Authors: Sara Sheridan
Looking up, she saw the man next to the reference section clearing his desk. She didn’t want to be misunderstood so she decided to wait till he left. She’d peruse another newspaper. Turning back and focusing on the next
Le Figaro
she caught the date. 12 August 1942. How curious – in her attempt to find out about Christine Moreau’s lover she had overlooked the fact that this was more or less the time when Matthew Bradley and Philip Caine must have slipped over the border. They would have been exhausted after the long walk through German territory but excited as they passed into France and the prospect of getting home loomed closer. Mirabelle imagined Caine telling Bradley about his fiancée as they travelled – confiding in his friend as they crossed the potentially deadly terrain. Mirabelle had never been trapped in the field, not really, but as
she understood it, people in such circumstances focused on their families, or at least on the people they loved. That and food, which in wartime Britain, she had to admit, was hardly inspiring. Bradley and Caine would have had to be very hungry before they eulogised Spam fritters or egg powder omelettes. At least in France the food tasted better, though it was probably equally scarce.
Back on the microfiche she noticed that editions of
Le Figaro
were several pages thinner during August. The German occupation had not reduced the appetite for leaving the capital during the hottest part of the summer. Paris’s middle and upper classes still made for their country cottages. Suddenly Mirabelle sat straighter. Here he was. Perhaps the dearth of local news was the reason why Wilhelm von der Grün’s arrival was noted in the social column. He was SS – a Standartenführer or regimental officer, Mirabelle translated. She thought this was a reasonably senior position although not one that would normally require half a column. She read on. Standartenführer von der Grün was staying in his family home in the 16th arrondissement, it reported. The Standartenführer would be a welcome addition to Paris society. He had always loved the city and was glad to be stationed here for a stretch. I’ll bet, Mirabelle thought. It seemed she had been right about the von der Grüns’ connection to France. So Christine Moreau’s lover had arrived already a wealthy man. The 16th was to the west of the city at Passy. From addresses there near the river you could see the Eiffel Tower. It was not a cheap area and Mirabelle discounted any idea of Wilhelm von der Grün as a down-at-heel aristocrat who had lost his Alsatian title. Well, well. It was only a shame that
Le Figaro
didn’t stretch to a photograph. She switched off the microfiche and flicked the celluloid between her fingers before stowing it carefully back in its box. Behind her someone cleared his throat. She had been using the machine for a long time.
‘Sorry,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I’m finished now.’
She hadn’t meant to hog the facilities. She managed to muster a smile and was set to deliver another apology when she looked round and her face fell. It was the man from the reference section.
‘Perfect. Perhaps I could tempt you to a glass of wine, mademoiselle?’
Mirabelle momentarily considered insisting on ‘madame’, but it seemed petty, and apart from anything else it wasn’t true. ‘Thank you, no. I’m not finished. I’m looking for street directories now.’ Her voice was insistent.
A glimmer of a smile played about the man’s lips as if she had said something flirtatious. ‘You want to look up a friend’s address?’
‘No. I need old street directories. Historic ones for Paris. 1942.’ Mirabelle gathered her notes and swept her handbag under her arm. ‘Thank you.’ Dismissing him, she stalked back towards her desk.
The man put on his hat.
‘Downstairs.’ He pointed at the floor, his voice tinged with regret as if the glass of wine he had planned was certain to have been exceptional. ‘You must look downstairs, mademoiselle.’
Mirabelle laid her coat over her arm and nodded a silent thank you. French men were extraordinary. English chaps didn’t behave like that – as if in turning down the offer of a drink the course of one’s life had been tragically diverted. There was a good deal to be learned, no doubt, from the great French art of suggestion but she had no time now. The library closed in an hour and there was von der Grün’s family home to find.
Chapter 18
I know what I’m fleeing from but not what I’m searching for
.
