by Richard Wake
But by the time I reached the street and had another look, there was nobody there. So I just stood there, leaning against the cafe, hoping Ruchti would take the hint. In about two minutes, he did. He offered his condolences.
"Do you think it was a robbery?" I said.
"No. But they do," Ruchti said, pointing vaguely inside. "And that's okay with me. But you have to be honest with me."
"About what?"
"About whether or not Gregory Fessler was working with you," he said.
I didn't answer for a second. I liked Ruchti, and I trusted him. He hadn't steered me wrong on anything, and he warned me about Vogl.
"Vogl." I spat the name out as soon as it came to me. "You don't think--"
"No," Ruchti said. "I don't think there's any way he's in Zurich. And I know he's Gestapo, but I don't think some captain in Poland has the ability to order a murder in a neutral country, hundreds of miles away. But you haven't answered my question."
I paused again, just looking at him. I didn't know what was right, but I had to take a chance.
"Gregory was working with me," I said.
"Doing what? Actually spying?"
"Well, no."
"Then what? Was he making radio transmissions? Because, you know, we're pretty sure that the German legation here now has a radio detection vehicle, a small lorry with an antenna on top that drives around the city. We've seen it a few times, followed it back to the German mission. It can detect a radio transmitter--"
"What? WHAT?" It was Henry. He had come out the door of the cafe and overheard the last bit of what Ruchti had said.
"No. Alex, tell me it's not true. Tell me you didn't get my father roped into this whole fucking spy business."
Ruchti looked at me, partly in a questioning way, partly in helplessness. When I started speaking, I addressed Ruchti's unspoken question first.
"Henry and his wife know about my role at the bank because they were part of the deal with the intelligence service to get out of Czechoslovakia after the Anschluss."
Then I turned to Henry.
"Mr. Ruchti here is with a Swiss police unit that has some intelligence aspects to it, and he knows some of my story," I said. "And Henry, yes, your father was helping me send coded radio transmissions to my Czech contact, who's living now in London."
"So is that it?" Henry was screaming, crying. His words pierced the night. "Is that why he was fucking killed. Goddammit, Alex. Is that why?"
Ruchti did his best to rescue me.
"The homicide detectives are experienced, and they think it was a robbery," he said. He looked Henry directly in the eye. "If they believe it, I believe it. The truth is that spies in this country have no reason to kill each other, and they don't because the Swiss government has made it quite clear that violence on Swiss soil will not be tolerated. Mr. Fessler, it just doesn't happen. And I would know."
The lie was stunning -- because, if not Gregory, there certainly was the fellow on Rennweg with the slug through his eye to consider. I wasn't sure if Henry bought it. He didn't say anything. Ruchti left with a shrug that Henry did not see, and a pantomime of a telephone receiver pressed to his ear. Call me, he mouthed.
Back inside, Henry began pacing near the kitchen. The police were packing up, and Liesl and Sylvie had already headed back to their flat. It was nearly 5 a.m. I asked one of the cops if he would escort Manon home. She looked at me questioningly, and I pointed toward Henry, and she understood that I would stay behind with my friend. Finally, when the door was closed, and we were alone, Henry looked at me in a way that scared me. It was a look I had never seen from him.
"Where's the fucking radio?" he said.
I led the way to Gregory's apartment, and then to the spare room, and then to the small table secreted behind the packing crates. The radio was there. I felt it, and it was cold.
"How could you?" Henry said. He repeated it, and then he repeated it again, and then he said "fuuuuuuck," the delivery more long than loud.
"Henry, he was a grown man," I said. "It was his decision. He felt the need to help."
"Alex, that's bullshit. Need to help? Fuck that -- what did he need? He had me. He had Liesl. He had his grandchild. Why did he need your fucking adventure?"
"I don't know," I was looking down at my hands at that point. I know I heard what I was saying, but I'm not sure Henry did. "I don't know why he needed it. But he did."
I paused for a second, then began babbling. "You know how much he loved you and Liesl, and how thrilled he was about Sylvie, and what a beautiful family you--"
"Get the fuck out of here," he said. "We're fucking done. And take that fucking piece of shit with you."
Henry stormed out. He slammed the door of the flat and stomped up the stairs. I heard him on every tread. Then I looked around for an empty box amid the clutter, a box that would hold the radio, and the sending key, and the bible. And I left, out of the flat and down to the cafe. I did my best to secure the broken door, jamming a chair beneath the knob to hold it in place. Then I found a menu and wrote a small sign on the back side of it and propped it in the front window:
CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Then I carried my box of shit and my bag of guilt and left through the back door.
51
I knew the Fesslers were Catholic, at least in name, but I had not known that Gregory had been much of a churchgoer, not until his funeral, when the priest made a reference during his talk to "the friendly debates he and I would have many mornings after Mass, on topics ranging from the headlines on the front page of the newspaper to the latest disappointments perpetrated by his beloved FC Zurich."
