Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

The master of ceremonies bawled, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mademoiselle Genevieve Dumont!” to open the second half of the show.

Genevieve’s palms were sweating. She stood center stage, front, as the curtains parted and the trio of spotlights hit her. Their warmth was welcome—she was freezing cold—but the sense of exposure that came with them was not. Dazzled by their brightness, unable to see beyond the first few rows, she did her best to block from her consciousness the soldiers standing guard in the wings. A few stagehands—enough to work the curtains and lights—apparently had been cleared by the Nazis and allowed to go about their business, because that’s what they were doing, but they seemed to be under constant watch. There’d been no sign of Berthe or any of the chorus on her way to the stage. She could only pray that they would be released soon. A search of the theater was being conducted, just as she had feared. Knowing how methodical the Germans were, she had no doubt it would be thorough. That thought, coupled with the ticking time bomb that was Max trapped in her dressing room with Touvier’s corpse, was part of what was making her palms sweat. And her heart race. And her knees quiver like jelly.

The other part, which was just starting to set in, was reaction to having almost been killed. And to having a man killed right in front of her. Having Max kill a man right in front of her.

For her.

I can’t think about that now. I have to think about the music, the song.

“Parlez-moi d’amour” was staged with her alone at the piano. She played; she sang. No other accompaniment, no backing vocals, no chorus or dancers or spectacle of any kind to take the focus off her performance.

The audience was on its feet, welcoming her back. The deep red horseshoe that was the auditorium sounded like it was full to bursting.

I am Genevieve Dumont. She summoned the protective armor of her star persona and felt it settle around her like a cloak.

For the first time ever, she wasn’t sure it was going to be enough.

Lifting her chin, she smiled gaily at the audience, then as more waves of applause hit, she curtsied and threw kisses to them in acknowledgment.

While she’d been greeting them, the grand piano had been carried out to occupy center stage behind her. Turning toward it with a theatrical swish of her skirt, she reached out desperately to grasp the talent that was the one thing in her life that had never failed her.

Max was in the wings. She spotted him with a sense of shock. There was no mistaking his tall, lean form. Deep in shadows, his eyes fixed on her, he was flanked by a pair of soldiers.

Was he under arrest? Did they find him with Touvier’s body? Did they know what he was?

The gloom surrounding him coupled with the dazzle of the spotlights in her eyes made it impossible for her to read anything in his face, his stance.

Hahn stood near him: she recognized his vulture-like profile as he turned his head to track her progress.

My God, my God.

The spotlights following her felt bright as a thousand suns. There would be no concealing her slightest expression, her smallest move from such a close observer as Hahn.

I must act as if nothing’s wrong.

Smoothing her voluminous skirt beneath her, she took her seat on the bench. Chills coursed through her body. She had to set her teeth against the bone-deep cold that threatened to set them to chattering. Seated now, too, the audience was silent. She could feel their anticipation reaching out to her.

She adjusted the microphone, took a breath, positioned her feet on the pedals and her hands on the keys.

To her horror, she realized her hands were unsteady. Fine tremors shook her fingers.

She couldn’t play like this.

Panic formed a hard knot in her chest, tightened her throat.

She wasn’t sure she could sing.

Her stomach turned inside out.

You can do this. You have to do this.

Hahn was watching. The soldiers were watching. Every single Nazi in an audience full of them was watching.

Swallowing in an attempt to loosen up her throat, she flexed her fingers, wet her lips.

The choking sensation didn’t abate.

The expectant silence of the audience increased in intensity until she could feel it beating at her like a battering ram.

She could feel the weight of Hahn’s gaze.

Someone slid onto the bench beside her, startling her. She threw a quick, questioning glance sideways.

Max.

A warm wash of relief did battle with the chills attacking her as she watched him settle his stick—he’d found it; what did that mean?—on the floor near his feet.

If he was in custody, desperate, afraid for his life, afraid for hers, it didn’t show.

His eyes were steady on hers. He was so close their bodies brushed. The spotlights picked up blue highlights in his black hair, threw shadows that emphasized the chiseled bone structure beneath his hard, handsome face.

“Duet?” he murmured.

As all the conversations they urgently needed to have—Are you under arrest? What did you do with Touvier’s body?—were clearly impossible under the circumstances, she whispered back, “Yes, please.”

Whatever happened after, right now she had Max, solid and capable, beside her. Already she could feel the worst of the choking sensation receding.

