Book Toob READING

Chapter 9 THE BASHFUL COURTESAN

This is me reading from my novella THE BASHFUL COURTESAN. It’s Chapter 9, in its entirety. I’m going to put the full chapter here, simply because there are some people who are hearing impaired (I know this because they told me). You don’t have to read it, or you can read along. It’s probably easier if you just sit back and listen.

-- 9 --

Paris 1944

We walked back down the gently sloping hill to where the man had a small Volkswagen kubelwagen parked off to the side — a German utility vehicle much like an American Jeep. He politely asked Stanza to sit in the back — he even pushed the seat up and held it out of the way for her — then had me sit in the front, beside him, where he could keep an eye on me in case I was thinking we might try to escape. I saw little hope in that.

All that time walking, I thought as he drove us back through the city, gone; wasted, and now, we’re right back where we started from — and then some. German Headquarters was located at the Hotel Majestic, once owned by the Queen of Spain who lived her life as an exile there during the years of the First Spanish Republic. Don’t ask me any more about that because when it comes to Spanish history, I know very little, but it’s probably more than Picasso can say. All I know about the building was that the French government bought it to serve as offices for the Ministry of Defence and, irony of all ironies, it’s now served as German High Command since the fall of France in 1940.

“Where are you taking us?” I asked. We were on the Boulevard Pasteur, but going in the wrong direction.

“Do my driving skills make you nervous?” he laughed. “Very well,” he said, and when we approached the small traffic circle where de Vaugirard, and rue de l’Amorique converged, quickly changed lanes again without even slowing down. “Better?”

“But why are we going this way?”

“It’s the same distance. Believe me, I’ve driven it enough times. But, if you must know, I go this way because it’s the only time I get to enjoy the sights of the city. And really, what’s not to enjoy? What better time to be a tourist than when the streets are empty, no? I mean, how often do you get to drive by the Eiffel Tower undisturbed? Or drive circles around it? Or the Arc de Triomphe?”

“Do you mean to tell me, that while Paris is preparing for the Allies to arrive, you’re out sightseeing?”

“It doesn’t sound very good when you say it like that,” he smiled.
“How would you like me to say it then?”
“That while in an effort to complete a task given to me by the Count—”
“Who’s the Count? That’s the second time you’ve mentioned him.”
“Oh, that’s what we call the Obersleutnant,” he said with another one of his annoying smiles.

“Word has it that he comes from royalty — old money if you want to believe the stories. I don’t believe them myself, but he doesn’t hold it against you if you slip up with it once in a while. He’s actually a decent sort once you get to know him.”

“Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to see that side of him tonight, am I?”

“No, you probably won’t,” he said with a grin, and I wondered if he was being sardonic, or if he really did see the humour in everything around him.

As we approached the Eiffel Tower he suddenly took an abrupt turn to the right, driving up the short steps and onto the wide sidewalk where he stopped to look up at the sharp, metallic angles silhouetted against the night sky. And then just as quickly, he put the kubelwagen back into gear and went headlong down the steps. Stanza let out an involuntary scream and he laughed as we took another quick left, crossing the pont d’Iena, and from there, making our way up toward the Avenue d’Iena.

“I like to do that once in a while. It confuses the snipers,” he smiled.
“You really are insane,” I said to him.
“Snipers?” Stanza said at the same time.
“If only you knew what’s really out there,” he said to her, taking in the city with a sweeping gesture. “Snipers, resistance fighters, collaborators — every rotten, little money-grubbing bastard trying to do what’s right for him, instead of what’s right — it’s gotten to the point where you don’t know who to trust anymore.”

“I try not to trust anyone.”

“That’s a smart way to be!” he said, slapping the steering wheel as we rounded a slow curve on two wheels. I could hear the squeal of tires on the cobblestones and smell the burning rubber.

“What do you mean by doing what’s right?” Stanza asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said everyone out there is doing what’s right for them, instead of what’s right? Who are you to say what’s right? You’re part of a conquering army. The methods you use are Draconian. You shoot innocent civilians as reprisals for what others would say are acts of patriotism. Since when are civilians used as pawns in war?”

