V-S Day: A Novel of Alternate History

RENDEZVOUS IN PARIS

DECEMBER 24, 1941

Sometime during the morning, a Gestapo agent had taken up a position in the doorway of a café across the street from Yves Callon’s apartment. Callon spotted him almost as soon he got out of bed and looked out his kitchen window. Even from three floors up, it was impossible not to tell that the man in the charcoal overcoat, black scarf, and dark grey hat belonged to the secret police; he looked like a giant crow that had come to roost upon the sidewalk.

Callon wasn’t surprised. He’d half expected to be kept under surveillance once he returned to Paris for the holidays. The Nazis weren’t likely to take any chances with a French janitor who worked at one of their most secret research facilities, so it only made sense that they would dispatch a Gestapo agent to keep an eye on him. It was little comfort that he appeared to be bored and cold. Even if he wasn’t alert, he could be a serious impediment to the task that lay ahead.

As Yves puttered around his small, two-room apartment—washing his face and shaving, getting dressed, having a meager breakfast of coffee and a croissant—he wondered whether it might be wise to cancel the drop. If he waited another day or two, the Gestapo might give up and leave him alone. But he’d arrived in Paris by train early yesterday evening, and he was due to catch another train back to Germany the day after tomorrow. Waiting until tomorrow to make the drop would be problematic if the Gestapo was still watching him by then; some of his actions might seem peculiar if done on Christmas Day. And if he waited until the day after Christmas and tried to make the drop before going to the rail station, his contact might be at risk if he’d been followed, and the Gestapo noticed him going to the same place at the same time three days in a row.

So Yves had no choice. He had to make the drop today, despite the danger. He simply needed to be careful, for the slightest mistake could be fatal.

Callon kept an eye on the clock above his fireplace as he washed his breakfast dishes and put them away. At ten minutes to nine, he got ready to go. He avoided looking out the window as he pulled on his dark brown overcoat, woolen muffler, and cap. The Minox film cartridge—two small black cylinders joined by a crosspiece, a little more than six centimeters long—went in his inside coat pocket, then he carefully put his identification papers on top of it. If he were stopped and searched, he hoped the folded papers would pad the cartridge enough to escape being detected by a brisk patdown. There were other places he could hide the cartridge, of course, but he had to be able to get to it as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.

Leaving the apartment, Callon made his way down the narrow stairs. He’d just reached the second-floor landing when a door opened, and one of his neighbors started to come out. A young woman whose name he could never recall, she stopped the moment she saw him. Her eyes narrowed, and a disgusted frown curled an attractive mouth; she immediately stepped back into her apartment and slammed the door. But just before she disappeared, Callon heard her mutter, “Maudit traitre.”

Damned traitor. This was what his role as an MI-6 operative had cost him: his reputation. Almost no one knew that he belonged to the resistance, and only a couple of people in his cell were aware that he was spying for the British. So far as everyone else was concerned, Yves Callon was a Vichy collaborator, someone willing to work for the Nazis just to gain a job and luxuries like the coffee he’d just had with breakfast. He could only hope that, once the war was over and France was liberated, his true role would be revealed and he would be exonerated. Until then, he had few friends in his native city. Not even his own family would speak to him anymore.

Rue de la Huchette was a cobblestone street in the Latin Quarter, so narrow that only pedestrians and bicyclists could use it… not that there were many automobiles on the streets of Paris these days. Before the war, its sidewalk cafés would have been open, even on Christmas Eve, with gypsies sitting on the curb out front, playing guitars or flutes, hats turned upside down before them. But the restaurants were now closed four days a week, and the Romany had either fled or been rounded up and sent to concentration camps, so there was almost no one in sight except the Gestapo agent in the doorway, smoking a cigarette as he pretended not to notice Callon.

Yves pretended not to see him either. Closing the front door behind them, he stepped out into the street, turning right to head toward the cathedral. He didn’t have to glance at the shop windows he passed to know from the footsteps behind him that the crow had left the doorway and was walking along behind him. Yet the Gestapo man was being careful not to follow so closely as to be obvious; Yves could no longer hear him by the time he reached the end of the block although he had little doubt that the secret policeman was still there.

