The Foreign Correspondent ns-9

by Alan Furst

  “This just arrived,” Bertrand said, handing Weisz the envelope.

  Weisz reached into his pocket for a franc piece, but his money was on the desk, with his glasses and wallet. “Come in for a moment,” he said.

  Bertrand entered the room and sat heavily in the chair, fanning his face with his hand. Weisz thanked him and gave him his tip. “Who’s the new tenant?” he said.

  “I couldn’t say, Monsieur Weisz. I believe he is from Italy, a commercial gentleman, perhaps.”

  Weisz took a last look around, closed his valise, buckled his briefcase, and put his hat on. Looking at his watch, he said, “I have to get out to Le Bourget.”

  The franc piece in Bertrand’s pocket had evidently hastened his recovery. He rose nimbly and, as the two of them chatted about the weather, accompanied Weisz down the stairs.

  In the spring twilight, as the Dewoitine airplane began its descent to Berlin, the change of pitch in the engines woke Carlo Weisz, who looked out the window and watched the drifting cloud as it broke over the wing. On his lap, an open copy of Dekobra’s La Madone des Sleepings-the Madonna of the Sleeping Cars-a 1920s French spy thriller, wildly popular in its day, which Weisz had brought along for the trip. The dark adventures of Lady Diana Wynham, siren of the Orient Express, bed-hopping from Vienna to Budapest, with stops at “every European watering-place.”

  Weisz dog-eared the page and stowed the book in his briefcase. As the plane lost altitude, it broke through the cloud, revealing the streets, the parks and church steeples, of small towns, then a squared patchwork of farm fields, still faintly green in the gathering dusk. It was very peaceful, and, Weisz thought, very vulnerable, because this was the bomber pilot’s view, just before he set it all on fire. Weisz had been in the Spanish towns, when the German bombers were done with them, but who down there hadn’t seen them, set to heroic music, in the Reich’s newsreels. Did the people at supper, below him, realize it could happen to them?

  At Tempelhof airport, the passport Kontrolle was all smiles and courtesy-the dignitaries and foreign correspondents, streaming in for the Ciano visit, must see the amiable face of Germany. Weisz took a taxi into the city, and asked for messages at the Adlon desk, but there was nothing for him. By nine-thirty, he had eaten dinner and, up in his room, spent a few minutes standing over the telephone. But it was late, Christa was home. Perhaps she would come tomorrow.

  By nine the next morning he was at the Reuters office, greeted warmly by Gerda and the other secretaries. Eric Wolf peered out of his office and beckoned Weisz inside. Something about him-perpetual bow tie, puzzled expression, myopic eyes behind round-framed eyeglasses, made him look like a friendly owl. Wolf said hello, then, his demeanor conspiratorial, closed his office door. Anxious to tell a story, he leaned forward, his voice low and private. “I’ve been given a message for you, Weisz.”

  Weisz tried to seem unconcerned. “Oh?”

  “I don’t know what it means, and you don’t have to tell me, of course. And maybe I don’t want to know.”

  Weisz looked mystified.

  “Last night, I left the office at seven-thirty, as usual, and I was walking back to my apartment when this very elegant lady, all in black, falls in beside me and says, ‘Herr Wolf, if Carlo Weisz should come to Berlin, would you give him a message for me? A personal message, from Christa.’ I was a bit startled, but I said yes, of course, and she said, ‘Please tell him that Alma Bruck is a trusted friend of mine.’”

  Weisz didn’t answer immediately, then shook his head and smiled: don’t worry, it isn’t what you think. “I know what this is about, Eric. She’s, like that, sometimes.”

  “Oh, well, naturally I wondered. It was, you know, rather sinister. And I hope I got the name right, because I wanted to repeat it, but we’d reached the corner and she took a sharp turn down the street and disappeared. The whole thing took only seconds. It was, how to say, perfect spy technique.”

  “The lady is a friend of mine, Eric. A very good friend. But a married friend.”

  “Ahh.” Wolf was relieved. “You’re a lucky chap, I’d say, she is stunning.”

