Paris: The Novel

between German masters and French Resistance men, taking profit where he could. But even the cat who walks alone can find fear in the alley.
    For gradually, month after month, the gathering Allies had been advancing until they had appeared on the horizon, as Hitler’s armies were slowly beaten back—worn down in Russia the year before, kicked out of Africa, and now the Italian army had surrendered, taking heavy losses in Italy as the Allies advanced, slowly but inexorably, northward toward Rome.
    Increasingly Hitler looked like a man in a huge trap. He was still mightily dangerous. But as Luc Gascon calculated the odds, the landscape of his own, personal world looked very different.
    What would happen, if and when the Germans lost?
    In Paris, he suspected, the revenge on those who had cooperated with them would be unpleasant.
    Did anyone guess about his cooperation with Schmid? Luc didn’t think so. But who knew what there might be in the German files? Or who might guess? Or who might talk? He needed to put more distance between himself and the Gestapo man.
    At the same time, as things got worse for them, the Germans would be getting jumpy. Being an informer is not a healthy occupation. Schmid probably didn’t trust him either.
    It was with these worries in his mind that, on a cold February day, Luc went to the avenue Foch for his usual meeting.
    But he found the Gestapo man rather cheerful.
    “Have you heard the news, my dear Gascon?” he asked. And seeing Luc uncertain: “Those Manouchian gangsters have just been sentenced, an hour ago.”
    “Ah.”
    “They will all be shot. At once. Except the woman. She will be handed over to you French. Women are not shot in the Reich.”
    “What will happen to her, then?”
    “She will be beheaded.” Schmid seemed to find that quite amusing. “Which would you prefer, to be shot or beheaded?”
    “Shot, I think.”
    “Perhaps you will get your wish.” Schmid laughed at this too, watching Luc as he laughed. “Are you loyal, Gascon, or are you a double agent?”
    “My information has been correct. I gave you Jacob. And I gave you those two Spanish lads.”
    Two unfortunate Spanish communists, coming to a meeting with the friends of Thomas and the Dalou boys. He’d picked his spot carefully where he knew at least one of the Dalou boys would be watching. The shots that rang out had cut down the two Spaniards at once. He’d asked Schmid to make sure that some shots came in his direction, so that it looked as if he were a target too. Two shots whizzed past him, one right between his feet, the other actually grazing his cap. He suspected that Schmid had ordered this for his private amusement. But it seemed to have kept the suspicion off him, as he’d run down an alley and shown his cap to his brother and his friends.
    “True.” Schmid stared at him. “You have done well, Gascon. But not quite enough to convince me. So I am giving you another task to prove your loyalty.” He looked down at a piece of paper. “During a recent interrogation, a name came up. A person who is well connected and who passes information. The name appeared in the files once before, but that is all.” He looked pensive. “A woman’s name. Of course, it may be a man using a female name as his alias, but I suspect it’s a woman. Now if you can find out who this is, I would pay you well, Gascon. I might even trust you.”
    “Just a name? Nothing else?”
    “She has access to people in high places.”
    “What name?”
    “Corinne.”
    The name meant nothing to Luc. Maybe he could find something out. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
    But as he left, he reflected bleakly: he might want to put distance between himself and the Gestapo man, but it was not going to be so easy to do.

    On a misty day in early April, no one would have thought anything of the two old men engaged in a game of
boules
in the little square on Montmartre. One was tall, one short, and neither of them could have been under seventy-five.
    After finishing their game, they enjoyed a coffee together and a little cognac. Another man joined them. It seemed he was the tall man’s son, who perhaps had come to take his father home.
    All three men made their way slowly across to Sacré Coeur basilica and stood in front of it gazing over the city. The mist was lifting. The gray bulk of Notre Dame, like a stern old ark moored in the Seine, loomed reassuringly in the distance. Across to the right, some miles away, the