by Alan Furst
Ah, Fischfang, Casson thought. You are my revenge.
Louis Fischfang was Casson’s writer. Every producer had one. Casson told the agents and screenwriters that he spread the work around, and he did—different people were right for different projects. But in the end, when the chips were down, when somebody had to somehow make it all come out right for the people who handed over their hard-earned francs for a seat in a movie theatre, then it was Fischfang and no other.
Though he quivered with political rage, spat and swore like a proletarian, marched and signed and chanted and agitated, none of it mattered, because that fucking Fischfang could write a movie script that would make a banker weep. God-given talent, is what it was. Just the line, just the gesture, just the shot. There could be no Jean Cassons— no Alexander Kordas, no Louis Mayers, no Jean Renoirs or René Clairs—without the Louis Fischfangs of this world.
Fischfang looked up as Casson approached the table. Offered his usual greeting: a few grim nods and a twisted smile. Yes, here he was, the devil’s first mate on the ship of corruption. Here was money, nice suits, ties, and the haughty 16th Arrondissement, all in one bon bourgeois package called Casson.
“Did you order?” Casson asked as he sat down.
“Kir.” White wine with blackcurrent liqueur.
“Good idea.”
“Royale.” Not white wine, champagne.
“Even better.”
The waiter arrived with Fischfang’s drink and Casson ordered the same. “It’s a strange day to work,” he said, “but I really don’t know what else to do.”
“I can’t believe it’s come to this,” Fischfang said angrily. “They”— in Fischfangese this always meant the government and the rich and the powerful— “they grew Hitler. Watered him and weeded him and pitch-forked manure all around him. They gave him what he wanted in Czechoslovakia and Poland—now he wants the rest, now he wants what they have. Hah!”
“So now they’ll stop him,” Casson said.
Fischfang gave him a look. There was something knowing and serious about it—you’re naive—and it made him uncomfortable. They sat for a time in silence, watched the crowd flowing endlessly down the avenue. Then Casson’s drink came. “Santé,” he said. Fischfang acknowledged the toast with a tilt of the tulip-shaped glass and they drank. Fischfang’s grandfather had crawled out of a shtetl in Lithuania and walked to Paris in the 1850s, Casson’s roots went back into Burgundy, but as they drank their Kir they were simply Parisians.
“Well,” Casson said acidly, “if the world’s going to burn down we should probably make a movie.”
Fischfang hunted through a scuffed leather briefcase at his feet and brought out a sheet of yellow paper crammed with notes and ink splatters. “Fort Sahara,” he said. He took a packet of cheap cigarettes; short, stubby things, from his breast pocket. As the match flared, he screwed up his face, shielding the cigarette with cupped hands as he lit it. “Lisbon,” he said, shaking out the match. “The slums. Down by the docks. Women hanging out washing on a line stretched across the narrow street. They’re dark, heavy, sweating. All in black. The men are coming home, in twos and threes, carrying their oars and their nets. Kids playing soccer in the street—tin can instead of a ball. Now it’s nighttime. Men and women going to the —cantina? Wine’s being poured from a straw-covered jug. There’s a band, people dancing. Here’s a young man, Santo. He’s tough, handsome, sideburns, rolled-up sleeves . . .”
“Michel Ferré.”
“Yes? That’s up to you. For some reason I kept seeing Beneviglia— he speaks French with an Italian accent.”
“Hunh. Not bad. But remember, this is a quota film—life will go smoother if everybody’s French.”
To protect the film industry, the government had decreed that a certain portion of a foreign company’s French earnings be spent on French films—which meant that major studios, in this case Paramount, had frozen francs that had to be used on what had come to be called “quota films.”
“Even so, Michel Ferré is perhaps a little old,” Fischfang said. “Santo is, oh, twenty-five.”
“All right.”
“So he’s taking his girl dancing. There’s a thwarted suitor, a knife fight in the alley. Suitor dies. We hear whistles blowing, the police are on the way. Cut to the train station—Marseilles. All these tough-guy types, Santo looks like an innocent among them, with his cheap little suitcase. But he survives. Among the thieves and the pimps and the deserters, he somehow makes a place for himself. Maybe he works for a carnival.”