Two blocks ahead was Rue Saint-Jacques, a wider street. Yves turned left and followed it toward the river. Notre Dame came in sight, a grand edifice of granite and stained glass towering above the Seine. Even Christmas Eve, there was little traffic on the broad avenue running alongside the river; the Nazis had claimed all the petrol for their own vehicles, leaving Parisians with nothing but horses, bicycles, and the strange-looking velo-taxis made from cutting a motorcar in half and hooking up the passenger end to a bicycle.

Yves dodged one of those as he crossed the Quai de Montebello to the Petit Pont, and the Gestapo agent was only ten meters back when he strolled across the bridge to the broad plaza in front of Notre Dame. Morning services had just ended, and worshippers were emerging from beneath the ornate arches above the cathedral’s massive oak doors. They tried to avoid eye contact with the German soldiers who patrolled the plaza, M-40 submachine guns dangling from straps beneath their arms.

As he crossed the plaza, Yves stole a glance at his wristwatch. His timing was perfect; it was exactly ten after nine. His steps took him toward the statue of Charlemagne, which stood to the right of the cathedral.

A white-bearded old man sat on a bench beneath the king, coat collar turned up against the cold as he tossed corn kernels to the pigeons strutting and pecking around him. He didn’t look up as Yves approached the bench or show the slightest interest as he walked past, yet Yves knew the old man had spotted him. And probably the Gestapo tail as well.

If Yves hadn’t been followed, the rendezvous would have been simple. He would have brought a newspaper on his way to Notre Dame, tucked the cartridge inside, and sat down on the bench beside the old man. A few minutes later, he would’ve stood up and walked away, leaving the newspaper behind. The paper and the hidden cartridge would have gone with the old man. That was now out of the question; the Gestapo agent would have seen through that in an instant. So Yves was forced to resort to a backup plan, albeit one that was much more complicated.

He walked the rest of the way across the plaza and entered Notre Dame. He didn’t have to look back to know that the crow was still behind him. Removing his cap and shoving it in his coat pocket, he paused in the foyer to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, then took a novena candle, dropping a half franc into the offering box. A brief nod to the robed priest at the door, then he quietly walked into the sanctuary.

Notre Dame rose around him as an enormous cavern, one that seemed more like the creation of God than man. Even in midmorning, the cathedral was dark and quiet. The giant pipe organ near the altar had ceased playing the sacred music that filled every corner of the vast sanctuary, and the only light came from the candelabra on the massive stone columns and the intricate panes of the great stained-glass windows. Although the morning service was concluded, a few worshippers still lingered in the oak pews, heads bowed in meditation.

Yves walked slowly down the center aisle toward the nave. He paused within sight of the altar to cross himself and take a quick bow, then he found a seat in the third row. He sat there for a while, hands clasped together, head lowered as if in prayer, then he stood up again and quietly walked toward the small, grottolike chapels that stood in a row along the sanctuary’s right wall.

Each of Notre Dame’s chapels was dedicated to the memory of a particular saint; they had their own altars and pews, and some had confession booths. Above each altar was a crucifix, and on either side was a wrought-iron rack for novena candles. Yves entered the chapel nearest the nave, the one dedicated to L’Arc de Joan. No one else was there except the old man who’d been feeding pigeons outside.

Yves took the candle he’d picked up in the foyer and, lighting it from another candle, placed it in the middle row of the rack on the left side of the altar. He paused a moment to murmur a prayer—heartfelt this time even though he’d stopped practicing his faith a few years ago—in the memory of his mother and father. The old man’s eyes briefly shifted in his direction as he turned to leave, but no words were spoken between them.

Nonetheless, a message had been passed.

The crow stood at the back of the sanctuary, hands in pockets, hat disrespectfully unremoved. No doubt he’d observed every move Yves made. He didn’t bother to look away as Yves walked by, but Yves continued to pretend not to see him. A brief pause in the foyer to adjust his muffler and put his cap back on, then he left the cathedral, thanking the priest at the door on the way out.

The Gestapo agent was still behind him as he crossed the Petit Pont again and strolled down the Quai de Montebello until he reached the Boulevard Saint-Michel. There he turned left and began walking up the broad, tree-lined avenue, passing the Napoleonic-era fountain where the winged angel Michael, sword raised in victory, towered above a defeated and cowering Lucifer. Like the statue of Charlemagne, only its size kept the Nazis from tearing it down and carrying it away to be melted down for its iron, the fate of so many of the city’s other statues. The archangel brought a sly smile to Yves’s face. One day, he promised himself, the statue would symbolize triumph over evil of another kind.

