The Foreign Correspondent

by Alan Furst

  Weisz thought it over. A man’s suit cost about four hundred lire, a cheap apartment rented for three hundred a month. He assumed they would be buying at a thieves’ price, and, even with fat commissions for Grassone and his associates, would still be getting the newsprint below the market rate. “That’s acceptable,” he said. On his fingers, he went from lire to dollars, twenty to one, then British pounds at five dollars a pound. Surely, he thought, Mr. Brown would pay that.

  Grassone was watching him work. “Comes out good?”

  “Yes. Very good. And, of course, it stays a secret.”

  Grassone wagged a heavy finger. “Don’t you worry about that, Signor X. Of course, I’ll need a deposit.”

  Weisz reached into his pocket and counted out seven hundred lire. Grassone held one of the bills up to the desk lamp. “Such a world we live in, these days. People printing money in the cellar.”

  “It’s real,” Weisz said.

  “So it is,” Grassone said, putting the money in his drawer.

  “Now, I don’t know when and where—it could be a few weeks—but the next thing we’ll want is a printing press, and a Linotype machine.”

  “Do you have a list? Size? Make and model?”

  “No.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  “In a day or so, I’ll have it.”

  “You’re in a hurry, Signor X, aren’t you.” Grassone leaned forward and flattened his hands on the desk. He wore, Weisz saw, a gold ring with a ruby gemstone on his pinkie. “I see half of Genoa in here, and the other half sees my competitors, and not much goes wrong, because we take care of the local police, and it’s just business. Now here you are, starting up a newspaper. Fine. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I don’t care what you do, but, whatever that is, it’s liable to make some of the wrong people mad, and I don’t want it coming down on my head. That’s not going to happen, is it?”

  “Nobody wants that.”

  “You give me your word?”

  “You have it,” Weisz said.

  It was a long walk back to the via Corvino, thunder rumbling in the distance, and flashes of heat lightning on the horizon, out over the Ligurian Sea. A girl in a leather coat fell into step with him as he crossed a piazza. In a warm, husky voice, she wondered if he liked this? Or maybe that? Did he want to be alone tonight? Then, at the apartment house, an old couple passed him, going downstairs as Weisz climbed. The man said good evening, the woman looked him over—who was he? They knew everybody here, they didn’t know him. Back in the apartment, he dozed, then woke suddenly, his heart racing, from a bad dream.

  In the morning, the sun was out, and, in the streets, life went on at full throb. The waiter in the café knew him now, and greeted him like a steady customer. In his newspaper, La Spezia had beaten Genoa, 2–1, on a goal in the final minute. The waiter, looking over Weisz’s shoulder as he served coffee, said that it shouldn’t have been allowed—hand ball—but the referee had been bought, everybody in town knew that.

  Weisz telephoned Matteo at Il Secolo, and met him an hour later in a bar across the street from the newspaper, where they were joined by Matteo’s friend from the Giornale and another pressman. Weisz bought coffee and rolls and brandies; the munificent visitor from out of town, confident, and amusing. “Three monkeys go into a brothel, the first one says…” It was all very relaxed, and amiable—Weisz used their names, asked about their work. “We’ll have our own print shop,” he said. “And good equipment. And, if sometimes you need a few lire at the end of the month, you only have to ask.” Was it safe, they wanted to know. These days, Weisz said, nothing was safe. But he and his friends were very careful—they didn’t want anybody to get in trouble. “Ask Matteo,” he said. “We keep things quiet. But the people of Italy have to know what’s going on.” Otherwise, the fascisti would get away with every lie they told, and they didn’t want that, did they? No, they didn’t. And, Weisz thought, they truly didn’t.

  After Matteo’s friends left the bar, Weisz wrote down a list of what would have to be bought from Grassone, then said he would like to meet the truck driver, Antonio.

  “He hauls coal in the winter, produce in the summer,” Matteo said. “He does an early run up the coast, then he’s back in town about noon. We could see him tomorrow.”

  Weisz said that noon was a good time, decide where, he’d be in touch later in the day. Then, after Matteo had gone back to work, Weisz called the number for Emil.

