Mission to Paris: A Novel Page 7

  ‘Yes, I prefer it.’ After a beat he said, ‘Renate.’

  Measuring his other arm, she said, ‘We’ve got plenty of Foreign Legion uniforms in stock, we’ll just have to do some alterations.’

  ‘Will I be wearing the kepi with the white neckcloth?’ In his voice, I hope not.

  ‘Not if I can help it,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s been seen too often, in the worst movies – the audience will expect you to burst out in song. “Oh, my desert maiden …”, that sort of thing.’ He smiled, she glanced up at him. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you’ll wear a classic officer’s uniform, and since Vadic has been in a Turkish prison camp we’ll have to fade it, soil it, give you a little rip in the shoulder.’

  ‘That sounds just right,’ he said. ‘When I made silent films in Paris they stuck a kepi on me but it was too small …’

  She said, ‘Would you face the mirror, please?’ and stepped up onto the platform, running the tape across his shoulders.

  ‘… which made it so hot they had to wipe the sweat off my face.’

  ‘That won’t happen, not at chez Renate – I try to keep my actors comfortable.’ She reached up and measured his head. ‘Your hat will fit perfectly, colonel.’ She next took his neck measurement, then drew the tape tight around his waist. ‘Please don’t do that,’ she said. ‘Just let everything settle in its natural position, you’re not at the beach.’ Stahl relaxed his stomach. ‘We all have tummies, don’t we?’ she said. Then she knelt in front of him and, looking up at him, she said, ‘We come now to the inseam.’ This measurement was taken from the very top of the inner thigh. ‘You can hold the sensitive end if you like.’

  Stahl grinned despite himself. ‘No, I don’t mind, I’ll just close my eyes.’

  She laughed politely, then went ahead and took the measurement, exactly as his tailor, and past costume designers, had done it. ‘There,’ she said, ‘you can open your eyes now.’ Next she did the wrist, after that, the neck. Then she said, ‘We’re just about done,’ and circled the tape around his hips.

  ‘Bigger than you thought?’ Stahl said, a laugh in his voice.

  ‘Oh, normal, maybe a little bigger,’ she said. ‘But you aren’t the only one.’ She was, he knew, referring to herself. She rolled the tape back up and put it in the pocket of her smock. They returned to their chairs and Stahl, glad that the work was finished, lit a cigarette. Renate, looking at her notepad, said, ‘Colonel Vadic will also wear an old suit – all three of them will. This is when they have to get rid of their uniforms, after they’ve been arrested as deserters …’

  ‘And almost executed. Blindfolded, tied to the post …’

  ‘They buy suits in Damascus, in the souk,’ she said. ‘You know, I think Paramount might let Deschelles shoot on location. He’s trying, anyhow, wants to use Tangiers for Damascus, and do the desert scenes nearby.’

  ‘We can only hope,’ Stahl said. ‘Because you know what studio desert sets are like, beach sand blown around by fans, and …’

  Suddenly, a man and a woman on bicycles skidded to a halt in front of the open door. ‘Renate!’ the woman called out, her voice breathless and excited. Renate rose and walked over to the door, Stahl followed her. ‘Have you heard?’ the woman said. She spoke German with a sharp Berlin accent. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said to Stahl in French, ‘but there is finally good news. Very good news.’

  ‘Hello, Inga,’ Renate said. ‘Hello, Klaus.’

  ‘They’ve made a deal with Hitler,’ Inga said, now back in German. ‘He takes the Sudetenland, but promises that’s the end of it, and he signed a paper saying so. They had to put pressure on the Czechs, of course, who were going to fight. Now they’ve agreed not to resist.’

  ‘This is good news, thank you for telling me,’ Renate said. Her tone was courteous, and far from elated.

  Inga again apologized for the interruption, then she and Klaus pedalled away on their bicycles. ‘I suppose that’s good news,’ Stahl said. ‘Surely for this movie, it is.’

  Renate said, ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ her tone tentative and thoughtful. ‘Maybe not so good for the Czechs, though. And I have Jewish friends who settled in Karlsbad, in the Sudeten Mountains, when they fled Germany, and now they’ll have to run again. But it is good news, for me and Inga and Klaus, because if France goes to war with Germany, all the German émigrés here will be interned. That’s a rumour, but it’s a rumour I believe.’

