Hans Landa watched patiently from the back seat of his Black Mercedes-Benz staff car, the young and silent driver keeping his eyes forward. Landa had scoured to find all the information that seemed to exist on Audrey Loewe, surprised at the sheer lack of it. He casually flipped open the manila folder, eyes tracing over the details despite the fact he now knew them off by heart.
Audrey Loewe, twenty-two years old, born to Gabriel Loewe, physician and upstanding member of the community, and Russian-born Anna Loewe née Milt, a housewife. Raised in Luxembourg. Orphaned at 19.
Anything meaningful stopped there.
Audrey was a seamstress at a local atelier in a fashionable distract of Paris. The house catered to wealthy Europeans, and her ability to speak French, German, Luxembourgish, English, and Russian made her a valuable asset. Even Landa, who was very rarely impressed, was quietly affected by such a command of language. He had smiled specifically when he had learnt that she was well versed in so many languages when he had visited the atelier after hours a few days prior. He'd asked about commissioning a tuxedo, and the owner had eyed him with greed. Landa had casually enquired if there was anyone who spoke good German and the owner, Mousier Jaques Brodeur, had gladly gushed and assured Colonel Landa that one of their junior staff, Audrey Loewe, spoke 'Wunderbar Deutsche'.
"She's a polyglot," Moonrise Brodeur had grinned. "Honestly Colonel, whatever language you want, I'm sure she can oblige!".
She didn't seem to be passionate about her work, despite working in such an esteemed atelier, rather this was a way for her to make money safely, and it seemed to be what the widowed Madame Marion Dubois could afford to train her goddaughter as. In another life, Landa did not doubt that Audrey would likely have been a doctor. She appeared very intelligent, finishing top of her class in her secondary education. If the war hadn't begun, her wealthy parents had lived, and her tertiary education had commenced, she would be living a much more luxurious life than the one she led. She had previously lived in a poor part of town in a tiny room, but recently she had moved to Marion's empty home. He guessed there was probably still Free France blood on the floorboards.
She didn't seem to be social. He hadn't seen her about with friends or with men during the week he had had her followed about. The reports read that she kept to herself. She worked, she lined up for rations, and she hid away in her apartment. Perhaps she was an outcast, an unsocial creature who smelt off-kilter, a stench of tragedy, but he doubted that. She was a pretty girl.
Audrey was in some way loosely connected with every rebellious person or group in Paris. Landa was fascinated by this. It at first glance could be considered a coincidence. She would have only known Arthur when she arrived, a man who was very deeply organised with Free France. From this perspective, it made sense that she would only know people like that, the only people she would have contact with.
But she knew everyone.
Most interestingly he noted that she had been a tutor at a nearby Parisian school a few years ago, and in the months she worked there, teaching sowing to the young women, the Jewish children enrolled mysteriously disappeared. She had a few of these incidences. One while volunteering with the red cross, one while working at another school. Gone. No trace.
He observed his neatly written notes for a moment more, eyes flickering up to see her walking calmly from Marion's apartment, basket in her arm, blinking against the early morning light. She'd attended church at 6 am, in her best clothes, and he noted she had not bothered to change.
He tapped the roof of the car, pleased by the young driver's ability to silently pull away and not draw attention, keeping a healthy distance. Landa noticed several of his soldiers whistle her as she paced quickly down winding Parisian streets. Each time she would smile amiably, protecting herself from further advances or spurned anger.
But she always walked faster.
He followed her to a nearby rations market, smiling to see her warmly greeted by vendors and shoppers. He stepped from the car without warning, abandoning her file behind him as he swiftly walked.
It was like the red sea when he wore his uniform, and yes, he was aware of the irony of that. The people of Paris parted, eyes downcast, unable to meet his gaze as he walked casually through the market. His nose turned at the foul smell of stale bread, salted meats, no fresh fruit or food in sight. Disgusting.
He spotted her ahead, pulling a stale half loaf of bread into her basket, chatting casually with the man behind the table in quick and easy French. She was nodding to whatever he was saying, smiling softly.
"Mademoiselle Loewe!"
She stilled, eyes turning to Landa. He smiled warmly, clapping his hands together as a greeting as he paused a few feet from her.
She looked very pretty, her hair tied back by a velvet ribbon.
