by Alan Furst
They drove, according to the road signs, south, through Leipzig, in the general direction of Prague. Eventually the car entered a network of small roads, the engine whining as they climbed. At the top of a hill, the Opel entered the courtyard of a small inn surrounded by woods. A single light could be seen, illuminating a yellow room at the apex of the steeply slanted roof.
The man who opened the door of the yellow room was not someone he’d met before, of that Szara was certain. Yet there was something strangely familiar about him. He was a tall, reedy fellow in his late thirties, balding, a few wisps of fragile blond hair combed neatly to one side. He was chinless, unfortunately so, with a hesitant, almost apologetic little smile that suggested ancient family and rigid breeding-as though a guest had just broken a terribly valuable vase while the host, fearing only that he would be seen to be discourteously brokenhearted, smiled anxiously and swore it was nothing. “Please come in,” the man said. The voice was intelligent and strong, entirely at odds with his physical presence. He extended his hand to Szara and said, “I am Herbert Von Polanyi.”
Now Szara understood, at least, his curious sense of recognition: Marta Haecht, describing Dr. Julius Baumann’s luncheon companion at the Hotel Kaiserhof, had drawn a perfect verbal portrait of him. Szara evidently stared. Von Polanyi canted his head a little to one side and said, “You don’t know who I am, of course.” The statement was not entirely sure of itself-a tribute, Szara guessed, to the NKVD’s reputation for omniscience.
“No,” Szara said. “I don’t. But I am greatly in your debt, whoever you are, for getting me out of that very bad place. Apparently, you must know who I am.”
“Well yes, I do know who you are. You are the Soviet journalist Szara, Andre Szara. Connected, formerly connected I think, with a certain Soviet organization in Paris.” Von Polanyi gazed at him for a moment. “Strange to meet you in person. You can’t imagine how I studied you, trying to learn your character, trying to predict what you, and your directors, would do in certain situations. Sometimes I worried you would succeed, other times I was terrified you might fail. The time one spends! But of course you know that. We were connected through Dr. Julius Baumann; I was his case officer, as were you. Two sides of the same game.”
Szara nodded, taking it all in as though for the first time.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Von Polanyi’s face glowed with triumph. “It is nothing.” He brushed victory away with a sweep of his hand. “Come in, for God’s sake. Let’s be comfortable-there’s coffee waiting.”
It was a spacious room with a few pieces of sturdy old furniture. Two small couches stood perpendicular to the window, facing each other over a coffee table. Von Polanyi, slightly awkward and storklike, arranged himself on one of the couches. He was dressed for the country, in wool pants and flannel blazer with a broad, quiet tie. A coffee service was laid out on the table, and Von Polanyi performed the various rituals with pleasure, fussing with sugar lumps and warm milk. “This is something of an occasion,” he said. “It’s rare for two people like us to meet. But, here we are. You are physically well, I hope.” His face showed real concern. “They didn’t-do anything to you, did they? “
“No. They were very correct.”
“It isn’t always so.” Von Polanyi looked away, a man who knew more than was good for him.
“May I ask,” Szara said, “what has become of Dr. Baumann and his wife? “
Von Polanyi nodded his approval of the question; that had to be cleared up immediately. “Dr. Baumann was, against the wishes of the Foreign Ministry which, ah, sponsored his relationship with the USSR, imprisoned in Sachsenhausen camp. Certain individuals insisted on this and we were unable to stop it. There he spent two months before we found a way to intercede. He was mistreated, but he survived. Physically and, I am certain, psychologically. You would find him today much the same as he was. He and his wife were expelled from Germany, having forfeited their possessions, including the Baumann Milling works, now owned by his former chief engineer. The Baumanns are at least safe and have established themselves in Amsterdam. As by now you are aware, all the information Dr. Baumann passed on to you was controlled by an office in the Foreign Ministry. It was, however, and I will discuss this further in a moment, correct information. To the centimeter. So, in the end, you were not fooled. Did you suspect? “
Szara answered thoughtfully: “Russians, Herr Von Polanyi, suspect everyone, always, doubly so in the espionage business. I can say Baumann’s bona fides were permanently in question, but never seriously challenged.”
