Alan Furst - The Foreign Correspondent

“We survived Bottini’s murder,” Elena said. “But this…” She could not say, out loud, that it was worse, but, in its way, it was.

Sergio, the businessman from Milan, who’d come to Paris with the passage of the anti-Semitic laws, said, “For the moment, Arturo, you won’t have to worry about money.”

Salamone nodded. “I appreciate that,” he said. He left it there, but what didn’t need to be said was that their benefactor couldn’t support them all. “This may be the time,” he went on, “for all of us to consider what we want to do now. Some of us may not want to continue with this work. Think it over, carefully. Leaving for a few months won’t mean you can’t return, and leaving for a few months might be what you should do. Don’t say anything here, telephone me at home, or stop by. It may be for the best. For you, for the people who depend on you. This isn’t a question of honor, it’s practical.”

“Is Liberazione finished?” Elena said.

“Not yet,” Salamone said.

“We can be replaced,” the pharmacist said, more to himself than anybody else.

“We can,” Salamone said. “And that goes for me, too. The Giustizia e Liberta in Turin was destroyed in 1937, all of them arrested. Yet here we are today.”

“Arturo,” the Sienese professor said, “I work with a Roumanian man, at one time a ballet master in Bucharest. The point is, is that I think he’s leaving, in a few weeks, to go to America. Anyhow, that’s one possibility, the gas company. You have to go down into the cellars, sometimes you see a rat, but it’s not so bad.”

“America,” the lawyer said. “Lucky man.”

“We can’t all go to America,” the Venetian professor said.

Why not? But no one said it.

Report of Agent 207, delivered by hand on 30 April, to a clandestine OVRA station in the Tenth Arrondissement:

The Liberazione group met at midday on 29 April at the Cafe Europa, the same subjects attending as in previous reports. Subject SALAMONE reported his discharge from the Assurance du Nord company and discussed the possibility that a clandestine operative had defamed him to his employer. SALAMONE suggested that a friend of subject WEISZ had been similarly approached, and warned the group that they may have to reconsider their participation in the Liberazione publication. An editorial meeting followed, with discussion of the occupation of Albania and the state of Italo-German relations as possible subjects for the next issue.

The following morning, with a hesitant spring day, the real Surete was back in Weisz’s life. The message came this time, thank heaven, to the Dauphine, and not to Reuters, said simply, “Please contact me immediately,” had a telephone number, and was signed “Monsieur,” not “Inspector,” Pompon. Looking up from the slip of paper, he said to Madame Rigaud, on the other side of the reception desk, “A friend,” as though he needed to explain the message. She shrugged. One has friends, they telephone. For your room rent, as long as you pay it, we take your messages.

He’d worried about her, lately. It wasn’t that she’d stopped being nice to him, just, lately, not quite so warm. Was this simply another Gallic shift of mood, common enough in this moody city, or something more? There had always been, in her demeanor, a night visit on the horizon. She was playful, but she’d let him know that her black dress could, at some point, be removed, and that beneath it lay a lovely treat for a good boy like him. This bothered Weisz, the first few weeks of his tenancy-what if something went wrong? Was lovemaking a covert condition of room rental?

But that wasn’t true, she simply liked to flirt with him, to tease him into the bawdy landlady fantasy, and, in time, he began to relax and enjoy it. She was hatchet-faced, hatchet-minded, and henna-dyed, but the accidental brush or bump- “Oh pardon, Monsieur Weisz!” -revealed the real Madame Rigaud, curved and firm, and all for him. Eventually.

That was, the last week or so, gone. Where did it go?

On the way to the Metro, he stopped at a post office and telephoned Pompon, who suggested a meeting at nine the following morning, at a cafe across from the Opera-the lobby floor of the Grand Hotel-and conveniently close to the Reuters office. These arrangements were, oh no, considerate, and, uh-oh, thoughtful, and led to one more day of trying to work while fighting off the urge to speculate. Britain and France Offer Guarantees to Greece: calls to Devoisin at the Quai d’Orsay, then to other sources, swimming deeper in the tidal pools of French diplomacy, as well as contact with the Greek embassy, and the editor of an emigre Greek newspaper-the Paris side of the news.

Weisz worked hard. Worked for Delahanty, to show how truly crucial he was to the Reuters effort, worked for Christa, so he wouldn’t be driving a delivery van when she came to Paris, worked for the giellisti -the paper was on the edge of mortality and losing his job might very well be the last straw. And for his own pride-not money, pride.

A long night. And then, the cafe meeting, and a topic he should have, he realized, foreseen. “We have come into possession of a document,” Pompon said, “originally mailed to the Foreign Ministry. A document that should be made public. Not directly, but in a covert manner, in, perhaps, a clandestine newspaper.”

Oh?

“It contains information that the newspaper Liberazione mentioned, as rumor, in its last issue, but that was rumor, and what we’ve got our hands on now is specific. Very specific. Of course we know you have contact with these emigres, and someone like you, in your position, would be a realistic source for such information.”

Maybe.

“The document reveals German penetration of the Italian security system, a massive penetration, in the hundreds, and revealing it could create antagonism toward Germany, toward these sorts of tactics, which are dangerous to any state. The rumor, as published in Liberazione, was provocative, but the actual list, now that could really cause problems.” Did Weisz see what he was getting at?

Well-what the French called un petit oui, a little yes -yes.

“I have a copy of the document with me, Monsieur Weisz, would you care to see it?”

Ah, naturally.

Pompon unbuckled his briefcase and withdrew the pages, folded so that they would fit into an envelope, and handed them to Weisz. It wasn’t the list he’d typed, but a precise copy. He unfolded the pages and pretended to study them; at first puzzled, then interested, finally fascinated.

Pompon smiled-the pantomime had evidently worked. “Quite a coup for Liberazione, no? To publish the real evidence?”

He certainly thought so. But…

But?

The present condition of that journal was uncertain. Some members of the editorial board had come under pressure-he’d heard that the paper might not survive.

Pressure?

Lost jobs, harassment by fascist agents.

A silent Pompon stared at him. Amid tables of chattering Parisians, who’d been shopping at the nearby Galeries Lafayette, hotel guests with guidebooks, a pair of newlyweds from the provinces, arguing about money. All in clouds of smoke and perfume. Waiters flew past-who on earth was ordering eclairs at this time of the morning?

Weisz waited, but the inspector did not bite. Or maybe bit in some way that Weisz could not observe. “Fascist agents” pestering emigres was not the subject for today, the subject for today was inducing a resistance organization to do a little job for him. Or for the Foreign Ministry, or God only knew who. That other business, a different department handled that, down the hall, one flight up, and who’d want their inquisitive snouts poking into his carefully tended emigre garden? Not Pompon.