The Wolves of Berlin

A tiny, pale girl answered the door. She was called Hueguette. She spent almost all of her time in this apartment, coding and decoding telegrams. She was probably 15 years old and had not spoken to her family in at least a year; they surely thought she was dead. Bethanie met many Huegettes these days, lost girls in strange place who spent the war hunched over radios and documents. Did the British know that the top secret information they were trusting to civilian agents behind enemy lines was being handled by teenage runaways? Well, there was no one else to do the job.

Bethanie's next stop was the Rotisseri de la Reine Pedauque. Normally, meeting in cafes and cinemas was forbidden, as they were constantly watched, but this time was different. As she came in a ruddy, rotund man with a blond mustache was waiting for her. She squealed and ran into his arms. The other patrons looked at her. Another role to play now: a French girl meeting her German lover. But who were any of them to judge? If they had the time and the money to be eating here it meant they were surely traitors themselves. Bethanie sat down and chattered. She crossed her legs and played with her hair. Her dining partner played his role equally as well. Anyone who looked at them would see a silly girl and a German veteran of the last war, now a wealthy tourist in the great city.

That much at least was true: This man, Antoine, had fought in the war and had lived in Germany for a time, but in reality he was a Frenchman, now posing as a German in an incredibly dangerous game. It was the ultimate cover, but a horrible risk. Antoine had a secret weapon: perched on his collar was a genuine German medal of valor. Twenty years ago he'd saved a German soldier from drowning in a ditch in the middle of a battle. ("I hesitated, of course, but in the end he was human and I was obligated to help him," he said later, a statement Bethanie did not agree with). After the Armistice the Germans sent him the medal as part of their peacetime diplomacy efforts. Now it was the lynchpin in his cover: No German who realized the authenticity of it dared question Antoine. He passed for one of them right under their noses, and he was Bethanie's best contact.

They talked about made-up trivialities. "Mother still refuses to let me wear what I want to the dance hall," she said. "She's such a disappointment."

"You should speak nicely about your mother. Good German girls always speak nicely of their mothers."

"I'm not a good German girl," she said, lowering her eyelashes.

"Not yet. Maybe someday." He took a bite of meat off his fork.

She ate far too much. What was in front of them cost enough to feed 50 starving Parisians. There was so little food in the city that people had taken to raising chickens and rabbits in their apartments and making vegetable gardens of their lawns. Only the Germans, and those traitors who worked closely with them, could afford to eat like this, and knowing that made the wine taste bitter. The circumstances of Antoine's cover demanded that they eat this food, but she felt it was her duty not too enjoy it too much. Only in the final minutes, as she prepared to leave, did they arrive at the entire point of meeting: "A very old friend of mine is calling at the hotel today," Antoine said.

Bethanie's heart jumped. That meant an Allied agent would be coming into Paris. "Today" of course meant tomorrow night, and "the hotel" meant the anonymous street corner they had agreed upon the last time they met. Nothing else was certain: Not whether the man would be British, American, or Free French, not what his specialty was, not whether he had a particular mission or was sent in to support their efforts here, and certainly not how he was being smuggled into the heart of the occupied city in the first place. All Antoine could say was that a man would be coming here, and he was asking her help retrieving him.

"I would very much like to meet him sometime," she said, linking arms with Antoine as they strolled out of the cafe. They parted in opposite directions.

Bethanie had one more meeting. The shadows were long by the time she reached the church. Churches always made her nervous, another Chastel trait. She wheeled her bike inside, relieved to find that the place empty except for her contact: the Jesuit, as he was known, a middle-aged priest. Everyone, it seemed, knew the Jesuit. In the very first days of the occupation he'd made a name for himself smuggling refugees out of country. How he had remained free and alive so many years was anyone's guess. God had blessed him, maybe. When she arrived he was sweeping broken glass off the floor. One of the church windows had shattered. "A bomb," he explained. "Not here. Outside."

"Was anyone hurt?"

"Not in here." Rather than throw the broken glass away he poured it into a box. "Every part of the church is holy," he explained. "I couldn't part with a fragment of it any more than I could part with one of my hands."

