Mission to Paris (21 page)

‘Do they speak openly, in front of you?’

‘No, but they like to talk to each other in what they think is a sort of code; winks, and pokes in the ribs, and too bad we can’t let you in on the big secrets.’ She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Now I’m going to take a nap, you should wait for an hour before you leave.’

3.40 a.m. Stahl had found it hard to go to sleep, had read a third of his Simenon novel, decided to have a brandy sent up to his suite but thought better of it, not wanting to call attention to himself. Finally, sometime after four in the morning, he drifted off.

Then, something brought him sharply awake.

What could have happened? A noise? A nightmare? A noise, for now he heard it again: shattering glass. Something of considerable size, plate glass, like a shop window. And there it was again, somewhere down in the street. He rolled off the bed, went to the window, and moved the drapery just enough so that he could see out. He thought he heard shouting, more than one voice, then, across the street from the hotel, a shadow went past, running at full speed. He caught only a glimpse but, with eyes fixed on the street, he saw a group of men, five or six of them, more trotting than running. They disappeared in the same direction the shadow had taken. Hunting him? He stood at the window for some time but saw nothing else, only a glow in the eastern sky. And the smell of burning was now very strong; acrid, unpleasant.

The young woman wore her shining blonde hair rolled in plaits above her ears – she was a peasant after all and, in the movies, that was the way pretty peasant girls wore their hair. As they also could be counted on to wear a dirndl – a tightly fitted bodice and full skirt, this costume in baby blue and white, so pure was she, toiling her way up the side of an alp. She climbed with the aid of a stick and with her other hand held a small brass urn to her breast. Poor Hans was in there – his ashes anyhow – cremated after being shot by a Jewish gangster in the evil city where he never
ever
should have gone, in the mistaken belief that he had lost her love. The violins worked away and, as she at last reached the crest, the sun just now rising above the neighbouring mountain, here came, as Stahl had anticipated, a long blast on an alpine horn. Triumph! True, there were tears in the girl’s eyes, but there was also a fierce determination, hope for tomorrow: in the new Germany, this sort of tragedy must never happen again!

The film ended. Stahl was sitting in the middle row of a positively baroque movie theatre in downtown Berlin, a theatre with plaster angels and sconces and loges and plush seats, where he’d been taken to judge the best of the mountain movies. Not really his decision, of course. Emhof, seated next to him, said, ‘I think I needn’t tell you that you have just seen the festival’s finest work.’ Stahl thought he detected, in Emhof’s eyes, a certain moisture. Had he been moved to tears?

‘So,’ Stahl said, ‘the winner is
Das Berg von Hedwig
?’ Hedwig’s mountain.

‘If you agree,’ Emhof said.

‘Well, I do agree. An excellent production, good acting, fine music, and produced and directed by Otto Raab.’

‘Yes, of course Herr Goebbels’s deputy will make the announcement, as Raab is the director of the festival.’

‘That shouldn’t matter, when such quality …’ Stahl left it at that.

Emhof nodded. Stahl hoped he could now escape for the rest of the day.

He’d seen the newspapers that morning, which had reported that some German citizens, angered at the murder of the diplomat vom Rath, shot dead by a Jew in Paris, had attacked Jewish synagogues, setting them on fire, and breaking the windows of Jewish shops. This action, the papers said, was regrettable, but certainly understandable. The police and the Gestapo, concerned about further Jewish violence, worried about conspiracies, had arrested between twenty and thirty thousand prominent Jews. Local Berliners, the reports went on, had taken to calling the event
Kristallnacht
, after the crystalline appearance of shattered glass on the streets of German towns and cities.

Standing up to leave the movie theatre, Stahl counted the hours he had to endure before leaving this place. The Grosser Mercedes was waiting in front of the theatre and as Stahl was driven through the city he could see – and could hear – the streetsweepers shovelling up the broken glass. By the time he reached the Adlon it was mid-afternoon and all he wanted to do was escape: have a couple of brandies and fall asleep. He ordered the brandies and collapsed into a chair. Then the telephone rang.

He answered by saying, ‘Yes?’

‘This is the front desk. There’s someone here to see you, Herr Stahl, could you be so kind as to come downstairs?’

Somehow it didn’t sound like a front-desk voice. ‘Who is it?’

‘Oh, please forgive the
inconvenience
, but the gentleman does not give his name.’

