The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

  “Did you have a reservation on the plane?”

  “Naturally. I just never showed up.”

  “Good, but not good enough. Delavane’s people are efficient. Leifhelm has connections at every airport and immigration point in Germany. They’ll find out otherwise. We might have fooled them once tonight, not twice. My guess is there’s a German waiting for you at the Amstel now, probably in your room. I want him to think you’re coming back, that you’re still here.”

  “If someone like that goes to my room—into my room—he’s in for a shock.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone else is there. An old man with a long memory, who’s been given instructions I’d rather not repeat.”

  “Your aunt’s doing?”

  “She sees things in black and white, no grays. There is the enemy and there is not the enemy. And anyone who would harm her sister’s daughter is very definitely the enemy. You don’t know these people, Joel. They live in the past; they never forget. They’re old now and not what they once were, but they remember what they were and why they did the things they did. It was so simple for them. Good and evil. They live with those memories—frankly, it’s a little scary, they’re a little scary, to tell you the truth. Nothing in their lives since has been so alive, so important to them. I honestly think they’d all prefer going back to those days, the horror and all.”

  “What about your aunt, though? After everything that’s been said about me in the newspapers and on television, she went along with you? She didn’t ask any questions? The fact that you were her sister’s daughter was enough?”

  “Oh, no, she asked one very specific question and I answered it. That was enough. I must tell you, though. She’s odd—very odd—but she can do what has to be done and that’s all that matters.”

  “Okay.… You will go back tonight?”

  “Yes,” said Val, nodding. “It’s reasonable and I can do more from New York in the morning than from here. From everything you’ve said, every hour’s important.”

  “Vital. Thanks.… Also you may have trouble reaching Sam. I don’t have any idea where he is and the services aren’t cooperative when it comes to a woman trying to locate an officer—especially one with high rank. It’s too complicated—an overseas love affair, a child the man never knew about, probably not his—they’re very circumspect.”

  “Then I won’t ask them to tell me where he is. I’ll say I’m a relative he’s been trying to reach, that I travel a great deal and if he wishes to call me, I’ll be at the such-and-such hotel for the next twenty-four hours. Certainly they have to relay that kind of message to a general.”

  “Certainly,” agreed Joel. “But if you leave your name, you’re risking too much. For you and Sam.”

  “I’ll use a variation, one he’ll recognize.” Valerie blinked, staring at the ground. “Like Parquet—only, I’ll feminize it—Parquette. A floor, wood—something associated with a Charpentier, a carpenter. Then I’ll add Virginia—he’d remember Ginny because of you. Virginia Parquette, he’ll figure it out.”

  “He probably will. So might others. When you don’t show up tonight, Leifhelm will have the airports checked. They could pick you up at Kennedy.”

  “Then I’ll lose them at LaGuardia. I’ll go to a motel where I stay when I take the plane to Boston. I’ll check in and get out without their knowing it.”

  “You’re very quick.”

  “I told you, my roots go back; I’ve heard the stories.… Now, what about you?”

  “I’ll stay out of sight. I’m getting pretty good at it and I can pay for anything I need.”

  “Your words, Converse: ‘Not good enough.’ The more money you spread, the more of a trail you leave. They’ll find you. You have to get out of Amsterdam too.”

  “Well, I could slip across a few borders and head down to Paris for my old suite at the George Cinq. Of course, it might be a little obvious, but then if I tipped high enough—they are French.”

  “Don’t try to be funny.”

  “I don’t feel remotely amusing. Also, I’d like a private toilet and a shower—even a secondhand bath. The rooms I find you can’t find in the most esoteric travel guides.”

  “You haven’t had a shower in God knows how long, that much I can tell you in the open air.”

  “Oh, beware the wife who’s offended by her husband’s hygiene. It’s a sign of something.”

  “Cut it out, Joel, I’m not your wife.… I’ve got to be able to reach you.”

  “Let me think, I’m also getting very inventive. I’ll figure out something. I could—”

  “I’ve already figured it out,” interrupted Val firmly. “Before I flew over I talked with my aunt.”

