Murder in the Marais

Monday Morning

MARTINE SITBON, AIMÉE'S FRIEND since algebra class in the lycee, sounded tired. Her graveyard shift at the newspaper Le Figaro had fifteen minutes left.

"Ça va, Martine? Got a minute or two?" Aimee said.

"Well, Aimee, long time no hear," came the husky voice. "Is this a friend-in-need-is-a-friend-indeed call?"

"You could say that and I'll owe you dinner big-time," Aimee chuckled.

Martine yawned deeply. "Hit me now before I fade; you're keeping me from the warm body in my bed, about whom I'll tell you more at dinner. We'll go to La Grande Vefour-the pâte and the veal d'agneau are superb."

Aimee flinched. A meal without wine began at six hundred francs. But Martine, a gourmet, always dictated the restaurant.

"Agreed, you'll definitely earn your dinner on this stuff. First, you still have that friend in social security?"

"Bien sûr! I love and nurture my connections, Aimee. I'm a journalist."

"Great. Need everything you can get on some members of Les Blancs Nationaux. I want to know where their money comes from." She gave Martine Thierry's and Yves's names.

Martine paused. "What's this about, Aimee?"

"A case."

"Aimee, Aryan supremacist types don't play by the rules. This EU trade summit is causing lots of rats to surface. Just a word of caution."

"Merci. One more thing. Check on a non-Jew murder in 1943 on the rue des Rosiers, reported or not. And while you're at it, collaborators in the Marais."

"As in Nazi collaborators?" Martine said. "Touchy stuff! No one likes to talk about them. But I'll sniff around if you promise to be careful."

"Careful as lice staring at delousing powder," Aimee said.

"Keep that smart mouth in line. I know that during the Occupation all newspapers were taken over, turned into essentially rote German propaganda. Some arrondissements printed their own one-pager cheat sheets with local info such as births, deaths, electricity rates. But I'll check on that and get back to you. One more thing."

"I'm listening, Martine."

"Make three reservations, in case my boyfriend wants to come."

Aimee groaned. This really would cost.

"MONSIEUR JAVEL, you remember me, right?" Aimee smiled brightly at the cobbler. "How about something to drink? Let's discuss our mutual interest." She held up an apple green bottle of Pernod.

"Eh, what could that be?" Felix Javel growled, swaying on his bowed legs.

"Arlette's murder," she said. "Maybe if we share information, things will be mutually beneficial."

Before he could hesitate, she nudged herself between him and the door leading out the back of his shop. She was determined to find out what he really saw in 1943. Despite the Gallic genius for evasion, she counted on the Pernod to loosen his tongue.

He shrugged. "As you like. I don't have much to say." He scrubbed the back of his neck with a grayish flannel washcloth as he led her down the narrow hallway lit by a yellowed bulb. Sliding off his shoes, he indicated that she should do the same before entering a parlor sitting room.

This room, suffocatingly warm due to a modern oil heater, smelled of used kitty litter. A Victorian rocker plumped with threadbare chintz cushions sat in front of a sixties greenish chrome television set. A bent rabbit-ear antenna sat on top of it. Cascading strands of blue crystal beads formed an opaque curtain that hung from the door frame to the floor, separating the small cooking area. Javel returned from the kitchen balancing a tray with two glasses and a pitcher of water. Aimee willed herself not to get up and help him while he laboriously set the rattling tray on a scrubbed oak table. She pulled a small tin of pâte out with the bottle and his eyes lit up.

"I have just the thing to go with that," he said.

He clinked past the beads again, carrying a chipped Sèvres bowl full of stale, damp soda crackers. Aimee watched him set out embroidered lace-fringe linen napkins and picked one up.

"These are almost too beautiful to use," she said, noting the ornately intertwined A and F.

"Arlette did these. The whole set is still stored in our wedding chest. I don't have guests much, figured might as well use them."

"You knew Lili Stein," she said. "Why keep it a secret from me?"

Slowly he mixed the water with Pernod until it became properly milky. He rubbed some pâte on a cracker. "Why are you snooping around?" he said.

"Doing my job." She moved her chair closer to his. "Lili's murder is connected to Arlette's."

He chuckled and poured himself more Pernod. "The prewar Pernod absinthe got made with wormwood and ate one's brain away."

"Who killed Arlette?" she said.

He drank it down and poured himself another glass.