“Good.”
“I see him backlit by those strings of little lights, watching the young couples in love—it should be him and his girl, holding hands. But his friend at the carnival is no good. He plans a robbery—asks Santo to keep a revolver for him. So, he’s implicated. They hold up a bank. We see it. The manager runs outside waving his arms, they shoot him—”
“Why not hold up the carnival? The owner’s a cheat with a little mustache . . .”
Fischfang nodded and crossed out a line in his notes. “So they’re not gangsters.”
“No. Men on the run from life. The carnival owner knows that, he thinks he can hold back their wages because they can’t go to the police.”
“So, once again, Santo has to run. We see him staring through the train window, watching the world of everyday life go by. Then he’s someplace, oh, like Béziers. Down to his last sou, he enlists in the Foreign Legion.”
“Then Morocco.” Casson caught the waiter’s eye and raised two fingers.
“Well, the desert anyhow. Last outpost at Sidi-ben-something-or-other. The white buildings, the sun beating down, the tough sergeant with the heart of gold.”
“Camels.”
“Camels.”
A woman in a white cape swept past them, waving at someone, silver bracelets jangling on her wrist. Fischfang said, “Can we do anything about the title, Jean-Claude?”
“It’s from Irving Bressler, at Paramount. It says ‘Foreign Legion,’ it says ‘desert.’ By the way, who are they fighting?”
Fischfang shrugged. “Bandits. Or renegades. Not the good Moroccans.”
“Where’s the girl, Louis?”
“Well, if the fisherman’s daughter goes to Marseilles to be with Santo, she sure as hell can’t go to the desert. Which leaves the slave girl, captured by bandits many years ago . . .”
“Kidnapped heiress. She’s been rescued and is staying at the fort . . .”
“Native girl. ‘I’m glad you liked my dancing, monsieur. Actually, I’m only half-Moroccan, my father was a French officer . . .’ ”
“Merde.”
“This is always hard, Jean-Claude.”
They were silent for a moment, thinking through the possibilities. “Actually,” Casson said, “we’re lucky it’s not worse. Somebody in the meeting mumbled something about the hero singing, but we all pretended not to hear.”
The waiter arrived with the Kirs. “Fort Sahara,” Casson said, and raised his glass in a toast. The sky was darker now, it was almost night. Somewhere down the boulevard a street musician was playing a violin. The crowd at Fouquet’s was several drinks along, the conversation was animated and loud, there were bursts of laughter, a muffled shriek, a gasp of disbelief. The waiters were sweating as they ran between the tables and the bar.
“Ending?” Casson said.
Fischfang sighed. “Well, the big battle. Santo the hero. He lives, he dies . . .”
“Maybe with French financing, he dies. For Paramount, he lives.”
“And he gets the girl.”
“Of course.”
“She’s the colonel’s wife . . .”
“Daughter.”
“Cat.”
“Chicken.”
8:30 P.M.
Casson took the long way on his walk from the rue Chardin to Marie-Claire’s apartment on the rue de l’Assomption. A blackout was in effect, and the velvety darkness of the Passy streets was strange but not unpleasant—as th
ough the neighborhood had gone back a hundred years in time. In some apartments there were candles, but that was typical French confusion at work: a blackout didn’t mean you had to cover the light in your windows, it meant you couldn’t turn on the electricity. If you did, it would somehow—one never quite understood these things—help the Germans.
The walk to Marie-Claire’s took less than fifteen minutes, but Casson saw two moving vans working that night. On the rue des Vignes, three men struggled with a huge painting, something eighteenth century, in a gilded frame. On the next street it was a Vuitton steamer trunk.
Rue de l’Assomption stood high above the Bois de Boulogne, and the views were dramatic. Lovely old trees. Meadows and riding paths. Marie-Claire’s horsey friends had their polo club in the Bois, Bruno served in some vaguely official capacity at Le Racing Club de France, there was a season box at the Auteuil racetrack, and a private room could be rented for late supper parties at Pré Catalan, the fin-de-siècle restaurant hidden at the center of the park.
