by Alan Furst
Eventually, Morath and the desk man had to carry Stieffen downstairs—the pantomime played out only from the street door to the taxi, and they barely made it that far.
A blue car—later he thought it was a big Peugeot—pulled to the curb in front of him. Slowly, the back window was lowered and the little man in the bow tie stared out at him. “Thank you,” he said. The window was rolled back up as the car pulled away, following the taxi.
Morath watched as they drove off, then returned to the apartment where Szubl, stripped to his underwear, was scrubbing the floor and whistling a Mozart aria.
Polanyi outdid himself, Morath thought, when he chose a place to meet. A nameless little bar in the quarter known as the grande truanderie, the thieves’ palace, buried in the maze of streets around Montorgueil. It reminded Morath of something Emile Courtmain had once told him: “The truth of lunch is in the choice of the restaurant. All that other business, eating, drinking, talking, that doesn’t mean very much.”
Polanyi sat there, looking very sorrowful and abused by the gods. “I’m not going to apologize,” he said.
“Do you know who he was? Colonel Stieffen?”
“No idea. And no idea why it happened. To do with honor, Nicholas—if I had to bet, I’d bet on that. He puts his wallet on the table, meaning this was who I was, and does it in a secret apartment, meaning this is where I failed.”
“Failed at what?”
Polanyi shook his head.
They were sitting at one of the three tables in the room. The fat woman at the bar called out, “Say, boys, let me know when you’re ready for another.”
“We will,” Polanyi said.
“Who’s the little man with the bow tie?”
“He is called Dr. Lapp.”
“Dr. Lapp.”
“A name. Certainly there are others. He is an officer in the Abwehr.”
“Oh well, that explains it then. I’ve become a German spy. Should we stay for lunch?”
Polanyi took a sip of wine. He was like, Morath thought, a man going to work. “They’re going to get rid of him, Nicholas. It’s dangerous for me to tell you that, and dangerous for you to know it, but this Colonel Stieffen has opened a door and now I have, against my better judgment, believe me, to let you inside.”
“To get rid of who?”
“Hitler.”
No answer to that.
“If they fail, we will have war, and it will make the last one look like a tea party. The fact is, if you hadn’t called me, I was going to call you. I believe it’s time for you to think seriously about how to get your mother and your sister out of Hungary.”
It had a life of its own, the war, like an immense rumor, that wound its way through the newspapers, the cafés, and the markets. But somehow, in Polanyi’s voice, it was fact, and Morath, for the first time, believed it.
Polanyi leaned forward, his voice confidential. “Hitler is going to settle, as he puts it, with the Czechs. The Wehrmacht will invade, probably in the fall—the traditional time, when the harvest is in and the men from the countryside become soldiers. Russia is pledged to defend Czechoslovakia if France does. The Russians will march through Poland, with or without the Poles’ permission, but she’ll invade us. You know what that means—Mongolian cavalry and the Cheka and all the rest of it. France and England will invade Germany through Belgium—this is no different than 1914. Given the structure of treaties in Europe, the alliances, that is exactly what is going to happen. Germany will bomb the cities, fifty thousand casualties every night. Unless they use phosgene gas, then it’s more. Britain will blockade the ports, central Europe will starve. The burning and the starving will go on until the Red Army crosses the German border and destroys the Reich. Will they stop there? ‘God lives in France,’ as the Germans like to say—perhaps Stalin will want to go and see Him.”
Morath looked for contradictions. He couldn’t find them.
“This is what worries me, this is what ought to worry you, but this means very little to the OKW, the Oberkommando Wehrmacht, the army’s general staff. Those people—the map people, the logistics people, the intelligence people—have always been accused, by operational commanders, of thinking more than is good for them, but this time they’ve got it right. If Hitler attacks Czechoslovakia—which is easy for Germany because, since the Anschluss, they surround the Czechs on three sides—England, France, and Russia will come into the war. Germany will be destroyed. But, more important to the OKW, the army will be destroyed. Everything they’ve worked for, since the ink dried on the treaties in 1918, will be torn to pieces. Everything. They can’t let that happen. And they know, with Hitler protected by the SS, that only the army has the strength to remove him.”
