by Alan Furst
“Carlo? Carlo Weisz!”
Now who was this—this man in the aisle peering down at him? It took a moment for memory to work; somebody he’d known, distantly, at Oxford. “Geoffrey Sparrow,” the man said. “You do remember, don’t you?”
“Of course, Geoffrey, how are you?”
They were talking in whispers, while a bearded man pounded his fist on the lectern. “Let’s go outside,” Sparrow said.
He was tall and fair and smiling and, now it came back to Weisz, rich and smart. As he went up the aisle, all long legs and flannel, Weisz saw that he wasn’t alone, had with him a smashing girl. Naturally, inevitably.
When they reached the lobby, Sparrow said, “This is my friend Olivia.”
“Hullo there, Carlo.”
“So, you’re here for Reuters?” Sparrow said, his eyes on the pad and pencil in Weisz’s hand.
“Yes, I’m based in Paris now.”
“Are you. Well, that can’t be too bad.”
“Did you come over for the conference?” Weisz said, a journalist’s version of what the hell are you doing here?
“Oh, actually not. We sneaked away for a long weekend, but, this morning, we just couldn’t face the Louvre, so…just for a lark, you know, we thought we’d have a look.” His smile turned rueful, it hadn’t really been all that much fun. “But damned if I thought I’d see someone I knew!” He turned to Olivia and said, “Carlo and I were at university together. Uh, what was it, Harold Dowling’s course, I think, right?”
“Yes, that’s right. Very long lectures, I recall.”
From Sparrow, a merry laugh. They’d had such fun together, hadn’t they, Dowling, all that. “So, you’ve left Italy?”
“I did, about three years ago. I couldn’t stay there any longer.”
“Yes, I know, Mussolini and his little men, damn shame, really. I do see your name on a Reuters dispatch, now and again, and I knew there couldn’t be two of you.”
Weisz smiled, graciously enough. “No, it’s me.”
“Well, a foreign correspondent,” Olivia said.
“He is, the rogue, while I sit in a bank,” Sparrow said. “Actually, now that I think about it, I have a friend in Paris who’s rather a fan of yours. Damn, what was it he mentioned? Some story from Warsaw? No, Danzig! About Volksdeutsche militia training in the forest. Was that yours?”
“It was—I’m surprised you remember it.”
“I’m surprised I remember anything, but my friend went on about it—fat men in short pants with old rifles. Singing around the campfire.”
Weisz was, despite himself, flattered. “Frightening, in its way. They mean to fight the Poles.”
“Yes, and here comes Adolf, to help them out. Say, Carlo, have you got plans for this afternoon? We’re booked for dinner, damn it all, but what say you to drinks? At six? Maybe I’ll call my friend, I’m sure he’d want to meet you.”
“Well, I do have to write this story.” He nodded toward the hall, where a woman’s voice was building to a crescendo.
“Oh that won’t take long,” Olivia said, her eyes meeting his.
“I’ll try,” Weisz said. “Where are you staying?”
“At the Bristol,” Sparrow said. “But we won’t drink there, maybe the Deux Magots, or watchamacallit next door. Drinks with old Sartre!”
“It’s the Flore,” Weisz said.
“Please, darling,” Olivia said. “No more filthy beards—can’t we go to Le Petit Bar? We’re not here every day.” Le Petit Bar was the much-more-chic of the two bars at the Ritz. Turning to Weisz, she said, “Ritz cocktails, Carlo!” And when I’m tiddly I just don’t care what goes on under the table.
“Done!” Sparrow said. “The Ritz at six. Can’t be too bad.”
“I’ll call if I can’t make it,” Weisz said.
“Oh do try, Carlo,” Olivia said. “Please?”
Weisz, clacketting steadily away at the Olivetti, was done by four-thirty. Plenty of time to call the Bristol and cancel the drinks. He stood up, ready to go downstairs and use the telephone, then didn’t. The prospect of an hour with Sparrow and Olivia and friend appealed to him as, at least, a change. Not another evening of gloomy politics with fellow émigrés. He knew perfectly well that Sparrow’s girlfriend was only flirting, but flirting wasn’t so bad, and Sparrow was bright, and could be amusing. Don’t be such a hermit, he told himself. And if the friend thought he was good at what he did, well, why not? He heard few enough compliments, absent Delahanty’s backhanded ironies, a few kind words from a reader wouldn’t be the end of the world. So he put on his cleanest shirt and his best tie, his silk red-and-gray stripe, combed his hair with water, left his glasses on the desk, went downstairs at five-forty-five, and had the not inconsiderable pleasure of telling a taxi driver, “Le Ritz, s’il vous plaît.”
