The World at Night

Marceau. Two stops, Iena and Trocadero, and he could walk the rest of the way. The Passy station was closer to the rue Chardin, but that involved a correspondance, a change of lines, so if he stayed on the Line 9 train he’d be home in a few minutes. Albertine, tonight. His big, ugly treasure of a farm girl. Something good to eat. Vegetables, cow food-but garlic, salt, a drop of oil, and the cunning way she chopped it all up. Jesus! Was it possible that he’d reached that ghastly moment in life when the belly was more important than the prick? No! Never that! Why, he’d take that Albertine and spread her …

“Hey, Casson.”

That voice. He turned, annoyed. Erno Simic, waving his arm and smiling like a well-loathed schoolmate, was trotting to catch up with him. “Wait for me!”

“Simic, hello.”

“I never called-you’re angry?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Well, I been busy. Imagine that. Me. I got phone calls and messages, meetings and telegrams. Hey, now we know the world is upside down. Still it means a few francs, a few balles, as they say, eh? So we’ll have a drink, on me. I promised a lunch, I’m gonna owe it to you, but now it’s a drink. Okay?”

Paris hadn’t surprised Casson for twenty years but it did now. Simic took him down the Champs-Elysees to avenue Montaigne, one of the most prestigious streets in the city, then turned right toward the river. They worked their way through a busy crowd in front of the Plaza-Athenee, mostly German officers and their plump wives, then walked another block to a residential building. On the top floor a grand apartment with a view to the river had been converted to a very private bar.

Seated at a white piano, an aristocratic woman wearing a black cocktail dress and a pillbox hat with a veil was playing “Begin the Beguine.” Simic and Casson were shown to a table by a fat man in a sharkskin suit draped to hide both him and some sort of weapon. The tables on the teak parquet were set far apart, while the walls were covered with naughty oil paintings of naughty, and exceptionally pink, women. The room was crowded; a beautiful woman at the next table drinking tea, on second glance perhaps a prostitute of the most elevated class. By the window, two French colonels of cavalry. Then a table of dark, mustached men, Armenian or Lebanese, Casson thought. There was a famous ballet master-Russian emigre-sitting alone. In the corner, three men who could have been gangsters or black-market butchers, or both. Simic enjoyed Casson’s amazement, his big smile broadening from ingratiating to triumphant.

“Hah! It’s discreet enough for you, Casson?”

“How long-?”

Simic spread his hands. “Summer, as soon as everything settled down. It belongs to Craveur, right?”

Craveur was a famous restaurant owner, his family had been in the business since 1790, when the first restaurants were opened. Simic signaled to a waiter, a plate of petits fours salees-herring paste, oysters, or smoked salmon on puff pastry-appeared along with two large whiskey-and-sodas.

“It’s what I always have,” Simic confided. “Mm, take all you want,” he said, mouth full.

Casson sipped the whiskey-and-soda, lit up one of Simic’s Camel cigarettes, and sat back on a little gold chair with a gold cushion.

“Your name came up in a conversation I had,” Simic said. “With a man called Templeton. You know him, right? Works in a bank?”

“Yes.”

“He vouches for you.”

“He does?”

“Yes. And that’s important. Because, Casson, I still got Agna Film, but now I’m also a British spy.”

“Oh?”

“That’s how it is. You’re surprised?”

“Maybe a little.” Casson ate an oyster petit four.

“I’m a Hungarian, Casson. Not exactly by birth, you understand, but by nationality at birth. Still, Mitteleuropa, central Europe, is the world I understand, just like Adolf-so I see clearly certain things. Some people say that Adolf is a devil, but he’s not, he’s the head of a central European political party, no more, no less. And what he means to do in France is to destroy you, to ruin your soul, to make you despise yourselves, that’s the plan. He wants you to collaborate, he makes it easy for you. He wants you to denounce each other, he makes it easy for you. He wants you to feel that there’s no nation, just you, and everybody has to look out for themselves. You think I’m wrong? Look at the Poles. He kills them, because they come from the same part of the world that he does, and they see through his tricks. You understand?”

Casson nodded.

“So we got to stop that-or else. Right? Myself, I’m betting on the English, and I am going to work with them, and I want you to work with me, to help me do what I have to do.”

“Why me?”

“Why you. You’re known to the English-James Templeton has spoken for you, he knows you don’t have sympathy with the Germans. It also helps that you’re a film producer. You can go anywhere, you can meet anybody, of any class. You handle money, sometimes in large amounts, sometimes in cash. You might take ten people on a train. You might charter a freighter. You might use several telephone numbers, bank accounts-even in other countries. For us, it’s a good profession. Do you see?”

“Yes.”

“Want to help?”

Casson thought a moment, he didn’t really know what to say. He did want to help. Left to himself he would never have done anything, just gone on trying to live his life as best he could. But he hadn’t been left to himself, so, now, he had to decide if he wanted to become involved in something like this.

Yes, he said to himself. But it was what they called un petit oui- a little yes. Not that he was afraid of the Germans-he was afraid of them, but that wouldn’t stop him- he was afraid of not being any good at it.

“I will help you, if I can,” he said slowly. “I don’t know exactly what it is you want me to do, and I don’t know if I’d do it right. Maybe for myself that wouldn’t matter, but there would be people depending on me, isn’t that true in something like this?”

A backhand sweep of the arm, Simic knocked the uncertainty across the room. “Ach-don’t worry! The Germans are idiots. Not in Germany, mind you-there you can’t spit on the street, because they got everybody watching their neighbor. But here? What they got is a counterespionage service, which is lawyers, that’s who they hire. But not the Jewish lawyers, they’re all gone. And not the top lawyers, they’re high up, or they’re hiding. Found themselves a little something in this bureau or that office-hiding. So, you don’t have to worry. Of course, you can’t be stupid, but we wouldn’t be talking if you were. And, oh yes, you’ll make some money in this. We can’t have you poor. And you’ll get all the ration coupons you need, the British print them in Tottenham.”

“Where?”

“A place in London. But they’re very good, never a problem. Suits, food, gasoline, whatever you want.”

In a dark corner, the piano player was hard at work: “Mood Indigo,” “Body and Soul,” “Time on My Hands.” Cocktail hour in Paris- heavy drapes drawn over the windows so the world outside didn’t exist. The bar filled up, the hum of conversation getting louder as the drinks arrived. The expensive whore at the next table was joined by a well-dressed man, Casson had seen him around Passy for years, who wore the gold seal ring that meant nobility. He was just out of the barber’s chair, Casson could smell the talcum powder. The woman was stunning, in a gray Chanel suit.

The waiter brought two more whiskey-and-sodas. “Chin-chin,” Simic said and clinked Casson’s glass.

“Tell me what,” Casson said, “exactly what, it is that you want me to do.”

Simic looked serious, the big head on the narrow shoulders nodding up and down. “A proper question, Casson. It’s just, I have to be cautious.”

Casson waited.

“Well, to those who know, the place that matters most in this war is Gibraltar. Sits there, controls the entrance to the Mediterranean, means that the British can go into North Africa if they want, then up to Sicily, or Greece. Or Syria. That means Iraqi and Persian oil-you can’t fight without that-and the Suez Canal. Can Adolf take