Flykiller

Lustrous curves and flowing lines were in the mahogany panelling, banisters and mouldings. Tall corridors opened upwards to floral; stained-glass lights which gave the sense of being in a verdant, year-round garden. Kentias, in cylindrical jardinieres, glazed white and blue, lined the walls at intervals. Stylish red, morocco-covered, cushioned benches allowed for rest and patient reflection. Water played musically in the distance. A mosaic of soft blue lilies, submerged in the white of the tiles, was underfoot, each flower revealing a yellow-dusted stamen that opened into a gorgeous naked nymph whose arms were thrown wide in rapture. Youth, health and beauty were everywhere, especially in the painting of nereids au bain above the doorway at the far end of the corridor, where limpid-eyed girls stood in foam-flecked shallows splashing a buck-naked Nereus, as dolphins swam and seashells basked.

The grey-skirted, trimly aproned little maid of twenty with the clear complexion, brown eyes and chestnut hair, paused. ‘Messieurs et mesdames,’ she announced hesitantly. ‘It is this way, please. The doctor awaits.’

‘And is expecting us?’ asked Kohler from behind the ladies.

‘As he expects all who come here, monsieur.’

‘Foie, diabete et estomac, Hermann,’ grunted St-Cyr. Liver, diabetes and stomach problems. ‘Gout, too, and obesity. It’s all in the mind. You need the cure, you want the cure and voila, you take it and feel better.’

‘Having paid a fortune! Louis!’

Venus et Diane stood on either side of the doorway in their gilded birthday suits, life-sized and all the rest. The lighting became softer, the corridor turning as the playful sound of water increased and one saw, as if looking down through a leafy tunnel between full-frontal nudes of a teenaged boy and girl whose arms were languidly raised to pick dream-fruit perhaps, others bathing in a secluded forest pond. Some were half-undressed, most were naked, some were submerged right up to their pretty necks. The farthest bather wore a gossamer sheath that clung to her in the most favourable of places.

‘I like it, Louis. Maybe my knee would too.’

‘And that aching shoulder you forgot to tell me about?’

‘Quit worrying so much. I’ll be there when you need me.’

‘It’s the needing I’m worrying about.’

They were moving quickly now. A spacious lounge held a bar, billiard and card tables, armchairs and kaftan-clad, felt-slippered curistes, among them the greying local Kommandant and others of the Occupier. Too many of the others …

‘Ignore them!’ hissed Kohler as men, women, young boys and girls watched their progress, the conversation falling off. No sign of Petain, though. None of Menetrel either.

The room, the examining office-cum-dispensary, was a clutter. Weighing scales for the patients to step on, others for preparing their prescriptions. Pharmaceutical jars of herbs, bottles of the various Vichy waters, the Celestins, Hopital, Dome and Boussange among them. The bank of wooden filing drawers must hold each patient’s card and record of progress; carved models of hands and feet would be used for arthritic enlightenment, gout too. Even an array of the regulation, measured glasses stood sentinel with a graduated cylinder.

A wall mirror, astutely positioned on the left of the desk, would reflect each curiste’s towel or sheath-draped figure for lessons in obesity that permitted few secrets.

A little man, grey, balding and sharply goateed, with necktie, shirt, waistcoat and suit under a white smock, Dr Raoul Normand was pushing seventy. He scribbled hard, the gold-rimmed pince-nez balanced on the bridge of a slender nose. Another prescription. Thirty cubic centimetres of the Chomel … le gymnase, la hydrotherapie et les inhalations de gaz …

‘Doctor, some visitors,’ whispered the maid, having timidly approached the desk.

‘A moment, my child. Will you see that Herr Schroder follows my orders strictly? Positively no alcohol for five days. We must convince him of this.’ He fretted. ‘Zaunerstollen … what is this, please?’ he asked, consulting the request sheet he’d been given by his latest curiste.

‘A nougat,’ offered Kohler, the others standing aside. ‘Ground hazelnuts and almonds, with grated chocolate, butter, cream and crumbled bits of Oblaten.’

‘And what is that? snapped the doctor, irritably fussing with the sheet of notepaper.

‘Round wafers filled with buttered, ground almonds and sugar.’