  “From your house?”

  “From the midtown hotel in New York where I registered under a different name.”

  “You were thinking about your phone.”

  “Not the way you were. I told her what I thought had happened, what I was going to try to do. She came to see me in Berlin last night. She talked up a storm—how she could do this, do that—but it all boiled down to the fact that she’ll help. She’ll hide you. So will others.”

  “In Germany?”

  “Yes. She lives in the countryside, on the outskirts of Osnabrück. It’s the safest place you could go, the last place those people would think to look for you.”

  “How do I get back into Germany? It was rough enough getting out! Delavane’s people aside, every border’s on the alert, my photograph on every wall.”

  “I talked to Hermione this afternoon, after you called—from a pay phone; she was staying with a friend. She started making arrangements right away, and when I flew in here a few hours ago, an old man met me at the airport, the same man you’ll be staying with tonight. You don’t know him but you’ve seen him; he was riding the bicycle in the Museumplein. I was taken to a house on the Lindengracht where I was to call my aunt; the phone was what they term ‘unberührt,’ clean, untouched.”

  “My God, they are back in the forties.”

  “Not much has changed, has it?”

  “No, I guess not. What did she say?”

  “Only your instructions. Late tomorrow afternoon, when the terminal’s full, you’re to go to the Central Station here in Amsterdam and walk around by the information booth. A woman will come up to you and say hello, saying she recognized you as someone she met in Los Angeles. Respond to her, and during the conversation she’ll hand you an envelope. Inside will be a passport, a letter, and a train ticket.”

  “A passport? How?”

  “All they needed was a photograph. I knew that much when I left your father in Cape Ann.”

  “You knew?”

  “I told you, I’ve heard the stories all my life. How they got Jews and Gypsies and all the men who parachuted down from planes out of Germany and into neutral or occupied countries. The false papers, the photographs, they became an art form.”

  “And you brought a photograph?”

  “It seemed logical. Roger thought so, too. Remember, he was in that war.”

  “Logical … a photograph.”

  “Yes. I found one in an album. Do you remember when we went to the Virgin Islands and you scorched yourself that first day in the sun?”

  “Sure. You made me wear a tie to dinner and my neck was killing me.”

  “I was trying to teach you a lesson. That picture’s a close-up. I wanted your sunburn in all its agony.”

  “It’s still ray face, Val.”

  “That photograph was taken eight years ago and the burn softened your features. It’ll do.”

  “Don’t I have to know anything?”

  “If you’re detained for that kind of questioning, you’ll probably be caught. My aunt doesn’t think you will be.”

  “Why is she so confident?”

  “The letter. It spells out what you’re doing.”

  “Which is?”

  “A pilgrimage to Bergen-Belsen, later to Auschwitz
in Poland. It’s written in German and you’re to hand it to anyone who stops you because you speak only English.”

  “But why would that—?”

  “You’re a priest,” interrupted Valerie. “The pilgrimage was financed by an organization in Los Angeles called the Coalition of Christians and Jews for World Peace and Repentance. Only a German very sure of himself will call attention to you. I’ve got a dark suit in your size in my tote bag, along with a black hat, shoes, and a clerical collar. The instructions will be with your ticket. You’ll take the northern express to Hanover where you’re supposed to switch trains for Celle and be driven to Bergen-Belsen in the morning, but of course you won’t. When you reach Osnabrück, get off. My aunt will be waiting for her priest. And by then I’ll be back in New York getting in touch with Sam.”

  Converse shook his head. “Val, it’s all very impressive, but you weren’t listening to me. Leifhelm’s men have seen me—in that station, as a matter of fact. They know what I look like.”

  “They saw a pale-faced man with a beard and a battered face. Shave off the beard tonight.”

  “And apply for cosmetic surgery?”

  “No, apply a generous amount of lotion called Instant Sun—it’s with the clothes I brought you. It’ll darken your face more like the photograph on the passport and also cover the bruises—they won’t be that noticeable. The black hat and the clerical collar will take care of the rest.”