  “I’ll tell her you said so.”

  “You can understand how I felt. I mean, I thought, maybe it’s a story he’s working on, and, in this city, you have to be careful. But then, it could have been something else. Lady in black, Mata Hari, that sort of thing.”

  “No.” Weisz smiled at Wolf’s suspicions. “Not me, it’s just a love affair, nothing more. And I appreciate your help. And your discretion.”

  “Happy to do it!” Wolf relaxed. “Not often one gets to play Cupid.” With an owlish smile, he pulled back a pretend bowstring, then opened his fingers to let the arrow fly.

  The invitation arrived while Weisz and Wolf were out for the morning press conference at the Propaganda Ministry. Inside the envelope of a messenger service, an envelope with his name in script, and a folded note: “Dearest Carlo, I’m giving a cocktail party, at my apartment, at six this evening, I’d be so pleased if you could come.” Signed “Alma,” with an address in the Charlottenstrasse, not far from the Adlon. Curious, Weisz went to the clipping file and, German efficiency at work, there she was. Small, slim, and dark, in a fur coat, smiling for the photographer at a benefit given for war widows on 16 March, the German Memorial Day.

  On the Charlottenstrasse, a block of elaborate limestone apartment buildings, upper windows with miniature balconies. Time and soot turned the Parisian versions black, but the Prussians of Berlin kept theirs white. The street itself was immaculate, with well-scrubbed paving stones bordered by linden trees behind ornamental iron railings. The buildings, to Weisz’s intuitive geometry, much larger inside than they looked from without. Across a white brick courtyard, and up two floors in a curlicue-caged elevator, Alma Bruck’s apartment.

  Had the invitation said six? Weisz swore to himself that it had, but, listening at the door, he heard no evidence of a cocktail party. Tentatively, he knocked. The unlocked door opened an inch. Weisz gave it a gentle push, and it opened further, revealing a dark foyer. “Hello?” Weisz said.

  No answer.

  Weisz took a cautious step inside and closed the door, but not all the way. What was going on? A dark, empty apartment. A trap. Then, from somewhere down the long hallway, he heard music, a swing band, which meant either a phonograph or a radio tuned to some station outside Germany, where such music was verboten. Again, he said, “Hello?” No answer, only the music. Christa, are you in here? Was this romantic, playful theatre? Or something very different? For a moment, he froze, the two possibilities at war inside him.

  Finally, he took a deep breath. She was in here somewhere, and, if she wasn’t, well, too bad. Slowly, he walked down the hallway, the old parquet flooring creaked with every step. He passed an open door, a parlor, its heavy drapes drawn, then stopped and said, “Christa?” No answer. The music was coming from the room at the end of the hall, its door wide open.

  He stopped at the threshold. Inside a dark bedroom, a white shape was stretched full length on the bed. “Christa?”

  “Oh my God,” she said, sitting bolt upright. “I fell asleep.” Slowly, she lay back down. “I meant to answer the door,” she said. “Like this.”

  “I would have liked that,” he said. He went and sat beside her, bent over and kissed her briefly, then stood and began to undress. “Next time, my love, leave a note on the door, or a garter, or something.”

  She laughed. “Forgive me.” She propped her head on her hand and watched as he took off his clothes. Then she put a hand out, he took it in his, and she said, “I am so happy you’re here, Carlo.” He kissed her hand, then went back to unbuttoning his shirt.

  “I did wonder,” he said. “I thought I was going to a party.”

  “But my dear, you are.”

  Done with his clothes, he lay down on the bed and stroked her side. “I thought you might call, last night.”

  “Better for me now not to go to a hotel,” she said. “That’s why
all of this, your friend Wolf, and dear Alma. But, no matter.” She put her arm around his shoulders and embraced him, her breasts against his chest. “I have what I want,” she said, her voice softening.

  “The front door is ajar,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, you can close it later. Nobody comes here, it’s a building of ghosts.”

  The skin of her legs was cool, and smooth to the touch. His hand moved slowly, up and back, he was in no hurry, took such pleasure in anticipation that what came next seemed somewhere in a distant future.