  Stahl spent another fifteen minutes with Renate Steiner, then went off to find his taxi.

  The driver had managed to get hold of a newspaper, a special edition with the headline WAR AVERTED, then, in smaller print, Hitler Signs Agreement in Munich with a photograph of Neville Chamberlain smiling as he waved a piece of paper. Heading away from Joinville, the driver was ambivalent – yes, his son would be demobilized, would return to his family and his taxi, and about this he felt a father’s great relief. On the other hand, he didn’t trust Hitler. ‘This man is the neighbourhood bully,’ he said, anger tightening his voice. ‘Don’t they see that, these diplomats? You appease a thug like Hitler, it just makes him greedy for more, because he smells fear.’ Distracted by his emotions, he took a route through Paris on the left bank of the Seine, entering the city via the Thirteenth Arrondissement and continuing into the Fifth on the quai by the river. To reach the Claridge, he should have taken the right bank, which Stahl noticed, without any particular concern.

  But, as they reached the foot of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, traffic slowed down, and soon the taxi could move only a few feet before it had to stop. The driver swore, and with his good hand swung off the boulevard onto a side street. Here, however, the traffic barely crawled, and when he tried to return to Saint-Germain, a policeman stopped him and said, ‘You’ll have to go back the other way – they’re marching on the boulevard.’ The driver raised his hands, he surrendered. So Stahl thanked him, paid the fare, added a generous tip, then headed for the Métro station on the Place Maubert. By the time he got there he was mixed in with the marchers, students angered at the Munich agreement, with signs that said SHAME! and chants of ‘Down with Daladier!’ At last he reached the Métro, to find its grilled gate shut and a hand-lettered sign that said On Strike. Well, no surprise, the Métro-workers’ union was a communist union and would strike if angered by government policy.

  With an oath that was more sigh than curse, Stahl set out for the hotel. Not a bad day for a walk: grey clouds above the city, a chill in the air, the forces of autumn were gathering. As he made his way up the boulevard, he realized that a lot of the marchers were women – many of the male students had apparently been mobilized. He then began to notice small knots of men gathered on the pavement, glaring at the marchers, sometimes turning to each other and making comments that drew a snicker from their pals. The marching students ignored the sneering crowd. Until one of them joined the march, just long enough to bump the shoulder of a student, who turned and said something as the man laughed and retreated back to the pavement.

  And then, about ten feet away from Stahl, a man wearing a grey hood with eyeholes cut in it came running out of an alley waving a metal rod. Some of the marchers stopped to see what was going on, somebody shouted a warning, a second hooded man followed the first and swung his metal rod, hitting a woman in the side of the head. As she sank to her knees, a drop of blood running from beneath her hair, the man swung the rod back, preparing to hit her again. Stahl ran at him, shouting ‘Stop!’ as he grabbed at the rod. The man swore, words muffled by the hood, and Stahl barely held on, until the man stopped pulling at the rod and pushed against him, so that he stumbled into the girl on her knees, who yelped as Stahl fell over her. When the man lifted the rod over his head, Stahl kicked at him, then got himself upright. In time for the rod to hit him in the face. With salty blood in his mouth, he rushed at the man and punched him in the centre of the hood, which knocked him back a step.

  This was not the only fight on the boulevard – there were hooded men with rods attacking march
ers on both sides of him, people on the ground, shouting and screaming everywhere. Stahl spat the blood out of his mouth and went after the man who’d hit him. And now tried to do it again. Stahl dodged away from the rod, which landed on his shoulder, grabbed the bottom of the hood and tore it off, revealing a fair-haired teenager with the sparse beginnings of a moustache. His eyes widened as Stahl threw the hood at him and punched him again, square in the mouth. Sputtering with rage, the teenager swung the rod back over his head, but a girl student wearing broken glasses got the fingernails of both hands into the side of his face and raked him from forehead to jaw. He didn’t mind hitting women but he didn’t like women hitting back so he hesitated, turned, and ran away. Somebody grabbed Stahl from behind, somebody very strong, lifting him off his feet as he tried to fight free. ‘Calm down,’ a voice said. ‘Or else.’ The arm around his chest was wearing a police uniform, so Stahl stopped struggling.

