by Alan Furst
There was no going further east, Weisz realized, in that direction lay dark, empty streets, and the furniture workshops of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. So then, how to avoid going home? Maybe a drink, he thought. Or two. At the Brasserie Heininger, a refuge, bright lights and people, why not. He walked down the street, entered the brasserie, and climbed the white marble staircase to the dining room. What a crowd! Laughing and flirting and drinking, while waiters with mutton-chop whiskers hurried by, carrying silver platters of oysters or choucroute garni, the room all red plush banquettes, painted cupids, and polished wood. The maitre d’ fingered his velvet rope and gave Weisz a long look, not very welcoming. Who was this lone wolf, dripping wet, trying to come down to the campfire? “I fear it will be quite a long wait, monsieur, we are very full tonight.”
Weisz hesitated for a moment, hoping to see someone call for a check, then turned to leave.
“Weisz!”
He searched for the source of the voice.
“Carlo Weisz!”
Working his way through the crowded room was Count Janos Polanyi, the Hungarian diplomat, tall and bulky and white-haired, and, tonight, not perfectly steady on his feet. He shook Weisz’s hand, took him by the arm, and led him toward a corner table. Pushed up against Polanyi in the narrow path between chair backs, Weisz caught a strong smell of wine, mixed with the scents of bay rum cologne and good cigars. “He’ll be joining us,” Polanyi called back to the maitre d’. “At table fourteen. So bring a chair.”
At table fourteen, just beneath the mirror with the bullet hole, a sea of upturned faces. Polanyi introduced Weisz, adding, “a journalist at the Reuters bureau,” and a chorus of greetings followed, all in French, apparently the language of the evening. “So then,” Polanyi said to Weisz, “left to right, my nephew, Nicholas Morath, his friend Cara Dionello. Andre Szara, the Pravda correspondent.” Szara nodded to Weisz, they’d met, now and again, at press conferences. “And Mademoiselle Allard.” The latter was leaning against Szara, on the end of the banquette, not asleep, but fading fast. “Then Louis Fischfang, the screenwriter, and next the famous Voyschinkowsky, who you’ll know as ‘the Lion of the Bourse,’ and, by his side, Lady Angela Hope.”
“We’ve met,” Lady Angela said, with a certain smile.
“Have you? Splendid.”
The maitre d’ arrived with a chair and everybody moved closer together to make room. “We’re drinking Echezeaux,” Polanyi said to Weisz. Clearly they were, Weisz counted five empty bottles on the table, and half a sixth. To the maitre d’, Polanyi said, “We’ll need a glass, and another Echezeaux. No, better make it two.” The maitre d’ signaled to a waiter, then took Weisz’s coat and hat and headed toward the cloakroom. Moments later, a waiter arrived with a glass and the new bottles. As he worked at opening them, Polanyi said to Weisz, “What brings you out in this vile weather? Not after a story, are you?”
“No, no,” Weisz said. “Not tonight. I’m just out for a walk in the rain.”
“Anyhow,” Fischfang said.
“Oh yes, we were in the middle of a story,” Polanyi said.
“A Hitler’s parrot joke,” Fischfang said. “Number whatever it is. Is anybody counting?” Fischfang was a tense little man with bent wire-framed glasses, which made him look like Leon Trotsky.
“Start over, Louis,” Voyschinkowsky said.
“In this one, Hitler’s parrot is asleep on his perch, Hitler’s working at his desk. Suddenly, the parrot wakes up and cries, ‘Here comes Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe.’ Hitler stops working. What goes on? Then the door opens and it’s Goering. So Hitler and Goering start to talk, but the bird interrupts. ‘Here comes Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda.’ And, lo and behold, a minute later, it’s true. Hitler tells what’s going on, but Goering and Goebbels think he’s kidding. ‘Ah, go on, Adolf, it’s a trick, you’re giving the bird a signal.’ ‘No, no,’ Hitler says. ‘This bird somehow knows who’s coming, and I’ll prove it to you. We’ll hide in the closet, where the bird can’t see me, and wait for the next visitor.’ So there they are, in the closet, and the bird starts up again. But this time it just trembles and hides its head under its wing and squawks.” Fischfang hunched over, hid his head beneath his arm, and produced a series of frightened squawks. At nearby tables, a few heads turned. “After a minute, the door opens, and it’s Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo. He looks around, thinks the office is empty, and goes away. ‘Allright, boys,’ the parrot says, ‘it’s safe to come out now. The Gestapo’s gone.’”
