by Alan Furst
They came to a small whitewashed house with a tile roof at the end of a dirt street. A cat was sleeping on the windowsill. In a field across the road a few kids in short pants were fooling with a battered soccer ball. The air smelled like onions fried in oil and sun-heated plaster, and a radio was playing music somewhere nearby. The man known as Andres Cardona was down on his knees in the midst of a wild garden of daisies and fuchsia geraniums surrounding an old, twisted lemon tree. As they drove up, he was yanking weeds from the dry soil and throwing them over the garden fence. He stood up, wiped his hands on his pants and called, “Buenos dias, buenos dias,” in the voice of a man pleased to see his employees. Ah yes, there you are, fellows, so good to see you, in your absence I’ve thought of a thousand things we need to do. All of that in the tonality of a simple greeting, the way he stood, the expectation in his eyes. He was, Khristo realized once again, so very, very good at what he did.
“And the name?”
“Farmacia Cortes.”
“Cortes. Refers to what?”
“The name of the square, I suppose. Though it is near the Cortes.”
“The …?”
“The Cortes. The Spanish parliament.”
“Ah. So it is not owned by a man named Cortes.”
“No.”
“Hmm,” Sascha said, tapping the end of the fountain pen against his teeth. “Locate it further for me, will you?”
“The Plaza de Cortes is elegant, fashionable. There is a hotel, the Palace-”
“As in English? Not Palacio?”
“No. Palace as in English. A fine hotel, quite luxurious.”
“Who stays there?”
“Diplomats. Journalists. Those who seek to approach the Cortes.”
“Zolot!” Gold.
“Perhaps.”
“Nothing perhaps. It is certain. Comb this one out, thoroughly, you understand, and there would be treasure. Who has a prescription for heart medicine. Who has the clap. Who must have the laudanum syrup every week. More secrets in a pharmacy than in a woman’s heart! Better than a bank, my friend. So specific.”
“Yes. But one could not comb him out.”
Sascha clicked his tongue and wagged a “naughty” finger.
“Well yes, if you tied him to a chair and all that, of course. But no other way.”
“Not money?”
“Never.”
“Be sure now.”
“I am.”
“He likes women? Girls? Boys? Cats?”
“No. He is purity itself.”
“The pig.”
Cardona shrugged and smiled, a soft gesture that forgave the world everything. “Would you care to hear about procedure?”
“Oh yes. We like procedure. Khristo, you’re getting all this?”
“Yes. Most of it.” He wiped sweat from his face. Because they spoke Russian, the windows were shut tight. The sun beat down on the tile roof and the still air was wet and hot and blue with drifts of smoke. The roll of blueprints he’d taken from the trunk of the car was spread across the table, covered with coffee cups used as ashtrays, half-empty glasses of red wine, and sheets of paper covered with Cyrillic scratchings. One heard rumors of a machine that recorded the human voice on a spool of wire, but it was not to be had outside Moscow.
Cardona lit a Ducado and blew smoke at the ceiling. “The procedure is to enter the Farmacia Cortes on the Plaza de Cortes between four and four-thirty in the afternoon. Go to the rear of the store, inquire of the clerk-always a young woman in a gray smock-if el patron is available.”
“El patron. The owner?”
“Literally, yes. But it’s a grander term in Spanish. The boss.”
“Ah.”
“She goes into the office, then he appears.”
“What does she think you want?”
“Some personal thing, not to be mentioned to a young woman. Prophylactics, perhaps.”
“And do you buy something?”
“No.”
“Isn’t that asking to be noticed?”
Cardona pondered this for a moment. “Such things go on at Spanish pharmacies, it’s not so unusual. Men, you know, and their intimate problems.”
Sascha shot an eyebrow and snorted. “Intimate crabs.”
“Certainly, and everything else. Anyhow, he gives me the time and place of the meeting.”
“His name?”
“According to the tax clerk’s office, the Farmacia Cortes is owned by Emilio Quesada.”
“El patron.”
