The two met as arranged and took the metro to Porte de la Villette and then a bus to Drancy. They walked the several blocks to the shabby clinic with scarcely a word spoken. Ari glanced around as they walked through the hospital. It reminded him of a horror film he had once seen. Blank-eyed patients in threadbare dressing gowns shuffled through the dingy foyer, tattered posters on grimy walls informed no-one in particular of the benefits of the early detection of sexually transmitted diseases. The combined smells of sickness, over-cooked food and disinfectant nauseated him. They had skirted the reception area, glad to be able to avoid the receptionists who snapped at the visitors crowding around the desk. They made their way through a warren of dank corridors where strip-lighting flickered ominously.
Once he had introduced Ari to Eduard Faron, Raoul disappeared. ‘I need a smoke.’ was all he said, pointing to the sign on the dreary beige wall above the bed. ‘Défense de Fumer.’ No smoking. Too late for those lined up in the beds waiting to die, thought Ari. He looked down at the owner of the scrawny hand that had not released his when he had shaken it on introduction. Two feverishly bright eyes looked at him from a ravaged face.
‘Sit, Monsieur.’ He turned his head for a bout of gut-wrenching coughing. Then he cleared his throat. The whining voice was hoarse. ‘Merde, but I hate this place. These nurses, they say I have no more than a month or two. Tant pis. Death will be preferable to living in this place!’ he grumbled. Ari felt that the strength of the grip belied the man’s condition and tried to disengage his crushed fingers. Suddenly Eduard let him go and squinted up at Ari with a calculating look.
‘I believe you want to know about the labour camps.’
Ari nodded.
‘I need to tell this to someone, not Pantin, or my brother. Listen . . . most people died there, in that camp at the Krupp factory in Bremen. We had been de-humanised and we didn’t keep friends as they died or were transferred too often. Very few people made friends, but Victor Dubois was my friend. He died in 1944. It was in early June that he died in the bunk below mine. I helped bury him, so I know. There is a politician calling himself Victor Dubois, saying he was in a labour camp in Bremen until the end of the war. He is not Victor Dubois. I believe that this man, this Boche, took my friend’s identity.’ His eyes blazed and he spat, just missing Ari, who was leaning close to hear him.
‘It happened often. Men who helped the Boches and needed to hide their past would be in the camp for a while and would then disappear. We believed they were taken elsewhere to cover their tracks. We had no proof. It was just the talk around the camp. So I just kept shut.’
‘So, who do you think this man is?’
‘I don’t know, but word had it that he was a Nazi sympathiser. They helped the bastards who had helped them. That is all I know.’
‘And why have you waited so long to denounce him?’
Faron looked up at him slyly. ‘I suppose I was covering my own back. I have never told anyone about this. Not even my brother. You never know who will betray you. But now it doesn’t matter anymore. I am dying anyway, so why not stir up the pot, hein? Besides, he is an important public figure, I am . . . le rebut de l’humanité.’ The off-scouring of humanity. ‘Who would believe me?’ The old man’s rasping voice was rising embarrassingly. Suddenly a nurse appeared at the bedside holding a syringe. With a swift tug, she closed the threadbare curtain around the bed.
‘I think that it is time for you to leave. Monsieur Faron must rest.’ The flick of her middle finger against the syringe, punctuating her words. Monsieur Faron looked less than pleased as she took his arm to administer the injection.
‘You see this, Mayer. They are trying to torture me, a sick man. They are trying to kill me. This one especially.’
‘This one’ merely pursed her lips and looked balefully at Faron. She then lifted her chin and glared at Ari. ‘Visiting hours are over!’
As he stood up to leave, he looked intently at Faron. ‘Why didn’t you want to tell Pantin what you told me?’
The old man merely pulled a finger across his throat and submitted to the rough ministrations of the nurse. Ari, seeing that he would not get anything more from Eduard, meekly took his hat and left.
As he walked out of the dingy building he was surprised to hear his name called. It was Raoul who had been waiting for him near the entrance. Ari had completely forgotten about him. They travelled back to Paris together in silence. As Ari got up to change trains at Gare de l’Est, they merely grunted as they parted. On an impulse, he changed his mind about catching his connection and decided to walk back home as he needed time to process what he had learned from Faron; Deep in thought, he was unaware of the noise of the traffic on the Boulevard de Sebastopol. As he crossed the île de la Cité, he did not stop on the bridge as he usually did, to watch the river traffic. The most puzzling thing was why Eduard had made that last gesture as though slitting his throat. Did he not trust Pantin?