AL01 - Murder in the Marais

arms. She was only six years old.

But he couldn't forget the first time he'd seen Sarah. She could have stepped right off the shelf of porcelain figurines that lined his grandmother's Bremerhaven cottage.

As a young boy, he'd spent every summer at the cottage playing with his cousins near the sea. Sometimes for hours at a time, he would stare at his grandmother's collection and make up stories about each figurine. Grandmother never allowed him to touch, that was forbidden, but he had been content to look.

His favorite, though it had been a hard decision, was the shepherdess, with her coal black wavy hair, azure eyes with dark blue pinpoints, and white porcelain skin. She held a staff and beckoned to her fluffy sheep, whose hooves were forever poised in flight.

Of course, it was all gone. His grandmother's cottage, as well as miles of other suburban cottages, had been firebombed during early raids on the Bremerhaven harbor.

But Hartmuth had seen his shepherdess alive and in the flesh that day in 1942. He'd been checking the Marais again near the building with the salamander. In the courtyard with sleepy midday shuttered windows, a figure leaned over, petting an orange marmalade–colored cat.

A girl with wavy black hair had looked up, smiling, as he'd approached. She had incredible sky blue eyes and alabaster skin. Her expression had changed when she saw the black uniform with the lightning bolts of the Waffen SS on his sleeve and his heavy jackboots. He'd ignored her look of terror as she haltingly rose. Hartmuth always remembered her as the only French girl who had ever greeted him with a smile. Love at first sight can happen when you're eighteen, he thought. It had lasted all his life.

She'd recoiled in fear, but he'd put a finger to his lips and knelt down to pet the cat. Its fur was uneven and it had scaly patches of mange, which probably explained why no one had eaten it. He opened his heart to her and smiled. Then she nodded, kneeling down beside the cat and next to him.

Her schoolbooks peeked out of the worn satchel on the cobblestones. Something about her was so defenseless that he decided to ignore the yellow star embroidered on her school smock. They took turns petting the cat, who was purring furiously now and hoping for something to eat. She had the biggest blue eyes he'd ever seen. Hartmuth couldn't stop staring into them. When she looked up at him he pulled a bit of chalk out his pocket. He drew a whiskered cat and they both smiled. His French was so minimal and his urge to communicate so desperate that he did the only thing he could think of.

'Woof, woof,' he barked.

Her incredulous look gave way to stifled giggles and then outright laughter as he stood up and started scratching like a monkey and jumping around. Hartmuth didn't care how he embarrassed himself, he just wanted to make her laugh. She was so beautiful. He remembered something his uncle, a bachelor who had many mistresses, had said: once you've got them laughing, they're yours.

It was important to him that she want him, too, that he wasn't just her captor. He gently put his hand on her shoulder, feeling bones and her thinness, and gestured with his other hand. Trembling, she reached into her satchel and handed him her school card with the ausweis permit attached to the back. He recognized the address. His men had raided it during the Vel d'Hiver roundup in July. He gestured forward with his arm and led her through the courtyard, up the staircase with a winding metal rail.

'Ja. C'est bien, kein problem.' He smiled and patted her arm to reassure her.

Just as they approached the apartment, a door across the hall opened and an old man hobbled out using a cane. His rheumy eyes took a long look as he stopped and clicked his tongue in disapproval. Sarah had looked up in fear, but Hartmuth purposely ignored the old man, who shuffled down the hall. In front of her door, Hartmuth pantomimed eating, trying to make her understand that he would bring food.

Hartmuth used the little French he knew and motioned with his hands for her to wait. He showed her his watch and what time he would be back. She seemed to understand and nodded vigorously. He took her chin in his hand, it was warm and smooth, and he smiled. He still couldn't stop staring at her. Then he left.

The apartment was empty when he came back. She'd run away from him.

So he waited and watched in the Marais. He would find her. On the third day he saw her, emerging from the boarded-up courtyard of a derelict mansion, an hotel particulier, off the rue de Pavee. Dusk had fallen when she finally returned. He stood waiting. Waiting to follow her. She wouldn't get away this time. He watched her pick her way through debris, then disappear behind a pile of rubbish.

Clutching his parcel of food, he slicked his dark hair under his cap, brushed the dust off his epaulets, and buffed his black leather jackboots quickly with his handkerchief. He approached the bushes, his boots crunching branches and bits of broken furniture as he walked.

He came face to face with an old rusted wire bed frame. He kicked it aside, the wire rattling drunkenly askew, and he saw the opening. He found the footholds and climbed down, realizing he'd entered a candle-lit cavern sprinkled with bones, part of the old Roman catacombs that honeycombed Paris. She was curled up in a fetal position in a dim corner, wedging herself into the damp earth. Her hands quivered as she tried to ward him off.

'Non, s'il vous plait. Non!' she pleaded.

'Mangez, mangez.' He smiled, putting his fingers to his lips to indicate food.

In a corner of the catacomb, a patched blanket lay spread over a lumpy mattress while a battered wooden tea chest doubled as a table. He beckoned to her and pointed to his package of food. From under his arm he pulled out some dog-eared books.

'Ja. Amis. Etudiez f-francais?'

He removed his Gestapo dagger from its hilt, setting it flat on the tea chest. Eagerly, he motioned with his arms and she slowly crawled forward, her eyes never leaving the dagger shining in the candlelight.

Her eyes widened as he opened the parcel and spread out tins of foie gras, chewy Montelimar nougat, calisson d'Aix from Provence, and crusty brown bread.

In the primitive French he'd rehearsed he said, 'Let's be friends, share.'

As if to offer hospitality in return she spread her arms, thrust bottled water into his lap, and kept her eyes down.

At first, she was reluctant to eat but after he opened the bottle of red wine, she almost inhaled the contents of the chewy nougat tin. Hartmuth started talking in German while she ate. Constantly consulting a French-German dictionary, standard Third Reich army issuance, and an old phrase book he'd found in a book stall on the quai Celestin, he tried to relax her. He punctuated each word with looks in the dictionary to make sure.

She would raise her eyes when he stuttered. It had begun when he was ten and his father died. Now his mouth wasn't cooperating again. Watching him intently, she saw his frustration. Then she took his hand and put it on her lips to feel how she formed the words with her mouth.

'Je m'appelle Sarah. SA' RAH.'

'Ich b-b. . .bin He. . .Helmut. HELM' MOOT,' he stammered as he held her small white hands on his mouth, kissing them.

She pulled her hands away immediately and said seriously, 'Enchante, HELM'MOOT.'

'Enchantee, S-SARAH.' He bowed as low as he could with his knees crunched beneath him.

A faint odor of decay clung to the cavern walls pocked with bits of bone. Damp chill crept from the darkness beyond the candlelight.

'I w-won't hurt you, S-SARAH,' he whispered. 'N-never.'

His night shift at the Kommandantur began at midnight, and he left her just in time to walk the few blocks there. Eighteen families on her street had been turned in by a collaborator, she'd said. He had promised to search for her parents but that would be an exercise in futility.

Everyone had boarded convoy number 10 bound for Auschwitz.

The only thing he could do was save her. If he was careful. Fear, gratitude, and a promise of safety might be all she had now. But he would wait.

Every night before his shift he visited the catacombs. His loneliness would evaporate as he climbed down and met Sarah's face. Hopeful and grateful.

In 1942 all the detainees from Drancy prison had been required to send home a cheerful missive before being herded into the trains. The next week he'd found the card from her parents and brought it to her. Ecstatically happy, she'd hugged him and cried. Quickly she'd sent her one extra blanket to the prison.