by Alan Furst
Troucelle laughed-how pleasant to have a good conversation!
Petrescu needed time to think. He reached for a buttered toast. Serebin could hear him eating it.
“Delicious, don’t you think?” Marie-Galante said.
“Tell me, domnul,” Serebin said, “is there a particular aspect of the peasant crafts that interests you?”
Petrescu put the remainder of the toast triangle back on his plate and patted his lips with a napkin. “Wood carving,” he said.
“I seem to recall,” Troucelle said, “that you were contemplating a visit to Ploesti.”
Serebin and Marie-Galante looked at each other. Us? We were? “I believe it was you who mentioned it,” Serebin said. “No?”
“You need permission to go there, don’t you?” Marie-Galante said.
“You do?” Troucelle said.
“Didn’t someone tell us that?” she asked Serebin.
“It’s no problem,” Petrescu said. “Really, you should go. The craftsmen there are known to do excellent work, and I can help you get a pass, if you like.”
“Something to think about,” Marie-Galante said to Serebin.
“It’s an interesting city,” Troucelle said.
“Maybe on our next trip,” Serebin said.
“But it’s very kind of you to offer to help us,” Marie-Galante said. She looked at her watch, then said to Serebin, “My dear?”
“Yes, you’re right,” Serebin said. He stood, so did Troucelle and Petrescu. “I regret our visit had to be brief, but we really must leave.”
“I hope I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again,” Petrescu said.
“Well, he did it,” Marie-Galante said, back in the room.
“Why?”
“To improve his position here? I don’t know. Il faut se defendre — it’s an article of faith, for some. ‘First above all, watch out for yourself.’”
“What was all that Russian business?”
“Your accent. Troucelle told them about it.”
“They think we’re Russian spies?” Serebin sat on the edge of the bed and began to take off his shoes.
“They might.”
Serebin unbuttoned his shirt.
“They’re scared of the Russians,” she said. “They’ll be cautious, if they think they’re dealing with Moscow.”
“Didn’t seem cautious.”
She opened the armoire, took out a daytime dress on a hanger, then put it back. “When you get dressed,” she said, “put on whatever you want to keep.”
By wireless telegraph:
18:10 14 January, 1941
Buro di Posta e Telegramma / Strada Traian / Bucuresti / Romania
Saphir / Helikon Trading / Akdeniz 9 / Istanbul / Turkiye
Confirm receipt your order #188
Carlsen
The Hotel Luna.
On a sign above the door, a naked wench sat cross-legged in the curve of a quarter moon, smiling down on a street of bars and women in doorways. The hotel of the moon. Serebin paused in the doorway and stared up at the wench. Like a mermaid with legs, he thought; rosy, prominent tummy, cascade of golden hair that covered her breasts, and a certain smile-demanding and forgiving, yes, both, and mysterious. The model was probably the artist’s girlfriend, but Serebin knew a muse when he saw one.
Marie-Galante, waiting at the door, said, “Somebody you know?”
The desk was in the vestibule. To the clerk, they were only one more couple, coming in out of the night. Marie-Galante in her Persian lamb hat, Serebin dark and studious in his steel-rimmed glasses, maybe from different worlds but Eros couldn’t care less about that and, for a few hundred lei, neither did the clerk at the hotel of the moon. No bag for the porter to carry, key for Room 38, staircase over there, carpet as far as the first floor.
It had been a leisurely flight from the Athenee Palace. In the room, Marie-Galante made two calls to the number that never answered, counting on her fingers as it rang. One last look around, then a ride in the elevator, and a casual walk through the lobby. They stopped at the desk, picked up a letter, and strolled out the door. Next they took trams and taxis, here and there, into quiet neighborhoods with empty streets. Once they were sure they weren’t being followed, they went to a cafe where, in the WC, Serebin picked up an envelope from the young officer. Inside, a new identity: Carlsen, a Danish passport with travel permissions from the Gestapo office in Copenhagen. Finally, a visit to a post office in the strada Traian for the wire to Polanyi-Marie-Galante explaining that 188 meant it was time for them to get out. From there, they walked to the Hotel Luna.