"Aren't you the detective?" he said.

"But you have your own theory," she said. "Something you saw that the flics didn't?" she said.

Surprise flitted briefly across his face.

"What did you see?" she said, excited by the look in his eyes.

A long, loud burp erupted from deep in his stomach.

"Buggers," he said. "Beat me."

"Why? Why did they beat you, Javel?"

His eyes narrowed. "You're a Jew, aren't you?"

She shook her head. "What if I was?"

"I don't like your type," he said. "Whatever it is."

"Then don't vote for me at the Miss World pageant," she said.

He smeared pâte on more stale crackers and shoveled them on the plate.

There had to be some way to reach this concrete-headed little man. "Aren't you afraid, Javel? I mean, you mentioned hate attacks and random neo-Nazi violence in the Marais. But you don't seem very nervous to me."

He sputtered, "Why should I be?" He poured himself another glass.

"Exactly. Especially if you knew that Lili's murder had something to do with the past."

"Leave me alone," he said. "Go away." He turned, his mouth twitching.

"Tell me what you saw."

He shook his fist in the air but still wouldn't look at her.

Now she wanted to shake it out of him.

"Look, I know you don't like me but holding it in won't bring Arlette back! You want justice, so do I. And we both know we have to find it ourselves. Right? Did the flics do anything but beat you?"

She couldn't see his face. Finally he spoke, his back still turned toward her. "Everything started with that damned tinned salmon," he said.

"What do you mean?" she asked, surprised.

"Stuffed in her wardrobe. Everywhere," he said.

"Black market?"

He turned and reached for his glass. She slowly poured him another. Rachel Blum's words spun in her head.

"Arlette sold black-market food. She was a BOF, right?" she said.

Shaken, he looked up. "I haven't heard that term in years." He sighed. "She graduated to petrol, watches, even silk stockings. I told Arlette these things were too dangerous."

"Did Lili help her?" she said.

Saliva bubbled at the corner of his mouth.

"Where was Lili? Did you see her?"

"I tried to apologize," he shrugged. "But there were so many bloody footsteps. All over."

"Why were you sorry? Did you and Arlette argue?"

He nodded.

"The footsteps went upstairs?" Aimee asked. "You thought they were Lili's?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Javel, Lili saw what happened. Why didn't you ask her?"

He shook his head. "She was gone. There were so many footsteps by the sink."

"Lili wasn't there? Maybe hiding somewhere?"

His eyes had narrowed to slits. She was afraid he was about to pass out. She took a gulp of Pernod to combat the pervasive ammonia smell from the kitty litter.

"Javel," she said loudly and tiredly. "Tell me why."

"I told the inspector." He spoke more lucidly, unaware of the tears trickling down his cheeks in thin silvery lines. "They beat me bloody at Double Morte. Called me a cripple. Said I couldn't get it up and laughed at me. First inspector got too greedy for a black-market collabo."

"What was his name?" Aimee asked.

"Lartigue. Run over by a Nazi troop truck accidentally, they say."

"Lili knew who killed Arlette, didn't she?" she said.

He shoved the empty glass towards her and she poured him more Pernod with a generous dash of water.

"Rachel said Lili knew," Aimee said. "Come on, Javel, who else would know?"

He shrugged, then leaned forward. "That Yid collabo who slept with a boche." He whispered, squinting his eyes, "With her bastard baby." His shoulder sagged. "Had the same eyes."

"Same eyes?" Who was he talking about?

"Such bright blue eyes for a Jew!" he said.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Aimee asked excitedly.

His head landed heavily on the table. Passed out. Only when he was snoring did Aimee tuck the crocheted blanket around him. She put milk in a bowl for the missing cat, rinsed out the glasses in his dingy sink, and shut the door quietly behind her.

Monday Evening

LE RENARD, "THE FOX," was a relic of Les Halles in the fifties. Somehow it had missed the wrecking ball that had swung on rue du Bourg Tibourg when they razed the old central market of Les Halles. There, Violette and Georges served their famous soupe a l'oignon gratinee at 5:00 A.M. for the few fish sellers who still plied their trade nearby.

Aimee had arranged to meet Morbier here. After Javel's information, she counted on getting Morbier's approval to set her plan in motion.

