The Collaborators. Reginald Hill
said her cousin. ‘Me, I was carrying daggers and knuckle-dusters at his age!’
This reference to his criminal past, far from offending Louise, provoked her into peals of laughter. But she went on to say, ‘Janine’s right. He’s too young for a knife.’
Pauli said, ‘Maman, it’s not all a knife. It’s got all kinds of things.’
He demonstrated, pulling out one after another a corkscrew, a bottle-opener, a screw-driver, a gimlet.
‘I can’t cut myself with these,’ he said earnestly. ‘If I promise not to open the blade till I’m old enough, can I keep it? Please, maman?’
He fixed his unblinking wide-eyed gaze upon her, not beseeching, but inviting her to retreat before the logic of his argument.
As usual, there seemed nothing else to do.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Only, Pauli, I’ll decide when you’re old enough, you understand?’
‘Yes, maman.’
‘Then promise.’
‘I promise,’ he said solemnly.
‘Janine, are you sure? He’s only a child,’ protested Louise. ‘You’re far too soft, I always said.’
‘Except when you said I was too hard,’ retorted Janine.
This small crack in good will was smoothly papered over by Hélène, who said, ‘Isn’t it lovely to see them opening their presents? I just long to have children of my own, Janine. You’re so lucky to have this beautiful pair.’
She sounded as if she meant it and Janine found herself warming to her. Soon they were deep in domestic conversation, while Madame Crozier busied herself being the perfect hostess, and Boucher and Monsieur Crozier talked nostalgically about the great cyclists of the thirties. One thing that no one mentioned was the immediate past or the foreseeable future. The Paris - indeed the France - that lay outside the door might not have existed. Christmas, always a game, was being played with extra fervour this year.
Only a child to whom all play is reality could not grasp the rules of this game. Pauli ate his dinner silently, and drank his wine and water, and looked after his little sister who still found it hard to discriminate between nose and mouth. And all the time he hardly ever took his eyes off Michel Boucher. But Janine knew, and the knowledge wrenched her heart, that it was his father he was seeing.
And now her own father, as if catching the thought, broke the rules too and said quietly when Pauli had taken his sister to the lavatory, ‘Any news of Jean-Paul?’
Janine shook her head. Boucher said, ‘That man of yours not turned up yet? That’s lousy. Have you tried the Red Cross?’
‘I’ve tried everything,’ said Janine dully. She listed all her channels of enquiry. Hélène put her hand over hers and squeezed sympathetically, while Boucher snorted his opinion of civil servants and bureaucracy.
Then Louise came in with brandy and chocolates and the subject was shelved.
When the time came for the visitors to go, Janine showed them out. After he had put Hélène in the car, Miche came back to the shop doorway and kissed her in a fairly cousinly manner.
‘It’s been great today,’ he said.
‘That’s good, Miche. And it was lovely having you and Hélène here.’
‘Yeah. Surprising too, eh?’ He laughed. ‘I saw your face! Thing is I’ve always liked your dad. He’s been good to me over the years, more than the rest of you know. All the family I’ve got, you Croziers. It was meeting Hélène that made me realize a man needed a family. So when I started doing well enough to get round Auntie Lou, I thought, what the hell. I can put up with her funny little ways.’
‘I’m glad, Miche. You and Hélène are really serious then?’
‘Do me a favour!’ he said. ‘I’m too young to be really serious. But serious enough. Look, Jan, none of my business, but about Jean-Paul, if you like I’ll have a word with my new boss, see if he can help.’
‘Your new boss. Who’s that, Miche?’ asked Janine suspiciously.
‘Doesn’t matter, if he can help, does it?’ laughed Boucher. ‘And if he can’t, then it doesn’t matter either. I’ll be in touch. Hey, what are you doing on New Year’s Eve? Fancy going to a party?’
‘I don’t think so, Miche,’ said Janine. ‘I’m not really in the party mood at the moment.’
‘No? On second thoughts, you probably wouldn’t enjoy this one anyway,’ he said with a grin. ‘Cheers, kids. Pauli, you look after your mother now. Wiedersehen!’
And as Janine frowned her displeasure, he smiled, shrugged and said, ‘When in Rome, sweetie, do like they do in Berlin. Leb’wohl!
8
So the year drew to its close. Winter like the Germans came swiftly, hit hard, felt as if it was here to stay.
‘I’ll tell you something, Günter,’ said Major Zeller. ‘I never thought it would be so easy.’
‘Victory, you mean?’
‘No. Not victory in the field, anyway. It was always possible that that would be easy. No, the remarkable thing is the degree to which we have got ourselves accepted. More than accepted. Welcomed! I actually feel at home in this city, a visitor rather than a conqueror.’
He paused, then went on, ‘It would please me, Günter, if from time to time as I spoke to you, that you gave a little nod of agreement or let something other than lugubrious doubt light up that gamekeeper face of yours.’
‘Sorry,’ said Mai.
‘You don’t agree?’
‘It’s early days, sir,’ said Mai. ‘You knock a man down, he may be concussed and in shock for a long time afterwards. He may even believe that he didn’t really mind being knocked down. But you’d better wait till he’s fully himself again before deciding if you really want him holding the ladder while you’re cleaning windows.’
Zeller regarded him curiously.
‘Cleaning windows? How quaint you sometimes are, Günter. I do hope you will not put your quaintness forward as official Abwehr thinking tonight. The SD are keen enough to undermine us without giving them ammunition in the Embassy.’
‘I’ll try to remember my manners, sir. I expect in any case I’ve only been invited to hand out drinks to the distinguished foreign guests. Is Monsieur Melchior attending on our ticket, by the way?’
A glittering New Year reception was being held at the Embassy. All the main sections of the Occupying Authority had been asked to submit suggestions for the guest list. Mai knew very well that there was more chance of Zeller suggesting Winston Churchill than Melchior. The major was still being ribbed by officers in those units put on alert for the non-existent midnight disturbances. He was convinced that somehow the SD had been behind the fiasco to make the Abwehr look ridiculous. Mai didn’t discount the possibility but didn’t reckon Melchior would have had the nerve to fool Zeller knowingly.
‘I should prefer not to hear that revolting creature’s name mentioned, lieutenant,’ said Zeller dangerously. ‘I don’t know where he’s been hiding for the past weeks, but when he finally crawls out of his hole, he’s going to wish he’d burrowed down the centre of the earth.’
Going to give him a spanking, are we? thought Mai. But the look on his superior’s face convinced him it would be unwise even to hint he found the matter more amusing than tragic.
That night as he stood in the most obscure corner of the huge reception room in the Embassy,