The Rendezvous Read Free Page A

the night in a cell in the basement, with an S.S. man on duty to see she didn’t try to lie down or sleep. For the last three hours he had made her stand upright against the wall. Brunnerman glanced up at her; she was looking over his head with an expression of frightened obstinacy on her face. She was a very pretty girl; he could think, quite dispassionately, what a pity it was that she should end up in the Avenue Foch. She was the sort of girl he might have met at a party and taken out to dinner.
    â€˜Now, mademoiselle, I’ve sent Major Freischer away so that we can talk. Would you like a cigarette?’
    â€˜No,’ Terese Masson said. ‘And you’re wasting your time. You’ll get nothing out of me.’
    He smiled at her and lit his own cigarette. ‘You don’t have to be aggressive with me; I’m not going to hurt you. And it’s foolish not to have a cigarette if you want one – you’ll be here a long time. You must be hungry by now. Of course, you probably had something on the train coming back from Lyons, a sandwich perhaps – who sent you to Lyons, mademoiselle?’
    â€˜Nobody,’ the girl said.
    She didn’t even pretend to tell the truth. She had large brown eyes, which were a surprise because she was so blonde, and they stared at him fiercely, like a cornered animal. A lot of people cursed and swore at him within the first hour; some of the women stood up and shrieked obscenities at him just to destroy the atmosphere of normality he was creating. This girl was going to fight him as hard as she could because he wasn’t behaving as she expected. Nobody had threatened her or hit her. He was relaxed, almost friendly. ‘How old are you?’ he said suddenly.
    â€˜You know,’ she said. ‘You’ve got my papers.’
    â€˜Eighteen,’ Brunnerman said. ‘You’re very young to be mixed up in this. You should be out with your young man this evening, enjoying yourself.’
    â€˜I haven’t got a young man,’ she said. ‘You’ve taken them all for your filthy labour camps.’
    He ignored the remark. ‘You went to Lyons,’ he said, ‘to give a message to a man at the Café Madeleine on the Rue Castigilione. You sat at a table and he sat down and tried to pick you up. You moved to another table, but you left a piece of paper for him under your plate. Then you had your meal, walked round the town for a while and then took the train back to Paris. This is what you did. When you got to the barrier at the Gare du Lyon you were arrested and brought here. Do you want to know how I know all this?’
    â€˜No,’ she said. ‘No, I don’t want to know anything.’
    Her hands had moved from her lap and were holding the sides of the chair seat.
    â€˜I’ll tell you anyway,’ he said. ‘Because I think you ought to know. You were betrayed, mademoiselle. One of our agents was waiting at the Café Madeleine – he saw you meet the contact, leave the message for him. Your contact was arrested the moment he left the place. Everything you did was known; we wanted you for interrogation here in Paris, that’s why you were allowed to catch the train back. The man you met at Lyons is being interrogated at Lyons now. I shall ring up in front of you and find out what he’s told them.’
    â€˜He won’t have told you anything,’ Terese Masson said. ‘You needn’t lie to me. I’m not afraid of you.’ She leant back against the chair; her whole body ached with tiredness.
    He picked up the telephone and spoke into it in German.
    â€˜You don’t have to be afraid of me,’ he said. ‘I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. But you ought to be afraid of Major Freischer.’
    There was some delay in getting through; he held on, smoking his cigarette. This was the first part of the technique. The girl had been told what would happen to