The Spies of Warsaw: A Novel

by Alan Furst

  Mercier nodded and lit a Czech cigarette from a packet he’d bought at the railway station. It was after five when a man, dressed in worker’s blue jacket and trousers, entered the house across the street. Mercier looked at his watch: where was Halbach? Two young women came through the door, joked with the barman, then took one of the tables and began to conspire, heads together, voices low. Mercier now realized he could hear music. In a room above the bar, someone was playing a violin—playing it well enough, not the awful squeaks of the novice, but working at the song, slower, then faster. A song Mercier knew, called “September in the Rain”; he’d heard it on Anna’s radio at Sienna street. Was this, he wondered, a classical violinist, forced to play in a nightclub? A man with a small dog came into the bar, then two old ladies in flower-print dresses. And then, suddenly, Mercier was again overtaken by a certain apprehension, a shadow of war. What would become of these people?

  Busier now, out on Opava street—work was over for the day—time to chat with neighbors, time to walk the dog. Mercier ordered his third beer, set a few coins down on the counter, and looked back out the window in time to see Julius Halbach enter 6, Opava street. Anyhow, a man who looked like a teacher, in his mid-fifties, tall, wearing an old suit, expensive a long time ago, and carrying a bulging briefcase. Mercier glanced at his watch: 5:22. I hope you’re Halbach, he thought, as the man plodded wearily up the steps and disappeared through the door. Too much to ask for a photograph, he’d decided, before his meeting with Dr. Lapp. That would have been dangerously close to an act of treason, whereas, a genial conversation in a bookstore, while conferring on another matter . . .

  Mercier stayed where he was, now numb and slightly dizzy from an afternoon of beer drinking, for another thirty minutes, then gave up. The family was home, their lodger was home, in for the night. Tomorrow would be the day, 20 April, 1938, at approximately 5:22 in the afternoon. Tomorrow, Herr Halbach was in for the shock of his life.

  Mercier stopped at the café across from the railway station, had a sausage and a plate of leeks with vinegar, bought a newspaper—Tesin’s Polish daily—and returned to the hotel. Was the room as he’d left it? Yes, but for the maid, who had moved his valise in order to mop the floor. Opening the valise, he was relieved to find his few things undisturbed, though the important baggage stayed with him, in the briefcase.

  It was quiet in Tesin, a warmish evening of early spring. When Mercier pulled the shade down, a streetlamp threw a shadow of tree branches on the yellowed paper. He turned on the light, a bulb dangling from the ceiling, and worked at the newspaper—what he wouldn’t give for a Paris Soir! Still, he could manage, once he got going. Henlein, the leader of the Sudetenland German minority in Czechoslovakia, had given a speech in Karlsbad, making eight demands on the government. Basically, he called for the Czechs to allow German-speaking areas to have their own foreign policy, in line with “the ideology of Germans”: a demand that surely came directly from Adolf Hitler, a demand that could never be met. The fire under the pot was being stoked, soon it would boil.

  Then, on the same page, news that the Anschluss, joining Austria to Germany, had been approved in a plebiscite by Austrian voters. A triumph—nearly all the Austrians had voted, ninety-nine to one in favor. Now there was a victory that deserved the word rousing! Just below that, a correspondent reporting from the Spanish civil war; the city of Vinaroz had been taken by Franco’s forces, isolating the government-held city of Castile from Catalonia. Another victory for fascist Europe. Mercier turned the page. A grisly murder, a body found in a trunk. And the soccer team had lost again. Followed by a page of obituaries. Mercier threw the newspaper on the floor.

  He lay there, smoked, stared at the ceiling. He had no desire to read, and sleep was a long way off. On the other side of the wall, a man and a woman in the adjacent room began to argue, in a language Mercier couldn’t identify. They kept it quiet, secretive, almost a whisper, but the voices were charged with anger, or desperation, and neither one would give in. When it didn’t stop, he got up, went to the window, and raised the shade. Across the square, the outdoor terrasse of the café was busy—a warm night, spring in the air, the usual couples with drinks, a few customers alone at tables, eating a late dinner. Then the barman walked over to a large radio set on a shelf and began fiddling with the dials. Mercier couldn’t hear anything, but most of the patrons rose from their tables and gathered in front of the radio. He rolled the shade back down, undid the straps on his briefcase, and made sure of its contents.

