LITMIR.BIZ

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“We don’t talk about anyone in Les Laveuses. We wouldn’t tell on our neighbors.”

      I nodded. That wouldn’t be fair.

      “Anyway, in Angers it’s different. Everyone’s doing it here.”

      I considered this.

      “I could find things out too.”

      “What do you know?” said Cassis scornfully.

      I almost told him what I’d said to Leibniz about Madame Petit and the parachute silk, but decided against it. Instead I asked the question that had been troubling me since Cassis had first mentioned their arrangement with the Germans.

      “What do they do when you tell them things? Do they shoot people? Do they send them to the front?”

      “Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

      “Then what?”

      But Cassis was no longer listening to me. Instead his eyes were on the newspaper stand by the church opposite, where a black-haired boy of about his own age was watching us insistently. The boy made an impatient gesture in our direction. Cassis paid for our drinks and stood up.

      “Come on,” he said.

      Reinette and I followed him. Cassis seemed on friendly terms with the other boy-I supposed he knew him from school. I caught a few words about holiday work, and a snort of low, nervous laughter. Then I saw him slip a folded piece of paper into Cassis’s hand.

      “See you later,” said Cassis, moving casually away.

      The note was from Hauer.

      Meet me at twelve by the school gate. I have something for you.

      Only Hauer and Leibniz spoke good French, Cassis explained as we took turns reading the note. The others-Heinemann and Schwartz-knew only basic French, but Leibniz especially might have been a Frenchman himself, someone from Alsace-Lorraine perhaps, with the guttural dialect of the region.

      For some reason I sensed that this pleased Cassis, as if passing information to an almost-Frenchman were somehow less reprehensible.

      Reinette touched the paper with her fingertips. Her face was flushed with excitement.

      “What time is it now?” she said. “Will we be late?”

      Cassis shook his head.

      “Not with the bikes,” he said, trying for a laconic tone. “Let’s see what they’ve got for us.”

      As we retrieved the bikes from their usual place in the alley, I noticed that Reinette took a compact from her pocket and quickly checked her reflection. She frowned; snaking the gold lipstick from the pocket of her dress she retouched her lips in scarlet, smiled, retouched, smiled again. The compact closed. I was not entirely surprised. It was clear to me from the first trip that she had something on her mind besides moving-picture shows. The care with which she dressed, the attention she gave to her hair, the lipstick and the perfume… All this must be for the benefit of someone. To tell the truth I was not especially interested. I was used to Reine and her ways. At twelve she already looked sixteen. With her hair curled in that sophisticated style and her lips reddened, she might have been older. I had already seen the looks she got from people in the village. Paul Hourias grew tongue-tied and bashful when she was around. Even Jean-Benet Darius, who was an old man of nearly forty, and Guguste Ramondin or Raphaël at the café… Boys looked at her; I knew that. And she noticed them-from her first day at the collège she had been full of tales about the boys she met there. One week it might be Justin, who had such wonderful eyes, or Raymond, who made the whole class laugh, or Pierre-André, who could play chess, or Guillaume, whose parents moved from Paris last year… Thinking back I could even remember when those tales stopped. It must have been about the same time the German garrison moved in.

      I gave an inward shrug of indifference. There was certainly a mystery of some kind, I told myself, but Reinette’s secrets rarely intrigued me.

      Hauer was standing guard at the gate. I could see him better in daylight; a broad-faced German with an almost expressionless face. In a low voice he told us, “Upriver-about ten minutes,” speaking from the corner of his mouth, then waved at us in mock impatience, as if to send us packing. We got on our bikes again without giving him a second glance, even Reinette, which led me to think that Hauer could not be the object of her infatuation.

      Less than ten minutes later we caught sight of Leibniz. At first I thought he was out of uniform, but then I simply saw that he had removed his jacket and boots and was dangling his feet over the parapet beneath which the sly brown Loire was rushing. He greeted us with a cheery wave and beckoned for us to join him. We dragged the bikes down the banking so that they would not be visible from the road, then came to sit beside him. He looked younger than I remembered, almost as young as Cassis, though he moved with a careless assurance that my brother would never have, however much he tried to achieve it.

      Cassis and Reinette stared at him in silence, like children at the zoo watching some dangerous animal. Reinette was scarlet. Leibniz seemed unimpressed by our scrutiny and lit a cigarette, grinning.

      “The widow Petit…” he said at last through a mouthful of smoke. “Very good.” He chuckled. “Parachute silk and a thousand other things, she was a real black market free-for-all.” He gave me a wink. “Good work, Backfisch.”

      The others looked at me in surprise, but said nothing. I remained silent, torn between pleasure and anxiety at his approving words.

      “I’ve had some luck this week,” continued Leibniz in the same tone. “Chewing gum, chocolate and”-he reached into his pocket and brought out a package-“this.”

      This turned out to be a handkerchief, lace edged, which he handed to Reinette. My sister blushed scarlet with confusion.

      Then he turned to me.

      “And what about you, Backfisch, what is it you want?” He grinned. “Lipstick? Face cream? Silk stockings? No, that’s more your sister’s line. Doll? Teddy bear?”

      He was mocking me gently, his eyes bright and filled with silvery reflections.

      Now was the time to admit that my mention of Madame Petit had been nothing but a careless slip of the tongue. But Cassis was still looking at me with that expression of astonishment; Leibniz was smiling; and a gleam of an idea had come into my head.

      I did not hesitate.

      “Fishing tackle,” I said at once. “Proper good fishing tackle.” I paused and fixed him with an insolent look, staring him straight in the eyes. “And an orange.”

      17

      We met him again, in the same place, a week later. Cassis gave him a rumor about late-night gambling at Le Chat Rouget and a few words he’d overheard from Curé Traquet outside the cemetery about a secret cache of church silver.

      But Leibniz seemed preoccupied.

      “I had to keep this from the others,” he told me. “They might not have liked me giving it to you.”

      From under the army jacket lying carelessly on the riverbank he drew out a narrow green-canvas bag about a meter long that made a small rattling sound as he pushed it toward me. “It’s for you,” he said as I hesitated.

      “Go on.”

      In the bag was a fishing rod. Not a new one, but even I could see that it was a fine piece, dark bamboo worn almost black with age and a gleaming metal reel that spun beneath my fingers just as neatly as if it were on ball bearings. I gave a long, slow sigh of amazement.

      “Is it… mine?” I asked, not daring quite to believe it.

      Leibniz laughed, a bright, uncomplicated sound.

      “Of course,” he said. “We fishermen have to stick together, don’t we?”

      I touched the rod with tentative, eager fingers. The reel felt cool and slightly oily to the touch, as if had been packed in grease.

      “But you’ll have to keep it safe, eh, Backfisch?” he told me. “No going telling

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