The Night Gate

Chapter Eighteen

He returns to the house in the early afternoon following a solitary lunch.

There were guests at two other tables in the dining room of the hotel. A travelling salesman, and an elderly couple on an out-of-season tour. But he paid them very little attention as he replayed the old lady’s tale.

When he knocks and comes through from the kitchen, she is sitting exactly where he left her. The fire has been stoked. Fresh logs placed upon the embers crackle and send flames dancing against the tarry residue of the wall behind.

‘Have you eaten?’ he asks.

She shakes her head. ‘I am not hungry, monsieur.’

‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea? A coffee?’

Again she shakes her head. ‘That’s kind. But no thank you.’

He is pleased not to delay the resumption of her story, for he has been absorbed by it. He settles himself comfortably in his seat. ‘I’m ready when you are.’

She inclines her head a little to give him the palest of smiles and draws a long breath...

Only a handful of days had passed since the incident at the Jeu de Paume, but the frustration of her predicament was making Georgette restless to the point of distraction.

She lay propped up in her bed, pillows against the headboard, trying to concentrate on a book she had started the night before. But the words would not form images, and she found it hard to empathise with the characters.

What point had there been in returning to France only to see the war play out from the comparative safety of the hallowed halls of the Jeu de Paume? Would she ever even set eyes on the Mona Lisa? She had consulted a map of France to identify the exact whereabouts of the town of Montauban. It was a long way from Paris. Just north of Toulouse, which was deep in the south-west, not far from the Pyrenees and the Spanish border. It would be nearly a full day’s journey by train, assuming she was ever granted permission to cross into the Free French Zone.

It didn’t matter what de Gaulle wanted. He was in England, and she was here. And she wished she had never come. Surely there was more she could have done for the war effort from London than be stuck here in a gallery that had become a repository for stolen Nazi art?

It was dark out. A clear but moonless sky, and the temperature had fallen to minus seven. The heating in Rose’s apartment was erratic at the best of times, and Georgette shivered, pulling the quilt around herself to keep warm. From somewhere she heard the distant ring of a telephone. Insistent and penetrating. And she realised suddenly that it was ringing in the apartment, the phone in the hall.

She heard Rose’s bedroom door opening, and moments later the ringing ceased. Rose’s voice was muted and indecipherable. Then silence, and Georgette assumed that she had hung up. A knock at the door startled her, and it opened to reveal Rose in hairnet and dressing gown. ‘It’s for you,’ she said, the displeasure clear in her voice.

Georgette was startled. ‘What is?’

‘The phone, of course. Be quick.’

‘But’ — Georgette was perplexed — ‘who even knows I’m here? Or your phone number?’

‘These are very good questions.’ Rose paused significantly. ‘It’s a man.’ She stepped aside to let Georgette past. ‘Hurry up!’

Georgette slid off the bed, pushed her feet into a pair of slippers and hurried into the hall. She lifted the receiver with great trepidation.

‘Hello?’

‘Georgette Pignal?’ His French was lightly accented, but distinctly foreign.

‘Who is this?’

‘My name is Lange. Paul Lange. You might remember making a bit of an idiot of yourself on the steps of the Jeu de Paume the other day. I was the charming German officer who helped you pick up the miniatures.’ Evidently he was not taking himself too seriously. But his words, nonetheless, sent a shiver of fear through her.

‘What do you want?’

‘You’re welcome.’ She could hear the smile in his sardonic drawl.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Why are you calling me?’

‘Because I would like to take you to dinner.’

Now her breathing had stopped altogether. Her fear was marbled with embarrassment.

‘I know a very nice restaurant in Montparnasse.’

No matter how nicely he was asking, it seemed to Georgette that it was more of an order than a request. How could she say no to a German officer? ‘When?’

‘I was thinking tomorrow evening, if that suits.’

Her mind was racing. ‘Em... I’m not sure. I... I’d need to check my work schedule to see if I’m available.’

‘Well, give me a call when you know. Do you have a pencil handy?’

Georgette’s panicked eyes scanned the hall table and saw a pencil and notepad lying side by side. She grabbed the pencil. ‘Yes.’

