THE BASHFUL COURTESAN
Chapter 10
Paris 1944
It was three years after the Great War ended before Anna and I finally made our way to Paris. We took the train as far as the money would take us. They called Paris a free thinking city back then, and though we’d both enjoyed everything Vienna had to offer, there were too many bad memories; besides, I’d always wanted to live in Paris. Our arrival went unnoticed, and it would be months before I sold my first commission. During that time, I made water sketches in the park and along the banks of the Seine, selling them to earn just enough money to pay the rent and buy us food. After a week of living on the streets and sleeping in the parks, I was lucky enough to find a room large enough to serve as our living quarters, with enough space for a studio where I painted portraits of those soldiers who remained behind. They were men who wandered the streets just as we did ourselves—the Lost Generation—with both empty stares, and broken hearts, searching for the life they once had. Freedom and loss seem to go hand in hand though, don’t they? But it was among them where I finally found the freedom to express myself; it was among them where I could paint the horrors of life as I knew it, and be accepted for telling the truth—all people want is the truth, even at the cost us of our innocence.
As I left with Novak and his driver, Herr Mak, I couldn’t help but thinking that I was being led off to my death. Once he had the paintings in his possession, he wouldn’t need me anymore—golden goose, be damned I thought. If Novak was one thing, he was vindictive, I told myself. He’d come to my studio all those years ago with every intention of destroying the painting he’d commissioned, thinking it was his right to do with as he saw fit. And maybe he was right? Maybe it was his right to destroy it? But what about everything else? The memory of his walking stick across my back was still fresh in my mind, as though it was something he did only this morning; his callous disregard for my feelings about the painting culminating in Stanza’s blinding were unforgivable.
“Why is it you never came back?” I asked from the sanctity of the back seat. We were crossing from the Right Bank to the Left, over the pont de la Concorde, and the inky blackness of the Seine was a shimmering ribbon against the darkness of the city around it.
“Do you mean for the painting?” he asked.
“Among other things.”
“Other things? Like Anna? It didn’t seem to matter after a while,” he said after some thought. “Once the war finally started, it was all I could do to stay alive. Before that, I was on the frontier, waiting for word to finally cross into Bosnia.”
“And after? When the war was over? You never came back?”
“There wasn’t anything to come back to, was there? My wife and son were both dead—Spanish Flu from what I heard. I ended up in Berlin. It was just one of those things.”
“And if I told you that I still had the painting?”
“So you finished it?”
“What else was I supposed to do with it? It was my masterpiece.”
“Am I still in it?”
I shook my head slowly. “But George is.”
“George!” he laughed. “And whatever became of him?”
“A casualty of the Great War, I imagine.”
“I suppose, like so many others.”
“Why did you kill Archambault?” I asked after a moment.
“Why? He was no use to me anymore.”
“And me? What use am I once you have the paintings?”
“I killed Archambault because he was a traitor to his own kind. We turned him against his friends because he was afraid to die for what he claimed to believe in. It was too easy. A man like that will betray you the first chance he gets. He was my one chance to find Renaissance. Do you know who Renaissance is?”
I nodded.
“But did you know Renaissance was rumoured to be the lover of Mme. Volland? Do you know who she is? Of course, you do! She’s categorizing all the paintings that are being shipped out of Paris. But she’s making a list of all the paintings, with the intention of returning them to their rightful owners once the war is over. I told Archambault to tell her about the paintings. I’m hoping that she’ll show up after we arrive, and that she won’t be alone.”
“You mean to capture Renaissance.”
“If we can take him alive, we will. If not, c’est le vie,” he smiled.
“And Mme. Volland?”
“Another casualty of war I imagine.”
