“Then why would they do this?”
Noelle began to move around the room, straightening the furniture, thinking hard.
Gautier grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. “I want to know what’s happening.”
She took a deep breath. “All right.”
She told him of the meeting with Israel Katz, leaving out his name and the
conversation later with Colonel Mueller. “I don’t know that my friend is Le Cafard, but it
is possible.”
Gautier sank into a chair, stunned. “My God!” he exclaimed. “I don’t care who he is!
I don’t want you to have anything more to do with him. We could both be destroyed
because of this. I hate the Germans as much as you do…” He stopped, not sure whether
Noelle hated the Germans or not. He began again, “Cherie, as long as the Germans are
making the rules, we must live under them. Neither of us can afford to get involved with
the Gestapo. This Jew—what did you say his name was?”
“I didn’t say.”
He looked at her a moment. “Was he your lover?”
“No, Armand.”
“Does he mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Well, then.” Gautier sounded relieved. “I don’t think we have anything to worry
about. They can’t blame you if you had one accidental meeting with him. If you don’t see
him again, they’ll forget the whole thing.”
“Of course they will,” Noelle said.
On the way to the theater the next evening, Noelle was followed by two Gestapo
men.
From that day on Noelle was followed everywhere she went. It first began as a feeling, a
premonition that she was being stared at. Noelle would turn and see in a crowd a young
Teutonic-looking man in civilian clothes who seemed to be paying no attention to her.
Later, the feeling would return, and this time it would be another young Teutonic-looking
man. It was always someone different and though they were in plain clothes, they wore a
uniform that was distinctively theirs: an attitude of contempt, superiority and cruelty, and
the emanations were unmistakable.
Noelle said nothing to Gautier about what was happening for she saw no point in
alarming him any further. The incident with the Gestapo in the apartment had made him
very nervous. He could talk of nothing but what the Germans could do to both his and
Noelle’s career if they wished to, and Noelle was aware that he was right. One had only to
look at the daily newspapers to know that the Nazis showed no mercy to their enemies.
There had been several telephone messages from General Scheider, but Noelle had