“Civilians have always been used as pawns in war. Cities have always been laid siege to, their populations butchered. It’s all a matter of an eye for an eye. They bomb us, we bomb them; they bomb us again, we bomb them, and on and on it goes. The only difference is that in this day and age, we can discriminate as to whom we lead to the slaughter.”

“You mean the Jews,” she stated matter-of-factly.

I noted how it was the first time she’d actually ever ventured to offer an opinion on the subject, and the fact that it was someone other than myself that she’d spoken with, cried volumes for her growth; her opinions on the Jews, and mine, are similar in that respect. I’d grown up in Russia, where pogroms against the Jews were commonplace; she’d lived with the same anti-Semitic rhetoric through most of her childhood, listening to a father who spouted nihilist philosophy as well as Anarchist politics. As a freak of nature, I’d been subjected to bitter harassment my entire life; as the daughter of a leftist radical, she’d been singled out and persecuted by pedantic prurient interests. People fear what they can’t accept, and as a result, are more willing to act on their fears than they are willing to accept them. It’s a common human trait, I suppose. It’s only through accepting your fears that you can begin to understand them and hope to overcome them. Those among us who have blonde hair and blue eyes appear to be more angelic than those among us who are dark haired and dark skinned; the so-called Aryan race appear to be closer to God’s vision of what is pure — in heart, mind and soul — because of preconceived notions they have of themselves.

“Yes, I mean the Jews,” he said with a bitterness of tone that made her sit back as if she’d been slapped; I noticed the blueness and intensity of his eyes for the first time. “They’ve always been the ones with the financial wherewithal to survive and actually profit from the wars we fight. They never fight them themselves; but they profit from them. With the last ten wars, the Jews have managed to increase their fortunes tenfold.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment. And neither does anyone else.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. There are a great many collaborators in France who follow the Vichy flag.”

“Where do they go when they leave the cities in those cattle cars? You say you’re sending them off to work camps, but we never hear what happens after.”

“Would you like to find out for yourself?” he asked, and Stanza sat back, silenced at the thought of what might happen.

I don’t often venture out to this part of the city; the apartments are too expensive for my tastes. That, and the fact that they’re all being used as billets for troops and the general staff. It was a tourist centre with shops and expensive restaurants before the war--a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe. Sometimes, it’s best not to go looking for trouble when it so readily seeks you out on its own. Eisner lives somewhere among those apartments, I remembered thinking. I never knew which one of course, that would be foolish on his part to tell me, just as he never came to my apartment using the same route twice, and never in uniform. There was no need to draw attention to himself, he always said. He’d come with a suitcase full of food, twice a week. It was always the same suitcase. He’d bring whatever work of art he wanted me to work on during the course of the next month-- although there was never really a set deadline.

“What do you know about Eisner?” I asked suddenly.
“That would be for the Obersleutnant to say.”
“But what does any of what he may have to say, have to do with me?”

“Again, the Obersleutnant would know more about that than I would. I’m simply his driver.” “His driver? You mean, you’re not even Gestapo?”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t shoot you if you try to escape--or I think you’re trying to,” he added. “A great many men have died that way.”
“I’m not going to try to escape. Do you expect me to jump out of a moving vehicle?” 

“I’ve seen people do a great many things.”
“Have any of them lived to tell the tale?”
“No.”
We drove around the Arc de Triomphe until he turned onto Avenue Kléber, and there, still within sight of the Arc de Triomphe was the Majestic; it’s two Asian lions standing guard at the front entrance as though they were two sentinels standing watch at the gates of Hell — because that’s what it was in my mind’s eye. If the city was in a blackout, someone forgot to tell the Germans. There was a steady convoy of trucks coming and going, but our driver, obviously well versed as to where he could and could not go, simply drove up over the first steps and applied the handbrake.

