by Alan Furst
“Be nice for Christmas, no?”
“I suppose.”
“Got anything special?”
Serebin thought it over. “About the same.”
“It’s good for morale, what with winter coming. Not much festive, this year. So, at least a few poems. What about it?”
“I’ll try.”
“I’d be grateful if you would,” Ulzhen said.
“Boris, I want to get in touch with Ivan Kostyka. I called at the office on Montaigne but they said he wasn’t in Paris.”
For a long moment, Ulzhen didn’t answer. “What do you want with him?”
“It’s business,” Serebin said. “I met somebody in Istanbul who asked me if I could contact him. If Kostyka likes the idea there might be a little money in it for me.”
“You know what he is?”
“Everybody knows.”
“Well, it’s your life.”
Serebin smiled.
“Let me see what I can do. Maybe stop by tomorrow, or, better, Thursday.”
“Thank you,” Serebin said.
“Don’t thank me, it’s not free. You have to try to get some money for us. We’ve got to do Christmas baskets, a hundred and eighty-eight at last count.”
“Jesus, Boris-so many?”
“Could yet be more. Now, I have a friend I can call, but, if Kostyka agrees to see you, you have to take that filthy sonofabitch by the heels and give him a good shake.”
“I will, I promise.” Serebin glanced at his watch. “Look, it’s almost one o’clock, let me buy you lunch.”
Ulzhen shook his head. “Save your money.”
“Come on, Boris, I’m serious. Black market lunch.”
Ulzhen sighed. “Three-thirty, I have to be at the store.”
9 December. Dinner at Chez Loulou, deep in the medieval lanes of the 5th Arrondissement. Before the war, a mecca for the daring American tourist: checkered tablecloths, candles in wine bottles, expensive food, nasty waiters, bohemian adventure thick in the air. And not much had changed. Here was Leutnant Helmut Bach, of the city’s most recent tourist invasion, arriving for dinner with a black turtleneck sweater beneath his satin-collared overcoat and a beret set at a rakish angle on his Teutonic head.
“Ilya! Am I late? I’m so sorry-the Metro…”
No, Serebin was early. And, not incidentally, two pastis to the good.
Beneath the Pigalle apache costume was a Saxon in his early thirties. Pale brown hair-cut close on the sides, wispy on top, blue eyes, brass rod for a spine, and an air of quivering anticipation, expectancy; something wonderful must happen, soon. A functionary in the diplomatic administration-it had to do with protocol, official visitors-Bach had come looking for Serebin not long after the combat Wehrmacht had been replaced by an occupation force. Serebin couldn’t help liking him, and the biography of Rilke was real, an autographed copy on Serebin’s bookshelf.
“Lately I’m working on Rimbaud. Ach, freedom. In the words, in, the veins. You don’t read it, Ilya, you breathe it in.” His eyes were wounded, a rose flush across the tops of his cheeks. “Why are we Germans not like that?”
So you can love that. But Serebin didn’t say it. After all, this was only dinner talk, and not so bad. It went reasonably well with the pate of hare, with the duck aux olives and cabbage fried in the dripping, with the pear tart. Helmut Bach snowed ration coupons, and ascended to fierce courtesy when Serebin tried to produce his own. Look, he was damned sorry that his unromantic countrymen had beaten the French army and taken Paris but really what the hell could either of them do about that?
Serebin liked the dinner, and he ate with pleasure, except for a few moments when the conversation scared him. Maybe scared wasn’t the word, alerted might be better. In fact, he was only just beginning to understand what his affiliation with Polanyi was going to mean.
“You know, Ilya, I’m trying to teach myself Russian-the only way to understand why Russians love Pushkin, so they say. Would you be offended if I asked you to help me out? A word or a phrase, now and then? A rule of the grammar?”
That wouldn’t have bothered the old Serebin, but now he wondered what, if anything, it might mean. Just as it wouldn’t have bothered the old Serebin to ask Ulzhen a favor, because the old Serebin wouldn’t have lied to a friend about what he was doing. But he had lied, and he didn’t know exactly why. To protect Boris Ulzhen. Did it? Really?
And there was worse to come.
