The spies of warsaw
Page 24
the factory district, down a side street, and into the loading yard of a
vacant foundry, the smell of scorched brass strong on a windless
morning. Jourdain was waiting by his car, slapping his gloved hands
against each other to keep the blood moving. "Nice day for a ride in
the country," he said to Mercier, his words accompanied by puffs of
white steam. Then, to the Rozens, "Good morning, I'm here to help
you." Formally, they shook hands.
"Where's Gustav?" Mercier said.
"He should be along in a minute; he's been trailing your car since
you crossed the river."
A motorcycle pulled into the yard, skidding to a stop on the cinders. The rider's face was shielded by a wool scarf, worn just below his
goggles. He nodded hello and revved his engine by way of greeting.
"No point waiting, Jean-Francois. Gustav leads the way, you follow, I'll be right behind you."
As they drove away from the factory, Malka Rozen said, "Where
are we going?"
"Konstancin," Mercier said.
They drove fast through the early morning streets of Praga, past factory smokestacks, the black smoke hanging still in the frozen air,
crossed back into Warsaw, turned southeast, and followed the river,
the motorcycle slowing, then accelerating, as Gustav watched for
idling cars, or trucks moving to block the way. Speed was something of
an art, Mercier realized--the traffic policemen gave them a look, but
did nothing. Gradually, the city fell away and they moved swiftly along
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a country road, through the village of Konstancin--elaborate houses
and well-groomed gardens--and out the other side.
Mercier saw that Marek was intent on the rearview mirror, shifting his eyes every few seconds. "What's back there, Marek?"
"A big car; he's been with us since the outskirts of the city."
"What kind of car?"
"It has a hood ornament--perhaps the English car, called Bentley?"
Rozen--Russians and Poles understood each other's languages--
said, "Nothing to worry about."
"You're sure?"
"Too rich for us."
Not if it's been stolen.
But a few minutes later, Marek said, "Now he turns off," and
Mercier relaxed. It was quiet in the car. Up ahead, Gustav leaned over
as they sped around the curves, and then he signaled, pointed down a
dirt road, and swung into it. They slowed, bouncing over frozen ruts
and potholes, turned hard at a sharp corner, and jolted to a stop.
Parked in the road: an ancient relic of a truck, its bed holding rows of
milk cans. Gustav reached inside his leather coat and produced a cannon of an automatic pistol, a box magazine set forward of the trigger
guard. As the motorcycle sped around the truck on the driver's side,
Mercier twisted around to see that the Rozens were staring at each
other, and Malka had taken Viktor's hands in hers. "Get on the floor,"
Mercier said, turned back, drew his own weapon, and opened the
door a crack. From the right-hand side of the truck, a path ran up a
hillside and disappeared. A dairy farm up there? Maybe. Maybe not.
Gustav came skidding to a stop by the driver's window of the
Buick. He said, his words muffled by the scarf, "Nobody in there.
What do you want to do?"
"Wait." Mercier left the Buick and, keeping his eyes on the hillside, walked backward to Jourdain's car. "No driver," he said.
"They'd have been on us by now," Jourdain said.
"I think so too."
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Mercier walked back past the Buick and, as he did, Marek got out
of the car and started to follow him, but Mercier motioned for him to
stay with the Rozens. Reaching the truck, he yanked the front door
open and looked inside. On the seat, a newspaper and half a sandwich
in a piece of brown paper. Planting one foot on the running board, he
hauled himself up and slid behind the wheel, searched the dashboard,
flipped the starter switch, and gave the engine some gas. When it
coughed, Mercier pulled out the choke and it rumbled to life. He
shifted into first gear and raised the clutch, driving forward a few
yards, then turning the wheel hard. The truck went bumping into a
pasture. Mercier looked back, made sure he'd left room for the cars to
get by, then turned off the engine.
As Mercier walked back toward the Buick, a man pushing a handcart loaded with milk cans appeared on the crest of the hill, dropped
the handles, and came running, shouting and waving a clenched fist.
Mercier was then next to the motorcycle and Gustav waggled his
huge pistol and said, "Shall I calm him down?"
"Don't bother."
"He is quite upset."
"So would you be."
Jourdain was leaning against the hood of the Buick. He raised an
eyebrow, his expression ironic and amused. "Vive la France, " he said.
A mile down the dirt road, a hand-painted sign said Konstancin Fly-
ing Club. Since the 1918 rebirth of the country, flying had become
immensely popular, and private clubs dotted the countryside surrounding the wealthier villages. Not much to look at: a few old planes
parked in a field of dead weeds, a limp wind sock on a pole, and a tinroofed shack. Watching the treeline, Mercier and Jourdain hurried the
Rozens inside. One of the embassy guards was waiting for them, stoking a potbelly stove with a poker.