And he read her out his number, which she scribbled hastily on the pad. ‘You can get me here most evenings.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, wondering why on earth she was thanking him. ‘I’ll do that. Goodbye.’

‘Goodnight, mademoiselle.’

The line went dead and she hung up the phone.

‘Well?’

She had forgotten that Rose was even there, turning to find her still standing by the bedroom door, arms folded sternly across her chest.

‘Who was that?’

Georgette hardly dared tell her. ‘It was the German officer who helped me pick up the miniatures on the stairs the other day. Paul...’

‘Lange.’ Rose finished for her. ‘What did he want?’

‘To take me out to dinner.’

A flicker of incredulity crossed Rose’s face before a deep, angry sigh issued from between clenched teeth. ‘You see? This is what happens when you draw attention to yourself.’ She paused. ‘And, by association, to me.’

For once in her life Georgette was at a complete loss. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘You’ll have to accept, of course. What else can you do?’ She turned towards her bedroom door. ‘Wherever he wants to take you, just go. And don’t make a fuss.’ The door slammed shut behind her and Georgette stood shivering in the cold and dark, more convinced than ever that she should have stayed in London.

Lange was waiting in a taxi outside the Jeu de Paume the following evening as Georgette finished work. In spite of herself, she had taken care to select her best dress to wear to work that day, and shortly before leaving the gallery, had spent several minutes in the lady’s room applying a light make-up to her lips and eyes.

She had never ridden in a Paris taxi before, never been able to afford it. It was a big, black carriage with a canvas roof and sweeping wheel arches that belched great clouds of exhaust fumes into the cold night air. Lange stepped out and held the door open, offering a hand to help her up. She ignored it and stepped quickly into the cab, sliding herself across the seat to the far window, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the German as she could.

A tiny smile played about his lips as he settled himself in the seat beside her and gave the driver their destination. ‘One hundred and two Boulevard de Montparnasse. The restaurant La Coupole.’

Georgette saw the driver looking at her in his rear-view mirror and was certain it was contempt she saw in his eyes. She wanted to curl up and die. How had it come to this? Being taken to dinner by a German army officer. ‘I suppose you know all the best restaurants,’ she said.

‘Actually, yes.’ He smiled. ‘The occupying authority has been good enough to produce a guide of the best places for German soldiers to eat.’ He produced a folded leaflet from the pocket of his greatcoat and flipped through the printed pages. He stopped at one headed Wichtig für den Soldaten! and ran his finger down a column of names. ‘Here we are. La Coupole. An iconic art deco brasserie which opened in 1927.’ He looked up from the page. ‘Actually, I have eaten there several times. It’s excellent.’

‘Don’t you ever wonder if they spit in your food in the kitchen?’

He laughed. ‘Trust me, my dear. They wouldn’t dare.’ And although he made a joke of it, she understood that his subtext was deadly serious.

La Coupole was an extravagant establishment with a large terrace on the pavement, deserted now in the bitter cold of this first December of the occupation. Like the Commodore, it boasted a huge colourful cupola that dominated the interior. Elaborate hand-painted columns divided a sprawling dining area into more intimate spaces, tables and chairs set around hand-embroidered semi-circles of upholstered seating.

The maître d’ greeted them at the door, an obsequious smile and an extravagant sweep of the hand to guide them to their table in the window. ‘Apparently,’ Lange said, ‘the ground below the restaurant is riddled with catacombs. I never knew it before, but Paris is built of the stone dug out from beneath it by generations of quarriers.’

Georgette was barely listening. She felt exposed sitting here in the window, open to the gaze of any passer-by. A Frenchwoman being wined and dined by one of the hated occupiers. Her self-conscious eyes flickered across the restaurant. It was almost empty. Just a handful of tables occupied by uniformed German officers in groups of two and three. There were women at two other tables. Ladies with painted faces and loud laughter, flushed by too much wine and the anticipation of a long night ahead.

Lange was still talking. ‘La Coupole has been a favourite of some very successful artists in the past. Georges Braque, Picasso. And writers like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.’

