The Foreign Correspondent

Soldier for Freedom

5 JUNE, 1939.

Carlo Weisz stared out the office window at the Parisian spring-the chestnut and lime trees in bright new leaf, the women in cotton frocks, the sky deep blue, with cloud castles towering over the city. Meanwhile, according to the melancholy papers stacked in his in box, it was also spring for the diplomats-French and British swains sang to the Soviet maiden in the enchanted forest, but she only giggled and ran away. Toward Germany.

So life went-forever, it seemed to Weisz-until the tedious drumbeat of conference and treaty was broken, suddenly, by real tragedy. Today, it was the story of the SS St. Louis, which had sailed from Hamburg with 936 German Jews in flight from the Reich, but could find no harbor. Barred from landing in Cuba, the refugees appealed to President Roosevelt, who first said yes, then said sorry. Political forces in America were violently set against Jewish immigration. So, the previous day, a final statement: the St. Louis, waiting at sea between Cuba and Florida, would not be allowed to dock. Now she would have to return to Germany.

In the Paris office, they’d elicited a French reaction, but the Quai d’Orsay, in six paragraphs, had no comment. Which left Weisz staring out the window, unwilling to work, his mind in Berlin, his heart untouched by the June day.

Two days earlier, when he’d returned from the boulevard de Strasbourg to the Reuters office, he’d immediately telephoned Salamone and told him what he’d done. “Someone in that office has connections with Croatia,” he’d said, and described the envelopes. “Which suggests that OVRA may be using Ustasha operatives.” They both knew what that meant: Italy and Croatia had a long, complicated, and often secret relationship, the Croatians seeking Catholic kinship in their endless conflict with the Orthodox Serbs. The Ustasha was a terrorist group-or nationalist, or insurgent; in the Balkans, it depended on who was speaking-sometimes used by the Italian secret services. Dedicated to an independent Croatia, the Ustasha had possibly been involved in the 1934 assassination of King Alexander, in Marseilles, and other terrorist actions, notably the bombing of passenger trains.

“This is not good news,” Salamone had said, his voice grim.

“No, but it is news. News for the Surete. And there is reason to suspect that funds may be moving through a French bank in Marseilles, a bank that also operates in Croatia. On that, they’ll bite.”

Salamone had volunteered to approach the Surete, but Weisz told him not to bother-he was already involved with them, he was the logical informant. “But,” he’d said, “we’ll keep this between the two of us.” He’d then asked Salamone if the surveillance had produced anything further. Only a sighting, Salamone said, by Sergio, of the man in the hat with the green feather. Weisz advised Salamone to call it off; they had enough. “And the next time we call a meeting,” he’d said, “it will be an editorial conference, for the next Liberazione.”

That was more than optimistic, he thought, staring out the window, but first he would have to telephone Pompon. He considered doing it, almost reaching for the number, then, once again, put it off. He’d do it later, now he had to work. Taking the first paper off the stack, he found a release from the Soviet embassy in Paris, regarding continuing negotiations with the British and French for alliance in case of a German attack. A long list of potential victims was named, with Poland first and foremost. A visit to the Quai d’Orsay? Maybe. He’d have to ask Delahanty.

He put the release aside. Next up, a cable from Eric Wolf that had come in an hour earlier. Propaganda Ministry Reports Spy Network Broken in Berlin. It was a lean story: an unspecified number of arrests, some at government ministries, of German citizens who’d passed information to foreign operatives. The names had been withheld, investigation continued.

Weisz went cold. Could he telephone? Cable? No, that might only make it worse. Could he telephone Alma Bruck? No, she might be involved. Christa had only said she was a friend. Eric Wolf, then. Maybe. He could, he felt, ask for one favor, but no more than that. Wolf already had his hands full, and he hadn’t been all that pleased to be involved with a colleague’s clandestine love affairs. And, Weisz forced himself to admit, Wolf had likely done all he could-surely he’d asked for names, but they had been “withheld.” No, he had to keep Wolf in reserve. Because, if by some miracle she survived this, if by some miracle this was a different spy network, he was going to get her out of Germany, and for that he would require at least one communication.

Yet he couldn’t make himself give up. As his hands pressed against the cable, flat on his desk, his mind flew from one possibility to the next, around and around, until the secretary came in with another cable. Germany Proposes Alliance Negotiations with the USSR.

She’s gone. There’s nothing you can do. Sick at heart, he tried to work.

By evening, it was worse. The images of Christa, in the hands of the Gestapo, would not leave him. Unable to eat, he was early for his eight o’clock work at the Tournon. But Ferrara wasn’t there, the room was locked. Weisz went back downstairs and asked the clerk if Monsieur Kolb was in his room, but was told there was no such person at the hotel. That was, Weisz thought, typical-Kolb appeared from nowhere and returned to the same place. He was likely staying at the Tournon, but evidently using a different name. Weisz went out onto the rue de Tournon, crossed the street to the Jardin du Luxembourg, sat on a bench, and smoked cigarette after cigarette, mocked by the soft spring evening and, it seemed to him, every pair of lovers in the city. At eight-twenty, he returned to the hotel, and found Ferrara waiting for him.

This town, that river, the heroic corporal who picked up a hand grenade from the bottom of a ditch and threw it back. What helped Weisz, that night, was the automatic process of the work, typing Ferrara’s words, editing as he went along. Then, a few minutes after ten, Kolb appeared. “We’ll finish early tonight,” he said. “All going well?”

“We’re getting close to the end,” Ferrara said. “There’s the time at the internment camp, then it’s finished. I’d guess you won’t want us to write about my time in Paris.”

From Kolb, a wolfish grin. “No, we’ll just leave that to the reader’s imagination.” Then, to Weisz: “You and I will be going up to the Sixteenth. There’s someone in town who wants to meet you.”

From the way Kolb said it, Weisz didn’t really have a choice.

The apartment was in Passy, the aristocratic heart of the tres snob Sixteenth Arrondissement. Red and gold, in the best Parisian tradition, it was all heavy drapes and fabrics, paneled with boiserie, one wall a bookcase. A darkened room, lit only by a single Oriental lamp. The concierge had telephoned their arrival from her loge, so, when Kolb opened the elevator gate, Mr. Brown was waiting by the door. “Ah, hello, glad you could come!” A cheery call and a rather different Mr. Brown-no more the amiably rumpled gent with pipe and slipover sweater. Instead, a new suit, expensive and dark blue. As Weisz shook hands and entered the apartment, he saw why. “This is Mr. Lane,” Brown said.

A tall, spindly man unfolded himself from a low sofa, gripped Weisz’s hand, and said, “Mr. Weisz, a pleasure to meet you.” Crisp white shirt, solemn tie, perfectly tailored suit, the British upper class resplendent, with steel-colored hair and thin, professionally hesitant smile. But the eyes, deep-set, webbed with deep lines, were worried eyes, almost apprehensive, that came close to contradicting all the signals of his status. “Come sit with me,” he said to Weisz, indicating the other end of the sofa. Then: “Brown? Can you get us a scotch? As it comes?”

This turned out to mean neat, two inches of amber liquid in a crystal glass. Lane said, “We’ll see you later.” Kolb had already evaporated, now Mr. Brown went off to another room in the apartment. “So,” he said to Weisz, his voice low and mellow and pleased, “you’re our writer.”

“I am,” Weisz said.

“Damn fine work, Mr. Weisz. Soldier for Freedom should do rather well, we think. I’d surmise you have your heart in it.”

“That’s true,” Weisz said.

“Shame about your country. I don’t believe she’ll be happy with her new friends, but that can’t be helped, can it. Not that you haven’t tried.”

“Do you mean Liberazione?”

“I do. Seen the back issues, and it’s easily at the top of its class. Leaves the politics alone, thank God, and leans hard on the facts of life. And your cartoonist is a delightfully nasty man. Who is he?”

“An emigre, he works for Le Journal.” Weisz didn’t say a name, and Lane let it go.

“Well, we hope to see lots more of that.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed. We see a bright future for Liberazione.” Lane’s voice caressed the word, as though it were the name of an opera.

“The way life goes at the moment, it doesn’t really exist, not anymore.”

If Lane’s face did anything well, it was disappointment. “No, no, don’t say such things, it must go on.” The must worked both ways, simply must, and really must-or else.

“We’ve been under siege,” Weisz said. “By the OVRA, we believe, and we’ve had to suspend publication.”

Lane took a sip of his scotch. “Then you’ll just have to unsuspend it, won’t you, now that Mussolini’s gone and joined the wrong side. What do you mean, under siege?”

“An assassination, attacks on the committee members-trouble at work, possibly arson, a burglary.”

“Have you gone to the police?”

“Not yet. But we may try, it’s under consideration.”

From Lane, an emphatic nod: That’s a good fellow. “Can’t just let it die, Mr. Weisz, it’s simply too good. And, we have reason to believe, effective. People in Italy talk about it-we know that. Now, we may be able to help you out, with the police, but you ought to give it a try on your own. Experience says that’s the best way. And, fact is, your Liberazione ought to be bigger, and more widely read, and there we really can do something. Tell me, what are your distribution arrangements?”

Weisz paused, how to describe it. “They’ve always run themselves, since 1933, when the editorial committee of the Giustizia e Liberta committee worked in Italy. It is, well, it grew by itself. First there was a single truck driver, in Genoa, then another, a friend of his, who went up to Milan. It isn’t a pyramid, with a Parisian emigre at the top, it’s just people who know one another, and who want to participate, to do something, whatever they can, to oppose the fascist regime. We’re not the Communists, we’re not in cells, with discipline. We have a printer in Genoa, he hands bundled papers off to three or four friends, and they spread it out among their friends. One takes ten, another takes twenty. And from there it goes everywhere.”

Lane was delighted, and showed it. “Blessed chaos!” he said. “Cheerful Italian anarchy. I hope you don’t mind, my saying that.”

Weisz shrugged. “I don’t mind, it’s true. In my country, we don’t like bosses, it’s the way we’re made.”

“And your print run?”

“Around two thousand.”

“The Communists run twenty thousand.”

“I didn’t know the number, I assumed it was larger. But they get themselves arrested more than we do.”

“I take your point-we can’t have too much of that. And readers?”

“Who knows. Sometimes one to a paper, sometimes twenty. We couldn’t begin to guess, but it is shared, and not thrown away-we ask for that, right on the masthead.”

“Could one say, twenty thousand?”

“Why not? It’s possible. The paper’s left on benches in railway waiting rooms, and on the trains. Anywhere public you can imagine.”

“And your information-if you don’t mind my asking?”

“By mail, by new emigres, by gossip and rumor.”

“Naturally. Information has a life of its own, which is something we know very well, to our joy, and, sometimes, to our sorrow.”

From Weisz, a sympathetic nod.

“How’s your drink?”

Weisz looked down and saw he’d almost finished the scotch.

“Let me top that up for you.” Lane stood, walked over to a cabinet by the doorway, and poured them both a second drink. When he returned, he said, “I’m glad we had a chance to talk. We’ve made some plans for you, in London, but I wanted to see who we’d be working with.”

“What plans have you made, Mr. Lane.”