T
he light was fading from the sky as Mirabelle strode along the pavement half an hour later. Along the Seine the low winter sun had disappeared and the air bit her skin with teeth as sharp as needles. With no clouds overhead, it was set to be a particularly chilly night. The stars, however, were spectacular as she headed westwards. It was too late to walk to Passy but Mirabelle wanted to clear her head before she hailed a cab. The words she had ploughed through that afternoon constituted a veritable mudslide of information, some of which was at odds with the way she had imagined Paris during the war. At the time her attention had been wholly taken up by Resistance activities and it was odd to think that for many people life in France’s capital had been normal during the Nazi occupation, not entirely unlike the lives of some Londoners at home. The paper had made it sound like a celebration. There had been spring balls and the Opéra had remained open, though it had played mostly Germanic compositions by Schumann, Strauss and Wagner.
Mirabelle’s breath clouded as she passed through the pools of streetlight, following the curve of the Right Bank. After ten minutes and with numb fingers, she hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to the address she had found listed in the Paris directory for 1943 under von der Grün’s name, 25 rue de Siam. In the current directory the house remained unlisted. It was
almost as if the structure had disappeared. In the shame of post-war recriminations, had the von der Grün family moved? In the cab it was colder than outside, or perhaps that was only because she wasn’t moving any more. Mirabelle shuddered and clapped her gloved hands as the driver took a route across the Champs-Élysées, affording Mirabelle a view of the Arc de Triomphe.
‘Touristes,’
the man said, waving airily towards the edifice and Mirabelle wasn’t sure if he was asking her if she was on holiday or whether he was making some comment about the crowds of people jammed onto the boulevard despite the weather.
As the cab passed she caught a glossy glimpse of the Eiffel Tower from the vantage point of Passy and gasped at some of the smart shops in the streets leading away from the centre, with mannequins sporting a froth of tulle skirts and smocked blouses. Paris was getting ready for spring. Further into the 16th arrondissement the streets were quieter. There was a reserve about this part of town. Outside expensive-looking restaurants chauffeurs smoked cigarettes as they waited for their employers to finish their drinks – or, she mused, was it possible that some people were still at the table from lunch-time? The cab drove on. Several grand Second Empire houses with mansard roofs had been converted into hotels. A gaggle of women wearing mink coats emerged from the doorway of one and walked in a diamond-studded cluster, their voices carrying on the chill evening air, excited to be out and in Paris on a Saturday night.
‘Touristes,’
the cab driver said again, as if no French women would dream of making such a racket.
The rue de Siam was beyond the part of Passy from which the Eiffel Tower could be viewed, and well away from the shops. Close to the Bois de Boulogne, the house was located on a leafy residential stretch not quite as grand as the
boulevards that surrounded it. The driver slowed and Mirabelle peered up at the buildings. The pale stone of which everything was built reminded her of Belgravia, although it was carved more ornately here on the Continent. Maids and artists were no doubt accommodated in the attics, but in the houses themselves the city’s most wealthy citizens took up residence. The smoke from a hundred household fires streamed into the clear night sky, though in many of the houses the windows were dark. In Belgravia at the weekend it was the same – people left for the country on Friday night. Mirabelle paid the driver and slammed the door behind her, realising how quiet it was in this part of the city. She could hear the creaking branches of the trees that lined the little street and those around it. Not far away, the Bois de Boulogne had been a hunting ground a hundred years ago and houses this close to it would have been at a premium – those were the days when the von der Grüns owned French territory and presumably decided to invest in a Parisian pied-à-terre. The 16th remained an address for the elite, but these days the old park housed seedy pockets of sex for sale by night and pleasant walks or rides in the daylight hours. The residents of the 16th complained about the nighttime activities that were encroaching on their privileged existence, but the open space that the Bois afforded was impossible to contain.
Mirabelle crossed the uneven paving stones to number 25 and surveyed the building. Unlike some of the other houses, which had been separated into apartments, it appeared to be a single residence, and a well-maintained one at that. She stepped backwards. The construction of these houses mitigated against easy access. The windows onto the pavement were girded with elegant yet sturdy iron grilles. Where Parisian aristocrats had stabled their horses Mirabelle couldn’t be sure, but there were no single-storey mews to the rear to provide a weak spot in the building’s security. With the lights out she couldn’t even
guess which room was which. At the front door there was a discreet brass plate. She peered, and smiled.
