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concierge,” he said. “Kindly old Madame Fitou, in 1933. Hmm. Secret doings, something buried in the cellar.”
    “What?”
    “That’s what it says here. Imagine, a man like you, a cat murderer.”
    “It’s madness, monsieur.”
    “So, you deny it! Seems there was quite a ring operating back then. In league with the neighborhood baker, I see. And the priest.”
    “She really said such things?”
    “And more. You don’t believe, I hope, that these women can actually live on what the tenants pay them?” He read on for a time, turning pages of handwritten paragraphs. “1937. Some considerable entertaining. Angélique, Françoise, Madame de Levallier.” He squared the stack of pages with his palms and closed the folder.
    “What will happen to me?” Casson said.
    The detective shook his head —God only knows. “When I started to look for you, it gave me an excuse to see a movie or two. I must tell you that your policemen are a disgrace. Venal, brutal, and, worst of all, stupid. And when they shoot they don’t hit anything.”
    “It’s just the movies.”
    The detective leaned forward in his chair and spoke quietly. “Tell me, Casson, why did you come back to France?”
    “A woman.”
    The detective nodded. “Not patriotism?”
    “No, monsieur.”
    The detective smiled—somebody had told the truth! He glanced at his watch, went to a window, took the brass handles and shoved it up a few inches. “The morning concert. Come and listen, Casson. It’s the latest thing from Vichy—a hymn to Pétain.”
    Casson went to the window. Down in the schoolyard, the children—eight- and nine-year-olds—were lined up in rows. Facing them, a music teacher, conducting with a stern finger: “And one, and two, and . . .” They sang with high voices, an angels’ choir.
    All the children who love you
and hold your years dear
to your supreme call
have answered smartly, “Here!”
    Marshal, here are we
before you, O savior of France.
We your little buddies swear
to follow where you advance.
    For France is Pétain,
and Pétain is France.
    They began the next song, the detective closed the window, then went to the door and started to open it, giving Casson a nod of the head that meant let’s go. “Well, Casson,” he said, “perhaps you’re in luck. You may not have found patriotism, but it appears, God save us all, to have found you.”

STALIN’S ORDER
    The struggle against Germany must not be looked upon as an ordinary war. It is not merely a fight between two armies. In order to engage the enemy there must be bands of partisans and saboteurs working underground everywhere, blowing bridges, destroying roads, telephones and telegraphs, and setting fire to depots and forests. In territories occupied by the enemy, conditions must be made so impossible that he cannot hold out; those helping him will be punished and executed.
    Stalin’s Order of June 22, 1941
    PARIS. 22 SEPTEMBER, 1941.
    Ivanic came out of the Saint-Michel Métro in the early evening, turned right at the first street, then right again to the little impasse they’d told him to look for, and the small door with the ironwork frame. He had the key in his hand but it still took a long time. He had to try it this way and that way, had to stand there and jiggle the thing until the lock decided to open. It was dark inside, he could just make out a stairway. He climbed one flight to a door at the head of the stairs, found a second key left on the molding that let him into a tiny room that seemed to be used as an office. Down below, in the restaurant Agadir, he could hear people talking and laughing, and throbbing oud music played on a wind-up Victrola.
    There was a swivel chair at the desk but he didn’t sit down. He paced the office, checking his watch. Noisy outside, the rue de la Huchette, a North African souk around the steps of the church of Saint Séverin. It smelled like the old streets in Marseilles, he thought, sheep liver grilled on hot coals, burnt