“Oh, as I said. Bigger, better distribution, more readers, many more. And I think we might be able to help out, now and then, with information. We’re good at that. Oh, by the way, what about paper?”

“We print at the Genoa daily newspaper, and our printer, well, it’s like everything else-he finds a way, a friend upstairs, in the office, or maybe the records aren’t kept all that well.”

Once again, Lane was delighted, and laughed. “Fascist Italy,” he said, shaking his head at the absurdity of such an idea. “How in God’s name…”

Like the rest of the world, Weisz had had his bad nights-lost love, world gone wrong, money-but this was by far the worst; slow hours, spent staring at the ceiling of a hotel room. Yesterday, he would have been excited by his meeting with Mr. Lane-a change of fortune in the war he fought. Good news! An investor! Their little company approached by a big corporation. Which might turn out to be not such good news, and Weisz was aware of that. But, where were they now? It was, certainly, an event, a sudden turn of fate, and Weisz typically rose to such challenges, but now all he could think about was Christa. In Berlin. In a cell. Interrogated.

Fear and rage rose within him, first one, then the other. He hated her captors, he would pay them back. But, how to reach her, how to find out, what could he do to save her? Could she still be saved? No, it was too late. Could he go to Berlin? Could Delahanty help him? The Reuters board of directors? Desperately, he reached for power. But found only one source. Mr. Lane. Would Lane help him? Not as a favor. Lane was an executive, and shared with others of his breed a sublime talent for deflection-Weisz had felt it. His purpose, in the sea he swam in, was to acquire, to succeed. He could not be pleaded with, he could only be forced, forced to bargain, in order to get what he wanted. Would he bargain?

Weisz had thought about asking, during the meeting in Passy, but had held back. He needed time to think, to work out how to do what needed to be done. He knew very well who he was dealing with; a man whose job it was, that week, to spread clandestine newspapers through an enemy country. Would he ask only Weisz? Only Liberazione? Who else had he seen that night? What other emigre journals had he approached? No, Weisz thought, let him win, let him bring this game home in his bag. Then, attack. He could launch only one, he knew, so it had to work. And, executive that he was, Lane had never actually asked the crucial question: will you do this? Thus avoided the awkwardness of an answer he didn’t want to hear. No, that job would be left to Brown. So, Mr. Brown.

Weisz never did sleep that night, never took his clothes off, but dozed now and then, toward dawn, finally exhausted. Then, on another heaven-sent June morning, he went early to work, and telephoned Pompon. Who wasn’t in, but called back an hour later. A meeting was arranged, after work, at the Interior Ministry.

It was still dusk when Weisz arrived at the rue des Saussaies; the vast building filled the sky, the men with briefcases streaming in and out through its shadow. As before, he was directed to Room 10; a long table, a few chairs, high window behind a grille, dead air heavy with the smell of cooked paint and stale cigarette smoke. Inspector Pompon awaited him, accompanied by his older colleague, his superior, the cop, as Weisz thought of him, grizzled and slumped, who now introduced himself as Inspector Guerin. They were informal that evening, jackets off, ties loosened. So, friendly inspectors, for this meeting. Still, Weisz sensed both tension and expectation. We’ve got him. Do we? On the table before them, the green dossiers, and, once again, it was Pompon who took notes.

Weisz wasted no time getting down to business. “We’ve obtained information,” he said, “that may interest you.”

Pompon led the questioning. “We?” he said.

“The editorial committee of the emigre newspaper, Liberazione.”

“What do you have, Monsieur Weisz, and how did you get it?”

“What we have is evidence of an Italian secret service operation, in this city. It’s at work now, today.” Weisz went on to describe, without using names, Elena’s pursuit of the man who’d approached her supervisor, the interrogation of Veronique and the subsequent meeting with Elena, his telephone call to the Photo-Mondiale agency and his doubts about its legitimacy, the committee’s attempt at surveillance of 62, boulevard de Strasbourg, and the letters he’d found in the agency’s mailbox. Then, from the notes he’d brought with him, he read out the names of the French bank, and the addresses in Zagreb.

“Playing detective?” Guerin said, more amused than annoyed.

“Yes, I suppose so. But we had to do something. I mentioned, earlier, the attacks on the committee.”

Pompon slid the dossier over to his colleague, who read, using his index finger, the notes of a meeting with Weisz at the Opera cafe. “Not much, for us. But the investigation of the murder of Madame LaCroix is still open, and that’s why we’re talking to you.”

Pompon said, “And you believe this is related material. This spy business.”

“Yes, that’s what we think.”

“And the language your associate heard, beneath the staircase, was Serbo-Croatian?”

“She didn’t know what it was.”

For a moment, silence, then the inspectors exchanged a glance.

“We may look into it,” Guerin said. “And the newspaper?”

“We’ve suspended publication,” Weisz said.

“But, if your, ah, problems are eliminated, what then?”

“We’ll continue. More than ever, now that Italy has allied herself with Germany, we feel it’s important.”

Guerin sighed. “Politics, politics,” he said. “Back and forth.”

“And then you get war,” Weisz said.

Guerin nodded. “It’s coming.”

“If we investigate,” Pompon said, “we may be back in touch with you. Has anything changed? Employment? Domicile?”

“No, it’s all as before.”

“Very well, if you should find out anything else, you’ll let us know.”

“I will,” Weisz said.

“But,” Guerin said, “don’t go trying to help, not anymore, right? Leave that to us.”

Pompon went back over his notes, making sure of the names and addresses in Zagreb, then told Weisz he could go.

As Weisz left, Guerin smiled and said, “A bientot, Monsieur Weisz.” See you soon.

Back on the rue des Saussaies, Weisz found a cafe, likely the Interior Ministry cafe, he thought, from the look of the men eating dinner and drinking at the bar, and a certain muted quality to the conversation. Pressed for time, he gobbled down the plat du jour, a veal stew, drank two glasses of wine, then called Salamone from a pay telephone at the back of the cafe. “It’s done,” he said. “They’re going to investigate. But I need to see you, and maybe Elena.”

“What did they say?”

“Oh, maybe they’ll look into it. You know how they are.”

“When do you want to meet?”

“Tonight. Is eleven too late?”

After a moment, Salamone said, “No, I’ll pick you up.”

“At the rue de Tournon, the corner of the rue de Medicis.”

“I’ll call Elena,” Salamone said.

Weisz found a taxi outside the cafe, and by eight he was at Ferrara’s hotel.

They worked hard that evening, doing more pages than usual. They were up to Ferrara’s entry into France and his internment at a camp near the southwestern city of Tarbes. Ferrara was still angry, and didn’t spare the details, well focused on the bureaucratic sin of indifference. But Weisz toned it down. A flood of refugees from Spain, the sad remnants of a lost cause, the French did what they could. Because the Pact of Steel had changed the political chemistry, and this book was, after all, propaganda, British propaganda, and France was now, more than ever, Britain’s ally in a divided Europe. At eleven Weisz rose to leave-where was Kolb? Out in the corridor, as it happened, headed for the room.

“I have to see Mr. Brown,” Weisz said. “As soon as possible.”

“Anything wrong?”

“It isn’t the book,” Weisz said. “Something else. About the meeting last night.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Kolb said. “And we’ll arrange it.”

“Tomorrow morning,” Weisz said. “There’s a cafe, called Le Repos, just down the rue Dauphine from the Hotel Dauphine. At eight.”

Kolb raised an eyebrow. “That’s not how we do things,” he said.

“I know, but this is a favor. Please, Kolb, time is important.”

Kolb didn’t like it. “I’ll try. But, if he doesn’t show up, don’t be surprised. You know the routine-Brown picks the time, and the place. We have to be careful.”

Weisz was an inch away from pleading. “Just try, that’s all I ask.”

Out on the street, Weisz walked quickly to the corner. The Renault was there, its engine missing as it idled. Elena was sitting next to Salamone, and Weisz climbed into the backseat, then apologized for being late.

“Don’t worry about it,” Salamone said, ramming the shift lever until it clunked into first gear. “You’re our hero, tonight.”

Weisz described the meeting at the Interior Ministry, then said, “What we have to discuss now is something else-something I found out about last night.”

“Now what?” Salamone said.

Weisz told Elena, briefly but accurately, about the Ferrara book, an operation of the British SIS. “Now they’ve approached me on the subject of Liberazione,” he said. “Not only are they eager to see us back in business, they want us to grow. Bigger printing, more readers, wider distribution. They say they’ll help us to do that, and they’ll provide information. And, I have to add that I want to use the opportunity to save a friend’s life, a woman’s life, in Berlin.”

For a moment, nobody said anything. Finally, from Salamone: “Carlo, you’re making it hard for us to say no.”

“If it’s no, it’s no,” Weisz said. “For my friend, I’ll find another way.”

“‘Provide information’? What is that? They’ll tell us what to print?”

“It’s the alliance,” Elena said. “They wanted Italy to stay neutral, but, whatever they were doing, it didn’t work. So, now, they have to turn up the heat.”

“Jesus, Carlo,” Salamone said, hauling at the wheel and turning into a side street. “You of all people-it sounds like you want to let them do it. But you know what happens. A foot in the door, then a little more, and soon enough they own us. We’re spies, us.” He laughed at the idea. “Sergio? The lawyer? Zerba, the art historian? Me? The OVRA will take us apart, we can’t survive in that world.”

Weisz’s voice was tense. “We have to try, Arturo. What we always wanted was to make a difference, in Italy, to fight back. Well, this is our chance.”

The dark interior of the Renault was suddenly lit by the headlights of a car that had turned into the street behind them. Salamone glanced in the mirror as Elena said, “How would we even do that? Find another printer? More couriers? More people to hand out copies? In more cities?”

“They know how, Elena,” Weisz said. “We’re amateurs, they’re professionals.”

Again, Salamone looked in the mirror. The car had come up close to them. “Carlo, really I don’t understand you. When we took over from the giellisti in Italy, we faced intrusion of this kind, and fought it off. We’re a resistance organization, and that has its perils, but we must remain independent.”

“There will be a war here,” Elena said. “Like 1914, but worse, if you can imagine that. And every resistance organization, every nose-in-the-air idealist, will be pulled into it. And not for their saintly opinions.”

“Are you with Carlo?”

“I don’t like it, but yes, I am.”

Salamone turned the corner and sped up. “Who is that? Behind us?” The Renault was back on the street that ran adjacent to the Jardin du Luxembourg, and going faster, but the headlights stayed fixed in the mirror. Weisz turned and looked out the back window, saw two dark shapes in the front seat of a big Citroen.

“Maybe we should let them help us,” Salamone said. “But I think we’ll regret it. Just tell me, Carlo, is it this personal reason, this friend, that’s changed your mind? Or would you do it anyhow?”

“The war isn’t coming, it’s here. And if it isn’t the British today, it will be the French tomorrow, the pressure’s just beginning. Elena’s right-this is just a matter of time. We’re all going to fight, some with guns, some with typewriters. And, as for my friend, it’s a life worth saving, no matter who she is to me.”

“I don’t care why,” Elena said. “We can’t go on by ourselves, the OVRA proved that. I think we should accept this offer, and, if the British can help Carlo, can save his friend, so be it, and why not. What if it were you or me, Arturo? In trouble in Berlin, or Rome? What would you want Carlo to do?”

