The Tiger Claw (56 page)

“The food may be expensive, but you can talk freely—as freely as you can anywhere in Paris.” Viennot laughed as if amused by lunatic times.

He had addressed her as tu, a familiarity she did not reciprocate.

A honey-coloured toy poodle rested its head on its paws and listened to an animated discussion between its owner, an elderly gentleman in a polka-dotted bow tie, and a little girl of about five sitting with her mother at the table beside Viennot. The poodle’s leash lay in artistically arranged coils beside the gentleman.

A sailor or a retired navy man.

The gentleman closed a leather-bound copy of
Candide
to show the little girl his knitted purse.

A scholar of the Enlightenment.

The girl danced around Noor and Viennot to ask her mother if she could knit one like it. The prospects of holding a whispered conversation were nil.

Noor pulled a fringed lace stole close about her shoulders and sat erect, responding to the finery she’d found in Josianne’s dresser drawers.

“I remember this
pâtisserie
when ribboned bonbons perched on every shelf and filled baskets, when white, dark and milk chocolates clustered on trays. Madame Millet made the best chocolate éclairs in Paris. But now!” Viennot’s bushy black brows wagged; he shrugged his disgust. “Everything is just beyond reach.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was discussing prices or the prospects for liberation from the Germans.

“Why couldn’t they invade France?” he muttered.

He meant the Allies, who, instead of invading France “before the leaves fall,” had invaded Sicily. The BBC was now using the word “conquered.”
Paris Soir
had reported German “difficulties” in Russia, while the BBC said the Germans were almost in retreat from Kursk.

“I want this war over soon,” he said.

Noor had an urge to suggest his schedule for the war be published in
Paris Soir
. “They could still invade France,” she said.

“It’s enough. Too many celebrities in Paris—the Abwehr, the Wehrmacht, the
STO
, the Gestapo, the Gestapistes. And you, Phono’s celebrity from London. Anne-Marie, code name Madeleine.”

Madame Millet patrolled the passage behind the counter like a German sentry on guard, though the labels—
pâté de canard à l’orange, fond d’artichaut saint-fiacre, pâté de veau au jambon, ballottine de lapin au foie gras et aux pistaches
—all described empty shelves.

“It’s too difficult,” said Viennot. “I can’t remember real names, and now everyone who is anyone has a code name the British call a
nom de guerre
. If a writer has a
nom de plume
, does anyone try to remember his real name? Forget your real name, I’ll call you Madeleine.”

Noor ordered only a café noir because Viennot said the heart-shaped palmiers and the few petits fours on display looked far better than they tasted. Her
SOE
funds had dwindled now that she had reimbursed Madame Aigrain and begun paying rent at Madame Prénat’s.

“And it’s not only names! Every project has fifteen passwords, and if I forget one, I could be shot by my own friends. I’m going to change my business after the war, Madeleine. If it ends by 1950, I’ll give some money to the Church. Maybe I’ll even go to confession.”

After eating a hundred mice, the cat makes a hadj to Mecca
.

“And I’m going to have fewer customers,” Viennot continued. “I’ll still be an intermediary—but for cars. Bugattis, when the Italians return from their holiday with Herr Hitler. Monsieur Bugatti never sold to just anyone,
tu sais?
He interviewed each potential customer before he sold a single car. I’m just like him. Very discriminating about my customers—and the resistants I work with. No English—except for working with Phono.”

Viennot, in sultry July, still affected his trademark brown silk scarf, black onyx brooch and beret, complete with ribbon tassel. Noor’s soapy coffee arrived, and for him a crème caramel with a biscuit planted in it like a sword in stone. He removed the biscuit and presented it to her with a “
Mange bien, mademoiselle
,” urging her to eat.

“You’ve lost weight,” he said with a disapproving look at her breasts.

Viennot knew of the arrests of Prosper, Archambault and Professor Balachowsky. And he had received a message from Odile about the Gestapo search of Renée’s safe house, and later another about the Grignon roundup.

“I thought by now our pretty little war tourist would have gone home.”

“I have not, though I was ordered to leave.”

