The Foreign Correspondent (32 page)

Trudging up an alley, sweating in the warm night air, he heard approaching footsteps as someone rounded a corner ahead of him. Two policemen. There was nowhere to hide, so he told himself to remember that his name was now Carlo
Marino,
while his fingers involuntarily made sure of the passport in his back pocket.

“Good evening,” one of them said. “You lost?”

Weisz admitted he was.

“Where are you going?”

“The via Corvino.”

“Ah, that’s difficult. But go back down this alley, then turn left, uphill, cross the bridge, then left again. Follow the curve, don’t give up, you will be on Corvino, you must look for the sign, raised letters carved into the stone on the corner of the building.”

“Grazie.”

“Prego.”

Just then, as the policeman started to go, something flickered in his attention—Weisz saw it in his eyes.
Who are you?
He hesitated, then touched the bill of his cap, the courtesy salute, and, followed by his partner, walked off down the alley.

Following his directions—much better than the ones he’d memorized, or thought he had—Weisz found the street, and the apartment house. And the big key was, as promised, on a ledge above the entry. Then he climbed, his footsteps echoing in the darkness, three flights of marble stairs, and, above the third door on the right, found the key to the apartment. He got it to work, entered, and waited. Deep silence. He flicked his cigarette lighter, saw a lamp on the table in the foyer, and turned it on. The lamp had an old-fashioned shade, satin, with long tassels, and so it was everywhere in the apartment—bulbous furniture covered in faded velvet, cream-colored draperies yellowed with age, painted-over cracks in the walls. Who lived here? Who
had
lived here? Brown had described the apartment as “empty,” but it was more than that. There was, in the dead air of the place, an uncomfortable stillness, an absence. In a tall bookcase, three spaces. So, they’d taken these books with them. And pale squares, on the walls, had once been home to paintings. Sold? These people, were they
fuorusciti
—the ones who’d fled? To France? Brazil? America? Or to prison? Or the graveyard?

Now he was thirsty. On a wall in the kitchen, an ancient telephone. He lifted the receiver but heard only silence. He took a cup from a cabinet crammed with the good china and turned on the water tap. Nothing. He waited then went to turn it off, but heard a distant hiss, then a rattle, and then, a few seconds later, a thin stream of rusty water splashed into the sink. He filled the cup, let a few particles float to the bottom, and took a sip. The water tasted like metal, but he drank it anyhow. Carrying the cup, he went to the back of the apartment, to the largest bedroom, where a chenille spread had been carefully pulled over a feather mattress. He took off his clothes, crawled under the spread, and, exhausted by tension, by journey, by return from exile, fell dead asleep.

In the morning, he went out to find a telephone. The sun worked its way into the alleys, caged canaries were set on windowsills, radios played, and in the small piazzas, people were as he remembered them—the shadow that lay over Berlin had not fallen here.
Not yet.
There were, perhaps, a few more posters plastered on the walls, mocking the French and the British. On one of them, a bloated John Bull and a haughty Marianne rode together in a chariot, with wheels that crushed the poor people of Italy. And when he paused to look in the window of a bookstore, he found himself staring at the disconcerting fascist calendar, revised by Mussolini to begin with his ascension to power in 1922, so giving the date as
23 Giugno, Anno XVII.
But then, the bookstore owner had chosen to display this nonsense in the window, next to Mussolini’s autobiography, and that said something, to Weisz, about the persistence of the national character. He recalled Mr. Lane, the night of the meeting in Passy, amused and perplexed, in his upper-class way, by the idea that there could be fascism in Italy.

Weisz found a busy café, drank coffee, read the paper—mostly sports, actresses, an opening ceremony at a new waterworks—then used the public telephone by the WC. The number for Matteo, at
Il Secolo,
rang for a long time. When at last it was answered, he could hear machinery, printing presses running in the background, and the man on the other end of the phone had to shout. “
Pronto?
”

“Is Matteo around?”

“What?”

Weisz tried again, louder. Out in the café, a waiter glanced at him.

“It’ll take a minute. Don’t hang up.”

Finally, a voice said, “Yes? Who is it?”

“A friend, from Paris. From the newspaper.”

“What? From where?”

“I’m a friend of Arturo Salamone.”

“Oh. You shouldn’t call me here, you know. Where are you?”

“In Genoa. Where can we meet?”

“Not until tonight.”

“
Where,
I said.”

