but nothing happened. Drew a foot up and drove his heel against the lock plate—same result. Finally he worked the sharp end of the bar into the dried-out wood between the door and the jamb, levered it apart until he could get the end of the bar past the inside edge of the door, used every bit of strength he had. Nothing at first, then it gave a little, finally there was a loud squeak and the sound of ripping wood as the lock tore free. He swung the door open, waited a beat, stepped inside.
What he needed to see he saw immediately—the dusk of closed spaces was broken up by shadowy light from the doorway, and the last two years had taught him to see in the dark. There was no malice or evil in the
They had searched: dumped the canisters of flour into the stone sink, then the sugar, the salt, the baking soda, whatever else had been on the shelf, stirring through each new addition. They would have used a thin metal rod, sifting, probing, hunting the spool of microfilm or the miniature camera, the book marked for ciphering or a set of crystals for a radio. De Milja walked into the office, every step a brittle crunch—they’d spilled a bin of hard candies on the floor, and their boots had ground them into powdery shards of red and green.
Mademoiselle Herault’s office was torn to pieces. Not a piece of paper to be seen, upholstery fabric sliced from the bottom of an upside-down chair, drawers pulled from the desk, then the desk flipped over, smashing the drawers beneath it. In the store itself, the glass had been kicked out of the counters and the wooden frame torn apart— spies were diabolical when it came to hiding things. The searchers had unwrapped the chocolates and squashed them—ants were at work on the result, tossed atop the shards of glass.
By the cash register, where Veronique the clerk had spent her days, de Milja smelled something strange. Even amid the orange essence and vanilla and peppermint and God knew what else—something strong and particular, like flowers. He knelt, the smell got stronger. A small glass bottle, in pieces, half-hidden by the leg of a counter. Candy clerk’s perfume, he thought. They had stood her against a wall, searched through her purse, and it had fallen out, or perhaps they’d thrown it on the floor.
No more than a minute inside the shop, but too long.
Jeanne-Marie called in a whisper, de Milja was up and out in one motion. A flashlight bobbed at the other end of the alley. He kicked the door shut with his foot and embraced Jeanne-Marie in the same instant. Passionately, pressing his mouth against hers. She made a small sound of distaste, stiffened, tried to pull away from him just as the flashlight pinned them both.
The voice was a growl. “What’s this?”
It was the eternal voice of the
De Milja shielded his eyes from the light, squinting helplessly as he did so, a profoundly virtuous gesture. “We have no place to meet,” he said.
A moment while that was considered. “Well, you can’t
The light was lowered. De Milja heard the little pop of a holster flap snapped back into place. “Take a walk,” the cop said. He sensed something, but he wished not to know about it. He simply made it vanish so it no longer troubled him.
They took local trains out of Vannes that night. Jeanne-Marie back to the country house, de Milja to the avenue Hoche.
It was, inevitably, spring in Paris. The first chestnut trees bloomed at the entrances to the metro, where warm air flowed up the staircases. Greece was taken in April, so was Yugoslavia. Belgrade, pressured by tank columns on three sides, was surrendered to a German captain and nine enlisted men who had bluffed their way through the defense lines. The United States had frozen German and Italian assets held in American banks.
For Parisians, daily existence was a struggle, and people simply tried to stay out of the way of the Germans. There had, in the first year of occupation, been one execution—Jacques Bonsergent, shot for jostling a German officer in the Gare Saint-Lazare.
The mood in the cafes was now resignation, the defeat by the Germans called
For de Milja, contacts in the Polish community had finally begun to pay off. He had enlisted a railroad clerk and a miner’s daughter from Alsace—both contacts made through Polish clergy at local churches. The value of priests now became particularly apparent. They had political views, strong ones often enough, and were the keepers of community secrets. They knew who drank, who made money, and who lost it. They knew who the collaborators were, and who the patriots were. People, perhaps resisting an urge to gossip over the back fence, told the priest everything. Sometimes in church, more often in the parlor or at the vegetable stall. That couldn’t be wrong, could it? Heaven knew all your secrets anyhow.
The Alsatian girl, very studious and shy, in her early twenties, came to live in Paris at de Milja’s request. He assigned her the code name
With de Milja’s coaching,
26 April 1941. 3:20 a.m. Le Chabanais.
Paris’s finest brothel. Draperies, brocades, velvets, and cut crystal— such weight as to suggest a thick and impenetrable wall of discretion. Waitresses in golden slippers served osetra caviar. In one of the private rooms, the Slovakian coal dealer Anton Stein had invited the Comte de Rieu and the art dealer Labarthe to be his guests for a late supper and whatever other diversions they might enjoy. They had a peaceful, relaxed, gentlemen’s evening of it.
The count had been entertained, in one of the upstairs bedrooms, by a “Hungarian countess” and her “Spanish maid”—the glass of wine tipped over, the slipper applied, then forgiveness, at length and in many ways. The count returned, shaking his head in wonder at what the world had to offer him. Lit a Camel cigarette, drank a sip of champagne, rested his head on the back of a chair and blew two seemingly endless plumes of smoke at the chandelier.
No need to talk, a grand silence—a moment to contemplate human desire and the masks it wore. De Milja had seen the countess; hair dark red, Magyar cheekbones, long, delicate fingers. But a temper, as you might expect. Not the one to stand for a maid’s clumsy behavior.
The count smiled at his host by way of saying thank you. “The pleasures of excess,” he said quietly. Labarthe snored lightly on a settee, head fallen to one side.
Stein raised his glass in a silent toast to the count’s words. He drank, then after a moment said, “I was in Alsace recently. Stumbled on treasure.”
“Let me guess: a Rhine maiden?”
“Oh no. Completely the opposite.”
“Really?”
Stein nodded yes. Opened a tortoiseshell case and selected a small, pale-leafed cigar. He rolled it between his fingers, then snapped a silver lighter until a flame appeared. “Mmm,” he said, putting the lighter away. “Spinster type—to look at her you’d never imagine.”
“Oh, I can imagine.”
“Little more champagne?” “Not just yet, thanks.” “Anyhow, I have her here. In a
to do all day.” “Why not a job? Coming from there, she must speak German.” “She does, she does. Wants to work for
war.”
