The Paris Collaborator Read online

  For Carol-Anne and Terence

  And in memory of JAn Napiorkowski –

  a friend and writer who lived with passion

  The only clue to what man can do is what man has done.

  – R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (1946)

  Monday, 14 August 1944

  ONE

  The body hung from a tree. A warm breeze made the dead man’s hair dance in the dappled light. His eyes and the soft flesh of his face had been eaten away. The crows had been busy.

  Auguste Duchene stood below the corpse. Around him, a carpet of rotting fruit glistened under a clear sky, and the sour fragrance mingled with the smell of rank flesh. With one hand clasping his nose and the other shading his eyes from the sun, he stepped closer to the dead man.

  While his features were unrecognisable, the man’s clothes, still damp from last night’s rains, betrayed something of his identity. He was dressed in tan trousers and a cotton shirt, and a scarf was tied around his neck just below the rope. He wore only one boot; the other lay on the ground among the fallen fruit. At one time, there had been a knife in his belt, a tool for rural life, but only the sheath remained.

  The noose had been expertly tied; the knot that held it to the plum tree was strong. The farmer had been tied to the lowest branch – his feet would have thrashed the grass. Just high enough to die with no effort wasted.

  The rain had blurred the handwritten note that was pinned to the body. Perhaps the Germans had killed him, punishing a word of dissent, some act of defiance – all crimes during an occupation. But the hangmen were just as likely to be Resistance, encouraged by the fighting at Normandy to settle old scores.

  Only one thing was sure: this man, local and dead at least a week, was not the one Duchene had come to find. He and the woman who travelled with him had fled from Paris only three days ago.

  Duchene resumed his walk towards the farmhouse. It was still some distance ahead, occasionally visible between the low-hanging branches of the plums. Between the orchard and the house stood a coop made from stone and wire; the silence of the farm suggested any chickens had long since been eaten. Ivy grew rampant across the farmhouse, concealing where its timber extension joined its original grey stone walls. The dark leaves rustled in the breeze, as though the house was bristling at his arrival.

  His leg caught twine strung between two trees. He froze in place.

  His eyes followed the length of the twine, fearing that by looking he’d summon a grenade into being.

  It was tied to an old can, too full of rainwater to rattle.

  He let out a breath, then ducked below a final branch and moved with quiet haste to the chicken coop. He stopped at its corner and knelt on the soft grassy earth. There was no movement outside the farmhouse.

  Some milk thistle was growing up against the coop’s wall. Keeping an eye on the house, he uprooted the entire crop, quickly rolled it in his handkerchief and tucked it in his jacket pocket.

  Still no movement.

  Closing his hands into fists, he stepped into the open yard and started to jog with his head low. In a few seconds, he was up against the farmhouse wall.

  He waited to regain his breath before peering through a window into a storeroom, its contents smashed and strewn. Drawers had been pulled open, boxes broken, and old sacks of meal and grain slashed and torn. Thick dust covered the papers on the ground, while the grains had greyed and sprouted in the damp and summer heat.

  Beyond an open door was a kitchen.

  Keeping his head down, he moved along the wall until he came to the next window. He raised his head just enough to see into the kitchen, his low crouch causing a dull pain in his back. The missing leg of a sideboard had been replaced with a brick, while above the stove a pot rack had been reinforced with rope. Fresh bread cooled on a small table, its surface scratched as if it had been recently overturned then righted on the hard stone floor.

  Through the kitchen door, in a living space, a man sat at the edge of a threadbare chaise longue, a shotgun at his feet. He was using a knife to carve a wooden block into a doll.

  Duchene examined the man’s face; it matched the description he’d been given. He had found the right place.

  He ducked below the windows and knocked on the front door. The rap of his knuckles was loud and brief. He paused, as he heard something metallic being lifted from the floor.

  ‘Monsieur Jaubert?’ Duchene stood to the side of the door, his back against the wall. ‘Monsieur Jaubert, I’m here to talk.’

  More silence.

  ‘Jaubert?’

  The slide of metal on metal may have been innocuous to some, but it was distinct to Duchene: Jaubert had chambered a shell. ‘Leave. Or get shot.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Monsieur.’

  ‘Leave.’

  ‘I have come from Paris.’

  ‘You followed us.’

  ‘Yes.’

  In the orchard, a large crow came to land on the top branch of a tree. It splayed its feathers and grunted towards the house.

  ‘Open up. So we can talk. Can we at least do that?’

  There was another moment, another pause of indecision.

  He could hear whispering – Jaubert and the woman.

  ‘I’d like to talk to Madame as well, if I may?’

  A bolt slid, and the heavy wooden door opened. Duchene stepped back from the wall to face the entrance.

  Jaubert was as he’d been described, his beard dishevelled, eyes dark. As with so many during these fraught times, he was struggling, desperate. He held the shotgun, its barrel pointed squarely at Duchene’s chest. It had a short barrel, an empty bayonet adapter – it had been reconfigured for close quarters combat.

  ‘Your father’s?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Trench Gun. Your father’s?’

  ‘I know how to use it.’ Jaubert adjusted his sightline, aiming a little higher. Neck or head, it didn’t matter; if he pulled the trigger, the blast would hit both.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Duchene said, raising his hands.

