The Spies of Warsaw: A Novel

by Alan Furst

  Then Mercier spent a few minutes with Julien Travas, the Pathé News manager, who had a luscious girl by his side. “A full house tonight,” Mercier said. “All the usual characters, including us.”

  Travas shrugged. “They seem to ask me, I seem to go, and so they ask me again—they must have bodies to fill the room. And Kamila here has never been to one of these things. Enjoying it, dear?”

  “I think it is very interesting,” Kamila said. “Mynheer de Vries has met Greta Garbo.”

  “And thinks you look just like her. Am I right?” Travas said.

  “Well, yes, he did say that. Exactly that.”

  “Colonel Mercier is a war hero,” Travas said.

  “Oh yes? You must tell me your story, colonel.”

  “Someday,” Mercier said. “At the next party.”

  Oh no! Here came the Rozens, everybody’s favorite Russian spies, the sweet old couple bearing down on him like feeding sharks. “I think you’re in demand,” Travas said, steering his prize away. “À bientôt,” he said with a grin.

  “So here you are!” Malka Rozen said, patting his cheek. “I told Viktor you’d be here, didn’t I, Viktor.”

  Viktor Rozen looked up at her from his permanent stoop and said, “You did. It’s true. Here he is.”

  “Now see here, my French comrade,” Malka said. “Don’t you like us? The most delicious dinner awaits you at our apartment, and you must eat sooner or later, no? You can’t live on canapés.”

  “I’ve been very busy, Madame Rozen. The holidays—”

  “Naturally,” Viktor said. “But now it’s January, the long freeze, time to visit friends, have a drink, a nice chicken—is that so bad?”

  “Not at all,” Mercier said, charmed in spite of himself. “Tell me,” he said, “how are things back in the motherland?” That ought to do it. A shadow crossed Viktor’s well-lined face. Was he actually, Mercier wondered, going to say something?

  “The trials—”

  “The trials of winter.” Malka cut him off, and gave him a look.

  “That’s it,” Viktor said. “Always difficult, our winter, but we seem to survive.”

  “Did you go home for the holidays?” Mercier said.

  “No.” Viktor’s voice was excessively sharp. “I mean no, it’s such a long train ride. To Moscow. Maybe in the spring, we’ll go back.”

  Malka changed the subject. “You know what I think, Viktor? I think that Colonel Mercier won’t come to dinner unless he gets an invitation. A written invitation.”

  “You’re right,” Viktor said. “That’s what we should do. Send him a letter.”

  “You needn’t do that,” a puzzled Mercier said. “Of course I am so very busy, this time of year—”

  “But it will make a difference,” Malka said. “I’m sure it will.”

  Mercier looked around the room. Had Anna Szarbek arrived? No, but Colonel de Vezenyi, the Hungarian military attaché, caught his eye and waved him over, so Mercier excused himself. And, oddly, the Rozens seemed happy enough to let him go.

  For the next half hour, he circulated, visiting briefly with the usual people, saying nothing important, hearing nothing interesting, then thanked his hosts, told Mynheer de Vries they’d see each other soon, and gratefully headed out the door into a cold, clear evening.

  The gleaming diplomatic cars stood in a long line outside the embassy; he found the Buick, and Marek held the door for him. As he slid into the back, he saw an edge of yellow paper on the floor, tucked beneath the driver’s seat. As Marek pulled out of line and drove down the street, Mercier bent over and retrieved the paper—a square envelope. “Marek?” he said.

  “Yes, colonel?”

  “Did you stay in the car, while I was inside?”

  “No, sir. I joined some friends, other drivers, and we sat in one of the cars and had a smoke.”

  Mercier turned the envelope over, then back. It was cheaply made, of rough paper, not a kind he remembered seeing. The flap was sealed, and there was no writing to be seen. “Is this yours?” Mercier said.

  Marek turned halfway around, glanced at the envelope, and said, “No, colonel.”

  “Did you lock the doors, Marek? When you joined your friends?”

  “Always, colonel. I don’t fail to do that, not ever.”

