The spies of warsaw

by Alan Furst

  a child, old men with newspapers under their arms. And of this drama

  he would have been the star, summoned from his dressing room only

  when the moment came to take center stage and deliver the grand

  soliloquy. But not this time. This time he had to do the work by himself.

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  He ordered a beer. The man behind the bar brought him a pilsener, then lingered a moment, taking a good long look at him. And

  who the hell are you? It was that kind of neighborhood. But the beer

  was very good. He turned on the stool and stared out the window, the

  melancholy stranger. Out past two well-attended strips of flypaper,

  the house on Opava street. Where a child now climbed the steps, home

  from school, swinging a blue lunchbox as she disappeared through the

  door. Next, a woman came out with a net bag, and returned fifteen

  minutes later with her marketing. Mercier had a second beer. The barman said, "Warm day, we're having."

  Mercier nodded and lit a Czech cigarette from a packet he'd

  bought at the railway station. It was after five when a man, dressed in

  worker's blue jacket and trousers, entered the house across the street.

  Mercier looked at his watch: where was Halbach? Two young women

  came through the door, joked with the barman, then took one of the

  tables and began to conspire, heads together, voices low. Mercier now

  realized he could hear music. In a room above the bar, someone was

  playing a violin--playing it well enough, not the awful squeaks of the

  novice, but working at the song, slower, then faster. A song Mercier

  knew, called "September in the Rain"; he'd heard it on Anna's radio at

  Sienna street. Was this, he wondered, a classical violinist, forced to

  play in a nightclub? A man with a small dog came into the bar, then

  two old ladies in flower-print dresses. And then, suddenly, Mercier was

  again overtaken by a certain apprehension, a shadow of war. What

  would become of these people?

  Busier now, out on Opava street--work was over for the day--

  time to chat with neighbors, time to walk the dog. Mercier ordered his

  third beer, set a few coins down on the counter, and looked back out

  the window in time to see Julius Halbach enter 6, Opava street. Anyhow, a man who looked like a teacher, in his mid-fifties, tall, wearing

  an old suit, expensive a long time ago, and carrying a bulging briefcase. Mercier glanced at his watch: 5:22. I hope you're Halbach, he

  thought, as the man plodded wearily up the steps and disappeared

  through the door. Too much to ask for a photograph, he'd decided,

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  before his meeting with Dr. Lapp. That would have been dangerously

  close to an act of treason, whereas, a genial conversation in a bookstore, while conferring on another matter . . .

  Mercier stayed where he was, now numb and slightly dizzy from

  an afternoon of beer drinking, for another thirty minutes, then gave

  up. The family was home, their lodger was home, in for the night.

  Tomorrow would be the day, 20 April, 1938, at approximately 5:22 in

  the afternoon. Tomorrow, Herr Halbach was in for the shock of his

  life.

  Mercier stopped at the cafe across from the railway station, had a

  sausage and a plate of leeks with vinegar, bought a newspaper--

  Tesin's Polish daily--and returned to the hotel. Was the room as he'd

  left it? Yes, but for the maid, who had moved his valise in order to mop

  the floor. Opening the valise, he was relieved to find his few things

  undisturbed, though the important baggage stayed with him, in the

  briefcase.

  It was quiet in Tesin, a warmish evening of early spring. When

  Mercier pulled the shade down, a streetlamp threw a shadow of

  tree branches on the yellowed paper. He turned on the light, a bulb

  dangling from the ceiling, and worked at the newspaper--what he

  wouldn't give for a Paris Soir! Still, he could manage, once he got

  going. Henlein, the leader of the Sudetenland German minority in

  Czechoslovakia, had given a speech in Karlsbad, making eight demands on the government. Basically, he called for the Czechs to allow

  German-speaking areas to have their own foreign policy, in line with

  "the ideology of Germans": a demand that surely came directly from

  Adolf Hitler, a demand that could never be met. The fire under the pot

  was being stoked, soon it would boil.

  Then, on the same page, news that the Anschluss, joining Austria

  to Germany, had been approved in a plebiscite by Austrian voters. A

  triumph--nearly all the Austrians had voted, ninety-nine to one in

  favor. Now there was a victory that deserved the word rousing! Just

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  below that, a correspondent reporting from the Spanish civil war;

  the city of Vinaroz had been taken by Franco's forces, isolating the

  government-held city of Castile from Catalonia. Another victory for

  fascist Europe. Mercier turned the page. A grisly murder, a body

  found in a trunk. And the soccer team had lost again. Followed by a

  page of obituaries. Mercier threw the newspaper on the floor.