He went to the confessional. Bethanie followed, though it made her more nervous still. Churches were good for meetings because there were multiple exits. Trapping herself in a tiny box with one door ran contrary to everything that kept a smart agent alive. Besides, it reminded her too much of a coffin. But there was nowhere else so private, and if she couldn't trust the Jesuit of all people then the movement had been doomed from the start. So she closed herself in and settled on the kneeler (another thing she didn't care for; a Chastel shouldn't kneel to anyone, her aunt always said) and muttered the appropriate words, but before she could say anything more the Jesuit whispered through the screen: "You're in danger."

It was an odd thing to say. Of course she was in danger. They all were. That was the whole idea. But the Jesuit's voice communicated a particular sense of urgency. "Why?" she said.

"I know who you are," he said. "I know that your name is Chastel."

Bethanie twitched. Twice in one day someone knew her real name! Had the Jesuit, of all people, set her up? Was Kerman waiting with a cadre of police right outside the vestibule? The urge to reach for her gun welled up again, but she pushed it down, exhaling slowly. "What if it is?"

"Your ancestor Jean Chastel killed the werewolf of Gevaudan almost 300 years ago. On his deathbed he swore an oath that his descendants would never rest until all monsters were wiped from the face of the earth."

"A family legend."

"It's not a legend. Your aunt showed you that it's true."

Bethanie turned her head. "Did you know my aunt?" Then she bit her tongue. "No, don't tell me that. Just tell me why this is important now."

"There is a werewolf in Paris."

The back of Bethanie's neck prickled. "You're sure?"

"I saw it with my own eyes. It killed Max Heiliger. I drove it off with wolfsbane hidden in a crucifix."

Bethanie sat back in the vestibule, ordering her thoughts. She felt that her entire life up until now she'd been sealed inside an egg and now, without warning, it had broken open. "So you want me to kill it?"

"No," said the Jesuit, "I want you to run away."

Bethanie scoffed. "What about my family Oath?"

"The Oath is the reason you have to leave. You're the last Chastel. If you die, that will be the end. Your responsibility it to preserve the bloodline."

Bethanie wanted to reach through the partition and grab the priest. "You want me to run off and have babies rather than fight?"

"Yes."

Bethanie laughed.

"You don't know how dangerous a thing this is," said the Jesuit.

"All the more reason to kill it."

"And what if it's one of our own?"

Bethanie paused.

"It killed Heiliger," the Jesuit said. "Perhaps that was a coincidence, but perhaps not. It could be one of your own compatriots."

"It could even be you."

"Now you're using your head," said the Jesuit. "Could you kill me, if you had to?"

"I could kill anyone if I had to."

The Jesuit sounded sad. "This isn't the life you should have. I can help get you out of France. The best thing for all of us is for you to forget the war and just live." When Bethanie said nothing the priest sighed. "I didn't think you'd listen to reason. Still, I had a responsibility to try. Here."

She heard a rustle as a bulky enveloped passed through the gap. When she opened it, six bullets tumbled into her palm. "Made from silver smelted from holy icon of Saint Columba of Rieti," the Jesuit said. "They should be quite effective."

"Yes, but..."

"What is it?"

"These are the wrong kind: My Beretta takes .35s. These are too big. Do you know how hard it is to find another gun in Paris these days, how much it costs?"

There was a pause. Bethanie realized, gradually, that the priest was embarrassed.

"I didn't think. The man who made them, I just told him to...I can't get more. Even getting those meant--"

"Never mind," Bethanie side. She put the bullets back into the envelope and slid it into her bag. "How will I know when I've found the person I'm looking for?"

"Only God knows that. Although if I were you, I'd worry that he'll find you first."

The partition slid shut. Bethanie tasted something metallic at the back of her throat. She swallowed it.

The sun was disappearing when she left. The meeting had taken longer than it should have. She peddled like mad, but there was no point; she would never make it back to her flat before dark. Curfew violations were serious these days. In the old days you could trust a sympathetic policeman to let you off with a warning (especially if you pretended to cry, or if you were pretty, or if they mistook you for a German because you were blonde), but these days the traitors were getting eager to lock anyone up for any reason just to prove to the Germans how hard they were working for them.