  The young woman answered immediately. “We’ve been waiting for your call,” she said. “You are to meet him tomorrow morning. At a bar, called La Lanterna in one of the little streets, the vico San Giraldo, off the piazza dello Scalo, down by the docks. The time is five-thirty. You can be there?”

  Weisz said he could. “Why so early?” he said.

  She didn’t answer immediately. “This is not Emil’s habit, it’s the man you will meet at La Lanterna, he owns the bar, he owns many things in Genoa, but he’s careful about where he goes. And when. Understood?”

  “Yes. Five-thirty, then.”

  Weisz called Matteo after three—to learn that they would meet the truck driver at noon the following day, in a garage on the northern edge of the city. Matteo gave him the address, then said, “You made a good impression on my friends. They’re ready to sign on.”

  “I’m glad,” Weisz said. “If we all work together, we can get rid of these bastards.”

  Maybe, some day, he thought, as he hung up the phone. But more likely, they would, all of them, Grassone, Matteo, his friends, and everyone else, be going to prison. And it would be Weisz’s fault. The alternative was to sit quiet and hope for better times, but, since 1922, better times hadn’t shown up. And, Weisz thought, if the OVRA didn’t like Liberazione in the past, they’d like it even less now. So, at the end of the day, when the operation was betrayed, or however it fell apart, Weisz would be, one way or another, in the next cell.

  That night, he took Matteo’s list of equipment to Grassone’s office, then wound his way uphill toward the via Corvino. Two more days, he thought. Then he would return to Paris, having played the part Mr. Brown had written for him: a daring appearance, and a few early steps toward the expansion of Liberazione. There was more to be done—someone would have to come back here. Did this mean that Brown had other people he could deploy? Or would it be him? He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. Because what mattered to him now was the hope—and it was well beyond hope—that once he’d done what Mr. Brown wanted, Mr. Brown would do, in Berlin, what he wanted.

  •

  27 June, 5:20 A.M.

  In the piazza dello Scalo, a gray, drizzling dawn, ocean cloud heavy over the square. And a morning street market. As Weisz walked across the piazza, the merchants, unloading an exotic assortment of ancient cars and trucks, were setting up their stalls; the fishmonger kidding with his neighbors—two women stacking artichokes, kids carrying crates, porters with open barrows shouting for people to get out of the way, flocks of pigeons and sparrows in the trees, waiting for their share of the market’s bounty.

  Weisz turned down the vico San Giraldo and, after missing it the first time, found La Lanterna. There was no name outside, but a board, hanging from a rusty chain, bore a weathered painting of a lantern. Beneath the sign, a low doorway led to a tunnel, then a long, narrow room, its floor black with centuries of dirt, its walls brown with cigarette smoke. Weisz moved among the early patrons—market vendors, and stevedores in leather aprons—until he sighted Emil. Who waved him over, the permanent smile widening a little on his freshly shaven face. The man by his side did not smile. He was tall and somber, and very dark, with a thick mustache and sharp eyes. He wore a silk suit but no tie, his chocolate-colored shirt buttoned at the throat.

  “Good, you’re on time,” Emil said. “And here is your new landlord.”

  The tall man looked him over, gave him a brief nod, then checked a fancy watch and said, “Let’s get busy.” From his pocket he brought out a large ring of keys,
thumbing through them to find the one he wanted. “This way,” he said, heading to the far end of the tavern.

  “It’s a good place, for you,” Emil said to Weisz. “People in and out, all day and all night. It’s been here since…when?”

  The landlord shrugged. “There’s been a tavern on this site since 1490, so they say.”

  At the back of the room, a low door made of thick planks. The landlord unlocked it, then ducked down beneath the frame and waited for Emil and Weisz. When they were through the door, he locked it behind them. Right away Weisz found it difficult to breathe, the air was an acid fog of spoiled wine. “It used to be a warehouse,” Emil said. The landlord took a kerosene lamp from a peg on the wall, lit it, then led them down a long flight of stone steps. The walls glistened with moisture, and Weisz could hear the rats as they scampered away. At the foot of the stairway, a corridor—it took them over a minute to walk to the end—opened to a massive vault, its ceiling a series of arches, with wooden casks lining the walls. The wine-laden air was so strong that Weisz had to wipe tears from his eyes. From the central arch, a lightbulb hung on a cord. The landlord reached up and turned on the light, which threw shadows on the wet stone block. “See? No torches for you,” Emil said, winking at Weisz.

