The Foreign Correspondent

with the ease of the experienced traveler, folded and packed. Underwear and socks, a spare shirt- two-day trip? Maybe three, he thought. Sweater? No. Gray flannel trousers, which made his suit jacket into a sport coat-he liked to think it did, anyhow. In a leather case, toothbrush, toothpaste-enough? Yes. Old-fashioned straight razor, the throat-slitter, so-called, his father’s, once upon a time, kept all these years. Shaving soap. The cologne called Chypre, which Christa had said she liked. Put some on for the trip? No, she won’t be at the airport, and why smell good for the border Kontrolle?

Ah, the ticket. He went to answer the knock, but it wasn’t the porter. It was the new tenant, still wearing his hat, one hand in the pocket of his raincoat, who stared at Weisz, then looked over his shoulder into the room. Weisz’s heart skipped a beat. He took a half step back, and started to speak. Then, on the stairs, a slow tread accompanied by wheezing. “Excuse me,” Weisz said. He slid past the man and walked toward the staircase, calling out, “Bertrand?”

“Coming, monsieur,” the porter answered. “As fast as I can.” Weisz waited as a panting Bertrand-these errands would kill him yet-struggled up the last few steps, a white envelope in his trembling hand. Down the corridor, a door was slammed shut, hard, and Weisz turned and saw that the new tenant had disappeared. The hell with him, discourteous fellow. Or worse. Weisz told himself to calm down, but something about the man’s eyes had scared him, had made him remember what happened to Bottini.

“This just arrived,” Bertrand said, handing Weisz the envelope.

Weisz reached into his pocket for a franc piece, but his money was on the desk, with his glasses and wallet. “Come in for a moment,” he said.

Bertrand entered the room and sat heavily in the chair, fanning his face with his hand. Weisz thanked him and gave him his tip. “Who’s the new tenant?” he said.

“I couldn’t say, Monsieur Weisz. I believe he is from Italy, a commercial gentleman, perhaps.”

Weisz took a last look around, closed his valise, buckled his briefcase, and put his hat on. Looking at his watch, he said, “I have to get out to Le Bourget.”

The franc piece in Bertrand’s pocket had evidently hastened his recovery. He rose nimbly and, as the two of them chatted about the weather, accompanied Weisz down the stairs.

In the spring twilight, as the Dewoitine airplane began its descent to Berlin, the change of pitch in the engines woke Carlo Weisz, who looked out the window and watched the drifting cloud as it broke over the wing. On his lap, an open copy of Dekobra’s La Madone des Sleepings-the Madonna of the Sleeping Cars-a 1920s French spy thriller, wildly popular in its day, which Weisz had brought along for the trip. The dark adventures of Lady Diana Wynham, siren of the Orient Express, bed-hopping from Vienna to Budapest, with stops at “every European watering-place.”

Weisz dog-eared the page and stowed the book in his briefcase. As the plane lost altitude, it broke through the cloud, revealing the streets, the parks and church steeples, of small towns, then a squared patchwork of farm fields, still faintly green in the gathering dusk. It was very peaceful, and, Weisz thought, very vulnerable, because this was the bomber pilot’s view, just before he set it all on fire. Weisz had been in the Spanish towns, when the German bombers were done with them, but who down there hadn’t seen them, set to heroic music, in the Reich’s newsreels. Did the people at supper, below him, realize it could happen to them?

At Tempelhof airport, the passport Kontrolle was all smiles and courtesy-the dignitaries and foreign correspondents, streaming in for the Ciano visit, must see the amiable face of Germany. Weisz took a taxi into the city, and asked for messages at the Adlon desk, but there was nothing for him. By nine- thirty, he had eaten dinner and, up in his room, spent a few minutes standing over the telephone. But it was late, Christa was home. Perhaps she would come tomorrow.

By nine the next morning he was at the Reuters office, greeted warmly by Gerda and the other secretaries. Eric Wolf peered out of his office and beckoned Weisz inside. Something about him-perpetual bow tie, puzzled expression, myopic eyes behind round-framed eyeglasses, made him look like a friendly owl. Wolf said hello, then, his demeanor conspiratorial, closed his office door. Anxious to tell a story, he leaned forward, his voice low and private. “I’ve been given a message for you, Weisz.”

