Carnival Read Free

drooping from exhaustion, no doubt. And sometimes those eyes had been so empty when he had looked at one of the SS, his gaze had frightened her, but always when he had turned to her there had been that little rush of excitement in herself. Though those years had slipped away some time ago, Herr Kohler hadn’t let their absence deter him. He was not at all like a gestapiste , though he did have the chin and cheekbones of a storm trooper, the scar of a terrible wound and far more recent than those that other war had left, the shrapnel. A criminal with a knife? she wondered of that scar. A dueling sword? A bullet graze had recently brushed his brow. Occasionally the thick fingers would favour it as if he was counting his blessings. No ring of course, but probably married, the hair cut close and neither brown nor black but a shade in between, like his marital status, and flecked with grey.
    The Frenchman was altogether something else, even if he did wear a wedding ring he’d best change to his other hand unless he wanted to be stopped by the police and hauled in for questioning. Of a little more than medium height and blocky, he had the deep brown ox-eyes common to those people, the fists of a pugiliste— had he lost the fight that had given him the stitches? she wondered. The hair was dark brown and needing a trim, the moustache wide and bushy, and as for the eyebrows, must they give him a look that was so fierce?
    Outside in the darkness, Louis couldn’t wait. ‘She’s carrying cigarettes in that lighter suitcase, Hermann. How could you do this to us? She’s let herself cosy up to you, knowing she’s with two Schweinebullen and still has hopes you’ll unwittingly waltz her through customs!’
    â€˜ Ach, I wondered when you’d figure that out. She’s terrified of the company we’ve had to keep and feels like an utter fool for having chanced what she did and has stuck to us like glue. Go easy on her, eh? Just be your generous self and thankful that she’s let us know that Kolmar’s schwarzer Markt is flourishing. That Kolmar is with a K , by the way, not a C .’
    And never mind the Deutsch. Its black market, its marché noir . Cigarettes must now be the preferred currency in the Reich, as they were in France. ‘That no-good, piano-teaching brother-in-law of hers, “that brute of a one-legged Frenchman and seducer of young girls,” was into more than student skirts, Hermann. While helping that little sister of hers go through his things, your Frau Oberkircher, for all she wishes to disclaim and hide her French origins, came upon the mother lode of fags and felt it her duty as a citizen of the Greater Reich to confiscate the evidence before her sister found it!’
    As was their custom when on short rations and in need of a quiet tête-à-tête, a cigarette was rescued from an inner pocket—Louis’s this time. Kohler found them a light, and after a few drags each, they began to walk toward the centre of the old town, gripped as it was in glacial darkness.
    â€˜Silicon carbide?’ asked St-Cyr.
    â€˜It was close, Louis. Just be thankful the RAF came along when they did.’
    â€˜ Ah, bon , then it’s as I’ve thought. During the war of 1870–71, the region’s Francs-Tireurs constantly harassed the Prussians. Now it’s the turn of their descendants.’
    The region’s irregulars, its citizen soldiers. In Vichy, not a day—was it still only a day ago?—they’d had a final run-in with the FTP, the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans , a Résistance group started by Communist railway workers in Lyons. Tough—real sons of bitches who had put Louis at the top of their hit list simply because he had to work with one of the Occupier.
    â€˜Even though Alsace was taken in less than five days by the Prussians in 1870, Hermann, and Paris placed under siege and France defeated within five months, not five