No floral print tonight for Olivia, a cocktail dress for cocktails, her smart little breasts swelling just above the neckline, and a tight, stylish hat on her golden hair. She took a Players from a box in her evening bag and handed Weisz a gold lighter. “Thanks, Carlo.” Meanwhile, a splendid Sparrow in high London tailoring talked cleverly about nothing, but no guest, not yet. They chattered while they waited, in the dark wood-paneled bar with its drawing room furnishings—Sparrow and Olivia on a divan, Weisz in an upholstered chair by the draped French door that led to the terrace. Oh it felt very good to Weisz, all this, after abandoned monasteries and smoky meeting halls. Very good indeed, better and better as the Ritz 75 went down. Basically a French 75, gin and champagne, named after the French 75-mm cannon of the Great War, and later a staple at the bar of the Stork Club. Bertin, the famous barman of the Ritz, added lemon juice and sugar and, voilà, the Ritz 75. Voilà indeed. Weisz loved all humankind, and his wit knew no bounds—delighted smiles from Olivia, toothy har-hars from Sparrow.
Twenty minutes later, the friend. Weisz had expected a Sparrow friend to be cast from the same mold, but this was not the case. The friend’s aura said trade, loud and clear, as he looked around the room, spotted their table, and ambled toward them. He was older than Sparrow by at least a decade, fattish and benign, a pipe clenched in his teeth, a slipover sweater worn beneath the jacket of a comfortable suit. “Sorry to be late,” he said as he arrived. “Damnedest gall I’ve ever seen, that cabman, drove me all around Paris.”
“Edwin Brown, this is Carlo Weisz,” Sparrow said proudly as they rose to greet the friend.
Brown was clearly pleased to meet him, his pleasure indicated by an emphatic “Hmmm!” spoken around the stem of his pipe as they shook hands. After he’d settled in his chair, he said, “I think you are a hell of a fine writer, Mr. Weisz. Did Sparrow tell you?”
“He did, and you’re kind to say it.”
“I’m right, is what I am, you can forget ‘kind.’ I always look for your byline, when they let you have one.”
“Thank you,” Weisz said.
They had to order a third round of cocktails, now that Mr. Brown had arrived. And, in Weisz, the spring of life burbled ever more happily. Olivia had a rosy blush on her cheeks and was somewhere well east of tiddly, laughed easily, met Weisz’s eyes, now and again. Excited, he sensed, more by the elegance of Le Petit Bar, the evening, Paris, than whatever she might see in him. When she laughed, she tilted her head back, and the soft light caught her pearl necklace.
Conversation wandered to the afternoon conference, Sparrow’s Tory sneer not so very far from Weisz’s amiable liberalism, and for Olivia it all began and ended with beards. Mr. Brown was rather more opaque, his political views apparently held in secrecy, though he was emphatically a Churchill man. Even quoted Winston, addressing Chamberlain and his colleagues on the occasion of the cowardly cave-in at Munich. “‘You were given a choice between shame and war. You have chosen shame, and you shall have war,’” adding, “And I’m sure you agree with that, Mr. Weisz.”
“It certainly looks that way,” Weisz said. In the small silence that followed, he said, “Forgive a journalist�
�s question, Mr. Brown, but may one ask what sort of business you’re in?”
“Certainly you may, though, as they say, not for publication.” Here the pipe emitted a large puff of sweetish smoke, as though to underline the prohibition.
“You’re safe for tonight,” Weisz said. “Off the record.” His tone was playful, Brown couldn’t possibly think he was being interviewed.
“I own a small company that controls a few warehouses on the Istanbul waterfront,” he said. “Just plain old commerce, I fear, and I’m only there some of the time.” He produced a card and handed it to Weisz.
“And you can only hope that the Turks don’t sign on with Germany.”
“That’s it,” Brown said. “But I think they’ll stay neutral—they had all the war they wanted, by 1918.”
