Night Soldiers

Her eyes suddenly lit up and she smiled to herself.

“Is funny?” he asked.

“No. It’s just that my name isn’t Faye Berns, not really.”

“Ah,” he said, “you have a cover.”

“My name is Frances Bernstein,” she said. “But that sounded too much like just another girl from Brooklyn, so I changed it to Faye Berns.”

He waggled a finger at her in mock reproof. ” Too much like true name,” he said. “Very bad espionage.”

She fell silent in wonder at all that had happened to her, her eyes sought his and he realized suddenly that he was the last link to a life she’d lived in Madrid and Paris, that saying goodbye to him was saying goodbye to that. “I don’t think,” she said sadly, “that I can ever tell anybody what happened to me here. I don’t think they would believe it. And I know they wouldn’t understand it. Most people pretend that exciting things happened to them-I’ll have to pretend they didn’t. That’s what I should do, isn’t it?”

He nodded in sympathy, it was a trap they shared. “Better that way,” he said.

They ate lunch together. And he followed her around Paris for most of the afternoon while she worked her way through an extraordinary list of last-minute errands. He kept an eye out, from time to time, for surveillance, but none appeared, and they were going to places where he’d never been before.

When all the items on her list were crossed off he helped her load a large, battered trunk into a taxi, then into a compartment on the train. He went down to the platform when the conductor blew his whistle, and she leaned out the top of the open window. “Can I write you a letter sometime?” she asked, her voice rising above the echoing noise of the vast, glass-domed station.

He thought for a moment. “I don’t know where you could send it,” he said.

“You may write to me, then. If you like.” She produced a fountain pen, shook it, and scratched a name and address on a scrap of paper.

He took it from her and put it in his pocket. The conductor sounded two short blasts on his whistle and swung himself on board. There was a loud hiss of decompression and a cloud of steam billowed onto the platform. Khristo reached up with both hands and she took them in her own. They remained like this for a moment, then the train lurched forward and they let go.

The twenty-fourth of June was the first warm summer night of 1937-the sort of night when everything was possible, when any dream could come true. Dusk was hazy and soft, as always, but the usual evening chill never appeared. Everyone in the city came out of their apartments, music spilled from the open doors of cafes, and the strollers, excited by the gentle air, made animated conversation and filled the streets with a music of their own. The clouds were low and dense that night, shutting out the stars, and the city felt like a lovely private room where a party would soon begin.

When Khristo arrived at the brasserie, it was a madhouse. Papa Heininger, glasses askew, was glued to the telephone as reservations poured in. As he spoke, he made soothing gestures with his unoccupied hand, as though to placate the invisible caller. “I am desolated, but I must tell you that His Excellency’s usual table is simply not available at midnight. He may have it at one, or there is table fourteen-a quite estimable location in my opinion.” He nodded and soothed, nodded and soothed, as the caller spoke. “Yes, I agree … Yes, most unusual … Just for tonight, of course … Please thank His Excellency for his understanding … Thank you, goodbye.” He hung up and patted his brow with a folded napkin. “Djadja!” he called out to Omaraeff, standing over the reservation book with pencil at the ready, “Count Iava will take number fourteen tonight. Move the Germans!” Omaraeff asked where, for they hadn’t a spare inch of space in the entire establishment. Papa Heininger waved his napkin in the air. “Must I do the thinking for the entire world? I don’t care where you put them. You may seat them in the toilet for all I care. Tell them it is more efficient so.”

So the night progressed.

The florist arrived with sprays of Bourbon roses, fat, decadent-looking things in shades of maroon and lavender. The baker arrived with baskets of loaves. A party of Americans arrived too early, expecting to be fed. They were, despite some shouting in the kitchen, accommodated. The Beale party of six came up the marble staircase at 10:30-early for them-but the magical night had excited them beyond fashion. Slowly, the sound level grew to a magnificent bedlam-the music of forks and plates, the ring of crystal glasses touched in toast, manic conversation, unbridled laughter, shouted greetings to friends at far tables. The huge mirrors glittered red and gold, the waiters ran to and fro with trays of langoustines and bottles of champagne.

