Blood Oath Part 4

So why let boyhood sorrows taint the present? Houston thought. I'm here. The country's beautiful. The food is great, the people friendly. Why let something from another time destroy my peace of mind? The here and now that's all that matters. And the wine, he thought. Oh, yes, the wine. "Let's have that drink," he said. "Simone, would you have supper with us?"

"Thank you, but my father needs me. I've been away too long. Perhaps another time before you leave."

"Tomorrow then."

"And the police?"

"No, I think not. I doubt they'd be much help." Jan's hand remained in his. He felt a tension leave her. "I'll pay you. I don't know your rates."

"My English needed practice. There's no charge."

He understood she hoped he wouldn't try to argue. His exhaustion muted his determination to find his father's grave. After all, he'd done his best, he told himself. What difference did his failure make? No difference. None at all. To see the grave would have resulted only in self-pity.

They went into the hotel, where he turned to thank Simone. He never got the chance. Her father, dressed impeccably, a golden watch chain dangling from his vest, approached. Trim, aristocratic, he had kindly, cheerful eyes. Simone explained where she had been.

The old man's face went pale. "Comment?" He turned to Houston, startled. "Quoi?"

His voice was wary, troubled.

Houston's stomach burned. "Pardon?"

"Pierre de St. Laurent?" The old man's eyes were shocked, his voice astonished.

"Oui."

The old man spoke to Simone. He rattled phrases off so fast that Houston couldn't understand a word. Simone frowned.

"What?"

"My father wishes he had known. He could have helped you, warned you, saved you lots of trouble, maybe trouble yet to come."

Chapter 8.

They had to wait. Although the old man was profoundly anxious to explain to them, he had to pay attention to his duties at the hotel, supervising dinner.

With extreme reluctance, he took leave of Jan and Houston.

"Later," the old man said in French. "We must speak about this later." He began to walk away, but then, distressed, he quickly turned to them. "At length," he said and then repeated, "longue-ment. For there is much that you don't understand."

The lobby's s.p.a.ciousness made Pete feel small. His skin began to tingle. He felt conscious of his back. Simone was leaving. "Wait," Pete said.

"I have to help my father."

Then Pete and Janice were alone. The m.u.f.fled noises from the dining room seemed ghostly. He felt isolated, somehow separated from the polished wooden beams and paneled walls.

The elevator hummed. The cage descended, and the metal gate was pushed aside. A guest in black tie and dinner jacket stepped out, pa.s.sing them from right to left to reach the dining room. The guest came close enough for Houston to breathe talc.u.m powder lilac-scented. At the same time, Houston seemed to see him from a distance, through the wrong end of a telescope.

Unreal, he thought. "What's going on?" he said to Janice.

"Peter Lorre."

"What?"

"The travel agent didn't mention foreign intrigue when he gave us our itinerary."

"We must have stirred up some local scandal."

"We've stirred up something, that's for sure. So what do we do now?"

They glanced at one another's jeans, no more inclined to change their clothes than they were to eat. But they forced themselves to go upstairs and put on something more formal, then to come back down to the dining room. The quiche was excellent, but Houston didn't give it the attention it deserved. His stomach tensed as if he expected an urgent phone call that was always postponed.

Preoccupied, they lingered over coffee, but the manager did not appear. Simone remained invisible. They left the hotel for a walk, I pa.s.sing yellow streetlights, breathing the chill mist from the river. The constellations hovered above them, coldly crystalline.

When they returned to the hotel, Simone was waiting with her father at the counter. Both were stiff, intense, as Houston walked with Janice toward them.

Till this moment, the relationship between the manager and Houston was of host and paying guest. But now the manager became a confidant, a personal acquaintance. "Jacques Monsard," his daughter introduced him. The first name seemed much too common for a small aging man of such aristocratic features.

Houston shook his hand and was invited gravely to take brandy in the old man's living quarters.

These were two rooms on the ground floor, down a hallway toward the back, beyond a sign that said in French that no admittance was permitted. Houston never saw what, past a closed door, he a.s.sumed would be the bedroom. But the sitting room was large and well appointed few but carefully selected antique chairs, lamps, and tables. Simple, elegant, expensive. Houston's main impression was of gentle textures and soft shadows.

The brandy was the best he'd ever tasted. As he swirled the liquor in the fragile snifter, he heard clock chimes from the mantel, ten and soon ten-thirty.

". . . He was evil." Monsard's voice was hypnotizing. He spoke French; Simone translated. "No, it's important to be accurate," Monsard went on. "No man, no true adult, would have behaved the way he did. He was a boy of twenty-one. But youth cannot excuse his actions. He was evil." Monsard enunciated carefully.

"Nineteen forty-four. You are too young for an appreciation." He used vows not merely as a gesture of respect but also to include Simone and Janice. "You cannot envision, as I still can, what times were like. This hotel was a base of operations for the n.a.z.is. In this very room the German general conducted staff meetings, preparing tactics to fight off the Allies."

