Paris: The Novel

she’d better get everything out of the way, at once. “But I must tell you that his mother—though she looks and behaves like one of us—is nonetheless the madam of a brothel, and was once a courtesan herself.”
    This didn’t interest Roland either.
    “
Ma chérie
, many of the royal mistresses were little better. It’s the same in other countries too. At least one of the English dukes is descended from a prostitute.” He thought for a moment. “You say she’s charming?”
    “Yes.”
    “Voilà. That’s all that matters.” He glanced at her. “For a mistress, of course. Not for a wife.”
    “So you’ll be kind to him?”
    “Of course I’ll be kind to him. He’s my grandson. The only one I have—unless Charlie has others we don’t know about.”
    “That also would please you.”
    “One welcomes proof of the family’s vigor.”
    And he could hardly be separated from the little boy, took him on his knee, even carried him on his shoulders when they went outside.
    The only person needed to complete the family circle was Charlie himself. But of Charlie, so far, there was no sign.
    He’d been away so long, Marie wondered if the invasion might be imminent. The first days of June passed. The weather turned poor. Farther north, up by the coast, the seas were stormy. Whenever the Allies were coming, she thought, it clearly wouldn’t be just now.

    It was mid-morning on the eighth of June when Charlie took the train from the station at Montparnasse. He hadn’t wanted to go. He’d been having such an interesting time with Max Le Sourd and his boys to the east of Paris that he hadn’t even been back to the apartment for more than two weeks. But this was an emergency.
    The last three days had been dramatic. Seizing a small break in the bad weather, the Allies’ massive D-day invasion of Normandy had caught the Germans completely by surprise.
    But not unprepared. Despite the heavy bombings, the huge bombardment from the sea and the vast sabotage efforts of the coordinated Resistance networks, the beaches had been stoutly defended. The Allies were establishing their beachhead, but the fighting was intense. The Allied advance would be neither easy nor swift. Even assuming all went well, it might be weeks before they could reach Paris.
    And the fever of Resistance activity—derailing trains carrying troops to the new front, blowing up arms depots, cutting off German fuel and power—also included one lesser but important task.
    Saving Allied airmen.
    The message had gotten to Charlie early that morning, brought by one of his friends in the Confrérie Notre-Dame.
    “There’s a Canadian airman. One of a bomber crew. They came down in the Loire valley. The rest of them didn’t make it, but he got lucky. Our boys down there have got him, but they need help.”
    “Can’t they send him south?” asked Charlie.
    That was the usual procedure. The Resistance had set up quite a good escape route. Passed from group to group, airmen were being smuggled across the Pyrenees into Spain.
    “We’ve just had word of several airmen being betrayed. Some of the southern groups must have been infiltrated.”
    This was the trouble with the rapid enlargement of the networks, Charlie thought. Inevitable perhaps, but it still sickened him.
    “What do you want me to do?”
    “We may have an alternative. Couriers we think we can trust. But we need a week. And a new safe house.”
    “Where is he?”
    “About three hours’ walk from your family’s château.”

    When Roland de Cygne heard a light tap at his bedroom door in the middle of the night and found Charlie there, he was overjoyed to see him. It took only a brief whispered conversation to discover what was up.
    “We came by bicycle,” Charlie told him. “It’s lucky I know all the roads so well. We came here without using any lights.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “In the old stable. Where I keep the car. If he’s discovered, you and Marie can always say you didn’t know he was there.”
    By now, Marie had joined them. Charlie turned to her.
    “You said you wanted to help,” he told her wryly. “Now you have your wish.”
    There was one other thing he had to caution them both about. Security.
    “It’s best if you don’t see him. But if you do, remember that he was brought here at night. He has no idea where he is. Above all, he knows me only by my code name: Monsieur Bon Ami.”
    “It sounds very cloak and dagger,” Marie remarked.
    “Yes,”