The priest was the only speaker. Henry did not deliver a eulogy. He sat with Liesl in the front row on the right, next to the casket. They passed little Sylvie back and forth between them as they stood and sat and knelt. The only time she cried loudly was when the priest and the altar boys came down from the altar with the lit incense burner, gold on a gold chain, and the priest swung it back and forth as he walked around the casket. I almost never went to church anymore, but that smell always triggered something in me, something unsettling. I wondered if it would somehow be the same for Sylvie.
Besides the family, there were about 20 mourners. A couple of the more memorable fossils were prominent on the left side, and a kid in his 20's just might have been one of the guys I saw pissing against the wall at Hardturm before the FC Zurich game, but I didn't recognize most of the people. The truth was, I didn't know much about Gregory's life outside of the cafe. I didn't know he had much of a life outside the cafe, although the priest proved me wrong there. So maybe they were customers, maybe not.
I sat in the back of the Liebfrauenkirche. Zurich didn't have a lot of Catholics, but this was a beautiful church. High up on the walls was a riot of murals, bright and colorful representations of some religious thing or another. It was as if the Catholics were sticking out their tongues at the tight-assed Protestant churches that Zurich pretty much invented, and which seemed to set a tone for pretty much every aspect of daily life. Or maybe it was something in the Swiss genetic makeup that set the tight-assed tone, and the Protestants followed. Whatever -- I kind of liked the artwork, all splashed with red and blue and gold, even if I really didn't care what it represented.
I got to the church early and took my seat in the back, before the hearse and the family. I had not spoken to Henry since the night Gregory was shot, and I didn't know how I was going to be able to mend our fracture. My guilt had morphed over the few days into a kind of defiance -- it was Gregory's decision to get involved, goddamn it -- but there was no way I was ever going to convince Henry of that, at least not in the short term. But I wanted him to see me at the funeral, as a kind of unspoken opening. And I wanted to be there for my friend, Gregory.
When they opened the doors, the organ music began, and the priest and the altar boys led the casket and the family up the center aisle. The pallbearers were from the burial company. One of them was we
aring white socks with his black suit.
Henry saw me immediately. He was walking not three feet from me, arm around Liesl. We locked eyes for what seemed like forever, but which was probably a second, maybe two. Then he averted his gaze. He did it with an exaggerated snap of his head to the left. There was no sign of recognition, no acknowledgment of my presence, and most importantly, no hint that my presence was appreciated. I did get a little of that from Liesl -- a quick, tired half-smile -- before she, too, looked away much quicker than she had to. But at least there was the half-smile. There was nothing from Henry, nothing other than dead eyes.
I had not expected anything more, but it still upset me. So did Manon. She didn't show up for the funeral. I don't know if it was the remnant of our latest argument, or what, but her absence might have bothered me more than Henry's reaction.
On the morning after, I went to her flat and told her about Gregory and the radio. Ruchti knew, Henry knew, Liesl undoubtedly knew, so Manon had to know. She was hurt that I had not told her earlier.
"But we agreed," I said.
"But this was different, Alex. Can't you see that? Gregory. I mean, it was just different."
"How? It was the exact reason why we made the agreement. Gregory had never agreed to have his identity shared with anybody. And besides -- imagine if I had told you, and he got shot. I'd always wonder if by telling you, he somehow had been revealed."
"If I had known, maybe I could have done something to prevent it."
"So you're absolutely sure it wasn't a robbery? Didn't you think it was a robbery until I just walked in here?" I said. And then Manon looked at me with eyes that betrayed nothing but disdain.
"Are you ever going to fucking grow up?" she said. And then, as if she immediately sensed her tone and tried to take it back, she said, "I didn't mean--"
"Yes you did," I said.
In the midst of the ensuing silence, I turned and left her flat. But I came back the next day, and when there was no answer to my knocks, I left her a note with the time of the funeral, and how I would be early, and where I would be sitting. Maybe she never received it -- there was a war on, after all -- or perhaps something between us was torn. After Gregory, after everything, I wasn't sure how I could deal with losing Manon, too.
As I worked this over and over in my mind, following along mindlessly with the standing and sitting and kneeling, not even attempting to listen as the priest droned on in Latin, I didn't know what to do. The only thing I was sure of was that I couldn't take another stare from Henry, so I got up and left the church when the family was kneeling at the railing between the altar and the pews and receiving communion. The sunlight shocked me when I opened the door. At least it was a nice day to feel like shit.
I needed to talk to somebody, and one of the downsides of the spy business is, there isn't a long list of somebodies available for consultation. But Brodsky was one of them. I had left a yellow chalk mark at the MCMIX fountain that morning -- and then, because of my inattention, I was forced to reach into the basin to wash some chalk dust off of my hand and also off of the pants of my black suit. After the funeral, after wandering for who knows how long, I walked by again and saw his mark of acknowledgment.
So that was where I would be headed after dark, one more time to the Barley House unless I could find Manon first. But there was still no answer at her flat. I got down on my hands and knees, pressed my cheek against the floor, and looked into the gap beneath her door. But on the other side, the entryway of the flat wasn't near any windows, and it was dark. I couldn't see if my original note was lying there on the floor or if it had been picked up.