  Carefully, Mercier inserted an index finger beneath the flap and opened the envelope. The paper inside had been torn from a school-child’s copybook, grayish paper with blue lines. The writing was block-printed, with a pencil, in French. There was no salutation.

  We are in great difficulty, recalled home, and we cannot go there, because we will be arrested, and executed. Please help us leave this city and go somewhere safe. If you agree, visit the main post office on Warecki square, at 5:30 tomorrow. You won’t see us, but we will know you agree. Then we will contact you again.

  Please help us

  Mercier read it once more, then said, “Change of plans, Marek.”

  “Not going home?”

  “No. To the embassy.”

  The ambassador’s residence was in the embassy, and he appeared at the chancery, in velvet smoking jacket over formal shirt and trousers, almost immediately after Mercier telephoned. Jourdain took longer, arriving by taxi a few minutes later. When he entered Mercier’s office, the letter sat alone on a black-topped table. “Have a look,” Mercier said.

  Jourdain read the letter and said, “Well, well, a defection. And I thought it was going to be a boring winter. Cleverly managed, isn’t it, not a clue to be found, unless you know which country’s shooting people when they go home. Who wrote it, Jean-François, any theories?”

  “The Rozens,” Mercier said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. They told me to expect it, at the Dutch cocktail party.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Jourdain said. “Stalin’s killing all the Old Bolsheviks now, cleaning house, installing his Georgian pals.”

  “How important are they?” the ambassador asked, reading over the letter once again.

  “They’re believed to be GRU officers,” Jourdain said. “Soviet military intelligence. We don’t know their ranks, but I’d suspect they’re senior, just below the military attaché.”

  “Not NKVD?” the ambassador said.

  “No, not the real thugs. Of course they could be anything. Viktor Rozen could be a minor official, and Malka simply his wife.”

  “I would doubt that,” Mercier said. “They work together—the invitation to dinner turns into a request for information, something very minor, then they’ll try to give you money.”

  “Well, now they’ll take the money,” the ambassador said. “Or at least safety, their lives. And the information comes next. Not a provocation, colonel, is it?”

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “Devious people, the Russians,” the ambassador said. “They see life as chess, draw you into some sort of clandestine rat maze, then shut the trap.”

  “I believe it’s a legitimate offer to change sides,” Mercier said. “Viktor Rozen seemed, ah, at least worried, maybe desperate. His wife’s the strong one.”

  “Maybe she outranks him,” the ambassador said. “That’s not unknown. As for what’s next, we—I mean you, colonel—cable Paris. Tonight. I’ll want to see the text before it goes to the code clerk.”

  “Tonight?” Jourdain said. “Couldn’t we . . . explore the possibilities?”

  The ambassador’s smile was all too knowing. “Your instincts are perfect, Jourdain, but if we dawdle, the bureau in Paris will want to know why. Still, colonel, don’t say more than you have to, just follow the form.”

  “They’ll be out here, sir,” Jourdain said. “All over us.”

  “Maybe. Can’t be helped.”

  “So, five-thirty tomorrow,” Mercier said. “A visit to the post office.”

  “One can never have enough stamps,” the ambassador said. “As for me, I’m off to the Biddles’ dinner party, you two work out the details.”r />
  Jourdain and Mercier talked for a long time—what did they want, what could they get, what was the price of salvation, this week?

  10 January. In civilian clothing, but well dressed for the occasion, Mercier strolled around Warecki square in a light snow. Then, precisely at five-thirty, he entered the busy post office, stood on line, and bought a sheet of stamps. Very pretty, they were, the two-groszy issue, blue and gold, with a handsomely engraved portrait of Chopin.

  14 January. At the Spanish embassy, an evening of flamenco. The ambassador represented the Republican, the legal, government of Spain, but it was known that there was a Nationalist, a fascist, ambassador in Warsaw, waiting to present his credentials. Franco’s forces had now cut the country in two parts, holding the larger area, so it was, the diplomatic community believed, just a matter of time.