She entered the haze of cigarette smoke and loud laughter. Georges winked as she smoothed down her black dress, inched her toes comfortably in the black heels, and adjusted her one good strand of pearls. She slid around the corner of the zinc bar to kiss him on both cheeks.

"Eh, where have you been? The snooping business keep you too busy to shoot the bull with old flics?" Georges teased with a straight face.

"I had to raise my standards sometime, Georges, my reputation was getting tarnished," she threw back affectionately.

Morbier perched at the counter, poking in his pants pockets for something. He found an empty pack of Gauloises, crumpled the cellophane, then searched his overcoat.

"Any chance of Violette's cassoulet for me and this one?" She nudged Morbier as she said it.

Georges smiled and said, "I'll check."

Aimee motioned to Morbier. "I'm inviting you."

He feigned indifference. "What's the occasion?"

"It goes on the business account," she said. "Under purchasing information."

He chuckled as he lit up a nonfiltered Gauloise blue. "You can try."

They edged towards a booth with cracked brown leather seats. Dingy and comfortable, a cop hangout with good food. Several others from the Commissariat nodded and raised their glasses of le vin rouge in mock salute as they walked by. She recognized several from her father's time. A table of men in pinstriped suits were busily arguing and slurping Georges's signature dish. Bankers, stockbrokers from the Bourse, even a famous designer would roll up here. Many a time, Aimee had seen the prime minister's chauffeured Renault out front while he came in for a bowl. It was that good.

"No dice on the forensics. Lili Stein's file has disappeared upstairs." He tore off a piece of crusty baguette.

"I need to know when she was killed."

"Formulating some theory that I should know about?"

"Just a theory," Aimee said.

"Like what?" He lifted the edge of the white tablecloth and wiped his mustache.

She frowned and tossed him a linen napkin.

"Nothing points directly to the LBN. The swastikas I saw at the meeting were different from what was on…" Aimee stopped. She remembered the bloodless lines carved in Lili Stein's forehead and heard the bland voice from the Auschwitz=Hoax video. Burning anger rose in her throat.

"Is something wrong?" he said.

She stopped herself. Anger would get her nowhere.

"No. The closest hate crime in the videos I borrowed was burning the Star of David in front of the Jewish Center."

Solange Goutal, the receptionist at the Jewish Center, had guessed right.

"Borrowed?" he said.

After watching the videos, she'd been relieved to see Les Blancs Nationaux hadn't recorded killing Lili. But that didn't mean they hadn't done it. Just that she hadn't found a tape, if any existed. Not only had she slept with Yves, deep down she wanted to do so again.

"Like a lending library," she said. Her back still ached as if large logs had rolled over it.

Morbier snorted.

"All I know for sure is that they're sick misfits," she said.

"Misfits. That's quaint." Morbier nodded. "They figured you were some kind of plant. And they're not sure from who."

"Mystery is my middle name, Morbier," she said. "Nail anybody in the alcohol check?"

"Got one of the cockroaches for parole violation. That's it," he said.

"At least they didn't bash a synagogue."

"You sure bring 'em out of the woodwork, Leduc."

Just then, Georges appeared with two steaming, fragrant bowls of soupe a l'oignon gratinee. Big chunky pieces of half-melted cheese sitting on a piece of baguette floated lazily in the middle. For eons, these huge blue bowls had fed butchers, fishmongers, sellers of vegetables, cheese, and fruits in early dawn.

"Sorry, we're out of cassoulet," Georges apologized. That was the running joke. Le Renard never had cassoulet, only the best onion soup in Paris.

For a time, the only sound between them was the serious dunking of chunks of bread.

"I want the records of a murder in 1943," she said.

Georges, a blue-and-white-checked towel draped over his arm, stood by the counter. She nodded at him and mouthed "Espresso." He winked back in reply.

Morbier shrugged. "Would this murder be related?"

"Inspector called Lartigue investigated in 1943." Aimee plopped a brown sugar cube in her espresso. "Victim named Arlette Mazenc."

"Before my time. What's it got to do with anything?" he said.

She had to be careful what she told him since her suspicions derived from information illegally obtained off the computer. Too illegal to tell Morbier.

"I've got another theory," she said.

"In 1943 a lot of people disappeared and there weren't exactly detailed investigations being conducted," Morbier said.

"She didn't disappear, Morbier. Murdered. Indulge me here, check the records," she said.

His voice changed. "Why?"

