Alan Furst - Red Gold

Casson’s father had taken him to the park on Sunday afternoons. Neither of them knew what they were supposed to be doing there, but his mother insisted and so they went, sitting on a bench in the Ranelagh gardens until they were allowed back in the apartment. Once, Casson remembered, his father had stared a long time at a horse and carriage. “A noble head on that animal,” he’d said at last. “But, Jean-Claude, do not underestimate the value of his backside.”

They drank the beer, cool and thick and bitter. All around them, the brasserie was getting louder as the evening went on. “This is good,” Casson said. He paused, then, “There is something I wanted to mention, it may not be of interest, but I leave that up to you.”

Gueze raised his eyebrows.

“For some months,” Casson said, “I’ve had to live underground. During that time I came across an old friend, and he asked me to help him. The work we did was political, and covert. In the process, I had conversations with people who are involved in the direction of the Communist Party. The FTP, to be exact. With jobs maybe not so different from yours. We had several meetings, some of their views became clear over time. At the last meeting, I was told they needed weapons, thousands of them, with ammunition, and hand grenades. Would this interest you? Because, if it does, there’s more. They are willing, in return, to undertake specific operations against the Germans.”

“Interesting,” Gueze said. “No doubt about it. Tell me this, are you a believer? I don’t care if you are, I happen to be a socialist, but if you look around this restaurant, at the German uniforms, you’ll see where political divisions have gotten us.”

“No,” Casson said. “And they knew that from the beginning.”

The dinner arrived. What war? Casson thought. Warm sauerkraut, thick bacon on its rind, a pork chop. And a saucisse de Toulouse- he filled the bowl of a tiny spoon with hot mustard and ran it down the burst, blackened skin.

“Not too bad for a cold March night,” Gueze said.

Casson agreed. No, not too bad.

“Of course I can’t give you an answer straight away,” Gueze said. “This will be pawed over by a committee, but something has to be worked out. Naturally we talk to the communists in London, then wait until they wire back to Moscow for permission to blow their nose. It’s terribly slow. However, if we patch something together in Paris it’s on-the-ground, not binding, but at least something will come of it. That’s the attraction of what you’ve told me.”

Gueze picked up the empty bread basket and looked around. A waiter swept it away and returned a moment later with a full one, rounds of fresh bread piled high.

“The fact is,” Gueze said, “we are making an effort to get all the resistance movements-at the moment we count fifteen or so- going in the same direction. At least now and then.” He ate a forkful of sauerkraut, washed it down with beer. “You said you had to live underground?”

“I got into trouble with the Gestapo, June of ’41. At that time, I had some contact with the British special services.”

“Which? The people who blow things up? Or the people who steal blueprints?”

“Blow things up.”

“Well, they’re a lot easier to deal with, that much I can tell you. We do both, in one service. So, the Gestapo wants you. How badly?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“We’ll have to find out. If they’re really hunting for you, you can’t be of much use to us. One thing I should say is that if you come to work for us, we’ll pay you. Not a lot, but enough. Marie-Claire seemed to think that your existence has been, well, day-to-day.”

“It has.”

“You’ll have plenty to worry about, with us, but not that.” He went back to work on the choucroute. “She is, you know, a very attractive woman.”

“I know,” Casson said.

“Do you regret, the, ah…”

“No. We just couldn’t get along. You know how it is.”

“Oh yes. Unfortunately, she lives with that awful man.”

They ate in silence for a time. “Communists, you know,” Gueze said, “turn out to be crucial. The British have to bleed the Germans to death-they can’t absorb the number of casualties the Russians can. Their strategy is to shut down the power stations, the railroads, the phones and the telegraph, keep the important metals away, blow up the tool-and-die works. It’s not easy, because the Germans are ingenious, they wire it all back together, and they’ve learned to put things underground. But, if you’re going to deliver the explosives by hand, rather than by plane, you need the railwaymen, the telephone workers, the lathe operators. That’s the working class-labor unions, communists. And they’ve been in clandestine operations for twenty years.”

“One thing did occur to me,” Casson said. “What if we help the FTP to get arms and then they don’t do all that much. They simply wait till the end of the war. They’re armed, and well organized. They demand a share of the government-or else.”

Gueze shrugged. “That’s what we’re doing, why shouldn’t they?”

Later, Casson mentioned Helene, and the San Lorenzo. Gueze was waiting for the tarte Tatin he’d ordered. “Tell me what happened,” he said. Casson told the story in detail, from the beginning. Gueze listened attentively. “I’m not sure how we can help,” he said at the end. “But there may be something we can do. Let me think it over.”

Helene called him at the hotel in the late afternoon-she’d arrived in Paris at dawn, and gone to work. Casson offered to take her out to dinner and they met at a restaurant. As she came toward the table, he could see a dark bruise on one side of her jaw, and when he embraced her she winced.

“You’re hurt,” he said.

“Not much, a little sore.”

She sat next to him on a banquette, he ordered a bottle of red wine. The trip down wasn’t bad, she said, a few identity checks and the train was cold. She’d spent two weeks in Nice, de la Barre’s people had arranged for her to stay at an apartment in the old city. “Day and night,” she said. “We were not permitted to leave.”

She didn’t get out the first time. “The next sailing was delayed but, finally, they let us on board. I was in a cabin on the deck, with eight other passengers. It was after midnight, nobody said a word, we just waited to get under way. Then there was an explosion below deck-maybe more than one-it was like a wind hit the floor. The lights went out, we heard people screaming that the boat was on fire. Everybody ran, somebody pushed me out of the way and I fell flat on my face on the steel deck, but I got up, and a sailor grabbed me by the elbow and led me down the gangplank. Then we all just stood there, watching the ship burn.”

She paused a moment. Casson poured wine in her glass and she drank some. “Finally,” she said, “the police came and took everybody to the station. We were questioned most of the night-the police were Italian, but the people asking the questions were German. Later on we heard that somebody had been arrested.”

Casson told her about his attempt to see de la Barre. “We’ll just have to find another way.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “We’ll see.”

Back at Casson’s hotel, she folded her skirt and sweater over the back of a chair and lay down on the bed in her slip. There were bruises down one side of her leg. Casson stretched out next to her. “How was work?” he asked.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t change.”

“Victorine?”

“We talked about Strasbourg. She went once to Buerehiesel for dinner, she always tells me what a good time she had.”

“Did she-”

“Not today. Let’s not talk about it.”