“So then, you must tell me about your journey to decadent Bucharest.” Were the papers correct, the accursed Ausweis, all that kind of thing? To think, that a man had to get permission-to travel!
He hadn’t stayed long. Went on to Istanbul.
“Ah. And did you see your friend, your woman friend?”
Had he told Bach about Tamara? Well, maybe. He had all his life told all sorts of people all sorts of things. They crossed his mind like shooting stars, were said, forgotten. Could there be people who remembered, everything? God, he hoped not.
Bach’s voice was delicate. “Her condition, is improving?”
“Actually, it’s not so good. One can only hope for the best.”
“Not so good, Ilya?”
“No.”
“You must not think me intrusive, but there is a famous doctor in Leipzig, an old friend of my family. He is known to be the most brilliant internist in Europe, with access to every kind of specialist, no matter where-Leipzig, Heidelberg, Berlin. As a favor to me, he will see her.”
“Very kind of you, Helmut.”
“What friends do! You could bring her to Leipzig, everything would be arranged.”
“Well…”
“Please, Ilya, think seriously about this. You might be asked to give a brief talk-with a translator, of course. Just coffee and cakes, a few of your admirers. Small price for a friend’s health, no?”
Serebin nodded slowly, feigned uncertainty, a man not entirely sure of what he ought to do. The kitchen door thumped open and shut as a waiter came out with a tray. Bach threw his hands in the air, his face lit with excitement.
“Ilya! Tarte aux poires! ”
14 December. The evening train to St. Moritz had only three cars and stopped at every mountain village, one prettier than the next. Strings of lights glistened on the snow, the harness bells of a horse-drawn sleigh jingled in the frozen air. Once, amidst the rhythm of the idling locomotive, Serebin could hear an accordion in a tavern by the station, where a Christmas wreath with a burning candle hung in a window. When the train left, crawling slowly around the long curves, there was moonlight on the forest. Serebin shared the compartment with two Luftwaffe officers, their skis and poles standing in the corner. In silence, they stared out the window.
From Paris to the eastern border, the towns were dark, streetlamps painted blue-landmarks denied to the British bomber squadrons flying toward Germany. There’d been a long stop at Ferney-Voltaire, the last German passport Kontrolle in France, while Gestapo officers searched the train, looking for people who were not permitted to leave. Then another stop, even longer, at the border controle in Geneva, while Swiss officers searched the train, looking for people who were not permitted to enter.
Serebin dozed, tried to read a short story submitted to The Harvest, the IRU literary magazine, found himself, again and again, looking out at the night. He’d met the infamous Ivan Kostyka on four or five occasions, over the years. The first time in Odessa-a story assigned by Pravda on the visit of “the renowned industrialist.” So, they’d wanted something from him, and sent Serebin along as a token of their high esteem. Then, in Paris, during a cultural conference in 1936, a lavish party at Kostyka’s grand maison in the 8th Arrondissement. Next, a year later, in Moscow, where Serebin was one of twelve writers invited to an intimate dinner, essentially furniture, as Kostyka met with captains of Soviet industry. Finally in Paris, the spring of 1940, Kostyka embracing his Russian heritage at the IRU Easter party and making a donation that was just barely generous. But then, Kostyka wa
s known to be a genius with numbers, especially when those numbers counted francs or roubles.
Or dollars, or pounds, or drachma, lei, or lev. By then, Kostyka knew who Serebin was, or, at least, the people around him did. Claimed he’d read Serebin’s books and found them “stimulating, very interesting.” It was possibly the truth. One of the versions of Kostyka’s life had him born in Odessa, to a Jewish family, poor as dirt, called Koskin. However, cosmopolitan figures who moved in powerful circles were often believed to be Jews, and Kostyka had never revealed the secret of his birth. Another version had him born Kostykian, in Baku, of Armenian descent, while a third favored Polish origins, Kostowski, somewhere near the city of Zhitomir.
But, anyhow, Russia, on that point at least the mythologists agreed. He was said to have run away from home and poverty at the age of fourteen, making his way to Constantinople, where he joined the tulumbadschi, the firemen, a gang that had to be bribed to extinguish fires, which, at times, when business was slow, they set themselves. From there, he graduated to brothel tout, then used his commissions to play the currency markets in the Greek kasbahs.
