The Hemingway Valise

by Robert Olen Butler

  While he did, without my removing my eyes or my aim from him, I took a step to the side and secured the other chair from the table and placed it before him.

  I sat down. A sign of respect. We would speak now on the same level.

  With a couple of glances he noticed the gesture as I executed it, but he continued to examine the documents.

  He finished. Looked up.

  I reached out for the papers’ return.

  He offered them gingerly.

  No funny business.

  He immediately returned his hands to his knees.

  I put the documents into an inner pocket.

  And I lifted the Mauser, turned it sideways to stress to him that it was no longer pointed in his direction. I slipped the pistol into an outside coat pocket.

  I was ready for a lunge by Koprulu. If one was coming, it would be now.

  But the moments were passing. He did not move.

  Then he said, in German, “What do you want, Herr Jäger?” It was awkward German, but his making the effort was a good sign.

  I pulled him back to French, which he preferred. I said, “We have an awkward situation that you’ve been drawn into, unawares. As you might expect, we Germans are deeply sympathetic with your country. We still have common enemies. And now you must deal with the British and French whores in Lausanne. We admire your Mustafa Kemal Pasha, his strength and his vision of Turkey’s destiny. I hope my country will someday find a man like him.”

  I paused to let all that sink in.

  Koprulu managed a small smile for me and a slow, affirming nod.

  I said, “We share your fate. So we are very interested in the conference. From which we have been excluded. We have even placed a secret agent there. And this is the awkward thing I’ve come to you about.”

  Koprulu straightened a little in his chair, though he assiduously kept his hands on his knees.

  I said, “Do you follow me so far?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said.

  “Please relax your hands now, Devrim bey.” I addressed him respectfully.

  He lifted them in acknowledgement and then put them right back down on his knees. We were doing okay.

  I said, “Our agent is a recent recruit. He is known in Paris and in Lausanne as an American by the name of Ernest Hemingway.”

  Koprulu’s brow knit very briefly and released. He knew who I meant.

  I said, “He has lived in America. But he is, in fact, of German origin. Hemingstein is his family name. Ernst von Hemingstein. Your people are unaware that he is an agent of the German secret service. Your own assignment with regards to him is perfectly understandable, given the secrecy of our relationship with Hemingstein. And given some other, easily misunderstood circumstances.”

  I paused.

  Koprulu was saying nothing. I did not expect an overt confirmation. But the absence of a denial was its equivalent.

  I said, “As for the misunderstanding, I mentioned Hemingstein was a recent agent. I recruited him myself in Constantinople. Four months ago. He was a journalist at the time, working for a Canadian newspaper, and he’d heard some scurrilous rumors about Kemal Pasha. His newspaper required that he follow up on these rumors. But the more Hemingstein inquired, the more he rejected the rumors. Indeed, his growing regard for your great leader was instrumental in my recruiting him to our similar cause.”

  I paused. That was the basic lie I had to sell to make this deal. I let it sit inside Koprulu. His gaze had intensified. I felt his mind working behind it.

  I gave him a few moments more, and then I said, “Devrim bey, I understand this is difficult for you. That I should show up suddenly and intrusively and ask you to adjust your thinking in such a drastic way. But this American journalist Ernest Hemingway. He would mean nothing to you except for one thing. For one reason alone is he of interest to your people. Am I not right?”

  This time there was no Turkish mono-nod of assent. He said at once, “Slander.”

  “Slander,” I said. “Just so. Of your country’s savior.”

  “Slander,” Koprulu said.

  I said, “Hemingstein has no interest in slandering the leader of the Turkish people. As proof of that I am here to offer you the sole copy of the story he was forced to write. You will see his attitude within it. And I will offer you all the original notes he took in his inquiries.”

  I pulled the two envelopes from inside my coat.

  I held them aloft for Koprulu.

  His eyes followed them, fixed on them.

  “They are written in English. But your people will translate them and understand.”

  His eyes returned to mine.

  “They will be pleased with you for so clear a resolution,” I said.