*
The Hôtel des Saints Pères is an old establishment, and like all old establishments, its history is quite varied. Built sometime during the 17th century, one can easily imagine it being a place where d’Artagnan might have lived—or where Porthos would’ve entered with that swaggering bravado of his calling out for more wine. Each of the rooms had its own identity, created by period paintings, drawings and engravings. In room 104, it was The Little Girl with the Canary; my room, room 307, was always under the watchful eye of Maria Theresa of Spain, a portrait of a woman of character. There were at least fifty pieces of art scattered throughout the hotel which the Germans were quick to take, making it easy for me to hide the stolen Masters in plain sight among the empty, faded, spaces where the other paintings once hung. I knew no one would be coming back to investigate, not with the Allies knocking on the door, so I felt confident hanging the paintings in both the hallways, and the empty rooms, as if they’d been hanging there for a hundred years or more.
The lobby is a wide, open space, with thick, oriental plants that have exotic names I could never pronounce; with vines twisting around thin Greek columns, and a floor made of mosaic tiles. Many of the rooms have remained empty with the German Occupation because the Germans purposely inflated the French currency, making it almost impossible to live in the city without collaborating in some way. That’s why it was so easy for me to hide the paintings, knowing which rooms were always empty. As we approached the front of the hotel, Novak instructed Mak to drive around the block once or twice, and together they searched out the darkest corners for hidden autos, or perhaps some silent figure watching the entrance. When he was finally satisfied that everything was in order, he instructed Mak to park around the corner in a dark alley, and told me to get out.
“We’ll go the rest of the way on foot,” he said, “that way, if anyone happens to see us, they’ll recognize you and think nothing of it.”
“You mean that they’d never think I’d be walking the streets with two Gestapo agents,” I said, feeling somewhat truculent even as I said it.
“Something like that,” Novak laughed. “There’s a secret to making everything look casual,” he went on, as though anything I might have said mattered little. “You have to know when to laugh at the right moment; and when to say nothing. Nobody will think twice about who you might be if you’re laughing. There were three Resistance agents following you at any one time, and they never once saw me.”
“Three? Why?”
“Renaissance wanted to know what you were up to.”
“And Eisner? Were they following him as well?”
“They didn’t care about him. I’ve often wondered about that. Why wouldn’t they be watching him as well? They could have killed him a dozen times over.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“As I said, you’re the Goose that laid the Golden Egg. It’s my believe that this man, Renaissance, wants to use you the same way Eisner has been using you—”
“The way you plan to use me?”
“It’s the law of the jungle, but if you must know, it’s my belief his plan was more noble than Eisner’s,” he smiled.
“Which means?”
“Eisner wanted to use you for personal gain, Renaissance would be using you to replace works of art with forgeries. The same thing you’re doing now, but for a more noble ideal.”
I pulled the front door open hoping the night clerk would be either asleep—as he usually was—or else otherwise engaged. Instead, he was nowhere to be found. Obviously, otherwise engaged, I told myself. Now, with the Allies having established themselves at the beaches of Normandy, it seemed that everyone wanted to be in the Resistance.
I took my key out of my pocket and made my way to the lift.
“I’ll take the stairs,” Novak said as Mak pulled the gate closed behind me. I slid the lever over to the third floor and pushed the button, watching Novak as he took the stairs two at a time.
“He never uses elevators,” Mak said casually. “Calls them death traps.”
“Well, that’s comforting to know.”
“Isn’t it?”
I’d forgotten the door to my apartment had been broken, and slipped my key back into my pocket as Mak and Novak both pulled their weapons out as we approached the door. I pushed it open without hesitating and Novak looked at me and shook his head slowly, as if he were in disbelief.
“What’s wrong. Archambault broke it earlier when he came here looking for me,” I said, turning to light a candle I kept on the table.
“Do you not understand what the phrase blackout means?” Novak said with what could only be a sigh of exasperation.
“The windows have been boarded shut.”
“Not that one,” Mak said, pointing at the small kitchen window I’d left open to fool Archambault and his friend.
“A simple ruse I played on your late friend, Archambault.”
“Is this the painting?” Novak said slowly. He pulled it back from the table where I’d wedged it in tight against the wall. He picked up the candle and looked at it carefully.
