Mission to Paris

AGENT OF INFLUENCE

12 October, 1938.

The leaves were turning on the plane trees that lined the boulevards, women brought out their scarves, and Jules Deschelles held a luncheon in a little bistro, Mere this or Chez that, near the Luxembourg gardens. Twelve settings, gleaming white and silver, were laid out on the big table on the second floor, where some of the cast and technicians who were to make Apres la Guerre would dine together. For Stahl, the event brought a measure of relief, but also some anxiety.

Relief came in the introduction of the female romantic lead, Justine Piro, a veteran actress of the Parisian stage and film world, not quite a star of the first rank but a good name on a marquee, who would play the Hungarian adventuress, down on her luck and stranded in Damascus. When they were introduced, Stahl took her hand and brush-kissed her on both cheeks, then they took a good, long look at each other. Can we succeed together? Justine Piro — accented on the last syllable in the French pronunciation — was dark, hair and eyes, dressed simply, and not a beauty in midday restaurant light. But Stahl suspected that on screen she would be stunning, a mysterious transformation wrought, in certain individuals, by photography — ‘the camera loves her’ a common saying in the movie business. Nobody could really explain how this worked, but work it did. Stahl also met the soundman, the set-lighting man, and the crucially important character-lighting man, whose job was to emphasize and refine facial expression and physical presence. He could make you a better actor by moving a light one inch. Stahl thought Renate Steiner might attend, but Deschelles explained that she was out at the Joinville studios, working on another movie. The musical composer who would score the film had not yet been hired.

Anxiety came with the arrival of the second lead, the one-named character actor known as Pasquin. Single-named male actors, like Fernandel and Raimu, typically had the adjective ‘beloved’ permanently stuck to them in print, and so it was with the beloved Pasquin. He was, however, in his professional reputation, not much loved at all. ‘Feared’ said it better. Pasquin was enormous, enormously fat, with three chins and a cherub’s round cheeks, above which tiny, jet-black eyes glittered with malice. Pasquin had a ferocious temper, and he drank: a volatile combination.

Pasquin was, like Fernandel and Raimu, a southerner, and early in his career had played in movies set in Provence and Marseille. In one of them, Alphonse Gets Married, the production’s director, famously hard to please, called for take after take of a certain shot — action at Alphonse’s elaborate wedding feast — and by the nineteenth take, the character played by Pasquin revealed a new and unexpected dimension. The placid and philosophical village baker now scowled and hissed his line, ‘What if she doesn’t want to?’ This was meant to be spoken in a whining voice by a helpless and befuddled man. But not now. The way Pasquin delivered the line it now meant that ‘if she didn’t want to’, he would tear her head off and throw it through the window. ‘Cut!’ said the director. At take twenty-five, a half-crocked Pasquin lost his famous temper and took it out on the feast. As he swore and shrieked, hams and chickens flew through the air, the bride was showered with olives, the director struck in the face by a hurled artichoke, and soupe au pistou spattered the ceiling and the camera.

In Apres la Guerre, Pasquin would play the earthy sergeant to Stahl’s melancholy warrior Colonel Vadic, and Stahl liked the casting well enough, though how the sergeant retained his girth in a Turkish prison camp might require some ingenuity by the screenplay writers. When Pasquin arrived at the bistro — late, his breath reeking of wine — he squeezed Stahl’s hand in a vicelike grip and muttered, ‘So now Hollywood comes to France.’ Stahl just smiled — I hope you don’t expect me to answer that. Pasquin was trouble, but he was exceptionally popular. With a strong director… Stahl told himself hopefully, then turned away to talk to the set-lighting man.

And there would in fact be a strong director. As the cheese plate went around the table, Deschelles announced, like the cat that got the cream, that he had signed Jean Avila to direct the film. Stahl’s outward response was properly impressed and appreciative but he immediately understood this was either a brilliant choice or a catastrophe. Everybody knew the name Jean Avila: twenty-five years old, with two masterpieces to his credit, the first suppressed by the French government, the second recut, and ruined, by film distributors. He came from a violently political family, his father, a famous Spanish anarchist, strangled in a French prison in 1917. Avila himself followed his father’s politics, but his genius was, for anyone who’d contrived to see either of the films, beyond question. In Stahl’s view, Deschelles had shown himself, and surely Paramount, to have serious ambitions for this movie.

Stahl left the restaurant — after yet one more delicious lunch barely tasted, a professional commonplace — with Justine Piro, and they walked for a time in the early-autumn afternoon and talked amiably. She said she liked his work, and he sensed she might actually mean it. He enquired about her life, she told him she was married to a physician and had two girls, eight and eleven. They got on well together — at least in the daily world, what might happen on a movie set God only knew — and in time she took the Metro back to the Sixteenth Arrondissement. As Stahl crossed the Seine, he was happier and more excited with every step. Maybe Apres la Guerre had a chance to be a good film, maybe even very good. So the message waiting for him at the Claridge didn’t bother him all that much. Not at first, anyhow.

Stahl read the message in the lobby. 12.25. Mme Brun at the American embassy telephoned, please call her back at Concorde 92 47. His reaction developed slowly, so he was still a film star as he got on the elevator, but by the time he reached his rooms he was an emigre, and called immediately. ‘Ah yes, Monsieur Stahl,’ Mme Brun said. There was a pause, as though she had to consult a list to see what they might want with this Monsieur Stahl. Apparently, she found it. Could he be so kind as to visit the embassy, when convenient? Mr J. J. Wilkinson, the Second Secretary, wished to speak with him. Stahl said that he could. And would it, she wondered, a note of oh dear in her voice, possibly be convenient tomorrow morning, at 11.15? It would. Mr Wilkinson’s office was in the chancery building, by the Hotel Crillon — he knew where that was? Yes, he did. Mme Brun’s version of thank you and goodbye, now that she had what she wanted, was effusive, and genteel.

Stahl, moments earlier, had been his most optimistic and confident self, but the prospect of the meeting made fast work of that. What could they want? Was there some sort of problem? Sternly, he told himself to cut it out. This was most likely no more than a courtesy call. But it didn’t feel like a courtesy call, it was as though he’d been summoned. No, no, he was Fredric Stahl, a well-known and respected performer, and need have no fear of any government. But another instinct, an older, deeper instinct, told him just how wrong he was about that.

In a quiet grey suit and the plainest tie he owned, he took a taxi to the Avenue Gabriel, just off the Place de la Concorde, and arrived well before the time of the meeting. He was expected — an official escorted him to the top floor of the chancery, where he waited in a chair outside J. J. Wilkinson’s office. A minute before noon, the door opened and the Second Secretary waved him inside.

It was a large, comfortable office with a window on the courtyard, a bookcase with numbered volumes on one wall, an official portrait — an oil painting — of President Roosevelt on the wall above the leather desk chair, the desk bearing stacks of paper, reports, memoranda, correspondence. J. J. Wilkinson, in shirtsleeves and loosened tie, his jacket over the back of the chair, was all smiles and affability. He was about fifty, Stahl guessed, with the thickening body of a former athlete and a heavy, boyish face. He might be cast as a guest at one of Jay Gatsby’s parties, scotch in hand, flirting with a debutante. Was he, perhaps, an Ivy League alumnus, making his way easily through a familiar world? Maybe. In the corner, a squash racquet leaned against the wall. Wilkinson indicated the chair across from his desk and said, ‘Thanks for dropping by, Mr Stahl, sorry about the short notice but this wretched business with the Czechs has kept us from our normal routine.’ He glanced at a page of handwritten notes and said, ‘Anyhow, as a resident alien of the US you’re supposed to check in with us when you arrive in Paris. Not everybody does that, of course, and we don’t really mind, but this visit will take care of it.’

‘Thank you,’ Stahl said.

‘So, yes, ah, you’ve been a resident alien for eight years. Any thought of taking US citizenship?’

‘I intend to. I’ve been meaning to go to the class, fill out the forms… but I’ve been in one movie, then right away another…’

‘You surely have, and very successfully. I’ve seen you, of course, but I never remember movie names.’ His tone was apologetic. ‘Only that I enjoyed them. And with American movies you see in Paris, it’s always someone else’s voice, speaking French, which, frankly, bothers the hell out of me. The last time I saw John Wayne, and he said, “ Maintenant regardez, Slim”, it tickled me so bad my wife poked me in the ribs.’ He grinned at the memory. ‘Anyway, what do you think of Paris, these days?’

‘Not the same as it was, back in the twenties, but not so different. It’s still the city you fall in love with, despite the politics.’

‘Pretty grim, all this hostility, no?’

‘It is. The French didn’t used to be so, um, concentrated on it. Before, it was more like a game, but now it’s a war.’

Wilkinson nodded, I’m glad you agree with me. ‘I’ll tell you something, by trade I’m a lawyer in a Wall Street firm, but I worked for the Roosevelt campaigns in ’32 and ’36 and, believe me, there was plenty of rough stuff going on. But, compared to France, in the last few years, it was child’s play. And now, with war coming…’ He paused, then said, ‘I saw an announcement of your arrival in the Paris Herald and I admit I wondered, I mean, what the hell made you come here now?’

‘Jack Warner,’ Stahl said.

Wilkinson laughed, a bass rumble, and his eyes lit up. ‘I should’ve figured that out,’ he said. ‘But there’s a story about Jack Warner which might explain it. A few years ago, the Warner Bros. representative in Berlin, a man named Joe Kaufmann, was beaten to death by Nazi Brown Shirts — they didn’t like it that he was a Jew — and Warner closed the Berlin office. Then he started to make anti-fascist movies, and he got letters threatening to burn his house down. The other moguls, Goldwyn and Harry Cohn and the rest, don’t want to get involved, but Jack Warner decided to fight, bless his heart.’

‘Well, the decision to have one of his actors do a movie in Paris came from the top, from Jack Warner, personally.’

‘Glad you came? Showing the flag?’

‘I’m not sorry. Actors are told, “always avoid politics, it’s bad for the box office”, but I found out right away you can’t.’

‘How so, found out?’

‘Two weeks ago I was caught in a street march and got hit in the face with a steel rod. That’s the worst, but it started earlier. I was invited to a cocktail party — a salon — and they carried on like crazy, peace with Germany, peace with Germany, all we want is peace.’

From Wilkinson, a knowing smile. ‘Which hostess? There are four or five — they’re infamous.’

‘The Baroness von Reschke. What a terror! And there was someone else, a man called, what’s his name, he makes champagne, DeMotte? No, LaMotte. Philippe I think.’

‘Ah yes, the Comite Franco-Allemagne, a Nazi propaganda outfit.’

Stahl stared at Wilkinson. ‘You mean… literally? Nazi as in managed from Berlin?’

Slowly, Wilkinson nodded up and down. ‘Yes indeedy. You’re shocked?’

‘I guess I am. Isn’t that, um, espionage?’

‘Properly called “political warfare”. One form of espionage.’

‘The French government must know what’s going on, can’t they do something about it?’

‘They know everything, but they don’t do anything.’

‘Why not?’

Wilkinson raised his eyebrows, surprised that Stahl didn’t know the answer. ‘Political repercussions?’ he said, as though reminding Stahl about the nature of the world. ‘Politicians in power have to run for re-election, so what are they handing their opponents? They’ll be accused of being against peace, against negotiations; they’ll be called warmongers. And they’ll lose the election, which means leaving Paris, and going back to some town in the Auvergne. But that’s only one part of it, the other part is worse. The French know they were finished in 1917, and they were, until American troops showed up. So they’re scared to death they’ll push Hitler too far, scared to death of war — they lost a million and a half men the last time, and more than twice that wounded. And they know they’ll lose again if the Wehrmacht crosses the border.’

‘But, the Maginot Line…’

Wilkinson sighed, burdened by knowing more than was good for him. ‘The Maginot Line is a political tactic of the French right. Supposedly it protects the nation, which believes in it as though it were magic, which means the French won’t fully mobilize, won’t spend enough money on armament, and won’t invade Germany. It virtually pleads for Hitler’s mercy, and it won’t work. It’s meant to delay, as the French wait for the British to show up, and then they both wait for America. Meanwhile Hitler builds offensive weapons, tanks and warplanes.’ He moved a marble pen stand to the centre of his desk, picked up a stapler and circled it above the marble stand, then pressed the top and a staple popped out and clicked against the stand. ‘I could make an airplane noise, but you get the idea. That used to be the Maginot Line.’

‘So what can they do?’

Wilkinson shrugged.

Stahl was silent for a moment, trying to sort out what Wilkinson had told him. If his statements about the baroness and LaMotte were true, then some very rich and powerful people in Paris were working for the enemy. Finally he said, ‘What do they want with me, these people?’

‘You’re an important person, Mr Stahl, well known, respected, from a powerful part of the world. People will listen to what you say, they may even change their minds. I recall you once played a doctor, is that right?’

‘Dr Lawton, in A Fortunate Woman.’

‘That’s it. Kindly Dr Lawton — strong, wise, and compassionate. Who wouldn’t believe Dr Lawton? All this together, your status, and your character on screen, add up to what we call an “agent of influence”.’

Stahl saw this was true, and became acutely uncomfortable. ‘Should I make some kind of, what, public statement?’

‘What would you say? “I believe in democracy”? “I believe in America”? That would be fine with the Germans, America doesn’t want to fight a war any more than the French do. We have our own Maginot Line, it’s called the Atlantic Ocean.’

‘Then the hell with these people, I don’t have to go to their salons.’

‘You certainly don’t. But that doesn’t mean they won’t put pressure on you.’

‘Why would they?’

‘The people in Berlin, in von Ribbentrop’s Foreign Ministry, are persistent when they want something. And their people in Paris take orders, so…’

Now Stahl started to get mad. Why was this happening? Why him? He wanted nothing to do with the whole rotten business.

Wilkinson read him perfectly. ‘Don’t blame me for this,’ he said. ‘I’m on your side.’

‘What should I do?’

‘Stay away from them, see what happens.’