  20 April. Mercier strolled up Opava street at 5:10 P.M., but Halbach was nowhere to be seen. Keeping the house in sight he walked to the corner, then started back the other way. He felt much too noticeable, so turned into a cross street where he discovered a tram stop. Was this how Halbach returned from work? He waited for ten minutes, then walked back out onto Opava, and there he was, almost at the house. Mercier moved as quickly as he could and caught up to him just as he reached the door. “Herr Halbach?”

  Frightened, Halbach spun around and faced him, ready to fight or run. “What is it? What do you want?”

  “May I speak with you a moment?”

  “Why? Is it about the bill?”

  “No, sir, not that at all.”

  Halbach calmed down. Mercier was clearly alone; the secret police came always in pairs, and late at night. “Then what? Who are you?”

  “Is there somewhere we can speak? Privately? I have important things to tell you.”

  “You’re not German.”

  “No, I’m from Basel—a French Swiss.”

  “Swiss?” Now he was puzzled.

  “Can we go inside?”

  “Yes, all right. What’s this about?”

  “Inside? Please?”

  Downstairs, the family was at dinner. Mercier could smell garlic. Halbach called out “Good evening,” in Polish, then climbed the stairs and opened a door just off the landing. “In here,” he said. “Just leave the door open.”

  “Of course,” Mercier said.

  A small room, meagerly furnished and painted a hideous green. On one wall, a clothes tree held a shirt and a pair of trousers; on the other, a narrow cot covered by a blanket, and a nightstand with four books on top. At the foot of the cot, a single rickety chair completed the furnishings. The window looked out on the plaster wall of the adjacent building, so the room lay in permanent twilight. Halbach put his briefcase down and sat on the edge of the cot, while Mercier took the chair. When he was settled, Halbach opened the drawer in the nightstand, then gave him a meaningful look, saying, “Just keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Mercier complied immediately, resting his hands atop the briefcase held on his knees. Was there a pistol in the drawer? Likely there was. “I understand,” he said. “I understand completely.”

  For a moment, Halbach stared at him. He was, Mercier thought, perhaps the homeliest man he’d ever seen: a long narrow face, with pitted skin, and small protruding ears emphasized by a Prussian haircut—gray hair cut close on the sides and one inch high on top. His Hitler-style mustache was also gray, his neck a thin stem—circled by a collar a size too large—his restless eyes suspicious and mean. “Well?” he said. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Lombard. I represent a chemical company in Basel. My card.”

  Mercier drew a packet of cards from his pocket and handed one of them to Halbach, who said, “Solvex-Duroche?”

  “Solvents for the metals industry.”

  Halbach studied the card, then put it on the nightstand. “What would you want with me?” Suspicion was slowly giving way to curiosity. “I’m a teacher.”

  “But not always. Or, rather, that is your vocation. It is your political history that brings me here.”

  Halbach’s hand moved toward the drawer, Mercier feared he was about to be shot. “Please, no violence,” he said softly. “I’m here to make an offer, nothing more than that, and if you’re not interested I’ll go away and that will be the end of it.”

>   “You said politics . . . meaning?”

  “Your resistance to the present government in Berlin.”

  “You know who I am,” Halbach said, an accusation.

  “Yes, I do know that.”

  “So, you’re no chemical salesman, Herr Lombard, are you.”

  “Actually, I am, but that’s no part of our business today.”

  “Then who sent you?”

  “That I can’t tell you. Suffice to say, powerful people, but not your enemies.”

  Halbach waited for more, then said, “How did you find me?”

  “As I said, powerful people. Who know things. And, I feel I should point out, it wasn’t all that difficult to find you.”

  “In other words, spies.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not the first I’ve encountered, Herr Lombard. And no doubt working for the Swiss government.”

