Free Peach by Elizabeth Adler Page A

black uniform with the gleaming high boots they all wore. Did they, as a nation, she’d wondered naughtily, perhaps have a boot fetish? All that polish and heel-clicking?
    “Madame Montalva,” he’d said. It was a statement, not a question and therefore she hadn’t deigned to reply. “Lieutenant Ernst Müller. I’m here to check your accommodation,Madame, with a view to billeting some of my men here.” His unsmiling gaze had taken in her elegant salon filled with memorabilia and possessions collected over a lifetime, but the tall windows flooding the room with light had revealed little of value other than her beautiful antique furniture. Thank God, she’d had the sense to follow Jim’s advice and get the paintings and silver out of Paris, though whether they were still there, beneath the flagstones of the kitchen of her country house at Rambouillet, she didn’t know. Of course she realised that the officer didn’t want it for his men—he fancied a grand apartment for himself. Well, she wasn’t about to let this little upstart have
her
home. But you had to be careful with this type—a
petit bourgeois
feeling his power. In her day an officer was also a gentleman. Now you couldn’t be sure. She considered telling him she was an old woman and he should be ashamed of himself for thinking of evicting her from her home, but she was damned if she would admit to
him
that she was old. “In that case,” she’d replied smartly instead, “I’ll have a word with your commandant. We’ll see how pleased he’d be about billeting noncommissioned men here.”
    “Marie-Luce,” she summoned her sole remaining maid. The old woman, more aged than her mistress, trembled with fear at the sight of the uniform, twisting her hands together nervously, unable to speak.
    “Marie-Luce, get me my coat, please.” Caro hauled herself to her feet with an effort—it was one of the bad days for her arthritis. “I shall leave with this person for the Gestapo headquarters.”
    Marie-Luce gasped. “Oh Madame, Madame. No …” she wailed.
    Caro glared at her. “For God’s sake be quiet, Marie-Luce. I need to speak to this officer’s commandant.”
    “No. No. You can’t do that,” he protested, stepping back a pace.
    “Oh. And why not?” Caro challenged him.
    “No one can just see the Commandant. He’s a very busy man …”
    “Then I shall return with you and make an appointment.” Caro knew she had him. His face was flushed and his accent was becoming more pronounced—he was just a country boy who had suddenly hit the big time. He was no game for a wily old woman of the world like her: she’d matched wits with better than he for more than half a century.
    Clicking the heels of his glossy boots once more, he crammed the cap with its oversized peak hastily on his head and made for the door. “I will ask the Commandant’s office to be in touch with you to discuss the matter,” he called.
    Caro smiled as the door closed behind him. “Greed,” she said to Marie-Luce, sinking back into her chair. “The enemy is greedy, Marie-Luce. He calls himself an officer but he is little better than the common soldier looting in the streets.” She knew she wouldn’t hear from him again.
    It had been a long time since she’d lunched at Maxim’s, but of course Albert remembered her. Kissing her emotionally on both cheeks, his plump face was torn between smiles and tears. “I hear you are collaborating with the enemy, Albert,” she commented loudly, taking in the mass of Germans at the closely packed tables.
    “Ssh, please, Madame Caro!” Albert shrugged, rolling his eyes expressively heavenwards, his jowled face looking even more lugubrious than usual. “It’s a necessary evil, Madame—Maxim’s must be kept open, it cannot be allowed to die. Maxim’s will be here when our men return in victory. But
collaborate
,” he pulled himself to his full short height, “never, Madame. Never!”
    “Albert, you are a true