The following morning he went out to Luna Park and worked on the books. Lamy sat with him, telling him stories about the Shanghai tong wars of the 1920s. Then he said, “I think I can help you out, Marin. I’d like to spend Thursday afternoons with my girlfriend—I could use somebody to keep an eye on things here. It isn’t hard. Collect the money at night, just make sure nothing goes wrong. An extra six hours a week, maybe a little more. Want to try it?” Casson said he would.
Some people went to church, Casson went to the movies. It took him most of the afternoon to decide what to do—a monologue in bits and pieces. He sat through the German newsreel, straight from the propaganda
Abteilung
in the Hotel Meurice. Rommel’s Afrika Korps bouncing over the sand dunes of Libya, then taking Benghazi. A shot of a British tank on fire, a shot of a sign that gave the distance to Cairo. Then, the film. Three girls from Paris take their summer vacation at the beach, each of them, it seems . . .
He sat in the comforting darkness, amid the coughs and the steady whirr of the projector, pretending to wonder what to do. He knew, of course. He just kept telling himself he was a fool. Not a realist, not shrewd. The first article of faith in French society:
il faut
se défendre.
Gospel. You must take care of yourself, first and foremost. Because, if you don’t, nobody else will. Marie-Claire had baited him, telling him about her friend who worked for de Gaulle. Maybe if she hadn’t said anything—no, that wasn’t true. He would have found another way. On the screen, young Maurice, too shy to reveal his love, leaves a bouquet of wildflowers on the doorstep. What’s this? The milkman’s donkey. Oh no, he’s eating them!
How had they found out about de la Barre? Probably interrogated the passengers after the ship burned in the harbor. One of de la Barre’s fugitives, papers a little wrong, a forced confession. Casson looked at his watch. Twenty minutes more, he might as well see how it ended.
Why me?
He didn’t know. It didn’t have to be that way—here was Lamy, offering him a way out. A nice little job, soon enough, for
Monsieur Marin of the Hotel du Commerce.
The final shot, a beach in the moonlight.
Not so bad,
he thought. Long white waves rolling into the shore, breaking gently on the beach.
The movie theatre had a telephone; he called Marie-Claire.
She met him at a café, just after five. Bruno was back, she explained, they were having dinner at nine. Celebrating his victory. From now on, German officers, crooked bureaucrats, butter dealers, any of the suddenly rich, would be able to buy an Alfa Romeo.
Casson ordered Marie-Claire her customary Martini Rouge, with lemon. “You don’t seem in the mood for a celebration.”
“I’m not. It’s beginning to bother me, all this.” She made a face he knew all too well.
“He is what he is,” Casson said, sympathetic.
“Yes, he is.” She paused a moment. “Our part of the world, up in Passy, is coming apart, Jean-Claude. That’s really what’s going on. Half of my friends listen to de Gaulle on the radio, the other half keep portraits of Pétain on the piano. Somehow, Bruno and I wound up on different sides.”
“That’s not so good.”
She looked sorrowful. “And it’s not just the couples, it’s everywhere, even in the same family—between sisters, between fathers and sons. It’s terrible, Jean-Claude. Terrible.”
“I know,” Casson said. “Marie-Claire, I would like to talk to the friend you mentioned. The one who has ties to the French in London.”
“Did I tell you who it was?”
“No.”
She gave him the look that meant
I know you too well, Jean-Claude, you’re not going to like this.
“It’s Jacques Gueze,” she said.
“Oh no.”
“That’s who it is.”
Casson knew him, had sat across from him at a dinner party back in the old days. After that, a handshake two or three times at some
grande affaire.
Casson hated him. Short and wide, prosperously fat, with thick glasses and tight, curly hair. He floated on waves of amour propre—boundless conceit, in measures rare even in France. He described himself as an ethnologist, no, there was more to it than that, it was
better
than that. Socio-ethnologist? Psycho-ethnologist? Anyhow, a hyphen. Now he remembered— gods, something about gods. He’d written a book about them.
“So,” Marie-Claire said, one eyebrow raised. “That’s it for you and the
résistance?
”
“Jacques Gueze? Did you think he was telling the truth?”
“Yes. I believed him.”
“All the time trying to get you in bed.”