  “Oh, we never say such things out loud, Herr Halbach. And, in the end, it doesn’t matter.”

  “To me it does.” He had suffered for his politics, he wasn’t about to compromise his ideals.

  “Then let me say this much—a neutral government is not a disinterested government, and, as I said before, in this instance on your side.”

  Now Halbach was intrigued—he’d spent enough time with Mercier to sense he needn’t be afraid of him, and felt the first flush of pride that “powerful people” were interested in him. Which, of course, they should be, despite his present misery.

  Now Mercier advanced. “Tell me, Herr Halbach, this life you live now, as a fugitive, how long do you expect it to last?”

  “For as long as it does.”

  “Months?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Years?”

  “Perhaps.” A shadow settled on Halbach’s face. He knew it couldn’t be years.

  “You read the newspapers, you’re aware of Hitler’s intentions in Czechoslovakia—what’s going on in the Sudetenland.”

  “Casus belli.” Halbach flipped the tactic away with his hand, his voice rich with contempt.

  “True, a reason for war, and perfectly transparent to those who understand what’s going on. Still, Hitler may well send his armies here. What then? Where will you go?”

  “To a cellar somewhere.”

  “For months? Or days?”

  Halbach would not give him the satisfaction of an answer, but the answer hung unspoken in the air.

  “You asked why I was here, Herr Halbach. I’m here to offer you sanctuary.”

  “Sanctuary,” Halbach said. The word had its effect.

  “That’s correct. The people I represent want you to continue your resistance, but you cannot do so in Czechoslovakia. The Gestapo will find you, today or tomorrow, and the result for you will be very unpleasant. Very, very unpleasant. With the best of luck, it’s only a matter of time.”

  “What is this sanctuary?”

  “Money, and a new nationality.”

  “How much money?”

  “Five hundred thousand Swiss francs.”

  “That’s a fortune!”

  Mercier’s brief nod meant, of course it is, but not for us.

  “Five hundred thousand, you said?”

  “I did. And a Swiss passport. The passport of a Swiss citizen, not the papers of a foreign resident.”

  “For nothing more than writing a few pamphlets?”

  “No, there is more.”

  Silence in the little room—quiet enough to hear the family eating dinner below them. Halbach lowered his voice. “And what would that be, Herr Lombard?”

  “A visit to an old friend, a request—a request accompanied by the same offer I’ve made to you, so you will not go empty-handed, a few days’ work on his part, a successful result, and then, for both of you, new lives. Wealthy lives. Safe lives.”

  Now Halbach saw the trick. “All this you offer would be in the future, naturally, and conditional. Just around the corner, just up the road.”

  “No, sir, it doesn’t work like that. Simply agree, and I will hand you a hundred and fifty thousand Swiss francs.”

  “Now? This minute?” Halbach stared at the briefcase.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know I won’t accept the money and disappear?”

  “Because then you will have stolen it, Herr Halbach. Stolen it from us.” Again, silence. Mercier waited, the soul of patience; he could almost see Halbach’s mind working, back and forth. Finally Mercier said, “What will it be, sir, shall I be on my way?”

  Halbach’s voice was barely audible. “No,” he said.

  “Then we are in agreement?”

  Halbach nodded. He’d begun to grasp the very sudden turn his life had taken, and he didn’t like it, his expression sour and resigned, but, really, what choice did he have?

  “Please understand,” Mercier said, his hands now holding the sides of the briefcase, ready to hand it over, “that your actions will be directed against the Hitler regime, not against the German people, not against your homeland. We know you would never agree to harm your country, misguided though it might be.”

  Halbach didn’t answer, but Mercier sensed that he’d accepted the distinction—this wasn’t treason, this was resistance. From the foot of the stairs, a woman’s voice. “Herr Halbach? Will you be having your dinner?”

  “Not tonight, thank you,” Halbach called out.

  Mercier handed him the briefcase. It was heavy and full: thirty packets, bound with rubber bands, of fifty hundred-franc notes. Halbach unbuckled the straps and opened the flap, took out one packet, counted twenty, riffled the rest, and put it back. When he looked up at Mercier his face had changed; the reality of the banknotes had struck home.