And everyone was there.

Kiko Bettendorf, the racing driver. The Duchess of Trent, accompanied by Harry and Hazel, her deerhounds. Dr. Matthew O’Connor and his “niece,” Miss Robin Vote, charming and melancholy as always in her tuxedo and bow tie. The mysterious Mlle. M.-tonight with both her lovers. There was Voyschinkowsky-“The Lion of the Bourse”-with a party of twelve. Fum, the beloved clown of the Circus Dujardin. Ginger Pudakis, Jimmy Grey, Mario Thoeni-the tenor, and Adelstein-the impresario-guests of Winnie and Dicky Beale. The Prince of Bahadur was accompanied by his Austrian nurse, who showed to advantage in a million dollars’ worth of the Bahadur royal emeralds. There was Kreml, the ammunition king, squiring the immense Frau Kreml, her mother, her sister, her cousin, and that nice woman from the hotel who was teaching them bridge. Count Iava. The Baroness de Ropp. Miss Catherine Fetwick-Mill. Mr. Antonio Dzur.

Monsieur Escaldo, of Clichy.

His silent associate, Monsieur Sarda.

And their mentor, the handsomely attired Barbette.

Escaldo and Sarda, in their long gangster coats, fedoras pulled down on their foreheads, Thompson guns held at the hip, caused great stir with their arrival. First of all, they did not have a reservation. Simply swept past Papa Heininger, Mireille the hat-check girl, and Omaraeff the headwaiter without a word. When they entered the dining room, they provoked an instant burst of excitement. Was life not sufficiently fantastique on this magical night? No, apparently not. For here were real “American” gangsters, a spicy addition to an evening that had already established itself as thrilling and glamorous. Vive le grand Capone! someone shouted, and glasses rang as other voices joined in the toast.

With a cinematic flourish, Escaldo and Sarda raised their weapons and pulled the triggers. Muzzle flashes danced and glittered at the ends of the barrels and the great room dissolved into splinters, a confusion of color and motion, screams and raw panic.

Khristo was on the floor before he knew what was happening. A man in a cape jumped to his feet and sprinted for the exit, knocking him backward, first into a table of four, then onto the carpet. He heard the rounds buzzing over his head and burrowed down as the mirrors lining the walls dissolved in silvery showers of glass. These were sub machine guns-in effect, rapid-fire pistols using the same. 45-caliber bullet as the American military sidearm-so, even though they were fired into the ceiling and upper walls, whatever they touched virtually exploded, and diners groveling below the volleys were covered with plaster and mirror shards.

It was a miracle that nobody was actually killed. Count Iava, having secured table fourteen for the evening, found himself pinned to the carpet by its weight, and nearly choked to death on a mouthful of baby lamb. Kiko Bettendorf, survivor of the Death Curve at Frelingheissen Raceway, would require fourteen stitches to repair the gash in his scalp. Frau Kreml, hiding beneath a table cloth and believing herself the object of a robbery, dislocated two fingers in a fruitless attempt to remove her rings. Ginger Pudakis stood up, a foolish thing to do, and had her forehead creased by a spent round that ricocheted from the ceiling. She then fell backward against a chair, blood trickling down her face. From where he lay, Khristo saw what happened next, though he was not able to think about it until later. Of all the people in the room, amid the shrieking and the gunfire, it was Winnie Beale who acted with courage. Seeing her friend hit, she leaped forward, from a position of relative safety on a banquette, and covered her friend’s body with her own.

Barbette had disappeared, having elected to wander in search of Omaraeff, who had vanished from his usual position at the front of the room. Since he was the true object of this operation, Barbette was anxious to find him. He had not left the restaurant-Barbette had made sure of that. Nor was he in the Men’s Room. He was, however, in the Ladies’. In the last stall where he’d gone to hide, his legs bare, a red waiter’s jacket gathered around his ankles in imitation of a skirt.

Barbette stood at the entry to the stall, the door held open by his left hand, a 9 mm device of no particular distinction held loosely at his side, and contemplated the seated Omaraeff, who was bent well forward, his face