And the Germans grinned, "The Bank of England."
Not all Frenchmen suffered, however. For those with money and connections there was always the Black Market.
Noelle Page's life was changed very little by the occupation. She was working as a model at Chanel's on rue Canbon in a hundred-and-fifty-year-old graystone building that looked ordinary on the outside, but was very smartly decorated within. The war, like all wars, had created overnight millionaires, and there was no shortage of customers. The propositions that came to Noelle were more numerous than ever; the only difference was that most of them were now in German. When she was not working, she would sit for hours at small outdoor cafes on the Champs-Elysees, or on the Left Bank near the Pont Neuf. There were hundreds of men in German uniforms, many of them with young French girls. The French civilian men were either too old or lame, and Noelle supposed that the younger ones had been sent to camps or conscripted for military duty. She could tell the Germans at a glance, even when they were not in uniform. They had a look of arrogance stamped on their faces, the look that conquerors have had since the days of Alexander and Hadrian. Noelle did not hate them, nor did she like them. They simply did not touch her.
She was filled with a busy inner life, carefully planning out each move. She knew exactly what her goal was, and she knew that nothing could stop her. As soon as she was able to afford it, she engaged a private detective who had handled a divorce for a model with whom she worked. The detective's name was Christian Barbet, and he operated out of a small, shabby office on the rue St. Lazare. The sign on the door read:
ENQUETES
PRIVEES ET COMMERCIALES
RECHERCHES
RENSEIGNEMENTS
CONFIDENTIELS
FILATURES
PREUVES
The sign was almost larger than the office. Barbet was short and bald with yellow, broken teeth, narrow squinting eyes and nicotine-stained fingers.
"What can I do for you?" he asked Noelle.
"I want information about someone in England."
He blinked suspiciously. "What kind of information?"
"Anything. Whether he's married, who he sees. Anything at all. I want to start a scrapbook on him."
Barbet gingerly scratched his crotch and stared at her.
"Is he an Englishman?"
"An American. He's a pilot with the Eagle Squadron of the RAF."
Barbet rubbed the top of his head, uneasily. "I don't know," he grumbled. "We're at war. If they caught me trying to get information out of England about a flyer--"
His voice trailed off and he shrugged expressively. "The Germans shoot first and ask questions afterward."
"I don't want any military information," Noelle assured him. She opened her purse and took out a wad of franc notes. Barbet studied them hungrily.
"I have connections in England," he said cautiously, "but it will be expensive."
And so it began. It was three months before the little detective telephoned Noelle. She went to his office, and her first words were: "Is he alive?" and when Barbet nodded, her body sagged with relief and Barbet thought, It must be wonderful to have someone love you that much.
"Your boyfriend has been transferred," Barbet told her.
"Where?"
He looked down at a pad on his desk. "He was attached to the 609th Squadron of the RAF. He's been transferred to the 121st Squadron at Martlesham East, in East Anglia. He's flying Hurri--"
"I don't care about that."
"You're paying for it," he said. "You might as well get your money's worth." He looked down at his notes again. "He's flying Hurricanes. Before that he was flying American Buffaloes."
He turned over a page and added, "It becomes a little personal here."