Casson paused at the entry to the building. This had been his apartment when he’d married, but it belonged to Marie-Claire now. Well, that was the way of the world. The history of ownership of apartments in the 16th Arrondissement, Casson thought, would probably make a more exciting epic of France than the Chanson de Roland.
The concierge of the building had always loved him:
“Ah, Monsieur Casson. It’s good to see a friendly face. What a day, eh? What a horror. Oh the vile Boche, why can’t they leave us alone? I’m getting too old for war, monsieur, even to read it in the papers. Let alone the poor souls who have to go and fight, may God protect them. What’s that you have there? A vacherin! For the dinner tonight? How Madame trusts you, monsieur, if I sent my poor—ah, here’s the old elevator; hasn’t killed us yet but there’s still time. A good evening to you, monsieur, we all would love to see more of you, we all would.”
The elevator opened into the foyer of Marie-Claire’s apartment. He had a blurred impression—men in suits, women in bright silk, the aromas of dinner. Marie-Claire hurried to the door and embraced him, grosses bisoux, kisses left and right, left and right, then stepped back so he could see her. Emerald earrings, lime-colored evening gown, hair a richer blonde than usual, tiny eyes scheming away, clouds of perfume rolling over him like fog at the seaside. “Jean-Claude,” she said. “I am glad you’re here.” Something to say to a guest, but Casson could hear that she meant it.
And if any doubt lingered, she took him gently by the arm and drew him into the kitchen, where the maid and the woman hired for the evening were fussing with the pots. “Let’s have a look,” she said. Lifted the lid from a stewpot, shoved tiny potatos and onions aside with an iron ladle and let some of the thick brown sauce flow into it. She blew on it a few times, took a taste, then offered it to Casson. Who made a kind of bear noise, a rumble of pleasure from deep within.
“Ach, you peasant,” she said.
“Navarin of lamb,” Casson said.
Marie-Claire jiggled the top off the vacherin’s wooden box, placed her thumb precisely in the imprint made by the woman in the crémerie, and pressed down. For his effort, Casson was rewarded with a look that said well, at least something went right in the world today.
“Jean-Claude!” It was Bruno, of course, who’d snuck up behind him and brayed in his ear. Casson turned to see the strands of silver hair at the temples, the lemon silk ascot, the Swiss watch, the black onyx ring, the you-old-fox! smile, and a glass full of le scotch whiskey.
Suddenly, the sly smile evaporated. The new look was stern: the hard glare of the warrior. “Vive la France,” Bruno said.
They toasted the Langlades with champagne. Twenty years of marriage, of that-which-makes-the-world-go-round. Twenty years of skirmishes and cease-fires, children raised, gifts the wrong size, birthdays and family dinners survived, and all of it somehow paid for without going to jail.
Another glass, really.
With the exception of Bruno, they had all known each other forever, were all from old 16th-Arrondissement families. Marie-Claire’s grandfather had carried on a famous, virtually lifelong lawsuit against Yvette Langlade’s great-aunt. In their common history all the sins had been sinned, all the alliances broken and eventually mended. Now they were simply old friends. To Casson’s left was Marie-Claire’s younger sister, Véronique, always his partner at these affairs. She was a buyer of costume jewelry for the Galéries Lafayette, had married and separated very young, was known to be a serious practicing Catholic, and kept her private life resolutely sealed from view. She saw the plays and read the books, she loved to laugh, was always a charming dinner companion, and Casson was grateful for her presence. To his right was Bibi Lachette—the Lachettes had been summer friends of the Cassons in Deauville—the last-minute stand-in for Françoise and Philippe Pichard. Her last-minute escort was a cousin (nephew?), in Paris on business from Lyons (Mâcon?), who held a minor position in the postal administration, or perhaps he had to do with bridges. Bibi had been a great beauty in her twenties, a dark and mysterious heartbreaker, like a Spanish dancer. The cousin, however, turned out to be pale and reticent, apparently cultivated on a rather remote branch of the family tree.
With the warm leeks in vinaigrette came a powerful Latour Pomerol—Bruno on the attack. Casson would have preferred something simple with the navarin, which was one of those Parisian dishes that really did have a farmhouse ancestry. But he made the proper appreciative noise when Bruno showed the label around, and for his politeness was rewarded with a covert grin from Bibi, who knew Casson didn’t do that sort of thing.
