Stranger at the Gates (3 page)

Louise stood very still. ‘Yes.'

‘Her name was Régine, wasn't it?'

‘Yes it was.'

‘You look upset, Madame,' Ilse Minden said in a quiet voice. ‘Why don't you sit down again? I'm not leaving here yet. Shall I tell you about your sister-in-law? Shall I tell you what my Heinz told me about her?'

‘Are you threatening me?'

‘Of course not; I need your help. Heinz needs it. One thing the defence counsel said to me—there'll be a lot of dirt and scandal when this case comes to trial. People who've been living a lie and pretending to be what they weren't are going to look very sick by the time it's all over. Don't you think that's true?'

‘You are threatening me,' Louise said slowly. ‘You're trying to blackmail me. Well, you've made a mistake. I won't be blackmailed. I'll show you out.' She stood up and went to the door. The German woman got up.

‘Your husband,' she said. ‘The Resistance hero. I believe your son is running for deputy for your home region, isn't that so? Before you throw me out of your house, Madame, think carefully. All we need is a few words from you, to save an old man from spending the rest of his life in jail.'

‘If you'd put it to me like that first, I might have testified,' Louise said quietly. ‘Now will you please leave my house.'

‘You're very grand, aren't you, Madame de Bernard? You can turn a poor woman away, and leave the debt you owe my Heinz unpaid? Very well. But here is my address. I'll be there for the next two days. Let me know when you change your mind.' She walked past Louise to the door and let herself out, leaving it open. Her thick shoes made an ugly noise as she crossed the marble hall. There was a snap as the front door shut.

For some moments Louise didn't move; it was as if the presence of the other woman hadn't left the room. Hate hung in the atmosphere like cigarette smoke. She went to the door and closed it. She pulled the chair away from the sofa where Ilse Minden had sat down; she lit a cigarette and deliberately calmed herself. She straightened a cushion and made a note to replace one of the hothouse plants.

‘Mother? I heard that woman go out. Darling, what's the matter?' Sophie de Bernard came towards her. ‘What in God's name did she say to you?'

‘Not a lot,' Louise said slowly. ‘But enough. Her husband's in prison in Germany; he's going to be tried for war crimes. She wants me to go and give evidence for him. She wants me to tell the story in court.'

‘That's ridiculous! You're not doing anything of the sort! You can give written evidence, an affidavit and send them that. You're not going near any war crimes trial!'

‘Darling, you don't understand. She threatened me. She threatened to make a scandal.'

‘And can she make one?' Sophie asked the question boldly. Her attitude was defensive, determined not to care. ‘Not that I give a damn,' she said. ‘You know that.'

‘Yes, I do. But you're not the only one. What about Paul?'

‘Don't tell him,' Sophie said. ‘Look, Mother, be sensible. She's just trying to frighten you. There's nothing she can rake up now that would matter to anyone. It's over and done with—nobody cares any more. Let her go to hell. And so what if he did do one decent thing? What about the rest of it? Come on, forget about it. I'll take you out to lunch today.'

‘She left me her address,' Louise said. ‘She said she'd be there for two days and to let her know when I changed my mind. When. Not “if”.'

‘That's just bluff,' Sophie said angrily. ‘You'll never hear another word about it.'

Louise looked at her daughter. She was brave and loyal and loving, ready to battle the world for her mother. Would she be so ready, so trusting if she knew exactly what the woman Ilse knew? Probably; there was a generous spirit there and a capacity for understanding which was rare in the modern
avant garde
.

She held out her hand to Sophie and forced herself to smile.

‘You're right, I expect. I won't hear any more from her. Give me half an hour to telephone and finish that wretched report upstairs and then we'll go and lunch together.' Reassured, Sophie preceded her mother out of the salon. She had a capacity for believing the best would happen rather than the worst. Upstairs in the study, with the mechanics of her normal life to be attended to, Louise stared at the telephone and the papers, unable to apply herself to either. Sophie had tried to comfort her, and had succeeded in lulling herself. Louise thanked God for what she felt was only a respite. When you change your mind. Heinz Minden's wife had chosen her words with care. The piece of paper with the address of the pension was on her desk. She had brought it upstairs with her. Subconsciously. She put it away carefully in a drawer, and knew as she did so, that the first part of the battle had been won by Ilse Minden.

