by Tessa Lunney
“Comrade, welcome.”
“Inkpin and Shinwell send their regards.”
Nguyễn nodded; Fry had established his credentials. “Will they join us at the Congress?”
“Between the police and the election, no chance this year. Next year, we hope.”
“Miss Kiki, take a seat just there, you’ll hear everything.”
The hall hushed as a bald man with bottle glasses and a bushy brown moustache stood up to take the floor.
“Tovarishi!” His voice rung out. “Comrades! Welcome to this meeting of the French Communist Party. As you may know, I have recently returned from Russia as a delegate to the Second Enlarged Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. The Comintern report that French workers have a special place among the Communist International and our Congress in Paris this year will draw the eyes of the world!”
As he spoke, I looked over at Fry. He caught my glance and gave me a discreet nod; this is what he came to Paris for. I followed his lead and clapped when he clapped, even though much of the terminology was foreign to me: Comintern, dialectic, decossackization, commissariat. Even if I understood the phrases, like “means of production” or “new economic policy,” I couldn’t always understand the sense. But apart from the ideology of equality, I was beginning to see why so many intellectuals were attracted to communism. There was a whole theory here, a philosophy of life with its own terms and judgements, that sounded nothing like religion or patriotism or any of the ideas that had kept us mired in the bloody mess of the war. The Communists famously had been against the Great War. If I’d heard about them before I started working for Fox, I might have been attracted to communism too.
“Comrade, respectfully, I disagree!”
My thoughts had taken a little holiday but were brought back by an altercation. Fry stiffened as the speaker stared.
“Your criticisms of the Comintern are just the sort of bourgeois rubbish that the Soviets would expect from out-of-touch Parisians!”
Pandemonium. Workers yelled insults about how hard they worked, about ideological purity, mixing French patriotism with Marxist rhetoric. Nguyễn looked shocked, then amused.
“And who are you, comrade?” Nguyễn looked like he was enjoying himself. “Please share your inside knowledge.”
“Lazarev, Arkady Nikolaievitch.” Lazarev stood up, looking so unlike the man I met last year I couldn’t stop staring. Gone was his cane and perfectly tailored suit, his shiny shoes and smooth manners. He wore loose rough wool in gray and navy, a cap in his hands, and a grubby neckerchief round his throat. He could have played a worker in a Soviet propaganda film. Fry leaned forward and I hid behind his bulk. I did not want Lazarev to see me.
“I can tell you that Moscow is not happy with the way you have been conducting your meetings here and are considering removing France from the Fourth World Congress of the Comintern!”
More yells, but Nguyễn put up his hand. He had a great natural authority, much more than the man with the bottle glass specs.
“Please, Arkady Nikolaievitch, do go on. You were no doubt sent to educate us.”
Lazarev coughed uncomfortably, his bluster suddenly gone, his lack of commitment for a moment transparent. He was in disguise, Nguyễn had seen it, and now we saw it too. Lazarev blundered on.
“The VTsIK is under direct orders to make sure that the Comintern follows Comrade Stalin’s directives. I have them here.” He held up a piece of paper, in Russian with a big red star at the top. “For everyone to read and follow!”
The meeting fell into disarray as the main speaker tried to contain the anger and mayhem Lazarev had caused. Eventually the meeting broke up, to convene again on Sunday evening. I stayed in Fry’s shadow until I saw Lazarev physically escorted from the hall by two burly workers. Nguyễn packed up his typewriter and turned to me.
“Well, Miss Kiki?”
“Well, Nguyễn, if I wanted to see a cockfight I’d have gone to the ring down the road.”
Nguyễn smiled and Fry smirked.
“There are always imposters,” said Nguyễn. “They try to break us up, like tonight, but it never lasts. The party will prevail.”
“Do you know him? Tonight’s troublemaker?”
“Lazarev? No. He’s obviously Russian, but he seems to be a White in masquerade, wouldn’t you say, Alberts?”
