The Foreign Correspondent ns-9

by Alan Furst

  The eleven P.M. meeting with Salamone and Elena was held in Salamone’s Renault. He picked Weisz up in front of his hotel, and stopped for Elena at the building, not far from the Galeries, where she rented a room in an apartment. Then Salamone drove, aimlessly, winding through the back streets of the Ninth, but, Weisz noted, heading always east.

  Weisz, in the backseat, leaned over and said, “Let me give you some money for gas.”

  “Kind of you, but no thanks. Sergio is more the benefactor than ever, he sent a messenger to the house with an envelope.”

  “Your wife didn’t mind? Coming out this time of night?” Weisz knew Signora Salamone.

  “Of course she minded. But she knows what happens to people like me-if you go to bed, if you leave the world, you die. So she gave me her worst glare, told me I better be careful, and made me wear this hat.”

  “She’s just as much an emigree as we are,” Elena said.

  “True, she is, but…Anyhow, I wanted to tell you that I’ve telephoned the entire committee. All but the lawyer, who I couldn’t reach. I was, however, rather careful. I said only that we had some new information, about the attacks, and we may need help, over the next few days. No mention of you, Elena, or what happened. Because who knows, with the telephone, who’s listening.”

  “Probably better,” Weisz said.

  “Just being careful, that’s all.”

  Salamone took the rue La Fayette, to the boulevard Magenta, then turned right onto the boulevard de Strasbourg. Dark, and almost deserted; metal shutters over the storefronts, a group of men loitering on one corner, and a crowded, smoky cafe, lit only by a blue light above the bar.

  “Say where, Elena.”

  “Sixty-two. It’s a little way yet. There’s the patisserie, a little further, further, there.”

  The car rolled to a stop. Salamone turned off the one working headlight. “First floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “No lights on.”

  “Let’s go and have a look,” Elena said.

  “Oh wonderful,” Salamone said. “Breaking and entering.”

  “What then?”

  “We’ll watch it, for a day or two. Maybe you could come at lunchtime, Carlo. For you, Elena, after work, just for an hour. I’ll come back tomorrow morning, in the car. Then Sergio, in the afternoon. There’s a shoemaker across the street, he can get new heels, wait while they’re put on. We can’t be here every minute, but we might get a look at who goes in and out. Carlo, what do you think?”

  “I’ll try. But I don’t believe I’ll see anything. Will this help, Arturo? What would we see, that could be reported to the police? We can describe the man who came to the gallery, we can say we don’t believe it’s a real photo agency, we can tell them about the Cafe Europa, maybe arson, and the burglary. Isn’t that enough?”

  “We have to try, is what I think,” Salamone said. “Try anything. Because we can go to the Surete only once, and we have to give them as much as we can, enough so they can’t ignore it. If they see us as whining, nervous emigres, maybe bullied by other emigres, political enemies, they’ll just fill out a form and put it in a file.”

  “Would you go in there, Carlo?” Elena said. “On some pretext?”

  “I could.” The idea scared Weisz-if they were any good at their job, they would know who he was, and there was a fairly good chance he might never come out.

  “Very dangerous,” Salamone said. “Don’t do that.”

  Salamone shifted the car into gear. “I’ll make up a schedule. For a day or two. If we don’t see anything, then we’ll just use what we have.”

  “I’ll be here tomorrow,” Weisz said. The light of day would make a difference, he thought. And then, he’d see how he felt. What pretext?

  3 June.

  For Weisz, a bad morning at the office. Wandering attention, a knot in the stomach, a look at his watch every few minutes. At last, lunchtime, one o’clock. “I’ll be back at three,” he told the secretary. “Maybe a little later.” Or never. The Metro took forever to come, the car was empty, and he emerged from the Gare de l’Est station into a light, steady rain.

  It didn’t help the neighborhood, grim and desolate, and not much improved by daylight. He strolled along the side of the boulevard opposite to number 62, just to get his bearings, then crossed over, visited the patisserie, bought a pastry, and, back out on the street, got rid of it-there was no way in the world he could eat the thing. He paused at 62, as though searching for an address, walked by, crossed back over the boulevard, stood at a bus stop until the bus came, then left. All of which absorbed twenty minutes of his assigned surveillance time. And not a soul had entered or left the building.