Monsard paused. He saw that Houston's gla.s.s was empty and leaned forward, pouring. Houston lit a cigarette, but he kept his eyes on Monsard's face.

"The German officers were fed here, in the dining room that now is my responsibility. They confiscated all the better homes along the river to billet their staff. The soldiers camped along the river, in the park, and in the fields. For every villager, there were three dozen Germans. Everywhere you looked, you saw their uniforms, their helmets. And their tanks, their cannons, their . . . gun oil, that was what you smelled. Exhaust fumes. Sweat. And something rancid, indefinable, which I in time became aware was fear, both from the Germans and the villagers."

The old man's mouth pursed at the memory. He drew a breath. "There was not food enough to feed the village, and the Germans were not well supplied. They had to eat to fight, and so they searched our homes. They took our secret stores. They left us nothing. People starved. We lost the strength to serve the German officers with the efficiency they demanded."

For the first time, Monsard drank. He held the brandy on his tongue and gazed with bitter eyes toward images of long ago. "Pierre de St. Laurent," the old man said.

The hair rose on Pete's neck.

"We went to school together. We were friends. We played together often, and we wished that we were brothers. He was tall and strong, good-looking, idolized by every young girl in the village. I became aware of the advantages he took. The many girls he tricked by promising to marry them. The anger of the fathers. How I'd wasted my devotion."

So it is a local scandal, Houston thought. The village lecher. It's no wonder that the priest was disenchanted. Houston listened nonetheless. Again his gla.s.s was empty, and again Monsard refilled it. Now the room was smoky.

"There were rumors that a cache of food was hidden somewhere in the village.

Late at night the Germans loved to terrorize when people slept they ransacked a chateau. They found the cache behind a hidden cellar door, and in the morning, on the bridge, with all the village forced to watch, they shot each member of that household, even two babies. Then they threw the bodies from the bridge and let them drift along the river. It was obvious that someone had informed, for otherwise how could the food have been discovered so precisely? The informer was Pierre, although I did not know this at the time. The action was so vile that I could not imagine who would do it. Never mind that those who hid the food were selfish and unsharing. That's a different sin, another matter. The informer, by cooperating with the Germans, had committed a much greater sin.

"The Allies came," the old man continued. "They feinted toward the north and tricked the Germans, who became convinced that in this village they were undetected. So the Germans tried to catch the Allies by surprise, to intercept them. What the Germans didn't know was that the Allies had been warned. The Germans lost the battle, though the losses on both sides were gross, unthinkable."

"The Allies? But who warned them?" Houston's voice rose.

"Yes," the old man said. "You understand."

"Pierre?"

"He snuck through German lines at night. He risked the Allied sentries. But he reached his goal. He told his story. Undetected he came back."

Jan broke her silence. "Why?" The old man frowned. "If he collaborated with the Germans. Why?" Jan said. "It makes no sense for him to risk his life to help the Allies."

"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" the old man asked Simone.

She told him, and he nodded gravely. "Out. C'est illogique." Simone's translation filled the gap as if intruding from a parallel dimension. "But the lack of logic is apparent only. Not in fact or actual. Since we did not suspect him as a traitor to us, we interpreted the risk he took as bravery, as loyalty.

Oh, he was celebrated. He was feted. He became our hero, and he had his pick of girls."

The old man sipped his brandy, concentrating on a window, on the blackness of the night, as if the darkness were a screen upon which images now flickered.

Houston heard an animal's sharp cry outside and suspected that a night bird was successful in its hunting. He felt cold abruptly, and a further sip of brandy did not warm him.

"Oh, Pierre was clever," Monsard said. "He must have feared that we suspected him and were planning our revenge. Whatever, to protect himself, he had to make himself immune from accusation, had to demonstrate his loyalty beyond a doubt.

Perhaps the Germans were not generous enough. Perhaps he thought the Allies would pay more. From greed, he sought a more rewarding master. But I don't believe the Allies paid him. The Americans respected altruistic motives. They maintained that Frenchmen should betray the Germans for the sake of liberation only. I imagine that Pierre was disappointed. But a part of me imagines something else." The old man's eyes appeared to darken, as if sickened and appalled.

"An altogether different explanation. Evil. Disgusting. It has always puzzled me how he crept through the German lines so easily, and with the same apparent ease snuck back. Suppose the Germans paid him to take information to the Allies. In a second battle, fifty miles north of here, the Allies were defeated. The Americans were beaten because of information that the Germans had beforehand, information that was secret, that was crucial to the Allied tactics.