  “Must have electricity,” Weisz said.

  “They put it in here in the twenties,” the landlord said.

  From somewhere behind the walls, Weisz could hear the rhythmic sloshing of water. “Is this still in use?” he said. “Do people come down here?”

  From the landlord, a dry rattle that passed for a laugh. “Whatever’s in there”—he nodded toward the casks—“you couldn’t drink it.”

  “There’s another exit,” Emil said. “Down the corridor.”

  The landlord looked at Weisz and said, “So?”

  “How much do you want for it?”

  “Six hundred lire a month. You pay me in advance, two months at a time. Then you can do whatever you want.”

  Weisz thought it over, then reached in his pocket and began counting out hundred-lira notes. The landlord licked his thumb and made sure of the count while Emil stood by, smiling, hands in pockets. Then the landlord opened his key ring and handed Weisz two keys. “The tavern, and the other entrance,” he said. “If you need to find me, see your friend here, he’ll take care of it.” He turned off the light, lifted the kerosene lamp, and said, “We can leave from the other end.”

  Outside the vault, the corridor made a sharp turn and became a tunnel, which led to a stairway that climbed back to street level. The landlord blew out the lamp, hung it on the wall, and unlocked a pair of heavy iron doors. He put his shoulder against one of them, which squeaked as it opened, to reveal the courtyard of a workshop, littered with old newspapers and machine parts. At the far end of the courtyard, a door in a brick wall led out to the piazza dello Scalo, where the market’s first customers, women carrying net bags, were busy at the stalls.

  The landlord looked up at the sky and scowled at the drizzle. “See you next week,” he said to Emil, then nodded to Weisz. As he turned to go, a man stepped from a doorway and took him by the arm. For an instant, Weisz froze. Run. But a hand closed on the collars of his shirt and jacket and a voice said, “Just come along with me.” Weisz spun around and, with his forearm, knocked the man’s hand off him. From the corner of his eye, he saw Emil, running full speed down an aisle between the stalls, and the landlord, struggling with a man half his size, who was trying to bar his arm up behind his back.

  The man facing Weisz was built thick, hard-faced and hard-eyed, a cop of some kind, with the belt of a shoulder holster, run beneath a flowered tie, across his chest. He produced a small case and flipped it open to reveal a badge, saying, “Understand?” He grabbed for Weisz’s arm, Weisz eluded him, then was slapped on the side of the face, and slapped again on the backswing. The second slap was so hard that his feet came off the ground, and he stumbled backward and sat down. “So, let’s make my life difficult,” the cop said. Weisz rolled over twice, then scrambled to his feet. But the cop was too fast, swung his leg, and kicked Weisz’s feet out from beneath him. He landed hard, realized there was a lot more of this to come, and tried to crawl under a market stall. From people nearby, a rising murmur, muted sounds of anger or sympathy, at the sight of a man being beaten.

  The cop’s face turned bright red. He shoved an old woman out of his way, then reached down, caught Weisz by the ankle, and started to pull. “Come out of there,” he said under his breath. As Weisz was dragged from beneath the stall, an artichoke bounced off the cop’s forehead. Startled, he let go of Weisz and stepped backward. A carrot sailed past his ear, and he raised his hand to ward off a strawberry, while another artichoke hit him in the shoulder. From somewhere behind Weisz, a woman’s voice. “Leave him alone, Pazzo, you sonofabitch.”

  Evidently, they knew this cop, and they didn’t like him. He drew a revolver, aimed it left, then swung it right, provoking a shouted “Yes, go ahead and shoot us, you miserable prick.” The fusillade increased: three or four eggs, a handful of sardines, more artichokes—in season and cheap that day—a lettuce, then a few onions. The cop pointed his gun at the sky and fired two shots.

  The market people were not intimidated. Weisz saw a woman in a bloody apron, at the stall of the pork butcher, plunge a long-handled fork into a bucket and spear a pig ear, which, using the fork like a catapult, she fired off at the cop. Who now trotted backward until he stood at the edge of the piazza, beneath a crooked old tenement. He put two fingers in his mouth and produced a shrill whistle. But his partner was busy with the landlord, nobody appeared, and, when the first basin of water flew out of a window and splashed at his feet, he turned, and with one savage glare over his shoulder, I won’t forget this, left the piazza.