As a young man he’d gone to Athens, where he’d used every penny he’d saved to buy good clothing and an extended residency at the Hotel Grande Bretagne. He next contrived to court, then wed, a Spanish heiress. By this time he’d become Ivan Kostyka, accent on the first syllable, which either was, or was not, his real identity, depending on which of the stories you chose to believe. As for the truth, none of the newspaper reporters who tried to follow the trail in later years ever found a trace of him. Some people said that there had actually been someone with that name but, if he’d lived, he no longer did and any record of him had disappeared as well.
In Athens, Kostyka became intrigued by the potential of the Balkan wars and, speaking at least some of the languages, became a commission salesman for the Schneider-Creusot arms manufacturer of Lille. Selling cannon turned out to be his metier, and he discovered that the greatest profit was to be had by selling them to both sides. Kostyka prospered, having learned to use what was known as the Systeme Zaharoff, or Systeme Z, named for its originator, the greatest of all the arms merchants, the Russian Basil Zaharoff. The Systeme Z called for, first of all, the flattery of political leaders-“If only the world knew you as you really are!” Then for a passionate appeal to patriotism, the same in all countries, and, finally, a reminder of the prestige that the possession of bigger and better armaments brought to statesmen of all nations.
But the key element in the success of the Systeme Z was the operation of a private intelligence service. This was crucial. Kostyka, and other powerful men, men of the world, had to know things. Who to flatter, who to bribe, who to blackmail. Mistresses had to be watched, journalists paid off, rivals destroyed. This was expensive, private detectives and bureaucrats and policemen cost money, but, if you could afford it, worth the expense.
Kostyka made millions. Had castles, paintings, lawyers, stories in the newspapers, had pretty much everything he wanted and, by 1937, Ivan Kostyka had become Baron Kostyka. But it was a Baltic barony, bought from an emigre Lithuanian, and bought in anger. He had, in the 1930s, lived in London, and faithfully served British interests, hoping for a K, hoping to become Sir Ivan Kostyka.
“But then,” Polanyi said in a Turkish whorehouse, “he got into trouble.”
16 December. It was almost noon, Serebin shivered in his overcoat, the alpine sunlight sparkled on the ice of the St. Moritz municipal skating pond. The skaters were almost all women, slow and sedate as they circled the frozen pond. Serebin sat on a wooden bench, Ivan Kostyka at his side.
As Kostyka’s mistress skated past, in fur hat and long fur coat, a silky little terrier in her arms, Kostyka gave her an indulgent smile and a discreet wave, a Swiss wave, and mouthed the words “Hello, darling.”
When she’d gone by, he turned to Serebin. “Who wants to know?”
“A small enterprise,” Serebin said. “To stop this war.”
“From?”
“Britain.”
“Not France? Free France, as they call themselves?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you know the expression ‘false flag.’”
“I’ve heard it. But, in this case, it doesn’t apply.”
“You give me your word.”
“I do.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Perhaps I can, but not today.”
“I give you time, then. But, if you want my cooperation, I must have a signal.”
Serebin agreed.
“I will have nothing to do with the USSR-or anyone else. Understood?”
“Perfectly.”
“My heart is with England, you see.”
He meant it. At seventy, he was bulky and short, had gray hair, brushed back from his forehead in little waves, and a face carved in pugnacious lines, chin and brow and nose thrust out into a world he didn’t like. “These places,” he said, his voice a mixture of sorrow and contempt. “These Monte Carlos and Portofinos. Vevey, whatnot…”
Poor soul.
It was very quiet, the skates made a soft hiss on the ice. Once again, the woman with the terrier came around the circle, this time gliding to a stop in front of the bench. “Good morning,” she said to Serebin. Then, to Kostyka, “Take him, would you? He’s getting restless.”
Kostyka accepted the dog, which sat on his lap, then yipped and trembled as the woman skated away. “Shhh, Victor. Be nice.” He patted the dog with a big hand but he wasn’t very good at it. “Oil,” he said. “Not for me.”
“Risky, I expect.”