“That’s it then? That’s what we’ve come for?” Mak asked.
“No,” I said. “That’s mine. I started it in 1914, before the Great War. It took my two years to finish it.”
“I believe it’s mine,” Novak said softly.
“You might believe that, but you’d be wrong. You gave up ownership when you tried to destroy it.”
“Why would you want to destroy it?” Mak asked. “Why does that woman look familiar?”
“It’s Constanza,” I said before Novak could say anything. “That man there, in front of her? He was supposed to be the Count, but we had a falling out, so I changed him. Now it’s the tailor that used to live downstairs from me. The other man’s a friend from days gone by; the other woman is the Count’s sister-in-law.”
“It should have been destroyed years ago.”
“It’s taken me years to find it. I sold it in 1920, while we were still living in Vienna. The owner lived here, in Paris. I only found it today in the Paume. Of course, your people had it labelled as “Degenerate Art”. Nothing could be farther from the truth though, could it? Does this look like Cubism? Or Surrealism? If anything, it looks more like a Monet, or Turner—the English painter. There were plans to sell it overseas.”
“And if it didn’t sell?” Mak asked.
“Then it would be destroyed, I suppose.”
I heard the door downstairs slamming shut; the lift slowly grinding its way down to the lobby. I looked at Novak and he put a finger to his lips. He nodded to Mak and they both pulled their guns out again as they stepped into the bedroom.
“Who are you expecting?” I asked, my voice a near whisper.
“Renaissance, of course.”
*
There was a slight tapping at the door; almost reminiscent with its nostalgic touch I thought. It made my heart quicken as I approached the door, listening carefully. I could hear two voices on the other side, talking in near whispers. The voice sounded too familiar.
“George?” I asked softly, barely raising my voice.
“Tchochevshy? Open the door, my friend!” he called out, and I hastened to obey.
I would’ve recognized him in a moment, I thought. He had the same shock of red hair, only now it was thinner, and not as brilliant in colour, but a lighter hue with streaks of grey; it was still long enough that it hung on his shoulders, however. His eyebrows seemed even bushier, and there were the same mottled brown eyes beneath, with that wide, distended nose, and thick lips. He seemed to have grown into his looks with the passing of the years, his face rounder, so that all the features when taken separately now seemed to fit—as though they were pieces in a jigsaw puzzle one has worked on for years before finally placing the last piece to it. His smile seemed genuine as I opened the door, and it was a moment before I realized his left arm was missing, the sleeve of his coat tucked into his jacket pocket. He was carrying a violin bow as if it were his walking stick, and it so reminded me of the younger man he was I found myself wrapping my arms around him and holding him tight.
“Is it really you?” I asked, and everything about the day seemed to melt before me, forgotten in the excitement of seeing him alive when for all these years I’d believed him just another victim of the Great War.
“I would have come sooner had I known the man who called himself Pumilio was in fact my friend of old. I had to make certain, you understand.”
“Of course, of course! Come in,” I said, and moved aside as he stepped into the apartment. I was about to close the door when a hand pushed against it, and I looked up at Mme. Volland, dressed in a long coat, wearing a simple beret and paisley scarf. That was when I noticed the gun in her hand.
“No, wait,” I said, and turned to see Mak step out of the bedroom.
Mme. Volland raised the gun and fired without a moment’s hesitation, and I saw the back of Mak’s head explode as the gun he held fell to the floor in front of me. At the same instant Novak stepped out of the shadows and fired. George fell to the ground as Mme. Volland fired again and Novak spun around, his body twisting as he fell back against the wall and slid to the floor.
She pointed the gun at me and I realized she was about to fire when I dropped Mak’s gun and ran to George, cradling his head in my lap.
“Please, George, not now. Not having just found you.”
“I’m not going to die, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said with a slow smile playing across his lips. “It was worse than this at the Somme.”
