The spies of warsaw (14 page)

asked for opinions and recommendations. There will be a dinner that

night, at the inn in Schramberg, with
Wehrmacht
officials, technical

people, and we leave the following morning, the fifteenth. So, you see

I cannot come to Warsaw until the night of the seventeenth, and we

can meet the following morning."

"Where is there terrain for tanks, Herr Uhl, in the Black Forest?"

To Mercier, it sounded like a
story
--this little sneak of a man was up

to something. What?

"I don't know where, exactly, but I was told the maneuvers will

take place in the forest."

"Tanks don't go in forests, Herr Uhl. There are
trees
in the forest,

tanks can't get through."

"Yes, so I thought. Perhaps they wish to have us suggest modifications that might make it possible. The fact is, I don't know what

they're doing, but, in any case, I've been ordered to attend, so I must."

Surely you must.
"You'll write us a report, Herr Uhl, about the

exercises. Be thorough, please: formations, speeds, angles of ascent

and descent, how long it takes to go a certain distance. And, also, the

names of the
Wehrmacht
officials. Do you need to make a note to

yourself?"

Uhl shook his head. "I know what you want."

"Then we'll meet again on the morning of the eighteenth."

Uhl agreed, though Mercier sensed a growing reluctance, as

though the day would come, soon enough, when these meetings would

end. He slid the envelope into his newspaper and received the steel formula in return. Uhl signed the receipt, then left the bar.

Mercier lit a Mewa, his mind working on what Uhl had told him.

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Just precisely what forest were the Germans thinking about? The

mountains on the border with Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland

region? There was no forest on the frontier between Germany and

Denmark, as far as he knew. And the Polish steppe had virtually been

made for tank formations. Where else? The forests between Germany

and France? Under the artillery of the Maginot Line forts? Suicide.

Austria? Hitler might attack Austria, but it would be a political, not a

military, invasion.

That left what? That left the Ardennes, in Belgium, north of the

Maginot Line. No. For a thousand reasons, a very remote possibility.

But, he thought,
somewhere.

Mercier finished his coffee, bad as it was. The bar felt oppressive; he

disliked waiting for Uhl to leave the area and kept glancing at his

watch. Finally, twenty minutes--well, almost. The doctrine on agent

meetings said
last to arrive, first to leave,
but Mercier did it his own

way, and, to date, nothing had gone wrong.

Out in the street, he hurried through the floating snowflakes,

heading toward the tram stop. He was anxious to return to the apartment, to change out of his disguise, this old coat and hat, and be off

to the embassy, where he could look at his maps. He peered ahead, to

make sure he didn't catch up to Uhl, though anyone dawdling in this

weather seemed unlikely, and Uhl had to get his train back to Breslau.

Did he use the same tram stop? Mercier couldn't decide; the alley lay

almost midway between two stops. As he neared the corner where he

took the trolley, he heard its bell ringing behind him and broke into as

much of a run as he could manage. In the event, the motorman saw

him loping along and waited, and Mercier thanked him as he climbed

aboard.

He started to move through the standing crowd toward the rear

platform, then stopped dead. Uhl! At the center of the car. Well, they

would just have to ignore each other. Evidently, Uhl had gone to the

other stop, and the trolley was running late. Mercier found room on

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the opposite side of the aisle and stared out the grimy window, then

chanced one fast look at Uhl. What was this? He wasn't alone. Holding the back of a wicker seat with one hand, briefcase under his arm,

he was engaged in animated conversation with--who? An angel. That

was the word that sprang into his head. Because she stood on Uhl's

left and was turned toward him, Mercier could see her face, could see

that she was very young, barely twenty, and, even in a city of striking

blond women, extraordinary--innocent as a child, the rabbit-fur collar of her coat turned up, her long flaxen hair set off by a knit cap,

sky blue, with a tassel. Standing close to Uhl, face upturned, she was

rapt, transfixed by what he was saying, laughing, gloved hand over her

mouth, then giving her hair a seductive shake. Had this just begun?

On the trolley? Mercier guessed not--it had started at the tram stop.

Again she laughed, leaning toward Uhl, almost, but not quite, touching him. Was she a prostitute? No sign of that, to Mercier's eyes.

Or, if she was, an extremely rare version of the breed, not the sort

who would pick up a man at a tram stop at six-thirty on a snowy

morning.

Immediately, Mercier sensed that something was wrong. He

forced himself to look away, at a row of brick factories sliding past the

window, until the trolley slowed for the next stop. Then he stole

another glance. If they got off together, what would he do?

But they stayed on the tram. Which rolled over the bridge that crossed

the Vistula, the snow swirling in the wind above the dark river. Now it

was her turn to talk, her face concentrated, wanting the man she'd

met, older, experienced, to take her seriously. Was she speaking Polish? Did Uhl speak the language? Breslau had forever been a disputed

city--Wroclaw, as far as the Poles were concerned--and it was possible that Uhl spoke some Polish. A woman standing next to Mercier--

he could smell the damp wool of her coat--caught him staring and

gave him a look:
mind your own business.
He turned back to the window. The trolley was now approaching his stop, in central Warsaw,

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O N R AV E N H I L L * 8 7

and, as the motorman pulled on the cord that rang the bell, Mercier

glanced up the aisle and saw that Uhl and the blond girl were moving

toward the rear platform.

