Nightingale (8 page)

“Slower,” Harfner said.

“Why did you bring him? Who is he?”

Harfner gesticulated to his prisoner.

“Excuse me, if I may.” The man took a mouthful of the water and swallowed, then cleared his throat. “Monsieur Harfner has brought me to . . . ah, teach you.”

“Teach me? What?” Yves stared at Harfner, who nodded.

“My name is Albert Benichou. I used to teach at the lycée. Until, that is . . .” He drew a deep breath and lowered his arm. Yves stared at the yellow star sown onto his clothing and felt the bile rise. A teacher. A Jew. Dragged here on the whim of this overgrown, violent child. “I taught German and French.”

“I think you should teach our
gallant visitor
French,” Yves said, his tone dripping with acid.

The teacher cleared his throat again and sipped more water. His hands were shaking visibly, and Yves wondered what kinds of terrors he had encountered so far. To be singled out, then dragged around Paris by a German in uniform who’d very likely not explained himself very well.

“Please, Monsieur Lacroix. I dislike having to be so forthright, but as long as I’m useful . . .”

Yves heard the rest of the sentence clearly enough and stared at Harfner, thoroughly disgusted with the man. “Who’s going to pay you?”

“It’s taken care of,” the teacher hurried to say.

“I’ll pay you for the lessons, too.” There was no delicate way to ask him how much he received in addition to safety from the worst reprisals, and from the threadbare look of his clothes, he could certainly use it.

“I will learn French; you will learn German,” Harfner said in his Tarzan simplicity. “He teaches us both.”

Yves nodded, then looked at the teacher. “Can you fit us in?”

“There’s nothing else but the occasional odd job . . .”

Seeing a teacher reduced to this state made Yves clench his fists. Here was one who hadn’t gotten away in time, and the man was likely regretting that toss of the dice every day. Right now, though, serving the Germans was probably the safest option. “Excellent. It’s certainly a useful language to have.” He smiled, though it cost him.

Harfner’s shoulders relaxed and he smiled proudly at Yves, pleased and seemingly entirely oblivious to having added to everyone’s discomfort. Yves ran a hand through his hair, then looked down at the paintings on the table. He carefully stacked them to give his hands something to do, as casual as he could make it, and set them down on the desk. “When do you want to start?”

“An hour after duty?” Harfner asked.

“Every day?”

“More on the weekend.” Harfner shrugged.

God help him, but the soldier meant it. “Not here,” Yves said immediately. Heinrich walking in on them would only cause bad blood. After all, Harfner was a common soldier and had no good excuse to spend so much time with Yves, let alone in his apartment. Yves didn’t even have a good reason to want to learn German—Heinrich spoke his language.

“There’s a bar on the corner. They have a backroom,” Yves offered eventually. “Can you wear civilian clothes?”

Harfner looked at him, blinked a few times. “I can.”

Good. Because a French singer, a Jewish teacher, and a German soldier in a bar sounded too much like the beginning of a terrible joke.

Chapter 14

Yves was standing in front of the mirror, adjusting his top hat this way and that, from rakish to daring and back again, when Maurice entered with the
grand
geste
of the born impresario. He paused, but only to look Yves up and down. “Your stage, maestro,” he announced and winked. “Your oberst is in the first row, center table. Shall I send him a bottle of champagne?”

“He’ll enjoy that.”
My oberst.
He played with the white scarf around his neck, brushed the silk flat against his chest. “Maurice, I need your help.”

Maurice herded him out of the dressing room, snatching his walking cane on the way out. “If it’s important enough to distract you from your usual fit of nerves, I’d like to hear it.”

“Don’t remind me. I
am
scared.”

“Well, sorry for bringing it up.” Maurice kept driving him down toward the stage. “The crowd is friendly tonight, Yves, nothing to fear.”

Yves stopped abruptly enough that Maurice grazed him in an attempt to not knock him over. “That’s not . . . I need to know something. Can you help me find it out?”

“Time’s ticking, my boy.”

“I’ll sing, don’t worry. Can you find out who J. Brasche is or was?”

“Brasche?”

“A painter. Expressionist. He might have fought in the Great War.”

“How do you spell
Brasche
?” Maurice asked as they arrived behind the curtains. The dancing girls were finishing up, and Yves heard the applause and catcalls and caught the mood. It was indeed relaxed and happy, expectant of the main act. That would be him.

“Find out for me, please?” he whispered, almost miming, and dashed out onstage just as the girls were waving out.