Small room, sagging bed, rust-stained sink, and a line of pegs on the back of the door where they hung their clothes. Beneath the window, an ancient radiator hissed and banged, warming the room to a point where they could walk around in their underwear.
“Your best?” Serebin said. Her bra and panties were ivory silk, snug and expensive-looking, that favored the warm color of her skin.
“From Paris, I think. Can you see?”
He turned the hem down in back and squinted at the label. “‘Suzi,’ it says.”
“Rue St.-Honore.”
He stretched out on the bed and clasped his hands beneath his head. “How long do we stay here?”
“We’ll know when the wire comes.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
She settled herself beside him. “We languish.”
“Oh.”
“Forever, ours. A new life, just you and me.”
Serebin was taken by a sudden fit of elation. He stared up at the yellowed ceiling; lightbulb on a cord, cracks in the plaster, spiderweb in the corner. Nobody in the world knew where they were.
“You’re having thoughts,” she said.
True.
With the light out and the window shade up, Room 38 was lit blue by the neon sign of a bar across the street. There was a jazz band playing in the bar, guitar and violin, maybe the local Django and Stephane, who never made it to Paris.
“Do you know this song?” she said.
He waited a moment for the refrain. “Yes. ‘I don’t stand, a ghost of a chance, with you.’” He almost sang, the English words rough in his Russian accent.
“Ghost? A specter?”
“An idiom. Almost no chance.” The band spent a long time with the song, the guitar improvised, then the violin.
“What’s it like for you,” Serebin said, “in Neuilly?”
She thought for a while. “The apartment is just so. Very proper, everything exactly as it should be. It seems cold, to me, haute bourgeois, stuffy, but that’s by necessity. Labonniere has to entertain there, diplomatic dinners, things like that.”
“Boring?”
She nodded. “One says nothing, but it must be said cleverly.”
“And the Germans?”
“Of course they’re included, but it’s not so bad. They’ve worked out a kind of unspoken courtesy for the occupation, a sort of wistful regret. Now and then, of course, you get a real Nazi, and that makes for a long evening, especially when they drink.”
The song ended, there was applause and a drunken shout or two from across the street. “Not so bad, the Luna,” she said. “Comes with free nightclub.”
He moved so that his lips were on her shoulder. She put her hand on the back of his neck and, very gently, began to comb his hair up with her fingers.
By wireless telegraph:
09:40 15 January, 1941
Helikon Trading / Akdeniz 9 / Istanbul / Turkiye
Carlsen / Poste Restante / Buro di Posta e Telegramma/
Strada Traian / Bucuresti / Romania
Shipment arrives 18 January / Pier 5 port of Constanta
Saphir
The owner of the Hotel Luna had a brother-in-law who, it turned out, drove a taxi and he, for a thick wad of lei, took them ten miles east of the city to the town of Branisti, where they could catch the 8:22, the last train to Constanta. “One place we cannot go is the Gara de Nor
d in Bucharest,” Marie-Galante explained. “You may be sure that, since last night, when we didn’t return to the hotel, Petrescu and all the little Petrescus are looking for us, and that is the one place they are sure to look.”
In Branisti, they sat in the taxi, across the street from the station, until 9:50, when the 8:22 finally showed up, then ran for the train. A bribe to the conductor in the first-class car produced tickets and a reserved compartment which they shared with a well-dressed woman and an elderly cat in a wicker basket. The woman was exceptionally polite, and spoke to them, and to the cat, in a language that neither Serebin nor Marie-Galante could identify. This, however, did not deter her for a moment, and she continued the conversation for quite some time. Eventually, she wrote the number three, and a word that could have been January, with her finger, in the film of grime that covered the window. She had, apparently, been traveling for two weeks, and Serebin and Marie-Galante were relieved when she got off the train at the next stop, leaving them alone in the compartment for the five-hour trip to Constanta.
The train moved slowly across the plains of Dobrudja, the waning moon hidden by cloud, the fields dusted with snow, a long way from everywhere. When they asked for something to eat, the conductor summoned a dining car steward, who brought them coffee and wine and warm brisket sandwiches on thickly buttered rolls. The man seemed apologetic, perhaps wanted to serve them a grand Roumanian supper, but Serebin and Marie-Galante ate like wolves and had to fight hard not to fall asleep once the dishes were taken away.
