by Alan Furst
Casson leaned over to get a better angle in the rearview mirror. On the way into Beaufort he’d seen a black Citroën appear and disappear as the road curved. It could certainly go faster than ten miles an hour, but didn’t bother to pass.
“You still have the Citroën?” he said a few minutes later.
Degrave looked up at the mirror. “Yes.”
“What’s he want?”
“Maybe nothing.”
He accelerated, a minute went by, then he sped up a little more. “Stays right there,” he said. “Since Beaufort.”
“Earlier,” Casson said.
The road widened and Degrave let the truck roll to a stop. “Get out for a minute,” he said.
Casson stood by the side of the road, unbuttoning his fly. As he stared down at the weeds, the Citroën went by, very slow and determined. When he got back in the truck Degrave said, “About nineteen, the driver. There are three of them, they’re wearing armbands.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
They waited twenty minutes, plenty of time for the Citroën to go on its way, to disappear.
Degrave threw his cigarette away and looked at his watch. “Enough,” he said. “If they are actually going somewhere, we’ll never see them again.” He got behind the wheel, coaxed the engine to life, and raced it in neutral a few times.
“It sounds to me,” Casson said, “like we have unwatered gasoline.”
“We do. You wouldn’t believe what I had to pay in Nice to get it. Nowadays it’s like buying wine, you have to know the vintage.”
Degrave turned the truck onto the road and moved off slowly. Almost immediately they began to climb, past sloping meadows used to graze livestock in the spring and summer. Five minutes passed, then ten more. Casson kept looking at his watch. The road crested a hill, then turned left. The truck slowed as they climbed a steep curve past stone barns on the mountainside.
“I like this better than the south,” Degrave said.
“So do I.”
“Ever make a movie here?”
“No.”
“Nobody bothers with it, the Dauphine.”
“What would you do—lovers on the run?”
“Why not?”
Casson shrugged. “You ever know any lovers on the run?”
Degrave laughed. “No, now that you mention it.”
“And, if they ran, they wouldn’t run here.”
“They’d run to Paris.”
“That’s right,” Casson said. “And there goes the scenery.”
Fifteen minutes. Casson had another look in the mirror. Black and low, long hood, flat top on the passenger compartment, running boards swept gracefully into panels that curved over the front wheels. A Citroën 7C—you saw them everywhere.
“Still with us,” Casson said.
Degrave sighed. “I know,” he said.
The Citroën followed them around another curve, then, when the road ran level, it sped up and drove alongside the truck. From the passenger seat window, an arm waved for them to pull over.
Degrave took his foot off the gas. “All right,” he said, sounding tired. “Let’s get it over with.”
The truck rolled to a stop. On both sides of the road were hay fields cut down in autumn; up ahead, an old forest with large, bare oak trees. The Citroën pulled up a few feet away, blocking a sudden escape.
Nineteen was about right, Casson thought as the driver got out. The second might be a little older—tall and fat, wearing a ski sweater with a snowflake pattern. The third was younger, maybe the driver’s younger brother. They all wore armbands, white initials stitched on a blue field—MF, for Milice Française. The driver, clearly the leader, was working on a mustache and goatee, but he was fair-haired and it was going to take a long time. Village lothario, Casson thought. The others waited by the car while the leader approached the truck. He had his hand in the pocket of his jacket—more than a hand, a revolver, from the way he strutted. Perhaps something Papa brought home from the war.
“Milice,” Degrave said. One of Pétain’s militia units—La Jeunesse de Maréchal, La Jeunesse Patriote, they had all sorts of names. Dedicated foes of France’s enemies: Jews, Bolsheviks—outriders for the Tartar hordes from the east, just waiting to sweep across Europe.
The leader stood at the door of the truck and stared up at Degrave.
“Good morning,” Degrave said. He said it well, Casson thought. You’re a kid and I’m a grown man and there can only be courtesy between us.
Casson saw the leader’s chin rise. “We’re on patrol up here,” he said. “We watched you in Beaufort.”
“Yes?”
“That’s right. Saw you put gas in your truck.”
“And so?”
“We could use some ourselves.”
“Hey, look,” Degrave said, man-to-man. “We’re taking some stuff up to Paris—you understand what I mean? We don’t mind donating some money to the cause, but gasoline is hard to get, and we have to go all the way up north.”
“What stuff?”
“Sardines, this trip. We won’t miss a couple of cases.”
“I guess you won’t.” He laughed. It meant he wanted money and the sardines and the gasoline too. All of it.
“Take a look in the back,” Degrave said. Then, to Casson, “Show him what we have.”
The leader made a gesture with his head and said “Allez, Jacquot.” His pal in the ski sweater walked toward the back of the truck. Casson jumped down to the road and went around the other side. He started to untie the rope that held the tarpaulin together. Jacquot stood next to him, too close. “Get a move on,” he said. “We don’t have all day.”
Casson pulled the tarpaulin open. “See for yourself,” he said. Jacquot put a foot on the iron step, climbed onto the truck bed, and started to inspect the merchandise. The crates were stenciled CON-SERVERIE TEJADA—BEZIERS. Sardines en Boîtes.
