An Infinity of Mirrors (29 page)

And the whole problem of his clothes was crazy. He couldn't wear his uniform, partly because of Yoka and partly because the soldiers wouldn't have any fun if an SS officer was standing around. So he would work in his “Danish” civilian clothes, then go home with Yoka, undress, and later get dressed again, then go to his apartment to undress again and change into his uniform. Six times in and out of clothes was exhausting all by itself.

Strasse had organized the big razzias, the biggest raids of his career, to be handled entirely by the French police, under his supervision. It was a model plan and he was proud of it. Drayst had told him that it was a little masterpiece. Twenty-two thousand Jews, one-fifth of the number in Paris, were to be delivered for extermination to the designated Paris transit camps. They had been divided proportionally by arrondissement so that in the future they could be transplanted geographically. Berlin wanted three trains a week, thirteen a month, each carrying one thousand Jews from Paris to Poland. It was a terrible problem to get enough rolling stock, because of the bombings and sabotage. For each shipment he needed ten boxcars or cattle trucks into which one hundred and twenty transplantees could be packed for the sixty-hour journey (the trip usually killed eighteen to twenty-one per car en route).

It might be necessary for the Fuehrer himself to order the Wehrmacht to release trains. Wherever possible, Strasse did his best to use trains from the Vichy zone, but the French were absolutely impossible about giving up trains. Razzias? Fine. Have all Jews declared stateless the instant they crossed into the Reich? Fine. But when it came to taking their trains they were impossibly stubborn. He had been forced to take the matter all the way to Laval, who had agreed to release the trains, but only on the condition that Jewish children under sixteen years old from the unoccupied zone would be transplanted in the company of their parents. Fortunately, the question of children in the occupied zone did not interest Laval.

On arrest, the Jews were to be grouped together in the official hall of their arrondissement, then driven to the assembly point at the Vélodrome d'Hiver for removal to the transit camps at Drancy, Compiègne, Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande. Searching for Jews took time, but if the techniques in Strasse's plan were followed one convoy a week could leave each camp, and he would be running four trains a month over his quota.

That morning, before going over to Colonel Drayst's office for their ten-o'clock meeting, Strasse had been over the plan for the razzias with his twelve French police inspectors, good men all. Every Jew on every card must be sent to the Vélodrome. Where all the inhabitants of a flat or a house were arrested, the gas, electricity, and water must be turned off. Those pets not taken should be left with the concierge, the keys to the flat must be handed to the concierge or a neighbor, and these persons were to be held responsible for the property. On no account could children be permitted to be left with neighbors.

Strasse was particularly annoyed because the cards were producing Jews almost entirely from the lowest strata. Why had not Jews of high social standing been listed? Someone was making money out of this, he thundered. (He knew it was that Gestapo bastard Sperrena, who would let anyone loose if they paid him enough.) Then an argument had started about the children. He had stood up and beat both fists rhythmically upon the polished table top yelling, “Stop it! Stop it!” And then he'd had to leave the meeting for a few minutes while he took two of Professor Morell's pills. They worked instantly, and because he had felt about two feet taller when he returned, he had disposed of the matter calmly and judiciously. The director of the prefecture and the general delegate of the French police wanted the Jewish children put in homes around Paris. But had they considered the cost in petrol, manpower, and time for such a notion? No, of course not. Naturally, Darquier de Pellepoix, the Vichy Commissar for Jewish Affairs, had agreed with him. Strasse made a counter-proposal: that “an effort be made” to see that the children were not separated from the parents, and that, when necessary, such children be sent to the transit camps at Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande. The police inspectors had objected to this so violently that he could shut them up only by saying that it would be necessary to refer the entire matter to Berlin. But he knew what their decision would be. Kill old Jews and let young Jews grow? Were these people crazy?

Strasse told his inspectors that they must aim for a goal of twenty-five thousand transplantations from France to Poland by September 1st. He was counting on them, he said, and of course they all swore that it would be done.

