Man With Two Faces

by Don Swaim

  As our defense plants worked overtime to fulfill military contracts, the Great Depression slowly ran out of steam. Just like the World’s Fair itself, which was hemorrhaging so much dough it was hard to believe it could sustain another season.

  After our coquilles Saint Jacques, poached turbot, and stuffed artichokes, Diana eyed me quizzically over coffee.

  “There’s something on your mind, Tokee. I can always tell when something’s not copacetic.”

  I sighed. “I wasn’t sure how you’d take it, dollface, but I’m thinking about enlisting.”

  “I’m a big girl, even though for us it’s always been two for the price of one. The French Foreign Legion again?”

  “There’s word going around that Wild Bill Donovan, a chum of mine, is in Europe to see how America can help our allies. It’s all hush hush. Spy stuff amuses me. I just might go to North Africa on my own, see if I can scare up some trouble on behalf of our friends. Casablanca, maybe. Or Algiers. I know people there.”

  “And what about us, Tokee, darling? Where do I stand in all this?”

  “With me, I hope.”

  We locked lips.

  Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. Let’s go to press.

  Flash! A personal note. Nineteen thirty-nine brings a special decade to a close. With another war underway in Europe nothing will be the same. It’s been the age of speed and light; geometrically scored skyscrapers; Gershwin and Copland; Gable and Lombard; saxophone and Theremin; Fred and Ginger; Twentieth Century Limited and Caribbean Clipper; Busby Berkeley and Jean Harlow; Pretty Boy Floyd and Machine Gun Kelly; Speedsters and Roadsters; Bakelite babble from Atlantic to Pacific—all tempered by depression, breadlines, dustbowls, and the rattle of tommy guns. Auf Wiedersehen, my late friend.

  Flash! Your intrepid reporter has learned exclusively that his Certain Acquaintance is no longer in the States, but is overseas bravely doing his part to help our allies in their struggle against the Axis enemy. C.A. is not waiting for the war to come to our shores. Just where he is cannot be revealed, but you can be certain that at the right time the Nazis will feel his fury.

  …For Jergens Lotion, this is Walter Winchell wishing you lotions of love.

  seven

  Operation Torch 1940

  My hovel in an unnamed alley of the Casbah was rank with the stench of something dead plus the odor of piss infiltrating through the slat serving as the lone window. I was under the command of a brigade of cockroaches, who became so familiar I gave them names: lieutenant, sergeant, corporal. Down the hall stood a yellowed sink with a leaky faucet, while the toilet was a hole in a listing wooden cubicle outdoors. Admittedly, it wasn’t as ritzy as my room at the Y in New York, but it would do.

  Yet in my anonymity I almost preferred these sorrowful digs—a mere handful of francs each week, a dollar or two—over the luxurious Le Saint George Hotel, home away from home to potentates, diplomats, and celebrities from Churchill to Piaf to de Beauvoir to Chaplin, even Bogart.

  Word circulated that Bogie was in Algiers with director John Huston scouting locations for a new film, although no one had actually seen the two—at least not without a drink in their mitts.

  What was I doing in Algeria living in such mean accommodations?

  Serving my nation against the Axis menace.

  The Nazis would murder me if they knew who I was and why I was there. God knew the city was alive with spies, including spooks of our own.

  Whenever I left my cell, I darkened my skin to a subtle olive and dressed in traditional native garb. Burnoose, fez, and sandals. The burnoose had sufficient folds in which to secret my gat. I spoke French, Arabic, and a bit of Berber, but primarily I conducted myself like a drooling moron, so people gave me a wide birth.

  When the call for salah arrived five times a day, wherever I was I obediently prostrated myself in the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, Owner of the Universe, Guardian of the Faith, the All-Aware—even though supplicants earned additional credits for actually worshiping inside a mosque. Indeed, the Djama’a al-Kebir Mosque, built in the year 1097, was on Rue de la Marine, a mere five-minute walk from my hole.

  The streets of Algiers vividly evoked a coexisting cultural mélange: fashionably dressed Westerners sipping the local brew in outdoor cafes, old men in fezzes playing dominoes on makeshift tables, Muslim women in black niqabs.

