by Alan Furst
“Of course, Marie, I’ll be there.”
On the afternoon of the eleventh, in suit and tie, Mercier took a trolley to the outskirts of the city to meet a man called Verchak. This was a favor done for him by Colonel Vyborg, thus an offer that could not be turned down, though Mercier doubted it would be productive. Verchak had served with the Dabrowsky battalion in the Spanish civil war and, wounded in the fighting, had been allowed—“because of his family,” Vyborg had said—to return to Poland. Most of the battalion had been made up of Polish miners, from the Lille region of France, almost all of them members of the communist labor union, who’d fought as part of the XIth International Brigade, prominent in the defense of Madrid. Emigré communists knew better than to try to re-enter Poland, so Verchak was a valuable rarity, according to Vyborg.
The two-room apartment in a workers’ district was scrupulously clean—cleanliness being the Polish antidote to poverty—and smelled of medicine. Mercier was taken to the second room, bare of decoration except for a small cedar tree set on a bench and hung with beautiful wooden Christmas ornaments, where he was shown to the good chair, while Verchak sat on a handmade plank chair across from him. Pana Verchak served tea, offered sugar, which Mercier knew not to accept, then left the room.
A broken man, Mercier thought—no wound was physically apparent, but Verchak was old and slumped well beyond his years. His Polish was slow and precise, for which Mercier was grateful, and someone, Vyborg no doubt, had urged him to be forthcoming. Mercier said only that he was Vyborg’s friend and wished to hear of Verchak’s experience of the war in Spain.
Verchak accepted this and began a recitation, clearly having told his story more than once. “In the first week of November, it was cold, and rained every day; we took the village of Boadilla, near the Corunna road, that led from Madrid to Las Rozas. The Nationalists wanted to cut that road and lay siege to the city and, after some hours, while we prepared defensive positions, they attacked us. They surrounded the village.”
“What sort of attack was it?”
Verchak looked out the window for a moment, lost in his memory, then turned back to Mercier. “We couldn’t stop it, sir,” he said. “First the planes bombed us, then came tanks, then two waves of infantry, then more tanks. But we held on for a long time, though half of our men were killed.”
“You fired at the tanks.”
“With machine guns, but it meant little. One of them we set on fire, with a field gun, and we shot the crew as they came out of the hatch. One or two others got stuck in a ravine, and we put hand grenades under the engine in the back. But there were too many of them.”
“How many?”
Verchak slowly shook his head. “Too many to count. We were next to the Thaelmann Battalion, German communists, mostly, and they said it was called ‘Lightning war.’ ”
“In Polish, they said that?”
“No, sir. In German.”
“So then, Blitzkrieg?”
“It might’ve been that. I don’t remember.”
“It was their word? The Germans in the Thaelmann Battalion?”
“I think they said they’d heard it from the German advisors who fought with the Nationalists.”
“How did they come to hear it, Pan Verchak? From a prisoner?”
“They might’ve, sir, they didn’t say. Perhaps they listened to the Germans talking on their radios. They were very clever people.”
“Did the planes return?”
“Not that day, but the following morning, as we moved back toward Madrid. We were out of ammunition. They sent us blank cartridges, the officers in Madrid.”
“Why would they do such a thing?”
“For courage, people said, so we wouldn’t retreat.”
“Did the men in the tanks talk to the planes, Pani?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir. But I do know it can be done.”
“Really? Why do you say that?”
“I saw it with my own eyes, later, when we fought at the Jarama river. The tanks were on our side there, big Russian tanks, and I saw a tank commander, halfway out of the open hatch, using a radio and watching the Russian war planes in the sky. He shouted at them—I was only a few feet away—when the bombs began to fall on our own trenches. Then, after he shouted, the bombing stopped. Not soon enough, sir, some of the comrades were killed, but it did stop. Of course, he shouldn’t have been out of the tank, for the Moors shot him.” Verchak stopped for a moment, as though he could see the tank commander. “It was a terrible war, sir,” he said.
