by Alan Furst
As the émigrés stood by their baggage, rubbing their hands and stamping their feet, they wondered what would become of them. A cold hour passed, and just when they’d decided to walk into the village, they heard the jingling of little bells. Then, from the darkness, there appeared two sleighs, each of them drawn by two immense horses. Once again, Stahl produced his map, but these drivers took one glance and knew where they were going. The émigrés seated themselves in the sleighs and were then covered by large blankets, more like rugs, thick wool with canvas backing. A crown and Cross-of-Lorraine design, red on grey, decorated the wool, which smelled like horse sweat and manure. At last, with long plumes steaming from the horses’ nostrils, they trotted off towards Komarom.
The moon cast blue-tinted light on the snow and, except for the muffled clop of hooves, the jingling bells, and the occasional gentle ‘hup’ of the driver, there wasn’t a sound to be heard. ‘We’ve gone back in time,’ Renate said as she pressed against Stahl, sharing his warmth. The road wound through a forest, where bare branches glittered with ice in the moonlight, then returned to the white fields. Far off in the distance, they heard two wolves, howling back and forth. The grinning driver turned halfway round and, rubbing his tummy, said something in Hungarian which made him laugh. After an hour or so, and just as the frigid air started to hurt the skin on their faces, a dark, massive silhouette appeared in the distance. The driver pointed with his whip and said, ‘Castle Polanyi.’
In the moonlight, the castle rose from a hill high above the grey Danube. A jagged ruin, black as soot, destroyed not so much by time as by stones flung from siege machines, by cannon, by fire, by the wars of three hundred years. Here and there, broken towers climbed above the crumbling battlements. The castle’s factotum, manager of noble estates, greeted the frozen travellers at the end of a bridge over the empty moat, and led them into a rebuilt part of the castle, then up a stone stairway where rooms awaited them, each with a blazing fire. As the factotum, who introduced himself as Csaba, pronounced chaba, showed Stahl his room, he said that the Count Polanyi intended to visit the castle while filming was in progress. ‘You should be honoured,’ said Csaba. ‘He doesn’t often come here, except in hunting season. The count is a diplomat at the Hungarian legation in Paris. A great man, you shall see.’ Stahl and Renate stayed together, huddled under many blankets, the chill air in the room so cold that Stahl slid out of bed from time to time and added a log to the fire.
As night fell on the following day, the cast and crew arrived from Budapest. ‘We only just made it,’ Avila told Stahl. ‘There were trucks waiting for us at the railway station, but we had to stop and dig them out of the snow every few miles.’ In the morning, the last day of December, the last day of 1938, they once again began work on Après la Guerre.
In the movie it was autumn, but in Komárom it was winter, so two of the count’s stablemen shovelled the snow off the castle’s courtyard. The prop man had brought large burlap bags of dead leaves and, with the help of a fan, these blew across the ancient sett stones. Stahl, in his legionnaire’s uniform, and Piro, in black kerchief and a man’s torn coat, sat on a low wall, where the leaves swirled past their feet – to be gathered at the far end of the courtyard and sent across again, though the rough surface did them no good. Once Avila had the camera properly angled, so that it captured the profile of the black tower above them, the day’s shooting began.
‘I think,’ Ilona says, ‘before we go in there, I must tell you the truth about myself.’
‘What truth is that?’ says Vadic, his hair ruffled handsomely by the leaf fan.
‘I am no countess, Colonel Vadic. It was all … a lie.’
‘Are you Ilona? Are you Hungarian?’
‘I am Ilona and, at least on my mother’s side, Hungarian. I was afraid you wouldn’t take me along, so I made up a story.’
‘Oh well, it was nice to have a countess with us. I suppose that if we go in there, they won’t greet you with open arms.’
A rueful smile. ‘They will stare at me, they will wonder, “who is this ragged woman, pretending to be a countess?”’
‘Beautiful woman, I’d say.’
‘You flatter me, but I don’t believe they’ll care. They will have the servants throw us out, or worse.’
They will – a reluctant nod from Colonel Vadic. ‘So, no jewels, no loyal lady’s maid.’
‘No, colonel. Not even dinner. It was only my daydream of a different life.’
‘Well, all is not lost. We shall just be wayfaring strangers, going home after the war. They still might feed us.’