“Well then, it only means we did our job properly. Of course, he had no choice but to cooperate. Originally, we were able to offer him continued ownership of the business. Later, after Czechoslovakia was taken, the Nazi party gained confidence-the world’s armies did not march, the American Neutrality Act was an inspiration- and the issue became life itself. I am not a sentimentalist, Herr Szara, but coercion on that level is disagreeable and in the end, I suspect, leads to betrayal, though Baumann, according to you, did keep his end of the bargain.”
“He did,” Szara said. Unless, he thought, you count his hint in the final transmission and Frau Baumann’s approach to Odile.
“An honorable man. On the subject of Jews the Nazis are like mad dogs. They will not be reasonable, and such blindness may ultimately destroy us all. I believe that could actually happen.”
This was treason, pure and simple. Szara felt his guard drop a notch.
“On the same subject, I must say it’s fortunate for you that you admitted your real identity-though not, I imagine, your vocation. When the information was disseminated to the various intelligence bureaux we took immediate steps to secure your release. We’re a small office at the Foreign Ministry, simply a group of educated German gentlemen, but we have the right to read everything. I believed that the Gestapo might use you against us, and that is the reason we agreed to spend various favors and obligations in order to have you released. In bureaucratic currency, it was quite costly.”
“But there’s more to it than that,” Szara said.
“Yes. There is. A great deal more. I hope you’ll indulge me and let me come at this in my own particular way.” Von Polanyi glanced at his watch. “You’re to be taken across the border, but we have some few hours to ourselves. I’ve wanted to tell a certain story for a very long time, and what remains of this night may well be the only chance I’ll ever have to tell it. So, do I have your permission to continue? “
“Yes, of course,” Szara said. “I want to hear it.”
“While the coffee’s still warm …” Von Polanyi said, filling Szara’s cup, then his own. He settled back and made himself comfortable on the couch. The room, Szara realized, was very nearly a stage set, and not by accident. The light was low and confidential; in the woods outside the window there was only darkness and silence and the steady drip of the rain. The man in the green Opel had driven away; the sense of privacy was complete.
“This is,” Von Polanyi said, “the story of a love affair. A love affair carried on at a distance, over a long period of time-six years, to date, and it continues-a love affair with roots in the personalities of two very different nations, a love affair in which you and I have both been intimately involved, a love affair, as it happens, between two powerful men. The reference is clear?”
“I would think so.”
“Love affair is a dramatic term, isn’t it, but what else could one call a relationship based on a deep and sympathetic understanding, a shared passion for certain ideals, a common view of the human race? Love affair describes it. Especially when you include such elements as secrecy. There’s always that in a love affair. Maybe one of the lovers is promised to somebody else, or it could be that the family doesn’t approve. Or maybe it doesn’t matter why-the two lovers want to meet but everything is in their way; they’re misunderstood, even hated, and all they want to do is unite, to become as one. It’s all so unfair.”<
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Von Polanyi paused, took a pack of Gitanes from a wooden box on the coffee table, and offered one to Szara. The same kind he’d smoked when he’d visited Dr. Baumann, naturally. After he’d lit Szara’s cigarette with a silver lighter, Von Polanyi continued. “Now if we are writing a play, the logical ending for such a love affair is doom. But, if we leave the theater and enter the world of politics, the doom may be for the world and not the lovers. Imagine that Shakespeare rewrote the final act of Romeo and Juliet: now the lovers poison the wells of Verona and, in the final scene, they’re all alone and living happily ever after.
“Well,” Von Polanyi said, “I suppose that’s the end of my literary career. Because the reality, I’m afraid, is not so amusing. The lovers, of course, are Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. In August, their secret love affair ended with the announcement of an engagement-the Non-Aggression Pact-and a lavish engagement present: Poland. And this is merely the engagement. One may well ask what splendors are planned for the wedding itself!