Stahl hesitated, then said, ‘Very well, I’ll be down in a minute.’

He put on his jacket and straightened his tie. As he went out the door, he could see the back of a man waiting for the elevator, who turned around when Stahl’s door clicked shut. It was the waiter from the banquet, wearing street clothes, his mouth twisted into a triumphant smirk. ‘Remember me?’ he said. ‘Bet you thought you’d never see
me
again.’

Stahl wondered how he’d managed to make a telephone call from ‘the front desk’, then appear at the elevator – he must have, Stahl thought, used an empty room on the same floor. ‘Yes, I remember you, your name is Rudi. Is there something you want?’

‘Can’t you guess? I asked for a small gratuity last night but you dismissed me, didn’t you. Like a dog. “Go away,” you said. But maybe you’ll change your mind, Herr Stahl, maybe you’ll decide I ought to have something after all.’

The waiter had moved towards Stahl, was now close enough so that Stahl could smell beer on his breath. Taking a step back, Stahl said, ‘Would you like it now?’

Rudi seemed mollified. ‘Well, I would like it, better late than never, as they say. But now you’ve insulted me, so it won’t be a small gratuity, more like ten thousand reichsmarks.’

Ambitious blackmail
, Stahl thought, $5,000. ‘How much?’ he said.

‘You heard me, Herr Stahl.’

‘Where would I get that kind of money?’ Stahl was almost amused.

‘You’re a rich and famous man, you have plenty of money. But if you can’t get at it, you’ll have to ask your Russian, your bitch-in-heat Orlova. She’ll surely help you. Want to know why? Because she wouldn’t want me talking about what went on last night.’

‘I don’t think she cares,’ Stahl said.

‘Doesn’t she? All right, then I’ll just have a chat with my brother-in-law, who happens to work for the Gestapo. Maybe you two were plotting against the Führer, who knows? But they’ll find something, these gentlemen, because they can
always
find something.’

Now Stahl was alarmed. ‘I see, yes, you’re right, you should have what you want. But it has to be tonight, I’m leaving in the morning.’

Rudi moved closer and said through clenched teeth, ‘You
think
you’re leaving but that’s up to
me
. So you have until six this evening, which is when I have to go to work. Or maybe you want to stay in Germany for a while, it’s up to you, maybe you’d like …’

‘Where would I meet you?’ Stahl said.

‘I have a key for room eight-oh-two, down the corridor. Knock twice, then once.’ He turned on his heel and headed for the stairway, then spun around, his face contorted by the memory of a thousand insults. ‘You’d better be there,
mein Herr
.’ The last two words he snarled, enraged by the polite form, enraged that he’d ever used it.

Stahl returned to his suite. Moments later, the room waiter delivered his brandies. He drank the first one immediately and told himself to calm down. He had only a thousand reichsmarks with him – five hundred dollars – and there was no way he could get any money in Berlin. Well, one way. In case of emergency, Wilkinson had asked him to memorize a telephone number which could put him in contact with Orlova. Now Stahl composed himself, took the pad on the desk and wrote down the number, praying that he had it right. ‘It is dangerous,’ Wilkinson had said, ‘to call this number, don’t use it unless you absolutely have to.’

Stahl asked the hotel operator for a line, then dialled the number, which rang twice, three times, four, five. He looked at what he’d written on the pad – was it
4, 2
? Or
2, 4
? He was about to hang up when a breathless woman’s voice said, ‘Hello?’

It wasn’t Orlova’s voice. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you …’

‘Wait a minute, I was just walking the dog.
Mitzi, sit!
Now, you were saying?’

‘Is Olga Orlova there?’

‘No, she’s not here.
Mitzi!
Goddamnit!’

‘It’s quite urgent,’ Stahl said.

‘She’s my neighbour, across the hall. Do you want me to knock on her door?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Who’s calling?’

‘Tell her Fredric.’

‘Oh, I see. Like that, is it. Very well, give me a minute.’

Stahl waited, drank off the second brandy and stared at the phone. Then he looked at his watch, the second hand sweeping around the dial. Finally, the receiver was picked up and Orlova said, ‘Who is this?’ She sounded irritated but Stahl could hear that she was also frightened. In the background, a small dog was barking.

‘This is Fredric Stahl, Madame Orlova. I wonder if I might ask you for a favour?’ Stahl’s eyes were fixed on the baseboard, where the telephone wire was connected to a small box.