  I had been in Manhattan in my Chrysler Building office when I got the call from Wild Bill Donovan to join him in Algiers to discuss something vital. The flamboyant Donovan was a hero of the Great War, wounded three times, and a conservative Republican who eight years ago had run unsuccessfully for governor of New York. Although an FDR liberal, I contributed to Donovan’s failed campaign because in my racket it was prudent to cull friendships from all political spectrums.

  Bill’s transatlantic phone line from London was staticky.

  “Tokol, I’m fully aware of your various clandestine activities, so I’ve arranged for you to take a military charter to Algiers. You’ve been booked into a hotel under the name Stephen P. Swan, a salesman of valves for oil and gas pipelines. I can’t reveal more on the phone. I’ll be leaving England for Algeria tomorrow.”

  “Is it safe for you to fly out of London right now?” I asked.

  “Some little war’s not going to stop me.”

  Little war my derriere. Hitler’s offensive in France had just forced more than three-hundred thousand British soldiers to flee Dunkirk in every skiff, sailboat, yacht, trawler, ferry, tugboat, and garbage scow they could commandeer. A humiliating defeat, but a logistical miracle. London was now under siege from the air.

  “Tokol, let me remind you this is all on the QT, and you know what that means.”

  Even as Europe was cursed by war, the U.S. was officially neutral.

  Diana took it in stride when I told her I was flying the next day on a military transport out of Mitchel Army Airfield in Hempstead Plains.

  “Guess I won’t be seeing you for a while, Tokee, darling,” she said. “I’ll be lonely.”

  “You’ve got Kyle.”

  “He’s been a bit crotchety, so we’re not speaking right now. Don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you’re going.”

  I kissed her on the lips as if to seal our silence.

  “Maybe I’ll be able to send for you,” I said vaguely.

  “I won’t hold my breath.”

  “Anyway, you’ve got plenty to do on the home front.”

  “I may go to England to help wrap bandages.”

  The military had designated Mitchel Field as the U.S. Air Defense Command. From there I hitched a flight on an Army Curtiss C-46 Commando, holding tight to a bench on the upper passenger level for the bumpy, unheated Trans-Atlantic crossing. My fellow passengers were a surly bunch who spent the flight drinking stale thermos coffee and smoking. They didn’t ask where I was going and I reciprocated.

  We refueled in Gander, Dublin, and Madrid before landing at Maison Blanche Airport in Algiers.

  The plane skirted much of the European coast, of course. France had fallen to the Jerries, who occupied the north, while the Nazi-puppet Pétain controlled the south, the colonies, and what was left of the French military. The Vichy wasted no time in passing the Statut des Juifs, and Algerian Jews were stripped of their citizenship overnight. Jewish internment camps were set up at Bedeau and Djelfa.

  At the airport, I was met by Donovan’s limo, whose driver supplied me with an appropriately constructed passport with my new name and photo, and ferried me to the Hotel Saint George on Rue Michelet.

  It was a searingly hot day, and Algiers appeared whitewashed under the sun, the low-slung houses, narrow streets, hermitic courtyards, arches, and minarets, a sprawl against the Mediterranean, an almost unnatural blue. I was no stranger here, a visitor many times during my Foreign Legion days, and where I honed my French.

  It was also where I first met Gazala Lazaar, a young woman with whom I had, one might say, an arrangement.
I wondered if she was still in the city and if I dared look her up. No. It would wreck my cover.

  Still…

  The mosaic-lined hotel, once an Ottoman palace, boasted gardens of roses and jasmine, sheltered by palm and banana trees, and in the distance the Bay of Algiers. After I checked in, my single bag was dispatched to my room while I was escorted to the suite of William J. Donovan, a cut-glass Irishman from Buffalo who traveled far and lived well.

  We clinked our glasses of single-malt Glenfiddich.

  “To our arriving safely in Algiers,” I said.

  “Almost didn’t make it, Tokol. My plane strayed over the Channel Islands, and came under antiaircraft fire. But I was worried not. If I survived being shot down and captured by the Krauts a potassium cyanide capsule would have been between my teeth before they knew it.”

  Donovan wasn’t called Wild Bill for naught. His combat exploits earned him the Medal of Honor, Légion d’Honneur, Order of the British Empire, Croce di Guerra, Order of Leopold, Order of Polonia Restituta, and Croix de Guerre with Palm and Silver Star.