A waiter handed them menus, and Georgette avoided his gaze by averting her eyes to study the plats du jour. She had no idea what to order. But before she could even express her nescience, Lange lifted the menu from her hands. ‘Let me order, my dear. I am better acquainted with the chef’s specialities.’ He handed both menus back to the waiter and ordered crevettes flambéed in whisky to start, followed by magret de canard in a blackcurrant sauce and pommes sarladaises. He turned to Georgette. ‘I’d suggest a glass of Puligny Montrachet with the prawns and a nice Cahors with the duck.’

Georgette shrugged. It almost seemed to her as if he were trying to humiliate her. ‘You’re paying,’ she said.

A waitress came, adjusting the cutlery to reflect their order, and placed a basket of freshly cut bread on the table. Georgette caught her surreptitious glance at Lange and then at her, and she flushed with embarrassment. She turned to gaze from the window, in the hope that the cold that pressed against it from the outside might cool her face, and that the evening might pass more quickly than it promised. After some time, she became aware of Lange staring at her. She turned her head to face him down. ‘What?’

‘You are very reserved.’

‘Is it any wonder?’ she said. ‘Don’t you even see how the staff look at me? Or your fellow officers and their painted women?’

‘No doubt, like me, they are charmed by your radiance.’

‘My embarrassment, you mean. They think I’m a prostitute.’

He raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘No, they don’t.’

‘Of course they do. What self-respecting Frenchwoman would be seen dead in a restaurant with an officer of the occupying force? Other than a woman who was being paid to pretend she liked him? You make me feel like a collaborator.’

He was unruffled. ‘In that case, next time you shall dine with me privately in my apartment.’

‘Your apartment?’ She was appalled.

‘Yes. I have excellent accommodation on the fourth floor of an apartment block at number thirty Rue de Rivoli.’

‘A stolen apartment.’

‘Certainly not. I pay rent to the owners like everyone else.’

‘And its previous occupants?’

‘Vacated. A Jewish family. Left the country, I believe.’

‘Vacated being a euphemism for deported?’

The amusement which had hitherto crinkled his eyes vanished. He leaned towards her confidentially. ‘Mademoiselle, I would keep your voice down if I were you, and be a little more judicious in your choice of words.’ He paused for effect. ‘Not for my sake, you understand. But they might fall on other, less tolerant, ears.’

It was both a rebuke and a warning, and neither were lost on her. She forced herself to bite back a retort about the right to express herself freely in her own country. For it was, she realised, no longer her country.

His smile returned and he sought to change the subject.

‘I would be more than happy to cook for you. I have a certain reputation among my friends for fine cuisine.’

She kept her voice low. ‘What makes you think that I would want to sup with the devil?’

He laughed. ‘My dear, who would? But I am not the devil. I am your benefactor.’

‘If you think I’m going to sleep with you, you couldn’t be more wrong.’

This time his laughter turned heads from other tables and he lowered his voice. ‘Mademoiselle Pignal, nothing could be further from my mind.’

And she wondered why she felt slighted.

The prawns cooked in a whisky flambé arrived, and the wine waiter poured them each a glass of white burgundy. They ate in silence for some time, and to her annoyance Georgette found that it was delicious. She said, ‘I don’t know what you expect from me. Or why you asked me to dinner. But it’s only fair to tell you that I really don’t like you.’

‘But you don’t know me,’ he protested.

‘I know that you are an officer of an occupying power, uninvited and unwanted. You have no right here, monsieur, and you should know that I detest the Nazis and everything they stand for.’

He mopped up the juices on his plate with a piece of bread. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I suppose if I were you, I might feel the same. This is not a war of my choosing. Or yours. And yet, here we are, on different sides of the divide. Victims of fate.’

‘Are you a Party member?’

‘The Nazis? Yes.’

‘Hardly a victim of fate, then.’

He laid knife and fork across his empty plate and leaned towards her again. His voice was barely audible. ‘I joined the Party, mademoiselle, out of a finely honed instinct for self-preservation. The Chinese have a saying: the nail that stands up gets hammered down.’ He sat up again. ‘You should take note of that.’