Viennot’s bushy black brows rose into question marks. “It is one thing to know events, another to be told the details.” He drew his chair closer than she would have liked. “
Alors, commence!”

Noor lightened her coffee with a powder of substitute cream and began speaking low, trimming and editing her analysis of events as she went. The story of the roundup at Grignon was told without the shooting but with her suspicions of Gilbert. She told of her meeting with Phono without mentioning she had given him her pistol. In telling Viennot of her refusal to return on the Lysander, she had to discuss Gilbert’s suspicious chess notation habits and his reading her letters, but she didn’t mention foiling Gilbert’s post-dinner plans in case Viennot decided on plans of his own. What she left out was almost as important as—perhaps more important than—what she told.

Cigarette in one hand, spoon in the other, Viennot asked only a few questions.

The gentleman at the next table produced a pack of cards, shuffled and fanned them out, and the little girl selected a king of hearts. The mother left her table and joined them, to watch as the magic began.

“Odile tells me you are anxious to resume transmissions. For us. One question: why?”

Beside them, the little girl began counting to ten.

“You need a radio operator. I have a radio. I’m trained for it. And I have a safe house from which to transmit.”

“Where?”

“In Paris,” she said, deliberately vague. Her current addresses at Mesdames Aigrain, Prénat and Gagné’s would remain secret, along with the location of the apartment at the boulevard Richard Wallace.

“Is it secure?”

“As secure as any other place.”

“We need money.”

“Yes. My information is that London has resumed drops.” She told Viennot of her meeting with “a highly placed man from London” and his reassurances, without mentioning that she was almost positive the Germans, with full knowledge of the British, were using captured transmitters to request arms and money from the Allies.

“
Do you
have enough money?” His tone seemed to hold genuine concern.

“Yes.” She wouldn’t say how much. If she really needed a loan, she would ask Josianne.

“Then buy yourself some clothes. Dowdy clothes make any woman your age look German or English. The Gestapo will pick you up and send you either to Berlin or Besançon if they see you walking around dressed like
that
.”

Noor flashed him a look of annoyance. “This is a new hat. New slacks. Both are French.”

“The hat is
très chic
. The slacks make you look American. The blouse—too masculine. You need some jewellery. Perhaps it is your hair—you should get a permanent. Put on more powder. Your lipstick is a shade too light for your colouring.
Ma fille
, when you need money, you come to Jacques Viennot,
d’accord?”

She would throw her hat at him. But no. Instead, she wouldn’t say a word about the diamonds she had secreted in her valise at Madame Aigrain’s. At this rate Viennot might tell her to sell them and use the money for clothes and a permanent. He’d tell her to go shopping as her contribution to the welfare of the country.

Viennot puffed to the left, licked his spoon to the right.

“Never mind my hair and clothes,” said Noor. “You haven’t commented about anything I’ve said. Is it not terrible?”

He gave a great sigh. “Everyone knows what can happen. In my experience one is usually suspicious of the wrong person.”

“In your experience! You’re only a few years older than me, I think.”

“Yes, but I have a lot more experience, mademoiselle. You’re a little too beautiful to be intelligent as well.”

She opened her mouth.

He held up his spoon. “Oh,
excusez-moi
if I hurt your tender feelings, but as for me, I begin from not trusting a person, and then he—or she—must prove to me that I should trust him—or her. We tend to trust those in our tribe, but from what you say,
I begin to believe Gilbert is a tribe of one. If you’re arranging drops, make sure you don’t send my money to him!”

Said as a joke, but Viennot was perfectly serious.

“Well, I never trusted Gilbert,” said Noor.

Viennot waved his cigarette at her. “No, no. You wouldn’t be so angry if you hadn’t trusted Gilbert. Why shouldn’t you? He is handsome. Like Maurice Chevalier—the same smile.”

“It wasn’t his smile. London trusted him, Prosper and Archambault trusted him. And I only trust you because Phono does—he said your grandfathers were brothers.”

