The World at Night (35 page)

“Well?”

“I can’t.”

“You must try!”

“My feet won’t move.”

“Ach.”

Teeth clenched with fury, Werner wriggled through the window then stood on the ledge. “Just stay still,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

Casson drove the tips of his fingers through the moss, into the shallow crack. Werner stepped daintily off the ledge, made sure of his balance, then, leaning his weight on the roof, began to move slowly sideways. Casson shifted his weight to his hands, lifted his right leg as high as it would go and rammed it back down against the gutter.

Nothing happened.

Until Werner’s next step—then he mewed with fear as the gutter came away. Then he vanished. For part of a second he thought it over, at last allowed himself a loud whine of indignation that ended, briefly, in a scream. The lead gutter hit the cobbles with a dull clatter.

Thirty seconds, Casson thought, no more. The crack between the tiles deepened, and he moved along it quickly. Reached the corner where the two wings of the building met, shinned up the angle to the peak, lay flat on the copper sheathing and tried to catch his breath. As he looked over the other side he saw a row of windows—the same type he’d just crawled out of. The only difference was a narrow spillway, wedged between the slanted roof and a stone parapet.

Now they discovered Werner.

He heard shouts from the courtyard, somebody blew a police whistle, flashlight beams swept everywhere, across the façades of the building and the roof. He rolled off the peak and let himself slide down to the spillway. There he stayed on his knees, looked over the parapet, saw a sheer drop to a narrow street. He had no idea what it might be, the city was a maze—secret courtyards, blind alleyways, sense of direction meant nothing.

He ran along the the spillway, looked in the first window. Blackout curtain. At the next, the curtain was slightly askew. He could see an office in low light, a cleaner in a gray smock was polishing the waxed parquet with a square of sheepskin tied to a broom. Casson tapped on the window.

The man looked up. Casson tapped again. The man walked slowly to the window and tried to see out.
The Lost King,
Casson thought. An old man with snow-white hair and thin lips and rosy skin. He moved the blackout curtain aside and cranked the casement window open a few inches. “What are you doing out there?” he asked.

“I escaped. Over the roof.”

“Escaped? From the Gestapo?”

“Yes.”

“Bon Dieu.”
He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it back, thinking. “Well, over here we’re the National Meteorological office, but, we have our Germans too, of course.” He stopped, the shouts from the courtyard on the other side of the building could just be heard. “Well, then, monsieur, I expect you may want to climb in here, and permit us to hide you.”

25 June, 1941.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning. I was wondering if you have, a certain book.”

“Yes? What would that be?”

“An atlas.”

“Yes? Of what country?”

“France.”

“Perhaps, we could call you back?”

“No. I’ll be in later.”

“But sir . . .”

He hung up.

Not the same person, and, he thought, not French.

German.

25 June, 1941.

The baroness answered the phone in a cool, distant voice. “Hello?”

“Hello. This is your neighbor, from upstairs.”

“Oh. Yes, I see. Are things going well? For you?”

“Not too badly. My friend?”

“Your friend. Has returned to Lyons. I believe, without difficulties.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“You are, you know, very fortunate to have such a friendship.”

“Yes, I do know that.”

“In that case, I hope you are careful.”

“I am. In fact, I ought to be going.”

“Good-bye, then. Perhaps we’ll meet again, some day.”

“Perhaps we will. And, madame, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, monsieur.”

25 June, 1941.

“Galéries Lafayette.”

“Good morning. I’m calling for Véronique, in the buyers’ office.”

“One moment, please.”

“Hello?”

“Hello, may I speak with Véronique, please.”

“I’m sorry, she hasn’t come in today, perhaps she’ll be in tomorrow. Would you care to leave a message?”

“No, no message. I’ll call back tomorrow.”

“Very well. Good-bye,”

“Good-bye.”

A café in the Tenth, busy and crowded. Casson went back to his table. Took a sip of his chicory-laced coffee. The Lost King and his colleagues had been very generous, had given him a shirt, a cap, an old jacket, and a few francs. They had even hit upon a scheme to persuade the Gestapo that their intensive search of the building was likely to prove fruitless— one of the men who took care of the furnace had snuck upstairs to the street floor of the Interior Ministry and, simply enough, left a door open.

Still, kind as they’d been, Casson was in some difficulty. Everything was gone: apartment, office, business, friends, bank accounts, passport. He was down to fourteen francs and Citrine—who would be safe, he thought, as long as she stayed in Lyons and didn’t call attention to herself.

So then,
he asked himself,
what next?
He imagined Fischfang, sitting across the table, ordering the most expensive drink on the menu. Now that the hero has given his pursuers the slip, what becomes of him?
His uncle dies, he inherits.
Casson looked at his watch, but there was nothing on his wrist.

He drank up his coffee, left a tip, and went out to the street. A clock in the window of a jewelry store said 10:10, Casson started walking. A long walk, from the 10th Arrondissement all the way across the river to the Fifth. He had no identity papers, so the Métro, with its snap searches, was dangerous. Besides, he thought, he really couldn’t afford the five sous it cost for a ticket.

A warm day, the city out in its streets. Casson hadn’t shaved, he pulled the worker’s cap down over one eye, walked with hands in pockets. Good camouflage, he thought. Women going off to the shops gave him the once-over—a little worn, this one, could he be refurbished? He took the rue Pavée in the Jewish district, past a chicken store with feathers floating in the air. He saw a tailor at work through an open shop door, the man felt his eyes, looked up from a jacket turned back over its lining, and returned Casson’s wry smile.

He crossed the Seine on the Pont d’Austerlitz, stopped for a time, as he always did, to stare down at the river. Still swollen and mud-colored from the spring rains, it rubbed against the stone piers of the bridge, mysterious in the rolls and swirls of its currents, opaque and dirty and lovely—the soul of its city and everybody who lived there knew it.