A few smiles, a tepid laugh from the courteous Voyschinkowsky. “Gestapo jokes,” Szara said.
“Not so funny, is it,” Fischfang said. “A friend of mine picked that up in Berlin. But, anyhow, they’re still working at it.”
“Why don’t they work at shooting that bastard?” Cara said.
“I’ll drink to that,” Szara said, his French flavored with a strong Russian accent.
The Echezeaux was something that Weisz had never tasted-far too expensive. The first sip told him why.
“Patience, children,” Polanyi said, setting his glass back on the tablecloth. “We’ll get him.”
“To us, then,” Lady Angela said, raising her glass.
Morath was amused, and said to Weisz, “You’ve fallen among, well, not thieves, exactly, ah, citizens of the night.”
Szara laughed, Polanyi grinned. “Not thieves, Nicky? But, let’s all remember that Monsieur Weisz is a journalist.”
Weisz didn’t like being excluded. “Not tonight,” he said. “I’m just one more emigre.”
“From where did you emigrate?” Voyschinkowsky said.
“He’s from Trieste,” Lady Angela said, a nudge and a wink in her voice. Now everybody was amused.
“Well then, he has honorary membership,” Fischfang said.
“As what?” Lady Angela said, all innocence.
“As, uh, what Nicky said. ‘Citizen of the night.’”
“To Trieste, then,” Szara said, ready to drink.
“Trieste, and the others,” Polanyi said. “Geneva, say. And Lugano.”
“Certainly Lugano. The so-called Spyopolis,” Morath said.
“Have you heard that?” Voyschinkowsky asked Weisz.
Weisz smiled. “Yes, Spyopolis. Like any border city.”
“Or any city,” Polanyi said, “with Russian emigres.”
“Oh good,” Lady Angela said. “Now we can include Paris.”
“And Shanghai,” Fischfang said. “And Harbin, especially Harbin, ‘where the women dress on credit and disrobe for cash.’”
“To them,” Cara said. “The White Russian women of Harbin.”
They drank to that, and Polanyi refilled the glasses. “Of course, we should include the others. Hotel doormen, for example.”
Szara liked that idea. “Then, embassy code clerks. Nightclub dancers.”
“And tennis pros,” Cara said. “With perfect manners.”
“Yes,” Weisz said. “And the journalists.”
“Hear, hear,” Lady Angela said in English.
“Long life,” Polanyi said, raising his glass.
Now everyone laughed, drank the toast, and drank again. Except for Mlle. Allard, whose head lay against Szara’s shoulder, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. Weisz lit a cigarette and looked around the table. Were they all spies? Polanyi was, and so was Lady Angela Hope. Morath, Polanyi’s nephew, probably was, and Szara, a Pravda correspondent, had to be, given the voracious appetite of the NKVD. And Fischfang as well, from what he’d said. And all on the same side? Two Hungarians, an Englishwoman, a Russian. What was Fischfang? Likely a Polish Jew, resident in France. And Voyschinkowsky? French, of, maybe, Ukrainian ancestry. Cara Dionello, who was sometimes mentioned in the gossip columns, was Argentine, and very rich. What a crowd! But all, it would seem, working against the Nazis, one way or another. And don’t forget, he thought, one Carlo Weisz, Italian. No, Triestine.
It was just after two in the morning when
the Triestine climbed out of a taxi in front of the Hotel Dauphine, managed, on his eighth try, to get his key in the lock, opened the door, made his way past the deserted reception desk, and, eventually, after stumbling back a step at least three times, up the stairs to his refuge. Where he shed his clothes, down to shorts and undershirt, hunted through his jacket pockets until he found his glasses, and sat down at the Olivetti. The opening volley sounded loud to Weisz, but he ignored it-the other tenants never seemed to mind the late-night tapping of a typewriter. Or, if they did, they never said anything about it. Typing late at night had near saintly status in the city of Paris-who knew what wondrous flights of imagination might be in progress-and people liked the idea of an inspired soul, pounding away after a midnight visit from the muse.