‘Are you angry with me? I wouldn’t blame you.’
‘I can’t be angry, Ilona, not with you. And beautiful women are allowed a few lies.’
As they sit for a moment in silence, a noisy flock of crows – no part of the script – lands on the tower above the wall. Then Ilona says, ‘Why do you keep saying I am beautiful? Just look at me.’
‘To me you have always been beautiful, from the first moment I saw you.’
She looks up at him and in her eyes, in the subtle alteration of her face, is the slow comprehension of what he’s been trying to say. Slowly, he leans towards her, he is going to kiss her but a voice from a window shouts ‘Get out of here, you filthy tramps.’
‘Cut!’ Avila said. ‘Let’s try another take, that can’t have been as good as I thought it was.’ Then, to the soundman, ‘Gerard, let’s keep those crows. Have somebody throw a stone up there, maybe we can get them to caw for the next take.’
Count Janos Polanyi arrived late in the afternoon and, by way of Csaba, let Avila, Stahl, and Justine Piro know they were expected for dinner at 8.30. The dining room had a long table of polished walnut and vases of fresh flowers. In December, fresh flowers. Polanyi was well into his sixties, a large, heavy man with thick white hair, who smelled of bay rum, cigar smoke, and wine, and wore a blue suit cut by a London tailor. He had the easy warmth of a wealthy host, and the distance of power and privilege.
The main course was a spit-roasted haunch of venison. In response to the exclamations of delight at the first taste, the count said, ‘I would like you to think this came from a great stag, that I brought down with a single shot. But the truth is, I picked it up at my Paris butcher on the way to the airport.’ Thus Polanyi. A brief rumble of a laugh followed, joined by the guests at the table.
With the pears and local cheese, and having drunk more than his share of Echézeaux Burgundy, Polanyi became reflective. ‘My poor old battered castle,’ he said. ‘It’s the border of northern Hungary now – the treaty that followed the Great War turned the other side of the river into Czech territory. But for this castle, it was just one more war. It began life as a Roman fortification, was taken by the Hungarian Grand Duke Arpád in 895 – legend has it that the Milky Way was formed from the dust raised by his army’s horses. Then it was destroyed in 1241 by the Mongolian Tartars – a costly invasion, half the people of Hungary were murdered. Rebuilt, it was besieged by the Turks in 1683, then recaptured by Charles of Lorraine in 1684. History has always been bloody in this part of the world, and is about to be once again. But, what can we do. Now we’ll have to sign some sort of treaty with Hitler and his thugs and, once the French and the British have dealt with them, oh how we shall suffer for that.’ He paused for a time, then said, ‘Well, here comes the brandy, would anyone care to join me for a cigar?’
1 January, 1939. New Year’s Day for much of the world, but there were no holidays for film crews on location. But Stahl didn’t mind. As long as production went smoothly, the reality of a good location inspired the cast, so Stahl was eager to work. At breakfast, on trestle tables set up in the entry hall, the company raised their cups of coffee or tea and drank to a better year in 1939, peace on earth, good will towards men.
But not just yet.
As Stahl rose to leave, the cameraman came running down the stairway, his face blank with shock. ‘Jean!’ he shouted. ‘The cameras have been stolen!’
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br /> The room had gone dead silent. Avila stood up and said, ‘What?’
‘They were taken from the room we’re using for storage. Sometime last night.’
‘We’ll have to find cameras in Budapest,’ Avila said. ‘How could this happen?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ He was frantic, close to tears.
‘Calm down, Jean-Paul. Was the door locked?’
‘No, there’s no lock. All I found was …’ He gave Avila a piece of paper. Avila read it twice, then handed it to Stahl. ‘What do you make of this?’
The note was in German, hand-printed in ink, and said, ‘If you want your cameras back it will cost you a thousand American dollars.’ Then went on to describe an inn, outside the town of Szony. ‘If you alert the police,’ it went on, ‘you will never see your cameras again. Come to this place promptly at 5.15 tonight.’ There was no signature.
‘Jean,’ Stahl said, ‘I must speak with you in private.’