She motioned to Georges for the check. "Because you asked for my help, remember? It's awfully odd that another woman was bludgeoned to death in Lili's building. Somehow it's connected."

He snorted. "Connected? Not even coincidental, Leduc. If there's a link, it's all in your mind."

"This woman, Arlette, was murdered under Lili's window…"

Morbier interrupted. "And fifty years later Lili got snuffed by some Nazi type. Where's the connection?"

"The forensics would tell us."

Georges brought them each a thimble-sized glass of amber liquid with Aimee's change. "My brother's Calvados. Home brewed," he said proudly.

Aimee downed it, feeling the coarse tang of the apple brandy burn her throat.

"No wonder we never see your brother, Georges." Aimee grinned. The tart sting became a slow, toasty aftertaste.

Morbier continued. "Forget it. I'm off the case."

"But you have authority to get old files. Morbier, I can't prove anything yet; I need to explore my way."

"You still haven't told me the possible connection," he said, looking up. He dropped ashes onto the white butcher-paper tablecloth scattered with bread crumbs.

"I think Lili saw who murdered Arlette," she said.

"So what? It doesn't explain the swastika."

"It doesn't explain anything, Morbier, but I've got to start somewhere. Get me the file, let me prove that Lili's murder…"

He stopped her. "I'm off the case, remember? Leduc, stick with computers. You're way off the track here."

She put her elbows on the table and tented her fingers as she began. "Morbier, you never heard this from me and if you talk, I'll deny everything."

He leaned forward.

"But I've got an idea. It's rough, but it could tell us something," she said. "I need Luminol to test a theory about bloodstain traces left in Lili's light well. Some trace could point to the killer."

In the end he agreed.

LATER ON, as they were bidding adieu to Georges, she noticed how quiet Morbier had become.

"Maybe I should retire," he said as he put his hands in his pockets.

Outside on narrow rue du Bourg Tibourg, she searched her shoulder bag for her Metro pass. "What's that, Morbier?" she asked distractedly. "You've just had too much to drink tonight." Then she looked at his forlorn expression.

"Never been pulled off a case before," he said.

"Who exactly pulled you off?" she said.

He shrugged. "My superintendent informed me on his way out."

"His way out? Relieved of his post?" She looked directly at Morbier.

"Promoted. Now I report directly to the antiterrorist unit chief. At the Commissariat, instead of onward and upward, we say wayward and francword. You get the meaning, eh?"

"Are you talking bribery?" She cocked her head sideways in disbelief. "The chief superintendent of greater Paris?"

Morbier shrugged. "Well, to be fair, he was up for promotion in a few months anyway. Just happened sooner than expected."

"So what are you saying, Morbier?"

"Could be a coincidence or"-he peered at the luminous fingernail of a moon hanging in the cold sky-"vagaries of nature due to the cyclical spheres of the moon. I don't know."

"Why would someone from the antiterrorism bureau override you?" she asked.

"Certain things happen and you accept them or leave. That's all. Let's walk."

She hooked her arm in his and they walked. They walked in silence for a long time. Like she used to with her father. Paris was the city for walking when words failed.

They walked down past the Hôtel de Ville with the tricolor flags flying from balconies, across the Pont d'Arcole to the floodlit Notre Dame, now camouflaged by sheeted scaffolding, where a crew was giving her a face-lift, down the Ile de la Cite to the Pont Neuf and past the shadowy Louvre and her darkened office, across the shimmery Seine on Pont Royal to the Left Bank.

Down the elegant rue du Bac they strolled along lively, crowded Boulevard Saint Germain, where even on this cool November night the sidewalk tables were full of smoking, drinking patrons gesturing, laughing, and people-watching. Models, students, tourists, and the cell-phone set.

On Ile St. Louis, around the corner from her apartment, they stopped for a sorbet at Berthillon, famous for the best glace in Paris. Aimee chose mango lime and Morbier, vanilla bean. Finally they stopped in front of her dark building.

She kissed him on both cheeks. He clutched her arms, not letting her go. Uneasily, she tried to back away.

"Invite me up?" he whispered in her ear.

"We have a beautiful friendship, Morbier, let's keep it that way. Don't forget about our plan," she said. She entered the door before he could make another advance that he would feel embarrassed about in the morning.

Miles Davis greeted her enthusiastically at her door. She laughed and scooped him up in her arms.

She picked up her phone on the first ring.