Mercier left by the front door, circled the tram--thus shielded

from Uhl and the girl--headed quickly for the shops across the street,

and chose one with a set-back entry.
Like some sly private detective
, he

thought,
lurking in a doorway.
A fancy perfume shop, as it happened,

great clouds of scent rolling out each time the door opened. When the

trolley pulled away, he spotted the blue cap in the crowd waiting to

transfer to another line. Where the hell were they going? Not to the

Europejski. A taxi drove up to the front of the shop, a pair of women

in the back, and Mercier arrived in time to hold the door as they

emerged. "Oh, why thank you," the first one said. Mercier mumbled

"You're welcome" and slid into the seat.

"Sir?" the driver said. He was in his twenties, with a well-oiled

pompadour.

"Don't go anywhere, not just yet," Mercier said. "Some friends of

mine are waiting for a trolley; we'll just follow along behind."

"Friends?" A wise-guy grin,
who are you kidding?

"Yes, it's a surprise."

The driver snickered. Mercier peeled twenty zloty off the wad in

his pocket--for agent meetings, one carried plenty of money. The

driver thanked him, and they waited together, the ill-tuned engine

coughing away in neutral.

Waited for ten very long minutes. At last, a trolley arrived and the

blue cap climbed aboard, followed by Uhl. "That's the one we want,"

Mercier said.

As the driver put the taxi in gear and fell in behind the tram, he

said, "It's the number four line. Up to Muranow."

Not bad at this, the driver, he'd evidently done it before, pulling

over well to the rear of the trolley each time it stopped. The tram

tracks curved into Nalewki, the main street of the Jewish quarter:

kosher butchers, pushcarts piled with old clothes or pots and pans,

men in caftans and fur hats, hurrying along through the snow. Mercier

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could see that the crowd of passengers inside the trolley had thinned

out--had Uhl and the girl somehow gotten away? No, the next stop

was Gesia, Goose street, and they appeared on the rear platform as the

trolley slowed. Mercier put his head down.

"That them?"

"Yes."

"Jesus, look at her."

Mercier handed over more zloty and climbed out. He found himself in front of an open stall on the cobblestones, a chicken-seller,

scrawny birds hung by their heads from hooks, and a smell that

almost made his eyes tear. To Mercier, it now seemed that the girl was

leading the way, her arm looped in Uhl's, walking quickly. Mercier

hung back, close to the buildings, ready to step into a doorway if one

of them turned around. Gesia was an old street--three-story buildings, some wood, others gray stone darkened by time and coal

smoke--where every shop called out to potential customers: a clock

hung out over the sidewalk advertised a watchmaker; a painted sign

showed a pair of eyes wearing spectacles; m. perlmutter--fine

gloves.

hotel orla.

Now Mercier knew where they were going. He dropped back well

behind them as they crossed the street, past a crowd of schoolboys

with curly sideburns and yarmulkes, past a horse-drawn coal wagon,

the driver, wearing a long leather apron, shoveling coal down a chute

that led into the hotel's cellar. The Orla--eagle--had the look of

hourly rates and no questions asked; as Warsaw slang put it,
a Paris

hotel.
Mercier stationed himself where he could see the entry, using

the doorway of a shop with stacks of old books piled high in the window, some with Hebrew writing on their spines. After a time, the proprietor of the shop came to his door and had a look at Mercier, then

nodded to himself, a faint look of disgust on his face--so here's

another one, the watchers of the Hotel Orla.

*

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It was now after nine in the morning, and Uhl, having to return to the

Europejski for his valise, would miss the express to Breslau. Well,

there was always another train, and Uhl, who had fallen to the charms

of the Countess Sczelenska, now took advantage of a new opportunity, but that was the way of the world--Uhl's world, at any rate. An

opportunity much too good to be true, Mercier thought, but maybe he

was seeing the same phantoms that had spooked the engineer on his

last trip to Warsaw.

The Orla was busy--a couple hurried out of the hotel, and, a

minute later, another. An officious little fellow, all business, came

striding down Gesia, looked left and right--
feeling guilty, monsieur?
--

then went inside. A luxurious black Opel, a German car with Polish

license plates, drew up in front of the hotel and waited there, engine

idling. Mercier shifted his stance, stared at the books in the window,

watched the morning shoppers go by, the women's heads covered with

shawls, string bags in hand.

Then, suddenly, the blond girl came out of the hotel.

What now? She was very pale, and grim-faced, as she looked

around, then walked, almost ran, to a taxi parked a little way down

the street. The snow made it hard to see, but Mercier thought there

might be a silhouette in the rear window. He couldn't be sure, because

the girl was still closing the door when the taxi took off and sped away

down the street.

Mercier tensed; now he had to go in there and find Uhl. He was

halfway across the street when a fat man with a red face came out of

the Orla, struggling with the weight of a parcel wrapped in a bed coverlet and flung over his shoulder. A step at a time, he moved toward the

Opel. The driver, a sinister little weasel of a man with tinted glasses,

jumped out and ran around the car to open the trunk.

For an instant, Mercier didn't know what he was looking at, and

then he did. He ran the last few steps and planted himself in front of

the man with the parcel. "Put it down." He said it in German.

And so he was answered. "Get out of my way." The weight on the

man's shoulder made him take a step to the side.

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The weasel came from behind the car and, with a hand like a claw,

took Mercier roughly by the elbow. "Better get out of here, my friend,

this doesn't concern you."

The man with the parcel tried to brush past him, but Mercier

moved to block him. From the corner of his eye, he could see that a

few people had stopped to see what was going on. Suddenly enraged,

the red-faced man swung his free hand at Mercier and hit him under

the eye. Not very hard. Mercier was knocked backward, recovered,