Salamone slowed down, then, staring at the rearview mirror, rolled to a stop. The Citroen also stopped. Then, slowly, swung around the Renault and pulled up beside it. A man in the passenger seat turned and looked at them for a moment, then said something to the driver, and the car drove away.

“What was that all about?” Elena said.

7 June, 8:20 A.M.

The Cafe le Repos was busy in the morning, customers two deep at the bar, saving a few sous on their coffee. In search of privacy, Weisz had taken a table in the far corner, backed up to the pebbled-glass partition. And there he waited, Le Journal unread before him, his coffee a dark stain at the bottom of the tiny cup, but no sign of Mr. Brown. Well, Kolb had warned him, these people had their own ways of doing business. Then, a man in a peaked cap left the bar, walked over to his table, and said, “Weisz?”

“Yes?”

“Come with me.”

Weisz left money on the table and followed the man outside. In the street a taxi was idling in front of the cafe. The man in the cap got behind the wheel and Weisz climbed into the back, where Mr. Brown was waiting for him. The usual Mr. Brown today, the smell of pipe smoke sweet in the air. “Good morning,” he said tartly. The taxi drove away and merged with the slow traffic on the rue Dauphine. “Pleasant morning, we have today.”

“Thank you for doing this,” Weisz said. “I had to talk to you, about your plans for Liberazione.”

“You’re referring to your little chat with Mr. Lane.”

“That’s right. We think it’s a good idea, but I need your help. To save a life.”

Brown’s eyebrows rose, and the pipe sent up an exclamatory puff of smoke. “What life is that?”

“The life of a friend. She’s been involved with a resistance group, in Berlin, and now she may be in trouble. Because, two days ago, I saw a cable at Reuters that could mean she’s been arrested.”

For a moment, Brown looked like a physician who’s been told something awful-bad as it was to you, he’d heard it all before. “You require a miracle, then everything will be hunky-dory. Is that the idea, Mr. Weisz?”

“Maybe a miracle, for me, but not for you.”

Brown took the pipe from his mouth and gave Weisz a long look. “Girlfriend, is it?”

“More than that.”

“And, truly, doing things in Berlin, against the Nazis? Not just being vocal at dinner parties?”

“The former,” Weisz said. “A circle of friends, some of them working in the ministries, stealing papers.”

“And passing ‘em to who? If you don’t mind my asking. Not to us, surely, you couldn’t be that lucky.”

“I don’t know. It could be the Soviets, or even the Americans. She made a point of not telling me.”

“Even in bed.”

“Yes, even there.”

“Then good for her,” Brown said. “Bolsheviks, these people?”

“I don’t believe they are. Not the Stalinist kind, anyhow. It’s more acts of conscience, against an evil regime. And whoever they’ve found, to receive what they take, that’s likely by chance-somebody, some diplomat, maybe, they happened to know.”

“Or who contrived to know them, I daresay.”

“Probably. Somebody guessed right.”

“I’ll be frank with you, Weisz. If the Gestapo’s got her, there isn’t much we can do. She couldn’t possibly be a British citizen, could she.”

“No, she’s German. Hungarian on her father’s side.”

“Mm.” Brown turned away from Weisz and looked out his window. After a moment, he said, “We assume that it’s a committee of some sort, that runs your journal. Have you spoken with them?”

“I have. They’re prepared to do what you ask.”

“And you?”

“I’m in favor.”

“You’ll go?”

“Go along with the idea, yes.”

“Go along with the idea, he says. No, Weisz, go to Italy. Or did Lane not quite get around to telling you that part of it?”

You’re mad. But he was caught. “Actually, he didn’t. Is that part of the plan?”

“That is the bloody plan, boyo. It’s your hide, we’re after.”

Weisz took a breath. “If you’ll help me, I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Conditions?” Brown, his eyes cold, left the word hanging in the air.

Give the right answer. Weisz felt a muscle tick at the corner of his eye. “It isn’t a condition, but…”

“Do you know what you’re asking? What you’re after is an operation, do you have any idea what that entails? It ain’t ‘Good old Weisz, let’s just hop over to Berlin and snatch his chickadee from the Nazis.’ There will have to be meetings about this, in London, and if, for some absurd reason, we choose to even try, you’ll be ours. Henceforth. Like that word? I quite like it, myself. It tells a story.”

“Done,” Weisz said.

Under his breath, Brown mumbled, “Bloody nuisance.” Then, to Weisz: “Very well, write this down.” He waited while Weisz retrieved pen and pad. “What I’ll want from you, today, in your handwriting, is everything you know about her. Her name, maiden name, if she’s been married. A very precise physical description-height, weight, what she wears, how she does her hair. And every photograph you have, and I mean every photograph. Her addresses, all of ‘em, where she lives, where she works, and the telephone numbers. Where she shops, if you know, and when she shops. Where she goes to dinner, or lunch, the names of servants, and the names of any friends she’s mentioned, and their addresses. Her parents, who they are, where they live. And some phrase that’s private between the two of you, ‘my apple dumpling,’ that sort of thing.”

“I don’t have any photographs.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t.”

“Should I give it to Kolb, tonight?”

“No, write ‘Mrs. Day’ on the outside of an envelope and leave it at the desk of the Bristol. Before noon, is that clear?”

“It will be there.”

Brown, much persecuted by life’s sudden surprises, shook his head. Then, resignation in his voice, said, “Andrew.”

The driver knew what that meant, slid the taxi through traffic to the curb, then stopped. Brown leaned across Weisz and opened his door. “We’ll let you know,” he said. “And, meanwhile, best finish up your work with Ferrara.”

Weisz headed for the office, anxious to write what Brown had requested, and equally anxious to have a look at the previous night’s dispatches, but there was nothing further on the Berlin spy ring. For a moment, he had himself persuaded that this was a reasonable pretext for a call to Eric Wolf, then acknowledged it wasn’t, unless Delahanty asked. Delahanty did not ask, though Weisz mentioned it. Instead, Delahanty told him he had to be on the one o’clock train to Orleans, where the president of a bank had left town with his seventeen-year-old girlfriend and a substantial portion of his depositors’ money. Off to Tahiti, it was rumored, and not, as he’d announced at the bank, to a meeting in Brussels. Weisz worked hard for an hour, writing down everything he knew about Christa’s life, then, on his way back to the Dauphine to pack his valise, he stopped at the Bristol.

When Weisz returned to Paris, at midday on the ninth, there was trouble at the office. “Please go immediately to see Monsieur Delahanty,” the secretary said, a malicious gleam in her eye. She’d long suspected that Weisz was involved in some sort of monkey business, now it looked like she’d been right and he was going to get his comeuppance.

But she was wrong. Weisz sat in the visitor’s chair, across from Delahanty, who stood and closed his office door, then winked at him. “I did have some doubts about you, laddie,” he said, returning to his desk, “but now it’s all cleared up.”

Weisz was mystified.

“No, no, don’t say a word, you don’t have to. You can’t blame me, can you? All this running off, here and there. I asked myself, what the hell’s going on with him? Emigres always up to something, the way the world sees it, but work has to come first. And I’m not saying it hasn’t, almost always, since you started here. You’ve been faithful and true, on time, on the story, and no nonsense with the expense reports. But then, well, I didn’t know what was going on.”

“And now you do?”

“From on high, laddie, as high as it gets. Sir Roderick and his crowd, well, if they value anything, they value patriotism, the old roar of the old British lion. Now I know you won’t take advantage of this, because I do need you, got to have the stories, every day, or there’s no bureau, but, if you have to, well, disappear, now and then, just let me know. For God’s sake don’t just vanish on me, but a word will suffice. We’re proud of you, Carlo. Now get out of here and write me a follow-up on your filing from Orleans, that naughty banker and his naughty girlfriend. We’ve got her photo, from the local rag, it’s on your desk. Smoldering little thing she is, in a confirmation gown, no less, with a fooking bouquet in her hot little hand. Go to it, laddie. Tahiti. Gauguin! Sarongs!”

Weisz stood up to leave, then, as he opened the door, Delahanty said, “And, as for this other business, I won’t mention it again. Except to say good luck, and be careful.”

Somewhere, Weisz thought, in the backstage apparatus of his life, someone had turned a wheel.

10 June, 9:50 P.M., Hotel Tournon.It’s something I never want to go through again, but it made me the brother of every soul in Europe who looks out at the world through barbed wire, and there are thousands of them, no matter how much their governments try to deny it. It was my good fortune that I had friends, who secured my release, then helped me to start life anew in the city where I’m writing this. It’s a good city, a free city, where people value their freedom, and all I would wish for you, for people everywhere in Europe, everywhere in the world, is that they can, some day, share this precious freedom.It won’t be easy. The tyrants are strong, and grow stronger every day. But it will happen, believe me it will. And, whatever you have to do, whatever you may turn to, I will be there beside you. Or someone like me-there are more of us than you might think, we are just down the street, or in the next town, prepared to fight for what we believe in. We fought for Spain, and you know what happened there, we lost the war. But we haven’t lost hope, and, when the next fight comes, we will be there. And, as for me personally, I won’t give up. I will remain, as I have been these many years, a soldier for freedom.

Weisz lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair. Ferrara came around behind him and read the text over his shoulder. “I like it,” he said. “So, we’re finished?”

“They’ll want changes,” Weisz said. “But they’ve been reading the pages every night, so I’d say it’s pretty much what they’re after.”

Ferrara patted him on the shoulder. “Never thought I’d write a book.”

“Well, now you have.”

“We should have a drink, to celebrate.”

“Maybe we will, when Kolb shows up.”

Ferrara looked at his watch, it was new, and gold, and very fancy. “He usually comes at eleven.”

They went downstairs to the cafe, below street level, at one time the cellar of the Tournon. Inside, it was dark and almost deserted, with only one customer, half a glass of wine at his elbow, writing on sheets of yellow paper. “He’s always here,” Ferrara said. They ordered brandies at the bar and sat at one of the battered tables, the wood stained, and scarred by cigarette burns.

“What will you do, now that the book’s finished?” Weisz said.

“Hard to say. They want me to go on a speaking tour, after the book comes out. To England, maybe America.”

“That’s not unusual, for a book like this.”

“Can I tell you the truth, Carlo? Will you keep a secret?”

“Go ahead. I don’t tell them everything.”

“I’m not going to do it.”

“No?”

“I don’t want to be their toy soldier. I’m not like that.”

“No, but it’s a good cause.”

“Sure it is, but not for me. Trying to read a speech, for some church group…”

“What then?”

“Irina and I are going away. Her parents are emigres, in Belgrade, we can go there, she says.”

“Brown doesn’t care for her, I guess you know that.”

“She’s my life. We make love all night.”

“Well, they won’t like it.”

“We’re just going to slip away. I’m not going to England. If there’s a war, I’ll go to Italy, and do my fighting there, in the mountains.”

Weisz promised not to tell Kolb, or Brown, and when he wished Ferrara well, meant it. They drank for a time, then, just before eleven, returned to the smoky room. That night, Kolb was prompt. When he’d read over the ending, he said, “Fine words. Very inspiring.”