“So did we all,” Sparrow said. “Let’s not do that again, shall we?”
“Can’t stop it, once it starts,” Brown said. “Look at Spain.”
“I think we should’ve helped them,” Olivia said.
“I suppose we should’ve,” Brown said. “But we were thinking about 1914 ourselves, y’know.” To Weisz he said, “Haven’t you written something about Spain, Mr. Weisz?”
“Now and then, I have.”
Brown looked at him for a moment. “What did I read, was it recently? I was up in Birmingham, something in the paper there, the Catalonian campaign?”
“Perhaps you did. I filed down there a few weeks ago, end of December.”
Brown finished his drink. “Very nice, shall we try one more? Have you time, Geoffrey? On me, this round.”
Sparrow waved at the waiter.
“Oh Lord,” Olivia said. “And wine with dinner.”
“Got it,” Brown said. “About some Italian fellow, fighting the Mussolini Italians? Was that you?”
“Likely it was. They subscribe to Reuters, in Birmingham.”
“A colonel, he was. Colonel something.”
“Colonel Ferrara.” Tick.
“With a hat, of some sort.”
“You have quite a memory, Mr. Brown.”
“Well, sad to say I don’t, not really, but that stuck, somehow.”
“A brave man,” Weisz said. Then, to Sparrow and Olivia: “He fought with the International Brigades, and stayed on when they left.”
“Much good it will do him now,” Sparrow said.
“What will become of him?” Brown said. “When the Republicans surrender.”
Slowly, Weisz shook his head.
“It must be odd,” Brown said. “To interview people, to hear their story, and then, they’re gone. Do you ever keep track, Mr. Weisz?”
“That’s hard to do, with the way the world is now. People disappear, or think they might have to, tomorrow, next month…”
“Yes, I can see that. Still, he must’ve made an impression on you. He’s quite unusual, in his way, a military officer, fighting for another nation’s cause.”
“I think he saw it as one cause, Mr. Brown. Do you know the line from Rosselli? He and his brother founded an émigré organization in the twenties, and he was murdered in Paris in ’37.”
“I know the Rosselli story, I don’t know the line.”
“‘Today in Spain, tomorrow in Italy.’”
“Which means?”
“The battle is for freedom in Europe; democracy versus fascism.”
“Not communism versus fascism?”
“Not for Rosselli.”
“But for Colonel Ferrara, perhaps?”
“No, no. Not for him either. He is an idealist.”
“That’s very romantic,” Olivia said. “Like a movie.”
“Indeed,” Brown said.
It was almost eight when Weisz left the hotel, passed up the line of taxis at the curb, and headed toward the river. Let the weather, cold and damp, clear his head, he’d find a taxi later. He often told himself this, then didn’t bother, choosing his streets for the pleasure of walking them. He circled place Vendôme, its jewelers’ windows lying in wait for the Ritz clientele, then took rue Saint-Honoré, past fancy shops, now closed, and the occasional restaurant, its sign gold on green, a secret refuge, the scent of rich food drifting through the night air.
Mr. Brown had offered him dinner, but he’d declined—he’d been questioned enough for one evening. Continental Trading, Ltd. said the card, with telephone numbers in Istanbul and London, but Weisz had a pretty good idea of Mr. Brown’s real business, which was the espionage business, he believed, likely the British Secret Intelligence Service. Nothing new or surprising here, not really, spies and journalists were fated to go through life together, and it was sometimes hard to tell one from the other. Their jobs weren’t all that different: they talked to politicians, developed sources in government bureaux, and dug around for secrets. Sometimes they talked to, and traded with, one another. And, now and again, a journalist worked directly for the secret services.
Weisz smiled as he recalled the afternoon—they’d done a pretty fair job on him. It’s your old college chum! And his sexy girlfriend who thinks you’re sweet! Have a drink! Have six! Oh look, here’s our friend Mr. Brown! Mr. Green! Mr. Jones! Sparrow and Olivia were probably civilians, he guessed—the lives of nations were lately perilous, so one helped out if one were asked—but Mr. Brown was the real thing. And so, Weisz said to himself, what was it about this particular pee on this particular lamppost that so excited this particular hound? Was Ferrara suspected of something—had he gotten himself on a list? Weisz hoped not. But, if not, what? Because Brown wanted to know who he was and wanted to find him and had gone to some trouble over it. Damn, he’d felt this coming, as he contemplated writing about Ferrara, why hadn’t he listened to himself?