Comte de Vert,
it said. The name was almost a direct French translation of von der Grün. So, she pondered, after whatever punishment had been doled out to him – the year or two in prison to which Catherine had so stridently objected – the Standartenführer had assimilated, or so it would seem. That explained why the house had apparently disappeared from the street directory – von der Grün had changed his name. It was one way to try to sidestep anti-German sentiment in the aftermath of the war and one that had worked for the British royal family a generation before.
Mirabelle rang the bell and waited. There was no reply and the windows remained dark above her. There was no easy way in. With a sigh she glanced further along the street and seeing a discreet sign for a hotel she walked along the pavement and entered. It would at least be warmer inside, she reasoned. The hallway was floored, rather flashily, in Italian marble and her heels clicked along it. At the reception desk a porter with a waxed moustache looked up. ‘Welcome, madame, to the Hôtel Siam.’
Mirabelle enquired after a room – something to the rear of the building so it would be quiet and not on too high a floor for preference, and, she added, she’d need a reservation for dinner. The porter reached for a key and quoted a figure three times what she was paying at the Hôtel Rambeau. Mirabelle nodded. ‘But I must eat first. I am terribly hungry.’
With an understanding smile the man emerged smartly from the desk, relieved her of her coat and showed her into a pleasant dining room decorated in shades of peach. The linen tablecloths were so heavily starched that Mirabelle wondered whether they might stand up alone should the tables beneath them be removed. The porter handed her to the old waiter as if she was a long-awaited treasure. It was so old-fashioned that
she felt she was stepping back in time. Her grandmother would recognise this place, surely. The atmosphere in the room was agreeable and Mirabelle’s stomach rumbled hungrily – there was a scent of roasted meat on the air. This early in the evening only three tables were taken, all by couples, which meant there was a low hum of conversation and occasional laughter. The women, Mirabelle noticed, were dressed far more appropriately than her daytime suit, but then for all anyone knew she might have been travelling. Her attention was drawn by a blonde in a black cocktail dress whose
décolletage
was scattered liberally with pearls and diamonds. Mirabelle scolded herself – she must focus on the business in hand. The dining-room window opened onto the rear and she indicated she’d like a table beside it.
‘I can’t see much but it will be pleasant none the less. The moon tonight is beautiful,’ she explained, asking for pâté and some chicken, not even looking at the menu. ‘And please choose a nice wine for me.’
The waiter nodded and Mirabelle took her seat. He scurried to pour a glass of burgundy.
‘I knew this street during the war,’ she said, as if confiding in him.
‘Difficult times.’
‘Yes. A German lived further along this road. An SS officer.’
The man looked uncomfortable. ‘The wine …’
‘Yes. It’s lovely. Thank you.’ Mirabelle laid the napkin on her lap. ‘I can’t remember the fellow’s name. An absolute horror.’ She gave a shudder. ‘Brün, was it?’
‘Von der Grün.’
‘Ah. That’s it. Number 25.’ Mirabelle lifted her glass. So people who lived here knew who he was. ‘Well,
vive la France
. Here’s to ten years of them being gone.’
The waiter nodded curtly. He didn’t want to talk about it.
‘Is that a garden outside?’ Mirabelle enquired.
‘In the summer we serve drinks there before dinner but at this time of year …’
‘Yes. It is chilly. No colder than London though. Tell me, what happened to him, do you know? The German fellow?’
The waiter shrugged in a non-committal fashion.
‘I do not know, madame,’ he said and disappeared.
Mirabelle peered once more into the darkness beyond the glossy window. The glass reflected the partly drawn curtain but beyond that there were shadows that suggested the layout to the rear. Two buildings along, over a boundary wall, the back of number 25 sported no lights, though above it there was a breathtaking scatter of stars. Mirabelle wondered if Christine Moreau had come here. Had von der Grün taken her for dinner in the restaurants she had passed on the main road? Had they enjoyed a bottle of wine together – perhaps even in this very room in the Hôtel Siam? And if so, did they have a favourite table? Her thoughts were interrupted by the waiter, bringing a slice
of foie gras
and a basket of soft, warm brioche. Mirabelle smiled. There was no harm, surely, in enjoying herself.
‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him. ‘What a treat.’
