by Alan Furst
“As do I,” Zoltau said. “Life is short, one must have all the pleasures it can provide.”
Now matters had proceeded to a certain point, and Ferrar had to let de Lyon know what he meant to do. “Max,” he said, “do you recall Monsieur Blanc, one of my clients?”
“A thin fellow? With a limp?”
“Yes. He believed that he’d found the very house he was seeking, but the sale did not go through, and poor Monsieur Blanc had already invested in splendid furniture which—I won’t bore you and the general with legal whys and wherefores—now sits in a warehouse and is not really owned by anybody.”
“For splendid furniture, a sad fate,” de Lyon said.
“The best of it is a magnificent chandelier, surely the equal of the one here. And it occurred to me that since General Zoltau is redecorating his apartment, perhaps he has a home for it.”
They both looked at Zoltau, who said, “Why yes, we have just the place for it, in our dining room.”
Back to nightlife in Paris.
After coffee, a cordial good night—if all that Mouton Rothschild didn’t make you cordial, nothing would. As they put the swaying Zoltau in a taxi, de Lyon said, “May I get in touch with you, General, towards the end of the week?”
“I will expect your call,” said the general.
On the following morning, when Ferrar arrived at the Coudert office, he sat down with his secretary and went over what he had to do that day. Reading from a list, she said, “You are supposed to call Count Polanyi at the Hungarian embassy, he’s a principal in the French holding company that controls a Budapest bank. Next you are to call a Monsieur Belesz, in Budapest, he is the heir who refuses to vote in order to force his sister from the holding company. I have a note here that says vizsla dogs. Does that make sense to you, Monsieur Ferrar?”
“Yes, Jeannette, it does,” Ferrar said, a sigh in his voice.
Jeannette had the Polanyi file ready for him, Ferrar called the embassy. “Good morning, Monsieur le Comte,” Ferrar said, following the French protocol for titles. “This is Cristián Ferrar, from Coudert Frères. Do you have a moment?”
“I do, monsieur, I am fed up with Nephew Belesz and his damned schemes.”
“I will be brief, monsieur. We are preparing your lawsuit against Monsieur Belesz but, in order for us to proceed, he will have to be lured to Paris—we cannot sue him in Budapest. We were hoping that you might suggest a way to induce him to come here.”
“Throw him in the trunk of a car,” Polanyi said.
“A last resort,” Ferrar said, with just a hint of lawyer’s irony. “A ruse will cause less fuss and bother.”
“Very well, a ruse. Which means you are asking me what he might find irresistible. Well, what he likes is wine, women, and song, absent the song. I can’t imagine him coming all the way here for wine, which leaves women. But there are lots of women in Budapest, Monsieur Ferrar.”
“Did he ever live in Paris, monsieur?”
“Years ago, he did, for a time. He pretended to go to the Sorbonne, but mostly he chased girls. He’s a lusty little monkey, Nephew Belesz.”
“And did he catch them?”
“Not the smart ones, he didn’t.”
“Was there, perhaps, someone special?”
“Not that I …”
Polanyi paused, finally Ferrar said, “Monsieur?”
“My memory,” Polanyi explained, “takes its own sweet time … I seem to recall one he caught, then lost.”
“And she was?”
“An actress, at the lower depths of the film business. Her name was, oh hell, Albertine? No, that’s not it. Why do I think of Babar the elephant?”
“Celeste?”
“Celestine!”
“Do you know what became of her?”
“I have no idea. He was passionate for her, kept her photograph on his dresser, courted her, had her, then lost her.”
“Could she be used as bait?”
“I doubt she would agree to that, even if we could find her. But it occurs to me that she might be of use even so.”
“How?”
“Perhaps a letter to the nephew from his former sweetheart; she misses him, regrets their amour ended, could they possibly meet again some day. Of course I would write the letter myself. Maybe you would help me do it.”
Ferrar was dubious. “Do you think a letter would work?”
“I don’t know, but why not try? We must do something, Ferrar.”
Ferrar saw that Polanyi had become enchanted by the idea of a faked letter and was not to be dissuaded. “Very well, a letter. Is there any possibility you can remember her last name? For a return address?”