  “Tokol, FDR and I don’t agree politically—except regarding the Nazis. He asked me to observe British intelligence first hand, and a Canadian agent, code-named Intrepid, introduced me to MI6 operations overseas. I now run the COI, Coordinator of Information, which is consolidating all U.S. intelligence.”

  “Bill, it’s become perfectly clear. You want me to be a spy.”

  “Not just any spy, Tokol. You’re here because of Operation Torch.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Code for the American invasion of West Africa.”

  “We’re officially neutral.”

  “We’ll be in the damned war as sure as Glenfiddich is as smooth as a baby’s butt. Soon, Egypt will be overrun by the Wehrmacht, which thinks it can save the asses of their little Italian pets. Within two years we’ll invade Morocco and Algeria and bash the bastards point-blank.”

  “The Vichy military might have something to say about that, Bill. The French think West Africa’s their gift from God.”

  “Three days after our invasion, the Vichy will be kissing our boots—and you can take that to Chase National Bank. Why the hell are the French in Africa to begin with? I don’t recall Algeria inviting them. I’ve already set up a clandestine unit in Algiers to begin intelligence as part of Operation Torch.”

  “Bill, I want to do my part but I don’t think my sitting in an office—”

  “Not an office, Tokol. I want you in the field. Algiers is teeming with Nazis and their collaborators, so for us it’s perfect. We’ve already set you up as a valve salesman, which will get you in to meet the right people in Fascist circles. I warn you, however, it’ll be dangerous, and I don’t want your corpse discovered in some fetid alley in the Casbah.”

  “What if I could squeeze even closer, such as actually infiltrating the Nazis’ Algerian ministry? Maybe posing as a harmless, unskilled native.”

  “Fine. Dump their guano. Pick up their trash. But paw through it for pearls first.”

  “Who do I report to?”

  “A young man I’ve put in charge of our Algerian operations. Henry Hyde. Cambridge, Harvard Law. Speaks French, German. Married to the daughter of a French baron. He’s acquiring maps, measuring the coastline, charting fields, watching ship movements, and getting messages in and out by shortwave. Ain’t no Mickey Mouse operation.”

  “When do I start?”

  “Yesterday.”

  I left Donovan to formulate my plans. First, I would keep my room at the Saint George in my guise as Stephen P. Swan of Dallas, Texas, purveyor of valves, which I familiarized myself with by reading the voluminous research Donovan’s team supplied. Second, I planned an additional identity as Salaah al-Abdoo, common laborer, illiterate, and devoted follower of Mohammed, praised messenger of Allah and Keeper of All Statistics.

  Should be fun. Too bad Diana wasn’t here to join in.

  Late in the afternoon, I wandered the streets to refresh my recollection of a city so French that Africa almost seemed an afterthought.

  On Rue Crémieux near the university, I slid into a chair at an outdoor café. The adjoining table was occupied by two French-speaking men, one young, the other older, drinking coffee, smoking, and talking relentlessly. From their conversation, it was apparent the occasion was a farewell to the younger man, slender with a high forehead. While it was impossible not to overhear them, I took cover behind a copy of Le Quotidien d’Algérie.

  The older said, “So, Albert, what are your plans after you cross the Mediterranean?”

  “I’ve arranged to work as a reporter at Paris-Soir, which relocated to Lyon due to the occupation. Don’t look at me like that, Jean. A job under the Vichy regime in France, is better than no job at all in Algiers.”

  “Vichy is a place of sulfurous waters, mud baths, and colonic irrigation, falsely guaranteed to cure gout, liver disease, and rheumatism.”

  “To be practical, it takes a certain amount of income to live no matter where one is, and having money is a way of being free of money.”

  “Do you suppose you’ll ever return to the Alger Républicain?”

  “A newspaper run by communists and anarchists in Algeria? It was doomed. First they censored us, then they confiscated our paper stock, and finally we were banned. But we were defiant. Thinking people are not obligated to be on the side of their executioners.”

  “Albert, you’re basically a rebel.”

  “What’s a rebel? Merely a man who says no. I exist as long as I rebel.”

