Paris: The Novel

glaringly apparent at the meeting the French police came to in the Gestapo offices here on the avenue Foch just a couple of weeks ago. Though he was only a junior fellow, they had allowed him to sit in on the meeting, and he had watched with fascination.
    “We shall conduct the roundup, but we have two stipulations,” the senior Frenchman said.
    The first was that they should wait until after the fourteenth of the month. To conduct the roundup on Bastille Day would seem unfortunate. This was easily agreed to. But the second stipulation was more tiresome.
    They wanted to round up only foreign Jews. No French ones.
    “It might provoke bad feeling in the city,” the French police chief said. “Stir up trouble. Just what we don’t need.”
    “But why?” one of the SS men asked him. “This is not just a question of rounding up troublesome Gypsies who don’t belong here. That of course we understand. But the Third Reich does not make a distinction because a man is a German Jew as opposed to a Polish one. That is not the point. What matters is that he is a Jew.”
    “We have no objection to the statutes that rightly make Jews intosecond-class citizens,” the Frenchman answered. “Eventually, I dare say they may all be removed. But we should at least start with the foreign ones.”
    “We make no distinction.”
    “In France”—the police chief spread his hands—“when a man is a Frenchman, even a Jew …” It was clear that somehow the French, even now, were so proud of their nationhood that they considered it could somehow mitigate the most fundamental facts about a man.
    His boss had turned to Karl.
    “What is our capacity at present, Schmid?”
    “We could take in a little over thirteen thousand.”
    “Good.” The German turned to the French police chief. “We want thirteen thousand, whoever they are. And no children. Remember, these people are all going east as laborers.”
    “Understood.”
    But of course, though the French policemen had started at dawn and moved with commendable efficiency, they’d brought in all the children as well. Some people said it was because they couldn’t bear to part the children from the parents. It might be so. Schmid suspected it was so they wouldn’t have to deal with all these inconvenient children themselves.
    Thousands of them were in the Vel d’hiv at this moment. It must be like an oven in there, he thought. Soon they’d be transferred to other holding camps. And then in due course, sent east.
    But admirable as this was, it still did nothing to address the question of the French Jews. Some had been arrested, of course. Blum, the former prime minister, was being kept in detention—but a comfortable one. Jew or not, it would be foolish to treat a former prime minister of France without some show of respect. His brother, however, was in a holding camp already.
    Patience, thought Schmid, patience would eventually do the rest. When they’d worked through all the foreigners, the French police would be obliged to start rounding up the Jews they so foolishly considered as their own.
    In the meantime, any French Jew who broke a regulation or stepped out of line could be taken instantly.
    He was just considering this when an orderly told him that Luc Gascon had come to see him.

    The Frenchman’s face was a mask, but Schmid sensed that he was quite excited.
    “You have something for me?”
    “I am not sure. I have a French Jew. He is an art dealer, so I assume he owns a quantity of paintings. Whether he has broken the law, or is planning to, I am not sure. But let me tell you what happened.”
    Schmid listened carefully as Luc described what had taken place at the Vel d’Hiv. When Luc had finished, Schmid asked him what conclusion he drew.
    “I think it’s possible that Jacob was so shocked by what he saw that he is going to try to escape from Paris, maybe from France. When I used the words ‘Cousin Hélène,’ his wife sounded so frightened that I think it may be a code word between them.”
    “I agree.” Schmid nodded. “It is possible. If so, there may be an escape route we know nothing about; and this Jew could lead us to it.”
    “Can you arrest him?”
    “I can pull him in on suspicion. After that, we shall question him. See what he says.” He smiled. “Give me the telephone number and leave the rest to me. You have done well.”

    The two plainclothesmen waited outside Jacob’s house the next morning. Schmid’s instructions to them were