Weisz tried to seem unconcerned. “Oh?”

“I don’t know what it means, and you don’t have to tell me, of course. And maybe I don’t want to know.”

Weisz looked mystified.

“Last night, I left the office at seven-thirty, as usual, and I was walking back to my apartment when this very elegant lady, all in black, falls in beside me and says, ‘Herr Wolf, if Carlo Weisz should come to Berlin, would you give him a message for me? A personal message, from Christa.’ I was a bit startled, but I said yes, of course, and she said, ‘Please tell him that Alma Bruck is a trusted friend of mine.’”

Weisz didn’t answer immediately, then shook his head and smiled: don’t worry, it isn’t what you think. “I know what this is about, Eric. She’s, like that, sometimes.”

“Oh, well, naturally I wondered. It was, you know, rather sinister. And I hope I got the name right, because I wanted to repeat it, but we’d reached the corner and she took a sharp turn down the street and disappeared. The whole thing took only seconds. It was, how to say, perfect spy technique.”

“The lady is a friend of mine, Eric. A very good friend. But a married friend.”

“Ahh.” Wolf was relieved. “You’re a lucky chap, I’d say, she is stunning.”

“I’ll tell her you said so.”

“You can understand how I felt. I mean, I thought, maybe it’s a story he’s working on, and, in this city, you have to be careful. But then, it could have been something else. Lady in black, Mata Hari, that sort of thing.”

“No.” Weisz smiled at Wolf’s suspicions. “Not me, it’s just a love affair, nothing more. And I appreciate your help. And your discretion.”

“Happy to do it!” Wolf relaxed. “Not often one gets to play Cupid.” With an owlish smile, he pulled back a pretend bowstring, then opened his fingers to let the arrow fly.

The invitation arrived while Weisz and Wolf were out for the morning press conference at the Propaganda Ministry. Inside the envelope of a messenger service, an envelope with his name in script, and a folded note: “Dearest Carlo, I’m giving a cocktail party, at my apartment, at six this evening, I’d be so pleased if you could come.” Signed “Alma,” with an address in the Charlottenstrasse, not far from the Adlon. Curious, Weisz went to the clipping file and, German efficiency at work, there she was. Small, slim, and dark, in a fur coat, smiling for the photographer at a benefit given for war widows on 16 March, the German Memorial Day.

On the Charlottenstrasse, a block of elaborate limestone apartment buildings, upper windows with miniature balconies. Time and soot turned the Parisian versions black, but the Prussians of Berlin kept theirs white. The street itself was immaculate, with well-scrubbed paving stones bordered by linden trees behind ornamental iron railings. The buildings, to Weisz’s intuitive geometry, much larger inside than they looked from without. Across a white brick courtyard, and up two floors in a curlicue-caged elevator, Alma Bruck’s apartment.

Had the invitation said six? Weisz swore to himself that it had, but, listening at the door, he heard no evidence of a cocktail party. Tentatively, he knocked. The unlocked door opened an inch. Weisz gave it a gentle push, and it opened further, revealing a dark foyer. “Hello?” Weisz said.

No answer.

Weisz took a cautious step inside and closed the door, but not all the way. What was going on? A dark, empty apartment. A trap. Then, from somewhere down the long hallway, he heard music, a swing band, which meant either a phonograph or a radio tuned to some station outside Germany, where such music was verboten. Again, he said, “Hello?” No answer, only the music. Christa, are you in here? Was this romantic, playful theatre? Or something very different? For a moment, he froze, the two possibilities at war inside him.

Finally, he took a deep breath. She was in here somewhere, and, if she wasn’t, well, too bad. Slowly, he walked down the hallway, the old parquet flooring creaked with every step. He passed an open door, a parlor, its heavy drapes drawn, then stopped and said, “Christa?” No answer. The music was coming from the room at the end of the hall, its door wide open.

He stopped at the threshold. Inside a dark bedroom, a white shape was stretched full length on the bed. “Christa?”

“Oh my God,” she said, sitting bolt upright. “I fell asleep.” Slowly, she lay back down. “I meant to answer the