Mission to Paris

GERMAN MONEY

In Paris, the evenings of September are sometimes warm, excessively gentle, and, in the magic particular to that city, irresistibly seductive. The autumn of the year 1938 began in just such weather and on the terraces of the best cafes, in the famous restaurants, at the dinner parties one wished to attend, the conversation was, of necessity, lively and smart: fashion, cinema, love affairs, politics, and, yes, the possibility of war — that too had its moment. Almost anything, really, except money. Or, rather, German money. A curious silence, for hundreds of millions of francs — tens of millions of dollars — had been paid to some of the most distinguished citizens of France since Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933. But maybe not so curious, because those who had taken the money were aware of a certain shadow in these transactions and, in that shadow, the people who require darkness for the kind of work they do.

The distinguished citizens, had they been willing to talk about it, would have admitted that the Germans, the political operatives who offered the bounty, were surprisingly adept. They knew how to soften a conscience, presented bribery as little more than a form of sophisticated commerce, of the sort that evolves in salons and offices and the private rooms of banks — a gentleman’s treason. And the operatives could depend on one hard-edged principle: that those who style themselves as men of the world know there is an iron fist in every velvet glove, understand what might await them in the shadows and so, having decided to play the game, they will obey its rules.

Still, human nature being what it is, there will forever be somebody, won’t there, who will not.

One such, on the fourteenth of September, was a rising political star called Prideaux. Had he been in Paris that evening, he would have been having drinks at Fouquet with a Spanish marquis, a diplomat, after which he could have chosen between two good dinner parties: one in the quarter clustered around the Palais Bourbon, the other in a lovely old mansion up in Passy. It was destiny, Prideaux believed, that he spend his evenings in such exalted places. And, he thought, if fucking destiny had a shred of mercy left in its cold heart he would just now be hailing a taxi. Fucking destiny, however, had other things in mind for the future and didn’t care a bit what became of Prideaux.

Who felt, in his heart, terribly wronged. This shouldn’t be happening to him, not to him, the famously clever Louis Prideaux, chef de cabinet — technically chief of staff but far more powerful than that — to an important senator in Paris. Well, it had happened. As tout Paris left for the August migration to the countryside, Prideaux had been forced to admit that his elegant world was doomed to collapse (expensive mistress, borrowed money, vengeful wife) and so he’d fled, desperate for a new life, finding himself on the night of the fourteenth in Varna, the Black Sea port of Bulgaria. Bulgaria! Prideaux fell back on his lumpy bed at a waterfront hotel, crushed by loss: the row of beautiful suits in his armoire, the apartment windows that looked out at the Seine, the slim, white hands of his aristocratic — by birth, not behaviour — mistress. All gone, all gone. For a moment he actually contemplated weeping but then his fingers, dangling over the side of the bed, touched the supple leather of his valise. For Prideaux, the life preserver in a stormy sea: a million francs. A soothing, restorative, million, francs.

This money, German money, had been meant for the senator, so that he might influence the recommendation of a defence committee, which had for some time been considering a large outlay for construction on the northern extension of the Maginot Line. Up into Belgium, the Ardennes forest, where the Germans had attacked in 1914. A decision of such magnitude, he would tell the committee, should not be made precipitously, it needed more time, it should be studied, pros and cons worked through by technicians who understood the whole complicated business. Later, the committee would decide. Was it not wise to delay a little? That’s what the people of France demanded of them: not rash expenditure, wisdom.

All that August, Prideaux had temporized: what to do? The suitcase of money for the senator had reached Prideaux by way of a prominent hostess, a German baroness named von Reschke, who’d settled in Paris a few years earlier and, using wealth and connection, had become the ruling despot of one of the loftiest salons in the city. The baroness spent the summer at her chateau near Versailles and there, in the drawing room, had handed Prideaux an envelope. Inside, a claim ticket for the baggage office at the Gare de Lyon railway station. ‘This is for you-know-who,’ she’d said, ever the coquette, flirting with the handsome Prideaux. He’d collected the suitcase and hidden it under a couch, where it gave off a magnetic energy — he could feel its presence. Its potential.

The senator was in Cap Ferrat, wouldn’t return until the third of September, and Prideaux sweated through hot August nights of temptation. Sometimes he thought he might resist, but the forces of catastrophe were waiting and they wouldn’t wait long: his wife’s ferocious lawyer, the shady individuals who’d loaned him money when the banks no longer would, and his cruel mistress, whose passion was kindled by expensive wines with expensive dinners and expensive jewellery to wear at the table. When unappeased she was cold, no bed. And while what happened in that bed was the best thing that had ever happened to Prideaux, it would soon be only a memory.

He had to escape before it all came crashing down on him. Take the money, Prideaux’s devil whispered. The Germans have more where that came from. Go to, say, Istanbul, where a perfect new identity could be purchased. Then, on to exotic climes — Alexandria? Johannesburg? Quebec? A visit to a travel agency revealed that a Greek freighter, the Olympios, took on a few passengers at the Bulgarian port of Varna, easily reached by train from Paris. Stay? Or go? Prideaux couldn’t decide but then, after an exceptionally uncomfortable telephone call from one of his creditors, he took the money and ran. Before anyone came looking for him.

But they were looking for him. In fact, they’d found him.

The senator had been approached on September fifth, in his office. No, the package hadn’t arrived, was there a problem? His chef de cabinet was up at Deauville, he had telephoned and would return in a few days. The committee meeting? The senator consulted his calendar, that would be on the eleventh. Surely, by then…

In Berlin, at von Ribbentrop’s Foreign Ministry, the people at the political warfare bureau found this news troubling, and spoke to the bribery people, who were very troubled indeed. So much so that, just to make sure, they got in touch with a dependable friend, a detective at the Surete Nationale — the French security service — and asked him to lend a hand. For the detective, an easy job. Prideaux wasn’t in Deauville, according to his concierge, he was staying indoors. The concierge rubbed her thumb across the pads of her index and middle fingers and raised an eyebrow — money, it meant. And that gesture did it. At the Foreign Ministry they had a meeting and, by day’s end, a discussion — not at the ministry! — with Herbert.

Slim, well-dressed, quiet, Herbert made no particular impression on anybody he met, probably he was some kind of businessman, though he never quite got around to saying what he did. Perhaps you’d meet him again, perhaps you wouldn’t, it didn’t particularly matter. He circulated comfortably at the mid-level of Berlin society, turning up here and there, invited or not — what could you do, you couldn’t ask him to leave. Anyhow, nobody ever did, and he was always pleasant. There were, however, a few individuals in Berlin — those with uncommonly sharp instincts, those who somehow heard interesting things — who met Herbert only once. They didn’t precisely avoid him, not overtly, they just weren’t where he was or, if they were, they soon had to be elsewhere and, all courtesy, vanished.

What did they know? They didn’t know much, in fact they’d better not. Because Herbert had a certain vocation, supposedly secret to all but those who made use of his services. Exceptional services: silent, and efficient. For example, surveillance on Prideaux was in place within hours of Herbert’s meeting with his contact at the Foreign Ministry, and Prideaux was not entirely alone as he climbed aboard the first of the trains that would take him to Varna. Where Herbert, informed of Prideaux’s booking on the Olympios, awaited him. Herbert and his second-in-command, one Lothar, had hired a plane and pilot and flown to an airfield near Varna a night earlier and, on the evening of the fourteenth, they called off their associates and sent them back to wherever they came from. The Greek freighter was not expected at the dock until the sixteenth and would likely be late, so Prideaux wasn’t going anywhere.

He really wasn’t.

Which meant Herbert and Lothar could relax. For a while, at least, as only one final task lay ahead of them and they had a spare hour or two. Why not have fun in the interim? They had a contact scheduled at a local nightclub and so went looking for it, working their way through a maze of dockside streets; dark, twisting lanes decorated with broken glass and scented with urine, where in time they came upon an iron door beneath a board that said UNCLE BORIS. Inside, Herbert handed the maitre d’ a fistful of leva notes and the one-eyed monster showed them to a table in the corner, said something amusing in Bulgarian, laughed, made as though to slap Herbert on the back, then didn’t. The two Germans settled in to drink mastika and enjoy the show, keeping an eye on the door as they awaited the appearance of their ‘brute’, as they playfully referred to him. Their brute for this operation; Herbert rarely used them more than once.

Lothar was fiftyish, fat and jolly, with tufts of dark red hair and a red face. Like Herbert, he’d been a junior officer during the Great War, the 1914 war, but they never met in the trenches — with five million men under arms an unlikely possibility — but found each other later, in one of the many veterans’ organizations that formed in Germany after the defeat of 1918. They fought a little more in the 1920s, after joining a militia, killing off the communists who were trying to take over the country. By the early 1930s Herbert had discovered his true vocation and enlisted Lothar as his second-in-command. A wise choice — Lothar was all business when it mattered but he was also good company. As the nightclub show unfolded, he nudged Herbert with an elbow and rumbled with baritone laughter.

In a space cleared of chairs and tables, a novelty act from somewhere in the Balkans: a two-man canvas horse that danced and capered, the front and rear halves in perfect harmony. Done well, this was by itself entertaining, but what made it memorable was a girl, in scanty, spangled costume, who played the accordion as she stood centre stage on a pair of very sexy legs. The men in the club found them enticing, bare and shapely, as did the canvas horse, which danced nearer and nearer to the girl, the head lunging and feinting as though to nuzzle her thighs, then turning to the audience: Shall I?

Oh yes! The shouts were in Bulgarian but there was no question of what they meant. ‘Will it have her?’ Herbert said.

‘I should think so,’ Lothar said. ‘Otherwise people will throw things.’

The one-eyed monster brought fresh mastika, the shouts grew louder, the accordion played on. At last, the horse found its courage and, having galloped around the girl a few times, stood behind her on its hind legs with its hooves on her shoulders. The girl never missed a beat but then, when the horse covered her breasts with its hooves, and to the absolute delight of the audience, she blushed, her face turning pink, her eyes closing. As the horse began to move in a rhythmic manner familiar to all.

A little after ten o’clock, a white-haired man with a skull for a face entered the nightclub and peered around the room. When Herbert beckoned to him he approached the table and stood there a moment while the attentive one-eyed monster brought a chair and an extra glass. ‘You would be Aleksey?’ Herbert said. ‘The Russian?’

‘That’s right.’ German was the second language of eastern Europe and Aleksey seemed comfortable speaking it.

‘General Aleksey?’

‘So I’m called — there are many other Alekseys. How did you recognize me?’

‘My associate in Belgrade sent me a photograph.’

‘I don’t remember him taking a photograph.’

Herbert’s shrug was eloquent, they did what they wanted to do. ‘In security work,’ he said, ‘it’s important to take precautions.’

‘Yes, of course it is,’ Aleksey said, letting them know he wasn’t intimidated.

‘Your contract with us calls for payment in Swiss francs, once you’ve done your job, is that right?’

‘Yes. Two thousand Swiss francs.’

‘If I may ask,’ Herbert said, ‘of what army a general?’

‘The Russian army, the Czar’s army. Not the Bolsheviks.’

‘So, after 1917, you emigrated to Belgrade.’

‘“Emigrated” is barely the word. But, yes, I went to Belgrade, to the emigre community there. Fellow Slavs, the Serbians, all that.’

‘Do you have with you… what you’ll need?’

‘Yes. Small but dependable.’

‘With silencer?’

‘As you ordered.’

‘Good. My colleague and I are going out for a while, when we return it will be time for you to do your work. You’ve done it before, we’re told.’

‘I’ve done many things, as I don’t care to sweep floors, and Belgrade has more than enough emigre taxi drivers.’ He paused a moment, then said, ‘So…’

From Herbert, a nod of approval. To the question he’d asked, an oblique answer was apparently the preferred answer. As General Aleksey poured himself some mastika, Herbert met Lothar’s eyes and gestured towards the door. To Aleksey he said, ‘We have an errand to run, when we return we’ll tell you where to go. Meanwhile, the floor show should start up again any time now, you may find it amusing.’

‘How long will you be gone?’

‘Not too long,’ Herbert said, rising to leave.

Prideaux had packed in a hurry, forgetting his pyjama bottoms, and now wore the top and his underdrawers. Alone in a foreign city, he was terribly bored, by ten in the evening had read, for the third time, his last French newspaper. He was also hungry — the desk clerk had brought him a plate of something that couldn’t be eaten — so smoked the last of his Gitanes followed by the first of a packet he’d bought at the Varna railway station. Surely he couldn’t go anywhere; a night-time tour of the Varna waterfront with a million francs in a valise was an invitation to disaster. Stretching out on the bed, he stared at the ceiling, tried not to recall his former life, and fantasized about his new one. Rich and mysterious, he drew the attention of women…

A reverie interrupted by two hesitant taps on the door. Now what? Somebody from the hotel; if he remained quiet, perhaps they would go away. They didn’t. Thirty seconds later, more taps. He rose from the bed and considered putting on his trousers but thought, who cares what servants see? and stayed as he was. Standing at the door, he said, ‘Who is it?’

‘The desk clerk, sir.’

‘What do you want?’

No answer. Out in the harbour, a ship sounded its horn. From the room above, the floorboards creaked as somebody moved about. Finally, whoever was in the hall again tapped on the door. Prideaux opened it. The man in the hallway was slim and well dressed and not a desk clerk. Gently but firmly, the man pushed the door open, then closed it behind him as he entered the room. ‘Monsieur Prideaux?’ he said. ‘May we speak for a moment?’ His French was correct, his accent barbaric. He looked around for a chair but there was no such thing to be found, not in this room, so he settled at the foot of the bed while Prideaux sat by the headboard.

Prideaux’s heart was beating hard, and he hoped desperately that this was something other than what he suspected. ‘You’re not the desk clerk, sir.’

Herbert, his expression on the mournful side, shook his head slowly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am not.’

‘Then who are you?’ But for the whine in his voice, this would have been indignant.

Herbert said, ‘Think of me as a courier.’

‘A what?’

‘A courier. I’ve come here to recover something that belongs to us — it certainly doesn’t belong to you.’

Prideaux looked puzzled. ‘What are you talking about?’

Herbert, no more than slightly irritated, simply said, ‘Please.’

‘I don’t know what you want, sir, I simply got fed up with life in Paris and came down here. How does that concern you, whoever you are?’

Herbert turned towards the window — this was growing tiresome. ‘I hope there’s no need for violence, Monsieur Prideaux, my associates are downstairs but please don’t force me to bring them up here. Better that way, believe me. I am, as I said, a courier, and my instructions are to take the money you’ve stolen back to Berlin. After that, we don’t care what you do or where you go, it doesn’t concern us.’

