Alan Furst - Mission to Paris

They had two holding cells at the Fifth Arrondissement prefecture, so the marchers and the attackers — ‘the fascists’, the students called them — were separated. In Stahl’s cell, the walls bled moisture, and one of the graffiti carved into the stone was dated 1889. A woman in the cell lent Stahl her compact, its mirror revealing a livid purple bruise which ran down the right side of his face. The inside of his upper lip had been gashed by his teeth, his head ached terribly, his right hand was swollen — possibly a broken knuckle — but the worst pain was in his shoulder. Still, in a way he’d been lucky: if his nose was broken there was no evidence of it, and he had all his teeth.

He wound up sitting on the stone floor, back against the wall, next to a man about his own age, who explained that he was a Metro worker, a motorman, and had been on a picket line when the ‘ cagoulards ’, hooded ones, had attacked them. ‘Very foolish,’ the motorman said. ‘We gave them a thrashing they’ll remember.’ Stahl offered him a cigarette, the motorman was grateful. ‘How did you do?’ he said to Stahl.

Stahl shrugged. ‘I hit one of them, a couple of times.’

‘Good for you. I don’t imagine you do much fighting.’

‘No,’ Stahl said. He started to smile but it hurt. ‘I had a couple of fights at sea, when I was a kid. The first one didn’t last long — I drew my arm back, then I was looking at the sky and they threw a pail of water on me. The guy was built like an ox — a stoker.’

The motorman was amused. ‘You don’t want to fight a man who shovels coal all day.’

‘My face was numb for hours,’ Stahl said. ‘The other one was with a mess steward, that went better. We punched each other for maybe a minute, then the crewmen separated us — we were both finished, gasping for breath. So I didn’t win, but I didn’t lose.’

‘Oh, I’d say you won — they probably left you alone after that.’

‘Then I guess I won.’

The motorman was released an hour later — his union had sent a lawyer. It was dawn before Zolly Louis showed up. ‘The police couldn’t find you,’ Zolly said.

‘How did you know to look for me?’

‘A journalist called the office. Was it possible that Fredric Stahl was arrested for fighting? A witness was almost sure he’d seen a movie star taken away. You weren’t at the hotel, so we called the police. Eventually, the flics figured out where you were.’

‘What did you tell the journalist?’

‘That you were on a train to Geneva.’

Zolly had paid somebody off, and a sergeant led them down a tunnel which eventually led to a street behind the prefecture. ‘Just in case there’s a reporter in front,’ Zolly said. ‘Or, God forbid, a photographer.’

30 September.

Herve Charais, a news commentator on Radio Paris, was lying in bed that afternoon, propped up on a pillow so he could better feast his eyes on his exquisite little Spanish mistress, one Consuela, as she stood naked before a dressing-table mirror and, in profile, bent over to peer at a non-existent blemish on her forehead. While Consuela was very much worth looking at, Herve Charais was certainly not; soft and squat and pudgy, he walked splay-footed, so waddled like a duck. But Herve Charais had a most cultured, mellifluous, and persuasive voice, and therein lay his considerable popularity. Across the darkened room, Consuela held back her thick hair and squinted at her reflection: a thirty-five-year-old face above, the body of a fifteen-year-old below. Like a Greek statue, he thought, a statue that could be warmed up to just the proper temperature — ‘but only by you,’ as she put it.

And to think it had all started with an accident! Some months earlier, she’d spilled a drink on him when he was out with friends at a nightclub. That led to an apology, and that led to a new drink, and that led, in time, to this very room. ‘Come back to bed, my precious,’ he said tenderly.

‘Yes, in a moment, I have something on my forehead.’

And soon you’ll have something somewhere else.

‘Don’t you have to write your commentary, for tonight?’

‘It’s mostly written, in my head anyhow.’

‘Is it about Czechoslovakia?’

‘What else?’

‘So what will you say?’

‘Oh, nothing special. The nation is relieved, surely, but maybe just for the time being.’

‘Why don’t you say something about the Sudeten Germans? They seem to have been forgotten in all this… whatever you call it.’

‘You think so? What do you have in mind?’

‘Just what happens to all these people who live in the wrong country, the poor Poles, the poor Hungarians, the poor, other people. But also the German minority living in Czechoslovakia, one hears the most frightening things, rapes and beatings by the Czech police, houses burned down…’

‘You believe that? Mostly we think it’s Nazi propaganda.’

‘Some of it surely is… exaggerated. But my mama always used to say, where there’s smoke there’s fire.’

‘Well, maybe, I don’t know.’

Consuela turned to look at him. ‘If you did at least mention them you’d be the only one on the radio. Everybody has forgotten how this crisis started.’

‘Mmm,’ he said. It started in Berlin.

Consuela appeared to have found the blemish, for she bent further towards the mirror. ‘Just a tiny mention,’ she said. ‘It would show fairness, it would show that you care. Your listeners will like that, it’s the best part of you.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Charais said.

‘Ah, now you make me happy.’

‘Done yet?’

‘I suspect it’s you who aren’t done yet, are you?’ She walked towards the bed, her breasts jiggling prettily with every step. ‘How you look at me!’ Closer and closer she came. ‘So what goes on under that blanket, eh? You want to show me?’

By cable, 30 September, from Rudolf Vollmer, director of the National Press Guild of Germany, to J. L. Ferrand, a senior executive of the Havas Agency, the French wire service: My dear Monsieur Ferrand, Allow us to express our great pleasure that you have accepted our invitation to deliver a lecture to The National Press Guild on 17 October. This cable is to confirm the arrangements for your visit. You will travel by Lufthansa Flight 26 from Paris on the afternoon of 15 October, to be met by a car that will take you to the Hotel Adlon, where you will occupy the Bismarck Suite on the top floor. Your lecture will be at 8.00 p.m. in the Adlon ballroom. We anticipate a large audience, and translation will be provided. On the 18 October, at 1.30 p.m., you are invited to dine with Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop in the Minister’s private dining room. After lunch you will meet with Reichs Chancellor Hitler. You will return to Paris on 19 October, on Flight 27 from Berlin. The honorarium for your lecture will be as specified: 100,000 reichsmarks, or, if you prefer, 50,000 American dollars. We look forward to meeting you, and to an interesting and much anticipated lecture on the role of the press in maintaining peace and stability in today’s Europe. With our most sincere and respectful good wishes, Rudolf Vollmer Director The National Press Guild of Germany

2 October. Telephone call from Philippe LaMotte, managing director of Champagne Rousillon of Epernay, to Albert Roche, publisher of the newspaper Le Temps.

‘Albert, good morning, how are you?’

‘A busy day — a busy time! But, for the moment, all goes well.’

‘Did you get to Deauville at all? During the, ah, crisis?’

‘We did. We had tennis friends and we played all weekend. You and Jeanette should come up and take us on again, really Philippe, you stay in Paris too much, it isn’t healthy.’

‘We should, and soon, before it starts raining.’