The Foreign Correspondent

by Alan Furst

  But not quite. What foolish soul was knocking on her door? The Dragon rose from her desk and wrenched the door open. To reveal a terrified secretary, old Madame Gros, her brow damp with perspiration. “Yes?” the Dragon said. “What now?”

  “Pardon, madame, but the police are here. A man from the Sûreté Nationale.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, madame. In the réception.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s here about Elena, in ladies’ hosiery.”

  The Dragon shut her eyes, took yet one more deep breath. “Very well, one must respect the Sûreté Nationale. So go to the hosiery counter and bring Elena here.”

  “But madame…”

  “Now.”

  “Yes, madame.”

  She fled. The Dragon looked out into the reception area, a vision of hell. Now, which one was—over there? The man in the hat with a little green feather in the band? Nasty mustache, restless eyes, hands in pockets? Well, who knew what they looked like, she certainly didn’t. She walked over to him and said, “Monsieur l’inspecteur?”

  “Yes. Are you the manager, madame?”

  “An assistant manager. The manager is up on the top floor.”

  “Oh, I see, then…”

  “You’re here to see Elena Casale?”

  “No, I don’t wish to see her. But to speak with you about her, she is the subject of an investigation.”

  “Will this take long? I don’t mean to be rude, monsieur, but you can see what’s going on here today. And now I’ve sent for Elena, she’s on her way to the office. Shall I send her back?”

  This news did not please the inspector. “Perhaps I should return, say, tomorrow?”

  “It would be much better, tomorrow, for our discussion.”

  The inspector tipped his hat, said goodby, and hurried off. Strange sort of man, the Dragon thought. And, even stranger, Elena the subject of an investigation. Something of an aristocrat, this Italian woman, with her sharp face, long, graying hair worn back in a clip, ironic smile—not a criminal type, not at all. What could she have done? But, who had time to wonder about such things, for here, at last, was the plumber.

  Elena and Madame Gros forced their way down the center aisle. “Did he say what he wanted?” Elena asked.

  “Only that he wished to speak with the manager. About you.”

  “And he said he was from the Sûreté Nationale?”

  “Yes, that’s what he said.”

  Elena was growing angrier by the minute. She remembered Weisz’s story about the interrogation of his girlfriend, who owned an art gallery, she remembered how Salamone had been defamed, and discharged from his job. Was it now her turn? Oh, this was infuriating. It had not been easy, as a woman in Italy, to take a degree in chemistry; finding work, even in industrial Milan, had not been any easier, having to give up her position and emigrate had been harder still, and working as a sales clerk in a department store hardest of all. But she was staunch, she did what had to be done, and now these fascist bastards were going to try and take even that meager prize away from her. What would she do for money? How would she live?

  “There he is,” Madame Gros said. “Say, I think you’re in luck, he appears to be leaving.”

  “That’s him? In the hat with the green feather?” They watched it, bobbing up and down as he tried to make his way through the mass of determined shoppers.

  “Yes, just by the cosmetics counter.”

  Elena’s mind worked quickly. “Madame Gros, would you please tell Yvette, at the hosiery counter, that I have to go away for an hour? Would you do this for me?”

  Madame Gros agreed. After all, this was Elena, who always worked on Saturday, Elena, who never failed to come in on her day off when somebody was home with the grippe. How could you, the first time she’d ever asked for a favor, say no?

  Keeping well behind him, Elena followed the man as he left the store. She was wearing a gray smock, like all the clerks at the Galeries. Her purse and coat were in a locker, but she’d learned, early on, to keep her wallet, with identification and money, in the pocket of her smock. The man in the hat with the green feather strolled along, not especially in a hurry. An inspector? He could be, but Weisz and Salamone thought otherwise. So, she would see for herself. Did he know what she looked like? Would he be able to identify her, as she followed him? That was surely a possibility, but if he were a real inspector, she was already in trouble, and walking down the same street—well, was that even a crime?

