A Small Death in Lisbon

by Robert Wilson

  In the bank Felsen was met by the Director of Finance and another, more senior and taller, member of the German legation who greeted his offered hand with a spring-loaded salute and an incongruous 'Heil Hitler' This did not appear to disturb the bank's finance director who, he found out later, was a member of the Portuguese Legion. It had confused Felsen who only managed a half-wave in return, like a bad attempt at getting a waiter's attention, and the words 'Ja, ja.' He also missed the tall, Prussian-looking man's name. It wasn't until the gold had been unloaded and accounted for that Felsen saw the man signing the endless documentation with his left hand in the name of Fritz Poser. He noticed that the right hand was a gloved prosthesis.

  By 11.00 a.m. the business was completed. The junior member of the legation had taken the drivers to an army barracks on the outskirts of the city and Poser and Felsen were sitting in the back of a flagged Mercedes driving down Rua do Ouro towards the river. The pavements were packed with people, mostly men in dark suits, white shirts, dark ties and hats a size too small for their heads who swerved past barefooted boys selling newspapers. The few women were smart and dressed in tweed suits with hats and furs even though it wasn't cold. The faces flashed by as the car picked up speed in the empty street, one woman hatless and blonde stared at the car, the small swastika flapping on the bonnet, mesmerized. Then her head flicked away and she buried herself in the crowd. Felsen turned in his seat. A boy was running alongside the car waving the Diário de Notiçias in his face.

  'Lisbon is full,' said Poser. 'It's as if the whole world is here.'

  'I saw them at the border.'

  'The Jews?'

  Felsen nodded, tired now after the anxiety of the journey.

  'There's a more eclectic mix down here. Lisbon can cater for all tastes. It's one long party for some.'

  'So there's no rationing.'

  'Not yet and not for us anyway. It will come though. The British are mounting their Economic Blockade and the Portuguese are beginning to suffer. Fuel could start to be a problem, they don't have any of their own tankers and the Americans are being difficult. Of course you can eat well if you like seafood and drink their wine if your palate's not too French. There's still sugar at the moment and the coffee is good.'

  They turned right out of the Praça do Comércio and followed the Tagus past the docks. At Santos there was a huge brawling mass of people, men, women and children fighting outside the offices of the shipping lines.

  'This is the more distasteful end of Lisbon,' said Poser. 'You see that ship, the Nyassa, in the docks there. They all want to get on the Nyassa but it's full. It's been full for weeks. In fact it's been filled twice over but these morons think that because it's there they can get on it. Most of them don't have any money which means they don't even have American visas. Ah well, the Guarda National Republicana will be along in a moment and break them up. Last week it was the same with the Serpa Pinto, next week it will be the Guiné. Always the same.'

  'We seem to be leaving Lisbon,' said Felsen, as the driver accelerated away towards the green outskirts of the city.

  'Not yet. This evening perhaps. We're going to the Palâcio do Conde dos Olivais in Lapa where we've installed the German legation. You'll see we have the best location in Lisbon.'

  They came into Lapa from Madragoa and drove up the Rua'Sâo Domingos à Lapa. Halfway up the Union Jack hung limply off a long pink building with tall white windows and a central pediment which made up about fifty metres of the street's façade. The Mercedes thundered past on the cobbled street.

  'Our friends, the British,' said Poser, waving his prosthetic hand.

  The driver turned first left into Rua do Sacramento a Lapa and after a hundred metres a cuboid palace in its own grounds appeared on the left. Bougainvillea spilled over the iron railings, the leaves of the phoenix palms rattled in the light breeze and the three red, white and black swastika flags snapped gently. The gates were opened, the car swung away from a sea view and up a short gravel drive and stopped in front of the steps. A doorman opened the car.

  'Early lunch?' asked Poser.

  They sat in the dining room with the sun throwing short rectangles of light across the empty tables. They waited for soup. Felsen tried to remember a time when he'd felt such calm. It was before the war, before the Olympics, in his old apartment on ... he couldn't remember where his old apartment was ... the windows open in summer, lying on the bed with Susana Lopes, the Brazilian girl.

