by John Meaney
The volume of conversation declined, but none of the students looked our way. Charles grinned at them. Gradually, the volume rose once more. Meanwhile, a figure had begun moving through the crowded tables.
"Not again," I muttered.
"I'm sorry?" said Charles.
The pretty waitress was heading this way, zeroing in on Charles. I should be used to it.
"Ah." Charles looked up at the waitress and gave her that smile. "Cafés crêmes pour nous, s'il te plaît."
You don't call someone tu unless you know them well or want to insult them; but this was Charles and the normal rules failed to apply. Blushing, the waitress left, heading for the kitchen at the rear. Charles turned his attention back to me: "I'm living like a monk."
"Of course you are."
Soon the waitress was back, setting down the cups with a tremble in her hand.
"Hi. I'm Charles. And you are...?"
"Juliette-Louise. I'm a student, not just a waitress here."
"Naturally. I'd love to come back and talk to you later. Say, five o'clock?"
"I'll just be finishing then." Her cheeks were growing pink again.
"Perfect. À bientôt."
She moved off once more, looking unsteady.
"Atomic fission, Brother Charles." I regained my line of thought. "You worked on water-cooled reactor design, right? In Lyons."
"You know I did." Charles glanced towards his new conquest-to-be.
"I'd like to talk about atomic weapons, if that's all right."
"D'accord." Charles grimaced. "They make a loud bang."
"That's what I hear."
So we talked about how heavy a bomb needed to be, and how much space it would take up. The harder you compress the uranium, the less of it you need... but you need to surround it with a greater volume of high explosive in perfect configuration.
"You'd still need a big truck," said Charles after a while, "to carry the bomb. You just wouldn't need to steal so much uranium."
"A truck?" My skin felt cold, though the café was stifling. "Who said anything about stealing?"
"Come on, Wolf. You're working on one of your more sensational articles."
These days he knew me as a science writer – but he was very smart. He might have figured out the truth.
"Er, what makes you say so?"
"Because you're focusing on the physical configuration. The bit that the military contractors worked out long ago."
On the record player, Nina Simone started singing Ne me quittes pas.
"The thing is," Charles continued, "even if they get the set-up wrong and fail to obtain a true atomic explosion, the TNT trigger will spew radioactive dust everywhere. Detonate a bomb in the Métro and you'll kill thousands of people. And render the subways unusable for decades, even if the bastard thing doesn't work right." Charles lowered his voice. "So if you knew of something, like a threat to Paris, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"
After a beat: "Of course I would."
But the waitress, Juliette-Louise, was coming back towards the table. It was a good opportunity for me to stand up and apologize to Charles for having no more time in Paris. I promised to keep in touch, then left him and the young lady to whatever was going to develop between them. I went outside into falling darkness. It was gloomy, but at least the snow had stopped.
That made it easier, as I walked away from the café, to spot the man who was following me.
Passing the statue of Victor Hugo, I headed toward the river. My tail wasn't a Branch 7 neophyte, nor was it anyone from the café. My tail might be French, a Deuxième Bureau operative assigned to keep an eye on Charles (an atomic physicist, after all). Or he was an ordinary citizen heading home, or to his mistress.
The wind grew chillier across the snow-covered Petit Pont.
Last week, Mossad operatives had tracked down a former Nazi working as a barber in the 8th Arondissement. The barber was an old man, a Bosnian Muslim who had served in the Waffen SS; and the Mossad guys 'sent him to a better world,' which is our own euphemism for murder. Perhaps my watcher was a neo-Nazi, looking for revenge.
Or he might be KGB. It's not like there's only one enemy.
I stopped before the façade of Nôtre Dame. The cathedral stands on the Île de la Cité; a sense of wide perspective surrounds it, even with December darkness closing in.
The man was still there. It's hard to follow someone in such open surroundings.
I walked onto the island, the ancient heart of Paris, following the narrow streets where Dumas and Baudelaire had walked to their monthly marijuana sessions. At the eastern end, I stopped before the Mémorial de la Déportation, a tribute to the two hundred thousand French victims of Nazi death camps.
