An Episode of Remnants.

Episode Content Warnings

Please bear in mind that this work has content some listeners may find distressing, including themes of war, violence, and grief. This episode contains:

References to war and living in occupied territory (France, WW2) with reference to property destroyed by bombs

Classism

Collaboration with Nazis

Mentions of guns

Objectification of women

Derogatory reference to sex workers (calling someone one of them with the intent to insult)

References to implied sexual assault

Emotional harassment

Obsessive, unhealthy behaviour towards an object of affection

Recollection of a sexual assault with no detail, by the perpetrator

Death

Transcript

SIR
Look alive, would you?

THE APPRENTICE STARTS AWAKE

THE APPRENTICE
Wha…?

SIR
I reset you twice, so a little fogginess is to be expected. Are you ready?

APPRENTICE
Yeah, for what, sorry?

SIR
Ah yes, of course. The job, you’ve taken the job! That’s why you’re here, of course.

APPRENTICE
Oh, right, sure?

SIR
Come along then.

APPRENTICE
What?

SIR
All that palaver. Come on. We’ll see. I need to see what you will be this time. Sit here.

CHAIR LEGS SCRAPE. THE APPRENTICE IS THRUST INTO THE CHAIR WITH AN ‘OOF’.

SIR
There you are.

APPRENTICE
I– I’m sorry I was so late, I must’ve overslept, I–

SIR
No matter. You are only the apprentice. It really is not important. Take this.

SOMETHING METAL CLATTERS ONTO THE WOODEN TABLE

APPRENTICE
Uh, what is it?

SIR
Pick it up.

APPRENTICE
I’m so sorry, I just– Um. I think it’s… Oh, it slides! Inside of it is, um. A magnifying glass. Huh. I… it’s for jewellers, isn’t it? Some kind of eye glass. This one has a scratch on it, on the lens, and it– it…

WHOOSH

Denis runs the scrap of suede across the glass front of the cabinet beside the shop counter. The smell of vinegar stings his nose, but he revels in the streak-free shine he leaves behind. He works slow, moving the suede in circles like his father taught him, staring at the glittering contents of the cabinet as he goes.

His favourites are the rings, nestled in near rows on long fingers of velvet, lined up like church pews in a mahogany case. Diamonds glitter, some as large as the nail on Denis’ smallest finger. There are emeralds and sapphires and rubies there too, cut into dozens of beautiful shapes so they glitter in the light glowing on the glass shelf above them.

‘Aren’t you done, yet?’ his father says from the counter.

Denis watches him reflected in the cabinet’s surface as he stands up straight, chuckling as he looks Denis’ reflection dead in the eye.

‘My, my, son, the glass is so clean it looks almost like thin air!’

Denis beams. ‘So I’m finished?’

‘For now,’ says his father. ‘Come look at this.’

Denis gets up from his knees and hurries to the counter. His father steps aside so Denis can fit behind it beside him.

The black velvet cloth his father works on is so dark it seems to suck light into it. In the centre is a glittering blue gem stone, cut into a teardrop shape. It’s huge, bigger than any of the stones on the rings Denis was just looking at.

‘Is it a sapphire?’

‘Good guess, but no. It is a blue diamond.’

Denis gasps. ‘I’ve never seen one so large or so dark!’

‘Nor I. Madame Fauvre brought this in for me to set into a necklace for her, isn’t it lovely, Denis?’

‘So lovely!’

Denis’ father presses his brass eyeglass into Denis’ palm. ‘Have a closer look. See the star cut on the faucet work? It’s a masterpiece.’

Denis peers at the stone through the magnifying lens of the eyeglass. Under this new scrutiny, the diamond glitters as Denis slowly moves the velvet it rests on side to side.

‘Silver or gold, you think?’ ask Denis’ father.

Denis hums. ‘How about white gold?’

His father smiles. ‘Discerning as always.’

WHOOSH

Denis trails behind his father, who is engrossed in deep conversation with the owner of the warehouse. The owner’s handheld lantern casts a small field of light around them. As they walk, Denis peers down the long, dark aisles between the shelves. Their moving light source cast strange, shifting shadows that for a moment seem to follow, and then dissolve back into the dark.

The warehouse owner is dragging a two-wheeled metal trolley behind himself. One of the wheels squeaks every few steps, and the whole thing rattles on the uneven floor of the warehouse.

