The Foreign Correspondent

waiter arrived with a glass and the new bottles. As he worked at opening them, Polanyi said to Weisz, “What brings you out in this vile weather? Not after a story, are you?”

“No, no,” Weisz said. “Not tonight. I’m just out for a walk in the rain.”

“Anyhow,” Fischfang said.

“Oh yes, we were in the middle of a story,” Polanyi said.

“A Hitler’s parrot joke,” Fischfang said. “Number whatever it is. Is anybody counting?” Fischfang was a tense little man with bent wire-framed glasses, which made him look like Leon Trotsky.

“Start over, Louis,” Voyschinkowsky said.

“In this one, Hitler’s parrot is asleep on his perch, Hitler’s working at his desk. Suddenly, the parrot wakes up and cries, ‘Here comes Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe.’ Hitler stops working. What goes on? Then the door opens and it’s Goering. So Hitler and Goering start to talk, but the bird interrupts. ‘Here comes Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda.’ And, lo and behold, a minute later, it’s true. Hitler tells what’s going on, but Goering and Goebbels think he’s kidding. ‘Ah, go on, Adolf, it’s a trick, you’re giving the bird a signal.’ ‘No, no,’ Hitler says. ‘This bird somehow knows who’s coming, and I’ll prove it to you. We’ll hide in the closet, where the bird can’t see me, and wait for the next visitor.’ So there they are, in the closet, and the bird starts up again. But this time it just trembles and hides its head under its wing and squawks.” Fischfang hunched over, hid his head beneath his arm, and produced a series of frightened squawks. At nearby tables, a few heads turned. “After a minute, the door opens, and it’s Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo. He looks around, thinks the office is empty, and goes away. ‘Allright, boys,’ the parrot says, ‘it’s safe to come out now. The Gestapo’s gone.’”

A few smiles, a tepid laugh from the courteous Voyschinkowsky. “Gestapo jokes,” Szara said.

“Not so funny, is it,” Fischfang said. “A friend of mine picked that up in Berlin. But, anyhow, they’re still working at it.”

“Why don’t they work at shooting that bastard?” Cara said.

“I’ll drink to that,” Szara said, his French flavored with a strong Russian accent.

The Echezeaux was something that Weisz had never tasted-far too expensive. The first sip told him why.

“Patience, children,” Polanyi said, setting his glass back on the tablecloth. “We’ll get him.”

“To us, then,” Lady Angela said, raising her glass.

Morath was amused, and said to Weisz, “You’ve fallen among, well, not thieves, exactly, ah, citizens of the night.”

Szara laughed, Polanyi grinned. “Not thieves, Nicky? But, let’s all remember that Monsieur Weisz is a journalist.”

Weisz didn’t like being excluded. “Not tonight,” he said. “I’m just one more emigre.”

“From where did you emigrate?” Voyschinkowsky said.

“He’s from Trieste,” Lady Angela said, a nudge and a wink in her voice. Now everybody was amused.

“Well then, he has honorary membership,” Fischfang said.

“As what?” Lady Angela said, all innocence.

“As, uh, what Nicky said. ‘Citizen of the night.’”

“To Trieste, then,” Szara said, ready to drink.

“Trieste, and the others,” Polanyi said. “Geneva, say. And Lugano.”

“Certainly Lugano. The so-called Spyopolis,” Morath said.

“Have you heard that?” Voyschinkowsky asked Weisz.

Weisz smiled. “Yes, Spyopolis. Like any border city.”

“Or any city,” Polanyi said, “with Russian emigres.”

“Oh good,” Lady Angela said. “Now we can include Paris.”

“And Shanghai,” Fischfang said. “And Harbin, especially Harbin, ‘where the women dress on credit and disrobe for cash.’”

“To them,” Cara said. “The White Russian women of Harbin.”

They drank to that, and Polanyi refilled the glasses. “Of course, we should include the others. Hotel doormen, for example.”