My watcher had faded from sight.
I double-checked, and there was no one. Either I'd been wrong, or I'd passed the test – acting as an old friend of Charles ought to – or he'd taken a philosophical Gallic view of the winter night, shrugged at the darkness, and ducked indoors to order a cognac at a zinc-covered bar. After a while, I retraced my tracks along the island, then crossed to the Right Bank, into busy boulevards.
Yet I found time to wonder, passing homeward-bound Parisians (as Fern and Jean-Paul would be going home), how many remembered the thunderous guns falling silent, jackboots marching past the Arc de Triomphe, and Hitler himself inspecting the Eiffel Tower.
And if they did, how could they ever sleep at night?
SIX:
PARIS, December 1962
It was one minute before 8 p.m. when I stopped on the landing outside the dark apartment door with a wrapped wine bottle in hand. The label on the wall read M. & Mme. Segal. I shrugged to loosen the tension in my shoulders, then knocked.
Fern opened the door.
"David. I'm glad you came." She leaned forward so I could kiss each cheek in turn; and the sensation was stunning, as always. In my ear, she breathed: "Oh, darling."
I should have stayed away; but how could I?
"Better..." I cleared my throat. "Better take me in to the party."
Fern bit her lip, just for a moment, looking so ripe for a deep kiss, to hold her tight against me and—
"Yes." She retrieved the wine bottle from my hand and took a step back into the apartment hallway. "Come inside. We have some interesting people here."
I shook my head.
"Interesting is what you call a painting when you're too polite to say it's crap."
Fern smiled, saying nothing as she took my hand and led the way to an airy lounge where the ceiling was high and the furniture was elegant and understated. Sixteen guests (I counted) were chatting there, grouped in threes and fours. Several others were in the kitchen and out on the balcony. A red-headed woman with a long cigarette holder gave a predatory look as Fern guided me past.
A polished radiogram was playing Pictures At An Exhibition, turned down low. Beside it, a bearded man with Mediterranean-dark skin was talking to two women.
"...Jewish friends and neighbours," he was saying, "just as they are welcome in my house. Don't Judaism and Islam agree on the importance of hospitality?"
"Well, of course," said one of the women. She was American, midwest by the accent. "Why wouldn't they? I don't understand what you're—Oh, Fern. Hi."
"Sorry to interrupt," said Fern. "This is my good friend, David Wolf. He's a science writer. David, this is Professor Ahmed Bazargan, from Jerusalem" – he and I shook hands – "and Mary Ryan, from Pittsburgh. And Anne-Marie Gruner, from right here in Paris."
"Pleased to meet you all." I tried to look pleased, as Fern let go of my hand and slipped away, back towards the front door where someone was knocking. "I didn't mean to stop your conversation."
Professor Bazargan gave me a silent look.
"I was just trying to work out," said the American woman, Ryan, "what the professor's point was. No offence."
"None taken." Bazargan was telling a lie, but at least he was courteous. "I'm saying that Palestine could have turned out
differently. We haven't been a British protectorate for fourteen years, but we're peaceful and prosperous..."
"Because the British wouldn't have left it any other way."
"...even with the Jewish settlements that started last century. Of course, a lot have left, making aliyah to Neu Jerusalem. We're natural allies, but it's the closest friends who become bitter enemies, don't you think?"
It sounded sensible to me, but the Ryan woman said: "President Einstein wouldn't allow anything bad to happen."
"With respect, he's in Berlin." Bazargan shrugged his high shoulders. "That's a long way from Gaza."
Ryan looked as if she were about to stamp the floor. She pouted in my direction.
"Sorry," I told her, "but I'm starving. I'm just going to the buffet to grab some food."
"OK." Ryan brightened. "I'll come with you, David."
A tiny light danced in Bazargan's eyes as I left with Ryan in tow.
Jean-Paul was standing in the corner, talking to a small group. With his dark beard and lean, hard-looking features and gravely voice, you'd think Jean-Paul Segal was too distinctive to be a good agent. But he could blend in better than anyone.