  I drew the envelopes down.

  His eyes returned to them, followed them.

  He and I were of one mind on this.

  “But I require two things of you, Devrim bey.”

  I waited for his attention to return to me.

  Then I said, “You will stop following our man. You will no longer have need, of course. He represents no threat of slander, so you must no longer threaten him. Do you understand this first stipulation?”

  The nod of assent. Koprulu even added, “Naturally.”

  I said, “The second stipulation is every bit as important. It is the return of his manuscripts. The contents of the valise you took from his wife’s train compartment in the Gare de Lyon. Those papers have absolutely nothing to do with his journalism. In exchange for those, I will give you these.”

  Devrim Koprulu had been quite attentive to my Josef Wilhelm Jäger through this little scene. Attentive, but within a narrow range of emotion appropriate to Koprulu’s encounter with a fellow spy over the recognizable details of a mission under his command. The unfolding of my second stipulation, however, provoked a change in him that traveled outside that range. As I detailed it, his brow knitted tight, his head began to list to starboard, his eyes narrowed and then widened then narrowed again as if he’d lost his eyeglasses and was trying to read some crucial fine print.

  This emotion that evolved in Devrim Koprulu would best be described as What the hell are you talking about?

  His hands rose from his knees, showing their palms. “I know nothing of a valise,” he said.

  I mostly believed what his body had been telling me. But I had to be sure. I had to clarify. I had to call any possible bluff.

  “You stole it,” I said.

  “I did not.”

  “You know who did,” I said, and I began to return the two envelopes to my coat pocket.

  “I do not,” he said, but his eyes flashed very briefly in the direction of the wardrobe. Toward his pistol. Too far. Buried. More a reflex glance of regret, but enough of a give-away that I knew he was ready to fight. Any moment now.

  He wanted these envelopes.

  I didn’t want the scene to get physical. I’d win that battle, but at what cost to the deal.

  I popped the envelopes back out of my coat.

  But I withheld them, saying, “Somebody else may have stolen them.”

  His eyes fixed now on Hemingway’s story and notes as if I’d just pulled off a music hall magic trick to make them reappear. I could sense his body skidding to a stop inside. Holding back from any rough stuff.

  I pressed on, “Somebody from the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa.” I used their own name for their secret service.

  He looked at me, rolled his shoulders ever so slightly. Collected himself. And he said, “I am working alone concerning your Herr Hemingstein. If a valise was to be stolen, I would have stolen it. If I had the valise or knew where it was, I would tell you now. I am happy to take these papers you offer and spare your man’s life and close this case. I am happy for both our countries to rise once more in this world of whores. But
I have no valise. Not I and not anyone else from Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa. I have no reason to lie about this.”

  His gaze was steady. His logic was plausible. I believed him.

  And so the deal was struck. The exchange was made. But only for young Ernest Hemingway’s life. Not his manuscripts.

  What drew me at once back to Sylvia Beach’s bookshop? I was sad about Hem’s manuscripts but reminded of my own. I was struggling with my novel but at least the manuscript was safe. I was keenly conscious of that, after what I’d just gone through, and I was reminded that I should return to its creation.

  But I just wasn’t a novelist at the moment. Even a would-be one. I was too recently Kit Cobb the spy. Not just him. Kit Cobb the American spy drawing on Kit Cobb the actor playing Josef Wilhelm Jäger the German spy. Far far from the man I wanted to be, Christopher Marlowe Cobb the novelist. Sylvia’s bookshop was my pathway to that man. Books. Writers. Literary conversation.

  When I stepped in, Steffens was still there. Mid-shop, he was in Hemingway’s chair talking heatedly with a heavy-set man with a major mustache and a minor chin sitting across from him.

  I paused at Sylvia’s front desk.

  “Hello, dear,” she said.

  “Hello, Sylvia.”

  “Any luck finding Ernest’s stories?”

  “I’m afraid not.” I decided not to add that I’d at least saved him from a Turkish dagger in the ribs. Instead, I asked, “Who’s that with Lincoln?”