52
War had done nothing to hurt the business of the Barley House, or dampen the din. Whether or not they were arguing about Hiter and Gamelin now instead of FC Zurich and Grasshoppers wasn't obvious, but it was still loud. And it still smelled.
"Fog of war," I said, upon encountering Brodsky at his usual table. I waved my hand and visibly moved the layer of smoke that had settled along the ceiling. I sometimes wondered if Zurich had health inspectors, and what the payoff must have been to keep this place open.
Brodsky was reading the newspaper.
"Morning or afternoon?" I said.
"Afternoon, just bought it," he said. "Still a few hours old."
"Are the Panzers in Paris yet?"
"No," Brodsky said. "It might be worse than that."
"What could be worse than the Germans taking Paris?"
"Look," he said. He folded the newspaper back upon itself and flattened the page on the table. The illustration was a map of the top half of France, with lines drawn on it to represent the armies' various positions. Brodsky began drawing with his finger.
"If you read the story, the Germans have turned north," he said. "Look," and he began pointing to spots mentioned in the text. "If they were going to Paris, they would go here instead." Again, more pointing.
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm no expert -- I can barely follow the map in a Michelin guide," he said. But then he began to explain that from what his sources in the Russian high command had been telling him, the Germans believed that all of the best troops, both British and French, were in Belgium. It was the same thing that Georges had said when we were at Vincennes.
"So what happens if the Germans sweep north like this instead of going to Paris?"
I looked at the map. The best British and French troops would be trapped between the Germans and the English Channel.
"You don't think?"
"I do think," Brodsky said. "Maybe Hitler is a genius after all."
"Fuck," I said. This was my considered military opinion.
"Yes, fuck."
"Do you think the French saw it coming?"
"Does it look like they saw it coming to you?" Brodsky said.
I was sure that they hadn't. I was sure that they were worried only about protecting their precious Paris and never dreamed that Hitler would unleash this kind of vise in the opposite direction.
"Fuck," I said.
"That all you've got?"
"Pretty much. But, I mean, what else needs to be said?"
We looked at the map for a while and played amateur Clausewitz, concluding that the only chance was for the French and Brits to try to bust out before it was too late. Of course, that would require some coordination between the two countries, and a bit of decisive thinking, and those old fools clearly had trouble deciding what to have for lunch.
We began talking about what we had seen in Zurich -- not out there, where the actual working people lived, but where we spent most of our time, within worshiping distance of the Paradeplatz. There were a lot of Germans in the center of the city, both permanent expats and workers -- mostly in the banks -- who were posted in Zurich for a year or two at a time. And most of those German were strutting, just a little louder in the cafes, just a little quicker with a laugh.
"Have you been out on the roads or at the train station in the last couple of days?" I said. Brodsky told me that he had and that the migration toward the south from places near the border like Basel had begun to reverse. He said that as soon as the Germans took Sedan, and then kept going, it looked to most people here that Hitler wasn't interested in causing Switzerland any trouble. So they packed up the cars that they had just unloaded, and left Aunt Marie's house in Geneva, and headed back home.
"Sedan," I said. "First 1870, now 1940. They ought to just blow it up, or at least change the name. Just call it Defeat. Or Disaster. Or Failure."
We got another round, and then I began to tell Brodsky what had happened, about Gregory and his involvement and his murder. He thanked me for the information about the German's radio detection lorry. And then he thought for a minute.
"You want me to clear your conscience -- is that it?"
I didn't answer him.
"I can tell you that you didn't rope your friend into this. I can tell you that he was a grown man, and he sensed a real purpose in his life by he
lping you, and that it was his decision, and that he knew the risks, and that you did nothing but support him, and that none of this was your fault."
I just stared at him.
"I can tell you that, and I believe it," Brodsky said. "But you will not shake this easily, or soon. That is just the truth. It is the danger of involving anyone who is close to you, or of becoming too close to a co-worker or a source."
He paused.
"Thank God I hate you," he said. Then he reached over and punched me in the arm. It was as close a moment as two grown men in a public place could permit themselves.
"Fuck you, asshole," I said. It was the only thing I could think of.
We had another drink. I didn't tell Brodsky, but I was pretty sure, right then, that I couldn't take this anymore -- not Zurich, not working for incompetents, not any of it. And if Manon and I were really done, again, and if Henry and I were done, I knew that there was no way I was staying. How could I? How could I even walk by the cafe?
53
By the next morning, after another failed attempt to contact Manon at her flat, I decided that even if I didn't leave, I needed to be ready to go. That meant getting my money out of Bohemia Suisse.
Part of the problem was finding a destination as far away from all of this as I could. Maybe America made the most sense. I certainly had enough money to get there. But the way things were going, the only way out might have been through Spain, and then Portugal, with a flight or a boat from Lisbon. As long as the trains were still running to France, I would have a chance -- and they were still running, a couple a day. And even if I were to be stranded in, say, Portugal, I could survive that.