Verchak’s wife returned to the room soon thereafter, a signal, Mercier thought, that her husband could not continue much longer. When Mercier rose to leave, he slid a thousand zloty into a piece of folded paper from his notepad and put it under the Christmas tree. The Verchaks looked at each other—should they accept such a gift?—and Pana Verchak started to speak. But Mercier told her it was an old French tradition, in this season, that entering a home with a Christmas tree, a gift must be left beneath it. “I have to follow my traditions,” he said, and, as he’d well known, they would not argue with that.
11 December. Ominous weather, as night fell, the air ice cold and completely still. At eight-thirty, Mercier strolled over to the old green-house on Hortensya street, a facility long disused, that had once served the parks and gardens of the city. It was, Mercier thought, typical of Madame Dupin to adopt some artist in the city where she worked; she was forever doing things, involving herself in an endless series of projects and pastimes. Shublin was at the door of the green-house, Madame Dupin at his side. He was young, with a roughneck’s good looks, and very intense. What other pleasure, beyond the satisfaction of patronage, he might have provided for Madame Dupin was open to question—as, in fact, was her erotic life, a subject of some speculation in the diplomatic community. That night she was effusive and excited, taking Mercier’s hand in both of hers and near joyful that he’d actually shown up. Clearly, she’d feared he wouldn’t.
Shublin and his friends had gone to great lengths to turn the old greenhouse into an artist’s studio. The artist’s props—skulls, statuettes of deformed people and imaginary beasts, easels bearing newspaper découpages, a dressmaker’s mannikin on a wire cage—had been imported for the evening, and his largest canvas hung from an iron beam on ropes, flanked by a pair of skeletons, their names on cardboard squares tied beneath their chins. Mercier immediately liked the painting, as well as the others propped against the cloudy old glass walls: fire. Fire in its every aspect—orange flames roaring into azure skies, black smoke pouring from a brilliant yellow flash, fire, and more fire.
Mercier, his costume for a bohemian soirée a bulky sweater and corduroy trousers beneath a long overcoat, with a black wool scarf looped insouciantly—he hoped—about his neck, was introduced here and there. For a time, he spoke with a professor of art history and brought up the subject of Polish war paintings, for him a particular treasure he’d discovered in Warsaw—huge battlefield scenes laden with cavalry and cannon, exquisitely detailed and compelling. But the professor didn’t much care for them, and, discovering that Mercier was French, went on and on about Matisse. Mercier spoke also with Shublin’s girlfriend, who was very up-to-date on European politics—perhaps the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about. But she was smart and amusing, and Mercier discovered he was, as promised, actually having a good time. The wine and vodka were plentiful, and platters of hors d’oeuvres had been brought in from a good restaurant, generously provided by Madame Dupin. With secret embassy funds? Lord, he hoped not.
It was nine-fifteen when Anna Szarbek appeared. The same Anna Szarbek; dark-blond hair, swept across her forehead and pinned in back, deep green eyes, wary and restless, the slight downward curve of her nose and heavy lips suggesting sensuality. Suggesting it to him, certainly. His heart rose to look at her, he wanted to rush her through the night in a taxi, off to his bedroom, there to relieve her of coat, boots, sweater, skirt, and all the rest, there to see what he’d
barely touched the night they danced together. And then . . . Well, his imagination was in perfect order, and therein her desire, in their first moment together, was the equal of his, and his desire was making him almost dizzy. But not so much that he didn’t search the room for Maxim, who was nowhere to be seen, and Mercier, elated beyond reason, felt a great smile appear on his face. His search of the room did reveal Madame Dupin, turned partly away from a conversing group, a sharp, inquisitive eye directly on him. Was this why she’d wanted him here? Was she matchmaking? Could that be true? Back and forth he went.
Trapped, meanwhile, by the most boring man on earth—“But, you understand, the laws of the city expressly forbid them to build a wall there! Myself I find it almost impossible to believe”—Mercier kept saying “Mm,” and “Mm,” his eyes wandering rudely over the man’s shoulder. Anna was easy to spot—her sweater was a deep red, with a design in tiny pearls below a raised collar—as she navigated through the crowded greenhouse. Stopped to have a look at the skeletons, peered nearsightedly at the cardboard nameplates, responded with a wry smile, and moved on.
