* * *
The first free morning he had, he visited the offices of Le Matin and asked if he could see their files on Victor Dubois. The pert young woman behind the reception desk shook her flaxen head.
‘The files we have are for the use of staff only, Monsieur.’ Her acid tone challenged him not even to rephrase his question. She stared at him fixedly for a second too long and then she turned back to her typewriter. He stood there, uncertain of how to proceed. He felt helpless; young women made him nervous at the best of times, and this one, with her green-lidded eyes and maroon mouth was terrifying. Just then, a man came into the reception area from a back office. He nodded at Ari before giving Pert Miss some papers. He was about to turn away when Ari asked him if he was a reporter.
‘Yes. Yes, I am.’
‘May I have a few minutes of your time, please?’
‘In connection with . . . ?’
‘I would like to find some information about a certain government Minister.’ Ari could feel hard blue orbs boring into the back of his head. He kept his face turned towards the reporter. The man seemed to hesitate, his eyes focussed over Ari’s shoulder. Ari could almost feel the young woman shaking her head behind him, willing the reporter not to agree. With a sardonic smile the man shifted his eyes back to Ari’s face,
‘Yes, I have some time. Would you like to come back to my office?’ The man turned and Ari followed meekly, not daring to look back at the receptionist.
The newsroom was noisy, with the insistent ringing of ignored telephones, loud conversations and clattering typewriters. He was grateful that he was led past all this chaos to a small quiet office at the end. When the door was shut, the man indicated a chair to Ari and sat down behind the desk, after taking off his jacket and unbuttoning his collar.
‘Lefevre, Yves Lefevre, political correspondent. How can I help you, Monsieur . . . ?’
‘Mayer. Aristide Mayer.’ They shook hands over the cluttered desk and there was short silence while Ari gathered his thoughts, wondering how much he could confide in this man.
‘I am interested in finding out some background information about Victor Dubois and I thought possibly that I could have access to the archives of the newspaper . . .’ his voice trailed off. He was a bit embarrassed at the sudden piercing look directed at him. Lefevre appeared to be about thirty years old and had a thin clever face with knowing, cynical grey eyes. A young Humphrey Bogart face, Ari thought, even to the cigarette hanging on his lip.
‘Why are you interested in Victor Dubois, Monsieur Mayer?’
Ari thought he could say that he was doing research for a project, but he was a truthful man and he knew he could not sustain a lie. Besides, this man might be able to help him.
‘I am interested in finding out more about his early years, particularly what he did before and during the War.’
‘And why is that?’
‘I think I met him in 1942.’
‘But you must have been, how old . . . seventeen, eighteen, at the end of the war? And Dubois is at least twenty-five years older than you? Did you join up at any time?’
‘No, I left France in July of that year. I was fourteen and went to live in Scotland as a refugee after my father was arrested and sent to Auschwitz.’
‘Dubois’ profile shows nothing before 1945 when he is said to have come back from a labour camp.’ Lefevre raised a questioning eyebrow, his eyes squinting through the curling smoke.
Ari was fascinated by the cigarette that seemed to be part of the lip it clung to, it did not drop out of Lefevre’s mouth even when he spoke, showering ash onto his far-from-clean waistcoat and loosened tie.
‘That is just my problem. I cannot prove categorically that I saw him in Paris in 1942. Even his name was different. I believe he was called Jacques Marteau in those days, or that was his code name. It is just my gut feeling that it is the same person.’ Ari watched, relieved, as Lefevre concentrated on stubbing out the Gitane and exhaling a great cloud of smoke into the already airless little room. Immediately he took up the crumpled blue pack and, finding it empty, squashed it and aimed it at the bin.
‘And why should you have a gut feeling? How did you meet this man, Jacques Marteau, that you think became Dubois?’ the younger man asked slowly, his attention absorbed in opening a new packet of cigarettes.
Ari made a decision. He hadn’t been prepared for any interrogation and he felt nervous under the scrutiny of the man opposite him, but he would just have to trust this new acquaintance. He leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath and out tumbled the story of his life. It was a relief to tell it to someone. He had never spoken of these things to anyone except Rose, and she had been part of the drama; it was as if rusted sluice-gates were opened.
‘It all goes back to about 1935 when Anti-Semitic feeling was rising in France. We lived in St. Ouen at the time. My mother was brutally beaten to death in the street by young hooligans on her way home from shopping in the town and it is possible that one of these was Jacques. After that my father took me and my young brother away to live in the southern suburbs of Paris. We lived there quite happily until the war came and my father was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. Just before that day, a man came into my father’s shop and my father recognised him from the days when we lived in St Ouen. My father warned me after the man had left to be careful of him as he was dangerous. I was witness to my father’s arrest a couple of days later and this man Jacques was present at the scene of my father’s arrest. Recently I recognised him at a reception. He calls himself Victor Dubois.’
Lefevre jotted down his notes in shorthand, but he had to stop Ari several times to make sense of his jumbled speech. At one stage he held up his hand and picked up the phone to ask for some coffee to be brought in. Then he nodded and Ari continued his tale until finally, after about an hour, he sat back with a sigh. The torrent of words ceased. Lefevre still sat, pencil poised, but realised that that was all he would get for now. The room was quiet except for the soft ticking of a travelling alarm clock on Lefevre’s desk. Ari felt awkward at the stillness.