“Surely she had one, but I never knew it.”
“No matter, we’ll make up a name, a married name. She’ll explain in the letter that her husband is deceased.”
“Do you think this might work, monsieur?”
“It might. If not, we’ll try something else. But there is one other possibility,” Ferrar said. “I could telephone him in Budapest and see if he’ll listen to reason. Suggest that a settlement, of the generous variety, might be more to his advantage than being involved in a lawsuit.”
“But you said you can’t sue him in Budapest,” Polanyi said.
“I doubt he knows that.”
“Well, I don’t think he’ll agree, but if you want to try, go ahead. Do you have his telephone number?”
“As a client, soon to be a former client, we do.”
“Then good luck. He’s hard to handle and proud of it.”
It took all day to reach Belesz, who was apparently not home. Then, at five-thirty, a woman answered who spoke only Hungarian. After Ferrar tried in three languages, she yelled “Fabi!” and Belesz came to the phone. Speaking in German, the second language in Hungary, he said, “Who is this?” He sounded annoyed; either the call had come at an inconvenient moment, or, it occurred to Ferrar, Belesz was one of those people who are perpetually annoyed.
“Please forgive the intrusion, Herr Belesz, this is Cristián Ferrar, from the Coudert law firm in Paris. We represent the holding company that owns the First Danubian Trust.”
“Yes? And so?”
“I am calling to see if we can help to resolve a problem with your company, Herr Belesz, which cannot function so long as you withhold your vote. Isn’t there some way out of this conflict?”
“Oh-ho! Now they’ve set the lawyers on me!”
“There are always alternatives, when people disagree. What would you suggest?”
“I would suggest that my sister resign from the company, then she can keep her filthy dogs.”
“I believe your family might be willing to consider a financial settlement. Is that of interest to you?”
“Buy me off, eh? Who put you up to this? My dear Uncle Janos?”
“I have spoken with Count Polanyi, as he is the one who would bear the burden of the settlement. You would retain your rights in the holding company, but your vote would have to be cast so that the company can operate in a normal way. Let me point out to you that there are laws obliging you to protect the company and its assets, and if you persist the rest of the family can take legal action against you. And, as your attorney, I must advise you that almost all such lawsuits are resolved in favor of the plaintiff.”
“That’s what you say.”
“Herr Belesz, you have retained us to offer you our best counsel. Our advice to clients is: avoid litigation if you can. It’s expensive, and the outcome is sometimes not what you’re seeking. And it can, I’m sure you understand, go on at great length.”
“I don’t like to be threatened, Herr whoever-you-are. I happen to belong to a political party called the Arrow Cross, and we are men of honor who despise scheming little lawyers. Understand?”
Ferrar knew of the Arrow Cross, it was the Nazi party of Hungary. “I don’t expect you to make a decision now,” he said. “Why not think about it for a few days? Decide what’s best for you, then le
t me know.”
“Oh I know what’s best for me. Do you know what’s best for me?” His voice rose and grew shrill as he screamed, “I can show you right now!” Then he slammed the phone down on the cradle.
Later in the day, George Barabee, the managing partner, asked Ferrar about the call. “Well, he threatened me. He and his pals in the Arrow Cross don’t like lawyers,” Ferrar said, then shrugged.
“He sounds dreadful.”
“He is. Truly dreadful.”
“What comes next?”
“I talked it over with Polanyi, and we decided to see if we could get him to come to Paris. So Herr Belesz will soon have a letter from an old flame.”
“Give it some time, we don’t want him connecting the call with the letter. Do you think it will work?”
“No.”
“Me neither. But you may as well try.”
The first tease of spring may have visited Paris but it hadn’t reached Louveciennes. As Ferrar rode the little train on Sunday morning, the countryside was all bare, dripping branches and fields of dead weeds. He would see his family, go to eleven o’clock mass, work his way through the heavy Sunday lunch, then try not to fall asleep on the train ride back to Paris—the usual family visit, its predictability a comfort for Ferrar. But, when he reached the house, all was not as usual, the excitement in the air was palpable. His mother, face flushed, kissed her son hello, then said, “Oh my dear Cristián, success at last!” Over her shoulder, a quietly amused Abuela met Ferrar’s eyes and lifted a meaningful eyebrow.
