Midnight in Europe (5 page)

“Oh Lord,” Barabee said, with the sigh in his voice of
one who sees it all coming
. “Where is the mother in this?”

“Belesz was divorced ten years ago, at the time of his death he
was living with a nightclub dancer. So the mother is not involved, and the nephew and the niece are fighting.”

“Well, of
course
they are … inherit wealth and pick a fight. Which is over …?”

“Dogs.”

“Oh Lord,
animals
. The firm’s been there before, the New York office represented W. C. Fields when he was charged by the New York Humane Society with the death of a canary, ‘by torture.’ The bird flew into a painted flat during the act. Fields was acquitted. So, that said, what sort of dogs?”

“A Hungarian breed called vizsla, they have short-hair coats, like whippets, are colored brown or rust, with rosy-brown noses. They are excellent hunting dogs and good family dogs as well. In this case there are three, inherited by the niece and nephew. He wants to sell them, she says she loves them and wants to keep them. He refused to vote on the hotel sale until she gave in, and there it sits, the partnership can’t do anything and, meanwhile, the hotel has failed and there are many creditors in court.”

“Have Count Polanyi and his brother offered to buy the dogs?”

“They have, but the nephew doesn’t want money, he thinks that if he refuses to vote his half share, he can drive his sister out of the partnership. It was the Count Polanyi who telephoned me this morning, told me the story, and asked if we can do anything under French law.”

“Where are the dogs?”

“They were at the Belesz house in Budapest, being cared for by the servants. But Count Polanyi has a castle in Hungary, and he called his steward and asked him to pick them up. So I expect they’re at the castle.”

Barabee brooded for a moment, then rubbed his eyes and glanced at his watch. “Well …,” he said. Then, “We’ll have to come up with a list of possible legal moves, Cristián, but not until tomorrow. In here? Ten o’clock?”

Ferrar nodded, they said good night, and Ferrar returned to his
office. His secretary, Jeannette, already had her coat on but she’d been waiting for him. “Monsieur Ferrar? A telephone call came in for you a few minutes ago, a Señor Molina, from the Spanish embassy. There’s a note on your desk with the number.”

“Thank you, Jeannette,” Ferrar said. “And bonsoir.”

Ferrar sat at the desk, staring at the number. He had a bad feeling about this, then chided himself for having the feeling.
Let it be something to do with the émigré community
, he thought,
a funeral, a party, a meeting
. He dialed the number, gave his name, and the receptionist put him through immediately.

“Señor Ferrar, thank you for being prompt. Would it be possible for us to meet, perhaps tomorrow morning?”

“At nine? At the embassy?”

“Thank you, Señor Ferrar. I will see you at nine.”

The embassy was a few minutes’ walk from the law firm; Ferrar felt he could just manage the meeting and be at Coudert by ten. He left the office and headed toward the Sixth Arrondissement, thinking he might take the Métro or find a taxi, but he did neither. It was a fine cold night, swirls of powdery snow blew over the cobblestones, Parisians flowed past him in their winter coats and scarves, so Ferrar, in no hurry to reach his silent apartment, crossed the Seine on the Pont Neuf, then stopped at a café and had a coffee, in time reached the Place Saint-Sulpice, and, reluctantly, went home.

Ferrar arrived at the embassy just before nine, gave his name to the receptionist, and the diplomat Molina appeared a moment later. Appeared from the nineteenth century: he wore a high collar, pince-nez, a beautifully trimmed Vandyke beard, and held himself a certain way, his head at an upward angle, as though he were looking down on the world. Molina seemed highly pleased, perhaps relieved, to meet Ferrar, who suspected they’d met before but couldn’t remember where. When they’d shaken hands, Molina said, “Shall we go and have a coffee?” As he said it he raised an interrogatory
eyebrow, then held his open hand behind Ferrar’s back and pointed his other hand toward the door. At the courteous end of assertive, the gesture meant they were
going
to have coffee.

Once Ferrar was out on the street, the bad feeling returned—what was it that couldn’t be said at the embassy? They walked to the luxurious Hotel George V—named for the English king, the
George Cinq
to a Frenchman—and Molina led him to the tea salon called La Galerie. A gallery it was; a long narrow room with tables against the windowed wall and a glossy black piano with top up at the far end. For the rest it was all glowing marble in low light, glittering chandeliers, wall sconces, and tapestries—under foot and on the wall.
Aubussons?
Ferrar wondered. He wouldn’t put it past the George V.

