Paris: The Novel

didn’t like him. But for all her connections with senior Germans, Louise knew it would be highly unwise to annoy a Gestapo officer.
    She had one satisfactory memory of him, however. And that had been his second visit.
    She had not forgotten his attempt to see the Babylon room when little Laïla was hiding there. And she had racked her brains for a satisfactory theme for the redecoration of the room that had been forced upon her.
    Just as she’d expected, when he had come again, he had insisted on seeing the room, and she had watched his face as he had done so.
    For she had turned it into her Nazi room.
    She had been subtle. There was nothing for him to complain of. Nothing crude, no hints of viciousness. The carpet was black, the big bed spotless white, with a swastika in the middle of the cover and on the corners of the pillowcases. Everything was simple, geometric, the furniture in a simplified Bauhaus style. On the walls, a painting of Austrian woods and mountains, a portrait of the führer, two prints derived from Leni Riefenstahl’s film of the Nuremberg rally and one of a happy group of blond and athletic Aryan women at a holiday camp, showing a tantalizing amount of flesh.
    Schmid had stared at it, half-admiring, half-disappointed not to have caught her out.
    “Very good, madame,” he’d said.
    But this evening, when he’d come, he’d been surprisingly charming. Quite meek, and friendly with the girls. She might have guessed something was up. Sure enough, before going up with the blond girl he’d selected, he asked very politely if he might have a word with her in her office.
    He came straight to the point.
    “Madame, your establishment has no equal in Paris. That is why so many senior officers come here. And although a promotion has come my way, I am sure you know that a junior officer like myself can scarcelyafford to come here.” He made a sad gesture. “The trouble is, once he has been here, no man could wish to come anywhere else.”
    She gracefully inclined her head at the compliment. What else could she do?
    “How can I help you?” she asked.
    “I am embarrassed to have to ask, but I confess, madame, that if you could offer me a discount, it would make my life easier.”
    She tensed and eyed him coldly. He was going to try to rob her.
    “What did you have in mind?” she asked.
    “I could manage two thirds of the normal rate.” He paused. “I think you know that this is true.”
    She’d been expecting something much steeper. He’d still find it expensive. She didn’t like it, but thought it wisest to yield.
    “I should be glad to accommodate you,” she said. “But this is for yourself alone.”
    “Of course. I thank you, madame.” He stood up, then looked around the room. “You have wonderful taste. The pictures here are very fine. Can this be one of yourself?”
    “No, but people often say it’s like me.”
    He nodded appreciatively, glanced at a small landscape on another wall intently, and then retired.
    The visit could have been worse, she supposed.

    Marie always liked to spend the month of May in Paris. She loved to see the tree blossoms on the boulevards and avenues.
    She was almost at the end of her stay at the rue Bonaparte when, one morning, she was told that a lady and her son had called to see her. The name on the lady’s card was not familiar, but Marie had them shown in all the same.
    The lady who entered was about forty, very elegantly dressed, and accompanied by a boy of five. Marie had an idea that she had met the woman before somewhere, but she had met so many people when she was running Joséphine that she couldn’t possibly remember them all.
    But when she saw the little boy, she started.

    Louise had hesitated for so long. Strangely enough, though she had little respect for him, it was Luc who had decided her to come.
    If the Germans were driven from Paris, she had no fear of being tried as a collaborator. The Resistance leaders knew Corinne, and what she was doing for them. I’m more likely to get a medal, she thought.
    But the final conflict might be quite a different matter. There might be a siege, and bombardment. There could be extensive fighting in the streets. Not a good place for little Esmé to be. And then, assuming that the Germans were driven out, a period of confusion. That, she now realized, was the greatest danger of all. Luc was right. Ordinary people, if they were in a lynching mood, would see the favorite brothel of the German High