by Alan Furst
Black dark in the cell, no window, and the walls breathed cold air. There was a straw mattress, a bucket, and a pair of rusted, ancient brackets in the wall. Used for chains-in 1540, or last night. They brought him a salt herring, which he knew better than to eat-he would suffer terribly from thirst-a lump of bread, and a small cup of water. He could hear, in the room directly above him, somebody pacing back and forth.
Heidelberg. Half-timbered houses, the bridge over the Neckar. When he was at Eotvos they’d gone up there for Schollwagen’s lectures on Aristophanes. And-it was late February-just to be somewhere else. In a weinstube, Frieda. Curly hair, broad hips, a wonderful laugh. He could hear it.
A two-day love affair, and long ago, but every minute of it stayed in his memory and, now and then, he liked to go back over it. Because she liked to make love in every possible way and shivered with excitement. He was nineteen, he thought that women did such things as favors, maybe, when they loved you, on your birthday, or you paid whores a special rate.
There was a thump above him. A sack of flour thrown on the floor. Cara had no particular interest in choses affreuses. She would have done them-would have done anything, to be sophisticated and chic, that’s what excited Cara. Did she do it with Francesca? She liked to tease him that she did, because she knew it interested him. Another sack of flour. This one cried out when it hit the floor.
Fuck you, he told them.
He’d thought about seeing Eva Zameny in Budapest, his former fiancee, who’d left her husband. Jesus, she’d been so beautiful. No other country made women who looked like that. Not much of a film of Eva-passionate kisses in the vestibule of her house. Once he had unbuttoned her blouse. She had wanted, she told him, to become a nun. Went to Mass twice a day because it gave her peace, she said, and nothing else did.
Married to Eva, two children, three, four. To work as a lawyer, spend his days with wills and contracts. Friday-night dinner at his mother’s house, Sunday lunch at hers. Make love on Saturday night under a feather quilt in the Hungarian winter. Summer cabin on Lake Balaton. He’d have a coffeehouse, a gentlemen’s club, a tailor. Why had he not lived his life in this way?
Really, why?
He wouldn’t be in a Roumanian dungeon if he had. Who’d sold him, he wondered. And would he-God grant! — have a chance to square that account? Was it somebody at Hrubal’s house? Duchazy?
Stop it. Here is Frieda: curly hair, broad hips, sweet laugh.
“Bad luck, Monsieur Morath. For you and for us. God only knows how we are going to get this straightened out. What, in the name of heaven, were you thinking of?”
This one was also from the Siguranza, Morath thought, but much higher up. Well shaven, well pomaded, and well spoken, in French.
The man rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. Told Morath he was guilty of technical crimes, no question, but who really cared. He didn’t. Still, what the hell was he doing with all that money? Playing Hungarian-minority-politics? In Roumania? “Couldn’t you have murdered somebody? Robbed a bank? Burned down a church? No. You had to make my life complicated, on Saturday morning, when I’m supposed to play golf with my father-in-law.” Yes, it was Roumania, douce decadence, Byzance apres Byzance, it was all too true. Still, they had laws.
Morath nodded, he knew. But what law, exactly, had he broken?
Overwhelmed, the Siguranza officer barely knew what to say-too many, too few, old ones, new ones, some we’re just now making up. “Let’s talk about Paris. I’ve told them to bring you coffee and a brioche.” He looked at his watch. “They’ve gone to the cafe across the square.”
Now here he really envied Morath, he might as well admit it. A man of his class and connection, taking the pleasures of this delightful city. One would know, don’t bother denying it, the most stimulating people. French generals, Russian emigres, diplomats. Had he met Monsieur X, Herr Y, Senor Z? What about, Colonel Something at the British embassy. Don’t know him? Well, really you ought to meet him. He is, one hears, an amusing fellow.
No, Morath told him.
No? Well, why not? Morath was certainly the sort of gentleman who could meet anybody he liked. What could be-oh, was it money? Not to be indelicate, but the bills did pile up. Annoying people sent annoying letters. Being in debt could be a full-time occupation.