  “How’s your novel coming, the one about that Pied-Noir murdering for no good reason an Arab on the beach at Oran?”

  “Slowly, Jean. But I disagree when you say the Arab was murdered for no good reason. A novel is philosophy put into images, and a work that will last must consist of profound ideas. In other words, fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”

  “Was the Arab’s murder a crime of passion or logic?”

  “The boundary between the two is rarely clear.” He stubbed out his cigarette butt with the toe of his shoe. “But for me, there’s no passion without a struggle. We’re all capable of good deeds, Jean. However, if a man hasn’t passion, he leaves me cold.”

  The young man drained his coffee and stood.

  “I must say adieu. But I’ve been asking myself a question for which you might have the answer.” A pause. “Should I kill myself or have another cup of coffee?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, then both laughed. The voyager left after an exchange of hugs and kisses.

  It occurred to me that Operation Torch might find value in a youthful anti-Fascist stationed among the Vichy in Lyon, particularly one who could so cavalierly balance life on one hand with a cup of coffee on the other. I made a mental note for Hyde.

  Leaning over, I said to Jean, who remained at his table, “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, monsieur. Your friend seems to have an extraordinary mind.”

  “Oui. I was once his teacher. He’s a genius, although he says he has enough problems just being a man.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Albert Camus.”

  My next step was to snoop around the German consulate on Rue des Laperlier, an imposing building topped by a Nazi flag and patrolled by churlish sentries. In my shabby Algerian garb, I knew I’d be curtly rebuffed at the front gate, so I reconnoitered to the loosely guarded rear where I easily breached the wall and found my way to the trash cans. I busied myself poking through the garbage.

  Suddenly I heard him demanding an explanation from me. “Was machst du denn hier, schweinhund?”

  It was a private in a Waffen-SS uniform, aiming his Karabiner 98k at my heart. I threw my hands up, shaking my head as if I didn’t understand why he was demanding to know the reason for my defiling presence.

  “Sprechen sie Deutsch?” he snarled.

  Wildly gesticulating, I appealed to him in hopeless ignorance.
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  Finally, in a barely intelligible amalgam of French, Arabic, and English, the two of us communicated awkwardly.

  I whined, “No offense, effendi, I was merely cleaning your garbage pails.”

  Effendi wasn’t quite the word to apply in Algeria, but I figured a member of the master race would consider the term agreeably subservient, so I obliged.

  “I should shoot you for trespassing on German soil, you piece of Algerian filth.”

  “Please, effendi, I was trying to help. My services are yours for next to nothing. I will pick your grass with my bare hands, lick the garbage pails clean with my tongue, empty your slops. Perform all that you ask of this poor, humble scullion.”

  “Get the hell out of here before I shove my boot up your ass. Schnell!”

  “Yes, effendi. Certainly, effendi. All that you say, effendi.”

  I backed away bowing, scraping like the miserable piece of bilge I made myself out to be.

  “Halt, fuckface. What’s your name?”

  “I am Salaah al-Abdoo, effendi.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “The Casbah near the mosque, effendi.”

  He flipped me a coin.

  “Go out and buy me a pack of Atikah cigaretten, and if you ain’t back in ten minutes I’ll come looking for you and there’ll be hell to pay. And use the front gate from now on.”

  “Indeed, effendi. Anything you ask of me, effendi. Allah has commanded me to serve.”

  And so I entered into a private arrangement with Private Otto Glockner, who unwittingly became my entrée to the German Consulate. As his personal servant, serf, drudge, minion, and all-around whipping boy, I shined his boots, cleaned his rifle, brought him schnapps, and, above all, while he loafed gave him a heads up whenever his sergeant came prowling around. Glockner paid me the equivalent of pennies a day, and soon my duties expanded.

  Thus, I was a common sight as I weeded, mowed, cleaned, lugged, toiled, and rifled the garbage for scraps of intelligence, some potentially useful. To the casual observer, I was a common-as-dirt servant, seen yet not seen, rather like my Zulu namesake, the mythological tokoloshe, who became invisible simply by ingesting H2O. The Krauts allowed me the run of the consulate grounds, and I was even able to enter the kitchen, sometimes thrown scraps of wiener schnitzel and bratwurst.