by Alan Furst
30 November. Sturmbannführer August Voss rode the express back from Berlin to Glogau. There was only one other passenger in the first-class compartment and Voss gazed out the window but saw nothing, so much was his mind occupied with anger. He’d gone up to the central command office on Wilhelmstrasse for the normal monthly meeting with his superior, but the meeting had not been at all normal. His superior, Obersturmbannführer Gluck, a bright young lawyer from Berlin in his previous life, had criticized him for the Edvard Uhl affair. No compliments for unveiling a spy, only disapproval for that absurd folly at the hotel in Warsaw. Gluck wasn’t sarcastic or loud, not the type to slam his fist on the desk—he was too high and mighty for that. No, he regretted the incident, wondered if it wasn’t just a bit precipitous to snatch this man in the middle of a foreign city, and unfortunate that the abduction had failed. This was Gluck’s typical manner: quietly rueful, seemingly not all that perturbed. But then, when you left the office, he had your dossier brought out and destroyed you. And what came next was a new assignment—where you’d be tucked away in some cemetery of a bureau where they gathered up failures and kept them busy with meaningless paper.
The deed, for all Voss knew, might already have been done. But, he vowed to himself, the story wouldn’t end there. Zoller, his operative in Leszno who’d followed Uhl up to Warsaw, had been transferred to the Balkans—the Zagreb station, let him deal with the Croats and the Serbs—and Voss had made sure that everyone in his office knew it. But, much more important, the jackass who’d intervened outside the Hotel Orla would be dealt with next.
Voss had worked at that, hard, in the days following the aborted kidnapping. Who was he? The Warsaw operatives knew what he looked like, and Voss had hauled the leader, a Polish fascist, down to Glogau and given him the tongue-lashing of his life. “Find him, or else!” Voss didn’t care how. And the man had done the job in less than a week. His chief thug, once a professional wrestler in Chicago, had kept watch on the main Warsaw hospital and, lo and behold, there he was. Visiting in the morning, leaving an hour later, and followed back to the French embassy. He wore an officer’s uniform, but the operative had gotten a good look at him at the Hotel Orla and thought he was the same man.
In Glogau, Voss had not reported this discovery in a dispatch, sensing he might need it at the meeting in Berlin. And, he thought at first, he’d been right. When Gluck’s criticism finally wound down, he’d said, “Well, at least we’ve identified the man who interfered,” then paused, anticipating words of praise.
They weren’t spoken, only a polite “Yes?”
“A Frenchman, working at the embassy. An army officer.”
“Military attaché?”
“Perhaps, we can’t be sure. But we’ll find out, once we’ve got our hands on him.”
“Your hands on him, Sturmbannführer Voss? A military attaché? In diplomatic service at an embassy?” Gluck had stared at him, his blue lawyer’s eyes as cold as ice. “You don’t mean that seriously, do you?”
“But . . .”
“Of course you don’t. You are irritated by failure, naturally, who wouldn’t be, but an attack on a serving military attaché?” Gluck closed his eyes and gave his head a delicate shake: this must be a nightmare, where I’m forced to work with fools. “Do we, Sturmbannführer Voss, need to discuss this further?”
“No, sir. Of course not. I perfectly understand.”
In the compartment on the Berlin/Glogau train, Voss’s fury rose as he recollected the conversation—how he’d crawled! The other passenger glanced over at him and rattled his newspaper. Had he spoken aloud? Perhaps he had, but no matter. What mattered was that this Frenchman would pay for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. The Polish operative had described him as “handsome, aloof, aristocratic.” Yes, exactly, just the sort of Frenchman one could truly loathe. Well, Pierre, you will answer for what you did to me. It couldn’t be done officially, but there were always alternatives; one simply had to take the initiative. In his interior monologue, Voss mocked his superior. That didn’t cure him, nothing would cure him, but he felt better.
“Where?” In the apartment, Albertine turned toward Mercier, the bottle of vermouth suspended over a glass.
“The Brasserie Heininger. For lunch, tomorrow.”
“Down at Bastille? That place? For lunch with a general?”
“Yes.”
