The World at Night

“Switzerland, then.”

“Switzerland, Switzerland. Yes, there’s always that. Geneva, gray but possible. On the other hand, the visa. I mean, you have to know … God. Well. Not just to nod to. Last September, a friend of mine went through it. She tried the embassies, the Americans, the Portuguese, and the Swiss. Spent hours on the lines but in the end all she could get was a Venezuelan resident card, which cost her a fortune, and, worse yet, the only place she could go with it was Venezuela.”

She stubbed out a Gitane, lit another. “Well, she tries. She does try. She’s positive, she’s cheerful. She’s all the things you’re supposed to be. ‘So different,’ she writes. ‘The Latin culture-sunny one minute, stormy the next. And Caracas-intrigue!’ Of course it’s ghastly, and she’s miserable. It isn’t Paris, it’s a kind of horrid not-Paris. She sees the other emigres, most of them grateful to be alive, but all they can talk about is when will it end, when can we go back, when can life be what it always was.”

The train slowed, they peered out the window, trying to see past the reflection of the candle flame in the black glass. They were at the edge of a small city, passing the cottages that lined the track. Then came the dark cathedral with tall spires, winding streets, the railway station brasserie, and finally the platform. BOURGES, the sign said. Now a port of entry for the unoccupied part of France governed by Vichy.

The French border police were waiting on the platform, holding their capes tight around them and stomping their feet to keep warm. “More police,” Marie-Noelle said acidly.

“French, this time.”

“Yes, there’s that to be said for it.” She exhaled smoke through her nose and mouth when she talked. “Tell me,” she said, leaning over the table, her voice lowered, “they didn’t give you too bad of a time, did they? The SS? I was listening, next door, but I couldn’t hear much.”

“Not too bad,” he said.

The train jerked to a stop with a hiss of steam. The gendarmes came down the aisle, asking politely for papers. They knew they were in the first-class dining car, rolled the Madames and Monsieurs off their tongues, had a desultory glance at each passport, then left with a two-fingered salute to the visor of the cap. Only a formality, of course you understand.

“Remarkable,” Marie-Noelle said, when the police had gone to the next table. “You are perhaps the only person I know who’s ever had a decent photograph in a passport.”

Casson held it up and said “What, this? I wouldn’t let him in my country.”

“Yes, but look here-is this not the aunt kept locked up in the attic?”

He smiled, it was even worse than that.

“Now, monsieur,” she said, a mock-serious note in her voice, “how am I going to persuade you to allow me to buy us a brandy?”

He would not allow it. He insisted on paying for the brandies, and for those that followed. Meanwhile they smoked and talked and made the dinner last as long as they could. Very late at night, after the stop at Lyons, the train started the long run down the Rhone valley, the sky cleared and the moon ran beside them, a yellow disc on the still river.

She grew tired, and reflective, not so sure about the world. “What do you think,” she asked, “in your heart. Must I leave this country?”

“Perhaps,” he said. Peut-etre, could be. In diplomacy it meant yes- yes with regret. “Of course,” he went on, “it’s not something I can do, so maybe I shouldn’t be giving advice.”

“Not something you can do?”

“No.”

“What stops you?”

He looked puzzled.

“In a few hours,” she said, “you’ll be in Spain. Sunny Spain, neutral Spain. From there, ships leave daily, to every port in the world. But why wait for a booking on a ship? There is a ferry, in Algeciras, it goes across to Ceuta. One simply pays and walks on. Then, it takes less than an hour, you are in Spanish Morocco. Once there, well …”

It was true. Why hadn’t it occurred to him? He had three hundred thousand pesetas in a suitcase, a travel permit for Spain. A thousand stories began this way-an opportunity, a sudden decision, then freedom, a new life. It took courage, that was all. He saw himself doing it: walking off the ferry with raincoat tossed over one shoulder, hat brim turned down, valise in hand, turning to look back one last time at the dark mass of Europe. Why not? What would he be giving up- a movie that would never be made? A woman who was never going to love him again? A city that would never be the same?

But then, from somewhere deep inside, the sigh of common sense. The man with the raincoat and the hat brim turned down wasn’t him. “Perhaps,” he said, “you will join me for a drink, Madame Marie-Noelle. At Fouquet’s, one of the tables on the boulevard.”

A corner of her mouth turned up in a grin, she flirted with him a little. “Chilly for the outdoor tables, monsieur. No?”

“I meant, in the spring.”

“Ah.” She considered it. “Probably, I will meet you there,” she said, then shook her head slowly, in gentle despair for both of them. “Charming. The last romantic.”

He sat back in the chair; it was very late at night. “It is the only trick I know,” he said. Then, after a moment, “You’re one too.”

“No, no,” she said. “I’m something else.”

Port Bou, the Spanish frontier, 4:40 P.M.

Here the passengers had to leave the train and wait on lines; customs, border formalities. Casson had been through it before, years earlier, and when he’d thought about the crossing it had seemed to him the second most likely place he might be arrested. The passengers stood quietly, nobody made jokes. Cold, thin air in the Pyrenees, jagged ridges, white mist, snowfields fading in the last light. The Guardia sentries pacing up and down the lines were like ghosts from Napoleon’s wars; leather tricorn hats, greatcoats, long, thin rifles that looked like muskets. He searched everywhere for Marie-Noelle, but she had disappeared. Left the train, apparently. Where-Narbonne? Perpignan? Would she have said? No, probably not. But it was a loss. He’d planned on going through the frontier with her, somebody to talk to, easier to pretend that you weren’t scared.

The line marked Entrada. Two uniformed officers and a civilian sat at a plank table in a shed heated by a smoky wood stove. The line of passengers was kept back twelve feet from the table-a distance where the tension of the examination could be felt but the questions, and the follow-ups, could not be heard. The final line, Entrada. From here the passengers drifted away, in twos and threes, to a coach on the south-bound local, idling at the far end of the station, that ran on the Spanish-gauge track. They walked briskly-really, how had they allowed themselves to worry like that-and made a point of not looking back. There was one couple, elderly, well-dressed, being returned to the French train, and a young woman, being led away by two men in overcoats, but that was all. The young woman looked at Casson, trying to tell him something with her eyes. The men at her side followed the glance-an accomplice, perhaps? — and Casson had to look away. He hoped she’d had time to see that he understood, that he would remember what had happened to her.

Casson got through. They studied his papers, running an index finger under the important phrases. The civilian wore a coat with a fur collar and a pince-nez. “The reason for your visit, senor?”

“For a film, to look at possible locations.”

“What kind of film?”

“A romantic comedy.”

The man passed his papers to one of the Guardia, who stamped Entrada-27 Enero 1941 in his passport and initialed it.

The Spanish train was old and dirty, cold air flowed up through the floorboards. All the way to Barcelona he stared out the window, seeing nothing. His mouth was dry, he swallowed but it did not seem to help. The compartment was crowded; two Luftwaffe officers, two women who might have been sisters, a fat, unshaven man who slept for most of the journey. Casson told himself that nothing would happen. He simply had to believe in himself-the world would always respect a self-confident man, and nothing would happen. He was sweating, he