by Richard Wake
"But this is bigger than that," I said. "This is about Hitler's very ability to make war. Can't they see that?"
"They can't see shit."
The tears were flowing freely. Her chest was heaving, just a bit, and she was having trouble catching her breath. I had never seen Manon like this, even during our breakup fight.
I leaned over, touched her face, and wiped away a tear. She looked at me, and I looked at her, and neither of us said anything. We ripped off each other's clothes and somehow maneuvered around the steering wheel. Once, then again, and then we fell asleep entwined, covered as best we could by our coats and clothing. Hours later, the rising sun woke us as it shone through the front windshield. It lit the alley.
40
We eventually did talk, Manon and I, but really not that much. I had accepted the start of our relationship for what it was and compartmentalized that part of it. The rest, I truly believed, was real. Beyond that, there really wasn't a lot to say.
The night in the car bonded us in a new way, and not just the sex. We shared, well, not only a profession but a growing disgust with the people who ran that part of our lives. They sent us out, at significant risk, and would not listen or act on the information we brought them. They couldn't see the big picture or what was truly important. They clung to their old ways, and they cared most about preserving their patch of turf. Manon and I were on the road to disillusionment, but at least we were on it together again.
For one thing, it got Liesl off of my back. Given her size, in the ninth month of her pregnancy, this was no small burden. She was so happy when we showed up together a couple of days later at the cafe, as were Gregory and Henry, and they stuck around the booth for too long. Eventually, though, they left us. We did have something to talk about.
Or, as Manon said, once we were alone, "So exactly how much are we going to tell each other?"
"I've thought about it a little bit," I said. I had different levels of secrets, as I assume she did. For instance, there was the question of Gregory's involvement. Could I tell her? Would Gregory view it as a betrayal if he found out that she knew? That might have been the trickiest one, but there were plenty of landmines along the way. Should I tell her about Brodsky and where I met him, or about Herman and First Thursdays? Or should I just pass along the information I gathered and remain secretive about, as they said in the trade, my sources and methods?
"Here's what I've come to," I said. "If I'm out on bank business, I'll tell you that. If I'm on other business, I'll tell you that, too. And I'll share whatever information I get, anything I think might be of any value to you and to France. But contacts? Sources? The where and the when? I just don't think that's the way to go."
The relief on Manon's face was plain.
"Thank God," she said. "I've been thinking the same thing. No more lies about rug manufacturers in Geneva, or wherever the hell that was supposed to be. Oh, and remember that story about the rug manufacturer with the rug? It was true, just a couple of years old.
"But giving up sources, I just don't think that's smart, and I'm glad you don't, either. I mean, we promise them discretion as part of the bargain, even if it's unspoken. They probably figure we're going to tell our superiors -- but even then, I have one guy who absolutely refused to deal with me unless I offered him total anonymity, even from my boss."
"And to add another intelligence service, none of these people signed up for that," I said.
"And God forbid something happened to one of my guys after I revealed his identity to you -- it could just create issues between us that we couldn't survive."
"I'm glad we see it the same," I said. "But I am concerned about one thing. The very nature of some of the information I get, and that maybe you get, could naturally point the finger at the source. And the more people who know, the more potential fingers."
"You're right," she said. "But I think that's always a risk. We just play that one by ear, case-to-case. The more important the information, the more risks we assume."
"All right, I guess this is a plan," I said. "Maybe not perfect but close enough for spies in love."
"When they make the movie about us, that's the title."
"I was leaning more toward 'Sex Beneath the Gear Shift.'"
"That can be the adult version," she said.
"Well, since we now have an arrangement, I have something to tell you."
"Let me use the ladies' and pick us up one more drink." Which is what she did.
The day before, I had met up with Herman at Honold, the tea room on Rennweg. It wasn't an accident -- he said he had waited for me outside of the bank, hoping that I was in the mood for a second fruhstuck. He joined me in the line. Honold was a monument to the Swiss style of full employment. In the front of the restaurant, you had to pick your food from a glass case -- sandwiches and pastries and such -- where one of the two women working there reached under the glass to fill your plate. Then you paid your money to a third woman, sitting behind a cash register. Then you walked to the back of the tea room and sat down at an empty table, where a different waiter took your drink order. Then you paid him, for the second time. And if he refilled your coffee, you paid a third time. Whatever. The salami on white bread with pickle and tomato was an excellent second fruhstuck.
"So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I heard something," Herman said.
"What kind of something?"
"Interesting something. Bad something."
"From one of your old friends across the border?"
Herman nodded. His news was a stunner. His source said that Hitler had decided to come west, but northwest -- he was going to invade Denmark and Norway on April 9th.
"Excuse me," I said, grabbing a newspaper off of a neighboring chair. The woman at that table waved at me weakly. I just wanted to see the date. It was Monday, April 1st.
"I guess I see what this couldn't wait till Thursday," I said, which was First Thursday at Cafe Tessinerplatz.
"That would have been cutting it close."
"But Denmark and Norway? Does that make any sense to you?"