“Trying hard. Puffed himself up like a pigeon, as I think I told you, but I declined. It seemed to me he would probably fuck like a pigeon.”
Casson laughed. “All right,” he said, a sigh in his voice. “Can you let him know?”
“Let him know what?”
“That I want to speak with him. You can say ‘confidentially.’ How can de Gaulle tolerate him?”
“De Gaulle does not exactly undervalue himself, Jean-Claude. I don’t know, but to him Jacques Gueze may seem perfectly normal.”
A message was left at the hotel the following day, a meeting at 8:20 by the St.-Paul Métro station. “We will go to dinner,” Gueze announced. “To Heininger. A
choucroute,
I think, for this weather.”
Casson was horrified. “I might see people who know me,” he said. “Maybe not the best idea.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Gueze said. “You’re with me.” The idea of doing without his
choucroute
was beneath consideration.
They walked a few blocks toward the place Bastille, to the Brasserie Heininger. Famous, infamous, a vast marble palace, glowing wood, golden light, waiters in fancy whiskers and green aprons, and
scandale,
as fragrant in the air as the grilled sausage.
“Table fourteen,
jeune homme,
” Gueze said to Papa Heininger, not at all a “young man,” who accepted the courteously rude appellation with a genial nod. Of course it was available, held nightly for customers powerful enough to know about it. Table fourteen— a small hole in the mirrored panel where an assassin had fired a machine gun on a spring evening when the Bulgarian headwaiter was murdered in the ladies’ WC. The table where an aristocratic Englishwoman had once recruited Russian spies. The table where, in the first months of the Occupation, the companion of a German naval officer had taken to shooting peas at other diners, using a rolled-up
carte des vins
as a blowpipe. The table where, a year earlier, Casson—in the last days of life as himself—had dined with a German film executive and his friends.
A waiter appeared, Gueze rubbed his hands. “
Choucroute,
choucroute,
” he said with a smile. “Beer, do you think?” he asked Casson.
“All right.”
“Alsatian,” Gueze said to the waiter. “Dark. Two right away, then two more—keep an eye on us and see when we’re ready.”
Casson looked around the room—a number of Germans in uniform, and at least two people he knew, both of them very busy talking and eating.
“So then,” Gueze said. “Marie-Claire tells me you’re thinking of joining up with us.
Les fous de Grand Charles.
” He laughed merrily at the name—Big Charlie’s lunatics.
“Maybe,” Casson said. “I’m not sure what I could do.”
“Don’t worry about
that.
There’s plenty to go around.” A small cloud crossed his face. “You don’t want to go to London, do you?”
“No, it hadn’t occurred to me.”
The cloud vanished. “Good, good. People show up at the office, they all want the big desk. I was back in August—a real circus. Where we need help, of course, is right here.”
“What kind of help do you need?”
“As a government in exile, we’ve had to start from the beginning. That includes what we call the BCRA
—Bureau
Centrale de
Renseignements et d’Action.
Essentially, we’re de Gaulle’s intelligence service. The money comes from the British, along with lots of advice, most of it useless, and sometimes an order, which we usually ignore.”
“And the Americans?”
“A sore point. The people in the State Department don’t like the general. Nothing new there, all sorts of people don’t like him.”
Gueze turned gloomy for a moment—de Gaulle’s personality didn’t make his life any easier—then smiled. “In May of ’40, when de Gaulle went up to Belgium, Weygand got so mad at him he threw him out! Threatened to have him
arrested
if he didn’t leave the front lines.” Gueze paused to enjoy the scene. “But all for the best, all for the best. We’re rid of that now, it’s in the past. What we are, my friend, is the future.”
The waiter arrived, carrying a tray with two glasses of beer, dark brown, almost black, a thin layer of mocha-colored foam on top. “Ah-ha,” Gueze sang out. “
La
bonne bière.
” The good beer—real, honest, ancient, like us peasant French. Gueze beamed at the idea, pleased with himself.
Even so,
Casson thought, he’s no fool.
Casson’s father had taken him to the park on Sunday afternoons. Neither of them knew what they were supposed to be doing there, but his mother insisted and so they went, sitting on a bench in the Ranelagh gardens until they were allowed back in the apartment. Once, Casson remembered, his father had stared a long time at a horse and carriage. “A noble head on that animal,” he’d said at last. “But, Jean-Claude, do not underestimate the value of his backside.”