However, the statue was one of the few things untouched by the Nazi presence. As with the rest of Paris, it was impossible to miss signs of the German occupation. Above the street, red swastika flags hung from the windows of offices and hotels the Germans had claimed for their own. Indeed, the Third Reich’s flag was ubiquitous throughout the city; it even fluttered from the top of the Eiffel Tower, a deliberate offense to every French citizen who saw it. There weren’t many people on the sidewalks, but it seemed as if there were an armed soldier on every corner. A Duesenberg limousine drove past, the first car Yves had seen this morning; two German officers were seated in the back, callous eyes regarding the beautiful city they’d raped. There were few stores or cafés open, though, so their conquest was probably tempered by scarcity.

The boulevard took him uphill, away from the Latin Quarter. Just past the Pantheon and the Sorbonne, he spotted a florist he’d visited over the years. Stepping into the small shop, he purchased a bouquet of red and yellow roses, a dozen in all. As the proprietor carefully wrapped them in paper to keep them from wilting in the cold, he casually gazed at the arrangements in the window. The crow was across the street, examining women’s clothes on display in a shop window. The agent’s surveillance methods were so obtuse that Yves wanted to laugh. Instead, he paid the florist and left. The Gestapo agent continued to follow him from the other side of the street.

Callon walked the rest of the way up the hill, past the sandbag barricades surrounding the Palais et Jardin du Luxembourg, the seat of the deposed French government, its fountains and gardens now off-limits to all Parisians, until he reached the Boulevard du Montparnasse. Turning right, he strolled a block down the boulevard, then turned onto Rue Boissonade. His steps took him past a hospital until, at last, he reached his destination, the Cimetière du Montparnasse.

One of the city’s oldest cemeteries, it sprawled across a hilltop overlooking the Left Bank, its grounds surrounded by a tall redbrick wall. Many of Paris’s greatest authors, painters, actors, and philosophers lay here, but also some of its ordinary citizens, among them Yves Callon’s parents and grandparents.

Slowing his pace, Yves sauntered through the cemetery’s open gate. As expected, a German soldier stood watch just outside the gatehouse. He looked cold even though he was bundled up in a greatcoat, a cigarette dangling from a brutish-looking mouth. He stared at Yves but said nothing; the bouquet told him all he needed to know. Giving the soldier the slightest of nods, Callon began walking down the gravel path into the graveyard.

Most of the cemetery’s graves were located aboveground, within concrete tombs topped by crosses, urns, testament plaques, weeping angels, and so forth. Like many family gravesites, though, the Callon tomb was located within a small mausoleum not much larger than a telephone booth. Built of concrete, with a crucifix atop its sloped tile roof, it had small glazed windows on three sides and an iron grate as its door. Stopping at the door, Yves shifted the bouquet from one hand to another as he fished in his pocket for his key ring; as he did, he searched the area from the corners of his eyes. For the first time since Notre Dame, the crow was nowhere to be seen. But there were many mausoleums all around him, and the Gestapo man could be hiding behind any one of them. In any case, Yves had to assume that he’d been followed into the cemetery and therefore continue taking precautions.

An old iron key unlocked the grate. Yves pushed it aside and stepped into the cold little room. There was just enough space in here for one person, or two if they stood very close together. The floor beneath his feet was made of concrete slabs carved with the names of his parents and grandparents. If he were to have the slabs removed, Yves would have found their coffins interred beneath the ground. He and his brother and sister would eventually be laid to rest there; Yves felt a chill when he considered that, if he wasn’t careful, his residence in this place could be sooner rather than later.

Behind the slabs was a white-marble bench, waist high, with a statuette of the Virgin Mary at its center and a flower urn on either side. The urns were carved limestone, tall and wasp-waisted, heavy enough to hold bouquets without falling over. Bunches of dead flowers—daisies from the looks of them, probably left some time ago by his brother, who was cheap about such things—were still in the urns, their dry petals scattered across the bench. Yves removed the dead flowers and put them aside, then unwrapped the roses and placed them on the bench.