  For ten minutes, he paced back and forth on the corner where the boulevard met the rue Jarry, looking at his watch, a man waiting for a friend. Who never arrived. Arturo, this is a ridiculous idea. He was getting soaked out here, why on earth had he not brought his umbrella? The sky had been cloudy and threatening when he left for work. What if he said he was looking for a job? He was, after all, a journalist, and Photo-Mondiale would be a logical place for such employment. Or, maybe better, he could say he was looking for a friend. Old Duval? Who’d once said he worked there? But then, what would he see? A few men in an office? So what? Damn, why did it have to rain. A woman who’d passed him a few minutes earlier now came back with a string bag full of potatoes, and gave him a suspicious glance as she walked by.

  Well then, the hell with it-go up there, or go back to the office. Do something. Slowly, he approached the building, then stopped short. Because here came the postman, limping along, the heavy leather bag at his side hung by a strap from his opposite shoulder. He stopped in front of 62, looked inside his bag, and entered the building. Less than a minute later, he reappeared, and headed off to number 60.

  Weisz waited until he’d worked his way to the end of the street, then took a deep breath and walked up to the door of 62, pushed it open, and went inside. For a moment, he stood there, heart racing, but the vestibule was hushed and still. Go find old Duval, he told himself, and don’t be furtive. He walked quickly up the stairs, then, at the landing, listened again, and, recalling Elena’s description, turned left down the corridor. The door at the end of the hallway had a business card tacked below the stenciled 1 B. Agence Photo-Mondiale. Weisz counted to ten, and raised his hand to knock, then held back. Inside, a telephone, a soft double ring. He waited to hear it answered, but heard only a second ring, a third, and a fourth, followed by silence. They’re not in! Weisz knocked twice on the door, the sound loud in the empty hallway, and waited for footsteps. No, there’s nobody in there. Cautiously, he tried the doorknob. But the door was locked. Salvation. He turned away and walked quickly toward the other end of the corridor.

  He hurried down the staircase, anxious for the safety of the street, but, just as he reached for the door, the envelopes in a wooden mailbox caught his attention. The box labelled 1 B held four. Watching the door, prepared to put them back in an instant if it so much as moved, he took a fast look. The first was a bill from the electric company. The second came from the Marseilles office of the Banque des Pays de l’Europe Centrale. The third had a typed address on a brown manila envelope. With, to Weisz’s eyes, an exotic stamp: Jugoslavija, 4 Dinars, a blue-toned image of a peasant woman in a scarf, hands on hips, staring solemnly at a river. The cancellation, first in Cyrillic, then Roman letters, said Zagreb. The fourth letter was personal, penciled script on a small, cheap envelope, and addressed to J. Hravka, with a return address, I. Hravka, also in Zagreb. With one eye on the door, Weisz dug into his pocket, came up with pen and pad, and copied the two Zagreb addresses-the French bank, for the countries of Central Europe, he would remember.

  As Weisz hurried toward the Metro, he was excited, and elated. It had worked, Salamone had been right. Zagreb, he thought, Croatia.

  Of course.

  Soldier for Freedom

  5 JUNE, 1939.

  Carlo Weisz stared out th
e office window at the Parisian spring-the chestnut and lime trees in bright new leaf, the women in cotton frocks, the sky deep blue, with cloud castles towering over the city. Meanwhile, according to the melancholy papers stacked in his in box, it was also spring for the diplomats-French and British swains sang to the Soviet maiden in the enchanted forest, but she only giggled and ran away. Toward Germany.

  So life went-forever, it seemed to Weisz-until the tedious drumbeat of conference and treaty was broken, suddenly, by real tragedy. Today, it was the story of the SS St. Louis, which had sailed from Hamburg with 936 German Jews in flight from the Reich, but could find no harbor. Barred from landing in Cuba, the refugees appealed to President Roosevelt, who first said yes, then said sorry. Political forces in America were violently set against Jewish immigration. So, the previous day, a final statement: the St. Louis, waiting at sea between Cuba and Florida, would not be allowed to dock. Now she would have to return to Germany.

