Alan Furst - Red Gold

He sat in the comforting darkness, amid the coughs and the steady whirr of the projector, pretending to wonder what to do. He knew, of course. He just kept telling himself he was a fool. Not a realist, not shrewd. The first article of faith in French society: il faut se defendre. Gospel. You must take care of yourself, first and foremost. Because, if you don’t, nobody else will. Marie-Claire had baited him, telling him about her friend who worked for de Gaulle. Maybe if she hadn’t said anything-no, that wasn’t true. He would have found another way. On the screen, young Maurice, too shy to reveal his love, leaves a bouquet of wildflowers on the doorstep. What’s this? The milkman’s donkey. Oh no, he’s eating them!

How had they found out about de la Barre? Probably interrogated the passengers after the ship burned in the harbor. One of de la Barre’s fugitives, papers a little wrong, a forced confession. Casson looked at his watch. Twenty minutes more, he might as well see how it ended.

Why me?

He didn’t know. It didn’t have to be that way-here was Lamy, offering him a way out. A nice little job, soon enough, for Monsieur Marin of the Hotel du Commerce.

The final shot, a beach in the moonlight. Not so bad, he thought. Long white waves rolling into the shore, breaking gently on the beach.

The movie theatre had a telephone; he called Marie-Claire.

She met him at a cafe, just after five. Bruno was back, she explained, they were having dinner at nine. Celebrating his victory. From now on, German officers, crooked bureaucrats, butter dealers, any of the suddenly rich, would be able to buy an Alfa Romeo.

Casson ordered Marie-Claire her customary Martini Rouge, with lemon. “You don’t seem in the mood for a celebration.”

“I’m not. It’s beginning to bother me, all this.” She made a face he knew all too well.

“He is what he is,” Casson said, sympathetic.

“Yes, he is.” She paused a moment. “Our part of the world, up in Passy, is coming apart, Jean-Claude. That’s really what’s going on. Half of my friends listen to de Gaulle on the radio, the other half keep portraits of Petain on the piano. Somehow, Bruno and I wound up on different sides.”

“That’s not so good.”

She looked sorrowful. “And it’s not just the couples, it’s everywhere, even in the same family-between sisters, between fathers and sons. It’s terrible, Jean-Claude. Terrible.”

“I know,” Casson said. “Marie-Claire, I would like to talk to the friend you mentioned. The one who has ties to the French in London.”

“Did I tell you who it was?”

“No.”

She gave him the look that meant I know you too well, Jean-Claude, you’re not going to like this. “It’s Jacques Gueze,” she said.

“Oh no.”

“That’s who it is.”

Casson knew him, had sat across from him at a dinner party back in the old days. After that, a handshake two or three times at some grande affaire. Casson hated him. Short and wide, prosperously fat, with thick glasses and tight, curly hair. He floated on waves of amour propre-boundless conceit, in measures rare even in France. He described himself as an ethnologist, no, there was more to it than that, it was better than that. Socio-ethnologist? Psycho-ethnologist? Anyhow, a hyphen. Now he remembered- gods, something about gods. He’d written a book about them.

“So,” Marie-Claire said, one eyebrow raised. “That’s it for you and the resistance?”

“Jacques Gueze? Did you think he was telling the truth?”

“Yes. I believed him.”

“All the time trying to get you in bed.”

“Trying hard. Puffed himself up like a pigeon, as I think I told you, but I declined. It seemed to me he would probably fuck like a pigeon.”

Casson laughed. “All right,” he said, a sigh in his voice. “Can you let him know?”

“Let him know what?”

“That I want to speak with him. You can say ‘confidentially.’ How can de Gaulle tolerate him?”

“De Gaulle does not exactly undervalue himself, Jean-Claude. I don’t know, but to him Jacques Gueze may seem perfectly normal.”

A message was left at the hotel the following day, a meeting at 8:20 by the St.-Paul Metro station. “We will go to dinner,” Gueze announced. “To Heininger. A choucroute, I think, for this weather.”

Casson was horrified. “I might see people who know me,” he said. “Maybe not the best idea.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Gueze said. “You’re with me.” The idea of doing without his choucroute was beneath consideration.

They walked a few blocks toward the place Bastille, to the Brasserie Heininger. Famous, infamous, a vast marble palace, glowing wood, golden light, waiters in fancy whiskers and green aprons, and scandale, as fragrant in the air as the grilled sausage.

“Table fourteen, jeune homme,” Gueze said to Papa Heininger, not at all a “young man,” who accepted the courteously rude appellation with a genial nod. Of course it was available, held nightly for customers powerful enough to know about it. Table fourteen- a small hole in the mirrored panel where an assassin had fired a machine gun on a spring evening when the Bulgarian headwaiter was murdered in the ladies’ WC. The table where an aristocratic Englishwoman had once recruited Russian spies. The table where, in the first months of the Occupation, the companion of a German naval officer had taken to shooting peas at other diners, using a rolled-up carte des vins as a blowpipe. The table where, a year earlier, Casson-in the last days of life as himself-had dined with a German film executive and his friends.

A waiter appeared, Gueze rubbed his hands. “Choucroute, choucroute,” he said with a smile. “Beer, do you think?” he asked Casson.

“All right.”

“Alsatian,” Gueze said to the waiter. “Dark. Two right away, then two more-keep an eye on us and see when we’re ready.”

Casson looked around the room-a number of Germans in uniform, and at least two people he knew, both of them very busy talking and eating.

“So then,” Gueze said. “Marie-Claire tells me you’re thinking of joining up with us. Les fous de Grand Charles.” He laughed merrily at the name-Big Charlie’s lunatics.

“Maybe,” Casson said. “I’m not sure what I could do.”

“Don’t worry about that. There’s plenty to go around.” A small cloud crossed his face. “You don’t want to go to London, do you?”

“No, it hadn’t occurred to me.”

The cloud vanished. “Good, good. People show up at the office, they all want the big desk. I was back in August-a real circus. Where we need help, of course, is right here.”

“What kind of help do you need?”

“As a government in exile, we’ve had to start from the beginning. That includes what we call the BCRA-Bureau Centrale de Renseignements et d’Action. Essentially, we’re de Gaulle’s intelligence service. The money comes from the British, along with lots of advice, most of it useless, and sometimes an order, which we usually ignore.”

“And the Americans?”

“A sore point. The people in the State Department don’t like the general. Nothing new there, all sorts of people don’t like him.”

Gueze turned gloomy for a moment-de Gaulle’s personality didn’t make his life any easier-then smiled. “In May of ’40, when de Gaulle went up to Belgium, Weygand got so mad at him he threw him out! Threatened to have him arrested if he didn’t leave the front lines.” Gueze paused to enjoy the scene. “But all for the best, all for the best. We’re rid of that now, it’s in the past. What we are, my friend, is the future.”

The waiter arrived, carrying a tray with two glasses of beer, dark brown, almost black, a thin layer of mocha-colored foam on top. “Ah-ha,” Gueze sang out. “La bonne biere. ” The good beer-real, honest, ancient, like us peasant French. Gueze beamed at the idea, pleased with himself. Even so, Casson thought, he’s no fool.