‘Most of the time, when these pieces change hands, the owners leave them be,’ says the warehouse owner. ‘I was shocked when René called and said you’d be coming to collect it.’

‘What a waste,’ says Denis’ father. ‘I’m very curious to see it in person. Aren’t you Denis?’

His father looks back; the warehouse owner copies him. Denis nods profusely.

‘Dark getting to you, lad?’ asks the warehouse owner.

Denis shakes his head just as vigorously.

The warehouse owner chuckles. ‘Ah!’ he says. ‘Here we are.’

They stop at the end of an aisle. Like the others, the shelves are rambled with wooden crates of all shapes and sizes. The warehouse owner walks halfway down, peering at the crates, holding the lamp to the corners of each of them. ‘Yes, here’s the one.’

The crate is much smaller than Denis had expected, only a little bit above his head when the warehouse owner sets it on the ground. The cheap wood is thick with dust, gathered in the rough grain. In the light of the lantern, it looks ancient. Denis’ father the owner heft it onto the trolley and they wheel it out of the warehouse.

Denis’ eyes sting in the daylight when they step outside.

‘We’re not far from Le Havre, here,’ says Denis’ father. ‘That’s where monsieur Monet lived, you know?’

‘I am aware,’ says the warehouse owner. ‘Want to take a look before you cart it away?’

‘Oh, please,’ says Denis’ father.

The warehouse owner grabs a length of metal from the floor. It looks like a squashed bit of rusty pipe. Denis cringers as the owner shoves it between two planks of wood. The panels creak and squeak, buckling half way down, splinters bursting out of the dusty like pale shoots through grey earth.

The panel comes free. In the gap, Denis sees old cloth. There are lines of dirt where the crates panels didn’t quite meet. Denis’ father reaches inside and pulls the cloth apart with his hands. Through the tear, a burst of muted colour, like a sunrise through fog. Denis steps slightly closer. The brushstrokes seem to part. Denis can see individual lines in the paint. Denis can see the lines in each stroke, like a recreation of the wood grain which had obscured it, each mark the ghost of each hair of the brush once held by Monet himself.

Denis blinks, hot tears running down his cheeks.

‘Alright, son?’ says his father.

Denis nods.

WHOOSH

The stairs in hallway of René Fauvre’s house are made of rich, dark wood. The bannister gleams with polish. The floors are checkerboard white and grey marble, gleamingly clean, the grout lines dark and near invisible. The walls are panelled up to waist height in wood that matches the stairs, and covered in paper up to the crown moulding. It’s a warm shade between blue and lavender, and looks almost like it’s made of silk. The design is simple, diamonds with interchanging hash lines. They catch in the light like faucets in cut stone.

At regular intervals, paintings hang from brass chains, their frames gleaming under their own spotlights. Here a portrait of a woman, an ermine resting on her forearm. There a horse amidst a pack of beagles, his rider in a violently red hunting jacket, the colour of blood. Then a landscape, rolls of hay drying in a field beneath a pink and orange sky.

There’s a knock on the door, rap rap rap, in quick succession. Denis turns as though it has anything to do with him. Part of the wall opens next to the stairs; a hidden door camouflaged in the wallpaper and panelling. A butler emerges, arranging his jacket, tucking one hand behind his back as he goes to answer the front door.

It swings open, the frigid winter Paris air cutting the relative warmth of the hallway like a knife. The butler ushers someone in and takes her coat. She’s pretty, young, though she’s styled her hair in such a way to try to make herself look older. Her pearl earrings are fake, and her dress is poorly constructed out of curtains which were fashionable a few years ago.

She catches Denis’ eye. Her smile turns from welcoming and demure to something coyer, sourer. Denis feels his cheeks blushing.

‘I’m Celine,’ she says. She takes off a worn kid glove and holds out her hand.

Denis hesitates, then takes her cool fingers. He kisses her knuckles; they leave a chill on his lips.

‘Enchanted,’ says Denis, and perhaps for the first time in his life, he wholly means it.

‘The pleasure’s all yours,’ says Celine.

‘This is Denis, son of Mr Babin,’ says the butler.

‘Ah, the jeweller,’ says Celine.

Denis nods. His tongue feels as though it’s fastened to the roof of his mouth.

‘Mr Fauvre will be with you shortly. Wine whilst you, madame?’ asks the butler.

‘Oh, please,’ says Celine, with a fluttering smile.

