Alan Furst: The Foreign Correspondent

“It’s your instinct we need, Carlo. Ideas, insights. We know we’ll have to stand in for you, day to day.”

“But not when it comes to the great moment, Arturo. That’s all mine.”

“That’s all yours,” Salamone said. “But, kidding aside, it’s yes?” Weisz smiled. “Do you suppose they have a Strega here?”

“Let’s ask,” Salamone said.

What they had was cognac, and they settled for that.

Weisz tried for the pleasant day, proving to himself that the change in his life didn’t affect him all that much. The three-course lunch, celeri remoulade, veal a la Normande, tarte Tatin, was consumed-some of it, anyhow-and the waiter’s silent query ignored, but for a generous tip inspired by guilt. Brooding, he passed up his regular cafe and had coffee elsewhere, sitting next to a table of German tourists with cameras and guidebooks. Rather quiet and sober German tourists, it seemed to him. And he did, that evening, see Veronique, at her art-laden apartment in the Seventh. Here he did better; the ritual preliminaries pursued with greater urgency, and at greater length, than usual-he knew what she liked, she knew what he liked, so they had a good time. Afterward, he smoked a Gitane and watched her as she sat at her dressing table, her small breasts rising and falling as she brushed her hair. “Your life goes well?” she said, catching his eye in the mirror. “Right now it does.” This she acknowledged with a warm smile, affectionate and reassured, her Frenchwoman’s soul demanding that he find consolation in making love to her.

Leaving at midnight, he did not go directly home-a fifteen-minute walk-but found a taxi at the Metro rank, went to Salamone’s apartment, in Montparnasse, and had the driver wait. The transfer of the editorial office of Liberazione -boxes of five-by-eight index cards, stacks of file folders-required two trips up and down the stairs at Salamone’s, and two more at the Dauphine. Weisz took it all to the office he’d made for himself in his second room; a small desk in front of the window, a 1931 Olivetti typewriter, a handsome oak filing cabinet that had once served in the office of a grain brokerage. When the moving was done, the boxes and folders covered the top of the desk, with one stack on the floor. So, there it was, paper.

Paging through a few back copies, he found the last article he’d written, a piece about Spain, for the first of the two November issues. The story was based on an editorial in the International Brigade’s weekly paper, Our Fight. With so many Communists and anarchists in the ranks of the brigade, the conventions of military discipline were often viewed as contrary to egalitarian ideals. For instance, saluting. Weisz’s story had a nice ironic flair to it-we must find a way, he told his readers in Italy, to cooperate, to work together against fascismo. But this was not always so easy, just have a look at what goes on in the Spanish war, even amidst the ferocious combat. The writer in Our Fight justified saluting as “the military way of saying hello.” Pointed out that the salute was not undemocratic, that, after all, two officers of equal rank would salute each other, that “a salute is a sign that a comrade who was an egocentric individualist in private life has adjusted himself to the collective way of getting things done.” Weisz’s article was also a gentle dig at one of Liberazione ‘s competitors, the Communist L’Unita, printed in Lugano and widely distributed. Our crowd, he implied, we democratic liberals, social democrats, humanist centrists, is not, thank heaven, afflicted with all that doctrinal agony over symbols.

His article had been, he hoped, entertaining, and that was crucial. It was meant to offer a respite from daily fascist life-a much-needed respite. For instance, the Mussolini government issued a daily communique on the radio, and anyone within hearing had to stand up during the broadcast. That was the law. So, if you were in a cafe, or at work, or even in your own home, you stood, and woe betide those who didn’t.

Now, what did he have for January. The lawyer from Rome was writing the obituary for Bottini. That had to be, who would murder an honorable man? Weisz anticipated that Salamone would do a revision, and so would he. There was always a digest of world news-news which was withheld or slanted in Italy, where journalism had been defined, by law, as a supportive adjunct to national policy. The digest, taken from French and British papers, and particularly from the BBC, was the preserve of the chemist from Milan, and was always factual and precise. They had also, always tried to have, a cartoon, usually drawn by an emigre employed by the Parisian Le Journal. For January, here was baby Mussolini, in a particularly frilly baby hat, seated on Hitler’s knee, and being fed a heaping spoonful of swastikas. “More, more!” cries baby Mussolini.

The giellisti wanted, more than anything, to drive a wedge between Hitler and Mussolini, because Hitler meant to bring Italy into the coming war, on his side, despite the fact that Mussolini himself had declared that Italy would not be prepared to go to war until 1943.

Fine, what else?

Salamone had told him that the professor from Siena was working on a piece, based on a smuggled letter, that described the behavior of a police chief and a fascist gang in a town in the Abruzzi. The point of the article was to name the police chief, who would quickly hear of his new fame once the paper reached Italy. We know who you are, and we know what you’re doing, and you will be held accountable when the time comes. Also, when you’re out in the street, watch your back. This exposure would make him angry, but might serve to make him think twice about what he was doing.

So then: Bottini, digest, cartoon, police chief, a few odds and ends, maybe a political-theory piece-Weisz would make sure it was brief-and an editorial, always passionate and operatic, which pretty much always said the same thing: resist in small ways, this can’t go on, the tables will turn. The great Italian liberal heroes, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour, to be quoted. And always, in boldface across the top of the front page: “Please don’t destroy this newspaper, give it to a trusted friend, or leave it where others may read it.”

Weisz had four pages to fill, the paper printed on a single folded sheet. Too bad, he thought, they couldn’t run advertisements. After a long, hard day of political dissent, discriminating giellisti like to dine at Lorenzo’s. No, that was not to be, the remaining space was his, and the subject was obvious, Colonel Ferrara, but…But what? He wasn’t sure. Somewhere in this idea he sensed a ticking bomb. Where? He couldn’t find it. The Colonel Ferrara story was not new, he’d been written about, in Italian and French newspapers, in 1935, and the story had no doubt been picked up by the wire services. He would appear in the Reuters story, which would likely be rewritten as human interest-the wire services, and the British press in general, did not take sides in the Spanish war.

His story in Liberazione would be nothing like that. Written under his pseudonym, Palestrina-they all used composers as pen names-it would be heroic, inspiring, emotional. The infantryman’s hat, the pistol on a belt, the shouting across the river. Mussolini had sent seventy-five thousand Italian troops to Spain, a hundred Caproni bombers, Whippet tanks, field guns, ammunition, ships-everything. A national shame; they’d said it before, they would say it again. But here was one officer, and a hundred and twenty-two men, who had the courage to fight for their ideals. And the distributors would make sure to leave copies in the towns by the military bases.