  He lay there, smoked, stared at the ceiling. He had no desire to

  read, and sleep was a long way off. On the other side of the wall, a

  man and a woman in the adjacent room began to argue, in a language

  Mercier couldn't identify. They kept it quiet, secretive, almost a whisper, but the voices were charged with anger, or desperation, and neither one would give in. When it didn't stop, he got up, went to the

  window, and raised the shade. Across the square, the outdoor terrasse

  of the cafe was busy--a warm night, spring in the air, the usual couples with drinks, a few customers alone at tables, eating a late dinner.

  Then the barman walked over to a large radio set on a shelf and began

  fiddling with the dials. Mercier couldn't hear anything, but most of

  the patrons rose from their tables and gathered in front of the radio.

  He rolled the shade back down, undid the straps on his briefcase, and

  made sure of its contents.

  20 April. Mercier strolled up Opava street at 5:10 p.m., but Halbach

  was nowhere to be seen. Keeping the house in sight he walked to the

  corner, then started back the other way. He felt much too noticeable,

  so turned into a cross street where he discovered a tram stop. Was this

  how Halbach returned from work? He waited for ten minutes, then

  walked back out onto Opava, and there he was, almost at the house.

  Mercier moved as quickly as he could and caught up to him just as he

  reached the door. "Herr Halbach?"

  Frightened, Halbach spun around and faced him, ready to fight or

  run. "What is it? What do you want?"

  "May I speak with you a moment?"

  "Why? Is it about the bill?"

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  "No, sir, not that at all."

  Halbach calmed down. Mercier was clearly alone; the secret

  police came always in pairs, and late at night. "Then what? Who

&nb
sp; are you?"

  "Is there somewhere we can speak? Privately? I have important

  things to tell you."

  "You're not German."

  "No, I'm from Basel--a French Swiss."

  "Swiss?" Now he was puzzled.

  "Can we go inside?"

  "Yes, all right. What's this about?"

  "Inside? Please?"

  Downstairs, the family was at dinner. Mercier could smell garlic.

  Halbach called out "Good evening," in Polish, then climbed the stairs

  and opened a door just off the landing. "In here," he said. "Just leave

  the door open."

  "Of course," Mercier said.

  A small room, meagerly furnished and painted a hideous green.

  On one wall, a clothes tree held a shirt and a pair of trousers; on the

  other, a narrow cot covered by a blanket, and a nightstand with four

  books on top. At the foot of the cot, a single rickety chair completed

  the furnishings. The window looked out on the plaster wall of the

  adjacent building, so the room lay in permanent twilight. Halbach put

  his briefcase down and sat on the edge of the cot, while Mercier took

  the chair. When he was settled, Halbach opened the drawer in the

  nightstand, then gave him a meaningful look, saying, "Just keep your

  hands where I can see them."

  Mercier complied immediately, resting his hands atop the briefcase held on his knees. Was there a pistol in the drawer? Likely there

  was. "I understand," he said. "I understand completely."

  For a moment, Halbach stared at him. He was, Mercier thought,

  perhaps the homeliest man he'd ever seen: a long narrow face, with

  pitted skin, and small protruding ears emphasized by a Prussian

  haircut--gray hair cut close on the sides and one inch high on top.

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  His Hitler-style mustache was also gray, his neck a thin stem--circled

  by a collar a size too large--his restless eyes suspicious and mean.

  "Well?" he said. "Who are you?"

  "My name is Lombard. I represent a chemical company in Basel.

  My card."

  Mercier drew a packet of cards from his pocket and handed one of

  them to Halbach, who said, "Solvex-Duroche?"

  "Solvents for the metals industry."

  Halbach studied the card, then put it on the nightstand. "What

  would you want with me?" Suspicion was slowly giving way to curiosity. "I'm a teacher."

  "But not always. Or, rather, that is your vocation. It is your political history that brings me here."

  Halbach's hand moved toward the drawer, Mercier feared he was

  about to be shot. "Please, no violence," he said softly. "I'm here to

  make an offer, nothing more than that, and if you're not interested I'll

  go away and that will be the end of it."

  "You said politics . . . meaning?"

  "Your resistance to the present government in Berlin."

  "You know who I am," Halbach said, an accusation.

  "Yes, I do know that."

  "So, you're no chemical salesman, Herr Lombard, are you."

  "Actually, I am, but that's no part of our business today."

  "Then who sent you?"

  "That I can't tell you. Suffice to say, powerful people, but not your

  enemies."

  Halbach waited for more, then said, "How did you find me?"

  "As I said, powerful people. Who know things. And, I feel I should

  point out, it wasn't all that difficult to find you."

  "In other words, spies."

  "Yes."

  "Not the first I've encountered, Herr Lombard. And no doubt

  working for the Swiss government."

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  "Oh, we never say such things out loud, Herr Halbach. And, in the

  end, it doesn't matter."

  "To me it does." He had suffered for his politics, he wasn't about

  to compromise his ideals.

  "Then let me say this much--a neutral government is not a disinterested government, and, as I said before, in this instance on your

  side."