"Luna?" breathed Yves.

Aimee's throat caught before she could answer.

"You left without saying goodbye."

Aimee paused, what do I do?

As if he could read her thoughts, he said, "Get back over here. The entry code is 2223. I'm waiting." He hung up.

He sounded so sure of himself that it made her angry. Well, she wouldn't go. How could a coherent, rational woman voluntarily want to sleep with a member of an Aryan supremacist group?

Quickly, Aimee unzipped her dress, tossed her pearls in the drawer, and pulled on her ripped jeans and black leather jacket. "You're going to stay with Uncle Maurice," she told Miles Davis. She grabbed his carrier, throwing in extra dog biscuits. "Help him mind the kiosk. You like his poodle, Bizou, don't you?" He jumped in his bag, eagerly wagging his tail. "I thought so." She ran back down her stairway and hailed a taxi.

Monday Evening

HARTMUTH SAT WAITING ON the bench in the Square Georges-Cain and watched the shadows lengthen. He'd bought Provencal sweets, the same fruit calissons he used to bring Sarah. But what he really wanted to give her was himself.

What would she look like? He'd been eighteen and she fourteen the last time he'd seen her. Now they were in their sixties and briefly he wondered if he'd still be attracted to her. But all these years he'd dreamed of her, Sarah. Only her. The one woman who had entered the core of his being.

He had to take this second chance, no matter what. He refused to die full of regret. He'd draft a letter of resignation to the trade ministry citing ill health. Somehow he'd escape the Werewolves. He'd camp on her doorstep until she accepted him.

There was a slight rustle and thump in the bushes near him. He went over to investigate and found only pebbles. When he returned to the bench a figure sat huddled in a large cape. He nodded and sat back down. Then Hartmuth turned back to look.

Those eyes. Cerulean blue pools so deep he started to lose himself again and the years fell away. There was no doubt.

For a moment he was as shy and awkward as when they'd first touched. A stuttering, gangling eighteen-year-old.

Wrinkles webbed in a fine pattern from the corners of her eyes. Dark hollows lay under them and her pale skin glowed translucently in the dim streetlight. Exactly how he remembered: pearl-like and shining. A hooded cape covered all but her eyes and prominent cheekbones. And she was still beautiful.

His plastic surgery hadn't fooled her, he knew. She would notice the deep lines etched in his face and the crepey folds in his neck. And his hair, once black, had turned completely white.

She searched his face, then spoke quietly. "You look different, Helmut."

No one had called him Helmut in fifty years.

"Your face changed but your eyes are the same. I could tell it was you."

"Sarah," he breathed, hypnotized again by her eyes. "I've l-looked for you."

"You lied, Helmut, you deported my parents." She lapsed into the jumble of French and German they'd spoken. "They were dead and you knew all the time."

He'd expected anything but this. In his dreams she was as eager as he. He realized she was waiting for him to say something.

"W-we d-deported everyone then. I found out later that they were gone but I s-saved you. I kept looking for you after the war, but it was always a d-dead end, because I'd erased your r-records myself." He reached for her hands.

She pulled away and shook her head. "Is that all you can say?"

"You're the only one," he said softly, reaching again for her hands. "Ja, I'll never let you g-go again, n-never." His voice shook.

"You ruined my life," she said hoarsely. "I stayed here. Saw 'Nazi whore' written in everyone's eyes. Fifteen years old and I gave birth on a wooden floor while the concierge used metal ice tongs as forceps to pull our bastard out. At Liberation, they threw us in the street. The mob tried to lynch me while I clutched the baby and they screamed, 'Boche bastard.' Even Lili."

She paused and took a deep breath. "Of all the collabos, I was the one they hated the most, even though I'd shared your food with them."

Her eyes glittered in the dim glow of a far-off streetlight. "I stood on a statue's pedestal for eighteen hours. They tarred my forehead with a swastika. Jeering, they asked me how I could sleep with a Nazi while my family burned in the Auschwitz ovens."

He shook his head in disbelief. "We had a baby? What happened?" he rasped in pain.