‘Of course, there is no proof,’ he stuttered, ‘It is merely my word, the word of one, who, as a child, only saw the man two or three times, more than thirty years ago. How would I make anyone believe me if I accused him publicly of Nazi collaboration? There is no tangible link that I know of, except in my head.’ He stopped to gather his thoughts, then spoke more slowly, ‘I have spoken casually to several people who knew Jacques in the old days and I have a file full of notes of what they said. None of it seems pertinent. It was only when I was at that reception this week that a chance expression on the face of Victor Dubois opened my eyes to the fact that he was the same man who has haunted my dreams for three decades. Then I thought that I should try and find out more about him and see if there are any clues that would positively connect him with Jacques, or with the Nazis.’
Lefevre offered his packet of cigarettes, but Ari shook his head. He felt ill with all the smoke he had already inhaled. Ari loved to smoke a cigar now and then, but, he thought wryly, the man opposite him may as well have eaten the packet of cigarettes without bothering to light the contents!
The ashtray was spilling over with half-smoked butts and the journalist tipped the contents into his wastepaper bin before lighting up again. In measured tones he said, ‘Strictly off the record, I have to tell you that we share an interest in the man. I have also been intrigued by the fact that in his biography there is nothing concrete before 1945. You mentioned that he was supposed to be in the Résistance but was actually working for the Nazis and that he was called Jacques Marteau?’
‘That is what I believe, yes.’
‘Well, I too have asked a lot of questions, but after all, Dubois is a powerful man and one can’t be too careful. I suppose that is why no-one I have met is prepared to commit to a firm statement. Even my usual sources are fuzzy about those days. I am interested precisely because it is all so vague.’ He stubbed out his c
igarette before rummaging in a drawer and took out a large buff manila envelope. He extracted some typed pages from it and pushed them across the desk. ‘This is a copy of all I have on Dubois. There is nothing that goes further back than 1945. If he was a Nazi agent called Jacques Marteau then he has hidden that very, very carefully.’ Ari picked up the pages, still looking at his new acquaintance’s face. ‘You may keep those. I have another copy.’ Lefevre replaced the envelope in the drawer and leaned his elbows on the desk, speaking in a confiding way.
‘This is bigger than it appears on the surface. If we pool our information perhaps we can do something about him. I would really like to see your notes. I personally don’t believe he is who he says he is. I am keeping these enquiries secret but I too am preparing a dossier, then when I have something definite I am going to go public with the story. I am going to enjoy bringing him down!’ Ari was startled at the intense emotion in the other man and wanted to ask him why he felt so strongly about Dubois, but he thought better of it.
‘In the meantime, I am just going to publish questions about him,’ Lefevre went on in a more normal tone. ‘My editor is a bit edgy to be too frank about it at the moment. Dubois is still an important man, even though he is about to retire. We know he has influential connections, so we have to step cautiously. The editor doesn’t want a court-case on his hands,’ Lefevre said bitterly. ‘If we are right and Dubois is who we think he is, going further into this can become very dangerous. Are you prepared for this?’
There was a long silence in which Ari stared at the man in front of him. His mind was racing, questions tumbling around in his brain. He could do with help, but could this man really be trusted? He was loath to confide in others, but it was getting difficult on his own. Was it worth losing his life for, as Lefevre had seemed to imply? Ari made an internal decision and folded the flimsy typed sheets carefully and tucked them into his inside jacket pocket. He realised he was afraid to step out and surrender his cherished obscurity, but he had to do what was right for his father’s sake.
‘So, what do we do now?’
‘We keep in touch. Just keep asking questions, keeping our heads down. That’s all we can do at this stage.’ Lefevre scratched around in his desk drawer again and pulled out a visiting card and scribbled a number on the back. ‘This number should get me if I am not in the office.’ Just then the phone on the desk rang shrilly, making Ari jump. The spell was broken and the interview was at an end. He stood up and moved to the glass-panelled door of the office as Lefevre put the receiver between his shoulder and ear in order to light yet another cigarette. He lifted a hand in a vague gesture of farewell and Ari left the smoky room, unaware of the man’s narrowed gaze on his back as he walked through the noisy outer office.
Ari was grateful to get out into the fresh air and he rushed home, only stopping at the boulangerie for fresh bread. As he grilled some kebabs and made a mixed vegetable salad, he pulled out the typed pages and scanned them avidly for information about his enemy. There was not much, scarcely covering three pages of typescript. He read through these as he ate, hardly tasting his food for once.
According to Lefevre’s notes, Victor Dubois had been in a German labour camp during the war. It did not specify which one. He had returned to France in 1946 and had begun working in local government. He had risen through the ranks of the Gaullist Party and had eventually gone into national politics. In time he had reached a position in the Cabinet of the ruling party. Everyone acclaimed him as that rare bird, an honest politician. He was handsome and courteous, never seemed to put a foot wrong. He had been faithful to his wife of many years, so his publicity read, and had two beautiful daughters. They lived in a large country house just outside of Paris and he always had the interests of the common people at heart. In fact, he was a model of propriety and honesty. The exemplary Golden Boy, Ari grunted, but no information about his life before 1945. Strange. Only a brief statement of his having been born in Brittany. No town or village was mentioned. It’s as though he sprung into the world full grown. Very odd. All Ari could do was file away this information and keep asking questions.