Alan Furst - The Foreign Correspondent

As Weisz hurried toward the Metro, he was excited, and elated. It had worked, Salamone had been right. Zagreb, he thought, Croatia.

Of course.

5 JUNE, 1939.

Carlo Weisz stared out the office window at the Parisian spring-the chestnut and lime trees in bright new leaf, the women in cotton frocks, the sky deep blue, with cloud castles towering over the city. Meanwhile, according to the melancholy papers stacked in his in box, it was also spring for the diplomats-French and British swains sang to the Soviet maiden in the enchanted forest, but she only giggled and ran away. Toward Germany.

So life went-forever, it seemed to Weisz-until the tedious drumbeat of conference and treaty was broken, suddenly, by real tragedy. Today, it was the story of the SS St. Louis, which had sailed from Hamburg with 936 German Jews in flight from the Reich, but could find no harbor. Barred from landing in Cuba, the refugees appealed to President Roosevelt, who first said yes, then said sorry. Political forces in America were violently set against Jewish immigration. So, the previous day, a final statement: the St. Louis, waiting at sea between Cuba and Florida, would not be allowed to dock. Now she would have to return to Germany.

In the Paris office, they’d elicited a French reaction, but the Quai d’Orsay, in six paragraphs, had no comment. Which left Weisz staring out the window, unwilling to work, his mind in Berlin, his heart untouched by the June day.

Two days earlier, when he’d returned from the boulevard de Strasbourg to the Reuters office, he’d immediately telephoned Salamone and told him what he’d done. “Someone in that office has connections with Croatia,” he’d said, and described the envelopes. “Which suggests that OVRA may be using Ustasha operatives.” They both knew what that meant: Italy and Croatia had a long, complicated, and often secret relationship, the Croatians seeking Catholic kinship in their endless conflict with the Orthodox Serbs. The Ustasha was a terrorist group-or nationalist, or insurgent; in the Balkans, it depended on who was speaking-sometimes used by the Italian secret services. Dedicated to an independent Croatia, the Ustasha had possibly been involved in the 1934 assassination of King Alexander, in Marseilles, and other terrorist actions, notably the bombing of passenger trains.

“This is not good news,” Salamone had said, his voice grim.

“No, but it is news. News for the Surete. And there is reason to suspect that funds may be moving through a French bank in Marseilles, a bank that also operates in Croatia. On that, they’ll bite.”

Salamone had volunteered to approach the Surete, but Weisz told him not to bother-he was already involved with them, he was the logical informant. “But,” he’d said, “we’ll keep this between the two of us.” He’d then asked Salamone if the surveillance had produced anything further. Only a sighting, Salamone said, by Sergio, of the man in the hat with the green feather. Weisz advised Salamone to call it off; they had enough. “And the next time we call a meeting,” he’d said, “it will be an editorial conference, for the next Liberazione. ”

That was more than optimistic, he thought, staring out the window, but first he would have to telephone Pompon. He considered doing it, almost reaching for the number, then, once again, put it off. He’d do it later, now he had to work. Taking the first paper off the stack, he found a release from the Soviet embassy in Paris, regarding continuing negotiations with the British and French for alliance in case of a German attack. A long list of potential victims was named, with Poland first and foremost. A visit to the Quai d’Orsay? Maybe. He’d have to ask Delahanty.

He put the release aside. Next up, a cable from Eric Wolf that had come in an hour earlier. Propaganda Ministry Reports Spy Network Broken in Berlin. It was a lean story: an unspecified number of arrests, some at government ministries, of German citizens who’d passed information to foreign operatives. The names had been withheld, investigation continued.

Weisz went cold. Could he telephone? Cable? No, that might only make it worse. Could he telephone Alma Bruck? No, she might be involved. Christa had only said she was a friend. Eric Wolf, then. Maybe. He could, he felt, ask for one favor, but no more than that. Wolf already had his hands full, and he hadn’t been all that pleased to be involved with a colleague’s clandestine love affairs. And, Weisz forced himself to admit, Wolf had likely done all he could-surely he’d asked for names, but they had been “withheld.” No, he had to keep Wolf in reserve. Because, if by some miracle she survived this, if by some miracle this was a different spy network, he was going to get her out of Germany, and for that he would require at least one communication.

Yet he couldn’t make himself give up. As his hands pressed against the cable, flat on his desk, his mind flew from one possibility to the next, around and around, until the secretary came in with another cable. Germany Proposes Alliance Negotiations with the USSR.

She’s gone. There’s nothing you can do. Sick at heart, he tried to work.

By evening, it was worse. The images of Christa, in the hands of the Gestapo, would not leave him. Unable to eat, he was early for his eight o’clock work at the Tournon. But Ferrara wasn’t there, the room was locked. Weisz went back downstairs and asked the clerk if Monsieur Kolb was in his room, but was told there was no such person at the hotel. That was, Weisz thought, typical-Kolb appeared from nowhere and returned to the same place. He was likely staying at the Tournon, but evidently using a different name. Weisz went out onto the rue de Tournon, crossed the street to the Jardin du Luxembourg, sat on a bench, and smoked cigarette after cigarette, mocked by the soft spring evening and, it seemed to him, every pair of lovers in the city. At eight-twenty, he returned to the hotel, and found Ferrara waiting for him.

This town, that river, the heroic corporal who picked up a hand grenade from the bottom of a ditch and threw it back. What helped Weisz, that night, was the automatic process of the work, typing Ferrara’s words, editing as he went along. Then, a few minutes after ten, Kolb appeared. “We’ll finish early tonight,” he said. “All going well?”

“We’re getting close to the end,” Ferrara said. “There’s the time at the internment camp, then it’s finished. I’d guess you won’t want us to write about my time in Paris.”

From Kolb, a wolfish grin. “No, we’ll just leave that to the reader’s imagination.” Then, to Weisz: “You and I will be going up to the Sixteenth. There’s someone in town who wants to meet you.”

From the way Kolb said it, Weisz didn’t really have a choice.

The apartment was in Passy, the aristocratic heart of the tres snob Sixteenth Arrondissement. Red and gold, in the best Parisian tradition, it was all heavy drapes and fabrics, paneled with boiserie, one wall a bookcase. A darkened room, lit only by a single Oriental lamp. The concierge had telephoned their arrival from her loge, so, when Kolb opened the elevator gate, Mr. Brown was waiting by the door. “Ah, hello, glad you could come!” A cheery call and a rather different Mr. Brown-no more the amiably rumpled gent with pipe and slipover sweater. Instead, a new suit, expensive and dark blue. As Weisz shook hands and entered the apartment, he saw why. “This is Mr. Lane,” Brown said.

A tall, spindly man unfolded himself from a low sofa, gripped Weisz’s hand, and said, “Mr. Weisz, a pleasure to meet you.” Crisp white shirt, solemn tie, perfectly tailored suit, the British upper class resplendent, with steel-colored hair and thin, professionally hesitant smile. But the eyes, deep-set, webbed with deep lines, were worried eyes, almost apprehensive, that came close to contradicting all the signals of his status. “Come sit with me,” he said to Weisz, indicating the other end of the sofa. Then: “Brown? Can you get us a scotch? As it comes?”