  ‘Weapons?’

  ‘None.’ He rotated on the spot, wincing as his back faced the muzzle. ‘Is your wife here?’ He nodded past the living room.

  ‘You talk to me.’

  ‘This affects both of you. It would be polite to talk to both of you, no?’

  On the far side of the living room was another open door. A woman, petite and wiry, emerged at its edge. Much like her husband, she showed the worn lines of sleep deprivation; unlike her husband, she showed her grief through tears in her eyes and tremors in her hands. She cradled a small bundle, only the faintest of movements suggesting its contents.

  ‘He’s sleeping?’ Duchene asked.

  She stared at him, her hands shaking.

  ‘It’s good that he’s sleeping. You should kiss him farewell and pass him to me.’

  ‘No,’ Jaubert said, stepping forward with the weapon.

  Duchene took a step back. ‘I’m not here to cause trouble.’

  Jaubert stepped forward again. ‘You want to take the boy. That’s trouble.’

  The gun was inches from Duchene’s face. ‘I appreciate that you see it that way. But I’m here to help you.’

  Jaubert whistled through a sneer.

  ‘Shoot him,’ the woman whispered from the doorway.

  Duchene held his hand up. His heart was racing. Twice now in one day – he doubted it was good for him. Scanning the room, he saw a wooden carving on the ground: a crucifix, the kind that might hang on a wall.

&
nbsp; ‘Wait. Think for a moment. You’re good people. People of faith. So let me warn you, give you a chance. Do you know why I’m here? Me, specifically?’

  Silence.

  ‘He’s ours now.’ The woman moved further into the room, keeping her husband between them.

  ‘Madame Jaubert, I can’t imagine what you have been through. This war has taken so much from so many. My sincere condolences for your loss. But that is not your child. He needs to be with his own mother.’

  ‘He’s fed from me. He knows me.’

  ‘I can see you’ve made a good home for him. But he can’t stay. I’m just the first who will come for him, and the others won’t be so reasonable. They won’t come unarmed.’

  Jaubert tilted his head to one side, his eyes widening. ‘Is that a threat? Maybe I should shoot you. Then I’ll shoot them.’

  Duchene’s heart hadn’t slowed, the pressure building in his chest. ‘It’s just a fact.’ He breathed deep, adjusted his tone. ‘Think back to when you took him. A brand-new pram pushed by a young nanny? This is a family of means.’

  Jaubert’s face soured. ‘Collaborators,’ he spat.

  ‘Yes. And if I don’t return with that child, the Germans will be the next to knock at your door.’

  ‘You say that as though you’re not one of them. And yet here you are, working for them.’

  ‘I work for myself. I try to help. Will you let me help you?’

  Jaubert didn’t move. Behind him, his wife adjusted her grip on the child, releasing him a little from her chest, allowing just the slightest of distances between them.

  Duchene spoke to her. ‘His parents love him. They’ll provide for him.’

  ‘Paris is too dangerous for him,’ she said. ‘The Americans are coming, and the Germans will fight them. The city will be bombed. Michel will die.’

  ‘I appreciate everything you’re saying, really I do. But that’s not Michel. I wish that it was – too many innocents have died. But the child’s name is Jean, and his parents should decide what’s safest for him. We just have to do what is right, here and now. That means putting down the gun and giving me the child.’

  The wind moved through the house, pushing at the curtains, bringing with it the scent of jasmine.

  ‘Please,’ Duchene said. ‘You know his mother is distraught, afraid.’

  With caution, Madame Jaubert lowered the child from her chest. Her husband sensed the movement behind him and stepped sideways.

  Duchene raised his hand to his face, shielding his eyes from those of Jaubert. He breathed deep and stepped past the barrel of the gun into the small house. He held out his hands to the child.

  ‘Let me feed him,’ said Madame Jaubert, ‘so he’s not hungry. Please. One last time.’

  ‘That will only make it harder to let go.’

  A tear gathered in her eye. ‘I need to remember my baby. Just one last time.’

  TWO

  Dust rose as Duchene walked back to the truck. The farmhouse was a kilometre behind, and the milk-drunk child slept in his arms. The soft infant, oblivious to the world around him, pressed himself close, seeking to share Duchene’s warmth. He was sur­prised at how quickly the movements came back to him, his arms tilting to make a cradle, his weight shifting to ease his tread into a rocking motion. All his actions focused on encouraging sleep.

  Lucien was smoking beside the truck, one leg at rest on the running board. His grin was almost as bright as the sun that drifted towards the horizon behind him. ‘You were successful!’ he called while exhaling smoke from his nose. ‘Or have you been looting from the orchards?’

  ‘I was successful.’

  ‘Then smile, old man. Today you have done a family a great service.’

  ‘And another, a mischief.’

  ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough. Put the child on the front seat, and you get in the back. Even you cannot be so disagreeable.’

  ‘They were in mourning. They were desperate.’

  ‘But they are alive. And that, my friend, is a gift in these dark times.’ Lucien clapped him on the back. ‘You’re a good man, Auguste.’

  Good.

