by Alan Furst
Stahl acknowledged the order and settled on the landward side of the launch, his back against the wall of the wheelhouse. The rowing boat moved off into the marsh at the edge of the river and, once the dip of the oars could no longer be heard, the silence deepened, broken only by gusts of wind that rustled the high reeds. Staring into the darkness, he thought he saw a momentary gleam of light near the inn – perhaps a flashlight – then it was dark once again. As the brandy’s warmth wore off, Stahl felt the cold, and wanted to move around but stayed where he was. If the launch was being watched, he wasn’t going to make himself an easy target. He couldn’t see the dial on his watch, but guessed the time set for the meeting had passed.
Then, in the distance, he heard a voice. Only a syllable or two, maybe a shout, maybe a cry of alarm, he couldn’t tell. Staying low, he moved to the railing and opened the holster, drawing the automatic, holding it ready in his hand. From the direction of the inn, two flat snaps, gunshots, followed by a fusillade that went on for a few seconds and shouting from various voices, the words indistinguishable. Something went whistling through the reeds, hit the water, and whined off into the night. Had somebody shot at him? No, a stray round from the gunfight. A moment of dead silence was ended by a single report, louder and deeper than the others, and the sound of a car’s ignition and an engine with the gas pedal on the floor in first gear. The car was headed away from him, back towards Komarom. Then, nothing. Where were Polanyi and the others? He started counting, because if nobody appeared he would have to go and see what had happened. Somebody hurt? Somebody dead? All of them dead? He counted to one hundred, then stood up, prepared to go into the marsh and work his way towards the inn.
But, it turned out, he didn’t have to. As the rowing boat emerged from the darkness, weaving through the reeds and willows, Polanyi called out, ‘It’s your friends, Herr Stahl, please hold your fire.’ Stahl relaxed and let out a long-held breath. Polanyi and his two friends pulled themselves over the open stern, then the count came towards him and handed him a shoe. Puzzled, he stared at it – a well-made man’s shoe, black, and recently shined, the sort of shoe worn in a city, worn in an office. ‘Booty from the raid,’ Polanyi said. ‘And yours if you want it, perhaps a trophy.’
‘What happened?’ Stahl said.
‘Well, they were there all right, three of them, wearing overcoats and hats. They were waiting for you outside the inn, in the trees on the far side of the road. Basically, we surprised each other, which happens in combat, and we fired at them as they fired at us, and nobody hit anybody, despite a lot of bullets flying around. But they weren’t there for a gun battle, they were there for an abduction – they were armed with pistols, and when the rifles took pieces out of the tree trunks they yelled in German and ran for their car. On the way, one of them lost a shoe.’
Ferenc, standing next to Polanyi, cleared his throat, a sound of polite disagreement. Then he said, ‘The Count Polanyi fired both barrels as they were running away and I believe he may have hit one of them, possibly in the backside – he leapt into the air and squawked – but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. We had a look around where the car had been parked and there may have been blood on the weeds. But who knows, it was dark, and torches don’t really give you enough light. Still, it might have been blood.’
‘Maybe,’ Polanyi said. ‘In any event, they ran away. So, honour satisfied. However, we did break into the inn and had a look, and I’m sorry but there was no sign of any suitcase or camera, or anything, really. The inn is closed for the winter, chairs stacked, windows boarded up, no sign of use.’
‘I want to thank you, Count Polanyi,’ Stahl said. ‘And to thank Ferenc and Anton as well. For doing this, for …’
Polanyi raised a hand. ‘You are welcome. As it happens, we don’t like seeing Germans with guns on Hungarian soil and we would do it again tomorrow if we had to. In fact we may have to, time will tell. And, as for the cameras, I will telephone to Budapest in the morning and see what can be arranged. We make plenty of movies in Hungary, and I know one or two people who might be able to help.’
‘I can only say thank you once again.’
‘Well, wait until tomorrow for that. By the way, do you want to keep the shoe?’
‘I think not,’ Stahl said.
