The Foreign Correspondent ns-9

by Alan Furst

  Leaving at midnight, he did not go directly home-a fifteen-minute walk-but found a taxi at the Metro rank, went to Salamone’s apartment, in Montparnasse, and had the driver wait. The transfer of the editorial office of Liberazione-boxes of five-by-eight index cards, stacks of file folders-required two trips up and down the stairs at Salamone’s, and two more at the Dauphine. Weisz took it all to the office he’d made for himself in his second room; a small desk in front of the window, a 1931 Olivetti typewriter, a handsome oak filing cabinet that had once served in the office of a grain brokerage. When the moving was done, the boxes and folders covered the top of the desk, with one stack on the floor. So, there it was, paper.

  Paging through a few back copies, he found the last article he’d written, a piece about Spain, for the first of the two November issues. The story was based on an editorial in the International Brigade’s weekly paper, Our Fight. With so many Communists and anarchists in the ranks of the brigade, the conventions of military discipline were often viewed as contrary to egalitarian ideals. For instance, saluting. Weisz’s story had a nice ironic flair to it-we must find a way, he told his readers in Italy, to cooperate, to work together against fascismo. But this was not always so easy, just have a look at what goes on in the Spanish war, even amidst the ferocious combat. The writer in Our Fight justified saluting as “the military way of saying hello.” Pointed out that the salute was not undemocratic, that, after all, two officers of equal rank would salute each other, that “a salute is a sign that a comrade who was an egocentric individualist in private life has adjusted himself to the collective way of getting things done.” Weisz’s article was also a gentle dig at one of Liberazione‘s competitors, the Communist L’Unita, printed in Lugano and widely distributed. Our crowd, he implied, we democratic liberals, social democrats, humanist centrists, is not, thank heaven, afflicted with all that doctrinal agony over symbols.

  His article had been, he hoped, entertaining, and that was crucial. It was meant to offer a respite from daily fascist life-a much-needed respite. For instance, the Mussolini government issued a daily communique on the radio, and anyone within hearing had to stand up during the broadcast. That was the law. So, if you were in a cafe, or at work, or even in your own home, you stood, and woe betide those who didn’t.

  Now, what did he have for January. The lawyer from Rome was writing the obituary for Bottini. That had to be, who would murder an honorable man? Weisz anticipated that Salamone would do a revision, and so would he. There was always a digest of world news-news which was withheld or slanted in Italy, where journalism had been defined, by law, as a supportive adjunct to national policy. The digest, taken from French and British papers, and particularly from the BBC, was the preserve of the chemist from Milan, and was always factual and precise. They had also, always tried to have, a cartoon, usually drawn by an emigre employed by the Parisian Le Journal. For January, here was baby Mussolini, in a particularly frilly baby hat, seated on Hitler’s knee, and being fed a heaping spoonful of swastikas. “More, more!” cries baby Mussolini.

  The giellisti wanted, more than anything, to drive a wedge between Hitler and Mussolini, because Hitler meant to bring Italy into the coming war, on his side, despite the fact that Mussolini himself had declared that Italy would not be prepared to go to war until 1943.

  Fine, what else?

  Salamone had told him that the professor from Siena was working on a piece, based on a smuggled letter, that described the behavior of a police chief and a fascist gang in a town in the Abruzzi. The point of the article was to name the police chief, who would quickly hear of his new fame once the paper reached Italy. We know who you are, and we know what you’re doing, and you will be held accountable when the time comes. Also, when you’re out in the street, watch your back. This exposure would make him angry, but might serve to make him think twice about what he was doing.

  So then: Bottini, digest, cartoon, police chief, a few odds and ends, maybe a political-theory piece-Weisz would make sure it was brief-and an editorial, always passionate and operatic, which pretty much always said the same thing: resist in small ways, this can’t go on, the tables will turn. The great Italian liberal heroes, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour, to be quoted. And always, in boldface across the top of the front page: “Please don’t destroy this newspaper, give it to a trusted friend, or leave it where others may read it.”