  “Omens,” said Joel, touching the bruises on his face and noting that they were less painful. “Do you remember when you fell and hit the table in the foyer, the black eye?”

  “I was in a panic; I had a presentation the next day. You went out and got the makeup for me.”

  “I bought the same stuff this morning. It helped.”

  “I’m glad.”

  They looked at each other across the short distance between them in the moonlit field. “I’m sorry about everything, Val. I wish you weren’t part of this. If there was any other way I wouldn’t let you be, you know that.”

  “I know it, but it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I came over here because of a promise I made to myself—a promise I meant. Not you. I’m over you, Joel, believe that.”

  “The promise you made to yourself was provoked by me. Since I was the offending party of the second part, that should have canceled it.”

  “That’s probably a rotten legal opinion,” said Val, shifting her legs and looking away. “There’s also the obvious. Everything you’ve told me terrifies me—not fact A and fact B, or who’s conspiring with whom; I’m a landscape painter; I can’t deal with such things. But I’m so terribly afraid because I can personalize. I can see how these people—this Aquitaine—can win, can take control of our lives, turning us all into complacent flocks of sheep. Good God, Joel, we’d welcome them!”

  “I missed something.”

  “Then you’re blind. I don’t think it’s just women, or women who live alone like me, I think it’s most of the people walking around in the streets, trying to earn a living, trying to make the rent or a mortgage or a car payment, trying to make it through life. We’re sick of everything around us! We’re told one minute we may be blown up in a nuclear war unless we’re taxed out of our houses to pay for bigger bombs, and that our water’s contaminated, or that we can’t buy this or that because it might be poisoned. Children disappear, and people are killed walking into a store for a quart of milk, and addicts and muggers with guns and knives cut people down on the streets. I live in a small town and I won’t go there after dark, and if I’m in the city—any city—I look behind me in broad daylight, and I’ll be damned if I’ll get into an elevator unless it’s crowded.… I couldn’t afford it but I put in a burglar alarm system in a house I don’t own because there was a boat out in the water one day that stayed there overnight. In my mind I saw men crawling up the beach to my windows. We all see such things, whether out on the water, or down city blocks, or in a field like this. We’re frightened; we’re sick of the problems, sick of the violence. We want someone strong to stop it—and I’m not sure it even matters who they are. And if the men you’re talking about push things any further—believe me, they know what they’re doing. They can walk in and be crowned, no votes required.… And in spite of everything I’ve said, that’s even more frightening. Which is why you’re going to take me to the airport.”

  “Why did I ever let you go?” whispered Joel, more to himself than to her.

  “Cut it out, Converse. It’s over. We’re over.”

  * * *

  He watched from the darkest area of the parking lot at Amsterdam’s Schilphol Airport as the plane sped down the runway and lifted off into the night sky. He had driven up to a crowded platform where Val had gotten out, giving him the scrap of paper with the address that was to be his refuge for the night. So that he would know she had been able to get on board the flight, she was to come out the glass doors, look at her watch and go back inside. If the plane was overbooked, she was to continue on the pedestrian walk to the temporary lot a hundred yards away from the entrance where he would be waiting for her. She had come outside, glanced at her watch and returned to the terminal. A part of him had felt relief, another part a quiet, hollow emptiness.

  He watched the huge silver plane bank to the left and disappear, its fading lights a trajectory in the dark sky.

  He stood naked in front of the mirror in the small bathroom in the house on the Lindengracht. The car was some twenty streets away. He had made the return journey cautiously on foot. The old man who owned the flat was pleasant and spoke in haltingly clear English, but his eyes were far away and never really made contact. His mind was in another place, another time.

  Joel had shaved carefully, showered far longer than a guest should, and had finished applying the deep red lotion to his face, neck and hands. In moments his skin was bronzed. The result was far more authentic than it used to be with the earlier products he remembered, when anyone who used them stood out—the mask of sickly brown was too smooth and cosmeticized to be anything but unnatural. The new coloring further concealed the bruises on his face; he looked almost normal. He would discard the tinted glasses; they would only call attention to him, especially from anyone who had seen him or had been given his description. He washed his hands repeatedly, kneading them together to remove the stains from his fingertips.