‘In that case …,’ Polanyi said, nodding towards the river.
Stahl flipped the shoe over the railing.
Polanyi went to start the engine while Ferenc and Anton cranked the rowing boat back onto the launch. As they pulled away from the shore, Polanyi turned on a spotlight mounted on the roof of the wheelhouse and the beam swept the black water ahead of them as they made for Komárom.
There were cameras in Budapest – in fact there were two Mitchells, which made life easier for the cameraman and, by the morning of the third, the company was again at work, shooting inside the castle, and then staging the climactic gun battle, using for background the blackened stone walls and two windows that opened on the courtyard. And it did look, once Avila worked out the angles, like ‘somewhere in the Balkans’. The first part of the scene, a fight in a bar, had been shot at Joinville, so what they filmed now was the climax: Colonel Vadic’s heroism, Pasquin’s jolly bravery, and the lieutenant’s wounding that leads to his death speech. The actors playing the Balkan thugs were more than frightening, one of them a Russian giant discovered by Avila, who found him working as a nightclub doorman.
From Stahl’s perspective it worked perfectly well – mostly running and shooting, no subtle acting required. But he sensed that the cast and crew had been rattled by the theft and were more than ready to go back to Paris. There were, according to Avila, two or three retakes they could do at Joinville, or perhaps not, it would be up to Deschelles. Essentially, for all practical purposes, the filming of Après la Guerre was complete. The movie would have its final edit and music would be added in the weeks to come, but Stahl’s work on the production was finished.
That night, Stahl and Renate had the discussion that they had been, for some time, avoiding. They pulled two wing chairs up to the huge fireplace and Stahl built a splendid fire. Once it was blazing, he settled in his chair and said, ‘We haven’t talked about this, but I think the time has come. I don’t like it, but, with everything that’s happened, I had better get out of France as soon as I can.’
‘Yes, I saw it coming,’ Renate said. ‘Once you got that telephone call at my apartment I started thinking, and I began to realize that, after the movie was done, you’d be better off leaving the country.’
‘I did want to stay, there was a time when I thought about staying for a while, or even longer. In a proper world, Paris is where I belong.’
‘I know,’ Renate said. ‘It’s no secret, how you feel.’
‘And you as well, Renate. No?’
‘Oh yes, it was … When my husband and I were struggling to get out of Germany, Paris was my dream. Just get there, I thought, and everything will be perfect. But it turned out that this wasn’t so, not for my husband, wherever he is tonight, and not really for me either, until I met you. Then it, the city, kept its promises.’
‘How would you feel if you came back to California with me? You wouldn’t have to stay if you hated it. Because people do, you know, truly hate it.’
‘Oh I’m sure I would hate it – I’m a European, in my heart. And I doubt I could work there.’
‘You could. I know people who can make it possible.’
‘But what about a visa? It takes months now – half the world wants to go to America.’
‘That won’t be a problem. I think the embassy might move you up the list. And, if for some reason they won’t, we’ll just have to get married.’
It gladdened Stahl’s heart to see her smile in the usual way as she said, irony just barely touching her voice, ‘A proposal?’
They looked at each other for a time, then Stahl said, ‘I don’t want to lose you, Renate. We should be together.’
‘Then that is what we s
hall do,’ Renate said. ‘Now, no more of this, let’s get into bed before we freeze to death.’
8 January. There was to be no end-of-production party at the castle – the cast and crew voted – but Avila said he would arrange something when they were back home. And so they all packed, and Stahl spent a few minutes saying goodbye to Polanyi. The count had no appetite for sentiment, and waved off Stahl’s expression of gratitude. ‘I’ll see you in Paris, my friend,’ he said. ‘That’s where I work, at the legation, and I like the idea of having a movie star at my social evenings.’
‘I would enjoy it,’ Stahl said. ‘But I suspect I’ll be heading off to California.’
‘Oh I think you’ll be back, once the current mess is resolved. So, until then …’ They shook hands, and Stahl realized that Polanyi had thoroughly enjoyed saving his life and was sorry to see him leave.