  Weisz had four pages to fill, the paper printed on a single folded sheet. Too bad, he thought, they couldn’t run advertisements. After a long, hard day of political dissent, discriminating giellisti like to dine at Lorenzo’s. No, that was not to be, the remaining space was his, and the subject was obvious, Colonel Ferrara, but…But what? He wasn’t sure. Somewhere in this idea he sensed a ticking bomb. Where? He couldn’t find it. The Colonel Ferrara story was not new, he’d been written about, in Italian and French newspapers, in 1935, and the story had no doubt been picked up by the wire services. He would appear in the Reuters story, which would likely be rewritten as human interest-the wire services, and the British press in general, did not take sides in the Spanish war.

  His story in Liberazione would be nothing like that. Written under his pseudonym, Palestrina-they all used composers as pen names-it would be heroic, inspiring, emotional. The infantryman’s hat, the pistol on a belt, the shouting across the river. Mussolini had sent seventy-five thousand Italian troops to Spain, a hundred Caproni bombers, Whippet tanks, field guns, ammunition, ships-everything. A national shame; they’d said it before, they would say it again. But here was one officer, and a hundred and twenty-two men, who had the courage to fight for their ideals. And the distributors would make sure to leave copies in the towns by the military bases.

  So this had to be written, and Ferrara himself had asked only that his future destination not be named. Easy enough to do that. Better-the reader might well imagine that he was off to fight somewhere else, wherever brave men and women were standing up against tyranny. Otherwise, Weisz asked himself, what could go wrong? The Italian secret services surely knew that Ferrara was in Spain, knew his real name, knew everything about him. And Weisz would make sure that this article would say nothing that could help them. And, in fact, these days, what wasn’t a ticking bomb? Very well then, he had his assignment and, that settled, he returned to the file folders.

  Carlo Weisz sat at his desk, his jacket hung over the back of the chair; he wore a pale gray shirt with a thin red stripe, sleeves rolled up, top button undone, tie pulled down. A pack of Gitanes sat next to an ashtray from the San Marco, the artists’ and conspirators’ cafe in Trieste. His radio was on, its dial glowing amber, tuned to a Duke Ellington performance recorded at a Harlem nightclub, and the room was dark, lit only by a small desk lamp with a green glass shade. He leaned back in the chair for a moment, rubbed his eyes, then ran his fingers back through his hair to get it off his forehead. And if, by chance, he was watched from an apartment across the street-the shutters were open-it would never occur to the watcher that this was a scene for a newsreel, or a page in some Warriors of the Twentieth Century picture book.

  From Weisz, a quiet sigh as he went back to work. He was, he realized, for the first time since the meeting with Salamone, at peace. Very odd, really, wasn’t it. Because all he was doing was reading.

  10 January, 1939. Since midnight, a slow, steady snow had fallen over Paris. At three-thirty in the morning, Weisz stood at the corner of the rue Dauphine and the quay that ran along the left bank of the Seine. He peered into the darkness, took off his gloves, and tried to rub a little warmth into his hands. A windless night; the snow floated down over the white street and the black river. Weisz squinted, looking up the quay, but he couldn’t see a thing, then looked at his watch. 3:34. Late, not like Salamone, maybe… But before he could concentrate on the possible catastrophes, he saw a pair of dim headlights, wobbling as the car skidded over the slippery cobbles.

  Salamone’s cranky old Renault slid sideways and stopped as Weisz waved. He had to pull
hard to open the door as Salamone leaned over and pushed from the other side. “Ohh, fuck this,” Salamone said. The car was cold, its heater had not worked for a long time, and the efforts of its single windshield wiper did little to clear the window. On the backseat, a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.

  The car bumped and skidded along the quay, past the great dark bulk of Notre Dame, traveling east by the river to the Pont d’Austerlitz, the bridge that crossed to the right bank of the Seine. As the window fogged up, Salamone bent forward over the wheel. “I can see nothing,” he said.