Szara liked that idea. “Then, embassy code clerks. Nightclub dancers.”

“And tennis pros,” Cara said. “With perfect manners.”

“Yes,” Weisz said. “And the journalists.”

“Hear, hear,” Lady Angela said in English.

“Long life,” Polanyi said, raising his glass.

Now everyone laughed, drank the toast, and drank again. Except for Mlle. Allard, whose head lay against Szara’s shoulder, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. Weisz lit a cigarette and looked around the table. Were they all spies? Polanyi was, and so was Lady Angela Hope. Morath, Polanyi’s nephew, probably was, and Szara, a Pravda correspondent, had to be, given the voracious appetite of the NKVD. And Fischfang as well, from what he’d said. And all on the same side? Two Hungarians, an Englishwoman, a Russian. What was Fischfang? Likely a Polish Jew, resident in France. And Voyschinkowsky? French, of, maybe, Ukrainian ancestry. Cara Dionello, who was sometimes mentioned in the gossip columns, was Argentine, and very rich. What a crowd! But all, it would seem, working against the Nazis, one way or another. And don’t forget, he thought, one Carlo Weisz, Italian. No, Triestine.

It was just after two in the morning when the Triestine climbed out of a taxi in front of the Hotel Dauphine, managed, on his eighth try, to get his key in the lock, opened the door, made his way past the deserted reception desk, and, eventually, after stumbling back a step at least three times, up the stairs to his refuge. Where he shed his clothes, down to shorts and undershirt, hunted through his jacket pockets until he found his glasses, and sat down at the Olivetti. The opening volley sounded loud to Weisz, but he ignored it-the other tenants never seemed to mind the late-night tapping of a typewriter. Or, if they did, they never said anything about it. Typing late at night had near saintly status in the city of Paris-who knew what wondrous flights of imagination might be in progress-and people liked the idea of an inspired soul, pounding away after a midnight visit from the muse.

An inspired clandestine journalist, anyhow, writing a short, simple article about German agents at the heart of the Italian security system. It was pretty much as he’d told Salamone in the bar, earlier that day. The Liberazione editors had heard, from friends in Italy, about these Germans, some official, some not, working inside the police and security organizations. Shameful, really, if it were true, and they believed it was, that Italy, so often invaded, would invite foreign agents inside its defensive walls, inside its castle. A Trojan horse? Preparation for another, a German, invasion? An invasion supported by the fascists themselves? Liberazione hoped not. But then, what did it mean? How would it end? Was this the proper course for those who called themselves patriots? We giellisti, he wrote, have always shared one passion with our opponents: love of country. So please, our readers in the police and security services-we know you read our newspaper, even though it’s forbidden-take some time to think about this, about what it means to you, about what it means to Italy.

The following day, a telephone call at the Reuters bureau. Had Mr. Brown, at this point, been his cold, hard self, and leaned on his advantage, he might have been issued a brisk va f’an culo and sent on his way. But it was a mild, sensible Mr. Brown, trudging along through a vocational morning, on the other end of the line. Hoping Weisz had thought over his proposition, hoping that, in the politics of the moment, he saw the point of Soldier for Freedom. Their interests were, in this instance, mutual. A little time, a little hard work, a blow against the common enemy. And they would pay him only if he wanted to be paid. “That’s up to you, Mr. Weisz.”

They met that day after work, at the cafe-down three steps from the street-below the Hotel Tournon. Mr. Brown, Colonel Ferrara, and Weisz. Ferrara was glad to see him-Weisz had wondered about that, because he’d brought this down on Ferrara’s head. But that head had recently been locked up in a camp, so Weisz was a savior, and Ferrara let him know it.

Mr. Brown spoke English at the meeting, while Weisz translated for Ferrara. “Naturally, you’ll write in Italian,” Brown said. “And we have somebody who will do the English version, pretty much day by day. Because first publication, as soon as possible, will be in London, with Staunton and Weeks. We considered Chapman amp; Hall, or