A Hero of France: A Novel

by Alan Furst

  “I don’t like it in here,” was the answer.

  “Not long now, maybe a half hour.”

  As he worked on the second coffin, he said, “Everything alright?” When there was no response, he rapped on the lid and said, “Hello?”

  “Sorry, I fell asleep.”

  Passing through Saint-Germain-en-Laye, they were soon on the streets of Paris, the bicyclists making way for the hearse—at least most of them did. Mathieu drove the hearse past the doorway of the Le Cygne nightclub, then turned into an alley and stopped by the metal-covered door of the nightclub’s service entry. The door, which had been left unbarred, opened to a hallway with a staircase that led first to Max de Lyon’s office, then to the spare room above it. Next, Mathieu returned to the hearse, opened both coffins and, waiting until the street was clear, hurried the two agents into the building. “You were quick about that, Mathieu, probably a good idea,” Annemarie said. “Somebody sees two men climbing out of the back of a hearse, well, somebody’s liable to get a bit of a shock.”

  “Not these days—somebody will know exactly what’s going on.”

  In conversation a few months earlier, de Lyon had mentioned a spare room above his office, so, when the Lysander operation in Normandy was imminent, Mathieu had asked for the use of it. Now he took the two agents to the room, which was bare but for two straw mattresses with blankets thrown over them, then went back downstairs to de Lyon’s office.

  De Lyon was sitting at his desk, account book open before him. When Mathieu entered, de Lyon looked at his watch and said, “You made good time, did you meet the Lysander by yourself?”

  “I had Annemarie with me, she’s taking the Métro back home.”

  “So, all went well?”

  “Yes, the plane landed in a field near Aubergenville—the pilot looked like a sixteen-year-old, but he was good, set that little plane down with not a bump, much better than the last reception. The agents got out in a hurry and he was gone, waggled his wings at us and was off into the night.”

  “Likely he was eighteen, the RAF is scrambling for pilots.”

  “How goes the nightclub business?”

  De Lyon laughed, then lit one of his brown cigarettes, and said, “Mathieu, you should have been here last night, we had a fucking conga line—naked dancer, German officer, naked dancer, and so forth, the Germans were shouting, laughing, having the time of their lives. I think for a conga line you’re supposed to have your hands on the hips of the dancer in front of you, right? Well, the Germans had their own version of that.”

  “A new dance is born,” Mathieu said. “It needs a name.”

  “I’m afraid it’s going to become a regular feature of the show. The girls weren’t all that pleased, they don’t like being grabbed at.”

  “Happy Germans, lately, they expect to have summer homes in the Ukraine.”

  From de Lyon, a bark of laughter. “They’ll stay in the Ukraine, alright, in its—how do they say?—in its ‘rich black earth.’ Why that little weasel in Berlin decided to fight the Russians I don’t know. Yes, he beat the French and the Dutch and the rest, but they aren’t Russians, fighting for the motherland. The Russians will fuck him over but good.” He paused, then said, “My new guests are in the spare room?”

  “They are, likely dead asleep by now, they had a long night.”

  “They’ll want food, I’ll bring something up for them.”

  “I guess you can’t send a waiter—nobody’s supposed to see them.”

  “Nobody will, only me. Who are they?”

  “One’s a Belgian mining engineer, nom de guerre of Fabien, he’s the instructor. The radio operator, Arnaud, is young, English, educated, he grew up in Chartres, parents owned a hotel there. They got out the day before the invasion.”

  “Have you found a place where the agents can work?”

  “I’m looking…anywhere but here. They’ll be safe in the room, can stand a passport check if they have to, the detonators and the explosive and the radio will be elsewhere.”

  “I hope the people they teach can start work soon.”

  “Me too, Max, me too.”