“We could go to court, serve them right, having to hire some expensive lawyer. . . .”
“Mm. Mm.”
Now she saw him. She had been looking for him. His heart leapt. “Forgive me, I think I’ll have another glass of wine.”
“You don’t have a glass of wine.”
“Then I’ll go and get one.”
Mercier worked his way toward her, and they exchanged conspiratorial smiles—oh what a crowd—at the difficulty of his progress. At last they stood together and shook hands, her skin cold from the night outside. “Very nice to see you again,” he said.
“I think I saw you at the foreign office cocktail party,” she said. Her voice was slightly husky—he’d forgotten that, as well as the faint accent.
“You did. I saw you too, but I couldn’t get over to say hello.”
“You seemed busy,” she said.
“An official reception. I had to be there. But this is much nicer.”
“A Marie Dupin affair, they’re always good parties. Poor Maxim had to interview a politician, so I almost didn’t come, but, I thought, why not? And I’d promised.”
“Something to drink?”
“Yes, good, I can use it. The cold tonight is awful, even for Warsaw.”
They made their way to the bar in the far corner. “Two vodkas, please,” Mercier said. Then, to Anna, “Is that all right with you? Insulation against the weather.”
“Yes, thanks. I knew it would be freezing in here, I mean, it’s glass.”
“They have kerosene heaters.”
Anna wasn’t impressed. “Poor plants.”
“Not anymore. What do you think of the paintings?”
“A little frightening—they’re not cozy fires.”
“War fires, you think?”
“Violent, anyhow. At least they don’t show what’s burning. Houses, or ships.”
“Maybe you’re meant to imagine them.”
She nodded, yes, could be, searched in her bag, found a cigarette and a lighter, and handed the lighter to Mercier. He lit her cigarette and said, “I’ll go find you an ashtray, if you like.”
“Let’s go together, I don’t know a soul in here.”
As they began to move toward the hors d’oeuvres table, a heavy gust of wind hit the greenhouse, then the sound of hail, loud against the glass roof. It stopped almost immediately. “I don’t know anybody either,” Mercier said. “You’re supposed to introduce yourself around, at these affairs.”
“Not me. You have to be the bright and cheerful sort to do that. I’m not. Are you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“I depend on introductions, then I can socialize. Otherwise—”
“It’s the dreadful corner. And the hopeful smile.”
They circled around the professor, now with an older woman wearing a cloche hat and still raving on about Matisse. Then Madame Dupin materialized in front of them. “Hello you two, I see you found each other.”
“We did,” Anna said. “You’ve got a good crowd.”
“Marc is pleased, anyhow I think he is; he doesn’t talk, I was afraid of the weather, but, as you see . . .”
“We’re in search of an ashtray,” Mercier said.
“Over by the food. Try the smoked sturgeon while you’re there, it’s from the chef at the Bristol.” Again the wind moaned. “Oh my,” Madame Dupin said. A brief shower of hail rattled furiously against the greenhouse. “Listen to it, perhaps we’ll have to stay all night.” She scowled up at the heavens, the embattled hostess, then said, “I’m off, my dears. Please try and circulate.”
When she’d gone, Anna said, “Maybe we should.”
Mercier shrugged. “Why?”
She grinned. “Such a scoundrel,” she said, and gave him a playful push on the shoulder.
“Oh yes, that’s me,” he said, meaning very much the opposite, but wishing it were so.
At the food table they found an ashtray, then tried the sturgeon, the smoked trout, and salmon roe with chopped egg on toast. Anna ate with zeal, once making a small sound of satisfaction when one of the hors d’oeuvres was especially good. Next, back to the bar for another vodka, and they clinked glasses before they drank. Outside, the storm began to beat wildly against the glass.
“Maybe we’ll have to stay all night,” Mercier said.
“Please!” she said. “You’ll get me in trouble.”
