Field Gray Page 18

  “What makes you think I’m not coming with you?”

  “Your doctor said that it would be several days before you were fit enough to resume your duties,” said Kestner. “Surely you’ll want to get home and recuperate.”

  “I’m working for Heydrich, remember? He’s a bit like the God of Abraham. It’s never a good idea to risk his wrath, because retribution is often direct. No, I’ll be on that plane tomorrow even if you have to tie me on the undercarriage. Not a bad idea at that. The doc says I need plenty of fresh air.”

  Kestner shrugged. “All right. If you say so. It’s your luck that’s as black as pitch, not mine.”

  “Exactly. Besides, what would I do here in Paris except go to Maison Chabanais or One Twenty-two? Or one of those other puff houses.”

  “The car leaves the Hôtel du Louvre for Le Bourget at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.” Kestner shot me an exasperated, weary sort of look and smacked the side of his thigh with his cap. Then he went away.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and submitted to a long fit of coughing. But I wasn’t worried. I was in a hospital. In hospitals people get better all the time. Some of them, anyway.

  18

  FRANCE, 1940

  It was early the next morning when an SS staff car arrived to drive me back to the hotel, to collect my things, and then to the airport. Paris still wasn’t awake, but for any decent Frenchman the city probably looked better with eyes closed. A detachment of soldiers was marching along the Champs-Élysées; German trucks were pouring in and out of the army garage that was located in the Grand Palais; and in case anyone was still in any doubt about it, on the façade of the Palais Bourbon they were erecting a large V for victory and a sign that read “Germany Is Everywhere Victorious.” It was a bright, sunny summer’s day, but Paris looked almost as depressing as Berlin. Still, I was feeling better. At my request, the hospital doctor had shot me full of dope to put some raspberry into my beer. Amphetamines, he said. Whatever it was, I felt like Saint Vitus was holding my hand. It didn’t stop the pain in my chest and throat from all the retching I’d done, but I was ready to go flying. All I had to do was go back to the hotel, get into my uniform, and find a nice tall building for a takeoff.

  The hotel manager was pleased to see me standing up. He’d have been glad to see me in a flower vase. It’s bad for business when guests die in their rooms. I was alive and that was all that mattered. My old room was closed up because of the strong smell of chemicals in there, and my clothes had been taken to a suite on another floor. He seemed relieved when I told him I was going south to Biarritz for a few days. I said I was going up to my new room and that I wanted to say thanks to the maid who’d saved my life, and he said he’d arrange this immediately.

  Then I went upstairs and took my field gray uniform out of the closet. It carried a strong smell of chemicals or gas and brought on a strong feeling of nausea as I recalled breathing the stuff. I opened the French window, hung my uniform there for a minute, and then rinsed my face with cold water. There was a knock at the door and I went to open it with shaking knees.

  The maid was prettier than I remembered. Her nose wrinkled a little when she caught the smell of chemicals on my uniform, although it could just as easily have been the sight of it. But in truth it probably was the smell; in the summer of 1940 it was only Germans, Czechs, and Poles who had good reason to fear the field gray uniform of an SD captain.

  “Thank you, mademoiselle. For saving my life.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Nothing to you. But quite a bit to me.”

  “You don’t look very well,” she observed.

  “I feel better than I look, I think. But that’s probably down to what was in the needle I had for breakfast this morning.”

  “Which is all very well, but what’s going to happen at dinnertime?”

  “If I live that long, I’ll let you know. Like I said, my life means quite a bit to me. So I’m going to do you a favor. Relax. It’s not that kind of favor. Underneath this uniform I’m really not a bad fellow. How would you like to get some real hotel experience? I don’t mean making beds and cleaning toilets. I mean in hotel management. I can fix that for you. In Berlin. At the Adlon. There’s nothing wrong with this place, but it strikes me that Paris is going to be fine if you’re German and not so fine if you’re anything else.”

  “You’d do that? For me?”

