Craig settled himself near the window, where Sue joined him tactfully. She wasn’t much needed either, at this moment. She talked and he watched. It was interesting, in a way, to place character by voice, manner and face. It was dangerous, too, of course: the mildest-mannered man could turn out to be a roaring lion; the bellowing bull could be a braying donkey. And what do they think I am? he wondered with some amusement. A little frog puffed up in his own puddle of scholarship? Someone who was putting his brains and energies, such as they were, into tracking down facts that would never make tomorrow’s headlines? And yet, the past was prologue.
The last guest arrived, and the tight group around the fireplace broke their close formation. He wasn’t known to any of them, for George was making careful introductions all round. He was a heavyset, dark-haired man in a quiet, dark grey suit, slightly formal in manner, almost solemn, although—as George made a few jokes—his grave politeness could ease into a beaming smile. They were talking as old friends do; no serious discussion about world-shaking problems there. The others drifted away, once the phrase “...sales conferences all week...” dropped like a dud bomb into the room’s sudden silence. Frank!” Sue called delightedly, and her sweet and helpful business-man started towards her with hands outstretched. His grip was strong, Craig noticed when his turn came to have his hand pumped. His smile divided his face into two camps: below, was a rounded jaw line, a full underlip, a chin with a marked cleft; above, was a sharp nose, clever brown eyes, a remarkable brow. He’d probably sell a lot of refrigerators, Craig decided. But what the hell do I talk to him about? The question was answered by Rosenfeld (after a warmly expressed welcome to Paris) wandering away towards Bradley and Antonini. Craig repressed a wry smile, caught Sue’s worried eyes for a second, then looked round the blue-and-gold sitting-room. There were more interesting prospects tonight than a slightly strayed scholar.
She went into action. “I’ll get you another drink, John.”
“No,” he said quickly. “I’m all right.” But his protest didn’t stop her. He knew what would come next, and wished he was a couple of miles away, walking along the Boulevard Saint-Germain to have that drink at a crummy little bar. What was that girl with the blue eyes and smooth dark hair doing now?
Sue was saying, “Don’t you men ever get tired standing around talking? It really is more comfortable to sit. We have plenty of chairs. George, help me.” So the wide circle was formed, men sitting down around Craig in silence. Now what? he wondered. He thought he might try a question to start them off again; they were looking at him with polite expectancy. What about something wild like when will Stalin become an okay word again? Or, How many agents have the Russians infiltrated into NATO?
But Sue rushed on, most charmingly. “John was telling us about a very odd thing that happened to him today. He met one of his old professors who insisted that he had just seen a Nazi walking the streets of Paris. A supposedly dead Nazi—one who should have been on trial at Frankfurt!”
Oh no, thought Craig, not all that story to be told again to all those disbelieving faces!
“Did you get his name?” O’Malley, the tall Australian, asked. He had a thin face, a permanently tanned complexion which contrasted with his thick crown of white hair. He was the oldest man in this room; the others were in their thirties or forties while he was at least around fifty. His manner was sharp, but his eyes were friendly.
“Berg,” Craig said. “Heinrich Berg.”
“What was his particular speciality?” Bradley, the representative from NATO, wanted to know in his calm quiet way. “Shovelling gassed corpses into ovens?”
“I have no idea.”
“Your friend didn’t tell you?” Bradley raised his eyebrows just a little. Everything he did would be just a little; he was much too well mannered to let emotion distort his handsome face. It wasn’t just the neatly tailored tweed suit and the casual way it was worn that made Craig think Bradley was probably one of those intelligent civilians who had found a useful niche for their talents in NATO’s vast organisation. He had a diffident way, almost self-effacing, pleasantly modest, combined with the attentive eye of the natural diplomat. Even his indiscretions would be calculated.
“No, he didn’t.”
“But he can’t go around pointing out someone on the streets of Paris, saying, ‘There’s a war criminal!’ now, can he?”
“No,” Craig agreed with a smile.
Sue rushed in. “John, don’t be so resistant. We’re all interested. This professor—what’s his name?”