“You’ll let me know,” Weisz said, “about any changes.”

“They’re really in a hurry now, I don’t know what’s gotten into them, but I doubt they’ll take much more of your time.” Then his voice turned confidential and he said, “Would you step outside for a moment?”

In the hallway, Kolb said, “Mr. Brown asked me to tell you that we have news about your friend, from our people in Berlin. She’s not in custody, yet. For the moment, they’re watching her. Closely. Sounds to me like our people kept their distance, but the surveillance is in place-they know what it looks like. So, keep away from her, and don’t try to use the telephone.” He paused, then said, concern in his voice, “I hope she knows what she’s doing.”

For a moment, Weisz couldn’t speak. Finally, he managed to say, “Thank you.”

“She’s in danger, Weisz, you’d better be aware of that. And she won’t be safe until she can find a way to get out of there.”

For the next few days, silence. He went up to Le Havre for a Reuters assignment, did what he had to do, then returned. Every time the office telephone rang, every evening when he stopped at the desk of the Dauphine, hope rose inside him, then evaporated. All he could do was wait, and he’d never realized how poorly he did that. He spent his days, and particularly his nights, preoccupied with Christa, with Brown, with going to Italy-back and forth, and nothing he could do about any of it.

Then, late on the morning of the fourteenth, Pompon telephoned. Weisz was to come to the Surete at three-thirty that afternoon. So, once again Room 10. This time, however, no Pompon, only Guerin. “Inspector Pompon is gathering the dossiers,” he explained. “But, while we’re waiting, there is one thing we have to clear up. You’ve withheld the names of your editorial committee, and we respect that, it’s an honorable instinct, but now, in order to go forward with the investigation, we’ll need to interview them, to help us with identification. It is in their interest, Monsieur Weisz, for their safety as well as yours.” He slid a tablet and pencil over to Weisz. “Please,” he said.

Weisz wrote down the names of Veronique and Elena, and added the address of the gallery, and Elena’s room. “They’re the ones who’ve been in contact,” Weisz said, then explained that Veronique had nothing to do with Liberazione.

Pompon showed up a few minutes later, with dossiers and a heavy manila envelope. “We won’t keep you too long today, we simply want you to look at some photographs. Take your time, study the faces, and let us know if you recognize any of them.”

He took an eight-by-ten print from the envelope and handed it to Weisz. Nobody he’d ever seen. A pale man, about forty, sturdily built, with close-cropped hair, photographed in profile as he walked down a street, the shot taken from some distance away. As Weisz studied the photograph, he saw, at the extreme left of the image, the doorway of 62, boulevard de Strasbourg.

“Recognize him?” Pompon said.

“No, I’ve never seen him.”

“Maybe in passing,” Guerin said. “On a street somewhere. In the Metro?”

Weisz tried, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing the man. Was he the one they especially wanted? “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him,” Weisz said.

“And her?” Pompon said.

An attractive woman, walking past a stall at a street market. She wore a stylish suit and a hat with a brim that shadowed one side of her face. She’d been caught in full stride, likely walking quickly, her expression absorbed and determined. On her left hand, a wedding ring. The face of the enemy. But she seemed so commonplace, in the midstream of whatever life she lived, which simply happened to include employment by the Italian secret police, whose job it was to destroy certain people.

“Don’t recognize her,” Weisz said.

“And this fellow?”

Not a clandestine photograph this time, but a mug shot; front face, and profile, with an identification number across the chest, below the name Jozef Vadic. Young and brutal, Weisz thought. A killer. Defiance glowed in his eyes-the flics could take his picture all they wanted, he would do as he liked, because it was the right thing to do.

“Never saw him,” Weisz said. “Better that I haven’t, I’d say.”

“True,” Guerin said.

Waiting for the next photograph, Weisz thought, where is the man who tried to enter my room at the Dauphine?

“And him?” Pompon said.

Weisz knew who this was. Pitted face, Errol Flynn mustache, though, from this angle, he could see no feather in the hatband. He’d been photographed sitting on a chair in a park, legs crossed, very much at ease, hands folded in his lap. Waiting, Weisz thought, for someone to come out of a building or a restaurant. And good at waiting, daydreaming, maybe, about something he liked. And-he recalled Veronique’s words-there was a certain set to his face that could well be described as “smug, and sly.”

“I believe he’s the man who interrogated my friend, who owns the art gallery,” Weisz said.

“She’ll have her chance to identify him,” Guerin said.

Weisz knew the next one, as well. Once again, the photograph had been taken with the entry of 62, boulevard de Strasbourg in the frame. It was Zerba, the art historian from Siena. Fair hair, rather handsome, self-assured, not too troubled by the world. Weisz made sure. No, he wasn’t wrong. “This man’s name is Michele Zerba,” Weisz said. “He is a former professor of art history, at the University of Siena, who emigrated to Paris a few years ago. He is a member of the editorial committee of Liberazione.” Weisz pushed the photograph back across the table.

Guerin was amused. “You should see your face,” he said.

Weisz lit a cigarette and moved an ashtray toward him-a cafe ashtray, likely from the nearby Surete cafe.

“And therefore,” Pompon said, his voice rich with victory, “a spy for the OVRA. How do you call it? A confidente?”

“That’s the word.”

“Never would have suspected…” Guerin said, as though he were Weisz.

“No.”

“Thus life.” Guerin shrugged. “He’s not the type, you think.”

“Is there a type?”

“If it were me, I’d say yes-one gets a feel for it, over time. But, in your experience, I would say no.”

“What will happen to him?”

Guerin thought it over. “If all he’s done is report on the committee, not much. The law he’s broken-don’t betray your friends-isn’t on the books. He did no more than try to help the government of his country. Maybe doing it in France isn’t technically legal, but you can’t tie that to the assassination of Madame LaCroix, unless someone talks. And, believe me, this crowd won’t. Probably, at the worst, we’ll send him back to Italy. Back to his friends, and they’ll give him a medal.”

Pompon said, “Is it Zed, e, r, b, a?”

“That’s correct.”

“Does Siena have two n‘s? I can never remember.”

“One,” Weisz said.

There were three more photographs: a heavyset woman with blond braids, wound into “Gretchen plaits” on the sides of her head, and two men, one of them Slavic in appearance, the other older, with a drooping white mustache. Weis had never seen any of them. As Pompon slid the photographs back in their envelope, Weisz said, “What will you do with them?”

“Watch them,” Guerin said. “Have a look through the office, at night. If we can catch them with documents, if they’re spying on France, they’ll go to prison. But new ones will be sent, in some new fake business, in some other arrondissement. The man who impersonated a Surete inspector will go to prison, for a year or two. Eventually.”

“And Zerba? What do we do about him?”

“Nothing!” Guerin said. “Don’t say a word. He comes to your meetings, he files his reports. Until we’re done with our investigation. And, Weisz, do me a favor, and please don’t shoot him, allright?”

“We won’t shoot him.”

“Really?” Guerin said. “I would.”

Later that day, he met Salamone at the gardens of the Palais Royal. It was a warm, cloudy afternoon, rain coming, and they were alone, walking the paths lined by low parterre and floral beds. To Weisz, Salamone looked old and worn-out. The collar of his shirt was too large for his neck, there were shadows beneath his eyes, and, as he walked, he pressed the point of his furled umbrella into the gravel path.

Weisz told him that he’d been summoned, earlier that day, to the Surete. “They had taken photographs,” he said. “Secretly. Of the people connected to the Agence Photo-Mondiale. Some of them here and there in the city, others of people entering or leaving the building.”

“Any that you could identify?”

“Yes, one. It was Zerba.”

Salamone stopped walking and turned to face Weisz, his expression a mixture of disgust and disbelief. “Are you certain of that?”

“Yes. Sad to say.”

Salamone ran a hand over his face, Weisz thought he was going to cry. Then he took a deep breath and said, “I knew.”

Weisz didn’t believe it.

“I knew but I didn’t know. When we started to meet with Elena, and nobody else, it was because I’d begun to be suspicious, that one of us was working for the OVRA. It happens, to all the emigre groups here.”

“We can’t do anything,” Weisz said. “That’s what they said-we can’t let on that we know. Maybe they’ll send him back to Italy.”

They returned to walking, Salamone punching his umbrella into the path. “He should be floating in the Seine.”

“Are you prepared to do that, Arturo?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Probably not.”

“If this ever ends, and the fascists go away, we’ll deal with him then, in Italy. Anyhow, we should celebrate, because this means that Liberazione comes back to life. In a week, a month, the Surete will have done their work and these people won’t bother us anymore, not these people.”

“Others, perhaps.”

“It’s likely. They won’t give up. But we won’t either, and now our print runs will be larger, and the distribution wider. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it, but this is a victory.”

“Bought by British money, and subject to their so-called help.”

Weisz nodded. “Inevitable. We are stateless people, Arturo, and that’s what happens.” For a time, they walked in silence, then Weisz said, “And they’ve asked me to go to Italy, to organize the expansion.”

“When was this?”

“A few days ago.”

“And you said yes.”

“I did. You can’t go, so it will have to be me, and I’ll need whatever you have-names, addresses.”

“What I have is a few people in Genoa, people I knew when I lived there, two or three shipping agents-we were in the same business-a telephone number for Matteo, in the printing department of Il Secolo, some contacts in Rome, and Milan, who survived the giellisti arrests a few years ago. But, all in all, not much-you know how it works; friends, and friends of friends.”

“Yes, I know. I’ll just have to do the best I can. And the British have their own resources.”

“Do you trust them, Carlo?”

“Not at all.”

“And yet you’ll do this, this very dangerous thing.”

“I will.”

“The confidenti are everywhere, Carlo. Everywhere.”

“Clearly they are.”

“In your heart, do you believe you will return?”

“I’ll try. But, if I don’t, then I don’t.”

Salamone started to answer, then didn’t. As always, his face showed everything he felt-it was the saddest thing there was, to lose a friend. After a moment, with a sigh in his voice, he said, “So, when do you leave?”

“They won’t tell me when, or how, but I’ll need your information as soon as possible. At the hotel. Today, if you can manage it.”

They walked on, as far as the arcade that bordered the garden, then turned onto another path. For a time, they didn’t speak, the silence broken only by the local sparrows and the sound of footsteps on gravel. Salamone seemed lost in his thoughts, but finally, he could only shake his head very slowly and mutter, more to himself and the world than to Weisz, “Ahh, fuck this.”

“Yes,” Weisz said. “And that will do for an epitaph.”

They shook hands and said goodby, and Salamone wished him luck, then went off toward the Metro. Weisz watched him until he disappeared beneath the arch that led out to the street. He might not, he thought, see Salamone again. He stayed at the garden for a time, walking on the paths, hands deep in the pockets of his raincoat. When a few drops of rain pattered down, he thought here it comes, and stepped into the covered arcade, in front of a milliner’s shop window, dozens of madly eccentric creations climbing the hat trees-peacock feathers and red spangles, satin bows, gold medallions. The clouds rolled and shifted above the garden, but there was no more rain. And he was, as he often was, surprised at how much he loved this city.