Morath thought for a time. “In a way,” he said, “this is the best thing that could happen.”
“If it happens, yes.”
“What can go wrong?”
“Russia fights only if France does. France and England will fight only if Germany invades and the Czechs resist. Hitler can be removed only for starting a war he can’t win.”
“Will the Czechs fight?”
“They have thirty-five divisions, about 350,000 men, and a defensive line of forts that runs along the Sudetenland border. Said to be good—as good as the Maginot Line. And, of course, Bohemia and Moravia are bordered by mountains, the Shumava. For the German tanks, the passes, especially if they are defended, will be difficult. So, certain people in the OKW are making contact with the British and the French, urging them to stand firm. Don’t give Hitler what he wants, make him fight for it. Then, when he fights, the OKW will deal with him.”
“Making contact, you said.”
Polanyi smiled. “You know how it’s done, Nicholas, it’s not a lone hero, crawling through the desert, trying to save the world. It’s various people, various approaches, various methods. Connections. Relationships. And when the OKW people need a quiet place to talk, away from Berlin, away from the Gestapo, they have an apartment in the rue Mogador—where that rogue Von Schleben sees his Roumanian girlfriend. Who knows, it might even be a place to meet a foreign colleague, over from London for the day.”
“A setting provided by their Hungarian friends.”
“Yes, why not?”
“And, similarly, the man we brought into Paris.”
“Also for Von Schleben. He has many interests, many projects.”
“Such as . . .”
Polanyi shrugged. “He didn’t explain, Nicholas. I didn’t insist.”
“And Colonel Stieffen?” Now they’d ridden the merry-go-round back to where they’d started. Morath might have gotten the brass ring, he wasn’t sure.
“Ask Dr. Lapp,” Polanyi said. “If you feel you have to know.”
Morath, puzzled, stared at his uncle.
“If you should happen to see him, I meant to say.”
On Saturday mornings, Cara and Nicky went riding in the Bois de Boulogne, on the Chemin des Vieux Chênes, or around the Lac Inferieur. They rode big chestnut geldings, the sweat white and foamy above the horses’ hocks in the midsummer heat. They rode very well; they both came from countries where horseback riding was part of life, like marriage or religion. Sometimes Morath found the bridle paths boring, too sedate—he had galloped into machine-gun positions and jumped horses over barbed wire—but the feel of it brought him a peace he could find no other way.
They nodded to the other couples, everyone smart in their jodhpurs and handmade boots, and trotted along at a good, stiff pace in the shade of the oak trees.
“I have a letter from Francesca,” Cara told him. “She says the house in Sussex is lovely, but small.”
“If you’d prefer something grand, we’ll go up to the baroness’s place.”
“That’s what you’d like, right, Nicky?”
“Well,” Morath said. He really didn’t care but pretended in order to please Cara. “Maybe Normandy’s better. Cool at night, and I like to swim in the sea.”
“Good. I
’ll write this afternoon. We can see Francesca when she comes in the fall. For the clothes.”
Boris Balki telephoned and asked him to come to the nightclub. The Balalaika was closed for the August vacation, the tables covered with old bedsheets. There was no beer to drink, so Balki opened a bottle of wine. “They won’t miss it,” he said. Then, “So, you must be leaving soon.”
“A few days. The great migration.”
“Where do you go?”
“Normandy. Just outside Deauville.”
“That must be nice.”
“It’s all right.”
“I like the time off,” Balki said. “We have to paint, fix the place up, but at least I don’t have to make jokes.” He reached in a pocket, unfolded a page of cheap writing paper covered with small Cyrillic characters. “It’s from a friend of mine, in Budapest. He writes from Matyas Street.”
“Not much there. The prison.”
From Balki, a grim smile.
“Oh.”
“He’s an old friend, from Odessa. I thought, maybe, if somebody knew somebody . . .”
“Matyas is the worst—in Budapest, anyhow.”
“He says that, as much as he can get it past the censor.”
“Is he in for a long time?”