Prideaux collapsed very slowly; the hauteur in his expression drained away, his shoulders slumped, and finally his head lowered so that he stared at the floor.

Herbert took no pleasure in this — a show of humiliation was, to him, unbearable weakness. And what might come next, he wondered. Tears? Hysterics? Aggression? Whatever it might be, he didn’t want to see it. ‘I’m sure,’ he said, his voice reaching for sympathy, ‘there was a reason. There’s always a reason.’

Prideaux started to rise, but Herbert stood up quickly, raised a hand like a traffic policeman stopping a car, and a defeated Prideaux sat obediently back down on the bed. Herbert stayed on his feet, stared at Prideaux for a moment, then said, ‘Monsieur Prideaux, I think it will be easier for both of us if you simply tell me where the money is. Really, much easier.’

It took a few seconds — Prideaux had to get control of himself — then he said, so quietly that Herbert could only just hear the words, ‘Under the bed.’

Herbert slid the valise from beneath the bed, undid the buckles, and peered inside. ‘Where are your personal things?’ he said.

Prideaux gestured towards another valise, standing open at the foot of the bed.

‘Did you put any of the money in there? Have you spent some of it? Or is it all, every franc of it, in here? Best now to be truthful.’

‘It’s all there,’ Prideaux said.

Herbert closed the valise and pulled the straps tight. ‘Well, we’ll see. I’m going to take this money away and count it and, if you’ve been honest with me I’ll be back, and I’ll give you a few hundred francs — at least something for wherever you’re going next. Shall I tell you why?’

Prideaux, staring at the floor, didn’t answer.

‘It’s because people like you can be useful, in certain situations, and people like you never have enough money. So, when such people help us out, with whatever we might need, we are always generous. Very generous indeed.’

Herbert let this sink in. It took some time, but Prideaux eventually said, ‘What if I’m… far away?’

Herbert smiled. Prideaux’s eyes were cast down so he didn’t see the smile, which was just as well. ‘Monsieur Prideaux,’ Herbert said, as though he were saying poor Monsieur Prideaux, ‘there is no such thing as far away.’ Then he stepped into the hall and drew the door shut behind him.

Herbert left Lothar to watch the hotel, likely unnecessary but why take chances. Prideaux, he thought, had taken the bait and would remain where he was. Herbert then returned to the nightclub, told General Aleksey where to find Prideaux and described him, in his pyjama top and underdrawers. Thirty minutes later, as the canvas horse capered and danced to the music of the accordion, Lothar and the Russian returned. Herbert counted out two thousand Swiss francs, General Aleksey put the money in his pocket, wished them a pleasant evening, and walked out the door.

10 September, 1938. In Berlin, the Ribbentropburo — the political warfare department named for Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop — had its offices in the Reich Foreign Ministry at 3, Wilhelmstrasse. Senior bureaucrats from the ministry liked to take a morning coffee in the dining room of the vast and luxurious Hotel Kaiserhof, on the nearby Wilhelmplatz. This was especially true of the Deputy Director of the Ribbentropburo, who could be found, at seven in the morning, at his customary table in the corner, his sombre blue suit vivid against the background of shining white tablecloths.

The Deputy Director, an SS major, had formerly been a junior professor of social sciences, particularly anthropology, at the University of Dresden. He was an exceptionally bright fellow, with sharp black eyes and sharp features — it was sometimes said of him, privately, that he had a face like an axe. This feature did him no harm, it made him look smart, and you had to be smart to succeed in the political warfare business; you had to understand your enemy’s history, his culture, and, most of all, his psychology.

The Deputy Director’s morning ritual made him accessible to junior staff, of the courageous and ambitious sort, who dared to approach him at his table. This was dangerous, because the Deputy Director did not suffer fools gladly, but it could be done and, if done successfully, might move the underling one rung up the very steep ladder of advancement within the bureau. On the morning of the tenth, a fresh-faced young man carrying a briefcase presented himself to the Deputy Director and was invited to sit down and have a cup of coffee.

After they’d spent a few minutes on the weather and the state of the world, the young man said, ‘A most interesting document has found its way to my desk.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, sir. I thought it worth bringing to your attention.’

‘And it is…?’

The young man reached into his briefcase and brought out a press clipping. ‘I have it here, with a translation — the document is in English.’

‘I read English,’ said the Deputy Director. He then snapped his fingers and extended a hand to receive the interesting document.

‘It’s taken from the Hollywood newspaper called Variety,’ the young man said as the Deputy Director glanced at the clipping. ‘And reports that the movie actor Fredric Stahl is coming to Paris to make a film.’

‘He is influential? In America?’

‘Not really, he’s just an actor, but I believe we can make use of him once he gets to Paris. He will surely receive attention from the French newspapers and the radio.’

The Deputy Director finished reading the release and handed it back to the young man. ‘What do you propose?’

‘To put him on the list maintained by our French section.’

‘Very well, you may add him to the list, and make sure that what’s-his-name who runs the section does something about it.’

‘You mean Herr Hoff, sir.’

‘Yes, Hoff. Have him work up a background study, all the usual items.’

‘I’ll do that, sir, as soon as I return to the office.’

14 September.

After midnight, the liner Ile de France rising and falling on the mid-Atlantic swell, a light sea breeze, the stars a million diamonds spread across a black sky. And, Stahl thought, a woman in my arms. Or at least by his side. They lay together on a deck chair, she in formal gown, he in tuxedo, the warmth of her body welcome on the chilly night, the soft weight of her breast, resting gently against him, a promise that wouldn’t be kept but a sweet promise just the same. Edith, he thought. Or was it Edna? He wasn’t sure so would avoid using her name, perhaps call her… what? Well, not my dear, anything was better than that, which he found stilted and pretentious though God knew he’d said it a few times. Said it because he’d had to, it was written so in the script and he was Fredric Stahl, yes, the Hollywood movie star, that Fredric Stahl, and he’d made a fortune using phrases like my dear, which melted the hearts of women from coast to coast when spoken in his faintly foreign accent.

Thus Warner Bros. ‘Why not Fredric Stahl, hunh? With that European accent?’ And just how hard he’d worked to get that accent right they’d never know. He certainly wasn’t alone in this; the English Archie Leach had become Cary Grant by sounding like a sophisticated gent from the east coast, while the Hungarian Peter Lorre developed a voice — insinuating, oily, and menacing — that suggested vaguely Continental origin.

‘Penny for your thoughts,’ the woman said.

‘Such a beautiful night,’ he said.

She moved closer to him, the gin on her breath strong in his nostrils. ‘Who would’ve thought you’d be so nice?’ she said. ‘I mean, in person.’ In response, he put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her a little.

They’d met on the night the Ile de France sailed from New York, at the captain’s table in the first-class dining room. A long-suffering, pretty wife she was, her husband three sheets to the wind when they appeared for dinner. Soon he announced, in the middle of someone else’s story, that he owned a Cadillac dealership in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. ‘That’s on the Main Line, in case you don’t know.’ By the third night his table companions knew very well indeed, because he kept repeating it, and at last his wife, Edith, maybe Edna, dealt with the situation by taking him back to their cabin. She then reappeared and when, after dessert, Stahl said he was going for a walk on deck, she caught up to him at the portholed doors to the dining room and said, ‘Can I come along for the walk, Mr. Stahl?’ They walked, smoked, leaned on the rail, sometimes she held her hair back to keep it from blowing around. Finally he found a deck chair — the sling in French Line colours, the footrest polished teak — and they snuggled down together to enjoy the night at sea.

‘Tell me, umm, where are you going in Europe?’ he said.

‘It’s Iris — I bet you forgot.’

‘I won’t again.’

‘Paree,’ she said. ‘Brussels, Amsterdam, Geneva, Rome, Vienna. There’s more, oh, ah, Venice. I’m still forgetting one.’

‘Maybe Budapest.’

‘Nooo, I don’t think so.’

‘Berlin?’

‘That’s it!’

After a moment, Stahl said, ‘You’ll see a lot.’

‘Where are you going, Mr. Stahl?’

‘Just to Paris, to make a movie. And please call me Fredric.’

‘Oh, is that all? “Just to Paris”? “To make a movie”?’ A ladylike snort followed. She was already writing the postcard. You’ll never guess who I… ‘Are you French, Fredric?’

‘I was born in Vienna, wandered about the world for a time, lived and worked in Paris, then, in the summer of 1930, Hollywood. I’m an American now.’ He paused, then said, ‘Tell me, Iris, when you planned the trip, did you think about the politics, in Europe?’

‘Oh who cares — they’re always squabbling over something. You can’t go to Spain, ’cause there’s a war there, you know. Otherwise I expect the castles are all open, and the restaurants.’

He could hear approaching footsteps on the iron deck, then a ship’s officer flicked a torch beam over them, touched the brim of his cap and said, ‘ Bonsoir, Madame, Monsieur.’

‘What’s it called, your movie?’

‘ Apres la Guerre. That would be After the War, in English. It takes place in 1918, at the end of the war.’

‘Will it play in Bryn Mawr?’

‘Maybe it will. I hope so.’

‘Well, we can always go to Philadelphia to see it, if we have to.’

It was true that he’d ‘wandered about the world’. The phrase suggested romance and adventure — something like that had appeared in a Warner Bros. publicity bio — but it didn’t tell the whole story. In fact, he’d run away to sea at the age of sixteen. He was also not really ‘Fredric Stahl’, had been born Franz Stalka, forty years earlier in Vienna, to a Slovenian father and an Austrian mother of solidly bourgeois families resident in Austria-Hungary for generations. His father was beyond strict; the rigid, fearsome lord of the family, a tyrant with a face like an angry prune. Thus Stahl grew up in a world of rules and punishments — there was hardly a moment in his early life when he wasn’t in trouble for doing something wrong. He had two older brothers, obedient little gentlemen and utterly servile — ‘Yes, papa,’ ‘As you wish, papa’ — who studied for hours and did well in private academies. He had also a younger sister, Klara, and if he was the bad boy of the family, she was the angel and Stahl adored her. A beautiful little angel, with her mother’s good looks. Inherited, as well, by the boy who would become an actor and take a new name.

It was said of him by those who made a living in the business of faces and bodies that he was ‘a very masculine actor’. Stahl wasn’t sure precisely what they meant, but he knew they were rich and not for nothing. It referred, he suspected, to a certain inner confidence, expressed by, among other things, a low-pitched voice — assurance, not just a bass register — from an actor who always sounded ‘quiet’ no matter how loudly he spoke. He could play the sympathetic lawyer, the kind aristocrat, the saintly husband, the comforting doctor, or the good lover — the knight not the gigolo.

His hair was dark, combed back from a high, noble forehead which rose from deep-set eyes. Cold grey eyes — the grey was cold, the eyes were warm: receptive and expressive. Just enough grey in those eyes for black-and-white film, and even better — it turned out to his great relief — in technicolour. His posture was relaxed — hands in pockets for Stahl was not a weak gesture — and his physique appropriate for the parts he played. He’d been scrawny as a boy but two years as an Ordinary Seaman, scraping rust, painting decks, had put just enough muscle on him so he could be filmed wearing a bathing suit. He couldn’t punch another man, he wasn’t Clark Gable, and he couldn’t fight a duel, he was not Errol Flynn. But neither was he Charles Boyer — he wasn’t so sophisticated. Mostly he played a warm man in a cold world. And, if all his movies were taken together, Fredric Stahl was not somebody you knew, but somebody you would very much like to know.

In fact he was good at his profession — had two Oscar nominations, one for Supporting Actor, the other for the lead in Summer Storm — and very much in control of gesture and tone but, beyond skill, he had the single, inexplicable quality of the star actor or actress. When he was on screen, you couldn’t take your eyes off him.

Stahl shifted slightly in the deck chair, the damp was beginning to reach him and he had to suppress a shiver. And, he sensed, the weather was turning — sometimes the ship’s bow hit the oncoming wave with a loud smack. ‘We might just have a storm,’ he said. It was, he thought, time to get Iris back where she belonged, the cuddling had devloped a certain familiar edge.

‘A storm?’ she said. ‘Oh, I hope not. I’m afraid I’ll get seasick.’

‘You’ll be fine. Just remember: don’t stay in your cabin, go someplace where you can keep your eyes on the horizon.’

‘Is it that easy?’

‘Yes. I spent two years at sea, that’s how I know.’

‘ You? A sailor?’

He nodded. ‘I ran away to sea when I was sixteen.’

‘Your poor mom!’

‘I wrote them a letter,’ he said. ‘I went to Hamburg, and for a month all I did was sweep out the union hall, but then a Dutch ship needed a deckhand and I signed on and saw the world — Shanghai, Batavia, Calcutta…’ This had been the purest possible luck; Stahl had gone to sea in the spring of 1914, before the war, on what by chance was the ship of a country that remained neutral, thus he was spared service for the enemies of Austria-Hungary.

‘Say, you’ve had some adventures, haven’t you,’ she said.

‘I did. In 1916 we were shelled and set on fire, just off the coast of Spain. An Italian destroyer did that.’

‘But, you said “neutral”…’

‘We never knew why they did it. Exuberance, maybe, we didn’t ask. But we managed to reach the port of Barcelona, where I got help from the Austrian legation. They could have sent me off to fight in the trenches, but instead they gave me a job, and that was my military service.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I opened the mail. Made sure it got to the right people.’

She started to ask a question, but then a gust of wind hit her and she said ‘Brrr’ and burrowed against Stahl, close enough now that her voice was soft. ‘So,’ she said, lingering on the word, ‘when did you decide to become an actor?’

‘A little later, when I was back in Vienna.’ The Ile de France lifted and fell, hitting another wave. ‘I think, Iris, it might be time for you to go back to your cabin, your husband’s probably beginning to wonder where you are.’

‘Oh, Jack sleeps like a log when he’s drunk.’

Nonetheless, she wasn’t coming to Stahl’s cabin. She didn’t really want to, Stahl felt, maybe she wanted to be asked. But, in any event, what he didn’t need was a public row with some lush over a wife’s shipboard infidelity. With certain actors, Warner Bros. wouldn’t have cared, but not Fredric Stahl. He put a hand on her cheek and turned her face towards him. ‘One kiss, Iris, and then back to our cabins.’

The kiss was dry, and tender, and went on for a time because they both enjoyed it.