The windows were too high and narrow for anyone outside to peer through, and his body blocked the doorway, but, nonetheless, Yves took care not to let himself be seen doing what he was doing. As he separated six roses from the bouquet, he quickly slipped his right hand into his coat pocket. Beneath the identification papers was the film cartridge. Concealing it within his palm, he picked up the roses he’d selected and covered the cartridge with their stems. Then, raising the roses to the urn on the left side of the Madonna, he let the cartridge fall into the vase. The soft clink it made when it hit the bottom was muffled by the roses he inserted atop them.

Yves put the rest of the roses in the other urn. He carefully arranged the flowers, then took a few moments to silently stand at the bench, head bowed as if in prayer. Then he picked up the dead flowers and left the mausoleum, locking the grate behind him.

There. It was done. With any luck, the cartridge would soon be on its way to England. It would take a while, of course. The resistance would have to send it by way of special courier to Norway, where it would then be put aboard one of the fishing boats that secretly crossed the North Sea to Scotland. The French coast was effectively closed, but the underground had found ways of getting information out of occupied Europe to the British Isles. Weeks might pass before the Minox cartridge reached its destination, yet Yves had little doubt that it would get there.

The crow was nowhere to be seen as Yves left the graveyard, dropping the dead flowers in a waste can on his way out. As he approached the front gate, though, he saw the Gestapo agent standing beside the soldier. Both were smoking, and as Yves came closer, he heard coarse laughter at some shared joke. The crow turned toward Yves as he approached the gate. The Gestapo agent made no effort to avoid being seen. It was obvious that he was waiting for him.

Stuffing his hands in his overcoat pockets and lowering his head, Yves tried not to appear nervous. The crow looked back at the soldier, and, for a moment, Yves had hope that he might be able to leave the cemetery in peace. But just as he was about to walk by, the Gestapo man raised a black-gloved hand to stop him.

“M’seur Callon? Bonjour.” Although his voice was heavily accented, the crow had the courtesy to address him in French. “May I have a word with you, please?”

“Oui.” Callon didn’t bother pretending not to know who he was speaking to. Everyone in Paris had learned to recognize the Gestapo on sight.

“Merci beaucoup.” The crow was younger than Callon by a decade, and while he seemed pleasant enough, the hardness of his eyes betrayed his true self. “I’m wondering what brings you here today.”

“Visiting my parents.” There was no way he could tell the Gestapo man that it was none of his business why he’d come here. The Nazis kept the people of the countries they’d occupied on a very short leash. “They’re buried here.”

“Ah, yes… for Christmas, of course.” The officer nodded. “I understand you work at one of our research facilities. The one in the Baltic.”

“This is correct, oui.” The very name Peenemünde was considered a state secret, and Yves was careful to follow the crow’s example by not speaking it in public. “I’ve come home for the holidays, and this is one of the things I meant to do while I’m here.”

“Perfectly reasonable. I applaud your thoughtfulness. May I see your papers, please?”

Although there was no reason why the Gestapo man would want to see his identification—he already knew who he was and where he worked—Yves obediently produced them from his coat pocket. The crow unfolded the dog-eared forms and took his time examining them, while the unsmiling soldier fastened his stony gaze upon him. Yves tried to maintain an air of patient indifference, but his heart had begun to beat a little faster, and he kept his hands in his pockets to hide their tremors.

“Everything seems to be in order,” the Gestapo agent said at last, almost reluctantly handing them back. As Yves put them away, the secret-police officer idly gazed around the cemetery. “Such an interesting place. I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”

“You should come back sometime. Some very famous people are buried here.”

“Along with your parents, of course.” A smile abruptly appeared on the crow’s face, as if he’d had a sudden thought. “Would you mind showing me their resting place? I’d love to see it.”

A cold hand wrapped itself around Yves’s heart, and for a moment he had an impulse to refuse. I’m rather busy just now, he almost said, but refusal was out of the question, and even hesitation could be suspicious. “Yes, of course,” he said instead, and tried to cover his nervousness by coughing into his hand. “This way, please.”

Leaving the soldier at the gate, Yves led the Gestapo agent back down the gravel path, then through the graveyard until they reached the Callon family mausoleum. “Very nice, very handsome,” the crow said, looking at it so briefly that Yves was now certain that the agent had been watching him all the time from somewhere nearby. The agent grasped the door handle, gave it a quick tug, then stepped away. “Open it, please. I’d like to look inside.”

