dread, he turned around, his face lit up in a smile. He had not seen the woman in months.
Agnes was a petite, attractive woman with blazing red hair whose husband, Didier, was a major businessman, a munitions dealer and racehorse owner. Daniel had met the lovely, if oversexed, Agnes at the races, at Longchamp, where she had a private box. Her husband was in Vichy at the time, advising the puppet government. She'd introduced herself to the handsome, wealthy Argentine as a "war widow." Their affair, passionate if brief, lasted until her husband returned to Paris.
"Agnes, ma cherie! Where have you been?"
"Where have I been? I haven't seen you since that evening at Maxim's." She swayed, ever so slightly, in time to the orchestra's jazzy rendition of "Imagination."
"Ah, I remember it well," said Daniel, who barely remembered. "I've been terribly busy my apologies."
"Busy? You don't have a job, Daniel," she scolded.
"Well, my father always said I should find a useful occupation. Now that the whole of France is occupied, I say that gets me off the hook."
She shook her head, scowled in an attempt to conceal her involuntary smile. She leaned close. "Didier's in Vichy again. And this party is altogether too full of Boches. Why don't we escape, head over to the Jockey Club? Maxim's is too full of Fritzes these days." She whispered: according to posters on the Metro, anyone who called the Germans "Boches" would be shot. The Germans were hypersensitive to French ridicule.
"Oh, I don't mind the Germans," Daniel said in an attempt to change the subject. "They're excellent customers."
"The soldiers what do you call them, the haricots verts? They're such brutes! So ill-mannered. They're always coming up to women on the street and just grabbing them."
"You have to pity them a bit," said Eigen. "The poor German soldier feels he's conquered the world, but he can't catch the eye of a French girl. It's so unfair."
"But how to get rid of them ?"
"Just tell them you're Jewish, mon chou. That'll send them away. Or stare at their big feet that always embarrasses them."
Now she couldn't help smiling. "But the way they goose-step down the Champs-Elysees!"
"You think goose-stepping is easy?" said Daniel. "Try it yourself someday you'll end up on your derriere." He glanced around the room furtively, looking for an escape.
"Why, just the other day I saw Goring getting out of his car on the rue de la Paix. Carrying that silly field marshal's baton I swear, he must sleep with it! He went into Cartier's, and the manager told me later he bought an eight-million-franc necklace for his wife." She poked Daniel's starched white shirt with her index finger. "Notice he buys French fashion for his wife, not German. The Bodies are always railing against our decadence, but they adore it here."
"Well, nothing but the best for Herr Meier."
"Herr Meier. What do you mean? Goring's not a Jew."
"You know what he said: "If ever a bomb falls on Berlin, my name won't be Hermann Goring; you can call me Meier." "
Agnes laughed. "Keep your voice down, Daniel," she stage-whispered.
Eigen touched her waist. "There's a gentleman here I have to see, doucette, so if you'll excuse me..."
"You mean there's another lady who's caught your eye," Agnes said reprovingly, smiling in an exaggerated moue.
"No, no," chuckled Eigen. "I'm afraid it really is business."
"Well, Daniel, my love, the least you can do is get me some real coffee. I can't stand all that ersatz stuff chicory, roasted acorns! Would you, sweetheart?"
"Of course," he said. "As soon as I possibly can. I'm expecting a shipment in a couple of days."
But as soon as he turned away from Agnes, he was accosted by a stern male voice. "Herr Eigen!"
Right behind him stood a small cluster of German officers, at the center of which was a tall, regal-looking SS Standartenfuhrer, a colonel, his hair brushed back in a pompadour, wearing tortoiseshell glasses and a small mustache in slavish imitation of his Fuhrer. Standartenfuhrer Jiirgen Wegman had been most useful in getting Eigen a service public license, allowing him to operate one of the very few private vehicles allowed on the streets of Paris. Transportation was a huge problem these days. Since only doctors, firemen, and for some reason leading actors and actresses were allowed to drive their own cars, the Metro was ridiculously overcrowded, and half the stations were closed anyway. There was no petrol to be had, and no taxicabs.