by Alan Furst
Serebin bought toys. A wooden ball bound to a stick with a cord—though how a child would contrive to play with such a thing was completely beyond him, and a variety of spinning tops. Also wood carvings: a hut, a sheep, a few saints, and several hounds, some lying with crossed paws, others bounding after prey. Marie-Galante added embroidered vests, wooden and ceramic bowls, and a set of woodworker’s tools that could have been centuries old, then bought a Persian lamb hat for herself. She tried it on, setting it at various angles, as Octavian and the shopkeeper and Serebin looked on, and asked them did it look better like this? Or this?
Serebin had called the number earlier, with no success, and drawn a line through the entry: Gheorghe Musa—senior civil servant. On the right-hand side of the page, no indication of payment. Now, the morning after they returned from Brasov, he tried one last time. Dialed, then stared out the window and waited as the double ring, a dry whispery vibrato, repeated itself again and again. It would, he knew, never be answered.
But it was.
“Yes? Who’s calling, please.” It was the voice of an old man. Perhaps, Serebin thought, an old man whose phone had not rung for a long time.
“I hope I’m not intruding,” Serebin said.
“No, sir, you are not.”
“My name is Marchais, I happen to be in Bucharest, and I’m calling at the suggestion of a friend in Paris.”
“Marchais.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
In the silence on the telephone Serebin could hear the silence of the old man’s apartment. He knows, Serebin thought. Knows perfectly well what kind of telephone call this is, and he’s thinking it over. At last, a voice. “How may I help you?”
“Would it be convenient for us to speak in person?”
Another pause. “All right. Would you want to come here?”
Serebin said he did, and Musa gave him a tram number, a stop, and an address.
The apartment occupied an entire floor, up six steep flights of stairs. Inside it was dark, and so quiet that Serebin was conscious of the sound of his footsteps. It immediately occurred to him, though he could not have said how he knew, that no woman had ever lived there. Gheorghe Musa was a small man, frail, with a few wisps of white hair and a pleasant smile. “You are a rare visitor,” he said. For the visit, or perhaps it was his usual habit, he had dressed formally; a heavy, wool suit, of a style popular in the 1920s, a white shirt with a high collar, a gray tie.
Musa walked slowly to a room lined with bookcases that reached the ceiling. When he turned on a lamp, Serebin could see, by his chair, well-used editions of Balzac and Proust, a Latin dictionary, a set of German encyclopedias.
“And, so, what brings you to Bucharest?”
Serebin mentioned folk art, Brasov, then DeHaas.
“Oh yes,” Musa said. “Some years ago, I used to see a gentleman who worked for that organization. Owned by—he calls himself Baron Kostyka now, I believe. We used to pass information to them, now and then. Depending on what we wanted them to do.” His smile broadened in recollection. “Influence,” he said. “A ministry word.”
“We?”
“Oh I worked for several ministries, over the years. I was at Interior for a long time, then, eventually, the Foreign Ministry, with various titles, until I retired. 1932, that was.”
“It’s that old?”
“DeHaas? Oh yes, very old, and venerable. A local institution, really. And why not? Kostyka’s financial arrangements were large enough to have an effect here, in this country. We tried to make sure his manipulations were favorable to Roumania. We didn’t always succeed, but that’s the game, as I’m sure you know. One must always try.”
“So, you’re retired.” Serebin prepared to leave.
“Yes. For a time I stayed active—a special assignment, once in a while, but that’s all gone now. I’m a Jew, you see, and that’s entirely out of fashion here.”
“Like Germany.”
“Not quite that bad, not yet. But there are, restrictions. I had to give up my radio, last month, and one does miss it terribly. But you wouldn’t want Jews having radios, would you. We are also forbidden servants, and, lately, there’s talk about housing. I have no idea where I’ll go if they take this place away from me.”
“What would they do with it?”
“Give it to their friends. It’s a way they’ve found to improve their lives. You’re surprised?”