  Weisz reached over and cleared a small circle with his glove. “Better?”

  “Mannaggia!” Salamone said, meaning damn the snow and the car and everything else. “Here, try this.” He fumbled in his overcoat pocket and produced a large white handkerchief. The Renault had waited patiently for this moment, when the driver had one hand on its wheel, and spun slowly in a circle as Salamone swore and stomped on the brake. The Renault ignored this, completed a second pirouette, then came to rest with its back wheels in a mound of snow that had drifted up against the streetlamp at the end of the bridge.

  Salamone put his handkerchief away, started the stalled car, and shifted into first gear. The wheels spun as the engine whined; once, twice, again. “Wait, stop, I’ll push it,” Weisz said. He used his shoulder to open the door, took one step outside, then his feet flew up and he landed hard.

  “Carlo?”

  Weisz fought his way upright, and, taking baby steps, circled the car and put both hands on the trunk. “Try it now.”

  The engine raced as the wheels spun themselves deeper into the grooves they’d built. “Not so much gas!”

  The window squeaked as Salamone cranked it down. “What?”

  “Gently, gently.”

  “Allright.”

  Weisz pushed again. There would be no Liberazione this week.

  From a boulangerie on the corner, a baker appeared, in white undershirt, white apron, and a white cloth knotted at the corners that covered his head. The wood-burning ovens of the bakeries had to be fired up at three in the morning, Weisz could smell the bread.

  The baker stood next to Weisz and said, “Now we do it.” After three or four tries, the Renault shot forward, into the path of a taxi, the only other car on the streets of Paris that morning. The driver swerved away, blew his horn, shouted, “What the hell’s the matter with you?” and circled his index finger beside his temple. The taxi slid on the snow, then drove across the bridge as Weisz thanked the baker.

  Salamone crossed the river, going five miles an hour, then turned left and right on the side streets until he found the rue Parrot, close by the Gare de Lyon railroad station. Here, for travelers and railroad workers, was an all-night cafe. Salamone left the car and walked to the glassed-in terrace. Seated alone at a table by the door, a short man in the uniform and hat of a conductor on the Italian railways was reading a newspaper and drinking an aperitif. Salamone tapped on the glass, the man looked up, finished his drink, left money on the table, and followed Salamone to the car. Maybe an inch or two over five feet tall, he wore a thick, trainman’s mustache, and his belly was big enough to spread the uniform jacket between the buttons. He climbed into the backseat and shook hands with Weisz. “Nice weather, eh?” he said, brushing the snow off his shoulders.

  Weisz said it was.

  “All the way up from Dijon, it’s doing this.”

  Salamone got into the front seat. “Our friend here works on the seven-fifteen to Genoa,” he said to Weisz. Then to the conductor: “That’s for you.” He nodded toward the parcel.

  The conductor lifted it up. “What’s in here?”

  “Galley trays, for the Linotype. Also money, for Matteo. And the newspaper, with a makeup sheet.”

  “Christ, must be a lot of money, you can look for me in Mexico.”

  “It’s the trays, they’re zinc.”

  “Can’t he get trays?”

  “He says not.”

  The conductor shrugged.

  “How’s life at home?” Salamone said.

  “It doesn’t get any better. Confidenti everywhere, you have to watch what you say.”

  “You stay at the cafe until seven?” Weisz said.

  “Not me. I go to the first-class wagon-lit and have a snooze.”

  “Well, we better be going,” Salamone said.

  The conductor got out, carrying the parcel with both hands. “Please be careful,” Salamone said. “Watch your step.”

  “I watch it all,” the conductor said. He grinned at the idea and shuffled off through the snow.

  Salamone put the car into gear. “He’s good at it. And you can’t ever tell, about that. The one before him lasted a month.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Prison,” Salamone said. “In Genoa. We try and send a little something to the family.”

  “Costly, this business we’re in,” Weisz said.