“Good heavens,” she said.
1 December. Papa Heininger, proprietor of the brasserie just off the Place de Bastille, unconsciously straightened his posture when he saw the two officers waiting to be shown to their table. He edged the maître d’ aside with his hand and said, “Good afternoon, messieurs.”
The older one, at least a general from his uniform and insignia, said, “Yes. The reservation is in the name ‘de Beauvilliers.’ ” He turned to the other officer, who walked with a stick, and said, “We’re upstairs, where it’s quiet.”
Perhaps it would be, Mercier thought, but it wasn’t here. The Heininger was famously excessive: white marble staircase, red plush banquettes, pudgy cupids painted on the walls between the gold-framed mirrors, golden passementeries on the drapery. The waiters, many wearing muttonchop whiskers, ran back and forth, balancing giant silver trays crammed with pink langoustines and knobby black oysters, and the lunchtime crowd was noisy and merry; in clouds of cigarette smoke and perfume they laughed, talked above the din, called out for more champagne.
When they’d climbed the staircase, Papa Heininger showed them to a table in the far corner, only to discover a silver-haired gentleman and a much younger brunette side by side on the banquette, whispering tenderly with their heads together. They were also notably well-dressed—but not for long. Heininger was aghast and started to speak, but the gentleman at the table turned a fierce eye on him and he stopped dead. “There’s been a mistake,” he said, and began an elaborate apology. The general cut him off. “Just anywhere will do,” he said, his voice midway between a sigh and a command.
They were then taken back downstairs, to table fourteen, which bore a réservé sign on a silver stand. Papa Heininger, with a dramatic flourish, whipped it away and said, “Our most-requested table. And please allow me to have a bottle of champagne brought over, with my compliments.”
“As you wish,” the general said. Then, to Mercier, as he slid onto the banquette, “The infamous table fourteen.” He nodded his head toward the mirror on the wall, which had a small hole with crackled edges in its lower corner.
“That can’t be what it looks like.”
“In fact it is. A bullet hole.” From de Beauvilliers, a tolerant smile. In his sixties, he had the face of a sad hound, long and mournful, with the red-rimmed eyes of the insomniac and a shaggy gray mustache. He was famously the intellectual of the Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre, the high committee of military strategy, and was said to be one of the most powerful men in France, though precisely what he did, and how he did it, remained almost entirely in shadow. “A few months ago,” he continued, “June, I think it was, they had a Bulgarian head-waiter here who played at émigré politics and got himself assassinated while hiding in a stall in the ladies’ WC. The gang also shot up the dining room, and all the mirrors had to be replaced. All but this one, kept as a memorial. Makes for a good story, anyhow. Personally, I come here for the choucroute—I’ve seen enough bullet holes in my life.”
The champagne arrived in a silver bucket, and both men ordered the choucroute. “You may put an extra frankfurter on mine,” de Beauvilliers said. The waiter twisted out the champagne cork and poured two glasses. When he’d hurried off, de Beauvilliers said, “I would’ve preferred beer, but life has a way of thwarting simple pleasures.” He tasted the champagne and had a look at the label. “Not so bad,” he said. “Did Bruner give you hell?”
“He did.”
“Don’t worry about him, he has his place, in the scheme of things, but he’s kept on a short leash. I want you in Warsaw, colonel.”
“Thank you,�
� Mercier said. “There’s work to be done there.”
“I know. Too bad about the Poles, but they’ve got to be made to understand we aren’t coming to help them, no matter what the treaties say. We might be able to, if de Gaulle and his allies—like Reynaud—had their way, but they won’t get it. French military doctrine is in the hands of Marshal Pétain, de Gaulle’s enemy, and he won’t let go.”
“Defense. And more defense. The Maginot Line.”
“Precisely. De Gaulle’s up at Metz, commanding the Five-oh-seventh Tank Regiment. But there won’t be many more, no armoured divisions, not until nineteen-forty, if then.”
“May I ask why?” Mercier said.