"Bonjour Colonel Landa," she called evenly. "How are you today?"
"Très Bien Mademoiselle Loewe," he warmly smiled. "How does this fine Sunday treat you?"
"Well," she responded, walking towards him, leaving the anxious vender behind her. Landa felt his lips curl to watch her walk towards him, her pace slow and unbothered. "I have been to church and now I am collecting my rations, do you wish to see my papers?"
She instinctively reached into her handbag, but he shook his head, tutting quickly.
"Non, non," he smiled, almost fox-like in his friendliness, dimples deepening. "Simply, I am enjoying a Sunday, and saw you in the crowd."
Her fingers stilled in her bag and her eyebrows furrowed, watching him carefully.
"What are your plans now Mademoiselle Loewe?" Landa asked pleasantly, eyeing her still with a cunning that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand.
"I am going home," she said simply.
"To your room in the 18th arrondissement, or Madame Dubois apartment in the 3rd?" Landa asked easily as he softly craned his neck to look into her basket.
"The third," Audrey said, her eyes taking on an almost imperceptible harshness at the question. She knew he already knew the answer. Was he seeing if she lied easily?
"May I see your basket, Mademoiselle Loewe?" He asked, holding out an expectant leather-gloved palm. She passed it smoothly, stepping away when he took it, turning her eyes to view the wide berth that people gave them, all of their eyes panicked to see her so close to an SS officer. None offered interference, not that she could honestly blame them.
He searched a gloved hand through it, turning over to see salted meat, stale bread, a bag of rice, coffee, butter, potatoes, and leaks. It was bleak indeed. He removed his hand and flicked his fingers, as though trying to rid himself of any remaining poverty coating his gloves.
She took it back, holding it close to her as she eyed him coolly. The evident calm on her face amused him. Most people of Paris looked glassy-eyed, desperately appearing calm or cool or controlled. Appearing, being the keyword. He was used to watching those flutters of anxiety, fear, or agitation linger, unmasked, across eyes and features. Twitches on mouths, clenching of jaws.
But she was calm, cool, controlled. There was no flinch, no minute moment of her true self showing.
Her expressionless boredom at their interaction thrilled him.
"It's heavy," he stated conversationally. "I shall drive you home."
It wasn't a question. She stared, trying to formulate an argument against it, but all failed, and instead, she nodded and followed him with a lowered gaze back through the market to his waiting car. He opened the door for her, allowing her to slip in, finding a nasty smile catch his lips as her eyes fell on the open folder about her.
She read it quickly as he walked to the other side of the car, eyebrows harshly furrowed. Why would he be interested in her?
He sat swiftly, his hand coming to gather the file, but she gently rested her hand atop his, eyes burning onto a particular morsel of the research.
"Is that a picture of my mama?" She asked almost silently, eyes burning against the black and white picture of her dead mother. Anna Loewe was the spitting image of her daughter, soft hair and almond eyes. They shared the same round face, same nose, the tip slightly upturned, high cheekbones, heart-shaped lips. Audrey's blue eyes and blonde hair must have been inherited from her father. He wondered if Audrey's mother also had the little gap in her front teeth, her mouth closed in the only picture he could find of her. A slight ents du bonheur was evident in Audrey's smile, not that she was giving him a view of it at that moment.
"Oui," he noted, tapping the top of the car to tell the driver to go. Audrey didn't look up when Landa called out Marion's address to the driver, unnerved that he knew it already off by heart.
"May I have it?" She asked politely. Landa smiled amiably, his eyes crinkling. She still hadn't looked up, her view transfixed by the black and white picture in front of her.
He snapped the file closed as the answer.
Audrey withdrew her hands to her lap, eyes burning against the folder as though she was willing herself to stare through the manila cover, to gaze once again at the image of a woman lost to her many winters ago.
He waited for her to ask why he had the file, how he knew she was at the market, why he had followed her. He waited and waited but she didn't oblige. Instead, she looked ahead, silent and stoic as they whizzed through the streets of Paris.
He doubted it was the first time she'd been followed.
"How do you like being a seamstress?" Landa asked, lighting a cigarette that he un-clicked from its gold case. He thrust it towards to her as an offer, raising his brows to cox her with a cool expectant expression. Audrey looked at the beautiful golden case and imagined the dead Jewish hand it had been clawed from.