The storm came full force after midnight, the liner pitching and rolling in heavy seas. Stahl woke up, grumbled at the weather, and went back to sleep. When he left his cabin in the morning, the exquisite art deco carpets had been covered with rolls of brown paper and, up on deck, the sky was heavy with dark cloud and every wave sent spray flying over the bow. Returning to his cabin after a long walk, he found the ship’s daily news bulletin slipped beneath the door. The French Line wishes you good morning. Temperature at 0600 hours 53°. The Paris weather 66° and partly cloudy. The 1938 Salon d’Automne will open 5 October at the Grand Palais in Paris. The International Surrealist Exhibition remains open at the Galerie des Beaux-Arts, 60 artists, including Marcel Duchamp, and 300 works, including Salvador Dali’s ‘Rainy Taxi’. Yesterday at the European Championships in Paris, the Finnish runner Taisto Maki set a new record in the 10,000 metre race, 29 minutes, 52 seconds. The British Prime Minister Chamberlain goes to Berchtesgaden today for consultations on the Sudeten issue with Reichs Chancellor Hitler. In Hollywood, filming has begun on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ with Buddy Ebsen, allergic to his costume, replaced by Jack Haley. Great Britain has ordered its fleet at Invergordon to alert status. Pittsburgh halfback Whizzer White, injured in a loss to the Eagles, has said he will play against the NY Giants on Friday. The first-class shuffleboard tournament has been postponed until 1400 hours tomorrow.

It was dusk when the Ile de France docked at Le Havre, and a brass band greeted the passengers at the foot of the first-class gangway. A band made up, according to the fancy writing on a giant bass drum, of municipal sanitation workers. Wearing blue uniforms and caps, working away at a spirited march, they could surely not all have been short and stocky with black moustaches, but that was Stahl’s impression. As he stepped onto the pier, a shout rose above the cornets and trombones. ‘ Mr. Stahl! Fredric Stahl! ’ Who was this? Or, rather, where was he? He was, Stahl now saw, attached to a hand waving frantically above the heads of people waiting to meet the passengers.

With difficulty, the man wormed his way through the crowd and stood in front of Stahl. He was not much over five feet tall, with a hook nose and a beaming smile, nattily dressed in a tan double-breasted suit. What remained of his hair was arranged in strands across his head and plastered down with oil. Reaching up, he grasped Stahl’s hand, gave it an enthusiastic pump, and said, ‘Welcome to France, I am Zolly!’ When Stahl didn’t react he added, ‘ Zolly Louis, the Warner man in Paris!’ His accent was from somewhere well east of the dock in Le Havre.

‘Hello, Zolly, thanks for meeting me,’ Stahl said.

Then the flashbulbs went off. The floating lights of the afterimages made it difficult for Stahl to see much of anything, but he didn’t need to see. Instinctively, he turned his head slightly to the left, to show his right, his better, side, and his face broke into an amiable smile, accompanied by a raised hand seemingly caught in mid-wave. A voice called out, ‘Over to here, Mis-ter Stahl.’ Stahl turned towards the voice and, blind as a bat, smiled away.

‘He speaks French, boys,’ Zolly called out. Then, an aside to Stahl, ‘I made sure the press got here.’

A man with a small notebook appeared from the after-image. ‘Jardine, of Le Matin,’ he said in French. ‘How was your voyage?’

‘I enjoyed every minute of it,’ Stahl said. ‘The Ile de France is a fine ship, one of the best. Luxurious, and fast.’

‘Any storms?’

Stahl shook his head, dismissing the idea. ‘A smooth voyage in every way. Maybe I ate a little more than I should have, but I couldn’t resist.’

Now a different voice: ‘Would you say something about your new movie?’

‘It’s called Apres la Guerre, being made for Paramount France and produced by Monsieur Jules Deschelles.’

‘You know Monsieur Deschelles?’

Zolly cleared his throat.

‘By reputation,’ Stahl said. ‘He is well regarded in Hollywood.’

‘This movie,’ Jardine of Le Matin said, ‘is it about the, ah, futility of war?’

‘You might say that,’ Stahl said, then, as he considered going on, Zolly said, ‘That’s enough, boys. He’ll be available for interviews, but right now Mr. Stahl would like to get to Paris as soon as possible.’

As the photographers took a few more shots, working around to get the Ile de France as background, a beautiful girl appeared at Stahl’s side, firmly taking his arm and smiling for the cameras. Stahl’s expression didn’t change but, out of the corner of his mouth, he said, ‘Who the hell is this?’

‘No idea,’ Zolly said. As he led Stahl away from the crowd, the Warner man in Paris glanced back over his shoulder. Winked? At the young woman he’d promised…? This was all in Stahl’s imagination, but it was a highly experienced and accurate imagination.

Zolly Louis had a car and driver waiting on the pier. Since Stahl had already cleared customs and border control — the passports of first-class travellers were stamped in their staterooms — and his baggage would be delivered to his hotel, he was free to head south to Paris. The car was stunning, a grand four-door sedan that glowed pearlescent silver, with the graceful curve and sweep of an aerodynamic masterpiece. Curiously, the steering wheel was set in the centre of the dashboard, so a passenger could sit on either side of the driver.

Who, Stahl thought, certainly looked like a relative of Zolly Louis — similar height, and a similar face, except for a thin moustache. ‘Meet your new driver,’ Zolly said. ‘My nephew, Jimmy.’ Handing Stahl a business card, Zolly said, ‘Call him anytime.’ Jimmy, sitting on a pile of seat cushions, nodded to Stahl — bowed might have been a better description — and said in English, ‘So pleased to meet you, sir,’ one word at a time.

Zolly opened the rear door for Stahl, climbed in behind him, and said, ‘Now we go. To the Claridge, Jimmy, and make it snappy.’

The Hotel Claridge, on the rue Francois 1er, was not at all where Stahl wanted to stay but somebody in Paris had made the reservation and Stahl hadn’t complained. The Claridge was where rich Englishmen took suites, close to the Champs-Elysees, a quartier of fancy cinemas, overpriced restaurants, and hordes of tourists. Stahl meant to find somewhere else as soon as he could.

As they left the pier, Zolly said, ‘How about this car?’

‘Very impressive,’ Stahl said.

‘The 1938 Panhard Dynamic,’ Zolly said. ‘It’s all the rage in Paris.’

The lights of Le Havre soon faded away behind them, replaced by the rolling fields of the night-time countryside. When Stahl lowered his window and inhaled the scent of it — damp earth, newly cut hay, a hint of pig manure — he was taken with a sudden rising of the spirit. And the more he inhaled this fragrant air, the better he felt, as though some part of his being had lain dormant in California but had now come back to life. Perhaps I have a French soul, he thought, and it knows it’s home. Home at that moment was a starless night, a steady wind, not a human to be seen. Except, now and again, a sleeping village; stone houses with closed shutters, the local cafe — a dimly lit window with figures gathered at a bar — then farm fields again, divided by ancient trees and tangled underbrush. Le Havre was only two hours from Paris but the land between was France, dark and silent and very old.

It was quiet in the car, even with the window down, only the hum of the engine and the brush of tyres on the road. Stahl, in a pensive mood, lit a cigarette — on the boat he’d changed over to Gauloises, replacing his Lucky Strikes — and thought about a conversation they’d had as they began their journey. It was no more than genial chitchat, making the time pass, which began in English but changed soon enough to French. Zolly Louis was rather a different individual when he spoke French. English for Zolly was the language of the promo man, the salesman, the drummer, whereas in French he was close to circumspect. The way Stahl put it to himself, Zolly Louis spoke the French of the emigre. Familiar to Stahl, who’d spent seven years in Paris as an emigre among emigres, which was a long way from what Americans meant when they called themselves expatriates: expatriates could go home, emigres couldn’t.

That side of Zolly had made Stahl curious. ‘Tell me,’ he’d said, ‘the name “Zolly” is short for…?’ He’d wondered if it might be, perhaps, Solomon. ‘Short for Zoltan,’ was the answer. ‘What else?’ Even in the darkened back seat, Stahl caught the flicker in Zolly’s eyes. Stahl then asked where he was from. This question was answered with a shrug, spread hands, who knows? Finally Zolly said, ‘In some parts of Europe, the Roumanians say you’re not Roumanian, the Hungarians say you’re not Hungarian, and the Serbs don’t say anything. That’s where I’m from.’

Stahl didn’t pursue it and, after a silence, Zolly changed the subject and asked about the new movie — what about it had so appealed to him that he was willing to leave Hollywood? Stahl didn’t care to tell the truth and said he liked the role, and the idea of working in Paris. Zolly nodded, and let it go. But Stahl had understood him perfectly: Any day now, Europe’s going up in flames. What are you doing here?

Zolly, I wish I knew.

In July, Stahl’s agent at the William Morris Agency, Baruch ‘Buzzy’ Mehlman, had told him he’d be meeting with Walter Perry, the studio’s eminence grise, and Jack Warner himself, in Perry’s office. When Stahl showed up, prompt to the minute and shaved to perfection, Perry said, ‘Jack’s upstairs in a meeting, he’ll join us as soon as he can.’ Which meant never, of course, but Stahl got the point: when Walter Perry spoke, he spoke for Jack Warner, and everybody at Warner’s knew it. And what Jack had to say was: We’re loaning you out to Paramount France, to make a movie at Joinville, Paramount’s studios outside Paris. And in return the Paramount star Gary Cooper will be making a western for Warner. ‘Naturally,’ Walter Perry had said, ‘you’ll need some time to think it over. We’ll send you a synopsis, take a look at it, talk it over with Buzzy, then let me know. But I should tell you, Fredric, you’ll make Jack really happy if you say yes.’

The synopsis wasn’t bad, the money, by the time Buzzy got done with Paramount, would be something more than his usual $100,000 a picture, and so Fredric Stahl decided to make Jack really happy. Which, Walter Perry told Buzzy, who told Stahl, it did. So, good, go to Paris. Still, in all this there was something that wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t have said why, it simply felt — odd. When he told friends about it, there was a certain moment of hesitation before they congratulated him, so he wasn’t alone in wondering if there somehow wasn’t more to this, perhaps studio politics, perhaps…

It was Zolly who broke into the reverie. ‘Time for pipi,’ he announced, Jimmy stopped the Panhard and the three of them stood side by side at the edge of the road and watered a field.

Paris.

The night manager of the Claridge took Stahl’s passport — the police collected them late in the evening and returned them by morning — then personally led Zolly and Stahl up to the reserved suite. Abundant flowers and chocolates had been provided, as well as a bottle of Badoit, since American visitors feared European tap water. When the manager and Zolly left, Stahl stretched out on a chaise longue and had just closed his eyes when his luggage arrived, accompanied by a hall porter and a maid who opened his wardrobe trunks and began to unpack and put away his clothing. Stahl retrieved a sweater and a pair of corduroy trousers, then went out to find Paris.

His Paris. Which was found by crossing the Seine on the Pont d’Alma and, eventually, entering the maze of narrow streets of the Sixth Arrondissement, the Faubourg Saint-Germain. And if the damp earth of the French countryside had lifted his spirit, being back in his old quartier was as though a door to heaven had been left open. Walking slowly, looking at everything, he couldn’t get enough of the Parisian air: it smelled of a thousand years of rain dripping on stone, smelled of rough black tobacco and garlic and drains, of perfume, of potatoes frying in fat. It smelled as it had smelled when he was twenty-five.

A warm evening, people were out, the bistros crowded and noisy. On the wall of a newspaper kiosk, closed down for the night, the day’s front-page headlines were still posted: CZECHOSLOVAKIA DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY. And, below that, GERMAN DIVISIONS PREPARE TO MARCH. Two women walking arm in arm passed by and when Stahl looked back over his shoulder he caught one of them doing the same thing and she laughed and turned away. In a cafe at the corner of the rue du Four and the rue Mabillon, an old woman with red hair was playing a violin. Stahl went into the cafe, stood at the bar, ordered a cognac, saw his reflection in the mirror, and smiled. ‘A fine evening, no?’ said the bartender.

‘Yes it is,’ Stahl said.

In the morning, Stahl woke up suddenly, jolted into consciousness by a chorus of bleating taxi horns down on the street. Like a flock of crows, he thought, once disturbed they became violently loud and indignant. Now he needed coffee, reached for the telephone and in a few minutes a tray was brought up with coffee and a basket of croissants. He broke the tip off one of them, which produced a shower of pastry flakes, ate the tip, then ate the croissant, then ate all the others, then ate the flakes. As he finished up, a bellboy arrived with an envelope on a silver tray. Inside the envelope was a handwritten note from Zolly Louis, who said he had to be away for a day or two, please stop by the office at 7, rue Scribe, near the American Express office, where Mme Boulanger would be waiting for him.

Warner Bros. France was, according to the directory in the lobby, on the third floor. Stahl pressed the button to call the elevator and was about to take the stairs when he heard whirring and grinding above him, peered up through the wire cage and saw the cables on the bottom of the car, then, very slowly, the tiny elevator itself. Up on the third floor, searching through the gloom of a long corridor, he found the name of the company on a pebbled glass door, which opened to an office furnished with well-used desks — cigarette burns on the edges — black telephones, and Warner movie posters: 42nd Street, Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood — showing Errol Flynn in green hat with feather and Olivia de Havilland in a sort of wimple — and The Life of Emile Zola, released a year earlier. It was, by way of the story of the Dreyfus affair, Warner’s, in fact Hollywood’s, first anti-fascist movie. And in prominent position, between two grimy windows, a poster of the actor who’d made a great deal of money for Warner, Porky Pig.

Stahl stood at the open door; a man was gesturing as he argued on the phone, a girl typing at great speed, eyes on a pencilled draft. Then: ‘Ah, voila! He arrives!’ A woman in a rather snug knit suit was rising from her swivel chair, evidently Mme Boulanger. Fiftyish and determined, with bright red lips and fingernails, she was one of those businesswomen who wore a hat in the office — a black pillbox with a bow on one side. Holding a cigarette in one hand, she brushed his cheeks with her lips. ‘Elsa Boulanger,’ she said.

‘Good morning, Madame Boulanger.’

‘Have a seat,’ she commanded, turning her swivel chair to face him. ‘I’m to do your publicity — the Warner star in Paris part. Paramount will work on the movie itself. Did you have a good voyage? Did your luggage arrive? Are you comfortable in your hotel? Have you seen Le Matin?’ She handed him a newspaper folded open to two photographs. There he was, with the Ile de France in the background, as he smiled and waved. The second photograph showed the young woman holding his arm, the caption below read, Fredric Stahl is welcomed to France by the film actress Colette Dulac.

‘Who is she?’ Stahl said. ‘She just… appeared.’