"The baby died when my breast milk dried up. You know, Helmut, I've had so many reasons to hate you it's hard to pick the crucial one. After Liberation, I hid in a freezing farm cellar and fought with the hogs for their food because collaborators with shaved heads had to hide. After a year, the swastika on my forehead finally began to heal. But for years, constant infections occurred. I had to leave Europe, go away. There was nothing here for me. Nothing. No one. The only ship leaving Marseilles was bound for Algeria, so I-once a strict Kosher Jew-ended up cooking for pieds-noir, what they call French colonials, in Oran. Fair and decent people. I became part of their large household. They left after the sixties coup d'etat. Later, I married an Algerian with French blood who worked at Michelin. He understood me and we lived well, better than I ever imagined. But for me life held a hole never to be filled."

She slowly pulled the hood off until it draped in folds on her shoulders. Short, white bristly hair surrounded her head like a halo, highlighting the jagged, pinkish swastika scar on her forehead. It glowed in the dim light.

Hartmuth gasped.

Her voice wobbled when she spoke again. "I never really liked men to touch me, after you and after the baby. At first, it was hard even with my husband. He was a good, patient man and put up with me until I was ready. My insides had been butchered with those tongs, I couldn't have children."

Hartmuth listened in anguish. He took her hand and caressed it but she was oblivious, determined to finish.

"Algeria changed, I'd grown no roots there. But now I had papers, a little money. After my poor husband died this year, I felt so lonely that I returned to France. In Paris, at least I felt that any ghosts would be ghosts I knew. I wanted to live in the Marais again, the only home I knew. I could walk by my parents' apartment every day, even if another generation born after the war lived there. But it's so expensive here. With my references I found a job. I found out what happened to my family. I found out what you did to the tenants in our building."

Hartmuth stammered, "A-l-ll I c-could do was save your life and love you, I couldn't save the others, we had to f-follow orders, it was war. I was eighteen and you were the most beautiful being that I had ever t-touched. I wrote poetry after I'd see you. Dreams swam in my head. I wanted to take you to live in Hamburg."

"You've living in the past," she said.

He took her face in his hands. "I love you, Sarah."

She turned her head away for the first time. How could he make her feel like that again? That longing! She almost reached out to him but her parents' faces floated in front of her. She shook her head. "Your mind is in a past we never had."

"You don't have to speak, I know your heart. You feel guilty that you still love the enemy," he said. "What we have doesn't recognize borders or religion."

"Rutting in the dirt?" she said. "Eating like pigs while others starved? Hiding in the catacombs, always hiding, afraid to be seen…what was that?"

He hung his head. "I never wanted you to have pain, n-never. Even when there was no hope that you were still alive, you haunted me."

Her voice quavered. "I want to kill you, I planned to do it but"-she put her head down, defeated-"I can't."

"Sarah, can you f-ff-orgive me?" Hartmuth sobbed, his head in his hands. When he finally looked up, she was gone. He had never felt more alone.

Monday Evening

SARAH BOLTED HER GARRET door and curled up on the bed. Several hours were left until her shift began the next morning. She clutched the spot where her yellow star had been and tried not to remember. Tried to forget but she couldn't.

It was 1942, the stickiest and most humid day recorded in a September for thirty years. Not a breath of air stirred. School, already started and with compositions due, had settled into a tedious routine. As routine as the Nazi Occupation allowed. Only she and Lili Stein wore yellow stars embroidered on their school smocks.

"Want to see something?" Lili, plain and pigeon-toed, asked her after school.

Surprised that a sixteen-year-old would deign to notice her, she'd nodded eagerly and followed. At fourteen, she felt proud that an older girl wanted her company. Cool air wafted from darkened courtyards as they passed quiet rue Payenne. Lace curtains hung lifelessly from windows normally shuttered against the heat.

At the Square Georges-Cain they sat on benches in the shade of plane trees, by the Roman pillars. No one was out, it was too hot. There was no petrol for cars and horse carts clomped over cobblestones in the distance. Fetid, dense air clung over the Seine in a wide band.

They took off their white pinafores and dipped them in the urnlike fountain. Giggling, they swabbed their sweaty necks and faces with cool, clear cistern water. Lili sat back, her small eyes full of concern.

"Something fell out of your satchel before mathematics," Lili said. "But I picked it up so no one would see it."

She pulled a almond-shaped calisson, a speciality of Aix-en-Provence, from her pocket.

Sarah stirred guiltily.

"Where'd this come from?" Lili asked.

"Look, Lili," Sarah said.

"Stop." Lili interrupted her. "Don't tell me because then I'd have to turn you in. I might have to do that anyway, Sarah Strauss!"

