Alan Furst - The Foreign Correspondent

As the envelope disappeared into a pocket, the commandant said, “Shall I have him brought here?” Kolb said he’d prefer to go and look for him, and a sergeant was summoned. It took a long time to find Ferrara-the camp stretched out endlessly, a flat wasteland of sand and rock, open to a cutting wind. There were no women to be seen, evidently they were held elsewhere. The internees were of every age, hollow-cheeked-obviously underfed, unshaven, their clothes in tatters. Some wore blankets, against the cold, some stood in groups, others sat on the ground, playing cards, using torn strips of newspaper marked with pencil. Behind one of the barracks, a sagging net, tied to two poles, hung half on the ground. Maybe they’d had a volleyball, Kolb thought, months earlier, when they were first brought here.

Wandering past the groups of internees, Kolb heard mostly Spanish, but also German, Serbo-Croatian, and Hungarian. From time to time, one of the men would ask for a cigarette, and Kolb gave away what he’d bought at the tabac, then simply held his open hands out. Sorry, no more. The sergeant was persistent. “Have you seen the man called Ferrara? An Italian?” Thus, at last he was found, sitting with a friend, leaning against the wall of a barracks. Kolb thanked the sergeant, who saluted, then headed back toward the office.

Ferrara was dressed as a civilian-a soiled jacket and trousers with ragged cuffs-his hair and beard chopped off, as though he’d done the cutting himself. But, nonetheless, he was clearly somebody, stood out from the crowd-curving scar, sharp cheekbones, eyes hooded. Kolb had been told to expect black gloves, but Ferrara’s hands were bare, the left one disfigured by the ridged skin, pink and shiny, of a badly healed burn. “Colonel Ferrara,” Kolb said, and, in French, wished him good morning.

Both men stared at him, then Ferrara said, “And you are?” His French was very slow, but correct.

“I’m called Kolb.”

Ferrara waited for more. And so?

“I wonder if we could talk for a moment. Just the two of us.”

Ferarra said something to his friend in fast Italian, then stood up.

They walked together, past clusters of men, who glanced at Kolb, then looked away. When they were alone, Ferrara turned, faced Kolb, and said, “First of all, Monsieur Kolb, you can tell me who sent you here.”

“Friends of yours, in Paris.”

“I have no friends in Paris.”

“Carlo Weisz, the Reuters journalist, considers himself your friend.”

For a time, Ferrara thought about it. “Well, maybe,” he said.

“I’ve arranged your release,” Kolb said. “You can come back to Paris with me, if you like.”

“You work for Reuters?”

“Sometimes. My job is to find people.”

“A confidential agent.”

“Something like that.”

After a moment, Ferrara said, “Paris.” Then: “Perhaps by way of Italy.” His smile was ice cold.

“No, it isn’t that,” Kolb said. “There’d be three or four of us, if it was. There’s just me. From here we go to Tarbes, then to Paris by train. I have a car, outside the gate, you can drive it if you want.”

“You said ‘arranged,’ what did that mean?”

“Money, Colonel.”

“Reuters paid for this?”

“No, Weisz and his friends. Emigres.”

“Why would they do that?”

“For politics. They want you to tell your story, they want you to be a hero against the fascists.”

Ferrara didn’t quite laugh, but he stopped walking and met Kolb’s eyes. “You’re serious, aren’t you.”

“I am. And so are they. They’ve found you a place to stay, in Paris. What kind of papers do you have?”

“An Italian passport,” Ferrara said, the irony still in his voice.

“Good. So then, let’s be going, these things work better if you move quickly.”

Ferrara shook his head. Here was a sudden turn of fate, yes, but what sort of fate? So, stay? Go? Finally, he said, “Allright, yes, why not.”

As they walked back toward the barracks, Ferrara turned and gestured to his friend, who’d been following them, and the two men spoke for a time, the friend staring at Kolb as though to memorize him. Ferrara, in the stream of Italian, mentioned Kolb’s name, and his friend repeated it. Then Ferrara went into the barracks and emerged with a bundle of clothing, tied with a string. “It’s long past being worn,” he said, “but it does for a pillow.” When they reached the car, Kolb offered him the food he’d bought. Ferrara gathered up almost all of it, except for half a bread, said, “I’ll just be a minute,” and walked back through the gate.

As it happened, Ferrara did drive the automobile, after he got a taste of Kolb behind the wheel, thus it took only twenty minutes to reach the village, and then, an hour later, they left the car at the garage and took a taxi into Tarbes. Near the station, they found a haberdashery, where Ferrara selected a suit, shirt, underwear, everything but shoes-his army boots had survived well in the camp-and Kolb paid for it. As Ferrara changed, in the back of the store, the owner said, “He was in the camp, I imagine, they often come here, if they’re lucky enough to get out.” After a moment, he said, “A disgrace, for France.”

By late afternoon, they were on the train to Paris. In the last light of day, the arid south gave way slowly to patches of snow on plowed fields, to the soft hill country of the Limousin-pollarded trees lining little roads that wound away into the distance. Invitations, Kolb thought. They spoke, now and again, about the times they lived in. Ferrara explained that he’d learned French in the camp, to pass the empty hours, and for his new life as an emigre-if the government let him stay. He’d been in Paris once before, years earlier, but Kolb could tell from his voice that he remembered it and that now, for him, it meant refuge. He was, at times, still suspicious of Kolb, but then, this was not unusual. Somehow, Kolb’s work lingered in his presence, the cast shadow of a secret life, and could, however faintly, be apprehended. “Have you really,” Ferrara said, “been sent by the-how to say, what we call the fuorusciti ?” Which meant-and it took both of them a few minutes to figure out the words-“those who have fled,” the Italian emigres’ preferred description of themselves.

“Yes. They know all about you, of course.” Surely they did, so at least that much was true, though everything else that Kolb had said was pure lies. “And that’s what they want, your story.” Anyhow, that’s what we want.

But let’s not concern ourselves with such things, Kolb thought, there would be plenty of time, later on, for the truth, better just then to watch the winter valleys, in their faded colors, as they drifted by to the rhythm of the wheels on the track.

It was just breaking dawn when they reached Paris, red streaks of light in the eastern sky, the street sweepers, old women, mostly, at work with twig brooms and water trucks. At the Gare de Lyon, Kolb found a taxi, which took them up to the Sixth Arrondissement and the Hotel Tournon, on the street of the same name.

The SIS had likely thought a long time, Kolb suspected, about where to put Ferrara. In superb accommodations? Overawe their newest pawn? Knock him senseless with luxury? With war coming, the treasury had perhaps opened its fist a little, but the Secret Intelligence Service had been starved all through the thirties, and they’d had to think hard about money-only Hitler could really open the bank, and, for the moment, though he’d snatched Czechoslovakia, it didn’t really matter all that much. Therefore, the Hotel Tournon- get him a decent room, Harry, nothing too grand. And the neighborhood was also, for their purposes, rather convenient, because Pawn Two lived there, and would be able to walk to work. Make it easy, keep them both happy, life went better that way.