by Alan Furst
Von Polanyi paused-perhaps he expected Szara to sputter and curse-and in a rather studied way chose that moment to discover that he wanted more coffee. Szara found himself dispassionate, nodding in polite affirmation, yes, it could have been like that, but he’d learned more about his own situation in that moment than he had about Joseph Stalin. He felt no anger at all. His mind was now ruled, he saw, by the suspended judgment of the intelligence officer. What he’d once pretended to be he had, by necessity, become, for his principal reaction to Von Polanyi’s revelation was perhaps. It could be true. But, more to the point, why was he being told this? What role was Von Polanyi assigning him?
There had to be one. Von Polanyi had known about him for a long time, as far back as 1937, when he’d come to Berlin to recruit Dr. Baumann-when the NKVD had agreed, far above his head, to receive strategic information by means of a clandestine network. Unwittingly, Szara had been an operative of the Reich Foreign Ministry’s intelligence service-“a small office … simply a group of educated German gentlemen”-and he had no very good reason to believe that Von Polanyi wanted the relationship to end. “As far as I can tell,” Szara said carefully, “everything you say is true. Can anything be done about it?”
“Not immediately,” Von Polanyi said. “Tonight, the center of Europe runs on a line down the middle of Poland, and I believe the intention is to forge a Russo-German empire on either side of it. For Germany there is Western Europe: France, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, Great Britain; Spain and Portugal will come along when they see how things are, Italy remains a junior partner. Stalin will expect to acquire a substantial part of the Balkans, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Turkey, Iran, and India-eventually a common border with a Japanese empire in the Pacific. The United States is to be isolated, slowly squeezed to death or invaded by a thousand divisions. Both Hitler and Stalin prefer political conquest to actual war, so the former alternative is the more likely.”
“For me,” Szara said, “a world in which I could not live. But you are a German, Herr Von Polanyi, a German patriot. Is it possible you dislike the present leader so deeply that you would damage your country in order to destroy him? “
“I am a German, most certainly a German patriot. From that perspective, I will tell you that the damage has already been done, and a world has been created in which I refuse to live. If Germany loses this war it will be devastating, almost the worst thing that could happen but not the very worst. The very worst would be for Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, and the people around them, to win such a war. That I cannot permit.”
Von Polanyi’s arrogance was stunning; Szara forced himself to look puzzled and a little lost. “You have something particular in mind, then.”
“At this moment, I frankly don’t know what to do, not specifically. I do know, however, that a structure needs to be established, a structure with which Hitler’s power may be damaged, perhaps destroyed, when the opportunity presents itself. Why would I want to create such a structure? I can only say: who will if I won’t? I don’t want to bore you with a history of the Von Polanyi family- in a sense you already know it. An old family, hundreds of years old. Never peaceful. A war family, if you like, but always honorable. Obsessed with honor. So, always, we die young. We also breed young, however, so the line continues despite the inevitabilities of such a heritage. For me, honor lies in the sort of action I am proposing. I am not unaware that this thorn in the German character is despised by some, but I think you can find a way to see the use of it.”
“Of course,” Szara said. “But my own situation …” He didn’t know where to begin.
Von Polanyi leaned forward. “To do what I have in mind, Herr Szara, I need a man outside Germany, a man not only in a neutral country but in a neutral state of being. A man without affiliation, a man not obligated to any particular state or political creed, a man who understands the value of information, a man who can direct this information where it will do the most good-which is to say the most harm-and a man who can achieve that sort of liaison skillfully, in such a way that the source remains protected. Thus a man with the technical ability to support an act inspired by ethics, honor, call it by any name you like. Briefly put, I need a man who can do good and not get caught at it.”
So I am described, Szara thought, and a strange conspiracy is proposed: a Polish Jew and a German aristocrat shall work together to push Adolf Hitler over the edge of some yet unseen cliff. The presumption of the idea! That two rather ordinary men in an inn near Altenburg would even dare to dream of opposing a state of the magnitude of Nazi Germany, with its Gestapo, its Abwehr, SS divisions, Panzer tanks and Luftwaffe. Yet it was possible and Szara knew it-the power of intelligence was such that two ordinary men in an inn near Altenburg could destroy a nation if they used it properly.