Suddenly the leader started talking—Casson couldn’t hear the words but the tone was tough and impatient. Degrave’s answer was soothing. From inside the truck, Jacquot called, “You better get up here and help me unload this stuff.” He was standing in shadow, one hand resting on the stacked crates.
“I’ll be right there.”
Casson never knew who shot first or why, but there were five or six reports from the front of the truck. Somebody shouted, a car door opened, somebody screamed “Maurice!” When Casson saw Jacquot’s hand move, he grabbed for the Walther, pulled it free of his belt, and forced the hammer back with his thumb. In front, a shot, then another, from a different gun. Jacquot’s hand came out from under his sweater, Casson fired twice, then twice more. Jacquot grunted, there was a flash in the shadows. Casson ducked away and ran around to the front of the truck. On the road by the Citroën, somebody lay on top of a rifle.
Casson crouched down, edged around the hood until he could see the other side. He heard somebody cough. It sounded strange in the silence. He leaned out as far as he dared, the gun ready in his hand. The leader was sitting with his back propped against the rear tire, breathing hard, one hand inside his shirt.
“Casson?” That was Degrave, his voice hoarse and thick. Casson stepped out from behind the hood. The leader stared at him, then turned away and closed his eyes. Casson could see his chest rise and fall as he tried to breathe.
Casson opened the door, there were two holes in the metal. Degrave was white. He swallowed once, then said, “I need help, I think.” There was blood on his shirt. For a moment he stared out into the distance. “We have to go,” he said. “But first, make sure here.”
Casson went to the back of the truck. Jacquot lay curled up on his side, eyes wide open. Casson could smell sardines, and an oil stain had spread across the wood flooring. Casson tugged at the body, dragging it back until its weight toppled it over the edge and onto the road.
He walked over to the car. The man he’d thought was a younger brother still lay sprawled across the rifle, his blood a
dark patch in the dirt. Casson returned to the truck. The leader seemed to be resting, almost asleep. He opened his eyes and saw Casson standing beside him. “I surrender,” he said, raised one hand, then let it fall.
Casson aimed carefully and shot him in the temple. The report echoed over the fields and faded away.
SERVICE B
Night settled on the mountain villages in the late afternoon.
Sometimes a small café lit up a cobbled street, but the cold drifted in with the shadows and the people disappeared. Casson drove with his hands tight on the steering wheel, stopping often to peer at a map, trying to stay on the deserted roads that climbed the western slope of the Basses-Alpes.
He’d spent a long time outside Beaufort, doing what Degrave told him to do. He had managed to drag the bodies of the three miliciens into the Citroën, then drove it back toward the village to a place where the hillside fell sharply away from a curve in the road. He turned the engine off, set the gearshift in neutral, and pushed it over the edge.
It barely moved at first, the dense brush crackling under the wheels, then it sped up, bouncing over rocks and fallen trees, finally slewing sideways and rolling over, coming to rest upside down, its tires spinning slowly to a stop. It would be found, he knew, but not immediately, and all he needed was a few hours to be somewhere else when the alarm was sounded.
Degrave died sometime in the middle of the day. After he’d pushed the Citroën down the hill, Casson walked a long way back to the truck and moved him, very carefully, to the passenger side of the front seat. He was conscious for a moment—looked at Casson as though he didn’t know him, mumbled something, then closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window.
Casson drove to the next village as fast as the truck would go. He had intended to seek help from the local priest. It was the general rule, since 1940—if nothing else can be done, find the church, and the curé. But by the time they reached a village, Degrave was gone.
Casson drove north. The road wound through a narrow valley by a stream, its banks lined with poplar trees. He stopped the truck. Here, he thought. Degrave would have told him to do it this way, to do what needed to be done. But there was no shovel in the truck. He couldn’t leave Degrave to the dogs and the crows, so he rammed the shift back into gear and drove on. At the end of the valley he found a road marker, ST.-SYLVAIN—14.
The church was in the center of the village. Just inside the door he found a stand with tiers of burning votive lights. Casson took a fresh candle from the box, lit it, and fixed it with melted wax beside the others. Then he went to the vestry and knocked on the door. The priest answered, his dinner left on the table. He was young and bearded, his face weathered by life in the mountains.
Casson explained. A friend had died, he was in the truck outside the church. The priest looked Casson over carefully. “I will have to ask you,” he said, “if your friend died a natural death.”
Casson shook his head. “He was a soldier.”
Together they went to the truck, and Degrave was carried on a blanket into the vestry and laid on the stone floor. “Can we put a marker on the grave?” the priest said.
“Better not to,” Casson said.
The priest thought for a time. “A small plaque,” he said. “ ‘Mort pour la France.’ Among the dead of the last war, it won’t be noticed.”
He drove out of Saint-Sylvain into the darkness. No moon. A fine, light snow dusted the windshield. After an hour, he couldn’t go on. He pulled off the road, forced himself to eat a piece of bread, and drank some water.
He stared out the window; a meadow, the stubble white with frost. The engine ticked as the metal cooled. He was numb, too tired to think about anything. He put the Walther on the floor where he could reach it, pulled his coat tight around him, and fell asleep.
