Alan Furst - Kingdom of Shadows

A lifelong hobby. But Morath didn’t say it.

Life didn’t have to be so hard, the officer told him. He himself had, for example, friends in Paris, businessmen, who were always seeking the advice and counsel of somebody like Morath. “And for them, believe me, money is no problem.”

A policeman brought in a tray with two cups, a zinc coffeepot, and a large brioche. Morath tore a strip off the fluted brioche, yellow and sweet. “I’ll bet you have this every morning, at home,” the officer said.

Morath smiled. “I am traveling, as you know, on a Hungarian diplomatic passport.”

The officer nodded, brushing a crumb off his lapel.

“They will want to know what’s become of me.”

“No doubt. They will send us a note. So we will send them one. Then they will send us one. And so on. A deliberate sort of process, diplomacy. Quite drawn out.”

Morath thought it over. “Still, my friends will worry. They’ll want to help.”

The officer stared at him, made it clear he had a bad, violent temper. Morath had offered him a bribe, and he didn’t like it. “We have been very good to you, you know.” So far.

“Thank you for the coffee,” Morath said.

The officer was again his affable self. “My pleasure,” he said. “We’re not in a hurry to lock you up. Twenty years in a Roumanian prison won’t do you any good. And it doesn’t help us. Much better, put you over the border at Oradea. Good-bye, good luck, good riddance. But, it’s up to you.”

Morath indicated he understood. “Perhaps I need to think it over.”

“You must do what’s best for you,” the officer said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

In the room above him, the pacing never stopped. Outside, a storm. He heard the thunder and the drumming of the rain. A slow seep of water covered the floor, rose an inch, then stopped. Morath lay on the straw mattress and stared at the ceiling. They didn’t kill me and take the money. For the Siguranza thugs who’d arrested him it was a fortune, a life on the French Riviera. But this was Roumania, “kiss the hand you cannot bite,” and they had done what they’d been told to do.

He slept, sometimes. The cold woke him, and bad dreams. Even when he woke up, bad dreams.

In the morning, they took him to a small room on the top floor, likely the office, he thought, of the chief of the Bistrita police. There was a calendar on the wall, scenic views of Constanta on the Black Sea coast. A framed photograph on the desk, a smiling woman with dark hair and dark eyes. And an official photograph of King Carol, in white army uniform with sash and medals, hung on the wall.

Out the window, Morath could see life in the square. At the stalls of the marketplace, women were buying bread, carrying string bags of vegetables. In front of the fountain there was a Hungarian street singer. A rather comic fat man who sang like an opera tenor, arms thrown wide. An old song of the Budapest nachtlokals:

Wait for me, please wait for me,

even when the nights are long,

my sweet, my only dove,

oh please, wait for me.

When somebody dropped a coin in the battered hat on the ground in front of him, he smiled and nodded gracefully and somehow never missed a beat.

It was Colonel Sombor who entered the office, pulling the door shut behind him. Sombor, with glossy black hair like a hat and slanted eyebrows, in a sharp green suit and a tie with a gold crown on it. Very tight-lipped and serious, he greeted Morath and shook his head- Now look what you’ve done. He took the swivel chair at the police chief’s desk, Morath sat across from him. “I flew right over when I heard about it,” Sombor said. “Are you, all right?”

Morath was filthy, unshaven, and barefoot. “As you see.”

“But they haven’t done anything.”

“No.”

Sombor took a pack of Chesterfields from his pocket, laid it on the desk, put a box of matches on top. Morath tore the foil open, extracted a cigarette, and lit it, blowing out a long, grateful stream of smoke.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I was in Budapest. I came over to Roumania to see a friend, and they arrested me.”

“The police?”

“Siguranza.”

Sombor looked grim. “Well, I’ll have you out in a day or two, don’t worry about that.”

“I would certainly appreciate it.”

Sombor smiled. “Can’t have this sort of thing happening to our friends. Any idea what they’re after?”

“Not really.”

Sombor looked around the office for a moment, then he stood, walked to the window, and stared out at the street. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” he said.

Morath waited.

“This job I have,” Sombor said, “seems to grow bigger every day.” He turned back toward Morath. “Europe is changing. It’s a new world, we’re part of it, whether we want to be or not, and we can win or lose, depending how we play our cards. The Czechs, for instance, have lost. They trusted the wrong people. You’ll agree to that, I think.”

“Yes.”

“Now look, Morath, I have to be frank with you. I understand who you are and what you think-Kossuth, civil liberty, democracy, all that Shadow Front idealism. Perhaps I don’t agree, but who cares. You know the old saying, ‘Let the horse worry about politics, his head is bigger.’ Right?”

“Right.”

“I have to see the world in a practical way, I don’t have time to be a philosopher. Now I have the greatest respect for Count Polanyi, he too is a realist, perhaps more than you know. He does what he needs to do, and you’ve helped him do it. You’re not a virgin, is what I mean.”

Sombor waited for a response. “And so?” Morath said it quietly.

“Just as I’ve come to help you, I would like you to help me. Help your country. That, I trust, would not be against your principles.”

“Not at all.”

“You will have to get your hands dirty, my friend. If not today, tomorrow, whether you like the idea or don’t like it. Believe me, the time has come.”

“And if I say no?”

Sombor shrugged. “We will have to accept your decision.”

It didn’t end there.

Morath lay on the wet straw and stared into the darkness. Outside, a truck rumbled past, driving slowly around the square. A few minutes later it returned, paused briefly in front of the station, then drove off.

Sombor had gone on at length-whatever light there’d been in his eyes had blown out like a candle but his voice never changed. Getting you out may not be so easy. But don’t you worry. Do our best. The prison at Iasi. The prison at Sinaia. Forced to stand with his nose touching the wall for seventy-two hours.

For supper, they’d brought him another salt herring. He broke off a tiny piece, just to see what it tasted like. Ate the bread, drank the cold tea. They’d taken his cigarettes and matches when they put him back in the cell.

I flew right over when I heard about it. Said casually enough. The legation in Paris had two Fiesler Storch airplanes, sold to Hungary by the Germans after endless, agonizing negotiation and God only knew what favors. I’m more important than you think, Sombor meant. I command the use of the legation airplane.

When Sombor got up to leave, Morath said, “You’ll let Count Polanyi know what’s happened.”

“Naturally.”

Polanyi would never know. Nacht und Nebel, Adolf Hitler’s phrase, night and fog. A man left his home in the morning and was never heard of again. Morath worked hard, think only of the next hour, but despair rose in his heart and he could not make it go away. Petofi, Hungary’s national poet, said that dogs were always well looked after and wolves starved, but only wolves were free. So here, in this cell or those to come, was freedom.