  As more police arrived, Stahl’s arms were pulled back, and handcuffs snapped on his wrists.

  They had two holding cells at the Fifth Arrondissement prefecture, so the marchers and the attackers – ‘the fascists’, the students called them – were separated. In Stahl’s cell, the walls bled moisture, and one of the graffiti carved into the stone was dated 1889. A woman in the cell lent Stahl her compact, its mirror revealing a livid purple bruise which ran down the right side of his face. The inside of his upper lip had been gashed by his teeth, his head ached terribly, his right hand was swollen – possibly a broken knuckle – but the worst pain was in his shoulder. Still, in a way he’d been lucky: if his nose was broken there was no evidence of it, and he had all his teeth.

  He wound up sitting on the stone floor, back against the wall, next to a man about his own age, who explained that he was a Métro worker, a motorman, and had been on a picket line when the ‘cagoulards’, hooded ones, had attacked them. ‘Very foolish,’ the motorman said. ‘We gave them a thrashing they’ll remember.’ Stahl offered him a cigarette, the motorman was grateful. ‘How did you do?’ he said to Stahl.

  Stahl shrugged. ‘I hit one of them, a couple of times.’

  ‘Good for you. I don’t imagine you do much fighting.’

  ‘No,’ Stahl said. He started to smile but it hurt. ‘I had a couple of fights at sea, when I was a kid. The first one didn’t last long – I drew my arm back, then I was looking at the sky and they threw a pail of water on me. The guy was built like an ox – a stoker.’

  The motorman was amused. ‘You don’t want to fight a man who shovels coal all day.’

  ‘My face was numb for hours,’ Stahl said. ‘The other one was with a mess steward, that went better. We punched each other for maybe a minute, then the crewmen separated us – we were both finished, gasping for breath. So I didn’t win, but I didn’t lose.’

  ‘Oh, I’d say you won – they probably left you alone after that.’

  ‘Then I guess I won.’

  The motorman was released an hour later – his union had sent a lawyer. It was dawn before Zolly Louis showed up. ‘The police couldn’t find you,’ Zolly said.

  ‘How did you know to look for me?’

  ‘A journalist called the office. Was it possible that Fredric Stahl was arrested for fighting? A witness was almost sure he’d seen a movie star taken away. You weren’t at the hotel, so we called the police. Eventually, the flics figured out where you were.’

  ‘What did you tell the journalist?’

  ‘That you were on a train to Geneva.’

  Zolly had paid somebody off, and a sergeant led them down a tunnel which eventually led to a street behind the prefecture. ‘Just in case there’s a reporter in front,’ Zolly said. ‘Or, God forbid, a photographer.’

  30 September. Hervé Charais, a news commentator on Radio Paris, was lying in bed that afternoon, propped up on a pillow so he could better feast his eyes on his exquisite little Spanish mistress, one Consuela, as she stood naked before a dressing-table mirror and, in profile, bent over to peer at a non-existent blemish on her forehead. While Consuela was very much worth looking at, Hervé Charais was certainly not; soft and squat and pudgy, he walked splay-footed, so waddled like a duck. But Hervé Charais had a most cultured, mellifluous, and persuasive voice, and therein lay his considerable popularity. Across the darkened room, Consuela held back her thick hair and squinted at her reflection: a thirty-five-year-old face above, the body of a fifteen-year-old below. Like a Greek statue, he thought, a statue that could be warmed up to just the proper temperature – ‘but only by you,’ as she put it.

  And to think it had all started with an accident! Some months earlier, she’d spilled a drink on him when he was out with friends at a nightclub. That led to an apology, and that led to a new drink, and that led, in time, to this very room. ‘Come back to bed, my precious,’ he said tenderly.

  ‘Yes, in a moment, I have something on my forehead.’

  And soon you’ll have something somewhere else.

  ‘Don’t you have to write your commentary, for tonight?’

  ‘It’s mostly written, in my head anyhow.’

  ‘Is it about Czechoslovakia?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘So what will you say?’

  ‘Oh, nothing special. The nation is relieved, surely, but maybe just for the time being.’

