The Foreign Correspondent (6 page)

The baker stood next to Weisz and said, “Now we do it.” After three or four tries, the Renault shot forward, into the path of a taxi, the only other car on the streets of Paris that morning. The driver swerved away, blew his horn, shouted, “What the hell’s the matter with you?” and circled his index finger beside his temple. The taxi slid on the snow, then drove across the bridge as Weisz thanked the baker.

Salamone crossed the river, going five miles an hour, then turned left and right on the side streets until he found the rue Parrot, close by the Gare de Lyon railroad station. Here, for travelers and railroad workers, was an all-night café. Salamone left the car and walked to the glassed-in terrace. Seated alone at a table by the door, a short man in the uniform and hat of a conductor on the Italian railways was reading a newspaper and drinking an apéritif. Salamone tapped on the glass, the man looked up, finished his drink, left money on the table, and followed Salamone to the car. Maybe an inch or two over five feet tall, he wore a thick, trainman’s mustache, and his belly was big enough to spread the uniform jacket between the buttons. He climbed into the backseat and shook hands with Weisz. “Nice weather, eh?” he said, brushing the snow off his shoulders.

Weisz said it was.

“All the way up from Dijon, it’s doing this.”

Salamone got into the front seat. “Our friend here works on the seven-fifteen to Genoa,” he said to Weisz. Then to the conductor: “That’s for you.” He nodded toward the parcel.

The conductor lifted it up. “What’s in here?”

“Galley trays, for the Linotype. Also money, for Matteo. And the newspaper, with a makeup sheet.”

“Christ, must be a lot of money, you can look for me in Mexico.”

“It’s the trays, they’re zinc.”

“Can’t he get trays?”

“He says not.”

The conductor shrugged.

“How’s life at home?” Salamone said.

“It doesn’t get any better.
Confidenti
everywhere, you have to watch what you say.”

“You stay at the café until seven?” Weisz said.

“Not me. I go to the first-class
wagon-lit
and have a snooze.”

“Well, we better be going,” Salamone said.

The conductor got out, carrying the parcel with both hands. “Please be careful,” Salamone said. “Watch your step.”

“I watch it all,” the conductor said. He grinned at the idea and shuffled off through the snow.

Salamone put the car into gear. “He’s good at it. And you can’t ever tell, about that. The one before him lasted a month.”

“What happened to him?”

“Prison,” Salamone said. “In Genoa. We try and send a little something to the family.”

“Costly, this business we’re in,” Weisz said.

Salamone knew he meant more than money, and shook his head in sorrow. “Most of it I keep to myself, I don’t tell the committee more than they need to know. Of course, I’ll fill you in as we go along, just in case, if you see what I mean.”

20 January. It stayed cold and gray, the snow mostly gone, except for soot-blackened mounds that clogged the gutters. Weisz went to the Reuters bureau at ten, up near the Opéra Métro station, close by the Associated Press, the French Havas bureau, and the American Express office. He stopped there first. “Mail for Monsieur Johnson?” There was one letter—only a few of the Paris
giellisti
were allowed to use the system, which was anonymous, and, they believed, not yet known to the OVRA spies in Paris. Weisz showed the Johnson
carte d’identité,
collected the letter—return address in Bari—then went up to the bureau.

Delahanty had the corner office, its tall windows opaque with grime, his desk stacked high with papers. He was drinking milky tea with a spoon in the cup and, as Weisz paused at the doorway, gave him a tart smile and pushed his glasses up on his forehead. “Come in, come in, said the spider to the fly.”

Weisz said good morning and slid into the chair on the other side of the desk.

“Your lucky day, today,” Delahanty said, riffling through his out box and handing Weisz a press release. The International Association of Writers was, shockingly, holding a conference. At 1:00
P
.
M
. on 20 January, at the Palais de la Mutualité, by place Maubert in the Fifth. The public cordially invited. Listed speakers included Theodore Dreiser, Langston Hughes, Stephen Spender, C. Day-Lewis, and Louis Aragon. Aragon, who had started as a Surrealist, became a Stalinist, and wound up as both, would make sure the Moscow line was maintained. On the agenda: Spain falling to Franco, China attacked by Japan, Czechoslovakia dominated by Hitler—none of it good news. The indignation engines, Weisz knew, would be running at full steam, but, no matter the red politics, it was better than silence.