They went out into the hallway, where Stahl told Avila what was going on. Not all of it, there wasn’t time, but enough. German secret police, he said, were after him because of a suspected connection with a woman who had been spying on the Nazi leadership. ‘This could be a coincidence, Jean, just a simple robbery, but I don’t believe in coincidence. This theft is my fault, and I will be the one to go to the inn, pay the ransom, and get the cameras back.’
Avila, too well aware of conspiracy and its strategies, wasn’t slow to see the implications of the note: Stahl lured to some isolated place and abducted. ‘You are the target, Fredric, and so you can’t be the one to go – I will take care of this. However, we can do nothing without telling Polanyi, it happened in his house, he’ll never forgive us if we don’t tell him.’
‘But he will involve the police, and we’ll lose the cameras.’
‘Then we’ll have to insist. It’s our equipment, and we’re responsible for retrieving it. That means me and one other person, because you can’t go anywhere near that inn.’
‘Jean, we have to see Polanyi, right away. Then, later on, you and I can argue. But I warn you, I can’t just sit here, I cannot. Will not. Because if something happened to you I couldn’t live with it. As for the money, I’ve got about six hundred dollars with me, and we’ll have to find the rest.’
‘I have it,’ Avila said. ‘I brought dollars with me, because they work when nothing else will. Christ, what an evil thing to do.’
They went off in search of Csaba, who led them upstairs to Polanyi’s suite of rooms. The count, in a green satin dressing gown with lime silk lapels, was having his breakfast. An egg cup, of near translucent porcelain, held a boiled egg with its top neatly sliced off. Tiny spoon in hand, he said good morning as Csaba showed them into his room. When Avila told him what had happened, and added Stahl’s explanation, Polanyi barely responded – raised eyebrows, little more. As a diplomat, he was conditioned to hearing bad news and had long ago learned not to react to it. ‘Very brazen of them,’ he said, ‘to sneak in here at night. What do the Nazis want with a thousand dollars?’
‘Perhaps,’ Stahl said, ‘to make it look like the work of a local thief. Who would get nothing like a thousand dollars from some pawnbroker.’
Polanyi almost smiled. ‘A local thief? Clearly they’ve never met the local thief. Tell me, what exactly did they take?’
‘Five Mitchell Standard film cameras, packed in five large suitcases. The tripods travel separately.’
‘Well, if they’re at Szony, you’ll soon have them back.’
‘Will you notify the police?’
‘In Budapest, I would. There are detectives there who could take care of this in a hurry. But, out here in the countryside, we have the gendarmerie, and they aren’t … what we need. But, gentlemen, don’t despair! I have a couple of friends in the neighbourhood, old cavalry friends from the war. And they know how to deal with people who do such things.’
‘Count Polanyi,’ Stahl said, ‘this happened because of me, and I am honour-bound to take part in the recovery.’
Now Polanyi did smile, a bittersweet smile. He put his spoon down by the egg cup and said, ‘Honour-bound, are you? It’s been some time since I’ve heard that expression, people don’t often use it these days. So then, you wish to come along with us? Is that what you want?’
‘“Us” you say. Does that mean you’re going?’
‘It is my house, sir. And my honour that has been affronted. So of course I will go.’
Stahl had been rebuked and he showed it.
And then, after a moment’s thought, Polanyi relented. ‘Oh all right,’ he said. ‘I do understand.’ With a sigh he put his hands on his knees, rose to his feet, walked across the room to an elaborate antique dresser and opened the top drawer. From which he took a well-worn leather holster that held an automatic pistol with an extra clip bound to the barrel with a rubber band. Handing it to Stahl he said, ‘Have you ever used one of these?’
‘Only in the movies, with blank cartridges.’
Polanyi nodded and said, ‘Naturally. Well, you won’t need it, but bring it along.’ Then, after a glance at his cooling egg, he looked at his watch and said, ‘Now, gentlemen, I must get dressed. It is the first day of the new year, and I will be going to mass.’
Polanyi’s friends arrived before three, Csaba came for Stahl and he went downstairs to meet them. They were both in their late forties, Ferenc and Anton, with dark eyes and black moustaches. Tall and lean and weathered, they looked to Stahl as though they’d spent their lives on horseback. Stahl was wearing the holstered automatic on his belt and, after they’d all been introduced, Ferenc said, ‘What’ve you got there?’ Stahl drew the pistol and handed it to him grip first. Ferenc had a professional look at it, worked the slide, then said, ‘Very good, the Frommer 7.65, our military sidearm for a long time. Do you plan to shoot somebody?’
