Clandestine (20 page)

The water was perfect. She would have to do it. Defenceless behind a makeshift curtain in the kitchen, her things on that chair, she gingerly stepped into the copper tub. They had arrived at this house in the country, this
maison de compagne
, in darkness four days ago and they would leave it in darkness tomorrow at 0500 hours, Monday, 4 October 1943. The truck's engine had now been changed over to burn gasoline but would they be arrested as soon as they got to whatever entrance Étienne might choose? They were, she now knew, just to the west of Sézanne and to the south-southeast of Retourneloupe and the western edge of the Forêt de la Traconne and among the hills that formed the cliff of the Île de France. They were about 100 kilometres to the east of the Bois de Vincennes and that entrance to Paris.

Behind its rutted single lane and scattering of beech and oak, the house, of stone and stucco, would normally have intrigued and delighted, for there was, she had discovered, an enviable
potager
. Attic dormers, shutter-flanked windows, faded green trim and white walls still gave, with the turning of the leaves, that wonderful sense of a country retreat. There had been no lights on when they had arrived—the blackout even here, of course—and Arie's flashlight had soon found the key beneath a stone.

‘Martine, when I awaken her, will know what to do with that cut,' Étienne had quietly said when she had climbed out and down from the back of the truck. ‘Just don't let her curiosity about how well you react to pain bother you. Just smile softly when she glances up from the needle, and don't mind her smoking good tobacco in that pipe of hers.'

‘Martine?' she had asked.

‘Madame de Belleveau, my Jeanne d'Arc, and the person I am fortunate enough to have known all my life. Now stop worrying about my selling you out to the Boche. Stop thinking Arie or Frans might. Just because we don't tell our packages any more than is absolutely necessary, doesn't mean we're up to mischief. Martine knows little of what we do and asks nothing of it, nor do we come here often because we mustn't. But she's been here since the Great War when her husband and my father were both killed on 7 September 1914, during the First Battle of the Marne. Martine has raised me since I was seven, my mother, having felt the job too much, had taken up with one of the enemy. He'd moved in, and really I mustn't blame her too much. Martine still insists. “Compassion,” she always says. “Who knows what one might do under similar circumstances.”'

He had let that sink in, and then had said, ‘Now I really have told you too much, Anna-Marie Vermeulen, but only so that you will know exactly what I think of them. Arie, too, since his wife and their brand-new baby, the one he hadn't even seen alive, were both killed when they bombed Rotterdam.'

Arie. ‘Look, I'm sorry I suggested they take me to those ruins, but Corbeny is a very small village and everyone would have seen us.'

‘Be grateful Frans took care of the problem. I wouldn't have. I'd have let them off with a warning. Tell yourself, as I still am, that it was necessary.'

Frans Oenen—Paul Klemper. She still didn't know Étienne's and Arie's real names, they knowing her only as Anna-Marie Vermeulen because that had been the name Étienne had been given along with that childhood handkerchief by the one who had hired him, she then mentioning it to identify herself when they had met in Amsterdam near the diamond bourse in total darkness, Étienne handing it to her.

It had been Arie who had carted in the firewood to heat the water, Martine who had tested it and had raised a forefinger in pause when he had asked if there was any soap.

A cherished sliver from Provence had been found in a kitchen drawer and still had that lovely smell of lavender and feel of olive oil.

Secreting the coin under herself, letting the warmth envelope her, she reached for the dipper and with that good hand, began to wash her hair. No one could fault her for having done what she had at those ruins. It had been by far the only possible thing.

Nor could she really tell the others about Frans, and he had definitely known this, he must have, because he would then have had to tell them not only what she had been carrying but also what she knew, and of course he had the only gun.

The Sicherheitsdienst who were using him would not have told him everything, but he'd have figured it all out.

Anna-Marie Vermeulen = trainee borderline sorter, Diamant Meyerhof.

^*
On the evening of 20 July 1944, believing that the Führer has been assassinated, Boineburg-Lengsfeld ordered his second-in-command to see that Karl Oberg and other leading SS in Paris were arrested. But the bomb had failed to do what it was supposed to. Recalled to Berlin and arrested but found guilty only of having obeyed General Heinrich von Stulpnägel's command to have them arrested, Boineburg-Lengsfeld was dismissed but not executed as others were.