Mme Boulanger shrugged. ‘Nobody,’ she said. ‘But she wants to change that, I’d say.’ She paused, and stubbed her cigarette out in a cafe ashtray that said SUZE. Stahl turned the newspaper to see what was above the fold and found a review of Le Quai des Brumes, a Marcel Carne film starring Jean Gabin. ‘I’d like to see this,’ Stahl said. ‘I knew Carne, at least to say hello to, when I worked here.’

Mme Boulanger leaned towards him and lowered her voice. ‘ Mon cher Monsieur Stahl,’ she said, the my dear not without affection, then hesitated as she took the paper away from him and ran her finger along the text below his photograph. ‘What is this all about? This line, “Monsieur Stahl told Le Matin that his new film, Apres la Guerre, will be about ‘the futility of war’.” Is there any special reason you said that?’

‘I didn’t say it. The Le Matin man put it in a question and I, well, I did no more than agree. I really didn’t know what to say.’

‘You will have to be more careful here, you know.’

‘Careful?’

‘Yes, these days, careful.’

Stahl tried to laugh it off. ‘Isn’t war always futile, Madame Boulanger?’

Mme Boulanger wasn’t amused. ‘ Le Matin, mon cher, is a very rightist newspaper.’

Stahl was puzzled and showed it. ‘Rightist?’ he said. ‘The French right is against war? Has turned pacifist?’

‘In its way. The press and politicians on the right try to persuade us that resistance to Hitler is futile. The German military is too large, too strong, their machines are new and efficient and deadly, and their passion for a fight unequalled. Poor France can never win against such a powerful and determined force. That’s what we’re being fed, over here.’

‘What do they want France to do?’

‘Negotiate, sign treaties, acknowledge Hitler’s supremacy, let him do whatever he wants in Europe as long as he leaves us alone.’

Stahl shook his head. ‘I had no idea.’

‘You are Austrian by birth, no?’

‘Viennese.’

‘What do you think about what goes on over there?’ She nodded her head in the general direction of France’s eastern border with Germany, a little more than two hundred miles from where they sat.

‘Sickening,’ he said. Mme Boulanger’s expression barely changed but Stahl could tell she was relieved. ‘And dangerous,’ he went on. ‘I can’t bear to watch Hitler in the newsreels.’

‘ Le Matin doesn’t know where you stand, but they offer you an opportunity, as an actor, as an artist, to speak out against European war.’

‘Perhaps I’ll let them know,’ he said. Then added, ‘Where I stand.’

‘Perhaps you’ll find a way to keep out of politics, Monsieur Stahl. For actors it’s much the best idea. Those of us who work for your success would prefer that all the people who go to the movies feel affection for you. Why annoy those who don’t like your political views?’

Stahl nodded. ‘You are a sensible person, Madame Boulanger.’

She smiled, reached out and rested two fingers lightly on his knee. ‘You are a successful man, a movie star, let’s keep it that way. How long are you in Paris?’

‘Four months? Less? It’s hard to know, I have to meet with the producer and the director, then I’ll have a better idea.’

Mme Boulanger swivelled back to face her desk, picked up an appointment book, its pages thickened by notes in blue ink, and thumbed through it. ‘I see people from the newspapers on a fairly regular basis, and I’ll set up a few interviews. And by the way, is this Apres la Guerre an outcry against war? Umm, the futility of war?’

Stahl shrugged. ‘Three soldiers, foreign legionnaires, try to return home from Turkey after the 1918 armistice.’

‘And you play…?’

‘Colonel Vadic, of obscure Balkan origin, the leader, and much-decorated hero. I may get to walk with a stick.’

Mme Boulanger’s face lit up. ‘I like that,’ she said. ‘A human story.’

Walking back to the hotel, Stahl sensed that the city’s mood had changed. Sombre today, the Parisians, unsmiling, eyes down, something had reached them on the morning of 19 September. The headlines weren’t so different than the day before, all to do with the possibility of a German march into Czechoslovakia. If that happened, France was obliged by treaty to go to war. Years earlier, in the last months of 1923, as Stahl was beginning a new life in Paris, war was a thing of the past — the last one so brutal and vicious that all the world knew there could never be another. At least all the world of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. In the Left Bank cafes that autumn, the word was barely mentioned, the talk was about paintings, books, music, scandals, reputations, and who was in whose bed. As Stahl’s French grew better, as he picked up the argot, the slang, he fell in love with the world of the cafes.

He’d come a long way to get there. When he was twenty and working at the legation in Barcelona, the war ended, the Central Powers had lost, and the legation gave all its employees steamship tickets to the Austro-Hungarian port of Trieste. From there, Stahl had made his way to Vienna. Returned home, where to his mother he was a prodigal son, to his father a self-indulgent wastrel. He managed to live at the family apartment for a few weeks, then fled to stay on friends’ couches, and finally found a room in a cellar, half of which was given over to the storage of potatoes. A stage-struck friend — from one of the most aristocratic and impoverished families in the city — had taken to hanging around the great Viennese theatres, the ‘Burg’ and the Volksoper, and Stahl joined him and found an occasional job as an extra. He couldn’t sing, but enthusiastically mimed the words, and it was always good to have a handsome face in the crowd cheering the king. He carried his first spear in Aida, wore his first muttonchops — and had his first addictive sniff of the spirit gum that stuck them to his face — in The Merry Widow. In time, he won dramatic roles at some of the city’s smaller playhouses, worked hard, was noticed in reviews, and began to build a career.

He loved acting.

He’d been born to act — at least he thought so but he wasn’t the only one. It was the pure craft of it that excited him. When the circuits closed between actor and audience, when a line drew a laugh or, better, a gasp, when a pause lasted for precisely the right interval, when lines were picked up smartly from fellow players, when a silent reaction meant more than spoken words, he felt, and began to crave, that excitement. He loved also — that month anyhow — an actress named Berta and, in the spring of 1923, Berta decided to try her luck in Paris and Stahl went with her. There they lived passionately together for six weeks, almost, until she seduced a successful playwright and left for a better arrondissement. But Stahl wasn’t going anywhere. When he’d arrived in Paris it was as though a switch had been thrown in his life: everything at home and in school that had been ‘wrong’ with him was now somehow right.

He worked hard to speak decent French, discovered the cafes where theatre people went, became one of them, and found roles he could play, even if he had to memorize his lines phonetically. By 1925 he’d been recruited for his first work in film — silent at the time, which forced the actors to communicate with face and body. Then, after Warner Bros.’ The Jazz Singer in 1928, the dam broke — the first French talking picture, Les Trois Masques, appeared in 1929. Later that year, Stahl had the lead role in his first sound film: the wealthy owner of a factory (Stahl) secretly goes to union meetings, falls in love with a tough slumgirl factory worker, defends the dignity of the working class, loses his family and his factory, runs away with the girl, and is shot dead at a street march in the last scene. And then, who happened to be in Paris on the honeymoon of his third marriage but Milt Freed, an executive at Warner Bros.

Despite the fact that he and his new wife spoke only the most basic restaurant French, they took in a movie.

‘Stalka! Franz Stalka!’

Stahl had just entered the hotel lobby. Shocked at hearing his real name, he stared at the man who’d called out to him: a chubby fellow with a shining bald head and a fringe of grey hair. Who was this, rising from a lobby chair, newspaper still in one hand, a huge grin on his face? Stahl had no idea, then he almost remembered, and then he did. Last seen, what was it, twenty years ago? By now the man was hurrying towards him.

‘It’s me, Stalka, Moppi, you can’t have forgotten!’ This in pure Viennese German.

‘Hello, uh, Moppi.’ This sudden incarnation was Karl Moppel, his boss at the Austro-Hungarian legation in Barcelona, lo these twenty years ago. A man he’d always called Herr Moppel, though he vaguely remembered other people at the legation using the nickname.

Moppi shook his head. ‘Ach, I should have called you Fredric Stahl — of course I’ve followed your career. What are you doing in Paris?’

‘I’m here to make a film.’

‘Fantastic. I’m so proud of you, we’re proud of you, all the old gang.’

‘I’m glad, that’s very kind of you to say.’

‘Can we have coffee?’ Moppi said, looking at his watch. ‘I’m supposed to meet somebody but she hasn’t shown up.’

‘Let’s just sit in the lobby, all right?’

‘Of course. I can’t believe I’ve run into you.’ They took two chairs separated by a rubber tree. ‘I’ve often wondered what became of you, over the years. Then, maybe five or six years ago, I saw your picture on a poster at a movie theatre and I thought, I know that fellow! That’s Franz Stalka, who worked for us in Barcelona. I was delighted, really, delighted. What a success you’ve become.’

‘What brings you to Paris, Moppi?’ Something inside Stahl curled up and quivered when he said that silly name.

‘Me? Oh, I work in the embassy now. Still a diplomat, old Moppi. It was the Austrian embassy but it’s German now, since the Anschluss in March.’

‘Were you pleased, when that happened?’

Moppi looked serious. ‘It was unsettling, I’ll tell you that, and I didn’t like it at all, not at all. But you know, Franz — may I call you Franz?’

‘Please do.’

‘The political situation was very bad, we were on the brink of civil war in Austria and, in a way, Hitler saved us. Anyhow, beyond flags and things like that it doesn’t mean very much. Except calm and prosperity — how does one go about disliking that, I ask you?’

‘It would be difficult,’ Stahl said.

Moppi sat back and gazed affectionately at Stahl, then slowly shook his head. ‘Just imagine, I know a Hollywood star.’

‘I’m the same person,’ Stahl said. ‘Older.’

Moppi roared and wiped his eyes. ‘Yes, isn’t it so, I try not to think about it.’

Now Stahl looked at his watch.

‘I’ll bet you’re busy, a fellow like you,’ Moppi said.

Stahl offered a smile of regret that meant yes, he was busy.

‘Say, I have an idea, before you rush off. Some of the old gang from the military intelligence are in Paris now, one’s a diplomat, another has business here, why don’t we get together for a grand Parisian lunch? Talk over old times.’

‘From the what?’

‘Why our section at the legation — what did you think we were about?’

‘Moppi, I opened the mail.’

‘Yes you did — the so-called “Senor Rojas” writes to the consul, the so-called “Senor Blanco” requests a visa to visit his poor mother, “Senor Azul” has inherited a small house in Linz. That was what you called “the mail”, Franz, some of it, the important letters. Just the day-to-day details of a military intelligence section, quite humdrum in fact. No shooting, eh?’ He laughed.

Stahl sat there, his mind working at all this when a well-dressed woman came quickly towards them. ‘Oh, Moppi, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I could not find a taxi.’

‘Look who’s here, Hilda!’ Moppi said, then, ‘Moppi, manners. Frau Hilda Bruner, allow me to present Herr Fredric Stahl.’ He beamed.

The woman blinked and stared. ‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘You’re the movie star.’

‘Yes, that’s me,’ he said, just rueful enough. They shook hands, her hand was warm and she held tight for a moment longer than usual.

Moppi looked at his watch, which was thin and gold and expensive. ‘Later than I thought,’ he said. ‘We’d better go off to the restaurant or we’ll lose our reservation.’ He put his hand out and Stahl shook it. ‘You will have a lunch with us, maybe next week, won’t you? At least say you’ll think about it.’

‘I certainly will… think about it, Moppi. Wonderful to see you. And a pleasure to meet you, Meine Frau.’

Moppi reached into the side pocket of his jacket, produced a business card and handed it to Stahl. Then he took Frau Bruner’s arm and the two of them headed for the door. Moppi looked back at Stahl and smiled, then called out, ‘See you soon!’

As Moppi and Frau Bruner left the hotel, Stahl retreated to his suite. He had no memory of any intelligence section at the Barcelona legation. He assumed that, as in any foreign outpost, the Austro-Hungarian diplomats, especially the army and naval officers, tried to learn what they could of Spanish political and military institutions, but Stahl could recollect no codes, no secret writing, no discussion of operations, nothing like that. He’d read the names of the addressees, opened the envelopes, sometimes looked at the first few lines to make sure they were going to the right person, then sorted them into the proper mailboxes, that was all. Maybe Senores Red, White, and Blue had sent letters, but that meant nothing to an eighteen-year-old clerk. When the mail was done, he’d filed papers, emptied wastebaskets, delivered envelopes in the city, run errands, did whatever they told him to do. Yet this man Moppi — good God! — wanted him to believe he’d been involved in clandestine work, because

… Because why? Because it made him vulnerable? Vulnerable to what? Some byzantine form of blackmail? Well, they could forget that. He’d never loved Austria, had disliked the smug hypocrisies of its culture, and now he hated what it had become: a land of Nazi Jew-baiters and book-burners. So he wasn’t going to have lunch or any other contact with Moppi and his pals. He would be polite, distant, and impossible to approach, and that was that.

The Claridge version of a desk, an escritoire with glassed-in bookcase above the hinged writing surface, was by a window and Stahl set Moppi’s business card down on the polished wood and had a good look at it. The address was the German embassy on the rue de Lille. The card itself was impressive, printed on heavy stock, the letters sharp black against a crisp white background. Like new, he thought. And, when he picked up the card and held it at eye level, he caught a faint whiff of fresh ink.

24 September.

Now, finally, he could go to work. He’d been invited to a one o’clock lunch with Jules Deschelles, the producer for Apres la Guerre. Deschelles had his office at 28, rue Marbeuf — just up the street from the hotel — a turn-of-the-century building with a doorway flanked by a wholesale butcher and a men’s haberdashery. Not fancy here, commercial and busy, which allowed Deschelles to pay a reasonable rent for an Eighth Arrondissement address. Crossing the first courtyard, Stahl found a second, then walked up to the fourth floor. Spotting a door with PRODUCTIONS on it he reached for the doorknob, only then noticing that it said PRODUCTIONS CASSON. Wrong producer! He knew of Jean Casson, who made dark, tasty little films about Parisian gangsters with hearts of gold and wildly stunning girlfriends. PRODUCTIONS DESCHELLES was further down the hall, past a spice importer and a travel agency.

In the office there was a tough old bird of a secretary and Deschelles himself. He was about Stahl’s age, an ascetic sort of man, tall, thin, and exceptionally pale, with a scholar’s face — a scholar of some very esoteric subject — and glasses with fine silver frames. He seemed, to Stahl, finicky, holding his head back when he spoke, pursing his lips as he listened. Without ceremony, Deschelles handed him a copy of the script, Fredric Stahl carefully written in the upper corner of the cover. ‘I thought about mailing a script to you in Hollywood,’ Deschelles said. ‘But it wasn’t any good. Do you know of Etienne Roux?’

Stahl didn’t.