I looked at Novak on the floor, his eyes wide with the terror of pain as he struggled to catch his breath. Mme. Volland kicked his gun away and sat on a kitchen chair as she pulled a cigarette out her pocket and proceeded to light it with a shaking hand. She looked at Mak’s body laying partially in the bedroom doorway and exhaled quickly.
“It’s a small world, eh George?” Novak said with a wheeze. I looked at him where he lay up against the wall and saw the front of his chest as it blossomed red with blood.
“Novak,” George said with a note of contempt. “I knew you’d be here. I was counting on it.”
“And you still let yourself get shot?”
“I wasn’t expecting an ambush. I thought we’d talk before I killed you.”
“Why waste your breath talking?”
“I thought you deserved at least that much.”
“Always the Romantic, George. It must be that English blood of yours. Romantic notions of Beethoven perhaps, or Byron?” he coughed. “Fools both.”
“Maybe, but people will remember them before they remember us. Now tell me, did you expect me to be the one you were looking for?”
He shook his head. “No. Had I known you were still alive, I might have suspected you, but then, I had no idea you were even in Paris.”
“I’ve been living here for years. I tried teaching at one of the local Academies, but I realized the music I used to love so much was dying. Bizet, Massenet, Fauré, Ravel, even Debussy—they may have had an impact on us, and even influenced a generation, but I didn’t want to listen to them anymore, not having survived the war. I taught violin for a while. I tried to write, and finally turned to the moderns, recording and arranging things for Chevalier, and Piaf. I might’ve actually become someone, but then, the war broke out and everything I’d worked so hard for, was lost.”
“Are you going to tell him your life story?” Mme. Volland asked, dropping her cigarette on the floor and grinding it out with her heel. I followed the black line of her stocking up the length of her calf. “We need to get you to a doctor. We don’t know if he told anyone he’s here. We can’t take that chance.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” George said, trying to sit up. “I think my shoulder’s broken. It hurts like hell.”
“Can you walk?” she asked.
“I said it was my shoulder, not my leg. I think I can manage.”
“What about him?” she said, nodding in my direction.
“We still have a lot to discuss,” he said. “Besides, he’s probably the only one who knows where your precious paintings are.”
“I saw two of them hanging on the walls on my way up here,” she said. “Do you still think we need him?”
“Ah, but what about Anna?” Novak said softly. “I told Eisner if I wasn’t back within two hours, to put her on a train and send her off to the Camps. Do you know what they do to people like her at the Camps, Tchochevsky? I think it’s what the Greeks called Retributive Justice. She’ll be made a whore. A camp whore. I mean, she’s blind! A blind whore? What more could a man ask for? The only thing you’ll have to remember her by is that damned painting of yours.” He tried to smile. Blood started to seep from the corner of his mouth, making it difficult for him to talk, and he coughed, spitting up more blood. His breathing became more difficult, the wheezing more pronounced.
“Eisner? Obersturmfurher Eisner? What’s he talking about?” Mme. Volland demanded of me.
“Is Anna here?” George asked me.
I nodded. “Eisner’s holding her at German headquarters.”
“Do you think he’ll follow orders?”
“He’s a German soldier!” Novak laughed with a bloody cough. “Of course he’ll—”
Mme. Volland pulled the trigger without warning, and Novak fell back against the wall.
“Now, who’s Anna?”
*
“Are you sure about this?” George asked for what seemed to me, the fourth time. We were parked in a Novak’s car, in a small alleyway about two blocks away from German headquarters off the Rue August Vacquerie. Mme. Volland had been driving, if you can call it that, grinding gears and stalling the vehicle every time she came to a stop.
“If you walk into that building, there’s no guarantee you’ll be walking out again. You might just end up on one of those trains.”
“This is a fool’s errand. We should be taking you to a doctor, not sitting out here like a target waiting for this man to betray us.”
“You’re not going to betray us, are you Yevgeny? He’s my friend,” George said with a grimace. It was obvious he was in pain; every bump we’d hit during the drive had caused him to cry out.
“There are no friends once the Germans decide they can turn you. Etienne’s proof of that, if everything this man says about him is true. It could all be a lie.”