  “And three hundred and fifty thousand more, Herr Halbach, when the work is completed.”

  “In cash?”

  “There’s a better way, a bank transfer, but I’ll explain that in time.”

  Halbach again looked in the briefcase. No, he wasn’t dreaming. “What do I have to do, for all this? Kill somebody?”

  “A train ride to Berlin. A conversation.”

  Halbach stared, opened his mouth, finally said, “But . . .”

  Mercier was sympathetic. “I know. I know, it’s risky, but not foolish. With a Swiss passport, hiding in a small hotel, you’ll be reasonably safe. And I’ll be there with you. Of course, danger is always part of this business. For me to come here today is dangerous, but here I am.”

  “I’m a wanted criminal, in Germany.”

  “You won’t be in Berlin for more than a week, and, except for arrival and departure, you will be visible for only one evening. We want you to contact a man who used the alias ‘Köhler,’ an old comrade of yours, from the Black Front, now serving in a section of the General Staff, and make the same offer to him that I’ve made to you.”

  Mercier had worked this sentence out and memorized it. The question he didn’t want to ask was: Do you know Köhler? Because a simple “Who?” would have ended the operation.

  “Hans Köhler,” Halbach said, his voice touched with nostalgia. After a moment, working it out, he said, “Of course. Now I see what you’re after.”

  Casually, Mercier said, “I expect he serves under his true name.”

  “Yes, Elter. Johannes Elter. He is a sergeant in the Wehrmacht. Luckily for him, Strasser ordered that every man in the Front use a nom de guerre.”

  Not so lucky. It had left Köhler vulnerable to just the sort of approach that Halbach was going to make. But, Mercier thought, there was plenty of time for that, now was not the moment.

  “When will this meeting take place?” Halbach asked. He rebuckled the briefcase and placed it on the floor beside him.

  “Soon. Political events are moving quickly; we don’t want to get caught up in them. We leave tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow! My classes, at the school—”

  “Class is canceled. The Herr Professor is indisposed.”

  “I have a friend in Tesin, Herr Lombard, a f
riend that’s made a great difference to me, the way I’ve had to live here. I would like to say goodby.”

  Mercier’s voice was as gentle as he could manage. “I am sorry, Herr Halbach, but that won’t be possible. If she’s been a confidante, she’ll understand, and a postal card from you, in Switzerland, will let her know you’ve reached safety.” He rose and offered his hand—Halbach’s palm was cold and damp. “Enough for tonight,” Mercier said. “We’ll meet tomorrow, ten-fifteen at the railway station. Try to get some rest, if you can, it will be a busy day.”

  “Tomorrow? We go into Germany?”

  “Oh no, not at all. We go to Prague, then back east and into Poland. An easy crossing.”

  21 April. Sturmbannführer Voss’s friend Willi—fake dueling scar on his cheek, von now leading his surname—was well-liked at 103 Wilhelmstrasse, the SD’s central office in Berlin. Properly submissive to his superiors, genial to his underlings, quite a good fellow, and sure to rise, when the time was right. And when would that be, exactly? War would do it, but Hitler was such a little tease when it came to war, showing his drawers one day, then giggling and running away the next. Austria he had—the plebiscite on the Anschluss had been a stroke of genius. Czechoslovakia he would have, though that would require force of arms; the Czechs were a stubborn, stiff-necked crowd, blind to their best interests, and they rather liked having their own nation. And those arms were still in production; all across Germany, the factory lights burned until dawn. Would it be this year? Probably not, maybe the following spring. More likely 1940. And some very sage gentlemen were saying 1941.

  But war was only one way, there had to be others. For instance, a triumph. Some daring operation run against the French or the English. Willi, however, did not run operations, he worked in the SD administration. Certainly important, if you knew how these things worked, though not the sort of position that produced a stunning success. Still, there had to be some way, for a smart chap like Willi to find a path to the top.