A Prince Without a Kingdom (37 page)

“Yesterday.”

“Perfect.”

Whenever he listened to himself speak, Avignon was always hoping to catch the intonations of the great Boulard. He imitated his former boss as best he could, as he tried to punch above his weight. To be a bit stronger, a bit tougher, a bit more generous than he really was. But he often fell short of the mark.

“My regards to your wife. Is it Monique?”

“No, it’s Elise.”

“Lise, yes, of course.”

“Elise, Superintendent.”

“Don’t split hairs, Mouchet. And merry Christmas to your children.”

“Yes, Superintendent.”

Mouchet didn’t have any children. Avignon had chosen him as his assistant because he was young and had never known Boulard. With luck, the copy wouldn’t seem so pale to him.

“Here we are,” declared Mouchet.

“You can say what you like, but they’ve got good taste,” commented Avignon when they stopped in front of a set of large metal gates. The Nazi flag was draped from the balcony of a handsome private mansion with a courtyard. France had lost the war and Germany was occupying the country.

“Superintendent Avignon, for Offizier Max Grund,” they announced, showing their papers to a soldier who was guarding the gates.

They walked across the courtyard and went into the entrance hall, where they reported to a woman who asked them to wait. She then disappeared upstairs. It was deliciously warm inside. Men tramped in and out of doorways carrying files. A workman was replacing the glass on the front door. The Gestapo had recently requisitioned these magnificent premises. Mouchet sat down on a banquette, but Avignon remained upright. He went over to a large picture frame that had been covered with a sheet and propped against the wall.

He hitched up the sheet slightly. There, painted on the canvas, was a man standing in a drawing room, with a lion skin at his feet. The man was consulting his pocket watch.

“Is it interesting?” Max Grund called out from the top of the stairs. Mouchet leaped up off the banquette, but Avignon kept examining the picture.

“Is that you, in the painting?” he asked.

Grund didn’t respond. He signaled abruptly for the superintendent to join him upstairs, and Mouchet also tried to follow.

“Wait for me down here,” muttered Avignon, removing two documents from the leather briefcase.

“I’ve got the statements as well. And the other photos.”

“All right. Follow me.”

Mouchet flew into action. While they climbed the stairs, Grund barked at a removals man who had just appeared at the doorway, close to the painting. Mouchet understood German perfectly, and Max Grund’s instructions for the canvas to be disposed of weren’t difficult to follow. Referring to the man with the pocket watch in the portrait, the German officer ordered, “Get rid of that Jew once and for all.” Presumably, this wasn’t the first time he had been mistaken for the house’s previous owner.

Mouchet and Avignon walked into the office.

“What seems to be the problem?” Grund wanted to know. “I’m very busy.”

He sat down at his desk, leaving his visitors standing. The woman who had greeted them downstairs was now sitting behind a typewriter by the door. Mouchet studied the room carefully. Only a little while ago, this must have been a bedroom: a velvet-and-wooden ornamental headboard was still fixed to the wall. Three huge windows let in the dim light, and a balcony gave onto the courtyard.

Avignon stepped forward with the two photographs. “Armand Javard and Paul Cerrini,” he announced.

Grund lit a cigarette. With each word spoken, the typewriter clattered.

“Yes?” asked Grund.

“Do you know them?”

Since his early days in the Gestapo by the shores of Lake Constance, Max Grund had never lost his flair for memorizing and being supremely organized. As a result, in ten years he had risen through the ranks, culminating in his appointment to the Paris posting a few months earlier. He had learned to speak French in four weeks.

“I can give you their dates of birth, if you like,” crowed Grund. “Javard was born on the fifteenth of September 1908 —”

“Are they yours?” Avignon wanted to know.

Grund shook his head, indicating, over on the wall, a picture of a small brown mustache and a well-combed part.

“They’re his.”

“So what am I supposed to do with them?” pressed Avignon, who had no difficulty recognizing the portrait of Adolf Hitler.

“Leave them alone.”

“They attacked a bank in rue de la Pompe.”

Mouchet took out the statements from the briefcase.

“Leave them alone,” repeated Grund.