‘I don’t plan on it but, if I have to, I will.’
‘Well, if it turns out that way, and sometimes it does, just aim for the centre of the body and you may hit something. Of course, with a weapon like this, closer is always better.’ Ferenc handed the pistol back to Stahl and said, ‘We should be leaving in about ten minutes.’
Stahl returned to his room, where Renate awaited him. Earlier, when he’d told her what he was going to do, she’d simply said, ‘I see,’ in the flat voice of the practised fatalist but, after he’d buttoned up his warm jacket, she put her arms around him, pulled him close, and held him tight. Then she stepped back and said, ‘Now you can go, but for God’s sake be careful.’
A low, cloudy sky that afternoon, with winter light and a liquid tang in the air that meant it would snow. Polanyi appeared in the entry hall, dressed for hunting, a shotgun held by the barrels resting on his shoulder. Ferenc and Anton, rifles slung on their backs, holstered pistols on their hips, joined them. ‘So, off we go,’ Polanyi said.
‘How do we get there?’ Stahl said. All afternoon he’d been apprehensive about horseback riding. He could do it, he’d done it, but he wasn’t good at it.
‘By launch,’ Polanyi said. ‘Szony is just down the river from here, maybe twenty minutes – the current is with us.’
‘I thought the note said five-fifteen,’ Stahl said.
The courteous Polanyi, trying to hide his amusement, said, ‘Indeed it did, but it might be a good idea to have a look at the place in daylight.’ He patted Stahl on the shoulder with a heavy hand. We’ll be fine.
They walked down the hill to a wooden dock, its pilings forced askew by the downstream tide. The launch was small and compact, with flaking grey paint on its hull – one more working boat on a commercial river – but when Polanyi started it up the engine roared with power before he cut back the throttle. Nobody said much – a compulsion to chatter when facing action was considered to be bad form. As Polanyi steered for the centre of the river, Stahl, standing on the deck behind the open wheelhouse, could feel the heavy strength of the current. Polanyi, raising his voice over
the chug of the engine, said, ‘In one way we’re lucky – usually the Danube would be frozen up by now, but not this year.’
Twenty minutes later they passed the port of Szony, on the same side of the river as Komarom, and larger than Stahl had imagined, where two Danube freighters were being serviced at a refuelling dock. Then, once the port had fallen astern, Ferenc, standing watch at the bow, said, ‘There it is.’ Partly hidden by the tangle of poplar and willow that traced the shoreline, was a one-storey building of wooden slats with a faded sign above its door and its windows boarded up. Looking past the inn, Stahl caught a glimpse of the road that ran along the river on the Hungarian side.
Once the launch, following a slight curve, had passed the inn and it was no longer visible, Polanyi slowed the engine. Turning to Stahl he said, ‘I think I know what they were planning. Once they’d got hold of you, all they had to do was throw you in the boot of a car, drive west to Komarom, then take the bridge across to Slovakian territory. Slovakia is Germany’s great friend – they hate the Czechs – and from there it’s not that far to the Reich, and a cellar on the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, Gestapo headquarters.’ Stepping partway out of the wheelhouse, he called out, ‘Hey Ferenc, is the road passable?’
‘It’s snow-covered, but I’ve already seen a small truck go by. Not driving fast, but making way well enough.’
Polanyi cut the engine back and steered the boat towards the shoreline. At the stern, Anton tossed an anchor over the side, and the launch tugged at it but stayed where it was. ‘Now we wait,’ Polanyi said and shut the engine off. He took a silver flask from his pocket, had a drink, then passed it to Stahl, saying, ‘This will keep you warm.’ It was fruit brandy in the flask, slivovitz, distilled from plums. Stahl remembered it well – a good way to get plastered when he’d been a teenager in Vienna.
By four-thirty, the twilight was fading fast, soon enough it would be dark. A rowing boat suspended from davits at the stern was lowered into the water by Polanyi and Ferenc. ‘We’re going to have a look at the inn,’ Polanyi said to Stahl. ‘If somebody tries to board the launch, shoot him, don’t waste time on conversation. Otherwise, your job is to wait here.’