“Why should I lie? If I gave you a list of rooms where I put the paintings, would you trust me then?”
“If Eisner comes outside with the woman, are you going to kill him?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because he’s a German soldier, and we’re at war.”
“We’re an Occupied country. Your general, DeGaulle, and the rest of them, gave up on us a long time ago. We’re not at war. Not now. We never have been.”
“You’re a collaborator,” she said, lighting a cigarette and giving it to George. He laid his head back with a tight smile on his face as he breathed the smoke in.
“I did what I had to, in order to survive. I’m ready to admit that I made forgeries and kept the originals, but I did it with the complicity of a German soldier—a Nazi—who like yourself, was only trying to save a few Masterpieces from being sent out to Neuschwanstein Castle, or the new Führermuseum.”
“If you believe that, you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were. What did you think Eisner was going to do with them?”
“I know exactly what he was going to do. He was going to sell them. I’m not so naive as to not know that. But he had plans for me after the war as well, and that was to have me carry on making forgeries. He has to know that will never happen if he takes Stanza to the train station and sends her to one of the Camps. All I have to do is get word to him.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“By walking in there and leaving a message at the front desk.”
“What’s that thing of yours you’re always quoting?” She asked George. “The one you always go on about when you talk of fools and wise men?”
“Shakespeare. ‘This fellow’s wise enough to play the fool, And to do that well craves a kind of wit’. ”
“That’s not the one I was thinking of,” she said with a slow shake of her head.
“Perhaps Voltaire? ‘Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.’ Is that more apt?” I asked.
“You’re both fools,” she said.
“And you wouldn’t be willing to do the same for someone you loved?” I asked as I got out and closed the back door. I walked to the window George had somehow managed to roll down and looked at the sweat beading on his forehead, the blood on his shirt. “Get him to the doctor.”
I pulled out the piece of paper I’d written the room numbers on where I’d hung all the paintings, and reached in to give it to her. She took it with a grateful “Merci,” bobbing her head slightly as she ground the gears and forced the car into reverse.
“I’d do the same,” she said, forcing a smile, “if it was the right person.”
I tried to smile as I backed away from the car. She forced the stick-shift into first gear and there was a loud grinding of gears before she finally released the clutch and hopscotched her way down the road; I could almost imagine George crying out in pain.
What was it Novak said to me earlier about it being a small world? It seemed even smaller now. The fact that both George and Novak had been watching me, knowing all the while what Eisner and I had been up to, proved that we were neither one of us criminals. Whatever plans the Obersturmfurher may have had for after the war, would’ve almost certainly landed us both in prison. Forgery is a serious offence, and if the Germans had won the war, we most certainly would have been facing a firing squad for the embarrassment we would have caused. I had to use that information and somehow convince the guards at the front gates that I had important information that had to be relayed to Obersturmfurher Eisner, and no one else.
Could I be that convincing?
I made the short walk to the Majestic, keeping to the shadows and listening for voices in case a German patrol should happen to come upon me. The last thing I needed was to be captured at this point. I wanted inside the building, but not as a suspected saboteur. I needed to get inside on my terms, and rather than walking up to the guards at the front door and risk being shot before I even crossed the street, I realized I needed a plan. I crossed the street to the front of the building, using the shadows and my height, and decided that boldness was the ideal plan.
I took the small handkerchief out of my pocket and waved it in the night as I crossed the street and hid behind one of the larger trees in the middle of the street. I threw a rock and called out to get the guard’s attention.
“Hello!”
There was no answer, so I called again, only louder this time. I waved my white flag.
“If you don’t step out where I can see you, I’ll shoot your hand off!” the guard called out in German.
“Don’t shoot!” I called back, answering in German as well.
“What do you want? And did you just throw a rock at me?”
“I’m sorry. Did I hit you?”
“Step out where I can see you. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“I’d prefer to stay hidden for the moment if you don’t mind. Can you get a message to Obersturmfurher Gerhard Eisner? He’s with the ERR.”
