As Time Goes By (16 page)

"And then I interfered," admitted Renault, "and had
Ugarte arrested at Rick's place to provide a little
amusement for Major Strasser." He looked around the
table. "I am sorry."

"That's where you came in, Richard," said Ilsa.
"You got those letters from Ugarte, and you gave them
to us. When you did, you became part of it, too. We're
all in this together now." She stopped and blushed. "Aren't we, Richard? Please tell me we are."

He wanted to kiss her, right there in front of her hus
band, in front of everybody, and wondered why he
didn't.

"I'll think it over," was all he said.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

S
am got in late that night He was returning from his
new gig, playing the piano in a smoky Soho nightclub
located in a Greek Street basement that featured wa
tered-down mixed drinks and a show of seminude girls
that, in Sam's opinion, would not bear very close in
spection in the daylight. The joint was called Morton's
Cabaret Club, and it was run by a couple of Cockney
gangsters, twin brothers named Melvin and Earl Can
field. The British civilians seemed to find them terrify
ing, but Sam simply found them amusing. The way
they swaggered around in their tight black suits, which could not have concealed a cigarette lighter, much less
a pistol, barking orders and generally acting as if they were tough guys! The very idea of an unarmed gang
ster made Sam laugh; the only unarmed gangsters he
knew back home were dead gangsters.

The other black people at Morton's were a couple of
dishwashers, and Sam didn't think much of them, ei
ther. They were West Indians, but far from the kind
of Caribbean-bom intellectuals he had encountered in
Harlem, where the islanders more or less ruled the
roost, socially speaking. Instead they were gentle and
soft-spoken and unassertive, as if they feared that at
any moment the British would notice they were black and ship them off across the ocean. Again.

At Morton's, the song in demand was "Shine," a
jazzy coon song by Ford Dabney that Sam had never
minded playing, whether it was with Josephine Baker
in Paris or by himself at Rick's Caf
é
Am
é
ricain. The
white folks thought the joke was on him, but Sam knew
it was really on them. He couldn't imagine colored
people sitting around and paying to hear a white man
make fun of himself.

"What kept you?" Rick demanded. He was alone in
the sitting room, playing chess against himself. From
his demeanor Sam found it hard to tell whether he was winning or losing.

"Nothing much, Mr. Rick," he answered, taking off
his topcoat and hanging it on the rack in the hall. He
eyeballed the board as he came in: Rick was playing
one of his favorites, a Paul Morphy game that featured
a dazzling sacrifice of the black queen and victory on the seventy-sixth move. Sam and Rick had played it
through just the other day. Why Morphy had played
P-QR5 on the sixteenth move seemed obvious to Sam,
but Rick apparently still didn't get it. He thought about
lending the boss his copy of Philidor's
L'analyse du
jeu des
é
checs,
then remembered that Rick didn't read French very well. "Just a couple of policemen who
wanted to know what a colored man was doing walking
the streets of London in the middle of the night, and
did I know there was a war on?"

"What'd you tell them?" asked Rick.

"I told them it wasn't my war."

"Maybe it is now." Rick knocked over the white
king in resignation. "Come on, let's go downstairs. I'm tired of sitting here drinking alone and beating myself
at chess. I'd like to hear some music. Maybe even some
of the old songs."

"Fine with me, boss," said Sam.

They went down to the lounge at Brown's. There
were no lights on and few customers, but Sam man
aged at the piano by candlelight. Rick's bourbon didn't
need any light at all; it was just fine in the dark.

"You wanna talk about it, boss?" asked Sam, his fingers moving lightly over the keys. The song was
"You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby," one of
Rick's favorites. The boss always calmed down when
he played.

"About what?" asked Rick.

"You know," said Sam. "Her. Miss Ilsa." The Mor-phy game was the giveaway; when Rick was feeling
optimistic, he replayed old Jose Capablanca games.

"I thought I told you not to talk about her," snapped
Rick. "I wasn't aware that order had been rescinded."

"Never mind, Mr. Richard," said Sam. "I just was
thinkin'—"

"Who asked you to think?" Rick said.

He smoked and drank for a time in silence. Sam con
tinued to improvise at the keyboard. Unconsciously he
let his fingers slide over "As Time Goes By."

"Knock it off," objected Rick, but Sam interrupted
him quickly.

"You remember the first time we heard this song,
Mr. Rick?" he said. "It was back at the Tootsie-Woot
sie Club, thirty-one or thirty-two, I think it was."

"That sounds about right," Rick grunted. "Just
around the time I became the manager."

"It sure was." Sam waggled his head in recollection.
"Wasn't that a time." He started playing pianissimo
and turned to face Rick.

"I remember like it was yesterday," he said. "That
white boy Mr. Herman come marchin' through the
front door and said he got a song in him and it got to
come out and Mr. Solomon says get out and take your
damn song with you, this is a colored club, we don't
want no Jews here, but you says I'm the manager now, and then you says to Mr. Herman play it and he plays
it." Sam took a sip of water from the glass on top of
the piano, leaving out only one insignificant measure in the left hand. "And I been playin' it ever since."