17 June, 10:40 A.M.

A final meeting with Mr. Brown, in some bar down a lost alley in the Marais. “The time draws near,” Brown said, “so we’ll need some passport photos-drop ‘em off at the Bristol tomorrow.” Then he read off a list of names, numbers, and addresses, which Weisz wrote down on a pad. When he was done, he said, “You’ll commit all this to memory, of course. And destroy your notes.”

Weisz said he would.

“Nothing personal goes with you, and if you have clothing that was bought in Italy, wear it. Otherwise, cut the French labels off.”

Weisz agreed.

“What matters is that they see you, down there, you will be onstage every minute. Because it will mean a great deal, to the people who have to do the work, and put themselves in harm’s way, that you were brave enough to return. Right under old Mussolini’s nose-all that sort of thing. Any questions?”

“Have you heard anything more, about my friend in Berlin?”

This was not the sort of question Brown had in mind, and he showed it. “Don’t worry about that, it’s being taken care of, just concentrate on what you have to do now.”

“I will.”

“It’s important, concentration. If you are not aware, every minute, of where you are, and who you’re with, something could go wrong. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

20 June, Hotel Dauphine.

At dawn, a knock on the door. Weisz called out, “One minute,” and put on a pair of undershorts. When he opened the door, S. Kolb was grinning at him. Kolb tipped his hat and said, “Fine morning. A perfect day to travel.” How the hell did he get up here?

“Come in,” Weisz said, rubbing his eyes.

Kolb stood a briefcase on the bed, undid the buckles, and flipped the top open. Then he peered inside and said, “What have we here? A whole new person! Why, who could he be? Here’s his passport, an Italian passport. By the way, one should try to remember one’s name. Quite awkward, at border stations, not to know one’s name. Liable to provoke suspicion, though, I have to say, it’s been survived. Oh, and look here, papers. All sorts, even a”-Kolb held the document away from him, the typical gesture of the farsighted-“a libretto di lavoro, a work permit. And where does our person work? He is an officer of the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale, the IRI. Now, what in God’s name does that do? It interviews bankers, it buys stock, it moves government money into private industry, an agency central to fascist economic planning. But, more important, it employs our newly born gentleman as a lordly bureaucrat, of unknown, ergo frightening, power. Not a policeman in Italia that won’t go pale in the presence of such dizzying status, and our gent will fly through street controls at a speed causing flames to leap from his behind. Now, not only does our boy have papers, they’re all properly stamped, and aged. Folded and refolded. Weisz, I have to tell you I’ve spent time thinking about that job. I mean, they never tell you who does that, folding and refolding, but somebody must. What else? Oh look, money! And lots of it, thousands and thousands of lire, our gentleman is rich, loaded. Anything more in here? Mmm, I guess that does it. No, wait, one more item, I almost missed it. A first-class ticket to Marseilles! For today! At ten-thirty! Now it happens to be a one-way ticket, but don’t let that make you nervous. I mean, our man wouldn’t want a French railway ticket in his pocket-you never know, you reach for your handkerchief and, whoops! So, when you return to Marseilles, you’ll just buy a ticket for Paris, and then, we’ll celebrate a job well done. Any comments? Questions? Curses?”

“No questions.” Weisz smoothed his hair back and went looking for his glasses. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

From Kolb, a melancholy smile. “Many times. Many, many times.”

“I appreciate the light touch.”

Kolb made a certain face: might as well.

22 June, Porto Vecchio, Genoa.

The Greek freighter Hydraios, flying the Panamanian flag, docked at the port of Genoa just before midnight. Sailing in ballast from Marseilles, due to take on cargo of flax, wine, and marble, the ship carried one extra crew member. As the crew hurried down the gangplank, laughing and joking, Weisz was in the middle of the crowd, next to the second engineer, who’d retrieved him from the dock in Marseilles. Most of the crew was Greek, but some of them knew a few words of Italian, and one called out to the sleepy passport officer at the doorway of a cargo shed. “Hey! Nunzio! Hai cuccato?” Getting laid?

Nunzio made a certain gesture, in the area of his crotch, which constituted an affirmative answer. “Tutti avanti!” he sang out, waving them along, stamping each passport without so much as looking at the owner. The second engineer could have been born anywhere, but he spoke merchant seaman’s English, enough to say, “We take care of Nunzio. So we don’t have no trouble in the port.”

For a time, Weisz just stood there, alone on the wharf, as the crew disappeared up a flight of stone steps. When they’d gone, it was very quiet, only a buzzing dock light, a cloud of moths fluttering in its metal hood, and the lapping of the sea against the quay. The night air was warm, a familiar warmth, soft on the skin, and fragrant with the scents of decay-damp stone and drains, mud flats at low tide.

Weisz had never been here before, but he was home.

He’d thought himself alone, except for a few wandering cats, but, he saw now, he wasn’t. There was a Fiat parked in front of a shuttered storefront, and a young woman in the passenger seat was watching him. When he met her eyes, she gave him a nod of recognition. Then the car drove off, slowly, bumping over the cobbled quay. A moment later, the church bells began to ring, some near, some far away. It was midnight, and Weisz set off to find the via Corvino.

The vicoli, the Genoese called the quarter behind the wharf, “the alleys.” All of them ancient-the merchant adventurers had been sailing out of here since the thirteenth century-narrow, and steep. They climbed up the hill, became lanes, bordered by high walls hung with ivy, turned into bridges, then to streets made of steps, with, now and then, a small statue of a saint in a hollow niche, so the lost could pray for guidance. And Carlo Weisz was good and lost. At one point, thoroughly discouraged, he simply sat down on a doorstep and lit a Nazionale-thanks to Kolb, who’d tossed a few packets of the Italian cigarettes into his valise as he was packing. Leaning back against the door, he looked up: below a starless heaven, an apartment building leaned out over the street, windows open on a June night, and, from one of them, came a steady rhythm of long, mournful snores. When he finished the cigarette and rose to his feet, he slung his jacket over his shoulder and returned to the search. He would keep at it until dawn, he decided, then he would give up and go back to France, a footnote in the history of espionage.

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

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

Weisz admitted he was.

“Where are you going?”

“The via Corvino.”

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

“Grazie.”

“Prego.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Is Matteo around?”

“What?”

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

“It’ll take a minute. Don’t hang up.”

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

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

“What? From where?”

“I’m a friend of Arturo Salamone.”

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

“In Genoa. Where can we meet?”

“Not until tonight.”

“Where, I said.”

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

“At seven?”

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

“I’ll see you then.”

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

23 June, 6:50 P.M.

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

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

Matteo watched him.

“And I write under the name Palestrina.”

“You’re Palestrina?”

“I am.”

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

“Salute.”

“Salute.”

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

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

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

Matteo was dubious, and showed it.

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

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

“That could be the future, Matteo.”

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

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

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

“Bigger. How many?”

“Maybe twenty thousand.”

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

“What if we took care of the newsprint?”

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

“What about friends? Other pressmen?”

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

“Could it be done at other printing plants?”

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

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

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

“Could we run our own shop?”

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

Why not?

“Not out in the open.”

“No.”

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

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

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

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

Matteo said they could.

24 June, 10:15 P.M.

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

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

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

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

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

“We’ll want a steady supply.”

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

“We can pay. What would it cost?”

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

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

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

“Newsprint, a dependable supply.”

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

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

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

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

“I’ll be here,” Grassone said.

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

Restless, Weisz wandered from room to room; closets filled with clothing, empty drawers in the desk. No photographs, nothing personal anywhere. He couldn’t read, he couldn’t sleep, and what he wanted to do was go out, get away from the apartment, even though it was after midnight. At least, out in the street, there was life. Which seemed, to Weisz, to be going on much as it always had. Fascism was powerful, and it was everywhere, but the people abided, bent with the wind, improvised, got by, and waited for better times. Ahh, one more rotten government, so what. They weren’t all like that; Matteo wasn’t, the girls who distributed the newspapers weren’t, and neither was Weisz. But, the way the city felt to Weisz, nothing had really changed-the national motto was still do what you have to do, keep your mouth shut, keep your secrets. That was the way life went on here, no matter who ruled. People spoke with their eyes, with small gestures. Two friends meet a third, and one of them signals to the other-eyes closed, a fast, subtle shake of the head. Don’t trust him.

Weisz went into the kitchen, the study, finally the bedroom. He turned out the light, lay down on the spread, and waited for the night to pass.

At noon, he called home again, and this time his mother answered. “It’s me,” he said, and she gasped. But she did not ask where he was, and she did not use his name. A brief, tense conversation: his father had retired, quietly, unwilling to sign the teacher’s loyalty oath, but not making a point of it. They lived now on his pension, and her family money, thank God for that. “We don’t talk on the phone, these days,” she said to him, a warning. And, a minute later, she said she missed him terribly, and then said goodby.

In the cafe, he had a Strega, then another. Maybe he shouldn’t have called, he thought, but he’d probably gotten away with it. He believed he had, he hoped he had. Done with the second Strega, he summoned the number for Emil from his memory and returned to the telephone. A young woman, foreign, but fluent in Genoese Italian, answered immediately, and asked him who he was. “A friend of Cesare,” he said, as Mr. Brown had directed. “Hold the line,” she said. By Weisz’s watch, it took more than three minutes to return to the phone. He was to meet Signor Emil at the Brignole railway station, on the platform for track twelve, at five-ten that afternoon. “Carry a book,” she said. “What tie will you wear?”

Weisz looked down. “Blue with a silver stripe,” he said. Then she hung up.

At five, the Stazione Brignole swarmed with travelers-everyone in Rome had come to Genoa, where they pushed and shoved the population of Genoa, which was trying to get on the 5:10 for Rome. Weisz, holding a copy of L’Imbroglio, Moravia’s short stories, was swept along in the crowd until an approaching traveler waved at him, then grinned, so happy to see him, and took his elbow. “How is Cesare?” Emil said. “Seen him lately?”

“Never saw him in my life.”

“So,” Emil said, “we’ll walk a little.”

He was very smooth, and ageless, with the ruddy face of the freshly shaved-he was always, Weisz thought, freshly shaved-a face without expression beneath light brown hair combed back from a high forehead. Was he Czech? Serb? Russian? He’d spoken Italian for a long time and it came naturally to him, but it wasn’t native, a slight foreign accent touched his words, from somewhere east of the Oder, but, beyond that, Weisz couldn’t guess. And there was something about him-the smooth, blank exterior with its permanent smile-that reminded Weisz of S. Kolb. They were, he suspected, members of the same profession.

“How can I help you?” Emil said. They’d paused before a large signboard where a uniformed railway employee, standing on a ladder, wrote times and destinations in chalk.

“I need a place, a quiet place. To set up some machinery.”

“I see. For a night? A week?”

“For as long as possible.”

A telephone on a table by the ladder rang, and the railway employee wrote the departure time for the train to Pavia, which drew a low murmur of approval, almost an ovation, from the waiting crowd.

“In the country, perhaps,” Emil said. “A farmhouse-isolated, private. Or maybe a shed somewhere, in one of the outlying districts, not the city, but not quite the countryside. We are talking about Genoa, aren’t we?”