Their plates were removed by the waitress, and Georgette kept her eyes on the table as the duck arrived, and the wine waiter poured them generous glasses of a rich ruby Cahors.

It wasn’t until the first two or three mouthfuls had been consumed that Lange turned towards her again. ‘May I call you Georgette?’

‘Would it make any difference if I said no?’

He smiled. ‘You should know, Georgette, that I’m as proud to be German as you are to be French. Both of our countries have done things in the past that we each have the right to be ashamed of. I very much regret the circumstances in which we find ourselves today. I know this city perhaps better even than you. I have been here many, many times over the last twenty years, buying and selling art. Renoir, Picasso, most of the impressionists. This city is almost a second home to me.’

‘I thought the Nazis considered modern art to be degenerate.’

He shrugged. ‘That is a certain school of thought.’

‘I wonder if your friend, Monsieur Hitler, knows about your passion for the degenerate.’

His smile now was strained. She was wearing his patience thin. ‘I am sure the Führer does not count me among his friends. I have met him only twice, and never shared with him my love of modern art.’ A little of the amusement returned to his eyes. ‘Though I am sure my leader would share an appreciation of my choice of dining companion tonight.’

In spite of everything she smiled, and shook her head. ‘It’s impossible to offend you, isn’t it.’

‘I could only be offended by the things you say if I thought you meant them.’

‘I do.’

He shook his head patiently. ‘You don’t. Because you don’t know me. Yet. And that, I hope to remedy in the coming months. Then, and only then, will I take offence.’

Both her heart and her spirits sank. Like a fly caught in a spider’s web, the more she struggled, the more entangled she became. There was no escape.

By the time they left the restaurant there were no taxis available. The curfew was already in force. From 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. daily in this first year of the occupation.

Georgette panicked. ‘How will I get home without being stopped?’

Lange shrugged and steered her on to the Boulevard de Port-Royal. ‘Because I will walk you there.’ And for the first time Georgette was glad of his company.

An almost full moon bathed the blacked-out city in its colourless light. Without it, their half-hour walk to the Rue de Navarre would have been well nigh impossible. There were no street lights, and apartment windows had black curtains drawn against the light within. Where they walked in shadow along narrow streets, Lange produced a torch to illuminate their passage. They were stopped three times by pairs of patrolling soldiers, and each time Lange’s papers produced a clicking of heels and a stiff salute.

By the time they reached the door to Rose’s apartment block Georgette was chittering with the cold. They had barely spoken during the long walk, giving Georgette all the more time to consider the gravity of her situation, and the unwanted attentions of this German army officer who, it seemed, she was going to have trouble avoiding.

They stood outside the door, breath billowing in the moonlight.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘You’re hardly dressed for these temperatures. I should have taken care to get us a taxi before the curfew.’

She made light of it. ‘I enjoyed the walk.’ Then looked at him very directly. ‘Why are you here? I mean, really here. In Paris. You’re not a real soldier.’

He laughed. ‘No. I’m not. But these days you need a uniform to get anywhere. I deal in art, Georgette. You know that.’

She blew her contempt at him through pursed lips. ‘You’re not here to deal in art, you’re here to steal it. Isn’t that what the ERR is doing? Stealing art from Jewish collectors and storing the merchandise at the Jeu de Paume before shipping it off to Germany.’

He nodded and sighed. ‘Regrettably, yes. However, I have no connection with ERR. I work for the Kunstschutz. Which translates literally as art protection. It’s our job to protect art and return it to its rightful owners at the end of hostilities.’ He hesitated for a long moment, then added, ‘Though that’s not why I’m here.’

She was surprised. ‘Really? So why are you here?’

She couldn’t see his eyes. He had his back to the moonlight, and his face was in shadow. But she felt the intensity of his gaze. ‘The same reason you are,’ he said.

For a moment it felt as if he was looking right through her, and her heart very nearly stopped. ‘What do you mean?’

She heard rather than saw his smile, the separation of the tongue from the lips and the roof of the mouth as the facial muscles expressed themselves. ‘I have many friends in London, Georgette. I know it almost as well as Paris. I have eyes and ears on the ground there that my superiors do not.’