  Finally, she said, “Perhaps you’d better close the door, after all.”

  “Allright.” Reluctantly, he stood and headed for the door.

  “Ghosts might hear things,” she said as he left the room. “We wouldn’t want that.”

  He was back in a moment. “Poor Carlo,” she said. “Now we’ll have to begin all over again.”

  “I guess I must,” he said, his voice elated. After a time, she moved her legs apart, and guided his hand. “God,” she said, “how I love this.”

  He could tell that she did.

  Sliding down the bed, so that her head was level with his waist, she said, “Just stay where you are, there is something I have wanted to do for a long time.”

  “May I have one of those?” she said.

  He took a cigarette from his pack of Gitanes, handed it to her, then lit it with his steel lighter. “I don’t recall you smoking.”

  “I’ve taken it up. I used to, in my twenties, then I stopped.”

  She found an ashtray on the night table and put it between them on the bed. “Everybody smokes now, in Berlin. It helps.”

  “Christa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why can’t you go to the Adlon?”

  “Too public. Somebody would tell the police.”

  “Are they after you?”

  “They’re interested, in me. They suspect I might be a bad girl, I have a few of the wrong friends. So, I asked Alma for a favor. She was very enthusiastic.” After a moment, she said, “I wanted to make it exciting. Answer the door, all bare-assed and perfumed.”

  “You can do it tomorrow. Can we come here tomorrow?”

  “Oh yes, we shall. How long can you stay?”

  “Two days more, I’ll find a reason.”

  “Yes, find some Nazi bastard and interview him.”

  “That’s what I do.”

  “I know, you’re strong.”

  “I never thought of it like that.”

  She inhaled her cigarette, letting the smoke come out with her words. “You are, though. One reason I like you.”

  He put his cigarette out and said, “There are more?”

  “I love to fuck you, that’s another.” In her husky, aristocratic voice, the vulgarity was no more than casual.

  He leaned over and put his lips on her breast. Surprised, she drew in her breath. Then she stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray, reached down, and held him in her hand. Which was slightly cold, at first, but, not long after, warmed. “I have one nice thing to tell you,” she said.

  “What’s that?” His voice wavered.

  “We can stay here tonight. The official version is ‘at Alma’s.’ So we can go to a charity breakfast, before work.”

  “Mm,” he said. “Probably I’ll wake you up, at some point.”

  “You better,” she said.

  It was nearly dawn, when that happened. He’d almost forgotten how much he liked to sleep beside her, spoon fashion, her legs drawn up. After they made love, they heard clinking bottles out in the corridor. The milkman.

  “Apparently, the ghosts drink milk,” Weisz said. “Why do you call them ghosts?”

  “The rich used to live here. According to Alma, some of them were Jews, and some of the others find it opportune, lately, to be in Switzerland.”

  “Where is Alma?”

  “She lives in a big house in Charlottenburg. She used to live here, now it’s her place in town.”

  “What do we do about the sheets?”

  “Her maid will change the bed.”

  “Is she dependable, the maid?”

  “God knows,” Christa said. “You can’t think of everything, you have to trust in fate, sometimes.”

  22 May. The signing of the Pact of Steel took place at eleven in the morning, at the sumptuous Ambassadors Hall of the Reich Chancellery. In the press gallery, Weisz sat next to Eric Wolf. On his other side, Mary McGrath of the Chicago Tribune, who he’d last seen in Spain. As they waited for the ceremonies to begin, Weisz made notes. The scene had to be set, because here was the power of the state, its wealth and strength, expressed in splendor: immense chandeliers of glittering crystal, marble walls, vast red drapes, miles of heavy carpet, brown and rose. Stationed by the doors, prepared to admit the cream of fascist Europe, were footmen dressed in black with gold braid, white stockings, and slipperlike black pumps. To one side of the room, the newsreel cameras and a crowd of photographers.

  The journalists had been given handouts, with highlights of the treaty. “Look at the last paragraph,” Mary McGrath said. “‘Finally, in case of war involving one partner, no matter how started, full mutual support with all military forces, by land, sea, and air.’”

