The World at Night (28 page)

There wasn’t any time to think. “I don’t know.”

“No?”

Casson shrugged. “I’m French—not British, not German. I simply want to live my life, and be left in peace.”

From Millau’s reaction Casson could tell he’d given the right answer. “And who would blame you for that, eh?” Millau said with feeling. “What got us into this situation in the first place was all these people meddling in politics. All we ever wanted in Germany was to be left alone, to get on with our lives. But, sadly, that was not to be, and you see what happened next. And, more to come.”

Casson’s expression was sympathetic. He realized that Millau possessed a very dangerous quality: he was likeable.

“We have no business fighting with England, I’ll tell you that,” Millau said. “Every week—I’m sure I’m not saying something you find surprising—there’s some kind of initiative; diplomatic, private, what have you. At the Vatican or in Stockholm. It’s just a matter of time and we’ll settle things between us. Our real business is in the east, with the Bolsheviks, and so is Britain’s business, and we’re just sorry that certain individuals in London are doing everything they can to keep us apart.”

“Hmm,” Casson said.

“So, that’s where you come in. My section, that is,
AMT
IV, is particularly concerned with terrorist operations, sabotage, bombing, assassination. We fear that elements within the British government plan to initiate such acts in France, a carefully organized campaign—and if a number of people die it is of no particular concern to them, they tend to be very liberal with French life.”

Millau made sure this had sunk in, then he said, “This isn’t a fantasy. We know it’s going to happen, and we believe they will contact you again. This time, we want you to accept. Do what they ask of you. And let us know about it.”

The brasserie was noisy, people talking and laughing, somebody was singing. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the aroma of grilled beef. Casson took his time, stubbing out the Gauloise in an ashtray. “Well,” he said.

“How about it?”

“Well, I don’t think they’ll actually approach me again,” Casson said. If Marie-Noëlle talked to them, he realized, he was finished. Would she? Considering what they did to people, would she? “I made it clear to them it wasn’t something I was going to do.”

“Yes,” Millau said softly, meaning that he understood. “But I’ll tell you what.” He smiled, conspiratorial and knowing. “I’ll bet you anything you care to name that they come back to you.”

3:20 A.M.

The music on his radio faded in and out—if he held the aerial he could hear it.
Adagio for Strings,
Samuel Barber. Coming in from far away. Outside it rained on and off, distant thunder muttering up in Normandy somewhere. The worst of the storm had come through earlier— on the way home from the Brasserie Heininger he’d had to take shelter in the Métro to avoid getting soaked, standing next to a woman in a sweater and skirt. “Just made it,” he’d said as the rain poured down.

“A little luck anyhow,” she’d agreed. “I have to go see somebody about a job tomorrow and this is what I have to wear.”

Oh, what kind of job—
but he didn’t.

They stood quietly, side by side, then the rain stopped and she left, swinging her hips as she climbed the staircase just so he would know what he’d missed. He knew. He lay on top of the covers in the darkness and listened to the violin. It would have been nice to have her with him; big, pale body rising and falling. But Citrine, I didn’t.

Good times they’d had in the Hotel du Parc. He’d been leaning against a wall, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. She told him he looked like a place Pigalle tough guy and he’d given her back the classic line,
“Tiens, montrez-moi ton cul.”
Show me your ass. In lycée, they used to wonder if M. Lepic, the Latin teacher, said that to Mme. Lepic on Saturday night.

Casson peered at his watch on the table beside the bed. A few minutes after three. What if he went out somewhere and called the hotel in Lyons—let it ring and ring until an infuriated manager answered.
This is the police. I want to speak with the woman in Room 28. Now!

Sirens. Air-raid sirens. Now what? Antiaircraft fire—to the north of the city, he thought. Like a drum, in deliberate time. Then he heard airplanes. He swung his legs off the bed, made certain the apartment was dark, went out on the terrace.

Searchlights, north of him, across the river. The AA guns working away, four or five beats to the measure, little yellow lights climbing to heaven. And, then, planes overhead, a lot of them, flying low, the drone hammering off the walls in the narrow rue Chardin. Across the street and down a little way, a couple in nightshirts out on their balcony, the woman with a fur stole thrown around her shoulders, gazing up at the sky. Then he saw others, the whole neighborhood was out.

To the north, bombs, close enough to hear the articulated explosions. Orange light stuttered against the sky—he could see clearly the dark undersides of rain clouds, like frozen smoke, lit by fires. The British are at work, he thought. Among the factories on the outskirts of the city. When the bombing faded to a rumble, fire sirens joined the air-raid sirens. Then the all-clear sounded, and the fire engines were joined by ambulances.

Casson got tired of standing on the terrace, sat against the wall just inside his living room. First edge of false dawn in the spring, the sky not so dark as it was, a few birds singing on the rooftops. The sirens had stopped, now there remained only a certain smell on the morning air. The smell of burning. He was falling asleep. Now that it was dawn, he could sleep, since whatever might come in the night would have to wait another day.

Then, Monday morning, when he got to the office at ten, Mireille had a message for him. “A woman telephoned, a Madame Detweiler.”

“Who?”

“The secretary of an officer called Guske. From the rue des Saussaies.”

“And?”

“She said to tell you that your
Ausweis
to go to the Vichy zone is under consideration, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a problem, and they will have a determination for you by May fifteenth. If you have any questions, you are encouraged to call
Obersturmbannführer
Guske.”

“Thank you, Mireille,” he said, and went into his office.

Was that good news, he wondered, or bad? After a moment he realized it wasn’t good or bad, it wasn’t anything. It was simply their way of talking to him. It was simply their way of telling him that they owned him.

