by Alan Furst
“This is the safe place to talk,” she said. “Don’t say too much in the hotel room-keep it down to a whisper-and for God’s sake don’t say anything in the lobby of the Athenee Palace. It has one of those acoustic peculiarities; what you say in one corner can be clearly heard in the opposite corner.” She sat on the edge of a bed, produced five sheets of paper from her purse, and handed them to Serebin. It was a typewritten list of names, numbered 1 to 158, with a few words of description by each name:
Senior official, Defense ministry
Private investigator
Sofrescu’s mistress
Assistant manager, Bucharest branch of Lloyd’s Bank, Hungarian
Former ambassador to Portugal, silk stockings
Siguranza, financial specialist
Colonel, General Staff, ordnance acquisition
Publisher, friend of the playwright Ionesco
Journalist, gossip and blackmail
A hundred and fifty-eight times.
Some of the entries had numbers beside them, a price quoted in Swiss francs.
“The British,” Marie-Galante said, “call this an Operative List of Personalities.”
“A kind of poem,” Serebin said. “The way it runs down the page.” He couldn’t stop reading.
The idea amused her. “Called?”
“Oh, how about, ‘Bucharest’?”
Now she was amused. “Don’t kid yourself,” she said.
They needed to know, she told him, who would work for them, which meant who would work against German interests in Roumania. Before the war, the operation had been run as the Roumanian branch of a Swiss company-DeHaas AG-with a local representative, who paid people and accepted information, but it was known that DeHaas AG was Ivan Kostyka. “The network has been dormant since ’39,” she said. “It’s our job to see if any of it can still be used.”
Visit a hundred and fifty-eight souls?
“Not in this life,” she said. “We know who we want to contact. And for God’s sake don’t say what we’re doing.”
They talked for a time but didn’t stay long, it was not a comfortable place to be. Out in the street he noticed a man walking toward them, who met Marie-Galante’s eyes for a moment, then looked away. In his late twenties, with the straight back of a military officer and, Serebin thought, perhaps a Slav, maybe Czech, or Polish.
“Someone you know?”
They turned off the strada Lipscani and headed for the hotel. “We’re not alone here,” she said. “That’s not the way it’s done.” They walked in silence for a few minutes, then she said, “And if by chance you should see Marrano, pretend you don’t know him.”
“Anyone else?”
“Not right now, that you need to know about. Maybe later, we’ll see.”
10:30 P.M., the Tic Tac Club, in a cellar on the strada Rosetti. By the doorman-in a uniform that made him at least a general in that army-a signboard with glossy photographs of Momo Tsipler and his Wienerwald Companions, and the local songstress, Valentina-“the toast of Bucharest!” Also playing: the comedian Mottel Motkevich, of whom the Zagreb Telegraf said “Kept us in stitches!” And, “Special every night-those naughty Zebra girls!”
The maitre d’ bowed at the money Serebin put in his hand, and Marie-Galante, in clouds of Shalimar, with hair in a French roll, and evening makeup, took every eye in the room as they were shown to the large table in the corner with a card that said Rezervata. Somebody said “ Ravissant! ” as they walked by, while Serebin, at the rear of the procession, produced a rather compressed public smile.
Onstage, the Momo Tsipler nightclub orchestra, five of them, including the oldest cellist in captivity, as well as a tiny violinist, wings of white hair fluffed out above his ears, Rex the drummer, Hoffy on the clarinet, and Momo himself, a Viennese Hungarian in a metallic green dinner jacket. Momo turned halfway round on his piano stool, acknowledged the grand entry with a smile, then nodded to the singer.
The sultry Valentina, who rested her cigarette in an ashtray on the piano, where the smoke coiled up through the red spotlight, took the microphone in both hands, and sang, voice low and husky, “ Noch einmal al Abscheid dein Handchen mir gib. ” Just once again, give me your hand to hold-the first line of Vienna’s signature torch song, “There Are Things We Must All Forget.”