“It’s true our grandfathers were brothers, but my Garry relatives don’t invite Jacques Viennot to their homes. My mother’s relatives only remember me when they have a task that might soil their hands. Always I have a perverse desire to tear down their complacency. But Phono—he’s different. He hasn’t changed from the cousin I admired. Every time Phono has said he will do a job for the Resistance, it is done. Done well, too. And it will be done exactly when he says it will be, or under the conditions he specifies. Prosper is—was—the same. The two of them along with Archambault are the reason the Germans can no longer sleep at night.”

“‘Was’? You think Prosper and Archambault have been executed?”

“Or sent to a prison camp, if they are lucky.”

The little girl gave a curtsey, clasped her hands and began to sing “
Savez-vous planter les choux
.”

“When we were children,” said Viennot, “Émile would fall down and never cry. Renée—oh la la! She cried and complained about everything.
Tiens
, I just remembered Archambault knew you at your lycée.”

“Yes, but not very well. He was in my brother’s class, I was in the girls’ school. He sang in the choir.”

“So? That makes him holy? He told me some things about you.”

She gave in to an urge to tease. “Why did you want to know?”

“I wanted to know how much he knew. He said you’re yet another kind of celebrity—an Indian princess.”

He sounded intrigued. She wouldn’t deny it; what did it matter who or what he thought she was if it meant she could rejoin the fray?

“What else?” She tweaked her hat brim. Reflected in the window overlooking the busy alley, the hat resembled a cockeyed lamp-shade—not quite the right effect. She tried a Mona Lisa smile.

“That your mother is American—I only had to find out if you are a Yid.”

“Does that matter? Why should that matter?”

He seemed to hesitate. “Anne-Marie, it matters little to me, but it would be very dangerous for you if it were true, you know?”

He leaned across the table and grasped her elbows. She pulled away.

“You should be in a palace.” He made a U-shaped gesture across his chest. “With strings of jewels. And elephants. You should be in a scented harem, wearing the … the pantaloons. I see another Mata Hari—the spy who dances the dance of the veils.”

Noor gave a soft laugh.

Viennot looked wounded. “Tell me, why did you not join the Free French under de Gaulle—why the English?”

“I am a British subject.”

“
Bon!
Some British subjects are better than others. Your Colonel Buckmaster prefers his agents to operate only with each other and keep away from de Gaulle’s.”

“Oui, Professor Balachowsky explained this to me.”

“He and Hoogstraten are probably executed by now—they would be no use to the Nazis.”

This brought Noor back from her momentary flight of playacting. Exciting intrigue. Harmless banter. But the stakes—one’s life. Émile had said, “You have to deny reality to be brave.” And right now she was pretending to be brave.

Viennot carried on. “Messieurs Churchill and Roosevelt have not yet made up their minds who should run France after the war,
and believe they should decide. That’s their idea of democracy, tu sais? They too, no less than the Nazis, have a New World Order in mind for Europe. But me, I work for the Free French and seldom for London. Now, if the Londoners are compromised, I will work only with the Free French—but we have to have money, even if it’s from London. So, if you work with me, you will have to co-operate with Gaullists. But it’s good information. Accurate, because a German talks freely to my little women, and what he doesn’t tell them, he tells Viennot for money …”

So this was the kind of man she was dealing with. She stopped the question that was about to claw its way out of her. She had been about to ask if Viennot had contacts who might find Armand.

Don’t ask Viennot, Viennot who doesn’t like “Yids.” He will have conditions. Or he won’t let you transmit. There must be other ways
.

“D’accord
,” said Viennot. “If you are agreed …” He froze in mid-sentence.

Two black kepis had stopped outside Madame Millet’s
pâtisserie
. They were talking with the tout across the lane. Now the
milice
gendarmes paced back and forth, carbines slung over their shoulders. A couple came out of the restaurant and one of the gendarmes gestured—the lane was closed off.

The poodle raised its head. Madame Millet went to the screen door to look.

Noor jumped up and got around the tables to the windows. The alley was emptying. She glanced back at Viennot. He now had his wallet out. He pulled out a fifty-franc note, placed it on the table, stood up. Far too much for their light repast, it lay suggestively across the path of any
milicien
.

“What is happening?” The little girl ran to the window and asked the question for all of them.

“A
shanghaillage
,” said the gentleman. The poodle quivered on his lap.