by Alan Furst
“Yes,” Casson said. “Good luck, Captain.”
Casson headed for Macon. Sometimes, in a cafe, he heard the news on a radio. Nothing, he realized, could save them from losing the war. He left the roads, walked across the springtime fields. He ate bread he found in a bombed bakery in Chalons, tins of sardines a kind woman gave him in Chaumont. He was not always alone. He walked with peasant boys who’d run away from their units. He shared a campfire with an old man with a white beard, a sculptor, he said, from Brittany somewhere, who walked with a stick, and got drunk on some bright yellow stuff he drank from a square bottle, then sang a song about Natalie from Nantes.
As Casson watched, the country died. He saw a granary looted, a farmhouse burned by men in a truck, a crowd of prisoners in gray behind barbed wire. “We’ll all live deep down, now,” the sculptor said, throwing a stick of wood on the fire. “Twenty ways to prepare a crayfish. Or, you know, chess. Sanskrit poetry. It will hurt like hell, sonny, you’ll see.”
The villages were quiet, south of Dijon. The spaniel slept in the midday heat, the men were in the cafes at dusk, the breeze was soft in the faded light that led to evening, and the moon rose as it always had.
THE ADE PAGODA
20 August, 1940.
The silence of the empty apartment rang in his ears. The bed had been made-the concierge’s sister coming in to clean as she always did-and the only sign of his long absence was a dead fern. Still, he felt like a ghost returning to a former life. And he had to put the fern outside the door so he wouldn’t see it.
The heat was almost liquid. He opened the doors to the little balcony but it wasn’t all that much better outside. Hot, and wet. And still-as though all the people had gone away. Which they had, he realized. Either fled before the advancing Wehrmacht in June, or fled to the seashore on the first of August. Or both. Practical people on the rue Chardin.
He sat on the edge of the bed, took a deep breath, let it out slowly. The man who had lived here, the producer Jean Casson, Jean-Claude to his friends, little jokes, small favors, a half-smile, maybe we should make love-what had become of him? The last attempt at communication was propped against the base of a lamp on the bedside table. A message written in eyebrow pencil on the inside cover of a matchbook from the bar at the Plaza-Athenee. 34 56 08 it said, a phone number. Signed Bibi.
He’d spent a long time walking the roads, a long span of empty days in the barracks of a defeated army, and he’d thought, every day, about what had happened up on the Meuse. The machine-gun duels across the river, the French soldiers running away, the refugees on the roads. It seemed strange to him now, remote, an experience that happened to somebody else, in some other country.
He shaved, smelled the lotion he used to wear, then put the cap back on the bottle. Went for a walk. Rue des Vignes. Rue Raffet. Paris as it always was-smelly in the heat, deserted in August. He came to the Seine and rested his elbows on the stone wall and stared down into the river-Parisians cured themselves of all sorts of maladies this way. The water was low, the leaves on the poplars parched and pale. Here came a German officer. A plain, stiff man in his mid-thirties, his Wehrmacht belt buckle said Gott Mit Uns, God is with us. Strange God if he is, Casson thought.
The Metro. Five sous. Line One. Chatelet stop, Samaritaine department store, closed and dead on a Sunday. He would survive this, he thought. They all would, the country would. “Peace with honor,” Petain had called the surrender. Peace with peace, at any rate, and not to be despised. Just another debacle, the lost war. And French life had plenty of those. There goes the electricity, the Christmas dinner, the love of one’s life. Merde.
In the back streets of a deserted commercial district he found a little cafe open and ordered an express. The price had doubled, the coffee was thin, and the proprietor raised a cautionary eyebrow as he put the cup down-this is how things are, I don’t want to hear about it. Casson didn’t complain. He was lucky to be alive, paying double for a bad coffee was a privilege.
On the flight south from Sedan he’d been lucky twice. The first time, he was with a company of French infantry, half of them still armed, when they were overtaken by a German column. An officer stood on a tank turret, announced the Panzerkorps had no time to deal with prisoners, and directed them to lay their weapons down on the road. When that was done a tank ran over them a few times and the column went on its way. Others had not been so fortunate-they’d heard about whole divisions packed into boxcars and shipped off to camps in Germany.