  The man wound his way through the crowds at the store display windows, then entered the Chaussée-d’Antin Métro station and put a jeton in the turnstile. Hah, he paid! A real inspector would simply show his badge at the change window, no? Had she not seen such things in the movies? She thought she had. Hands in pockets, he stood idly on the platform, waiting for the Line Seven train, Direction La Courneuve. That would, she knew, take him out of the Ninth Arrondissement and into the Tenth. Where was the Sûreté office? At the Interior Ministry, over on rue des Saussaies—you couldn’t get there on this line. Still, he might be headed off to investigate some other poor creature. Hiding behind a pillar, Elena waited for the train, sometimes taking a small step forward to keep an eye on the green feather. Who was he? A confidential agent? An OVRA operative? Did he enjoy spending his days doing such miserable business? Or was it simply to earn a living?

  The train rolled in, Elena positioned herself at the other end of the car, while the man took a seat, crossed his legs, and folded his hands on his lap. The stations rolled by: Le Peletier, Cadet, Poissonière, deeper and deeper into the Tenth Arrondissement. Then, at the station for the Gare de l’Est, he stood and left the car. Here he could transfer to Line Four or take a train. Elena waited as long as she dared, then, at the last minute, stepped onto the platform. Damn, where was he? Just barely in time, she spotted him climbing the stairs. She followed as he went through the grilled turnstile and headed for the exit. Elena paused, pretending to study a Métro map on the wall, until he disappeared, then left the station.

  Vanished! No, there he was, heading south, away from the railway station, on the boulevard Strasbourg. Elena had never been in this part of the city, and she was grateful that it was mid-morning—she would not have wanted to come here at night. A dangerous quarter, the Tenth; grim tenements for the poor. Dark men, perhaps Portuguese, or Arabs from the Maghreb, gathered in the cafés, the boulevards lined with small, cluttered stores, the side streets narrow, silent, and shadowed. Amid the crowds at the Galeries, and in the Métro, she’d felt invisible, anonymous, but not now. Walking alone on the boulevard, she stood out, a middle-aged woman in a gray smock. She did not belong here, who was she?

  Suddenly, the man stopped, at a shop window displaying piles of used pots and pans, and, as she slowed down, he glanced at her. More than glanced—his eyes acknowledged her as a woman, attractive, perhaps available. Elena looked through him and kept walking, passing within three feet of his back. Find a way to stop! Here was a pâtisserie, a bell above the door jingled as she entered. From the back, a girl, wiping her hands on a flour-dusted apron, walked to the other side of the counter, then waited patiently while Elena stood before a case of soggy pastries, looking sideways, every few seconds, out into the street.

  The girl asked what madame might desire. Elena peered into the case. A Napoleon? A religieuse? No, there he was! She mumbled an apology and left the shop. Now he was thirty feet away. Dear God, let him not turn around, he’d noticed her earlier, and if he saw her again, he would, she feared, approach her. But he did not turn around—he looked at his watch and walked faster, for half a block, then turned sharply and entered a building. Elena dawdled a moment at the entry to a pharmacie, giving him time to leave the ground floor of the building.

  Then she followed. To 62, boulevard de Strasbourg. Now what? For a few seconds, she hesitated, standing in front of the door, then opened it. Facing her was a stairway, to her right, on the wall, a row of open wooden letter boxes. From the flo
or above, she could hear footsteps moving down the old boards of a hallway, then a door opened, and clicked shut. Turning to the letter boxes, she found 1 A—Mlle. Krasic printed in pencil across the base, and 1 B—with a business card tacked below it.

  A cheaply printed card, for the Agence Photo-Mondiale, worldwide photo agency, with address and telephone number. What was this? Perhaps a stock house, selling photographs to magazines and advertising agencies, or a photojournalism organization, available for assignment. Could he have gone into the Krasic apartment? Not likely, she was sure he’d gone down the hall to Photo-Mondiale. Not an uncommon sort of business, where just about anybody might turn up, perhaps a false business, from which one could run a secret operation.