‘He wrote the novel Trois Soldats, three soldiers, and a first draft of the screenplay. This is a second version, by two Parisian screenwriters who’ve been produced a dozen times.’ Deschelles stood up, retrieved a book from a pile on the windowsill, and handed it to Stahl. ‘Look it over if you have a moment, but eventually I’d like to have it back.’

Stahl opened the book to the first page: At the end of the war, three soldiers found themselves far from home and penniless. Their enlistments were up, they had long been separated from their regiment, and they were, despite all the battles they’d fought, alive. This they had not foreseen, but soon set about making plans to find their way back to their native land.

‘Roux attempted the universal,’ Deschelles said. ‘The time was modern but unspecific, there were no nationalities, and the countries they passed through were not named. Very poetic, you could say, but my screenwriters had no patience for that. They rewrote it so the war now ends in 1918, the soldiers are in the French Foreign Legion, and the movie opens with them in a Turkish prisoner-of-war camp. They try to get-’

‘Yes, that was in the synopsis.’

Deschelles went on to discuss the director, Emile Simon, who Stahl had never heard of but, as Deschelles described his career, was a familiar type — one of those dependable, competent technicians that no film studio could live without. He’d made a number of films, one of which Stahl remembered — it had played in American theatres — but had not seen. ‘He’s Belgian, from Antwerp,’ Deschelles said. ‘Not in any way the eccentric genius, far from it. Emile is good-natured, easy to work with, and he’s never made an actor look bad.’ After a moment, Des chelles added, ‘And he is very excited at the prospect of working with you, as all of us are. It will add a dimension to this film we never thought we’d have. A surprise, of course, but the best kind of surprise.’

‘A surprise?’ Stahl said. ‘What they said in California was that Paramount started this project with the idea that I’d be in it. Not so?’

Deschelles hesitated, then proceeded carefully. ‘Ah, it’s my understanding that the idea came from Warner Bros. There was negotiation as to which Paramount actor could do a film for Warner, and that turned out to be Gary Cooper.’ He paused, then said, ‘We had originally cast Pierre Langlois as the lead, Monsieur Stahl, we’d signed a contract. And Pierre wasn’t so pleased to lose the role and Paramount had to find him something else.’

‘Really,’ Stahl said, because Deschelles had gone silent and he had to say something. ‘I wasn’t aware of all this. You’re sure?’

‘I am. Well, maybe better to say as sure as anyone can be in this business. As you know, some films, by the time they reach the movie theatres, have led very complicated lives. Yet, even so, there on the screen is the most tender love story, or a great battle between a hero of the people and a wicked king.’ After a moment, he said, ‘You’re not, um, disappointed, are you?’

Stahl smiled and said, ‘Far from it.’ In his imagination he could hear Buzzy Mehlman’s voice: Just do the movie, Fredric, let me worry about what goes on behind the scenes.

Deschelles looked relieved — Stahl’s delivery of the far from it line had been persuasive. ‘You’re aware,’ he said, ‘that a French production is often chosen, by the American award committees, as the best foreign film of the year — since 1931 that’s been true. Perhaps Warners sees it from that angle; success in France, followed by success in America, and then in the international markets. Which will make you more valuable, in future productions.’

Stahl nodded in agreement, but this was courtesy. Somebody wasn’t telling the truth and, if he understood what Deschelles had said, that somebody was Walter Perry. Buzz Mehlman had a very wry touch when it came to the mechanics, and the ethics, of the film business and Stahl could imagine him saying, ‘What? A movie studio lied? Oh no!’ Nonetheless, here he was, in Paris with a contract and a movie to be made: this was his career, but he had no idea how to protect himself. In fact, he’d been put in a position where he had to do as the studio wished. Once again, in Stahl’s imagination, a dark grin from his agent. As the silence in the office grew, Deschelles finally said, ‘Shall we go out and have something to eat?’

They left the office, walking towards the river on the sunny, windy afternoon, Deschelles chatting about the other people who would be working on the film, Stahl responding now and again, the script and the novel firmly beneath his arm. Eventually they arrived at a Lebanese restaurant and settled in at a table. ‘I hope you like Lebanese cuisine,’ Deschelles said.

Stahl said he did.

As he looked over the menu, Deschelles said, ‘I always order the mezze, but the portions are generous so, if you don’t mind, I’ll get one order we can share.’

‘I don’t mind at all.’ This wasn’t true, Stahl very much liked the little appetizers served as mezze, but producers as a class, spending a lot of money every day, could be stingy in small matters. When Deschelles excused himself to go to the WC, Stahl opened the script and paged through it, stopping to look at some of his character’s lines. COLONEL VADIC, as the script had it, is at a castle in Hungary, and explains how he, as a Slav, rose to command — normally reserved for French officers. Wounded in battle, he was declared ‘ Francais par le sang verse ’ — French by spilled blood — which in the Foreign Legion qualified him to become an officer.

Deschelles returned, a delicious mezze arrived soon after — stuffed grape leaves, salty white cheese, falafel — Stahl’s favourite, mashed chickpeas fried up in little pancakes — and hummus, Stahl’s other favourite. As the main course was served, ground lamb and pine nuts baked in layers, Deschelles nodded his head towards a nearby table and spoke in a confidential voice, ‘I think you’ve been spotted.’

As Stahl followed Deschelles’s eyes, a man sitting alone at the table became interested in his newspaper. ‘He knows who you are and he wants to stare,’ Deschelles said, ‘but that’s very rude here. He’s avoiding us now, because he’s been caught at it.’ Stahl had been stared at many times in public, but some sort of intuition suggested that this man wasn’t a movie fan, he was something else.

For dessert, they shared three small squares of baklava.

Back at the Claridge, Stahl was headed for the elevator when the manager called out to him, ‘Oh Monsieur Stahl.’ Stahl went over to the desk. ‘A letter for you, sir, delivered by hand. The messenger asked that it be given to you in person.’

Stahl thanked him and went up to his suite. Inside a manila envelope, a formal envelope held a folded note card: on the front, printed in some elaborate form of italic: The Baroness Cornelia Maria von Reschke und Altenburg. When he opened the card he found the message: French written in careful, spidery script: ‘My dear Monsieur Stahl, I can only hope you will forgive an invitation on such short notice but I’ve just now learned that you are in Paris and I am a most devoted admirer of your films. I am having a cocktail party at six tomorrow evening and would be so very pleased if you would join us. Please telephone my secretary, Mlle Jeanette, at INV 46–63 if you would like further information.’ The signature, Maria von Reschke, was a thing of beauty, as was the address, a street in the Seventh he had never heard of.

He read the note a second time — who was this? German nobility in Paris? Expatriate German nobility? Well, he thought, why not. Artists didn’t own the rights to expatriate life. And he liked the idea of le cocktail, as the French called such a gathering; with a dinner you were good and stuck, but you could leave a cocktail party. He knew that sooner or later he would have to find a social existence in Paris and here was a good place to begin. But, for no reason he could define, he thought he’d better call Mme Boulanger at Warner France. A young woman answered, then Zolly Louis picked up an extension phone. ‘How’s it being?’ Zolly said in English. ‘Everything okay?’

Stahl assured him all was well. Had he ever heard of a certain Baroness von Reschke? ‘Of course!’ Zolly said. ‘She’s famous, she’s got one of the three important salons in Paris. You’re invited over there?’ He was. ‘You should go, Mister Stahl. You’ll meet the creme de la creme, chez the baroness — bankers, fashionable women, ambassadors. And then, the other two will invite you to their salons. They hate each other, these hostesses!’

So that was decided, he would go. He hunted around in his closet to see where the maid had put the shoes he wanted to wear, found them, and set them out in the hall to be polished. As he closed the door he realized it was very quiet in the suite, and the evening stretched out ahead of him. He undressed, put on a bathrobe, and settled himself lengthwise on a sofa with his copy of Apres la Guerre. But not for long. Just turning the cover and reading the stage directions for the first scene produced in him a sharp little pang of familiar anxiety that meant work.

But he didn’t want to work — the fading light outside the window, the gathering dusk, had reached him. It was l’heure bleue — time to be meeting a lover, or looking for one. Well, he had nowhere to go. He put the script aside, went to the desk, found Hotel Claridge stationery, and began to write a letter to Betsy Belle in Hollywood.

Betsy Belle (born Myra Harzie in Ottumwa, Iowa) was his official fiancee; fiancee being Hollywood code for lover, for the woman who accompanied you to parties, and a convenient euphemism for studio publicists and gossip columnists. She’d been discovered by a talent scout at an Iowa high school pageant, where she’d played the role of a corn, and when she’d arrived in Hollywood she’d quickly become a successful starlet. Blessed with a cupid’s-bow mouth that revealed two white teeth, a snub nose, and bright blonde hair that she wore like a teenager, Betsy had appeared in a number of movies, but had also grown older every year, until available parts were rare. Betsy also happened to be smart, and not at all the innocent she played on the screen. Of the cupid’s-bow shape of her upper lip she would say, ‘It makes me look like a fucking rabbit.’

He and Betsy didn’t precisely live together, truer to say that she stayed with him at his house some of the time, then, wanting to be by herself, would retreat to her apartment. ‘In this town,’ she explained, ‘getting people to like you is what takes up most of your time, so it’s my luxury to hide from the world.’ What Betsy Belle really liked was muggles, marijuana, and on nights when they were together she’d put on one of her Django Reinhardt records — ‘I’se a Muggin’ ’ her favourite — and smoke away, first becoming very entertaining, then highly aroused, eventually heading for Stahl’s lap. This wasn’t now and then, this was always, and at first Stahl had thought it was something about him. But, on reflection, he realized it was her nature, her own internal catnip — desire simply wouldn’t leave her alone. The wolves of Hollywood wouldn’t leave her alone either, so being Stahl’s ‘fiancee’ was at least some protection. Certainly she didn’t expect fidelity in Paris, and Stahl knew she’d find herself somebody else soon enough. Still, despite all the practical sentiments, he really liked her and she was, no matter what else went on, a true friend.

It was, by the third draft, a sweet letter. He loved Paris, he missed her. Not original but from the heart. And how many letters like this, he wondered, would be in that morning’s mail?

25 September.

When Stahl came out of the hotel, Zolly Louis’s nephew Jimmy, in grey chauffeur’s uniform and cap, leapt smartly from the driver’s seat, opened the door of the silver Panhard, and said, ‘Good evening, sir.’ Stahl gave him the Baroness von Reschke’s address, and the car swung out into a slow line of traffic. For the occasion, Stahl had worn his best suit: double-breasted in thin, midnight-blue wool with natural shoulders, a handsome fit, perfectly cut by the custom tailor Isidor Klein in downtown Los Angeles. Mr Klein did not advertise, his telephone number was passed from successful producer to powerful agent to prominent actor, and his services required time, several fittings, and a lot of money. To the suit, Stahl had added a custom-made shirt, a shade or two off white, and a dove-grey and Renaissance-red tie from Sulka.

It didn’t take long enough to drive to the baroness’s house, so Stahl got a tour of the royal Seventh until 6.45, then Jimmy turned off the rue du Bac and into a street of private mansions built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. ‘You inherit these,’ Jimmy said as Stahl stared out the window. ‘Or they are very expensive.’ He pulled into a porte cochere, a man in a suit opened the door and asked for Stahl’s name. Parked beyond the entry were a few glossy black automobiles and two silver Panhard Dynamics, glowing softly in the light of the streetlamps.

The cocktail party was in the drawing room, where splendid old paintings in elaborate gold frames — lords and ladies and cherubs and a few bare breasts — hung on the boiserie; walnut panelling that covered the walls. It was a stiff, formal room, with draperies of forest-green velvet, maroon taffeta upholstery, spindly chairs from royal times — chanting in chorus don’t dare sit on me — and a mirror-polished eighteenth-century parquet floor. Against one wall, a huge marble-topped hunting table with gilt legs, a place to toss your pheasants when you came in from the field, and flanking the sofas, end tables held silver objets, marble hounds, crystal lamps with butter-coloured silk shades, and heavy vases of white gladioli. If this room didn’t intimidate you, Stahl thought, nothing would.

The party was in full swing — the sound of thirty conversations in a haze of cigarette smoke and perfume — and Stahl, standing at the ten-foot-high doors, had the impression that the guests went with the room: a few stunning women, some imposing, white-haired dowagers, a balding gent with a pipe — the pet intellectual? — a sculpted beard or two, even a couple of ceremonial sashes; an exotic species of royalty, perhaps the Margrave of Moldavia or something like that. And now, here came what must be the baroness, face lit with delight and a grand hostess smile. ‘Monsieur Stahl! We’re honoured. Oh thank you so much for coming.’ She was, Stahl thought as he took her claw, a very formidable woman: perhaps fifty, with stylishly set straw hair and a white face, skin drawn tight as a drum with the bone in the centre of her forehead faintly evident, a blue vein at one temple, and uncomfortably penetrating greenish eyes. For the early-evening party, she wore a powder-pink cocktail dress.

‘You’re staying at the Claridge?’ she said. ‘I just love that hotel, so much quieter than the Ritz.’

A glass of champagne was put in his hand, a silver tray of caviar blini flew past. ‘They certainly make you comfortable,’ Stahl said. ‘But I’ll be there for, three months? Four?’

‘Months in a hotel…’ she said.

‘I’m thinking about an apartment.’

At that she brightened. ‘Then you must let me help you, dear, I know people.’

Stahl’s gracious nod meant that he appreciated the offer.

‘I have a friend who writes about film for the newspapers, according to him you’re Viennese, is that correct?’

Over her shoulder, Stahl faced a vast painting, and found himself looking into the shining eyes of a King Charles spaniel on a courtesan’s lap. ‘Yes, I was born and raised in Vienna.’

‘I was there a month ago, it’s a very vibrant city nowadays, after some difficult years.’

‘It’s been a long time since I visited,’ Stahl said.

‘Do go, dear, when you have a chance, I think you’ll be pleased.’

Very pleased, swastikas everywhere.

The baroness sensed what his silence meant. ‘Well, Europe is changing, isn’t it,’ she said. ‘For the better, I’d say — perhaps it’s been destroyed for the last time. My most fervent hope, anyhow, and surely yours.’

‘It is.’

The baroness’s lips curved upwards at the corners and her eyes narrowed, the smile of a huntress. ‘Then we must do what we can to make sure of that, don’t you agree?’

‘I don’t think I can do very much,’ Stahl said. ‘I’m no politician.’

‘But you never know, dear, do you, about these things. Sometimes an opportunity presents itself, and then…’

Stahl had gone as far as he wanted with this and said, ‘And do you enjoy living in Paris?’