Calm down. The spies were always after something. If you were a journalist, here all of a sudden came the warmest Russian, most cultured German, most sophisticated Frenchwoman you ever met. Weisz’s personal favorite in Paris was the magnificent Count Polanyi, at the Hungarian legation—lovely old European manners, dire honesty, and a sense of humor: very appealing, very dangerous. A mistake to be anywhere near these people, but sometimes one erred. Weisz certainly had. With, for example, the British spy Lady Angela Hope—she made no secret of it—and the memory of her produced a drunken snort of laughter. He had twice, in her Passy apartment, erred with Lady Angela, who made a loud, elaborate opera of it all, surely he was at least Casanova to produce such shrieks—Christ, there were maids in the apartment. Never mind the maids, the neighbors! Oh my dear, Lady Angela’s been murdered. Again. This performance had been followed by a pillow interrogation of considerable length, all for the unreported tidbits from his interview with Gafencu, the Roumanian foreign minister. Which she’d not had, any more than Brown had found out where Colonel Ferrara had gone to ground.
By nine, Weisz was back in his room. He’d wanted dinner, by the time he reached the Sixth, but dinner at Chez this or Mère that, with a newspaper for company, had not appealed to him, so he’d stopped at his café and had a ham sandwich, coffee, and an apple. Once home, he thought about writing, writing from the heart, for himself, and would’ve worked on the novel in his desk drawer, but for the fact that there was no novel in the drawer. So he stretched out on the bed, listened to a symphony, smoked cigarettes, and read Malraux’s Man’s Fate—La Condition Humaine, in French—for the second time. Shanghai in 1927, the Communist uprising, peasant terrorists, Soviet political operatives working against Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces, secret police, spies, European aristocrats. Overlain with the French taste for philosophy. No refuge here from Weisz’s vocational life, but he did not, would not, seek refuge.
Still, there was at least, thankfully, one exception to the rule. He put the book down from time to time and thought about Olivia, about what it might have been like to make love to her, about Véronique, about his chaotic love life, this one and that one, wherever they were that night. Thought particularly about the, well, not the love of his life perhaps, but the woman he never
stopped thinking about, because their hours together had been, always, exciting and passionate. “It’s just that we were made for each other,” she would say, a melancholy sigh in her voice. “Sometimes I think, why can’t we just, continue?” Continue meant, he supposed, a life of afternoons in hotel beds, occasional dinners in out-of-the-way restaurants. His desire for her never ended, and she told him it was that way for her. But. It would not translate to marriage, children, domestic life, it was a love affair, and they both knew it. She’d married, three years earlier, in Germany, a marriage of money, and social standing, a marriage, he thought, brought on by turning forty and fatigue with love affairs, even theirs. Still, when he was lonely, he thought about her. And he was very lonely.
He’d never imagined it would turn out that way, but the political maelstrom of his twenties and thirties, the world gone wrong, the pulse of evil and the unending flight from it, had turned life on its wrong side. Anyhow he blamed it, for leaving him alone in a hotel room in a foreign city. Where he fell asleep twice, by eleven-thirty, before giving up on the day, crawling under the blanket, and turning out the light.
28 January, Barcelona.
S. Kolb.
So he was called, on his present passport, a workname they gave him when it suited their inclinations. His real name had disappeared, long ago, and he had become Mr. Nobody, from the nation of Nowhere, and he looked it: bald, with a fringe of dark hair, eyeglasses, a sparse mustache—a short, inconsequential man in a tired suit, at that moment chained to two anarchists and a water pipe in the WC of a café on the bombed-out waterfront of an abandoned city. Sentenced to be shot. Eventually. There was a queue, one had to wait one’s turn, and the executioners might not go back to work until they’d had lunch.
Terribly unfair, it seemed to S. Kolb.
His papers said he was the representative of a Swiss engineering firm in Zurich, and a letter in his briefcase, on Republican government stationery, dated two weeks earlier, confirmed his appointment at the office of military procurement. Fiction, all of it. The letter was a forgery, the office of military procurement was now an empty room, its floor littered with important papers, the name was an alias, and Kolb was no salesman.