  “All I need from you is a little information.”

  She smiled a coy little smile. “You mean about the man who tried to kill you?”

  “See what I mean? I knew you were too smart to be cleaning toilets.”

  “Smart enough. But a little confused. Why would one German officer want to murder another? After all, Germany is everywhere victorious.”

  I smiled. I liked her spirit. “That’s what I mean to find out, mademoiselle…?”

  “Matter. Renata Matter.” She nodded. “All right, Major.”

  “Captain. Captain Bernhard Gunther.”

  “Maybe they’ll promote you. If they don’t kill you first.”

  “There’s always that possibility. Unfortunately, I think I’m a lot harder to promote than I am to kill.” I started to cough again and kept it going for the sake of effect; at least that’s what I told myself.

  “I can believe that.” Renata fetched me a glass of water. She moved gracefully, like a ballerina. Looked like one, too, being small and slim. Her hair was dark and quite short and a little boyish, but I liked that. What I previously saw as being homeliness now looked more like a very natural, girlish beauty.

  I drank the water. Then I said, “So what makes you think someone tried to kill me?”

  “Because there shouldn’t have been a fire extinguisher in your room.”

  “Do you know where it is now?”

  “The manager, Monsieur Schreider, he took it away.”

  “Pity.”

  “There’s one the same on the wall along the corridor. Would you like me to fetch it for you?”

  I nodded, and she went out of my room and returned a moment later carrying a brass extinguisher. Made by the Pyrene Manufacturing Company of Delaware, it had an integrated hand-pump that was used to expel a jet of liquid toward a fire and contained about nine liters of carbon tetrachloride. The container wasn’t pressurized and was designed to be refilled with a fresh supply of chemical after use through a filling plug.

  “When I found you, the filler cap had been removed,” she said. “And the extinguisher was lying beside your bed. The chemical had poured onto the carpet beneath your nose. In other words, it looked deliberate.”

  “Have you mentioned this to anyone?”

  “No one’s asked me. Everyone believes it was an accident.”

  “For your own safety, it would be best if they continue to believe that, Renata.”

  She nodded.

  “Did you see anyone enter or leave my room? Or hanging around in the corridor outside?”

  Renata thought for a moment. “I don’t know. To be honest, with everyone in uniform, all Germans look more or less alike.”

  “But not all of them are as handsome as me, surely?”

  “That’s true. Perhaps that’s why they tried to kill you. Out of jealousy.”

  I grinned. “I never thought of that. As a motive, I mean.”

  She sighed. “Look, there’s something I haven’t told you. And I want your word that you’ll leave my name out of it whenever you do what it is you’re going to do. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “It’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll look after you.”

  “And who looks after you? Maybe you were a champion when you walked into this hotel, but right now you look like you’re in need of a good cornerman.”

  “All right. I’ll keep you out of it. You have my word.”

  “As a German officer.”

  “What’s that worth after Munich?”

  “Good point.”

  “How about my word as someone who det
ests Hitler and all that he stands for, including this ridiculous uniform?”

  “Better,” she said.

  “And who might wish the German army had never crossed the Rhine except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I wouldn’t have met you, Renata.”

  She laughed and looked away for a moment. She was wearing a black uniform and a little white pinafore. Hesitantly, she put a hand in the pocket of her pinafore and took out a brass plug about the size of a champagne cork. Handing it to me, she said, “I found this. The missing plug from the fire extinguisher in your room. It was in the wastepaper basket of the man in room fifty-five.”

  “Good girl. Can you find out the name of the officer who’s in fifty-five?”

  “I already did. His name is Lieutenant Willms. Nikolaus Willms.” She paused. “Do you know him?”

  “I met him for the first time on the train from Berlin. He’s a cop specializing in vice. Hates the French. Face like a snake charmer, only without the charm. That’s about all I know about him. I can’t imagine why he would want to kill me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Perhaps he made a mistake. Got the wrong room.”