They tried not to let the Germans join them at dinner. They talked about the fine spring, some nonsense to do with a balloon race in Switzerland that had gone wrong in amusing ways. But it was not easy. Somebody had a story about Reynaud’s mistress, one of those what does he see in her women, ungainly and homely and absurdly powerful. That led back to the government, and that led back to the Germans. “Perhaps it’s just a social problem,” Bernard Langlade said gloomily. “We never invited them to dinner. Now they’re going to insist.”
“They insisted in 1914, and they were sorry they did.” That was Véronique.
“I don’t think they’ve ever been sorry,” said Arnaud, a lawyer for shipping companies. “They bleed and they die and they sign a paper. Then they start all over again.”
“I have three MGs on the Antwerp docks,” Bruno said. “Paid for. Then today, no answer on the telephone.”
This stopped the conversation dead while everybody tried to figure out just exactly how much money had been lost. When the silence had gone on too long, Casson said, “I have a friend in Antwerp, Bruno. He owns movie theatres, and seems to know everybody. With your permission, I’ll just give him a call tomorrow morning.”
It helped. Madame Arnaud began a story, Bernard Langlade asked Véronique if he could pour her some more wine. Bibi Lachette leaned toward him and said confidentially, “You know, Jean-Claude, everybody loves you.”
Casson laughed it off, but the way Bibi moved her breast against his arm clearly suggested that somebody loved him.
“Well,” Marie-Claire said, “one can only hope it doesn’t go on too long. The British are here, thank heaven, and the Belgians are giving the Germans a very bad time of it, according to the radio this evening.”
Murmurs of agreement around the table, but they knew their history all too well. Paris was occupied in 1814, after the loss at Waterloo. The Germans had built themselves an encampment in the Tuileries, and when they left it had taken two years to clean up after them. Then they’d occupied a second time, in 1870, after that idiot Napoleon III lost an entire army at Sedan. In 1914 it had been a close thing—you could drive to the battlefields of the Marne from Paris in less than an hour.
“What are the Americans saying?” asked Madame Arnaud. But nobody seemed to know, and Marie-Claire shooed the conversation over into sunnier climes.
They laughed and smoked a
nd drank enough so that, by midnight, they really didn’t care what the Germans did. Bibi rested two fingers on Casson’s thigh when he filled her glass. The vacherin was spooned out onto glass plates—a smelly, runny, delicious success. Made by a natural fermentation process from cow’s milk, it killed a few gourmets every year and greatly delighted everyone else. Some sort of a lesson there, Casson thought. At midnight, time for cake and coffee, the maid appeared in consternation and Marie-Claire hurried off to the kitchen.
“Well,” she sighed when she reappeared, “life apparently will go on its own particular way.”
A grand production from Ponthieu; feathery light, moist white cake, apricot-and-hazlenut filling, curlicues of pastry cream on top, and the message in blue icing: “Happy Birthday Little Gérard.”
A moment of shock, then Yvette Langlade started to laugh. Bernard was next, and the couple embraced as everyone else joined in. Madame Arnaud laughed so hard she actually had tears running down her cheeks. “I can’t help thinking of poor ‘Little Gérard,’ ” she gasped.
“Having his twentieth wedding anniversary!”
“And so young!”
“Can you imagine the parents?”
“Dreadful!”
“Truly—to call a child that on his very own birthday cake!”
“He’ll never recover—scarred for life.”
“My God it’s perfect,” Yvette Langlade panted. “The day of our twentieth anniversary; Germany invades the country and Ponthieu sends the wrong cake.”
Everything was arranged during the taxi ballet in front of the building at 2:30 in the morning. Bibi Lachette’s cousin was put in a cab and sent off to an obscure hotel near the Sorbonne. Then Casson took Bibi and Véronique home—Véronique first because she lived down in the 5th Arrondissement. Casson walked her to the door and they said good night. Back in the cab, it was kissing in the backseat and, at Bibi’s direction, off to the rue Chardin. “Mmm,” she said.
“It’s been a long time,” Casson said.