“I’m not going to have to use my gun here, am I?”
“Are you trying to imply that I would run and leave her to her own Fate?” I asked.
“I suppose I am,” he said with a light laugh. He jumped out of the front seat and help Stanza out, stepping with her to my side where he handed her over to me.
“I wouldn’t want to embarrass you,” he said, and gave me a wink. “If you’d be so kind as to follow me,” he said, and led us inside.

*

He led us to an office on the fourth floor where he told us to have a seat in a large reception area where three secretaries were typing what looked to be endless forms. None of them looked up at us, or paid any attention to us, but I could see one of them cock an eyebrow every once in a while to make certain we were still there. The air was heavy with the smell of tobacco smoke; there was a constant tattoo of boot heels crossing the floor as officers dressed in dark black uniforms with numerous decorations of thick, silver skulls, as well as Iron Crosses, constantly brought more forms to be filled out and triplicated.

I leaned forward, looking at the door our man had entered, hoping I might catch a glimpse of the Obersleutnant. He’d closed the door behind him almost as soon as he entered, and a short time later three men left the small office, looking at us as if we were a prized catch.

The door opened again and I heard a voice call out that made my blood run cold. I felt Stanza stiffen beside me, her fingernails digging into my hands as her bottom lip began to quiver.

“Bring that little prick in here! And Herr Mak! The girl.”

*

When people say things about it being a small world, they usually mean that they’ve met someone they know from their life at home while travelling abroad. For instance, if you live in London and happen to sneak off to Paris for a weekend jaunt with a mistress, only to have a co- worker spot you in a restaurant having lunch — that’s an inconvenient truth you’ll never be able to live down; a secret shared you had no intentions of revealing at any time. By this time, I imagine you’ve all ready surmised as to whom the Obersleutnant was.

The Count was none other than Milan Novak.

It was my understanding that he’d been killed early in the war. It was never something that I’d been told directly, except that it was announced in the newspapers at the time that his troop had been wiped out, and he was listed as missing and presumed dead. And good riddance to him, I thought at the time. That he, and others like him, dashed off to the front on their wild chargers and rode headlong into battle only to discover that the war they’d envisioned and the war they’d encountered were two different things. Riding into battle with your sword held high and hoping to slash at some hapless victim was what Novak and his kind had long envisioned battle to be. And to be sure, the first two or three weeks of the war lived up to their expectations. But later, once the twentieth century and all its technological arts caught up to the war on the frontier’s edges, and the machine guns waited with their sleek, black, tubular bodies, and the hissing stench of gunpowder; once the barrels were cooled with a quick douse of water and the cartridge belts were changed for another and the slaughter continued with an enthusiastic barrage of blood, and feces; of screaming horses, broken bones, and wanton death; that’s when the reality of what the war brought with it and both sides settled in for a long, hard slog of it through the mud.

“Tchochevsky,” he said as Mak guided us into the room. He sat with is back to me, his chair reclined as though he were studying a spot on the wall near the ceiling. “A small world indeed.”

“I’m sorry, Obersleutnant. This is Pumilio, the dwarf painter you were asking about,” Mak was quick to say. “He has information about Eisner.”

“And he’ll tell me everything I want to hear, won’t you Tochevsky?” He turned his chair to face me. He wore a patch over his left eye, and I could see the tail end of a long scar that cut deep into his cheek like a paisley swirl, lifting the left side of his once handsome face into something that could only be called a ghoulish grimace.

“I’d thought you were killed after Sarejevo,” I said slowly.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Perhaps next time,” Stanza said softly, and I wondered how she’d react if she could see him now.
“Anna? Is that any way to talk to your old lover?”
“My name is Constanza.”
“Davadova?”
“Leismuller.”
“Well, certainly not as lyrical, but if you insist, Constanza then,” he conceded with a curt nod.
He stood up slowly, and I noticed that three fingers of his left hand were missing, leaving just the thumb and his pinkie finger, the hand itself twisted about like a garish proclamation a child might have made constructing a costume for a school play. The arm itself hung limp, like a paralytic’s, but there was no shame or embarrassment on his part — it was as if his injuries were a symbol of pride. There was a hesitancy in his step as he came around the desk, sitting on the corner and looking down at me. He was dressed in the typical field grey tunic and pants, with several medals and ribbons on his chest.

