Paris Spring

by James Naughtie

  The man read his newspaper and his expression showed nothing. He didn’t speak. As they approached Concorde, he glanced up at Flemyng and held his eye for the first time. Stay on the train.

  For the next ten minutes, Flemyng watched him closely. He wore the same clothes, he’d stretched the foot in front of him as far as he could and, once again, he’d stuck his pipe upside down in his pocket. Strands of tobacco poked out and there were streaks of soot on his blazer. His trousers were grey and baggy, and too long, with deep turn-ups that seemed to have picked up litter along the way. He was now looking away again. Flemyng knew the inspection would come later.

  They sat silently until the train reached Pigalle and, without fuss, the man stood and took three steps towards the sliding doors, revealing the hint of a limp. Flemyng stood behind him and they left the train in step. He slowed down to let a gap open up between them and followed him along Boulevard de Clichy, checking as he walked that no one else was in their wake. Nothing. Two young women, roughly painted and bored, got up from an iron bench as they passed and one of them spread her arms in a fake stretch, but they were alert enough to know that there was no business on offer. Flemyng nodded easily at them, as if to suggest that on another day it might have been different, and the younger of the two waved cheerfully over her shoulder as they turned away. The German entered a café on the next corner without looking back, and Flemyng followed, ducking under a ragged parasol at the door and approaching his table against the far wall with no word of explanation, pulling back a chair and sitting down. He slipped his jacket off.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘We meet again.’

  For the first time, the man smiled. ‘As I knew we would. I am pleased to see you, Mr Flemyng. My name is Kristof.’

  As they shook hands, Flemyng thought how Freddy would enjoy the absurdity of their politeness.

  ‘Which of us asked for this meeting?’ said Kristof, smiling.

  ‘An interesting question.’

  ‘Let me take responsibility.’ He laughed. His face lightened and his eyes were bright. For the first time, he seemed in charge. His head was up, his hands high in a gesture of welcome. The years fell away.

  Flemyng said, ‘Why?’ Once again he felt a hollowness in his legs, a tightening in his gut. Fear, his familiar companion and friend.

  ‘That is quite simple,’ Kristof said, as he prepared his thunderbolt. ‘I can tell you something very interesting about your brother.’

  TWO

  Flemyng knew immediately that he would tell Freddy Craven only part of the story when he got back to the embassy. The man called Kristof was leading him on a journey where he understood they were bound to share secrets.

  ‘I assume you mean my younger brother,’ he said to Kristof, taking his first step into the conversation and knowing, as a result, that he could no longer turn back.

  ‘Abel, of course,’ the German said. ‘Yes.’

  Kristof leaned against the wall in his first gesture of relaxation. With a few words, they were bound together.

  Flemyng had hunched forward on the table, working hard to conceal his astonishment at Kristof’s opening play. The German, by contrast, now took on an attitude of confidence, his head touching the shining gilt frame of a mirror behind him that reflected Flemyng’s anxiety, the long lines on his face deepened by the low lighting as he tried to find an explanation for the figure in front of him. Kristof removed the pipe from his pocket and produced a pouch. He dug into the black tobacco with a stubby finger, and through his steady preparations for a smoke turned into a picture of normality. Confident and methodical. There was no rush, no obvious nervousness in his movements, and he spoke in the same soft, deliberate way.

  Flemyng’s shock had settled him.

  ‘To begin at the beginning,’ he said, ‘I should say that I met your brother here in Paris, in his days with the Americans. In their embassy, as you know. Our encounter was on neutral ground, of course. As people with no embassy – no identity you might say – we are always at the mercy of our friends. In my case, my Moscow comrades. So hospitable.’ He raised his coffee cup.

  ‘We were introduced, but spoke only a few words. This was almost two years ago, and he will not remember my name. You will understand that it is not one I use any more. Not today, anyway.’

  He was playing with a matchbox, and Flemyng noticed his boyishness. His skin was pale without any obvious blemishes and his face narrowed to a pointed chin that gave him an elfin look when he smiled and his mouth turned up. He was certainly the younger of the two, but it was hard to tell by how much. As he packed the rest of the tobacco into his pipe, he brushed the remains of his last smoke from his jacket and smoothed himself down.