Sarah pulled a box out of her satchel and thrust it into Lili's palm.

Lili squealed in delight, "I can't believe it." She opened the box and popped a sweet in her mouth, moaning. "Luscious!" Savoring the taste, she grabbed some more. "The pink ones taste the best."

Sarah let Lili finish the sweets in the Provencal metal box painted with fruit and vines. Their legs dangled in the cool, bubbling water. Dragonflies buzzed in the green hedge. Everything felt smooth, peaceful-as if the war wasn't happening.

Lili's eyes narrowed. "What else do you have?"

"I can get more if you keep this between us," Sarah said. "Are you ready to leave Paris if Madame Pagnol finds a way to help us escape to the unoccupied zone?"

"Of course, I'm waiting for her to give the word, she said it might happen next week," Lili confided. "Madame told me trains are still running down south but you have to hike over the mountains to get to the free zone. Village scouts will take you but they want a lot of this." Lili rubbed her fingertips together and gave her a knowing look.

"Money?" Sarah asked naively.

"Of course, or jewelry, maybe even food," Lili said.

Sarah tugged her satchel nervously. She had never traveled outside of the Marais, let alone Paris. "Will we go together?"

"Two yellow stars at once? Hard to say." Lili eyed her. "Bring more of these. I need to keep the welcome warm with my concierge."

"But that might draw attention." Uneasy, Sarah shook her head. "I don't want that."

"You'll get Gestapo attention, Sarah Strauss, if I can't shut her up!"

The next day at school, their teacher, Madame Pagnol, informed them that an escape opportunity might occur at a moment's notice. So for several weeks after school, they met at the Square Georges-Cain to discuss plans.

Lili's identity card, with the J for Jewish, had been issued on her sixteenth birthday, as was the custom in France. Sarah knew if Lili claimed ration coupons, the Nazis would demand her identity card and then ship her directly to Drancy prison. She also realized Lili subsisted on whatever food she shared with her.

Every night Helmut reassured Sarah that he had checked the holding camps for her parents. He promised to find them and do his best to get them food. But he was so generous, she felt guilty. Guilty in taking the food even though she fed Lili and others in her old building.

Most of the time she succeeded in ignoring her warring emotions-her guilt versus her growing feelings for him. She didn't like to admit to herself how handsome he looked, his dark eyes glowing in the candle-lit cavern, like those of film stars she'd seen in her older sister's cinema magazines before the war. She told herself he'd understand when she escaped. As a Jew, it was her duty to escape.

Most of Helmut's food was quite exotic, especially for Jews who were raised kosher. She didn't care much for the foie gras in the Fauchon tins.

"My concierge says Fauchon is the fanciest food store in Paris," Lili said one day, munching eagerly. "The rabbi will excuse us for eating food not kosher, won't he?"

She heard doubt in Lili's voice for the first time. "There's not much choice. Anyway, it's goose liver, not pork."

Lili had looked away but not before Sarah saw relief on her face.

That night another roundup occurred in the Marais. Bottle green open-backed buses rumbled through the dark streets, full of Jews clutching crying babies and suitcases. She and Lili grew nervous. Every day it became more dangerous to walk on the street with a yellow star.

An unusual orange dusk had painted the sky, she remembered, in late October. One afternoon after Sarah had said goodbye to Lili she returned to the catacomb. She had always liked coming back to its dark, cool safety. She had even discovered another exit to the Square Georges-Cain and some large marble busts poking through the dirt. One looked like the picture of Caesar Augustus Madame Pagnol had pointed out in their history book. Like the bust they'd seen on a class field trip to the park when Madame took their photo.

Behind a wooden post, she heard crackling and looked up. Lili stood, wedged in a niche littered with femur bones. "Who are you informing on?" she said matter-of-factly, her mouth half-full of nougat.

Sarah stood bolt upright in surprise, bumping her head on the earthen ceiling. "How did you get in here?"

Lili ignored her question. "You must be an informer to get this food. Come on, I won't say anything." She paused. "You better be careful, you don't look so thin anymore."

"How did you get in here?"

"I've followed you for days, silly. You're not very observant," Lili said, crawling through the dirt. "Nice and cool in here."

"You followed me-why?" Then Sarah added it up. "Lili, don't be greedy. I share with others. You get enough."