He started to play. She closed her eyes, folded her hands in her lap and willed the music to fill her.

The first vocal cue came, and she wasn’t ready. Her throat still felt a little stiff, her diaphragm tight.

She didn’t worry. She’d performed with Max many times. Not on a stage like this, but in bars and nightclubs and rehearsal halls and a host of other places. He could carry the song until she could take it.

“Parlez-moi d’amour...” Max sang. He possessed a nice baritone with good timbre and shading, a little husky, decent range, not quite professional quality, but certainly adequate for this song. She listened to his familiar voice and felt the fear that had wound itself around her throat and diaphragm fade, felt the tension in her muscles ease, felt the music flowing inside her again with all the life-giving force of the blood in her veins.

“Parlez-moi d’amour...” The words came trilling out of her throat, blending with his. He stayed in the lower register, the harmony, as her voice soared above his, taking the vocals to the haunting, arena-filling levels that had made her famous. They shared the microphone, their faces so close she could feel the warm prickle of his cheek brushing hers. She was searingly conscious of how close her mouth was to his, of the latent power in his body, of the quicksilver grace of his hands on the keys. As the song reached its crescendo, she could feel a magical kind of chemistry flowing between them, feel the audience’s rapt reaction, feel the electricity in the air. At last, almost reluctant, she brought it down, entwining her voice with his, ending on a softly poignant note that she held as he played beneath it. At the end, as they looked deeply into each other’s eyes and the music faded away, the intensity of their connection was such that she was startled when the audience broke into rapturous applause.

Wrapping an arm around her waist, Max slid his lips across her cheek. She felt the heat of it clear down to her toes. Entirely of its own volition, her body softened and leaned into him. She felt almost intoxicated and was not entirely sure if it was from the music—or the man.

“Carry on as usual. They don’t know about us,” he whispered into her ear.

For maybe half a heartbeat, she was transfixed by the feel of his lips brushing the delicate whorls.

Then she registered the message. Just as quickly as that, the magic of the music and the performance evaporated.

She came back to earth with a thud. Touvier, Hahn, the search. The audience, applauding wildly.

The terrible danger they were in.

Fear settled like a rock in her stomach. With thousands of eyes on her, most of which were Nazi eyes, she did the only thing she could: pretend like everything was fine.

Head clear now, she looked at Max, to find that his eyes were fixed on her face.

“All right?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.” Her voice was equally low. Her eyes held his. “Max—thank you.”

He gave her a small, wry smile. “Anytime, angel.”

She didn’t find the endearment so provoking now.

They were still seated on the piano bench. His arm was still around her. She was still snuggled into his side. To anyone watching, she realized, it must look like they were sharing a private, intimate moment. In keeping with the atmosphere they’d created with the song. Which was over.

Time to survive the rest of the night. At least she felt better. Stronger.

“Come take a bow,” she said, and pulled Max up with her. He grabbed his stick and they walked to the front of the stage and stood together, hand in hand, as the audience rose to its feet.

He took a bow, kissed her hand, then released it and left her, center stage front, to acknowledge the accolades alone.

Then the curtain rang down, and she had to hurry away to change for the next number. Hahn was still in the wings. He was talking to Max and ostentatiously applauded her as she passed him. She smiled and waved in response and tried not to let herself be overcome with anxiety by the sight of the two of them together. Max had told her that the Germans knew nothing of them and to carry on as usual. The only thing she could do was assume he was right.

The choristes whose papers and persons had already passed inspection were changing in the utility room for the next number. More trickled out of their dressing rooms one at a time as they were apparently cleared.

At the moment, the search seemed to be concentrated on the trap room storage area beneath the stage and the crossover behind it. Soldiers filled both areas. From what she could see through the open door of the trap room as she passed it, they were opening trunks and boxes, examining equipment large and small, looking in closets, looking everywhere and at everything.

Cold shivers chased each other down her spine.

What are they looking for? Who are they looking for?

She thought of Max’s office—did he have anything incriminating in there? She thought of her dressing room, of Touvier, and felt nauseated.

Berthe, pale and perspiring but free, was in her dressing room when she reached it. A desperate glance around found nothing incriminating. Touvier’s corpse was not there. At least, nowhere that she could see.

What had Max done with it? Apprehension turned the rock in her stomach into a boulder.

Her spangled skirt was gone, too. A hardly noticeable damp spot on the carpet was the only hint that remained of what had happened.