There was, suspended in the space between them, an or that lingered silently at the end of Wilkinson’s sentence. Or, if not, you could, something like that. Stahl knew it was there, felt the bare ghost of what it might demand from him, and thought Oh no you don’t. A Hollywood phrase he’d heard from Buzzy Mehlman suddenly came to him: What is this meeting about? Now Stahl thought he knew. ‘You’re not asking me to spy on these people, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Then what are you asking?’

Wilkinson leaned forward, clasped a pair of big, meaty hands together and rested them on his desk. ‘That you be careful, that you don’t let them use you if you can keep them from doing it. There’s no point in your finding out what’s going on and who is involved, the French know that already and so do we. Anyhow, you’re not a spy, that takes nerves of steel, and soon enough becomes a full-time job. And I’m no spymaster. America has military attaches who do that and we don’t have an overseas spy service.’

Stahl nodded that he understood, though he didn’t believe Wilkinson was being fully honest.

‘On the other hand,’ Wilkinson said, then let the phrase hang there for a time. ‘On the other hand, the people in the White House need to know as much as they can about what’s going on over here, and that’s one of the jobs an embassy, any embassy anywhere, has to do. So, if, in your time over here you, ah, stumble on something, something important, it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you let me know about it. That isn’t the official duty of an American in a foreign country but we’re all in this together, and if you feel like an American it’s not the worst thing to act like one.’ Wilkinson took a moment to let that sink in, then said, ‘Okay, the hell with all that stuff, tell me about the movie you’re making.’

In the days that followed, Stahl found himself thinking about the meeting at the embassy more than he wanted to. He felt foolish to have been naive about the political realities in France, after all he was European, off in California for eight years but still, shouldn’t he have known? Perhaps not. For one thing, this level of corruption was new, at least new to him. When he’d lived in Paris, the talk in the cafes took corruption as a regrettable but natural human undertaking — a means to weasel one’s way to wealth and power, merely one of the darker traditions of Old Europe. There followed, in the cafes, a shrug. But that corruption was never thought to be at the tips of foreign tentacles. It was, back then, French, like good wine and good lovemaking.

Meanwhile, in the US, it wasn’t much discussed. Americans were tired of the antics of slippery European politicians — a plague on all their houses! Europe was, as the woman on the Ile de France had put it when they shared a deck chair, a place where the bickering and squabbling never ended: sometimes they even shot each other, but they would shoot no more American boys. Thinking about the deck-chair conversation, Stahl recalled a scene in a 1936 MGM film called Libeled Lady, with Jean Harlow, and Spencer Tracy as a newspaper editor. At one point, Tracy is in a newsroom and a reporter asks him, ‘What’ll we use for a headline?’ Tracy says, ‘I don’t care. Anything. “War Threatens Europe.”’ The reporter asks, ‘Which country?’ and Tracy responds, ‘Flip a nickel!’

In Stahl’s Hollywood world, only the emigres — the studio violinist from Germany, the make-up woman from Roumania, the scene painter from Hungary — followed European politics and the miseries of European Jews and communists and intellectuals. But the talk at a Warner commissary table, much of it heatedly leftist, quieted down when a ‘real American’ came by. Americans didn’t want to worry about foreign troubles, they had plenty of their own.

Thus it fell to somebody like Wilkinson to worry, because ‘the people in the White House’ needed information. That was slightly odd, once Stahl had a chance to think about it. Wouldn’t it be the Department of State — what Stahl thought of as the Foreign Ministry — that needed to know what was going on? Well, he was a foreigner, an emigre, and there were a lot of things he didn’t understand. Still, he was grateful that Wilkinson had told him what was going on, it meant he could protect himself. So when a note from the Baroness von Reschke reached him at the Claridge — ‘my friends were absolutely delighted to meet you, and I hope you will join us…’ — Stahl tore it up. The note went on to say that the exquisite Josephine Baker would be giving a private performance. Likely in her skirt made of bananas, Stahl thought, but she won’t be wearing it for me. He found great satisfaction in letting the note go unanswered — take that, you Nazi witch, I’m being rude! Maybe not a blow for democracy, but at least something.

And then, when he was handed a telephone message from Herr Moppel, he tore that up as well. Dear old Moppi was the very last person he wished to see. But Moppi didn’t give up so easily, and called again the following day. This time Stahl was in his suite and answered the phone. ‘Franz! Hello! It’s me, Moppi!’ Stahl was brusque and cold. He was at work on a film, he really had no time for social engagements. Goodbye. Bang went the phone, fuck you. This felt even better than ignoring the baroness, and Stahl sensed he’d avoided trouble, real trouble.

20 October.

The director of Apres la Guerre, Jean Avila, had finally made his way to Paris and telephoned the principal actors, asking them to come out to Joinville for a preliminary read-through of the script. They gathered at ten in the morning, on a set that was available until 2.00 p.m., a set for a romantic farce, Cinema de Boulevard, in fin de siecle Paris. The actors settled on fringed velvet sofas and chatted until Jean Avila came hurrying through the door. ‘Here at last,’ he said. ‘They held me up for three days at the border.’ Avila seemed well beyond his twenty-five years. He had long, black, wiry hair, a lean body, and a face marked by the character lines of an older man, which gave him the sort of brooding good looks that women fell for. Starting with Stahl — ‘pleased to have you here,’ he said, ‘very pleased’ — he introduced himself to each member of the cast.

At first, the reading went well. ‘Let’s begin on page thirty-six,’ Avila said. ‘The top of the page, where Colonel Vadic and the others are trying to get food from the Turkish farm woman.’ That line, ‘There she is, looking out the window,’ belonged to Gilles Brecker, who had a faint Alsatian accent and, with blond hair and steel-framed glasses, looked like a cinematic German. He would play the war-loving lieutenant, eager to fight again after getting out of the prison camp.

‘Justine, would you read the farm woman?’ Avila said.

Justine Piro, wearing slacks and a sweater, her hair swept up in a kerchief, said, ‘Go away, or I’ll set the dogs on you.’

‘We hear the dogs barking.’ Avila said, reading the stage direction.

The fat, burly Pasquin lit a cigarette and planted a thick forefinger on the page. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘It’s the uniforms,’ Stahl said.

‘Dear madam,’ Pasquin crooned. ‘A little something to eat?’ He mimed bringing food to his mouth and twice smacked his lips. Avila looked up and smiled.

‘Let’s just kick down the door and take whatever she has,’ Brecker said, the impatience in his voice nudging anger.

‘Hasn’t there been enough of that?’ Stahl said, sounding tired of the world. ‘And what if she resists? What then? Will you beat her?’

‘We must eat,’ Brecker said. ‘We need our strength.’

‘We will eat, lieutenant, we will find something, somewhere. Maybe at the next farm,’ Stahl said.

Pasquin cupped a hand to his ear. ‘What’s that? Did I hear a chicken?’

Avila read the stage direction: ‘An old man wearing a tweed cap and an ancient suit jacket and holding a shotgun is seen stage left. We see his face, then he gestures them away with the shotgun.’

From Stahl: ‘As I said, the next farm.’

From Avila: ‘The three legionnaires trudging along a dirt path, the wind is blowing, the sun beats…’ Avila stopped dead.

The door had flown open, every one of them stared. In the doorway stood Moppi, bright red in the face, breathing hard as though he’d been running, wearing a green loden jacket and an alpine hat with a feather. ‘Franz!’ he called out. ‘Oh no, I’m so sorry, I’ve interrupted your work. But I couldn’t reach you on the phone, so I thought I’d come out to the studio…’

‘Herr Moppel,’ Stahl said, his voice quiet but ice-cold. ‘Would you kindly get out of here? Can’t you see we’re working?’

A woman appeared at the doorway, also breathing hard, apparently Moppi had outdistanced her in a race to the studio building. ‘Pardon, pardon,’ she said. ‘This man insisted, at the reception. I told him he couldn’t come here but he wouldn’t listen. Shall I get the guard?’

‘No, you needn’t, I know when I’m not wanted,’ Moppi said, sounding sullen and hurt. ‘Goodbye, Franz, all I wanted to do was make a time for lunch.’

‘Go away,’ Stahl said. ‘Don’t ever come back.’

Moppi left, the woman glared at him, then again apologized and closed the door behind her. All the others turned and looked at Stahl. ‘Who’s Franz?’ Pasquin said, honestly confused.

‘My name before I was an actor,’ Stahl said. ‘I was born in Austria.’

This was met with silence. Then Avila said, his voice incredulous, ‘That man is a friend of yours?’

Stahl thought quickly and said, ‘A friend of my family, long ago. He knew me as a child, now he’s discovered I’m a movie actor.’

The silence continued. Then it was Justine Piro who saved the day. ‘My God,’ she said, ‘I was afraid he was going to yodel.’

Laughter broke the tension. Avila said, ‘Where were we?’ But then looked up from his script and said to Stahl, ‘How on earth did he know where you were?’ It was the question of a man who’d grown up in a family that spent its life dodging the secret police of many countries.

Stahl shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Did he call Deschelles’s office?’

‘He didn’t follow you, did he?’

‘Oh Jean,’ Piro said. ‘Don’t say such things. Please.’

‘He might have,’ Stahl said. ‘I think he’s maybe a little…’ He circled a finger at his temple.

‘No, he’s just a German,’ Pasquin said. ‘They always find a way.’

Avila lit a cigarette, so did Stahl. ‘Well, to hell with him,’ Avila said. He looked down at his script and said, ‘The three legionnaires trudging along a dirt path…’

Stahl was back at the Claridge by three. He took off his jacket and sat down hard on the edge of the bed. A few minutes later, he called the desk and asked for a glass of Pepto-Bismol to be brought up to his suite. This would settle his stomach and calm his nerves and Stahl needed all of that. When the Pepto-Bismol arrived — on a silver tray, with a linen napkin — Stahl drank the chalky stuff and waited for it to take effect. Then, still shaken, he went to the window and, for the first time in his life, peered down at the street below and tried to see if someone was watching him.

There was a letter for him the following morning, a letter from America, the name on the return address was Betsy Belle. He sat on a couch in the lobby and opened the envelope, reluctantly, because he had a strong premonition about what was in there, and this turned out to be the case. In the careful script of an Iowa schoolgirl, Betsy was telling him goodbye. She knew he would understand, she was sorry, they’d had such good times together and she had, always would have, loving feelings for him. But she’d met a man, older than her, but kind and considerate, who worked in the accounting office at MGM. He had proposed marriage, after they’d seen each other a few times, and she had accepted. ‘My life was just going on, going noplace in particular, and I had to do something. Maybe I’ll get a part in a movie sometime, but maybe I never will. That’s cruel, but it might happen. I always leveled with you Fredric and truth is I feel like I’ve been saved. I took my things from the house, so what’s done is done.’ She signed the letter ‘Love, Betsy.’

He’d suspected something like this was coming but still it hurt him. They’d been closer than he’d realized, but a future together hadn’t been part of the bargain and women didn’t work like that forever, so now she’d been ‘saved’. He hoped that was true, he didn’t want bad things to happen to her. Deeply, he didn’t.

23 October.

‘Hello, Kiki, it’s Fredric Stahl. Would you like to go to a movie?’

‘Oh yes, I would like to. When?’

‘How about tonight?’

‘Tonight?’

‘If you can, or maybe Friday if you can’t.’

‘Well, I’d like to do something.’

‘Tonight is possible?’

‘What time?’

‘I’ll come and get you at eight — it’s an eight-thirty show.’

The line buzzed. ‘Eight will be fine.’

‘I’ll be there then.’

Maybe he was taking a chance, he thought — Kiki had some connection to the baroness and her crowd — but not much of a chance, and he was terribly lonely. According to Kiki, it was her parents who’d been invited to the von Reschke cocktail party, she had stood in for them, and she’d had no good words for the baroness’s friends, preferring the company of the Bohemian crowd on the artist’s barge. So he hoped. And then, after all, if she were part of some sinister plot against him, what could she do? Anyhow, he didn’t think she was manipulating him, he just didn’t.

It had rained, and it would rain again, on that chilly October evening. And as Fredric Stahl made his way through the Seventh Arrondissement, the city once again captured his heart: bittersweet autumn air, fallen leaves plastered to the cobblestones, lamplit rooms seen from the street — a night that sent his spirit aloft in a kind of melancholy elation. When he turned a corner, he discovered a woman wearing a raincoat over lounging pyjamas, waiting in a doorway while her spaniel visited the base of a streetlamp. Passing by, Stahl wished her a good evening. ‘It is that, monsieur,’ she said, with a conspirator’s smile. ‘And a good evening to you.’

Stahl had chosen a movie theatre near Kiki’s apartment so they could walk. It wasn’t that he wanted to see a particular movie, he wanted to go to the movies, and walking there was part of it. The theatre was showing Algiers, a Hollywood remake of Pepe le Moko, with the French Charles Boyer and Stahl’s fellow Austrian Hedy Lamarr. As they left Kiki’s building he told her what was playing. ‘You haven’t seen it, have you?’

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘But I wanted to.’ As the first few drops of rain fell and the wind rattled the leaves left on the trees, she took his arm.

In the darkened theatre, an usherette with a torch led them down the aisle to, at Kiki’s direction, an empty row. Almost immediately, a Pathe newsreel began. Stern music accompanied the narrator’s voice for a marrying-and-murdering insurance salesman who’d been arrested in Toulon. Excited strings as bicyclists raced through a village street in the mountains. A few bars of triumphant brass — a perfume heiress in goggles and leather headgear rode on the wing of a monoplane. Then the drums and trumpets of war as Franco’s Moorish soldiers charged across a dry riverbed. Finally a Wagnerian march, the volume much louder now. ‘In Berlin, Adolf Hitler takes the salute…,’ said the narrator as German soldiers, tall and fiercely serious, goose-stepped past a reviewing stand draped with swastikas. ‘Fucking Boche,’ said a voice in the theatre. ‘Shhh!’ said another. Then it was time for Charles Boyer.