"It does," Herman said. "They're constantly worried about supplies and materials in the high command. Hell, you know that -- what was that shit your family mined and sold them for their blast furnaces?"
"Magnesite," I said. It hadn't even been two years, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.
"Well, think about iron ore," he said. "Think about nickel. Stuff like that, stuff that Germany doesn't have, or doesn't have enough of. Well, a place like Norway is full of natural resources. You take them first, you guarantee your supplies for the armaments factories. Krupp's happy, Hitler's happy, and France and Britain will still get it in the end."
And when she came back with the drinks, that is what I told Manon -- not about Herman or Honold or my second fruhstuck, but about Denmark and Norway and April 9th. And, after she let out a low whistle, I offered her the rationale that Herman had provided, about nickel and iron ore and whatever. Then, another low whistle, followed by a look at her watch.
"Your place?" I said.
"Can't. Now I have this to deal with, and also a ceramics show tomorrow afternoon in Lausanne."
I looked at her skeptically. I would come to call it my rug manufacturers' look.
"Hey, I still have a day job, too. As do you."
"All right, I'll walk you," I said. It was only a couple of blocks. I shouted at Gregory as we got to the door. "I'll be back in 10 minutes for one more. I need you to explain to me how they haven't shot that goalkeeper of yours yet. What's his name? They should call him the Holey Ghost -- H-O-L-E-Y."
"Alex, you are too harsh," he said. "You did not see the game. I did. Only four of the goals were really his fault."
"Okay, you're right. Maybe they should give him a raise instead."
Thus armed, two of the fossils would still be badgering Gregory when I returned. I had the one drink, and then another as I helped him tidy up after closing. Then we went upstairs
and sent the message about Denmark and Norway to London.
41
The yellow chalk mark on the MCMIX fountain was being peed on by a spaniel-ish mutt when I happened upon it. The lower half was likely washed away, deepening the color of the puddle at the base. I would be sure to tell Brodsky to recalibrate his aim the next time. Maybe we would even laugh about it, which would be novel. Laughs were growing shorter and shorter in supply, at least when it was the two of us getting together.
As it turned out, when I got off of the tram and tripped into the Barley House, all was as before. Hitler's army was on the move, and the Nazi gold was undergoing a fresh laundering in Basel, but the Lowenbrau brewery was still running three shifts, and the Barley House remained a dark, loud, smoky, blue convention. It might even have been more crowded than the last time.
After getting my beer -- again, the longest part of the process was the time it took me to reach into my pocket for some money -- I walked toward the same table in the back corner, shouldering through the blue coveralls. But there was a surprise this time -- Brodsky had already been joined by another man, as conspicuous and he and I were, black coats amid the blue. It was Herman.
"It isn't First Thursday," I said. "The people at Cafe Tessinerplatz are going to be furious if they find out we've been cheating on them."
"I think we're safe," Herman said. "Cafes are like wives. A little part of them expects to be cheated on."
"Something you're not telling us, Herman?"
"Past life," he said. For some reason, I began wondering if he was sending a little something home to the former Frau Stressler, and how that might be possible, given that running a specialty magazine that didn't sell shit would seem to make for some pretty tight budgeting for the current Frau Stressler as it was. But that was his problem, and I just didn't have time for it. I also didn't care.
We started talking about Norway and Denmark. The information from Herman's source had been spot on. Both the countries and the dates were exactly correct. The Wehrmacht went in on April 9th. In the days afterward, the newspapers were full of color and details about the great Nazi war machine. Unfortunately, it appeared that most of them were true.
"Although," Brodsky said, at one point. "It's hard to measure exactly how big and bad the Wehrmacht is when Denmark rolls over in six hours."
"They didn't even buy them dinner," I said.
"Just fucked," Herman said. "Fucked, fucked, and fucked again."
"At least Norway fought a little bit," Brodsky said.
"And the government and the king got away -- can't have too many kings," I said.
"And that jackass," Herman said. "What's his name?"
"Quisling," I said.
"Right, Quisling," Brodsky said. "Talk about following which way the wind is blowing. But look, I didn't get your here to re-hash everything that's been in the newspapers."
"Well, maybe we should talk about how nobody is listening to the information we're bringing them. I mean, shit -- that information was dead-on, but there was no reaction that I could see. They just let Hitler walk in. I mean, are they even fucking listening?"
Spying was, by its very nature, a solitary existence. But I was fortunate, in that I could share at least part of what I was doing, and what I was feeling, with not only Manon but also Herman and Brodsky. They were living the same life, to varying degrees. They dealt with the same frustrations. And while I sometimes wondered if there was always a tension between field agents and the people who ran them, just as in any employee-boss relationship, the disconnection between the information being gathered and the decisions being made, or not made, was profound.
"Am I wrong, or does this seem really fucked up to you?" I said, looking first at Brodsky, then at Herman. "I mean, nobody's fucking listening."