  He stiffened. From somewhere beyond the door came the sound of an erratic bell. He quickly turned off the water and listened, his breathing suspended, his eyes on the gun he had placed on the narrow windowsill. He heard the sound again; it stopped. Then he heard a single voice, a man on a telephone. He dried his hands and slipped on the short cotton bathrobe that had been left on the bed in his small, immaculate room. He put the gun in his pocket, went out the door and down the dark, narrow hallway that led to the old man’s “study.” It was a former bedroom filled with old magazines, a few books, and tabloid newspapers on tables and chairs opened to the bloodiest sections, with red crayon marks circling articles and pictures. On the walls were prints and photographs of long-past wartime accomplishments—including corpses in various poses of death. In an odd way it reminded Converse of L’Etalon Blanc in Paris, except that here there were no glories of war, only the ugliness of death. It was more honest, he thought, if nothing else.

  “Ah, Meneer,” said the old man, sitting forward in a huge leather chair that engulfed his frail body, the telephone beside him. “You are safe, quite safe! That was Kabel—code name, Kabel, natuurlijk. He has left the hotel and reports his progress.” Fragile, in his seventies, the Dutchman struggled out of the chair and stood erect, his thin shoulders back, his body rigid—a foolish old man playing soldier. “Operation Osnabrück proceeds!” he said, as if reporting to a commanding officer. “As contemplated by underground intelligence reports, the enemy infiltrated the area and he has been compromised.”

  “He’s been what?”

  “Executed, Meneer. A wire around the throat, taken
from behind. The blood stays on the clothes as the neck is pulled back, thus there are no signs of combat and the enemy is removed from the place of compromise.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Kabel is strong for one of his age,” said the old man, grinning, his weathered face a thousand creases, his posture now relaxed. “He took the body from the room, dragged it to the fire exit, and down into the alley. From there he gained access to the cellars and put the corpse back by the furnaces. It is summer; the man may not be found for days—unless the stench becomes too much.”

  Converse heard the words, but his concentration was only on one. Compromise. In this odd language of another time it meant … execution. Execution … murder … assassination!

  What would you say to compromising certain powerful individuals in specific governments …? Leifhelm’s words.

  It wouldn’t work. His own.

  You do not take into consideration the time element! Accumulation! Rapid acceleration! Chaim Abrahms.

  Good Christ! thought Joel. Was that what the generals of Aquitaine meant? Assassinations? Was it the reason for the glaring, disapproving looks directed at the Israeli and Abrahms’ sudden retreat into qualification, then dismissal: It’s merely a point … I’m not sure it even applies.

  Accumulation, rapid acceleration, one after another—national leaders cut down everywhere. Presidents and prime ministers, ministers of state and vice-presidents, powerful men and women from all shades of the narrow, acceptable political spectrums violently eliminated—governments in chaos. All to take place in a matter of hours, savagery erupting in the streets, fueled by hysteria, victims and violators blurred until the commanders were summoned to restore order, not to leave until the controls were theirs. The climate was established, the day was coming. Assassinations!

  He had to get back into Germany. He had to reach Osnabrück and be there when Val called. Sam Abbott had to be told.

  29

  His hands manacled and chained, his wounded right forearm encased in a filthy bandage, Connal Fitzpatrick gripped the ledge of the small window and peered out beyond the bars at the strange, violent activity taking place on the huge concrete parade ground. That it was a parade ground had been clear on the second morning of his capture when, along with the other prisoners, he was granted an hour’s exercise outside the concrete barracks—and they were barracks—once part of an old refueling station for submarines was his guess. The slips along the water as well as the winching machinery were far too small and too obsolete for today’s nuclear marauders—no Trident could fit in any space along the concrete and steel piers—but once, he judged, the base had served the German undersea Navy well.