  Weisz, his face burning, was still beneath the stall. As he started to crawl out, an immense woman, wearing a hair net and an apron, came rushing toward him, her eyeglasses, on a chain around her neck, bouncing with every step. She held out a hand, Weisz took it, and she hauled him effortlessly to his feet. “You better get out of here,” she said, voice almost a whisper. “They’ll be back. Do you have a place to go?”

  Weisz said he didn’t—he sensed danger in the idea of returning to the via Corvino.

  “Then come with me.”

  They hurried down a row of stalls, then out of the piazza into the vicoli. “That bastard would arrest his mother,” the woman said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.” She came to a sudden stop, took him by the shoulders, and turned him so that she could see his face. “What did you do? You don’t look like a criminal. Are you a criminal?”

  “No, I’m not a criminal.”

  “Ah, I didn’t think so.” Then she took him by the elbow and said, “Avanti!” Walking as fast as she could, breathing hard as they climbed the hill.

  The church of Santa Brigida was not splendid or ancient, it had been built of stucco, in a poor neighborhood, a century earlier. Inside, the market woman went down on one knee, crossed herself, then walked down the aisle and disappeared through a door opposite the altar. Weisz sat in the back. It had been a long time since he’d been in church, but he felt safe, for the moment, in the pleasant gloom touched with incense. When the woman reappeared, a young priest followed her up the aisle. She bent over Weisz and said, “Father Marco will take care of you,” then gripped his hand—be strong—and went on her way.

  When she’d gone, the priest led Weisz back to the vestry, then to a small office. “She’s a good soul, Angelina,” he said. “Are you in trouble?”

  Weisz wasn’t quite sure how to answer this. Father Marco was patient, and waited for him. “Yes, in some trouble, Father.” Weisz took a chance. “Political trouble.”

  The priest nodded, this was not new. “Do you need a place to stay?”

  “Until tomorrow night. Then I’ll be leaving the city.”

  “Until tomorrow night we can manage.” He was rel
ieved. “You can sleep on that couch.”

  “Thank you,” Weisz said.

  “What sort of politics?”

  From the way he spoke, and listened, Weisz sensed that this was not a typical parish priest. He was an intellectual, destined to rise in the church or be banished to a remote district—it could go either way. “Liberal politics,” he said. “Antifascist politics.”

  In the priest’s eyes, both approval and a hint of envy. If life had been different…“I’ll help you any way I can,” he said. “And you can keep me company at supper.”

  “I’d like that, Father.”

  “You’re not the first one they’ve brought to me. It’s an old custom, sanctuary.” He stood, looked at a clock on the desk, and said, “I have to serve Mass. You are welcome to take part, if it’s your custom.”

  “Not for a long time,” Weisz said.

  The priest smiled. “I do hear that, quite often, but it’s as you wish.”

  Weisz went out once, that afternoon, walking over to a post office, where he used the telephone to call the contact number for Emil. It rang for a long time, but the woman never answered. He had no idea what that meant, and no idea what had happened at the piazza. He suspected it might have been, in his case, an accident—with the wrong person at the wrong time, the landlord spotted and denounced when he entered the neighborhood. For what? Weisz had no idea. But this was not the OVRA, they would have been there in force. Of course, it was just barely possible that he’d been betrayed—by Emil, by Grassone, or someone in the via Corvino. But it didn’t matter, he would sail on the Hydraios the next day, at midnight, and, in time, it would be for Mr. Brown to sort things out.

  •

  28 June, 10:30 P.M.

  Sitting on the rim of a dry fountain, at the top of the staircase that led down to the wharf, Weisz could see the Hydraios. She was still tied to the pier, but a thin column of smoke drifted from her stack as she got up steam, prepared to sail at midnight. He could see, as well, the shed opposite the pier, and Nunzio, the customs officer for the crews of merchant ships, his chair tilted back against the table where he processed documents. Very relaxed, Nunzio, his night duty a soft job, idly passing the time, this evening, with two uniformed policemen, one lounging against the door of the shed, the other sitting on a crate.