The butler bows his head and walks away.

Celine looks Denis up and down. She puts her hands behind her back. Her heeled shoes clack on the marble floor with every step, and Denis feels each sound reverberating in his bones.

Denis’ cheeks redden further.

‘Which is your favourite?’ asks Celine, gazing up at the paintings.

‘Uh, the, uh, hay bales.’

Celine turns to him, a brow raised. ‘It’s a fake, you know.’

Denis’s mouth drops open. ‘What?’

A small smile dances across Celine’s lips. She looks back up at the painting. ‘Oh yes. A forgery. An impressive one, but a forgery all the same.’

‘Does Mr Fauvre—’

‘Of course,’ says Celine, with a shrug. ‘It takes a more practised hand than this to fool an expert like Fauvre.’

‘Why display it then?’

Celine smiles again. This time she does not take her gaze from the painting. ‘A measure of taste.’

The wooden door to the drawing room opens wide. Denis’s father emerges into the hall, holding his leather case, shaking Mr Fauvre’s hand. As she steps into the drawing room herself, Celine offers Denis a final glance. Her expression is impossible to make sense of in the brief second Denis gets to see it.

For weeks, he lies awake in bed each night thinking of it. He dreams of Celine and her fake earrings and homemade dress, calling into question his sense of taste. He wants to study her through his eyeglass like a precious gem.

WHOOSH

There is a strange air over Paris. A rush of movement and industry. There’s going to be a war, they say. Others say not. Denis finds he doesn’t care. He arranges and rearranges the rings and necklaces in the window. Regular customers come and go. It’s been a year since his father died but some of them still ask for him; even most regular shoppers at a jewellers don’t shop that frequently.

Denis is examining a new set of stones at his desk at the back of the shop when he hears the bell ring. He slides the stones into the drawer and turns the key in the lock.

‘Can I help you?’ he says, standing up.

A young woman is holding a baguette under her arm as she peers closely at the back of the window cabinet. When she turns, Denis recognises her at once. ‘Celine,’ says Denis.

Celine’s expression is blank, devoid of recognition. Her fingers tighten around the bread just slightly, paper bag rustling, the only indication that him knowing her name makes her anxious. How curious, Denis thinks.

‘Sorry?’ says Celine.

Denis smiles. ‘Mr Fauvre did business with my father. We met a couple of years ago, just after Christmas.’

Celine’s grip loosens incrementally. A small smile returns to her face though she clearly does not remember the interaction. Denis tries not to let this smart too much.

‘You’re a collector?’ says Celine.

‘An enthusiast,’ says Denis, with a smile. ‘The jewellery business makes good money, but so much that I can be a real collector. I have some nice pieces, upstairs in my flat, if you’d like to—’

‘No thank you,’ says Celine, curtly. She turns away from Denis again.

‘Of course. Can I help you?’ he asks.

Celine turns around again, blinking rapidly. She clears her throat. ‘Yes, please. The necklace in the centre?’

He looks at her worn coat, the pinned hem of her dress sticking out from under it.

‘The diamond and gold?’ he says. ‘I’m afraid it’s quite expensive.’

Celine’s eyes turn glassy, her expression as hard as diamond. ‘I saw the price. Will you accept sterling, for ten percent more?’

Celine marches to the desk, takes the money out of her pocket, slams it down.

Denis stares at the notes. ‘Oh. No need for a premium—’

‘I insist,’ Celine snaps.

Denis nods. He goes to the back front cabinet, takes the necklace out, draping the fine gold chain over his hand.

‘I should like to leave with it on.’

Celine sets down her bread and pulls her hair to the side, exposing the back of her neck. Denis stares at her pale skin, wisps of fine golden hair. ‘Of course, madame,’ says Denis. He puts the necklace on for her, his hands trembling slightly as he fastens the clasp. ‘There,’ he says.

Celine drops her hair. She picks up her bread and looks Denis up and down. ‘Good,’ she says.

Denis clears his throat. ‘Here’s the certificate of authenticity. Thanks for your custom.’

Celine scoffs. She folds the certificate into her pocket. ‘You’re welcome,’ she says, and she marches out of the shop.

After Celine is gone, Denis counts the money. All of it is there. When he takes it to the bank that evening, he half expects the notes to be fake, but no. They’re genuine.

Three days later, Denis is walking home from the tobacconist when he spots something in the corner of his eye. A necklace on a mannequin in the window of another jeweller’s.