“I only have a few minutes, so we must be quick,” Genevieve warned for the benefit of the soldiers in the hall as she closed her dressing room door.

The minute it was shut, the two women flew together.

“What happened?”

“They checked my papers.”

“There was no problem?”

“They are pigs.” Berthe’s broad face relaxed into a grim smile. “Stupid German pigs. Thank God.”

As this feverish, whispered exchange took place, they were getting Genevieve ready for the next number, something they’d done so often together that they did it like clockwork.

Genevieve had to know. “Was Max here in the dressing room when you got back?”

“No one was here. A soldier was outside the door.”

How had Max managed it? Her nerves tightened to perilously near the breaking point.

A knock. “Mademoiselle Dumont, it is time for you to return to the stage.”

The same soldier. Where the stagehand who usually delivered the message was, where Pierre was, she could only guess: probably still being detained for inspection.

“Sing fast,” Berthe said. “The sooner we can leave here, the better.”

Berthe’s joking—or not joking—order underlined what Genevieve already knew: as long as the soldiers remained in the theater, none of them were safe.

The show went on. Genevieve doubted that the audience noticed any difference, but backstage, the nervous dread of the performers and crew, the heavy atmosphere created by the soldiers’ presence, the awful anticipation that accompanied the search combined to create a cloud of fear that lay over everything. Her show almost never had mistakes, but tonight notes were flat, dancers tripped, musicians missed their cues.

She herself had to work hard with every song to keep the grinding tension from corroding her performance.

When, finally, blessedly, she was climbing the ladderlike stairs up to the catwalk for the finale, she was so drained that each step was an effort. The last notes of the penultimate number, the cancan, blasted riotously through the theater. Below, the dancers had just taken their final bow and were running offstage. A pair of soldiers stood in the prompt corner, which was usually where Pierre could be found during performances. She didn’t know where Pierre himself was. She caught a glimpse of Madame Arnault herding the girls toward the greenroom, where they were now changing while the utility room was turned inside out. As she reached the catwalk, she scanned as much of the backstage area as she could see for Max. If he was down there, she couldn’t find him. The soldiers had already searched his office and had evidently found nothing to interest them.

Maybe they’d get through this.

“Mademoiselle.” Yves the stagehand was there to usher her to her swing. She followed him, the long black feathers of her skirt rustling as they trailed over the narrow metal walkway, holding her head carefully so as not to snag the plumes of her tall headdress on anything. It was dark up there so high above the lights, and cool and quiet as the few workers allowed on the grid of metal beams and catwalks took care to make as little noise as possible.

She settled herself on the gilded swing, and held on as Yves signaled the stagehands working the crank that she was ready. Then she was away, arcing six stories above the audience before being slowly lowered into place. The final song, “J’attendrai,” was a beautiful one, and she closed her eyes and focused on it to the exclusion of everything else, letting the heartbreak of it fill her as the opening violins started to play.

“Halt! Stop where you are!” The roar was followed by the pounding echo of running footsteps high above her head. Her eyes flew open, and she looked up, aghast, to see a quartet of soldiers near the ceiling, pursuing a man bolting away from them. A collective gasp below her told her that the audience, too, had seen. Cloaked by the shadows at the top of the house, the fugitive fled along the very catwalk from which her swing was launched. That particular narrow pathway didn’t run all the way across the top of the theater. To escape the soldiers, he would have to dodge along a connecting catwalk and clamber down a ladder to the crossover and from there try to exit the theater.

“Halt!” Two of the soldiers, having apparently spotted the potential escape route, branched off onto an intersecting catwalk, clearly hoping to intercept their target. They were brandishing guns in one hand, holding on to the railing with the other. The clatter of their jackboots on metal rang through the theater. “Halt or I’ll shoot!”

The man, seeing that he was in danger of being cut off, daringly vaulted the railing and landed on a catwalk that didn’t connect to the ones the soldiers were on. He scrambled up, darted away. Genevieve’s mouth fell open as he burst out of the deepest of the shadows into an area of reflected light and she recognized him.

Pierre.

Impossible...

A loud bang sounded. Pierre screamed, toppled over the rail and fell, plummeting past her with his arms flailing and his coat flapping like a bird shot out of the sky.

The wet, explosive sound as he hit the stage apron was hideously familiar. Looking down in horror, Genevieve knew instantly that he was dead. She went dizzy as the sight of the still figure sprawled on the ground catapulted her back to the worst moment of her life.

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