A lifelong hobby. But Morath didn’t say it.
Life didn’t have to be so hard, the officer told him. He himself had, for example, friends in Paris, businessmen, who were always seeking the advice and counsel of somebody like Morath. “And for them, believe me, money is no problem.”
A policeman brought in a tray with two cups, a zinc coffeepot, and a large brioche. Morath tore a strip off the fluted brioche, yellow and sweet. “I’ll bet you have this every morning, at home,” the officer said.
Morath smiled. “I am traveling, as you know, on a Hungarian diplomatic passport.”
The officer nodded, brushing a crumb off his lapel.
“They will want to know what’s become of me.”
“No doubt. They will send us a note. So we will send them one. Then they will send us one. And so on. A deliberate sort of process, diplomacy. Quite drawn out.”
Morath thought it over. “Still, my friends will worry. They’ll want to help.”
The officer stared at him, made it clear he had a bad, violent temper. Morath had offered him a bribe, and he didn’t like it. “We have been very good to you, you know.” So far.
“Thank you for the coffee,” Morath said.
The officer was again his affable self. “My pleasure,” he said. “We’re not in a hurry to lock you up. Twenty years in a Roumanian prison won’t do you any good. And it doesn’t help us. Much better, put you over the border at Oradea. Good-bye, good luck, good riddance. But, it’s up to you.”
Morath indicated he understood. “Perhaps I need to think it over.”
“You must do what’s best for you,” the officer said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
In the room above him, the pacing never stopped. Outside, a storm. He heard the thunder and the drumming of the rain. A slow seep of water covered the floor, rose an inch, then stopped. Morath lay on the straw mattress and stared at the ceiling. They didn’t kill me and take the money. For the Siguranza thugs who’d arrested him it was a fortune, a life on the French Riviera. But this was Roumania, “kiss the hand you cannot bite,” and they had done what they’d been told to do.
He slept, sometimes. The cold woke him, and bad dreams. Even when he woke up, bad dreams.
In the morning, they took him to a small room on the top floor, likely the office, he thought, of the chief of the Bistrita police. There was a calendar on the wall, scenic views of Constanta on the Black Sea coast. A framed photograph on the desk, a smiling woman with dark hair and dark eyes. And an official photograph of King Carol, in white army uniform with sash and medals, hung on the wall.
Out the window, Morath could see life in the square. At the stalls of the marketplace, women were buying bread, carrying string bags of vegetables. In front of the fountain there was a Hungarian street singer. A rather comic fat man who sang like an opera tenor, arms thrown wide. An old song of the Budapest nachtlokals:
Wait for me, please wait for me,
even when the nights are long,
my sweet, my only dove,
oh please, wait for me.
When somebody dropped a coin in the battered hat on the ground in front of him, he smiled and nodded gracefully and somehow never missed a beat.
It was Colonel Sombor who entered the office, pulling the door shut behind him. Sombor, with glossy black hair like a hat and slanted eyebrows, in a sharp green suit and a tie with a gold crown on it. Very tight-lipped and serious, he greeted Morath and shook his head-Now look what you’ve done. He took the swivel chair at the police chief’s desk, Morath sat across from him. “I flew right over when I heard about it,” Sombor said. “Are you, all right?”
Morath was filthy, unshaven,
and barefoot. “As you see.”
“But they haven’t done anything.”
“No.”
Sombor took a pack of Chesterfields from his pocket, laid it on the desk, put a box of matches on top. Morath tore the foil open, extracted a cigarette, and lit it, blowing out a long, grateful stream of smoke.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I was in Budapest. I came over to Roumania to see a friend, and they arrested me.”
“The police?”
“Siguranza.”
Sombor looked grim. “Well, I’ll have you out in a day or two, don’t worry about that.”
“I would certainly appreciate it.”
Sombor smiled. “Can’t have this sort of thing happening to our friends. Any idea what they’re after?”
“Not really.”
Sombor looked around the office for a moment, then he stood, walked to the window, and stared out at the street. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” he said.
