The Forger (34 page)

The next day, a call came through to the atelier, where Pankratov and I were mixing paints. Fleury was there, too. He lay flat on his back on the stage, silently puffing a corn-silk cigarette. He let the smoke leak from his mouth. It wound in gray ribbons up toward the rafters.

Pankratov picked up the receiver.

I could hear someone shouting over the phone.

Pankratov’s eyes were wide with surprise. He held the receiver away from his ear.

When the person on the other end paused for breath, Pankratov tried to speak. “But,” he said, “how were we to know?”

The shouting started up again, this time even louder.

Pankratov looked at Fleury and me. He shook his head wearily. “Yes,” he said to the receiver. “Yes, I understand.” Then he hung up. He stood there in silence, still dazed from the barrage of insults. “That was Abetz. He’s furious that we let Dietrich have the Penni drawing. He says we promised him all Italian drawings.”

“No, we didn’t,” said Fleury. These were the first words he had spoken in almost an hour.

Pankratov and I looked at each other and shrugged. Neither of us had made that promise, either.

“He just wants an excuse to get mad at us,” I said.

“He had demanded that one of you meet him at a restaurant in Montmartre tonight,” said Pankratov. “It’s a place called La Mère Cathérine. It’s up on the Place du Tertre in the old part of town.”

I walked over to the phone. “I’m calling Dietrich,” I said.

“Why?” asked Fleury, still staring at the ceiling.

“He told us to ring him if Abetz ever gave us any trouble. Personally, I don’t feel like going up against Abetz, when the man’s worked himself into a frenzy.” There was no protest from Fleury or Pankratov, so I dialed Dietrich’s number.

“Moment.”
It was Grimm’s voice.

Then I heard Dietrich’s brassy voice. I explained about Abetz. When I gave the name of the restaurant, I heard Dietrich snap his fingers at someone in the room and then I heard the scrabble of him writing down the information. “We never did agree to give him old Italian drawings,” I told him.

“Of course not.” Dietrich’s voice was soothing and comradely. “The man’s out of his mind. Listen, I want you to go to the meeting. Be as friendly as you can. Tell him what he wants to hear. If he wants you to promise him Italian drawings, then make the promise. Do you follow me?”

“Yes,” I said uncertainly.

“No harm will come to you,” said Dietrich. “You’re going to have to trust me. David, I will not let you down.” This was the first time he called me by my Christian name. I didn’t know what to make of it.

Afterwards, I explained to the others what Dietrich had said.

By now, Fleury had lit himself another cigarette. He remained on his back, staring at the ceiling as if in a trance. The only movement was the regular sweep of his hand to his mouth and then down to his side. Lately, he was often like this.

I thought it would probably have been a better idea if Fleury went to the meeting. He would do a better job of sweet-talking Abetz than I ever could, and sending Pankratov to make small talk was out of the question. But Fleury didn’t offer to go, and in the shape he was in just then, I didn’t want to ask.

La Mère Cathérine was in a small park, at the top of Rue Norvin. The park lay in the shadow of the church of Sacré-Cœur and little tables were set out amongst the trees. Each tree was girdled by tall metal railings. The tables were busy, and tended by waiters from a café called Au Cadet de Gascogne, which had musicians playing inside. La Mère Cathérine was a few buildings down the cobbled street, with a few of its own tables set out on the sidewalk. The front of the building was glossy black and lace curtains hung in the lower half of the two front windows. The ceiling inside was hammered tin, painted white, and the walls were painted red. It was a lively place, and I wished I’d known about it before the price of a good meal had gone through the roof.

I looked through the window for Abetz, but couldn’t see him. Then I felt a hand against my arm.

It was Lieutenant Behr. He was sitting at one of the outside tables, wearing civilian clothes. “I saved us a place,” he said.

There were two more chairs at the small table, and three places set for dinner.

I told him about Fleury not being able to make it. Behr shrugged to show it didn’t matter. “Where’s Abetz?” I asked.

“He’ll come for a drink in an hour or so. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.” He seemed genuinely apologetic about this.

“I guess you’re stuck with me, too,” I said.