It took all Yves’s willpower to keep his hands from shaking as he fitted the key into the lock. He pulled open the grate, and the officer entered the mausoleum. Yves hesitated, then followed him, peering over his shoulder as the Gestapo man gazed around the tiny room.

The crow missed nothing. He stamped his feet upon the floor slabs to check their solidness and immobility, then he turned his attention to the bench. Running his gloved hands across the marble, he suddenly reached up to seize the Madonna statuette and tip it back, looking to see if there was a hollow space beneath its base. He then ran his fingers through the roses, but was unable to turn over the urn. Convinced that it couldn’t be easily moved, he grunted beneath his breath, then reached for the left urn.

“Do you know why I’m doing this?” he asked, as his hand shifted through the roses, disturbing their careful arrangement.

“No, I do not,” Yves managed to reply.

The Gestapo agent glanced over his shoulder at him. “Do you know someone named François Latreau?”

“Oui… of course.” Yves’s mouth had gone dry. “I work with him at Peene… in the Baltic, I mean.”

“Yes. He’s another janitor who was hired from this city, same time as you were.” Looking away again, the Gestapo man pushed aside the roses and thrust his fingers into the urn, probing its fluted neck. “He was arrested yesterday.”

“He was?” Yves had to fight to remain calm. Every nerve in his body felt as if it’d gone numb. “For… for what?”

“Espionage. He was caught photographing something… well, interesting.” The Gestapo agent was trying to get his hand through the urn’s narrow neck into the well. “I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, would you?”

“N-no. Nothing at all.” Yves wanted to scream. He’d left François behind with the understanding that he wouldn’t attempt to gather any more information on his own. They’d managed to survive this long because they worked as a team, but apparently Gold had decided not to wait until Silver returned from Paris. Maybe he’d spotted something that he couldn’t resist. Or perhaps he’d just gotten cocky. Whatever the reason, he’d been caught. And the Gestapo was suspicious of Yves Callon as well.

The crow’s hand withdrew from the urn. There was nothing in it. He turned around again, and Yves started to step back to let him leave the crypt. But then the Gestapo man suddenly reached forward to grab him by the lapels.

“You’re sure of this?” he asked, pulling him just an inch closer, his eyes locked on Yves’s. “I’m not. You’re very nervous, M’seur Callon. I wonder why that is.”

“I… I…”

Then Callon did something he himself didn’t expect. He substituted anger for fear, and let it show.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” he snapped, staring back at the crow. “You seriously think that, just because I clean toilets with some guy, that makes me a spy, too?” He hissed in disgust. “That’s the thanks I get!”

The Gestapo agent’s eyes widened in surprise. Seldom had anyone spoken to him this way. “I see,” he said, letting go of Callon’s coat. “You’re quite adamant, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am… and I’ll thank you not to disturb my parents’ tomb!” He reached past the officer to rearrange the roses and return the Virgin Mary back to its proper place. “Is that all you want to know?”

The Gestapo man didn’t reply but instead put his hands in his pockets and watched as Callon fussed over the items on the shelf. “My apologies,” he said at last. “I didn’t mean to give offense.”

Yves sighed in exasperation as he turned to leave. He’d just stepped out of the crypt, though, when something prodded the back of his ribs. Startled, he looked down to see a Walther in the crow’s hand.

“However,” the crow said, “I’m afraid I’m still going to have to detain you for questioning. Just to be certain.”

Callon heard tires crunch against gravel. Looking around, he saw a black Peugeot roll to a halt on the nearby road. Another soldier climbed out, submachine gun in his hands.

“Don’t run,” the crow quietly added. “That’s what your friend did when he was caught. He was shot.”

The fear came back, and this time there was no surge of anger to dispel it. Yves had no choice but to raise his hands and let the officer march him to the waiting sedan. He knew where he was going: the Gestapo headquarters at the Felgendarmerie, which many had entered but few had left.

The sedan’s doors slammed shut, then the driver did a U-turn on the narrow path, nearly scraping its bumper against a couple of tombstones. The soldier standing guard at the gate raised his arm in a stiff salute as the Peugeot made its departure from the Cimetière du Montparnasse, then reached into his pocket for his cigarettes.

Lighting one, the soldier barely noticed the bearded old man who’d stood aside to make way for the sedan. The old man watched as the Peugeot drove away, then he continued through the gate, walking into the cemetery as if on a small Christmas Eve visit with the dead.