“Forty months.”
“Long enough. What’d he do?”
“Bonds.”
“Hungarian?”
“Russian. Railroad bonds. The 1916 kind.”
“Somebody buys that?”
Balki nodded, then, despite himself, started laughing. “Poor Rashkow. He’s tiny. ‘Look at me,’ he used to say. ‘If I tried to hold somebody up they’d stuff me in a drawer.’ So he sells things. Sometimes jewelry, sometimes paintings, even manuscripts. Tolstoy! His unfinished novel! But, lately, it’s railroad bonds.”
They both laughed.
“You see why I love him,” Balki said.
“They’re not actually worth anything, are they?”
“Well, Rashkow would say, not now. But think of the future. ‘I sell hope,’ he used to say. ‘Hope for tomorrow. Think how important that is, hope for tomorrow.’ ”
“Boris,” Morath said, “I’m not sure I can help.”
“Well, anyhow, you’ll try.” The after all, I tried for you was unspoken but not difficult to hear.
“Of course.”
“Before you go away?”
“Even if I can’t do that, I won’t wait for September. They have telephones in Deauville.”
“Semyon Rashkow.” Balki held the letter up to the light and squinted. Morath realized he needed glasses. “Number 3352-18.”
“Just out of curiosity, who wrote Tolstoy’s unfinished novel?”
Balki grinned. “Wasn’t bad, Morath. Really. It wasn’t.”
The last place he wanted to be, in Colonel Sombor’s office on the top floor of the Hungarian legation. Sombor sat erect at his desk, reading a dossier, using the end of a pencil to guide his eyes along a type-written line. Morath stared out the open window. Down below, in the garden, a porter, an old man in a gray uniform and a gray peaked cap, was raking the gravel. The sound was sharp in the silent courtyard.
He had to help; he felt he had to help. Balki wasn’t an affable barman, Balki was him, Morath, just in the wrong country, in the wrong year, forced to live the wrong life. A man who hated having to be grateful for a job he hated.
Morath had tried his uncle first, was told he was not in Paris, then reached Sombor at his office. “Of course, come tomorrow morning.” Sombor was the man who could help, so Morath went to see him, knowing it was a mistake every step of the way. Sombor had a title, something innocuous, but he worked for the secret police, and everybody knew it. There was an official spy at the legation, Major Fekaj, the military attaché, and there was Sombor.
“I don’t see you enough,” he complained to Morath, closing the dossier. Morath found it hard to look at him. He was one of those people whose hair looks like a hat—a polished, glossy black hat—and with his sharp, slanted eyebrows, he suggested a tenor made up to play the devil in a comic opera.
“My uncle keeps me busy.”
Sombor acknowledged Polanyi’s position with a gracious nod. Morath certainly wanted it to be gracious.
“Yes, I can believe it,” Somber said. “Also, I’m sure, this wonderful city. And its opportunities.”
“That too.”
Sombor touched his lips with his tongue, leaned forward, lowered his voice. “We’re grateful, of course.”
From a man who’d been forced, in 1937, to remove a portrait of Julius Gombos from his wall—Gombos was widely credited with having invented the philosophies of Adolf Hitler—not necessarily what Morath wanted to hear. “Good of you to say it.” Grateful for what?
“Not the kind of thing you can allow,” Sombor said.
Morath nodded. What in hell’s name had Polanyi told this man? And why? For his own good? Morath’s? Some other reason? What he did know was that this conversation was not, not if he could help it, going to turn frank and open.
“Someone who has done a favor for me, for us”—Morath smiled, so did Sombor—“needs a favor in return.”
“Favors . . .”
“Well, what is one to do.”
“Quite.”
A contest of silence. Sombor ended it. “So, exactly what sort of favor are we talking about?”
“An old friend. Locked up in Matyas.”
“For?”
“Selling worthless bonds.”
“Beszivargo?” Infiltrator. Which meant, for Sombor and others, Jew.
Morath thought it over. Rashkow? “I don’t think so,” he said. “Not from the name.”
“Which is?”
“Rashkow.”