“Unfortunately, no. It’s everywhere, Germany’s influence.”
“Yes, that, but we have our own enthusiasts. The Legion staged a grand event last November, the Day of the Martyrs they called it. The remains of Codreanu and his henchmen were supposedly dug up, two years after their execution, and reinterred, here in Bucharest. Fifty-five thousand Iron Guardsmen marched and a hundred thousand sympathizers cheered them on. The schools were closed, Codreanu and his thirteen followers were declared ‘national saints’ by the Orthodox church, the newspapers were printed in green ink. The ceremony was attended by official delegations from all over fascist Europe—Hitler Youth from Germany, Spanish Falangists, Italians, even a group of Japanese. As the coffins were lowered into a mausoleum, German war planes flew overhead and dropped funeral wreaths—one of them hit a legionnaire on the head and knocked him out cold. Then the Legion marched for hours, singing their anthems, while, in the streets, people wept with passion.”
He paused, and Serebin realized that he had actually seen it.
“Yes,” Musa said. “I was there.”
Serebin could see him in the crowd, old, invisible.
“I had to do something.”
After a moment, Serebin said, “Will Roumania be occupied? Like France?”
“We are occupied, sir. The Germans began to arrive in October, even before the king ran away. Just twenty or so, at first, in residence at the Athenée Palace, their boots lining the hall at night, set out to be cleaned and polished. Then more, and more. ‘The German Military Mission to Roumania,’ a euphemism taken from the language of diplomacy. A few thousand of them, now, housed in barracks, and they keep coming. But it will never be an official occupation, we’ve signed up as allies. The only question that remains is, who will govern here? The Legion? Or Marshal Antonescu? It’s Hitler’s choice, we await his pleasure.”
“Will there be, resistance?”
Musa smiled, a sad smile, and shook his head very slowly. “No,” he said softly. “Not here.”
Serebin didn’t want to go, but sensed it was time to leave. Gheorghe Musa would do for them whatever he could, but what that might turn out to be was for others to decide.
“Perhaps you will tell me something,” Musa said.
Serebin waited.
“What precisely interests you, at this moment?”
Serebin hesitated. Hard to know, right now. Of course, as events unfold...That was the established line and Serebin knew it was correct—the question had to be deflected. But then, for a reason he couldn’t name, he said, “Natural resources.”
“Oil and wheat.”
“Yes.”
Musa stood and walked to the bookshelves on the other side of the room, peering at a long row of red cardboard binders with handwritten labels on their spines. “If I have to leave here,” he said, “I suppose I will lose the library. It’s not the kind of thing you can take to, to—wherever it might be.”
He turned to a floor lamp, tugged on the chain again and again until the light went on, then went back to the binders. “One thing about governments,” he said, “think of them what you will, but they do write reports.” He ran his finger along the row. “For example, wheat and rye production in the province of Wallachia in 1908. Read that one? Bet you haven’t. There’s a drought in the final chapter, it will keep you up all night. Certainly kept us up. Or, let’s see, Ethnic Census of Transylvania—the date gives that one away, 1918, after they chased the Hungarians out. Or maybe you’d like...Petroleum Production and Transport: Report of the General Staff. The date being, uh, 192
2.” He slid the binder out, brought it over to Serebin, and handed it to him.
Serebin turned the pages. The text in Roumanian he couldn’t read, but he found a map, with boundaries in dotted lines, and underlined names. Astra Romano. Unirea Speranitza. Dacia Romana. Redeventa Xenia. Standard Petrol Block. Romana Americana. Steaua Romana. Concordia Vega.
“The oil fields,” Musa explained. “With the names of the concessions.”
“What is it?”
“A study of our vulnerabilities, undertaken by the General Staff of the army. After the British raid of 1916, we had to look at what happened, what had been done to us, and what might happen in the future. For the British, of course, the destruction was a great success, a triumph. But for us it was a national humiliation, the more so because we did it to ourselves, we were forced to do it, and we had to ask, will this happen every time we go to war? Can we stop it? It’s our oil, after all. It’s owned by foreigners, but they must pay us for it, and it belongs to us.”
