The World at Night

by Alan Furst

  Once again he’d been stupid: had decided that what he wanted to be true, was. And it wasn’t. Thus Altmann had deceived him, then Simic, then with Citrine, he’d deceived himself. This couldn’t go on. He heard his father saying “Jean-Claude, Jean-Claude.”

  By force of will, he turned himself back toward commerce. Survival, he thought, that’s what matters now. It wasn’t a time for love affairs—maybe that was what Citrine understood better than he ever could, survival was more important than anything. The city had no difficulty with that, at the end of winter it discovered it was somehow still alive, then went back to business with a vengeance. It wasn’t very appealing, some of it, but then it never had been. You work in a whorehouse, Balzac told them. Don’t let anybody see how much you enjoy it and get your money up front.

  Casson, that first week in April, had a new friend. An admirer. Perhaps, even, an investor. A certain Monsieur Gilles de Groux. Nobility, the real thing, in fact de Groux de Musigny, Casson checked the listing in Bottin Mondain and the Annuaire des Châteaux. He had a huge, drafty house out in the forest of St.-Germain-en-Laye, just outside Paris, where his family had moved in 1688 in order to commiserate with the Catholic pretender James II, who’d slipped into France earlier that year. William of Orange got the English throne, as it happened, but the de Groux family remained, walking on the miles-long Grande Terrasse that looked out over the city of Paris, breeding Vendéean basset hounds, reading books in leather covers.

  It was Arnaud who had suggested his name to de Groux. Casson called him after their first meeting. “He wants to make films, he says.”

  “Yes,” Arnaud said. “That’s what he told me.”

  “Where did you say you met?”

  “Rennaisance Club.”

  “How rich is he?”

  Arnaud had to take a moment to think about this. All around them, in the 16th Arrondissement, were the world’s great masters of the art of pretending to be rich. “The money, I believe, is from Limoges. China. Since the eighteen-hundreds. Does he live well?”

  “Big house in St.-Germain. Creaky floors. Gothic maids.”

  “Sounds right.”

  “You think he really wants to make films?”

  “Perhaps. I can’t say. Maybe he wants to meet film stars. He certainly wanted to meet you. Hello? Jean-Claude?”

  “Yes, I’m still on.”

  “You ought to get that repaired.”

  “Are you going to the Pichards on Friday?”

  “I’d planned to.”

  “See you there.”

  “Yes. Keep me posted on what happens, will you?”

  “I will.”

  There were film producers who made a living by knowing how to meet rich people and what to say to them, but for Casson it somehow never worked out. Some stubborn dignity always asserted itself, they sensed that, the grand schemes came to nothing. But de Groux was, in Casson’s experience, something completely new. A tall, thin, shambling fellow, no family close by, a shaggy white mustache stained by tobacco, hair that needed cutting, old wool sweaters that smelled like dogs, and a yellow corduroy jacket with buttoned pockets, a survival of the artists-and-models Montparnasse of 1910. No less an aristocrat, of course, for a little eccentricity. A certain drape hung between him and the world; installed at birth, removed with death, never to be shifted in between.

  He was, however, very intent on making a film. And it was the apparatus of the business that seemed to fascinate him. He wanted to visit the office on the rue Marbeuf, he insisted they have lunch at the Alsatian brasserie on the corner—assuming that Casson often ate there. He wanted to have a drink at Fouquet—or Rudi’s, or Ubu Roi— wanted to go out to Billancourt, wanted to visit the nightclubs around Bastille. In the process they would talk about very nearly everything before returning, rather dutifully it seemed to Casson, to the business at hand.

  “I always come back to The Devil’s Bridge,” he would say. “That same kind of, feeling, the mood of, what would you say?”

  “I don’t know. Escape?”

  “Yes, well, perhaps. But maybe more. We should be ambitious, I think. That’s what’s wrong with people, these days.”

  They talked a great deal, and over time it crossed Casson’s mind that this man had never actually seen a film.

  “Tell me, Gilles,” he would say. “What’s your favorite?”

  “Oh, I can never keep the titles straight.”