A dreadful sense of foreboding wrapped itself around her, like the darkness itself.

‘I know perfectly well what de Gaulle asked you to do.’

Now foreboding gave way to fear.

But he clearly had no intention of discussing it further. At least, not there, not then. ‘I would like to see you again.’

She found her voice with difficulty. ‘Why would I agree to that?’

‘Because you and I have a very great deal to talk about, my dear.’ He turned a little so that the moon lit up his smile. ‘But next time I will not embarrass you by taking you to a restaurant.’ He paused. ‘Friday night?’

Georgette turned the key in the lock as quietly as she could, and eased the door open into the darkness of the hall. She stepped in carefully and closed it softly behind her. She stood then for several minutes, her eyes growing accustomed to what little light there was. Her own breath seemed inordinately loud, almost deafening in the quiet of the apartment.

She started taking silent steps towards her bedroom door. Rose should have gone to bed a good hour ago and would hopefully be asleep. Her fingers closed around the cold metal of the door handle as the door to Rose’s bedroom flew open, and she stood silhouetted against the light behind her. She wore her habitual dressing gown and hairnet and had clearly been awaiting Georgette’s return.

‘Well?’ Her voice barked into the darkness of the hall.

‘Well what?’

‘You know perfectly well what.’

Georgette drew a deep breath. ‘He has asked me to go to his apartment for a meal on Friday night. He wants to cook for me.’

‘Does he?’

Her next words lingered on her lips for only a second. ‘He knows why I’m here,’ she blurted. It had been her intention to keep this to herself, but fear made her want to share. She heard the consternation in Rose’s voice.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He knows people in London, he said. He knows what de Gaulle asked me to do.’

The silence in the apartment seemed almost tangible, and extended itself between them for a very long time before Rose said, ‘Then we have to abort your mission. And we need to get you out of Paris fast. Out of the country if possible.’

‘Why?’

‘Because your cover, such as it was, is in tatters. He could have you arrested at any moment.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, girl!’

‘I mean it. If he was going to have me arrested, he’d have done it by now. Why hasn’t he? And why hasn’t he shared what he knows with anyone else? I have eyes and ears on the ground in London that my superiors do not. That’s what he told me. So whatever he knows, he’s kept it to himself. He said we had much to talk about.’

Rose breathed her exasperation. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if his sole motivation was to get you into his bed.’

‘I don’t think so. He’s not like that.’

‘Hah! So you think you know him now?’

‘No, I don’t. But I think I should. It’s the only way we’re going to find out what this whole charade is about.’

Rose shook her head in exasperation. ‘I knew you were trouble from the moment you arrived. All you are doing is putting at risk everything I am working to achieve at the Jeu de Paume. And if that gets shut down, I’ll never forgive you. France will never forgive you!’

Georgette walked through the empty halls of the Louvre, sunlight falling through tall windows to lay itself in arches and oblongs on the floor beneath her feet and cast her shadow long across it. Her footsteps echoed back at her from naked walls.

She recalled the days and weeks she had spent here, working with teams of other students and museum staff in the race to pack everything safely into wooden crates for evacuation. It seemed a lifetime ago now. She climbed marble steps to the first floor and found the corridor she was looking for.

Jacques Jaujard’s office overlooked the cobbles of the courtyard below. A small, cluttered space, half of it taken over by an enormous desk littered with the debris of his working day. He sat back in a chair that reclined a little, and dragged languidly on his cigarette. A distinctive Paris skyline was visible through the window behind him.

Jaujard had the looks of a film star. Dark, abundant hair swept back from a handsome face defined by strong eyebrows and a square jaw. He wore a double-breasted lounge suit and button-down white collar with a red tie. He waved Georgette into the seat opposite and said, ‘Well, this is a fine mess.’

Georgette knew that it was Jaujard’s determination and vision, more than anything else, which had achieved the evacuation of the Louvre. History, she was certain, would recognise the role he had played in keeping the national treasures of France out of the hands of the Nazis. But right now she was stung by his words. ‘Not of my making,’ she said defiantly.