Valentina was well into her third number, Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love,” when Colonel Maniu- senior official, national gendarmerie, and his wife joined the party at the corner table. She dark and taut and bejeweled, he handsome and imposing in evening clothes. Craggy and leonine, he would play the king, not the prince. They came to the table as “Argentines, without means,” did it-their arrival accompanied by a small commotion in whispers.
“We’re so pleased…”
“Madame Marchais, Madame Maniu.”
“Enchante.”
“Colonel, come sit over here.”
“Madame Maniu, allow me.”
“Why thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“We’ve just come from the opera!”
“What was it?”
“ Rigoletto. ”
“Good?”
“ Long. ”
Serebin and Marie-Galante were drinking Amalfis-the choice of tout Bucharest — vermouth and Tsuica, the national plum brandy. The colonel ordered expensive scotch, and Madame a glass of wine, left alone after one sip.
For a time they smoked and drank and listened to Valentina; another throaty Viennese love song, then, as finale, Piaf’s “L’Accordeoniste.” This drew immediate and thunderous applause in the crowded cellar. It was clearly sung as a political anthem, for love of that cruelly occupied city nearest the Roumanian heart. Serebin looked over at Marie-Galante, who stared fiercely at the stage, eyes shining, close to tears. On the final note, Valentina put a hand to her heart, the drummer beat a military flourish, and the audience cheered.
Serebin the romantic was moved, Maniu the policeman was not. “Nightclub patriots,” he said.
“And tomorrow?”
Maniu shrugged.
Madame Maniu gave him a look.
“Well, colonel,” Marie-Galante said, “you know the people here, but I think she meant it.”
“She certainly did,” Madame Maniu said.
“May I invite her over?” the colonel said. “You would enjoy meeting her, and she knows all sorts of interesting people.” He took a card from a leather case, wrote on the back, summoned a waiter, and told him what to do. Then he said, “So, how is our mutual friend?”
“As always. He doesn’t change,” Serebin said.
“And he gave you my name? Personally?”
“He did.”
“Why would he do that, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“He’s a good friend of ours-we share an interest in how life will go here.”
“It will go very badly, as it happens. The legionnaires-the members of the League of the Archangel Michael, called the Iron Guard-will fight Antonescu, and his German allies. To the death.”
“They are madmen,” Madame Maniu said.
“For them,” the colonel said, “Antonescu and Hitler are insufficiently fascist. The Legion is drunk with some kind of national mystique, and their position reminds one of the Brown Shirts in Germany, in 1934, who were so crazy, who were such, well, idealists, that Hitler had to destroy them. When Codreanu, who originally organized the Legion-and he was known as ‘God’s executioner’-was killed in ’38, with thirteen of his acolytes, the legionnaires took to wearing little bags of dirt around their necks, supposedly the sacred earth on which their leader fell. And some of the peasants believed, truly believed, that Codreanu was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.”
The Companions of the Wienerwald began to play a kind of drunken elephant theme, which signaled the appearance of Mottel Motkevich, who, to a series of rim shots from the drummer and an expectant ripple of laughter, staggered to the middle of the stage. The spotlight turned green
, and for a time he stood there, swaying, his flabby face sweating in the overheated room. Then he closed his eyes and shook his head, clearly overwhelmed by it all- I just woke up in the maid’s bed with the world’s worst hangover and somebody pushed me out on the stage of a nightclub.
He peered out at the audience for a time, then said, “Where am I, Prague?”
“Bucharest!”
“Hunh.” He sighed, then said, “All right, Bucharest. Say, know where I was last week?”
A different volunteer: “Where?”
“Moscow.” He rolled his eyes at the memory. “Oi vay.”
Laughter.
“Yeah, you better laugh. Did you know, by the way-and this is actually true-they have a perfume factory there, and they make a scent called Breath of Stalin.”
Laughter.
