The Foreign Correspondent

alone.

Walking through the rain, he took a side street, and came upon a little place called Henri. The window was well steamed, but he could see a black-and-white tile floor, diners at most of the tables, and a blackboard with that night’s menu. When he entered, the proprietor, properly heavy and red-faced, came to greet him, wiping his hands on his apron. A couvert for one, monsieur? Yes, please. Weisz hung his raincoat and hat on the clothes tree by the door. In very crowded restaurants, in bad weather, the thing would in time become overladen, and could be depended on to tip over at least once during the evening, which always made Weisz laugh.

What Henri offered that night was a large plate of steamed leeks, followed by rognons de veau, morsels of veal kidney, sauteed with mushrooms in a brown sauce, and a mound of crisp pommes frites. Reading the paper, following the prodigious love affairs of a nightclub singer, Weisz finished most of his carafe of red wine, mopping up the veal sauce with a piece of bread, then decided to have the cheese, a vacherin.

Weisz was seated at a corner table, and, when the door opened, he glanced sideways to see who might be coming in for dinner. The man who entered took off his hat and coat and found an unused peg on the clothes tree. He was a fattish, benign sort of fellow, a pipe clenched in his teeth, a slipover sweater worn beneath his jacket. The man looked around, searching for somebody, and, as Henri approached, eventually spotted Weisz. “Well, hello,” he said. “Mr. Carlo Weisz, what luck.”

“Mr. Brown. Good evening.”

“Don’t suppose I might join you. Are you waiting for somebody?”

“No, I’m just finishing up.”

“Hate to eat alone.”

Henri, wiping his hands on his apron, was not quite following this, but when Mr. Brown took a step toward Weisz’s table, he smiled and pulled out a chair. “Much appreciated,” Brown said, settling himself at the table and putting on his glasses to peer at the blackboard. “How’s the food?”

“Very good.”

“Kidneys,” he said. “That will do nicely.” He ordered, then said, “I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you, actually.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“A small project, something that might interest you.”

“Really? Reuters pretty much takes up all my time.”

“Yes, I imagine they would. Still, this is quite out of the ordinary, and it’s a chance to, well, to make a difference.”

“A difference?”

“That’s it. In Europe these days, the way things are going, what with Hitler and Mussolini…I think you know what I mean. Anyhow, the world is too much with me, getting and spending, as the man said, but one does want to do something more, and I’m associated with a few like-minded fellows, and, every now and again, we try to do a little something worthwhile. Very informal, you understand, this group, but we pitch in a few pounds, and use our business connections, and, you never know, it might just, as I said, make a difference.”

A waiter brought a carafe of wine and a basket of bread. Mr. Brown said, “Mmm,” by way of thanks, poured himself a glass of wine, took a sip, and said, “Good. Very good, whatever it is. They never tell you, do they.” He had another sip, tore a piece of bread in half, and ate it. “Now,” he said, “where was I? Oh yes, our small project. Actually, it began the night we had drinks at the Ritz bar, with Geoffrey Sparrow and his girl, you recall?”

“I do, of course,” Weisz said cautiously, apprehensive about what might be coming next.

“Well, you know, it got me thinking. Here was an opportunity to do a little something for the sorry world out there. So I had a friend make inquiries, and, by a lucky chance, we actually found this Colonel Ferrara you wrote about. Poor bastard, his unit retreated to Barcelona, where they had to get rid of their uniforms and make a run for it, across the Pyrenees at night, which is very damn dangerous, I don’t have to tell you. Once in France, he was arrested, naturally, and interned at one of those wretched camps down in Gascony. Where we actually found him, through a friend in one of the French ministries.”

Worse and worse. “Not easy to do, something like that.”

“No, not easy. But, damn it all, worth it, don’t you think? I mean, you’re the one who told his story, so you know who he is-what he is, I should say. He’s a hero. Don’t see that word too much these days, it ain’t fashionable, but that’s the truth of it. In the midst of all this whining and hand-wringing, here’s a man who stands up for what he believes in, and-”

The waiter arrived with a generous wedge of vacherin, soft and smelly. Not that Weisz particularly wanted it, not anymore. Brown and his like-minded fellows had, with whatever else they were about, whipped his appetite away and replaced it with a cold knot in the stomach.

“Ah, the cheese. Nice and ripe, I’d say.”

“It is,” Weisz said, testing it lightly with his thumb. He cut a piece-a proper diagonal, not the nose-and stuck his fork in it, but that was as far as he got. “You were saying?”

“Uh, oh yes, Colonel Ferrara. A hero, Mr. Weisz, and one the world ought to know about. You certainly thought so, and, evidently, so did Reuters. Really, can you name another? Plenty of victims, out there, and plenty of nasty villains, but then, where are the heroes, tonight?”

Weisz wasn’t meant to answer this, and he didn’t. “And so?”

“So this, Mr. Weisz: we think that Colonel Ferrara should make his story known. In detail, in public.”

“And how would he do that?”

“The usual way. Always the best way, the usual way, and in this case that would mean, a book. His book. Soldier of Freedom, something like that. To Fight for Freedom? Is that better?”

Weisz wouldn’t bite. His expression said, who knows?

“But, whatever the title, it’s a good story. We start in the camp-will he ever get out? Then we find out how he got there. He grows up in a poor family, he joins the army, becomes an officer, fights with an elite force at the Piave River, in the Great War, is ordered to Ethiopia, Mussolini’s quest for empire, then resigns his commission, in protest, after Italian planes spray the tribal villages with poison gas, goes to Spain, and fights the fascists, Spanish and Italian. Now, here he is, at the end, preparing to fight fascism again. That’s a book I’d read, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess I would.”

“Of course you would!” Brown made a bracket of his thumb and index finger, then moved it across the title as he said, “My Fight for Freedom, by ‘Colonel Ferrara.’ In quotation marks, of course, and no first name, because it’s a nom de guerre, which makes for a rather tasty dust jacket, don’t you think? You get to buy a book by a fellow who must keep his real identity a secret, has to use an alias. Why? Because tomorrow, when he finishes writing, he goes back to war, against Mussolini, or Hitler, in Roumania, or Portugal, or little Estonia-who knows where it might break out next. So we feel, my friends and I, that here is a book which should see the light of day. Now, how does this sound to you. Can it be done?”

“I would think so,” Weisz said, his voice as neutral as he could possibly make it.

“Only one problem, as far as we can see. This Colonel Ferrara, a gifted army officer, can do many things, but one thing he can’t do is write books.”

“Les poireaux,” the waiter said, sliding a plate of leeks onto the table. It was no more than a momentary flicker of the eyes, as Mr. Brown regarded the plate, but it revealed to Weisz that Mr. Brown didn’t actually like steamed leeks, probably didn’t like veal kidneys, maybe didn’t like French food, or the French, or France.

“So then,” Brown said, “what we thought is that maybe the journalist Carlo Weisz could help us out in this area.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Oh yes it is.”

“I have too much work, Mr. Brown. Really, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”

“I’d wager you can. A thousand pounds, I’d wager.”

That was a great deal of money, but the cost of it! “Sorry,” Weisz said.