He flicked his cigarette at an overflowing ashtray on the desk and conceded, ‘Yes, that’s probably fair. But unfortunately, you are right in the thick of it. You’ve been compromised, Georgette. It’s as simple as that. I can hardly send you to Montauban to watch over La Joconde when the purpose of your presence there would be known to the German authorities. I don’t want to give them any excuse to start seizing inventory.’

‘But the general specifically—’

He cut her off. ‘De Gaulle is in London, we are here. And we have to deal with reality as it is on the ground.’

‘If Lange is such a threat, why am I not sitting in a Gestapo interrogation room right now?’

‘I have no idea. And let’s face it, Georgette, we really don’t want to find out, do we? At least, not in that way.’

She had no answer to this. ‘So what am I going to do?’

He sighed. ‘I think we have to play a waiting game. You will stay at the Jeu de Paume until it becomes clear what Lange is up to, or until he goes back to Germany and the dust settles. After all, it may be, as Rose suspects, that what he’s really after is getting you into his bed.’

‘So I should refuse the invitation to eat with him at his apartment?’

‘Good God, no. You can’t afford to offend him.’

‘And if he really does just want me to sleep with him?’

He leaned forward to stub out his cigarette. ‘That would be regrettable.’

Frustration gave way to anger, and anger to resignation. She was, she realised, a very small cog in a very large machine that could perfectly well function without her. But of one thing she was certain. Under no circumstances would she allow herself to be seduced into Lange’s bed.

When she got back to the Jeu de Paume, Rose was keen to hear what Jaujard had said to her and steered Georgette into her office. But Georgette did not want to go into details. She said, ‘He wants me to remain here in the meantime.’

Rose seemed disappointed. ‘Really?’

Georgette gave vent to her discontent. ‘It’s like being handed a jail sentence.’

Rose bristled. ‘Yes. And I’m the one who’s being forced to share the cell with you.’ She rounded her desk. ‘But since we’re stuck with each other, you might as well make yourself useful. A great deal of art has come and gone in the last few days. We need to re-inventory everything in the basement.’

Georgette stared at her angrily. ‘Consigning me to the basement? That’s your way of dealing with me? I’m supposed to be an assistant curator.’

‘And someday you might be one for real. But I am the curator here, and your job is to assist me. And you can do that from the basement until such time as Monsieur Jaujard decides what to do with you.’

Georgette spent most of the next two days working alone in the gloom of the basement. Not only a prison sentence, she thought, but solitary confinement. The only human contact she had for hours on end were the German soldiers who arrived with frequent deliveries of new stock which they would carry downstairs. Even if she had wanted to, she could not have engaged them in conversation, since almost none of them spoke French.

The days were long, and filled her with resentment, and she found herself almost looking forward to Friday evening, and her dinner with Lange at his apartment.

He was waiting for her outside in the Tuileries when she emerged from the gallery just after seven. It was a cold, miserable evening, just five days before Christmas, though there was no sign anywhere in the city of preparation for the festivities. The temperature had hovered barely above freezing for most of the day, and a light drizzle fell now from low, brooding clouds in a black sky. His umbrella glistened in the rain, and she allowed herself to be drawn under its protection by his arm linked through hers.

She was acutely self-conscious, glancing around, certain that she would find every eye turned in their direction. But Lange was not in uniform tonight, and no one paid them the least attention.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘What for?’

‘Dispensing with the uniform.’

He smiled. ‘Well, I was told once that no self-respecting Frenchwoman would want to be seen dead with an officer of the occupying forces.’

Which drew a reluctant smile from her, in spite of herself. ‘I thought Germans were supposed to be notorious for their lack of humour.’

‘It’s true, George, that we don’t really do jokes. But I think we have a fairly well-developed sense of irony.’

She froze. ‘You called me George.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Isn’t that what your friends call you?’

Her heart pushed up into her throat, making it difficult to speak. ‘How do you know that?’

His smile was almost condescending. ‘By now, George, there’s very little that I don’t know about you.’