  ‘I know his trade,’ he said. ‘Ours, I should say.’

  He put a match to his pipe, sending up an orange flare and then a small cloud of smoke. ‘Mr Flemyng, I may be here to help. Who can tell? We must give it time.’

  He pulled on his pipe. ‘A friend.’

  He let the smoke drift over the table. ‘And if we do become friends, you may be able to help me.’

  Flemyng used the mirror to check the room. A middle-aged couple sat in one corner engrossed in each other, and only one other table was occupied, by a young man who had his head on the table, his face turned away. One dangling arm almost touched the floor and he seemed to be asleep. The waiter clattered with cups in his little sink, and from the bar he watched a young woman who had taken a table on the pavement outside and sat alone. The café was dark inside, but she was illuminated by the morning sun. ‘I’ll listen,’ Flemyng said quietly. ‘But I’m afraid I really have nothing to say.’

  Kristof shook his head. ‘I understand. Now, you don’t have to. I promise. Later, when we meet again.’

  There was silence for a moment. Flemyng held his position, arms on the table. He gave no sign, letting Kristof set the pace.

  Abel, the kid brother he’d known all his life, was in his mind. He’d seen him soon after Abel left Paris to go home to America, relaxed and dressed in European style, although his black hair was cut unfashionably short, in deference to the rule in his office. The three years that separated the brothers seemed to Flemyng by then to have dwindled to nothing. Their lives, so similar on different continents, had forced them to accept that secrets would always divide them, but on that one happy weekend, when they visited some of their mother’s old haunts up the Hudson Valley, they had been able to close the distance between them for a few days. It was exhilarating, because they knew it couldn’t last.

  ‘I can’t speak for the closeness between you,’ said Kristof, and Flemyng was momentarily thrown. The German’s eyes were on him and he felt as if he had revealed his thoughts and provided him with an unnecessary opening. Reassuring himself that he need not respond, he gave a smile and raised a hand. Kristof continued. ‘That is not my business, but I know enough to be sure that there is trust between you. We’re trained to know our friends, are we not?’

  Flemyng stayed silent, bringing both hands together on the table for the first time. He looked down.

  ‘It is in that spirit that I took the chance of speaking to you, because I’m afraid there is a risk for me, Mr Flemyng. I am not acting under orders, nor on behalf of anyone else.’

  His voice had dropped nearly to a whisper, and he leaned in. ‘You do believe me?’

  Flemyng said, ‘I’m listening,’ and no more.

  ‘Perhaps you imagine that my people know more than they do,’ Kristof said. ‘Mostly, we are working in the dark. As you might put it, keeping up appearances.

  ‘However, we have taken some trouble with you. You were noticed in Berlin – very young and, as we soon learned, quite active. You brought a dash of colour to the city. The same in Vienna afterwards. Two short years there, but full of such adventure. It must have been tedious to return to London, and your desk. Which means, Mr Flemyng, that Paris is bursting with promise for you. Life on the street again. La vie en rose. And what a tim
e to be here.’

  The first question for Flemyng was whether the speech had been rehearsed. Kristof’s English was strongly accented, but his grammar was disciplined enough to hint at pedantry, and he had a natural flow that suggested time in London. With that skill, in the library and on the street, his people would prize him. He concluded that Kristof had confidence: he knew what he wanted to say, but it was not a performance that any longer felt manufactured and practised, but mature. He was comfortable with his own voice. The shabby uniform that he wore was still a mystery – why try to conceal a bright personality? – but this was a man of purpose. He saw that Kristof, though he spoke of risk, had shown no flicker of nerves.

  ‘You may be wondering why I am proceeding in this roundabout way,’ he said.

  Flemyng chose not to answer. He smiled for the first time, as if to say that Kristof’s tactics were his own affair. But he knew that the explanation was coming, and that the first light might break on their strange encounter.