‘Enjoy? I’m passionate for it, completely passionate.’

‘I am as well.’

‘Then how lucky we are! I bought this house five years ago, though I worried that as a German I might not be welcome here. Fortunately, that’s not the case — Parisians, bless their souls, take you as you are, they care more about style, about character, than they do about nationality. So, I thought, perhaps we can live together, and there’s hope for poor old Europe after all. And, you know, there are some very well-regarded people, very accomplished people, in Paris who’ve discovered Berlin, the new Berlin, at last recovered after the war, after the financial crisis. They go for a weekend and when they return they say, “To hell with 1914, we had the warmest welcome in that city.” I must tell you the mood there is extraordinary; confident, forward-looking. Say what you will about Herr Hitler, perhaps not one’s favourite politician — yes, yes, I know, he’s the most awful little man, but the results! Prosperity, dignity restored, that you must see for yourself!’

The baroness took his arm and led him further into the room, which was so crowded that they brushed against shoulders and backs. ‘What a crush,’ the baroness said. Then, leaning closer to him, she said, ‘ Everyone wants to meet you, you know, they’re just pretending to ignore you. Good manners and all that. Now, who shall you meet?’

‘I leave it to your ladyship.’

‘Oh pfui, Monsieur Fredric Stahl, you must call me Maria.’ They pressed further into the room, then the baroness said, ‘Now here’s a fine fellow.’ The fine fellow, tall, lean, and slightly stooped, turned towards the baroness, who said, ‘Hello there, Philippe, look who’s here!’

The fine fellow wore an elegant grey suit, his thick grey hair perfectly in place, his smile irresistible. ‘Could you be Fredric Stahl? The movie star?’ As he said this, his eyes, his face, radiated an almost palpable warmth.

‘Monsieur Fredric Stahl,’ the baroness said, a rich pride in her voice, ‘allow me to present Monsieur Philippe LaMotte.’

LaMotte’s handshake was powerful. ‘ Enchante,’ he said. ‘I am your greatest fan.’

‘Martine!’ the baroness called out, spying a special friend. ‘I leave you in good hands,’ she said to Stahl. ‘We’ll talk again, may I depend on it?’ There was a gentle, and momentary, tightening of her hand on his arm, then she was off.

‘I can’t quite believe I’m standing here with you,’ LaMotte said. ‘For me, you’ll always be in that garden, rain pouring down on you, watching the woman you love embracing, what was he? Race-car driver, snake-in-the-grass…’

‘In Summer Storm.’

‘Yes, the raindrops falling into your drink. But I am especially fond of A Fortunate Woman. You’re a doctor in Manhattan and this woman comes to your office and she…’

‘Actually, the part was originally written for Barbara Stanwyck.’ Stahl knew from experience that LaMotte was going to recount the story of the film, and offering a bit of Hollywood gossip could politely break the flow.

‘Really? Barbara Stanwyck? That would have been wonderful. She’s the best actress in Hollywood, at least for me.’

‘Surely one of them,’ Stahl said. Time to deflect, he thought, and said, ‘What sorts of things do you do in Paris, Monsieur LaMotte?’

‘Just another businessman,’ LaMotte said apologetically. ‘I’m the managing director of the Rousillon company, in Epernay.’ He raised his glass so that the light caught the bubbles and said, ‘Rousillon Brut Millesime — we’re drinking our champagne.’ And, his tone slightly amused, added, ‘And if you haven’t heard our slogan, it’s “Champagne, the only drink you can hear.”’ He held the glass to his ear and listened theatrically.

Stahl imitated the gesture, but he’d had the glass long enough that the characteristic fizzing sound was no longer audible.

‘A fresh glass, perhaps,’ LaMotte said. He looked around, but the servant with a tray of glasses was on the other side of the room.

‘He’ll get here,’ Stahl said. ‘It’s very good champagne.’

‘Thank you, but to tell you the truth, I find my other work more absorbing.’

‘And that is?’

‘I’m one of the directors of the Comite Franco-Allemagne. Do you know what that is?’

‘Forgive me, but I don’t.’

‘You’d know if you were living in Paris,’ LaMotte said. ‘It was started in 1930, by a German called Otto Abetz, a simple drawing teacher in the public schools of Karlsruhe whose father had been killed in the war. The basic idea was that German and French veterans of the war would work together to keep it from happening again. And it’s been something of a success, because veterans, men who’ve actually done the fighting, are highly respected in both countries.’

‘That sounds like a very worthwhile undertaking,’ Stahl said. ‘The baroness was talking about something similar.’

‘Rapprochement,’ LaMotte said. ‘Do they have the word in English?’

‘You don’t often hear it, but it’s used. To mean the re-establishment of harmony, of good relations. The baroness was describing her own experience, here in Paris.’

‘She’s a great supporter. She’s terribly rich, you know, and very generous. This is the sort of organization that’s only effective if it has money to spend. We were, from the beginning, often in the news, in the papers and on the radio, and even in Time magazine. We sponsor visits, back and forth, meetings in Paris and Berlin, we hold the occasional press conference, and we’re always available to react as political events unfold — we’re trying to deal with problems in Czechoslovakia right now, but it’s not easy.’

‘What’s your approach?’

‘Anything but war. That’s always our approach. And the public in Europe has been very sympathetic — in Paris, Berlin, London, everywhere. We’ve worked hard for that. About four years ago, for instance, I suggested we build an organization for young people — they must learn early how terrible war is. The idea was, French youth and German youth would together create a bridge of understanding, to work together for rapprochement, for mutual respect and reconciliation. We have summer camps — free summer camps — and a magazine, Notre Temps, our times, that’s widely read and reports on all our activities.’

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Stahl said.

‘You wouldn’t think so, would you. But we have our enemies, particularly from certain political factions who do nothing but press for French rearmament.’ LaMotte shook his head, more than a little anger in his expression. ‘And who will bankrupt the nation to do it. Spending millions of francs on warplanes and cannon while the needy go unfed. When the states of Europe try to intimidate their neighbours with new guns and ships, the next step is war, as we learned in 1914 to our great sorrow.’

‘Then you are, perhaps, a pacifist?’

LaMotte shrugged. ‘I’m just an honourable businessman who loves his country. But these people will have us at war if they get their way. Bellicistes we call them, warmongers. Back in 1936, when we had the so-called Popular Front, a communist front, they wanted to arm the Republicans fighting in Spain. Well, we put all the pressure we could on the government, and France remained neutral, but the government still sent four hundred aeroplanes to the Spaniards, secretly. There were investigations in the senate, and the numbers kept changing, but law meant nothing to them and the country saw that.’

Stahl wondered how to answer this, and said, ‘Well, our newspapers …’

Just then a very appealing woman appeared at LaMotte’s side. She wore a tight cloche hat with chestnut hair swept across her forehead, her eyes were heavily made up and looked enormous, and she wore a tied rope of pearls above a low neckline. Looking at Stahl she said, ‘Oh Philippe, are you going to keep our guest all to yourself? I trust you’re not talking politics.’ She grinned wickedly at Stahl.

‘Me?’ LaMotte said. ‘Politics? How could you think such a thing?’ He laughed and said, ‘Kiki de Saint-Ange, may I present Monsieur Fredric Stahl.’

She dropped a cool hand into Stahl’s and said, ‘ Formidable, to think someone like you would turn up here.’

LaMotte said, ‘It was a wonderful surprise to meet you in person, Monsieur Stahl, and I hope to see you again sometime, if your schedule permits.’

‘It’s been a pleasure,’ Stahl said.

‘What a courteous fellow you are,’ Kiki said. ‘Philippe can be amusing, but you’ve landed among the most boring, stuffy old mummies in France. These are the aristos who got away in 1789!’

‘Oh? Well, you’re here.’

‘I am standing in for my parents, Monsieur Stahl, so I have to be here, but not for long.’

‘Won’t you be missed?’

‘Not me. And I’m going to a much livelier party than this.’

‘That sounds exciting,’ Stahl said.

‘Why not see for yourself? Not a soul will know who you are, they don’t go to American movies.’

This hit home, for it summoned his former life in the city, but he didn’t think he could just disappear.

She moved closer to him, her voice lowered. ‘So we shall conspire, you and I. When I can’t stand it any more I’ll let you know, then you can do as you like. Where I’m going it’s a very different crowd.’

Stahl hesitated. ‘The Baroness von Reschke would think…’

Kiki flicked her fingers from her lips, the kiss floated in the air. From the corner of his eye, Stahl spotted the baroness, cutting her way through the crowd like a determined shark. ‘Here she comes now,’ Kiki said. ‘Cinderella’s stepmother. Perhaps I’ll see you later.’

She slipped away, to be replaced by the baroness. ‘My dear Monsieur Stahl, there’s someone here you absolutely must meet…’

It was eight-twenty when he escaped. Kiki de Saint-Ange, now wearing an embroidered evening jacket, was lighting a cigarette by the doors, made eye contact with Stahl, and left. Stahl followed her. Outside he found a classic autumn drizzle, and as he caught up to Kiki she said, ‘Now, a taxi.’

‘No need for that,’ Stahl said and led Kiki to the Panhard. Jimmy Louis leapt from the car and opened the back door, Kiki got in, and Jimmy closed the door and led Stahl around to the other side. ‘We’re going up to Boulogne-Billancourt, the quai on this side of the river,’ Kiki said. Jimmy took the rue de Grenelle, heading west, but not for long. Suddenly the Panhard jerked to a stop and Jimmy said, ‘ Merde,’ under his breath, as though to himself, then added one or two elaborations in deep argot that Stahl couldn’t understand.

Stahl leaned forward. ‘What’s wrong? Is it the car?’

‘No, sir, not the car.’ Clearly much worse than that, whatever it was. They had stopped by the Mairie, the mayor’s office of the Seventh Arrondissement, where a group of people stood in front of the doors, with more arriving.

‘Excuse me for a moment, sir,’ Jimmy said, left the car, and joined the crowd.

‘Any idea what’s happened?’ a puzzled Stahl said to Kiki.

She knew. ‘ Affiches blanches,’ she said. ‘We’re in for it now.’

Stahl had no idea what she meant. White notices? At the Mairie, Jimmy was working his way towards the doors. ‘They must have just posted them,’ Kiki said. ‘Nobody at the party said a thing.’

‘“Them”? What are they?’

‘Mobilization notices,’ Kiki said. ‘Telling the men of Paris, telling men all over the country, that they must join their reserve units. Tomorrow. We’re at war, Monsieur Stahl.’ She found a cigarette and lit it, then threw the gold lighter angrily into her handbag. ‘So, that’s that,’ she said.

Jimmy came trotting back to the car. ‘Categories two and three,’ he said.

‘Not general?’ Kiki said.

‘No, mobilisation partiale — it’s in big letters.’ He got behind the wheel, then sat there. ‘I’m in category three, so I’ll be on the train at dawn, Monsieur Stahl. I’m very sorry, but I have to go and fight. I’m sure Zolly will find someone for you.’

‘Can you take us up to the party?’ Kiki said. ‘Later we’ll find a taxi.’

‘There won’t be any taxis,’ Jimmy said. ‘The drivers will be home, packing and saying goodbye.’

‘Then we’ll use the Metro, or we’ll walk,’ Kiki said. ‘And if they start bombing us, we’ll run.’

‘What sort of unit are you in, Jimmy?’ Stahl said.

‘Infantry,’ Jimmy said, and put the car in gear.

War came to the ‘ very different crowd’ that night, its long shadow sometimes a presence in the room, but the crowd fought back; defiant and merry and to hell with everything. They had the radio on, tuned to Radio Paris, the official state network, which played light classical music interrupted by news bulletins: mobilized men must report to their units in the east, extra trains would be running from the Gare de l’Est on the Boulevard de Strasbourg. And the government wished to emphasize that war had not been declared. ‘Yet!’ cried the party guests every time they heard the announcement. Of the thirty or so people crammed into an artist’s studio, four or five of the men had been mobilized. Somebody said, ‘We who are about to die salute you,’ and that set the wits among them to shouting every possible obscene variation on the phrase. It kept them busy, it kept them amused, it chased the doom away.

The party was on a barge, tied up to a wharf in a long line of working barges where the city of Paris bordered the industrial suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt. The host, a cheerful old gent in a paint-spattered shirt, had a huge tangled grey beard with a bread-crumb caught in the middle. He gave Kiki a powerful hug, put his arm around Stahl’s shoulders, and led them both around the room. He’d built himself a studio on the barge; removed some of the deck planking and installed a set of angled windows above the curve of the bow. So, with little space for hanging paintings, he’d used easels to display his work. Not Picasso, but not bad, in Stahl’s opinion. After the tour they found a place to sit, Stahl took off his jacket and tie and turned up the cuffs of his shirt, while Kiki slipped out of her embroidered jacket. ‘It’s from Schiaparelli,’ she told a woman who asked. Mildly abstract nudes seemed to be the artist’s favoured style. One of which, a few feet from where Stahl and Kiki sat — on a love seat obviously rescued from a fire — had a face Stahl recognized. There was Kiki de Saint-Ange, lying languorous and seductive on a sofa, a ‘Naked Maja’ that imitated the Goya painting. ‘I see you keep looking at that,’ she said, teasing him. ‘It’s not a bad likeness, though I seem to have been grey-green that afternoon.’

They called him ‘Fredric’, the men and women getting drunk together on strong, sour wine poured from ceramic jugs, smoking up the host’s hashish, petting the barge cats, now and then each other. The barge’s bedroom, partly obscured by a lank curtain, served those who simply had to shed their black sweaters and make love despite the coming storm, or because of it. Two or three of the guests told Stahl he looked familiar, had they met before? Stahl just smiled and said he didn’t think so. What with the long hours at the baroness’s party, he was tired of being the Fredric Stahl and had packed it in for the night.

Needing some air, he made his way up to the deck, then noticed a young man who’d apparently done the same thing. He was one of those heading east in the morning and when their eyes met Stahl thought he might be close to tears — perhaps he’d sought privacy for that reason. They stood there in silence, then the man spoke. ‘You know, my life hasn’t been too bad, lately,’ he said, voice unsteady. ‘But now those bastards are going to get me killed.’ He shook his head and said, ‘No luck. No luck at all.’ Stahl didn’t answer, there was no answer. He just stared at the silent lights across the river and felt the heavy current in the deck beneath his feet. He had half turned to rejoin the party when there was a white flash that lit the clouds in the eastern sky, followed by a sharp crack of thunder. Maybe. Stahl and the young man looked at each other. Finally Stahl said, ‘I think that’s thunder.’ The young man nodded, yes, probably thunder. Then they went back to the party.