"All quiet?" Jourdain said.
"All quiet," the guard answered. "Too cold to fly."
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"Any idea when they'll be here?" Mercier said to Jourdain.
"I was at the embassy around midnight, sent the signal, and got a
confirmation. So, they're on the way."
The Rozens sat on lawn chairs, Malka found a tin ashtray from a
Warsaw cafe and lit a cigarette. Viktor sighed and looked mournful.
The desperation of flight had given way to the reality of the future,
Mercier thought. The Rozens would never again go home. "Tell me,
colonel," Viktor said, "where do you think we might live?"
"I don't know," Mercier said. "In a city, somewhere. It will be
worked out later."
"They won't stop looking for us," Malka said.
"You'll have to keep that in mind," Jourdain said. "Wherever you
go."
"We will," Viktor said. "Forever."
"Still, a better fate than what lay in store for you," Mercier said.
Viktor nodded: yes, but not all that much better.
When Mercier heard a drone in the distance, he checked his watch--
just after eleven--went outside, and saw a plane descending on the
northern horizon. He watched it for a time, then returned to the
shack. Malka Rozen was looking out the window. "Stay inside until
we're sure," Mercier said. Gustav, dozing in a kitchen chair, awoke and
joined Malka at the window. Mercier went back out, Jourdain followed him. A trimotor Breguet circled the field, then landed, bouncing
across the uneven ground, coming to rest close to the shack.
Mercier shivered in the cold. The door of the plane opened and a
&nbs
p; man in a flying overall hopped out, then offered a hand to someone
behind him, but the hand was not taken. A moment later, Colonel
Bruner appeared in the doorway, dressed in full uniform and standing
at attention, as though he expected to be photographed. Mercier
swore under his breath.
"Ah, the hero arrives," Jourdain said. "Well, they belong to him
now--he's bringing the prize home to Paris, to be the envy of all eyes."
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The three men greeted each other, Bruner his most formal self,
drawn up to his full height, such as it was, and ruddy-cheeked with
excitement. "So," he said, "where are my spies?"
"They're inside," Mercier said.
They went into the shack, and Bruner was introduced to the
Rozens; he was silent, his hands clasped behind his back, his greeting
a bare nod. "You can put their luggage on the plane," he said to
Mercier.
"We have nothing," Viktor said.
This, for some reason, Bruner found irritating. "Oh? Well, let's
hurry along, shall we?"
They filed out the door and walked to the airplane. A co-pilot
appeared at the entry and helped Viktor climb up, then it was Malka
Rozen's turn. Looking back at Mercier, she said, "Thank you, colonel," took a deep breath, and wiped her eyes. "It's the cold air," she
explained, as the co-pilot helped her aboard.
"Very well, then," Bruner said, triumphant, savoring his success.
He entered the plane and was followed by the pilot, who closed the
door behind them. The Breguet made a tight turn, taxied down the
field, lifted at last, cleared the trees, and headed west, soon a black dot
in the sky, its drone fading, then gone.
Back at the embassy, in the midst of writing a dispatch describing the
exfiltration of the Rozens, Mercier telephoned Anna Szarbek and
invited her for dinner at his apartment. He completed the dispatch,
took it down to the code clerk, then went back to Ujazdowska avenue.
The coming evening called for planning and logistics: a shopping list
for the cook, Wlada to spend the night at her sister's house.
At 8:20, a proper twenty minutes late, Anna Szarbek arrived in a
taxi--she'd declined Mercier's offer to pick her up--and knocked at
the street door. Mercier rushed to let her in, and they embraced--
tentatively, a faint apprehension on both sides. But then, following her
up the staircase, the sway and shift within her soft skirt so intoxicated
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him that, by the time he reached the landing, he was more than prepared to skip the preliminaries altogether. Nonetheless, after a tour of
the apartment, he started the fire, lit the candles, and poured champagne. On the sofa, she looped her arm through his and rested her
head on his shoulder. "I hope you weren't disturbed," she said, "that I
called so late, last night."
"Not at all."
"You sounded--absorbed."
"Too much excitement. Some of my work showed up here, two
people, and had to be dealt with. A--how to say--a fugitive situation."
"They came to your apartment?"
"They weren't invited, my love. They needed refuge, and they
knew where I lived, so . . ."
"Did you have the police?"
"No, thank God. I managed without them."
"You are actually brave, aren't you?"
"Not if I can help it."
"Oh, I don't think you can help it, Jean-Francois, I think it's in
your blood, from what you said in Belgrade."
At the hotel in Belgrade, they had told their growing-up stories
and exchanged family histories, Mercier's reaching back to the Crusades. "All those warrior ancestors," she said. She took his hand, studied the signet ring, and said, "It's this." She slipped it off, put it on her
finger, then spread her hand to admire it. "Now you may address me
as countess. "
"I'm not anything like a count, countess, just a lowly chevalier, a
knight in service to the king."
