Alan Furst - Mission to Paris

Stahl, in the course of a long search for Building K, stopped for a time to watch a moustachioed gaucho with a guitar singing ‘ te amo ’ to a senorita on a balcony as the cameraman peered through his lens and the technicians squatted out of the frame. It was mostly, at Joinville, pretty much the same movie — love ignited, love thwarted, love triumphant. Just like, Stahl told himself with an inner smile, Hollywood.

Eventually, he found what he was looking for: a one-storey, rust-stained stucco Building K, situated between Building R and Building 22 — the French were staunchly committed anarchists when it suited them. Renate Steiner’s workroom was spacious, long wooden tables held bolts of fabric, boxes of buttons in every colour and size, boxes of zips, cloth flowers, snips of material (I’ll want that later), and spools of thread, attended by every imaginable species of mannequin — from wire mesh to stained cotton, some of them in costume: here a Zouave, there a king’s ermine, and in between a pirate’s striped shirt and a convict’s striped outfit.

Steiner sat before a sewing machine, matt black from constant use, SINGER in gold letters across the side. As she looked up to see who her visitor was, she ceased working the pedals and the two-stroke music of the machine slowed, then stopped. ‘Fredric Stahl,’ she said, her voice pleased to see him. ‘I’m Renate Steiner. Thank you for coming out here.’ She stood and said, ‘Let me find you a place to sit,’ walked to the end of the table and whipped a caveman’s bearskin off a chair. As she moved her own chair to face his, she said, ‘Not too much trouble finding me?’

‘Not so much — I’m used to studio lots.’

‘Yes, of course. Still, people get horribly lost out here.’ She settled herself in the chair and took off her silver-rimmed glasses.

She was in her early forties, he guessed — a few silver strands in dark hair stylishly cut to look chopped off and practical — and wore a blue work smock that buttoned up the front. Sitting close to her, he saw that she was very fair-skinned, with a sharp line to her jaw and a pointy nose that suggested mischief, the tip faintly reddened in the chill of the unheated room. Her eyes were a faded blue, her smile ironic, and subtly challenging. The face of an intellectual, he thought — she would be partial to symphonies and serious books. She was dressed for the chill, in a long, loose skirt, thick black wool stockings, and laced, low-heeled boots. She wore no make-up he could see but somehow didn’t need it, looking scrubbed and sensible.

‘So then,’ she said. ‘ Apres la Guerre, an appealing title, isn’t it, what with… everything going on right now. What do you think of the script?’

‘I’ve read through it a couple of times, and I’m almost done with the book — normally I would have finished it but it kept putting me to sleep.’

‘Yes, I felt the same way, but the script is better. Much better, would you say?’

From Stahl, a nod of enthusiasm. ‘It has real possibilities, depending on who directs — Jules Deschelles was going to tell me who will replace Emile Simon but so far he hasn’t. A lot will depend on how it’s shot, on the music, and… but you know all that. You’ve been doing this for a while, no?’

‘Ten years, give or take. I started in Germany, with UFA, but we, my husband and I, had to leave when Hitler took power in ’33. We weren’t the sort of people he wanted in Germany — my husband was a journalist, a little too far to the left. So, late at night, we ran like hell and took only whatever money we had in the house. I wondered if we weren’t just scaring ourselves with this whole Nazi business but, a month after we left, some of our old friends disappeared, and you know what’s gone on there since ’33. After all, you’re from Vienna, or so I’ve read, anyhow.’

‘I left when I was sixteen, but that had to do with family, not politics. Later I went back for a few years, then lived in Paris before they brought me out to Hollywood.’

‘Do you like it there?’

‘I try to. I don’t think anybody actually likes it, not the people I talk to. Mostly they feel some mixture of gratitude and anxiety, because it pays a lot but after a while you discover it’s perilous — you can really say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and it’s probably wise to understand that a career in movies is temporary. On the other hand, I like America. Well, I like Americans, I’m not sorry to be one of them, as much as I am.’

She shrugged. ‘You’re an emigre, like us. I don’t suppose you’d prefer to speak German, we can.’

‘Oh no, I have to speak French right now, think in French as much as possible.’

She was silent for a moment, then, for no particular reason, smiled at him. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I suppose we have to go to work, get you measured up to be Colonel Vadic. Where’s he from, your colonel?’

‘“A Slav” is all it says in the script. In the book he’s from somewhere in the Balkans.’

‘Deschelles saw something there, in the book, let’s hope he was right,’ she said, then stood and drew a rolled yellow tape measure out of the pocket of her smock. ‘Could you stand in front of my mirror?’

Stahl stepped onto a wooden platform in front of the mirror. Renate Steiner took a long, appraising look at him and said, ‘You’re nice and tall, aren’t you. Thank heaven, or your forebears. There are some very handsome, very short actors in this business, and the producer has to cast a very short woman as the love interest or the actor has to stand on a box.’ She found a pad and pencil on the table and said, ‘Could you hold your left arm out straight, palm facing me?’

Stahl did as he was told. Renate put her glasses back on, clamped the pencil between her teeth, then stretched the tape from the tip of his middle finger to his armpit. She studied the tape where it met his finger, steadied the end under his arm, and said, ‘You’re not ticklish, are you?’

‘Not for a long time.’

‘That makes this easier, now and then we’ve had comedy in here.’ She let the tape go and wrote down the measurement and said, ‘By the way, may I call you Fredric?’

‘Yes, I prefer it.’ After a beat he said, ‘Renate.’

Measuring his other arm, she said, ‘We’ve got plenty of Foreign Legion uniforms in stock, we’ll just have to do some alterations.’

‘Will I be wearing the kepi with the white neckcloth?’ In his voice, I hope not.

‘Not if I can help it,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s been seen too often, in the worst movies — the audience will expect you to burst out in song. “Oh, my desert maiden…”, that sort of thing.’ He smiled, she glanced up at him. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you’ll wear a classic officer’s uniform, and since Vadic has been in a Turkish prison camp we’ll have to fade it, soil it, give you a little rip in the shoulder.’

‘That sounds just right,’ he said. ‘When I made silent films in Paris they stuck a kepi on me but it was too small…’

She said, ‘Would you face the mirror, please?’ and stepped up onto the platform, running the tape across his shoulders.

‘… which made it so hot they had to wipe the sweat off my face.’

‘That won’t happen, not at chez Renate — I try to keep my actors comfortable.’ She reached up and measured his head. ‘Your hat will fit perfectly, colonel.’ She next took his neck measurement, then drew the tape tight around his waist. ‘Please don’t do that,’ she said. ‘Just let everything settle in its natural position, you’re not at the beach.’ Stahl relaxed his stomach. ‘We all have tummies, don’t we?’ she said. Then she knelt in front of him and, looking up at him, she said, ‘We come now to the inseam.’ This measurement was taken from the very top of the inner thigh. ‘You can hold the sensitive end if you like.’