6

‘A kilo of
what
, Louis, in addition to the one of boart you condescended to tell me of at Chez Rudi's?'

‘Don't get huffy.'

They had arrived in Corbeny and had stopped near the ruins of its medieval abbey and tiny museum only because Louis, being Louis, had insisted. ‘Just tell me.'

‘
Bien sûr, certainement.
Virtually all of the kings of France came here the day after their consecration in Reims cathedral. Even Jeanne d'Arc on her white charger, no doubt. You see,
mon vieux
, the relics of Saint Marcou were here and venerated for his having had the power to cure scrofula, the “king's evil.”'

‘And what the hell is that?'

‘Tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands. A sore neck.'

‘And I think I've already asked you a far more pertinent question. Ludin won't have been happy with our having buggered off. He'll retaliate. It's in the Hamburg psyche. Those people are even moving back into the heart of their dead city. Never mind the stench of the countless corpses that still have to be found and removed. Never mind the smoke, the rubble, the living in some cellar, if possible, or even the signs that tell them it's absolutely forbidden to enter that area without a special pass.'

Almost a million had been evacuated from that city, thus spreading the terror throughout the Reich, but unfortunately it was no time to broaden Hermann's understanding of French history. ‘About a kilo of mixed stones of up to a carat or two, but often less, and all useful either in jewellery or as industrials.'

‘Borderlines are what you want to call them,
mein lieber Französischer Oberdetektiv.
Of equal value
either
as one or the other. They require sorting too.'

‘And were probably swept off that table and into their little bag even as the Blitzkrieg descended on the city.'

‘Of Amsterdam.'

‘Her father may not have been the only one in the family to have been employed by Diamant Meyerhof, Hermann.'

‘That the one who insisted on her using a
passeur
and paying for it?'

Merde
, and still huffy. ‘Unless we meet her, we may never know.'

Fortunately Hermann was able to find a much crumpled emergency cigarette. Impatiently straightening and lighting it, he took two deep drags before handing it over.

‘An informant, Louis, a spotter plane, a control that causes far too much trouble for far too many, a
Sonderkommando
, a wrecked lingerie shop, two hostages taken so as to threaten the hell out of me, and now two kilos of what the Reich most desperately need. What else is Anna-Marie Vermeulen carrying?'

‘I really did try to tell you it was a minefield.'

‘And I've just let you know of that Kriminalrat's psyche.'

Hermann hadn't even noticed the emptiness of the village. Oh for sure, there were the farms and the harvest to consider, yet still there should have been someone about. ‘With a population of around 350,
mon vieux
, they are all, apparently, out in the fields.'

‘Having heard and seen the car, just like our Anna-Marie would have noted, they've buggered off to stay in the fields with the others, but have now turned their backs on us, even the kids.'

A bad sign.

‘Let's go and say hello to a certain
garde champêtre
and his wife, Louis. Maybe they can shed a little light on things. Évangéline was her name.'

The
tabac
, the general store, PTT and café-bar were all in one room, with no one even behind the wicket of the Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone.

Hitting the bell didn't awaken anyone. Hitting it again finally brought the curves, the long and shaken-loose auburn hair, the deep-brown, made-up eyes and the slip with its plunging neckline and off-the-shoulder strap, the rabbit-fur slippers and the generous smile.

‘Messieurs,'
she asked, a hand now to her thirty-three-year-old throat, ‘
qu'est-ce que vous désirez?
A glass of wine, a cup of coffee or a little something else?'

The chalkboard even gave the additional business of
‘poulets, lapins, oeufs,'
but Hermann would be putty in her hands. ‘Your husband, madame. St-Cyr of the Sûreté, Kohler of the Kripo.'

So this was the one Eugène had saved on the battlefield. This was the one whose second wife, it was said, had made the grand cuckold of him, he having forgiven her. ‘Father Adrien will know where he is. Me, I think you will find that one in his church and down on his knees before God, seeing as he's been a thief and fears that other Gestapo is going to come back for him.'