Bethanie turned down a different alley. She couldn't make it home, but she could just barely make it to the laundry. There was always someone sleeping in the shop. Some even lived there for weeks at a time. On the way, she thought about what the Jesuit had told her. She'd always known about the Oath and the Beast of Gevaudan. Every generation of Chastels had their own chapter in the family's never-ending crusade against the devil's wolves. Even Bethanie's old aunt had lived up to the Oath when her time came. But Bethanie had never thought her time would really come. This war was her whole life. She didn't have room for another.

The laundry was dark, though she suspected that, down in the cellar, Velin would still be working. He never seemed to sleep, but he never seemed to tire either, or at least did not show it, for the sake of morale. Lucienne might be there too, cleaning the press with her one good arm. She wondered about those two sometimes. They spent too much time together. Those sorts of attachments endangered everyone.

Bethanie was careful to make no friends in the circuit. Because she was the youngest the others tried to look after her, and Lucienne in particular seemed to want to act a mother, but Bethanie never allowed it. A good agent should have compatriots, but not friends. Good agents loved their circuit, but not their circuit members. Good agents were willing to lay down their lives for each other, but were just as willing to let each other die for the good of the mission. The more you knew about each other, the more you could be made to give up under torture. In the hands of the enemy, a friend was a weapon.

She thought about this as she kicked together a bed of cleaned clothes. She dumped her boots and slung her jacket over the back of a chair, but other than that she slept fully dressed, as was her custom. In the old days, being too obviously unwashed made you stand out, but now all but the richest Parisians looked as ragged as Bethanie. She liked it better this way. Soft living made soft people. She wanted to be hard as well as cold. Her new enemy would be cold and hard too, she knew. That was their way: hunters and hiders, in equal turns. The priest said the wolf killed Max Heiliger. She was a fan of its work already. Maybe, with any luck, it would kill a few more Germans before she had to kill it. Maybe--

Someone struck a match. Bethanie jumped up and grabbed the man in the dark corner, digging her bare feet against the floor in hopes of finding enough traction to throw him. She was small, but she'd been taught to fight since she was old enough to stand. She could overpower a larger man if she took him by surprise. But in the flickering light of the match she saw that the man was Fabien. He waited for Bethanie to let him go, and then touched the flame to his stub of cigar.

"You startled me," she said.

"You weren't paying enough attention."

"You could have just said something."

"What if I'd been the Militia? Would they say something or just shoot?"

Bethanie was annoyed, but pride was for hot-blooded people, just another way to get killed, so she quenched it. "You're right," she said, and sat back down. Fabien sat down too, his back to the adjoining wall. He passed her the cigar and she accepted it. She felt foolish for not realizing he would be here. Fabien had arrived in Paris only a few weeks before and he had nowhere else to go. They'd been baffled to find him hiding in the back of a truck full of stolen paper. When he identified himself as "Colonel" Fabien of the FTP they were even more puzzled. Everyone knew who he was, of course, but he was supposed to be dead, and he would not account for why he wasn't or why he'd stowed away in the truck or what his mission in Paris might be. Tomas thought he was a spy and almost shot him on the spot, but one of the lifters had met him before and identified him.

After that he'd simply hung around, filling vaguely defined security roles. He'd hinted that he could not rejoin his previous circuit, but wouldn't elaborate on why. The political gamesmanship of the Communist factions was known, so no one pressed the question too hard. Now Bethanie watched him, trying to recall everything she knew about the man. He was almost a myth, like the wolves. She gave his cigar back, and then pulled her gun out. Fabien's eyes widened only a tiny degree. She handed it to him.

"I need you to get me another one. Something that will take .44s."

"What do you need it for?"

"I don't ask your business."

Fabien shrugged and accepted the weapon. "Women don't usually carry guns."

"I don't care about what's usual."

"Is this normal for Gaullist women?" His tone was meant to provoke her. Maybe he wanted to test her temper more. "You're a Gaullist, aren't you? A follower of the great general?" He saluted. "Easy enough for the general to be a war hero off in exile and leave us to do the real fighting."

"I suppose Comrade Stalin is down in the trenches himself? And where was Stalin when the Germans came? A friend who comes too late is as bad as an enemy. De Gaulle was with us from the beginning. What have the Communists ever done for us?"

"Killed Germans," said Fabien. Bethanie grunted. Again, he was right: No one was more ruthless with guerilla attacks than the Communists. She was a great admirer of their work.