After dinner she was shown to a bedroom on the first floor. If the accommodation at the Hôtel Rambeau was serviceable, the room in the Hôtel Siam was a study in luxury. The bed was covered with a quilted satin throw and the bedside lamps were hand-painted with images of kingfishers and daisies. Long windows opened onto a small iron balcony. Mirabelle tipped the porter generously, and locked the door behind him. Not wasting a second, she left a small sheaf of francs on the dresser, switched out the lights and stepped deftly through the open window into the darkness. From the vantage point of the balcony the garden below was beset by light and shadow from the hotel’s windows, but beyond that there was only the thick Parisian night. Mirabelle pulled on her coat and more importantly, her gloves. She’d need their purchase to keep hold, she
thought as she tucked her handbag securely in place, manoeuvred herself over the balcony and climbed into the hotel garden. Dinner sat satisfyingly in her stomach and her curiosity was lit. Number 25 was only two walls away.
The first was easy enough to scale, even in high heels. The mortar was soft and finding a foothold presented no problem. High above in the house she heard a baby crying. Then she launched herself over the second wall and into the garden of number 25. Dodging between the iron laundry posts she noted that there was a well-maintained herb rockery to one side. The rear gave away no more secrets than that, however. The house was still dark. Mirabelle crept up to the window and peered inside. In the shadows she could make out a kitchen with a pantry leading off it. To the left there was what she guessed was a laundry where a vent protruded from the wall. She tried the back door into the kitchen but it was locked so she turned her attention to the window, which was not. The sash slid open easily. Hauling herself through she caught her skirt on a tap and only narrowly missed ripping the sturdy woollen fabric before she clumsily tumbled onto the floor. The house was silent, a sleeping giant. Mirabelle got to her feet and dusted herself down. She reached over and closed the window.
There was no fresh food in preparation, she noted. No bread on the side or soup on the hob. No one was dining today at number 25 rue de Siam, though the kitchen was clearly in use. A bowl of eggs lay on a shelf and beside it sat some lemons and a few apples. Someone lived here, but they were away. A good opportunity to look round then, she thought as she crept past the kitchen table and out into the hallway. The only sound was the ticking of a clock that emanated from the stairwell. In a shaft of moonlight Mirabelle made out the old timepiece – a grandfather clock on the landing above. Such mechanisms, she reminded herself, required winding on a weekly basis. She mustn’t rest on her laurels; there may be staff here.
Carefully, she crossed the hallway and went into what turned out to be a dining room. A pair of Sèvres vases sat on the rosewood table and the walls were decorated with a collection of landscapes in the French style, mounted in gilded frames. The house, Mirabelle noted, didn’t feel German at all. On the other side of the hall was a study, and perusing the shelves she noticed several books in English including the latest Graham Greene and several publications by George Orwell. There was a French–German dictionary and a number of books on German military history, including two biographies of Kaiser Wilhelm. In the drawers of the desk she uncovered the usual array of paper knives and fountain pens, elastic bands and paperclips. There was a tailor’s bill marked for the attention of Le Comte de Vert, a letter from the Banque de France and a chequebook with stubs made out to a vineyard, a doctor and Maxim’s. Mirabelle replaced everything carefully exactly where she found it.
Up the main staircase and past the clock she entered a drawing room where almost every available surface was covered by photographs. Some of them seemed very old and had been taken in the countryside – men dressed in tweeds and carrying shotguns. A beautiful woman stood in a long window, the light clinging to her eerily. She was wearing a Victorian day dress, and Mirabelle wondered what colour it had been. Through the window behind the figure, a street cut to the right in a familiar dogleg. It was London, surely. Mirabelle searched on. To the rear of a table she eventually found a single print encased in a plain silver frame. This, she thought, must be Wilhelm – a man in his thirties wearing an indistinct black collar. The shot was close in, cropped to frame his face so that the details of his outfit were all but obliterated, but still. The man was the right age. It looked the right time. And from what Mirabelle could make out, the dark edges of clothing might well be an SS uniform. He was good-looking and less haughty than she had
imagined. His eyes were intelligent, if steely. On the mantelpiece were pictures of children playing – contemporary photographs of two little boys in school uniform. Perhaps these were Wilhelm’s children. He’d be in his late forties now, she supposed. She wondered if he had married one of the women whose photographs trailed across the mantel. Poor Christine Moreau.