by Arno Baker
When he came out Jack was at the airline ticket counter completing the purchase of a one-way ticket to Amsterdam. The KLM flight was the earliest to leave Montreal. The unshaven face looked at him from the other end of the hall and said a few words into his cell phone then left the building. They had obviously aborted some kind of attempt to either stop him or perhaps worse. The airport was beginning to fill up with travelers by mid-morning and any assassination would be ill advised. Jack was convinced that was not what they were after anyway. It had to be something far more subtle.
For the six hours it took to fly over the Atlantic he remained frozen in his seat looking intently at every passenger fearing that the flight attendant was a potential enemy. But nothing happened and he now rationalized that the man in the toilet could have simply been an FBI operative checking him out. He took the airport train to the Centraal Station and booked a round trip on the Thalys high speed link to Paris Gare du Nord. There was no one shadowing him on the train and it was only once he exited the station that he went to a mobile phone outlet in a side street and purchased a French cell phone.
An old publishing friend from his McAndrews days, Charlie Souchon lived on the boulevard Raspail off the boulevard Montparnasse. His wife Hortense said Charlie was already at Frankfurt setting things up but she said quickly.
“Don’t worry, Jack, that old “chambre de bonne” on the 6th floor is still available for those friends who want to get lost.”
She knew he was living with Monica and assumed he was having some discreet affair on the side, why would he be in Paris otherwise?
Hortense said the key would be with the concierge because she was about to drive off to the country to visit her parents for the weekend and added, “You shall be pleased to know, Jack, that we added a shower up there so you shall have all the comforts of a real hotel! Don’t forget to give Madame Vincent the concierge a tip and to leave the key with her when you go!”
He dropped his carry-on in the cozy little room under the rooftops with a postcard view of Paris that extended over the misty horizon identical to those described by Verlaine on a drizzly Parisian morning. Within minutes he was off to a small café near the rue de Rennes. He figured that if the SVR was following him they‘d be far more effective than that clumsy and menacing character in Montreal. But he was taking no chances, so he bought a newspaper at the kiosk nearby and lingered for some twenty minutes to make sure no one was following him until he made his move. The proprietor was a jovial Moroccan fellow, and Jack approached him at the bar and asked if he could make a call on his behalf. The man had nothing else to do and nodded,
“What‘s it about?” he asked fearing it could be something illicit.
“Don’t worry --Jack winked with a sly expression-- ‘c’est une histoire de cul’...a sex thing. The guy wants to know if his wife is meeting her boyfriend. That‘s all!”
The man smiled and nodded,
“Yeah, I guess it happens every day, doesn’t it? No problem!”
He dialed the number Jack showed him and recited the words he‘d written on a piece of scrap paper,
“Your package is ready.” He repeated it twice and then clicked off.
Early the following morning Jack was ringing the doorbell marked S. Michaud at 22 rue Delambre, just off the boulevard Montparnasse right around the corner from the Dome cafe. He had spent over one hour observing the street and the comings and goings of people hurrying to work or performing routine chores. Except for a delivery van that turned just then into in a side street named Square Delambre that practically faced the building nothing looked out of the ordinary. He didn’t like the van and the sign painted on the side “SOS Transports-Express” and a 01 Paris phone number that could have been phony. He dialed the number on the van and it sounded legitimate so as he asked for information about airport pickups and deliveries inside Paris then clicked off. Still the van’s sudden presence bothered him as he watched it going slowly up the rue Delambre toward Edgar-Quinet. But he didn‘t want to back away since the man called
“Michaud” seemed real and well intentioned. After some hesitation he went bravely to the front door and pressed the bell.
A man‘s gravelly voice on the speaker asked who it was then buzzed Jack in after asking him to repeat his name. As the elevator opened on the fourth floor the door was unlocked and a well groomed grey haired man in his sixties was waiting in a wheel chair. He had a sad look on his long, craggy face and didn‘t smile as they shook hands.
“Mr. Harrison, I presume! I am Sylvain Michaud. Just walk ahead of me and to the right, into the sitting room which also serves as my office.”
His English sounded like a public school education across the Channel and fit in perfectly with the bourgeois furnishings in classic arts déco. Michaud pointed to the couch and wheeled himself to a long table covered with books and files with an oversize computer screen tilted on the side.
“Coffee, tea, or something else perhaps? I have access to everything thanks to our amazing contemporary communications.” He pointed to the screen.
“I will have anything you have Mr. Michaud.”
“Then it‘s very easy. You are a sensible man. Today my housekeeper is a bit busy and I knew that I might have a visitor.”
The crippled man had a faint smile for the first time and clicked into his computer for a few seconds. Jack looked around the room that must have been a living room at some point but was now turned into a work space with the walls almost uninterruptedly covered with books and a television screen in the corner. Two dark red velvet sofas and three armchairs in the same fabric looked out of place and had to be leftovers from a more glamorous period.