The second time, Casson was alone. Came around the curve of a road outside Chalons to find three Wehrmacht officers on horseback. They stared at him as he walked past-a lone, unarmed soldier in a shabby uniform. Then he heard a laugh, glanced up to see a young man with the look of a mischievous elf, or perhaps, if some small thing annoyed him, a murderous elf. “You halt,” he said. He let Casson stand there a moment, then leaned over, worked his mouth, and spit in his face. His friends found that hilarious. Casson walked away, head down, and waited until he was out of sight before wiping the saliva off.
So what? he told himself. It didn’t mean anything.
A woman came into the cafe and caught his eye. She was tall, had a big, soft face, net stockings, short skirt. Casson stood and gestured at an empty chair. “A coffee?” he said.
“Sure, why not.”
The proprietor brought it over and Casson paid.
“Been out in the country?” she said.
“You can tell?”
She nodded. “You have the look. Too many healthy Frenchmen around, all of a sudden.” She took a sip of coffee and scowled at the proprietor but he was busy not noticing her. She snapped her purse open, took out a small mirror, poked at a beauty mark pasted on her cheek. “Care for a fuck?” she said.
“No, thanks.”
She closed the mirror and put it back in her purse. “Something complicated, it’ll cost you.”
“What if I just buy you a sandwich?”
She shrugged. “If you like, but I hate to see this louse have the business.”
Casson nodded agreement.
“Oh, it’s going to get real shitty here,” she sighed. “Before, I was just about managing. Day to day, you know. But now …”
Casson took out a packet of cigarettes and they both lit up. The woman blew a long plume of smoke at the cafe ceiling. “Trick is,” she said, “with these times, is don’t let it ruin your life.”
“My mother used to say that.”
“She was right.”
They smoked. A fat little man, commercial traveler from the suitcase he was carrying, looked into the cafe and cleared his throat. The woman turned around. “Well hello,” she said.
“Are you, uh …”
The woman stood up. “I have to go,” she said.
“Luck to you.”
“Thanks. And you.”
Monday morning, 7:00 A.M. The concierge knocked on his door. It took him a long time to unwind himself from sleep, dreams, the safety of his very own bed. He staggered to the door.
“Welcome home, Monsieur Casson.”
He stood, swaying slightly, his shirt pulled together in one hand, his pants held up with the other. “Madame Fitou,” he mumbled.
She was sweating with anxiety.
“What is it?”
“The car, monsieur.”
“Yes?” He rarely drove it-it mostly stayed in the little garage off the courtyard.
The words came in a rush. “Well, of course we waited until you returned, and we worried about you so, but of course you know the authorities have made a requisition of all private automobiles, so, ah, it must be turned in. Of course there were posters, while you were away, monsieur. My husband made sure to write down the address, out in Levallois, because we thought, you’d have to be informed, you’d want to be, when you came home …” She ran down slowly.
“Oh, yes, of course.”
Now he understood. The poor woman was afraid he’d refuse, that she would be dragged into
disobedience, made to suffer for his casual attitude toward authority. “I’ll take care of it this morning, madame,” he said.
She thanked him, he could see the relief in her eyes. She’d lain awake all night, he supposed. In her imagination he had scoffed, jeered at her. Then, disaster. Police.
“I’d better get dressed,” he said brightly, and managed a smile as he closed the door.
Madame Fitou and her sister held the doors open and Casson backed out carefully into the rue Chardin. No point in scratching the bodywork, he thought. He let the car idle a moment, then shifted into first gear. He didn’t particularly share the national worship of automobiles, but this one had been very hard to get hold of and he was sorry to lose it.
A Simca 302. A model last manufactured in 1934, so those seen around Paris were all of a certain age. A sedan convertible, built low to the ground, always forest green. Walnut dash, rag top, throaty engine. Just the sort of car the producer Jean Casson might be expected to drive. Actually, just the sort of car the producer Jean Casson might be expected to drive-Jensen, Morgan, Riley-the producer Jean Casson couldn’t afford.