Avignon smiled tersely. Since the occupation had begun, he found himself in this kind of predicament on a daily basis. Half of the gangsters in Paris had put themselves under German protection. Just fifteen minutes’ walk from this address, a cavern of brigands reigned over the city with impunity. Avignon’s work was becoming impossible.

“Anything else?” barked Grund.

“No. Thank you. Come on, Mouchet.”

They headed for the door.

“Wait,” commanded Grund.

Much to Avignon’s horror, the secretary was typing every word.

“Did you receive my little invitation?”

“No, I —”

“Superintendent,” interrupted Mouchet. “Offizier Grund must be referring to New Year’s Eve. . . .”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Avignon scowled.

The typewriter was recording them again.

“I had your invitation delivered to police headquarters,” said Grund. “There will be a dinner with friends on the thirty-first of December, for foreigners I wish to thank. I should like to offer a positive image of the collaboration between our two peoples.”

Avignon retraced his steps.

“Offizier Grund, let me be frank with you. I am a very young superintendent. In deference to the chiefs of police, Monsieur Brinon and Monsieur Bousquet, it would be a breach of etiquette for me to accept the honor of being your guest. Might I suggest that you invite one of them? I’m sure they would be delighted.”

“You are the person who is invited, Superintendent, and nobody else. Good day. I am counting on you.”

When they were back out on the sidewalk, Avignon turned to Mouchet.

“You nearly discredited me in front of Grund.”

“Yes, Superintendent.”

“I told you to forget about that invitation.”

Avignon was speaking through clenched teeth.

“I’ll have you transferred to the guardroom in Drancy if you continue in this vein.”

“Yes, Superintendent.”

“You’ve got to fix this, Mouchet, and fast. Find me the guest list. I have no wish to be perceived as a fraternizing collaborator. I do my job as best I can. This is a war, after all.”

“I’m catching my train in an hour, Superintendent.”

“Oh, no you’re not. You’re not going anywhere. You can tell your wife it’s your own fault.”

“Sir —”

“Enough of your prewar Christmases! All that’s over now.”

“I’ll have to go to the station, to let her know. I’m the one with the passes.”

“I want you at the Quai des Orfèvres by midday. I’ve warned you, Mouchet!”

“Yes, Superintendent. I’ll be back shortly.”

Mouchet stopped in the middle of the street. There was full daylight now, but the silence remained oppressive. The superintendent’s footsteps grew fainter.

Since the summer of 1940, the city had fallen silent. The rare cars that passed through made that silence vibrate. Some inhabitants had pressed their old horses back into use, pulling antique carts and bringing the smells of the countryside into the city.

Mouchet crossed the avenue and went down into the Métro, to catch a train in the direction of Vincennes. On the platform, he waited next to a man who was reading a doorstop of a book wrapped in newspaper. They got into the carriage at the same time and sat down on the same wooden bench.

“I’m not leaving anymore,” said Mouchet.

“Why?” asked the man, keeping his book open on his knees.

“I’ll tell you later. We need someone for the suitcase.”

“We’re meeting the others at the station, in the bistro.”

At the next stop, Mouchet switched carriages. He got out at the Gare de Lyon. As he walked into the station bistro, he saw a small group of people waiting for him: two men and a young woman. They all greeted one another like long-lost cousins.

They were served a black liquid that faintly resembled coffee. Mouchet paid immediately. The man with the book covered with newspaper entered and sat down at a neighboring table. Glancing discreetly toward the bistro entrance, he listened in on their conversation.

“I’m not leaving anymore,” repeated Mouchet. “Avignon needs me.”

“What about Grund?”

“I went there this morning. The plans are accurate. Right down to the number of steps on the staircase. And yes, the office is in the room with the balcony. Marie’s done a great job.”

They turned toward the young woman, who was sipping a glass of water.

“What are we going to do about the suitcase?”

“I can try to free myself up for Christmas Eve,” said Mouchet.

“It’ll be too late.”

Outside, soldiers in green uniforms were checking the departures board opposite.

“I’ll have to take it myself. I’ve got papers from the Ministry of the Interior. That way, it’s sure.”

“I can go there with an ordinary pass,” said one of the men.

“No,” the man with the book countered softly, without looking at them. Sitting to one side, he was participating secretly in their meeting.