“Sussman.”
“He was a prisoner in Auschwitz, wasn’t he? He had just been testifying at Frankfurt. So he could know what he was talking about, couldn’t he?” She looked around the circle of polite faces.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” O’Malley said slowly. “I covered some of the opening trials at Frankfurt last year. There were a lot of emotions aroused—horror, fear, bitterness, shame. And a lot of wild talk, including accusations.”
“And denials,” someone said.
“Fewer than you think,” O’Malley asserted. “Give them credit for having the trials at all. That’s more than the East Germans have done. My God, when I think of the Nazis they’ve got as ministers of culture, agriculture, trade and supply. What about them, Val?”
“You’re the expert on the Nazis,” Sutherland said agreeably. “You tell me.”
“Well, they’ve got Reichelet, and Merkel, and—” O’Malley stopped, noticing Sue’s look of resignation. He turned back to Craig. “Look, Sussman’s story is worth listening to. Where can I find him?”
“I don’t know that, either. I just met him walking along the boulevard—”
“Accidentally?” Bradley asked. “I mean, you aren’t an old friend of his?” Someone, his voice implied, you really know?
“Nothing like that. Haven’t seen him since I took one of his classes at Columbia back in 1959. He’s a remarkably sane and sensible man. Today, of course, he was upset. He was sure this Heinrich Berg—” He stopped. How could he explain Sussman’s fears without making him seem ridiculous to a batch of strangers who had never known him? “Oh, well,” he said, “I gave him a drink to cheer him up, and then he left. He’s going back to Berkeley tomorrow.”
“What does he teach?” This was Rosenfeld’s only contribution to the conversation. But Craig was thankful for it. “Art and archaeology.”
That did it. Interest evaporated. Talk began about travel. O’Malley was trying to be sent to Rhodes; Sutherland was on his way to Viet Nam. (Rosenfeld didn’t even bat an eyelash, far less talk about his experiences there, Craig noted, and George Farraday simply said, “I bet it isn’t much changed since I was in Saigon. Rumour and suspicion and back-parlour plots. Just don’t listen to too many Buddhists, Val. And make sure they really are Buddhists before you listen.”) The morose Ed Wilshot poured himself another drink and mumbled something about taking three weeks off the chain and heading south for some sunshine. Joe Antonini, the hidden-microphone expert, was tight-lipped about his next assignment and turned that question neatly aside by saying to Bradley, “Hey, Bob, let me finish that story I was telling you. The day before I was leaving Moscow, I was hit by a car. Fortunately I jumped in time. Just a scrape on my leg and a bruise on my shoulder. They took me to the hospital, very efficient, very polite, wanted to make sure there were no serious injuries. But once I was over the first shock, I felt fine. And I started using my head again. So I baulked at the hospital door, made my goodbyes, and struggled free from their help. It was like one of those old Keystone comedies—everyone gesticulating wildly, no one listening to anyone else. I ran for twenty yards, then turned and yelled, ‘See, I’m all right! I just proved it. Thank you and goodbye.’”
“They slipped up there,” Bradley said with a laugh.
“In more ways than one. If they wanted to inject truth serum into someone, and find out how many hidden microphones we had put out of commission, then I was the wrong man. I was only a
very junior member of our team.”
“I thought the number was published,” O’Malley said. “Well over a hundred, weren’t there? Or was that a careful underestimation?”
Craig was startled by the calm way they were talking about matters that would have roused loud headlines only a few years ago. He was still more startled when the full meaning of O’Malley’s remark hit him. Was Soviet interest not so much in the number of microphones discovered in the Embassy’s walls and ceilings, but in the few that had been discovered and left in position? Or in any which possibly had not yet been found? The difference between the answers to those two important questions would be vital for the assessment of any information gathered by the Soviet monitors.
“You look shocked,” Bradley murmured. “Or is it difficult to swallow our little stories?”
It wasn’t shock so much as surprise over Antonini’s cool detachment. There he was now, telling of a light bulb discovered in a lady’s bedroom that had transmitted everything from a sigh to a rustled nightgown, as if he had forgotten the threat of a forced stay in a Moscow hospital.