You must know about the Underground. I was a member, as Pierre was. When the Allies won this hotel, when Americans made plans inside this room, the members of the Underground were called in to give help. It was important, we were told, for us to infiltrate the German lines and make a.s.sessments of their strength. We did so, our great moment, but our information was in error. When the Allies mustered their attack, they found that they had been expected. They faced reinforcements. I feel certain that Pierre was the informer. Either he switched sides again, or else he was a German agent all the time. To me, the blood of thousands stained the fields because of him. He was completely selfish, of no worth or consequence. He looked out only for himself."

"I mean no disrespect," Pete said, "but where's your proof?"

Simone translated.

"Proof?" The old man's face contorted with disgust. "He disappeared the morning of the fight in which the Allies were defeated. He packed his belongings, and he vanished. There could be only one reason. Only something truly hideous would make him so afraid of our reprisals that he ran away."

Chapter 9.

Pete glanced out toward the lobby as the elevator took them up. He felt so numb, so drained, that for a moment he imagined he was not ascending, but that the lobby floor was dropping away. Houston closed his eyes. Disoriented, he pressed hard against the elevator's wall. But then the second's vertigo was gone. The dizziness had pa.s.sed, though he noticed with alarm that he was sweating.

"Did you drink too much?" Jan asked. "You really killed that brandy."

Houston mustered strength to blink. He saw a corridor appear. His stomach settled while the elevator smoothly stopped. He drew a breath and pushed off from the wall. "I need some sleep," he said. "I should have eaten more."

He pulled the cage door open, heard the sc.r.a.pe of metal, paused, and glanced at her in pained confusion. "Well, we listened for two hours. He was totally convincing, don't you think? But if you asked me now, I'd say the only thing we know for sure is that his friend dropped out of sight one day. We don't know why he disappeared. Monsard is simply guessing."

"No, we do know something else," Jan said. "Before he disappeared, St. Laurent went to the priest. He took confession."

Houston's mind relaxed. Then weariness set in again. "If his confession and his disappearance are related, I don't see the link," he said. "We can't prove a connection."

"But it's clear to me."

"Because you're not a Catholic. Sure, to us as Protestant Americans, confession seems unusual. But not to Catholics here in France, and not in nineteen forty-four. These people ask the priest to hear confession all the time. In World War Two, with so much death around them, they'd have used confession twice as often." Houston realized that he still gripped the cage-door handle. He let go and stepped back so that Janice could walk out first.

But she stayed in the elevator. "That's not what I mean," she said.

He frowned at her. "What is it then?"

"St. Laurent wasn't some altar boy. He liked the girls. He got himself and them in trouble. You remember, Monsard mentioned several scandals?" Houston nodded.

"Do you think he would confess that kind of sin?" Jan asked.

"If what he'd done was common knowledge, then he'd realize he couldn't hide it from the priest. It wouldn't hurt him to confess that he was l.u.s.tful."

"Right. The priest might give him h.e.l.l. But what's the point of going to confession and not telling every sin, especially a sin the priest knew all about already. Would l.u.s.t have shocked Father Devereaux?"

"Hardly. Priests are specialists in human nature. They expect to hear the sin of l.u.s.t."

"All right then," Jan said, eyes severe. "Explain to me what so disgusted Father Devereaux that to this day he still remembers that confession and despises the young man who came to him for absolution."

Houston felt as if the elevator were dropping. He had to reach the hallway.

Janice followed, clutching at his arm. "And something else," she said. "The way Monsard describes him, I don't think Pierre was terribly religious to begin with. I'm just guessing, but I doubt he made a habit of confession. This time, though, he saw the priest, and he told everything."

"But why?"

"Because Pierre de St. Laurent was scared to death. He asked for absolution before something awful happened to him." In the silence of the corridor they stared at one another. "Father Deve-reaux's the only man who knows the secret,"

Jan continued. "And for sure it isn't l.u.s.t, and it's for d.a.m.n sure he's not telling."

Houston blinked at her. The sound of the elevator bell startled him. Someone down below them had pressed a b.u.t.ton. But the elevator didn't move. Houston pulled the metal grill until the catch snapped into place. As cables creaked, a motor hummed and the cage descended.

"We'll wake everybody up," he said. They walked along the hallway. Houston heard the elevator reach the lobby and the motor stop. He heard the grill as it was opened down there, its sound like that of a fingernail sc.r.a.ped along a blackboard. Then the motor started again.

"This is foolish," Houston said. "Why should I be worried? That's just someone who was out late, coming back to get some sleep."

"You're scaring me now," Jan said.

As they reached their door, the elevator halted on their level. Houston fumbled in his pocket for the key. The elevator's door was yanked abruptly open. Houston stared along the hall. And almost laughed.

The guest in black tie and dinner jacket, who had reeked of lilac talc.u.m as he'd walked past Houston in the lobby, stumbled from the elevator, blearily looked down the hall toward Jan and Houston, lost his balance as he shut the grill, and staggered down the far end of the hallway.