“We can’t take any risks,” he added. “That’s what Caesar told us. So we’ll wait for the twenty-fourth after all.”

And with that, the meeting’s clandestine participant stood up and walked out. A minute later, two others followed with the suitcase.

Mouchet remained sitting next to Marie. They were watching two young women saying their good-byes a little farther off.

“How come you’re so familiar with Grund’s offices?” whispered Mouchet.

“I knew the people who used to live there,” said Marie.

Mouchet nudged a newspaper toward her.

“There are three messages inside: one for Sylvain and two for Caesar. Avoid the mailbox at Sylvain’s place. The concierge can’t be trusted: she’s got the key.”

Marie used her little finger to remove a feather from her glass of water. Caesar was the code name for the leader of their network. Neither of them knew his real identity.

“And we need to move Sylvain at the end of the month,” said Mouchet.

“I’ve got three new empty bedrooms in the same district, if you like.”

“Where do you find them?”

She twirled her fingers as if plucking the rooms magically out of thin air.

“There will be more mail,” said Mouchet. “Meet me tomorrow, Odéon Métro station, on the platform. At six o’clock.”

“I’d rather meet aboveground,” said Marie, who suffered from claustrophobia.

“In front of the newspaper booth, then; we’ll go to the cinema.”

“What about those documents I asked you for?”

“I’ll have them tomorrow as well,” said Mouchet.

Marie stayed behind on her own. The German soldiers in front of the departures board smiled at her through the window. She dived back into her glass.

She left the station toward eleven o’clock. An hour later, she was running across the rooftops by the gardens of the Palais-Royal. She tucked the first envelope into the gap in a shutter that opened onto leafless trees. The neighbors of the mysterious Caesar kept two chickens on their balcony. One of them raised the alarm by beating its wings. But by the time someone appeared, Marie was already jumping over the rue de Montpensier.

Marie had been known as Marie since September 1940. Before that, she had been called Emilie for a little while, but mainly she went by the name of the Cat. She had delivered mail for the Paradise Network from the first day, ever since the word
resistance
had sprung into life.

She had so little to do with her parents — any ties to them having worn loose — that she had been very surprised when, just before the summer, her father had slid two yellow triangles edged with black under her bedroom door. She had stared at them for a long time, reconfiguring them in every possible shape, from a diamond to a sailing boat, before tidying them away. The next day, in the street, the Cat had passed a woman leading her daughter by the hand. On the left-hand side of their chests, firmly stitched in place, both of them wore those same two triangles forming a yellow star.

The Cat had followed them for some time, until the woman had noticed her and shooed her away.

“This isn’t a freak show. Leave us alone.”

The Cat kept on pretending she didn’t know what was going on. The fact that people like her were banned from parks, museums, and cafés . . . For the first time in her life she almost tried her luck in the Métro, just for the thrill of entering the front carriages, where Jews were forbidden. On the twelfth of June, she chanced on her father walking with his chauffeur along Avenue Montaigne. It was a fine day. The chauffeur, Pierre, was carrying four new suits on coat hangers. They were on their way back from the tailor, and Ferdinand Atlas wore the yellow star on his white linen jacket. The Cat crossed over to the other side so as not to look him in the eye.

Three days later there was a phone call for her, which the Cat took in the kitchen.

“It’s Marie-Antoinette.”

The voice belonged to an old woman.

“Who?” asked the Cat.

“It’s me, Madame Boulard. I’ve got my son next to me. He wants to speak with you.”

“Hello?” boomed Boulard, grabbing the phone. “Do as I tell you, young lady. Make sure you’re not at home next week. Something’s going to happen.”

“What would you know about it? You’re out of the loop now.”

The Cat had fallen out with Boulard a year earlier, when he had been moved from the Quai des Orfèvres. Boulard’s presence at the heart of police operations had been a stroke of luck for the Paradise Network. He was more useful to them on the inside than he was on the outside.

But from the start of the Occupation, the superintendent had done everything to be kicked out: incendiary letters to the minister, refusing to obey orders. He had left like a hero, slamming the door and putting his life on the line. He had even abandoned Paris for his village in the Aveyron, in the desert of Aubrac. The Cat had never forgiven him.