He worked his way around the rough edges of the Fifth, avoiding the eyes of Wehrmacht tourists, taking the side streets. The place Maubert was hard on him—the smell of roasting chicken and sour wine was heavy on the air, and Casson was hungry.

The café where he’d met Véronique earlier that spring was deserted, the proprietor rubbing a dry glass with a towel and staring hypnotized into the street. Casson stood at the bar and ordered a coffee. The owner jiggled the handle on the nickel-plated machine, produced a loud hiss and a column of steam, the smell of burnt chicory, and a trickle of dark liquid.

“Seen Véronique today?” Casson asked.

In return, an eyebrow lifted in the who-wants-to-know look. “Not today.”

“Think she might be in later?”

“She might.”

“Mind if I wait?”

“Fine with me.”

He waited all day. He took his coffee to the last table in the back, kept the cup in front of him, pored over yesterday’s newspaper, and, at last, broke down and spent three francs in a
tabac
for a packet of Bulgarian cigarettes.

A workers’ café, Véronique had called it. Yellow walls dyed amber with smoke, slow, steady stream of customers—a red wine, a beer, a coffee, a
marc,
a
fine,
elbows on the bar. At six, some students came down the hill and stood in a crowd by the door, imitating one of their professors and having a good loud laugh. Casson looked a second time, and there was Véronique, in the middle of it, getting an envelope from the owner.

She was startled when he appeared next to her. Then she nodded her head toward the square. “Let’s go for a walk, Jean-Claude.”

They walked from cart to cart in the Maubert market, pretending to shop, staring at baskets of eels and mounds of leeks. Casson told her what had happened to him, Véronique said he’d been lucky. As for her, she’d been warned in person, at the office. “I’m leaving tonight, Jean-Claude. I just stopped at the café for a final message.”

“Leaving for where?”

“South. Over the mountains.”

They were standing in front of a mound of spring potatoes, red ones, the smell of wet earth still on them.

“Jean-Claude,” she said. “I want you to go to number seven, in the rue Taine. Immediately. The man there will take care of you. You know where it is?”

“No.”

“Bercy. Near the wine warehouses.”

“All right.”

An old man in an ancient, chalk-striped suit strolled over to the potato cart and stood near them, just close enough to overhear what they might be saying. Casson wanted to bark at him, Véronique took his arm and walked him away. “Oh this city,” she said in a low voice.

They stood in front of a barrow filled with dusty beets, the little girl minding the store was no more than eleven. “Ten sous,
’sieur et
’dame,”
she said hopefully.

Véronique took a breath and let it out slowly. Casson could tell she sensed danger. “So now,” she said quietly, “we’ve done this shopping, and, old friends that we are, it’s time to part. We’ll kiss each other farewell, and then we’ll go.”

Casson turned to her and they kissed left and right. He saw that her eyes were shining. “Good-bye, my friend,” she said.

“Au revoir, Véronique.”

The last he saw of her, she was walking quickly through the crowd in a narrow lane between market stalls. Just as she turned the corner, she gave him a sudden smile and a little wave, then she vanished.

It was the sharp edge of the war on the rue Taine—an apartment of little rooms, all the blinds drawn, above a dark courtyard. There was a .45 automatic on the kitchen table, and a Sten gun in the parlor, candlelight a dull sheen on its oiled barrel. The operative was British, but nothing like Mathieu—this man was born to the vocation, and 1941 was the year of his life.

“You’re going to England,” he said. “We’re closing down the network, saving what we can, but you can’t stay here.”

It was the right, probably the only, thing to do, but Casson felt something tear inside him.

“You’ll like England,” the operative said. “We’ll see you don’t starve, and you’ll be alive. Not everybody is, tonight.”

Casson nodded. “A telephone call?”

“Impossible. Sorry.”

“Perhaps a letter. There’s somebody, in Lyons.”

It was the wrong thing to say. “Help us win the war,” the operative said. “Then you’ll go home. Everything will be wonderful.”

An hour later they brought in a wounded British airman, face the color of chalk. Casson sat with him on a battered sofa and the man showed him a photograph of his dog.

At midnight, two French railwaymen came for the airman.

At 1:30, Casson was escorted to another apartment in the building. His photograph was taken, then, at 2:10, he was handed a new identity—passport with photo,
Ausweis,
work permit—a thousand francs and a book of ration stamps.

Back at the first apartment, he dozed for a time. The operative never slept, worked over coded transmissions—there was a clandestine radio in another building in the neighborhood, Casson guessed—and listened to the BBC at low volume. Sometimes he made a note of the time— the
Messages Personnels
were long over for the night, but Casson thought he was being signaled by what songs were played, and the order they were played in.

Casson left at dawn. The woman who took him out was in her fifties, with dark red hair and the hard accents of northeast France. A Pole, perhaps, but she didn’t say. He sat silent in the passenger seat as she drove. The car was a battered old Fiat 1500, but it was fast, and the woman made good time on the empty roads. She swung due east from Bercy, and was out of Paris in under a minute. They stopped for a German control at the porte de Charenton, and a French police roadblock in Montreuil. Both times the driver was addressed—as the passports were handed back by the officers—as “Doctor.”

After that, they virtually disappeared, curved slowly north and west around the city on the back streets of small towns and secondary roads. By eight in the morning they were winding their way toward Rouen on the east—much less traveled—bank of the Seine. Outside a small village the driver worked her way down a hillside of packed dirt streets to the edge of the river, just across from the town of Mantes. The car rolled to a stop at the edge of a clearing, two black-and-white spaniels ran barking up to the driver and she rumpled their ears and called them sweethearts.