"I'm starving." Ryan placed a hand on her convex stomach.
The trays held b'sari dishes, with no dairy food in sight. It's too easy to get them mixed by mistake... if you care about that sort of thing. Ryan took the blue plate I handed her, and began to pile up food.
"Do you live in Paris?" I asked her.
"No, I teach Creative Writing," said Ryan, "in Pennsylvania. I'm here to soak up the atmosphere, you know?"
"It's a fine city for that. What books have you had published?"
Jean-Paul was excusing himself from his friends.
"Well, none as yet." Ryan popped an hors d'oeuvre into her mouth, in one piece. She chewed and added: "But I'm getting ready for some serious work."
Yes, Jean-Paul was heading this way. Thank God.
"I'm sure your students, Miss Ryan, appreciate the depth of your experience."
"Oh, yes." Ryan nodded. "I'm certain they do. Did Fern say you're a writer?"
"Yes, but only—Ah, Jean-Paul. How good to see you."
"Wolf."
Jean-Paul held out his spade-sized hand. When we shook, his callused grip was hard, like mahogany. He could have crushed my bones into splinters.
"You young reprobate," he added. "How are you doing?"
"Great, old friend." There's less than fifteen years between our ages, but during the war Jean-Paul survived unimaginable experiences. "How's life?"
"Fantastic, as always." Turning to Ryan, he said: "Have you talked to Alain Mercier? He's an editor at Paris Match that you ought to meet."
"Oh, Jean-Paul." Ryan pronounced his name John-Paul, not Zhon-Pohl. "That would be wonderful."
"Tell him I sent you." Jean-Paul touched Ryan's shoulder, turning her around, and used the slightest pressure of his fingers to make her start walking. "There you go."
"Mille remercîments," I said when she was out of earshot.
"In recompense" – Jean-Paul's deep voice lowered even more – "you can tell me how Moshe is doing."
"Huh. For a clandestine organization, we gossip like old maids. So can I assume this place is clean?"
"Newly swept."
We were talking about eavesdropping bugs, all the latest trend in Washington and Moscow. In our trade, that is.
"Not even monitoring your party guests? Aren't you cultivating assets?"
"Should I assume you still have a knack of evading questions?"
"Do you think you taught me too well?" I put my plate down atop a polished television. "The last I saw of Moshe, three gorilla-sized orderlies were jamming a syringe full of thorazine into him. Is that direct enough for you?"
"Did they stick him in his arm or in his tokhes?"
I looked at Jean-Paul for a moment. "Has anyone ever told you you're a sick man?"
"Fern says it," Jean-Paul growled. "All the time."
The words lay between us like a tossed gauntlet: an old empty sweat-stained gauntlet with the fingers still curled, remembering the shape of its owner's hand and thousands of hours spent grasping a sword, because the owner was a warrior and a master, never to be taken lightly.
"Then she's a wise woman," I said, and let the moment go.
The hallway phone rang a while later, and Jean-Paul went to answer it. I found a clean wine-glass, filled it with water from the kitchen tap, and returned to the lounge. Professor Bazargan was standing alone, orange juice in hand. He might be interesting to talk to.
"Hi, Professor Bazargan. No one said what you're a professor of."
"Sculpture and architecture." He half raised his glass as if toasting the room. "Which is why I find Paris wonderful. I saw a Moskowitz today, as well as the original Statue of Liberty. It looked so small."
"You've seen the one in New York?" To most of the world, the United States of America is symbolized by that most famous of French sculptures. "On Ellis Island?"
"Often. I've been working in Manhattan, advising the United Nations Arts Commission. There are some fine pieces right there on U.N. Plaza."
"I don't know about you, but I love New York," I said. "The energy of the place."
Bazargan shrugged, like earlier. They train us to watch for physical tics; it helps when you're trying to catch someone out in a falsehood.
"I prefer Paris," Bazargan said. "I went to the Eiffel Tower yesterday. Again. It's like something built from Meccano."
"I remember Meccano."