‘I’ll just go to my room,’ Stahl said, ‘and bring your pistol back.’
‘No, no,’ Polanyi said. ‘You keep that, it’s my gift to you.’
The road to Budapest was now open and Stahl and Renate and the other émigrés headed for the airfield, and the chartered plane, in three taxis that came to get them at the castle. Staring out of the window at the winter fields, Stahl wondered about Polanyi. Something about him, Stahl couldn’t say exactly what that was, reminded him of J. J. Wilkinson. Maybe Polanyi was a working diplomat, but Stahl thought there might be a little more. He had, Stahl thought, some spy in him. Maybe more than some.
The airport was crowded and busy, but the émigrés were in good spirits, they had worked hard, earned money, were now headed home to the people that cared about them. Stahl, as the leader of the group, stood at the end of the passport control line, Renate at his side. What they had together had grown, in front of the castle fireplace; they had a future now, and that changed them. The passport officers were slower that day, they checked photographs against faces, asked about Hungarian money and art, and took their time making sense of various official papers: some of the émigrés were travelling on French documents, some on the Nansen passports issued to stateless persons by the League of Nations, and some on German passports that would never be renewed but were still valid. The officers also had a list. One did not like seeing a list, one knew what that might mean.
And so it did.
When it came Renate’s turn – the rest of the émigrés waiting on the other side of the desks – the officer, a rather intellectual-looking fellow with a trim beard, said, ‘Madam Steiner, I must ask you to wait for a minute. I’ll see to the gentleman with you first, it won’t take long.’
It didn’t. Stahl’s American document was quickly stamped. Then the officer excused himself and walked a few steps to an office directly opposite the passport control area.
‘What could be wrong?’ Stahl said. ‘Have you used your passport before?’
‘Not since I came to Paris. And we crossed into France at night, like everyone else, through a forest. The Nazis weren’t going to let us out. One of my friends tried to leave in the official way, to her sorrow.’
The door of the office was open and they could see the control officer, in conversation with a man who wore a suit. Back and forth they went, not animated in the least, simply dealing with some sort of problem. Finally, the officer returned to his desk. He looked at Stahl and said, ‘You may proceed, sir, you don’t have to wait here.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Stahl said. ‘We’re travelling together.’
‘I’m afraid there’s some difficulty in approving Madam Steiner’s exit. Apparently, German officials wish to question her regarding her husband, who is being sought by the German police, and they have requested that we detain her until she can be questioned. I regret the inconvenience, but we must honour their request. It’s not usually done this way, but it does happen sometimes.’
‘Are you sure?’ Stahl said. ‘Steiner is a common name in Germany.’
‘Perhaps they’ve made an error. But, even if they haven’t, this shouldn’t be too hard to straighten out, she needs simply to visit the German legation here in Budapest. However, since she’ll have to travel later, there’s no reason you should miss your flight. Madam Steiner will surely be following on in a day or two.’
‘Go ahead,’ Renate whispered to him. ‘Go. Get out of here.’
‘I believe we’ll travel together,’ Stahl said to the officer. ‘So I’ll have to wait as well.’
The officer met Stahl’s eyes, then, with a covert nod of the head towards the other side of the control desk, he let Stahl know that he had best join his friends while he still could. Stahl didn’t move. ‘Well,’ the officer said, ‘that’s up to you.’
In a taxi, headed for the Hotel Astoria, Renate tried, and failed, not to show her reaction to the denied exit. After a brooding silence, she said, ‘I really thought we were safe. I really did. But that kind of thinking is a curse. Funny, but I never learn, a fault in my character perhaps. But it was nice while it lasted, wasn’t it. Should I go to the German legation?’
‘Don’t be like that, Renate. You’d never come out and you know it.’
‘Then what?’
‘There’s surely an American consulate in Budapest, I’ll get in touch with them as soon as we’re settled in the hotel.’