Jack looked at the wheel chair as Michaud ended his message on the keyboard,
“Ah, yes, my legs. You see, I used to work for the SNCF, French railroads, in the wagon-lit division, over twenty years ago. I was in management and often went on inspection on the longer trips. One winter night at Modane on the Italian border, there was a dramatic ice storm and I made the mistake that destroyed my life when I decided to get off the train. I inadvertently slipped under the tracks on the ice as the train bolted forward. Both legs under the knees…chopped off like twigs! I almost died but luckily my colleague saw me and garroted both legs. The pain is still with me, I can function only because of large doses of morphine I take every two hours, enough to subdue a horse. I probably would not even be able to sit here and speak with you otherwise. And this 20 years later!”
Without saying another word Michaud wheeled himself around and handed Jack a thick file.
“So this is the main document?”
Michaud placed his index across his lips and pointed upward and then to his ears. The place was bugged.
“One of them, yes. The best way is to read that one first.”
Jack went through a few dozen pages as the ‘petit déjeuner’ was delivered by a young man from the café around the corner. Coffee, milk and a small pyramid of fresh croissants were set on the coffee table. Michaud paid and left a generous tip on the tray as the “garçon” took his leave. He waited for the young man to have closed the door behind him. Then he said as if mumbling to himself,
“Funny, I never saw him before.”
He wheeled his way around and sipped his coffee quietly as Jack kept on reading the papers in the file. Then he said,
“Twenty years of immobility have forced me to become a bookworm. And to think that I used to consider myself a man of action! And a big ladies man to boot! Well most of that is a fading dream. Thank goodness for my father’s mad passions and crazy ideas which I discovered since this accident. Researching his papers in the minutest detail has kept me alive. Then I saw your press release and said to myself that the time had come to go public... in manner of speaking.”
Jack understood that he was looking at authentic note books, it was impossible to fake those original documents and the awful situation Michaud was in. Besides, the contents of the file were startling.
“I guess you do not want copies made?” Jack asked.
“Many people would like to have not just this document but all the others as well, Mr. Harrison… for now you may take notes and even copy selected pages but I prefer that full copies not be made until I can donate the entire archive to a university or a library. I have a copier in the other room if you decide to use it. Believe it or not I hate the sight of all this technology; it saddens me that humanity must rely on these grey plastic boxes so much…”
Jack went on reading as Michaud opened a drawer in the credenza behind his work table and extracted a stack of old school boy‘s composition books about three feet high. There were probably fifty or more, all the same size and standard thickness with a different drawing on the covers in various themes and faded colors. He carefully set them up on the side of his desk.
Jack finally looked up after he finished reading the single spaced report dated June 13, 1953 addressed to Georges Bidault but apparently never delivered. He got up and served himself some lukewarm coffee when Michaud said,
“The background and the raw material that went into the secret memo you have just read is found in these little notebooks that my father, Lucien Barnave used whenever he was traveling. And that was something he did constantly. Most of his original notes had to be omitted from the report, obviously, but they greatly enrich the genesis of the articles with some important asides...So, specifically for your book by Felklisov...you should read this!”
He leaned over had passed on a tattered schoolboy’s copy book from the 1950s with a very patriotic drawing of a Foreign Legion “képi” on its yellowing cover. All those copy books were given a name by the printer and this one was “Camerone.” The pages were covered by that small but very neat handwriting, full of tightly written observations, notes of conversations, rumors that never identified a source if not by an obscure code such as “Butterfly 12 [B.12]” or “Tiger Cub [TC]”. There were also lists of articles and speeches he had reported on in the course of his endless train trips through Cold War Europe between Paris, Berlin and Moscow from 1946 to 1953. Michaud estimated that in those 7 years his father had made the round trip at least 38 times by train and three times by plane.
Finally Jack turned to the book-marked section entitled “Affaire Rosenberg” that covered some 40 odd pages with notes taken quickly during Barnave’s travels. It began with a notation as early as July 19, 1950 only one month after the case broke and David Greenglass had been arrested,
“P[olar] B[ear] tells me that arrests in New York constitute a major disaster. After G.[Greenglass] was nabbed and began talking it had to be expected but it also comes at an explosive moment with the Korean invasion now underway! P.B. says that many heads will roll inside the “organs” and that lists of those held responsible are being urgently requested by I.V. [Stalin] who is said to be understandably furious. Everyone wants to know whose name is on the list and many are panicking.”
Ten pages later came a note from March 1951, “Everyone very pleased about death sentence, P.B. says it‘s comforting that the Americans do not carry out death sentences immediately and allow many requests for clemency to be attempted. It could drag the story on for years. This creates an extraordinary opportunity for a major international clemency campaign that is being planned and will certainly ensure that those two unfortunate pawns are executed to the delight of P.B. and others. Clearly the couple must remain absolutely loyal for this to happen. This writer’s task is to drum up support for clemency in the French press.” One year later in March 1952, “I.V. is weary, looking tired, says P.B., he now seeks to ease tensions, regrets Korea, and wants to open up a dialogue about Berlin and Germany but the other side no longer trusts him and is suspicious of his actions… utter disbelief. Korea destroyed everything! How could they be so stupid! I try to write a few pieces with some heavy hints…my work is very much appreciated.”