‘Oh, of course. Are you calling from, ah, the hotel?’

‘Yes, I am. I was wondering if you might be able to come over here.’

‘I suppose I could, is something wrong?’

‘I must speak to the audience tonight, at the banquet where I will announce the winners of the festival. And I’m having a woeful time of it, writing the speech. I don’t really know the film industry here, and I don’t want to sound ignorant.’

‘I’m not much good as a writer, Herr Stahl.’

‘Even so, some advice would be helpful. Is it possible you could come soon? Maybe even right away?’

Orlova sighed,
the things I’m asked to do
. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Maybe some day you’ll return the favour.’

‘You need only ask, Madame Orlova.’

They hung up. Stahl settled down to wait. It was nearing four o’clock. Once she arrived, and Stahl told her what was going on, she would have to find the money and be back by six.

Orlova was almost frantic when she reached the room. When he opened the door of the Bismarck Suite she didn’t say hello, she said, ‘What’s happened?’ Stahl told her the story, her reaction a mixture of disbelief, fear, and anger. ‘
That
little man? Rudi? Rudi the waiter?’
He dared?
Then she got hold of herself and said, ‘I’d better leave now, you said ten thousand reichsmarks?’

She was back at 5.40. By that point, Stahl, unable to sit down, was pacing back and forth and smoking one cigarette after another. He’d left the door open and she came rushing in. ‘Christ, I couldn’t find a taxi.’ She sat on the edge of the couch. ‘Anyhow, I have it.’

‘From your bank?’

She looked up abruptly:
are you crazy?
‘From an umbrella shop,’ she said. ‘There’s money in this city that will never see a bank; Jewish money, criminal money,
Nazi
money. All those bribes and thefts and …’

Stahl looked at his watch, then up at Orlova. For the meeting she’d changed outfits: under her open raincoat a revealing sweater and a tight skirt, made all the more provocative by the accessories of a prominent woman of the city – red silk scarf, tight black gloves, gold earrings, Chanel No. 5, and dark sunglasses. She was now the movie star of a waiter’s fantasies. At 6.00 p.m. precisely they left the room. Stahl could hear her breathing, and could sense in her a powerful tension, which seemed to grow as they walked along the silent, carpeted corridor. In a whisper, Stahl said, ‘Can you calm down a little?’

She didn’t answer. It was as though she was so intensely fixed on the meeting that she hadn’t heard him. Instead, she pursed her lips and expelled a short breath, then did it again.

In an attempt to distract her he said, ‘Do you know this room? Eight-oh-two?’

She started to answer then worked her mouth, as though it was so dry she couldn’t speak. ‘A small room, I’d guess. For a servant or a bodyguard.’

As they stood in front of the room, Stahl saw that her hands, holding her bag, were trembling. He patted her shoulder. ‘Just give me the money,’ he said. ‘Let me do it, he doesn’t need to see you.’

She shook her head, jerking it back and forth, brushing off his suggestion as though it were absurd and irritating.

Stahl knocked twice, then once.

From inside: ‘It’s not locked.’

Stahl opened the door. It was a small room, meagrely furnished. Rudi was sitting in a chair by the wall at the foot of the bed and was cleaning his nails with a clasp knife. He looked up at them and set the open knife on his lap. ‘Hello, Rudi,’ Orlova said. She was now quite amiable and relaxed.

‘You have the money?’

‘It’s right here.’ She took an envelope out of her raincoat pocket, walked over to Rudi and handed it to him, then waited while he counted the twenty reichsmark notes. ‘All is good?’ she said with a smile.

Rudi nodded, and started to get up. Orlova put a hand on his shoulder, which startled him. ‘I’ll just take another moment,’ she said. ‘Will you accept my apology?’

This was unexpected. ‘Maybe,’ he said, sulky and uncertain.

‘And that also goes for me,’ Stahl said. Rudi stared at him, not quite comfortable with his victory. ‘It was a long evening,’ Stahl explained, ‘and I was tired and I …’

At this point in the apology, Stahl was interrupted by a low sound,
thuck
, saw the automatic pistol and silencer in Orlova’s gloved hand and realized she’d shot Rudi in the temple. His head fell back against the chair, his eyes and mouth wide open, as though he were surprised to find himself dead. A bead of blood grew next to his ear, ran slowly down his cheek, then stopped.