They talked idly, for a time, then Serebin said, “By the way, I don’t think you ever told me what was in the letter.”
“What letter?”
“That came to the hotel.”
Marie-Galante swore, horrified at the lapse.
“There was a lot going on,” Serebin said.
“No excuse,” she said, hunting through her purse. She took it out, a thick envelope that implied invitations to formal dinners or weddings, tore it open, then turned on the lamp by the window in order to read it. “From Valentina,” she said. “She’s performing tomorrow night at the Tic Tac Club and has reserved a table for us.”
“That’s it?”
She turned the letter over to reveal blank paper. “That’s it.”
“What could she want?”
“I can’t imagine. Maybe she liked you. Anyhow, we’ll never know.” Deliberately, she ripped the letter and the envelope into smaller and smaller pieces, saying, “Better not to have this with us.”
Serebin took the handful of torn paper off down the corridor, walked silently past the snoring conductor, opened the door at the end of the car and stood over the coupling. The steady hammering of the locomotive was loud in the open space between the cars, and the icy air, scented with coal smoke, felt good on his face and woke him up. They passed a village, a cluster of shadows by a dirt road, gone in a moment. Then he extended his arm and opened his hand, the bits of paper were taken by the wind, and fluttered away into the darkness.
18 January.
At dawn, in the port of Constanta, gulls circled the winter sky, their cries sharp and insistent in the morning silence. There was a heavy sea running, out beyond the jetty, and the yacht Nereide rocked gently on the harbor swell. In the forward cabin, the writer I. A. Serebin opened his eyes, took a moment to figure out where he was, then sat up in bed and lit a Sobranie cigarette.
His life, he realized, had come round again, circling back to the Constanta waterfront, where he’d boarded a Bulgarian freighter some two months earlier, and he once more found himself in a ship’s cabin with the woman who slept beside him. Carefully, he slid out of bed, retrieved his glasses from the night table, put on his shirt and pants and shoes, and climbed a stairway to the upper deck.
To Serebin, the day was familiar. Rolling cloud in gray light, stiff wind, sea breaking white against the jetty rocks. He knew this weather, it meant he was home. Or as close as he was ever going to get. Rust-dappled freighters, broad-beamed fishing boats-nets slung over their bows, seagoing tug, Arab dhow, oil tanker; a Black Sea harbor, an Odessa harbor. Not quite the same, of course; two patrol boats, gunmetal gray, flew the swastika. And, also different, the lone figure leaning on the Nereide ’s railing. It struck him as odd, somehow, a Hungarian count wrapped in a sailor’s duffel coat, his hair blowing in the breeze. Polanyi turned toward him and nodded, Serebin joined him, they shook hands in silence.
The gulls were fishing. One of them landed on the rocks with a herring and had company right away.
“How was it?” Polanyi said.
“ Bordel. ” Whorehouse.
“It’s the war.”
“Is it.”
Polanyi spread his hands. “Not so good for your view of human nature, this work.”
“There were exceptions.”
“Well, one, anyhow.”
“More.”
Polanyi reached into a flap pocket on his coat and handed Serebin a telegram, wired care of Andre Bastien, with an Istanbul address. It had been sent to Marie-Galante a week earlier, and it was from Labonniere. Dry and to the point: he had been appointed second secretary at the French legation in Trieste, he needed her by his side.
Serebin handed the telegram back to Polanyi.
“Officially, you haven’t seen that,” Polanyi said. “But I thought you should see it.”
“When will you give it to her?”
“Right away.”
Serebin watched a fishing boat in the channel, its engine pounding as it fought the incoming tide.
“Working together like that,” Polanyi said. He looked over at Serebin, wondering if he needed to say more and saw that he didn’t. “She’ll have to come back to Istanbul with us.”
“When?”
“Late tonight, I think. We plan for you to leave Constanta tomorrow, by train.”
“Yes?”