Serebin read further; long columns of numbers, percentages, paragraphs of explanation, a map of the Danube, from Giurgiu in Roumania all the way up to Germany.
“That’s the transport route,” Musa said.
Serebin leafed through the pages until he came to the end, then offered the report to Musa.
“Oh, you might as well take that along,” Musa said. “It’s no use to me anymore.”
It snowed again, that night.
Serebin had the concierge book them a ten o’clock table at Capsa, the city’s most popular restaurant, famous for its Gypsy orchestra. The hotel doorman helped them into a taxi and told the driver where they were going. Halfway there, two blocks from the Lipscani house, they said they had to stop for a few minutes and asked the driver to wait. Then they walked, hunched over, fighting the bitter wind that blew down from the mountains. Serebin carried the report in a briefcase that Marie-Galante had sent him out to buy earlier that afternoon.
“Cold,” Marie-Galante said.
Serebin agreed.
“Talk to me,” she said. “We’re lovers, going out for the evening.”
“What will you have?”
“Udder in wine.” A Roumanian specialty.
“Will you? Really?”
“God no.”
“There’s nobody around,” Serebin said. The city seemed deserted, white snow on empty streets.
“Talk anyhow,” she said.
He talked.
In the lane that led to the Lipscani house, the young officer was shivering in a doorway.
“Our guardian—how does he know to be here?”
“I make a telephone call. To a number that is never answered.”
They entered the Lipscani house and rode up in the moaning elevator. Marie-Galante took the briefcase from him, checked one last time to make sure the report was in there, then placed it by the desk.
They left, heading back toward the waiting taxi. From the darkness, a man in an overcoat came toward them on the other side of the street; head down, hands in pockets, bent against the wind-driven snow. As he hurried past, Serebin saw that it was Marrano.
Back in bed, thank heaven. The long, heavy meal eaten, and no work till morning. It had been a loud Gypsy orchestra, with copious Gypsies—Serebin couldn’t count them because they never stopped moving; leaping about the stage in their baggy pants and high boots, a whirl of fiendish grinning and shouting, singing and dancing, and savage, implacable strumming. Can you play “Shut Up and Sit Still,” traditional ballad of the Serebin clan? Nothing worse than nightclub Gypsies when you weren’t in the mood, and Serebin wasn’t, he was dog tired, period.
Marie-Galante yawned and settled herself on her pillow. “Thank God that’s over,” she said.
“What happens now?”
“Marrano is off to Istanbul. On Lares, the Roumanian airline—may the gods protect him. Polanyi will be pleased, or maybe not, one never knows. Maybe he’s had a copy for years, or the information is too old, or it was all wrong to begin with. Still, it can’t stay here, and we can’t afford to get caught with it. But the important thing is that Musa trusted you.”
“I guess.”
“Oh, he did. It’s in your nature.”
“What is?”
“Honor, good faith. You are who you are, ours, man without a country, soldier of the world.”
“All that?”
“Well, he saw something.”
“He didn’t care, love, he would’ve given that thing to a gorilla.”
“Maybe. But it happened, didn’t it, and it could be important.”
“Or not.”
“Or not.”
She yawned again, rolled over on her stomach, closed her eyes.
From the ballroom, far below them, Serebin could hear the orchestra playing a waltz.
14 January. It was just after eleven when they walked through the lobby, on their way back to work. From the corner of his eye Serebin saw an assistant manager, forefinger held stiff in the air, coming toward him, trying to get his attention. He was a tiny man, unsmiling and formal, who wore a gray cravat with a pearl pin and a boutonniere in his lapel, a pink tea rose that morning. “Monsieur Marchais? A moment, please, monsieur, if I may?”
