Alan Furst - Kingdom of Shadows

“Need anything?” Szubl said.

“Maybe a tie?”

“Salauds!” Morath was smiling.

“Laszlo wants twenty-five hundred.”

Balki called him a week later.

“Perhaps you’d like to meet a friend of mine.”

Morath said he would.

“So tomorrow. At the big cafe on the rue de Rivoli, by the Palais Royal Metro. Around four. She’ll be wearing flowers-you’ll know who she is.”

“Four o’clock.”

“Her name is Silvana.”

“Thank you, Boris,” Morath said.

“Sure,” Balki said, his voice hard. “Any time.”

The cafe was exceptionally neutral ground; tourists, poets, thieves, anybody at all could go there. On a steaming day in July, Silvana wore a dark suit with a tiny corsage pinned to the lapel. Back straight, knees together, legs angled off to one side, face set in stone.

Morath had very good manners-not once in his life had he remained seated when a woman came to a table. And a very good heart, people tended to know that about him right away. Even so, it did not go easily between them. He was pleased to meet her, he said, and went on a little, his voice quiet and cool and far more communicative than whatever words it happened to be saying. I know how hard life can be. We all do the best we can. There is nothing to fear.

She was not unattractive-that was the phrase that occurred to him when he first saw her. Thirty-five or so, with brass-colored hair that hung limp around her face, an upturned nose, generous lips, and olive, slightly oily skin. Not glamorous particularly, but sulky, that kind of looks. Prominent breasts, very pert in a tight sweater, narrow waist, hips not too wide. From somewhere around the Mediterranean, he guessed. Was she Marseillaise ? Maybe Greek, or Italian. But cold, he thought. Would Von Schleben actually make love to her? For himself, he wouldn’t, but it was impossible to know what other people liked in bed.

“Well then,” he said. “An aperitif? A Cinzano-would that be good? With glacons -we’ll drink like Americans.”

She shook a stubby Gauloise Bleue loose from its packet and tapped the end on her thumbnail. He lit a match for her, she cupped the back of his hand with hers, then blew out the flame. “Thank you,” she said. She inhaled eagerly, then coughed.

The drinks came-there was no ice. Looking over Silvana’s shoulder, he happened to notice that a little man seated at a corner table was watching her. He had thin hair combed flat and wore a bow tie, which made him look like-Morath had to search for it-the American comedian Buster Keaton. He met Morath’s eyes for a moment, then went back to reading his magazine.

“My friend is German,” Morath said. “A gentleman. From the nobility.”

She nodded. “Yes, Balki told me.”

“He would like you to join him for dinner, tomorrow night, at the Pre Catalan. At 8:30. Of course he’ll send his car for you.”

“All right. I stay at a hotel on the rue Georgette, in Montparnasse.” She paused. “It’s just the two of us?”

“No. A large dinner party, I believe.”

“And where did you say?”

“Pre Catalan. In the Bois de Boulogne. It’s very fin-de-siecle. Champagne, dancing till dawn.”

Silvana was amused. “Oh,” she said.

Morath explained about Szubl and Mitten, the apartment, the money. Silvana seemed a little detached, watching the smoke rise from the end of her cigarette. They had another Cinzano. Silvana told him she was Roumanian, from Sinaia. She’d come to Paris in the winter of ‘36 with “a man who made a living playing cards.” He’d gotten into some sort of trouble, then disappeared. “I expect he’s dead,” she said, then smiled. “Of course, with him you never know.” A friend found her a job in a shop, selling candy in a confiserie, but it didn’t last. Then, down on her luck, she’d been hired as the hatcheck girl at the Balalaika. She shook her head ruefully. “Quelle catastrophe.” She laughed, exhaling Gauloise smoke. “I couldn’t do it at all, and poor Boris got the blame.”

It was the end of the afternoon, cool and dark beneath the arches that covered the rue de Rivoli. The cafe was jammed with people and very loud. A street musician showed up and started to play the concertina. “I think I’ll go home,” Silvana said. They stood and shook hands, then she unchained a bicycle from the lamppost on the corner, climbed on, waved to Morath, and pedaled away into traffic.

Morath ordered a scotch.

An old woman came around, selling newspapers. Morath bought a Paris-Soir to see what was at the movies. He was going to spend the evening by himself. The headlines were thick and black: GOVERNMENT DECLARES COMMITMENT TO DEFEND CZECHOSLOVAKIA “INDISPUTABLE AND SACRED.”

The little man who looked like Buster Keaton left the cafe, giving Morath a glance as he went. Morath thought, for a moment, that he’d nodded. But, if it happened at all, it was very subtle, or, more likely, it was just his imagination.

Juillet, Juillet. The sun hammered down on the city and the smell of the butcher shops hung like smoke in the dead air.

Morath retreated to the Agence Courtmain, not the first time he’d sought refuge there. On the run from summer, on the run from Uncle Janos and his politics, on the run from Cara, lately consumed by vacation manias. The sacred mois d’Aout approached-one either went to the countryside or hid in one’s apartment and didn’t answer the phone. What troubled Cara was, should they go to the baroness Frei up in Normandy? Or to her friend Francesca and her boyfriend, in Sussex? It wasn’t the same, not at all, and one had to shop.

At Agence Courtmain they had big black fans that blew the heat around, and sometimes a breeze from the river worked its way up avenue Matignon and leaked in the window. Morath sat with Courtmain and his copy chief in her office, staring at a tin of cocoa.

“They have plantations in Africa, at the southern border of the Gold Coast,” the copy chief said. Her name was Mary Day-a French mother and an Irish father. She was close to Morath’s age and had never married. One line of gossip had it that she was religious, formerly a nun, while another speculated that she made extra income by writing naughty novels under a pen name.

Morath asked about the owner.

“It’s a big provincial family, from around Bordeaux. We deal with the general manager.”

“A Parisian?”

“Colonial,” Courtmain said. “ Pied-noir, with barbered whiskers.”

The tin had a red label with CASTEGNAC printed in black across the top. Down below it said CACAO FIN. Morath pried up the metal cap, touched a finger to the powder and licked it. Bitter, but not unpleasant. He did it again.

“It’s supposedly very pure,” Mary Day said. “Sold to chocolatiers, here and in Turin and Vienna.”

“What do they want us to do?”

“Sell cocoa,” Courtmain said.

“Well, new art,” Mary Day said. “Posters for bakeries and grocery stores. And he told us that now, with the war winding down, they want to sell in Spain.”

“Do Spaniards like chocolate?”

She leaned forward to say of course, then realized she didn’t know.

“Can’t get enough,” Courtmain said. They do in this agency.

Morath held the tin up to the window. Outside, the sky was white, and there were pigeons cooing on a ledge. “The label’s not so bad.” There was a decorative strand of intertwined ivy leaves around the border, nothing else.

Courtmain laughed. “It’s perfection,” he said. “We’ll sell it back to them in ten years.”

Mary Day took several sheets of art paper from a folder and pinned them up on the wall. “We’re going to give them Cassandre,” she said. A. M. Cassandre had done the artwork for the popular Dubo/Dubon/Dubonnet image in three panels.