“Sue,” Bradley went on, “I don’t think your brother approves of our talk.”
“Your brother,” Craig assured her worried face, “hasn’t a thought left in his head except that of bed, and sleep. It has been a long day.” At least he had concealed his annoyance. Damn Bradley’s eyes, did he think historians only studied the soft, sweet side of history? We don’t shock so easily, he thought as he smiled all around and began shaking hands.
Bradley said, “Time for me, too. Can I give you a lift? You won’t find a taxi at this hour.”
“Oh, I’m close by, practically within running distance.”
“Where are you staying?”
“The Saint-Honoré.”
“I’ll get in touch. We could have dinner some evening when I get into town. By the way, would you like me to take any steps about Professor Sussman’s problem? I know some people in Frankfurt.”
“That might do no harm.”
“But not much good?”
Craig shrugged his shoulders. If he were Bradley, he’d take the necessary steps and risk looking foolish if Berg’s body was found in Berg’s grave. But that was for Bradley to decide.
“The trials always stir up a lot of ghosts from the past,” Bradley said. “If I were Sussman, I suppose I’d suffer from delusions, too.” So Bradley had decided. And he ought to know about such things, Craig thought as he hid his disappointment and made for the door. Sue and George were there. He found himself promising to come to breakfast next morning—they both had a very full day ahead of them before they left for Washington. Breakfast, even with one eye open, was the only hour left for a family farewell.
“And,” Sue added to her hug and kiss, “heaven knows when we’ll see you again. We may be en route to Burma or Greenland by the time you get back to New York.”
So breakfast it would be, promptly at nine. And after that, he thought more cheerfully, I’ll be free; free to do what I want to do, to go where I want to go, and all in my own sweet time. Rosenfeld, standing behind him to make his own goodbye, was saying that it had been a wonderful party, a wonderful evening. A nice, simple-minded soul, Craig decided, and possibly a successful business-man, too.
Out in the cool, quiet street, there was only the sound of his footsteps ringing out rather more briskly than he actually felt. His sense of depression wouldn’t leave him. He blamed it on the wasted evening. What else did you call a party where the men he had met would soon forget his face, even his name? Sue Farraday’s young brother; that would be the fading memory, dimly recalled if he ever saw any of them again.
But he was wrong: in two places far removed from the Meurice, he was under serious discussion in Paris that night. One was a studio, high over a garage; the other, an unusual dressing-room behind the stage of a smart girl-show.
3
The garage was half-way down a most respectable street, part of an old building sandwiched between two new apartment houses. Soon the improvers would have their way; the old building would be torn down, replaced with a square block of unimaginative concrete and rows of mass-produced windows for decoration. It would be ten stories high to match its neighbours, and the last remnant of Toulouse-Lautrec in this district would be swept out with the plinth and plaster. Meanwhile, the garage was a useful place to have the car washed, a tyre changed, a slow puncture repaired; something quiet and noiseless so as not to offend the status-conscious incomers.
Androuet, its owner, was an obliging fellow. He even sold gasoline by the can, the usual pumps being out of the question, and reserved some of his floor space, stretching far out behind the old building, for a few of his best customers. There they could park their cars overnight, or when they were away for week-ends and didn’t need them. There was even room for a light pickup truck which belonged to his only customer living in this building—the man who had rented the two old studios on the top floor for his antique furniture business. He was young, but he paid his rent regularly and didn’t give any noisy parties to annoy the two old women, or the retired butcher and his wife, who rented the flats below him. Between them and the garage lay the over-crowded rooms of Androuet and his enormous family, and Androuet’s only complaint about the top-floor tenant was that he had clients who would too often come blundering through the garage looking for the wooden stairway that led to the floors above. Others knew their way, didn’t interrupt his work. And others, again, probably out-of-town dealers, stayed overnight. But without dealers and clients, there would be no regular rent: Androuet’s complaints died away completely on the first day of each month.