"My concierge is greedy. Another family moved into my apartment," Lili said, picking at stones embedded in the dirt wall. "If I don't give her more I can't stay with her."

Sarah registered the dark shadows under Lili's eyes, her gaunt cheeks, and the patched soles of her shoes. "I'll try to get more. The trains will be running again soon. We'll escape!"

Lili stared at her. "Who do you inform on?"

"No one! A soldier trades with me," Sarah said defensively.

"What kind of soldier? What do you do for him?"

"What do you care, Lili? Thanks to me you're eating." She tried not to feel ashamed. "Leave it at that."

Some clods of dirt fell. Panic-stricken, she saw Helmut descend, blocking the weak light. Lili began screaming and backed into the wall. A black-uniformed Helmut smiled quizzically, staring from one to the other. Then he gently put his hand over Lili's mouth, sat her down, and beckoned to Sarah with his finger.

"It's all right, Lili, he won't hurt you," she mumbled.

Lili's terror-stricken expression alternated between accusing glances and a dawning recognition of why this Nazi was visiting Sarah. Helmut pulled some fancy tinned salmon out of his pocket and put it in Lili's hands.

"Ja, ja, take it, s'il vous plaît," and he put his finger over his mouth. "Shhh…ca va?"

His eyes narrowed. Lili's blotchy red face registered both hunger and fear. She opened her fists and gingerly took the tins of salmon without touching his fingers.

He shrugged. "Sarah," he said, putting his arm around her waist. "Ja, your guest has few manners."

Her cheeks were on fire. Lili looked jealously at the two of them. She realized Lili viewed them as lovers.

"Tell him thank you and leave quietly," Sarah said, averting her eyes from Lili's face.

"Merci," came out of Lili's mouth in a high-pitched squeak. She quickly scrambled up the ladder rungs.

Helmut asked, "Who is she?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Just my schoolmate, silly and stupid, she wears a yellow star. Don't worry." She pushed Lili's expression out of her mind.

Helmut looked at his watch. "I just came to say I've something to pick up then I'll be back." He'd traded his shift because he hated leaving her alone at night.

He pulled out a string of oily bratwurst from his SS kit bag and winked. "Some butcher in Hanover's contribution to the war effort."

Later he returned with duck terrine marbled in aspic and herbs. They ate while candle wax dripped lazily across the tea box. She tutored him in French after they ate, as she usually did. Her large wool sweater fell off her shoulders as she corrected his verb conjugations with a thick pencil.

"Très bien, Helmut, good work." She smiled. "Bravo."

He set the notebook down and pulled her toward him. Unbuttoning his uniform with one hand, he spread the jacket down as a pillow over the dense earth. She grew alarmed and gripped her fingers in the dirt. She'd had no brothers, never even seen her own father without his shirt. Taut muscles spread above Helmut's lean chest, his skin glistened.

Torn between gratitude and fear, she was paralyzed. Wasn't he looking for her parents? Giving her food? The Nazis who'd supervised the police roundups in her neighborhood hadn't been like him. Helmut was always so funny and generous with food. Under the flickering candlelight he laid her down and her black hair tangled in the storm trooper insignia glinting off his jacket. She went rigid.

She shook her head. "Non, Helmut."

Tracing her features with his finger, he cupped her face in his other hand. As he opened his mouth to speak, she winced. She wanted him to stop.

"Don't worry, Sarah, I won't h-hurt you." He drew close, rubbing her pearl white cheek with his.

She inhaled his smoky scent as he burrowed his face in her neck. He gently brushed the side of her neck with his lips, his kisses went down the front of her throat.

Tears welled in her eyes. Why was he doing this? His lips trailed down her navel and waves of heat passed through her. He kissed under her nipple and up the side of her breast, all the time caressing her face. For a long time he stroked the hollows of her cheeks and kissed behind her ears and her eyes, just holding her. She moaned. Now she didn't want him to stop. Finally their shadows entwined and rocked back and forth on the cavern walls of the old Roman catacomb.

On her way to school the next morning, she thought everyone would notice the straining seams of her school uniform. Too much rich food. But they only noticed the star. She entered the "synagogue," the last Metro car and the only one Jews were allowed to ride in, feeling so tired. She'd only fallen asleep at dawn when Helmut left. In her classroom there was a new teacher and an empty desk. Madame Pagnol was gone. So was Lili.