“Not even the word. And the men who run it, my God. You know what Gulbenkian said about oilmen? He said they were like cats, that it was hard to know from the sound of them whether they were fighting or making love.”
Serebin laughed.
“Give me a steel mill,” he said. “Or a railroad or some guns. I’ll show you how to make money.”
“Well, the Germans need oil.”
“Oh yeah, oil and wheat, oil and wheat. Why didn’t he just take Roumania and leave the rest of the world alone? Nobody would’ve cared, you know.”
“Hitler wants more.”
Kostyka snorted at the idea. “He’ll have shit.”
“So then, you’ll help.”
No answer. Kostyka looked at Serebin for a moment, but whatever he saw there wasn’t interesting, so he turned and watched the women as they skated and made a face like a man talking to himself and, Serebin felt as though he could almost hear it, almost see it, whatever machine was running in there was big and powerful and very fast. Eventually he said, “You’ll take lunch with us.”
Oh the mistress. At the grand Hotel Helvetia, lunch was set out on the balcony of Kostyka’s suite by two waiters, who were tipped, then waved away. Kostyka, his mistress, and Serebin sat around the table and speared chunks of raw beef with their forks and cooked them in a chafing dish of bubbling oil. “Fondue,” Kostyka said. It was like a eulogy for his life.
Kostyka’s companion, introduced as Elsa Karp, was no powder puff. Not at all what Serebin would have expected. She was easily forty, and heavy, wide at the hips, with copious brown hair, a beak nose, a sullen, predatory mouth, and a sexual aura that filled the air and made Serebin almost dizzy. Or maybe that was the altitude, but he certainly felt it as he watched her eat, sitting across the table from him in front of an alp.
“Monsieur Serebin is from Odessa,” Kostyka said.
“We’ve been there,” Elsa said. “It was…”
Kostyka dabbed his cooked beef in a dish of bearnaise sauce. “Summer. A year ago? Two years?”
“Not last summer. The one before.”
Kostyka nodded. That was it.
“We stayed at the Czar’s palace.”
Serebin was puzzled. “Livadia palace?” That was in Yalta, at the southern end of the Crimea.
“We stayed a night there, darling,” Kostyka said. “In Odessa we stayed with Gener
al Borzhov.”
“Oh yes, you’re right. Mischa and Katya.” She looked at Serebin and said, “Do you know them?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“She plays the violin.”
Odessa was elegant, she thought. Italian. White and southern. The famous steps. Eisenstein. The baby carriage. She was from Prague, near Prague. She found it much too gray there, too much Mitteleuropa. She loved their house in Paris, he must promise to come and see them. She was going to have it redone, but then, the war. Now they would have to wait. Of course, for a city, well, London, of course.
“For every man there are three cities,” Kostyka said, quotation marks in his voice. “The city of his birth, the city he loves, and the city where he must live.”
Elsa Karp was animated. “We loved the dinner parties, even with our poor English. Everyone so, brilliant. So clever, the way they, they make you talk.”
Band concerts. Bookstores. Eccentricity. The gardens! Kostyka’s face froze, he was almost in tears. This was, to Serebin, extraordinary, a paradox of human nature-there were people in the world who lived brutal lives, yet, somehow, their feelings stayed close to the surface.
The beef was taking too long to cook. The three of them peered beneath the dish and Elsa Karp adjusted the wick, but the flame remained pale blue and unsteady. Kostyka was annoyed. “Jean Marc!”
Jean Marc appeared from another room. A French aristocrat, a pure type that Serebin easily recognized-tall and slightly stoop-shouldered, with dark hair, his face vain and watchful.
“My homme de confiance, ” Kostyka said. Confidential assistant, but much more-the title meant absolute discretion, absolute fidelity, the sacrifice of life itself when necessary. He is armed, Serebin thought.
Jean Marc turned the wick up as high as it would go, but it didn’t help. “It lacks oil,” he said. “I shall call the waiter.”
Kostyka sighed, sat back in his chair, gave Serebin a certain look. You see? How it is with us?
By wireless telegraph:
17:25 16 December, 1940
Hotel Helvetia / St. Moritz / Suisse
Saphir / Helikon Trading / Akdeniz 9 / Istanbul / Turquie