  In the Paris office, they’d elicited a French reaction, but the Quai d’Orsay, in six paragraphs, had no comment. Which left Weisz staring out the window, unwilling to work, his mind in Berlin, his heart untouched by the June day.

  Two days earlier, when he’d returned from the boulevard de Strasbourg to the Reuters office, he’d immediately telephoned Salamone and told him what he’d done. “Someone in that office has connections with Croatia,” he’d said, and described the envelopes. “Which suggests that OVRA may be using Ustasha operatives.” They both knew what that meant: Italy and Croatia had a long, complicated, and often secret relationship, the Croatians seeking Catholic kinship in their endless conflict with the Orthodox Serbs. The Ustasha was a terrorist group-or nationalist, or insurgent; in the Balkans, it depended on who was speaking-sometimes used by the Italian secret services. Dedicated to an independent Croatia, the Ustasha had possibly been involved in the 1934 assassination of King Alexander, in Marseilles, and other terrorist actions, notably the bombing of passenger trains.

  “This is not good news,” Salamone had said, his voice grim.

  “No, but it is news. News for the Surete. And there is reason to suspect that funds may be moving through a French bank in Marseilles, a bank that also operates in Croatia. On that, they’ll bite.”

  Salamone had volunteered to approach the Surete, but Weisz told him not to bother-he was already involved with them, he was the logical informant. “But,” he’d said, “we’ll keep this between the two of us.” He’d then asked Salamone if the surveillance had produced anything further. Only a sighting, Salamone said, by Sergio, of the man in the hat with the green feather. Weisz advised Salamone to call it off; they had enough. “And the next time we call a meeting,” he’d said, “it will be an editorial conference, for the next Liberazione.”

  That was more than optimistic, he thought, staring out the window, but first he would have to telephone Pompon. He considered doing it, almost reaching for the number, then, once again, put it off. He’d do it later, now he had to work. Taking the first paper off the stack, he found a release from the Soviet embassy in Paris, regarding continuing negotiations with the British and French for alliance in case of a German attack. A long list of potential victims was named, with Poland first and foremost. A visit to the Quai d’Orsay? Maybe. He’d have to ask Delahanty.

  He put the release aside. Next up, a cable from Eric Wolf that had come in an hour earlier. Propaganda Ministry Reports Spy Network Broken in Berlin. It was a lean story: an unspecified number of arrests, some at government ministries, of German citizens who’d passed information to foreign operatives. The names had been withheld, investigation continued.

  Weisz went cold. Could he telephone? Cable? No, that might only make it worse. Could he telephone Alma Bruck? No, she might be involved. Christa had only said she was a friend. Eric Wolf, then. Maybe. He could, he felt, ask for one favor, but no more than that. Wolf already had his hands full, and he hadn’t been all that pleased to be involved with a colleague’s clandestine love affairs. And, Weisz forced himself to admit, Wolf had likely done all he could-surely he’d asked for names, but they had been “withheld.” No, he had to keep Wolf in reserve. Because, if by some miracle she survived this, if by some miracle this was a different spy network, he was going to get her out of Germany, and for that he would require at least one communication.

  Yet he couldn’t make himself give up. As his hands pressed against the cable, flat on his desk, his mind flew from one possibility to the next, around and around, until the secretary came in with another cable. Germany Proposes Alliance Negotiations with the USSR.

  She’s gone. There’s nothing you can do. Sick at heart, he tried to work.

  By evening, it was worse. The images of Christa, in the hands of the Gestapo, would not leave him. Unable to eat, he was early for his eight o’clock work at the Tournon. But Ferrara wasn’t there, the room was locked. Weisz went back downstairs and asked the clerk if Monsieur Kolb was in his room, but was told there was no such person at the hotel. That was, Weisz thought, typical-Kolb appeared from nowhere and returned to the same place. He was likely staying at the Tournon, but evidently using a different name. Weisz went out onto the rue de Tournon, crossed the street to the Jardin du Luxembourg, sat on a bench, and smoked cigarette after cigarette, mocked by the soft spring evening and, it seemed to him, every pair of lovers in the city. At eight-twenty, he returned to the hotel, and found Ferrara waiting for him.