  Salamone knew he meant more than money, and shook his head in sorrow. “Most of it I keep to myself, I don’t tell the committee more than they need to know. Of course, I’ll fill you in as we go along, just in case, if you see what I mean.”

  20 January. It stayed cold and gray, the snow mostly gone, except for soot-blackened mounds that clogged the gutters. Weisz went to the Reuters bureau at ten, up near the Opera Metro station, close by the Associated Press, the French Havas bureau, and the American Express office. He stopped there first. “Mail for Monsieur Johnson?” There was one letter-only a few of the Paris giellisti were allowed to use the system, which was anonymous, and, they believed, not yet known to the OVRA spies in Paris. Weisz showed the Johnson carte d’identite, collected the letter-return address in Bari-then went up to the bureau.

  Delahanty had the corner office, its tall windows opaque with grime, his desk stacked high with papers. He was drinking milky tea with a spoon in the cup and, as Weisz paused at the doorway, gave him a tart smile and pushed his glasses up on his forehead. “Come in, come in, said the spider to the fly.”

  Weisz said good morning and slid into the chair on the other side of the desk.

  “Your lucky day, today,” Delahanty said, riffling through his out box and handing Weisz a press release. The International Association of Writers was, shockingly, holding a conference. At 1:00 P.M. on 20 January, at the Palais de la Mutualite, by place Maubert in the Fifth. The public cordially invited. Listed speakers included Theodore Dreiser, Langston Hughes, Stephen Spender, C. Day-Lewis, and Louis Aragon. Aragon, who had started as a Surrealist, became a Stalinist, and wound up as both, would make sure the Moscow line was maintained. On the agenda: Spain falling to Franco, China attacked by Japan, Czechoslovakia dominated by Hitler-none of it good news. The indignation engines, Weisz knew, would be running at full steam, but, no matter the red politics, it was better than silence.

  “You’ve earned a little boredom, Carlo, and it’s your turn for one of these chores,” Delahanty said, sipping at his cold tea. “We’ll want something from Dreiser-dig around in the Marxism and get me an honorable quote-and La Pasionaria is always worth a graph.” The affectionate nickname for Dolores Ibarurri, the orator for the Republican cause, described always as “fiery.” “Just a wee dispatch, laddie, you won’t hear anything new but we have to have somebody there, and Spain is important for the South American papers. So, be off with you, and don’t sign anything.”

  Dutifully, Weisz arrived on time. The hall was full, crowds milling about in a haze of cigarette smoke-engages of every description, the Latin Quarter in full throb, a few red banners visible above the throng, and everybody seemed to know everyone else. Reports from Spain that morning said that the line on the east bank of the Segre had been abandoned, which meant that the taking of Barcelona wasn’t far off. So, as they’d always known, Madrid, with its stubborn pride, would be the last to give in.

  Eventually, the thing got itself started, and the speakers spoke, and spoke, and spoke. The situation was dire.
Their efforts had to be redoubled. A survey of the League of American Writers showed that 410 of the 418 members favored the Republican side. There was a notable absence of Russian writers at the conference, as they were busy mining gold in Siberia or being shot in the Lubyanka. Weisz, of course, could not write anything like that-it would have to be entered in the great book of stories that I never wrote kept by every correspondent.

  “Carlo? Carlo Weisz!”

  Now who was this-this man in the aisle peering down at him? It took a moment for memory to work; somebody he’d known, distantly, at Oxford. “Geoffrey Sparrow,” the man said. “You do remember, don’t you?”

  “Of course, Geoffrey, how are you?”

  They were talking in whispers, while a bearded man pounded his fist on the lectern. “Let’s go outside,” Sparrow said.

  He was tall and fair and smiling and, now it came back to Weisz, rich and smart. As he went up the aisle, all long legs and flannel, Weisz saw that he wasn’t alone, had with him a smashing girl. Naturally, inevitably.

  When they reached the lobby, Sparrow said, “This is my friend Olivia.”

  “Hullo there, Carlo.”