  “Ford Madox Ford. Have I introduced you?”

  “Should I know him?”

  “You should know his novel The Good Soldier.” Then she rose. “Come,” she said. “I’ll take you to a copy. We can circumvent the conversation. They’re arguing Mussolini, not literature.”

  As we passed by the two men, I thought: Steffens shooting off his mouth again. Too bad. Hem’s stories are gone. Too bad.

  At a far corner of the back wall, Sylvia put Ford’s novel in my hand and explained why his surname was different on the title page—Hueffer, his real name, changed for its German taint during the war. And she explained how the narrator of the novel was unreliable, how Ford led us to see through him. It sounded like just the book for me tonight.

  A customer entered the shop and Sylvia left me. I drifted past Hueffer and Steffens, whose back was to me and did not realize I was there. The conversation had softened, had moved on from il Duce to James Joyce.

  I lingered. Leaned against the fireplace, backdropped by writer photographs.

  The literary boys’ conversation slid away from writing and into Irish politics, and I thumbed Ford’s book for a few moments, unseeing. The place wasn’t quite yet showing me a path to my writing desk. I closed the book and turned to face all the writers on the wall.

  A young Walt Whitman, pre-Civil War, stared me in the eyes. Admiringly, it seemed to me. And next to him, the next frame over, was Lincoln Steffens himself. Steffens and Ezra Pound. The two men were sitting on a café bench, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, coffee cups before them. Pound’s face was turned to look out of frame. Lincoln’s gaze was turned to Ezra. Admiringly.

  And Pound came to mind from my first sight of him in this bookshop. He was savaging Hemingway’s stories. Ready to blue-pencil them mercilessly. He clearly figured he knew what was best for Ernie. Ex cathedra, Sylvia had said. With cape and cane his cassock and crosier, Ezra was the Paris Pope of Literature. And apparently a pal of Steffens. Big-mouthed Steffens, who, however, considered Hemingway’s stories already perfect to his ear and who was eager to read them all and advocate them as is. Who had wanted to read them in Lausanne.

  I had a thought.

  I went to the front of the shop where Sylvia had just sent her customer on his way to the shelves.

  She turned to me. “Sylvia,” I said. “I noticed the photo. Are Steffens and Pound buddies?

  “Not quite that,” she said. “Ezra does not take on buddies. Lincoln’s more of an acolyte.”

  “And Hadley,” I said. “Does Pound acknowledge her?”

  “Oh yes. As an appropriate appendage to Ernest. Ezra and his wife Dorothy are close to the Hemingways. They all do things together.”

  There were clearly ways for Steffens’ attitudes and intentions and Hadley’s plan for Lausanne to end up in Ezra’s brain. This bookshop, with its social heart, was no doubt involved.

  I said, “Sylvia dear, please tell me where Ezra lives.”

  Her eyes widened. “Do you think?”

  “I wonder,” I said.

  Pound’s address was on the Rue Notre Dame des Champs just on the other side of the Luxembourg Gardens. The iron doors on the street, which I found unlocked, opened into an outer courtyard. His apartment was at the rear, and I had unimpeded access into a passageway that led through the pavillon to a rear courtyard. He lived in a duplex. The downstairs room had an oaken door. And up an outside staircase was the bedroom above. Between them stood a weathered, one-armed statue of a naked goddess Diana and her hound.

  I knocked at the door. And again.

  No one answered.

  I was ready to pick my way in, but this door too was unlocked.

  I stepped inside.

  The light through the courtyard windows was muted but adequate for what I wanted. The place made me admire my neat Turk. I had to clear my head of the profusion of objects. The walls were full of art, from a large canvas of gray forms swirling about a peevish Asian prince to paintings of abstract shapes, but restless ones, leaning and colliding and tumbling around. And the other objects of the room cluttered into similar-seeming stacks and sprawls and arrangements. Fencing foils and tennis rackets, a crowded setting of wood and canvas chairs, a clavichord against a wall with a pair of boxing gloves hanging over it. An odd triangular typing table with a massive Underwood. And of course books and manuscripts, a profusion of them.