As the famous jewel thief Pepe le Moko, and a fugitive from French justice, Charles Boyer is trapped in the Casbah, the ‘native quarter’ of Algiers. ‘A melting pot for all the sins of the earth,’ said the voice-over. As the credits ran, Kiki took Stahl’s hand and held it on top of the raincoat folded on her lap. Stahl moved closer so that their shoulders were touching. When Hedy Lamarr came on the screen, Kiki, her mouth by Stahl’s ear, whispered, ‘Do you think she is very beautiful?’ Her breath smelled of licorice, with just a bare hint of wine.

‘Everyone says she is,’ Stahl said.

‘Does she always wear so much make-up?’

‘We all do.’

A tough police inspector arrives from Paris. He’s come to arrest the wily jewel thief. Kiki moved Stahl’s hand from the folded raincoat to the top of her wool skirt and the soft thigh beneath it. He was stirred by this and wanted to respond, but Kiki had hold of his left hand and his right was too far away. It occurred to him that he might say something, then it occurred to him that there was nothing to say, and a turn of the head to look at her wasn’t the right thing either. So he watched the movie.

Where the French inspector leads a search through the narrow streets of the Casbah. As they approach one of Pepe’s many hideouts, three beggars in three adjacent doorways rap their staves on the street doors, warning Pepe and his gang. It was getting very warm where Kiki’s hand held his. She changed positions and gave him a delicate squeeze, which he returned. Now Inspector Slimane, an Algerian detective in a tarboosh, and Pepe’s amiable opponent, is telling the jewel thief that the date of his future arrest is written on the wall of his office. Stahl was absorbed in the clever dialogue so it surprised him when Kiki, with a decorous parting of her legs, moved his hand beneath her skirt, where it rested partly on the hem of her silk panties, on her garter belt, and on the smooth skin of her inner thigh. Now Stahl had to turn and look at her. But Kiki’s profile showed nothing, her eyes were fixed on the screen, she was watching Algiers, whatever might be going on elsewhere had nothing to do with her.

Meanwhile, Hedy Lamarr dines with her awful husband and his awful friends in a little restaurant. The shafts of light from the projector shifted as the images changed, the sound track crackled beneath the voices of the actors, and Kiki moved Stahl’s hand to the very centre of her damp panties, and then beneath. Making sure he stayed where he was, she changed hands, her left hand set on top of his, while her right hand crept under his raincoat, nudged his legs apart, and, slowly and with one or two hesitations as she struggled with the buttons, undid his fly. From Stahl, a kind of pleasurable sigh, very brief and completely spontaneous. Surprise. Nice surprise. And then, raising her panties with the back of her hand, she began to move his fingers.

Again he looked at her. At first her face was without expression but then, slowly, her eyelids lowered and her lips parted as her fingers rode on top of his. Her other hand tightened where she held him, her chin lifted and her mouth opened, a little, a little more, and then completely as she exhaled and a soft, breathy ah escaped her.

Now the hand that had gripped him hard relaxed, as Kiki rested the back of her head against the theatre seat. That grip, he realized, had not been meant for his pleasure — she’d simply held on to something that excited her while she watched whatever movie played behind her closed eyes. The jewel thief Pepe le Moko is led into a police trap — tempted by his passion for Hedy Lamarr, and for Paris, which he longs to see once more. The ship that will sail for France pulls away from the pier, Pepe runs from the police and is shot. As he lies dying in Slimane’s arms, the detective says, ‘We thought you were going to escape.’ Then, Pepe’s last words: ‘I have.’ Kiki took a handkerchief from the pocket of her raincoat and wiped her eyes.

26 October. Jules Deschelles telephoned and told Stahl that it would be three weeks before Joinville had space available for them. He’d tried to argue but Paramount wouldn’t budge. So Stahl and the others would learn their lines, continue the read-throughs, then start to rehearse. Deschelles regretted the delay, but maybe all for the best as Jean Avila and his cameraman would be going off to Syria and the Lebanon to scout locations. In fact, Deschelles might join them. Of course, if those countries didn’t work out, they could always go to Morocco.

An hour later, as Stahl was about to leave for Joinville, a call from Mme Boulanger at the Warner publicity office. After a few opening pleasantries she said, ‘I have an interview for you. It’s tomorrow — whenever you can be available.’

‘Who’s doing the interview?’

‘I doubt you know him. His name is Loubec, he writes sports and entertainment features for Le Matin.’

Again, Le Matin. ‘I wonder if that’s a good idea,’ Stahl said, treading carefully. ‘What with all the politics.’

‘You’ll manage,’ Mme Boulanger said firmly. ‘It’s my job to get press coverage, Monsieur Stahl — you aren’t going to turn me down, are you?’

‘What’s he like, this Loubec?’

From Mme Boulanger, a theatrical sigh that meant, Oh no, he’s being a prima donna. ‘I’ve run into him before, he’s rather workmanlike, gets the information, writes it down. Just another journalist, dear. I’ll hold your hand if you like.’

Stahl hesitated, then said, ‘I guess I should do it. Where do we meet?’

‘In your hotel, he’s bringing a photographer.’

‘All right. I’ll likely be back from Joinville around five and I’ll see him at — six?’

‘I’ll let him know. If you don’t hear from me it’ll be at six. How’s everything else going? How’s Avant la Guerre?’

‘It’s Apres la Guerre, and the omens aren’t so bad.’

‘Superstitious, love? Don’t dare to say it’s good? Oh you actors! You’re probably excited.’

‘Too soon, too soon for that. Thanks for getting me the interview, Madame Boulanger.’

‘You’re welcome, but the truth is, he came to me.’

27 October. Loubec was prompt. They called up from the desk and Stahl said he would be right down — the idea of being interviewed ‘in his suite at the Claridge’ somehow felt wrong to him. He wore slacks and a dark-blue sweater — after twenty minutes of trial and error with his wardrobe — and had ordered up a good stiff whisky and soda. He was tense about this interview, apprehensive, and the drink helped.

They met at the desk and Stahl led the way to a table in the nearly deserted hotel bar. The photographer, bearded, bored, and rumpled, sat at the neighbouring table and fiddled with his camera. ‘Would you care to have something?’ Stahl said, looking from one to the other.

‘No, thank you,’ said Loubec. The photographer shrugged — if Loubec wouldn’t, he couldn’t. Loubec, in his mid-thirties, was pale and fair-haired, with a smooth, expressionless face and glasses with clear plastic frames. He flipped up the cover of his notepad and riffled through the pages until he found what he wanted. ‘Thank you for agreeing to the interview, Monsieur Stahl. Do you mind if Rene takes a picture or two while we’re talking?’

Stahl did mind. Unposed photographs, the subject caught unaware by the camera, could make you look like a madman or the village idiot. ‘One or two, but no more,’ he said. ‘And I’d prefer to do it when we’re done talking.’

Rene couldn’t have cared less. ‘As you like,’ he said.

‘So,’ Loubec said, ‘can we start by going over the titles and dates of your movies? And the award nominations? I have them listed, but I just want to make sure I didn’t miss something.’

This was done quickly enough — Loubec basically had it right, though Stahl wasn’t certain about some of the dates. ‘I won’t try to use it all,’ Loubec said, ‘just the highlights. Now, looking at your date of birth, it seems you were likely the right age for military service during the war, but that isn’t covered in your Warner bio. Did you serve in the army? Perhaps you were exempt?’ Loubec’s pencil hovered over the empty space on his notepad page.

‘I was at sea, on a neutral ship, when the war began. The ship was damaged by gunfire but we made it to Barcelona.’

‘And that was…?’

‘In 1916.’

‘With two years of war remaining.’

‘When I went to the Austrian legation, they gave me a job. As what’s called an “office boy.”’

‘What were they like? The other Austrians, I mean.’

Where is this headed? ‘What were they like?’ Stahl said. ‘They were like people who worked in an office.’

‘So, “ordinary”, you’d say.’

‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

‘Well, you’re of German origin and…’

‘I was born in Vienna, but I left when I was sixteen — I believe the bio says that.’

‘Sorry, I should’ve said Austrian. I’m afraid that many people here in France think it’s the same thing. My point is, you weren’t in the trenches shooting at French soldiers. And your experience of Austrians during the war wasn’t, militaristic, or anything like that.’

Stahl shook his head, clearly ready to move to another subject.

‘Have you been, since you arrived in France, the subject of any anti-German, I should say anti-Austrian, hostility?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘There is some considerable anti-German sentiment here in France, Monsieur Stahl.’

Stahl shrugged. ‘Not on movie sets, the subject doesn’t come up.’

Loubec turned the page back to his questions. ‘You’ve arrived in France during a period of considerable turmoil, some people say that war is coming, did your American friends think you were brave, or maybe foolish, to come to France?’

‘No. They might have wondered, but nobody said anything.’

‘Do they believe that war is inevitable? Or do they hope that diplomacy can resolve political differences?’

Stahl let his irritation show — Loubec had manoeuvred him into a political discussion he’d meant to avoid. As he leaned forward, a flashbulb popped as Rene took a photograph. Stahl rubbed his eyes and stared at him. ‘Pardon,’ Rene said. ‘It’s dark in here.’

‘Should I read back the question?’ Loubec said.

‘No, naturally they hope there won’t be a war. They don’t want to see people killed, cities burned down. Do you?’

Loubec’s face was so immobile, so opaque, that for a moment Stahl wondered if there was something wrong with him. ‘I don’t,’ Loubec said. ‘But, sad to say, there are politicians who are dedicated to preparation for war, massive rearmament, anti-German propaganda, because they have dismissed the idea that France and Germany can come to any rapprochement. But, perhaps, you agree with them.’

‘I don’t,’ Stahl said. ‘But I don’t spend time worrying about it, I spend my time preparing to make a moving picture.’ Stahl hadn’t raised his voice, but the emphasis was there. ‘It’s called Apres la Guerre, produced by Jules Deschelles for Paramount Pictures.’ Stahl smiled, meaning he wasn’t angry, but…

‘Of course we’ll talk about the movie, but my readers are interested in your views, Monsieur Stahl, what sort of fellow you are — one’s life is more than one’s profession, no?’

Stahl smiled again. ‘Maybe less than you think, Monsieur Loubec.’

‘Very well, then tell me this, are you concerned about the possibility that, if war breaks out, you might not be able to finish your film?’

Stahl lit a cigarette, then looked at his watch. ‘I believe it will be finished,’ he said. And that’s that.

‘Maybe it would be better if countries never again went to war. As an artist, do you believe that?’

‘That it would be better?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who doesn’t believe that?’

Loubec shrugged. ‘Now, can you say something about Apres la Guerre?’

As Loubec’s pencil worked away — obediently, it seemed to Stahl — he repeated his memorized summary, hitting the points that made the movie sound dramatic and exciting. Loubec asked a tame question or two, then they left the hotel and Rene took a number of photographs. But Stahl never saw them.

Le Matin reached the news-stands at 5.30 in the morning, Stahl had one back in his suite by 5.45. The front-page headline said that the insurance salesman from Toulon, who’d married four women, then poisoned them and taken their money, had been sentenced to death at the conclusion of his trial. In the grainy photograph, a fat little man with a moustache was being taken down the courthouse steps by two policemen. Above the right-hand column, a smaller headline: VON RIBBENTROP CALLS FOR GERMAN CONTROL OF DANZIG. The German foreign minister was photographed shaking hands with Josef Beck, his Polish counterpart. Of the two, von Ribbentrop had the larger smile.

Stahl hunted through the paper and, towards the back, across from the racetrack results, a mid-column photograph caught his attention: a man with an intense and mildly disturbed expression on his face, a serious man, leaned forward, his mouth parted as he began to speak. A good photograph, really, nothing to do with being a movie star, simply a concerned, notably handsome individual. At the top of the column was a publicity still: Stahl holding a doctor’s bag as he stood in a doorway, with the caption Fredric Stahl as Dr Lawton in ‘A Fortunate Woman ’. This photo was beneath the story’s headline:

AMERICAN ACTOR FAVOURS DIPLOMACY

In smaller print, a subhead: Hollywood Star Fredric Stahl Speaks Out for Rapprochement

Stahl’s first try at a reaction was mild irritation because it doesn’t matter, but slowly, inevitably, anger began to build inside him. It wasn’t that he’d never been manipulated — not in his business it wasn’t — but there was a certain arrogance, almost bravado, in the way it had been done. And, worse, he had watched it happening to him but could do nothing about it. And this was what took a whetstone to the edge of his anger.

The story was nothing but sweetness and light. Surely it made Philippe LaMotte and the Baroness von Reschke happy as they ate their morning croissants. As far as Stahl was concerned, the story went: anti-German feeling in France was muted, except in the case of certain politicians who were anxious to rearm, who were preparing to take the nation into war. ‘“Do they want to see people killed, cities burned down?” a puzzled Stahl asked this reporter.’ And, a few sentences later, ‘Who doesn’t believe that it would be better if countries never again went to war?’ The man who said this was clearly, as the first paragraph pointed out, a highly respected and accomplished American. So, went the innuendo, that’s what important Americans are thinking.

Stahl had always admired good work and he admired it now. Loubec was a sneaky little bastard but he was good at his job. Did the story matter? In the greater scheme of things, maybe not all that much, just another drip from the leaky faucet. But, Stahl supposed, the people who’d done this knew that it was a slow but effective way to create a flood.

Mme Boulanger waited until a decent eighty-thirty before she called. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘what did you think?’

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I realized what was going on but I couldn’t stop it. Will it matter?’

‘To your career? No, not much, not at all. I have to translate the story for Warner publicity in Hollywood, but I doubt they’ll do more than take a quick glance to make sure you haven’t said anything dreadful.’ She paused a moment, then said, ‘Also, a copy goes to somebody named Walter Perry, I expect he’s important but I don’t know who he is.’

‘An eminence grise, Jack Warner’s personal stand-in.’

‘Well, so they care about you, you’re a valuable asset.’

‘Were you disturbed by it, Madame Boulanger?’

