then kissed his cheeks. “You do need to look after yourself better.” It sounded less like concern and more like an order.

“I’m not the one creeping around well past midnight. Are you mad?”

“I can hardly do my job without it.”

“You’re a student. What kind of job is that?” He reached for the heavy bag slung from her shoulder, and she stared at him in defiance. He tossed the flap back and saw a thick pile of papers. “What is that?”

She reached inside and plucked one sheet free.

“Voice of the Latin Quarter?” He glanced at the printed headlines, noticing words like “murder,” “arrest,” and “Jews,” and his stomach fell to his toes. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m fighting,” she said, very seriously. “What every French
man
and Frenchwoman should be doing.”

He flinched at the implication, that he hadn’t, and that he didn’t, and that he wasn’t much of a man, either. But with her fiery temper, they’d only end up shouting at each other. “Come in. Good God. What kind of people have you fallen in with?”

She strode into the kitchen and tossed her cap on the table, a gesture as easy and grand as if there were anybody to be impressed. “Somebody has to spread the news. The Germans are only telling us lies, and the people need to understand what’s really going on.”

Yves busied himself making coffee, which gave him time to assemble his thoughts. He needed to stay calm and reasonable, or she’d storm off again, possibly into the arms of a German patrol. What they would do if they saw what she was carrying . . . he didn’t want to think about it.

“Who came up with this?” He turned toward her with two mugs in his hands, setting one down in front of her.

“You don’t want to know their names.”

He sat down and skimmed over the page. It wasn’t a “newspaper” as it so grandly proclaimed, just a densely printed flyer. “There aren’t that many printing presses at the university.”

She pursed her lips. “If we print there.”

“We. And you’re handing them out?”

“I’m just dropping them off.”

Yves closed his eyes, sick to his stomach with the danger of it. “How many are you carrying?”

“Now? About two hundred. Why?”

She’d never relent, and he could hardly lock her up. And while she had chosen higher education when he’d taken up work, he wasn’t sure he could appeal to her rational mind, or even that he’d be heard at all. “You know how dangerous that is.”

“For a woman, you mean?”

“For
any
body. Édith, please.” He reached over to touch her hand, noting a smudge of ink on her fingers. He could just see her labor over the press. She might even have written some of the articles. Hell, for all he knew, she could have planned and executed this madcap plan.

“Somebody has to do it.”

But not you. It’s dangerous.
And what kind of coward was he? But he had actually seen what bullets and shells did to a human body. He just didn’t have the heart of a fighter. Nothing was worth another war, and killing, and all that death that the Germans would dish out if they met with resistance. He shuddered at the memory of the silver skull, the black cap, and the feverish, pale blue eyes of a dying man. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind.

“Why are you doing it?”

She frowned. “We’re all doing it. Everybody in the group, of course.”

“Of course.” Yves wanted to tear at his hair but kept his hands around the mug. “And where do you get that . . . information?”

“BBC radio.”

“Also illegal.” And dangerous. Good God, this was getting worse by the minute.

“But it’s the only truth we’re getting,” she shot back.

“From the British?” Yves couldn’t help but laugh. “Fine help they’ve been so far.”

She glared at him, took a mouthful of the coffee, then snatched her cap, getting up. “I have to go. I need to finish this.”

“Édith, no.” Yves jumped to his feet and moved into her way. For a moment he thought she’d shoulder into him, like she had as a young tomboy, before any of their mother’s teachings about how to behave had gained any traction.

BOOK: Nightingale
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