  Kristof said he wanted Flemyng to know that he recognized in him a spirit like his own. ‘The difference is that yours can flower. You will savour this city, let it sweep you up. The parties and the wine. The ladies. Mine is a life that is altogether duller.’

  Flemyng had been trained to listen. ‘Give ’em time,’ old Tyson used to say to his boys when they were at the Fort, ‘always give ’em time.’ The training stuck with him. He wouldn’t break the flow.

  With Kristof bending forward, waiting for a question or a protest, he did nothing. Waited.

  ‘I was right about you,’ the German said. ‘I asked myself first if you would decline my approach. Then, if you allowed me to talk – would you charm me, try to turn the tables from the start. And here you are, saying nothing and ready to give me my chance.’

  Although he spoke of time – and Flemyng was determined to wait – the opening exchanges had produced an atmos-phere that ensured the pace would quicken. Flemyng had noticed that Kristof was speaking to him as an equal, and, in acknowledging his summons to a meeting without complaint or artificial surprise, Flemyng had declared himself open for business. There might be no deal, but he wanted to listen. So the two professionals prepared to take the next steps, each aware that they were going to move fast.

  ‘I knew of Abel before I met him,’ Kristof said, ‘and I should say that at that time I knew nothing of you. I was not aware of your existence, wherever you were. I was in Paris, and my people noticed your brother. Of course they did, because he was unusual.’

  Flemyng said nothing, but his expression was encouraging. He had every interest in hearing Kristof’s story.

  ‘A naturalized American, not home-born, working for them in our world? Joining in the game? My people hadn’t heard of such a thing. Our American friends are so careful. But there he was, tucked up in the fourth floor of their embassy with the others, and as busy as a bee.’

  The conversation had entered a different phase, and there was only a brief pause before Flemyng asked, ‘Where did you meet?’

  The gauntlet picked up, Kristof smiled.

  ‘You must realize that I am with my country’s trade mission. It’s all we have, as you know. One day, perhaps, an embassy. For now, we shelter with comrades, as you understand. We are hiding in their skirts, you would say, as I might be in London. One of the spies on Highgate Hill, you know.’ His face had brightened with enjoyment.

  ‘I was invited to a reception, nothing more exciting than that. Routine. Bastille Day at the Quai d’Orsay. The Americans usually avoid us, you understand, because officially – by the book – we don’t exist. But on this occasion I had a handshake and a few words. Of course, I had to report my observations.’

  In reconstructing the conversation later, Flemyng was surprised at the calm he had managed to hold when he realized where Kristof’s story was leading him, into the private shadows of his family and the secrets it had to keep. He had expected it some day, but had never yet been confronted by Abel’s history outside the circle of hard-sworn colleagues with whom it had to be shared. And, looking back at the scene in the café later, he realized he had known in the first few minutes of the conversation that he was being carried towards a crisis, of a kind that he couldn’t predict.

  There was every reason for panic. Instead, his mind cooled.

  In response to Kristof’s statement, he asked, ‘And what did you say about him in your report?’

  ‘Very little, at first.’

  For a few moments, Flemyng considered Kristof’s unlaboured language. His style was conversational and not formal, his cadences natural. A thought had stirred in Flemyng’s mind soon after he sat down, and it was now fully formed. This man might have learned his English in a laboratory and polished it on the street, but there was something more, and Flemyng was certain of it. I know something about you, he thought: at some time in your life you have lived with someone who spoke English as a native. A woman? A man? Were you lovers? In Berlin? Or London? He felt a surge of confidence, enough to steady him, having glimpsed something behind the veil that he might grasp and keep.

  Kristof saw the change in Flemyng, as if a shadow had lifted from his face.

  ‘As time went by, there was more. Sightings here and there. A contact with a friend of ours, working here in Paris. Gradually, I assembled a picture of your brother.’

  ‘And?’ said Flemyng.

  ‘And… I discovered something strange.’

  Kristof was rubbing the table with one hand, as if there was a stain that wouldn’t disappear. His eyes were down.