  'You like it?' asked Poser, erect as if his spine was in a brace.

  'Excuse me?'

  'Our legation. Our palácio.'

  'Magnificent.'

  'The Baixa,' said Poser, wrinkling his nose, 'all the refugees, you know, it's very enervating. Lapa is so much more civilized. You can breathe.'

  'And the war seems such a long way away,' said Felsen, stonily.

  'Quite so. Berlin, I believe has not been so much fun,' said Poser trying to hit a more businesslike tone. 'We'll be having a small reception for you this evening and a dinner so that you can meet some of the people you'll be working with. It will be formal. Do you...?'

  'Yes, I do.'

  'Afterwards I thought perhaps you'd like to go out of town to Estoril. There's a room for you at the Hotel Parque. The casino's out there and there'll be some dancing. I think you'll find it very agreeable.'

  'I'd like to have some sleep at some stage. I haven't had much on the road this last week.'

  'Of course, I didn't mean to be presumptuous. I just wanted you to be sure of some comfort and entertaining company after the more serious occasion.'

  'No, no, I'd be happy to. A few hours this afternoon will be fine.'

  'I have a cot in a room next to my office. You can use that if you wish.'

  The soup arrived and the two men worked their way through it.

  'This Hotel Parque...?' started Felsen.

  'Yes. We have the Hotel Parque and the British have the Hotel Palácio. We're next to each other. The Palácio is bigger but the Parque has the waters ... if you like that sort of thing.'

  'I was going to ask...'

  'It's a very international crowd as I said. One long party. From the conversations you hear up there you'd think they were still having court balls in the Palace of Versailles. And the women out there, so I'm told, are a lot more progressive in their attitude than the natives.'

  The soup plates were removed and replaced by a split grilled lobster.

  'Did I answer your question?' asked Poser.

  'Perfectly.'

  'Your reputation precedes you, Hauptsturmführer Felsen.'

  'I didn't know I had one that could be of much interest.'

  'You'll find the foreign women in Estoril very accommodating, although I should...'

  'You're well-informed, Herr Poser. Are you with the Abwehr?'

  'Although I should warn you that there are two currencies in this city The escudo and information.'

  'Which is why you're here.'

  'Everybody's a spy in Lisbon, Herr Hauptsturmführer. From the lowest refugee to the highest members of the legations. And that includes maids, doormen, waiters, bar staff, shop owners, businessmen, company executives, all women, whores or not, and royalty, real or fake. Anybody with ears to overhear can make a living.'

  'Then there must be a lot of rumour as well. You've said yourself that the city is full, probably with a lot of people with nothing better to do than talk. It passes the time after all.'

  'That is true.'

  'Who does the winnowing?'

  'Ah yes, your agricultural background coming out.'

  Felsen stripped the white flesh out of the shell of his lobster.

  'So where do the real spies pass their time?' asked Felsen.

  'The ones who give us advance information on Dr Salazar's thinking about wolfram exports, you mean?'

  'Does he do any thinking about that?'

  'He's beginning to. We think he's beginning to perceive an opportunity. We're working on it now.'
/>
  Felsen waited for Poser to continue but instead the Prussian began dismantling his lobster claws with some difficulty given the stiffness of his gloved right hand.

  'How many people know what I'm doing here?'

  'Those you will meet this evening. No more than ten people in all. Your work is very important and, as you've probably realized, somewhat complicated by a very delicate political situation which, at the moment, we are winning. It is our people here who will make your work on the ground easier.'

  'Or more difficult if you start losing.'

  'We have good relations with Dr Salazar. He understands us. The British are relying on the strength of their old alliance, 13 86 I think it was, you wonder which century they're living in. We, on the other hand, are...'

  '...frightening him?'

  'I was going to say that we are providing him with what he needs.'

  'But he's aware of the Panzer divisions in Bayonne, I'm sure.'