“Yes, we are.”

“What do you mean, machinery?”

“Printing presses.”

“Ahh.” Emil’s voice warmed, his tone affectionate, and nostalgic. He had fond memories of printing presses. “Pretty good-sized, and not silent.”

“No, it’s a noisy process,” Weisz said.

Emil pressed his lips together, trying to think. Around them, dozens of conversations, a public-address system producing announcements that made everyone turn to his neighbor: “What did he say?” And the trains themselves, the drumming of locomotive engines echoing in the domed station.

“This kind of operation,” Emil said, “should be in a city. Unless you’re contemplating armed insurrection, and that hasn’t come here yet. Then you move everything out to the countryside.”

“It would be better in the city. The people who are going to run the machines are in the city-they can’t be going up into the mountains.”

“No, they can’t. Up there, you have to deal with the peasants.” To Emil, the word was simply descriptive.

“In Genoa, then.”

“Yes. I know of one very good possibility, likely a few more will occur to me. Can you give me a day to work on it?”

“Not much more.”

“It will do.” He wasn’t quite ready to leave. “Printing presses,” he said, as though he were saying romance or summer mornings. He was, evidently, in the normal course of life, more of a guns and bombs man. “Call the number you have. Tomorrow, around this time of day. There will be instructions for you.” He turned and faced Weisz. “A pleasure to meet you,” he said. “And please be careful. The state security in Rome is becoming concerned with Genoa. Like all dogs, they have fleas, but, lately, the Genoese flea is beginning to annoy them.” He made sure Weisz understood what he meant, then turned and, after a few steps, vanished into the crowd.

25 June.

Weisz worked his way through the alleys of the waterfront district, and was at Grassone’s room by nine-thirty.

“Signor X!” Grassone said, opening the door, and happy to see him. “Have you had a good day?”

“Not too bad,” Weisz said.

“It continues,” Grassone said, settling himself in the rolling chair. “I’ve found your newsprint. It comes down in freight cars, from Germany. Which is where the trees are.”

“And a price?”

“I took you at your word, about the big rolls. They price the stuff in metric tons, and for you that would be something in the neighborhood of fourteen hundred lire a metric ton. How many rolls I don’t know, but that should keep you in paper, no? And we beat the local price-or the local price wherever you’re printing.”

Weisz thought it over. A man’s suit cost about four hundred lire, a cheap apartment rented for three hundred a month. He assumed they would be buying at a thieves’ price, and, even with fat commissions for Grassone and his associates, would still be getting the newsprint below the market rate. “That’s acceptable,” he said. On his fingers, he went from lire to dollars, twenty to one, then British pounds at five dollars a pound. Surely, he thought, Mr. Brown would pay that.

Grassone was watching him work. “Comes out good?”

“Yes. Very good. And, of course, it stays a secret.”

Grassone wagged a heavy finger. “Don’t you worry about that, Signor X. Of course, I’ll need a deposit.”

Weisz reached into his pocket and counted out seven hundred lire. Grassone held one of the bills up to the desk lamp. “Such a world we live in, these days. People printing money in the cellar.”

“It’s real,” Weisz said.

“So it is,” Grassone said, putting the money in his drawer.

“Now, I don’t know when and where-it could be a few weeks-but the next thing we’ll want is a printing press, and a Linotype machine.”

“Do you have a list? Size? Make and model?”

“No.”

“You know where to find me.”

“In a day or so, I’ll have it.”

“You’re in a hurry, Signor X, aren’t you.” Grassone leaned forward and flattened his hands on the desk. He wore, Weisz saw, a gold ring with a ruby gemstone on his pinkie. “I see half of Genoa in here, and the other half sees my competitors, and not much goes wrong, because we take care of the local police, and it’s just business. Now here you are, starting up a newspaper. Fine. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I don’t care what you do, but, whatever that is, it’s liable to make some of the wrong people mad, and I don’t want it coming down on my head. That’s not going to happen, is it?”

“Nobody wants that.”

“You give me your word?”

“You have it,” Weisz said.

It was a long walk back to the via Corvino, thunder rumbling in the distance, and flashes of heat lightning on the horizon, out over the Ligurian Sea. A girl in a leather coat fell into step with him as he crossed a piazza. In a warm, husky voice, she wondered if he liked this? Or maybe that? Did he want to be alone tonight? Then, at the apartment house, an old couple passed him, going downstairs as Weisz climbed. The man said good evening, the woman looked him over-who was he? They knew everybody here, they didn’t know him. Back in the apartment, he dozed, then woke suddenly, his heart racing, from a bad dream.

In the morning, the sun was out, and, in the streets, life went on at full throb. The waiter in the cafe knew him now, and greeted him like a steady customer. In his newspaper, La Spezia had beaten Genoa, 2–1, on a goal in the final minute. The waiter, looking over Weisz’s shoulder as he served coffee, said that it shouldn’t have been allowed-hand ball-but the referee had been bought, everybody in town knew that.

Weisz telephoned Matteo at Il Secolo, and met him an hour later in a bar across the street from the newspaper, where they were joined by Matteo’s friend from the Giornale and another pressman. Weisz bought coffee and rolls and brandies; the munificent visitor from out of town, confident, and amusing. “Three monkeys go into a brothel, the first one says…” It was all very relaxed, and amiable-Weisz used their names, asked about their work. “We’ll have our own print shop,” he said. “And good equipment. And, if sometimes you need a few lire at the end of the month, you only have to ask.” Was it safe, they wanted to know. These days, Weisz said, nothing was safe. But he and his friends were very careful-they didn’t want anybody to get in trouble. “Ask Matteo,” he said. “We keep things quiet. But the people of Italy have to know what’s going on.” Otherwise, the fascisti would get away with every lie they told, and they didn’t want that, did they? No, they didn’t. And, Weisz thought, they truly didn’t.

After Matteo’s friends left the bar, Weisz wrote down a list of what would have to be bought from Grassone, then said he would like to meet the truck driver, Antonio.

“He hauls coal in the winter, produce in the summer,” Matteo said. “He does an early run up the coast, then he’s back in town about noon. We could see him tomorrow.”

Weisz said that noon was a good time, decide where, he’d be in touch later in the day. Then, after Matteo had gone back to work, Weisz called the number for Emil.

The young woman answered immediately. “We’ve been waiting for your call,” she said. “You are to meet him tomorrow morning. At a bar, called La Lanterna in one of the little streets, the vico San Giraldo, off the piazza dello Scalo, down by the docks. The time is five-thirty. You can be there?”

Weisz said he could. “Why so early?” he said.

She didn’t answer immediately. “This is not Emil’s habit, it’s the man you will meet at La Lanterna, he owns the bar, he owns many things in Genoa, but he’s careful about where he goes. And when. Understood?”

“Yes. Five-thirty, then.”

Weisz called Matteo after three-to learn that they would meet the truck driver at noon the following day, in a garage on the northern edge of the city. Matteo gave him the address, then said, “You made a good impression on my friends. They’re ready to sign on.”

“I’m glad,” Weisz said. “If we all work together, we can get rid of these bastards.”

Maybe, some day, he thought, as he hung up the phone. But more likely, they would, all of them, Grassone, Matteo, his friends, and everyone else, be going to prison. And it would be Weisz’s fault. The alternative was to sit quiet and hope for better times, but, since 1922, better times hadn’t shown up. And, Weisz thought, if the OVRA didn’t like Liberazione in the past, they’d like it even less now. So, at the end of the day, when the operation was betrayed, or however it fell apart, Weisz would be, one way or another, in the next cell.

That night, he took Matteo’s list of equipment to Grassone’s office, then wound his way uphill toward the via Corvino. Two more days, he thought. Then he would return to Paris, having played the part Mr. Brown had written for him: a daring appearance, and a few early steps toward the expansion of Liberazione. There was more to be done-someone would have to come back here. Did this mean that Brown had other people he could deploy? Or would it be him? He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. Because what mattered to him now was the hope-and it was well beyond hope-that once he’d done what Mr. Brown wanted, Mr. Brown would do, in Berlin, what he wanted.

27 June, 5:20 A.M.

In the piazza dello Scalo, a gray, drizzling dawn, ocean cloud heavy over the square. And a morning street market. As Weisz walked across the piazza, the merchants, unloading an exotic assortment of ancient cars and trucks, were setting up their stalls; the fishmonger kidding with his neighbors-two women stacking artichokes, kids carrying crates, porters with open barrows shouting for people to get out of the way, flocks of pigeons and sparrows in the trees, waiting for their share of the market’s bounty.

Weisz turned down the vico San Giraldo and, after missing it the first time, found La Lanterna. There was no name outside, but a board, hanging from a rusty chain, bore a weathered painting of a lantern. Beneath the sign, a low doorway led to a tunnel, then a long, narrow room, its floor black with centuries of dirt, its walls brown with cigarette smoke. Weisz moved among the early patrons-market vendors, and stevedores in leather aprons-until he sighted Emil. Who waved him over, the permanent smile widening a little on his freshly shaven face. The man by his side did not smile. He was tall and somber, and very dark, with a thick mustache and sharp eyes. He wore a silk suit but no tie, his chocolate-colored shirt buttoned at the throat.

“Good, you’re on time,” Emil said. “And here is your new landlord.”

The tall man looked him over, gave him a brief nod, then checked a fancy watch and said, “Let’s get busy.” From his pocket he brought out a large ring of keys, thumbing through them to find the one he wanted. “This way,” he said, heading to the far end of the tavern.

“It’s a good place, for you,” Emil said to Weisz. “People in and out, all day and all night. It’s been here since…when?”

The landlord shrugged. “There’s been a tavern on this site since 1490, so they say.”

At the back of the room, a low door made of thick planks. The landlord unlocked it, then ducked down beneath the frame and waited for Emil and Weisz. When they were through the door, he locked it behind them. Right away Weisz found it difficult to breathe, the air was an acid fog of spoiled wine. “It used to be a warehouse,” Emil said. The landlord took a kerosene lamp from a peg on the wall, lit it, then led them down a long flight of stone steps. The walls glistened with moisture, and Weisz could hear the rats as they scampered away. At the foot of the stairway, a corridor-it took them over a minute to walk to the end-opened to a massive vault, its ceiling a series of arches, with wooden casks lining the walls. The wine-laden air was so strong that Weisz had to wipe tears from his eyes. From the central arch, a lightbulb hung on a cord. The landlord reached up and turned on the light, which threw shadows on the wet stone block. “See? No torches for you,” Emil said, winking at Weisz.

“Must have electricity,” Weisz said.

“They put it in here in the twenties,” the landlord said.

From somewhere behind the walls, Weisz could hear the rhythmic sloshing of water. “Is this still in use?” he said. “Do people come down here?”

From the landlord, a dry rattle that passed for a laugh. “Whatever’s in there”-he nodded toward the casks-“you couldn’t drink it.”

“There’s another exit,” Emil said. “Down the corridor.”

The landlord looked at Weisz and said, “So?”

“How much do you want for it?”

“Six hundred lire a month. You pay me in advance, two months at a time. Then you can do whatever you want.”