‘Oh, maybe a little. Those aren’t my political views — it’s the Le Matin line. Did you mean what you said?’

‘Not the way it came out.’

‘Ahh, journalists,’ she said. ‘But, aside from the fact that you stuck your nose into French politics, it’s not that damaging. For one thing, an American reader would think you simply care about peace and don’t hate Germans. They have no idea what goes on here. None. And, speaking of that, I think you’d do well to meet a friend of mine. His name is Andre Sokoloff, of Russian extraction but completely French, completely Parisian says it better.’

‘Who is he?’

‘The senior correspondent for Paris-Soir, which is sort of the New York Times of France. Have lunch with him, he’ll tell you some things you ought to know.’

‘Things I ought to know?’

‘They’re after you, Monsieur Stahl. I surely didn’t mean to help them but I did, so this is my way of helping you protect yourself.’

‘There’s more to come, you mean.’

‘That I can promise you. As the English detectives say in the mystery novels, “the game is on”.’

Stahl ordered coffee and croissants, had his breakfast at the window, and watched the brown leaves go swirling down the rue Francois 1er. He felt better, Mme Boulanger had made him feel better, that was her job. When a client was the subject of bad press, she helped them get through it. He couldn’t say exactly how she managed to do that, but the tone of her voice had a lot to do with it — an unstated but clear message: this is not the end of the world.

Done with breakfast, he caught a whiff of his underarms — he’d had a difficult morning — and realized he’d better shower before he went out to Joinville. So he was naked when the phone rang. Stahl was no psychic, he couldn’t foresee future events — sometimes a very fortunate thing — but he knew who this was and he was right.

‘Franz, good morning. I hope I’m not disturbing you, is it too early?’

He didn’t slam the phone down — he wanted to, but he didn’t. He knew, since his meeting with Wilkinson, that he was talking to the enemy. So then, what did the enemy have to say? Something Wilkinson could use? Maybe it didn’t matter but, in case it did, he wasn’t going to sacrifice it for the simple pleasure of slamming down a phone. ‘Hello, Moppi,’ he said, some resignation in his voice.

‘I was wondering if you’d seen today’s Le Matin.’ Moppi was not at all his usual blustering self, he was, for him, quiet, subdued, delicately sympathetic.

‘Yes, I saw it.’

‘I must admit I was surprised… at what you said.’

‘You were?’

‘Yes, it really didn’t sound like you. Nothing wrong with the — sentiments, of course not, you just don’t seem like somebody who would talk about politics in a foreign newspaper. But maybe I’m wrong.’

‘You’re not wrong. The quotes weren’t inaccurate but they were presented in a way that made me into something I’m not.’

‘Ach!’ said Moppi in Austrian despair. ‘These journalists have no decency.’

‘Well, next time I’ll know better.’

‘Maybe you should be glad it wasn’t worse, if you understand me.’

‘Worse? How?’

‘Oh, for example, you were briefly in jail. Imagine what a French newspaper could make of that!’

How did… ‘I was caught in a street march. I was never charged with anything.’

‘Of course not! You’re important, a star. But still, they could have suggested anything, some terrible accusation. And then, even the fact that you were discreetly set free, without publicity, could be used against you. Big movie star, look how the powerful are treated differently from you and me. L’Humanite, the communist party newspaper, would give it prominent space.’

‘But they haven’t, have they?’

‘Thank heaven. In truth, the story in Le Matin wasn’t so bad, by now the market women are wrapping fish in it.’

‘Moppi, I have to go out in a little while…’

‘Forgive me, Franz, I blabber too much, my wife… I am calling to ask of you a favour, not that you owe me anything, you don’t, but my position in the embassy concerns culture, and I could be in difficulties if you won’t have a little lunch with us.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow, at Maxim’s. Are you allowing me to hope, Franz?’

‘I’ll look at my schedule later today and call you back. Maybe even tomorrow morning — is that too late?’

‘Why no. No! Not at all!’ The old exuberant Moppi had returned from wherever he’d been hiding. ‘Believe me, you won’t regret it.’

Oh no?

Stahl showered and shaved and dressed — casually, corduroys and a loose grey shirt — for work. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about the lunch invitation and went back and forth; from confront these people to get as far away as you can, then gave up — he would decide later. But, if he was going to lunch the following day, he had to telephone Jean Avila. This wasn’t so easy; Stahl could only hope he hadn’t seen the story. A vain hope. ‘I didn’t realize,’ Avila said, ‘that you were so interested in French politics.’

‘I’m not.’ After a moment he said, ‘You read that paper?’

‘You know I don’t, but a friend felt obligated to tell me about it.’ Some tartness in his voice suggested what he felt about such ‘friends’.

‘They twisted everything I said. I thought I was doing publicity.’

‘You were, in a way, but their publicity, not yours. You have to be careful, Fredric, everything in this accursed country is so symbolic, a few words may mean more than you suspect — it’s like speaking in code.’

‘I spent this morning learning all about that,’ Stahl said ruefully, ‘and I won’t be talking to them again. Jean, I may have to go to a lunch tomorrow, can you work around me?’

‘Come to the set at ten, as usual, then stay until twelve-thirty. All right?’

‘Thank you, Jean, and thank you for being understanding about that trash in the newspaper.’

‘See you later, my friend, and don’t stop to talk to any journalists on the way.’

29 October. Jimmy Louis drove Stahl to Maxim’s in the glowing silver Panhard. Moppi and his pals wanted a movie star, very well, they would have one. Stahl had decided to accept the invitation. He’d certainly heard Moppi’s threats, about the newspapers, and he’d heard him say they knew more about him — his night in jail — than he’d thought they did. We’re watching you. So he would go to lunch, and if he heard something interesting he’d let Wilkinson know about it. He would listen to them, and then he would find a way to let them know that it ended there, that he wouldn’t be intimidated. They might accept that, or they might not, and, if they didn’t, they would attack him in the press and he would have to fight back. A public brawl. Warner Bros. wouldn’t like it, Deschelles wouldn’t like it, so the longer he could put that off the better for him. Not unwise, he thought, to sacrifice two hours in defence of his career. But he’d go no further, he was done with them, and they were about to find that out.

He had Jimmy drive around until 1.20, then they pulled up in front of the restaurant. Inside, spectacular opulence — Maxim’s had been established in the Belle Epoque, before the turn of the century, when life in Paris was, for a time, sweet and golden, if you had the money for sweet and golden. With the arrival of Art Nouveau in the 1920s, the restaurant was redecorated, and there it stopped. Stahl paused at the maitre d’s station, but he was immediately led into the dining room, where he saw mostly businessmen and a sprinkling of tourists. And here came Moppi, red in the face and wiping his bald head with one of the restaurant’s enormous linen napkins. Moppi pumped his hand and tried to take Stahl, his greatly desired prize, by the elbow, but Stahl slipped away.

At a table in the centre of the room, five faces were eagerly turned towards him as he approached. Stahl was introduced — all German names — and he realized they had managed to round up one of his ‘friends from the legation’, an older man when Stahl knew him in Barcelona, now very old and very nervous. Stahl instinctively doubted this man lived in Paris, suspecting that he had been imported for the occasion. Even during the pre-lunch menu chitchat, all the men at the table deferred to the leader, one Emhof, whose speech was German, not Austrian. He was a good-sized gent — they were all good-sized except for the imported guest. Emhof was pop-eyed, which gave him a fervent stare no matter where he looked. He had a bass rumble for a voice, a vast belly, and a Nazi party pin — a swastika with a diamond at its centre — in his lapel. He was sitting to Stahl’s left, and smelled of smelly cigars. Taking the wine list in hand, he produced a pair of heavy, black-framed glasses, put them on, then tilted them upwards for sharper vision in the restaurant light. The wine waiter stood patiently by Emhof’s chair — this will be worth the wait — and Emhof finally said, ‘We’ll have the Chateau Margaux.’

‘The 1932, monsieur?’

‘The 1899, and you might as well bring two bottles. No, three.’

‘Very good, monsieur.’

Emhof turned towards Stahl and leaned back, taking off his glasses. ‘We’re pleased you could join us, Herr Stalka — or would you prefer to be called by your Hollywood name?’

‘As you wish, Herr Emhof. I was born Stalka, it’s still that way in my passport.’

‘And it’s…?’

‘Slovenian.’ As you well know.

‘Slovenian! So beautiful there, such majestic mountains. You ski, I would suppose.’

‘Not so much, sometimes on vacation I tried it, but my family was more Viennese than Slovenian, my mother and father’s people had been there for a long time.’

‘And your family lives there still?’

‘They do.’

‘But you are far away, in California. Do you manage to see them?’

‘Not for a long time, I’m afraid.’

Moppi cleared his throat and said, ‘Perhaps you might…’ But Emhof stared at him and he shut up.

‘And Hollywood? You’re happy there? I understand that the movie business is almost entirely a Jewish business, am I right? Is that entirely comfortable? Or are you perhaps yourself of Jewish origin?’

‘I was raised as a Catholic, but I am not a religious person. And I’m very comfortable with whatever Jews work in Hollywood, it really doesn’t matter.’

‘We had them in the German film industry, though many of them have moved on. Yet the business seems to thrive so we don’t much notice the — absence.’

The man on Emhof’s left, young and ambitious-looking, said, ‘Do you follow today’s German films, Herr Stalka?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Pity. It’s a very vibrant industry. UFA, our principal production house, makes hundreds of films and the best of them are quite good, just like Hollywood, I imagine.’

‘I’m sure they are,’ Stahl said.

The waiter arrived. Emhof — and all but Stahl echoed his choice — ordered a Maxim’s classic: Tournedos Rossini, tender beef filet topped with foie gras and a sliver of truffle, and, another classic, the Pommes Anna, thinly sliced potatoes layered with butter and pressed into a block. Stahl ordered the Filet of Sole Albert, named for the famous Maxim maitre d’hotel.

As the waiter left, Emhof said, ‘Tell me, Herr Stalka, does Hollywood make films about mountaineering?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Stahl said. ‘At least I don’t know of any.’

‘Extraordinary. We have been producing them in Germany since the mid-twenties. Have you not seen Arnold Fanck’s Der heilige Berg? “The Holy Mountain”? Where our own Leni Riefenstahl is the lead actress?’

Stahl shook his head. He knew only of Riefenstahl’s propaganda films, about the Nuremberg rally of the Nazi party, and the ’36 Olympics — young people with beautifully defined muscles.

‘It’s very popular in Germany,’ Moppi said, ‘the mountain film.’

‘It’s a national passion,’ the man to Emhof’s left said. ‘We all must climb, must make our way up the incline of life to the sunlit peak of success. A journey, a journey requiring great fortitude, great inner strength.’

‘No doubt.’ Out before Stahl could stop it, this was lightly flavoured with derision — the Viennese taste for irony was returning as he spoke German.

Emhof raised his eyebrows. Moppi rushed in. ‘So much do we enjoy the mountain movie, Franz, that a film festival is scheduled to take place in Berlin. Forty mountain films will be shown! That will be exciting, no?’

Stahl could only imagine. As for mountains in the movies, what came to mind was his musician friends’ amusement at a certain film cliche: when a mountaintop was shown, the shot was always scored with a long, triumphant note from a horn. Finally he said, ‘Always good to have a film festival.’

‘Yes, we think so too,’ Emhof said.

The wine appeared, and with some ceremony the bottles were placed on angled silver wine-rests. ‘Shall I open all of them, monsieur?’

‘Naturally,’ Emhof said.

When all six glasses were poured, Emhof said ‘ Sieg Heil ’, and raised his glass as the other four Germans repeated the toast. Stahl looked away, and two or three heads turned towards them at nearby tables.

Yes, Stahl thought, Chateau Margaux was transcendent — if only he’d been with a lover or with friends, he would have enjoyed it.

The lunch arrived soon thereafter; an appetizer plate of caviar with blini and chopped egg. And then the tournedos. As the plates were set down, all the Germans said, ‘Ahh.’ Had this been a table of Parisians, some light conversation would have been maintained — to talk while dining demanded a certain level of skill. Not the Germans, they fell on the tournedos with avid concentration, while the old man from Stahl’s Barcelona days ate in such a way, eyes never leaving his plate, that it occurred to Stahl it might have been some time since he’d had a good meal. Meanwhile, Stahl ate some of his sole.

As the plates were taken away, Emhof dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and said, ‘The French can cook, that much we must say for them.’

The others nodded and agreed.

‘And they must be encouraged to continue, no matter what,’ said the man next to Emhof.

No matter what? This remark, with just a hint of knowing undertone, was, Stahl sensed, meant to go over his head and resonate with the man’s colleagues.

Emhof intervened, making sure the man to his left did not elaborate. ‘It isn’t only cooking, there are many things that the French — ‘He was winding up to expand on this theme but he stopped dead and his face lit with anticipation as a waiter appeared, rolling a cart that held a large pan, cordials, and a plate of crepes — here were the makings of Crepes Suzette!

‘Oh-ho,’ said Moppi, grinning and rubbing his hands.

‘I wonder,’ Emhof said, turning to face Stahl, ‘if you would be willing to listen to an idea that’s just now occurred to me.’

‘I will always listen,’ Stahl said.

‘Our festival of mountain movies begins in November, in Berlin, and we are going to offer a number of prizes, in various categories; technical achievement, performance, umm, spiritual value — just like the Oscars.’ He paused, Stahl waited. ‘So, of course, if there are prizes, there must be judges. Is there any chance you would consider coming over — even for a day, I know you’re a busy man — to be one of them? Think of the film-makers, how excited they would be just to meet a man of your stature. And there is quite a substantial honorarium to be paid, twenty thousand reichsmarks — ten thousand dollars in American money. Only a day’s work, Herr Stalka, Herr Fredric Stahl, and Lufthansa will fly you over and back. What do you think?’

‘I think I won’t be coming to your festival, Herr Emhof. And I won’t be coming to any more lunches, and I won’t be answering Herr Moppi’s telephone calls, or letters, or telegrams. And if Herr Moppi shows up again at a movie set where I’m working, I’ll have him arrested. Have I made myself clear?’