“I don’t know about these Parisian imposters. In England their jackboots are a dead giveaway.”
“Jackboots?” asked Nguyễn.
“Oh! Are the troublemakers in England, ah, fascisti, is it?” I smiled; hopefully he knew I was thanking him for introducing the topic.
“They are,” said Fry. “And not always factory workers neither.”
“I haven’t seen that here,” said Nguyễn. “Just disgruntled Whites wanting to reverse the revolution.” He shook his head, as if at such foolish behavior.
“When’s the Congress?” I asked.
“In a week,” said Fry.
“It’s for party members,” said Nguyễn with a big smile. “Join us.”
“Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.”
He laughed then, thank goodness. Fry, in the guise of Alberts, got a few more details from Nguyễn about the conference before accompanying me out of the hall.
“Alberts: I like it.”
“It’s how I’m known at the Party meetings. My family thinks I’m a mad red.”
“Instead, we know you’re just mad.”
He gave me the briefest smile as we passed a moulin, the red lights outside casting a bloody glow on his skin.
“Lazarev,” I said. “I know him.”
“But you’re chasing Fascists, not Communists.”
“I know. Last year he was involved with the Fascists, or one Fascist—Edward Hausmann.”
“Hausmann!”
“Of course! You’d know him from the war.”
“Fox hates the traitor. We all do.”
“I don’t think they were close, Lazarev and Hausmann, but Lazarev liked to bandy Hausmann’s name about to get closer to the aristocracy and their money. He had some kind of art dealership going.”
“So, what’s he doing in a Communist Party meeting?”
“Exactly. Especially after he was at Prince Felix Yusupov’s apartment yesterday morning.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was there. With his brother-in-law, Prince Theo Romanov.”
Fry laughed so hard he stopped in the street.
“Oh, come on Fry, it’s not that funny.” But apparently it was. “You just need to spend a bit more time here, you might find yourself a princess.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do with her.”
“I’m sure she’d let you know.” Cue more laughter. “And you can let me know: why didn’t you tell me that Fox is here?”
Fry’s mirth stopped abruptly. “Fox isn’t here.”
“He certainly is. Unless someone else delivered a handwritten note this morning?” Fry stared at me but I couldn’t detect any signs of lying. “I know Fox caught a plane to France yesterday. Why is he here?”
“How do you know he caught a plane?”
“Why is Fox here?”
Fry lit two cigarettes and gave one to me. “This is why you hate him, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, he did. He seems to take pleasure in your hating him.”
“I suppose because he knows that’s the best he can get.”
Fry looked me up and down, as if deciding something. I could hear glass smash somewhere nearby, and the sharp smells of old wine and urine.
“Part of my mission here is to report on you.”
“You shouldn’t be telling me this, Fry.”
“No.”
Girls in shiny fabrics watched us from windows and doorways. Music scattered through the spots of rain in the air. I stubbed out my cigarette and took Fry’s arm in a way that demanded intimacy.
“So tell me more.”
“He spoke about you as an inexperienced agent, ‘Make sure she follows protocol,’ that sort of thing.”
“Bastard, I worked for him all through the war!”
“He never said.” He nodded. “Of course.”
“I’m not inexperienced, just reluctant and untrained. He couldn’t have me turn up at your meetings and training sessions to learn Morse code, signaling, all the other official things. It’d give me away.”
“You’re only useful if you’re a secret.”
I could feel him looking at me, but in the neon hoots of the boulevard my mind’s eye saw only Fox.
“He taught me a few things—how to shoot, how to ride a motorcycle, a few codes that he thought might be useful. All the poetry he liked. I learned easily enough.”
A car backfired, a firework banged into green flame; that time in the woods with his pistol, Fox’s hand on my wrist, his voice just behind my ear as I focused on the target.
“And during the war, you know, I had a ‘nuns fret not’ attitude.”
“ ‘Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room, and hermits are contented with their cells…’ ” Fry quoted the Wordsworth sonnet; Fox had, no doubt, forced him to learn it too. “I think we all did.”