“You’ve earned a little boredom, Carlo, and it’s your turn for one of these chores,” Delahanty said, sipping at his cold tea. “We’ll want something from Dreiser—dig around in the Marxism and get me an honorable quote—and La Pasionaria is always worth a graph.” The affectionate nickname for Dolores Ibarurri, the orator for the Republican cause, described always as “fiery.” “Just a wee dispatch, laddie, you won’t hear anything new but we have to have somebody there, and Spain is important for the South American papers. So, be off with you, and don’t sign anything.”

•

Dutifully, Weisz arrived on time. The hall was full, crowds milling about in a haze of cigarette smoke—
engagés
of every description, the Latin Quarter in full throb, a few red banners visible above the throng, and everybody seemed to know everyone else. Reports from Spain that morning said that the line on the east bank of the Segre had been abandoned, which meant that the taking of Barcelona wasn’t far off. So, as they’d always known, Madrid, with its stubborn pride, would be the last to give in.

Eventually, the thing got itself started, and the speakers spoke, and spoke, and spoke. The situation was
dire.
Their efforts had to be
redoubled.
A survey of the League of American Writers showed that 410 of the 418 members favored the Republican side. There was a notable absence of Russian writers at the conference, as they were busy mining gold in Siberia or being shot in the Lubyanka. Weisz, of course, could not write anything like that—it would have to be entered in the great book of
stories that I never wrote
kept by every correspondent.

“Carlo? Carlo Weisz!”

Now who was this—this man in the aisle peering down at him? It took a moment for memory to work; somebody he’d known, distantly, at Oxford. “Geoffrey Sparrow,” the man said. “You do remember, don’t you?”

“Of course, Geoffrey, how are you?”

They were talking in whispers, while a bearded man pounded his fist on the lectern. “Let’s go outside,” Sparrow said.

He was tall and fair and smiling and, now it came back to Weisz, rich and smart. As he went up the aisle, all long legs and flannel, Weisz saw that he wasn’t alone, had with him
a smashing girl.
Naturally, inevitably.

When they reached the lobby, Sparrow said, “This is my friend Olivia.”

“Hullo there, Carlo.”

“So, you’re here for Reuters?” Sparrow said, his eyes on the pad and pencil in Weisz’s hand.

“Yes, I’m based in Paris now.”

“Are you. Well, that can’t be
too
bad.”

“Did you come over for the conference?” Weisz said, a journalist’s version of
what the hell are you doing here?

“Oh, actually not. We sneaked away for a long weekend, but, this morning, we just couldn’t face the Louvre, so…just for a lark, you know, we thought we’d have a look.” His smile turned rueful, it hadn’t really been all that much fun. “But damned if I thought I’d see someone I knew!” He turned to Olivia and said, “Carlo and I were at university together. Uh, what was it, Harold Dowling’s course, I think, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Very long lectures, I recall.”

From Sparrow, a merry laugh. They’d had such fun together, hadn’t they, Dowling, all that. “So, you’ve left Italy?”

“I did, about three years ago. I couldn’t stay there any longer.”

“Yes, I know, Mussolini and his little men, damn shame, really. I do see your name on a Reuters dispatch, now and again, and I knew there couldn’t be two of you.”

Weisz smiled, graciously enough. “No, it’s me.”

“
Well,
a foreign correspondent,” Olivia said.

“He is, the rogue, while I sit in a bank,” Sparrow said. “Actually, now that I think about it, I have a friend in Paris who’s rather a fan of yours. Damn, what was it he mentioned? Some story from Warsaw? No, Danzig! About
Volksdeutsche
militia training in the forest. Was that yours?”

“It was—I’m surprised you remember it.”

“I’m surprised I remember anything, but my friend went on about it—fat men in short pants with old rifles. Singing around the campfire.”

Weisz was, despite himself, flattered. “Frightening, in its way. They mean to fight the Poles.”

“Yes, and here comes Adolf, to help them out. Say, Carlo, have you got plans for this afternoon? We’re booked for dinner, damn it all, but what say you to drinks? At six? Maybe I’ll call my friend, I’m sure he’d want to meet you.”

“Well, I do have to write this story.” He nodded toward the hall, where a woman’s voice was building to a crescendo.

“Oh
that
won’t take long,” Olivia said, her eyes meeting his.

“I’ll try,” Weisz said. “Where are you staying?”

“At the Bristol,” Sparrow said. “But we won’t drink there, maybe the Deux Magots, or watchamacallit next door. Drinks with old Sartre!”

“It’s the Flore,” Weisz said.