“That’s an assumption.”
Sascha sighed. The more they knew the craft, the more they wriggled off the hook. Cardona was exactly right, but it was just such ephemera that drove intelligence people crazy in the long term. “Very well. Make a note, Khristo.” He turned back to Cardona. “I don’t suppose you’d want to ask the clerk, just once, if Senor Quesada is available?”
Cardona simply smiled.
“Umm,” Sascha said, “I rather thought not. He comes to the meetings, this patron?”
“Of course he does. But I can’t say that. We are all hooded.”
“Describe the hoods.”
“Silk pillowcases, a sort of light brown color, with slits cut for eyeholes.”
“Tan, would you call them?”
“No, not really. It’s what a Renaissance painter would’ve known as ecru, I believe.”
“Good God.” Sascha held his head and shook it. “Khristo, make them ‘light brown.’ Ecru indeed. Moscow would love that.”
“Each meeting is held at a different apartment, never the same one twice.”
“I suppose you don’t go hooded in the street.”
“No. That’s done just inside the front door, but the arrival times are staggered, and we leave one at a time.”
“Cautious.”
“Yes.”
“And the meetings?”
“Fascist mumbo-jumbo. A red candle burning in the middle of the table. A prayer to start out, a little speech-quite ferocious, really. You know how they are, Christ and blood, Christ and blood, back and forth. Then there’s news of the Falange, military victories, piles of dead miners-nothing you wouldn’t find in their newspapers.”
“What is their morale, would you say.”
Cardona paused a moment. “Well, it’s hard to tell with the hoods on, but I would say they’re pretty scared. Most of them, their political views were well known before the Azana government took over. They fear their neighbors, co-workers, tradesmen.”
“Does only the leader speak?”
“No. After he has said his piece, an unsheathed bayonet is passed from hand to hand. Each of us holds it and makes a statement.”
“For example.”
“A Republican gang marched into a monastery near Albacete. The monk in charge was tied to the altar and a crucifix was forced down his throat.”
“Others?”
“Nuns raped and murdered, priests strung up in trees.”
“Falangist propaganda, of course.” A muscle ticked briefly under Sascha’s eye and he blinked to make it stop.
“Naturally.”
“But they are conscious of the gangs.”
“Oh yes. They fear them-with the fear of children-and recite their names. Lynxes of the Republic, Red Lions, Spartacus, the Furies, Strength and Liberty. It is almost as though a constant naming of the terrors will keep them away in the night.”
” ‘The purpose of terrorism …’ ” Sascha quoted half the Lenin axiom, a shrug in his voice.
Khristo finished the phrase silently: “… is to cause terror.” These two, he realized, had something between them quite outside the agent-case officer relationship. They were not the Mitya type-blunt-headed peasants with a red catechism in their mouth and a rifle in their hands. They were intellectuals: they would say the catechism and use the rifle, but they would not delude themselves. Their status demanded knowledge-and admission, no matter how inferential-of the truth.
“Now,” Sascha said,
shifting in his chair, “we come to the blue lantern.”
Cardona drew a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I’m still piecing it together.”
“General Bloch was quite pointed in his remarks on the subject.”
“I can imagine. Well, you may tell him that I do not think it mattered that the action went awry. They accept the hand of fate, even if General Bloch does not. What matters to them, the Falange, is that I executed the plan. Its failure, I think, will not damage their trust in me.”
“But you’ve not met with them since it happened.”
“Nor was I scheduled to do so. Tomorrow I go to the pharmacy.”
“Have you any idea what went wrong?”
“Not really. I went to the roof, lit the lantern. Somehow, the lantern was removed, taken to another building, and the attack failed.”
“Another building?”
“Yes.”
“We are told there was an American involved. A woman.”
“Neighborhood gossip. I have heard it.”
“Find out for me who she is-her name, anything you can learn. There are many Americans who come to Spain now, Moscow perceives this as a critically important opportunity. Thus, if you wish your star to shine …”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Tell me, was there no guard at the Avenida Saldana? Did they simply fill up a building with guns and ammunition and leave it there?”