“That’s wonderful, Mama,” Ferrar said, waiting to hear the news.
With some ceremony, his mother showed him an envelope, then carefully slid the letter out and handed it to him. The letter was from one Alejandro Joaquin Carlos de Montador Abruzzo, Duque de Mérida y Tolosa, and began “My dear Señora Ferrar Obrero,” adding the maiden name in the formal Spanish custom. The handwriting was exquisite, perfectly slanted script in sepia ink on cream-colored paper. With a deeply held conviction that her Obrero family had noble blood, was by a secret marriage descended from Mariana Victoria, Infanta of Portugal, she had for years written letters to various duques, condes, and baróns—dukes, counts, and barons—to see if they might support her claim. In the eyes of the family, a harmless folly that kept her busy, but now one of these titled gentlemen had actually answered her.
Ferrar read through the letter but found no reference to the Obrero family claim. The duque was writing on behalf of his dear cousin, the Marquesa Maria Cristina de Valois de Bourbon y Braganza, recently widowed, now living in Paris. His cousin, it seemed, once Ferrar got past the flowery style, needed a lawyer. Knowledgeable friends had recommended her son, could his cousin presume to contact him?
“This is wonderful, Mama,” Ferrar said. “That he answered your letter.”
“May I write back and say she can telephone you at your office?”
“Yes, of course.” This was not generally the way one contacted a lawyer but Ferrar had seen it before, there was a certain breed of individual who believed that special connection led to better treatment, and they weren’t always wrong. Still, there was something odd about it.
Abuela said, “We’ve talked this over, dear one, and what I believe he wants is you. The Duque Alejandro is matchmaking.”
“But I’m not a noble,” Ferrar said.
“Yes you are,” his mother said.
“He has heard of you,” Abuela said. “We don’t know the marquesa’s age, but her husband has died. For her to find an appropriate suitor, noble, wealthy, and available, will not be easy. So the duque settles for wealthy and available, and professional status replaces a title.”
“Well,” Ferrar said, “an arranged marriage is the last thing I ever considered, especially a marriage into the nobility.” Then he added, tongue in cheek, “Didn’t they used to send a framed portrait of the lady?”
“But you will see her in person,” his mother said. “You may even like her.”
“Just out of curiosity,” Ferrar said, “where does the duque live?”
“The letter comes from an address in Brussels.”
They went on for a while, speculating about the duque and the marquesa and having a very good time—it had been years since Ferrar had seen his mother so happy and excited. Eventually, Abuela looked at her watch and said, “Oh dear, we must set out for church or we shall be late for mass.”
Riding home at dusk, Ferrar wondered about the letter. How could the duque have figured out that some lady in France who wrote him batty letters was the mother of a Parisian lawyer? The duque had mentioned knowledgeable friends. Well, they surely were. Or, Ferrar thought, was he being needlessly suspicious? The duque might have done some research on the woman who wrote from Louveciennes. Was she rich? Connected to interesting people? Could she be useful? Ferrar had seen his share of phony titles—was the duque a real duque? On the other hand, European nobility was a strange and often eccentric breed but they tended to survive, and sometimes flourished. And was he looking forward to meeting the marquesa? Yes, he was, how not.
14 March. The false spring stirred hearts all across the continent and that included the hearts of French politicians. When Ferrar met with de Lyon in his office at the Oficina Técnica, the latter had important news. The French Popular Front had returned to power and would open the border to arms shipments going into Spain. That meant armaments sent by Moscow, which had been held up at the frontier, would now reach the Republic’s forces.
“Which makes life easier for us,” de Lyon said. “We can ship our cannon up to Poland by rail, then by freighter from Danzig to Bordeaux. Or, what used to be Danzig. It’s now called the Free City of Danzig, set up by the Versailles treaty to give the Poles a port on the Baltic, and administered by the League of Nations. Or so the diplomats think.”
“I know the history,” Ferrar said.