“Well, at least let me see you home.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That I would like.”
•
Twenty minutes later, they said good night to Shublin and Madame Dupin and left the greenhouse. Mercier looked around for a taxi, but the street was deserted. “Which way is home?” he said.
She pointed and said, “Up there. It’s a block off Marszalkowska, where we can take a trolley car, or we’re much more likely to find a taxi.”
They set off, heading west, then north, against the wind, which howled and moaned in the narrow street, sent a sheet of newspaper flying past, and made it difficult to walk. It wasn’t so bad at first, but soon enough striding boldly into the storm changed to walking sideways, hunched over, eyes half shut, the hail stinging their faces. “Damn!” she said. “This is worse than I thought.”
Mercier kept searching for a taxi, but there wasn’t a headlight to be seen anywhere.
“I’m going to have to hang on to you,” she said. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
She held his arm with both her own, tight against her body, and hid her face behind his shoulder. Moving slowly, they made their way to Marszalkowska avenue, the Broadway of Warsaw. “How much further?” Mercier said. He sensed she wasn’t doing well.
“Twenty minutes, on a nice day.”
She was trembling, he could feel it, and, when he turned to look at her, there were frost crystals in her eyelashes. “Maybe we’d better get inside somewhere,” he said. The cold was brutal, her sweater thin, and her winter coat more stylish than warm.
“Allright. Where?”
“I don’t know. The next place we see.” Up and down the avenue, the Marszalkowska cafés and restaurants were shuttered and dark. In the distance, a man made slow progress, holding his hat on his head, and the streetlamps, coated with ice, glowed dimly on the whitened pavement, with not a tire track to be seen.
“My father used to talk about these storms,” she said. “They blow down from Siberia, a gift to Poland from Russia.” Her teeth chattered, and she held him tighter.
Mercier had begun to consider doorways, maybe even trying the door of one of the cars parked on the avenue, when he saw, up ahead somewhere, light shining on the sidewalk. “Whatever that is,” he said, “that’s where we’re going.”
He felt her nod, urgently: yes, anything.
The light came from a movie theatre, from a ticket booth set back beneath a small marquee.
The old lady in the booth wore one shawl over her head and another around her shoulders. As Mercier paid, she said, “You shouldn’t be out in this, my children.”
In the theatre, the audience, unaware of the storm outside, was laughing and having a good time. Mercier found seats and rubbed his frozen hands.
“That was awful,” Anna said. “Really. Awful.”
“Maybe it will die down,” Mercier said. “At least we’ll be warm for a while.”
On the screen, a diminutive soldier with a Hitler mustache was saluting an officer, a vigorous salute yet somehow wrong—a parody of a salute. A close-up of the officer’s face showed a man at the end of his patience. He spoke angrily; the soldier tried again. Worse. He was the classic recruit who, believing he has assumed a military posture, only manages to mock the prescribed form. Mercier leaned over and whispered, “Do you know what we’re watching?”
“ ‘Dodek na froncie,’ Dodek Goes to War. That’s Adolf Dymsza.”
“I know that name.”
“The Polish Charlie Chaplin.”
“Have you seen it?”
“No, actually I haven’t.” After a moment, with a laugh in her voice, she said, “Were you concerned?”
“Of course,” he said.
“You can be very droll, colonel.”
“Jean-François.”
“Very well. Jean-François.”
From behind them: “Shhhh!”
“Sorry.”
Mercier tried; but the film was more romantic comedy than farce, and the hiss and crackle of the sound track was particularly loud, so he missed much of the dialogue, and that’s what was making the audience laugh. At one point, Anna also laughed, and Mercier whispered, “What did he say?”
In order not to annoy the man behind them, she whispered by his ear. “In French, it’s ‘That’s odd, my dog said the same thing.’ ” But then, she didn’t turn away, she waited, and, when he turned toward her, her eyes closed and they kissed—tenderly, her lips dry, moving softly against his. After a few long seconds, she sat back in her seat, but her shoulder rested against his, and there it stayed.