“This is the Spanish war.”
They were both silent for a moment, then Cardona went on, leaning across the table. “A story, if you like. One of the cinemas on the paseo is showing Duck Soup, the Marx Brothers film. I attended last week, the theater was packed full. In the row in front of me were three artillery officers on leave. For most of the time they were silent. But then, there is a scene where Groucho Marx is playing a colonel, and he stands before a map and says, ‘A child of three could solve this problem.’ He pauses, then adds, ‘Bring me a child of three.’ At that, the officers laughed-laughed bitterly, one could say-and nudged each other.”
Khristo and Sascha both smiled.
“Humorous,” Cardona continued, “it is that. But maybe not so funny when you reflect on what it implies. To answer your question directly I will tell you that the Avenida Saldana armory was protected by the POUM, the anarchists, and in all probability the guard had something more important to do and off he went and did it. I carried the lantern up there with a knife in my hand, but there wasn’t a soul.”
Dutifully, Khristo tried to keep up with him, writing as fast as he could. Sascha sighed and sat back in his seat.
“Bloch and the others,” he said, “are getting quite fed up with the anarchists. Quite thoroughly fed up. And given The Great Stalin’s attitude toward Trotsky, who sits in Mexico and pulls the strings of his puppets, this lack of discipline is going to receive close attention. I advise you to stay away from them, Andres, if you wish to keep your knees unsoiled.”
“Naturally Moscow is upset. Obedience is everything to them, but this is the way of it and you will not change the Spaniards. They have itched all their lives to stop dreaming, to act, after twenty years of talk. And it is their freedom they love most of all, because it is chained to their manhood. Stick your nose in at your peril.”
Sascha held his hand up like a traffic policeman. “No treason, comrade, it’s too hot today.”
“I intend none. But find a way to tell them the truth.” The implied ending of the sentence, for a change, hung in the smoky air.
Sascha brought forth a crooked smile, in which all the ironies in his life danced and played. “Very well,” he said, “I shall certainly start tomorrow. But, for today, let me first put you on the proper path. We have an alternate plan-not so good as the armory, but it will have to serve.”
“Of course, comrade.” Cardona smiled.
“Do you have a camera?”
“I know where to get one.”
“Good. Make certain the film is especially light sensitive. Thursday morning, the first Soviet tank column will reach Madrid-an historical moment. It is moving up from the docks in Alicante and will take a route from the east, entering the city on the Paseo de la Infanta Isabella. We are timing the arrival for dawn and taking other measures to ensure that the entry is as secret as possible. What we want you to do is to take a roll of photographs of these tanks. Not the entire roll, of course, shoot the first few frames on something mundane, as though the film were already in the camera. Invent a good story for being out there, in case they ask. Take the roll, undeveloped, to your contact at Farmacia Cortes. The photos must be clandestine in nature, of course, tilted horizons, out of focus-let them see what a brave fellow you are. You’ll want to be discreet anyhow, for those tank commanders are country fellows, and they’d as soon make daylight shine through you as anyone else. Make sure you photograph the relevant items-tank numbers, commanders’ insignia, the usual drill. It is our intention that the photos soften the blow if your new friends are distressed over the failure at Avenida Saldana, but, most important, we want you to become the keenest sword in the Fifth Column. We want you to glitter in their eyes so that they will show you off to their superiors. Eventually, we think, you will see a German. Now, need I go back over the ground?”
“No. I understand. And it will be a pleasure,” Cardona said, “a great pleasure to see a German.”
“Poor Andres. Is he tired of being a Spaniard?”
“In truth, yes.”
“Do not despair, Andrushka, just a little while longer.”