‘Speaking of movies,’ said the man to Emhof’s left, addressing all at the table, ‘I saw once again, last week, the magnificent Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel.’

‘What an actress,’ Emhof said.

‘Oh she was wonderful, wasn’t she,’ Moppi said. ‘What was she called? I can never remember.’

‘Lola Lola,’ said Emhof. ‘Memorable, one of our greatest films.’

‘Right! Lola Lola!’ Moppi said.

Stahl rose, placed his napkin by his plate, said, ‘Good day, gentlemen,’ and walked towards the door. Behind him, the old man said, ‘Good day, sir.’ At a table near the maitre d’ station sat a very respectable couple, drinking wine and waiting for their next course. The man, dressed to perfection in a dark suit, crisp white shirt, and sober tie, his mouth set in prim disapproval, turned his head towards Stahl and, just for an instant, met his eyes, then looked away. Stahl continued towards the door. The last thing he heard from the table of Germans was a cry of delight as the liqueurs in the crepe pan were set ablaze.

The cast out at Joinville worked hard the following day. Stahl and the others had not yet ‘dropped their scripts’, but they could rehearse by glancing over their lines and setting their scripts aside, which freed them to move around and add physical action to the dialogue.

In the film, the three legionnaires have found a morning’s work, cleaning an olive-oil mill in a small Turkish town. When they are paid — much less than promised — they replace their tattered uniforms with old clothing from the local souk. They are then seen on a platform at the railway station, waiting for a local train which will eventually take them to the last stop in Turkey where, since they have no papers, they plan a clandestine crossing at night, into Syria. They expect that Syria, a French colonial possession since the end of the Great War, will be a place where they can acquire passports and money.

They ride for a few stops, and begin to believe their plan will work, but then they are discovered by a conductor and, without tickets, they are thrown off the train in some tiny village. In the same carriage, the character played by Justine Piro is also unable to produce a ticket and she is pushed out the door of the railway carriage. Her character, called Ilona, says she is an impoverished Hungarian countess, and needs only to reach Hungary, where she has money and family. In return for the legionnaires’ protection, she will help them when they get to Budapest.

Having identified Stahl’s Colonel Vadic as the leader of the trio, she seeks to enlist his sympathy. ‘How on earth did you wind up in Turkey?’ Vadic asks her.

‘My fiance was a diplomat, sent to Istanbul when the war began, and he brought me there.’

‘What happened?’ the lieutenant asks.

‘What often happens,’ she says.

‘He abandoned you?’ Pasquin’s sergeant says. ‘ You? ’

Avila broke in. ‘The sergeant doesn’t really believe anything she says, Pasquin, but he is amused by her lie, so he should smile with that line.’

The sergeant, it later turns out, is correct — Ilona is not Hungarian, not a countess, and there never was a fiance. Pasquin and Justine Piro worked at the two-line sequence for a time, trying it in a slightly altered form on each repetition, as Avila commented and suggested different variations.

By 3.00 p.m., when the costumed upper-class rakes and ingenues arrived for their boulevard comedy, the cast of Apres la Guerre had been at it for five hours. As they prepared to leave, Avila took Stahl aside and asked if he would mind going over to Building K, where Renate Steiner, the costume designer, needed him for a fitting. Stahl was worn out, it had been a long rehearsal and, after the lunch at Maxim’s the day before, he’d had trouble sleeping. But of course he had to go off to Building K.

At Building K, a different Renate Steiner. Dark-haired and fair-skinned, with a sharp jawline and a pointy nose, she wore the same blue work-smock over a long dress, thick stockings, and laced boots. But her smile, ironic and subtly challenging, was not to be seen, and her faded blue eyes, that had caught his interest, were swollen and faintly red. Was something wrong? He didn’t know her well enough to ask. Better just to assume her life, like his, like everybody else’s, had its ups and downs.

‘Thank you for coming over,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’re tired — when you work with Avila you don’t take time off, because he never does.’

‘I’m used to hard work,’ he said. ‘All going well?’

She shrugged. ‘Well enough, I guess. Let’s get you into uniform, Fredric.’ She nodded towards a curtain in one corner, her changing room, and handed him the uniform. ‘While you change clothes, I’ll get your boots,’ she said.

He reappeared as Colonel Vadic, his Foreign Legion uniform bleached out and artfully torn at the sleeve. She looked him over with a critical eye, then shook her head. Lord, why me? As she snatched a lump of tailor’s chalk from her work table she said, ‘I’m training a new seamstress, so there will be mistakes.’ With a strong hand she grabbed the shoulder of his tunic, moved it back and forth, then flattened it out and drew a line for a new seam. ‘And I have three more of these,’ she said, irritation in her voice. ‘A duplicate of this one, because God-only-knows what happens on movie sets, one even more distressed, for your travels in the desert, and the last one, terribly ratty, that you try to sell at the used-clothing stall in the souk. The merchant has a funny line about it, if I remember correctly.’

It took some time — there was something wrong with each uniform — and the late-afternoon light outside the windows began to fade towards an early dusk. Holding a few pins between her lips, she knelt and changed the length of his trousers, then stood, stared at him for a long minute, and said, ‘Let’s get rid of that button on your breast pocket.’ She found a razor blade with a covered edge and sliced off a button. ‘I’ll fix the flap so it doesn’t lie flat but I don’t need to do that now. Have a look.’

He turned and faced the full-length mirror. ‘It looks just right,’ he said. In the mirror, he could see her over his shoulder. From a desk by the far wall, a telephone rang — the French signal, two short rings. Then again, and a third time, but Renate didn’t move. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. The phone continued to ring. It was as though the two of them were frozen in place. At last the ringing stopped and she sank down in a chair and held her hands over her face. Stahl turned around. From beneath her hands, in a voice fighting through tears, she said, ‘I’ll have to pull…’ She stopped, then went on, ‘I’ll have to pull the threads out, where the button was.’ Stahl waited patiently, a sympathetic man in a tattered uniform.

She dropped her hands and said, ‘Oh you must forgive me.’

His voice was low and gentle as he said, ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’

The kindness undid her. She took a handkerchief from the pocket of her smock and wept silently, hiding her face behind the white square. When the telephone rang again, one sob escaped her. Stahl couldn’t bear it. He walked over to her and rested a light hand on her shoulder. Then was startled as she suddenly rose from the chair, threw her arms around him, and pressed her face against his chest. He held her carefully, desperate to say something, but what came to him, some version of please don’t cry, was worse than silence. At last the phone stopped ringing, she let him go and went and stood by her work table, turned away from him. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘You needn’t say a word.’

‘It’s just that… I have trouble at home. Bad trouble. Trouble I can’t fix.’

‘That’s very hard for a woman.’

She nodded, then blew her nose, took a deep breath, and exhaled. ‘He calls me and says frightening things, he wants to…’

‘To what?’

‘I can’t say it out loud. He is going to… he doesn’t want to live any more.’

‘Your husband?’

‘We’re not married but yes, he is my husband.’

‘Renate,’ Stahl said softly, ‘I can go outside, you know, have a cigarette…’

From Renate, the suggestion of a nod, then, quietly, ‘I know.’ She paused, then said, ‘I really can’t bear it any longer. I just can’t.’

‘Would it help you to talk about it?’

A brief shrug, then once again, trying to calm herself, she took a breath and let it out. ‘An old story, I expect you know the whole thing. He was an important journalist in Berlin, but he is nothing here. He can’t write in French, not well enough he can’t. So he does a few pieces, diatribes, for the emigre magazines and gets a few francs, but it’s me who makes the money.’

Stahl was silent. He went behind the curtain, retrieved his pack of Gauloises, took one himself and offered her the pack. She drew one out, he lit both cigarettes. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘You’re right. I have seen this before, but if he can somehow hang on, life will improve.’ And, yes, it sometimes did, but often it did not, and emigre suicides were all too common.

‘I tell him that. He says he has lost his manhood.’

Her face was taut with anguish, Stahl tried to say something, anything. ‘Oh, men can be like that, it’s…’

‘Fredric, I think I am done for the day.’

‘I understand, let me change and I’ll be gone in a minute.’

‘Please don’t be angry with me. He will call again, and it’s easier if I’m alone when I talk to him. It can go on… for a long time.’

Stahl changed quickly, struggling to unlace the heavy boots. The phone rang as he reached the door. He waved goodbye to Renate, who nodded gratefully and lifted the receiver.

2 November.

In northern Europe, the fog of autumn had settled over the cities. When Stahl looked out of his window at dawn, the street lay under a white mist that shifted with the wind and there were halos on the streetlamps, automobiles were no more than dim headlights moving slowly past the hotel, while pedestrians appeared for a moment, then faded into shapes and vanished.

Later on, at the desk in the lobby of the Claridge, there was a letter from the Baroness von Reschke on her elegant notepaper. Yet another cocktail party was planned, her friends were hoping he could make a little time for them, and she was eager to see him again. ‘I had hoped we could be closer, my dear, could take tea together some afternoon, just the two of us, but I will settle for your enchanting presence at my party.’ She meant? Oh Christ, she’d made it very clear what she meant. Tete-a-tete, so to speak, literally head-to-head but people went on from there, didn’t they. South. That was where she wanted them to go. In front of a camera he would have reacted darkly, in the lobby he just made a face.

Also: a telegram from Buzzy Mehlman, his agent, who had seen a translation of the Le Matin article. Stahl was astonished at the speed of the response, and counted the intervening days on his fingers. Had Mme Boulanger sent the story by cable? Spare no expense. This made Stahl uncomfortable — could it really be all that important? And the text of Buzzy’s message didn’t make him feel any easier: Great article in Le Matin stop Good coverage of film and Stahl successes stop Political opinion puzzling we think that unnecessary stop No reaction from Warner Bros but one story like this plenty stop Hope you’re healthy and loving Paree you can always telephone if you like stop Signed: Buzz

Mme Boulanger, true to her word, had scheduled a lunch for him that afternoon with Andre Sokoloff, the lead journalist at the newspaper Paris-Soir. Jean Avila would be spending the day with his production designer and art director in another building at Joinville, where sets were being built for the movie, so Stahl had the day off. The lunch was at 1.00 p.m. at a brasserie just off the Place Bastille. Stahl, tired of being driven around, took the Metro.

Mme Boulanger had made sure the brasserie people knew who he was, thus the proprietaire himself, one Papa Heininger — all straight-backed dignity and old-fashioned courtesy — greeted Stahl and showed him to ‘our most requested table’. Table 14, according to a heavy silver stand, which may have been their most requested table, but it had a hole in the vast mirror above the banquette. Otherwise, Stahl thought, the brasserie was the perfection of its type: hurrying waiters with old-fashioned whiskers, abundant gold leaf and red plush, and the very air itself, a heady blend of perfume, tobacco smoke, and grilled sausage. At least one room in heaven, Stahl thought, would smell like this.

Andre Sokoloff arrived a moment later, moving at the fast pace of the man who is perpetually late; a cigarette between his lips, a buckled leather briefcase beneath his arm. He was, Stahl thought, the essential Parisian, the essential Parisian journalist. After they’d shaken hands, Sokoloff sat opposite Stahl and said, ‘You know this place? The famous Brasserie Heininger?’

‘Famous for what?’ Stahl said, suspecting that a joke lay ahead.

‘It’s a restaurant with a story,’ Sokoloff said. ‘See that hole in the mirror? A year ago, in June I think, they had a Bulgarian headwaiter here, called Omaraeff, much too involved in emigre politics, who got himself shot in the ladies’ WC. He was hiding in a stall and pulled his pants down, which, since it was the ladies ’ WC, was a mistake. “A fatal mistake”, as we say. Meanwhile, another member of the gang kept the dinner crowd entertained by running a tommy gun around the dining room — remember I said Bulgarian emigre politics, which tend to be dramatic. Well, there went all the mirrors, except for the one behind you, which had only a single bullet hole and was left as Omaraeff’s memorial. Now that wouldn’t matter, in this city, if the choucroute wasn’t top-notch, but it is. You like choucroute garnie, sauerkraut and sausage?’

‘“Like” really isn’t the word. It’s well beyond that.’

‘Good. It always includes a sublime frankfurter and a pork chop. And to drink, I expect Warner Bros. would buy us champagne, but beer is what you want with choucroute.’

‘ Dark beer,’ Stahl said. ‘And plenty of it.’

‘I can see we’ll get along just fine,’ Sokoloff said, and half turned to look for a waiter, who rushed over to the table. Sokoloff was about Stahl’s age, good-looking in a craggy way, with a face careworn beyond his years, tousled brown hair, the dark complexion of the Latin French, and a certain set of the mouth: eager to laugh if it got the chance. As the waiter trotted off, Sokoloff said, ‘When the beer comes, we should drink to the estimable Mme Boulanger, she’s one of the good souls in this rats’ nest — I mean Parisian journalism.’

‘With pleasure,’ Stahl said. ‘She’s been a friend. And I begin to think I need to have as many of those as I possibly can.’

‘That’s always true,’ Sokoloff said. ‘Now we could follow one of our unwritten laws — no talk about politics or work during a meal. But, if you don’t mind, I’ll break one more rule today and we’ll do it anyhow. So then, tell me what’s going on.’

‘These people — only Le Matin so far but I get the feeling there’s more coming — are, how to say, after me.’

Sokoloff grinned. ‘After you? Only in your honour am I not sitting facing the door.’

‘Is it that bad?’

‘Not yet, but give it time.’

‘Well, I’ll let you know if a Bulgarian emigre comes through the door with a tommy gun.’