“Can you imagine?” He gave them a moment to think about it. “So, of course, when you’re in Moscow, there’s always a parade. That’s fun, no? Hours of it. When they come to the end, they run around the back streets and march again. Anyhow, I’m standing there with my old friend Rabinovich. Rabinovich is no fool, he knows where his bread is buttered, if he had bread, if he had butter, and he’s holding up a big sign. ‘Thank you, Comrade Stalin, for my happy childhood.’ So, time goes by, and a couple of policemen come over and one of them says, ‘Comrade, it’s a swell sign you got there but tell me, how old are you?’ ‘Me?’ Rabinovich says. ‘I’m seventy-five.’ ‘Well then,’ the policeman says, ‘I have to point out to you that when you had the happy childhood, Comrade Stalin wasn’t even born.’ ‘Sure,’ Rabinovich says, ‘I know that. That’s what I’m thanking him for.’”
It went on. Russian jokes, Polish jokes, Hungarian jokes. Maniu had another scotch. A police car went by in the street, its high-low siren wailing, and Mottel Motkevich paused for a moment. Then, as the routine neared its end, he looked: offstage, gaped in mock horror, and held his hands to the sides of his face- if you could see what I see!
“Now the fun begins,” the colonel said.
“Thank you, Prague!” Mottel called out, and waddled off to the elephant theme as Momo Tsipler clapped and said, “Let’s hear it for Mottel Mot-ke-vich!”
As the applause died away, Colonel Maniu said, “Well, what’s going on here is not so funny.”
Serebin ordered another Amalfi.
“My advice to you,” the colonel said, “is, stay out of the way.”
“Oh,” Serebin said, “we just want to talk to people, people who’ve helped in the past.”
“Surely not the same thing, not now. That was just, business. Commercial information, a little money in the right hands. I don’t think anybody really cared-it’s a way of life here.”
“What’s so different?”
“Everything.”
The old cellist lit a cigarette, holding it with thumb and forefinger, and smoked blissfully, leaning back in his chair, off in some other world. Serebin thought about what to say next. Do the best you can, Marie-Galante had told him on the train. Y ou’ll just have to get your sea legs.
“We are realists,” Serebin said. “And we know it’s not the same, we know that some of the sources are no good now. And you’re right, colonel, this isn’t commerce, it’s politics, and that’s always been dangerous. But we do have money, and we will take good care of the people who help us. As you know, in times like these, money can mean, everything. So, if it used to be, say, five thousand Swiss francs, now it’s fifteen, or twenty.”
Momo Tsipler hit a dramatic chord on the piano and the Companions swung into the Offenbach theme, the Mitteleuropa version, clarinet leading the way, but emphatically the cancan. “Animierdamen!” Momo sang out-nightclub girls. “Die Zebras!”
A dozen women came prancing and neighing onto the stage, then out into the audience. They were naked, except for papier-mache zebra heads and little black and white shoes made to look like hooves. They went jiggling among the tables, playing with the patrons-a pat with a hoof, a nudge with a muzzle-whinnying from time to time, then galloping away.
The colonel’s voice rose above the hilarity. “Yes,” he said, “for some, perhaps, that would be sufficient.”
Madame Maniu leaned toward the colonel and spoke briefly in Roumanian.
Maniu nodded, then said, “I trust you understand our position in this. We will, of course, do whatever needs to be done.” His tone had stiffened, as though he were defending his honor.
“Well, yes, of course,” Serebin said.
One of the zebras came bounding to their table and, as she bent over the colonel and began to unknot his tie, Serebin found himself staring at an excessively powdered behind, which waggled violently and threatened to upset his Amalfi. Maniu smiled patiently, being a good sport his only option, while Serebin whipped the glass away and held it safely in the air. He was unaware of the expression on his face, but Marie-Galante watched him for a moment, then burst into helpless laughter. The zebra finally got the tie off and went cantering away with it, held high like a prize.
Marie-Galante wiped her eyes and said, “Oh dear God.”
The colonel persisted. “What I was going to say, was that we are very much indebted to Ivan Kostyka, but it has nothing whatever to do with money.”