“But that’s the future. For tonight, in the few hours we have, I want to talk about the past. But where to begin? Because this passion, this romance, does not confine itself to the lovers, it starts in the villages where they live and it starts a long time ago. Germany has always needed what Russia has: her oil, iron ore, rare metals and grain. And Russia has always needed what Germany has: our science and technology, our skills, the simple ability to get something done. A German sees a job that needs doing, he thinks a minute, rolls up his sleeves, spits on his hands, and-it’s done! When we try to go it alone, alas, when we exclude the world outside our borders, things don’t go so well. An example: our latest campaign is to get our people to eat rye bread, from grain we can grow ourselves, and to that end the Ministry of Propaganda is claiming that white bread weakened our soldiers in the 1914 war. Of course no one believes it.
“Now two countries like this, and practically next-door neighbors to boot-is it not a match that cries out to be made? It’s been tried before, but somehow it never seems to take. Catherine the Great imported Germans by the wagonload; they helped, but nothing really changed. A more recent example: in 1917, the German General Staff put old Lenin on an armored train and thus destroyed imperial Russia. Yet even so, the minute the world settled down, in 1922, they were at it again with the Treaty of Rapallo. Now we had the two most despised states in Europe rushing into each other’s arms-if nobody else will love me, surely this ugly old thing will!
“Poor Rapallo. Another treaty, another date to torment the student suffering over his history text. But this marriage is a little more interesting if you look under the covers. The German War Ministry forms a development company called GEFO and funds it with seventy-five million gold reichsmarks. This allows the Junkers company to build three hundred fighter aircraft at a Russian town called Fili, just outside Moscow. Germany receives two hundred and forty of them, the USSR gets sixty and the technology. Next comes a joint stock company called Bersol-by now our poor, suffering student is surely reeling. Perhaps reeling in fact, since Bersol undertakes the manufacture of poison gas at Trotsk, in the province of Samara. In 1925, in Tambov province, near the town of Lipetsk, the Lipetsk Private Flying School comes into existence. Rather nebulous, though known today as the Luftwaffe. By September of 1926, Russian freighters deliver three hundred thousand shells plus gunpowder and fuses to Germany, disguised as pig iron and aluminum. Can the poor student stand any more of this? Once you add the fact that the Heavy Vehicle Experimental and Test Station near the town of Kazan is in fact a site for Krupp and Daimler and Rheinmetall to build light tractors-tanks is a better description- probably not. It’s all so tiresome, unless of course the student goes to school in Prague. This goes on for twelve years. Germany rebuilds its forces; the two armies participate in exchanges of military officers, establishing facilities in both Berlin and Moscow. And that’s just the secret part of Rapallo. In full view of the world, the Russian wheat and ore boats travel west, the German technicians pack their little black bags and head east.
“When Hitler came to power, though, in 1933, all had to end. Here was Germany’s evil face, and the idealistic Soviet Union and its friends the wide world over had to be seen to turn away from it. Pity, because everything had been going so well.
“Any diplomat would say that such a moment, if nothing else can be done, is a time to keep a dialogue alive, but Hitler and Stalin shared a special and characteristic trait: they both believed that language was God’s gift to liars, words existed only to manipulate those who thought otherwise. Both these men had risen from the gutters of Europe-here I am partial to a Russian saying: power is like a high, steep cliff, only eagles and reptiles may ascend to it- and they believed diplomacy to be the tool of those who had historically kept them down, the intelligentsia, professors, Jews, all such people. But then, a problem: how could any sort of communication be achieved? Solution: only by deeds, by gestures, by irrevocable actions that made one’s intentions plain and clear. They certainly didn’t invent this method. Since the first days of the newspaper, nations have communicated in this way-on the third page, on the second page, on the first page. We must admit, though, that Hitler and Stalin used the method with some particular flair.
“In 1933, Stalin wasn’t quite sure what he was dealing with in Berlin. He’d read translations of Hitler’s speeches, maybe even his book, but, as I’ve said, what did that mean? Then, in 1934, something even Stalin could understand. The Night of the Long Knives, Hitler had a rival, Ernst Rohm, who led the Brown Shirts. What did he do about it? Murdered them. All the important ones, and all in one night. And so much for rivals. Well, Stalin felt, apparently, the first stirrings of romantic passion, because by December of that year he answered in kind. The assassination of Kirov was organized, and Stalin’s political rivals were eliminated in a purge that continued into 1936.