“You’ve done well for yourself over the years,” he said at last, and I watched Stanza as she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, and I wondered how her heart must have jumped at the sound of that smug voice. He looked at me and smiled lightly, before looking up at Mak.

“Herr Mak, would you be so kind as to send for Eisner? I do want to get to the bottom of this without having to resort to more — how shall I say it — cruder methods. And if you two could just move off to the side so that when he does enter, he won’t see you directly.”

“What is it you’re looking for?” I asked, trying to retain a brave face as I helped Stanza to her feet and moved the chairs to the side, away from the door’s line of sight.

He held a hand up and shook his head slowly. “And do be so kind as to ask Archambault if he wouldn’t mind coming in as well,” he called out.

“Mein Herr!” was all I heard.

“Archambault?” I asked, turning to face him where he still sat on the corner of the desk. “Etienne Archambault? Why is he here?”

“He’s one of the many Resistance fighters we’re managed to turn over the last year. He works for me now. In fact, he’s the one who first brought your little scheme to light. Figured it all out on his own, he did. I know,” he said, when he saw the look of astonishment on my face. “In fact, I didn’t believe him when he first told me about it. I called him a liar and threatened to have him shot if those were the stories he was going to bring me. He told me to watch Eisner though, and so I did. How do you think I felt when I followed him one day, and came across you two?”

“You’ve been watching me?”

“For over two months now.”

“I’ve never seen you.”
“I’m good at my job,” he smiled.

“So now what?” Stanza asked brusquely. “Now that you’ve got him, what are you going to do with him? You said you had Eisner. Are you going to kill us?”

“Anna —”
“Constanza,” she said quickly.
“Stanza, please,” I said.
“No, no, she has every right to be angry. Look at the position you’ve put her in. No. I’m not going to kill you,” he said looking at her. “Not yet anyway.”
“Then what will you do with us?”
“Well, I guess I’ll send you off to one of those camps you seem so curious about.”
“How generous of you.”
“I hold no ill-will toward you,” he said.
“I wish I could return the sentiment.”
There was a knock on the door and Novak called out quickly. A moment later Eisner entered, followed almost immediately by Mak and Archambault; Eisner moved out of the way and then stood facing Novak, his salute almost failing the moment he saw me in the corner holding Stanza’s hand.

“Ah, the guest of honour,” Novak smiled as he stood up and pulled down at the edges of his tunic; I could see he was enjoying every moment of it. “Obersturmfurher Eisner, is it? I believe we’ve never been formally introduced yet. Oberleutnant Milan Novak, Gestapo.”

“Oberleutnant!”

“You all ready know Tchochevsky? Pumilio? I believe that’s the name he goes by here? A gifted man — a very gifted artist. Did you know he was a forger when you met him?”

“I don’t understand what you’re referring to, Oberleutnant.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t deny any knowledge of the crimes you’ve committed. That’s why we have Archambault here — to corroborate everything. He’s the one who first came across your little scheme and brought it to my attention. He also said several of the paintings in question have already been sent off to Germany. You weren’t lying to me were you, Etienne?”

Archambault simply shook his head.

“Ah, yes, well, let me tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to fix this. But we’re going to fix this before the Allies arrive. Etienne and I are going to go to the studio where Pumilio here has all the paintings hidden, and we’re going to take them for ourselves. The only reason Obersturmfurher Eisner is not going to be arrested, or shot, or sent to the Front, is because I need him alive in order for this to work. You have contacts in the art world whom you are going to approach at some point after the war I take it; to sell them the originals. Yes?”

“And me?” I asked.

“You? Why, you’re The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg. As long as you keep giving me the paintings I want, nothing will happen to you. I have Constanza here to guarantee you’ll cooperate as far as that goes.”

