Paris.”
For a long moment, Ulzhen didn’t answer. “What do you want with him?”
“It’s business,” Serebin said. “I met somebody in Istanbul who asked me if I could contact him. If Kostyka likes the idea there might be a little money in it for me.”
“You know what he is?”
“Everybody knows.”
“Well, it’s your life.”
Serebin smiled.
“Let me see what I can do. Maybe stop by tomorrow, or, better, Thursday.”
“Thank you,” Serebin said.
“Don’t thank me, it’s not free. You have to try to get some money for us. We’ve got to do Christmas baskets, a hundred and eighty-eight at last count.”
“Jesus, Boris-so many?”
“Could yet be more. Now, I have a friend I can call, but, if Kostyka agrees to see you, you have to take that filthy sonofabitch by the heels and give him a good shake.”
“I will, I promise.” Serebin glanced at his watch. “Look, it’s almost one o’clock, let me buy you lunch.”
Ulzhen shook his head. “Save your money.”
“Come on, Boris, I’m serious. Black market lunch.”
Ulzhen sighed. “Three-thirty, I have to be at the store.”
9 December. Dinner at Chez Loulou, deep in the medieval lanes of the 5th Arrondissement. Before the war, a mecca for the daring American tourist: checkered tablecloths, candles in wine bottles, expensive food, nasty waiters, bohemian adventure thick in the air. And not much had changed. Here was Leutnant Helmut Bach, of the city’s most recent tourist invasion, arriving for dinner with a black turtleneck sweater beneath his satin-collared overcoat and a beret set at a rakish angle on his Teutonic head.
“Ilya! Am I late? I’m so sorry-the Metro…”
No, Serebin was early. And, not incidentally, two pastis to the good.
Beneath the Pigalle apache costume was a Saxon in his early thirties. Pale brown hair-cut close on the sides, wispy on top, blue eyes, brass rod for a spine, and an air of quivering anticipation, expectancy; something wonderful must happen, soon. A functionary in the diplomatic administration-it had to do with protocol, official visitors-Bach had come looking for Serebin not long after the combat Wehrmacht had been replaced by an occupation force. Serebin couldn’t help liking him, and the biography of Rilke was real, an autographed copy on Serebin’s bookshelf.
“Lately I’m working on Rimbaud. Ach, freedom. In the words, in, the veins. You don’t read it, Ilya, you breathe it in.” His eyes were wounded, a rose flush across the tops of his cheeks. “Why are we Germans not like that?”
So you can love that. But Serebin didn’t say it. After all, this was only dinner talk, and not so bad. It went reasonably well with the pate of hare, with the duck aux olives and cabbage fried in the dripping, with the pear tart. Helmut Bach snowed ration coupons, and ascended to fierce courtesy when Serebin tried to produce his own. Look, he was damned sorry that his unromantic countrymen had beaten the French army and taken Paris but really what the hell could either of them do about that?
Serebin liked the dinner, and he ate with pleasure, except for a few moments when the conversation scared him. Maybe scared wasn’t the word, alerted might be better. In fact, he was only just beginning to understand what his affiliation with Polanyi was going to mean.
“You know, Ilya, I’m trying to teach myself Russian-the only way to understand why Russians love Pushkin, so they say. Would you be offended if I asked you to help me out? A word or a phrase, now and then? A rule of the grammar?”
That wouldn’t have bothered the old Serebin, but now he wondered what, if anything, it might mean. Just as it wouldn’t have bothered the old Serebin to ask Ulzhen a favor, because the old Serebin wouldn’t have lied to a friend about what he was doing. But he had lied, and he didn’t know exactly why. To protect Boris Ulzhen. Did it? Really?
And there was worse to come.
“So then, you must tell me about your journey to decadent Bucharest.” Were the papers correct, the accursed Ausweis, all that kind of thing? To think, that a man had to get permission-to travel!
He hadn’t stayed long. Went on to Istanbul.
“Ah. And did you see your friend, your woman friend?”
Had he told Bach about Tamara? Well, maybe. He had all his life told all sorts of people all sorts of things. They crossed his mind like shooting stars, were said, forgotten. Could there be people who remembered, everything? God, he hoped not.
Bach’s voice was delicate. “Her condition, is improving?”
“Actually, it’s not so good. One can only hope for the best.”
“Not so good, Ilya?”
“No.”
“You must not think me intrusive, but there is a famous doctor in Leipzig, an old friend of my family. He is known to be the most brilliant internist in Europe, with access to every kind of specialist, no matter where-Leipzig, Heidelberg, Berlin. As a favor to me, he will see her.”
“Very kind of you, Helmut.”
“What friends do! You could bring her to Leipzig, everything would be arranged.”
“Well…”
“Please, Ilya, think seriously about this. You might be asked to give a brief talk-with a translator, of course. Just coffee and cakes, a few of your admirers. Small price for a friend’s health, no?”
Serebin nodded slowly, feigned uncertainty, a man not entirely sure of what he ought to do. The kitchen door thumped open and shut as a waiter came out with a tray. Bach threw his hands in the air, his face lit with excitement.
“Ilya! Tarte aux poires! ”
14 December. The evening train to St. Moritz had only three cars and stopped at every mountain village, one prettier than the next. Strings of lights glistened on the snow, the harness bells of a horse-drawn sleigh jingled in the frozen air. Once, amidst the rhythm of the idling locomotive, Serebin could hear an accordion in a tavern by the station, where a Christmas wreath with a burning candle hung in a window. When the train left, crawling slowly around the long curves, there was moonlight on the forest. Serebin shared the compartment with two Luftwaffe officers, their skis and poles standing in the corner. In silence, they stared out the window.
From Paris to the eastern border, the towns were dark, streetlamps painted blue-landmarks denied to the British bomber squadrons flying toward Germany. There’d been a long stop at Ferney-Voltaire, the last German passport Kontrolle in France, while Gestapo officers searched the train, looking for people who were not permitted to leave. Then another stop, even longer, at the border controle in Geneva, while Swiss officers searched the train, looking for people who were not permitted to enter.
Serebin dozed, tried to read a short story submitted to The Harvest, the IRU literary magazine, found himself, again and again, looking out at the night. He’d met the infamous Ivan Kostyka on four or five occasions, over the years. The first time in Odessa-a story assigned by Pravda on the visit of “the renowned industrialist.” So, they’d wanted something from him, and sent Serebin along as a token of their high esteem. Then, in Paris, during a cultural conference in 1936, a lavish party at Kostyka’s grand maison in the 8th Arrondissement. Next, a year later, in Moscow, where Serebin was one of twelve writers invited to an intimate dinner, essentially furniture, as Kostyka met with captains of Soviet industry. Finally in Paris, the spring of 1940, Kostyka embracing his Russian heritage at the IRU Easter party and making a donation that was just barely generous. But then, Kostyka was known to be a genius with numbers, especially when those numbers counted francs or roubles.
Or dollars, or pounds, or drachma, lei, or lev. By then, Kostyka knew who Serebin was, or, at least, the people around him did. Claimed he’d read Serebin’s books and found them “stimulating, very interesting.” It was possibly the truth. One of the versions of Kostyka’s life had him born in Odessa, to a Jewish family, poor as dirt, called Koskin. However, cosmopolitan figures who moved in powerful circles were often believed to be Jews, and Kostyka had never revealed the secret of his birth. Another version had him born Kostykian, in Baku, of Armenian