The 302 was nice enough to look at, but it wasn’t at all nice to its owner. It was a sulky, spoiled car that drank gas, that sputtered and died at traffic lights, that whined if made to go at high speeds, that wanted nothing to do with the weather after October. Still, it was a credible showpiece, and if it misbehaved with an important personage-it knew who was sitting in its passenger seat-Casson would smile and shake his head, helpless. A depraved passion, what could one do.
Of course it drove like an angel on its way to the garage. Out avenue Malakoff on a cloudy August morning, a few sprinkles of rain. Casson worked his way patiently through swarms of bicyclists; clerks and factory workers, young and old, everyone peddling along together, most of them sour-faced and grim, ringing their bicycle bells when some idiot went too slow or too fast.
The light was red at the intersection of Malakoff and the busy avenue Foch. A black sedan pulled up next to him and Casson and the passenger glanced at each other. German soldiers. Casson turned away. They were junior officers, probably lieutenants. They had the look of young men going to work at a bank or a law office-perhaps the military version, paymaster or judge advocate. Something administrative, he thought, and probably technical.
They were staring at him. He glanced back-yes? — but it didn’t make them stop. They both wore glasses, one of them had round, tortoiseshell frames, the other silver rims. Their faces were pink, freshly shaved, their hair cut to military length and combed into place with hair tonic, and the way they were staring at him was rude. The light went green. The bicyclists moved off, Casson resisted an urge to speed ahead, hesitated so the sedan could go first.
But it didn’t. They were waiting for him. Conards! he thought. Jerks. What’s your problem? He eased the car into gear and inched forward. I’m not supposed to be driving, he thought. They can see I’m French, and that means I’m supposed to be pedaling a bicycle while they drive a car. His stomach turned over-he didn’t want a confrontation, he wasn’t sure exactly what that would mean. He let the Simca fade a little, waiting an extra beat between second and third. The sedan’s door moved ahead of his, and he saw the two were talking, urgently, then the passenger looked out the window again. Clearly he was concerned, perhaps slightly annoyed.
Porte Maillot. A large, busy traffic circle with avenues radiating like spokes in all directions. A horn blasted behind Casson and he swerved over into the right lane as a Wehrmacht truck tore past him, swaying as it lurched around the circle. Then the sedan was back, the passenger not a bit less irritated. Casson began to feel sick. What’s the problem, Fritz? You think somebody peed in your soup? He knew the look on the lieutenant’s face-righteous indignation, a German religion.
Up ahead, another traffic light at the avenue des Ternes. Now green, but not for long. If they stopped side by side, the Germans were going to get out of their car and make an issue of it. And he wasn’t legal, he wasn’t supposed to be driving this car. He didn’t know exactly what they’d do about it but he didn’t want to find out. You have not behaved correctly, now you must suffer the consequences. A side street came up on his left, he threw the wheel over and stepped on the gas.
Rue du Midi. He didn’t remember ever being here but he thought he was just at the edge of Neuilly. He stopped in the middle of the block, in front of a villa with an elaborate iron gate in its wall, and lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking. He glanced out the window at the view mirror. There they were. Up the street he could just see the black sedan, out on the avenue, backing up slowly in order to turn into the rue du Midi. They were going to come after him.
The sweat started at his hairline, he jammed the gear shift into first and took off. On his left, a tiny cobbled lane, something dark and lost about it. A place to hide. He turned in, gray plaster walls rose on both sides, there was barely room for a car. He followed a long curve, past an old-fashioned gas lamp, an even narrower alley that opened to his left, a row of shuttered windows. Where was he? It was perpetual twilight in here, the walls so close they amplified the car engine and he could hear every stroke of the pistons.
The street ended at a wall.
Covered with vines and moss, crumbling, twenty feet high. Over the oak and iron doors the chiseled letters on the capstone had been worn almost flat by time-the Abbey of Saint Gervais de Toulouse. Casson turned off the ignition then had to work his way free of the Simca because the walls were so close. He ran to the entry-he thought he could hear the sedan back in the rue du Midi. There was a chain hanging down the portal, he pulled it, heard the clang of an iron bell within the walls. He tried again, then again, glancing back over his shoulder and expecting the Germans at any second.