"You sure have," agreed Rick.

"Tell you the truth, I don't much care for it. But it
was always one of your favorites."

"And hers," Rick said. "So cut it out."

"I hear you, Mr. Rick," said Sam, continuing to
play, "but I ain't listening to you."

"You're fired," said Rick.

"I believe that when you give me that damn raise
you been promisin' me," said Sam.

"He'll never fire you, Sam," said Ilsa. "You play 'As Time Goes By' too beautifully for him ever to do that."

Once more she came to him out of the darkness, an
angel in white, as she had done in his cafe in Casa
blanca. Back then he'd thought he knew why she had
come, and he had been wrong. Tonight, though, it was different. Tonight, he knew.

"When are you going?" he asked.

"Tomorrow."
           

"Champagne?" It was what they had been drinking
at La Belle Aurore the last time they had parted. It
seemed appropriate.

"Champagne would be fine," she said.

"Get the lady some champers, will you, Sam?" re
quested Rick. "And make sure it's cold. I don't care
who you have to bribe to get it, just get it."

"Okay, boss," said Sam, rising.

She composed herself for a moment while Sam was
fetching the champagne.

"Victor told me about the agreement you two made back in Casablanca, when Captain Renault had him in the holding pen. About how you pretended to me that
we would be leaving on that plane, when all along you
planned to make me go with him. I want you to know
that I'm grateful."

"I wonder if I made the right choice," said Rick.

"Never mind that now," Ilsa said. "The important
thing is that we're here, together. The important thing
is not what's been done. The important thing is what
we
will
do—together."

"Sounds like you've got everything figured out," ob
served Rick. "So what do you need me for?"

"I don't," she replied, lowering her eyes. "Victor
does."

Rick downed the rest of his drink. "I've had better
offers," he said.

That was the wrong thing to say. "Richard, don't be
so stupid! Don't be so selfish! Can't you see this is
bigger than you and me, bigger than Victor, bigger
than all of us? This is not about the problems of three
little people. If you can't see that—if you
won't
see
that—then you're not half the man I thought you were.
You're not half the man I fell in love with in Paris."

She was crying now. "Not half the man I'm still in
love with," she concluded, her voice trailing away.

Rick put his arm around her for support, and she
sank back toward him, her head resting comfortably on his shoulder.

He kissed her, hard. She didn't pull back, not even
for a second.

"Richard, don't you see?" she sobbed after their lips
had parted. "He'll die. I know he will. This thing ob
sesses him. It's all he thinks about. What the Germans
have done to his homeland—what they've done to
him—he cannot allow to stand. He has devoted his life
to driving them out of Prague, out of Czechoslovakia,
out of central Europe entirely if he can. The year he
spent in Mauthausen has only made him more deter
mined, not less. No matter what happens, he will suc
ceed. Even if it kills him."

She dabbed at her eyes with Rick's breast pocket
handkerchief. "That's why I'm asking you to help,"
she said. "Not for him, but for me. For us. Do you
understand now?"

Reluctantly she drew away from Rick and sat back
to look at him. "The British are going to smuggle me
into Prague. The Underground can get me into the
RSHA headquarters and, with luck, into Heydrich's office. There is an opening for a secretary there, and with
my languages I can easily pass for a White Russian."

"So that's your story," said Rick. "I was wondering
what it was going to be."

"Yes," said Ilsa. "My name is to be Tamara Touma
nova, the daughter of a Russian nobleman who was shot by the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution.
I was raised by my mother across Europe, living in
Stockholm, Paris, Munich, and Rome. I am at home everywhere, and nowhere."

"What makes you think they'll fall for it?" Rick
asked.

"They'll believe me all right," replied Ilsa, "because
they'll want to. As a White Russian, I want revenge on
the Communists for what they did to me and my family. Anyone who hates the Communists is more than
welcome in Nazi circles."

She shook her head as Rick began to refill her glass.
"No, Richard," she said. "I must have my wits about
me at all times from now on." She smiled at him, that
same heartbreaking smile he remembered so well. The
last time he had seen it was in La Belle Aurore, when
she wore blue. Tonight, the only blue she was wearing
was the blue of her eyes.

"You as well," she said with a little laugh, reaching to take the bourbon from his hand.

"Leave a fellow's drink alone, will you?" objected
Rick.

She looked at him earnestly, longing and desire dancing in her eyes. "Then make it the last one," she pleaded. "I need you completely sober from here on.
We all do, if we are to have any chance of success.
Whatever it is you're hiding from, please don't hide
behind liquor anymore."

Reluctantly he put down the drink. Booze had been
h
is boon companion for so long that, besides Sam, it
was his best friend. Getting off the sauce was not going
to be easy. It was a lot to ask of a guy. He looked at Il
sa in the candlelight, and suddenly he knew just how
easy it was going to be. "At least let me finish this one.
A kind of hail and farewell."