PARIS. 21 JANUARY.
Alexander Kovar wandered through the crowded waiting room of the Gare du Nord. He’d been contacted by Narcisse Somet—a meeting at 6:20 in the evening, when the station was busiest. He searched the faces, finally spotted Somet coming toward him from the entrance. Tinted spectacles, bluish-red nose and cheeks; easy to find in a crowd, Kovar thought.
They had been friends since they were fifteen years old, in Montmartre in 1908. This was not the artists’ quarter, it was the Montmartre where anarchists and thieves lived side by side, where street performers like Hercules and the Boneless Wonder were local heroes. Somet and Kovar had been drawn there by the preaching of the crippled anarchist who called himself Albert Libertad. Libertad was a legend, a passionate free spirit who loved fighting—using his crutches as weapons, the streets of Paris, and the poor. And, especially, women. He had died later that year, after a savage beating in a street brawl.
Together, Somet and Kovar had battled the police, lived on bread and green pears, written poetry, and made speeches on the boulevards. Revolution is now, today, in your heart, in the streets. By 1912 they had gone their separate ways, Kovar wandering among the mining villages of northern France, Somet to sea on tramp freighters. They’d met again in Berlin for a few days, during the back-alley brawls of the 1920s, then they’d had to run for their lives.
By 1936 they were both in Spain; Somet an administrative officer with the XIth International Brigade, Kovar the foreign correspondent for half a dozen Left newspapers in Paris and Brussels. But they’d had guns in their hands more than once—had fought side by side in the November defense of Madrid. Using his empty rifle as a club, Kovar had saved Somet’s life when a Moorish legionnaire had aimed a pistol at him at point-blank range.
The loudspeaker in the waiting room announced the seven o’clock train for Reims. Somet and Kovar embraced warmly and sat on a bench to talk.
“Alexander,” Somet said. “I think it may be time for you to disappear.”
“You don’t mean to Melun.”
“No. Far away. They’ve had some kind of meeting—a colonel brought in from the Center, a commissar, Weiss—”
“The eternal Weiss.”
“—and a man called Juron. Do you know him? Bald, wears thick glasses, doesn’t say much.”
“An NKVD thug. From the Foreign Directorate.”
“Yes. There’ll be another meeting, probably, with the French included, head of the FTP, head of the intelligence unit, but that will be a meeting for telling, not a meeting for asking. This was the Soviet control group, the shadow apparat.”
“What was it about?”
“I don’t know, my friend was downstairs. But a few days later this Juron questioned me—just how did I go about making contact with you. It came up in the middle of the discussion, but that’s what he wanted.”
Kovar thought it over. “Maybe I’d better run.”
“Do you need help? Money?”
“I can manage. My friends in Mexico are trying to get me a visa. Until then, I have to stay in France. How much time do I have?”
“Not much. I think once they get what they want from Casson’s friends, they’ll come looking for you.”
“They haven’t found me yet.”
“They will. Is there some way I can reach you quickly? By telephone?”
“I’ve been using a friend’s office in Paris, mostly at night.” Kovar gave him the number. Somet looked at his watch. “Are you taking the train for Reims?” Kovar asked.
“Yes.”
“If I don’t see you again, thanks for letting me know.”
Somet smiled—they would see each other again. “Take care of yourself, Alexander,” he said.
When they shook hands, Somet passed him five hundred francs and walked away before he could say a word.
Casson woke suddenly. It was 3:30. He reached under the seat for the map and the flashlight. Degrave had made him memorize a number in case of emergency—Lyons 43 12—and a protocol, then told him that in the Unoccupied Zone the safest telephones were to be found in railroad stations.
Casson ran the beam back and forth across the map and chose the town of Vo
irons. He started a few minutes after four and was there by midday, having stopped to siphon another tank of gas from the barrel in the back of the truck. He turned into the main street and asked a man walking a bicycle for the railroad station. “Tout droit,” the man said, waving directly ahead of him. That meant go straight, or, sometimes, I don’t know.
The railroad station was in the next street. He parked the truck, found the telephones, and dialed the number in Lyons.
A woman answered. “Calvert,” she said.
“This is Monsieur Rivette, I’m calling from the office.”
“Where are you?”
“Voirons. The railroad station.”
“Is there an emergency?”
“Yes. We were stopped by milice. Outside a village called Beaufort. The captain was killed.”
“Are you injured?”
“No.”
“Are you being pursued?”
“No. The milice are dead.”
“And the rest?”
“I have it.”
“You are meant to go to Chalon. Can you get there by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where to go?”
“No.”
“First of all, you’re not to arrive at night. Truck traffic enters Chalon late in the afternoon, you have to be in the middle of it. On the Quai Gambetta that runs by the Saône, you’ll find the warehouses of the négociants—all the wine merchants in the region are headquartered there. The one you want is called Coopérative de Beaune. Pull up in the yard, ask for Henri. Clear?”
“Yes.”
“You have maybe a four- to five-hour drive from where you are. But you must go around Lyons—try to stay well east of the river. Understood?”
“Yes.”