Eleven

Since the evening of the Grimaux reception, over a year before, Colonel Drayst had been telephoning Madame von Rhode at random hours of the day and night to talk obscenely to her and to recapture some of the sense of power and sexuality he had felt as a young ensign at Kiel. This act gave him feelings which he had never been able to set down successfully in his diaries; the closest he had come to capturing its ecstasy was when he had gone deer hunting once: all of the possibilities to destroy with no possible chance of the destruction turning against himself. She never spoke to him, and within a few seconds she would hang up.

Drayst was in no hurry. The delay was exquisitely exciting. He wanted her only once; after that it would be too late for her or anyone else. But the time was getting much closer; attitudes were changing in France and they were changing him. More and more Jews were being interrogated, and when he knew that women were being questioned, he could not stay away. The war inside his head would start and lurch out of his control. When night came with its soothing darkness, he would change his clothes and go out to find them, to weep on their breasts and to beg them for love until he had to kill to keep his sanity. But they were only the symbols of Frau General von Rhode, who lived inside his skin.

It was ten o'clock; Strasse must be waiting outside. He called Fräulein Nortnung and told her to send him in. As the captain entered he held up the police card. “What's this for?” he asked.

God, what an oaf Strasse is, Drayst thought. “First, good morning. Sit down, relax. You work too hard.” He was a desperate little murderer, Drayst thought as he smiled; Strasse must drive himself because if he ever stopped he would know what everyone else knows—that he is nothing.

“I'll sit, but I have no time to relax,” Strasse said.

“About the card. Listen, Strasse, I want to ask you to do me a favor. A personal favor.” Drayst knew that the only way he could get what he wanted from Strasse was to put a price on it.

“I am always happy to oblige,” Strasse answered. “That is how life moves along. A favor for you, then a favor for me.”

“The big razzias start next Thursday, is that correct?” Strasse nodded. “Well, as you will see, I have filled in a name on that card.” Strasse looked down at it casually. “This is my favor, Strasse. You will think I am some kind of romantic milksop, I suppose, but what must be must be, et cetera.”

“Romantic?”

“There is a certain lady.”

Strasse snorted. He was having a few problems himself, after all.

“I cannot seem to make her know I exist,” Drayst continued smoothly. “I want to arrange matters so that she must come to me for an excruciatingly important favor, so that when I grant the favor she will be very, very grateful. Do you follow me?”

Strasse grinned at him. “Drayst, you are a born general. I take my hat off to you and they take their pants off for you.” He guffawed and slapped his thigh, then grew serious. “But how do I come into this intrigue?” The conversation put Strasse into high spirits because he needed three new toilets for his clubs, and Drayst had the requisitions for them.

Drayst cleared his throat. “The lady's husband is Stuelpnagel's Nachrichtenfuehrer.”

Strasse whistled. “You're a very ambitious man. But I like that—screwing the wives of the army, the haughty bastards.”

Drayst smiled. “The favor is that you place that card in your hand in the eighth-arrondissement file of the Jews chosen for Thursday's razzias, so that the police will pick up the lady's son and hold him for a while.”

“But the army will swarm all over my police.”

“No. The army has representatives at all your meetings, so they won't bother the police. They'll come straight to you, and all I ask you to do—and this is the favor I am asking, because you may feel that I am infringing on your territory—I want you to tell the army that the matter must be referred to me.”

“Yes. That could be a serious infringement of my responsibilities.”

“Think about it.”

Strasse stared at Drayst steadily for a moment and then said, “I need three complete toilets with washstands, cabinets, urinals, tiled walls and floors, wiring—all with complete plumbing and labor—to be installed in three of my places.”

“Consider it done. Just give all the details to Fräulein Nortnung.”

“That's fine. That's very good. Only tell me one thing. How will you cope with a Prussian major-general whose son has been taken in a razzia?”

Drayst made a steeple with his fingers. “I have thought about that. I will not be here. The wife will be calling the General every half-hour to recover the boy, but when she hears that it is up to me, she will take over.” He was not able to conceal a smile. “She will tell him she knew me in Berlin and that the army-SS feud makes things more difficult, and that they must get the boy back at any cost—anyway, she will do it the way women always do such things. Then she will call me—and I will be in.”

