The Cyclist (6 page)

‘Don’t be stupid. I would never allow anything to happen to you or Zara.’

‘Or Monique.’

He swallowed. She was stubborn, but it was her very intransigence he found convincing about her. He knew deep inside he had not the strength or perhaps weakness required to hand the girl over to his men.

‘My God, Odette. Think of the risk. One tiny mistake and all is lost.’

‘I will make no mistakes.’

‘If anyone comes, she will have to hide in the wood. I can make a shelter, hidden, safe,’ Auguste said.

‘Then do it. Oh Auguste, thank you.’

She crossed the room to stand beside him. He stood up, strong arms proffered and they held on to each other for a long moment. Auguste realised he was shaking. She looked up at him.

‘You will be doing a great thing. It is noble. Protecting a child.’

‘No, not noble. It is you who does this. I am merely weak and complicit.’

‘We will be strong, because we are together,’ she said, looking up at him.

‘What can I do with the letters of transit? They won’t be needed now.’

‘If you can get two more we can all get away.’

‘I thought Brunner was suspicious when I asked him to sign. If I now ask for two more he will know.’

‘I wasn’t serious.’

‘Does Monique know she is staying with us?’

‘Yes, Pierre told her. He even told her why she is in danger. She is such a sensible child and she shows no distress. I suppose it will come later.’

‘She perhaps measures it against Murielle’s death. For a child, nothing could have been worse.’

‘Perhaps. We should eat now.’

‘I can’t. I have to go out.’

‘Out?’

‘Yes, I’m dining with two SD officers tonight. If you answered the telephone you would know. I don’t know how I can look them in the face without fear of their suspicion. One of them is Brunner.’

‘They won’t come here will they?’

‘No my love. I’ve been told I have to go to the restaurant.’

‘Be careful...’

A child’s voice interrupted her.

‘Uncle Auguste.’

Monique ran into the kitchen. She flung herself at Auguste. He gathered her up in his arms and hugged her, patting her back with a practiced gentleness.

‘My little friend. How are you? It must be weeks.’

‘Papa brought me. I’m to stay until the Germans are dead.’

‘What?’

‘Papa said he would chase them all away and when it was safe he would come for me. He said we won’t have to wear the yellow star anymore then.’

‘You know no one can know you are here?’

‘Yes, Papa told me.’

‘Papa! You are home,’ Zara said from the doorway. She smiled. ‘We were playing nurses.’

‘My little flower. Is there a hug for your Papa?’

Zara ran to him and he hugged them both.

‘Zara, you must always play quietly. I don’t want anyone to know Monique is here. You understand?’

‘We understand Papa,’ she turned to her mother. ‘We are very hungry. What’s for dinner?’

‘I must go,’ Auguste said.

Odette looked at him. Her eyes betrayed helplessness. He thought she struggled with being unable to say what she wished in front of the two girls. Auguste left to the sound of the girls giggling. The sound made him shudder.

Chapter 3

1

Auguste arrived early at the restaurant. His watch said nearly seven o’clock but he did not expect SD company so soon. He had to be there on time but the arrogance of the invitation made him sure they would be late. He began to wonder who he was in their eyes anyway. Had he become a traitor to France who they could manipulate and bend to their will? His father, a veteran of the first war would have thumped the table, his pipe in the corner of his mouth and accused him of betraying the Republic.

He felt shame. He felt passive, weak and then he thought of Monique. She was the same age as Zara but a different kind of child. Monique was serious. She seemed to have wisdom and she understood what was happening, though Zara had no concept at all of the dangers her parents were running. Auguste wondered if he had understood the danger too, when Odette presented him with it. He felt it was a fait accompli and there had been no going back, for her decision had sealed their fates, all of them. Her decision had also changed his life.

He entered the restaurant and made for the tiny semi-circular bar opposite the door. A sense of loneliness took him. Odette had pushed him into a dangerous situation but he was now in the wolves’ den and alone. He felt he was facing the Germans without allies, without support. He it was, who ran the risk of them noticing some change in him. He wondered in a vague ponder, whether there could be some outward sign of the Jewish child hiding in his home. Some way they could detect her on him, on his clothes or even his demeanour. He knew it was nonsense and he discarded his thoughts as the ruminations of a frightened fool.