  “That’s the deadly phrase,” Wolf said, “‘no matter how started.’ It means if Hitler attacks, Italy has to follow. Four little words, but enough.”

  The footmen walked the doors open, and the parade began. In the most splendid uniforms, set off by ranks of medals, a steady stream of generals and foreign ministers entered the hall, walking slowly, stately and dignified. Only one stood out, in the simplicity of his plain brown uniform, Adolf Hitler. There followed an endless procession of speeches, and, ultimately, the signing itself. Two groups, of four officials from the foreign department, carried large books, bound in red leather, to the table, where Count Ciano and von Ribbentrop awaited them. The officials set the books down and, with great ceremony, opened them, to reveal the treaties, then handed each man a gold pen. When the treaties were signed, they picked up the books and set them down for countersignature. Two powerful states were now joined together, and an elated Hitler, with a huge grin, took Count Ciano’s hand in both of his and shook it so violently that he nearly lifted him off the floor. Then, Hitler presented Ciano with the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Reich’s highest honor. In the handout, the press was informed that, later in the day, Ciano would bestow on von Ribbentrop the Collar of the Annunciata, Italy’s supreme decoration.

  Amid the applause, Mary McGrath said, “Is it over?”

  “I think that’s it,” Weisz said. “The banquets are tonight.”

  “Think I’ll skip those,” McGrath said. “Let’s get the hell out of this.”

  They did, but it wasn’t so easy. Outside the hall, thousands of Hitler Youth filled the streets, waving flags and singing. As the three journalists worked their way across the boulevard, Weisz could feel the fearful energy of the crowd, intense eyes, rapturous faces. Now, he thought, there will surely be war. The people in the street would demand it, would kill relentlessly, and, in time, would have to be killed. These children would not surrender.

  Christa was true to her word. When Weisz arrived at the apartment that evening, she made him wait-he had to knock a second time-then answered the door wearing only a modestly depraved smile and clouds of Balenciaga perfume. His eyes swept over her, then he ran his hands up and down before pulling her to him, for, even though it was no surprise, it had the effect she wanted. As she led the way down the hall to the bedroom, she swung her hips for him-his very own merry trollop. And so she was. Inventive, hungry, flushed with excitment, starting over again and again.

  Eventually, they fell asleep. When Weisz woke up, he had, for a moment, no idea where he was. On a table by the bedroom door, the radio was tuned to a live broadcast of dance music from a ballroom in London, the orchestra faint and distant amid the crackling static. Christa was sleeping on her stomach, mouth open, one
hand on his arm. He moved slightly, but she didn’t wake up, so he touched her. “Yes?” Her eyes were still closed.

  “Should I look at the time?”

  “Oh, I thought you wanted something.”

  “I might.”

  She made a kind of sigh. “You could.”

  “Can we stay here tonight?”

  She moved her head sufficiently for him to understand she meant they could not. “Is it late?”

  He reached over her to the night table, retrieved his watch, and, by the light of a small lamp in the corner, left on so they could see, told her that it was eight-twenty.

  “There is time,” she said. Then, a moment later: “And, it seems, interest.”

  “It’s you,” he said.

  “Now, if I could move.”

  “You are very tired, aren’t you?”

  “All the time, yes, but I don’t sleep.”

  “What will happen, Christa?”

  “So I ask myself. And there’s never an answer.”

  He didn’t have one either. Idly, he trailed a finger from the back of her neck down to where her legs parted, and she parted them a little more.

  At ten, they collected their clothes, from a chair, from the floor, and began to get dressed. “I’ll take you home in a taxi,” he said.

  “I would like that. Let me off a block away.”

  “I wanted to ask you…”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s become of your friend? The man we met at the carnival.”

  “You’ve been waiting to ask me that, haven’t you.”

  “Yes, as long as I could.”

  Her smile was bittersweet. “You are considerate. What’s the French? C’est gentil de votre part? They put it so nicely, a kindness of you. And also, I think, and not so nice, you sensed what I would have to say, and left it for our last night.”