Alan Furst - The Foreign Correspondent

Twenty minutes later, the friend. Weisz had expected a Sparrow friend to be cast from the same mold, but this was not the case. The friend’s aura said trade, loud and clear, as he looked around the room, spotted their table, and ambled toward them. He was older than Sparrow by at least a decade, fattish and benign, a pipe clenched in his teeth, a slipover sweater worn beneath the jacket of a comfortable suit. “Sorry to be late,” he said as he arrived. “Damnedest gall I’ve ever seen, that cabman, drove me all around Paris.”

“Edwin Brown, this is Carlo Weisz,” Sparrow said proudly as they rose to greet the friend.

Brown was clearly pleased to meet him, his pleasure indicated by an emphatic “Hmmm!” spoken around the stem of his pipe as they shook hands. After he’d settled in his chair, he said, “I think you are a hell of a fine writer, Mr. Weisz. Did Sparrow tell you?”

“He did, and you’re kind to say it.”

“I’m right, is what I am, you can forget ‘kind.’ I always look for your byline, when they let you have one.”

“Thank you,” Weisz said.

They had to order a third round of cocktails, now that Mr. Brown had arrived. And, in Weisz, the spring of life burbled ever more happily. Olivia had a rosy blush on her cheeks and was somewhere well east of tiddly, laughed easily, met Weisz’s eyes, now and again. Excited, he sensed, more by the elegance of Le Petit Bar, the evening, Paris, than whatever she might see in him. When she laughed, she tilted her head back, and the soft light caught her pearl necklace.

Conversation wandered to the afternoon conference, Sparrow’s Tory sneer not so very far from Weisz’s amiable liberalism, and for Olivia it all began and ended with beards. Mr. Brown was rather more opaque, his political views apparently held in secrecy, though he was emphatically a Churchill man. Even quoted Winston, addressing Chamberlain and his colleagues on the occasion of the cowardly cave-in at Munich. “‘You were given a choice between shame and war. You have chosen shame, and you shall have war,’” adding, “And I’m sure you agree with that, Mr. Weisz.”

“It certainly looks that way,” Weisz said. In the small silence that followed, he said, “Forgive a journalist’s question, Mr. Brown, but may one ask what sort of business you’re in?”

“Certainly you may, though, as they say, not for publication.” Here the pipe emitted a large puff of sweetish smoke, as though to underline the prohibition.

“You’re safe for tonight,” Weisz said. “Off the record.” His tone was playful, Brown couldn’t possibly think he was being interviewed.

“I own a small company that controls a few warehouses on the Istanbul waterfront,” he said. “Just plain old commerce, I fear, and I’m only there some of the time.” He produced a card and handed it to Weisz.

“And you can only hope that the Turks don’t sign on with Germany.”

“That’s it,” Brown said. “But I think they’ll stay neutral-they had all the war they wanted, by 1918.”

“So did we all,” Sparrow said. “Let’s not do that again, shall we?”

“Can’t stop it, once it starts,” Brown said. “Look at Spain.”

“I think we should’ve helped them,” Olivia said.

“I suppose we should’ve,” Brown said. “But we were thinking about 1914 ourselves, y’know.” To Weisz he said, “Haven’t you written something about Spain, Mr. Weisz?”

“Now and then, I have.”

Brown looked at him for a moment. “What did I read, was it recently? I was up in Birmingham, something in the paper there, the Catalonian campaign?”

“Perhaps you did. I filed down there a few weeks ago, end of December.”

Brown finished his drink. “Very nice, shall we try one more? Have you time, Geoffrey? On me, this round.”

Sparrow waved at the waiter.

“Oh Lord,” Olivia said. “And wine with dinner.”

“Got it,” Brown said. “About some Italian fellow, fighting the Mussolini Italians? Was that you?”

“Likely it was. They subscribe to Reuters, in Birmingham.”

“A colonel, he was. Colonel something.”

“Colonel Ferrara.” Tick.

“With a hat, of some sort.”

“You have quite a memory, Mr. Brown.”

“Well, sad to say I don’t, not really, but that stuck, somehow.”

“A brave man,” Weisz said. Then, to Sparrow and Olivia: “He fought with the International Brigades, and stayed on when they left.”

“Much good it will do him now,” Sparrow said.

“What will become of him?” Brown said. “When the Republicans surrender.”

Slowly, Weisz shook his head.

“It must be odd,” Brown said. “To interview people, to hear their story, and then, they’re gone. Do you ever keep track, Mr. Weisz?”

“That’s hard to do, with the way the world is now. People disappear, or think they might have to, tomorrow, next month…”

“Yes, I can see that. Still, he must’ve made an impression on you. He’s quite unusual, in his way, a military officer, fighting for another nation’s cause.”

“I think he saw it as one cause, Mr. Brown. Do you know the line from Rosselli? He and his brother founded an emigre organization in the twenties, and he was murdered in Paris in ‘37.”

“I know the Rosselli story, I don’t know the line.”

“‘Today in Spain, tomorrow in Italy.’”

“Which means?”

“The battle is for freedom in Europe; democracy versus fascism.”

“Not communism versus fascism?”

“Not for Rosselli.”

“But for Colonel Ferrara, perhaps?”

“No, no. Not for him either. He is an idealist.”

“That’s very romantic,” Olivia said. “Like a movie.”

“Indeed,” Brown said.

It was almost eight when Weisz left the hotel, passed up the line of taxis at the curb, and headed toward the river. Let the weather, cold and damp, clear his head, he’d find a taxi later. He often told himself this, then didn’t bother, choosing his streets for the pleasure of walking them. He circled place Vendome, its jewelers’ windows lying in wait for the Ritz clientele, then took rue Saint-Honore, past fancy shops, now closed, and the occasional restaurant, its sign gold on green, a secret refuge, the scent of rich food drifting through the night air.

Mr. Brown had offered him dinner, but he’d declined-he’d been questioned enough for one evening. Continental Trading, Ltd. said the card, with telephone numbers in Istanbul and London, but Weisz had a pretty good idea of Mr. Brown’s real business, which was the espionage business, he believed, likely the British Secret Intelligence Service. Nothing new or surprising here, not really, spies and journalists were fated to go through life together, and it was sometimes hard to tell one from the other. Their jobs weren’t all that different: they talked to politicians, developed sources in government bureaux, and dug around for secrets. Sometimes they talked to, and traded with, one another. And, now and again, a journalist worked directly for the secret services.

Weisz smiled as he recalled the afternoon-they’d done a pretty fair job on him. It’s your old college chum! And his sexy girlfriend who thinks you’re sweet! Have a drink! Have six! Oh look, here’s our friend Mr. Brown! Mr. Green! Mr. Jones! Sparrow and Olivia were probably civilians, he guessed-the lives of nations were lately perilous, so one helped out if one were asked-but Mr. Brown was the real thing. And so, Weisz said to himself, what was it about this particular pee on this particular lamppost that so excited this particular hound? Was Ferrara suspected of something-had he gotten himself on a list? Weisz hoped not. But, if not, what? Because Brown wanted to know who he was and wanted to find him and had gone to some trouble over it. Damn, he’d felt this coming, as he contemplated writing about Ferrara, why hadn’t he listened to himself?