  ‘That I need not have bothered with my research,’ he said.

  The room was quiet. The couple in the corner had left, and the student slept on. The waiter was outside, leaning over the back of a chair at the young girl’s table. Flemyng caught the flash of a bright green scarf in the mirror and saw that she was laughing. At his own table Kristof stared at him, with hungry eyes.

  ‘Let me state it again, Mr Flemyng. I discovered that I need not have taken the trouble.’

  They were both serious, their faces in shadow, drawn towards each other so that their heads nearly touched, but Flemyng stayed silent.

  ‘A chance remark from a colleague stuck in my mind, and over many months I learned more about your brother. Much more.’

  Flemyng had the ability, so prized by Freddy Craven when he first joined his crew, to conceal feelings of alarm. As he listened to Kristof, his expression didn’t change. His eyes were warm, and there were no worry lines on his brow: he was a man who seemed to encourage openness. But Kristof’s features had tightened.

  ‘You will have to explain what you mean,’ Flemyng said. ‘Precisely.’

  Kristof was showing signs of stress for the first time. There was no one to hear him; the waiter was well away and the café quiet. But he spoke very softly. The smoothness disappeared, and his voice was rough.

  ‘I will, Mr Flemyng.’

  He spent a few moments relighting his pipe before he resumed, and whispered through a cloud of smoke. A shower of sparks settled on his lapels.

  ‘I found out that my people – your enemies – knew your brother. Knew him very well indeed.’

  Long afterwards, Flemyng would recall the shiver of the moment and the question that pricked him. A revelation, or a trap? There was no reason to join a dance with a street artist, nothing that compelled him to follow the trail that led to the dark. But he couldn’t turn back. His day had started with the promise of adventure, and the satisfaction of controlled excitement that he knew so well. The German had turned confidence into alarm.

  He leaned back, discipline kicking in against the steady tide of panic that flowed towards him. ‘Since you have mentioned my family, perhaps we should think of this as a personal encounter. Why don’t we stop talking in riddles?’

  ‘Because that’s our style. Our language,’ Kristof said. ‘You know it’, and he slapped a hand like a teacher calling for order. ‘Besides, I don’t know the answer to the questio
n that you certainly want to ask me.’

  He waved away the waiter, who was holding up a cup to offer them more coffee.

  ‘Mr Flemyng, I can only suggest that we go on a journey. Nothing more. The question is whether we go together, or whether you choose to travel alone. It is a decision for you.’ Kristof’s head bumped the mirror behind him. Until then, they had moved closer together with each exchange so that their heads almost touched. The conversation had reached a turning point, which they both recognized. For a few moments, there was silence. Kristof’s eyes glistened. They were his most attractive feature, and invited attention.

  The table shook when Flemyng brought both his hands down, and he was full-voiced for the first time that morning.

  ‘I don’t know who you are, only that you’ve thrown me a crude line about my brother, which is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re waiting for me to react to your suggestion. But why should I go on any kind of journey with you?’

  ‘Because you have no choice, Mr Flemyng.’

  Kristof rose and pushed the table forward a little to allow himself to ease out. As he slid past Flemyng he leaned down. ‘Shall we say in the next week? I’ll get a message to you.’

  He placed a hand on Flemyng’s shoulder, and pressed down as he put weight on the weaker foot that he disguised well. Flemyng was reminded of Freddy and his failing strength. Kristof walked to the door without turning back, and Flemyng watched in the mirror as he opened it. The girl had gone from her place outside, and the sleeping student had disappeared. He saw Kristof turn back towards the metro without looking through the window. When he had gone, the waiter was busying himself in the kitchen, and Flemyng was alone.

  He took a folded piece of writing paper from one inside pocket of his jacket and found a pencil in the other. As if responding to a request from the man who had left him, he began to draw. He had a gift. The outline of the hair, the long ears, a straight nose that emphasized the pointed chin beneath it. Shoulders that were lopsided. In a few minutes he’d produced a sketch of a face that was alert, perhaps with a hint of fun, but with eyes that were sad, touched by wistfulness.