Alan Furst - Mission to Paris

‘I don’t really know how, I’m afraid I’ll make a mess of it.’

‘No matter, just snip away, and when you’re done you’re going to make me a blonde.’

Trudi took a deep breath; she couldn’t say no to her friend, she just had to be careful and take her time. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll do as you ask. But if I’m going to use the peroxide, you’d better take off your dress, and your slip.’ After a last look at her old self in the cloudy mirror above the sink, and as Trudi, scissors in hand, watched her, Orlova undressed.

The following morning, the newly blonde and boyish Orlova stood at the door, anxious to leave. But when she put her hand on the knob, Trudi stopped her. ‘Wait, please wait,’ she said. ‘Just a few seconds. I lay awake for a long time last night, thinking about myself, and about my life, and I made a decision. Olga, I don’t want to lose you, I want to run away with you if you’ll let me. I know it will be difficult, and I will have to write to Freddi and tell him what I’ve done, but I don’t want to go back to him. I want to follow my heart, I want to stay with you.’

Orlova was moved by this and showed it. And with all the kindness she could muster she said, ‘You know I can’t let you do that. Sharing the life of a fugitive will not make you happy. Please don’t cry. I will never forget what you said, Trudi, I will always remember you, but I must go on alone.’

For a moment, Trudi fought back tears. Finally she said, ‘All right, Olga, I understand, so I have only one last request. I would like a kiss, a kiss goodbye, a real kiss.’

They held each other, the kiss was warm and slow and touched with sadness. Then they left the hotel. At Orlova’s direction, Trudi drove out of Berlin to nearby Wannsee. From there, Orlova spent a long day taking local trains until she reached the city of Frankfurt where, at the main terminal, she bought a ticket and, an hour later, was on her way to Prague.

18 December. Early in the morning, Stahl left Renate’s apartment and returned to the Claridge. In the bathroom mirror, he found shadows beneath his eyes — that dissolute Colonel Vadic — so used a washcloth and cold water as a compress. Perhaps this helped, but not much. By nine o’clock he was out at Joinville, where they had to do retakes of scenes that hadn’t, for a variety of reasons, turned out right. A mysterious hand on the back of a chair, a hat magically gone in mid-conversation, a line badly delivered, Pasquin’s sergeant saying, ‘Jean, let me try that again.’ Before they started shooting, the make-up man worked on Stahl and removed the evidence of a night rather too well spent.

When Renate Steiner arrived on the set, carrying a different tunic for the lieutenant, she seemed all business, but she glanced at Stahl and a certain look passed between them. It was the look of those who see each other for the first time after making love, for the first time, the night before, and it made his heart soar. Then a technician approached with a question and Stahl had to turn away, but he would not forget that moment. Renate held up the ‘blood’-spattered tunic by the shoulders and said to Avila, ‘This will be much better, Jean. Now he’s really been shot.’

At the end of the day, Stahl walked over to Renate’s workroom but she wasn’t there so he returned to the hotel and telephoned her. He would pick her up at 7.30, they would have dinner at Balzar, an active, noisy bistro in the Sixth. ‘We can have the mache-betterave,’ he said, a salad of beets and sweet little clumps of mache lettuce with a mustard-flavoured dressing. ‘Then perhaps a steak-frites or a ragout of veal. Everything there is good.’

When he arrived at the rue Varlin tenement, the concierge welcomed him back with a sly but affectionate smile: she knew, she approved. On the top floor, Renate was still getting dressed so Stahl sat on the sofa, recalling favoured details of what had gone on there the night before. When the telephone rang, Renate said ‘Now what?’ and answered with a brusque ‘Hello?’ She listened for a moment, then turned to Stahl, clearly puzzled, and said, ‘It’s for you. How would…’ She didn’t finish the question, simply handed him the receiver.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Is it Herr Stahl on the line?’

‘Yes, who is this?’

‘My name doesn’t matter, Herr Stahl, not at the moment, anyhow. I’ll tell you when we meet.’ His German was refined and educated, his voice smooth.

‘Why would we meet?’

‘I believe you might be able to help us. We’re trying to resolve a

… trying to resolve certain questions that involve your friend Olga Orlova — the actress. Have you seen her lately?’

‘No. What questions are you talking about?’

‘Mmm, better that we discuss these things in person. Are you planning a visit to Germany any time soon?’

‘I’m not.’

‘No matter, we can meet in Paris. Always a pleasure to be there.’

‘Herr whatever-your-name-is, I don’t think I can help you. My regrets, but I must go now.’

‘Of course. I understand,’ the man said, his voice sympathetic. ‘Perhaps my colleagues in Paris will be in touch with you.’

Stahl handed the receiver back to Renate and she hung up. Shaken, he reached for the cigarette pack in his pocket.

Renate stood there for a moment, silent and uncertain, then said, ‘Were you expecting a telephone call here?’ She was being careful, trying to make the question sound offhand; she didn’t mind, she was just curious. Then she added, ‘From someone who speaks German?’

‘No, it was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you.’

‘Then how did he know where you were?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This is very strange,’ she said. ‘Has it happened before?’

She won’t let it go. So, how much to tell her? With a sigh in his voice he said, ‘I am, unfortunately, of some interest to certain German officials. The worst kind of German officials.’

‘Oh. Well now I understand. German officials of the worst kind who are evidently following you around the city. Will they be joining us for dinner?’

‘Renate, please, if you can find a way to ignore this…’

She cut him off. ‘I’m an emigre, Fredric, a political refugee. I don’t like strange phone calls.’ She was going to continue but something suddenly occurred to her — from her expression, something she’d almost forgotten. ‘Does this have anything to do with that vile little Austrian who appeared on the set? The man in the alpine costume?’

Stahl nodded, and tapped the ash from his cigarette into the Suze ashtray. ‘The same crowd. They’ve been bothering me ever since I came to Paris.’

She thought it over. ‘Is that why you went to Berlin? To appease these people?’

Now he had to lie. He couldn’t reveal what he’d done in Berlin. ‘No, the Warner publicity people liked the idea, so I agreed to go.’

‘You couldn’t refuse?’

‘Let’s say I didn’t, maybe I should have.’

She took off her glasses, her faded blue eyes searching his face, her witchy nose scenting a lie. Finally she said, ‘I want to believe you…’

She didn’t finish the sentence but he knew what came next. He looked at his watch. ‘Maybe we should…’

‘That telephone call scared me, Fredric. I know these people and what they do, I saw it, in Germany, and now it’s here, in this room.’

‘Which is my fault, but I don’t think I can do anything about it, except walk away from the movie and leave France. Is that what I should do?’

‘You’d better not.’

‘Then we have to live with it.’ He rested his cigarette on the ashtray, took her hands in his and held them tight. ‘Can you do that?’