There was a three-hour delay on calls to Bonn. She sat in the dreary little sitting room of the pension, waiting for the call, looking through old copies of
Plaisir de la Maison
and a tattered edition of
Elle
, which was six months out of date and featured an article by film stars who had undergone abortions and were championing the cause. She hated the French. Their lack of morality disgusted her. She disliked their food and their fashions, their architecture annoyed her because it was so grandiose and nothing could take away from the people of the country the splendour of its history and the strength of its traditions. She could never forget that they had been beaten; that she had worn stockings and scent and a smart fur coat which Heinz had brought her after his posting to France. For a brief period they had had their hands in the till, fingering the luxuries. Twenty years of deprivation had followed that fleeting indulgence. Defeat and humiliation, shame and fear. She hated her country's enemies, and above all she hated the woman who had received her that morning. It had been a catharsis to go and see her, to spill out some of the venom which had corroded her spirit for so many years. Now she could hate the real woman, not the figment which was all Heinz's unhappy confessions had created for her. Now she knew the colour of Louise de Bernard's eyes, the shape of her face, the gestures she used. The enemy had taken on flesh. When the call came through she hurried to the outer office and dropped into the chair behind the reception desk. She gave a glare at the proprietress who seemed inclined to linger and try to listen.

‘Herr Kopner? Frau Minden. Yes, yes I've seen her.'

There was a pencil on the desk and a note pad. She began to draw little lines, crossing and recrossing as she talked. ‘Yes, I had a long talk. No. She refused. Well, we expected that. Of course. No, no, I didn't say anything too obvious. Now I will make the next move. I'm sure of it. Certain. How is my husband? He mustn't suspect anything—he wouldn't agree—yes, yes, I've told you, I shall do it immediately. I gave her two days. I will telephone to you as soon as I have any news. Good.
Auf Wiedersehen.'
She hung up. The proprietress came back, her expression curious. ‘You wish this call to be put on your bill, or would you like to pay for it now?'

‘On the bill,' Ilse Minden said. ‘Can you help me please—I need a directory for the Houdan region. Do you have one here?'

‘The directories are under the shelf there. Can I get the name for you?'

‘Thank you, no. I can look it up myself.' She ruffled the pages, uncertain at first where to look, refusing to satisfy the old woman's curiosity by letting her find the number. She ran one finger down the page; her nail was filed short and the cuticle was rough. She found the name and the number, and wrote it down.

‘I want to make another call,' she said. ‘Also on the bill. Do I dial direct?'

‘For Houdan and that part, certainly, yes. Shall I get it for you?'

‘No. Thank you.' Ilse Minden dialled slowly, checking the figures against the number scribbled down on the pad. There was a pause.

‘Hello?' She raised her voice unnecessarily, as foreigners do when speaking on the telephone in a different language. ‘I wish to speak to the Comte de Bernard. Thank you. Yes, I'll wait.' She glanced at the proprietress, who looked preoccupied and went out of the hallway. ‘Good morning,' she said. ‘Monsieur de Bernard? You don't know me. My name is Ilse Minden.'