“I’m not a nun anymore. The convent room is far too narrow.”
“So why do you continue to work for him?”
I laughed and it tasted bitter.
“Yes, yes, stupid question,” Fry said. “He must have something to threaten you with.”
“If he wanted, he could threaten me with my favorite color, my eye color, my childhood. In fact, I’m waiting for it.”
We had moved away from the chaotic noise of Pigalle to a cold boulevard. Some cafés spilled their light on the footpath, but no one sat outside in the fickle sleet. There was no need to stay close to Fry now. I flicked up my collar and shoved my hands in my pockets. The only noise was the moan of the wind as it chased the occasional car.
“So, you think Fox is here to… haunt you?” Fry asked. He had flicked his collar up too, his hands also in his pockets, though I couldn’t tell if the imitation was intentional. He frowned into the darkness.
“I’d love to think Fox had some legitimate reason to be in Paris. But with the only evidence one tiny note, I can only think he’s doing what he’s always done.”
“I have to report to him soon. I’ll call him.”
“You’d be a double agent for me?”
“Someone has to keep a check on power.” He stood like a street-side sentinel, a bastion of righteous Englishness despite his morally murky profession. He scanned the road for a taxi like he was deciding strategy.
“Lazarev”—I didn’t want to be bundled into a taxi for safekeeping, I wanted Fry to look at me and work with me—“will you question him?”
“No, you will. You’re right, we need to talk to him.”
“Does ‘we’ include your tall thin friend?”
“How do you… You aren’t inexperienced at all, are you?”
“Is he working with you from London, or is he a Paris man?”
“Both. A London man who lives and works here in Paris. I’m sure you’ll meet him soon. Not at the interrogation though. That’s our bit of fun.”
“The only interrogations I’ve done have been in a low-cut dress with a bottle of champagne.”
“You’ll have to learn how to do them in a grimy cellar with a spot of blood.”
“I’ve done a lot of things for Fox, but I didn’t sign up for that.”
“None of us do.”
The taxi door closed before I could say any more.
* * *
“Bertie.”
“Kiki, darling.” He sounded exhausted, even over the clattering night noises at Gare du Nord.
“Is your Roger tall and thin?”
“He is. Or was, I haven’t heard from him.”
“Probably because he’s in Paris.” I heard Bertie grunt. “What are his other distinguishing features?”
“Missing pinky on his left hand. His jaw clicks. He’s pigeon-toed too, it makes for quite a distinctive walk.”
“I feel I should be using a code name with you now, Bertie.”
“How about Tristan and Isolde?”
“I love you, but I was thinking more Mephistopheles and Faust.”
“And Fox is the devil? I didn’t realize you were damned, Kiki.”
“Neither did I until I found myself in a field hospital on the Somme.”
I heard him sigh heavily.
“Are you alright?”
“Sorry, Kiki, I’m… not alright. As you guessed.”
“Has your lover found you out?”
“He suspects. I wasn’t quite subtle enough in getting those names.”
“You mean of the ‘prinzen’? They came from Roger?”
“He caught me reading his papers. Admittedly, he did leave them scattered on the table, but I was breezy and silly and accepted his very poor excuses without even a snigger.”
“But it isn’t Roger who’s robbed your voice of its color.”
“A couple of others suspect too. Luckily Soho boys in Soho bars all have secret lives. The barman thinks nothing of being my receptionist as long as I pay for the best whisky in the house.”
“Who suspects?”
“Mavis at reception, for one, but she’ll keep mum for me. And a man in a beautifully cut black coat who always seems to be reading the newspaper when I come out of various watering holes. I would have approached him already but his gold-tipped cigarettes put me off.”
“Another Fox cub.”
“I’ll have to give up Roger—well, that’s what he told me his name was—but I’d love a little help in shaking my Savile Row shadow.”
“Quote Keats at him and he’ll think you’re one of Fox’s agents. Even if it only confuses him for a moment, it’ll buy you enough time to hop on a train to Paris.”