Late October 1952 “P.B. tells me that in all likelihood I.V. will agree to grant me an interview but insists that it must be published in a major imperialist daily and would much prefer the Times or Le Figaro rather than Le Monde...I promise to try and have spoken to the fellows in Paris, who are very receptive, naturally! Question is who gets the exclusive? The British will want it all to themselves, of course ...”
November 1952, “Eisenhower elected, P.B. says it‘s excellent news; I.V. knows that the new man is very cautious and will never approve a first strike! A true reactionary conservative will be much less threatening than an activist social democrat like Truman. That’s the thinking upstairs! Prefer dealing with traditional right wing bourgeois than some wild eyed American liberal! In any case I.V. wanted no part of Stevenson…and secretly he is even ready to abandon all the western communists to their miserable fate. Thinks they are useless drags on the USSR and Europe anyway and that this will be well received by Ike once he gets the word. But will the Americans ever believe what the Russians say? D. [Doppleganger] thinks that the Slansky trial should demonstrate to the West in how little account the Presidium holds those Eastern European party hacks. I.V. is ready to hang them all.”
January 1953, “P.B. tells me I.V. is not feeling well and shows increasing signs of forgetfulness, perhaps even of senility but that he remains aggressive and extraordinarily suspicious... My interview is still in the cards.”
End January, “P.B. finally introduces me to E. [Edgar] whom I was meeting for the first time. He is a boisterous man and hints at big changes that may be in the offing, I can only imagine what he‘s alluding to. P.B. then said the boss is preparing a major chistka [purge] to settle accounts with many opponents...the clue comes from the Slansky trial and the heavy anti-Zionist propaganda.”
Then in early February, “There is a sense of urgency about several affairs at the same time: the Mingrelian Generals and Beria‘s sudden endangered status; a so-called Kremlin doctor‘s plot that is now unfolding but had long been in the works and the corollary anti-Zionist campaign meant to smooth the way for a major attack on the Jews...This I have trouble believing so I asked ‘As big as the German actions…?’ But E. was indignant and dismissive ‘Bigger, and much quicker...huge deportations effected very fast are being discussed...population movements on a colossal scale! Many will be made to die on the way, obviously.‘ A total horror! “
Two days later just before I am to return to Paris, E. had me picked up by an official Chaika. I thought my turn had come...But no, he just wanted to have a quiet conversation and then suddenly said he was taking me to meet the next chairman of the Politburo…I answered he must mean the Presidium…He insisted that no, the name Politburo would soon be restored because a real revolution was now underway...Then he drove me to an apartment in the outskirts where I met L.P.[Lavrenti Pavolovich] face to face for the first time and got the whole story and the message for the minister directly from his mouth. The audacity was amazing, of course, coupled with the usual threats and promises of blackmail, the methodology was familiar and to be expected.
The message is typed on government paper, MGB letterhead. I am stunned because he signed it in front of me and had E. personally photograph me watching as L.P. signed! It looks as though we were signing a treaty…What a bizarre document. He jokingly said ‘You are now a slimy underground worm eating away at the worker’s movement to favor the return of reactionary imperialist Tsarist forces! If they ever get a hold of this photo we are both dead, monsieur.’ And he laughed in a macabre sort of way. He’s clearly playing for keeps and knows that his neck is on the line.”
February 10, “I was unable to sleep in expectation and early in the morning I went to see P. about the interview. He was in an excellent mood, offered me black tea and led the way for me to the second floor where I.V. has his private offices. We waited in the absolute silence of those ornate rooms, not a sound could be heard except for the occasional typing and hushed whispering of the secretaries who were all working away. The boss hates any kind of noise so everything is very peaceful, li
ke a cemetery, in fact. P. told me how I.V. mused at times that he had learned everything there is to know about politics, power and life when he was in the seminary…
At one point the boss opened the door and saw me standing there in my dark grey suit and nondescript tie, P. said “Comrade I.V. this is Barnave.” he looked much older in the four years I had last seen him up close. His unsmiling but always ironic yellow eyes looked at me from the ground up as he is known to do and said, “Agreed for the interview! But can you get it into the London Times? I want to be in the Times not the Figaro!” I was terrified and answered “That will not be a problem I.V....I am sure.” “Good, whenever you are ready then! Knock in twenty minutes.” and then he just shut the door softly.”
“P. was coughing and perspiring profusely…and I must confess that I almost wet my pants!”...”But then it didn’t happen anyway, something had come up and he said ‘not today!’ when P. opened the door. A few hours later P. called me again and said the boss would agree to see me the next morning at 9 am sharp and that a Chaika would come and pick me up one hour before...but his voice was shaky and breaking up. I didn’t sleep.”
“The Chaika was there at 8:00 and took me on a high speed 40 minute ride to Kuntsevo where once more the boss had me wait for 20 more minutes until he finally had me escorted into his private study which is larger and more comfortable than the one in the Kremlin. I noticed the double doors and the red and green signal lights above each door.”...
“Interview took three hours with interruptions, I.V. was in top form, you would never guess he’s actually preparing all the bloodshed they have told me, he sounds like a humanist at times…what a strange man, an exceptional intelligence with a streak of madness that shows when he forgets to censor himself. It will take me many days to write all this up in good form. He demands to see it first, naturally!