"Still, a noble." She put the ring back on his finger. "The only one
I've ever known."
"Ever?" This was more than unlikely.
"I mean, as I know you." She took off her boots, tucked her feet
up beneath her, and slid her hand between the buttons of his shirt.
"I'm just a Polish girl from Paris."
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"Oh poor you," he said. "Poor lawyer."
"Good in school, love. With hardheaded parents--parents with
no sons. So, somebody had to do something." They were silent for a
time, and he became aware of her hair, silky against his skin, and her
fragrance. "I find it warm in here," she said, undoing a button on his
shirt, then another. "Don't you?"
The cook, perfectly aware of what was planned for the evening,
had done her best--a roasted chicken and boiled carrots left in a
warm oven--and later that night, Anna in Mercier's shirt, he in the
bathrobe, they ate--it was a sin to waste food--what they could.
3 February. All courtesy, the noble Mercier had telephoned Anna and
invited her to his next obligation, a dinner party given by the Portuguese consul. "I appreciate your asking me," she'd said, "but I suspect you are reluctant and, honestly, so am I." This was, and they both
knew it, the social reality of diplomatic Warsaw. Some courageous
souls insisted on bringing their "fiancees" to balls and dinner parties,
and nobody ever said a word about it, but . . . Mercier was frankly
relieved, and, on the evening of the third, he was accompanied to the
consulate by Madame Dupin.
In the library, joining the men for cigars after dinner, Mercier
found himself in the company of one Dr. Lapp, believed, by a certain level of local society, to be the senior Abwehr--German military
intelligence--man in Warsaw. Officially, he worked as the commercial
representative of a Frankfurt pharmaceutical company, but nobody
had ever known him to sell a pill. Very much an old-fashioned gentleman, Dr. Lapp--the honorific referred to a university degree; he was
not a medical doctor--of slight stature, in middle age, and bearing
some resemblance to the sad-faced comedian Buster Keaton. And,
like the comedian, he was often to be seen in a natty bow tie, though
tonight he wore traditional dinner-party uniform. They had met
before, on various occasions, but had never actually spoken at length.
"Life going well, for you?" he said to Mercier.
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"Not too badly. Yourself?"
"One mustn't complain. Were you in Paris, for the holidays?"
"I was, then I went down to the south."
"I envy you that, colonel."
"The south?"
"Paris. A magnificent city. Would that be your preference, if your
career took you there?"
"I like Warsaw well enough, but I wouldn't mind. And for you, Dr.
Lapp, would you prefer Berlin?"
"I only wish I could."
"Really? Why is that?"
"Frankly,
I find the situation in the capital not much to my taste."
This was flagrant, and Mercier showed the edge of surprise. "You
don't care for the present regime?"
"Mostly I don't. I am a loyal German, of course, and surely a
patriot, but that can mean many things."
"I suppose it can. You are, perhaps, a traditionalist?"
"And why not? The culture of old Europe, civility, stability, was
not such a bad thing for Germany. But it's all gone now, and the people who are in power these days will presently have us at war, and you
know what that meant in 1918."
"Not so much better for us. We called it victory, and marched
through the streets in 1918, but victory is a curious word for what happened in France."
Dr. Lapp nodded, and said, "Yes, I know. Where were you, on that
day?"
"In fact I was a prisoner of war at Ingolstadt, Fort Nine."
"Our most illustrious prison, at any rate. For our most eminent
prisoners--the Russian Colonel Tukhachevsky, now sadly executed by
his government; your Captain de Gaulle, lately a colonel; France's
most prominent airman, Roland Garros; and plenty of others. So
you were, at least, in good company. How many escape attempts,
colonel?"
"Four. All of which failed."
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"Of course I would have done the same thing. Honor demands it."
"And where were you, on the day of the armistice?"
"At my desk, faithful to the last, at the naval General Staff office
in Kiel. My section concerned itself with the submarine service." Dr.
Lapp paused, then said, "Tell me, are you still in touch with Colonel
de Gaulle?"
Mercier hesitated, unsure where Dr. Lapp was leading him, but
more than conscious of being led. Toward some variety of treason, he
sensed. But to France? Or Germany? Finally, he could think of nothing to say but the truth; it would have to do. "From time to time, a letter," he said. "We are more colleagues than friends."
"And do you subscribe to his theories of warfare? I've read his
book."
"I've read it as well, and I believe it should be taken seriously. I suspect, the next time around, it will not be trenches and wire."
From Dr. Lapp, a gracious smile: success. What success was that?
"I agree," he said. "But better, far better, if there is no next time
around. I wonder if, sometime, we could speak in a more private setting?"