  “A French farce by Georges Feydeau doesn’t normally include murder.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Nothing, for the moment. I have to leave Paris for a few days. Maybe I’ll have thought of something by the time I come back. In the meantime, how would you like to earn some more German money?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Keep an eye on him?”

  “And what am I supposed to look for?”

  “You’re a smart girl. You’ll know. You found this top from the extinguisher, didn’t you? Just bear in mind that he’s dangerous and don’t take any risks. I wouldn’t like anything to happen to you.”

  I took her hand and, a little to my surprise, she let me kiss it.

  “If I didn’t think I’d start coughing, I’d kiss you.”

  “Then you’d better let me do it.”

  She kissed me, and in my weakened condition, I let her. But after a moment or two, I needed the air. Then I said, “When he gave me that shot this morning, the doc warned me that I might feel like this. A little euphoric. Like I was Napoleon.”

  I pressed myself hard against her belly.

  “You’re too big for Napoleon.” She kissed me again and added, “And way too tall.”

  19

  FRANCE, 1940

  Le Bourget was about ten kilometers north of Paris. And so was I. It’s strange how physically and mentally restorative one or two kisses can be. I felt like a new kind of fairy tale in which a sleeping prince gets himself rescued by a plucky princess. Then again, that could have been the dope.

  At the entrance to the aerodrome was a statue of a nude woman taking flight from her gray stone plinth. It was meant to commemorate Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, but the only memory that was alive in my head was the feel of Renata’s body and what it might look like if ever I saw her out of that maid’s uniform.

  There were three of us—me, Kestner, and Bömelburg—pinned in the back of the staff car like a collection of taupe-colored moths. In the front was an SS driver and a handsome young chief inspector from the Office of the Paris Prefect of Police. As we drove toward the airport building, a four-engined FW Condor was landing on the runway.

  “Who do you suppose that is?” wondered Kestner.

  “It’s Dr. Goebbels,” said Bömelburg. “Taking his cue from the Führer to see the sights of Paris. Here to cause trouble, no doubt.”

  We were obliged to remain in our car for reasons of security until the Mahatma Propagandi had left the airport in an enormous beige Mercedes. I caught a glimpse of him as his car swept past ours. He looked like a malignant goblin on his best behavior.

  When Goebbels had gone our car made for a smaller, two-engined plane that was awaiting us. I’d never flown before. Neither had Kestner or the Frenchman, and we were all a little nervous as we walked toward the plane’s passenger door. Inside the fuselage we found another Frenchman waiting for us—an older, taller man with a Lautrec beard, pince-nez, and a quiet forensic manner. He was a commissioner of French police and his name was Matignon. The younger Frenchman was even taller than his commissioner. He wore an extremely well-cut charcoal-gray summer suit and a pair of thick rose-tinted glasses. His name was Philippe Oltramare. Neither of the two Frenchmen seemed to speak much German, but that was hardly a problem with French speakers like Kestner and Bömelburg on board.

  The plane, a Siebel Fh 104, started its engines as soon as we were all aboard, and that was the cue for everyone except me to light a cigarette. Following the injury to my lungs, the insult of cigarettes seemed too much to bear, and it wasn’t long before another fit of coughing had me in its grip, which prompted the others, politely, to extinguish their tobacco, and I enjoyed a smoke-free flight down to Biarritz without further irritation to my noisy breathing. I sounded like the audience at a dirty movie.

  Mostly the conversation was in French, but there were several names I recognized, among them Rudolf Breitscheid, the former German minister of the interior, and Dr. Rudolf Hilferding, the former minister of finance. Both men had fled Germany after Hitler’s election. I asked Bömelburg about them.

  “We think the two Rudolfs are at a hotel in Arles,” he said. “The Commissioner here has already applied for their arrest. But he seems to be encountering some local resistance.”