“You are attracted to the idea,” Von Polanyi said, an edge of excitement in his voice.
“Yes,” Szara said. “Perhaps it could be done. But I am officially a traitor to the Soviet Union, a network operative in flight, so my time on earth is very limited. Weeks, probably. Nothing can change that.”
“Herr Szara.” Von Polanyi’s feelings were clearly hurt. “Please try to think better of me than that. We have a friend in the SD who is, covertly, a friend of the NKVD. With your permission, we are going to have you leave this troubled world tonight, one of the many who did not survive Gestapo interrogation. You may, if all goes smoothly, read your own obituary should the Russians choose to proceed in that way. But you must not betray us, must not spring alive with your name at the foot of a newspaper column. Can you give me your word that it will be so-forever? “
“You have my word,” Szara said. “But it cannot be that simple.”
“Auf!” Von Polanyi said in despair. “Of course it isn’t. Nothing is. You will live in mortal fear of chance recognition. But I do believe that a certain inertia will help to keep you safe. A Soviet officer will think a long time before insisting that an enemy declared dead by the NKVD is in fact still with us. To discredit the leadership of his own organization is something he will not do easily. Better to convince himself that he’s seen a ghost, and that Moscow remains infallible.”
“They’ll want proof.”
“The proof is that they’ve discovered the event by clandestine means, and that when a feeler is extended at some remote level- ‘Seen our man Szara anywhere?’-we’ll deny we ever heard of you. Then they’ll believe it. The real danger to you is gossip-a group of emigres, for example, chattering about a Russian-speaking Frenchman who sneaks off to eat blini when he thinks no one’s looking. You have a French passport, according to the Gestapo teletype. They describe it as ‘valid.’ Use it. Be that Frenchman. But you must alter your appearance as best you can and live the life of a Frenchman-a Frenchman who best not return to France, a Jew from Marseille, mixed up in who knows what unsavory affair. Grow yourself a vulgar little mustache, grease your hair, gain weight. You won’t fool the French; they’ll know you’re a fraud the minute you speak a word. But with luck they’ll take you for nothing more than a creature of the gutter-just not their gutter. Put it about that you lived in Cairo and sold the wrong stocks to the chief of police. There is a bustling world at the margins of society; I’m sure you know it. It hides all sorts of people, it may possibly hide you. Well, what do you think? “
Szara didn’t answer right away. He stared at his hands and finally said, “Maybe.”
“The best deception is the one we ourselves believe in, and that is always the sort of deception that saves our lives,” Von Polanyi said, a bit of the philosopher’s gleam in his eye. “Survive, Herr Szara. I think it’s your gift in this life. Trust in the fact that most people are never very sure of themselves-‘Oh but you do remind me of him,’ they’ll say. You must, however, become the legend you create for yourself, and you may not take vacations from it. For you, perhaps a little job of some sort might make all the difference-something not quite legitimate.”
Szara turned and looked out the win
dow, but nothing had changed; a starless night, the steady rhythm of rain in a forest. Finally he said, “How would we communicate?”
Von Polanyi let the silence rest for a moment; it meant they had reached an understanding, the sort that does not require words. Then he went through the procedures: a postal card to a certain drapery shop, a poste restante return address, then contact. His tone was casual, almost dismissive, implying it was the sort of thing that Szara had done a thousand times before. When he’d finished, Szara said, “And if I simply vanish? “
“We are equals in this affair,” Von Polanyi said easily. “If you don’t want us, Herr Szara, then we don’t want you. It’s just that simple.”
They took him out of Germany in grand style, in a dark green Mercedes driven by a young man barely out of his teens, a naval officer, pink-cheeked, gangling, and endlessly solicitous. Every hour or so he would pull over, wait until the road was clear, then knock delicately on the lid of the trunk and whisper loudly, “All is well?” or some such thing.