He stops, stares at it. The price has been marked up, 30% more than what Denis had been charging. But there’s no mistaking it. It’s the necklace he sold Celine.

Denis goes into the shop, buys the necklace back. In his own shop, he unlocks the cabinet, meaning to set the necklace back inside again, but he hesitates. He closes the cabinet door, goes to his desk, takes out one of the plush, velvet boxes the shelves beneath it. He sets the necklace inside of it, fastening it closed with a powder-blue ribbon. He slips the box into his pocket and heads out again.

At Mr Fauvre’s, he hands the butler the box and a folded note. ‘For Miss Celine, when she returns,’ he says.

The butler nods.

Denis heads down the garden path with a little laugh.

WHOOSH

Denis is dusting in the cabinets, taking his displays down for the night to lock them in the safe in the back room of the shop, when there is a knock on the door. ‘We’re closed!’ Denis shouts around the cigarette in his mouth. He carries his wares to the back. The knocking does not stop as he closes up the safe.

He comes back to the front of the shop. He can see the shape of a man outside the door, in the dark. The knocking starts again.

‘Alright, alright!’ says Denis. He opens the door.

Two men bustle into the shop. Denis is almost shoved against the wall by the second one. He has his hand in his coat pocket, arm stiff. It keeps drawing Denis’ eye.

The men stride around the shop. One of them wears a hat. He leers at the empty cabinet. ‘Where is all the jewellery?’

Denis shakes his head. ‘Is this a robbery?!’

The second man laughs. His hand is still in his pocket. ‘Oh no, nothing so dramatic as that.’

The man in the hat reaches into his pocket, sets a tangle of jewellery out onto Denis’ desk. ‘Value this.’

‘Uh,’ says Denis. ‘I’m afraid I’m closed.’

The second man’s arm flexes. The shape of his pocket shifts. Something in the pocket clicks. A gun.

Denis swallows hard. He holds his hands up in defence.

The man in the hat clears his throat, drawing Denis’ attention back to him, the desk, and tangled pile of jewellery. He smiles grimly. ‘Value it,’ he says again.

Denis looks the men up and down. He goes to his desk. He takes out his eyeglass from his pocket and slides it open, and does as he is told.

‘Very good,’ says the officer. ‘We hear you’re an art enthusiast.’

Denis swallows hard. ‘Yes. I am.’

‘Do you have a good eye?’

Denis thinks of the painting in Mr Fauvre’s hallway. Celine’s snide remark. ‘I believe my eye is good enough,’ he says.

The officer smiles. ‘Good. We’ll have work for you soon.’

WHOOSH

The officers come to the shop at night, but still, everyone knows he is helping them. It’s not that everyone in Paris is a part of the resistance. In fact, most people are content to put their head down and carry on as normally as they can. It’s a privilege Parisians are afforded; the status of the city wins them special treatment, Denis thinks. To him, what he does when he values stolen artworks, when he allows the nazis to put him in touch with suppliers outside of France, this is a compromise that all of Paris is making. Bow your head and be compliant. In exchange, they keep the bones of Paris; her buildings; her bridges; her monuments; her roads.

The reminder of real war waits around every corner, watching from the piles of rubble that still sit where grand buildings and industrious factories once stood. It whispers from the silence between the songs and reports on the radio, coverage from war zones where bombs are still falling. Bright stars of David burn their eyes from the arms of local Jews, forced to walk in gutters. The burning absence of them after the nazis rounded them up and put them on the trains.

Nobody is talking about it, at least not with Denis. Everyone averts their gaze. Everyone, Denis concludes, thinks the same. It could be worse. It would be worse.

Denis knows where the paintings and the jewellery the officers bring to him is coming from. He’s know it all along. Stolen goods, taken from the empty houses of wealthy Jewish Parisians. But it’s only their paintings he authenticates. That’s all he’s doing. Authenticating paintings. The men they once belonged to fled Paris long ago. They’re not even considered French citizens anymore. It’s only their paintings; their necklaces; their jewellery. That’s all it is.

All Denis and the rest of Paris can do is make the best of what they have. If nazi officers show up at your door, you cannot turn them away. The choice is comply or die.