“It’s what I ask myself,” de Beauvilliers said. “What some of us have been asking since Hitler marched into the Rhineland in ’thirty-six. But the answer isn’t complicated. Pétain, and his allies, are committed to the theory of Methodical Battle. Hitler to be appeased—to gain time, to cement our alliance with Great Britain—then a battle of attrition. The British navy blockades, the Germans starve, and we launch a counteroffensive in two to three years. It worked in nineteen-eighteen, after the Americans showed up.”
“It won’t work again, general. Hitler is committed to armoured regiments. He was there, in nineteen-eighteen, he saw what happened.”
“He did. And he knows that if the Germans don’t win in six months, they don’t win period. But France feels it can’t compete: political constraints, lack of money, a shaky procurement system, not enough men, not enough training areas. Gamelin, the chief of staff, has nothing but excuses.”
“The Germans are building tanks,” Mercier said. “I was watching them, until I lost an agent. And they’re planning maneuvers in Schramberg—in the Black Forest. They are, I believe, thinking hard about the Ardennes Forest, in Belgium, where the Maginot Line ends.”
“We know. Of course we know. And we’ve conducted war games based on a tank thrust through the Ardennes. But what matters in war games is the conclusion, the lesson drawn.”
“Can you tell me what that was, general?”
De Beauvilliers took a moment to consider his answer. “We are, in France, obsessed by the idea of great men—nobody else would build the Panthéon. So Marshal Pétain, the hero of Verdun, much honored, idolized, even, has persuaded himself that he is omniscient. In a recent pamphlet, he wrote, ‘The Ardennes forest is impenetrable; and if the Germans were imprudent enough to get entangled in it, we should seize them as they came out!’ ”
“That’s nonsense, sir,” Mercier said. “Forgive my brevity, general, but that’s what it is.”
“I believe I used the same word, colonel. And worse. But now, what can we do about it?”
“Les choucroutes!” The waiter served them—for each a mound of sauerkraut, pork cutlet, thick, lean slices of bacon, and a frankfurter—two for the general. A small pot of fiery mustard was set between them. “A perfect dish for a discussion of Germany,” de Beauvilliers said to Mercier. Then, to the waiter, “Bring me a glass of your best pilsener.”
“One should have what one wants,” Mercier said.
“At lunch, anyhow, one should. Tell me what’s going on in Poland.”
As the general attacked his first frankfurter, Mercier said, “You know I lost an agent—almost lost him to the Germans, but we have him hidden away in Warsaw for the moment. Otherwise it’s quiet. The Poles are doing their best to buy weapons, but it’s a slow process; the Depression still cripples their economy. But they remain confident. After all, they won their war with the Russians, and resolved their border disputes in Silesia and Lithuania, and they haven’t forgotten any of it. They’re still fighting the Ukrainian nationalists in the east, who are secretly armed by the Germans, but they’re not going to give away territory.”
“Confidence isn’t always the best thing.”
“No, and Pilsudski’s death hurt them. After he died, the government swung to the right, and there’s a strong fascist presence in the universities—actions against the Jews—but the fascists remain a minority. I should add that I’m not expert here. Mostly I concentrate on the army, not the politics.”
De Beauvilliers nodded that he understood, then said, “One bit of gossip that came my way is the retrieval of von Sosnowski, traded for a German spy.”
“It came my way as well.”
“Really? From where?”
“Russians. Intelligence types from the Warsaw embassy. At a cocktail party.”
“You’ll want to go carefully, there.” De Beauvilliers paused, a forkful of sauerkraut in midair, then a fond smile was followed by, “Jurik von Sosnowski, the Chevalier von Nalecz, yes; now there was a good spy.” He ate the sauerkraut and said, “He had a long reach, did Jurik. Right into Section I.N. Six—Intelligenz Nachforschung, intelligence research—of the German General Staff, Guderian’s office. And brought out the plan of attack, with tank regiments, for the invasion of Poland. But, in the end, the Poles suspected that the Germans knew what he was doing and were feeding him false information.”
“That seems odd, to me,” Mercier said. “It implies that the true plan was something else. But what could that have been? Artillery bombardment of the border fortifications and a slow advance? I would doubt that, myself.”