Molina ordered coffee, which came with a basket of small brioches. The waiter placed the basket just to the right of Ferrar’s hand; he could feel the warmth and the aroma was inspiring. Ferrar wanted one, but waited to see if his appetite survived what Molina was going to say. As the diplomat cleared his throat and polished his pince-nez, Ferrar looked around the room, which was almost deserted. There were two men with briefcases whispering at one table, perhaps Jews, Ferrar thought, of the hard-faced variety; and in the corner, a young, overdressed couple, maybe on honeymoon.

Molina took a sip of coffee, then said, “Did you ever meet a man called Castillo?”

It took a moment. “The museum curator?”

“Yes. Did you know him?”

Past tense
. “We were, I believe, at émigré functions now and then, but I didn’t really know him.”

“He has met with a great misfortune, I fear. I’m not entirely sure, he could show up tomorrow, but I have to accept the fact that he won’t.”

“What happened?”

“Castillo was a good man, too good, really, and he went to Madrid
on a kind of private mission, and we have heard he was executed as a spy.”

“And was he? A spy?”

“No. Not really. Perhaps, technically, he was on that sort of business when he was in Madrid, but his work at the embassy was far from espionage. As best we know, this execution was a random event, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was arrested, and immediately shot. There was no investigation, it all happened very quickly.”

“You did say he was in Madrid …” Ferrar was puzzled. “So then, executed by the
Republic
?”

“No, no,” Molina said emphatically, putting down his coffee cup and dabbing at his lips with a vast, white linen napkin. “This was an accident. Castillo would never have worked for the fascists. Never. No, it was just … in war, you know, these things happen.”

“I am sorry,” Ferrar said.
What does this have to do with me?
“Did he have family?”

“No, he was a bachelor.”

Ferrar shook his head in sorrow. He’d heard so many of these stories as Spain tore itself to pieces, so he did what everyone did: reacted, felt sympathy, and waited to hear the next.

“A terrible thing,” Molina said. “And a grave loss for us, for the embassy here in Paris. Castillo worked in what we call the Oficina Técnica, which tries to buy arms for the Republic on the world market. From the beginning we have lost battles and territory because we lack weapons: rifles, bullets, artillery, airplanes, everything.”

“I know,” Ferrar said. “The world knows and all it does is watch.”

“Stalin helps us, to a point, the Russian pilots in Spain fight the German pilots of the Condor Legion, but this alliance will finish us, in the end.”

Ferrar recalled seeing a headline on the front page of a tabloid in New York. He didn’t remember the headline, what he did remember was the phrase
Red Spain
. The American president, Roosevelt,
was a determined anti-fascist, but the Spanish anarchists murdered priests and nuns and burned down churches. Which meant that Roosevelt’s crucial supporters, Catholic working men and women in the cities, would not tolerate his helping people who did such things.

“Do you really believe we’ve lost the war?” Ferrar said.

“Not quite yet, not as long as we hold Madrid and Barcelona. We are doomed, however, if England and France and America don’t help us. And they won’t, politically can’t, as long as victory for the Republic is seen as the creation of a Soviet state in Europe. Meanwhile, every day we are more dependent on the USSR. For example, the French and American banks won’t process our payments, so we can pay for weapons only through the Banque Commerciale pour l’Europe du Nord, which is the Soviet Union’s bank in Paris. Texaco sells oil only to Franco, and Dupont has sold Franco forty thousand bombs and evaded the American embargo by shipping via Germany. The French Popular Front was our great ally, at the beginning, but then the British, and the French right wing, forced France into the Non-Intervention Pact. And they mean it—the Non-Intervention Committee has representatives at the frontiers, making sure no weapons pass through customs. Nonetheless, we persist, the Oficina Técnica continues its work and we have another arms-buying office in New York.”

“Yes, I know, in fact I stopped by there on my last trip to the States and brought some envelopes back to Paris. Envelopes that couldn’t be mailed.”

“We are grateful for your help,” Molina said.