  That word didn’t make sense to him anymore, not in a way that carried any truth.

  The infant began to stir, and he patted him on the back.

  Lucien held his fingers to his lips and started to walk around the back of the truck to the driver’s side.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Duchene glanced over the wooden palisades into the tray, where dozens of unmarked hessian sacks lay neatly stacked against the wall of the cabin.

  ‘Potatoes.’ Lucien smiled, pulling open the door.

  Duchene looked back at him. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. But there’s also butter. Ten kilos in an icebox hidden under the bags.’

  ‘Butter?’

  ‘Of course.’ Lucien tossed his cigarette aside, took off his suit jacket and hung it behind his seat in the cabin.

  ‘Hiding the butter only makes it more suspicious. Marks you out as a smuggler.’

  ‘But what’s the alternative, to let the Germans see it? Confiscate it for their Brötchen? No, thank you.’

  ‘And if we get caught?’

  Lucien winked. ‘I have you.’

  Duchene shook his head. Easy charm and good looks would only keep Lucien alive for so long.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Lucien said. ‘It cost me to borrow this truck. Gasoline is hard to find, expensive. This trip is an opportunity to make some money, for both of us.’

  ‘You profit.’

  ‘So do you. Compared to those people back in that farmhouse. Besides, look what else I picked up.’ In the seat between them was an old apple crate covered by a linen cloth. With the flourish of a maître d’, Lucien peeled it back to show the contents: a small knitted dolly and some gingham fabric folded to make a soft mattress.

  ‘How?’

  Lucien smiled. ‘You know I can get you anything. All you have to do is ask.’

  ***

  The truck rattled as it accelerated, and Lucien tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Paris was flickering into life on the dusk-wrapped horizon, with points of electric light beginning to punctuate the soft amber glow of the disappearing sun. When Lucien pulled on the stick, the cabin shook. The baby stirred.

  Lucien glanced down, then back to the road. ‘Sorry. But we need to hurry. Nineteen hundred hours – that’s when the guards change shift. We need to be there before that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The old guards have tired feet, they’re ready to leave. New guards are more diligent.’

  ‘And where will we meet them?’

  ‘Avenue d’Italie. I know most of the guards there. That will make it easier.’

  ‘Easier? You said it would be no problem getting back into Paris.’

  Lucien tugged a cigarette loose from the pack in his shirt pocket and slipped it into his mouth. He nodded to Duchene, who picked up the lighter from the seat to flick a flame under the cigarette’s tip.

  On the road around them, vehicles were trickling into the city. In recent weeks there were hardly any civilian cars; anticipating things to come, drivers avoided the thoroughfares. Now there were hourly convoys of large trucks with troops and supplies bound for the front. Their camouflage paint hastily daubed on with mops, they rumbled west, hoping to stay clear of bombing raids. Even now, on the road opposite, the tracks of a massive tank shook the ground as it trailed smoke from its tar-blackened exhausts.

  Duchene remembered when the German tanks had first arrived, how Parisians clustered around them, awed and intrigued. Now their purpose was all too clear, the markings the crew painted on their steel sides understood by everyone: the number of Frenchmen they had killed.

  As Lucien’s eyes moved from his watch to the road, he weaved t
he truck around the slower-moving vehicles, using his horn to make a space in the queue that led to the roadblock. They were crossing into the 13th arrondissement, the border to the city’s centre, a boundary well understood by French and German alike. It was no mistake the cordon had been erected so precisely here – the symbolism was overt.

  Ahead lay sandbags and a machine-gun emplacement. German guards checked over vehicles with flashlights and short words. Lucien wound down the window and picked up his cigarettes. They waited without speaking, with only the sound of the engine to fill the silence.

  The soldiers who arrived at the truck looked young, younger than Duchene when he’d been sent to the last war. One shone his lapel torch through his window while the other leant into the cabin at Lucien’s side. ‘Your purpose?’ he asked in French.

  ‘Good evening, private,’ Lucien replied in German. ‘We both speak Deutsch.’

  ‘Your aim?’ he asked in German.

  ‘We have brought some potatoes to sell. From the … ah … field … land.’

  ‘… from the countryside,’ Duchene corrected. He watched as the second solider shone his torch across the back of the tray. Its light picked over the rounded shapes of potatoes in their bags.

  ‘Potatoes?’ asked the first soldier.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lucien. ‘Cigarette?’

  The soldier took it and slipped it into his breast pocket. ‘Potatoes?’ he called to his companion, who started to tug at the bags. Apparently satisfied by their weight but not their contents, he took out his knife.

  Duchene held his expression, trying to calm his racing heart. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his papers. ‘If you could look these over, Obergrenadier,’ he told the first soldier, ‘you will find that we’re on business authorised by your command.’

  ‘German command?’

  Lucien smiled. ‘Not from von Choltitz himself, but yes.’

  After taking the papers, the soldier waved a hand at his companion, who walked over with the torch. The top sheet of a typed triplicate bore the Wehrmacht insignia.

  Behind the truck, a couple sitting in a Citroën watched in silence through their windscreen as the Germans handed the papers back. ‘All right. You’re free to proceed.’