In his office on the Hofgarten Strasse in the centre of Bonn, the defence counsel, who was preparing his brief for Heinz Minden, put back the telephone and lit a cigarette. He smoked the cheapest brand; it was a curious idiosyncrasy and quite out of character; he lived extremely well and bought the best for himself. His practice was flourishing, he owned a smart house in the best residential area, out on the Bahnhof estate; ran two cars and had a well-connected second wife, who was fervently advancing his political ambition. He was a good-looking man of forty-two, just the right age to seek office. Too young for the war and yet old enough to appeal to those who had fought in it, and for whom the old wounds still smarted. His name was Siegfried Kopner. He had visited Heinz Minden the previous afternoon. He found him a pathetic specimen, and Herr Kopner did not equate pathos with pity. Minden was broken, his resignation infuriated Kopner, who had staked his reputation in public upon saving him. And more than him, much more than the liberty of one listless old man who actually looked back on his past with regret. Kopner had been looking for a platform from which to deliver his political viewpoint. The trial of someone like Heinz Minden was exactly what he needed. In the court he could say all those things and ally himself with attitudes which would have been unthinkable as part of an election formula. And yet they supplied a need and expressed the feelings of thousands, perhaps millions of his countrymen. Fortunately, if the husband's spine was snapped, there was plenty of determination in the woman. Kopner thought his client's wife was an unpleasant type, embittered and sexless, fastened like a leech upon the uncaring corpse of the man she was married to; but she presented him with the weapon he needed. During the long, tearful consultations about Minden's defence, she had told him, little by little and with increasing self-pity, the story of her husband's infatuation for the Comtesse de Bernard, and of the effort he had made on her behalf. Nothing would convince the woman, so blinded by jealousy, that Minden had acted out of anything but a desire to ingratiate himself with the Comtesse. To Kopner it was a gift; the kind of story which properly presented, could diminish his client's responsibility for the crimes charged against him, and show him in the kind of heroic light which the liberals found so satisfactory. And at the same time there in the courtroom would be a representative of the enemy; the old enemy, but still very much a symbol, not only of their own heroism but of the iniquity of their opponents. Louise de Bernard. He had checked on the family after listening to Ilse Minden and in the dungheap of marital discord and old infringements of international law, he had found a shining political pearl. He had smoked the meagre cigarette down to its buff coloured tip. He rubbed it out in an onyx ashtray. He had sent Minden's wife to Paris. It was too compromising to go himself. Her initial failure had disappointed him but he appeared undaunted by it. She possessed the confidence of the obsessed. She wanted her husband's freedom; that was the reason she gave to herself. But equally, and probably more, if motives were honestly analysed, she wanted her rival humiliated and destroyed in public.

Which was exactly what Siegfried Kopner wanted too. He lit another cigarette and spoke to his secretary on the intercom.

‘Telephone to my wife,' he said.

There was a dinner party arranged in his honour that evening; he decided it would be simpler if his wife brought a change of clothes to his office and he dressed there. He had a great deal of work to do and he didn't want to leave early.

His wife was the daughter of a former Admiral; her family were of a higher social class than his own, but the war had deprived them of their Eastern estates and she was eager to marry him. She was a hard, determined woman whose ambitions were centred upon him. She had devoted herself to his comfort and his career from the start of the marriage, and he was very happy with her. He slept at regular intervals with a delightful, amusing little dress designer he had met at a party, and considered himself to have the best arrangement any man could want.

His wife came through on the line. He told her to bring his evening suit; she agreed immediately. ‘Any news from Frau Minden?' She knew everything about the case. He always discussed his work with her; she often had valuable comments to make. ‘She phoned not long ago,' Kopner said. ‘The Comtesse wouldn't agree. I don't think she handled her very well. But she's going to carry out the second plan, and she thinks this will work. I think so too.'

‘Excellent,' his wife said. Her voice came through high pitched through the receiver. He held it a little away from his ear. ‘They'll give in,' she said. ‘I'm very confident. I'll be at the office at six-thirty; that will give you an hour to change. We mustn't be late. I've sent flowers to Hilda.'

‘Excellent,' he said, imitating her. ‘Until six-thirty.'

A senior member of the Bundeswehr would be present at the dinner. It was hoped to enlist him as a sponsor for Kopner's candidature. The evening would be very important in his career. At about the same time as his wife arrived with the suitcase, carrying his beautifully pressed dinner jacket, Ilse Minden got off the train at Houdan railway station and took a taxi to the Château St. Blaize.

2

Sophie de Bernard was a fast driver; she took the autoroute out of Paris, following the signs to Versailles and swung round past the town onto the Chartres road. For the first twenty minutes Louise sat beside her without speaking. The traffic was always heavy, and although they were ahead of the evening rush, the pace was sluggish; there were few opportunities for Sophie to unleash the Mercedes and drive at her usual speed. Finally they cleared the slow-moving line of cars and lorries, and the car shot forward. Louise looked at her.