  This town, that river, the heroic corporal who picked up a hand grenade from the bottom of a ditch and threw it back. What helped Weisz, that night, was the automatic process of the work, typing Ferrara’s words, editing as he went along. Then, a few minutes after ten, Kolb appeared. “We’ll finish early tonight,” he said. “All going well?”

  “We’re getting close to the end,” Ferrara said. “There’s the time at the internment camp, then it’s finished. I’d guess you won’t want us to write about my time in Paris.”

  From Kolb, a wolfish grin. “No, we’ll just leave that to the reader’s imagination.” Then, to Weisz: “You and I will be going up to the Sixteenth. There’s someone in town who wants to meet you.”

  From the way Kolb said it, Weisz didn’t really have a choice.

  The apartment was in Passy, the aristocratic heart of the tres snob Sixteenth Arrondissement. Red and gold, in the best Parisian tradition, it was all heavy drapes and fabrics, paneled with boiserie, one wall a bookcase. A darkened room, lit only by a single Oriental lamp. The concierge had telephoned their arrival from her loge, so, when Kolb opened the elevator gate, Mr. Brown was waiting by the door. “Ah, hello, glad you could come!” A cheery call and a rather different Mr. Brown-no more the amiably rumpled gent with pipe and slipover sweater. Instead, a new suit, expensive and dark blue. As Weisz shook hands and entered the apartment, he saw why. “This is Mr. Lane,” Brown said.

  A tall, spindly man unfolded himself from a low sofa, gripped Weisz’s hand, and said, “Mr. Weisz, a pleasure to meet you.” Crisp white shirt, solemn tie, perfectly tailored suit, the British upper class resplendent, with steel-colored hair and thin, professionally hesitant smile. But the eyes, deep-set, webbed with deep lines, were worried eyes, almost apprehensive, that came close to contradicting all the signals of his status. “Come sit with me,” he said to Weisz, indicating the other end of the sofa. Then: “Brown? Can you get us a scotch? As it comes?”

  This turned out to mean neat, two inches of amber liquid in a crystal glass. Lane said, “We’ll see you later.” Kolb had already evaporated, now Mr. Brown went off to another room in the apartment. “So,” he said to Weisz, his voice low and mellow and pleased, “you’re our writer.”

  “I am,” Weisz said.

  “Damn fine work, Mr. Weisz. Soldier for Freedom should do rather well, we think. I’d surmise you have your heart in it.”

  “That’s true,” Weisz said.

  “Shame about your country. I don’t believe she’ll be happy with her new friends, but that can’t be helped,
can it. Not that you haven’t tried.”

  “Do you mean Liberazione?”

  “I do. Seen the back issues, and it’s easily at the top of its class. Leaves the politics alone, thank God, and leans hard on the facts of life. And your cartoonist is a delightfully nasty man. Who is he?”

  “An emigre, he works for Le Journal.” Weisz didn’t say a name, and Lane let it go.

  “Well, we hope to see lots more of that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Indeed. We see a bright future for Liberazione.” Lane’s voice caressed the word, as though it were the name of an opera.

  “The way life goes at the moment, it doesn’t really exist, not anymore.”

  If Lane’s face did anything well, it was disappointment. “No, no, don’t say such things, it must go on.” The must worked both ways, simply must, and really must-or else.

  “We’ve been under siege,” Weisz said. “By the OVRA, we believe, and we’ve had to suspend publication.”

  Lane took a sip of his scotch. “Then you’ll just have to unsuspend it, won’t you, now that Mussolini’s gone and joined the wrong side. What do you mean, under siege?”

  “An assassination, attacks on the committee members-trouble at work, possibly arson, a burglary.”

  “Have you gone to the police?”

  “Not yet. But we may try, it’s under consideration.”

  From Lane, an emphatic nod: That’s a good fellow. “Can’t just let it die, Mr. Weisz, it’s simply too good. And, we have reason to believe, effective. People in Italy talk about it-we know that. Now, we may be able to help you out, with the police, but you ought to give it a try on your own. Experience says that’s the best way. And, fact is, your Liberazione ought to be bigger, and more widely read, and there we really can do something. Tell me, what are your distribution arrangements?”