Matteo thought it over. “On the via Caffaro there’s a wine shop, the Enoteca Carenna, it’s called. It’s, it’s crowded.”

“At seven?”

“Maybe later. Just wait for me. Read a magazine, the
Illustrazione,
so I’ll recognize you.” He meant the
Illustrazione Italiana,
Italy’s version of
Life
magazine.

“I’ll see you then.”

Weisz hung up, but did not return to his table. From Paris, he could not telephone his family—the international lines were known to be tapped, and the rule for émigrés was: don’t try it, you’ll get your family in trouble. But now he could. For a call outside of Genoa, he had to use the operator, and when she answered, he gave her the number in Trieste. The phone rang, again and again. Finally, she said, “I am sorry, Signor, but they do not answer.”

23
June,
6:50 P.M
.

The wine shop on the via Caffaro was very popular—customers at the table and the bar, the rest filling in every available space, a few out in the street. But in time, a watchful Weisz saw his chance, took a vacated table, ordered a bottle of Chianti and two glasses, and settled in with his magazine. He’d read it twice, and was on his third time through, when Matteo appeared, saying, “You’re the one who called?” In his forties, he was a tall, bony man with fair hair, and ears that stuck out.

Weisz said he was, Matteo nodded, took a look around the room, and sat down. As Weisz poured a Chianti, he said, “I’m called Carlo, I’ve been the editor of
Liberazione
since Bottini was murdered.”

Matteo watched him.

“And I write under the name Palestrina.”

“You’re Palestrina?”

“I am.”

“I like what you write.” Matteo lit a cigarette and shook out the match. “Some of the others…”

“Salute.”

“Salute.”

“What you’re doing for the paper,” Weisz said. “We appreciate that. The committee wanted me to thank you for it.”

Matteo shrugged, but he didn’t mind the gratitude. “Have to do
something,
” he said. Then: “What goes on, with you? I mean, if you are who you say you are, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here secretly, and I’m not here long. But I had to talk to you, in person, and some other people as well.”

Matteo was dubious, and showed it.

“We’re changing. We want to print more copies. Now that Mussolini’s in bed with his Nazi pals…”

“That didn’t happen yesterday, you know. There’s a place we eat lunch, near the
Secolo,
just up the street from here. A few months ago, these three Germans show up, all of a sudden. In SS uniform, the skull and all that. Brazen bastards, it’s like they own the place.”

“That could be the future, Matteo.”

“I suppose it could. The local
cazzi
are bad enough, but this…”

Weisz, following Matteo’s eyes, saw two men in black, standing nearby, who had fascist pins on their lapels, and were laughing with each other. There was something subtly aggressive in the way they occupied space, in the way they moved, and in their voices. This was pretty much a workingman’s bar, but they didn’t care, they’d drink anywhere they liked.

“You think it’s possible?” Weisz said. “A bigger print run?”

“Bigger. How many?”

“Maybe twenty thousand.”

“Porca miseria!”
Pigs of misery, meaning too many copies. “Not at
Il Secolo.
I have a friend upstairs, who doesn’t keep such good track of the newsprint, but, a number like that…”

“What if we took care of the newsprint?”

Matteo shook his head. “Too much time, too much ink—can’t do it.”

“What about friends? Other pressmen?”

“Of course I know a few guys. From the union. From what
used
to be, the union.” Mussolini had destroyed the unions, and Weisz could see that Matteo hated him for it. Printers were considered, by themselves and most of the world, to be the aristocrats of the trades, and they didn’t like being pushed around. “But, I don’t know, twenty thousand.”

“Could it be done at other printing plants?”

“Maybe in Rome, or Milan, but not here. I have a pal at the
Giornale di Genova
—that’s the Fascist party daily—and he could manage another two thousand, and, believe me, he would, too. But that’s about what we could do in Genoa.”

“We’ll have to find another way,” Weisz said.

“There’s always a way.” Matteo stopped talking as one of the men with lapel pins brushed past them to get refills at the bar. “Always a way to do anything. Look at the reds, down at the docks and in the shipyards. The
questura,
the local police, don’t mess with them—somebody would get his head broken. They have their paper everywhere, hand out leaflets, put up posters. And everybody knows who they are. Of course, once the secret police show up, the OVRA, it’s finished. But, a month later, they’ve got it going again.”

“Could we run our own shop?”