  —

  Eight-twenty in the evening, the summer twilight fading fast. In the Tenth Arrondissement, east of the vast marshaling yards that served the Gare du Nord and the Gare de l’Est, was the Canal Saint-Martin. Crossed by ancient iron footbridges, bordered by cobblestone quays, the canal was at the center of a lost quartier, a peaceful place with cheap little hotels, more pensions, boarding houses, than hotels, their rooms occupied by factory and railroad workers. Set above the canal, the Hôtel Victoire: two windows wide, a bar in the lobby which was also used as the reception desk, had a dozen battered tables and tin ashtrays, the air scented with tobacco smoke and the smell of old cooking grease. Mathieu sat at one of the tables and read a newspaper.

  He was impatient to meet the new recruit, had spoken with Chantal about her impression of this Kusar. “For some reason,” she’d said, “I couldn’t read him all that well, I think maybe because he’s from the Balkans. A French man or woman, I know who I’m talking to, but not this one. He seems innocent, somehow, unsophisticated. Anyhow, it’s up to you.”

  To help him decide, Mathieu had Ghislain sitting at the next table, reading a thick, scholarly tome with a faded cover and making notes with his fountain pen. His job was to listen to the conversation. He and Mathieu were not the only patrons interested in Stefan Kusar: sitting at separate tables were two French detectives from the Sûreté—national police, one of them was a young man, scruffy and down-at-the-heels, his hair too long, who sat gloomily staring out the window, while the other was a well-dressed older gentleman, reading a newspaper and sipping at his coffee. The two detectives had been recruited by Madame Passot, who had made sure of their loyalty to the Vichy regime, then assigned them to work for Major Broehm’s office. Their job that evening was to watch Kusar, then follow whoever came to see him until they discovered where the individual lived. No more than that. Major Broehm had made it clear that this was a waiting game—no arrests until they had the entire cell.

  Kusar was prompt, Mathieu recognized him from Chantal’s description, youthful, in a well-worn blue blazer. Kusar had not been given the name Mathieu—Broehm had kept that information for himself—and could not ask for him, so he looked over the patrons in the bar, wondering which one might be the person the woman at the café had mentioned. He had received a note, unsigned, slid under his hotel-room door at night, that directed him to the bar at the Hôtel Victoire, with day and time specified. That was all. Mathieu let him stand for a time, then beckoned him over to the table.

  Kusar said, “Good evening,” and waited to sit down until invited to do so.

  “You are Stefan Kusar?” Mathieu said. “Who wants to join a resistance group?”

  “I am,” Kusar said. He sat with back straight and hands clasped in his lap, as though he were a pupil being questioned by a teacher.

  “Tell me, Monsieur Kusar, how did you come to hear about the Café Welcome?”

  “I used to get bored, alone in a hotel at night, so I would go downstairs and talk to the desk clerk and, eventually, we talked about the Occupation—he said it was a terrible thing, and that there were people who worked against it. I asked how one would go about joining such a group and he mentioned the Café Welcome, so I went there and spoke with the proprietor and soon met a woman who said she had an acquaintance…”

  “What makes you want to join the Resistance?”

  “I am from Zagreb, in Croatia, but I was chased out by the fascists and fled to Paris. From the frying pan into the fire, one might say, because a month after I arrived, the fascist Germans came to occupy the city. These people are my enemies and, in time, I decided I would try and fight them.”

  “So, a political decision? An anti-fascist decision?”

  “Yes…I am an anti-fascist. In Zagreb I got into trouble by writing letters to the newspapers, and having the wrong friends—left-wing
journalists, for example.”

  “I see,” Mathieu said. “Now tell me…”

  Kusar leaned forward, unclasped his hands, and said, in a confidential voice, “I don’t mean to interrupt you, sir, but there is more, a personal reason. In Croatia, before I came to Paris, I was engaged to be married. Unfortunately, when I left the country I couldn’t take her with me as she had to stay and care for her elderly parents. For a time, I was alone here until one day fortune smiled on me and I met a beautiful young shopgirl and we fell in love and, for a few weeks, we were happy together. Sadly, it didn’t last. One day, in tears, she said she would have to leave me and go to live with a German officer. He had seen her in the shop and returned several times, finally he said he liked her and she would have to come to live with him. He frightened her, he threatened her parents, then he just…took her. Like a slave.” Kusar paused, got control of his anger and said, “So that is my reason, I don’t know if it’s a good reason for joining a group but it’s mine.”