‘Do that, and we’ll continue our conversation under the table — which might be the best place to talk about the savage Le Matin. But I should start by telling you about Paris-Soir, where I work. We are the most respected — or hated, depends who you talk to — news organization in Paris, we also publish magazines, Marie Claire and Paris Match, and we own the station known as Radio 37. Saint-Exupery has written for us, so has Cocteau, and Blaise Cendrars. But the most important thing about Paris-Soir is that we don’t take bribes — not in any form. We have a wealthy publisher who is as much of an idealist as any publisher can be. We also occupy the democratic centre; with the communist L’Humanite far to our left, and Le Matin and others well to our right. When Henry Luce said in Time magazine that French newspapers sold their editorial policies to the highest bidder, he was sued for libel by Le Matin, Le Journal, and Le Temps — three newspapers of the right who sold their editorial policies to the highest bidder.’

With a tray balanced on the splayed fingers of one hand, the waiter arrived. Resting the tray on a service rack, he set a platter on the table and said, nearly sang, ‘ Choucroute garnie! ’ then added a crock of hot mustard and two glasses of dark Alsatian beer.

Stahl raised his glass and said, ‘ Salut, Mme Boulanger.’

Sokoloff imitated Stahl’s gesture and said, ‘Mme Boulanger.’ Then he drank and said, ‘Mm. Anyhow, the newspapers here are divided like the country, where cordial animosity has become something much more dangerous. This smouldered away for years, then came the Popular Front of 1936 — socialists, democrats, and communists — with Leon Blum, who is Jewish, as prime minister. The parties of the right were enraged; a fascist gang dragged Blum from his car, beat him badly, almost killed him. And if anyone wondered why, they wrote on the walls MIEUX HITLER QUE BLUM, better Hitler than Blum. Yes, mean-spirited, yes, caustic, but, in the end, far worse. In fact, they meant it.’

‘Meant it? Meant what? That Adolf Hitler should govern France? I’m sorry but I find that hard to believe.’

‘So do I. Or, rather, so did I. What the right has in mind is that Hitler would dominate France — with treaties by preference but with tanks if necessary. Democracy — which to the right is another way of saying “socialism”, if not outright Bolshevism — to be destroyed, and replaced by a Bonapartist authoritarian government which will finish with the labour unions and the intellectuals once and for all.’

Stahl had assembled a forkful of sauerkraut, speared a bite of frankfurter, spread some mustard on it, and raised the fork halfway to his mouth. There it stayed. He raised his head and met Sokoloff’s eyes. ‘That is…’ He hesitated, then said, ‘That’s treason.’

‘Not yet.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Stahl said. ‘Am I just being naive?’

‘You’re a well-meaning European who’s been away from Europe for eight years, during which time political life has changed. What hasn’t changed is the power of money — it was the big banks, the insurance companies, and the heavy industries that brought down the Popular Front. They are secretive about what they do, they crave anonymity. But there is also the magnate, the gros legume — the big vegetable — the warrior of the right. We have more than our share of those, it seems.’

‘And they are?’

‘For example Pierre Taittinger, of the house of champagne, who formed his very own fascist gang, the Jeunesses Patriotes, the young patriots, and introduced the symbolic blue beret as part of his, and their, uniform. For example Francois Coty, who famously said, “perfume is a woman’s love affair with herself”, and hid crates of weapons in his chateau at Louveciennes, on the outskirts of Paris, for his fascist gang, Solidarite Francaise. For example Jean Hennessy of the cognac firm, and the Michelin brothers, the tyre people, thought to be responsible for a terrorist bombing on the rue de Presbourg. These are people who work to bring down the government by force, and replace it with one more to their liking. Some of them have their own newspapers, some support, and arm, their own private militias, but all of them have one thing in common.’

‘Which is?’

‘They are French.’

‘But I’m told there is also German money, a lot of it, buying influence in the French government, and used to support propaganda, political warfare, that is meant to destroy the French will to fight.’

‘What you say is true, and now you have treason.’

Stahl returned to his lunch and his beer, but Sokoloff’s last comment didn’t go away. In the brasserie, the lunchtime symphony rose in volume — the clatter of silverware and china, spirited chatter, laughter, exclamations of ‘ Mais oui! ’ and ‘ C’est terrible! ’ Did they know? If they knew, did they care? The French looked away from evil, it drained the pleasure from life. Perhaps, they thought, it will just go away. In his very soul, Stahl wanted them to be right.

Sokoloff, sensing Stahl’s change of mood, looked guilty. ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘let’s have another beer. Yes?’

Stahl said, ‘What the hell, why not.’ Then, after a moment, ‘What is it with the Germans? They didn’t used to be like this.’

Sokoloff shrugged. ‘They lost a war and it made them furious, now they want to destroy us. Hitler has, at times, a certain twinkle in his eye, you know? What a sly fox am I — something like that. He means he conquered two nations, Austria and Czechoslovakia, without firing a shot, and France is next. He said in Mein Kampf that France should be isolated, then destroyed. Have you looked at a map lately? We’re surrounded by fascist dictatorships: Italy, Portugal, soon enough Spain, and Germany itself. Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands; all neutral. Others, like Hungary, bullied into alliance with the Nazis. We no longer have friends, the world is becoming, for us, a very cold place.’

‘Well, I’m your friend,’ Stahl said, as though that meant anything.

‘I know you are, and you’re an American, which makes you a very welcome friend.’

‘So then, what can I do? What should I do? Nothing?’

Sokoloff thought it over, then, with a rather wistful smile, said, ‘I don’t think I have an answer. I will tell you, as a friend, to be careful. They, and I mean the French and the Germans, will attack their enemies — especially in the press. All they’ve done so far is use you, bad enough, but it can be much worse.’ He paused, then said, ‘Have you ever heard of a man named Roger Salengro?’

‘No.’

‘He was Blum’s Minister of the Interior — that means he directed all the security forces, all counter-espionage. Salengro wasn’t going to stand for their nonsense, so they attacked him. A particularly nasty little magazine, called Gringoire, wrote that Salengro, who fought bravely in the last war until he was captured, allowed himself to be taken prisoner on purpose, to save his life, an act of cowardice. This was a lie, but Gringoire kept repeating it until, one day, when Salengro went to the ministry, the soldiers guarding the entrance refused to salute him. They had come to believe the lie. Salengro’s heart was broken, and he went home and killed himself.’

‘That’s vile,’ Stahl said.

‘It is. But better for you to know about it.’

Stahl nodded, the story reaching him as he stared out at the crowded room. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should just go back to America.’

‘Give up? Ruin your career? You won’t do that.’

‘No, probably I won’t. I can’t.’

‘You’re not the type. The people in Hollywood cast you as they do for a reason, Monsieur Stahl, they build on what is already there.’

‘Perhaps, some day, I will do an interview with you, Monsieur Sokoloff.’

‘Maybe some day, but not yet. As we used to say in the trenches, keep your head down.’

Stahl placed his knife and fork on the plate, then lit a cigarette.

Trying to ease the gloom he’d felt after talking to Sokoloff, he decided to walk for a while, taking the narrow, sunless streets of the Marais, the ancient Jewish quarter, in the general direction of the hotel. For a long time, nothing had changed here; tenement walls leaned over crooked lanes, the markets had kosher chickens hung on steel hooks, men wearing yarmulkes spoke Yiddish together — but stopped speaking until he’d passed by — and the women, heads covered with shawls or scarves, did not meet his eyes. It was, he thought, as though he were in some shtetl in Poland.

Still, by the time he left the district he was at least hopeful. He felt he could deal with his problems and do in Paris what he’d come here to do. Which wasn’t politics. He had faced down Moppi and his dreadful friends, and, in Andre Sokoloff, he had a new ally, without doubt a good man in a fight. Slowly, he regained himself — this wasn’t the first trouble in his life and it surely wouldn’t be the last, but he’d dealt with it before and he would now. A taxi cruised slowly by his side, inviting him to ride, Stahl raised a hand, the taxi stopped. And, on the way to the Claridge, just looking out at the streets made him feel better.

Reaching his rooms on the top floor of the hotel, Stahl tried to use his key but the door, already unlocked, swung open, slowly, as he pushed against it.

Inside, a man was sitting on the sofa, apparently waiting for him. Actually, not quite sitting, lounging said it better — he had one leg hooked over the arm of the sofa, his body resting against the cushions at an angle. A magazine that Stahl had left on the night table lay open on his lap. Was he a hotel thief? He wasn’t acting like one. He was tall, wearing a brown jacket and grey slacks, his collar unbuttoned, his tie pulled down. He had scant, colourless hair combed back from a high forehead, pale eyes, pale skin. To Stahl, he looked like a Scandinavian, perhaps a Swede, maybe a businessman. On the floor in front of the sofa was a small bag of pebbled black leather, like a doctor’s bag.

Stahl took a few steps towards the telephone on the desk, then put his hand on the receiver, ready to call downstairs, but the man just watched him as though he were an object of some, but not much, interest. ‘What are you doing here?’ Stahl said. ‘This isn’t your room.’

In German, the man said, ‘I stopped by to talk to you, Herr Stahl.’

Again, Stahl looked at the black bag. ‘Are you a doctor?’ he said, truly puzzled.

‘No, I’m not a doctor,’ the man said.

‘I’m going to call the desk and have you thrown out. Or arrested.’

‘Yes?’ said the man, as though Stahl had commented about the weather.

Stahl picked up the phone, but the man didn’t move. ‘It won’t take too long,’ he said. ‘Just a brief conversation is all I require, then I won’t trouble you any further.’

Stahl put the receiver back but kept his hand on it.

‘How was your lunch with Herr Sokoloff?’ the man said.

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘No? Maybe it is. He’s surely not a proper friend for you.’

Stahl almost laughed. ‘What?’

‘I think you are a little confused, Herr Stahl, about who your friends are. You are really being rather… difficult.’

‘Am I,’ Stahl said. ‘You’re German?’

The man nodded slowly, no expression on his face. ‘Proud to be,’ he said. ‘Especially the way things are going now.’

Stahl waited. The man unhooked his leg from the arm of the sofa and sat forward, elbows on knees, fingers clasped. ‘What we’ve learned in Germany is that life goes very well when everybody does their job, and does what they’re told to do. Harmony, as we call it, is a powerful force in a nation.’

‘I’m sure it is. But, so what?’

‘Well, we’ve told you what we want you to do, to come to Berlin, to appear at our film festival, but you seem disinclined to obey, and this is troubling.’

Stahl stared at the man with an expression of combined disbelief and distaste.

The man smiled to himself and gently shook his head. ‘Ah, defiance,’ he said, his voice soft and nostalgic — he remembered defiance, from some bygone age long ago. ‘Quite a bit of that, at the beginning, before we came to power, but we’re patient, hardworking people and in time we cured it. It turns, we’ve found, with persistence on our part, to disbelief, and, in time, to compliance. Oh, people think the most violent thoughts, you can’t imagine, but that stays inside. On the outside, however, in the daily world, the individual does what he’s told, and then there’s harmony. Much of Europe is finding this harmony not so bad as they feared, and soon all of us will work together.’

‘No doubt,’ Stahl said, sarcasm cutting a fine edge on the words. ‘You’ve broken into my room like a criminal, you’ve said what you came to say, now get out.’

‘You’re angry. Well, I understand that, but you’ll have some time to think this through, not a lot of time, but some, and I expect you’ll come to see where your interests lie. It’s easier, Herr Stahl, to try and get along with us, to do what we tell you to do — is it really so much? Ask yourself. A brief trip to Berlin, fine food, good company, people saying flattering things — would that be so bad?’

‘Stop it,’ Stahl said.

The man stretched, then looked at his watch, like someone who is tired but has things to do before he can relax. ‘Please don’t be rude to me, Herr Stahl, that isn’t good for either of us.’ He stood, stood rather abruptly, like a schoolboy’s feint, and Stahl, despite himself, reacted — didn’t move a muscle but the flinch had been there and he knew it. The man grinned, amused by his tactic, picked up his black bag, walked casually to the door, and said, ‘Good afternoon, Herr Stahl. One way or another, we’ll be in touch with you.’

Was the ‘you’ subtly inflected? Very subtly inflected? Or, Stahl wondered, had he just heard it that way. The man nodded to him and left the room. Stahl heard him walking away down the corridor and shut the door but the lock didn’t click shut. He tried again, and the same thing happened. The lock no longer worked, and now he would have to get it fixed.

3 November. At 3.30 on the afternoon of the third, the senior staff of the Ribbentropburo — the political warfare bureau of the Reich Foreign Ministry, named for Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop — held its weekly meeting. In a general way, their mission was similar to that of Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry, but Goebbels’s people supervised all internal culture — the painters and the writers and the composers, the films and the newspapers — while the bureau operated mostly abroad, and was far more clandestine and aggressive in its methods. ‘We don’t send out press releases,’ they liked to say, ‘we send out operatives, and then other people send out press releases.’

This was an important meeting, decisions had to be made, and some of the men around the table had their jackets hung on the backs of their chairs and their sleeves rolled up. Herr Emhof, of the bulging eyes, attended the meeting but was not of sufficient stature to merit a place at the table, so sat on one of the chairs ranged around the walls and did not speak unless spoken to.

The agenda for this meeting was a typed list of thirty-eight names, which represented thirty-eight problems that had to be resolved. There were hundreds of names in the bureau’s files, and most had agreed, some gladly, some not so gladly, to do what the bureau had determined they should do; thus there was no point in wasting time on them. The thirty-eight names, however — people of various backgrounds, all pertinent to the bureau’s operations in France — had to be dealt with because they represented potential failures. The Reich Foreign Ministry did not accept failures, so you couldn’t really afford, if you worked there, to have too many of them on your record, or you would find yourself working somewhere else. Perhaps at the coal administration, or the department of gasoline rationing, or, at the very worst, you might have to take your wife and family and pets and go off to work in Essen, or Dortmund, or Ulm — exiled.

The meeting was led by the Deputy Director of the bureau, an SS major who had formerly been a junior professor of social sciences, particularly anthropology, at the University of Dresden. He appeared, as always, in civilian clothes, a dark-blue suit, and he was exceptionally bright. A little young for his senior position, a smart, sharp-witted fellow on the way up in the Nazi administration.