Weisz thought it over, then reached in his pocket and began counting out hundred-lira notes. The landlord licked his thumb and made sure of the count while Emil stood by, smiling, hands in pockets. Then the landlord opened his key ring and handed Weisz two keys. “The tavern, and the other entrance,” he said. “If you need to find me, see your friend here, he’ll take care of it.” He turned off the light, lifted the kerosene lamp, and said, “We can leave from the other end.”

Outside the vault, the corridor made a sharp turn and became a tunnel, which led to a stairway that climbed back to street level. The landlord blew out the lamp, hung it on the wall, and unlocked a pair of heavy iron doors. He put his shoulder against one of them, which squeaked as it opened, to reveal the courtyard of a workshop, littered with old newspapers and machine parts. At the far end of the courtyard, a door in a brick wall led out to the piazza dello Scalo, where the market’s first customers, women carrying net bags, were busy at the stalls.

The landlord looked up at the sky and scowled at the drizzle. “See you next week,” he said to Emil, then nodded to Weisz. As he turned to go, a man stepped from a doorway and took him by the arm. For an instant, Weisz froze. Run. But a hand closed on the collars of his shirt and jacket and a voice said, “Just come along with me.” Weisz spun around and, with his forearm, knocked the man’s hand off him. From the corner of his eye, he saw Emil, running full speed down an aisle between the stalls, and the landlord, struggling with a man half his size, who was trying to bar his arm up behind his back.

The man facing Weisz was built thick, hard-faced and hard-eyed, a cop of some kind, with the belt of a shoulder holster, run beneath a flowered tie, across his chest. He produced a small case and flipped it open to reveal a badge, saying, “Understand?” He grabbed for Weisz’s arm, Weisz eluded him, then was slapped on the side of the face, and slapped again on the backswing. The second slap was so hard that his feet came off the ground, and he stumbled backward and sat down. “So, let’s make my life difficult,” the cop said. Weisz rolled over twice, then scrambled to his feet. But the cop was too fast, swung his leg, and kicked Weisz’s feet out from beneath him. He landed hard, realized there was a lot more of this to come, and tried to crawl under a market stall. From people nearby, a rising murmur, muted sounds of anger or sympathy, at the sight of a man being beaten.

The cop’s face turned bright red. He shoved an old woman out of his way, then reached down, caught Weisz by the ankle, and started to pull. “Come out of there,” he said under his breath. As Weisz was dragged from beneath the stall, an artichoke bounced off the cop’s forehead. Startled, he let go of Weisz and stepped backward. A carrot sailed past his ear, and he raised his hand to ward off a strawberry, while another artichoke hit him in the shoulder. From somewhere behind Weisz, a woman’s voice. “Leave him alone, Pazzo, you sonofabitch.”

Evidently, they knew this cop, and they didn’t like him. He drew a revolver, aimed it left, then swung it right, provoking a shouted “Yes, go ahead and shoot us, you miserable prick.” The fusillade increased: three or four eggs, a handful of sardines, more artichokes-in season and cheap that day-a lettuce, then a few onions. The cop pointed his gun at the sky and fired two shots.

The market people were not intimidated. Weisz saw a woman in a bloody apron, at the stall of the pork butcher, plunge a long-handled fork into a bucket and spear a pig ear, which, using the fork like a catapult, she fired off at the cop. Who now trotted backward until he stood at the edge of the piazza, beneath a crooked old tenement. He put two fingers in his mouth and produced a shrill whistle. But his partner was busy with the landlord, nobody appeared, and, when the first basin of water flew out of a window and splashed at his feet, he turned, and with one savage glare over his shoulder, I won’t forget this, left the piazza.

Weisz, his face burning, was still beneath the stall. As he started to crawl out, an immense woman, wearing a hair net and an apron, came rushing toward him, her eyeglasses, on a chain around her neck, bouncing with every step. She held out a hand, Weisz took it, and she hauled him effortlessly to his feet. “You better get out of here,” she said, voice almost a whisper. “They’ll be back. Do you have a place to go?”

Weisz said he didn’t-he sensed danger in the idea of returning to the via Corvino.

“Then come with me.”

They hurried down a row of stalls, then out of the piazza into the vicoli. “That bastard would arrest his mother,” the woman said.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” She came to a sudden stop, took him by the shoulders, and turned him so that she could see his face. “What did you do? You don’t look like a criminal. Are you a criminal?”

“No, I’m not a criminal.”

“Ah, I didn’t think so.” Then she took him by the elbow and said, “Avanti!” Walking as fast as she could, breathing hard as they climbed the hill.

The church of Santa Brigida was not splendid or ancient, it had been built of stucco, in a poor neighborhood, a century earlier. Inside, the market woman went down on one knee, crossed herself, then walked down the aisle and disappeared through a door opposite the altar. Weisz sat in the back. It had been a long time since he’d been in church, but he felt safe, for the moment, in the pleasant gloom touched with incense. When the woman reappeared, a young priest followed her up the aisle. She bent over Weisz and said, “Father Marco will take care of you,” then gripped his hand-be strong-and went on her way.

When she’d gone, the priest led Weisz back to the vestry, then to a small office. “She’s a good soul, Angelina,” he said. “Are you in trouble?”

Weisz wasn’t quite sure how to answer this. Father Marco was patient, and waited for him. “Yes, in some trouble, Father.” Weisz took a chance. “Political trouble.”

The priest nodded, this was not new. “Do you need a place to stay?”

“Until tomorrow night. Then I’ll be leaving the city.”

“Until tomorrow night we can manage.” He was relieved. “You can sleep on that couch.”

“Thank you,” Weisz said.

“What sort of politics?”

From the way he spoke, and listened, Weisz sensed that this was not a typical parish priest. He was an intellectual, destined to rise in the church or be banished to a remote district-it could go either way. “Liberal politics,” he said. “Antifascist politics.”

In the priest’s eyes, both approval and a hint of envy. If life had been different…“I’ll help you any way I can,” he said. “And you can keep me company at supper.”

“I’d like that, Father.”

“You’re not the first one they’ve brought to me. It’s an old custom, sanctuary.” He stood, looked at a clock on the desk, and said, “I have to serve Mass. You are welcome to take part, if it’s your custom.”

“Not for a long time,” Weisz said.

The priest smiled. “I do hear that, quite often, but it’s as you wish.”

Weisz went out once, that afternoon, walking over to a post office, where he used the telephone to call the contact number for Emil. It rang for a long time, but the woman never answered. He had no idea what that meant, and no idea what had happened at the piazza. He suspected it might have been, in his case, an accident-with the wrong person at the wrong time, the landlord spotted and denounced when he entered the neighborhood. For what? Weisz had no idea. But this was not the OVRA, they would have been there in force. Of course, it was just barely possible that he’d been betrayed-by Emil, by Grassone, or someone in the via Corvino. But it didn’t matter, he would sail on the Hydraios the next day, at midnight, and, in time, it would be for Mr. Brown to sort things out.

28 June, 10:30 P.M.

Sitting on the rim of a dry fountain, at the top of the staircase that led down to the wharf, Weisz could see the Hydraios. She was still tied to the pier, but a thin column of smoke drifted from her stack as she got up steam, prepared to sail at midnight. He could see, as well, the shed opposite the pier, and Nunzio, the customs officer for the crews of merchant ships, his chair tilted back against the table where he processed documents. Very relaxed, Nunzio, his night duty a soft job, idly passing the time, this evening, with two uniformed policemen, one lounging against the door of the shed, the other sitting on a crate.

Weisz could also see the crew of the Hydraios, drifting back from their liberty in Genoa. They’d left together, the night the ship docked, but now they returned, rather the worse for wear, in twos and threes. Weisz watched as three of the sailors approached the shed; two of them holding up a third, his arms around their shoulders, sometimes venturing a few steps, sometimes losing consciousness, the tips of his shoes bumping over the cobbles as he was towed along.

At the table, the two sailors produced their passports, then, a bad moment, hunted for their friend’s papers, finally discovering them tucked in the back of his pants. Nunzio laughed, and the cops joined in. What a head he’d have tomorrow morning!

Nunzio took the first sailor’s passport, laid it flat on the table, and looked up and down, twice, the action of a man checking a photograph against a face. Yes, it was him allright. Nunzio gave his port-and-date stamp an officious wiggle on an ink pad, then brought it down emphatically on the passport. As he worked, one of the policemen strolled up to the table and, peering over Nunzio’s shoulder, had a look. Just making sure, might as well.

11:00. The church bells rang. 11:20. A rush of sailors headed for the Hydraios, hurrying to get on board, two or three officers in their midst. Ten minutes later, the second engineer showed up, dawdling, strolling along the wharf, waiting for Weisz, so he could walk him through the passport control. Eventually, he gave up, joined the crowd at the table, and, with a final glance back toward the quay, climbed up the gangway.

Weisz never moved. He was not a merchant seaman, he was, according to his libretto di lavoro, a senior official. Why would he be traveling to Marseilles on a Greek freighter? At 11:55, a deep blast on the ship’s foghorn echoed over the waterfront, and two seamen cranked the gangway up to the deck, while others, assisted by a stevedore, hauled in the lines that had secured the ship to the pier.

Then, at midnight, with one more wail of its horn, the Hydraios steamed slowly out to sea.

7 July.

A warm summer night in Portofino.

Paradise. Below the terrace of the Hotel Splendido, lights twinkled in the port, and, when the breeze was right, music from parties on the yachts came drifting up the hillside. In the card room, British tourists played bridge. At the pool, three American girls were sprawled in steamer chairs, drinking Negronis, and seriously considering the possibility of never going back to Wellesley. In the pool, their friend floated languidly on her back, swished her hands now and then to keep from sinking, gazed up at the stars and dreamed of being in love. Well, dreamed of doing what people did when they were in love. A kiss, a caress, another kiss. Another caress. Twice, he’d danced with her, the night before: gentle, courtly, his eyes, his hands, his Italian accent with a British lilt. “May I have this dance?” Oh yes. And, on her last night in Portofino, he could have had a little more, could Carlo, Car-lo, if he wanted.

They’d talked, for a time, after they’d danced, strolling along the candlelit terrace by the bar. Talked idly, of this or that. But when she’d told him she’d be going off to Genoa, where she and her friends would sail for New York on an Italian liner, he seemed to lose interest, and the intimate question had never been asked. And now, she would be going back to Cos Cob, going back-intact. Still, nothing could stop her from dreaming about him; his hands, his eyes, his lips.

True, he had lost interest, when he’d learned that she had not come to Portofino on a yacht. Not that she wasn’t appealing. He could see her down there as he looked out his window, a white star on blue water, and, if it had been a few years earlier…But it wasn’t.

After the Hydraios had sailed off without him, he’d spent the night at the Brignole railway station, then taken the first train down the coast to the resort town of Santa Margherita. There he’d bought a valise, and the best resort clothes-blazer, white slacks, short-sleeved tennis shirts-he could find. Oh he spent money like water, and what an S. Kolbish lesson this had turned out to be! Then, after the purchase of razor and shaving soap and toothbrush and the rest of it, he’d packed the valise and taken a taxi-there was no train-off to Portofino, and the Hotel Splendido.