“Hello!” he called.
From the other side of the door: “What do you want?”
“Let me in. The Germans are after me.”
Silence. Now he was sure he could hear the sedan-the whine of reverse gear, then the sound of idling where the lane opened to the street. “Please,” he said. “Open the door.”
He waited. Finally, a voice: “Monsieur, you cannot come in here.”
“What?”
The silence seemed to last a long time. “Please go away, monsieur.”
For a moment, Casson tried to explain it away-it was a Coptic order, or Greek, something exotic. But the man on the other side of the wall was French. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Casson said.
Silence.
Casson turned away from the door and ran back down the cobbled lane, in the direction of the rue du Midi, looking for the alley he’d seen. He found it, sprinted into the darkness and right into an iron grille. The shock made him cry out and a trickle of blood ran from his nose. He squatted down, his back against an icy stone wall, and held his hand against his face to stop the blood from getting on his shirt. He was perhaps ten feet down the alley. Out in the lane he heard footsteps, then two shadows moved quickly past the opening where Casson was hidden only by darkness. He forced himself against the wall. One of the soldiers said something, he was short of breath, and his whispered German was excited, perhaps a little frightened. Then the footsteps moved away, and Casson heard a shout as they found the car parked facing the Abbey wall. He could just hear them as they talked it over, then footsteps came back toward the alley, paused, and moved away toward the rue du Midi.
Too French for them in here, Casson thought. It was dark and damp and it smelled of old drains, burnt wood, cat piss, and God knew what else. It was too ancient, too secret. Sitting against the wall and wiping at his bloody nose, Casson felt something like triumph.
He counted to a hundred, then got the Simca backed down the lane and out into the street as quickly as he could. Because if the Germans had lacked the courage to search the alley-and Casson sensed they’d known he was in there-they were certainly brave enough to pick up a telephone once they got to work, and report the Frenchman and his car
to the Gestapo, license plate and all.
As for the feeling of triumph, it didn’t last long. In the winding streets of Levallois-Perret-the industrial neighbor of luxurious Neuilly-he stopped the car so a young woman carrying a bread and a bag of leeks could cross the street. A blonde, country-girl-in-Paris, big-boned, with spots of red in her cheeks and heavy legs and hips beneath a thin dress.
Their eyes met. Casson wasn’t going to be stupid about it, but his look was open, I want you. When her lip curled with contempt and she turned away pointedly it surprised him. Eye contact in Paris was a much-practiced art, a great deal of love was made on the streets, some of it even made its way indoors. But she didn’t like him. And she was able, her face mobile and expressive, to tell him why. Anybody driving a car since the requisition was a friend of the Occupier, and no friend of hers. Let him seek out his own kind.
A few minutes later he found the garage. It was enormous, packed with row on row of automobiles, all kinds, old and new, banged-up and shiny, cheap little Renaults and Bugatti sports cars. The German sergeant in charge never said anything about where were you, he simply took the keys. Casson wondered out loud about a receipt, but the sergeant merely shrugged and nodded his head at the door.
Later that morning he went to his office, but the door was padlocked.
Casson went home and called his lawyer.
Bernard Langlade-whose anniversary he’d celebrated at Marie-Claire’s-was a good friend who happened to be a good lawyer. A personal lawyer, he didn’t represent CasFilm or Productions Casson. Sent a bill only when he was out of pocket and, often enough, not even then. He looked at papers, listened patiently to Casson’s annual tax scheme-taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes-wrote the occasional letter, made the occasional phone call. In fact Langlade, though trained at the Sorbonne, spent his days running a company that manufactured lightbulbs, which his wife had inherited from her family.
“At least you’re home, safe and in one piece,” he said on the phone. “So let’s not worry too much about locked doors. I have a better idea-come and have lunch with me at one-thirty, all right? The Jade Pagoda, upstairs.”