‘But the chartered aeroplane is gone, Fredric. It’s gone, it flew away to Paris. And, when I looked at the notice board in the airport, every flight, it seems, requires a transfer in Berlin. Where will I go?’ She was, he thought, close to tears, but would get no closer.
He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re going with me,’ he said.
The Astoria was almost full, but a small single room remained and Stahl took it. They didn’t unpack, they sat side by side on the edge of the bed and schemed. There was no telephone in the room, so Stahl went down to the desk and placed a call to the American consulate. The woman who answered the phone was, by her accent, American, and Stahl spoke English with her. She knew who he was, and told him he could see a consular officer that afternoon. America would help them, he believed, but, just in case, he booked a call to Buzz Mehlman. ‘As soon as the foreign operator gets through,’ he told the hotel clerk, ‘please call me. I’m in room sixty-five.’
It was three-thirty by the time he reached the American consulate, six-thirty in the morning Pacific Coast Time, so he was safe there because he’d called Buzz at the William Morris office. The consular official was a young fellow called Stanton, and he, a committed movie fan, was eager to help. Yes, he would telephone Mr Wilkinson at the Paris embassy but he doubted there was much he could do, this problem had to be dealt with locally. Stahl explained what had happened in the airport but went no further. It was Renate Steiner who needed help, because the Reich officials were being … Stanton filled in the word: ‘Difficult?’
‘A polite word,’ Stahl said. ‘At least that.’
‘Okay,’ Stanton said. ‘Basically you and your friend have to get out of Hungary, and the difficulty here is that she’s technically a German citizen. Now what I can do is this: I’m going to approve a visa for her to travel to the US, giving us at least some official standing to intervene with the authorities in Budapest – they don’t have to honour the German request.’
‘How long will that take?’
Stanton drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I always hope for days, but I’ve seen days become weeks. Still, it’s a chance. And once the Hungarians release her, you can charter another aeroplane and fly right over Hitler.’
‘This is very good of you,’ Stahl said. ‘I think I’ll go back to the Astoria and bring her over here.’
‘See you later,’ Stanton said. ‘And now I can write to my mom in Ohio and tell her I met Fredric Stahl.’
On the street outside the consulate was a long line – people applying for American visas. The line disappeared around the corner, Stahl had no idea how far it went after that.
At the hotel, he told Renate to grab her passport and they would go
immediately to the consulate. She had set her suitcase on the luggage rack and unpacked a few things. ‘Do you think you could lend me a handkerchief?’ she said. ‘I seem to have left mine back in the room.’
‘Of course,’ he said, put his suitcase on the bed and opened it up. Renate, standing by his side, said, ‘What’s that?’
‘An automatic pistol that Polanyi gave me.’ After a brief search, he found a handkerchief, handed it to her, and said, ‘Now can we go?’
By 5.15, Hungarian time, Renate had a visa to travel to America. If she could ever get out of Hungary alive. At 7.40, Stahl’s call to the William Morris Agency was put through and he went down to a telephone cabin in the lobby. The secretary who answered the phone found Buzzy right away. ‘Fredric? Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s a long story, but what’s happened is that I’m with a woman friend, we were shooting on location in Hungary, and the border officials won’t let us out.’
‘Won’t let you out?’
‘I go where she goes.’
‘Oh. Okay, now I understand. Let me make some calls, I’ll see what I can do.’ Stahl had heard this line before, and, when he’d heard it, good things had followed. Not always, but often enough.
‘Her name is Renate Steiner, Buzz. She’s officially a German citizen but she’s a political émigré and lives in Paris.’
‘Can you spell her name for me?’
Stahl spelled out the name.
‘Now, where are you? In Budapest, I know, but I need a telephone number.’
Stahl went to the desk for the number and, miraculously, when he returned, the line was still open. After he’d made sure the hotel and the number were correctly written down, he said, ‘Buzzy, do you think you can help?’
‘I’ll give it one helluva try.’
‘That’s all I can ask.’
