course, but it did not matter. The bond of hatred that tied Noelle to Larry Douglas was so
strong it seemed that nothing important could ever happen to him without her knowing it.
Noelle took the report and left. When she returned home she read it over slowly, then
carefully filed it among the other reports and locked it up where it could not be found.
One Friday night after a performance, Noelle was in her dressing room at the theater
creaming off her makeup, when there was a knock at the door, and Marius, the elderly,
crippled stage doorman, entered.
“Pardon, Miss Page, a gentleman asked me to bring these to you.”
Noelle glanced up in the mirror and saw that he was carrying an enormous bouquet of
red roses in an exquisite vase.
“Set it down there, Marius,” Noelle said, and she watched as he carefully placed the
vase of roses on a table.
It was late November and no one in Paris had seen roses for more than three months.
There must have been four dozen of them, ruby red, long-stemmed, wet with dew.
Curious, Noelle walked over and picked up the card. It read: “To the lovely Fräulein Page.
Would you have supper with me? General Hans Scheider.”
The vase that the flowers rested in was delft, intricately patterned and very expensive.
General Scheider had gone to a great deal of trouble.
“He would like an answer,” the stage doorman said.
“Tell him I never eat supper and take these home to your wife.”
He stared at her in surprise. “But the General…”
“That is all.”
Marius nodded his head, picked up the vase and hurried out. Noelle knew that he
would rush to spread the story of how she had defied a German general. It had happened
before with other German officials, and the French people regarded her as some kind of
heroine. It was ridiculous. The truth of the matter was that Noelle had nothing against the
Nazis, she was merely indifferent to them. They were not a part of her life or her plans,
and she simply tolerated them, awaiting the day when they would return home. She knew
that if she became involved with any Germans it would hurt her. Not now, perhaps, but it
was not the present Noelle was concerned about; it was the future. She thought that the
idea of the Third Reich ruling for one thousand years was merde. Any student of history
knew that eventually all conquerors were conquered. In the meantime she would do
nothing that would allow her fellow Frenchmen to turn on her when the Germans were
finally ousted. She was totally untouched by the Nazi occupation and when the subject
came up—as it constantly did—Noelle avoided any discussion about it.
Fascinated by her attitude, Armand Gautier often tried to draw her out on the subject.
“Don’t you care that the Nazis have conquered France?” he would ask her.
“Would it matter if I cared?”