“Of course! Paris is always a good idea. I need to be with you to take photos!”
“That might actually be the truth.”
“Someone needs the telephone. I’ll telegram my arrival time.”
Bertie had a Savile Row shadow: Fox was closing in.
32
“queen o’ hearts”
I settled into Petit’s for breakfast the next morning, but my thoughts were far from the creamy coffee and crisp croissant in front of me. The only way to get rid of Fox was to get rid of this mission as soon as possible. I had my notebook with me and opened it to review everything I knew so far.
The mission: The Prince of Wales, and possibly one of his brothers, were being courted by the Fascists. To find out how deeply they were involved with the German Brownshirts, I had to follow the people who were courting them—namely Hausmann, the German princes, and the Russian princes. These courtiers were all going to some big event, and there was a big event coming up in Italy, with Mussolini. I doubted there were two big fascist events in the next few weeks, so I needed to find out if the English princes were planning to go to Rome. If they were, I had to stop them before they embarrassed the British government by proclaiming to be anti-democratic and pro-German.
With these clues laid out, it was clear that I needed to keep following Felix and Theo until their royal connections led me to the English princes. That meant using Theo; I winced. Theo was such a sweet lover, a lovely man, I didn’t want to exploit him and his connections. But as he had asked me to look out for Felix, there wasn’t any way around it. I would see if I could get Theo to Nancy Cunard’s party tonight.
I would also ask him about Lazarev. Why was Lazarev at Theo’s apartment in the early morning? When did Lazarev stop being an art dealer—or had he never stopped, and was now leading a double life? The more I knew about Lazarev, the better placed I would be when I questioned him, a prospect about as enticing as nursing a flu patient through his death rattle. Fry could say what he liked; I wasn’t going to use physical violence.
Th
e threat of pain called forth memories of Fox. His silver voice over the operating table, the air reeking of the butchers’, the floor slippery with blood.
I pushed away the memory; I was in Paris, I was home. Madeleine gave me a little nod and a smile, she was getting used to my whims and lack of routine. I ordered some bread and cheese; I needed a bit more inside me today than just smoke and pastry. Was it the crisp air whipping up an appetite, or the distances I walked in Paris? Was it simply time, that I was getting further away from my own heartbreak? I spread the soft cheese thickly on the bread. I was sleeping better than I had for months, neither passing out with exhaustion, nor fretful and fitful. I still had the usual bad dreams of the war, but here I was in company, I wasn’t isolated in my terrace. One of the old men nodded hello to me as he caught my eye, before going back to his game of chess. Whatever Fox wanted, here I could survive it.
Which meant I had to bait him, draw him out somehow. He had left a note for me in my letter box. Could I do the same? Did he have copy of the key? Awful if so, but useful to know. I scrawled a little note for him:
Art thou pale for weariness
Just that, the first line of a Shelley poem. That would tell him all he needed to know and would hopefully conjure up a meeting place, time, or telephone number. The thought of getting the better of Fox sharpened my appetite.
* * *
“I’m so sorry to have woken you this morning, darling Theo.”
He kissed my hand and settled into his chair at the Rotonde. I had chosen a table outside, the heater behind me warming the collar of my coat, the four corners of the boulevards busy with cars, horses, and people.
“As I said, you are allowed. Un café crème, s’il vous plaît.” He turned back from the waiter. “Actually, there is a long list of people who are allowed—Irène and Felix, all my brothers, my dearest Mama of course, but she stays in bed longer than I do, Vanya on my instructions—and of all of those, you are the best of all. But you usually don’t wake me up, you wait for me to get bored of ferrying rich opera-lovers, bourgeois philanderers, and stinking pimps and come knocking at your door.”
“Well, I thought you could skip the stinking pimps for today. Will you come to a party with me tonight? It’ll be a rough and ready bohemian party, right here at the Rotonde, thrown by heiress Nancy Cunard. You won’t need your dinner suit.”