Matteo was impressed. “You mean presses, paper, everything?”

Why not?

“Not out in the open.”

“No.”

“You’d have to be pretty smart about it. You couldn’t just have trucks pull up to the door.”

“Maybe one truck, at night, now and then. The paper comes out every two weeks or so, a truck pulls up, takes two thousand copies, drives them down to Rome. Then, two nights later, to Milan, or Venice, or anywhere. We print at night, you could do some of it, your friends, guys from the union, could do the rest.”

“That’s how they did it in ’
35
. But then, they’re all in prison now, or sent off to the camps on the islands.”

“Think it over,” Weisz said. “How to do it, how not to get caught. And I’ll call you in a day or two. Can we meet here, again?”

Matteo said they could.

24
June,
10:15 P.M
.

You had to meet with Grassone during his office hours—at night. And the dark streets off the piazza Caricamento made the Tenth Arrondissement look like convent school. Passing the jackals in these doorways, Weisz wished, really wished, he had a gun in his pocket. From the piazza, he’d been able to see the ships in the harbor, including the
Hydraios,
lit by floodlights as her cargo was loaded, and due to sail for Marseilles in four nights, with Weisz aboard. That is, if he made it as far as Grassone’s office. And, then, made it back out.

Grassone’s office was a room, ten by ten.
Spedzionare Genovese
—Genoa Transport—on the door, naughty calendar on the wall, barred window that looked out on an air shaft, two telephones on a desk, and Grassone in a rolling office chair. Grassone was a nickname, it meant “fat boy,” and he easily lived up to that—when he barred the door and returned to his desk, Weisz was reminded of the old line,
walked like two pigs fucking under a blanket.
Younger than Weisz expected, he had the face of a malign cherub, with bright, clever eyes staring out at a world that had never liked him. On closer inspection, he was broad as well as fat, broad across the shoulders, and thick in the upper arms. A fighter, Weisz thought. And if anybody had doubts about that, they would soon enough notice, beneath his double chin, a white band of scar tissue, from one side of the neck to the other. Apparently, somebody had cut his throat, but, equally apparent, here he was. In the words of Mr. Brown, “our black market chap in Genoa.”

“So, what will it be?” he said, pink hands folded on the desk.

“Can you get paper? Newsprint, in big rolls?”

This amused him. “I can get, oh, you’d be surprised.” Then: “Newsprint? Sure, why not.”
Is that all?

“We’ll want a steady supply.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. As long as you pay. You’re starting a newspaper?”

“We can pay. What would it cost?”

“That I couldn’t tell you, but by tomorrow night, I’ll know.” He leaned back in his chair, which didn’t like it and squeaked. “Ever try this?” He reached into a drawer and rolled a black ball across the desk. “Opium. Fresh from China.”

Weisz turned the sticky little ball over in his fingers, then handed it back, though he’d always been curious. “No, thank you, not today.”

“Don’t like sweet dreams?” Grassone said, returning the ball to his drawer. “Then what?”

“Newsprint, a dependable supply.”

“Oh, I am dependable, Mr. X. Ask around, they’ll tell you, you can count on Grassone. The rule down here, on the docks, is what goes on a truck, comes off. I was just thinking, since you made the trip, you might want a little something more. Parma hams? Lucky Strikes? No? Then what about, a gun. These are difficult times, everybody is nervous. You’re a little nervous, Mr. X, if you don’t mind my saying so. Maybe what you need is an automatic, a Beretta, it’ll fit right in your pocket, and the price is good, best in Genoa.”

“You said tomorrow night, a price for the paper?”

Grassone nodded. “Stop by. You want the big rolls, maybe you need a truck.”

“Maybe,” Weisz said, standing up to leave. “See you tomorrow night.”

“I’ll be here,” Grassone said.

Back at the via Corvino, Weisz had too much time to think—haunted by the ghosts of the apartment, troubled by visions of Christa in Berlin. And troubled, as well, by a telephone call he would have to make in the morning. But if
Liberazione
was to have its own printing plant, there was one contact he had to make before he left, a contact he’d been warned about. “Not unless absolutely necessary,” Brown had said. This was a man known as Emil, who, according to Brown, could handle “anything that needs to be done
very
quietly.” Well, after his conversation with Matteo, it
was
necessary, and he would have to use the number he’d memorized. Not an Italian name, Emil, it might be from anywhere. Or perhaps it was an alias, or a codename.