  Vague, perhaps, but very accomodating. Any time or place was good for him, and he never missed an appointment. He traveled in a chauffeured Citroën, seemed to have all the gasoline he needed, had lots of money and ration stamps, and an insatiable curiosity. What did Casson think about the Catholic church? What about Pétain? De Gaulle? The Popular Front? England, Churchill, the French Communist Party.

  Good talk, intelligent and cultured. De Groux had spent half a century reading and conversing—born to a rich and idle life, your job was to discover the meaning of existence, then to let your friends know what it was. The discussion of the new film was carried on all over Paris, Casson was even invited to a supper party at de Groux’s hunting lodge in the Sologne. Oh Citrine, I wish you could be here to see this. That’s a real oryx head over the fireplace, that’s a real duke by the fire, he’s carrying a stick with a real ivory horse’s head, and he’s wearing a real leather slipper with the little toe cut away to ease his gout.

  A cast of characters well beyond Jean Renoir. Adèle, the niece from Amboise. Real nobility—look at those awful teeth. Washed-out blue eyes gazed into his, a tiny pulse beat sparrowlike at the pale temple. Wasn’t her uncle the dearest man—insisting that poor old Pierrot be stabled in his horse barns? This proud beast, now retired, who had pounded so faithfully down the paths of the Bois de Fontainebleau after the fleeing hart—would Monsieur care to visit him? Citrine, I confess I wanted to. Go to the stable and wrestle in the straw, hoist the silk evening dress and pull down the noble linen. For the son of a grand-bourgeois crook from the 16th, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. One never met such people, they were rumored to exist, mostly they appeared in plays. There really was game for dinner, dark and strong— perhaps the fabled bear paw, Casson couldn’t bring himself to ask—with black-blood gravy. And real watery vegetables. “Film!” said a cousin from Burgundy. “No. Not really.” Casson assured him it was true. And the man drew back his lips and actually brayed.

  There they were, and I among them. Sad it couldn’t last—de Groux was a spy, really, what else could he be? It scared Casson because somebody was going to a lot of trouble, and Casson didn’t think he was worth it. Or, worse, he was worth it but he just didn’t realize why.

  Back at the rue Chardin, a visit to the cellar with a flashlight. Ancient stone walls, a child’s sled, a forgotten steamer trunk, a bicycle frame with no wheels. On one wall, black metal boxes and telephone lines. What was he looking for? He didn’t know. Whatever made that hissing sound. He peered at the wires, seeking a device he could neither name nor describe. But there was nothing there. Or nothing he could see. Or, maybe, nothing at all, it was all in his mind. French phones made noise—why not this noise?

  “Tell me,” de Groux said, “a man in your position. You must have influence somewhere—a sympathetic politician, perhaps. It’s hard to get the permissions, all the fiches one must have to do your job. I tell you I’m worried, my friend. All the money we’re going to spend. It’s not that I don’t have it, I have pots of it. It’s these musty old lawyers, and the family. They see an old man having a fling, and they worry I’ll actually open my fist and a sou will fly out. So you see, I don’t want all this to founder on the whim of some little petit fonctionnaire. I want to assure myself that when the great battle of the clerks is fought, we are the ones left standing when the smoke clears.”

  Va te faire foutre, I tell him in my heart, Citrine. Go fuck thyself. But, in the real world: “Well, Gilles, frankly I have stood on the lines myself. I have filled in my share of forms. Sometimes an assistant ha
s been there to help but it’s so difficult, you see, crucial, that one must involve oneself. It’s that kind of commitment you must have. In the film business.”

  “No. Really? Well.”

  A blind reptile, he thought. But it knows there’s a nest, and young, and it senses warmth.

  And then, it happened again—it seemed everybody wanted to be his friend that spring. This time he was at the office. Four o’clock on a long, wet, gray afternoon, the street outside shiny with rain. His secretary knocked, then opened the door. “A Madame Duval to see you,” she said, her voice disapproved of the name—who does she think she is, using an alias?

  His heart sank. He’d been happily lost in his work, a thousand miles from reality. “Well, send her in,” he said.