All was well enough. Szara lay on a saddle blanket, his valise beside him, surrounded by assorted tack that smelled richly of old leather and horse. They had fed him sumptuously at the inn, a tray left in front of the door bearing poached eggs and buttered bread and jam tarts. And the naval officer-somewhere outside Vienna, he guessed-slipped him half a cold roast duck in a napkin and a bottle of beer. In the horsey-smelling darkness Szara felt a little seasick from the curves but picked at it for form’s sake and drank the beer. There were three stops. Each time he imagined papers being presented to the accompaniment of Hitler salutes and a rough joke and a laugh. By nightfall they were rumbling up the avenues of a city and Szara was let out on a dark street in a pleasant neighborhood. “Welcome to Budapest,” said the young officer. “The stamp is already in your passport. Good luck.” Then he drove away.
He was, in some sense, free.
Jean Bonotte was abroad in the world and lived much as Von Polanyi had suggested he might-in shabby hotels near railroad stations or in the narrow streets by the harbor, where the air smelled like dead fish and diesel oil. He stayed nowhere very long. Joined a restless army of lost souls, men and women without countries, not so very different from his days in Kovno. He stood with them on the long lines for registration at the police stations-“One more week, sir, then out you go”-ate at the same cheap restaurants, sat with them in the parks when the pale winter sun lit up the statue of the national hero. He changed. The cracked mirrors in the numberless hotel rooms told the story. He did not, as Von Polanyi had suggested, gain weight. He lost it, his face lean and haunted beneath his awkward, refugee haircut. He grew a natty mustache and trimmed it to perfection, the last vestige of self-respect in a world that had taken everything else away. A pair of faintly tinted eyeglasses gave him the look of a man who would be sinister if he dared, a weak, frightened man making a miserable pretense of strength. This message was not lost on the predators. Again and again the police of various cities took the little money he had in his pocket, and on two occasions he was beaten up.
The second day in Budapest, when he hadn’t quite got the hang of life in the alleys, a little fellow with a cap down over his eyes and a stub of cigarette stuck to his lip demanded money for entry into a certain neighborhood-or so Szara guessed from his gestures, for he understood not a word of Hungarian. Szara angrily brushed the impeding hand away and the next thing he knew he’d been hit harder than ever before in his life. He barely saw it happen, this dog didn’t growl before it bit. Szara simply found himself lying in the street, ears ringing, blood running in his mouth, as he fumbled for money to offer. Fortunately he’d left his valise in a hotel or it would have been gone forever. The damage, when he saw it, was horrific. Both lips had been split to one side of his mouth, as well as the skin above and below. It healed poorly. A dark red scar remained. In his mismatched jacket and trousers, wearing a shirt bought purposely a size too large so that it stood out around his neck, he already looked like a man whose luck, if he ever had any, had run out a long time ago. The scar drew the eye, confirmed the image. If the NKVD was still hunting for Andre Szara, and he had to assume that they might be, they wouldn’t look for him hiding inside this sad, battered fellow.
Budapest. Belgrade. The Romanian port of Constanta. Salonika, where he sold lottery tickets in the streets of the large, prosperous Jewish community. Athens. Istanbul. The new year of 1940 he welcomed in Sofia, staring at a light bulb on a cord that dangled from the ceiling and thinking of Nadia Tscherova.
As he did every day, sometimes every hour. To the address in Schillerstrasse he sent postcards. Signed B. A would have been for Andre, B was what he was now. She would understand this immediately, he knew. This B was a wealthy sort of cad, traveling about southern Europe on business, who now and then gave a thought to his old girlfriend Nadia who lived in Germany. “The sea is quite lovely,” said B from a town on the Black Sea coast of Turkey. In Bucharest he’d “finally got over a beastly cold.” In Zagreb, where he worked for two old Jewish brothers who had a market stall where they sold used pots and pans, B detected “signs of spring in the air.” I am alive, he told her in this way. I am not in Germany, not in Russia, I am free. But living a life-in Varna, Corfu, Debrecen-that she could not possibly share. “Love always,” said B, mailing his card an hour before he left a city. What love always really meant, the ten thousand words of it, he could only hope she understood. In the ruined beds of a hundred rooms spread across the lost quarters of Europe, her ghost lay with him every night.