  ‘Why don’t you say something about the Sudeten Germans? They seem to have been forgotten in all this … whatever you call it.’

  ‘You think so? What do you have in mind?’

  ‘Just what happens to all these people who live in the wrong country, the poor Poles, the poor Hungarians, the poor, other people. But also the German minority living in Czechoslovakia, one hears the most frightening things, rapes and beatings by the Czech police, houses burned down …’

  ‘You believe that? Mostly we think it’s Nazi propaganda.’

  ‘Some of it surely is … exaggerated. But my mama always used to say, where there’s smoke there’s fire.’

  ‘Well, maybe, I don’t know.’

  Consuela turned to look at him. ‘If you did at least mention them you’d be the only one on the radio. Everybody has forgotten how this crisis started.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said. It started in Berlin.

  Consuela appeared to have found the blemish, for she bent further towards the mirror. ‘Just a tiny mention,’ she said. ‘It would show fairness, it would show that you care. Your listeners will like that, it’s the best part of you.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Charais said.

  ‘Ah, now you make me happy.’

  ‘Done yet?’

  ‘I suspect it’s you who aren’t done yet, are you?’ She walked towards the bed, her breasts jiggling prettily with every step. ‘How you look at me!’ Closer and closer she came. ‘So what goes on under that blanket, eh? You want to show me?’

  By cable, 30 September, from Rudolf Vollmer, director of the National Press Guild of Germany, to J. L. Ferrand, a senior executive of the Havas Agency, the French wire service:

  My dear Monsieur Ferrand,

  Allow us to express our great pleasure that you have accepted our invitation to deliver a lecture to The National Press Guild on 17 October. This cable is to confirm the arrangements for your visit.

  You will travel by Lufthansa Flight 26 from Paris on the afternoon of 15 October, to be met by a car that will take you to the Hotel Adlon, where you will occupy the Bismarck Suite on the top floor. Your lecture will be at 8.00 p.m. in the Adlon ballroom. We anticipate a large audience, and translation will be provided. On the 18 October, at 1.30 p.m., you are invited to dine with Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop in the Minister’s private dining room. After lunch you will meet with Reichs Chancellor Hitler. You will return to Paris on 19 October, on Flight 27 from Berlin.

  The honorarium for your lecture will be as specified: 100,000 reichsmarks, or, if you prefer, 50,000 American dollars. We look forward to meeting you, and to an interesting and much anticipated lecture on the role of the
press in maintaining peace and stability in today’s Europe.

  With our most sincere and respectful good wishes,

  Rudolf Vollmer

  Director

  The National Press Guild of Germany

  2 October. Telephone call from Philippe LaMotte, managing director of Champagne Rousillon of Epernay, to Albert Roche, publisher of the newspaper Le Temps.

  ‘Albert, good morning, how are you?’

  ‘A busy day – a busy time! But, for the moment, all goes well.’

  ‘Did you get to Deauville at all? During the, ah, crisis?’

  ‘We did. We had tennis friends and we played all weekend. You and Jeanette should come up and take us on again, really Philippe, you stay in Paris too much, it isn’t healthy.’

  ‘We should, and soon, before it starts raining.’

  ‘So, my friend, are you selling champagne?’

  ‘Oh yes, thanks to Le Temps. Going to the full-page advertisements has made a real difference, and we’re considering taking space in five issues a week instead of four. You know we compete with Taittinger and Moët et Chandon, and we’re determined to outsell both of them by the end of the year.’

  ‘Well, they’re good advertisements, and we’re all in love with the girl you’re using – how did you find her?’

  ‘By looking long and hard – we saw photographs of every model in Paris. Tell me, Albert, were you satisfied with Monday’s editorial?’

  ‘You mean “A Time to Reflect”? I thought it well written.’

  ‘Oh it was, well written, but we found it timid. You know my personal view on this – that France and Germany can never go to war again. Why not come out and say it? Especially now, that the peace has been preserved. And you must give Germany some credit for that. At the last minute, Hitler chose diplomacy over arms, perhaps that ought to be said – somewhere, why not in Le Temps?’

  ‘No special reason, it makes sense.’

  ‘You’re not personally against the idea, are you?’

  ‘Not at all. I can have a word with Bonheur.’