“How will you handle her? Will you make a flat bargain for a lay before you give the boy back?”

“I don't know. First I must see what sort of a state she is in.”

“Just remember that the boy won't be getting any special handling from these French police, believe me. I can't tell them that this whole business is just a gag to help a friend get laid.”

“Ach, don't give it a thought. It will be an experience for him. Anyway, he is a Jew.”

“Oh, he is a
Jew!
Why didn't you say so in the first place?”

Twelve

Veelee and Paul-Alain made an early start on Sunday. They had lunch out of a picnic hamper on a Bateau Mouche, then took a carriage ride through the Bois, because Paul-Alain liked to watch the soldiers salute his father. After the carriage ride they walked slowly back to the Royal Monceau and ate cake and lemon ice in the garden. Then Veelee changed into civilian clothes so he would not have to spend the rest of the day returning salutes, and they went to see a film on the Champs-Elysées.

When he said goodbye to Paul-Alain that evening, Veelee told him that he wouldn't be able to see him for more than a week because he was going on an inspection tour. Paule wasn't at home when they returned to Cours Albert I so she didn't hear this news, and Paul-Alain, being a busy and forgetful child, didn't remember to tell her.

Veelee left the following morning in a light plane from Le Bourget for a detailed inspection of the communications installations along the Atlantic Wall from southern Belgium to the Contentin peninsula. No posts were to be advised in advance of his arrival; he had decided to appear at each irregularly, so that his inspections could not be anticipated. His headquarters in Paris would know only where he had been the day before, but not where he could be reached on any given day.

On Wednesday afternoon, Miral's Luftwaffe driver took Paule's bags from her apartment to the car where Miral, waiting for her, was reading a long report from Dr. Schute. As often seems to happen to children on the occasions of their mothers' departures, Paul-Alain had gotten a stomach ache and been put to bed. Paule wavered between going and staying, but Clotilde and Mme. Citron reassured her. At last, Paule instructed them that if Paul-Alain wasn't better by the following afternoon Clotilde was to call Dr. Sebire. She told herself that she was being over-cautious; as a matter of fact, Paul-Alain looked so well that she suspected he was teasing her.

Paule also reminded Clotilde that General von Rhode would be coming as usual on Thursday, the very next day, and again on Sunday, so that if there were any problems she could ask him then or even telephone him at the Royal Monceau or the Majestic. She herself would be back early on Monday morning. Clotilde quite understood everything, but still Paule hovered in the doorway explaining, more to convince herself than Clotilde, that this was her first vacation in ten years, that the sun might help her cough, and that she would be gone only for five days.

Still, her heart had sunk at the actual moment of leaving Paul-Alain; it was the first time that they had ever been separated. Finally she sighed and started toward the front door, still going over details with Clotilde. She did not know the address of this place they would be visiting and undoubtedly it would not have a working telephone, but since General von Rhode and the entire German Army were at Clotilde's disposal it wouldn't matter.

When Paule finally crossed the threshold, she stopped and turned back; clicking across the marble on her heels, beautiful and crisp in a new suit, she returned to Paul-Alain's room.

“I don't know how it happened,” she said, “but I didn't kiss you goodbye.”

“I thought of it,” Paul-Alain said dreamily, “but the front door is such a long way off.”

“You know I'd walk straight across France for a goodbye kiss from you,” his mother replied, and she lifted him into her arms and held him, kissing him softly again and again.

The
Cie. du Métropolitain
bus, with a police driver, seventeen passengers, and four uniformed police guards stopped in front of the building at Cours Albert I at six-ten
A
.
M
. on Thursday morning. The sky was reflecting the soft morning light; it would be a clear, hot summer day. Two policemen got off the bus, a young one with acne and an older man with the eyes of one who had looked at his problems through a tall bottle the night before. He examined a card in his hand as they entered the building. When they had disappeared, a third policeman left the bus and paced up and down nervously. It was the ninth stop they had made since the razzias began at four
A
.
M
. “Take it easy, Grosjean,” the driver said to him. “It's all in a day's work.” Grosjean glared at him.