“Good evening.” He bowed in front of the crowd. He briefly lifted his top hat and caught Heinrich’s eye. The German leaned back, the image of pride and contentment.

Yves filled his lungs with air, realizing the nervousness was gone. Or at least it was more subdued than usual. His voice carried without tremor. He was fully in command, like he could only be on a stage in this city. The audience was about one third German, but to him they were just faces, collective breath, hands that itched to clap.

“Ladies and gentlemen—how are you tonight?” Somebody in the audience shouted “Getting drunk!” and Yves lifted an eyebrow and smiled crookedly, gingerly plucking his white gloves from his fingers. “When I asked my friend Pierre the other day, he said he
couldn’t
complain,” he delivered with a snap that hinted at the deeper meaning of the sentence and then, just as the audience was wondering if he’d really meant it, he said, “I, for one, am keeping myself
occupied
.”

A delighted gasp rose from the crowd.

Yves laughed, as if he had any hope to overplay this joke harmlessly with another joke. He saw well that the Germans were suddenly uneasy. Even Heinrich had stopped smiling.

This, then, was what power tasted like. It terrified him. He didn’t want any part of it, and he groped for his routine, leaving the dangerous ground behind and moving onto firm earth. His old jokes, some improvisation, mostly based on what the audience did or wore, and he was off to a successful evening. He ignored Heinrich, too wrapped up in playing to the rest of the audience, which was watching him even more attentively than before. He’d dared touch the forbidden, and they were clearly expecting him to do it again. A perfectly harmless joke about a neighbor borrowing sugar took on barbs and tripwires, leading to riotous laughter. That had been unintentional, however—though Germany was France’s neighbor, and sugar was getting much harder to come by—but anything he did now was seen through a warped mirror. He couldn’t fight it. Acknowledging it would only make matters worse, but at the same time he basked in the attention. All eyes were on him and he didn’t even have to work for it.

When they called him back to sing one more song, he pretended he’d forgotten the melody and went through a number of melodies, which softly, subtly, turned into the first few bars of the
Marseillaise
, which drew more gasps and a hum from the audience.

A German officer to the left jumped to his feet, but Yves already pretended he’d found the melody he’d been looking for and ended with
Mills on the River
. Riotous applause. They knew which song he’d actually sung in his head—they’d heard it too—and several gave him a standing ovation, like they were at the opera.

His knees nearly buckled when he left the stage. He welcomed the gloom away from the stage lights, the muffled noise after the roar of the applause. This time, the nausea hit him
after
the show, but more violently than ever.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his mouth and nose, tilted his head back and forced himself to breathe against the pooling saliva in his mouth as he made his way to his dressing room. A number of people stood in front of it, waiting, but he shouldered through and managed to slam the door behind him. When he could fall to his knees in front of the bucket, it came as a relief, because he didn’t have to struggle anymore. He could just give up.

When that sordid business was over, he washed out his mouth, then stuck his head under the running water, cold and crisp, and dug his fingers into his hair, washing the straightness out and the pomade that had kept it all in place. He reached blindly for a towel. When he touched it, he realized with a start that it had been too close. He straightened up, his sore stomach plummeting again.

Heinrich stood there, calmly offering him the towel.

He took it and covered his face for as long as he reasonably could, then ran it over his hair that was dripping cold water into his collar and down his back. He glanced furtively at Heinrich in the mirror. Damn the man for his stoic façade, damn him for the field-gray tunic and the Iron Cross at his throat. Damn him for being German.

Heinrich studied him in the mirror. “How are you feeling, Yves? You looked distracted.”

Yves balled his hands around the towel. “I’m sorry. I—didn’t mean to.” He pressed the towel to his front like it could protect him. “Things got away from me. I didn’t mean to . . .” He struggled for words, but the best he could find was, “disappoint you.”

Heinrich nodded. “You were very funny,” he said with no quirk to his lips, and Yves realized that it was either the stoicism that killed all humor or a kind of cruelty.

Yves grimaced. He wanted to lean against something. Wanted to be told that what he’d done was all right. Pandering to an audience was one thing, but getting a midnight visit from the Gestapo was something else entirely. “I am sorry.”

Heinrich sighed. “Von Grimmstein was in the audience. He will report you. In fact, people will make themselves suspicious if they don’t report you.”

“What . . . does that mean?”

“That you should leave the city. At least until this has blown over. This was too public and too blatant. Maybe you could get away with this in one of those low-life bars that you work in, but not here.”