Morath waited.
“This job I have,” Sombor said, “seems to grow bigger every day.” He turned back toward Morath. “Europe is changing. It’s a new world, we’re part of it, whether we want to be or not, and we can win or lose, depending how we play our cards. The Czechs, for instance, have lost. They trusted the wrong people. You’ll agree to that, I think.”
“Yes.”
“Now look, Morath, I have to be frank with you. I understand who you are and what you think-Kossuth, civil liberty, democracy, all that Shadow Front idealism. Perhaps I don’t agree, but who cares. You know the old saying, ‘Let the horse worry about politics, his head is bigger.’ Right?”
“Right.”
“I have to see the world in a practical way, I don’t have time to be a philosopher. Now I have the greatest respect for Count Polanyi, he too is a realist, perhaps more than you know. He does what he needs to do, and you’ve helped him do it. You’re not a virgin, is what I mean.”
Sombor waited for a response. “And so?” Morath said it quietly.
“Just as I’ve come to help you, I would like you to help me. Help your country. That, I trust, would not be against your principles.”
“Not at all.”
“You will have to get your hands dirty, my friend. If not today, tomorrow, whether you like the idea or don’t like it. Believe me, the time has come.”
“And if I say no?”
Sombor shrugged. “We will have to accept your decision.”
It didn’t end there.
Morath lay on the wet straw and stared into the darkness. Outside, a truck rumbled past, driving slowly around the square. A few minutes later it returned, paused briefly in front of the station, then drove off.
Sombor had gone on at length-whatever light there’d been in his eyes had blown out like a candle but his voice never changed. Getting you out may not be so easy. But don’t you worry. Do our best. The prison at Iasi. The prison at Sinaia. Forced to stand with his nose touching the wall for seventy-two hours.
For supper, they’d brought him another salt herring. He broke off a tiny piece, just to see what it tasted like. Ate the bread, drank the cold tea. They’d taken his cigarettes and matches when they put him back in the cell.
I flew right over when I heard about it. Said casually enough. The legation in Paris had two Fiesler Storch airplanes, sold to Hungary by the Germans after endless, agonizing negotiation and God only knew what favors. I’m more important than you think, Sombor meant. I command the use of the legation airplane.
When Sombor got up to leave, Morath said, “You’ll let Count Polanyi know what’s happened.”
“Naturally.”
Polanyi would never know. Nacht und Nebel, Adolf Hitler’s phrase, night and fog. A man left his home in the morning and was never heard of again. Morath worked hard, think only of the next hour, but despair rose in his heart and he could not make it go away. Petofi, Hungary’s national poet, said that dogs were always well looked after and wolves starved, but only wolves were free. So here, in this cell or those to come, was freedom.
They came for him at dawn.
The door opened and two guards took him under the arms, ran him down the hall, and hauled him up the staircase. It was barely daylight, but even the soft gloom hurt his eyes. They gave him back his shoes, then shackled him at the wrists and ankles, and he shuffled out the front door to a waiting truck. There were two other prisoners in there, one a Gypsy, the other perhaps a Russian, tall, with sheared white hair and blue tears tattooed at the corners of his eyes.
Only the women who swept the street saw him leave. They paused for a bare moment, their brooms, made of bundles of reeds, resting on the ground. Poor boys. God help you. Morath never forgot it.
The truck bounced on the cobbles. The Gypsy caught Morath’s eye and sniffed the air-they’d driven past a bakery. It wasn’t a long ride, maybe fifteen minutes. Then they were at the railroad station where trains, Morath understood perfectly, left for towns like Iasi, or Sinaia.
Three men in chains and six policemen. That was something worth looking at when your train stopped in Bistrita. Passengers lowered the tops of their windows to see the show. A commercial traveler, from the look of him, peeling an orange and throwing the rind on the station platform. A woman in a pillbox hat, the dark veil hiding her eyes, white hands resting atop the window. Other faces, pale in the early light. A man made a joke, his friend laughed. A child, who watched Morath with wide eyes, knowing she was allowed to stare. A man in an overcoat with a velvet collar, stern, elegant, who nodded to Morath as though he knew him.