Sombor took a tablet of white paper and unscrewed the cap of his pen and carefully wrote the name down on the paper.
The month in the country gathered momentum, preparation on the avenue Bourdonnais proceeded at a fever pitch. The baroness had been written, then telephoned, then telephoned again. Cara’s MG had been washed, waxed, and filled with water, oil, and gasoline, the seats rubbed with saddle soap, the walnut dashboard polished to a soft glow. The picnic hamper was ordered from Pantagruel, then Delbard, then Fauchon. Did Morath like sliced beef tongue in aspic? No? Why not? The tiny folding table purchased, taken back to the store, replaced with a green horse blanket, then a fine wool blanket, brown with a gray stripe, which could also be used on the beach. Cara brought home a bathing suit this little, then this little, and then this little; the last one springing a seam as Morath whipped it off. And she should be damned glad, he thought, that there weren’t toothmarks in it—take that back to Mademoiselle Ninette on the rue Saint-Honoré.
Saturday morning, Morath had a long list of errands, carefully saved up as a pretext to escape from Cara’s packing. He stopped at Courtmain, at the bank, at the tabac, at the bookstore, where he bought Freya Stark’s The Valleys of the Assassins and Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, both in French translation. He already had a Gyula Krudy novel. Krudy was in essence the Hungarian Proust—“Autumn and Budapest were born of the same mother”—and Morath had always liked him. In fact, the baroness’s houses were stacked to the ceilings with books, and Morath knew he would fall in love with some exotic lost masterpiece and never turn a page of whatever he’d brought with him.
When he got back to the avenue Bourdonnais, he discovered there’d been a blizzard of underwear and shoes and crinkly pink paper. On the kitchen table was a vase with a dozen yellow roses. “These are not from you, Nicky, are they?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Is there a card?”
“Yes, but it’s in Hungarian. I can’t read it.”
Morath could read it. A single word written in black ink on a florist’s card. Regrets.
Three-thirty when Cara’s phone rang and a man’s voice asked him, very politely, if it would be altogether too much trouble to walk to
the newspaper kiosk by the Pont D’Alma Métro.
“I’m going to get the paper,” he said to Cara.
“What? Now? For God’s sake, Nicky, I—”
“Back in a minute.”
Dr. Lapp was in a black Mercedes. His suit was blue, his bow tie green, his face as sad as Buster Keaton’s. There was really nothing to discuss, he said.
This was a privilege, not a sacrifice.
Still, Morath felt terrible. Perhaps if he’d been able to say something, to explain, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad.
“Messieurs et mesdames.”
The conductor had opened the door of the compartment and the rhythmic hammering of the wheels on the track grew suddenly louder. Morath rested the Freya Stark book on his knee.
The conductor held the first-class passenger list in his hand. “’Sieurs et ’dames, the dining car will open in thirty minutes, you may reserve for the first or second seating.”
He went around the compartment: businessman, middle-aged woman, mother and little boy—possibly English, then Morath. “Second, please,” Morath said.
“And that would be?”
“Monsieur Morath.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Can you tell me, what time we expect to be in Prague?”
“The timetable says four-thirty, monsieur, but, of course, these days . . .”
2 August 1938. Marienbad, Czechoslovakia.
Six-twenty in the evening, Morath came down the marble staircase and walked across the lobby. Grand hotels in spa towns were all of a type and the Europa was no different—miles of corridors, chandeliers, everywhere mahogany. Frayed carpets, frayed respectability, the former much rewoven, the latter a faint but detectable presence in the air, like the smell of the kitchen.
Two women in leather chairs smiled at him, widow and unmarried daughter, he guessed, come husband-hunting in Marienbad. Morath had been at the Europa for only a night and a day and they had flirted with him twice. They were handsome and well fleshed. Good appetites, he thought, of all sorts. Not unusual in that part of the world. The Czechs felt life owed them a little pleasure; they happily embraced the Protestant virtues but just as happily embraced each other. If a proposal of marriage was not forthcoming then, mother or daughter, rolling around in a creaky hotel bed might not be the worst thing in the world.