‘What other Gestapo?' demanded Hermann.

Ah bon
, that had got them interested. ‘The one who drives a car like yours but drinks from little bottles like this.'

‘Ah Christ, Louis, stomach bitters.'

Father Adrien was indeed on his knees, bare of back and applying the willow switch. Beside him were three upright bottles of the
vin rouge
, one of which was empty, one half-full and the other still sealed. And beside these, were two bundles of 5,000-franc notes from a hastily emptied poor box.

‘Let's leave him, Louis. Let's let God handle it.'

The hour of decision. The Church could be mighty. ‘Agreed.'

Again, and then again, Hermann rang the bell, Évangéline Rocheleau appearing in a sleeveless hip-clinging, made-over woollen dress of the latest Paris design, its hem at just above the knees, but obviously there hadn't been time to sew in a zipper or the more usual buttons.

‘Me, I thought you would come back,' she said breathlessly. ‘I wanted to go to Paris too. Maman, she owns the shop, helps with the PTT and lives with us, so there wouldn't have been any problem, but that other one with the car, his stomach was too acid. “An important meeting,” he yelled, or something like that in his language. “A confrontation,”
peut-être
.'

The weather had been perfect, felt St-Cyr, the day like a pleasurable journey into the countryside until now. ‘God always has to pull out all the stops, Hermann. It's in
his
nature.'

‘Finish the dress, madame. Pack a few things. This partner of mine and I will pick you up when we've done what we have to. Let's give that husband of yours a nice surprise.'

The image of lost lives and causes was all too apparent in the ruins of l'Abbaye de Vauclair, and when they had reached the spring, the falling leaves were caught in the water and rushed along. Ferns threw shadows over the grey flagstone that girl had lifted, Hermann finally breaking the silence that had suddenly overwhelmed them. ‘She was on the run and terrified, Louis, would have had only one good hand yet had the sense not only to find the perfect place but to leave no trace of herself.'

‘Is remarkable. You or me?'

‘Both. Let's leave nothing for that Kriminalrat to find.'

In unison, the slab was tilted, letting the water well up behind it and over what she had hidden, Louis sucking in a troubled breath and saying, ‘The Ashkenazim, Hermann.'

‘The generations of one family, starting way back when?'

‘Maybe in the 1700s, maybe earlier.'

‘Yet kept hidden always, even from those of their own because only then would the “life” they held be secure.'

Creased and worn, wrinkled and old yet methodically oiled over the years, the plain and simple black leather bag, not quite the size of a clenched fist, had a braided tie of the same with two worn wooden pegs at the ends.

Under it there was a small, folded white paper packet, thoroughly wet but tied round with a bit of brown wool, something hastily pulled from something else and of the moment.

‘Hochfeines Weiss,'
said Louis, having carefully cradled the bag while opening the packet.

‘A dozen beautifully cut and flawless brilliants, each of about two carats and maybe eight millimetres in diameter. Just how the hell did Josef Meyerhof, and it must have been him, keep these from the Third and Glorious Reich?'

A good question, but Hermann still needed calming. ‘Maybe she'll tell us.'

‘Those shoes are a problem, Louis. We can't have that bastard Ludin finding her.'

To open the bag, they would have to move away to a spot among the rocks uphill a little where Louis first spread a handkerchief. Suddenly, sunlight was trapped, caught, reflected back and forth until finally releasing itself in flashes of fire. ‘Six for a necklace that needed eight,
mon vieux
.'

And nothing but
big
trouble, felt Kohler. ‘Meyerhof's great-great-grandfather beginning the search, the next keeping clarity, colour and size fully in mind while viewing thousands of others.'

‘And so on up the ancestral line to the present, Meyerhof having carried on that search even with the Great War raging elsewhere and after it, the Great Depression.'

‘When things were so tough, De Beers and the central selling organization in London found they had to buy up the overhang.'