  Mercier arrived at the Spanish embassy precisely at nine and found a seat at the end of a row toward the back. Not quite the usual crowd, he saw, the audience determined by political alliance, so neither the German nor the Italian diplomats were to be seen. But no problem filling the room, because half the Soviet embassy was evidently passionate for Spanish dance. Mercier did find Maxim—that was logical, because an evening of flamenco, political flamenco, was just the thing for Maxim’s clever column in the newspaper—who’d saved the seat next to him with his folded overcoat. Then, as the lights dimmed and the Spanish ambassador took the stage, a familiar silhouette hurried down the aisle and took the saved seat. What went on in Mercier surprised him—only a glimpse of her silhouette. But enough. The Spanish ambassador was speaking, though Mercier never heard a word of it, until the end: “. . . the old and honored heritage of our nation, tonight gravely wounded and in peril, but which, like the passionate art we bring you this evening, will endure.” Thunderous applause.

  Mercier liked the flamenco well enough—the fierce guitar, the hammering rhythms of the dance—but his heart was elsewhere. And as the troupe returned for a second encore, he walked quickly up the aisle and out the door into the room where the reception would be held. On a long table covered with a red cloth, bottles of wine and plates of bread and cheese. He stood to one side and waited as the audience filed out.

  Maxim was delighted to see him. He strode over, swung his hand back, then forward, grasping Mercier’s extended hand as though he meant to crush it. “Here’s the general! Say, how goes the war?” Standing slightly behind him, Anna raised her eyes, looked at Mercier, then lowered them.

  “It’s going well enough,” Mercier said.

  “Glad to hear it, glad to hear it, general, keep up the good work.” With a proprietary hand on Anna’s arm, he headed for the wine.

  An intense crowd, that night. As Mercier made his way across the room, the conversation was loud, excited, fervent. Opinion on the war in Spain was savagely divided—the battle for an ancient nation had become a battle for the heart of Europe. At last, by the door to the lobby, he spotted the Rozens, being lectured by a comic-opera official, a minister of some state, in tailcoat, pince-nez, and Vandyke beard. As Mercier approached, Viktor said something to the official and began to lead him away, the man making slashing motions with his hand as he talked.

  Malka Rozen wasted no time. “It must be soon,” she said, her voice an undertone, her false smile broad and beaming.

  “Are you being watched?” Mercier said. “Here? Tonight?”

  “I can’t say. They’re very good at it, when they don’t want you to know.”

  “Our answer is yes—we’re going to help you get out of Poland.”

  “Thank God.”

  “But you will have to help us, in return. You will come bearing gifts, as they say.”

  “What do you want?” The determination beneath the warm exterior was like steel.

  “Photographs, that’s best. Or hand copies. Of documents relating first to France—operations in Poland that involve French interests—and then to Germany.”

  “Why do you think we have anything like that? Our work is against Poland, not France, or Germany.”

  “Madame Rozen,” Mercier said. He meant: please don’t play games with me.

  “And if we can’t get anything you want? Then we die?”

  “You work for people, madame, and I work for people. Maybe they’re not so different, the people we work for.”

  “I hope they are,” she said.

  “Are you saying you won’t try?”

  “No, no. No. We’ll try. But we don’t have long. We were directed to return to Moscow last week. We told them we had important meetings in Warsaw, so our return was postponed—two weeks from today. After that, the knock on the door at midnight, and finished. For twenty years of secret work, for twenty years of faith and obedience, nine grams.” The weight of a revolver bullet, Soviet slang for execution.

  “We’ll meet again, in four days,” Mercier said. “There’s a talk being given at the Polish Economic Ministry, ‘The Outlook for 1938.’ Surely you won’t want to miss that. But, in an emergency, you can signal us. At the central post office, you’ll find a Warsaw telephone directory in the public booth, the one by the window. On page twenty-seven, underline the first name in the left-hand column. Do this at nine in the morning or three in the afternoon, and we’ll pick you up at the café on the other side of Warecki square, thirty minutes later.”

  “Page twenty-seven? Left-hand column?”

  “That’s correct. But I expect to see you on the eighteenth. And I expect you’ll have something for us by then. At least a beginning.”