“Then it was Hitler’s turn. In 1936 he marched into the Rhine-land. He took territory. Once again, Stalin sat up and took notice. Found a way to express a kind of approval: the show trial of Kamenev and Zinoviev. That they were Jews is less important than Vyshinsky’s statement, at the trial, that they were Jews. Here we see Stalin beginning to come to grips with his real problem, which was very simply this: the twelve years of Rapallo had taught both countries that they could cooperate; now, how was that cooperation to be reinstated? Because, with Hitler in power, those two countries could rule the world if they worked together. They were, like lovers, made whole each by the other, and thus invincibly strong.
“But Stalin had a difficult problem, the fact that communism had traditionally been a religion of idealists. On one side of him was Tukhachevsky, Trotsky’s protege, and the most powerful figure in the Red Army. Tukhachevsky was young, handsome, brilliant, and courageous, proven in battle, beloved by his officers. At a show trial, he would have made mincemeat of an oily little opportunist like Vyshinsky and Stalin knew it. Now he needed help, and help was at hand. You’ll recall the officer exchanges that went on during the Rapallo period? Letters, orders, communications of various sorts, still existed in German files. At Stalin’s behest, certainly through NKVD intermediaries of the most trusted sort, Reinhard Heydrich and the Gestapo SD intelligence service found Tukhachevsky’s communications and remade them into forgeries proving that Tukhachevsky and four other Soviet marshals-two of them Jews! — had conspired with Hitler to overthrow the government of the USSR in a coup d’etat. Exit the marshals and most of the leadership of the Red Army. What did the world, the knowledgeable world, civil servants and journalists, think of this? That the conspiracy was born in Germany, a brilliant maneuver by the intelligence services to weaken the military leadership of the USSR. Certainly, except for Stalin at the bottom of it, it could seem that way.
“That left Stalin with one final, but very grave, difficulty: the intelligence services themselves, the real levers of his power. The NKVD and the GRU were staffed by thousands of Old Bolsheviks and foreign communists, many of them Jews, ev
ery last one of them an ideologue. These people were concentrated in crucial positions- including the Foreign Departments of both services-and handled the most secret and sophisticated tasks. These were the people who’d bled in the revolution, these were the people who believed that whatever else might be wrong with the Soviet Union, at least it stood against Hitler’s bullyboys and Jew baiters. Rapprochement with Germany under Nazi rule? Unthinkable.
“But, as I suspect you know, a man in love will do almost anything, and Stalin craved Hitler as ally, accomplice, and friend. Perhaps he thought, There is one man in the world, and only one, with whom I could have a complete understanding, but here are all these stiff-necked romantics in my way. Will no one rid me of these meddlesome-well, one can’t say priests, but it isn’t so far from true. And there was, there almost always is, someone at hand to take him up on it. On one level, the purge of 1936 to 1938 was seen as an elimination of those who knew too much, those who knew where the bodies were buried, the final act of a criminal securing his crime. To those with an inside view, however, it seemed principally a war for power in the intelligence services: the so-called Ukrainian khvost; Jews and Poles and Latvians versus the Georgian khvost, mostly those from Transcaucasia; Georgians, Armenians, Turks, with a few Jewish allies thrown in to muddy the issue. In fact, it was an extended pogrom, led by Beria, and when it was done the stage was set for a public consummation of the love affair.
“Hitler certainly knew what was going on, because Kristallnacht, the world’s first real taste of what Germany had in mind for the Jews of Europe, was then allowed to take place, in late 1938. The former operatives of the NKVD would have assassinated him then and there, but they were either dead or working at the bottom of some gold mine in Siberia and soon to be. Stalin, eternally shrewd, left a few show pieces alive, to forestall the accusation that he’d done exactly what he did do-Lazar Kaganovich for instance, Maxim Litvinov for instance, some of the operatives in the European networks for instance, and a few prominent journalists, for instance Ilya Ehrenburg, for instance Andre Szara.”