“Back to Bucharest.”
Serebin nodded.
“You can say no, of course.”
He didn’t bother to answer.
“You should buy clothing, whatever you need, in Constanta. We’ll have someone take you to the store. But, before you do that, we’ll talk about everything that went on. You’ll find it tiresome, everybody does, but that can’t be helped. Would eleven suit you?”
“Eleven,” Serebin said.
Polanyi put both hands on the railing, hesitated, then walked away, heading toward the staircase that went to the cabins below.
Serebin spent a half hour on deck, then returned to the cabin. Marie-Galante was seated at the dressing table, putting on lipstick. She wore a slip and stockings, a towel wrapped around her hair. He saw that she’d made the bed, emptied the ashtrays, neatened up as best she could.
“Hello, ours. ” She meant good-bye, her voice deeper than usual, tired, resigned.
He sat in a chair in the corner.
“I have to go away.” She pressed her lips together, turned them in for a moment, studied her image in the mirror. Not so good, but she didn’t care. “I have a wire from Labonniere. He’s been promoted, sent to the legation in Trieste. Ever been there?”
“Once or twice.”
“What’s it like?”
“Italian, Slovene, Croatian-everything, really. Very sunny and bright, at least when I was there.”
“Sunny and bright.”
“Yes.”
“That’s always good. Cheerful.”
She met his eyes in the mirror.
“I have to go,” she said. She undid the towel and began to rub her wet hair.
“I know.”
He walked over to her, she rose and put her arms around him, her damp hair against his cheek. They stayed like that for a time, then she let him go.
They sat around a table in the salon: Polanyi, Marrano, Serebin, Marie-Galante, and a young man in a silvery gray suit worn over a black sweater, with a sharp face and water-combed hair, introduced as Ibrahim. As Marrano began his report on Bucharest, both he and Polanyi took
notes.
Serebin watched Marrano as he spoke. The Renaissance assassin. Dark eyes, pitted face, a thin line of beard that traced his jaw. His story did not sound so very different from theirs. A woman who slept with important men-lately, Marrano said, a German general. The manager of a telegraph office. A gossip columnist. A Siguranza officer. The last, after agreeing to meet with Marrano, had disappeared. Marrano telephoned late at night and talked to the man’s sister, who, very agitated, said nobody knew where he was.
“I did manage to see an assistant to Kobas, who was the oil minister until Antonescu took over. He was terrified, but brave. We met after midnight, in an abandoned building. He guessed right away what we were up to. ‘Don’t try anything,’ he said. ‘The fields are closely guarded. They’re just waiting for somebody to show up.’”
Polanyi nodded, he knew.
Marrano went on. Editor of a newspaper, who said that only the Legion could save Roumania from the Jews. A retired diamond merchant, in a wheelchair. A mystery woman, contacted through a Gypsy vendor at a street market. “Ilona, that’s all I know. I had to book an entire compartment on the train for Ruse, in Bulgaria. She appeared after the first stop, we talked for, maybe, five minutes, then she left. Very curious. Long, black hair, worn loose, dressed all in black, a scar by one eye, a gold wedding band on her right ring finger. She wore a purse on a shoulder strap, the way it hung I thought, something in there, am I to be shot? I think, maybe, if I’d said the wrong thing, it might’ve happened. She was very determined.”
Polanyi raised an eyebrow.
“She was paid a great deal of money,” Marrano said, “according to the list. And no last name, not even there. I believe DeHaas may not have known who she was.”
“Political?”
Slowly, Marrano shook his head. “‘If the job is worthy of me,’ she said, ‘I will do it.’”
Polanyi looked at Serebin.
“She did not say very much. Mostly she made me talk, and stared into my soul. Then she left at Daia station, suddenly, just as the train was about to leave. And I got off at the last stop in Roumania, Giurgiu.”
“The pipeline from Ploesti ends in Giurgiu,” Polanyi said.
“I knew that, so I decided to take a little walk, just to see what I could see. What I saw was the inside of a police station. For a very long hour, then a man in a suit showed up. A man who spoke French. Who was I? What was I doing there? Who did I know?”
