Alan Furst - Kingdom of Shadows

“His honor the mayor,” said the policeman. “The Germans keep trying to burn the town hall, so he brings the tax records up here.”

“Keep trying?”

The policeman nodded grimly. “Third time since March.”

From the parlor window, Morath looked out over Decin. According to the policeman, the German units held several buildings-garages and small workshops on the north side of the town-and the railroad station. Morath saw them once or twice as they changed positions; shapeless forms in peaked caps and jackets, bent low, running close to the walls. Once he got a clear view of a machine gunner and his helper, caught for an instant in the glow of a streetlamp, one carrying a Maxim gun, the other its tripod and belts. Then they scurried away into the darkness, disappearing between the deserted office buildings on the other side of the boulevard.

Midnight. The crackle of small-arms fire intensified. Then the town lights went out, and, a few minutes later, a call came on the radio, and Novotny and the senior policeman returned to the station. The other policeman came upstairs, took his helmet off, and sat on a sofa. He was young, Morath saw, not much more than twenty. “The armored cars should come soon,” he said.

Morath stared out into the street. It was hard to see, the warm, misty night darkened by smoke from the burning buildings. The distant firing slowed, then stopped, replaced by heavy silence. Morath looked at his watch. Two-twenty. Cara likely asleep, by now, on the avenue Bourdonnais, unless she’d gone out somewhere. The bracelet would have arrived that afternoon. Strange how far away that seemed. Not so far. He remembered the bars on the Mediterranean beach, the crash of the waves, people saying “half past eight in Juan-les-Pins, half past nine in Prague.”

A low, distant rumble, resolving, as Morath listened, to the throb of heavy engines. The policeman leaped to his feet. He was openly relieved-Morath hadn’t realized how frightened he’d been. “Now we’ll see,” he said, running his hand over a cowlick of wheat-colored hair. “Now we’ll see.”

Two of the armored cars crept up the boulevard, going no more than ten miles an hour. One of them broke off and headed for the north side of the town; the other stood in the middle of the street, its turret turning slowly as the gunner looked for a target. Somebody-somebody not very bright, Morath thought-shot at it. The response was a blast of the turret cannon, a yellow flare and a ragged boom that rolled over the empty streets.

“Idiot.”

“A sniper,” the policeman said. “He tries to fire into the aiming port of the turret.”

They both stood at the window. As the armored car moved forward, there was a second shot.

“Did you see it?”

Morath shook his head.

“Sometimes you can.” Now, quite excited, he spoke in a loud whisper. He knelt in front of the window, rested the rifle on the sill, and sighted down the barrel.

The armored car disappeared. From the other end of town, a serious engagement-cannon and machine-gun fire. Morath, leaning out the window, thought he could see flickers of light from the muzzle flashes. Something exploded, an armored car sped past, headed in the direction of the fighting. And something was on fire. Very slowly, the outlines of the buildings sharpened, touched with orange light. Downstairs, in the kitchen, an angry burst of static from the radio. The policeman swore softly, under his breath, as he ran off to answer it.

Four in the morning. The policeman was snoring away on the couch while Morath kept watch. The policeman had apologized for being so tired. “We spent two days in the street,” he said. “Fighting them with batons and shields.” Morath smoked to stay awake, making sure to keep well away from the window when he lit a match, cloaking the end of the cigarette with his hand. At one point, to his amazement, a freight train came through the town. He could hear it from a long way off. It didn’t stop, the slow chuffing of the locomotive moved from east to west, and he listened to it until the sound faded away into the distance.

A silhouette.

Morath came wide awake, crushed the cigarette out on the floor, snatched the rifle from the corner and rested it on the windowsill.

Was it there? He didn’t think so. A ghost, a phantom- the same phantoms we saw in Galicia. Until the dawn.

But no. Not this time.

A shape, on one knee, tight to the wall of a building across the boulevard and very still. It stood, ran a few feet, and stopped again. It held, Morath thought, something in its hand.

He touched the bolt of the rifle, making sure it was locked, then let his finger rest gently against the trigger. When he squinted over the open sight, he lost the shape until it moved again. Then he tracked it as it stood, ran, and knelt down. Stood, ran, knelt down. Stood, ran.

Tracked, squeezed.

The policeman cried out and rolled off the couch. “What happened?” he said, breathless. “Are they here?”

Morath shrugged. “I saw something.”

“Where is it?” The policeman knelt by his side.

Morath looked, there was nothing there.

But it was there an hour later, in gray light, when they crossed the boulevard. “A runner!” the policeman said. “To supply the sniper.”

Maybe. Not much more than a kid, he’d been knocked backward and tumbled into a cellar entry and died there, halfway down the steps, arms flung out to stop his fall, a sandwich wrapped in newspaper dropped on the sidewalk.

At daybreak they walked back to the police station but it wasn’t there anymore. What remained was a burned-out shell, blackened beams, smoke rising from the charred interior. One corner of the building had been blown out-a hand grenade, Morath thought, or a homemade bomb. There was no way to know; there was nobody left to tell the story. He stayed for a while, talking to the firemen as they wandered around and looked for something to do. Then an army captain showed up and drove him back to the hotel. “It wasn’t only Novotny,” he said. “We lost three others. They bicycled in from an observation post when they heard a call on the radio. Then there was the police chief, several officers, militia. At the end, they let the drunks out of the cells and gave them rifles.” He shook his head, angry and disgusted. “Somebody said they tried to surrender when the building caught on fire but the Germans wouldn’t let them.” He was silent for a time. “I don’t know, that might not be true,” he said. “Or maybe it doesn’t matter.”

Back at the Europa, there was a spray of gladioli in a silver vase on a table in the lobby. In the room, Morath slept for an hour, couldn’t after that. Ordered coffee and rolls, left most of it on the tray, and called the railroad station. “Of course they’re running,” he was told. As he hung up the phone, there was a knock at the door. “Fresh towels, sir.”

Morath opened the door and Dr. Lapp settled himself in the easy chair.

“Well, where are my towels?”

“You know, I once actually did that. Back when. In a maid’s uniform, pushing the little trolley.”

“There must have been-at least a smile.”

“No, actually not. The man who answered the door was the color of wood ash.”

Morath started to pack, folding underwear and socks into his valise.

“By the way,” Dr. Lapp said. “Have you met the two women who sit in the lobby?”

“Not really.”

“Oh? You didn’t, ah, avail yourself?”

A sideways glance. I told you I didn’t.

“They were arrested last night, is the reason I ask. In this very room, as it happens. Taken through the lobby in handcuffs.”

Morath stopped dead, a pair of silver hairbrushes in his hands. “Who were they?”