Stahl and Kiki left sometime around three in the morning — long after the last Metro at eleven-thirty — and set out to walk back to the Seventh, where Kiki had an apartment. There were no taxis, the streets were deserted. They were not far from the apartment when suddenly, out of nowhere, the city’s air-raid sirens began to wail. They stopped dead, listened for the sound of aeroplane engines, and stared up into the rain. ‘Should we do something?’ Stahl said. ‘Go indoors?’

‘Where?’ Kiki said.

The buildings were dark, the shops had their shutters rolled down. ‘I guess we won’t,’ Stahl said. They trudged on, past piles of sand in the streets. Somebody at the party had told them about the sand, delivered throughout the city by sanitation workers, meant to be taken up to the roof and stored there, in case the Germans dropped incendiary bombs. ‘Then,’ the guest said, ‘when a bomb falls on your roof and starts to burn, you use the sand to put out the fire, and you must remember to bring a shovel. But in Paris nobody has a shovel, so maybe a spoon.’

At last, exhausted and soaked, they reached Kiki’s door, where she kissed him quickly on the lips and went inside. Then it was a long walk back to the Claridge, and after four when he got there. The desk clerk took one look at him and said, ‘I’ll send someone up to get your suit, sir. We’ll press it, it will be as good as new, sir, you’ll see.’ In the room, Stahl took everything off, put on a bathrobe, and waited for the porter. Standing at the window, he searched the sky, but no bombs fell on Paris that night.

When the telephone woke him at nine, Stahl struggled to sit up and reached for a cigarette. On the other end of the line, an excited Jules Deschelles. ‘All is not lost!’ Deschelles said. ‘Have you seen the papers? Daladier and Chamberlain are going to Munich to meet with Hitler, a last chance for peace.’ Daladier was the Premier of France, Chamberlain the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

‘I thought the war would begin today,’ Stahl said.

‘Oh no, not yet, there’s still hope. We’ve lost Emile Simon, our director, he’s been called back to Belgium. However, they might let him go, we’ll see. Then some of the crew, grips and electricians, were sent to their units in Alsace — we’ll see about them as well. So, there will be a delay, but don’t book passage, the movie will somehow get made.’

‘What will happen to the Czechs?’

For a moment, Deschelles was silent, then he said, ‘Who knows? Perhaps they will fight, perhaps they won’t. Are you concerned about that?’

‘Well, I don’t want to see them occupied.’

‘No, of course not, nobody wants that,’ Deschelles said. ‘I just felt I should make sure you aren’t worried about the film. And there’s a lot we can get done while all this madness works itself out.’

‘I can learn lines,’ Stahl said.

‘That’s the spirit! And I’ll have our costume designer get in touch with you, perhaps today or tomorrow.’

‘Good. I’ll wait for the call.’

Deschelles said goodbye and hung up. Stahl tried to go back to sleep.

29 September.

The costume designer, a woman named Renate Steiner, had arranged to meet with Stahl at her workroom, in Building K at the Paramount studios in Joinville, a working-class suburb southeast of Paris. He’d then telephoned Zolly Louis, who told Stahl he was still looking for a driver. ‘I’d be happy to do it myself,’ Zolly said, ‘but I don’t drive so much, maybe you can find a taxi.’ In fact there was a taxi, on the morning of the twenty-ninth, waiting near the front of the Claridge. The driver was an old man in a clean white shirt buttoned at the throat, who had an artificial hand — a leather cup enclosing the wrist, a leather glove with thumb and fingers set in a half-curled position. ‘A German did that to me,’ the driver said as they drove off. ‘I could get a better one, but it’s expensive.’ He explained that the taxi belonged to his son. ‘Just now he’s driving an army truck, up around Lille, much good it will do him or anybody else,’ he said and spat out the window.

In time they reached Joinville and the driver, when Stahl handed him a hundred francs — twenty dollars — agreed to wait until Stahl was done with his appointment. The studios were vast — bought by Paramount in 1930, then used as a movie factory, making as many as fourteen versions of a new film in fourteen languages spoken by fourteen casts, thus making money fourteen times out of a single vehicle. This was possible because everybody everywhere liked to go to the movies, talking movies that talked in their own language. So the classic line of the American Saturday night: Say, honey, whattaya say we take in the new show at the Bijou? was repeated in its own linguistic version around the world. And still was, though by the time Stahl reached Joinville it had, with the development of new sound technology, become a dubbing studio: an actor moved his lips in French, the audience heard Spanish.

Stahl, in the course of a long search for Building K, stopped for a time to watch a moustachioed gaucho with a guitar singing ‘ te amo ’ to a senorita on a balcony as the cameraman peered through his lens and the technicians squatted out of the frame. It was mostly, at Joinville, pretty much the same movie — love ignited, love thwarted, love triumphant. Just like, Stahl told himself with an inner smile, Hollywood.

Eventually, he found what he was looking for: a one-storey, rust-stained stucco Building K, situated between Building R and Building 22 — the French were staunchly committed anarchists when it suited them. Renate Steiner’s workroom was spacious, long wooden tables held bolts of fabric, boxes of buttons in every colour and size, boxes of zips, cloth flowers, snips of material (I’ll want that later), and spools of thread, attended by every imaginable species of mannequin — from wire mesh to stained cotton, some of them in costume: here a Zouave, there a king’s ermine, and in between a pirate’s striped shirt and a convict’s striped outfit.

Steiner sat before a sewing machine, matt black from constant use, SINGER in gold letters across the side. As she looked up to see who her visitor was, she ceased working the pedals and the two-stroke music of the machine slowed, then stopped. ‘Fredric Stahl,’ she said, her voice pleased to see him. ‘I’m Renate Steiner. Thank you for coming out here.’ She stood and said, ‘Let me find you a place to sit,’ walked to the end of the table and whipped a caveman’s bearskin off a chair. As she moved her own chair to face his, she said, ‘Not too much trouble finding me?’

‘Not so much — I’m used to studio lots.’

‘Yes, of course. Still, people get horribly lost out here.’ She settled herself in the chair and took off her silver-rimmed glasses.

She was in her early forties, he guessed — a few silver strands in dark hair stylishly cut to look chopped off and practical — and wore a blue work smock that buttoned up the front. Sitting close to her, he saw that she was very fair-skinned, with a sharp line to her jaw and a pointy nose that suggested mischief, the tip faintly reddened in the chill of the unheated room. Her eyes were a faded blue, her smile ironic, and subtly challenging. The face of an intellectual, he thought — she would be partial to symphonies and serious books. She was dressed for the chill, in a long, loose skirt, thick black wool stockings, and laced, low-heeled boots. She wore no make-up he could see but somehow didn’t need it, looking scrubbed and sensible.

‘So then,’ she said. ‘ Apres la Guerre, an appealing title, isn’t it, what with… everything going on right now. What do you think of the script?’

‘I’ve read through it a couple of times, and I’m almost done with the book — normally I would have finished it but it kept putting me to sleep.’

‘Yes, I felt the same way, but the script is better. Much better, would you say?’

From Stahl, a nod of enthusiasm. ‘It has real possibilities, depending on who directs — Jules Deschelles was going to tell me who will replace Emile Simon but so far he hasn’t. A lot will depend on how it’s shot, on the music, and… but you know all that. You’ve been doing this for a while, no?’

‘Ten years, give or take. I started in Germany, with UFA, but we, my husband and I, had to leave when Hitler took power in ’33. We weren’t the sort of people he wanted in Germany — my husband was a journalist, a little too far to the left. So, late at night, we ran like hell and took only whatever money we had in the house. I wondered if we weren’t just scaring ourselves with this whole Nazi business but, a month after we left, some of our old friends disappeared, and you know what’s gone on there since ’33. After all, you’re from Vienna, or so I’ve read, anyhow.’

‘I left when I was sixteen, but that had to do with family, not politics. Later I went back for a few years, then lived in Paris before they brought me out to Hollywood.’

‘Do you like it there?’

‘I try to. I don’t think anybody actually likes it, not the people I talk to. Mostly they feel some mixture of gratitude and anxiety, because it pays a lot but after a while you discover it’s perilous — you can really say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and it’s probably wise to understand that a career in movies is temporary. On the other hand, I like America. Well, I like Americans, I’m not sorry to be one of them, as much as I am.’

She shrugged. ‘You’re an emigre, like us. I don’t suppose you’d prefer to speak German, we can.’

‘Oh no, I have to speak French right now, think in French as much as possible.’

She was silent for a moment, then, for no particular reason, smiled at him. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I suppose we have to go to work, get you measured up to be Colonel Vadic. Where’s he from, your colonel?’

‘“A Slav” is all it says in the script. In the book he’s from somewhere in the Balkans.’

‘Deschelles saw something there, in the book, let’s hope he was right,’ she said, then stood and drew a rolled yellow tape measure out of the pocket of her smock. ‘Could you stand in front of my mirror?’

Stahl stepped onto a wooden platform in front of the mirror. Renate Steiner took a long, appraising look at him and said, ‘You’re nice and tall, aren’t you. Thank heaven, or your forebears. There are some very handsome, very short actors in this business, and the producer has to cast a very short woman as the love interest or the actor has to stand on a box.’ She found a pad and pencil on the table and said, ‘Could you hold your left arm out straight, palm facing me?’

Stahl did as he was told. Renate put her glasses back on, clamped the pencil between her teeth, then stretched the tape from the tip of his middle finger to his armpit. She studied the tape where it met his finger, steadied the end under his arm, and said, ‘You’re not ticklish, are you?’

‘Not for a long time.’

‘That makes this easier, now and then we’ve had comedy in here.’ She let the tape go and wrote down the measurement and said, ‘By the way, may I call you Fredric?’

‘Yes, I prefer it.’ After a beat he said, ‘Renate.’

Measuring his other arm, she said, ‘We’ve got plenty of Foreign Legion uniforms in stock, we’ll just have to do some alterations.’

‘Will I be wearing the kepi with the white neckcloth?’ In his voice, I hope not.

‘Not if I can help it,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s been seen too often, in the worst movies — the audience will expect you to burst out in song. “Oh, my desert maiden…”, that sort of thing.’ He smiled, she glanced up at him. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you’ll wear a classic officer’s uniform, and since Vadic has been in a Turkish prison camp we’ll have to fade it, soil it, give you a little rip in the shoulder.’

‘That sounds just right,’ he said. ‘When I made silent films in Paris they stuck a kepi on me but it was too small…’

She said, ‘Would you face the mirror, please?’ and stepped up onto the platform, running the tape across his shoulders.

‘… which made it so hot they had to wipe the sweat off my face.’

‘That won’t happen, not at chez Renate — I try to keep my actors comfortable.’ She reached up and measured his head. ‘Your hat will fit perfectly, colonel.’ She next took his neck measurement, then drew the tape tight around his waist. ‘Please don’t do that,’ she said. ‘Just let everything settle in its natural position, you’re not at the beach.’ Stahl relaxed his stomach. ‘We all have tummies, don’t we?’ she said. Then she knelt in front of him and, looking up at him, she said, ‘We come now to the inseam.’ This measurement was taken from the very top of the inner thigh. ‘You can hold the sensitive end if you like.’

Stahl grinned despite himself. ‘No, I don’t mind, I’ll just close my eyes.’

She laughed politely, then went ahead and took the measurement, exactly as his tailor, and past costume designers, had done it. ‘There,’ she said, ‘you can open your eyes now.’ Next she did the wrist, after that, the neck. Then she said, ‘We’re just about done,’ and circled the tape around his hips.

‘Bigger than you thought?’ Stahl said, a laugh in his voice.

‘Oh, normal, maybe a little bigger,’ she said. ‘But you aren’t the only one.’ She was, he knew, referring to herself. She rolled the tape back up and put it in the pocket of her smock. They returned to their chairs and Stahl, glad that the work was finished, lit a cigarette. Renate, looking at her notepad, said, ‘Colonel Vadic will also wear an old suit — all three of them will. This is when they have to get rid of their uniforms, after they’ve been arrested as deserters…’

‘And almost executed. Blindfolded, tied to the post…’

‘They buy suits in Damascus, in the souk,’ she said. ‘You know, I think Paramount might let Deschelles shoot on location. He’s trying, anyhow, wants to use Tangiers for Damascus, and do the desert scenes nearby.’

‘We can only hope,’ Stahl said. ‘Because you know what studio desert sets are like, beach sand blown around by fans, and…’

Suddenly, a man and a woman on bicycles skidded to a halt in front of the open door. ‘Renate!’ the woman called out, her voice breathless and excited. Renate rose and walked over to the door, Stahl followed her. ‘Have you heard?’ the woman said. She spoke German with a sharp Berlin accent. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said to Stahl in French, ‘but there is finally good news. Very good news.’

‘Hello, Inga,’ Renate said. ‘Hello, Klaus.’

‘They’ve made a deal with Hitler,’ Inga said, now back in German. ‘He takes the Sudetenland, but promises that’s the end of it, and he signed a paper saying so. They had to put pressure on the Czechs, of course, who were going to fight. Now they’ve agreed not to resist.’

‘This is good news, thank you for telling me,’ Renate said. Her tone was courteous, and far from elated.

Inga again apologized for the interruption, then she and Klaus pedalled away on their bicycles. ‘I suppose that’s good news,’ Stahl said. ‘Surely for this movie, it is.’

Renate said, ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ her tone tentative and thoughtful. ‘Maybe not so good for the Czechs, though. And I have Jewish friends who settled in Karlsbad, in the Sudeten Mountains, when they fled Germany, and now they’ll have to run again. But it is good news, for me and Inga and Klaus, because if France goes to war with Germany, all the German emigres here will be interned. That’s a rumour, but it’s a rumour I believe.’

Stahl spent another fifteen minutes with Renate Steiner, then went off to find his taxi.

The driver had managed to get hold of a newspaper, a special edition with the headline WAR AVERTED, then, in smaller print, Hitler Signs Agreement in Munich with a photograph of Neville Chamberlain smiling as he waved a piece of paper. Heading away from Joinville, the driver was ambivalent — yes, his son would be demobilized, would return to his family and his taxi, and about this he felt a father’s great relief. On the other hand, he didn’t trust Hitler. ‘This man is the neighbourhood bully,’ he said, anger tightening his voice. ‘Don’t they see that, these diplomats? You appease a thug like Hitler, it just makes him greedy for more, because he smells fear.’ Distracted by his emotions, he took a route through Paris on the left bank of the Seine, entering the city via the Thirteenth Arrondissement and continuing into the Fifth on the quai by the river. To reach the Claridge, he should have taken the right bank, which Stahl noticed, without any particular concern.

