Dead of Winter

‘Sufficient to say you are not the first to come to me with a request of this kind, Monsieur Sobel. These are, as I say, terrible times. Let us be businesslike. Your need is urgent, I see that. The short notice makes for difficulties, but I can provide what you want. However, I would prefer if this were a cash transaction.’

‘You don’t want a cheque?’ Maurice hadn’t been altogether surprised.

‘It’s not a matter of trust, I assure you. Your reputation is beyond question.’ Eyskens had shown small signs of discomfort. ‘But I will be forced to cut corners, if I can put it like that. And later on questions may be asked — I don’t mean by the French authorities. Paris may soon be under new rulers, men who might wish to enquire into favours done for … for …’

‘Jews?’ Maurice had furnished the word he was trying not to utter.

‘I am sorry …’ Eyskens had spread his hands on the desk.

Their first meeting had taken place the previous week, and that afternoon, having earlier withdrawn the cash from his bank — Maurice had given Eyskens a round figure to work with — he had proceeded to their final appointment. Once again he’d been shown upstairs to the diamond broker’s office, a small, windowless room, bare of decoration, where Eyskens was waiting. Before him on the desk was a black velvet bag tied with a drawstring. It lay on a piece of felt which had been spread across the desk. Beside the bag was a jeweller’s loupe.

‘I will leave you now.’ Eyskens rose. ‘You will want to examine the stones. Please take your time. I have made a list’ — he took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to Maurice. ‘The stones are marked by weight, but you will be able to tell by the size and the shape which is which. Taken together they match the sum we agreed on. Of course, if any of them doesn’t meet with your approval, it can be discarded and we will make the necessary adjustment to the total.’ He bowed and left the room.

Maurice had wasted no time. Uncomfortable though the transaction made him feel, he had taken a decision and meant to stick to it. With the start of the war, the movement of funds by more orthodox means had become increasingly difficult and the German invasion had brought even those to a halt. True, in the past few months he had managed to shift a good portion of his assets abroad, but he was reluctant to leave anything he possessed to the new masters of Europe, these brutal despoilers of his people.

Emptying the velvet bag on to the felt, he had examined the glittering contents. Though no expert, his experience as a furrier had made him familiar with all aspects of the fashion trade, including its most luxurious and costly items, and a few minutes’ study with the loupe were enough to reassure him of the quality of the goods he was purchasing. The bag contained a score of diamonds — cut stones, as he’d requested — the biggest the size of his thumbnail, all of the finest water.

By the time the broker returned ten minutes later, Maurice had emptied the attache case, which had been resting on the floor at his feet, and laid out the stacks of banknotes he had brought in a neat pile alongside the diamonds.

‘You are satisfied, then?’ Eyskens resumed his position across the desk.

‘Perfectly.’

Maurice was relieved that their business was over. For some reason — its hole-in-the-wall nature, perhaps — he’d found it distasteful. Nor had he warmed to the man who sat facing him. The Dutchman’s pale blue eyes were unreadable.

‘Would you like to count the money, Monsieur Eyskens?’

‘Given who I am dealing with, that will not be necessary.’ The broker had accompanied these words with a polite bow. They both rose.

‘Goodbye, Monsieur Sobel. I wish you good fortune.’

There was nothing more he could do. Everything was set now for his departure the following morning, and as he wandered about the house switching on lights, Maurice went over the plans he’d made, plans which had grown in complication as the situation around him became more unstable. With sailings from Le Havre suspended, he’d been obliged to look further afield and had managed to book passage on a liner leaving Lisbon for New York in a week’s time. This had still left him with the problem of getting to the Portuguese capital, and having considered — and discarded — the idea of trying to find a seat on the by now overcrowded trains heading south from the city daily, he had decided instead to make the long journey by motor car.

Dugarry’s last job before departing to join his wife and children in Rennes had been to service the Sobels’ Citroen cabriolet and to ensure that the tyres were in good condition and reserve supplies of fuel stowed aboard. Even so, Maurice might have felt daunted by the thought of the drive ahead — apart from the odd Sunday outing it was some years since he had driven a car — had it not been for a stroke of good fortune that had come his way a few days earlier. An acquaintance of his, a Polish art dealer called Kinski, long settled in France, had rung him out of the blue to ask, if it was not prying, if it was not an indelicate question, whether what he had heard was true — that Sobel was intending to quit Paris and would be travelling to Spain in his car? Before Maurice had time to get over his surprise — he had discussed his plans with only one or two people — Kinski had revealed the reason for his enquiry.

‘I’ve been asked if I can help a young man whom the Nazis would like to get their hands on. A Polish officer. Jan Belka’s his name. He joined the resistance soon after the Germans occupied Warsaw, but unfortunately his group was betrayed and he had to get out in a hurry. He’s been in Paris for some time, without papers, of course, and now he’s in danger again. He’d like to get to London, but Spain would be a start. I was wondering … would it be possible …?’

While Kinski was speaking, Maurice had had time to reflect on the fact that it was not so surprising after all that his help should have been sought in the matter. The Sobels were Polish by extraction. They made no secret of it.

‘You want me to take this man with me?’

‘If possible. And his companion, a young woman, also Polish.’ Kinski had hesitated. He said delicately, ‘I understand she is Jewish.’

Ignoring the momentary prick of anger he felt just then — as if the fact that the girl was Jewish might sway him, as if he might be less inclined to help a mere gentile — Maurice had responded without hesitation.

‘Of course, my dear fellow. I’d be happy to take them.’ He’d spoken honestly. ‘In fact, you’re doing me a favour. I’d rather not make this trip alone.’

‘I can’t thank you enough.’ Kinski’s relief had been plain.

‘Give them my address. Tell them we’ll be leaving two days from now, on Thursday. I want to make an early start, so I suggest they spend Wednesday night with me. The house will be empty during the day — I’m paying off the staff — but I’ll be home by six. I’ll expect them then.’

He looked at his watch now. It was a few minutes after the hour. He reminded himself he must check the bedrooms on the floor above to make sure that the maids had prepared them as instructed before departing. Maurice had no idea whether his guests were a couple or not and had decided to offer them a room each and then leave it to them to settle their sleeping arrangements. For his own part he would be glad to have them as company on this last evening. The house was full of ghosts for him; full of memories. Although some of the furniture had already been dispatched across the Atlantic and other pieces put in storage, there were enough reminders of the life he and his family had shared here to weigh on his spirits and fill him with a sense of loss.

But he knew these were thoughts he must put behind him. The future was what concerned him now, the immediate future. Pausing by his desk to gaze dreamily at a photograph of his wife, which he’d not yet packed, Maurice delivered a silent reproof to himself. Leonie Sobel was a woman of character and her dark, emphatic features showed a strength he had come to rely on over the years. He knew very well if she were here now she would tell him to leave off woolgathering. To focus his mind on the business in hand. In particular, there was the problem of the diamonds, which he’d taken out of the attache case and placed on the desk beside his wife’s photograph, to be resolved. How best to transport them? He’d be crossing two borders in the coming days, and quite possibly his luggage would be searched. It might be as well to remove temptation from the gaze of customs officers who’d be only too well aware of his predicament: of the threat that had driven him, and others like him, to take flight.

Even as he considered the question, weighing the velvet bag in his hand, he felt the beginnings of despair take hold of him, a feeling of hopelessness not rooted in the moment — he knew he could deal with the immediate problems facing him — but rather in the sense of destiny as a curse from which there was no escape. Despite the years of prosperity, his family had not forgotten their past. Dealers in furs for generations, the Sobels had fled the