Because workers and the hoi-polloi were powerless, they could be told the truth, while
le Tout-Paris
preferred to know the truth but not speak it. Maybe it was because the latter had more to lose. Everybody could learn to love an oppressor as long as there were literary salons and champagne. Édith was probably right with her Socialist views. Maybe the rebirth of France had to come from the workers. Those better off were clearly not beyond rolling over and playing dead in the face of an enemy.

“But will it blow over?”

“I’ll talk to Abetz,” Heinrich said. “Meanwhile, no more jokes in that vein.”

“No.” Yves shook his head. “Thank you.” He was relieved and still nauseous, and with that came resentment that he needed this kind of help in his country to save him from something he’d done on his own stage. What kind of army was afraid of a joke? Somehow, he’d grown used to this, and he wasn’t sure how it had happened. When he’d accepted that keeping Heinrich on his good side might help people, he hadn’t thought it possible that he would be the first one who’d need that help.

Heinrich touched Yves’ shoulder. “Sorry for intruding upon you like this.”

“I’m just . . . exhausted.” He slipped out of his tuxedo jacket and hung it up. In the mirror, he saw his dark curls plastered, undignified, against his scalp. “I’ve been working hard.” Learning German, being afraid, writing songs, and being interested in matters that he shouldn’t get himself involved in. He was an entertainer. Politics shouldn’t concern him, and certainly not jeopardize his career or his health. Or worse. “How long should I go away?” And how would he explain this to Maurice? He wouldn’t be pleased. “Or can I stay? Is there any way I can . . . make this go away?”

Heinrich lifted an eyebrow. “These matters are subtle. Even I can’t appear to be too interested in your fate.”

“Why not?”

“I have enemies, too.”

“Von Grimmstein?”

“I don’t yet understand where he falls.” Heinrich glanced over his shoulder as if checking for witnesses. “Or how he interprets the will of the Führer.”

Yves looked into Heinrich’s face, but again, he couldn’t read him. When in doubt, he seemed to remain silent—yet, would he have risen to such power if his superiors had any doubt about his dedication? “How long should I stay away?”

“I’ll send you a message when this situation is diffused.” Heinrich almost reached out to touch him but then folded his hands on his back as if to prevent that from happening. “Go home and pack. First thing tomorrow, I’ll send you travel papers.”

“Where should I go?”

“I believe you have family in the countryside?”

Yves nodded numbly. “I’ll have to talk to Maurice.”

“Then do it, but don’t lose time. The Gestapo moves quickly. And I don’t want them to . . .” He shook his head, eyes closed.

Yves didn’t change the rest of his clothes. It was clear that Heinrich didn’t intend to leave the dressing room, and he was not going to expose himself even further to the man. He merely took his woolen coat, wrapped a scarf around his neck, and put a hat over his wet hair. “Thank you.”

Heinrich waved him off and watched as Yves put his clothes in a bag and his keys and stayed behind when he left.

He found Maurice backstage. “Von Starck says I need to go. I’m sorry. Can you find a replacement for Monday?”

Maurice scowled. “You can always say they goaded you.”

“It’s too dangerous. I . . . shouldn’t . . .” His stomach cramped. Maurice relied on him. Why exactly had he done this?

Because swallowing the fear and the sarcasm and the mockery was unspeakably wearying, and for a few minutes he’d simply been too tired of being afraid to
be
afraid. Without any respite from the fear, it had dulled itself against his soul. He didn’t feel it quite as badly anymore, and up onstage, for a little while at least, he didn’t feel it at all. Terrible mistake.

“I need to go. I’ll let you know once I know myself what’s happening.”

Maurice drew him into a shoulder-crushing hug. “Where are you going?”

“My mother’s.”

“Madeleine Lacroix, the finest voice of her generation.”

Yves lifted an eyebrow—he wouldn’t have any mockery about her generation having been twenty years ago. Unlike other singers of her fame, his mother had taken her last bows and standing ovations on the very cusp of her career. But there had been seasons in Paris when all anybody talked about was the rumor of
Madame
Lacroix having caught a cold. Knowing her, she might have planted those herself to draw an even larger crowd or to give them something to talk about.

“Enjoy your holiday.” Maurice patted him firmly on the shoulder.

Yves forced himself to smile—but unlike his other forced smiles lately, he wanted Maurice to believe him. It would be fine. Heinrich would protect him. He wasn’t a known Communist or Socialist (or a Jew). All he’d ever really cared about was the music, and the Germans had to know that. So would any French person they’d question. He had done nothing badly wrong.

Still, he was terrified.