  'And the U-boats in the Atlantic,' said Poser. 'But if you want to play the harlot and bed both sides you might expect to get slapped about. Sweet?'

  'Excuse me?'

  'The lobster.'

  'Very sweet.'

  'Portuguese lobster ... small but perfectly sweet. The best in the world.'

  'I thought I'd go for a walk after my nap.'

  'The Jardim da Estrela isn't far and it's very pleasant.'

  It was 5.00 p.m. and the Chave d' Ouro café in the Rossio square at the top end of the Baixa grid, in the heart of the city, was full to capacity. It was still warm and the windows were all open. Laura van Lennep sat by one of these open windows and looked into the square repeatedly. She fingered the single coffee she'd ordered in the hour and a half she'd been sitting there, but the waiters didn't bother her. They were used to it.

  She was half-listening to a table of refugees speaking French with thick accents. The two men had seen army trucks in the Baixa first thing that morning and were expounding some fantastic invasion theory. It did nothing to calm Laura van Lennep down. She couldn't bear the inertia of these people, who she knew came from a pensão three houses down from her own in the Rua de São Paulo behind Cais do Sodré. She'd heard them in the street correcting each other about aristocrats they'd met at parties as if it had been only last week, when it had been in a different country, in a different decade. She was desperate with no cigarettes and the man who was going to change her life, who'd promised that he could change her life, wouldn't arrive.

  A man appeared at the top of the stairs and looked around. He walked slowly around the room and finished up at her table. He wasn't short but his width and bulk made him look shorter than he was. He had short dark hair, cut en brosse and blue-grey eyes. He made her tremble inside. She looked away into the Rossio again, to the same groups of dark-suited men standing about on the black and white calçada, to the same lines of taxis, to the same kiosk where the cabbies drank coffee and talked about football. Sporting were going to be champions this year. She knew that by now. She turned back and he was still there. She felt those eyes on her. She gripped her handbag which contained her papers. Was he the police? She'd been told about the plain-clothed ones. He didn't look Portuguese but he had something of authority about him. She rearranged her claret dress which did not need rearranging but should have been thrown away last year.

  'Could I join you?' asked the man in French.

  'I'm waiting for someone,' she said, also in French, letting her blonde head slip around to the window again.

  'There's nowhere else to sit and I only want a coffee. You're a single person sitting at a table for four.'

  'There's someone coming.'

  'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to...'

  'No, no, please,' she said suddenly, her nerves setting her hands off like the pigeons in the square.

  He sat opposite her and offered her a cigarette. She refused but had to hold on to her hand to do it. He lit one for himself and seemed to enjoy more than the smell of his own smouldering tobacco. The waiter came to his side.

  'Your coffee looks cold, may I...?'

  'I'm fine, thank you.'

  He ordered one for himself. She looked out into the square again. He'd spoken in Portuguese but not Lisbon Portuguese, more open, like slow Spanish.

  'He won't come any quicker, you know,' said the man.

  She smiled a sort of relief that she'd begun to feel that he wasn't going to ask to see her papers.

  'I can't bear waiting,' she said.

  'Have a cigarette, some warmer coffee ... it'll pass the time.'

  She took a cigarette. He looked at her empty ring finger and the tense shake in her hand. She puffed on it and left a red mark on the white end. She blew out the strange, strong smoke.

  'From Turkey,' he said.

  'You can get anything here if you can pay,' she said.

  'I wouldn't know. I brought these with me. My first day in Lisbon.'

  'Where have you come from?'

  'From Germany.'

  That's why he'd made her tremble.

  'Where are you going?'

  'I'm staying here for a while and then ... who knows? And you?'

  'From Holland. I want to go to America.'

  Her blue eyes flickered out over the balcony again and then searched the room behind where the man was sitting. His coffee arrived. He ordered one for her. The waiter took her old stained cup away. Her eyes settled back on to him.

  'He'll come,' he said, with a reassuring wink.