An inspired clandestine journalist, anyhow, writing a short, simple article about German agents at the heart of the Italian security system. It was pretty much as he’d told Salamone in the bar, earlier that day. The Liberazione editors had heard, from friends in Italy, about these Germans, some official, some not, working inside the police and security organizations. Shameful, really, if it were true, and they believed it was, that Italy, so often invaded, would invite foreign agents inside its defensive walls, inside its castle. A Trojan horse? Preparation for another, a German, invasion? An invasion supported by the fascists themselves? Liberazione hoped not. But then, what did it mean? How would it end? Was this the proper course for those who called themselves patriots? We giellisti, he wrote, have always shared one passion with our opponents: love of country. So please, our readers in the police and security services-we know you read our newspaper, even though it’s forbidden-take some time to think about this, about what it means to you, about what it means to Italy.
The following day, a telephone call at the Reuters bureau. Had Mr. Brown, at this point, been his cold, hard self, and leaned on his advantage, he might have been issued a brisk va f’an culo and sent on his way. But it was a mild, sensible Mr. Brown, trudging along through a vocational morning, on the other end of the line. Hoping Weisz had thought over his proposition, hoping that, in the politics of the moment, he saw the point of Soldier for Freedom. Their interests were, in this instance, mutual. A little time, a little hard work, a blow against the common enemy. And they would pay him only if he wanted to be paid. “That’s up to you, Mr. Weisz.”
They met that day after work, at the cafe-down three steps from the street-below the Hotel Tournon. Mr. Brown, Colonel Ferrara, and Weisz. Ferrara was glad to see him-Weisz had wondered about that, because he’d brought this down on Ferrara’s head. But that head had recently been locked up in a camp, so Weisz was a savior, and Ferrara let him know it.
Mr. Brown spoke English at the meeting, while Weisz translated for Ferrara. “Naturally, you’ll write in Italian,” Brown said. “And we have somebody who will do the English version, pretty much day by day. Because first publication, as soon as possible, will be in London, with Staunton and Weeks. We considered Chapman amp; Hall, or maybe Victor Gollancz, but we like Staunton. For the Italian publication, maybe a small French house, or we’ll use one of the emigre journals-their name, anyhow-but we’ll get copies into Italy, you can depend on that. And it must go to the United States, it could be influential there, and we want the Americans to think about going to war, but Staunton will make that sale. Allright so far?”
After Weisz told him what had been said, the colonel nodded. The reality of being an author was just beginning to reach him. “Please ask,” he said to Weisz, “what if the publisher in London doesn’t like it?”
“Oh, they’ll like it well enough,” Brown said.
“Don’t worry,” Weisz said to Ferrara. “This is the best kind of story, a story that tells itself.”
Not quite. Weisz found, through the end of March and the early days of April, that considerable embroidery was needed, but this came more easily to him than he would have suspected-he knew Italian life, and he knew the history. Still, he held tight to the narrative, and Ferrara, on prompting, had a good memory.
“My father worked for the railroad, in the town of Ferrara. As a brakeman in the railroad yards.”
And your father-stern and distant? Warm and tender? A bad temper? Tall? Short? The house, what did it look like? Family? Holidays? A scene at Christmas? That could be appealing, snow, candles in the windows. Did he play at being a soldier?
“If I did, I don’t remember.”
“No? With a broomstick, maybe, for a rifle?”
“What I recall is football, every spare minute I had. But we didn’t play all that much, I had chores to do, after school. Bringing water from the pump or coal for the little stove we had. It took a lot of work, just to live day to day.”
“So, nothing military.”
“No, I never thought about it. When I was eleven, I brought my father his dinner, at the yards, and I would meet his friends. It was understood that I would do the same work he did.”
“You liked that idea?”