  “A sad story, but there are worse to be heard here.”

  Kusar nodded.

  “Do you think about the danger, of joining a resistance group?”

  “I have, but there’s something inside me…I knew in Zagreb I should just shut up like everybody else and leave the politics alone, but somehow I couldn’t, a kind of anger in me wouldn’t let me do that. It’s the same with the girl I met in Paris…nobody should be allowed to do what that bastard did, and if I don’t find a way to fight back this will eat at me for the rest of my life.”

  The conversation continued. Ghislain had unearthed a story from Zagreb—through a university colleague who read Serbo-Croatian—about a crime much trumpeted in the press: bandits had ambushed an armored car, murdered the driver and the guard and made off with a vast amount of money. Eventually the bandits were caught and put on trial at a time when, if Kusar was telling the truth, he was still living in the city. Mathieu asked him about it, Kusar knew of these events, he knew the names.

  Mathieu was uncertain, could he trust Kusar? Or not? Still, he needed people. What to do? He let the interview wind to an end, then told Kusar he would be contacted at his hotel. “Soon, I hope,” Kusar said, and left the bar. Mathieu sat for a few moments, made eye contact with Ghislain—We’ll talk later—and walked out the door. The two detectives gave him some time, then, first one, then the other, left the Victoire and, at a distance, followed him. Mathieu wandered along the quay, crossed the canal on an iron bridge, and found himself on the busy Rue Louis Blanc, his mind concentrated on the various problems he faced. In time he descended the stairway to a Métro station and, running, just got through the doors before the train departed.

  —

  3 July. The summer heat wave now took hold of the city, leaves on the street trees hung lifeless in the still air, men out on the Rue de Tournon had loosened their ties and taken their jackets off, carrying them slung over one shoulder with their fingers in the collar. As for the women, they wore thin summer dresses and, stopping to talk to a friend, fanned their faces with an open hand, a gesture lamenting the heat. At the window of the Café Welcome, Jules watched them as they talked.

  Now, a midafternoon customer, an ordinary-looking man, who stood at the bar and waited to be served. With a sigh in his heart, Jules abandoned the women and moved to his place behind the bar. “Yes?” he said. “What can I get for you, monsieur?”

  “Maybe a beer would be good…it’s a real furnace out there.”

  Jules filled a glass and slid it across the zinc bar.

  “Nice place you have here.”

  Jules thanked him for the compliment with a gracious nod.

  The man sipped at his beer, then turned halfway around and had a look at the patrons sitting at their tables. When he turned back to face Jules he said, “Has Mathieu been in today?”

  It took Jules a moment to reply, was this some friend of Mathieu’s he hadn’t met? Then he recalled that the last time this name had been used in his café it had been the Spider who’d used it. Oh no, not again. Finally he said, “I don’t think I know a Mathieu, anyhow not one of my regulars.”

  The man took another sip. “He said he might meet me here.”

  “Well, keep an eye on the door, maybe he’ll show up.”

  “I’ll do that,” the ordinary-looking man said.

  —

  Mathieu sat in Ghislain’s office at the Sorbonne: books and papers everywhere, piled on a table, on the spare chairs, on the floor. A nineteenth-century map of Melanesia, in bright colors, with names rendered in swirling script, was tacked to the wall above Ghislain’s desk. “Well then,” Mathieu said, “what do you think?”

  “About Stefan Kusar?”

  “Yes.”

  Ghislain lit a cigarette, so did Mathieu. As Ghislain shook out the match he said, “Strange bird, isn’t he.”

  “I kept thinking, he isn’t like any of the people who work on the escape line. And, what he said about the stolen lover, did you believe it?”