They drank the beer, cool and thick and bitter. All around them, the brasserie was getting louder as the evening went on. “This is good,” Casson said. He paused, then, “There is something I wanted to mention, it may not be of interest, but I leave that up to you.”
Gueze raised his eyebrows.
“For some months,” Casson said, “I’ve had to live underground. During that time I came across an old friend, and he asked me to help him. The work we did was political, and covert. In the process, I had conversations with people who are involved in the direction of the Communist Party. The FTP, to be exact. With jobs maybe not so different from yours. We had several meetings, some of their views became clear over time. At the last meeting, I was told they needed weapons, thousands of them, with ammunition, and hand grenades. Would this interest you? Because, if it does, there’s more. They are willing, in return, to undertake specific operations against the Germans.”
“Interesting,” Gueze said. “No doubt about it. Tell me this, are you a believer? I don’t care if you are, I happen to be a socialist, but if you look around this restaurant, at the German uniforms, you’ll see where political divisions have gotten us.”
“No,” Casson said. “And they knew that from the beginning.”
The dinner arrived.
What war?
Casson thought. Warm sauerkraut, thick bacon on its rind, a pork chop. And a
saucisse de
Toulouse—
he filled the bowl of a tiny spoon with hot mustard and ran it down the burst, blackened skin.
“Not too bad for a cold March night,” Gueze said.
Casson agreed. No, not too bad.
“Of course I can’t give you an answer straight away,” Gueze said. “This will be pawed over by a committee, but something has to be worked out. Naturally we talk to the communists in London, then wait until they wire back to Moscow for permission to blow their nose. It’s terribly slow. However, if we patch something together in Paris it’s on-the-ground, not binding, but at least something will come of it.
That’s
the attraction of what you’ve told me.”
Gueze picked up the empty bread basket and looked around. A waiter swept it away and returned a moment later with a full one, rounds of fresh bread piled high.
“The fact is,” Gueze said, “we are making an effort to get all the resistance movements—at the moment we count fifteen or so— going in the same direction. At least now and then.” He ate a forkful of sauerkraut, washed it down with beer. “You said you had to live underground?”
“I got into trouble with the Gestapo, June of ’41. At that time, I had some contact with the British special services.”
“Which? The people who blow things up? Or the people who steal blueprints?”
“Blow things up.”
“Well, they’re a lot easier to deal with, that much I can tell you. We do both, in one service. So, the Gestapo wants you. How badly?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“We’ll have to find out. If they’re really hunting for you, you can’t be of much use to us. One thing I should say is that if you come to work for us, we’ll pay you. Not a lot, but enough. Marie-Claire seemed to think that your existence has been, well, day-to-day.”
“It has.”
“You’ll have plenty to worry about, with us, but not that.” He went back to work on the
choucroute.
“She is, you know, a very attractive woman.”
“I know,” Casson said.
“Do you regret, the, ah . . .”
“No. We just couldn’t get along. You know how it is.”
“Oh yes. Unfortunately, she lives with that awful man.”
They ate in silence for a time. “Communists, you know,” Gueze said, “turn out to be crucial. The British have to bleed the Germans to death—they can’t absorb the number of casualties the Russians can. Their strategy is to shut down the power stations, the railroads, the phones and the telegraph, keep the important metals away, blow up the tool-and-die works. It’s not easy, because the Germans are ingenious, they wire it all back together, and they’ve learned to put things underground. But, if you’re going to deliver the explosives by hand, rather than by plane, you need the railwaymen, the telephone workers, the lathe operators. That’s the working class—labor unions, communists. And they’ve been in clandestine operations for twenty years.”
“One thing did occur to me,” Casson said. “What if we help the FTP to get arms and then they don’t do all that much. They simply wait till the end of the war. They’re armed, and well organized. They demand a share of the government—or else.”
Gueze shrugged. “That’s what we’re doing, why shouldn’t they?”
Later, Casson mentioned Hélène, and the
San Lorenzo.
Gueze was waiting for the tarte Tatin he’d ordered. “Tell me what happened,” he said. Casson told the story in detail, from the beginning. Gueze listened attentively. “I’m not sure how we can help,” he said at the end. “But there may be something we can do. Let me think it over.”