"Non, merci," she replied. Silence permitted for a moment before she answered. "It is work."
"Ah," Landa said with a huff of laughter. "Work is work, of course. Your eye and lip are healing well I see."
She glanced her reflection against the glass of the car window, the view of Paris a blur outside it. Her eye had purpled, her lip too. It looked like nothing worse than a lover's tiff or a nasty fall. She shrugged, keeping her gaze firmly fixated out the window.
"Our reports often review you as affable," Landa said as he blew the first drag of smoke from his lips. "Friendly. Charming. Usually, the men write of you as though you were a childhood sweetheart or a teenage crush."
She didn't look but he saw her shoulders tense.
"I am not getting this impression," he chuckled lightly. She turned slowly, looking up at him with a wave of well-tempered anger.
"Well… look what happens to my lip and my eye when I do not act this way with your men," she said simply. Landa let a large smile spread his face, a fresh chuckle emerging as he beamed at her.
"Of course," he said, taking a fresh drag of tobacco. "How silly of me."
She turned to stare forward once more.
He smiled upon her benevolently for the rest of the ride, watching her tight expression and tense shoulders with glee. She attempted to fling herself from the car when they arrived, but he gently pressed his hand to her knee, freezing her in place.
"Ah, ah, ah," he scolded. "I am a gentleman, let me get the door and your groceries."
She did not respond but stayed seated, levelling her gaze to the back of the drivers head once more.
He moved slowly, taking his time as he circled the car, snuffing his cigarette beneath his boot as he went. He offered his arm to her once he opened the door, delighted to see her take it despite the radiating tension that left her skin. He took the basket in his other, walking her as though they were old friends up the staircase that led to her godmother's apartment. He began to whistle easily, a tune she recognised as Hämmelsmarsch, a famous Luxembourgish folk song.
"Do you miss Rumelange?" He asked casually as the turned the corner of the staircase.
She bristled to hear him mention her home town, her eyes floating up briefly to take in his warm and smiling face.
"Oui," she said unemotionally.
"It's a far journey to Paris," he noted with levity. "How long is that, a day by train? Longer?"
"It is a journey," she agreed vaguely.
"Much quicker to Belgium or Germany," he mused. She didn't respond, her eyes held firm and forward. "Do you know anyone in Belgium or Germany?"
She didn't answer.
"We spoke Russian at home," she said flatly, keeping her expression unreadable. "I can speak Luxembourgish but my German, the way you speak it, is not very good."
"Nein, nein, nein," Landa laughed, admonishing her playfully in German. "I heard you the other night, you speak very good German."
"My German is good for begging only, Standartenführer Landa," she said coldly in cool Germanic tones. He let out a fresh bemused chuckle at her response, finally arriving at her front door. He smiled at her as she unlocked the door, passing her basket of groceries with a fresh cunning smile.
He saw her wait, allowing him the breadth and space to enter the home if he wished, but he knew she was smarter than that. She knew he'd enter if she wanted him to or not.
"Marion Dubois is at the American Hospital of Paris, under the care of the Red Cross," Landa said nonchalantly, as though discussing the weather. "I interviewed her myself, you are right, she's quite mad."
He saw a rush of relief hit Audrey without permission, her shoulders rolling inward, her fingers wrapping the door frame till her knuckles turned white.
"You may retrieve her at your discretion," Landa said coolly.
She nodded, but he noted that she didn't say thank you.
"Have a blessed Sunday Mademoiselle Loewe," he said with a fresh suave smile. "I hope to see you in the near future."
She didn't respond at all, watching him till he had exited the building. He felt her blue eyes burn the back of his neck as he took each step with slow purposefulness, chuckling lightly to himself as he pushed the door open, his footsteps landing back on the grey Parisian street. He swiftly slid into the back of the car, motioning the driver to take him back to The Majestic Hotel. Landa absentmindedly flipped open her folder, removing a pen from his pocket with fresh notes formulating at the front of his mind but paused.
The small black and white photo of Audrey's mother was missing.
He blinked once before allowing a deep chuckle to rumble from his chest, shaking his head in delight at such a brazen act by the timid and penniless Fräulein Loewe.
He tutted to himself, delighted to find someone worth pursuing in Paris.