We all sat and drank. Herman stood up and got us three more. The fug along the ceiling seemed particularly thick. Metaphors were everywhere if you looked hard enough.
"This is going to make you feel even worse," Brodsky said. "But here's why I called you both. I have new information on the Ardennes invasion. It's a pretty good source, and it's in two pieces. Yes, he also has heard that the focal point of the invasion will be the Ardennes, and not Belgium and Holland. And I didn't lead him at all -- it all came from him."
"Great," I said. "Three confirmations now. But if they didn't listen to two, three won't matter."
"But I also have a date," Brodsky said.
I actually leaned forward to get closer to him. Herman dd, too.
"So?" I said.
"May 10th," Brodsky said.
"This is solid?" Herman said.
"Yeah, my guy says it's solid. He's in the Soviet high command. He says the Germans have consulted them as a courtesy."
May 10th. Three weeks.
So this was it. France and Britain had two weeks to get their shit together. They were either going to listen to information that could not be more solid, that came to three different spies -- a Russian, a German and a Czech -- from three different sources who had access to the German military. Hell, one of them, Ritter, was in the German military, and so was Herman's source, probably. Nothing in life is certain, and that was perhaps even truer when you were dealing with a homicidal lunatic like Hitler, but this was not ignorable anymore. They had to listen.
Once again, Gregory got one whiff of my overcoat and insisted that I hang it outside before entering his apartment. The message he sent was as short and unemotional as I could muster: "Russian confirmation of Ardennes invasion. Date set is May 10." The reply was swift, as always. Dash-dash-dot. G.
But as Gregory and I drank and talked, I got more and more worked up. I mean, this was it. There was no getting around it anymore. I had been forced to leave Austria and would have been forced to leave Czechoslovakia if I hadn't beaten the Wehrmacht to the border by a few months. Now Hitler was coming my way again, probably not here, not to Zurich, but who knew? Britain and France were going to stop him here, or he wasn't going to be stopped. It was that simple, and there had been no signs thus far that indicated they realized it.
I grabbed a pencil and scribbled out another message. Gregory read it.
"Really?" he said.
"Yes, really."
"This is a bad idea."
"Just send it."
"Alex--"
"Just fucking send it," I said. It came off harsher than I had intended. Gregory translated from the bible page and sent it in silence. The message read, "Are you even fucking listening?"
We sat and finished our drink. He was pissed, and I didn't have anything left to say. There was no reply from London, no dash-dash-dot confirmation, nothing. Gregory looked at his watch.
"Should I send it again?"
"No, fuck it," I said. It was time for me to get out of there. I needed to get over to Manon's flat, to wake her up and tell her the latest.
42
The stack of paperwork on my desk at Bohemia Suisse had begun to lean, ever so slightly. One more bulging file folder might just topple the whole mess, and there was no question who was going to be picking it up and reassembling the folders if it did. The end of the month was always like that, but even more lately, given my other preoccupations. Mostly it was just initialing and signing, but some of it was more in-depth. One afternoon a month, I carried the adding machine from the nook it usually occupied near Marta's desk and brought it into my office for a series of calculations that required a double-check. They were never wrong, and I don't know if Marta resented it more than she resented everything else I did, but it was mostly an exercise that forced me to pay attention to the key financial aspects of the bank. Besides, I kind of enjoyed the clicking noise the machine made when it came time to total a column of figures.
That's what I was doing when Marta came in.
"One of the nephews is here," she said.
"Does he have an appointment?"
She said that he didn't. I asked her if she could handle the withdrawal, attempting to minimi
ze how curious I was that one of the spies was in the bank, one who had never been here before. I also knew that we were currently in a spot in our relationship that whenever I said "white," Marta would reply "black." So I wasn't surprised when she said he asked specifically for me.
"Give me 30 seconds," I said, getting up from the table where the adding machine was sitting, rolling down my sleeves, and slipping on my jacket. That was another thing I liked about the adding machine, the excuse it gave me to unencumber myself a little. I was just shooting my shirt cuffs out of the sleeves when Kensinger walked in. I didn't remember his first name. I had only met him one time, but he was memorable, a 20-something-year-old kid with mostly gray hair. He was carrying a brown leather satchel, almost like a schoolboy's, with two buckled straps in the front.
I walked around the desk and shook his hand, then walked the few additional steps and closed the office door. As I did, I caught Marta's look of disapproval, or maybe disappointment that she wouldn't be able to hear through the leather-padded door.
I pointed him to one of the two facing wing chairs and offered him coffee from the pot on my sideboard. It had been there a half-hour but was still hot enough. That would be it for the niceties, as it turned out. Kensinger was not much interested in small-talk.
"I'm here to take almost everything in the account. Do you have a problem with that?"
I was interested, certainly. But a problem? No.
"I have no control over the account," I said. "This is your decision. The bearers of the account have all of the power. The bank is just a repository."
"Good."
I sat, silent. Five seconds. Ten seconds. I put on my placid face, but the nervousness grew on his. At 15 seconds, he just began blurting.
"We need the money to go further underground."