  She had a pencil in the pocket of her smock, but no paper, so she took a ten-franc note from her wallet and wrote the number on it. Was she making the right assumption? She thought so—why would he go to the apartment of Mlle. Krasic? No, she was almost certain. Of course, the way to be absolutely sure was to go to the top of the stairway and turn left, in the direction of the footsteps, cross back over the entryway, and take a fast look at the door. Elena folded the note and tucked it away in her pocket. In the vestibule, it was very still, the building seemed deserted. Up the stairs? Or out the door?

  The staircase was uncarpeted, made of wood covered with worn-out varnish, the steps hollowed by years of traffic. She would take, anyhow, one step. No creak, the thing was solid. So, another. Then, another. When she was halfway up, the door above opened, and she heard a voice—two or three muffled words, then footsteps headed along the corridor, a man whistling a tune. Elena stopped breathing. Then, light on her feet, she turned and scampered down the stairs. The footsteps came closer. Did she have time to get out of the building? Maybe, but the heavy door would be heard as it shut. Looking down the hallway, she saw open shadow beneath the staircase and ran for it. There was room enough to stand beneath the stairs. Inches away, the undersides of the steps gave as weight fell on them. But the door did not open. Instead, the man who’d come down the stairs, still whistling, was waiting in the vestibule. Why? He knew she was there. She froze, forced herself against the wall. Then, above her head, someone else, walking down the staircase. A voice spoke—a mean, sarcastic voice, the way she heard it—and another voice, deeper, heavier, laughed and, briefly, answered. Hey, that was a good one! Or, she thought, something like that—she couldn’t understand a single word. Because it was a language she had never in her life heard spoken.

  He’d be late for Ferrara, Weisz realized, because Elena was waiting for him on the street outside the Reuters bureau. It was chilly, the first night in June, with a damp mist that made him shiver as he stepped out the door. A new Elena, Weisz thought as they said hello; her eyes alive, voice charged with excitement. “We’ll walk down to Opéra and take a taxi,” he told her. Her nod was enthusiastic: thrift be damned, this night is important. On the way, she told him the story she’d promised on the telephone, her pursuit of the false inspector.

  It was slow going, in the evening traffic, as the taxi made its way toward an art gallery in the Seventh Arrondissement. Every driver beeped his horn at the idiot in front of him, and swarms of bicyclists rang their bells, as the idiots in their cars came too close. “You no longer see her?” Elena said. “I didn’t know.”

  “We’re good friends,” Weisz said. “Now.”

  From Elena, in the darkened back of the taxi, one of her half smiles, a particularly sharp one.

  “It’s possible,” Weisz said.

  “I’m sure it is.”

  Véronique came hurrying to the door of the gallery as they entered. She kissed Weisz on each cheek, one hand on his arm. Then Weisz introduced her to Elena. “Just a minute while I lock the door,” Véronique said. “I’ve had Americans all day long, and not one sale. They think it’s a museum.” On the walls, Valkenda’s dissolute waifs were still staring at the cruel world. “So,” she said, closing the bolt, “no art tonight.”

  They sat in the office, gathered around the desk. “Carlo tells me we have something in common,” Véronique said to Elena. “He was at his most mysterious, on the phone.”

  “Apparently we do,” Elena said. “A very unpleasant man. He showed up at the Galeries Lafayette, where I work, and tried to see the manager. But I was lucky, and, in the confusion, he tried to leave, and I followed him.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Out into the Tenth. To a photo agency.”

  “So, not from the Sûreté, you think.” Véronique glanced at Weisz.

  “No. He’s a fraud. He had friends, in that office.”

  “That’s a relief,” Véronique said. Then, thoughtfully, she added, “Or maybe not. You’re sure it was the same man?”

  “Of medium height. With a slim mustache, face pitted on one side, and something about his eyes, the way he looked at me, I didn’t like. He wore a gray hat, with a green feather in the band.”

  “The man who came here had dirty fingernails,” Véronique said. “And his French was not Parisian.”

  “I never heard him speak, although I can’t be sure of that. He went up to the office, then one man came out, followed by two others, who spoke, not French, I’m not sure what it was.”

  Véronique thought it over. “The mustache is right. Like Errol Flynn?”

