Alan Furst: Kingdom of Shadows

The rain slackened, that afternoon, Paris a little triste in its afternoon drizzle but accustomed to weather in the spring season and looking forward to the adventures of the evening. Count Janos Polanyi-properly von Polanyi de Nemeszvar but beyond place cards at diplomatic dinners it hardly ever appeared that way-no longer waited for evening to have his adventures. He was well into his sixties now, and the cinq-a-sept affaire suited the rhythm of his desire. He was a large, heavy man with thick white hair, almost yellow in lamplight, who wore blue suits cut by London tailors and smelled like bay rum, used liberally several times a day, cigar smoke, and the burgundy he drank with lunch.

He sat in his office in the Hungarian legation, crumpled up a cable and tossed it in the wastebasket. Now, he thought, it was actually going to happen. A leap into hell. The real thing, death and fire. He glanced at his watch, left the desk, and settled in a leather chair, dwarfed by immense portraits hanging high on the walls: a pair of Arpad kings, Geza II and Bela IV, the heroic general Hunyadi hung beside his son Matthias Corvinus, with customary raven. All of them dripping furs and bound in polished iron, with long swords and drooping mustaches, attended by noble dogs of breeds long vanished. The portraits continued in the hall outside his office, and there would have been more yet if they’d had room on the walls. A long and bloody history, and no end of painters.

5:20. She was, as always, subtly late, enough to stir anticipation. With the drapes drawn the room was almost dark, lit only by a single small lamp and firelight. Did the fire need another log? No, it would do, and he didn’t want to wait while the porter climbed three flights of stairs.

Just as his eyes began to close, a delicate knock at the door, followed by the appearance of Mimi Moux-the chanteuse Mimi Moux as the gossip writers of the newspapers had it. Ageless, twittering like a canary, with vast eyes and carmine lipstick-a theatrical face-she bustled into his office, kissed him on both cheeks, and touched him, somehow, damned if he knew how she did it, in sixteen places at once. Talking and laughing without pause-you could enter the conversation or not, it didn’t matter-she hung her afternoon Chanel in a closet and fluttered around the room in expensive and pleasantly exhilarating underwear.

“Put on the Mendelssohn, my dear, would you?”

Arms crossed over her breasts-a mock play on modesty-she twitched her way over to an escritoire with a Victrola atop it and, still talking-“you can imagine, there we were, all dressed for the opera, it was simply insupportable, no? Of course it was, one couldn’t do such a thing in ignorance, or, at least, so we thought. Nonetheless”-put the First Violin Concerto on the turntable and set the needle down, returned to the leather chair, and curled herself up in Count Polanyi’s commodious lap.

Eventually, just at the moment-of their several underappreciated virtues, he mused, the French possessed the purest sense of timing in all Europe-she settled on her knees in front of his chair, unbuttoned his fly with one hand and, at last, stopped talking. Polanyi watched her, the concerto came to an end, the needle hissed back and forth in an empty groove. He had spent his life, he thought, giving pleasure to women, now he had reached a point where they would give pleasure to him.

Later, when Mimi Moux had gone, the legation cook knocked lightly on his door and carried in a steaming tray. “A little something, your excellency,” she said. A soup made from two chickens, with tiny dumplings and cream, and a bottle of 1924 Echezeaux. When he was done, he sat back in his chair and breathed a sigh of great contentment. Now, he noted, his fly was closed but his belt and pants button were undone. Really just as good, he thought. Better?

The Cafe Le Caprice lurked in the eternal shadows of the rue Beaujolais, more alley than street, hidden between the gardens of the Palais Royal and the Bibliotheque Nationale. His uncle, Morath had realized long ago, almost never invited him to the legation, preferring to meet in unlikely cafes or, sometimes, at the houses of friends. “Indulge me, Nicholas,” he would say, “it frees me from my life for an hour.” Morath liked the Le Caprice, cramped and grimy and warm. The walls had been painted yellow in the nineteenth century, then cured to a rich amber by a hundred years of cigarette smoke.

Just after three in the afternoon, the lunch crowd began to leave and the regulars drifted back in to take their tables. The mad scholars, Morath thought, who spent their lives in the Bibliotheque. They were triumphantly seedy. Ancient sweaters and shapeless jackets had replaced the spotted gowns and conical hats of the medieval alchemists, but they were the same people. Morath could never come here without recalling what the waiter, Hyacinthe, had once said about his clientele: “God forbid they should actually ever find it.” Morath was puzzled-“Find what?” Hyacinthe looked startled, almost offended. “Why, it, monsieur,” he said.

Morath took a table vacated by a party of stockbrokers who’d walked over from the Bourse, lit a cigarette, ordered a gentiane, and settled in to wait for his uncle. Suddenly, the men at the neighboring table stopped arguing, went dead silent, and stared out at the street.

A very grand Opel Admiral had pulled up in front of Le Caprice, the driver held the back door open, and a tall man in black SS uniform emerged, followed by a man in a raincoat, followed by Uncle Janos. Who talked and gesticulated as the others listened avidly, expectant half-smiles on their faces. Count Polanyi pointed his finger and scowled theatrically as he delivered what was obviously a punch line. All three burst into laughter, just faintly audible inside the cafe, and the SS man clapped Polanyi on the back- that was a good one!

They said good-bye, shook hands, and the civilian and the SS man returned to the Opel. Here’s something new, Morath thought, you rarely saw SS men in uniform in Paris. They were everywhere in Germany, of course, and very much in the newsreels; marching, saluting, throwing books into bonfires.

Morath’s uncle entered the cafe and took a moment to find him. Somebody at the next table made a remark, one of his friends snickered. Morath stood, embraced his uncle, and they greeted each other-as usual, they spoke French together in public. Count Polanyi took off his hat, gloves, scarf, and coat and piled them up on the empty chair. “Hmm, that went over well,” he said. “The two Roumanian businessmen?”

“I haven’t heard it.”

“They run into each other on the street in Bucharest, Gheorgiu is carrying a suitcase. ‘Where are you off to?’ Petrescu asks. ‘Cernauti,’ his friend says. ‘Liar!’ Petrescu shouts. ‘You tell me you’re going to Cernauti to make me think you’re going to Iasi, but I’ve bribed your office boy, and I know you’re going to Cernauti!’ “

Morath laughed.

“You know Von Schleben?”

“Which one was he?”

“Wearing a raincoat.”

Hyacinthe appeared. Polanyi ordered a Ricon.

“I don’t think so,” Morath said. He wasn’t completely sure. The man was tall, with pale, fading hair a little longer than it should be, and something about the face was impish; he had the sly grin of the practical joker. Quite handsome, he could have played the suitor-not the one who wins, the one who loses-in an English drawing-room comedy. Morath was sure he’d seen him somewhere. “Who is he?”

“He works in the diplomatic area. Not a bad sort, when all is said and done, I’ll introduce you sometime.”

The Ricon arrived, and Morath ordered another gentiane. “I never did get lunch,” his uncle said. “Not really. Hyacinthe?”