And long winter afternoons spent building little cranes and trucks and intricate nameless devices out of metal Meccano strips and brackets and bolts. In my cousins' house in Boston, during the hot Massachussetts summer days, we made similar marvellous inventions with an Erector Set.
"But you like that mechanical look, Professor?"
"I like its boldness. Have you been to Brussels, Mr Wolf? Seen the Atomium?"
I once tailed a nervous Dutch biochemist through that construct of house-sized silver spheres and tubes, and caught him making the switch: passing microfilm to his Russian handler.
"It's not much like an atom, the Atomium. Actually, it's totally wrong."
Bazargan focused on me. "Atoms are like little solar systems, aren't they? I don't mean the relative dimensions, but surely—"
"Sorry." I shook my head. "A moving electron radiates its energy away. That's how TV and radio work, how you transmit a signal. By waggling electrons."
Over by the television, Jean-Paul crouched down. He twisted the power knob, and a small white spot appeared in the centre of the square, pale-grey screen. It would be a couple of minutes before the set warmed up, just in time for the nine o'clock news.
Jean-Paul looked serious, perhaps because of the phone call.
"So if electrons orbited nuclei" – as I spoke, Bazargan's gaze also moved to Jean-Paul – "they'd radiate their energy away and spiral down into the nuclei. All matter in the universe would disappear in a flash of gamma-rays."
"Ah." Bazargan grimaced. "So much education consists of telling lies, don't you think? I wonder if humanity will ever grow up."
Jean-Paul turned up the volume on the TV.
"—une grande bombe situé dans un café au centre de la cité, et ce soir les habitants d'Hanover sont en deuil. Président Einstein a dit que—"
"Oh, shit." Bazargan's polite elocution dropped away. "Look."
In black and silvery white, strewn rubble shimmered across an ordinary Hanover street while grim-faced medics carried stretchers and the walking wounded wept, comforted by passers-by. It was a café bomb, and sooner or later they'd find a Swastika painted nearby, or a small flag buried inside the mess, or both. Along with body-parts.
"You were saying, Professor? About humanity growing up?"
Bazargan shook his head in silence. On the TV, the news item ended with a mention of New Jerusalem's army performing military exercises in response to the massive movement of tanks
inside Soviet East Germany, all of it routine according to Soviet spokesmen, none of it looking good. My tanks are better than your tanks. My Dad can beat your Dad.
Primates, beating their chests.
"My apologies, everyone." Jean-Paul switched the television off. "This was supposed to be a party."
How much later it was when I managed to be alone with Fern, I'm not sure. But finally we stood on the inner balcony that overlooked the courtyard, while below us patches of snow glowed pale-blue beneath the moonlight.
"You said cyclotrons were like mediaeval smithies, remember?" Fern looked down into the courtyard and shivered. The air was cold. "How the literature printed every detail, but only people with experience and a feel for the machinery could build atom-smashers. How they needed the touch."
"I didn't know you'd seen the article." Had she read it just because of me? "Thank you."
It had been a remark by Charles last year that put me onto it. I wrote it on spec, and Scientific American liked the piece enough to buy it.
"Maybe bombs are like that, David. Maybe they're just as hard to build."
"It would be nice to think so." Charles had talked about bombs that didn't detonate correctly, still spewing deadly debris for miles around the target zone. "But you don't plan for your enemy's incompetence, do you?"
"So which enemy are you thinking of? The Germans or the Russians? Or our former NATO friends?"
"The Americans are our friends."
It was just that our high command had drawn the line at the saturation of NATO's High Command with US officers, and pulled out from joint military operations. If they'd asked me, I'd have told them it was a mistake. But the only person who'd asked my opinion had been old Hannah, while pouring my coffee in the Berlin Central canteen. And she'd disagreed with me.
Right now, de Gaulle seemed to regret allowing New Jerusalem into the EEC. Our politicians aren't good at making friends.
"The Soviets are getting twitchy," said Fern. "There's so much unrest. Massive action is four or five years away, but they're going to do something. They have to."
"You mean crackdowns in the satellite countries?"