Plenty of rooms, that summer, some of their regular guests weren’t traveling to Italy, that summer. For Weisz, good fortune, and the morning he arrived, he changed clothes and embarked on his campaign: a presence at the pool, in the bar, at afternoon tea in the salon; talkative, charming, the most amiable fellow imaginable. He’d tried with the British, joining this party and that, people off the yachts, but they wanted nothing to do with him-the discouragement of ingratiating foreigners a skill learned early, in the public schools, by the sort of people who came to Portofino.

And he was beginning to despair, was beginning to consider a journey to a nearby fishing village-good-size boats, poor fishermen-when he discovered the party of Danes, and their effusive leader. “Just call me Sven!” What a dinner! Table for twelve-six Danes and their new hotel friends-bottles of champagne, laughter, winks and sly references on the subject of nighttime merriment aboard the Ambrosia, Sven’s yacht. It was Sven’s wife, white-haired and breathtaking, who’d finally, in her slow Scandinavian English, said the magic words: “But we must find our way to see you more, dear man, for the Thursday we sail to the Saint-Tropez.”

“Maybe I should just come along with you.”

“Oh Carlo, could you?”

A last look out the window, then Weisz stood at the mirror and combed his hair. This was the Danes’ last night in Portofino, and the dinner was sure to be elaborate and noisy. One final glance at the mirror, lapels brushed, and off to war.

It was as he’d thought-champagne, grilled sole, cognac, and great affection all ‘round the table. But Weisz caught the host looking at him, more than once, some question lurking in the back of his mind. Sven was jovial, and good fun, but that was on the surface. He’d made his money owning lead mines in South Africa, was no fool, and was, Weisz sensed, on to him. So, after the cognac, Sven suggested that the company gather at the bar, while he and his friend Carlo had themselves a promised game of billiards.

And so they did-the angles of Sven’s face sharpened by the light above the table in the shadowy billiard room. Weisz did his best, but Sven could really play, and whisked the beads across the brass wire with the tip of his cue as the score mounted. “So, my friend, are you coming with us to Saint-Tropez?”

“Certainly I would like to.”

“So I see. But, can you leave Italy so easily? Do you not require, ah, some form of permission?”

“True. But I could never get it.”

“No? That is annoying-why not?”

“Sven, I must leave this country. My wife and children went to France two months ago, and now I have to join them.”

“Leave, without permission.”

“Yes. Secretly.”

Sven bent over the table, ran the cue across his open bridge, and sent his ball rolling easily over the felt until it bumped against a cushion and clicked against the red ball and the other white. Then he reached up and recorded the point. “It will be a rotten war, when it comes. Do you think you will avoid it in France?”

“I might,” Weisz said, chalking the tip of his cue. “Or I might not. But either way, I cannot fight on the wrong side.”

“Good,” Sven said. “I admire that. So perhaps we shall be allies.”

“Perhaps we will, though I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Keep hoping, Carlo, it’s good for the spirit. We sail at nine.”

5 July. Berlin.

How he hated these horrible fucking Nazis! Look at that one, standing on the corner as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Short and stocky, the color of meat, with rubbery lips, and the face of a vicious baby. Now and then he strolled up the street, then back, keeping his eyes always on the entry to the office of the Bund Deutscher Maedchen, the teenaged girls division of the Hitler Youth. And keeping watch, and making no secret of it, on Christa von Schirren.

S. Kolb, in the backseat of a taxi, was close to giving up. He’d been in Berlin for days, and he couldn’t get near her. The Gestapo watchers were everywhere-in cars, doorways, delivery vans. Were surely listening to her phone and reading her mail, and they would take her when it suited them. Meanwhile, they waited, since maybe, just maybe, one of the other conspirators would grow desperate, break from cover, and try to make contact. And, Kolb could see it, she knew exactly what was going on. She’d been all confidence, once upon a time, a self-assured aristocrat, but no more. Now there were deep shadows beneath her eyes, and her face was pale and drawn.

Well, he wasn’t in much better shape himself. Scared, bored, and tired-the spy’s classic condition. He’d been on the move since the twenty-ninth of June, when he’d spent the night in Marseilles, waiting for Weisz, but, when the crew of the Hydraios left the freighter, he was nowhere to be seen. And, according to the second engineer, the ship had left Genoa without him. “Gone,” Mr. Brown said when Kolb telephoned. “Maybe the OVRA got him, we’ll never know.”

Too bad, but so life went. Then Brown told him he had to go up to Berlin and exfiltrate the girlfriend. Was this necessary? “Our end of the bargain,” Brown said, from the comfort of his Paris hotel. “And she may come in handy, you never know.” He’d have some help in Berlin, Brown told him, the SIS was thin there, thin everywhere, but the naval attache at the embassy had a taxi driver he could use.

That was Klemens, former Communist and streetfighter, back in the twenties, with the scars to prove it, now resting his weight on the steering wheel of the taxi and lighting his tenth cigarette of the morning. “We’re sitting here too long, you know,” he said, catching Kolb’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

Shut up, you ape. “We can wait a little longer, I think.”

They waited, ten minutes, another five. Then a bus pulled up in front of the office, its engine idling, black smoke puffing from its exhaust pipe. And, a minute later, here came the girls, in brown uniforms, knee-high stockings, and knotted scarves, a flock of them, some with picnic baskets, marching in pairs, followed by von Schirren. When they boarded the bus, the thug on the corner looked over at a car parked across the street, which, when the bus drove away, swung out into traffic, directly behind it.

“Go ahead,” Kolb said. “But stay well back.”

They drove to the edge of the city, headed east, toward the Oder, and soon enough out in the countryside. Then, a stroke of fortune. In the town of Muncheberg, the Gestapo car pulled into a gas station, and two bulky men got out to stretch their legs. “What shall I do?” Klemens said.

“Follow the bus.”

“That car will soon catch up with us.”

“Just drive,” Kolb said. A hot day, and humid. Irritating weather, for Kolb-if he had to walk, his underpants would chafe. So, at the moment, he didn’t care what the other car did.

A few minutes later, a second stroke of fortune: the bus turned off onto a tiny dirt road. Kolb’s heart lifted. Here’s my chance. “Follow!” he said. Klemens kept well behind the bus, a trail of dust showing its progress as it climbed up into the hills near the Oder. Then it stopped. Klemens backed up and parked the car just off the road, at a point where the people on the bus wouldn’t be able to see them.

Kolb gave the group a few minutes to get wherever they were going, then climbed out. “Open the hood,” he said. “You’ve had engine problems-this may take some time.”

Kolb walked up the road, then circled well away from the bus, into a pine woods. Nature, he thought. He didn’t like nature. In a city, he was a clever rat, at home in the maze, out here he felt naked and vulnerable, and, yes, he’d been right about his underpants. From a vantage point up the hill, he could see the Deutscher Maedchen, swarming at the edge of a small lake. Some of the girls unpacked the picnic, while others-Kolb’s eyes widened-undressed to go swimming, and not a bathing suit to be seen. They shrieked as they ran into the cold water, splashing each other, wrestling, a frolic of naked girls. All this lovely, pale, Aryan flesh, bouncing and jiggling, free and unfettered. Kolb couldn’t get enough, and, quite soon, found himself more than a little unfettered.

Von Schirren took off her shoes and stockings. Would there be more? No, her mood was beyond swimming, she paced about, staring at the ground, at the lake, at the hills, with sometimes a pallid smile when one of the Maedchen shouted at her to join them.

Kolb, moving from tree to tree for cover, worked his way down the hill. Eventually, he came to the edge of the woods, and hid behind a bush. Von Schirren wandered toward the lake, stood for a time, then moved back toward him. When she was ten feet away, Kolb looked out from behind the bush.

“Pssst.”

Von Schirren, startled, glared at him, fury in her eyes. “You vile little thing. Go away! At once. Or I’ll set the girls on you.”

By all means. “Listen to me carefully, Frau von Schirren. Your friend Weisz arranged this, and you’ll do what I say, or I’ll walk off and you’ll never see me, or him, again.”

She was, for a moment, speechless. “Carlo? Sent you here?”

“Yes. You’re leaving Germany. It starts now.”

“I must get my shoes,” she said.

“Tell your chief girl that you are unwell and you’re going to lie down in the bus.”

And then, at last, in her eyes, gratitude.

They climbed the wooded hillside, only birds broke the silence, and shafts of sunlight lit the forest floor. “Who are you?” she said.

“Your friend Weisz, in his profession, has a broad acquaintance. I happen to be one of the people he knows.”

After a time, she said, “I am followed, you know, everywhere.”

“Yes, I’ve seen them.”

“I suppose I cannot go to my house, even for a moment.”

“No. They’ll be waiting for you.”

“Then where?”

“Back to Berlin, to an attic. Hot as hell. Where we’ll change your appearance-I have purchased the most dreadful gray wig-then I will take your photograph, develop the film, and put the photo in your new passport, in your new name. After that, a change of cars, and a few hours’ drive to Luxembourg, the border crossing at Echternach. After that, it will be up to you.”

They circled the bus and descended to the road. Klemens was lying on his back beside the taxi, his hands clasped beneath his head. When he saw them, he rose, banged the hood shut, slid into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.

“Where shall I sit?” she said, approaching the car.

Kolb walked around the taxi and opened the trunk. “It’s not so bad,” he said. “I’ve done it a few times.”

She climbed in, and curled up on her side.

“Nice and snug?” Kolb said.

“You’re good at this, aren’t you,” she said.

“Very good,” Kolb said. “Ready?”

“The reason I asked, about going to my house, is that my dogs are there. They are dear to me, I wanted to say goodby.”

“We can’t go anywhere near your house, Frau von Schirren.”

“Forgive me,” she said. “I should not have asked.”

No, you shouldn’t have, I mean, really, dogs. But the look in her eyes reached him, and he said, “Perhaps you can have a friend bring them to Paris.”

“Yes, it might be possible.”

“Ready now?”

“Now I am.”

Kolb lowered the lid of the trunk, then pressed it down until it locked.

11 July.

It was after ten at night by the time Weisz climbed out of a taxi in front of the Hotel Dauphine. The night was warm, and the front door was propped open. Inside, it was quiet, Madame Rigaud sitting in a chair behind the desk, reading the newspaper. “So,” she said, taking off her spectacles, “you have returned.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“One never knows,” she said, quoting the French adage.

“Is there, perhaps, a message for me?”

“Not a one, monsieur.”

“I see. Well then, good evening, madame. I’m off to bed.”

“Mmm,” she said, putting on her spectacles and rattling the newspaper.

He was on the fourth step when she said, “Oh, Monsieur Weisz?”

“Madame?”

“There has been one inquiry. A friend of yours has come to stay with us. And she did ask, when she arrived, if you were here. I’ve given her Room Forty-seven, just down the hall from you. It looks out on the courtyard.”

After a moment, Weisz said, “That was kind of you, Madame Rigaud, it’s a pleasant room.”

“A very cultured sort of woman. German, I believe. And she is, one suspects, anxious to see you, so perhaps you should be on your way upstairs, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“In that case, I will wish you a good night.”

“For all of us, monsieur. For all of us.”