There is a knock on the shop door after nightfall. Denis has been sat by his desk, lights off, waiting. He does this most nights now. Sits in the dark after the shop has closed, waits for the officers to come. If he goes upstairs to his little flat to bed, they knock on the door so hard he’s frightened they’ll break the glass. They knock and knock until Denis appears. Dogs bark in neighbours’ yards, lights switch on up and down the street. Eyes peer from windows, all staring at him. Staring as he lets the officers in.

Better to wait.

He gets to his feet. The shadowy figure on the other side of the window is not tall enough to be an officer.

Denis’ heart squeezes. He opens the door and Celine breezes past him, wafting the scent of Chanel.

‘Celine? What is it?’

Celine shakes her head. ‘Can I stay here a day or two?’

Denis’ heart stutters. ‘Of course. But why?’

‘I met one of them in town today, to discuss the sale of a Monet, and—’ Celine’s breath catches. She shakes her head again. ‘If they realise it is a fake, I’m dead, Denis.’

‘They won’t realise. None of them have a good eye; they’re soldiers, not art historians.’

‘Some soldiers are art historians! They’re enthusiasts, they all– they had a life before this war, Denis! Soldiers do not spring out of the dirt in uniform, as much as we’d like to think it. Especially the officers; they’re educated. Smart. Many of them come from wealthy families who’ve grown up surrounded by masterpieces, who have donated money to museums, who—’

‘Celine, René would hang your work in his hallway.’

Celine looks at Denis, her eyes wide. ‘You mean it?’

‘I do. And if you hadn’t try to sell him that fake Renoir I think you’d have been able to have him on side. He’d sell your work as genuine, I’m certain of it.’

Celine smiles just a little. She plants a small, feather-light kiss to the corner of Denis’s mouth. The chill of her lips flutters through him.

WHOOSH

Denis sees Celine often, after that, at the soirees the officers invite him to. He sees their wives wearing jewellery he’s set for them. Celine is often wearing the necklace he gave to her. She touches it often as she weaves between the men in uniform and women in ballgowns. He wonders what it means to her.

Sometimes the men touch her arm. She touches theirs, lets them kiss her knuckles, sweep her hair back from her face. He imagines her skin is as soft as peony petals. Every casual brush of skin on skin makes his skin crawl.

Up and down the street, everyone says she is sleeping with at least three different officers. They say it with much venom and vitriol. They’re angrier at her for this than for selling the bastards artwork which they believe to have been painted by french masters. They talk about her as though her body is a conquered land.

Does she enjoy it, when they fuck her? What compromise has she made?

Denis lies awake at night thinking about it, thinking about those men holding her down, grunting and groaning as they thrust into her. She lets them claim her like this, for what?

Celine came to him one night, some weeks ago. He had been dispelling the rumours before then, sure it was nasty street talk, that she would never prostitute herself in such a way. But then she turned up on his doorstep, clothes askew, hair messed, lipstick smudged. He took her in, gave her wine.

‘What happened?’ he asked, and she told him she’d gone to bed with one of the officers but he’d been cruel, mean, frightening.

A chill had run down the front of Denis’ body. He had helped her, respected her, complimented her work, but it was these men she stripped for, not him. Never him.

He could see it all so clearly. The softness of Celine’s body as she let him touch her. He’d dreamed of her naked so many times before.

‘How could you expect anything different?’ Denis asked her, trying hard to keep his tone even.

Celine blinked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘They’re nazis! Soldiers! Brutal, violent men! You let them fuck you, of course they will be violent!’

Celine’s mouth fell open a little. She gathered herself together. She set down her half-drunk glass of wine. She left without a word.

Denis has not seen her since, except at soirees and in his dreams. He dreams of the officers holding her down, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Of course he’d never do that, he loves her. How could he not, beautiful, clever, talented as she is?

What does it mean that she touches her necklace so often? Does she love him too? Is that what it means? She loves him and she’s too afraid to show it?

WHOOSH

Denis raps his hands hard on Celine’s door again. He glances over his shoulder. It’s after curfew; he should not be out. He’s sure he’s met most of the ranking German officers in Paris but he’s less confident they’d all vouch for him.

Finally, the door opens. Celine’s face appears above the chain. ‘Denis?’

The door closes, the chain clatters aside. The door opens again.

‘What are you doing here?’ says Celine.

Denis has only been into Celine’s flat once before, to collect some of her paintings. It’s more of a mess than it was then, torn canvases, paint on the walls. There’s a fake Monet half painted on an easel in the centre of the room, half a pot of soup on the stove. There is no sign she has been packing.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ says Denis.