The walk to his apartment took little more than ten minutes and was made in silence. A confusion of thoughts tumbled one over the other in her mind. If he knew so much about her, then he must know that her position as an assistant curator at the Jeu de Paume was a sham. That she had been in London until the autumn and must have been smuggled clandestinely into France. And yet, here he was, entertaining her to dinner at his apartment as if none of it mattered.

He opened the door to number thirty Rue de Rivoli and shook his umbrella back out into the street, before leading her up an elegant curving staircase to the fourth floor. Electric bulbs had replaced the old gas lamps on wrought-iron lamp posts on each landing.

The apartment comprised umpteen huge rooms leading off a spacious entrance hall, parquet flooring reflecting harsh electric light as he flicked on light switches and led her through to a large comfortable salon. A sofa and two armchairs were gathered around a fireplace. An enormous gilded mirror set on the wall above it reflected the rest of the room, including the small table laid for two in the window alcove. Georgette could smell something delicious wafting through from the kitchen.

‘I’ve done most of my kitchen prep already,’ he said, ‘which means I can devote more time to entertaining you over dinner.’

He moved about the room, switching on standard lamps before extinguishing the overhead chandelier to bathe the room in softer light.

‘Here, let me take your coat.’ And he removed it carefully from her shoulders. ‘Have a seat at the table,’ he said over his shoulder as he disappeared into the hall. When he returned he used his lighter to raise flames on two candles set in silver holders on the table. ‘It’s a pretty view down into the street. Unfortunately we have to keep the drapes drawn. But at least they cut down the cold from the windows.’

He poured them glasses of chilled Chablis and served a starter of sautéed plaice in a creamy butter sauce with tiny new potatoes still in their skins.

‘Santé,’ he said, raising his glass. But she raised hers only to her lips and did not return the salutation.

For a while they ate in silence, and she was impressed by the starter. Although she had no intention of telling him so.

Almost as if he had read her mind, he said, ‘How’s the fish?’

And she found herself unable to lie. ‘Delicious.’

He nodded his satisfaction, and she glanced around the room.

‘Did the apartment come furnished?’ She felt ill at ease with the idea that she was enjoying the comforts of those things which had once belonged to others now stripped of their wealth and freedom.

‘No. I bought it.’

She was surprised. ‘Where?’

‘The ERR have a warehouse across town where they keep and sell confiscated furniture. A little like one of those New York department stores. We rent unfurnished and buy our own.’

Georgette said, ‘In my mother’s country they have a word for that.’

‘You mean Scotland?’

He really did know everything about her. But she was not going to acknowledge it. ‘It’s called reset.’

‘Meaning?’

‘In Scots criminal law, it is the possession of property dishonestly appropriated by another. For example, by theft.’

He ignored the implication. ‘Your mother was a lawyer?’

One thing, at least, that he did not know about her. ‘She took a law degree at Glasgow University. But never practised.’

Georgette finished her fish and laid her cutlery across her plate.

‘What do you want from me, Monsieur Lange?’

‘Paul,’ he said. ‘Please call me Paul.’

She ignored him. ‘For God’s sake, what do you want?’

He sat very still examining her face closely with eyes reflecting candlelight. They seemed to penetrate all her outer defences. Finally he said, ‘I want to know if I can trust you.’

She frowned her consternation. ‘Trust me? Trust me with what?’

He smiled. ‘Well, obviously that’s something I’m not going to tell you until I believe I am able to trust you with it.’

She shook her head. ‘And I’m supposed to trust you? Why would I do that?’

He tipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘You wouldn’t. As I wouldn’t if I were you. Trust has to be earned. And neither of us is going to be able to bank sufficient trust until we get to know each other better.’

He rose and lifted their empty plates from the table and disappeared into the kitchen. Georgette felt intimidated by him. Afraid of him. He was so self-possessed. So sure of himself. Leaving her each time floundering in the dark without the least idea of his motivation or his endgame. Knowledge, she knew, was power. And he had that power over her. Which made her determined to learn more about him, to share in the power, and try to find an equal footing in this disquieting relationship.