But, as they reached the foot of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, traffic slowed down, and soon the taxi could move only a few feet before it had to stop. The driver swore, and with his good hand swung off the boulevard onto a side street. Here, however, the traffic barely crawled, and when he tried to return to Saint-Germain, a policeman stopped him and said, ‘You’ll have to go back the other way — they’re marching on the boulevard.’ The driver raised his hands, he surrendered. So Stahl thanked him, paid the fare, added a generous tip, then headed for the Metro station on the Place Maubert. By the time he got there he was mixed in with the marchers, students angered at the Munich agreement, with signs that said SHAME! and chants of ‘Down with Daladier!’ At last he reached the Metro, to find its grilled gate shut and a hand-lettered sign that said On Strike. Well, no surprise, the Metro-workers’ union was a communist union and would strike if angered by government policy.

With an oath that was more sigh than curse, Stahl set out for the hotel. Not a bad day for a walk: grey clouds above the city, a chill in the air, the forces of autumn were gathering. As he made his way up the boulevard, he realized that a lot of the marchers were women — many of the male students had apparently been mobilized. He then began to notice small knots of men gathered on the pavement, glaring at the marchers, sometimes turning to each other and making comments that drew a snicker from their pals. The marching students ignored the sneering crowd. Until one of them joined the march, just long enough to bump the shoulder of a student, who turned and said something as the man laughed and retreated back to the pavement.

And then, about ten feet away from Stahl, a man wearing a grey hood with eyeholes cut in it came running out of an alley waving a metal rod. Some of the marchers stopped to see what was going on, somebody shouted a warning, a second hooded man followed the first and swung his metal rod, hitting a woman in the side of the head. As she sank to her knees, a drop of blood running from beneath her hair, the man swung the rod back, preparing to hit her again. Stahl ran at him, shouting ‘Stop!’ as he grabbed at the rod. The man swore, words muffled by the hood, and Stahl barely held on, until the man stopped pulling at the rod and pushed against him, so that he stumbled into the girl on her knees, who yelped as Stahl fell over her. When the man lifted the rod over his head, Stahl kicked at him, then got himself upright. In time for the rod to hit him in the face. With salty blood in his mouth, he rushed at the man and punched him in the centre of the hood, which knocked him back a step.

This was not the only fight on the boulevard — there were hooded men with rods attacking marchers on both sides of him, people on the ground, shouting and screaming everywhere. Stahl spat the blood out of his mouth and went after the man who’d hit him. And now tried to do it again. Stahl dodged away from the rod, which landed on his shoulder, grabbed the bottom of the hood and tore it off, revealing a fair-haired teenager with the sparse beginnings of a moustache. His eyes widened as Stahl threw the hood at him and punched him again, square in the mouth. Sputtering with rage, the teenager swung the rod back over his head, but a girl student wearing broken glasses got the fingernails of both hands into the side of his face and raked him from forehead to jaw. He didn’t mind hitting women but he didn’t like women hitting back so he hesitated, turned, and ran away. Somebody grabbed Stahl from behind, somebody very strong, lifting him off his feet as he tried to fight free. ‘Calm down,’ a voice said. ‘Or else.’ The arm around his chest was wearing a police uniform, so Stahl stopped struggling.

As more police arrived, Stahl’s arms were pulled back, and handcuffs snapped on his wrists.

They had two holding cells at the Fifth Arrondissement prefecture, so the marchers and the attackers — ‘the fascists’, the students called them — were separated. In Stahl’s cell, the walls bled moisture, and one of the graffiti carved into the stone was dated 1889. A woman in the cell lent Stahl her compact, its mirror revealing a livid purple bruise which ran down the right side of his face. The inside of his upper lip had been gashed by his teeth, his head ached terribly, his right hand was swollen — possibly a broken knuckle — but the worst pain was in his shoulder. Still, in a way he’d been lucky: if his nose was broken there was no evidence of it, and he had all his teeth.

He wound up sitting on the stone floor, back against the wall, next to a man about his own age, who explained that he was a Metro worker, a motorman, and had been on a picket line when the ‘ cagoulards ’, hooded ones, had attacked them. ‘Very foolish,’ the motorman said. ‘We gave them a thrashing they’ll remember.’ Stahl offered him a cigarette, the motorman was grateful. ‘How did you do?’ he said to Stahl.

Stahl shrugged. ‘I hit one of them, a couple of times.’

‘Good for you. I don’t imagine you do much fighting.’

‘No,’ Stahl said. He started to smile but it hurt. ‘I had a couple of fights at sea, when I was a kid. The first one didn’t last long — I drew my arm back, then I was looking at the sky and they threw a pail of water on me. The guy was built like an ox — a stoker.’

The motorman was amused. ‘You don’t want to fight a man who shovels coal all day.’

‘My face was numb for hours,’ Stahl said. ‘The other one was with a mess steward, that went better. We punched each other for maybe a minute, then the crewmen separated us — we were both finished, gasping for breath. So I didn’t win, but I didn’t lose.’

‘Oh, I’d say you won — they probably left you alone after that.’

‘Then I guess I won.’

The motorman was released an hour later — his union had sent a lawyer. It was dawn before Zolly Louis showed up. ‘The police couldn’t find you,’ Zolly said.

‘How did you know to look for me?’

‘A journalist called the office. Was it possible that Fredric Stahl was arrested for fighting? A witness was almost sure he’d seen a movie star taken away. You weren’t at the hotel, so we called the police. Eventually, the flics figured out where you were.’

‘What did you tell the journalist?’

‘That you were on a train to Geneva.’

Zolly had paid somebody off, and a sergeant led them down a tunnel which eventually led to a street behind the prefecture. ‘Just in case there’s a reporter in front,’ Zolly said. ‘Or, God forbid, a photographer.’

30 September.

Herve Charais, a news commentator on Radio Paris, was lying in bed that afternoon, propped up on a pillow so he could better feast his eyes on his exquisite little Spanish mistress, one Consuela, as she stood naked before a dressing-table mirror and, in profile, bent over to peer at a non-existent blemish on her forehead. While Consuela was very much worth looking at, Herve Charais was certainly not; soft and squat and pudgy, he walked splay-footed, so waddled like a duck. But Herve Charais had a most cultured, mellifluous, and persuasive voice, and therein lay his considerable popularity. Across the darkened room, Consuela held back her thick hair and squinted at her reflection: a thirty-five-year-old face above, the body of a fifteen-year-old below. Like a Greek statue, he thought, a statue that could be warmed up to just the proper temperature — ‘but only by you,’ as she put it.

And to think it had all started with an accident! Some months earlier, she’d spilled a drink on him when he was out with friends at a nightclub. That led to an apology, and that led to a new drink, and that led, in time, to this very room. ‘Come back to bed, my precious,’ he said tenderly.

‘Yes, in a moment, I have something on my forehead.’

And soon you’ll have something somewhere else.

‘Don’t you have to write your commentary, for tonight?’

‘It’s mostly written, in my head anyhow.’

‘Is it about Czechoslovakia?’

‘What else?’

‘So what will you say?’

‘Oh, nothing special. The nation is relieved, surely, but maybe just for the time being.’

‘Why don’t you say something about the Sudeten Germans? They seem to have been forgotten in all this… whatever you call it.’

‘You think so? What do you have in mind?’

‘Just what happens to all these people who live in the wrong country, the poor Poles, the poor Hungarians, the poor, other people. But also the German minority living in Czechoslovakia, one hears the most frightening things, rapes and beatings by the Czech police, houses burned down…’

‘You believe that? Mostly we think it’s Nazi propaganda.’

‘Some of it surely is… exaggerated. But my mama always used to say, where there’s smoke there’s fire.’

‘Well, maybe, I don’t know.’

Consuela turned to look at him. ‘If you did at least mention them you’d be the only one on the radio. Everybody has forgotten how this crisis started.’

‘Mmm,’ he said. It started in Berlin.

Consuela appeared to have found the blemish, for she bent further towards the mirror. ‘Just a tiny mention,’ she said. ‘It would show fairness, it would show that you care. Your listeners will like that, it’s the best part of you.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Charais said.

‘Ah, now you make me happy.’

‘Done yet?’

‘I suspect it’s you who aren’t done yet, are you?’ She walked towards the bed, her breasts jiggling prettily with every step. ‘How you look at me!’ Closer and closer she came. ‘So what goes on under that blanket, eh? You want to show me?’

By cable, 30 September, from Rudolf Vollmer, director of the National Press Guild of Germany, to J. L. Ferrand, a senior executive of the Havas Agency, the French wire service: My dear Monsieur Ferrand, Allow us to express our great pleasure that you have accepted our invitation to deliver a lecture to The National Press Guild on 17 October. This cable is to confirm the arrangements for your visit. You will travel by Lufthansa Flight 26 from Paris on the afternoon of 15 October, to be met by a car that will take you to the Hotel Adlon, where you will occupy the Bismarck Suite on the top floor. Your lecture will be at 8.00 p.m. in the Adlon ballroom. We anticipate a large audience, and translation will be provided. On the 18 October, at 1.30 p.m., you are invited to dine with Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop in the Minister’s private dining room. After lunch you will meet with Reichs Chancellor Hitler. You will return to Paris on 19 October, on Flight 27 from Berlin. The honorarium for your lecture will be as specified: 100,000 reichsmarks, or, if you prefer, 50,000 American dollars. We look forward to meeting you, and to an interesting and much anticipated lecture on the role of the press in maintaining peace and stability in today’s Europe. With our most sincere and respectful good wishes, Rudolf Vollmer Director The National Press Guild of Germany

2 October. Telephone call from Philippe LaMotte, managing director of Champagne Rousillon of Epernay, to Albert Roche, publisher of the newspaper Le Temps.

‘Albert, good morning, how are you?’

‘A busy day — a busy time! But, for the moment, all goes well.’

‘Did you get to Deauville at all? During the, ah, crisis?’

‘We did. We had tennis friends and we played all weekend. You and Jeanette should come up and take us on again, really Philippe, you stay in Paris too much, it isn’t healthy.’

‘We should, and soon, before it starts raining.’

‘So, my friend, are you selling champagne?’

‘Oh yes, thanks to Le Temps. Going to the full-page advertisements has made a real difference, and we’re considering taking space in five issues a week instead of four. You know we compete with Taittinger and Moet et Chandon, and we’re determined to outsell both of them by the end of the year.’

‘Well, they’re good advertisements, and we’re all in love with the girl you’re using — how did you find her?’

‘By looking long and hard — we saw photographs of every model in Paris. Tell me, Albert, were you satisfied with Monday’s editorial?’

‘You mean “A Time to Reflect”? I thought it well written.’

‘Oh it was, well written, but we found it timid. You know my personal view on this — that France and Germany can never go to war again. Why not come out and say it? Especially now, that the peace has been preserved. And you must give Germany some credit for that. At the last minute, Hitler chose diplomacy over arms, perhaps that ought to be said — somewhere, why not in Le Temps?’

‘No special reason, it makes sense.’

‘You’re not personally against the idea, are you?’

‘Not at all. I can have a word with Bonheur.’

‘A reasonable editor — I’ve always thought so.’

‘He is. I suspect that the, um, perspective you describe simply didn’t occur to him.’

‘Perhaps it should have.’

‘And so I’ll tell him — we still have time for Wednesday’s edition, and Bonheur works quickly when he wishes.’

‘That would make us all very happy, Albert. We really believe in Le Temps, it’s the perfect place for our advertisements.’

‘Well, that makes me happy. I can send over the early edition, if you like.’

‘That would be wonderful, Albert. Now, tell Jeanette to expect a call from my wife, and prepare to be savaged on the court!’

‘We’ll give you a game, I can promise you that.’

‘Looking forward to Wednesday, and we’ll talk later this week.’

‘Until then, Philippe. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, Albert.’

When you are in Paris, you have to make love to somebody.

Stahl was not immune to this, nobody was. And now that life would go on, now that he would not be blown up by a bomb, now that he would make a film, he couldn’t bear to be every night alone. The sandpiles had vanished, the gas masks — insufferable to the entire population over the age of ten — had been returned to the closet, the taxis were back. And as the autumn skies closed in over the city, as the lights in the shops went on at dusk, he grew lonelier and lonelier. He consulted a telephone directory and left a message with a maid for Kiki de Saint-Ange. She called back that evening, her voice warm and surprised. A drink at Le Petit Bar? She loved Le Petit Bar, she loved the Ritz, could he pick her up Friday at six? On that night, the simple act of walking out the hotel door excited him.

Kiki on Friday night: a black silk cap, snug and shimmering on her chestnut-coloured hair, a very different cocktail dress than the one she’d worn at the party, hem above the knee, neckline daring, in black wool crepe soft and thin enough to show her body when she moved. With silver-grey pearls and earrings, and precise but assertive — child-of-the-night — make-up on her eyes. At the tiny bar, they settled on chairs before a low table, they ordered champagne cocktails, they chatted, he explained the fading bruise on his face, she looked horrified, then sympathetic, then laid a hand on his forearm, poor thing, brave man, such dreadful times these are, what will become of us? Would she care to have another cocktail? Oh yes, why not? Even at the Ritz, a pretty couple. He heard his voice, low and rich — a tale of seafaring, a tale of Hollywood, the adventurer, the wanderer. Her turn: the country house of her parents by the Loire, picking wild strawberries, lost in the forest with her best friend Lisette, a sudden downpour. A husband in Paris, an Italian nobleman, how sad when these things went wrong. ‘Another cocktail? I don’t know

… oh what the hell… I don’t know what’s got into me but tonight I don’t care.’ She met his eyes.

There was a line of taxis outside the Ritz but they walked, out of the Place Vendome where jewellers waited, up into the cluster of streets near the Opera. It wasn’t that cold but it was cold enough — she shivered and leaned against him, he put his arm around her and could feel warm skin beneath the thin fabric of her raincoat. Down a side street, a blue neon sign, hotel dubarry; only two windows wide, anonymous, cheap but not dangerous. He never said a word, neither did she; they slowed down, stopped, then turned together and went up the single step to the door. The proprietor was casual, as though expecting a couple like them to appear around this time of the evening. ‘A room for tonight?’ he said. On the third floor, she cranked the window open and a breeze ruffled the sheer curtains. She was, when her clothes were off, smaller than he’d imagined — narrow shoulders, bare feet flat on the brown carpet, a hesitant smile — and, when he embraced her, even smaller. It was more pleasure than passion, as they played, courting urgency, which duly showed up, stronger than he’d thought it would be and welcome, very welcome.