The request had a certain pitch to it, an undertone of discretion, which meant, in the mysterious alchemy of hotel protocol, that what he had to say was for Serebin’s ears alone. Madame Marchais, the dutiful French wife, continued on her way to the door, while the assistant manager leaned close to Serebin, his voice infinitely confidential.
“Monsieur, your, ah, friend—she did not leave her name,” he paused for a delicate clearing of the throat, “telephoned last night. Rather late. She did sound terribly, distressed, if you’ll forgive me, and asked that you call her as soon as you can. She left a telephone number for you.”
The man pressed a slip of paper in Serebin’s hand. “It seemed quite urgent, monsieur.” Your slut is pregnant, now show some gratitude.
Which Serebin, magnanimously, did.
Well, would that there had been a slut, he thought later, and the problem the little problem.
They hurried to the Lipscani house and Serebin called the number. A woman answered—a cultured voice, but very frightened. “I am a friend of the colonel,” she said. “Of the family, you understand?”
He said, “Yes.” Then mouthed the name Maniu to Marie-Galante.
“They’ve left the country.”
“Why?”
“They had to. He was betrayed. Something about people he used to work with.”
“Did he say what happened?”
“A little. He approached the wrong person.”
“And?”
“They were almost arrested. But they got away, with the clothes on their backs.”
“Do you know where they went?”
“Over the border. I am to tell you that he regrets what happened, that he is sorry. Also, that he wants an old friend to know. You understand this?”
“Yes.”
“He said, ‘A visa for England.’”
“We will do what we can, but we’ll have to know where he is.”
She thought about it. “This is all I can do,” she said.
“Of course. I understand.”
Her voice wavered. “I would do more, I would do anything, everything, but I cannot. I must not. Other people could suffer.”
“You have to do what’s right.”
“I can explain...”
“No, don’t. Better that you don’t.”
“All right, it’s finished.”
“It never happened.”
“Then, good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
“I wish you success. I don’t know anything, but I wish you success.”
“Thank you,” Serebin said.
He hung up, then repeated the conversation for Marie-Galante.
“Merde,” she said. “At least they got away.”
“How would he get a visa?”
“We tell Polanyi, he tells the people he’s working with in London. The British legations are informed, and they—Lisbon, Madrid—wait for him to show up. That is, if the British are willing to take him.”
“Is it possible they won’t?”
“Yes, sad to say.”
“How could that be?”
“Can be, often is. Nature of the world,” she said. “That world.”
They returned to the Athenée Palace at four. Troucelle called from the lobby. He happened to be passing by. He wondered how they were doing. Serebin said they’d be down in a few minutes.
Marie-Galante sat in a chair, put her face in her hands.
“Are you all right?”
“Tired,” she said. She looked up at him. “Well, there it goes. What is it, fourteen days? Maybe that’s good, I don’t know. These things always come apart. If they’re built slowly, carefully, they can last a long time. If not, the roof falls in.”
“Escape through the kitchen?”
She shook her head. “Laurel and Hardy. No, we’ll find out what he wants. Let it just be money.”
“Will we be arrested?”
“Always a possibility, but not like this, this is a probe. I think we’ll have coffee. Very civilized. Don’t make it easy for him, but let him know we’re prepared to listen to a proposition.”
“We don’t have that much, do we?”
That didn’t worry her. “Cable to Istanbul.”
“What do we offer?”
“A year’s money, maybe. Not a lifetime—that makes us too important. In American dollars, say, five thousand. Twenty-five thousand Swiss francs.”
Downstairs, a table in the green salon. Turkish coffee in little cups without handles, cream cakes, toast with butter, Moldavian roll. Outside, beyond the mirrored walls, twilight on a winter afternoon.
Troucelle sprang to his feet when he saw them coming. Under pressure, he was a caricature of himself—too bright, too clever, his smile radiant. “Allow me to present Domnul Petrescu,” he said. The name Petrescu was the Roumanian version of Smith or Jones, the man who stood beside him somebody he would never have known. Pencil mustache, bad teeth, olive green loden jacket.