It was dusk-fields shadowed in purplish light, sunset faded to a few red streaks in the western sky-when they wound their way down the hill from San Ximene. Sascha seemed exhausted; he lay slumped against the passenger door and worked hard at the Fundador until he conquered it-a bottle new that morning. It was, Khristo thought, the performance that sucked the life out of him. The role of case officer demanded an actor of extraordinary range: mother’s warmth, father’s discipline, the acuity of a favorite teacher, the strength of a playing-field hero. Cardona was betting his life that Sascha was good at his job-it was that simple. For months, Khristo had watched him rise to the performance, time and time again.
“Should you not turn on the lights?” Sascha asked.
“I will, in a while. The windshield bugs are terrible here.”
“How can you see to drive?”
“It’s a white road.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll stop if you want to get in back.”
“No, I’m better up here.”
They drove in silence. When it was finally dark, Khristo turned on the headlamps and watched moths dancing in the beams. When Sascha spoke again, his voice was thick with exhaustion. “Save him,” he said. “I want you to promise me that.”
“Who? Andres?”
“Yes. You promise?”
“Of course. You will be at my side to make certain of it.”
“I think not.”
No point, Khristo thought, in pursuing this. Sascha trailed these hooks until you bit. He was, like other intelligence officers, stricken with an urge to confide. It was too strong, like a devil that beat you over the head with your own secrets until you had to let one out. To relieve the pressure you would tell half a secret, or an old, used-up secret, or boast of the secrets you knew. The cursed things had a life of their own, like weeds they threatened to grow right out of your head into plain sight.
“You’ve read his file?” The voice picked up a little.
“Not allowed.”
“Shit.”
“The junior officer is confined to knowledge of tactical intelligence. Strategic intelligence is the sole responsibility of senior staff. Section three. Paragraph eight.”
“More shit.”
“I quote you gospel.”
“You are like a market peddler, Khristo, like a Jew you count kopecks. Tactical intelligence. Strategic intelligence. The difference between waiters’ gossip and ambassadors’ gossip. What noti
ons, really. The thoughts of men whose backsides have grown into their chairs.”
Khristo laughed.
“I’m funny. That Sascha, he will make you laugh.”
“Thank God.”
“I’ll miss you.”
For a time, Khristo thought he had gone to sleep, but then his voice returned from the darkness.
“Roubenis. That is Andres’s true name, Roubenis. Avram Roubenis.”
“Greek?”
“Armenian-at least his father was Armenian-with a Greek name. As for his mother, she was the unhappy result of an amour between a German commercial traveler and a Turkish hotel maid.”
“In a word, a little of everything.”
“Just so. Thus he speaks Turkish, Armenian and demotic Greek. Also Russian, as you have seen. Spanish and English, and he can swear handsomely in Arabic. He was first a spy at the age of fourteen, in 1908. He would sneak up on Turkish encampments, listen to the chatter of the guards, and inform the villagers. To hide or not to hide-that was how they fought back.”
“A survivor, then.”
“The word does no justice. A monument, perhaps, to stepping through the fire quickly and going on with life. He was born under the Ottoman Empire, in a little village near Yerevan, Armenia, at the edge of the Caucasus range. Just north of the border point where eastern Turkey meets northern Iran. In the year 1909, the Turks murdered two hundred thousand Armenians-including the father. They cut off his head with a sword. Avram and his mother saw it happen from where they were hiding, in a rooftop cistern.
“The mother was a great beauty-blond hair like a Fraulein, black eyes like an Anatolian Turk. The soldiers would have made short work of her. There was cruelty beyond imagination-in reprisal for an attack against an officer, hundreds were blinded, left to walk around as living reminders. But Avram and his mother escaped. She sold herself to a merchant and he took them west, all the way across Turkey, in a horse and wagon. I believe there was a baby sister who died of cholera along the way. Eventually they reached Smyrna. You know it? A disputed city, first Greek, then Turkish, on the Aegean coast of Turkey. There, the merchant determined that he would enjoy both mother and son in his bed. The mother was cunning. As the merchant undressed, she pulled his shirt over his head and Avram killed him with a brick he had hidden in the wagon. They dragged his body into a marsh and took his gold.