  She sat across from him, wearing a dark suit and a hat with a veil, knees primly together and canted slightly to one side. One of those fortyish Frenchwomen with a sour face and beautiful legs. “I am,” she said, “the owner of the Hotel Bretagne. Where your friend, the actress called Citrine, was living.” Her voice was tense—this was not an easy visit.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes. Last Friday, the night clerk happened to tell me that you had written her a letter. By the time it reached the hotel she had left, so he marked it Gone Away and returned it.” She paused a moment, then said, “He was—was not unpleased at this. A film actress, a producer, star-crossed, an unhappy ending. He was delighted, really, he’s a man who takes pleasure in the misfortunes of others, and has reached an age where he’s not shy about letting the world know it. It’s sad, really.”

  “I believe he opened the letter and read it,” Casson said angrily. “Shared it with his friends, perhaps, and they all had a good laugh.”

  The woman thought for a moment. “Opened it? No, not him, he doesn’t begin to be that bold, he simply marked the envelope and returned it. And, in the normal course of things, that would be that.”

  There was more, Casson waited for it.

  “However,” she said, taking a breath, “I had, we had, a certain experience. I knew who she was, although she was using another name— I had seen her in the movies, and nobody else looks like that. Now, I do not live at the hotel, of course, but I happened to be there, late one night, and I went to the second-floor bath to wash out a glass. It was very quiet just then, about two in the morning, and, without thinking, I simply walked in. Well, she was taking a bath. Naturally I excused myself, immediately closed the door. But—”

  She hesitated.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing actually happened. It took me a minute to realize what I’d seen. There were tears in her eyes, and on her face. And there was a razor blade resting on the soap dish. That’s all I saw, monsieur, yet you could not be mistaken, there was no question about what was going to happen in that room. I said through the door, ‘Madame, is everything all right?’ After a moment she said ‘Yes.’ That was the end of it, but it’s possible that the intrusion saved a life—not for any reason, you understand, reason wasn’t involved.”

  “When was this?”

  “Sometime in February. Maybe. Really, I don’t remember. About two weeks later we spoke very briefly. I was working on the book-keeping, she’d come in from doing an errand and asked for her key at the desk. We talked for a minute or two, she never referred to what had happened. She told me she would be leaving at the end of the week, had found something to do in Lyons, in the Zone Non-Occupée, and she mentioned the name of a hotel.”

  “Was she unhappy?”

  “No. Thoughtful, perhaps. But, mostly, determined.”

  “She is that.”

  “Then, after I talked to the clerk, I decided I ought to come and see you, to tell you where she is. For a time I wasn’t sure, I didn’t know what to do. I argued back and forth with myself. In the end, I’m doing this not because I insinuate myself in the lives of strangers”—the idea was so unappealing she grimaced—“but because I believe, after thinking about it, that she meant for me to do it.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Casson was conscious of the sound of tires on the rainy street below his window.

  “The way she spoke to me,” the woman said slowly, “it was as though her emotions, her feelings about life, were uncertain. She didn’t know exactly what to do, so she left matters in the hands of fate. It didn’t mean all that much to me at the time—I have the hotelkeeper’s view of the world, disorder, chaos, stolen towels. I remembered later only because she was who she was, but I did remember. A letter had come, the clerk noticed the return address—he recalled who you were, certainly, and once I was told about it I had to do something. Probably the letter concerns only a forgotten handkerchief.”

  “No. More than that.”

  She nodded to herself, confirming what she’d believed. Opened her purse, took out a hotel envelope, reached over and placed it on the corner of his desk. Then stood up. “I hope this is the right thing to do,” she said.

  Casson stood quickly. “Thank you,” he said. “Madame, thank you. I should have offered you something, forgive me, I, perhaps a coffee, or . . .”

  A gleam of amusement in her eye. “Another time, perhaps.” He was clearly disconcerted—she enjoyed that, particularly in men like Casson. She extended a gloved hand, he took it briefly. Then she was gone.

  He tore open the envelope, found the name and telephone number of a hotel in Lyons written on a slip of paper. At the end of the day he met Bernard Langlade for a drink. “Is it hard to find out who owns a hotel?” he said.