"Three years ago you shot one of them on a metro platform," Bethanie said. "Everyone knows about it. Was he your first?"

"Why so interested?"

"I haven't killed anyone. I want to know what the first one is like."

"The Germans killed your family, didn't they?"

"They killed my aunt." And probably her brother too, but she wasn't about to tell him that.

"And your parents?"

"A wolf killed my parents."

"A wolf?"

Bethanie saw his eyebrows rise just a little. She bit her tongue. She hadn't meant to say that. A terrible certainty seized her then: It's him, she thought, he's the wolf. Now he knows who I am, and I don't have anything to fight him with, since I gave him my gun and the holy silver bullets wouldn't have worked in it anyway. Any second now he's going to kill me.

But it didn't happen. Fabien just said, "A wolf," again and sat back.

Bethanie realized her heart was clamoring. For a second she'd been absolutely sure that this was the end, and it had terrified her. She felt ashamed of the fear. She'd thought about dying many times and always assumed she would show the necessary resolve when the time came. But this had been different: The idea of the wolf's teeth sinking into her flesh and then dying the way her parents and grandparents had was too much. A gun barrel in the back of the head; the coarse necklace of a noose around the throat; even the burning white glare of an exploding bomb, these things she'd thought about in idle moments since she was 13. But the jaws of the wolf were something she wasn't prepared for. It wouldn't be a good death.

The faint rustle of Fabien turning to go to sleep snapped her out of it. She looked at the outline of his face in the bare illumination, coming to a kind of decision. Standing, she stripped off her blouse and removed her skirt. She sat on Fabien's lap, rousing him with a start, and plucked at his trousers. "Take these off," these said.

Fabien blinked. "How old are you?"

"Don't ask questions about me."

"It's a thing a man likes to know."

"This isn't my first time. Is that good enough?" Truth be known, he wasn't much older than she was, although being a man he assumed a greater degree of authority than he had. He shifted a little beneath her so as shimmy his pants down. He tried to pull her in for a kiss but she pushed his hand away, and he contemplated this for a moment.

"Why do you want this?" he said.

Questions were annoying. "If a German came in and put a gun to my head and told you to surrender, what would you do?"

"I would try to kill him."

"Even if it meant he would kill me?"

"There are worse ways to die."

"Trousers off. Now."

It wasn't a long engagement; both were too exhausted. It wasn't a tender thing either; they were the wrong sort of people. He put his back to the wall and she sat on her knees over him, pushing down and flinching as he went in. As she'd said, it was not her first time, but it wasn't a frequent enough occasion for her to yet be used to the feeling either. She didn't let it bother her. She moved her hips in a circle, letting the hard length push against her insides until a kind of pleasant hum traveled to the base of her tailbone and lit up her nerves. She did it a few more times and even let her eyes close, but then snapped them back open, reminding herself that they would have to be fast about this.

This was a risk; it distracted them both, made it harder for either to react to whatever else happened in the room, and made noise that could give them away. It was also something that would deflate the fear and anxiety that had been hovering over her all night, so she wanted to do it and have it done as fast as she could. With that in mind, she held Fabien against the wall and pushed onto him deeper and harder. She held her breath as long as she could (almost until she was dizzy) to avoid telltale noises and when she let it out she made it a long whisper, like the hiss of the machines when they were turned on. There were machines all around them, including the press downstairs, pumping along day in and day out until the job was done. Bethanie wanted to be like them; a machine might heat up if you worked it long enough, but it was always cold underneath.

They didn't kiss, but she did let him put his hands on her body--almost forced him to, in fact. She never touched anyone except Antoine, and that wasn't really a touch at all, just part of her cover. She realized now it created a kind of suspense that was distracting, so it was time to get rid of it. She put Fabien's hard hands into her blouse and let him knead her small breasts, then directed them higher to trace wrap themselves around her bouncing curls. It even hurt a little when he pulled, but pain had its uses too. Pain kept her in the present. Sweat dappled her body, and she liked the feeling; hot at first, but cool when a few seconds passed. Fabien seemed to be uncomfortable, so she pulled him away from the wall and pushed him all the way down, straddling and hunching over him, working back and forth and waiting for the hot, sharp feeling between their bodies to spike. Not long now...