Alan Furst: The Foreign Correspondent

So this had to be written, and Ferrara himself had asked only that his future destination not be named. Easy enough to do that. Better -the reader might well imagine that he was off to fight somewhere else, wherever brave men and women were standing up against tyranny. Otherwise, Weisz asked himself, what could go wrong? The Italian secret services surely knew that Ferrara was in Spain, knew his real name, knew everything about him. And Weisz would make sure that this article would say nothing that could help them. And, in fact, these days, what wasn’t a ticking bomb? Very well then, he had his assignment and, that settled, he returned to the file folders.

Carlo Weisz sat at his desk, his jacket hung over the back of the chair; he wore a pale gray shirt with a thin red stripe, sleeves rolled up, top button undone, tie pulled down. A pack of Gitanes sat next to an ashtray from the San Marco, the artists’ and conspirators’ cafe in Trieste. His radio was on, its dial glowing amber, tuned to a Duke Ellington performance recorded at a Harlem nightclub, and the room was dark, lit only by a small desk lamp with a green glass shade. He leaned back in the chair for a moment, rubbed his eyes, then ran his fingers back through his hair to get it off his forehead. And if, by chance, he was watched from an apartment across the street-the shutters were open-it would never occur to the watcher that this was a scene for a newsreel, or a page in some Warriors of the Twentieth Century picture book.

From Weisz, a quiet sigh as he went back to work. He was, he realized, for the first time since the meeting with Salamone, at peace. Very odd, really, wasn’t it. Because all he was doing was reading.

10 January, 1939. Since midnight, a slow, steady snow had fallen over Paris. At three-thirty in the morning, Weisz stood at the corner of the rue Dauphine and the quay that ran along the left bank of the Seine. He peered into the darkness, took off his gloves, and tried to rub a little warmth into his hands. A windless night; the snow floated down over the white street and the black river. Weisz squinted, looking up the quay, but he couldn’t see a thing, then looked at his watch. 3:34. Late, not like Salamone, maybe… But before he could concentrate on the possible catastrophes, he saw a pair of dim headlights, wobbling as the car skidded over the slippery cobbles.

Salamone’s cranky old Renault slid sideways and stopped as Weisz waved. He had to pull hard to open the door as Salamone leaned over and pushed from the other side. “Ohh, fuck this,” Salamone said. The car was cold, its heater had not worked for a long time, and the efforts of its single windshield wiper did little to clear the window. On the backseat, a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.

The car bumped and skidded along the quay, past the great dark bulk of Notre Dame, traveling east by the river to the Pont d’Austerlitz, the bridge that crossed to the right bank of the Seine. As the window fogged up, Salamone bent forward over the wheel. “I can see nothing,” he said.

Weisz reached over and cleared a small circle with his glove. “Better?”

“ Mannaggia! ” Salamone said, meaning damn the snow and the car and everything else. “Here, try this.” He fumbled in his overcoat pocket and produced a large white handkerchief. The Renault had waited patiently for this moment, when the driver had one hand on its wheel, and spun slowly in a circle as Salamone swore and stomped on the brake. The Renault ignored this, completed a second pirouette, then came to rest with its back wheels in a mound of snow that had drifted up against the streetlamp at the end of the bridge.

Salamone put his handkerchief away, started the stalled car, and shifted into first gear. The wheels spun as the engine whined; once, twice, again. “Wait, stop, I’ll push it,” Weisz said. He used his shoulder to open the door, took one step outside, then his feet flew up and he landed hard.

“Carlo?”

Weisz fought his way upright, and, taking baby steps, circled the car and put both hands on the trunk. “Try it now.”

The engine raced as the wheels spun themselves deeper into the grooves they’d built. “Not so much gas!”

The window squeaked as Salamone cranked it down. “What?”

“Gently, gently.”

“Allright.”

Weisz pushed again. There would be no Liberazione this week.

From a boulangerie on the corner, a baker appeared, in white undershirt, white apron, and a white cloth knotted at the corners that covered his head. The wood-burning ovens of the bakeries had to be fired up at three in the morning, Weisz could smell the bread.

The baker stood next to Weisz and said, “Now we do it.” After three or four tries, the Renault shot forward, into the path of a taxi, the only other car on the streets of Paris that morning. The driver swerved away, blew his horn, shouted, “What the hell’s the matter with you?” and circled his index finger beside his temple. The taxi slid on the snow, then drove across the bridge as Weisz thanked the baker.

Salamone crossed the river, going five miles an hour, then turned left and right on the side streets until he found the rue Parrot, close by the Gare de Lyon railroad station. Here, for travelers and railroad workers, was an all-night cafe. Salamone left the car and walked to the glassed-in terrace. Seated alone at a table by the door, a short man in the uniform and hat of a conductor on the Italian railways was reading a newspaper and drinking an aperitif. Salamone tapped on the glass, the man looked up, finished his drink, left money on the table, and followed Salamone to the car. Maybe an inch or two over five feet tall, he wore a thick, trainman’s mustache, and his belly was big enough to spread the uniform jacket between the buttons. He climbed into the backseat and shook hands with Weisz. “Nice weather, eh?” he said, brushing the snow off his shoulders.

Weisz said it was.

“All the way up from Dijon, it’s doing this.”

Salamone got into the front seat. “Our friend here works on the seven-fifteen to Genoa,” he said to Weisz. Then to the conductor: “That’s for you.” He nodded toward the parcel.

The conductor lifted it up. “What’s in here?”

“Galley trays, for the Linotype. Also money, for Matteo. And the newspaper, with a makeup sheet.”

“Christ, must be a lot of money, you can look for me in Mexico.”

“It’s the trays, they’re zinc.”

“Can’t he get trays?”

“He says not.”

The conductor shrugged.

“How’s life at home?” Salamone said.

“It doesn’t get any better. Confidenti everywhere, you have to watch what you say.”

“You stay at the cafe until seven?” Weisz said.

“Not me. I go to the first-class wagon-lit and have a snooze.”

“Well, we better be going,” Salamone said.

The conductor got out, carrying the parcel with both hands. “Please be careful,” Salamone said. “Watch your step.”

“I watch it all,” the conductor said. He grinned at the idea and shuffled off through the snow.

Salamone put the car into gear. “He’s good at it. And you can’t ever tell, about that. The one before him lasted a month.”

“What happened to him?”

“Prison,” Salamone said. “In Genoa. We try and send a little something to the family.”

“Costly, this business we’re in,” Weisz said.

Salamone knew he meant more than money, and shook his head in sorrow. “Most of it I keep to myself, I don’t tell the committee more than they need to know. Of course, I’ll fill you in as we go along, just in case, if you see what I mean.”

20 January. It stayed cold and gray, the snow mostly gone, except for soot-blackened mounds that clogged the gutters. Weisz went to the Reuters bureau at ten, up near the Opera Metro station, close by the Associated Press, the French Havas bureau, and the American Express office. He stopped there first. “Mail for Monsieur Johnson?” There was one letter-only a few of the Paris giellisti were allowed to use the system, which was anonymous, and, they believed, not yet known to the OVRA spies in Paris. Weisz showed the Johnson carte d’identite, collected the letter-return address in Bari-then went up to the bureau.