When he worked, it was almost always in Yiddish. Even in the Sephardic communities where they spoke Ladino, somebody was sure to know it. In the outdoor markets, in the back streets of almost any city, he found Jews, and they almost always needed something done. He didn’t ask very much, and they’d nod yes with a tight mouth, probably you’ll rob me. It wasn’t exactly charity, just something in the way they were that didn’t like to say no. Maybe he was hungry. He didn’t look strong enough to load or unload wagons but he did it once or twice. Mostly he cleaned up, or ran errands, or sold things. The dented, blackened pots and pans in Zagreb. Secondhand suits in Bucharest. Used dishes, sheets, tools, books-even eyeglasses. “No?” he’d say. “Then try these. Can you see that girl over there? Perfect! That’s silver in those frames-you look ten years younger.” It was easy to pick up-he had to wonder if it hadn’t been there all the time-and it had to be done, a premium for the customer. Who wanted to buy from a stone? In these streets, money was earned and spent in the cheapest coin there was, a whole dinar, a lek or a lev, that you never saw. But life was cheap. He lived on bread and tea, potatoes and onions, cabbage and garlic. A little piece of dried-up meat was a banquet. If it had a rim of fat at the edge, a feast. His skin grew red and rough from being outdoors in the winter, his hands hard as leather. He’d beckon a customer to him confidentially, look both ways to make sure no one was listening, slip a subtle finger beneath a lapel and say, “Listen, you got to buy from me today, you’re not going to anybody else. So make a price, I don’t care, I’m a desperate man.” The owner of a stall that sold buttons and thread said to him in Constanta, “David”-for so he called himself that week-“you’re the best luftmensch I ever had. Maybe you’ll stay awhile.”
He became, that spring, the other kind of luftmensch as well, the man as inconspicuous as air, the operative. Privately, at first, in the way he began to remember his past. It came back like an old love affair, the ashes of his former life a little warmer than he’d thought.
He found himself in Izmir, the old Greek city of Smyrna, now Turkish. Just by the old bazaar, on Kutuphane street, was a restaurant owned by a swarthy little Sephardic lady with shining black eyes. For her he scrubbed pots. It turned his hands and forearms crimson, and he earned almost nothing, but she was a provident feeder-he lived on lamb and pine nuts and groats, dried figs and apricots-and she had an unused room in the cellar with a dusty straw mattress on an old door that he could sleep on. There wa
s even a table, the edges marked by forgotten cigarettes, and a kerosene lamp. Through a half window at sidewalk level he could see Kadifekele, the Velvet Fortress, perched on top of its hill. He had a strong, intuitive feeling about the room: a writer had worked there. The old lady’s son was something or other in the administrative section of the Izmir police, and for the first time in his travels Jean Bonotte had an actual work permit, though not under that name. “Write down,” she’d said. And he’d laboriously scrawled some concoction on a scrap of paper. A week later, a permit. “My son!” she explained of the miracle. Fortune smiled. Izmir wasn’t a bad place: a sharp wind blew across the docks off the Aegean, the harbor was full of tramp freighters. The people were reserved, slightly inward, perhaps because, not so many years earlier, the blood had literally run in the streets here, Turks slaughtering Greeks, and the town couldn’t quite put it in the past.
From his meager wages Szara bought a notebook and pencils and, once the huge iron pots were dried and put away for the evening, began to write. This was night writing, writing for himself, with no audience in mind. It was March, a good writer’s month, Szara felt, because writers like abundant weather-thunder and lightning, wind and rain, surging spring skies-not particularly caring if it’s good or bad just so there’s a lot going on. He wrote about his life, his recent life. It was hard, he was surprised at the emotional aches and pains it cost him, but evidently he wanted to do it because he didn’t stop. On the near horizon was what Von Polanyi had said about the executions of the 1936 purge and the secret courtship of Hitler and Stalin. But it was life he wrote about, not so much politics. Izmir, he sensed, was not a place where you would want to write about politics. It was almost too old for that, had seen too much, lived somewhere beyond those kinds of explanations-here and there the marble corner of a tumbled-down ruin had been worn to a curve by the incessant brush of clothing as people walked by for centuries. In such a place, the right thing to do was archaeology: archaeology didn’t have to be about the ancient world, he discovered; you could scrape the dirt away and sift the sand of more recent times. The point was to preserve, not to lose what had happened.