He sat on a stool and asked the barmaid for a Vichy water. He had no wish to come home drunk as if he had been carousing with these Nazis.

Seated next to him was a young girl. He knew her and he smiled to her when she looked round.

‘Good evening, Bernadette,’ he said.

‘Good evening, Inspector Ran,’ she replied.

Bernadette was short in stature but Auguste noticed her beauty as if it was a beacon on a dark night. It shone. She had curly blonde hair lashing her shoulders and a smile radiating warmth and friendliness. Her white teeth flashed in the lamplight when she smiled. She had blue almost iridescent eyes echoing her smile. He knew she was eighteen and like any man, he appreciated the gentle curves of her body and the relaxed way she moved. A young man would fall in love with her without any more difficulty than an old man would give her advice.

He compared her to Zara and knew his only feelings for this girl were paternal. He drank his drink, feeling good about the quality of his thoughts. He felt protective, he knew her after all.

‘Bernadette? What are you doing here? Are you meeting a boy?’

‘Inspector Ran. I am singing. Mother has been ill and so she cannot take in washing any longer. I study during the day and sing at night. What else can I do?’

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

‘Well you know, since the accident she has trouble walking and...’

‘This is not a good place to earn your money. It is full of men. They are not the kind of men you should be singing to.’

‘I will finish at midnight. I never stay. Bernard makes sure no one molests me. Thank you for your concern.’

She turned away to leave him there. He had an urge to cling to her presence as one might to a lifebuoy in a dark sea. He had a feeling that if he could make her stay with him, the night would be less threatening, less suicidal.

‘Bernadette, I will take you home. My car is outside.’

‘But I am singing tonight.’

‘No, I meant when you have finished.’

‘Very kind of you. I do not get a police escort every night.’

Her smile lit up his life for a brief moment. He felt it was as though her presence would save him. Although he did not think of himself as a deeply religious man, it was almost like seeing some saint who had visited him in a time of distress. Beauty, he reflected could do such things to a man, it can uplift the spirits.

He looked into his glass as she began to sing. The words of the song were familiar. He wondered what regrets a child like Bernadette could have? She sang she had none, but she had not even sampled life. He was feeling older by the moment and worse still, he was aware of it.

He reflected on the first time he met Odette. At the time, she was a friend of Murielle’s and Pierre had suggested they meet. She had charmed him, captured him and held him so he felt he was walking on air. They had talked and walked along the riverbank. By the end of the evening, they were holding hands. He had been eighteen. His inexperience helped him to love her immediately. Their marriage had changed things but the love remained. He knew in that moment of reflection there would never be another in his life.

2

Brunner’s arrival interrupted his thoughts. A hard, bony hand descended upon his shoulder and he turned, looking up from his seat.

The pink lips, moist and repulsive to him, parted in the familiar smile.

‘Ah, Auguste. I’m sorry to be late. We had some matters to clear up before we came. Have you met René Bousquet, my friend and associate? René has plans for reorganising all the French police, so you had better make a friend of him too. He might reorganise you out of a job and we couldn’t have that could we?’

A tall angular fellow stood beside Brunner. Auguste thought his face looked as if someone once stretched it on the rack. Surmounting it was a head of greying black hair. The eyes were narrow and blue and gleamed in the lamplight like a man who is allergic to flowers. The lines on the man’s face seemed to Auguste to be vertical and the man pursed his thin lips as if he was used to sucking lemons. He did not smile even though Brunner was laughing at his own joke.

Auguste stood and shook hands with them and though it was painful, he smiled.

‘I thought you were bringing Linz. I did not understand.’

‘Oh well, Linz couldn’t come. He is questioning a prisoner. I will tell you all about it. Now we need to drink. The table nearest the entertainment I believe will be required. Garçon!’