“It wasn’t up to me to like it.” He thought for a time. “Actually, now that I think about it, my mother’s brother had been a soldier, and he let me wear a sort of canvas belt he had, with a canteen on it. I did like that. I wore it, and I filled the canteen and drank the water. Which tasted, different.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Water from a canteen has a certain taste. Musty, but not bad, canteen water is not like other water.”
Ahh.
By 10 April, the new issue of Liberazione was, against all odds, ready for publication. Weisz’s evenings were taken up with the book, and his days belonged to Reuters, which left Salamone, and eventually Elena, to do much of the editorial work. Weisz had to tell Salamone what he was doing, but Elena knew only that he was “involved in work on another project.” This she accepted, saying, “I don’t have to know the details.”
For the 10 April Liberazione, there was plenty to write about, and both the Roman lawyer and the art historian from Siena contributed articles. Mussolini had issued an ultimatum to King Zog of Albania, demanding, essentially, that he give his country to Italy. Britain was asked to intercede, but declined and, on 7 April, the Italian navy bombarded the Albanian coast, and the army invaded. This invasion violated the Anglo-Italian agreement signed a year earlier, but the Chamberlain government was silent.
Not so Liberazione.
A New Imperial Adventure, they said. More dead and wounded, more money, all for Mussolini’s frantic competition with Adolf Hitler, who, on 22 March, had taken the port of Memel by sending a registered letter to the Lithuanian government, then sailing into the port, to grinding newsreel cameras and popping flashbulbs, on a German warship. Very saucy, as Hitler liked to say, with the sort of panache guaranteed to infuriate Mussolini.
But, just in case it didn’t, the April Liberazione surely did-if the palace stooges allowed him to see it. For there was not only the editorial about German agents but also a cartoon. Talk about saucy. It’s nighttime, and here’s Mussolini, as usual, on a balcony. This balcony, however, is off a bedroom, the outline of a bed barely visible in the darkness. It’s the familiar Il Duce; big jaw thrust out, arms folded, but he’s wearing only a pajama top-with medals, of course-revealing hairy, knobby cartoon legs, while, from behind the French door, a pair of woman’s eyes, very alarmed, are peering out of the gloom, suggesting that all has not gone well in the bedroom. A suggestion confirmed by the old Sicilian proverb used as the caption: “Potere e meglio di fottere.” Nice rhyme, there, the sort of thing that made it fun to say, and easy to remember. “Power is better than fucking.”
It had been three weeks since Weisz’s return from Berlin, and he had to call Veronique-casual as the love affair had been, he couldn’t just vanish. So, on a Thursday afternoon, he telephoned and asked her to meet him after work at a cafe near the gallery. She knew. Somehow she knew. And, Parisian warrior that she was, had never looked so lovely. So soft-her hair soft and simple, eyes barely made up, blous
e falling softly over her breasts, with a new perfume, sweet, not sophisticated, clouds of it. Three weeks’ absence and a meeting at a cafe made words practically pointless, but decency demanded an explanation. “I have met, somebody,” he said. “It is, I think, serious.”
There were no tears, only that she would miss him, and he realized, just at that moment, how much he’d liked her, what good times they’d had together, in bed and out.
“Someone you met in Berlin, Carlo?”
“Someone I met a long time ago.”
“A second chance?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Very rare, the second chance.” You won’t get one here.
“I will miss you,” he said.
“You’re sweet, to say that.”
“It’s true, I’m not just saying it.”
A melancholy smile, a lift of the eyebrows.
“May I call you, sometime, to see how you’re doing?”
She put a hand, also soft, and warm, on his, by way of telling him what a jackass he’d just been, then stood up and said, “My coat?”
He helped her on with her coat, she turned, shook out her hair so that it fell properly over her collar, rose to give him a dry kiss on the lips, and, hands in pockets, walked out the door. When, later, he left the cafe, from the woman behind the cash register, another melancholy smile, another lift of the eyebrows.
The following day, he forced himself to deal with the list he’d brought out of Berlin. Leaving the office at lunchtime, he took an endless Metro ride out to the Porte de Clignancourt, wandered through the flea market, and bought a valise. It had been born cheap-cardboard covered with pebbled fabric-then lived a long, hard life; a tag on the handle evidence of a stay at a railway baggage room in Odessa.