‘Heard what?’ says Celine, grabbing a bottle of wine from under a hastily thrown blanket. She pulls out the cork and swigs right from the bottle’s neck.

‘They’re moving all the resistance prisoners out of Paris.’

Celine snorts. ‘So? You’re certainly not the fucking resistance.’

Denis’s pride smarts. ‘Oh, and you are?’

Celine laughs sourly and swigs more of her wine. ‘What have you come here for, Denis?’

‘Captain Schröder. He’s– he told me there is a safe place I can go to, if I get—’

‘Denis, what are you talking about?’

‘Aren’t you listening?! They’ve ordered all the prisoners out of the city! Surely you must know what that means?!’

Celine shakes her head minutely.

Denis runs a hand over his face. ‘They’re losing, Celine. They’re leaving Paris, or being forced out, or—’

Celine laughs again. She covers her mouth. Her eyes are shining. She sits down on a wooden chair, staring into the middle distance.

‘It’s okay, it’s going to be okay. In a week, we can meet Schröder’s contact by the river, he’ll take us to—’

‘Sorry, we?’ says Celine.

Denis stares at her. She is looking at him with an expression he cannot read. Her hair is wild, escaping the long plait over her shoulder, forming a halo which glows in the light of the lamp behind her. She has no make-up on. Her skin looks soft, despite the way her bones press sharp against it. Even people like them who are in good with the Germans have suffered with the food shortages in the city.

‘Celine. If they find out what you did—’

‘What I did?’ Celine repeats, shaking her head. ‘Denis, you absolute tool.’

‘We don’t have time for this. Please, just meet me by—’

Celine shakes her head.

‘What do you mean no?’ says Denis. ‘They’ll kill you for what you did. Or worse!’

Celine grimaces. ‘Good luck, Denis.’

‘What?’

‘Close the door on your way out.’

WHOOSH

Denis waited for Schröder by the river. He did not come. Nobody did. Not even Celine. He stayed sat by the water until the sky brightened for dawn, then walked back to his shop, trying to breathe evenly.

He goes back up to his flat. He stands in the small living room. He looks at his Monet, at the fake Renoir Celine gifted to him, the one she tried to sell to René Fauvre. He tears it off the wall.

WHOOSH

The Germans bombed the city, like he knew they would. Poor Paris, poor city, he made such a sacrifice to keep her safe and now it has been squandered, and for what? The Germans will raze the city to the ground before they give it back to France. What use is a city when everyone who lives it is dead? When the only blood in its veins is what runs in the gutters?

Denis keeps the doors to the shop locked. He sits in his flat. He watches people come and go, come and go, in the street below.

Denis eats a small handful of noodles or a couple of crackers every day. Soon he is going to run out of food. When he runs out of food it will mean he’ll have to go outside, and he can’t go outside. He’s seen what they do to the people who tried to save Paris when they go outside.

He’s seen what they did to Celine. They had her, almost took her, but Denis stepped in, strong armed the man from the resistance who was leading her away. Taking her for questioning, that’s what the man said. Denis stood as tall as he could. The man from the resistance, he looked Denis up and down. But he let him take her.

Denis led Celine back to his flat. They’d hit her on the back of her head. There was blood in her blonde hair. He gave her a towel. All he did was try to help, that’s all he did. She was angry at him for bringing her to his flat. They’ll question her tomorrow anyway, this will have only mad it worse, made it look like she’s resisting them, that she doesn’t want to cooperate.

They’ll shoot her dead for what she did, he told her.

She looks at him, incredulous. How can he say such things when he was helping them authenticate hundreds of stolen artworks and items of jewellery? Engagement rings ripped from the fingers of women being shipped like cargo to the gas chambers. At first he didn’t know, because nobody knew, but he must have heard it the same as everyone else, what they were doing to those people who were being taken away on the cattle trains. Not just Parisians but people from all over France, all over Europe. People like him and her. Children.

Exactly, is what he told her. All he did was authenticate the paintings and value the jewellery. He never once hurt a Jew, never once ratted one out. He just did as he was told. That’s all. Not like her, not like Celine. She gave her body to them. Let them ravish her.

Her eyes went wide then. She gave nothing, she says. They took. They stole.