“You have nothing,” Stanza said softly. “Tell him what you did, Yevgeny. Tell him. He’ll paint for you, if that’s what you want, but the paintings are gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean? Gone?” Novak asked, stiffening visibly; his voice quieter and somehow more menacing.

“I moved them; I’ve hidden them,” I said feeling somewhat smug.
Several things seemed to happen all at once.
It made little sense to me at the time, and it’s only been with the daunting accrual of time--the discernment itself coming primarily through hindsight in the way of nightmares I’ve desperately tried to suppress--that I’ve been able to identify any semblance of understanding the moment at all. I don’t wish to demean Novak’s behaviour by dulling it with the passage of time; on the contrary. One can’t simply dismiss the barbarity one encounters at a time such as that with the ready excuse that it was the war and therefor counts for nothing--there are no excuses for the brutalities of war--but one must realize that some actions done under the aegis of warfare are nothing less than an excuse for murder. And what Novak did was murder.

Novak unholstered his pistol, took three steps toward Etienne Archambault, and pulled the trigger.

There was a blast and the big man’s head all but exploded. Parts of his brain splattered against the far wall as a fine mist of blood fanned out across the room. The body feel in a heap, twitched once or twice, and then lay still as Stanza screamed at the suddenness of the noise. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air, and I could see that Stanza’s face was covered with a light sheen of blood. I looked at Mak who smiled down at me, wiping a line of blood off his cheek and licking it off his finger with what could only be a look of lingering disgust.

There was a quick knock on the door, followed by voices calling out as a young soldier appeared with his rifle at the ready. He looked down at the body and I could see him blanch. He looked as if he’d never seen a dead body before, and as I looked up at him and realized that he was no more than a boy of eighteen or nineteen, I thought perhaps he hadn’t.

“A point had to be made,” Novak said softly. “Have this taken care of,” he said to the soldier as he returned his pistol to his holster.

He sat on the edge of the desk and watched as the young soldier leaned his rifle against the wall and waited as one more soldier entered the office; together the two of them removed the body of the late Etienne Archambault. Novak waited, watching the two soldiers through the open door. He stood and picked up the soldier’s rifle, leaning it on the wall outside the door, and then sat on the desk once again.

“Now, you were saying?” he asked, looking at me with a tight smile as Mak closed the door. “About the paintings? You say you’ve hidden them? Moved them? Well, that changes matters then, doesn’t it? I’ve run out of options as far as leverage is concerned, haven’t I, Mak?”

“Oberleutnant?”

“We didn’t really need Etienne, did we? He was expendable. He was never going to live out his days in peace; not here in Paris, anyway, and certainly not with his being a traitor. That leaves the three of you, each of whom I need for a different reason. Tchochevsky here, as I said, is the Golden Goose, and as a result, his life is all but guaranteed. Constanza, not so much now; her life hangs in the balance, I’d say. Which brings me to you, Obersturmfurher. You’re the man with all the contacts. The man who knows whom to approach, and how to sell the paintings for great profit--but only after the war has come to a close. But first, of course, we need the paintings.”

“Would you like me to beat it out of him, Oberleutnant?”

“No, Mak, that won’t get us the results we need. What we need to do is establish a feeling of trust amongst us. A triumvirate of trust, if you will. So this is what I’ll do. The three of us, Mak, Tchochevsky, and I, will go to the studio and retrieve the paintings ourself, while Obersturmfurher Eisner takes care of our darling Constanza. If we don’t return within a given time--say two hours-- you’ll take her to the train station and put her on the first available transport to the first available camp. Is that clear? It sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? I mean, it serves everyone to do what needs be done. Eisner here, will prove his worth as a loyal German soldier; Yevgeny will act in his own best interests by bringing us the paintings, and we’ll all come out of this in the end to live happily ever after, just like the story of the Golden Goose.”

“I don’t believe that’s how it turned out,” Stanza said softly.