In the center of the room, a great commotion. A zebra had snatched a pair of eyeglasses from a very fat man with a shaved head, who turned pink and tried desperately to look like he was having fun. And while he was perhaps too embarrassed to try to retrieve the glasses, his wife clearly wasn’t. She ran shrieking after the girl, who danced away from her, then climbed up on a table, put the glasses on the zebra head, and did a vivid dance on the general theme of myopia. Meanwhile, the Companions played away at full volume, the clarinet soaring to its highest register as the crowd cheered.
Maniu started to speak, but his wife put a hand on his arm, and they all sat back and watched the show. In time, the zebras went prancing off and, a few minutes later, a waiter appeared at the table, bearing Colonel Maniu’s tie on a silver tray.
“Our local amusements,” Madame Maniu said.
“Not so different in Paris,” Marie-Galante said. “It takes people’s minds off their troubles. Do you suppose that poor little man got his glasses back?”
“I expect he did,” Madame Maniu said.
“I promise you he did,” the colonel said. “That poor little man is something or other in the German legation.”
“Always politics,” Serebin said.
“Well, here anyhow,” Madame Maniu said.
“No, it’s everywhere.” Serebin finished his drink and looked around for a waiter. “Maybe time for the desert island.”
“I’ll go with you,” the colonel said. “But we better learn to speak Japanese.”
“You were telling us a story, colonel,” Marie-Galante said.
“Yes,” Maniu said, a sigh in his voice. “I suppose you should hear it. What happened to us was this: in the spring of ’38, Codreanu and his followers were arrested. Codreanu himself had murdered the prime minister, at the railway station in Sinaia, and he and his thugs were plotting to overthrow the king and take the country for themselves. So, certain trusted officers, and I was one of them, one of the leaders, managed this arrest, done in such a way that there was no violence. But the Iron Guard wouldn’t go away. Cheered on by their supporters-philosophy professors at the university, civil servants, just every sort of person, they assassinated Calinescu, the prime minister who’d ordered the arrest. Six months later, as the uprising continued, somebody lost patience with the whole business and Codreanu and his followers were executed. ‘Shot while trying to escape.’ Now that’s the oldest story in the world, and for all I know they may actually have been trying to escape, but true or not doesn’t matter. Codreanu was a threat to the state, so it was either that, or have him as dictator.
“The Iron Guard vowed revenge, it was like somebody had knocked down a hornets’ nest. One of their responses was to let it be known that I was inv
olved in the original arrest. They didn’t come after me-maybe more couldn’t than didn’t, I was very careful-but our two daughters, in school in Bucharest, were harassed. By schoolmates and, far worse, even by some of the teachers. I mean, they spit on them, on children. When Kostyka found out about this, he arranged for them to go to boarding school, in England, where they are now. I suppose we could have gone as well, but I wasn’t going to be thrown out of my own country, you understand, not by these people. So, you see, our friend helped us when we were in trouble, and paid for it. Now, if we’re needed to do this work again, we’ll do it. But please, for God’s sake, be careful.”
“For now,” Serebin said, “we need only to know who we can trust.”
“For now?” The question mark was barely there-Maniu’s irony well tempered by courtesy.
“We’ll have to see,” Serebin said. “There may…” He stopped short as he saw the singer Valentina, working her way toward them through the crowd.
A waiter brought two chairs, and they all squeezed in together. The second chair was for the singer’s gentleman friend, gray and diffident, older-maybe fifty to her thirty, with stooped shoulders and a hesitant smile. “Gulian,” he said, introducing himself with a nod that passed for a bow, and said little after that. Across the table, Valentina was not much like the typical chanteuse. A studious girl, beneath the rouge and mascara, soft and pretty, probably Jewish, Serebin thought, and conservatory-trained, working as a nightclub singer because she needed the money.
Serebin ordered champagne, and Marie-Galante proposed a toast to Valentina. “To thank you for your song,” she said. “I am Parisienne. ”
“Piaf is inspiring,” Valentina said. Like most educated Roumanians, she spoke reasonably good French. “I heard her in Paris. Twice. Before the war.”