Alan Furst - Red Gold

This in a week when things were not going well. He had been reprimanded by Moscow Center for the Aubervilliers raid-dear comrade. They might have moved their wireless operation back to the Urals, but they’d only been out of contact for two days and then-he suspected he was now receiving from a relay station in Sweden-then they’d let him have it. Operational rules specified a second automobile, to provide a getaway after an attack. How could he not have known that the Germans would use a chase car? Why wasn’t it spotted during surveillance?

A second car? From where? How?

They’d obviously seen the French police report, and he hadn’t sent it to them. Somebody after his job, maybe. He leaned on the table he used as a desk and closed his eyes. Just ten minutes. The BBC droned on-a lycee class in Belfort had come to school wearing Cross of Lorraine armbands, the Gaullist symbol. He could do that, out in Montreuil or Boulogne, and tell the world in leaflets, but it would never have the impact of a BBC broadcast. Above his head, the floorboards creaked as people cooked dinner and the aromas drifted down into the cellar; museau-jellied beef muzzle- and cabbage.

A knock at the door. “Comrade Weiss?”

“Yes?”

“Dinner?”

“Maybe later.”

“Comrade Somet is waiting to see you.”

“All right. Five minutes.”

What was this, he wondered. Narcisse Somet had been in party work for twenty years. A journalist, cheeks and nose colored by the broken blood vessels of the longtime drinker, eyeglasses with tinted lenses, gray hair cut en brosse. He had always worked for trade weeklies, especially those that covered the mining and metals industries. Secretly, he wrote for Humanite, at one time contributing to its most popular feature-L’Huma consistently picked more winners at the Paris racetracks than any other newspaper.

Weiss went to the door and called upstairs, Somet shuffled in a moment later.

They shook hands. Somet settled himself in a chair, coughed a few times into his fist. They made small talk for a while, then Somet said, “I’ve been contacted by Alexander Kovar.”

Casson took his nightly meal at a small cafe on the place Maillart. The plane trees on the square were bare now, and the branches dripped, but it was at least something to look at. He ate at a table by the front window, a newspaper folded beside his plate. He’d run out of ration coupons for meat or fish, which left him with the only nonrationed dish on the menu, soup. Thin and yellowish, a few lentils, some onion, and a small piece of carrot. Served lukewarm, with a slice of coarse gray bread. The trick was to think about lentils as he used to know them, in a salad with mustard sauce and lean bacon. His father used to say, “You can’t eat dreams!” But, in a way, you could.

He turned to the entertainment section of the newspaper; reviews, ads, and a few brief news stories. Such as-FILM STAR WEDS IN SOUTH. In Villefranche, to be precise, the actress Citrine (Danielle Aubin) had married the director Rene Guillot (The Shoemaker’s Wedding, Blackbeard the Pirate). The newlyweds to honeymoon on Cap Ferrat, then, early next year, to work on Guillot’s new project, Hotel de la Mer. With a photo of the happy couple.

He felt, at that moment, not very much. A flash of sorrow, an iron band around his throat, a small voice saying what did you expect? He paid for dinner, clamped the paper beneath his arm, and headed back to the hotel. Just hope you aren’t in for a night of Wagnerian orgasms from the room next door. See? A joke. He wasn’t going to let this hurt him, he had too many other things to worry about.

It did occur to him to go back up to the little bistro on place Clichy, where he might find the girl who called herself Julie. But that was asking for trouble and he knew it. So he went home, turned the light out, crawled under the thin blanket on the bed in the unheated room, and lay there.

It doesn’t matter, he told himself, you fall in love more than once in life. You’re lucky to have had what you did. Cold. He was already wearing underwear and socks, trousers, and shirt, only one more step he could take. A week earlier, in the Ternes Metro station, he’d managed to buy an overcoat. This one in about the same condition as the one he’d pawned. Shivering, he got out of bed, took the coat down from a peg behind the door, put it on, pulled it tight around himself, and crawled back under the blanket. Not much better. Outside, the wind moaned around the corner of the building, it rained in sheets, then abated.

The first time he kissed her he’d thought she’ll never let me do this. But she did, and kissed him back, passionate, almost a little crazy. That confused him. She seemed desperate, as though she felt somebody like him could never fall for someone like her. What was she then, nineteen? On location for Night Run, down in Auxerre, in a room in the inevitable stucco hotel by the railroad station.

He undressed her, she helped, both of them desperate to get it done. Then it was his turn, and they’d stood there, staring at each other.

Married. It was the intimacy of it that stung him-how could she? With Rene Guillot? A crocodile with a winter tan and fine white hair. Famously arrogant, selfish, successful. Who no doubt courted her when he was given the director’s job for the movie that Casson had thought up and Fischfang had written-given the director’s job at the insistence of one Jean Casson.

Thanks for the movie, I’ll just take the woman you love too, as long as I’m at it. He didn’t blame Guillot, a force of nature, an homme de la gauche who swam cleverly through Parisian life and took whatever he wanted. He blamed Citrine. Bitch! Connasse!

Cold, the window rattled in the driving rain. Cold outside, cold inside. Casson rolled out of bed, tore off his overcoat, put on his jacket and shoes. The curfew was in force, he couldn’t actually go anywhere. He went down to the lobby, a gloomy nest of velveteen love seats and occasional chairs, now lit by a single ten-watt bulb in an iron floor lamp that appeared to have been built as a gallows for mice.

Another lost soul had preceded him, a tall man in a blue overcoat, who looked up from his magazine and stood when Casson entered the room. He had the face of a hound; sunken eyes, a drooping mustache. “Da Souza,” he said, handing Casson a card, “fine linens.”

On the card was the name of a large company and an address in Lisbon. After a moment da Souza said, “How are you tonight?”

“I’ve been better.”

“Not too bad, I hope.”

Casson shrugged. “It’s nothing. An histoire de coeur.”

“Oh that.”

Casson nodded.

“What did she do, go off with someone else?”

“Well, yes, that’s what she did.”

Da Souza shook his head, yes, that’s what they did, then went back to reading. After a few minutes he yawned, tossed the magazine aside, and stood up. “I’d offer to buy you a drink, but the curfew…”

“Some other time.”

Da Souza nodded, then gave Casson a gloomy smile. “Still,” he said. He meant it had all happened before and would happen again. “You might as well keep the card.”

Paris. 20 November.

Casson returned from lunch a little after three. The woman at the desk said, “Monsieur, a friend of yours came by. He’s going to wait for you at the Ternes Metro.”

He went back out, taking the rue Poncelet, head down against the sharp wind. The rain had stopped, wet leaves were plastered to the sidewalk. Halfway between the hotel and the Metro station, a van pulled up to the curb, both doors opened.

“Yes?”

“You are Marin?”

“Yes.”

“You’re to come along with us.”

There was no question as to who they were, or where they came from. Heavily built, with battered faces, one had a white scar cutting through both lips. They wore oil-grimed coveralls, and the van was marked as a Metro maintenance vehicle.