The warm air in the room was thick with cigarette smoke, a grey November drizzle outside, and the men at the cluttered table — stacks of dossiers, notepads, ashtrays — made slow but steady progress as they worked their way down the alphabetized list; it was almost five by the time they reached the names beginning with the letter S. They disposed of the first three quickly, then came to the priest Pere Sebastien, Father Sebastien, who preached fervently against Nazi atheism at an important church in the city of Lyons. Over the past few months, the bureau had made sure he was besieged by letters from the pious in various parts of France, negative — though gravely respectful — commentary had appeared in the Lyonnais newspapers, and the Vatican had been contacted by German diplomats in Rome. Why, they asked, was Pere Sebastien so obsessed with the religious institutions of a foreign nation? Was he not using the pulpit to advance his own, rather leftist, political agenda? Should he not, the Lord’s Shepherd, be paying more attention to the tending of his own local flock?

‘The Vatican doesn’t exactly disagree,’ said the man who saw to operations in the Rhone Valley, ‘but the administration is slow as a snail, very tentative, and very cautious.’

‘Are our Italian friends willing to help?’ said the Deputy Director.

‘To date they are useless. They say they will intervene, but then they do nothing.’

‘Can we prod him?’

‘No, no, let’s not. He has a true sense of mission, that will only inspire him.’

The Deputy Director thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Priests!’

Here and there at the table, an appreciative laugh.

‘Perhaps I can do something,’ said the Deputy Director. ‘I will have a word with our Vatican diplomats, they might just have to insist — it’s the lepers on Martinique who require such a passionate fellow.’

The man in charge of Lyons made a note — though a secretary seated on one of the chairs kept a record of the meeting in shorthand — and work on the list continued. The journalist Sablier had died in a motoring accident — ‘Ours?’ ‘No, the hand of fate, a mountain road’ — and the owner of a small chain of radio stations, Schimmel, a Jew, had put his business up for sale and was going to emigrate to Canada.

‘The emigration papers are truly filed?’

‘Yes, we checked.’

‘That brings us to’ — he ran his finger down the list — ‘Monsieur Sicot.’ Sicot was the publisher and editor of a small socialist newspaper in the city of Bordeaux.

‘He rants and raves,’ said the man in charge of Sicot. ‘“The Maginot Line will not save us!” On and on he goes, calls for fleets of fighter planes. He was highly decorated in the Great War and is a fanatic patriot.’

‘Who won’t listen to reason.’

‘Not Sicot. Not ever.’

‘Then he’ll have to have business problems. Perhaps the advertisers, perhaps the unions, perhaps the bank that holds his notes. Can this be done?’

‘I’ll go to work immediately, it will take some research.’

‘Use the SD’ — the intelligence service of the SS — ‘and see what you can do. I’ll expect a report at our meeting the first week of December. Now then’ — he paused, again consulted the list — ‘to Fredric Stahl, the movie actor.’

‘No good news, I’m afraid,’ said the man in charge of Stahl. Called Hoff, he was a plain, middle-aged man who’d served twenty years in the Foreign Ministry with very little distinction — but no serious missteps — then made his way to a position in the bureau through seniority, longtime alliances, and a rather late but practical membership in the Nazi party. ‘He moved a little,’ Hoff said, ‘attended a luncheon, but there he stopped.’

‘He’s an actor, no? What’s the problem? Nervous about his career? Studio control?’

‘Some of that, but we suspect he’s concerned about his, um, we can call it integrity — being faithful to his political beliefs.’

‘His what?’

‘Integrity.’

The Deputy Director was a very smooth man, but he had a temper, and it was getting towards the time when he wanted a drink and dinner. ‘And so?’ he said, voice rising. ‘And so we kiss him goodbye?’

‘We may have to.’

‘Somebody give me the goddamn file.’

Hoff shuffled through the dossiers in front of him, where was it? Not this, not this…

‘ Now, Hoff. Now! ’

‘Yes, sir. Here it is.’

The Deputy Director opened the dossier by slamming the cover against the table, then, using his index finger, searched through the typed reports of contacts and surveillance. ‘We want him to visit the Reich, for a day, for a single day, to judge some little movie festival, is that correct?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you what, Herr Hoff.’ By now the Deputy Director was almost shouting. ‘He will visit the Reich. And we will take his photograph for the newspapers, with fucking Goebbels we’ll take his photograph, and he will pick some idiot as a winner and we will take another photograph as they both hold a fucking bouquet! Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, sir. Very clear.’

The Deputy Director read further, slapping each page down as he turned it over. ‘So, he was visited in his hotel room. What a blow! Is anything else planned?’

‘Not for the moment. I thought it best to seek your counsel.’ Hoff had moved his hands off the table and hidden them in his lap because they were shaking.

‘Seek my counsel? Oh, very flattering, Hoff, you’re seeking my counsel. Well, here’s my counsel: you think up something to make this man behave, and you send me a memorandum before you do it. Is that understood, Herr Hoff?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And, if you cannot persuade him to put aside this saintly integrity — Christ! What a word! — and do what we want, you can have somebody get in touch with, ah, Heinrich, and instead of visiting the Reich he can visit the devil. Oh, excuse me, I forgot he’s a saint, so he can visit the angels.’

From down the table, a small, hesitant voice: ‘It’s not Heinrich, sir, the man who does these things for us is called Herbert.’

3 November. At 7.15, Stahl decided to stop worrying and go out for dinner. Too often that day he’d caught himself brooding about the man who’d entered his room, and all the rest of it, which he suspected was exactly what they wanted him to do. Therefore, he wouldn’t. He could have gone down to the hotel restaurant, but the food there was rich and elaborate, living up to its price, and really much fancier than he liked. So he put on a pair of corduroys and a comfortable jacket, with a wool scarf and a pair of leather gloves to keep him warm, walked over to the Champs-Elysees, then down to a big Alsatian brasserie that served the commercial residents of the quarter — butchers from the wholesale meat markets on the rue Marbeuf, office workers, and shop clerks. It was a big, rough, loud sort of place, where you could eat cheaply by ordering the plat du jour, or in grander fashion, oysters, lobster, champagne, if you were in the mood and had the money. For Stahl, always steak au poivre, a tough, delicious steak, barely cooked, and more frites — crisp, golden, and brown at the edges — than you thought you could eat, though you were usually wrong about that.

He was just seated at a table when Kiki de Saint-Ange walked through the door, peered about, discovered Stahl, and came hurrying towards him. She was very good to look at that evening, a black afternoon dress beneath her raincoat — a vivid memory from their night at the movies — and a violet and grey scarf arranged in the complicated style Parisian women were taught at birth, arty gold earrings, and her little knitted cap. Stahl was delighted to see her, a friend welcome when one thinks one will be dining alone, but for the question what’s she doing here? The more contact he had with his German enemies, the more sensitive he became to coincidence.

‘I hoped it was you,’ she said, slightly breathless. ‘I saw you on the boulevard, from a distance, and I thought, ‘Is that Fredric?’ My eyesight is terrible — it wouldn’t have been the first time I chased down a stranger. May I join you? Maybe you’re expecting somebody.’

‘Please,’ said Stahl, standing up and waiting until she was seated. ‘I’m not expecting anybody. What brings you to the neighbourhood?’

‘Ai! Horreur! I had to see my attorney, he has his office up the Champs-Elysees, and I’d finally got done with him and was walking down the hill, upset, close to tears, and hello, there you were! At least I suspected it was you and, honestly, I really hoped it was.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Darling, may I have a cognac? A double?’

‘Ah, Fredric, manners! Yes, of course, forgive me.’ Stahl signalled to the waiter, who made eye contact, meaning yes, I see you, be patient.

‘What’s going on,’ said Kiki, ‘is that a year ago, my lovely old aunt, whom I adored, got sick and died. I used to go and stay with her when things were too awful at home, she had the sweetest little house, down in the Sologne, do you know it? It’s where the Parisian aristocrats hunt wild boar, and anything else they can shoot at. There are hunting lodges down there but she just had a country cottage, in a kind of hidden valley, looking out at the river Sauldre. In her will, she left the house for my sister and me to share, which was not a problem at all, but then there was every sort of legal complication that comes with inheritance. Fredric, if you hate somebody and want to ruin their life, die and leave them a house in France. Anyhow, I just spent two hours with the lawyer and, when I said close to tears, I meant tears of frustration. I got so angry I finally said, “Let’s give the damn thing to a charity,” to which the lawyer replied, “Impossible, mademoiselle, it cannot be done until you have taken legal possession of the property.”’

The waiter rushed over, Stahl ordered two double cognacs while in his mind a cartoon version of a steak au poivre grew wings and flew away. He sensed the evening would end with the two of them in bed together, and disliked making love on a full stomach — the stag grows thin during the rutting season and all that. And he’d always preferred sex to food. ‘You have my sympathy,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent hours in lawyers’ offices, my nose shoved in the worst side of humanity.’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘Still, I expect it will all work itself out, in time.’

From Kiki, a glum smile. ‘You really are an American, my dear. Hopeful, optimistic. Some things here, believe me, never work out — lawsuits, property disputes, absurd legal entanglements — these things can go on for generations. I just want it over with.’ She looked rueful for a moment, then said, ‘You would have liked that house, we could have had a very nice weekend there.’

‘I’m sure I would have, though I’d likely leave the boars alone.’ A moment of silence, the waiter appeared with the cognacs, a napkin riding atop each glass. Stahl took a sip, pure fire all the way down, and said, ‘So what have you been doing?’ And then — strange what the mind did when you weren’t watching it — ‘Have you seen the baroness lately?’

Kiki seemed surprised. ‘You know, I actually have seen her, that German witch, I was at her house for an afternoon card party.’

‘You were?’

‘Yes, trapped, you might say. She’d invited my crowd, girls who grew up together in the Seventh Arrondissement, went to the same school, la-la-la. I couldn’t say no.’ Stahl took out his Gauloises, offered one to Kiki, and lit both. ‘That’s just the way it is here. So we gossiped and laughed and tried to play bridge; I’m not very good at it, dreadful really. Anyhow, tell me about yourself.’

What about himself could he tell her? Surely not the truth, for, Gallic to the core, she had no desire to hear about personal problems and, beyond that, in the fogbound land of intrigue, he thought he’d rather not test her loyalties. ‘Oh, life goes on,’ he said, not without charm. ‘I’m spending time out in Joinville, rehearsing. It’s work, but it’s the work I do and I like doing it. Most days.’

Kiki nodded. ‘I hope I didn’t interrupt your dinner, you were planning to eat, weren’t you?’

‘Actually I wasn’t. I got tired of being in my room, thought I’d come down here and have a drink. Hotels are a kind of curse of the movie business, even very nice hotels.’

‘It is a very nice hotel, isn’t it, the Claridge. Or so people say.’

‘You’ve never been there?’

‘No, my dear, I haven’t.’ As she said this, her eyes met his.

‘It’s very, oh, luxurious would be one way to describe it. And quiet, when the traffic dies down at night.’

‘And discreet, I’d imagine. Perfect discretion for all that money, which I imagine appeals to the guests.’

‘Yes, one feels one can do… almost anything, really.’

‘Anything at all, unknown to the prying eyes of the city,’ she said, as though quoting from a certain kind of novel. She picked a shred of tobacco off her tongue with her red fingernails, then said, ‘And do you find that — stimulating?’

‘You know I do, Kiki,’ he said, playing at sincerity, ‘now that you mention it. Once the door closes…’

‘One can only imagine,’ she said. ‘Like the little hotel we found, the night we had a drink at the Ritz.’

He smiled, acknowledging that he’d enjoyed it in the same way she had. ‘Yes, lovers on the run, fleeing to an anonymous room.’

‘But that’s not the Claridge.’

‘No, the fantasy there is quite different,’ he said.

She’d slipped her shoe off, and a soft foot now rested on top of his. ‘Oh yes? Well, I wouldn’t know,’ she said.

‘Because you haven’t been there.’

‘No, I haven’t.’ The foot made its way up his leg, then returned.

The waiter appeared at the table, two menus in hand.

‘We’re just having drinks,’ Stahl said. ‘ L’addition, s’il vous plait.’

At the Claridge, she would, to her ‘surprise’, be seduced; a proper, a time-honoured, hotel fantasy. In all innocence, she accompanied him to his room, but, once there… And she did, somehow, contrive to suggest the demure maiden. ‘It’s so terribly warm in here,’ she said.

‘It’s the warm dress you have on,’ he said. ‘That’s why.’

‘But if I were to take it off…’ Quite worried, Kiki.

‘Oh you needn’t be concerned,’ he said. ‘Not with me.’

‘Well…,’ she said, uncertain, then took her dress off and draped it neatly over the back of a chair. ‘There. That’s better.’

And then, even half-stripped, in high heels and lacy bra and panties, she played the ingenue — explored the suite, room to room, discovering the flowers in a crystal vase, stroking the sleek wood of the escritoire, thrilled to be among such elegant things. Stahl followed her eagerly — she was a pretty woman, prettily made, champagne-cup breasts, derriere the classic inverted ace of hearts, swaying as she roamed about.

Eventually she wandered back to the bedroom, took off her shoes, and stood with feet together, head bowed, arms by her sides, at his mercy. Cautiously, he embraced her, but she was rigid, anxious, moved not an inch. By happenstance the mirror on the bedroom door was directly behind her, so he took the waistband of her panties between delicate fingers and turned down the back, the result especially provocative in the mirror. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘what are you doing to me?’ He knelt before his victim and lowered her panties to her ankles, took them off, moved her legs apart, then, with his thumbs, more parting, and he touched her with his tongue. ‘Oh no,’ she said, not that. She kept her role in play, though it grew difficult, and in time he took her hand and led her to the bed and there ravished her. They both, Kiki and the virgin Kiki, did very much like being ravished, her girlish passion at last released. But by then she acted no longer, and let the guests in the rooms on either side of the suite know about it.