“He may have gotten his hands on the invasion plans for us as well, but nobody ever told us he did. Anyhow, he was active for a few years, and arrested in ’thirty-four, so it’s likely the details have all been reworked.”
“Yes, likely they have.”
“Only one way to find out, of course,” de Beauvilliers said. A certain expression—rueful amusement, perhaps—flickered over his face for an instant, then vanished. “Invasion plans,” he said. “Many gems in this murky business, colonel, all sorts of rubies and emeralds, always worth stealing if you can. Ahh, but invasion plans, now you have diamonds. And they only come from one mine, the same I.N. Six that Sosnowski penetrated with his German girlfriends. But, alas, that probably can’t be done again.”
“Probably not.”
“Still, if by circumstance, the right person, the right moment . . .”
“In that case, it could be tried.”
“Surely it could. Well worth it, I’d think. But I doubt seduction is the answer, not anymore, not with the Gestapo and the SD. And old von Sosnowski was one of a kind, wasn’t he—a hundred women a year, that was the rumor. Wouldn’t work again, I’d say, reprise isn’t the answer. No, this time it would have to be money.”
“Quite a lot of money,” Mercier said.
From de Beauvilliers, a rather gloomy nod of agreement. However, all was not lost. As he leaned toward Mercier, his voice was quiet but firm. “Of course, we do have a lot of money.”
That said, he returned to his lunch. Mercier drank some champagne, then, suddenly, and for no reason he could think of, he was very conscious of the life around him, the Parisian chatter and laughter that filled the smoky air of the restaurant. A strange awareness; not enjoyment, more apprehension. Like the dogs, he thought. Sometimes, at rest, they would raise their heads, alert to something distant, then, after a moment, lie back down again, always with a kind of sigh. What would happen to these people, he wondered, if war came here?
3 December, Warsaw. Now the winter snow began to fall. At night, it melted into golden droplets on the Ujazdowska gas lamps and, by morning, turned the street white and silent. Out in the countryside, the first paw prints of wolves were seen near the villages.
Mercier’s mail grew fat with Christmas cards; the Vyborgs sent a manger with infant and sheep, similarly the Spanish naval attaché. From Prince Kaz and Princess Toni—postmarked Venice—a yule tree dusted with bits of silver, and a Hope to see you in the spring, in girls’ academy handwriting below the printed greeting. From Albertine a warm holiday letter, not so different from the one he’d sent her. By now she would be in Aleppo, he imagined, and found himself remembering the darkened hall that led to her room and the faint music he’d heard.
/> From the Rozens, a Chanukah card with a menorah, and another from Dr. Goldszteyn, his sometime partner in the foursomes at the Milanowek Tennis Club. Inside the card was a letter, on a sheet of cream-colored stationery.
Dear Colonel Mercier,
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Sadly, I must take this occasion to say goodby. My family and I will soon be in Cincinnahti, joining my brother who emigrated a few years ago. This will be a better situation for us, I believe. For your kindness and thoughtful consideration I thank you, and wish you happiness of the season. Sincerely yours,
Judah Goldszteyn
Mercier read it more than once, thought about answering the letter, then realized, a sadder thing than the letter itself, that there was nothing to be said. He was not able to throw the letter away, so put it in a drawer.
The mail also included invitations, fancy ones—the Warsaw printers thrived this time of year—to more official gatherings than Mercier could ever hope to attend, and a few private parties. RSVP. He declined most, and accepted a few. A handwritten note from Madame Dupin, the deputy director of protocol at the embassy, invited him to a vernissage “for one of Poland’s finest young painters, Marc Shublin.” The vernissage—“varnishing,” it meant, thus the completion of an oil painting—was an old Paris tradition, the first showing of an artist’s new work, typically at his studio.
Mercier had added the note to his no pile, but Madame Dupin, bright and forceful as always, had shown up at his office a day later. “Oh really, you must come,” she’d said. “Congenial people, you’ll have a good time. Marc’s so popular, we’re having it at an abandoned greenhouse on Hortensya street. Please, Jean-François, say yes, the young man’s worth your evening, my friend Anna is invited, and everything else this year will be so boring. Please?”