Читать книгу The Collaborators - Reginald Hill - Страница 16

Maurice Melchior carefully examined his black velvet jacket for dust or hairs. Satisfied, he slipped his slender arms into it, spent some time adjusting the angle of his fedora, then stood back from the mirror to get the total effect.

Stunning, was the only possible verdict. He was a creature perfectly in balance, at that ideal point in his thirties where youth still burnt hot enough to melt the mature, and maturity already glowed bright enough to dazzle the young.

He tripped light as a dancer down the rickety staircase in this tall old house. On the floor below he met Charlot, the ginger cat belonging to old Madame Simonian. Charlot wanted attention. It was hard to resist those appealing eyes, but, ‘Not when I’m wearing the black velvet, my dear,’ explained Melchior.

A few moments later he was out in the sunshine.

This was not the first time he had been out since the Boche came, but his previous expeditions had been furtive, frightened things, at dusk, well wrapped up, to buy a few provisions and scuttle back to his lair. Really, a man of his sensibility should have fled as soon as the invasion became a certainty, but as usual he’d put off the decision till the sight of all those jostling refugees made it quite impossible.

And what had happened? Nothing! Life, he had gradually been reassured, was going on much as before for those courageous souls who had refused to be panicked into craven flight. Today he was going out in broad daylight and not just round the corner to the grocer’s shop. Today he was strolling south, leaving the Marais behind, and heading where he truly belonged.

The Left Bank! Saint-Germain-des-Prés! Everything he dreamt of was here…to hear his wit applauded at the Deux Magots, to have his custom valued at the Tour d’Argent…Dreams indeed. But even though he could rarely afford the latter and was barely admitted to the outermost circles of the former, merely to cross the river once more felt like coming home. If it hadn’t been that the dear old man who had set him up in his little flat in the Rue de Thorigny all those years ago had arranged in his will for the rent to be paid as long as he stayed, he’d have moved across the river long since.

After his first exhilaration at being back in his old haunts, a certain uneasiness began to steal over him. Everything was so quiet. Not many people about and next to no traffic, except for the odd German truck which still sent him diving into the nearest doorway. He found himself thinking of going home.

Then he drew himself up to his full five feet seven inches and cried, ‘No!’

Whatever this day brought forth, Maurice Melchior, aesthete, intellectual, wit, man of letters, gourmet, not to mention homosexual and Jew, would be there to greet it.

Overcome with admiration for his own courage, he stepped unheeding off the pavement. There was a screech of brakes and a car slewed to a halt across the road. It didn’t actually touch Melchior but sheer shock buckled his knees and he sat down. Out of the driver’s window a man in grey uniform began to shout at him in German. It wasn’t difficult to get his gist.

‘Be quiet,’ said an authoritative voice. ‘Monsieur, I hope you’re not hurt.’

And Maurice Melchior looked up to see a Nordic god stooping over him with compassion and concern in his limpid blue eyes.

‘My name is Zeller. Bruno Zeller. Call me Bruno. And you, monsieur…Melchior?’

They had come to a café on the Boulevard Saint-Michel where Melchior used to meet, or seek, student friends. The vacation and the situation combined to make it empty at the moment and the patron had been delighted to have their custom, greeting Melchior by his name, a fact which seemed to impress the German.

‘Yes. Melchior’s my name! Magus that I am! Bearing gifts of gold! From the East I come!’

It was a little verse from a Nativity Play which he used occasionally to quiz his Christian friends. Zeller laughed in delight.

‘But call me Maurice,’ he went on. ‘Cigarette?’

He offered his gold case, inscribed (at his own expense) ‘To Maurice - In remembrance of times past - Marcel.’

‘English,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all,’ said Zeller. ‘I have no prejudice.’

He smiled then let his gaze fall to the case which Melchior had left on the table.

He read the inscription and said, ‘Good Lord. Is that…?’

‘What? Oh, yes. Dear Marcel. I was very young of course. A child. And he was old…ah, that cork-lined bedroom…’

He spent the next hour idly reminiscing about the past. His conversation was liberally laced with references to great figures of the worlds of art and literature. Nor was his familiarity altogether feigned. Though a gadfly, he’d been fluttering around the Left Bank too long not to have been accepted as a denizen.

Zeller was clearly impressed. Melchior soon had him placed as an intelligent and reasonably educated man by German standards, but culturally adolescent. Paris was to him the artistic Mecca which held all that was most holy. He needed a guide, Melchior needed a protector. They were made for each other.

But he mustn’t overdo it. Was that a flicker of doubt in those lovely blue eyes as he mentioned that his mother, a laundress in Vincennes, had been mistress to both Renoir and Zola? He quickly asked a question about the German’s family. The story which came back of a widowed mother living a reclusive life in the family castle high above the Rhine had to be true or Zeller’s invention outstripped his own!

‘Major Zeller. I thought it was you.’

A black Mercedes had drawn in at the kerb close to their pavement table. A man was looking out of the open rear window. He had a heavy, florid face with watery eyes in which hard black pupils glistened like beads of jet. Melchior felt something unpleasantly hypnotic in their gaze. Perhaps Zeller felt it also for he rose with evident reluctance from his chair and went to the car. But when he spoke, his tone wasn’t that of a man controlled.

‘Ah, Colonel Fiebelkorn. On leave? I hope you have long enough to take in all the sights.’

Melchior recognized aristocratic insolence when he heard it.

‘The interesting ones.’ The cold eyes slipped to Melchior. ‘A guide is always useful. Why don’t you introduce me to your friend, major?’

‘This is Abwehr business,’ said Zeller coldly. But Melchior had already come forward. He examined Fiebelkorn with interest. In his fifties, a powerful personality, he guessed. In the lapel of his civilian jacket he wore a tiny silver death’s head. Too, too Gothic!

‘Maurice Melchior,’ he said, holding out his hand.

‘Walter Fiebelkorn,’ said the German, taking it and squeezing gently.

Good Lord, thought Melchior. Two out of two! If all German officers were like this pair, this could yet be France’s finest hour!

‘I’m glad the security of the Fatherland is in such safe hands,’ said Fiebelkorn. ‘Major, Monsieur Melchior. Till we meet again.’

As the car drew away, Melchior said testingly, ‘Nice man.’

‘If you can think that, you’re a fool.’

‘Oh dear. And that will never do if I’m to be a secret agent, will it?’

His boldness worked. Zeller laughed and took his arm.

‘Let’s see if we can find something better suited to your talents,’ he said.