THE SECRET AGENT

Casson stood on the balcony, just after midnight, and stared out over the jagged line of rooftops. The city was ghostly in blue lamplight, and very quiet. He could hear distant footsteps, and night birds singing in the parks. The preparation of an escape, he thought, whatever else it did, showed you your life from an angle of profound reality. Where to go. How to get there. Friends and money must be counted up, but then,
which
friends—who will really help? How much money? And, if you can’t get that, how much? And then, most of all, when? Because
these
doors, once you went through them, closed behind you.

There’s no question when, he told himself, the time is now. If it isn’t already too late.

A few things had to be settled before he left. He started Tuesday morning, getting in touch with Fischfang. This lately was not easy— messages left with shopkeepers, calls returned from public telephones—but by the end of the week they met at a vacant apartment out in the 19th, that looked out on the railyards.

The apartment was for rent, the landlord’s agent a plump little gentleman wearing an alpine hat with a brush. “Look around all you like, boys,” he said as he opened the door. “And as to the rent, they say I’m a reasonable man.” He winked, then trotted off down the staircase.

Fischfang was tense, shadows like bruises beneath his eyes, but very calm. Different. It was, Casson thought, the revolver. No longer kept in a drawer, perhaps worn under the arm, or in the belt—it had a certain logic of its own and changed the person who carried it.

And Fischfang hadn’t come alone, he had a friend—a helper or a bodyguard, something like that. Not French, from somewhere east of the Oder, somewhere out in Comintern land. Ivanic, he called himself. In his twenties, he was dark-eyed and pale, with two days’ growth of beard, wore a cap tilted down over sleepy eyes. He waited in the kitchen while Casson and Fischfang talked, hands clasped behind his head as he sat against a wall.

Casson gave Fischfang a lot of money, all he could. But, he thought, maybe it didn’t matter any more. Now that it was time to meet in vacant apartments, now that Ivanic had showed up, maybe the days of worrying about something as simple as money were over. Fischfang put the packet of francs away, reached inside his jacket, handed Casson a school notebook with a soft cover.

“New draft,” Fischfang said. “Though I somehow get the feeling,” he added ruefully, “that our little movie is slipping away into its own fog.”

Casson paged through the notebook. The scenes had been written in cafés, on park benches, or at kitchen tables late at night—spidery script densely packed on the lined paper, coffee-stained, blotted, and, Casson sensed, finely made. He could feel it as he skimmed the lines. It was autumn, a train pulled into a little station, the guests got off, their Paris clothes out of place in the seaside village. They went to the hotel, to their rooms, did what people did, said what they said—Casson looked up at Fischfang. “Pretty good?”

Fischfang thought a moment. “Maybe it is. I didn’t have too much time to think about it.”

“Not always the worst thing.”

“No, that’s true.”

Casson paced around the room. The apartment was filthy—it smelled like train soot, the floor was littered with old newspaper. On the wall by the door somebody had written in pencil,
E. We’ve gone to Montreuil.
In the railyard below the window, the switching engines were hard at work, couplings crashed as boxcars were shunted from track to track, then made up into long trains, Casson peered through the cloudy glass. Fischfang came and stood by his side. One freight train seemed just about ready to go, Casson counted a hundred and twenty cars, with tanks and artillery pieces under canvas, cattle wagons for the horses, and three locomotives. “Looks like somebody’s in for it,” he said.

“Russia, maybe. That’s the local wisdom. But, wherever it’s going, they won’t like it.”

“No.” Directly below them, a switching engine vented white steam with a loud hiss. “Who’s your friend?” Casson said quietly.

“Ivanic? I think he comes from the NKVD. He’s just waiting for the fighting to start, then he can go to work.”

“And you?”

“I’m his helper.”

Casson stared out at the railyard, clouds of gray smoke, the railwaymen in faded blue jackets and trousers.

“We all thought,” Fischfang said slowly, his voice almost a whisper, “that life would go on. But it won’t. Tell me, so much money, what does it mean, Jean-Claude?”

“I have to go away.”

Fischfang nodded slowly, he understood. “It’s best.”

“They’re after me,” Casson said.

Fischfang turned and stared at him for a moment. “After you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you do something?”

“Yes,” Casson said, after a moment. “Nothing much—and it didn’t work.”

Fischfang smiled. “Well then, good luck.”

They shook hands. “And to you.”

There was nothing else to say, Casson left the apartment, Ivanic watched him go.

That afternoon he went up to the Galéries Lafayette, the huge department store just north of Opéra. He found the buyers’ offices on the top floor and knocked on Véronique’s door. “Jean-Claude!” she said, pleased to see him. A tiny space, costume jewelry everywhere; spread across a desk, crowded on shelves that rose to the ceiling— wooden bracelets painted lustrous gold, shimmering glass diamonds in rings and earrings, ropes of glowing pearls. “The sultan’s treasure,” she said.

For herself she had great honesty of style—wore a black shirt with a green scarf tied at the neck. Short hair, clear eyes, a great deal of intelligence and a little bit of expensive perfume. “Let’s take a walk around the store,” she said.

They walked from room to room, past bridal gowns and evening gowns, floral housedresses and pink bathrobes. “Have you heard about Arnaud and his wife?” she said.

“No. What’s happened?”

“I had lunch with Marie-Claire yesterday, she told me they weren’t living together. He moved out.”

“Why is that? They always seemed to have, a good arrangement.”

Véronique shrugged. “Who knows,” she said gloomily. “I think it’s the Occupation. Lately the smallest thing, and everything comes apart.”

It was busy in the luggage department—fine leather and brass fittings from the ancient saddlery ateliers of Paris. A crowd of German soldiers, businessmen with their wives, a few Japanese naval officers.

“Véronique,” he said. “I need to go south again.”