“Then you know that the non-intervention pact is not enforced in Danzig, and the League of Nations does not control it. There are League of Nations officials in the city but all they can do is complain and nobody listens to them. Who really runs Danzig is the city administration, which is Polish. Now Poland, like every country in Europe, is a battlefield in the political war between the left and the right. And it so happens that, among leftist Poles in Danzig, we have friends. The Republic has friends.”
“Friends who will let us ship weapons to Spain.”
De Lyon nodded and said, “Who will let us do anything we want … the twelfth of March scared the hell out of them.” On 12 March, Hitler’s troops had marched into Austria.
“Scared me,” Ferrar said. “Maybe sickened is a better word—those photographs of smiling little girls giving the Nazi salute.”
“It’s even worse in the newsreels,” de Lyon said. “But it’s a lie. The Austrians don’t want to be ruled by Hitler. Meanwhile, that march had its effect on French politics.”
“Which, as you said, makes life easier for us.”
“It does, up to a point. But Danzig is where criminals go to get rich, and by criminals I mean crooked officials as well as gangs. So we must have somebody in Danzig to make sure the shipment isn’t stolen—stolen by sleight-of-hand documents or stolen by force. Which has happened before and more than once. And, just to make things worse, Franco’s spy service is active in Danzig—they know what we’re doing there and will organize an attack if they can. One way or another, money is going to change hands in Danzig.”
“And the somebody on watch in Danzig, that would be you?”
“That’s what I do, Cristián.”
“And you want me to go with you.”
“Well …” The telephone on de Lyon’s desk had a throaty rasp for a voice, which now sounded twice, then twice again. “Sorry,” de Lyon said, “but I must see who is calling me.” After a brief exchange he handed the phone to Ferrar and said, “It’s your secretary.”
After Ferrar said hello, Jeannette said, “Monsieur Ferrar, you’ve just had a
telephone call from a marquesa, Marquesa Maria Cristina, who’s requesting an appointment. I told her I would be in touch with you and call her back.”
“I will see her, Jeannette, I’ve been expecting the call.”
“You have time tomorrow at three-thirty, I’ll make the appointment.”
Ferrar hung up the phone and said to de Lyon, “We were discussing a trip to Danzig.”
“Of course I’d like to have you with me. I can always ask Stavros to come along, but he has a short fuse, and when things go wrong he explodes. Better to have somebody more … even-tempered, but I suspect you must be very busy at the office.”
This was true. The false spring had also stirred the hearts of many Coudert clients, who had decided to marry, divorce, write wills, buy something or sell something, or who were just nervous and needed a good soothing by their attorney. Ferrar sighed. “You aren’t wrong, Max.”
“We don’t have to stay a long time, because the shipment won’t be in Danzig for more than two days. I could go early, to talk to people, to see what we’re facing, and you could fly in as the shipment arrives. And that we can schedule for the weekend.”
“Could we?”
“It’s possible. Szarny has confirmed that our bank wire was received, which included funds to bribe Czech officials. So, this weekend, maybe. If not, the following weekend. And you’ll be at work on Monday morning. Can you do it?”
Ferrar didn’t hesitate—not after what he’d seen over the last few weeks. “If you think I can help you, Max, I’ll be there.”
The marquesa was prompt, on the following afternoon. Jeannette showed her into the office and, after Ferrar greeted her, she settled on the chair meant for visitors. Was she Spanish? French? She was in her early forties, he guessed, but looked younger, and was not so much beautiful as what was called striking. She had strong, finely made features, smooth skin, and hair a dark shade of gold, with the sheen of polished metal, swept back beneath a pillbox hat with a veil. For an afternoon meeting at a lawyer’s office, she wore a severe navy-blue suit, a scarf at her throat, and a silver brooch. Now she sat, elegant, composed, and serious, taking a moment before the meeting began. But did she ever sit! The most prim and proper lady in the land: back straight, head up, knees, legs, and shoes not quite pressed together but perfectly met, with hands, in black leather gloves that disappeared up the sleeves of her jacket, folded atop the purse on her lap. “Monsieur Ferrar,” she said, “thank you for seeing me on such short notice. It is kind of you, monsieur.” She spoke a very refined French; formal, rhythmic, and beautifully modulated.