  “Shouldn’t be.”

  Casson told him the name and location. Langlade called him in the morning. “I take it back,” he said. “The Hotel Bretagne, on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, is owned by a Société Anonyme, in Switzerland.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “No. It’s done, sometimes. For tax purposes, or divorce. And, with time and money, you could probably find a name. Of course, even then—”

  “No, thank you for looking, Bernard, but probably best just to let it go.”

  Langlade made a sound that meant much the wiser choice. “Especially these days,” he said.

  Especially these days. There was no calling Citrine from his infected telephone. Every call a new name on somebody’s list. He could still see Lady Marensohn across the table in the bar of the Alhambra Hotel. Perhaps it was over, perhaps they believed him, perhaps not.

  He’d taken the Métro home from work that night, a man got off behind him. Made the first turn with him, then the second. Casson paused at the window of a boulangerie. The man looked at him curiously and walked by. Well, how am I supposed to know? he thought. You’re not, came the answering voice, you’re not.

  Merde alors. After all, it wasn’t as though clandestine instincts were unknown in this city. All right, maybe it wasn’t the British Secret Intelligence Service one had to elude. But it was husbands or lovers, wives or landlords or lawyers. Casson let it get to be 7:30 in the evening, then left the apartment. By now, when he went out in the street, everyone he saw was an operative—an anonymous little man in an Eric Ambler novel who lived in a rented room and spied on Jean Casson. So, he thought, is it you—in your tuxedo? Or you, a clerk on the way home? Or you, the lovers embracing on the bridge. He hurried along, head down, through the rainy streets, through the fog that pooled at the base of the park railings. He trotted down the Métro stairs, left at the other end of the platform, reversed direction, doubled back, at last sensed he was unobserved and headed toward the river.

  Chez Clément—the little sign gold on green, faded pastel and flaked by time and weather. At the end of a tiny street where nobody went, steamed glass window, the hum of conversation and the clatter of dinnerware faintly heard. Inside the door, the smell of potatoes fried in butter every night since 1890. Clément came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. Face scarlet, mustache immense, apron tied at one shoulder. “Monsieur Casson.” It was like being hugged by a wine-drenched onion. How infernally
clever, Clément told him, to stop by this evening, all day long they’d been working, at the stove, in the pots, what luck they’d had, one never saw this any more, perhaps the last—

  No, alas, not tonight, he couldn’t. Casson inclined his head toward the cloakroom and said delicately, “Le téléphone?”

  Not a telephone, the telephone. The one Clément made available to his most cherished customers. Clément smiled, of course. The heart had reasons of its own, they had to be honored, sometimes not at home.

  He reached the hotel in Lyons. Madame was out.

  Was there a message?

  No.

  12 April. 11:20 A.M. The rain continued, soft cloudy days, nobody minded. Casson walked down the Champs-Elysées, turned right on avenue Marceau, a few minutes later leaned on the parapet of the Pont d’Alma, looking down into the Seine. A blonde woman walked by; lovely, wearing a yellow raincoat. On the banks, rain beaded along the branches of the chestnut trees and dripped onto the cobblestones. The river had risen to spring tide, lead-colored water curling around the piers of the bridges, crosscurrents black on gray, shoals catching the light, rain dappling the surface, going to Normandy, then to sea. Just a boat, he thought. How hard would it be? Magic, a child’s dream. Carried away to safety on a secret barge.

  Casson looked at his watch, lit a cigarette, leaned his weight on the parapet. He could see, at one end of the bridge, a newspaper kiosk— an important day, the headlines thick and black. German planes had set Belgrade on fire, armored columns had entered Zagreb, Skopje had been taken, soon the rest of Macedonia, and the Panzerkorps was driving hard on Salonika.

  He crossed to the Left Bank, entered the post office on the avenue Bosquet. It was crowded, people in damp coats standing on line, smoking and grinding out their cigarettes on the wet tile floor. He waited for a long time, finally reached the counter, gave the clerk a telephone number, went to the cabine and waited for the short ring.