Then, chaos. Who were they? For slow-motion moments the question raced through Morath’s mind. They came from nowhere. Moving too fast to count, shouting in-was it Russian? Polish? The policeman at Morath’s side was hit. Morath heard the impact, then a yelp, then he staggered off somewhere, groping at his holster. A man in a soft hat stepped from a cloud of steam vented by the locomotive. A cool, frosty morning, he’d wrapped a muffler around his throat, tucked the ends inside his jacket, and turned up the collar. He studied Morath carefully, for what seemed like a long time, then swung his shotgun a little to one side and fired both barrels. Several passengers gasped, the sound, to Morath, was clear as a bell.
The Russian prisoner knew. Maybe too much, Morath thought later. He stretched out full length on the platform and covered his head with his shackled hands. A lifelong convict, perhaps, who knew that this business was, sadly, not for him, his gods weren’t that powerful. The Gypsy cried out to a man with a handkerchief tied over his face and extended his wrists. Free me! But the man pushed him aside. He almost fell, then tried to run away, taking tiny steps, his ankle chain scraping along the concrete.
In the killing, they almost forgot Morath. He stood alone at the center of it. A detective, at least a man in a suit holding a revolver, ran past, then turned toward Morath, his face anxious, uncertain, the right thing must be done. He hesitated, started to raise his pistol, closed his eyes, bit his lip, and sat down. Now he knew what to do but it was too late. The pistol moved only a few inches, a red gash opened in his forehead, and, very slowly, he collapsed. A few yards away, the train conductor was lying back against a wheel of the coal car. In his eyes, a look Morath knew. He was dying.
Now a black car came driving, very slowly, along the platform. Driven by a young boy, no more than thirteen, hands white on the wheel, face knotted with concentration. He stopped the car while the man in the soft hat dragged another man by the back of his jacket, sliding him up to the rear door of the car. He opened the door and threw him in the backseat. In the middle of it all, screams and shots, Morath could hardly believe that anybody could be that strong.
“Move, dumb ox!” The words in German, the Slavic accent so thick it took Morath a moment to understand. The man gripped his arm like a steel claw. A hook nose, dark face, an unlit cigarette in his lips. “To the truck, yes?” he said. “Yes?”
Morath walked as fast as he could. Behind him, from th
e train, a cry in Hungarian. A woman, cursing, enraged, screaming, telling them all, brutes, devils, to cease this fouling of the world and go and burn in hell. The man at Morath’s side lost all patience-the rise and fall of distant sirens coming nearer-and dragged Morath toward the truck. The driver reached over and helped him and he sprawled across the passenger seat, then fought his way upright.
The driver was an old man with a beard and a scar that cut across his lips. He pressed the gas pedal, gingerly, the engine raced, then died back. “Very good,” he said.
“Hungarian?”
The man shook his head. “I learn in war.”
He pressed the clutch pedal to the floor as the man in the soft hat ran toward the truck and violently waved his shotgun. Go. Move. “Yes, yes,” the driver said, this time in Russian. He shoved the gear lever forward, and, after a moment, it engaged. He gave Morath an inquisitive look. Morath nodded.
They drove away slowly, into the street behind the station. A police car was idling at the corner, both doors open. Morath could hear the train moving out of the station-the engineer at last come to his senses. A black sedan came flying past and, tires squealing, cut in front of them, then slowed down. A hand came out of the driver’s window and beckoned them forward. The sedan accelerated and, at the next street, turned sharply and sped away.
They were quickly out of Bistrita, the road narrowed, turned to dirt, wound past a few dilapidated farms and villages, then climbed into the Transylvanian forest. At sunset, despite the cold iron on his wrists and ankles, Morath slept. Then woke in darkness. Out the window, a field painted in frost and moonlight. The old man was bent over the wheel, squinting to see the road.
“Where are we?” Morath said.