  “A long way from Errol Flynn, the rest of him, but, yes, he tries for the same effect. What to call it, ‘dashing.’”

  Véronique grinned, men. “The mustache just makes it worse—whatever it is, about him.” She scowled with distaste at the image in her memory. “Smug, and sly,” she said. “What a vile little man.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Elena said.

  Weisz looked dubious. “So what shall I tell the police? Look for ‘a vile little man’?”

  “Is that what we’re going to do?” Elena said.

  “I suppose we will,” Weisz said. “What else? Tell me, Elena, was the language you heard Russian?”

  “I don’t think so. But perhaps something like it. Why?”

  “If I said that to the police, it would stir their interest.”

  “Better not,” Elena said.

  “Let’s go to the café,” Véronique said. “I need a brandy, after this.”

  “Yes, me too,” Elena said. “Carlo?”

  Weisz stood, smiled, and waved a gallant hand toward the door.

  2 June, 10:15 A.M.

  Weisz dialed the number on the ten-franc note. After one ring, a voice said, “Yes?”

  “Good morning, is this the Agence Photo-Mondiale?”

  A pause, then: “Yes. What do you want?”

  “This is Pierre Monet, from the Havas wire service.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m calling to see if you have a photograph of Stefan Kovacs, the Hungarian ambassador to Belgium.”

  “Who gave you this number?” The accent was heavy, but Weisz’s ear for French wasn’t sharp enough to go beyond that.

  “I think somebody here wrote it on a piece of paper, I don’t know, maybe from a list of photo agencies in Paris. Could you take a look? We used to have one, but it’s not in the files. We need it today.”

  “We don’t have it. Sorry.”

  Weisz spoke quickly, because he sensed the man was about to hang up. “Maybe you could send somebody out—Kovacs is in Paris today, at the embassy, and we’re very pressed, over here. We’ll pay well, if you can help us out.”

  “No, I don’t think we can help you, sir.”

  “You’re a photo agency, aren’t you? Do you have some specialty?”

  “No. We’re very busy. Goodby.”

  “Oh, I just thought…Hello? Hello?”

  10:45.

  “Carlo Weisz.”

  “Hello, it’s Elena.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at a café. They don’t let us make personal calls at the store.”

  “Well, I called them, and whatever they do, they don’t sell photographs,
and I don’t believe they take assignments.”

  “Good. Then that’s done. Next we have to meet with Salamone.”

  “Elena, he’s only home a few days from the hospital.”

  “True, but imagine what he’ll think when he finds out what we’re doing.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

  “You know I am. He’s still our leader, Carlo, you can’t shame him.”

  “Allright. Can we meet late tonight? At eleven? I can’t take another night off from, from the other work I’m doing.”

  “Where should we meet?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll call Arturo, see how he wants to do it. Can you call me back? Can I call you?”

  “No, you can’t. I’ll call after work, I get off at six.”

  Weisz said goodby, hung up the phone, and dialed Salamone’s number.

  •

  At the Hotel Tournon, Colonel Ferrara was a new man. Smiling, relaxed, living in a better world and enjoying his life there. The book had moved to Spain, and Weisz pressed the colonel for details of the fighting. What was commonplace to Ferrara—night ambushes, sniping from the cover of stone walls, machine-gun duels—would be exciting for the reader. Liberal sympathies could be invoked, but when it came to bullets and bombs, to putting one’s life on the line, here was the ultimate reality of idealism.

  “And so,” Weisz said, “you took the school?”

  “We took the first two floors, but the Nationalists held the top floor and the roof, and they wouldn’t surrender. We climbed the stairs and threw hand grenades up on the landing, and the plaster, and a dead soldier, came down on our heads. There was a lot of yelling, commands, and a lot of ricochet….”

  “Bullets whining…”

  “Yes, of course. It is very awkward fighting, nobody likes it.”

  Weisz worked away on his typewriter.

  A productive session, most of what Ferrara described could go directly into print. When they were almost done, Ferrara, still telling battle stories, changed his shirt, then combed his hair, carefully, in the mirror.