  “Such things happen, Mathieu, we’ve both heard the stories. What’s going on now is that the Resistance is growing, gathering new people, some of whom will be different than those who volunteered in April. Meanwhile, the British raids are increasing: more bombers and fighters, more of them shot down, more airmen trying to escape the country. Which makes life difficult—hard to tell a volunteer ‘Sorry, we don’t need you,’ when we can’t tell some fugitive ‘Sorry, we’re too busy to help you.’ ”

  Mathieu sighed. Usually, his decisions came quickly, intuitively, but not this time. He’d heard that other resistance cells used foreigners—Spaniards, Armenians, Serbs, and others—who were both brave and careful, and loyal to the country that had sheltered them. And, testing himself, Mathieu could see nothing wrong with Kusar—he did not seem dangerous or crafty, he seemed pleasant and his story, the stolen girlfriend, made sense. At last he said, “Merde, I’m not sure what to do.”

  “You need more information. Why not try him out? Don’t take him into the group, he’s not one of us. Yet. Send him on a mission, perhaps with Chantal, who he’s already seen, at the café. Then see how he acts under pressure. Chantal will know to stop the operation if she has any suspicions.”

  Mathieu thought it over. “We’ve got an RAF Canadian, waiting to be picked up, who’s down in Provins. It’s a short run on the train, likely safe enough, and we’ll have Chantal bring him back to Paris. Depending on what she thinks, we can send him on another mission or just say goodby.” Mathieu paused, then said, “Ghislain, do you think Kusar is a spy?”

  “I don’t think he is. But, if he’s any good at it, there’s no way to know until it’s too late.”

  —

  6 July. Chantal and Kusar took the night train to Provins, a local scheduled to arrive after ten in the evening. But, twenty miles from Paris, the train slowed to a crawl, then, with one last chuff from the locomotive, it went silent and the train rolled to a stop. One of the passengers made his way forward to the next car, found a conductor, and demanded an explanation. From that car, a minute later, came shouting. When the passenger returned he announced, his voice rich with disgust, “Something’s gone wrong with the locomotive, we’ll be here for two hours. And damn the whole damn railroad to hell!” A few passengers applauded.

  It was warm in the compartment, Kusar looked at his watch, yawned, made a pillow of his jacket, leaned back against it, and closed his eyes. Glancing out the window, Chantal saw that some of the passengers had left the train and were sitting by a tree in a field. “I’m going to get a breath of air,” she said to Kusar, took her shoulder bag, left her small valise in the rack above the seat, and headed for the door.

  The heat in Paris had not abated—the nights were worse than the days, but not down here, not in this field, where a soft breeze stirred the leaves beneath a crescent moon and pinpoints of starlight, and Chantal found her own tree to lean against and let the cool night air wash over her. She had to fight the urge to sleep, l
ately she was tired, weary, all the time, tension did that to you, she thought, the tension of day-after-day work for the escape line, tension not relieved as it had been before the war—a book, a dinner, a bath, a friend—that was all gone now. It’s subtle, she thought, it works on you slowly, then you’re exhausted and you wonder why. And it didn’t help that she was lonely; she needed a lover, she needed to be touched, in her dreams she made love and was disappointed when she awoke, alone in bed. She stared up at the sky and let reverie take her where it would.

  She woke up suddenly and discovered she’d been asleep for twenty minutes, and worried she would be left behind if she closed her eyes again. So with regret she stood and headed back toward the darkened train—the lights in the coaches had been turned off. Some thirty feet from the track she saw a shadowy profile in what she thought was her compartment. Kusar? She counted windows, five of them, and realized she’d been right—that was where they’d been sitting. Peering through the gloom, she now saw that Kusar was standing on the seat, his arms reaching forward, his hands out of her view. He’s searching my valise! What was in there? No papers, no address book, only a change of clothes, spare shoes, a nightshirt, and a small bag of cosmetics.

  Kusar, who had among his many talents a thief’s intuition, spun suddenly toward the window. Chantal tried to get out of his sight but failed; he’d seen her, and had to know that she’d been watching him as he searched. But Kusar was game. When Chantal entered the compartment, he was in the same position as when she’d left the train and was pretending to be asleep. After she sat down next to him, he waited a moment, then opened his eyes.

  “Oh, sorry to wake you,” she said. “A good nap?”

  “Yes, I always sleep on trains.”

  “Have some more then, don’t mind me.”