He was waiting, now, one of the garage doors half-open, for one of his customers to park his car. That would be the last tonight; he could close up and get to bed, and his oldest boy could take care of the early-morning business. It was past midnight, he noted, but he waited doggedly for Monsieur Rosenfeld to appear. And if M. Rosenfeld again protested that there was no need to have kept the garage open for him, that he could have left his car out in the street for one night, then Androuet must have a quick answer ready. He studied that problem as he stood at the door and looked down the street towards the well-lighted avenue—brakes were good, battery had been recharged last week, tyres checked only yesterday, so what now? But there was M. Rosenfeld’s grey Renault, making a left turn into the street. Androuet pushed the door wide, still debating his problem.
M. Rosenfeld wasn’t in a talkative mood tonight. He drove the Renault into its own small parking place at the back of the garage, leaving the entrance clear for any other car in the morning. Not that he needed to bother. M. Rosenfeld was usually out first as well as last in. But Androuet admired neatness just as he liked earning some extra cash, so he was friendly and voluble in spite of his tired face and sore feet. “You must be missing the wife and kids, Monsieur Rosenfeld,” he said, noting the time again on the big wall clock. Seven minutes past twelve, exact. “When do you expect them back from America?”
“In two or three weeks. Sorry I kept you up. Tomorrow, you’d better leave the door unlocked. I can push it aside myself.”
“With all these crooks around nowadays? No, no, Monsieur Rosenfeld.” Androuet’s thin, earnest lips meant what they said. “We can’t take chances like that. Besides, it was better to bring the car in here tonight. I’ve noticed the indicator for the last couple of days. It’s not working properly. I’ll get the boy to look it over in the morning. When do you want the car tomorrow?”
“Eight. Eight-thirty.” Rosenfeld halted at the big door. “And you might get him to do a complete overhaul on the wiring. Something’s wrong with the tail-lights. Good night, Androuet.”
Androuet watched him go. It never ceased to cause him a little wonder, a little resentment, that an American could speak French just as accurately as he did. He forgot all that however, as he locked the big door, then pulled a little book from his cash drawer and entered carefully under the date of Thu
rsday, 16th April: Arrival 12:07 A.M. Unaccompanied. He put his small record safely back in its locked compartment, switched off the one meagre light, climbed the wooden stairs to his wife and twelve children. She would grumble at being disturbed so late, but five hundred new francs were good pay for a little overtime. As for the man who had made the bargain with him, two weeks ago—he was a detective hired by Madame Rosenfeld, to keep an eye on a lonely husband. It was an explanation Androuet easily accepted: his vision of life was always focused between two sheets of a bed.
* * *
Rosenfeld entered his apartment, switched on the lights in the living-room. He threw aside his hat and raincoat, and walked slowly over to the window. Casually, he closed the long curtains, turned on some music, and settled down to wait for ten minutes. Then he entered his bedroom, switched on its lights, drew its heavy curtains as he unfastened his tie. After that, he moved quickly, turning off lights and music in the living-room to show anyone who might be watching the windows that he was now going to bed. He put on a black raincoat, French in style and fabric, slipped his feet into black tight-fitting slippers, and checked his pockets for small flash-light and keys. Entering the bedroom again, he locked that door securely. From a drawer, he drew out a small tape recorder and, as he put it down at the side of his bed, started its play back. Gentle sounds of soporific music filled the rose-pink room. He left the small bed-table lamp glowing, but switched off the bright ceiling lights.
He paused at the bathroom door. Nice picture of a man reading in bed, he hoped. Soon, the music would end, and the sound of a man’s deep breathing would be played; and then, as the table lamp on its automatic control blacked out, the sounds would change to a mixed variety of masculine snores. The boys who thought up that tape had a nice sense of humour as well as of timing. He gave a last glance at Milly’s bed: yes, he missed her and the kids, all right. Tonight, though, he was glad they were safely out of this, three thousand miles away. He was suffering from an attack of premonitions, and that was something he had learned to take seriously. In his job, you had to develop a kind of built-in radar all your own.