4 November. Fredric Stahl felt light and good that morning, a night of lovemaking an effective antidote to a sea of troubles. He’d come slowly awake at five, discovered a warm Kiki next to him, warmed her a little more, then fell back asleep. His interior go-to-work clock woke him promptly at 8.30, then, following coffee and croissants, he got a taxi, dropped Kiki off at her apartment, and continued out to Joinville. An exquisite autumn day, the sky its darkest blue, the North Sea clouds sharp-edged and white against it, the world would go on, life would get better.

Justine Piro was there when he arrived, as was Pasquin, who was his usual grumpy self but even he felt the sweetness of the day and said so. Jean Avila appeared a few minutes later, accompanied by his cameraman, and Renate Steiner, looking worried and harassed, stopped by, nodded to Stahl, and managed half a smile. She carried a thoroughly grimy straw boater with a crushed top and a torn brim, meant for Piro’s desert scenes. Piro tried the hat on, became Ilona, the fake Hungarian countess, and delivered the line, ‘I cannot go on like this for one minute more, gentlemen, I cannot, and I will not.’ She was wonderfully arrogant and imperious, but the battered hat made her hauteur look silly and everyone laughed. Then they waited for Gilles Brecker, the Alsatian with blond hair and steel-framed glasses, the movie’s lieutenant. At last, just when Avila had begun to look at his watch, Brecker came through the door.

Rather awkwardly, he came through the door, because his left arm was in a cast, carried by a sling. Nobody said a word, although Avila opened his mouth, then self-control won out and he remained silent. And they waited — politely, ‘Good morning, Gilles’ and such — until he took a breath and said, ‘Please don’t worry, it’s only six weeks.’

Six weeks. ‘You’ve broken your arm,’ Avila said evenly. He’d tried for a simple statement of fact, but the accusation in his voice, though faint, was audible.

‘My wrist,’ Brecker said.

‘Were you in an accident?’ said Piro, a truly good soul, her expression kind and caring. She still wore the hat.

‘Does it hurt?’ Stahl said. He felt sorry for Brecker, but there was something about the sudden bad luck that nagged at him.

‘I can work,’ Brecker said defensively. ‘It just takes getting used to.’

‘All right,’ Pasquin said, out of patience. ‘What happened?’

‘Well, I was out last night, I’d had a quarrel with my friend and I was very hurt, very angry, so I went up to La Fourche.’ La Fourche, the fork, where the Avenue de Clichy joined the Avenue de Saint-Ouen, was infamous, a cluster of bars and bawdy nightclubs, a sexual bazaar where any and all tastes were easily accommodated. ‘It was after midnight in this little place on the rue Saint-Jean and everyone was drinking, really drinking, and some sort of fight started between two men who were standing at the bar. It was dark, people were shouting, pushing and shoving, and someone swung a chair. I don’t have any idea who he was trying to hit, but who he did hit was me. I hardly felt it, I thought I might have a bruise, and I got out of there, found a taxi, and headed home. But by the time I got there my arm was turning terrible colours so my friend took me down to the hospital on the Ile de la Cite, the doctor said it was broken, put the cast on, and gave me some pills.’ Brecker stood there for a moment, clearly miserable, and said, ‘I’m sorry, everybody, but it just happened, it was an accident.’

Was it?

The question hit Stahl hard and frightened him — physical fear, in the stomach. Was this an attack on him? Had the Germans sent a message? We will destroy your movie. He didn’t know, maybe it was an accident, maybe he was seeing phantoms. But the suspicion was there and, he knew, it wasn’t going to go away.

Now I have to do something.

In his mind he spoke the phrase, a pledge to himself.

On the set of the boulevard farce, the recovery began. Avila was already talking about shooting around Brecker once production started, somebody wondered if the lieutenant might have had his wrist broken at the prison camp, or perhaps it could be explained as an injury received in battle before the legionnaires were captured. Somebody else thought that idea might work if a dirty cloth were used to hide the white cast. But Stahl didn’t really follow the discussion and didn’t take part in it. He would finish the day’s rehearsal, return to the hotel, and make a telephone call. In his mind, as the others went back and forth, he saw an image of the phone on his desk.

He called the American embassy and asked for Mme Brun, who quickly came on the line. Did he wish to speak to Mr Wilkinson? Thank you Mme Brun, but what he really needed was to meet personally with Mr Wilkinson. And it was urgent. ‘I see,’ Mme Brun said. ‘Can you stop by at six this evening? I’m sure he’ll have time for you.’

Stahl was there early, at 5.40, prepared to wait in the chair outside the office, but Wilkinson saw him immediately. Affable and welcoming, he said, ‘Hey, Mr Stahl, come on in. We’re fixing all sorts of problems today.’

Wilkinson’s office itself, as Stahl sat across from the diplomat, was comforting. Somehow the most commonplace things — the oil painting of Roosevelt on the wall, the squash racquet in the corner, the bulky presence of Wilkinson himself — inspired in Stahl a sense of American strength which, at that moment, felt very reassuring. Stahl lit a cigarette, Wilkinson, jacket off, tie pulled down, lit a cigar and made notes as they talked.

Stahl held nothing back, sensing it was crucial to tell Wilkinson the truth, in detail. Wilkinson was a good listener, didn’t interrupt, didn’t react, but the best thing about the way he listened to Stahl’s narrative was that he managed to give Stahl the impression that he’d heard all this before, it wasn’t new, it wasn’t as bad as Stahl feared. And there was more than a possibility that something could be done about it.

When Stahl wound down — Brecker’s wrist, the fight in the bar — Wilkinson waited for a moment, then said, ‘What do you want to do, Mr Stahl?’

‘I wish I had more ideas,’ Stahl said. ‘But the one that stays with me is to go to the police, maybe the Surete, the Deuxieme Bureau.’ The counter-espionage service of the French military, which Stahl knew well from French novels of intrigue — Inspector Maigret, other heroes from other books, were often involved with the Surete. ‘Until I talked to Andre Sokoloff, and earlier to you, I didn’t appreciate the scale of this thing. I expect the secret services might be interested in what’s going on.’

‘Very reasonable, the very thing I would do if I weren’t sitting behind this desk.’ Wilkinson puffed at his cigar, making sure it didn’t go out. ‘But if you think it through, it may not be such a good idea. For example, the police, say a detective from the Eighth Arrondissement where your hotel is located. Somebody broke into your room, did he steal anything? Other than your peace of mind? That should come under some law but it doesn’t.’ Wilkinson smiled ruefully, Stahl nodded, rueful as well. ‘And of course you informed the manager at your hotel.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Oh?’ Wilkinson played the detective rather well, one eyebrow raised.

‘I knew what would happen: a lot of flapping of hands and apologies and “ terrible! ” this and “ c’est insupportable! ” that and on and on, then nothing is done. In fact, what could they do?’

‘And did you report the incident to the police?’

‘Not that either.’

‘So the next line is: ‘Monsieur, I don’t see how I can help you.’ And to break into somebody’s room is actually against the law. Will you tell the police you were forced to go to an irritating lunch at Maxim’s?’

Stahl didn’t bother to answer.

‘Misrepresented by a newspaper interview? What law did that break? The law of newspaper honesty?’ Wilkinson started to laugh, then said, ‘I’m not being cruel, Mr Stahl, but you have to realize these people are no fools, they’re not going to leave themselves vulnerable to the police.’

‘And the Surete? This is, after all, part of a conspiracy against the state.’

Wilkinson’s mood changed. He leaned back in his desk chair and clasped his hands behind his head, revealing damp circles on the underarms of his shirt. ‘Do you keep secrets, Mr Stahl? Is that something that matters to you? Because what I am going to tell you is confidential — it’s not a state secret or anything like that, but I’d rather people didn’t know we talked about it.’

‘I don’t tell secrets,’ Stahl said. ‘I don’t really know why I don’t, it’s just part of my character. Gossip is in the bloodstream of Hollywood, but I don’t take part in it, in fact I really don’t like it.’

Wilkinson pursed his lips, then nodded to himself, choosing to believe what Stahl had said. ‘I think I may have told you earlier that the French know all about German conspiracies, but they do nothing. Here’s an example, and it involves your friend Sokoloff, who is somebody who can be believed. Two years ago, in 1936, a German spy came to the offices of Paris-Soir, in fact to Sokoloff, and brought with him a stolen dossier. He was done with working for the German services and this was an act of — revenge? Idealism? Who knows. Now I never saw the dossier but I know, generally, what was in there. Names, dates, transactions, everything one would need for a determined counter-attack against Nazi political warfare. If that dossier had been made public, some very big heads would have rolled in this country. It would have changed things, shown Germany’s real intention towards her neighbour. Conquest.’

‘And? I can’t imagine Sokoloff did nothing.’

‘No, he did what he should have done, though not what every journalist would do — the spy chose prudently when he went to Sokoloff. The dossier, and a record of what the spy said, were passed to French military intelligence. And then nothing happened. This decision to do nothing may have a lot to do with the present state of French politics — some people can be accused, but others, higher up, can’t be. They’re too powerful. But that’s a theory, my theory, and there could be all sorts of other explanations.’

‘And the spy? What happened to him?’

‘Vanished. As spies do. There was some talk that he went to London.’

‘So, you’re saying I shouldn’t approach the Surete.’

‘No, Mr Stahl, that may be something you should do, but not now. And, if you do, you should know that they might not respond. Better for you, at the moment, to think about the future, what comes next.’

‘I wish I knew,’ Stahl said. ‘I’m going to have a drink after I leave here, but, beyond that…’

‘You’re going to work, you’re going to make a movie. Now, speaking of the movie, I have to say that the possibility of an intentional attack on this man, Becker?’ — he glanced at his notes — ‘Brecker, in order to put pressure on you, is extremely unlikely. For someone to use a chair to break somebody’s wrist in the midst of a brawl in a dark room, to be able to do this on purpose, is nearly impossible. If the chair had hit Brecker in the shoulder you would never even have heard about it. Not that they wouldn’t try to damage the movie, they would, they would do just about anything you can imagine and some things you can’t.’

Now Stahl felt better, realizing that Wilkinson probably had it right. ‘I mentioned the festival of mountain cinema. If I don’t go, what would they do?’

‘You can find that out by not going.’ Wilkinson paused, then said, ‘There’s no question of your going, is there?’

Stahl spoke slowly, saying, ‘There wasn’t, at first, the very idea of helping them was… sickening.’

‘If you went it would certainly become known, here and in Hollywood. It might well damage your career, isn’t that so?’

‘The director, Avila, wouldn’t like it, maybe the producer as well, he’s hard to read. On the other hand, if I said that Warner Bros. asked me to go, they might not hold it against me.’

‘Well, yes, but what about Hollywood?’

Stahl didn’t answer immediately. Finally he said, ‘They might not notice, it would happen far away, in Europe, and, if they did notice, they very well might not care. The studio executives may dislike the behaviour of the Nazi government but they still do business in Germany, all they can, it’s a big part of the foreign market. The German exhibitors will only show certain films — they’ll take nothing with politics, they like musicals, they like dancing peasants, buxom maidens, singing pirates — but those sell plenty. Germans love to go to the movies, it’s encouraged, Hitler and Goebbels and Goering are big movie fans. Hitler has a passion for being seen in public with actresses, for being photographed with them, while Goebbels takes them to bed, and Goering’s wife Emmy was an actress. All of which adds up to this: if I appear at a festival in Berlin it could be seen as publicity, nothing more.’

‘But you hate the idea of going, don’t you?’

‘I hate the idea of doing what these people want me to do. And then, what will they want next?’

‘That’s worth considering — it wouldn’t end there.’ They sat in silence for a moment, then Wilkinson said, ‘Are you tempted to go, Mr Stahl? Even if the attack on Brecker was an accident, you saw what might happen.’

From Stahl, a reluctant yes — a nod and a grim face. He would be backing away from a fight and he didn’t like it.

‘I believe,’ Wilkinson said thoughtfully, ‘that it might not matter if you went. A sacrifice, for your pride, but a sacrifice made for tactical reasons; for the movie, even for your country.’

Again, Stahl nodded. ‘Do you know, Mr Wilkinson, the worst part of this whole thing?’

Wilkinson waited to hear it.

‘Being attacked, and not fighting back. Just sitting here and letting them come at me.’

‘That I understand,’ Wilkinson said. ‘But I hope you realize you’re not the only one. I mean, I would never think badly of you for not fighting, I’m a diplomat, I make myself agreeable to some of the most vile people on earth, I smile at them, I make them laugh if I can, I sit next to them at state banquets where I listen to them boast and brag about their triumphs, and then I suggest another glass of wine and then another. To them, I’m the most genial fellow in the world. And they are murderers, vicious, filth.’

‘Yes, but in time… In time you act against them, if you can.’

‘Maybe. I do what I do on behalf of our government and, if the policy is to defeat them, then I will work hard at it, with pleasure.’

Stahl glanced at the window, which looked out over a darkened courtyard. Down below he could hear the sound of footsteps, maybe high heels, crossing the cobbled surface, and then a woman laughed.

‘You mentioned something,’ Stahl said, ‘the last time we spoke, about information, about my telling you if I found out something interesting, maybe important.’

‘What are you saying, Mr Stahl?’

‘Perhaps I would discover something, if I went to Germany.’

‘Oh I doubt that. What would you do? Meet a Wehrmacht general and try to get information? “Say, General Schmidt, how’s that new tank performing?” Believe me, you’d just get into trouble.’

‘Well, it was a thought.’

‘Put it out of your mind, that’s dangerous stuff, not for you.’

‘Really? Why not for me?’

‘Spying is a brutal business, and, if you get caught…’

‘What if there’s a war and France is lost? What if I might have done something, anything, even a small thing, and didn’t? What would I think of myself? I put that as a question but the truth is I know the answer. These people, these Nazis, are scum, Mr Wilkinson, but from the perspective of being here, in Europe, in Paris, it looks to me like they’re winning.’

‘They are. Right now, today, they are. And that’s from somebody who knows a lot more than you do.’

‘But you say there’s nothing I can do.’

‘Oh, I didn’t quite say that.’