  She thought a moment, then said, “So, allright, we’ll look through the files.” Her mood had changed: to resignation, and something like disappointment. Yes, she knew all too well what his job entailed, but she’d sensed in him some basic decency she’d hoped might play to their advantage and so had approached him and not the British—the other logical choice. But now, she discovered, he was like all the rest, and would play by the rules. When he didn’t answer immediately, she said, “Maybe there’s something.”

  “You’ll do what you have to do, Madame Rozen. You know what’s at stake.”

  Viktor returned, having shed the talkative official. “Playing nicely, children?”

  Her look, sour and grim, told him what he needed to know.

  Mercier nodded a formal goodby, walked away, and out the door.

  On the eighteenth, Mercier was among the first to arrive at “The Outlook for 1938,” but the Rozens never appeared. He tried, sitting on a hard wooden chair, to keep his imagination in check, but it didn’t work. As the economic minister droned on—“With the reopening of the Slawska mine, Silesian coal production . . .”—he could see them, as in a movie, opening the door at midnight, led to a waiting car, driven up to Danzig, then put under guard on a Soviet ship bound for Leningrad. Then the Lubyanka prison, the brutal interrogation, and the nine grams in the back of the neck. Mercier knew also that not all Stalin’s victims got that far; the lucky ones died early, from rough treatment, or purely from fright. He hoped he was wrong—there had been no signal, and there were all sorts of explanations for the Rozens’ absence—but feared he was right.

  With Jourdain supervising the watch on the post office, Mercier left the embassy on the afternoon of the nineteenth. At home, he packed carefully, then dressed even more carefully, choosing a shirt on the fourth try—a soft one, thick and gray, with a maroon tie, and a subdued tweed sport jacket. Then he considered the supposedly “woodsy” cologne he’d bought the previous day, but decided against it. He was determined—strange, how desire worked—to be as much his usual self as he could be. And he guessed, given burly Maxim, that Anna Szarbek wasn’t the type who liked men who wore scent. What did she like? What did she like about him?

  Such obsession was better than brooding about the Rozens. There had been a flood of cables from Paris: someone in the bureau wanted double agents, the great prize of their profession, who would reveal what the Russians knew, and tell the Russians what the French wante
d them to believe. The classic game of spies. But there was no time for that, and Mercier and Jourdain wound up defending them, like lions with a kill. The Rozens would give up their agent networks, Polish and possibly German, when they were interrogated in Paris, and would, before they were taken out of the country, steal from the Soviet embassy whatever they could. That is, Mercier thought, if they were still free. Or if they were still alive. Because there were occasions when these affairs ended very quickly.

  Marek drove him to the Warszawa-Wiedenski station at 4:45 P.M., early for the 5:15 departure. His plan was to watch Anna Szarbek arrive—making sure that Maxim had not come to see her off—then “discover” her as they waited to board the train. At first, he was excited. From a vantage point by a luggage cart piled with trunks, he watched the platform; the locomotive, venting white steam with a loud hiss, and the smell of trains, scorched iron and coal smoke, suggesting journey, adventure. But then, as the hands of the platform clock moved to 5:10, excitement was replaced by anxiety. Where was she? When the conductor stationed himself by the steps to the first-class wagon-lit, Mercier realized he had to get on the train. Was he to travel by himself? In white letters on a blue enameled panel by the door, the train’s route was announced:

  Warszawa - Krakow - Brno

  Bratislava - Budapest - Beograd

  Beograd—the Serbo-Croatian name for Belgrade—was some seventeen hours away. Hours to be spent alone, apparently, in the splendor of his expensive compartment. Had she somehow managed to board the train without his seeing her? Perhaps she’d never even planned to attend the conference. But there was nothing to be done about it, and on the chance he simply hadn’t noticed her arrival, he climbed the steps and a waiting porter showed him to his compartment. Splendid it certainly was. All dark-green plush and mahogany paneling, the shade of the reading lamp made of green frosted glass in the shape of a tulip, a vase in a copper bracket holding three white lilies. When night fell, the porter would open out the long seat and make the bed.