There’s no question when, he told himself, the time is now. If it isn’t already too late.
A few things had to be settled before he left. He started Tuesday morning, getting in touch with Fischfang. This lately was not easy— messages left with shopkeepers, calls returned from public telephones—but by the end of the week they met at a vacant apartment out in the 19th, that looked out on the railyards.
The apartment was for rent, the landlord’s agent a plump little gentleman wearing an alpine hat with a brush. “Look around all you like, boys,” he said as he opened the door. “And as to the rent, they say I’m a reasonable man.” He winked, then trotted off down the staircase.
Fischfang was tense, shadows like bruises beneath his eyes, but very calm. Different. It was, Casson thought, the revolver. No longer kept in a drawer, perhaps worn under the arm, or in the belt—it had a certain logic of its own and changed the person who carried it.
And Fischfang hadn’t come alone, he had a friend—a helper or a bodyguard, something like that. Not French, from somewhere east of the Oder, somewhere out in Comintern land. Ivanic, he called himself. In his twenties, he was dark-eyed and pale, with two days’ growth of beard, wore a cap tilted down over sleepy eyes. He waited in the kitchen while Casson and Fischfang talked, hands clasped behind his head as he sat against a wall.
Casson gave Fischfang a lot of money, all he could. But, he thought, maybe it didn’t matter any more. Now that it was time to meet in vacant apartments, now that Ivanic had showed up, maybe the days of worrying about something as simple as money were over. Fischfang put the packet of francs away, reached inside his jacket, handed Casson a school notebook with a soft cover.
“New draft,” Fischfang said. “Though I somehow get the feeling,” he added ruefully, “that our little movie is slipping away into its own fog.”
Casson paged through the notebook. The scenes had been written in cafés, on park benches, or at kitchen tables late at night—spidery script densely packed on the lined paper, coffee-stained, blotted, and, Casson sensed, finely made. He could feel it as he skimmed the lines. It was autumn, a train pulled into a little station, the guests got off, their Paris clothes out of place in the seaside village. They went to the hotel, to their rooms, did what people did, said what they said—Casson looked up at Fischfang. “Pretty good?”
Fischfang thought a moment. “Maybe it is. I didn’t have too much time to think about it.”
“Not always the worst thing.”
“No, that’s true.”
Casson paced around the room. The apartment was filthy—it smelled like train soot, the floor was littered with old newspaper. On the wall by the door somebody had written in pencil, E. We’ve gone to Montreuil. In the railyard below the window, the switching engines were hard at work, couplings crashed as boxcars were shunted from track to track, then made up into long trains, Casson peered through the cloudy glass. Fischfang came and stood by his side. One freight train seemed just about ready to go, Casson counted a hundred and twenty cars, with tanks and artillery pieces under canvas, cattle wagons for the horses, and three locomotives. “Looks like somebody’s in for it,” he said.
“Russia, maybe. That’s the local wisdom. But, wherever it’s going, they won’t like it.”
“No.” Directly below them, a switching engine vented white steam with a loud hiss. “Who’s your friend?” Casson said quietly.
“Ivanic? I think he comes from the NKVD. He’s just waiting for the fighting to start, then he can go to work.”
“And you?”
“I’m his helper.”
Casson stared out at the railyard, clouds of gray smoke, the railwaymen in faded blue jackets and trousers.
“We all thought,” Fischfang said slowly, his voice almost a whisper, “that life would go on. But it won’t. Tell me, so much money, what does it mean, Jean-Claude?”
“I have to go away.”
Fischfang nodded slowly, he understood. “It’s best.”
“They’re after me,” Casson said.
Fischfang turned and stared at him for a moment. “After you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you do something?”
“Yes,” Casson said, after a moment. “Nothing much—and it didn’t work.”
Fischfang smiled. “Well then, good luck.”
They shook hands. “And to you.”
There was nothing else to say, Casson left the apartment, Ivanic watched him go.
That afternoon he went up to the Galéries Lafayette, the huge department store just north of Opéra. He found the buyers’ offices on the top floor and knocked on Véronique’s door. “Jean-Claude!” she said, pleased to see him. A tiny space, costume jewelry everywhere; spread across a desk, crowded on shelves that rose to the ceiling— wooden bracelets painted lustrous gold, shimmering glass diamonds in rings and earrings, ropes of glowing pearls. “The sultan’s treasure,” she said.
For herself she had great honesty of style—wore a black shirt with a green scarf tied at the neck. Short hair, clear eyes, a great deal of intelligence and a little bit of expensive perfume. “Let’s take a walk around the store,” she said.
They walked from room to room, past bridal gowns and evening gowns, floral housedresses and pink bathrobes. “Have you heard about Arnaud and his wife?” she said.
“No. What’s happened?”
“I had lunch with Marie-Claire yesterday, she told me they weren’t living together. He moved out.”
“Why is that? They always seemed to have, a good arrangement.”
Véronique shrugged. “Who knows,” she said gloomily. “I think it’s the Occupation. Lately the smallest thing, and everything comes apart.”
It was busy in the luggage department—fine leather and brass fittings from the ancient saddlery ateliers of Paris. A crowd of German soldiers, businessmen with their wives, a few Japanese naval officers.
“Véronique,” he said. “I need to go south again.”
“Right now the moon is full, Jean-Claude.”
“So it would be, what, fourteen days?”
“Well, yes, at least. Then there are people who have to be talked to, and, all the various complications.”
A woman in traditional Breton costume—black dress, white hat with wings—was demonstrating a waffle iron, pouring yellow batter from a cup into the iron, then heating it over a small gas burner.
“All right,” he said. “There’s a chance I’ll get an Ausweis. In a few weeks. Maybe.”
“Can you wait?”
“I’m not sure. Things, things are going on.”
“What things, Jean-Claude? It’s important to tell me.”
“I’m under pressure to work for them. I mean, really work for them.”
“Can you refuse?”
“Perhaps, I’m not sure. I’ve been over it and over it, probably the best thing for me is to slip quietly into the ZNO, pick up Citrine, then go out—to Spain or Portugal. Once we’re there, we’ll find some country that will take us. I can remember May of last year—then it mattered where you went. Now it doesn’t.”
They stood together at a railing, looking out from the dress department over the center of the store. Two floors below, the crowds shifted slowly through a maze of counters packed with gloves, belts, and handbags. Silk scarves were draped on racks, and womens’ hats, with veils and bows and clusters of cherries or grapes, were hung on the branches of wooden trees. “If you leave before the Ausweis comes,” Véronique said, “and there’s some way you can arrange to have it sent over to your office, it would be very important for us to have it. For somebody, it could mean everything.”