“And why would I do that?”
“I have information for him.”
“Are you an informant?”
“I work for him at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume.”
“And what it that? Step out where I can see you.”
“I’m afraid you’ll shoot me.”
“I will if you don’t,” he replied.
I held my flag up higher, waving it frantically as I took a peek around the tree. I could see the guard standing near one of the large lions that fronted the building, his rifle resting on the podium as he lined up his sights.
“You won’t shoot me?”
“That depends.”
“On what?” I asked.
“On whether I think the information you have warrants me going inside and informing the proper authorities. I don’t even know what the ERR is.”
“It stands for Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg. They deal with acquisitions and such. They’re collecting all the great works of art and shipping them out to Germany. As well as books.”
“Are they SS?”
“I think so. I don’t know. All I know is that I work for Obersturmfurher Eisner in the cellars of the Paume. We crate the paintings and send them out.”
“All right. Step out where I can see you then.”
I held my white flag out and took three steps to the left.
“You’re the dwarf!”
“Do I know you?”
“You were in the Oberleutnant’s office when he shot that man. I saw you when I opened the door. I was just coming on duty. I dragged the body out.”
“You saw me? Tell him that! Tell him the dwarf needs to speak to him. He’ll know right away. He’ll come. Tell him I know where the secret cache of paintings is hidden!”
“Why do I have to tell him? I can tell that to anyone.”
I crossed the street slowly, still waving my flag as the guard relaxed, shouldering his weapon and looking down at me.
“I’ve never met a real dwarf before.”
*
Eisner came outside with Stanza. He was holding her arm gently as he led her down the front steps, out to the street where I was standing beside the podium of one of the hotel’s guardian lions. I was trying not to look nervous, but my hands were shaking. He stopped in front of me, not close enough for me to touch her, but close enough that I could smell the light touch of eau de cologne that clung to her like an aura.
“Where’s Oberleutnant Novak?”
“Dead.”
“Novak’s dead,” she said, the relief in her voice echoed with the sudden sigh as she reached out for something to lean on. I quickly helped her to sit on the steps, sitting beside her and holding her hand.
“Mak, too,” I said, looking up at Eisner.
“What? How?” He sat down and ran his hands through his hair. He took his glasses off and wiped them on his tunic. I gave him the small white handkerchief I’d used for my surrender. “Who did it? It wasn’t you, was it? Why did he hate you so much? Goose That Laid The Golden Egg, my ass,” he said with contempt. “We all know how that ended. He was going to kill you, you know that, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“I was supposed to put her on the train half an hour ago. He told me to.”
“I know. How come you didn’t?”
“I’ve been to one of those camps. They’re death camps. You go in, but you don’t come out. And even if you did, I couldn’t imagine what sort of life you’d be able to live after. I couldn’t send her there.”
“He would’ve had you shot for disobeying a direct order.”
“I would have appealed it. They let you do that when you’re a member of the Party. You have more privileges as a Party member than regular soldiers do. That’s why they hate us so much.”
“Is the guard a regular soldier?” I asked, looking over at the man standing behind the second lion.
“Oh yes. The ERR’s only a small office here; there’re only a dozen of us at most. But after we arrived, we joined with the SS, and now it’s just a big mess. The former commanding officer? Did you know him? He was implicated in the last attempt on the Furher’s life. And now his cousin’s in command. You see? A big mess. He hates the SS and it seems he’s always butting heads with my superiors.”
“You didn’t tell us who killed him.” Stanza said suddenly.
“Renaissance,” I said.
“I didn’t even know he was real,” she said with a slight smile.
“He’s more than real,” I said. “It’s George.”
“George?”
“He’s been living here almost as long as we have.”
“George,” she said, her lips touched by a gentle smile.
“He’s lost an arm, that’s why we never heard of him after the war.”
“And who is George?” Eisner asked.
“The only friend either of us have ever had,” she said slowly. “Besides you.”