The old diamonds that had flooded onto the market, forcing prices down, but Hermann had been right to be concerned. A rainbow of colours was before them, a sky-blue like no other, a canary-yellow, too, but clearer than clear, others of the softest, most memorable rose or deepest emerald green, others still, of a cocoa-brown. Some had been cut and polished, but were without their mountings, others still in the rough.

‘And those are but the “fancies,” the rarest of all,' said St-Cyr. ‘The rest are exceptional whites of five, ten, even fifteen or twenty carats, lesser sizes too.'

A spread of maybe sixty to forty percent whites to fancies, but it would have to be said, and Louis had known it too. ‘The “sight” of “sights,” and not at all usual for the “life” diamonds most would have squirreled away to tide the family over the hardest of times. These are more than enough to have not only reminded their inheritor of the family but to have started up the business again and elsewhere.'

Good for Hermann. ‘An absolute fortune on the
marché noir
. No wonder she felt she had to hide them.'

‘And be very quiet about them, Louis, since greed can be everything to far too many. That bag would have been flattened and bound tightly against her middle, probably with a band of linen.'

‘She'd have made sure there wasn't any unevenness in her clothing.'

‘And will have hidden the linen elsewhere. Under a root, or maybe in a knothole.'

‘A half-and-half.'

‘A submarine.'

‘A pair of shoes.'

‘And a hell of a lot of trouble not just for ourselves, but for her, too, Louis.
Her
.'

It was Étienne who had cornered her, Étienne whose forehead and pointed chin emphasized the piercing intensity of his gaze. He had come up to this room she had been given in this house he seldom used, a room Frans Oenen had told her to stay in or else. Softly closing the door, he listened to the house while noting everything he could about her, the way she stood to one side of this window so as not to be seen by anyone chancing to arrive or pass by, the clogs she now had to wear, the leather belt and Norwegian trousers in whose right pocket was that coin. Or was he simply noting the frayed left cuff of her sweater from which she had managed to tear a desperately needed bit of thread with her teeth?

Grabbing a chair, he pointed to it and found one for himself, their knees all but touching. ‘Whether you like it or not, you're far too noticeable. Blue eyes, blonde hair, and a complexion so perfect even with the lack of food and milk and all the rest, Martine still can't stop going on about it, yet you bring out the desperate in all of us. Myself, because you'll not have been forgotten with that hand, and I must choose a safe way into Paris. Arie, because, though I've yet to tell him, he knows you'll be the last we deliver. Thanks to you, it has simply become far too risky—insanely so, if you ask me—and we've done what we had to anyway.'

‘Make a fortune?'

‘Please don't be disappointing. We've put our lives on the line for far more important packages than yourself, and many of those have been from the Reich and all of them hunted.'

‘And Frans, what does he say about it?'

‘That you doubt his loyalty and will do some dumb thing that'll get us all arrested. So now you'll tell me why Josef Meyerhof would have given me these to get you out of the clutches of the Boche?'

It was a belt of louis d'or, something a businessman who travelled a lot would wear under his clothing. ‘I can't for a moment imagine how he could possibly have given you anything like that, seeing as he must be under constant surveillance if still in Amsterdam and in the Jewish district behind that horrible fence with all its forbidden-to-enter signs and its barbed wire.'

Perhaps she didn't know. ‘He was among the last of them and is probably gone by now.'
*

‘To Vught or Westerbork and on,' she said. ‘Mijnheer Meyerhof was my father's employer.'

‘Your own as well?'

She would shake her head because he couldn't possibly know the truth. Mijnheer Meyerhof wouldn't have let him know, nor would the contact he had used, and that left only Frans who wouldn't have either even if the Boche had told him. Besides, very few women were involved in that business and far fewer girls. ‘I met Mijnheer Meyerhof once when I was five and my father took me to his place of work. He wouldn't even know what I look like now, and I could never have gone up to that wire to speak to him in any case. Indeed, why would I, seeing as I am what I am?'

And fierce about it. ‘Yet he pays me the whole of my fee up front?'

In May of 1940, those louis d'or would each have been worth about 1,000 francs but now a good 10,000, and there were at least twenty of them. ‘He can't have kept those hidden in that ghetto. Someone must have given them to whomever handed them to you. Have you thought of that?'