  I was pleased to hear it. The two Rudolfs had been the leading lights of the German Social Democratic Party, which I had voted for myself. Arresting a thug like Erich Mielke was one thing, but arresting Breitscheid and Hilferding was quite another.

  “We trust the Commissioner’s physical presence in Arles will overcome any opposition,” added Bömelburg, and showed me a list he had compiled of other wanted men. Mielke’s name was second from the top, underneath Willi Münzenberg, a former Comintern agent and leader of Germany’s communist exiles. Other names were less familiar to me.

  “I can’t help noticing that this plane has only five seats,” I told Bömelburg. “How am I supposed to get my prisoner back to Paris?”

  “That all depends. If we manage to pick up Grynszpan and Mielke and some of these others, we may have to have the French deliver them first to Vichy and then apply to have them extradited across the border. At least that’s what Commissioner Matignon thinks. So he’s arranged for a French lawyer to meet us on the ground in Biarritz.”

  “It’s already looking more complicated than we had supposed,” complained Kestner. “It turns out that this damned Kuhnt Commission isn’t supposed to go into the camps until the end of August. Of course, if we wait that long these commie Jew bastards might easily give us the slip. So we’re treading on eggshells at the moment. We’re not even supposed to be here.”

  The flight, at least, was much less complicated, and for the last forty minutes of a journey that lasted just under two hours we hugged the coastline of France and the Bay of Biscay. From the air the city of Biarritz appeared to be exactly what it was: a luxurious-looking seaside town. It was a hot day and the resort was packed with people intent on having a good time in spite of the new German government. I hadn’t enjoyed the flight from Paris. There were too many potholes in the air for me to feel entirely comfortable with the experience of air travel. But when I saw the size of the waves rolling onto the banded agate that was the beach, I felt very glad I hadn’t traveled there by boat. Under the cliff tops that adjoined the sand the ocean was like the milk in one enormous frothy cappuccino. Just looking at it made me feel seasick, although in truth that probably had a lot more to do with what I’d just learned about the two Rudolfs. That really made me feel sick.

  “Münzenberg I can understand,” I said. “Grynszpan, too. But why the Rudolfs?”

  “Hilferding is one of these Jewish intellectuals,” said Bömelburg. “Not to mention the fact that he was the finance minister wh
o was in league with other bankers who helped bring about the Great Depression. Anyway, it’s not our problem. It’s a French problem. A test of their Vichy government’s resolve to become a German ally. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. Why? Do you have any objections to his being arrested?”

  For a moment the plane dropped like a faulty elevator car. I felt my stomach rise in my chest. I wanted to puke right in the major’s lap. He fumbled in his tunic and produced a hip flask.

  “Me? No, I’m just an old-fashioned copper. You know? Shortsighted. I see all kinds of things and I never do anything about them.”

  Bömelburg took a bite of the flask and offered it to me. “Swallow?”

  “That’s the best thing I’ve heard since I got into this tin pigeon.”

  On the ground at Bayonne Airport there were four bucket wagons waiting for us, six SS storm troopers, and the French lawyer. The SS were good-humored and full of smiles, the way men are when they’ve won a war in less than six weeks. The lawyer had a big nose, thick glasses, and hair so curly it was almost absurd. To me he seemed like a Jew, but nobody was asking. Either way, he was jumpy and nervous. He lit a cigarette inside the lapel of this jacket to keep the wind off his match, and smoke billowed out of his sleeve.

  It was a real bestiary that drove east from Biarritz. Something from the pages of Hesiod, with me in the leading bucket and moving at speed, as if the beauty of the French countryside meant not a thing to any of us. On the road we saw demobilized French soldiers, who regarded us with neither hostility nor enthusiasm. We also saw piles of abandoned military equipment—rifles, helmets, ammunition boxes, even a few pieces of artillery. Just beyond the village of St. Palais we crossed the demarcation line into what was Vichy France. Not that there was much love for the French so close to the Spanish border, as Chief Inspector Oltramare—who spoke better German than I had supposed—now told me: