Alan Furst - The Foreign Correspondent

Devoisin, a permanent undersecretary in the ministry, had a magnificent smile, and a magnificent office, his windows looking down on a wintry, slate-colored Seine. He offered Weisz a cigarette from a fruitwood box on his desk and said, “Off the record, we’re glad to see the back of that bastard Stoyadinovich. A Nazi, Weisz, to his very marrow, which is no news to you.”

“Yes, the Vodja, ” Weisz said dryly.

“Dreadful. The leader, just like his pals; the Fuehrer, the Duce, and the Caudillo, as Franco likes to call himself. And old Vodja had the rest of it as well, Greenshirt militia, stiff-arm salute, the whole nasty business. Anyhow, adieu, at least for the moment.”

“This adieu, ” Weisz said. “Were your people involved?”

Devoisin smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“There are ways to say it. Not quite so, direct.”

“Not in this office, my friend. I suspect the British might have helped out, Prince Paul is their great chum.”

“So then, I’ll just say that the Franco-Yugoslav alliance is expected to strengthen.”

“It surely will-our love deepens with time.”

Weisz pretended to write. “I rather like that.”

“Actually, it’s the Serbs we love, you can’t do business with the Croats, they’re headed directly for Mussolini’s kennel.”

“They don’t like each other, down there, it’s in their blood.”

“Isn’t it. And, incidentally, if you should hear something about that, Croatian statehood, a word from you would be very much appreciated.”

“You’ll be the first to know. In any event, would you like to elaborate on the official statement? Not for attribution, of course. ‘A senior official says…’”

“Weisz, please, my hands are tied. France supports the change, and every word in the statement was hammered out of steel. Would you care for a coffee? I’ll have it brought up.”

“Thanks, no. I’ll use the Nazi background, without using the word.”

“It doesn’t come from me.”

“Of course not,” Weisz said.

Devoisin shifted the conversation-he was soon off to Saint-Moritz for a week of skiing, had Weisz seen the new Picasso show at Rosenberg’s, what did he think about it. Weisz’s internal clock was efficient: fifteen minutes, then he had “to get back to the office.”

“Don’t be such a stranger,” Devoisin said. “It’s always good to see you.” He had, Weisz thought, a truly magnificent smile.

12 February. The request-it was an order, of course-arrived as a telephone message in his mailbox at the office. The secretary who’d taken the message gave him a certain look when he came in that morning. So what’s all this? Not that he would tell her, not that she had any business asking, and it was only a momentary look, but a longish, concentrated sort of a moment. And she watched him as he read it-his presence required at Room 10, at the Surete Nationale, at eight the following morning. What did she think, that he would tremble? Break out in a cold sweat?

He did neither, but he felt it, in the pit of the stomach. The Surete was the national security police-what did they want? He put the slip of paper in his pocket, and, one foot in front of the other, got through his day. Later that morning, he made up a reason to stop by Delahanty’s office. Had the secretary told him? But Delahanty said nothing, and acted as he always did. Did he? Or was there, something? Leaving early for lunch, he called Salamone from a pay phone in a cafe, but Salamone was at work, and, beyond “Well, be careful,” couldn’t say much. That night, he took Veronique to the ballet-balcony seats, but they could see-and for supper afterward. Veronique was attentive, bright and talkative, and one didn’t ask men what was wrong. They hadn’t talked to her, had they? He considered asking, but the right moment never came. Walking home, it wouldn’t leave him alone; he made up questions, tried to answer them, then tried again.

At ten of eight the next morning, he walked up the avenue de Marigny to the Interior Ministry on the rue des Saussaies. Massive and gray, the building stretched to the horizon and rose above him; here lived the little gods in little rooms, the gods of emigre fate, who could have you put on a train, back to wherever it was, back to whatever awaited you.

A clerk led him to Room 10-a long table, a few chairs, a hissing steam radiator, a high window behind a grille. A powerful presence, in Room 10: the smell of cooked paint and stale cigarette smoke, but mostly the smell of sweat, like a gymnasium. They made him wait, of course, it was 9:20 before they showed up, dossiers in hand. There was something about the young one, in his twenties, Weisz thought, that suggested the word probationary. The older one was a cop, grizzled and slumped, with eyes that had seen everything.

Formal and correct, they introduced themselves and spread their dossiers out. Inspector Pompon, the younger one, his boiled white shirt gleaming like the sun, led the interrogation, and wrote out Weisz’s answers on a printed form. After sifting through the particulars, date of birth, address, employment, arrival in France-all of that from the dossier-he asked Weisz if he’d known Enrico Bottini.

“Yes, we were acquainted.”

“Good friends?”

“Friends, I would say.”

“Did you ever meet his paramour, Madame LaCroix?”

“No.”

“Perhaps he spoke of her.”

“Not to me.”

“Do you know, Monsieur Weisz, why you are here today?”

“In fact, I don’t know.”

“This investigation would normally be conducted by the local Prefecture, but we have interested ourselves in it because it involves the family of an individual who serves in the national government. So, we are concerned with the, ah, political implications. Of the murder/suicide. Is that clear?”

Weisz said it was. And it was, though French was not his native language, and answering questions at the Surete was not the same as chatting with Devoisin or telling Veronique he liked her perfume. Fortunately, Pompon took considerable pleasure in the sound of his own voice, mellow and precise, and that slowed him down to a point where Weisz, working hard, could pretty much understand every word.

Pompon put Weisz’s dossier aside, opened another, and hunted around for what he wanted. Weisz could see the impression of an official stamp, made with a red ink pad, at the upper corner of each page. “Was your friend Bottini left-handed, Monsieur Weisz?”

Weisz thought it over. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never noticed that he was.”

“And how would you describe his political affiliation?”

“He was a political emigre, from Italy, so I would describe his politics as antifascist.”

Pompon wrote down the answer, his careful hand the product of a school system that spent endless hours on penmanship. “Of the left, would you say?”

“Of the center.”

“You discussed politics?”

“In a general way, when it came up.”

“Have you heard of a newspaper, a clandestine publication, that is called Liberazione ?”

“Yes. An opposition newspaper distributed in Italy.”

“Have you read it?”

“No, I’ve seen others, the ones published in Paris.”

“But not Liberazione. ”

“No.”

“And Bottini’s relationship to this newspaper?”

“I wouldn’t know. He never mentioned it.”

“Would you describe Bottini? What sort of man he was?”

“Very proud, sure of himself. Sensitive to slights, I would say, and conscious of his-do you say ‘standing’? His place in the scheme of things. He had been a prominent lawyer, in Turin, and was always a lawyer, even as a friend.”