“Not for long.” He grinned and looked like a kid. “I got a transfer. I’ve been putting in for one practically every month. I think I must have worn them down. Or maybe they felt bad for me that my mother died a few weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. But then I knew why he had got his transfer, and I was happy and sad for him at the same time.

“I’m going to be part of the Sixth Army,” he said.

The waiter appeared, long apron and short black jacket and the seriousness of a man expecting a big tip.

“Do you like coffee?” Behr asked me.

“Monsieur,” said the waiter with a slight bow, “there is only Café National.”

“I like real coffee,” said Behr. “And I like it at the beginning of a meal. It’s a strange habit, I know.”

“Monsieur,” said the waiter. He was about to explain again that there was no real coffee when Behr pulled a screwcap Bakelite box from his pocket. It was round and about an inch tall, just small enough to fit into my outstretched hand, and the Bakelite was orangey-yellow.

When he unscrewed the cap, I could smell the coffee inside.

The waiter was watching him. There was a gentleness behind his deep-set eyes and frowning, dark mustache.

“Bring us two
cafetières
of boiling water,” Behr said to the waiter.

The waiter disappeared back through the crowded restaurant into the kitchen. People shuffled by in the dark, silhouettes trailing cigarette smoke.

“Mr. Abetz thought you might appreciate not being in the stuffy surroundings where you normally meet him. He can be unstuffy, too.”

“What did you want to talk about?” I asked.

“First of all, Ambassador Abetz would like to apologize for his outburst earlier today. He would like you to know that he can match any favorable treatment you are receiving from Dietrich. Abetz means what he says, too.” Behr spoke as if he had memorized what he was going to say. “You could be a great asset to him, you and Monsieur Fleury, and believe me, a German ambassador is a good friend to have these…”

At that moment, everything seemed to stop moving. A huge crashing explosion surrounded me. Muscles clenched in bands across my chest. It sounded as if a truck had smashed into the restaurant directly behind me. I heard breaking glass. Then the explosion was gone. In its place came a ringing that blanketed all other sounds. It flashed through my head that I might be having a heart attack. I seemed to be falling over. Then I realized that it was Behr who was falling.

He tipped against the window. His head struck the glass so hard that the pane broke in bright lightning bolts up into the shiny black frame. His chair collapsed underneath him. He rolled onto the sidewalk.

The place where his head had struck the glass was bloody. Blood in the silver lines. There was more blood on the tablecloth and on the cutlery and the glasses.

I couldn’t understand where it had come from. I looked down at my chest, expecting to see some great gaping wound, but there was nothing except flecks of red on my white shirt.

People inside the restaurant were looking out into the dark, to see where the noise had come from. A woman pointed to the broken glass where Behr’s head had struck. Her husband jumped up, his chair flipping over. He grabbed the woman and pushed her down on the floor and then got down on the floor himself. Somebody shouted. Then somebody screamed.

I turned around to see a man standing in the street, almost on top of me.

It was Tombeau. His eyes were wild. He was holding a large revolver. Smoke drifted from the barrel and the chamber of the gun.

Only then did I realize that he had shot Behr.

Tombeau looked down at me. The gun was aimed right in my face.

I just sat there, staring back at him, too confused to be terrified.

“Courtesy of Mr. Dietrich.” Tombeau’s voice was thick and slow. “You’d better get out of here, before the police arrive.” He turned around and walked away into the dark, across the little park, right by the tables where people were eating their dinner. The gun was still in his hand and he made no move to put it away. No one tried to stop him. Some people dove under their tables. One man put his hands in front of his eyes. Others sat there in shock, watching him go by.

I stood, feeling shaky, and stepped around to the other side of the table.

Behr lay on his side. His mouth and eyes were half open and his head was wreathed in shadow. Beside him lay a white ashtray, which must have fallen off the table.

The waiter pushed his way through the crowd that had begun to gather at the door. He stepped carefully over Behr’s body. “Who did this?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I had just realized that the ashtray was not an ashtray, but the top of Behr’s skull. In the lamplight by the door, it looked strange and pink and rippled, like the inside of an oyster shell. Blood spread out thick and dark as tar from under his body. It fanned out across the pavement, as if it knew where it was going.

