The Beirhaus was ready for a busy Friday and the staff was grateful for the rush. Their job was good when their boss was happy and nothing cheered him up like a busy drinking hall. Delicious scents wafted enthusiastically from the kitchen, inspiring more food orders. Business was good, but for once Georg’s mood didn’t rise to match. He wasn’t foul by any means, but those who knew him knew something was wrong. At the taps he was smiles and quips in French and German, but in the kitchen he had his head down and didn’t speak to the staff in his usual encouraging way. When he went down to the cellar to bring up new casks, Veronique popped in after him.

“You don’t seem yourself, Georg,” she said from the second step to the bottom. “Is everything all right? Did you get bad news from your cousin?”

The older man looked up at her from the kegs he was shifting. He had hired Veronique because she could speak unaccented German, and also fit the ‘official’ standard of beauty for so many of his German customers. She was beautiful but approachable, with a mousey nose and round face framed by appropriately long sandy blonde hair. Unlike so many of the waifish French women in Vichy, she was fit and more strongly built. If Georg was to be honest with himself, which he wasn’t when it came to women, Veronique reminded him of a younger version of his wife, who in turn reminded him of the farm girls he’d known in Westphalia as a youth.

“There are a number of new faces tonight,” he said to dodge the question. “Are there any... strange customers tonight?”

Veronique responded in the negative at first, then described an Italian woman speaking with some young men. German’s didn’t have a good ear for Italian, but the French did and the woman didn’t sound like the one described by his cousin. Georg thanked her, managing a smile, then set to bringing a cask up to the taps