  The four refugees on the table behind had started running down the Portuguese. How uncivilized they were. How uncouth. How all the food tasted the same and have you tried to eat that bacalhau? Lisbon, oh Lisbon was so boring.

  She'd heard it all before and she leaned away from them. She knew it could be dangerous to speak to the man, but after three months in the Lisbon refugee world she thought she'd developed some instinct.

  'I can't bear not knowing,' she said.

  'Like the waiting.'

  'Yes. If I know ... if I knew...' she drifted off. 'You don't know what it's like yet, you've only just arrived.'

  'Where are you staying?'

  'In the Pensão Amsterdão on Rua de São Paulo. And you?'

  'I'll find somewhere.'

  'Everywhere's full.'

  'So it seems. Perhaps I'll go out to Estoril.'

  'It's more expensive out there,' she said, shaking her head.

  He didn't seem bothered by that. She let her head fall over her shoulder again to look out of the window. This time she leapt to her feet and started waving. She dropped back into her seat and closed her eyes. Her table companion twisted around to view the top of the stairs. A man in his early twenties with blonde, reddish hair came striding through the tables. He faltered when he saw the older man but pulled a chair out and pushed it close to the girl. Her eyes snapped open. Her face fell. He took her hands. She stared into the tablecloth as if her own blood was growing a stain in the middle of it. He leaned into her ear and whispered in English.

  'I did everything I could. It's just not possible without ... The woman in the visa office...' he stopped as the waiter put a coffee down in front of her, he looked across at the man at their table who was looking out of the window. 'It takes money. A lot of money.'

  'I haven't got any money, Edward. Do you know how much the tickets are now? You used to be able to get one for $70, now it's $100. I was there today at the ticket office. A man paid $400 to get on the Nyassa. The longer I stay here...'

  'I got as far as the guichet ... but then she comes to the window. She doesn't recognize me. She doesn't know me. She won't even take the application unless ... unless you can come up with the money, or the right invitations, or...'

  The German called for the waiter and paid for the two coffees. He stood and looked down at the young couple. The Englishman was suspicious. The woman had a different look than before—a hungry intensity in her face. The German put on his hat and tipped it at her.

  'Th
ank you for the coffee,' she said. 'You didn't tell me your name.'

  'You didn't say yours. I don't think we got that far.'

  'Laura van Lennep,' she said. 'And this is Edward Burton.'

  'Felsen,' he said. 'Klaus Felsen.'

  He put out his hand. The Englishman didn't shake it.

  Chapter IX

  8th March 1941, the German legation, Lapa, Lisbon

  The ambassador didn't make the reception or the dinner that night. Felsen sat between two wolfram exporters, a Portuguese with three concessions in the Trancoso area in the Beira Alta, and a Belgian aristocrat who wouldn't tell him anything other than that it was his group who was providing a shell company through which Felsen was going to export his wolfram.

  The members of the legation, who were without their ambassador to remind them of their own insignificance, spent too much of their time extending their own importance into areas which were none of their business. Felsen was left with the impression that all the real work would be done in the corridors of power and hotel lounges of Lisbon rather than in the bleak mountain ranges of the north. He didn't improve his popularity by asking how their oblique bargaining was going to translate into tons in trucks crossing the border. They patronized him back. They hinted at intricate negotiations but offered no substance. They said that he would feel the results. Felsen reinterpreted all this to himself. The Abwehr and Supply Department resented the intrusion of the SS into their territory. He was on his own.

  After dinner, as they gathered on the steps waiting for the cars to take them out to Estoril, Felsen still couldn't help being unnerved by the unembarrassed flagrance of light everywhere. All the windows of the palácio, each one or two metres high, glowed from reckless chandeliers of glittering incandescence. As he'd left the Baixa by taxi in the evening the Nyassa was still at anchor, unconcerned in the heart of the docks, blazing with light as the loading continued. Berlin had been widowed for two years. You could end up in a concentration camp for lighting a cigarette in the street after dark. Cars moved around at night with slit eyes, blind as moles. The rest of Europe was like a coal hole and Lisbon its furnace mouth.