  The first chaotic impression of the place washed over me and I came up for air. I began to circle the room, focused, in this first pass, on finding the valise itself, my eyes doing their work on their own while my mind tumbled around outside of the bag. If Hemingway’s stories were here, they could already have been separated and were lurking amidst all the other papers. That thought made me wonder if Pound was simply blue-penciling them, as he’d arranged. But if that was his intention, why would he follow Hadley and steal them when they’d already been freely offered by Ernie?

  And my eyes stopped me.

  They were looking at a shabby, alligator-embossed, leatherette valise.

  It sat on the floor beside the room’s cast-iron coal stove.

  Sat there empty? The contents burnt?

  I feared it.

  I stepped to the bag, crouched beside it, fumbled it open.

  It was full of manuscripts.

  Then a voice behind me. “Come to borrow a lump of coal, have you?”

  I rose and spun to find Ezra Pound standing in the doorway in shirt sleeves and a green waistcoat that looked as if it was made of billiard cloth.

  He said, “I thought I heard your knock. If you will excuse my dishabille, I was having a rest up the steps. But as for me, I’m afraid I will not excuse your breaking into la mia amata casa.” He paused and lifted his chin at this, severely inverting a smile.

  I said, “As I’m sure Hadley Hemingway did not excuse your breaking into her beloved train compartment to steal her bag.”

  Pound’s face descended and the frown collapsed into a scowl. “Wait just a moment. Wait. You look familiar. That newspaper scribbler lurking in the corner of my favorite bookstore.”

  I reached down and picked up the valise by its handles. “More to the point, I’m a friend of my fellow newspaper scribbler, Ernest Hemingway.”

  Pound looked at the valise and then at me. “You are no friend to Ernest Hemingway if you plan to return him to his infantile stage as a writer.”


  “That’s for him to decide,” I said.

  “Ah, but a good father must one day forcibly rip the pacifier from his son’s mouth.”

  “You’ll need to stand aside, Mr. Pound,” I said.

  He wagged his head in exaggerated regret.

  And then he lifted his fists and struck a pose from somewhere back in the bare-knuckle days. He said, “Your friend Hemingway has taught me to box. Sufficiently, I have no doubt, to chastise a nondescript scribbler.”

  With that he advanced.

  I bent and placed the valise on the floor beside me, and by the time I was upright, Ezra Pound was in front of me, his arm was back and poised and loading up to throw a straight right-hand punch. When it came I slipped it with ease, resquared before him, and I used my left hand to pop him a stiff jab in the nose.

  He stepped back, bumped one of his wood and canvas chairs, and he sat down, a trickle of blood commencing from his right nostril.

  I picked up the valise, pulled my handkerchief from my pocket, and handed it to him.

  He dabbed at his nose for a moment. Then he lifted his eyes to me. “I am moved, scribbler,” he said. “I recommend you write your sentences in just such a way.”

  He offered the handkerchief back to me.

  “You can keep the handkerchief. But I’ll take Hadley’s valise. Along with the pugilistic pacifier from your mouth.”

  Pound patted his nose again. “You are a good father,” he said.

  I said, “If you want to throw a straight right, young Ezra, don’t meditate on it beforehand. Just throw it.”

  He smiled at me. “That’s excellent advice.”

  I cabled Hemingway in Lausanne, only telling him that I’d recovered the valise and its contents. That night he cabled back to me: YOU THE CHAMP I ARRIVE ON LAUSANNE PARIS EXPRESS TOMORROW SEE YOU CAFÉ 74 QUAI DES ORFÈVRES 1630 HOURS KEEP ALL THIS BETWEEN US FOR NOW HEM

  The light in Paris was growing dim at 1630. The café was in the middle of the Seine, just off the Place du Pont Neuf on the western end of the Île de la Cité. The valise and I went to a small table at the rear of the joint and I put my back to the wall to wait.