  Now Halbach was intrigued--he'd spent enough time with

  Mercier to sense he needn't be afraid of him, and felt the first flush of

  pride that "powerful people" were interested in him. Which, of course,

  they should be, despite his present misery.

  Now Mercier advanced. "Tell me, Herr Halbach, this life you live

  now, as a fugitive, how long do you expect it to last?"

  "For as long as it does."

  "Months?"

  "Certainly."

  "Years?"

  "Perhaps." A shadow settled on Halbach's face. He knew it

  couldn't be years.

  "You read the newspapers, you're aware of Hitler's intentions in

  Czechoslovakia--what's going on in the Sudetenland."

  "Casus belli. " Halbach flipped the tactic away with his hand, his

  voice rich with contempt.

  "True, a reason for war, and perfectly transparent to those who

  understand what's going on. Still, Hitler may well send his armies

  here. What then? Where will you go?"

  "To a cellar somewhere."

  "For months? Or days?"

  Halbach would not give him the satisfaction of an answer, but the

  answer hung unspoken in the air.

  "You asked why I was here, Herr Halbach. I'm here to offer you

  sanctuary."

  "Sanctuary," Halbach said. The word had its effect.

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  "That's correct. The people I represent want you to continue your

  resistance, but you cannot do so in Czechoslovakia. The Gestapo will

  find you, today or tomorrow, and the result for you will be very

  unpleasant. Very, very unpleasant. With the best of luck, it's only a

  matter of time."

  "What is this sanctuary?"

  "Money, and a new nationality."

  "How much money?"

  "Five hundred thousand Swiss francs."

  "That's a fortune!"

  Mercier's brief nod meant, of course it is, but not for us.

  "Five hundred thousand, you said?"

  "I did. And a Swiss passport. The passport of a Swiss citizen, not

  the papers of a foreign resident."

  "For nothing more than writing a few pamphlets?"

  "No, there is more."

  Silence in the little room--quiet enough to hear the family eating

  dinner below them. Halbach lowered his voice. "And what would that

  be, Herr Lombard?"

  "A visit to an old friend, a request--a request accompanied by the

  same offer I've made to you, so you will not go empty-handed, a few

  days' work on his part, a successful result, and then, for both of you,

  new lives. Wealthy lives. Safe lives."

  Now Halbach saw the trick. "All this you offer would be in the

  future, naturally, and conditional. Just around the corner, just up the

  road."

  "No, sir, it doesn't work like that. Simply agree, and I will hand

  you a hundred and fifty thousand Swiss francs."

  "Now? This minute?" Halbach stared at the briefcase.

  "Yes."

  "How do you know I won't accept the money and disappear?"

  "Because then you will have stolen it, Herr Halbach. Stolen it

  from us." Again, silence. Mercier waited, the
soul of patience; he

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  could almost see Halbach's mind working, back and forth. Finally

  Mercier said, "What will it be, sir, shall I be on my way?"

  Halbach's voice was barely audible. "No," he said.

  "Then we are in agreement?"

  Halbach nodded. He'd begun to grasp the very sudden turn his life

  had taken, and he didn't like it, his expression sour and resigned, but,

  really, what choice did he have?

  "Please understand," Mercier said, his hands now holding the

  sides of the briefcase, ready to hand it over, "that your actions will be

  directed against the Hitler regime, not against the German people, not

  against your homeland. We know you would never agree to harm your

  country, misguided though it might be."

  Halbach didn't answer, but Mercier sensed that he'd accepted the

  distinction--this wasn't treason, this was resistance. From the foot of

  the stairs, a woman's voice. "Herr Halbach? Will you be having your

  dinner?"

  "Not tonight, thank you," Halbach called out.

  Mercier handed him the briefcase. It was heavy and full: thirty

  packets, bound with rubber bands, of fifty hundred-franc notes. Halbach unbuckled the straps and opened the flap, took out one packet,

  counted twenty, riffled the rest, and put it back. When he looked up at

  Mercier his face had changed; the reality of the banknotes had struck

  home.

  "And three hundred and fifty thousand more, Herr Halbach, when

  the work is completed."

  "In cash?"

  "There's a better way, a bank transfer, but I'll explain that in

  time."

  Halbach again looked in the briefcase. No, he wasn't dreaming.

  "What do I have to do, for all this? Kill somebody?"

  "A train ride to Berlin. A conversation."

  Halbach stared, opened his mouth, finally said, "But . . ."

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  ish. With a Swiss passport, hiding in a small hotel, you'll be reasonably safe. And I'll be there with you. Of course, danger is always part

  of this business. For me to come here today is dangerous, but here

  I am."

  "I'm a wanted criminal, in Germany."

  "You won't be in Berlin for more than a week, and, except for

  arrival and departure, you will be visible for only one evening. We