Brunner turned and snapped his fingers. The Auberge’s owner appeared as if by some conjuring trick, Brunner having summoned him from thin air. He was a short, balding man and he bowed his head in an obsequious gesture of capitulation. To witness how his compatriots made obeisance to the Germans evoked nothing but disgust in Auguste and he realised his whole thinking had changed in only two days.

The three men sat at a small table with a chequered tablecloth and a half-burned candle, perched somewhat askew in the end of an empty bottle of Chateau Malartic Lagraviére. Auguste wished it were full. Such wine was hard to come by these days. All of it was destined for German palates not French.

Bernadette sang behind him. He questioned what any passerby might have thought of the local police inspector, dining with a German wolf and a French giraffe. The description in his head made him smile. He thought it apt. His life was becoming a circus.

Brunner said, ‘We are having champagne, then we can get to the more serious wines. I love this country. You have the best of everything. Wine, women, food and angels to sing for us too.’

Bousquet said, ‘You are a man with excellent taste then, Helmut. Is he not Inspector?’

‘Yes, excellent,’ Auguste said.

Brunner leaned towards Auguste and said in confidential tones, ‘That girl, the one singing, she has a wonderful voice.’

‘Yes, her name is Bernadette. I have known her since she was a child. Her father died in a car accident and her mother cannot walk through the same disaster. She studies fine art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.’

‘Then you must ask her to join us. She is beautiful. Such wonderful women you have here.’

Auguste said nothing. He could not imagine Bernadette would be anything but horrified.

They ate duck. Brunner had cassoulet of duck and the others had confit of duck leg. They ate in silence preferring to listen to the music. The wine was a local one, since any others were scarce. The label said it was a Bergerac but the best in the house and Auguste began to feel drunk. He was unused to alcohol nowadays and after sharing two bottles of champagne and two of red wine, he began to become incautious. He slapped Brunner on the shoulder

‘Well isn’t this a wonderful French meal. Better than sauerkraut eh?’

Brunner looked at him. The expression was one of distaste mixed, Auguste thought, with contempt.

‘You think there is anything in your country matching mine? One German is worth ten Frenchmen any day of the week. We proved it when the Fürer took France almost with just a telephone call. The Vichy Government is his theatre and Pétain is his puppet. You would do well to recognise the fact. I can have anything in this room only for the asking. Can you?’

Auguste knew he could have said, ‘I’m sorry, I did not mean to offend,’ or he could have said, ‘Of course you are right.’

He felt a sudden surge of anger. He controlled it but he realised his pride in his country and in himself too, was gripping him by the throat and it felt like it squeezed the life out of him with every moment he spent in Brunner’s company. He had a sudden urge to shoot the man.

 He said, ‘I meant only the food.’

Brunner looked at him; his eyes cod-cold.

Bousquet said, ‘I travelled to Germany before the war. I visited Bavaria. I found the food and hospitality second to none.’

Brunner said, ‘My mother is from Bavaria.’

‘Indeed? Such lovely people,’ Bousquet said.

‘Ah her cooking is wonderful, I miss home nowadays. Mutti makes a lamb stew with sauerkraut men would die for.’

Auguste looked at Bousquet with gratitude. He was uncertain where the conversation might have taken him and for the first time in his life realised he was slipping out of control. Whether it was the strain of what Odette had made him take on, or whether it was the question of the internments, he did not know; he had such a turmoil wheeling in his mind, the wine served only to confuse and bring these thoughts closer to the surface.

He was aware of Brunner and Bousquet conversing about the beauty of the German countryside but it took the proprietor’s presence to bring him back to reality.

‘Of course sir,’ Bernhard said.

Jolted back to reality, Auguste said, ‘Sorry, what was that? I can’t eat another thing; your hospitality has been so generous.’

‘Hospitality? You don’t think SD officers pay for this type of lowly fare do you?’

‘Oh,’ Auguste said, ‘I hadn’t realised.’

‘On the house man. On the house. The proprietor is pleased to have us as guests and that means you too Auguste.’

‘What did you ask him for?’

‘We are having some brandy. Armagnac of course. It is much favoured in Germany. I also invited the singer to join us.’