Her words raised a rage in him. A bitter, anguished rage. After all he’d done she would sit there and lie to him, as if he hadn’t seen her at all those parties and galas smiling and flirting and hanging off their arms, wearing the necklace he had given her, never once giving him a chance.

Celine argued more, said more, but he didn’t hear it. Maybe all she understood was force. Maybe that’s what it takes. She respected the officers, he’d seen her, he’d seen her hanging on their words. He’d seen her. He’d watched her walk home after sleeping with them, tears on her cheeks for leaving them.

Maybe force was all she understood. And he loved her, he loved her, he had to show her, he had to make her understand that he loved her. So he did. He showed her, he made her see.

And she kicked and fought for a while but then she let him. Because she understood! She was an artist and she was beautiful and she was his!

Only, after? She got up and left without a word.

She’ll come back. She will. She’ll come back. She will. She’ll be back. She’ll come back and she’ll tell him that she understands, that she loves him, that she sees him as he sees her. He just has to wait. She’ll be back, she will, she will.

WHOOSH

Denis clutches the letter in his hands as he heads to the river. From Captain Schröder. They’re going to smuggle him out of the city, tonight. He just has to make to the river. He went to Celine’s flat, but she wasn’t there. Someone had kicked in the door. He’s not seen her since he told her he loved her, but they have to leave tonight, even if she’s not ready.

He left her a note. In case she came home in time. Maybe she’ll be there, by the water. He hurries down the steps by the bridge, onto the path by the water. The streetlights catch in the rippling surface, like diamonds on undulating cloth.

Denis keeps his head down as he goes. He glances up now and then, heading for the bridge, heading for the shadows, where Schröder or his contact will be waiting. They’ll have a white feather behind their ear, that’s how he’ll know it’s them.

But there’s nobody there at all. Denis looks about, breathing hard, breathing heavy. Then, across the water, he spots someone. Two someones. Celine, her hair cut short, her clothes torn and half hanging from her. There is a man holding her shoulder. Her hands are tied in front of her.

Denis calls to her. She just stares blankly at him across the water.

Next to him, Denis hears a whistle.

He turns, and see the barrel of a gun. He thinks of his father.

WHOOSH

SILENCE

THE APPRENTICE RETCHES, THEN THROWS UP ON THE GROUND, PANTING.

APPRENTICE
No– no more.

SIR
Apprentice?

HE’S SICK AGAIN, AND SITS GASPING.

APPRENTICE
What was that, what was that.

SIR
That was a remnant.

APPRENTICE
What does that mean?! It was like– I felt almost what he felt, like it was a– a memory, but not my memory.

SIR
Processing.

APPRENTICE
But what is it?!

SIR
You process the remnants as though they are your own.

APPRENTICE
I– I don’t understand.

SIR
Remnants. What remains of the man whose life you saw.

APPRENTICE
What remains, I– ?

SIR
There is a phrase, I believe. When you die, your life flashes before your eyes. I cannot speak to how true that is, for I have seen only what remains of the lives of others. But perhaps it is this. Perhaps it is us.

APPRENTICE
Perhaps? You mean… you don’t know?

SIR
I only process. I have no need to know. I process. I judge. I shelve and discard.

APPRENTICE
Re-shelve.

SIR
What?

APPRENTICE
I don’t– never mind. You judge?

SIR
Shelve or discard.

APPRENTICE
What does it mean?

SIR
To shelve, to keep, to presume some day you will be plucked from the shelf again. To discard is to discard.

APPRENTICE
I still don’t–

SIR
Do you have a judgement?

APPRENTICE
Do I– what?

SIR
The jeweller’s eyeglass. Shelve or discard?

APPRENTICE
I– I fucking. Vile. I want to have never seen it.

SIR
It is only a matter of time before you feel this way. So, discard?

APPRENTICE
Yes. I think. Discard.

A HISS LIKE SAND RUNNING THROUGH FINGERS.

SIR
It is done.

THE APPRENTICE SIGHS

SIR
You are tired?

APPRENTICE
Yes.

SIR
Would you like to rest?

APPRENTICE
What did you mean, before? When you said you’d reset me?

SIR
Ah. It is of no consequence to you.

APPRENTICE
You say that, you make me look at this to ‘check’? Check what?

SIR
It was a risk, to show you this. It has caused catastrophes before. At least we know this time you will make the call.

APPRENTICE
What do you mean?

SIR
Pay it no mind. Sleep, Apprentice.

[END]

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