“Is there some way the Coudert law firm can help?” Which had to be, Ferrar thought, why he was having coffee at La Galerie.

“I don’t believe a law firm can help us now. It’s you who can help your country … if Spain is still your country.”

“It is. But what would you want me to do?”

“With Castillo’s death, our staff at the Oficina is weakened, they work hard but they need guidance, they need ideas, they need
someone who can find a path through the swamp. Will you do that for the Republic?”

“In my heart I would like to, señor, but I cannot. I must work as a lawyer because my family depends on me. I support them; my parents, my sister, my grandmother. When the war started in ’36 I spoke to friends about going off to fight, but when I suggested to my family that I might join up they were horrified. Nobody
objected
, quite the opposite. They nodded, they exchanged glances, they were silent, they were brave, and it was
that
I couldn’t bear, that they would accept terrible poverty in a foreign country.”

From Molina, a subtle dip of the head, eyes for just an instant closed.
Of course I understand
.

“Perhaps now and then, if you face a particular problem, I will gladly help you. But I cannot resign from my firm in order to work at the arms office.”

“We’ll take anything we can get, it’s what we’ve done from the beginning.”

“You have my office telephone, and I will give you my number at home.”

“I should add that you might have to be, perhaps not
careful
, a better word is
aware
. Because the Soviets, for their own political reasons, want to be in control of the purchase of whatever arms we can buy. Yes, Stalin sells us armament of Russian manufacture, he likes to see photographs in the newspapers, but most of what the Russians provide is bought on the black market by operatives of the Comintern, the International Communist Party, essentially civilians of strong conviction secretly directed by the NKVD.”

Like the man with slumped shoulders in his blue overcoat
. Did the Russians have him followed in New York because they
knew
he was going to be a courier for the arms-buying office? Only people in the embassy would have known what he was going to do. Tell Molina this? No. He couldn’t explain why, but no.

“And I must prevail on you,” Molina said, “to undergo a certain interview with the head of security at the embassy, Colonel
Zaguan. Forgive me for this, he can be a difficult fellow but I must observe protocol.”

“Then I will meet with him.”

“I’ll have my secretary arrange the meeting, at your convenience, Señor Ferrar. And I thank you for your offer of assistance. Now, señor, will you not have a single brioche?”

Ferrar walked over to the office only to discover that Barabee had canceled their meeting; he’d been summoned to a client’s chateau in the Loire Valley—an emergency, or what the client thought was an emergency. Ferrar worked through the day, then took a taxi home to the Place Saint-Sulpice. Where he changed to a blazer and flannel trousers and then set out for a little Lyonnais place on the rue du Cherche Midi. He knew what he wanted: winter food—layers of sliced potatoes and onions cooked slowly in creamy milk, and half a roast chicken from Bresse, the best chicken in France.

Hunched over, collar up, the icy, still air burning his face, he told himself he didn’t mind yet one more solitary dinner. But it wasn’t true. He was lonely, he had no woman friend to take to dinner, he had no woman friend to take to bed. At the moment, anyhow—he’d had his share of love affairs in Paris, some of them exciting. He sometimes thought about Eileen Moore, but he saw her only at long intervals and that wouldn’t change. They might be happy together, he believed, but he could not move to New York and Eileen, uprooted from her Manhattan life, would in Paris be lost among strangers. She surely had amours of her own and he sensed that she liked the arrangement they had.

He reached the restaurant, its windows opaque with steam, and was greeted affectionately; they knew him here. Chez Lucette had only twelve tables; the husband and wife cooked, the daughter served. As dinner companion, Ferrar had brought along a copy of
Le Soir
, not that he would read it, he simply found staring at a
newspaper preferable to staring at a wall. He had an
oeuf dur mayonnaise
to start, then the
pommes lyonnaise
and
poulet de Bresse
arrived, accompanied by a carafe of red wine. The dinner was, as always, very good, and he ate slowly, taking care to enjoy it. Looking up for a moment, he discovered another solitary diner, a woman at a table across the room. She had light brown hair, almost blond, falling in soft waves from a tilted black beret, and, he saw, had brought her own reading, a magazine. As Ferrar stared at her she looked up and their eyes met. Then unmet.