“Please, darling,” Olivia said. “No more filthy beards—can’t we go to Le Petit Bar? We’re not here every day.” Le Petit Bar was the much-more-chic of the two bars at the Ritz. Turning to Weisz, she said, “Ritz cocktails, Carlo!”
And when I’m tiddly I just don’t care what goes on under the table.

“Done!” Sparrow said. “The Ritz at six. Can’t be
too
bad.”

“I’ll call if I can’t make it,” Weisz said.

“Oh do try, Carlo,” Olivia said. “Please?”

Weisz, clacketting steadily away at the Olivetti, was done by four-thirty. Plenty of time to call the Bristol and cancel the drinks. He stood up, ready to go downstairs and use the telephone, then didn’t. The prospect of an hour with Sparrow and Olivia and friend appealed to him as, at least, a change. Not another evening of gloomy politics with fellow émigrés. He knew perfectly well that Sparrow’s girlfriend was only flirting, but flirting wasn’t so bad, and Sparrow was bright, and could be amusing.
Don’t be such a hermit,
he told himself. And if the friend thought he was good at what he did, well, why not? He heard few enough compliments, absent Delahanty’s backhanded ironies, a few kind words from a reader wouldn’t be the end of the world. So he put on his cleanest shirt and his best tie, his silk red-and-gray stripe, combed his hair with water, left his glasses on the desk, went downstairs at five-forty-five, and had the not inconsiderable pleasure of telling a taxi driver, “
Le Ritz, s’il vous plaît.
”

No floral print tonight for Olivia, a cocktail dress for cocktails, her smart little breasts swelling just above the neckline, and a tight, stylish hat on her golden hair. She took a Players from a box in her evening bag and handed Weisz a gold lighter. “Thanks, Carlo.” Meanwhile, a splendid Sparrow in high London tailoring talked cleverly about nothing, but no guest, not yet. They chattered while they waited, in the dark wood-paneled bar with its drawing room furnishings—Sparrow and Olivia on a divan, Weisz in an upholstered chair by the draped French door that led to the terrace. Oh it felt very good to Weisz, all this, after abandoned monasteries and smoky meeting halls. Very good indeed, better and better as the Ritz 75 went down. Basically a French 75, gin and champagne, named after the French 75-mm cannon of the Great War, and later a staple at the bar of the Stork Club. Bertin, the famous barman of the Ritz, added lemon juice and sugar and,
voilà,
the Ritz 75.
Voilà
indeed. Weisz loved all humankind, and his wit knew no bounds—delighted smiles from Olivia, toothy
har-har
s from Sparrow.

Twenty minutes later, the friend. Weisz had expected a Sparrow friend to be cast from the same mold, but this was not the case. The friend’s aura said
trade,
loud and clear, as he looked around the room, spotted their table, and ambled toward them. He was older than Sparrow by at least a decade, fattish and benign, a pipe clenched in his teeth, a slipover sweater worn beneath the jacket of a comfortable suit. “Sorry to be late,” he said as he arrived. “Damnedest gall I’ve ever seen, that cabman, drove me all around Paris.”

“Edwin Brown, this is Carlo Weisz,” Sparrow said proudly as they rose to greet the friend.

Brown was clearly pleased to meet him, his pleasure indicated by an emphatic “Hmmm!” spoken around the stem of his pipe as they shook hands. After he’d settled in his chair, he said, “I think you are a hell of a fine writer, Mr. Weisz. Did Sparrow tell you?”

“He did, and you’re kind to say it.”

“I’m right, is what I am, you can forget ‘kind.’ I always look for your byline, when they let you have one.”

“Thank you,” Weisz said.

They had to order a third round of cocktails, now that Mr. Brown had arrived. And, in Weisz, the spring of life burbled ever more happily. Olivia had a rosy blush on her cheeks and was somewhere well east of
tiddly,
laughed easily, met Weisz’s eyes, now and again. Excited, he sensed, more by the elegance of Le Petit Bar, the evening, Paris, than whatever she might see in him. When she laughed, she tilted her head back, and the soft light caught her pearl necklace.

Conversation wandered to the afternoon conference, Sparrow’s Tory sneer not so very far from Weisz’s amiable liberalism, and for Olivia it all began and ended with beards. Mr. Brown was rather more opaque, his political views apparently held in secrecy, though he was emphatically a Churchill man. Even quoted Winston, addressing Chamberlain and his colleagues on the occasion of the cowardly cave-in at Munich. “‘You were given a choice between shame and war. You have chosen shame, and you shall have war,’” adding, “And I’m sure you agree with that, Mr. Weisz.”