The restaurant customers piled into the street. Others came over from the park. They all stared down at the body. A man in a bowtie caught sight of the Bakelite box of coffee, still open on the table. He leaned past me, avoiding my glance, carefully screwed the top back on the box, and put it in his pocket and walked away down the street.

I ran. I sprinted down the Rue Berthe and crossed over onto Rue des Trois Frères and across the Boulevard Rochechouart, and after that, I had no idea what streets I took except it was almost an hour later that I reached the river at the Pont Neuf. I stopped running then. My throat was raw and my shirt was stuck to my back with sweat. I forced myself to walk across the bridge onto the Isle de la Cité. Then I went down to the point that juts out into the Seine, the Place du Vert Galant, which in the daytime was usually crowded with people fishing. The place was deserted now. My watch had steamed up and stopped. I had no idea what time it was, except that it was long after curfew. I sat down by the water. I wrapped my arms around my knees and started shaking and when I finished shaking I wept for the first time in as long as I could remember.

I didn’t know if I was crying for Behr, or for myself, or the breaking strain of always wondering whether the paintings I did were good enough, trying not to think about what would happen if we were caught, and how if we were caught it would be my fault and Madame Pontier with her crumpled, unsmiling lips would say she had known all along that I would fail them. Fleury and Pankratov and I were just as likely to be killed by the French for doing our job well as we were to be killed by the Germans for not doing it well enough. Until this moment, I thought I had it all safely battened down inside me. The weight and measurement of risk. But I was wrong.

I remembered the dream I’d had of how Paris would be before I arrived. The picture-postcard views, soft-focused with the hope of what my time here would bring me. I glimpsed and felt it all suddenly and clearly, like remembering a dream from the night before as you fall asleep.

“Look at you now,” I said to myself.

The blood-dark river rushed by. The water seemed to pulse against the pale stone banks, as if threatening to flood and drown the city in its endless arterial flow.

*   *   *

I
N THE NEWS TWO
days later was a report about the shooting of Albrecht Behr, age twenty-two, holder of the Iron Cross first class. The blame was laid on a Communist group called the Front Populaire. In reprisal, twenty suspected Communists were shot up at Mont Válerin.

A bottle of champagne arrived from Dietrich, along with a note telling us not to worry.

There was nothing to do but get on with the work.

We never did hear from Abetz again.

Chapter Fourteen

F
ROM THEN ON, WE
dealt only with Dietrich.

When he brought along Touchard to authenticate, it seemed to be more for the amusement Dietrich could get out of the slippery little man than for the skill Touchard had to offer. I was left with the impression that Dietrich used Touchard only because he had been ordered to do so, and that he would rather have taken our word over the authenticator’s. Touchard was no expert, anyway. Often, he had no idea who was supposed to have done the painting, let alone whether or not it was authentic. Dietrich confided in us that Touchard had been forced upon him by the directors of the ERR, since Touchard was the brother of a prominent director of the Milice in the city of Lille, who had pulled strings to get him the post.

When it came to ridiculing Touchard, Dietrich couldn’t help himself. The two men disliked each other instinctively. Dietrich was tall and solid and jovial, while Touchard was frail and long-suffering. He returned Dietrich’s mockery with a martyred silence that made Dietrich like him even less.

“Come along, Sniffles,” Dietrich would say, since Touchard always seemed to be suffering from a cold that rosied his nose.

Dietrich’s legs were much longer than Touchard’s and Dietrich had a habit of striding quickly everywhere he went. This left Touchard trotting along behind, glaring hatefully at Dietrich’s back as he struggled to keep up.

By contrast, Touchard had grown very attached to Fleury. Fleury, too, seemed to find in Touchard a kindred spirit. It wasn’t hard to imagine the experiences they had in common. Both men were physically unimpressive. They had doubtless suffered the fate of all non-athletic boys in school, immediately reduced to second-class citizens, and too intelligent not to be insulted by the unfairness of it. I could see the same loathing on Touchard’s face when he spoke to Dietrich as I had seen on Fleury’s when he had to deal with Tombeau. Both men looked lonely, not just alone. They had built for themselves fortresses of arrogance from whose ramparts they could hawk and spit on the rest of the world that ignored them.