He returned with medallions of fillet steak in a cream-pepper sauce. It was cooked to perfection. Seared on the outside, pink in the middle, just a little blood marbling the cream. She said, ‘People queue in the street for hours outside butchers’ shops to buy cuts of meat far inferior to this. I bet you didn’t have to stand in line.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ A smile curled his lips but never quite reached his eyes. ‘To the victor the spoils, eh? Enjoy.’

He poured a rich red Côte du Rhone and they ate for some minutes before she spoke again. ‘Where are you from? In Germany, I mean?’

‘Ah.’ He smiled. ‘At last, a little curiosity.’ He took a sip of his wine. ‘I was brought up in the Bavarian city of Augsburg. A small town by German standards. It’s about fifty kilometres west of Munich. But it has a university, and is famous for being the home of the Fugger and Welser families that dominated European banking in the sixteenth century. My own family is descended from the Welsers.’

‘And did you go to university there?’

‘No. I went to Frankfurt to take a degree in art.’ He sighed. ‘It was my ambition to paint, to be an artist myself. But a simple comparison with my fellow students made it painfully clear to me that this was not my forte.’ He paused, remembering Hitler’s words to him at the Berghof. ‘It’s important to know your own limitations.’

‘So what was your major?’

‘The history of art.’

‘And how did you become a dealer?’

‘Pure chance, really. I got a job at a gallery in Berlin. The curator was a marvellous fellow called Schäfer. Took me under his wing, initially as his assistant. He brought me here to Paris for the first time. We bought and sold in the sales rooms, and it seems he thought I had an eye for it. Because it wasn’t long before I was making these trips on my own. To Paris and London. And then New York. The gallery began to earn itself something of a reputation, and it wasn’t long before I was being approached by private buyers anxious for me to acquire art for their collections.’ He shrugged. ‘On such turns of fate are careers built.’

‘What happened to Herr Schäfer?’

Lange’s face darkened, and for the first time he avoided her eye. ‘Jewish,’ he said, and clearly did not wish to elaborate.

‘There are a lot of Jews in the art world.’

‘Yes. And I have many friends among them.’ Then he corrected himself. ‘Had.’ He gazed thoughtfully at the table, lost in some far-off reverie. ‘In Germany, those who saw it coming fled the country. Those who didn’t, were arrested.’

‘In France, too.’

‘Yes.’

‘Look at me,’ she said. And he lifted his eyes to meet hers, surprised by her strength of tone. ‘These people were your friends, Paul. Your own mentor, for God’s sake! And still you joined the Party that persecutes them, drives them out of their homes, puts them in prison. Murders them.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s an insane world, George. We do what we have to in order to survive in it.’ Then a tiny sad smile lit his face. ‘You called me Paul.’

‘Did I?’

He nodded and pushed away his empty plate as he stood up. ‘Perhaps I should take you home now.’

She sat for a moment, unaccountably disappointed, before standing up and lifting her satchel from the back of the chair where she had hung it. ‘Thank you for dinner,’ she said.

‘It was my pleasure.’ The briefest of pauses. ‘Same time next Friday?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘In life, George, there is always a choice.’

Rose was sitting in the front room with a glass of red wine, fully dressed and waiting up for her. The light from the room spilled into the hall and caught Georgette as she passed through it on the way from the front door to her bedroom.

‘I’m in here,’ Rose called out, and reluctantly Georgette pushed open the door and stepped into the light. Rose laid down her glass and stood up. She looked at Georgette with what seemed like genuine concern in her eyes. ‘Are you alright?’

Georgette was taken aback. ‘Do you care?’

Rose sighed. ‘Believe it or not, I do.’

Chastened now, Georgette lowered her eyes. ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’ Then, after a pause: ‘He wants me to go again next Friday.’

Rose looked at her long and hard until Georgette couldn’t bear it any longer.

‘What?’

Rose said quietly, ‘Did you sleep with him?’

Annoyance flared in the young woman. ‘Of course I didn’t.’

Rose nodded. ‘Good,’ she said. And after a hesitation, ‘If you ever do, it will be the end of you, you know that?’