The Spies of Warsaw

brandy, rose from the table, smiled at Mercier, and made for the door to the first-class wagon- lit. Well, he was done with his brandy as well, waited until she’d left the dining car, then headed in the same direction. Walking down the corridor, he saw that she was just entering her compartment, Compartment C, and her door closed gently as he passed.

Back in his own compartment, he found that the bed had been made up, the Polish National Railways blanket turned down at a crisp angle. He stretched out on top of it, raised the shade, and turned off the reading lamp. Outside, southern Poland in moonlight. They were going west now, a few miles above the border, the train rattling along at high speed. The little station at Oswiecim flew past, followed by Strumien, as they neared Karvina, where they would enter Czechoslovakia. Mercier was hard on himself. No more wild fantasies, he thought, that would never see the light of reality. Restless and unhappy, he realized he could not sleep in this condition, and decided to go for as much of a walk as the train would allow. He went out into the corridor, where, to the right, lay only a few compartments, from H to A, including C, and turned left.

Past the other first-class wagons-lits, a succession of second-class carriages, where the passengers sat on faded leather seats. Very smoky here, some travelers already asleep, others, lost in their thoughts, gazing into the darkness beyond the windows. He walked the length of the carriage, and was halfway down the next, when he saw a woman in a long gray coat, severely cut. She wore soft leather boots and a black beret, set slantwise on dark-blond hair pinned up in back. Engaged in conversation with a young woman in the seat by the window, she was facing away from the aisle. As Mercier paused by the seat, the young woman looked up at him. “Hello,” he said. “Anna?”

She turned, startled to see him there, and said, “Oh.” For a moment, she froze, eyes wide with surprise, lips apart. Finally she said, in Polish, “Ursula, this is Colonel Mercier.”

The young woman acknowledged him with a formal nod and said, “Pleased to meet you, colonel.”

“Ursula used to work at our office in Danzig,” Anna said. “We met at the station in Cracow.”

Mercier looked at his watch. “One can have a drink in the dining car now, the second seating has ended. Would you and your friend care to join me?”

“Ursula?” Anna said. “Want to come for a drink?”

Ursula thought it over, but her sense of the situation was sharp enough. “I don’t think so. Why don’t you go?”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh …”

“Don’t be shy, you’ll enjoy it! Ursula?”

“Thank you, but you go ahead, Pana Szarbek. Maybe later, I might join you.”

As they walked toward the forward part of the train, Mercier said, “Do you have a suitcase?”

“I dropped it off-my compartment’s up here somewhere-then I went back to visit with Ursula.”

“Your own compartment?”

“A double. I’ve got the upper berth.”

They reached the dining car and were shown to a table by a window. When they were settled, Anna said, “This is a surprise. Are you going to the conference?”

“Well, I could. The subject is certainly interesting.”

Her eyes searched his, uncertain.

The waiter appeared, and Mercier said, “What would you like? A cocktail?”

“Maybe I would. Yes, why not.”

“It’s a long night ahead, might as well do what you like.”

“Then I’ll have a gin fizz.”

“For me a brandy,” Mercier said to the waiter.

Anna looked around, then said, “Very luxurious. You always seem to be in nice places.”

Mercier nodded. “I’m fortunate, I think. My fellow officers are either in barracks or stuck on an island somewhere, taking malaria pills.”

“You are fortunate.”

“Well, not always, but sometimes. It depends.”

She was again uncertain, hesitated, then said, “What interests you, colonel, about the conference?”

He went on about it for a time-national minorities, political tensions-until their drinks arrived. She took a sip of the gin fizz, then a second. “Good,” she said. “They know how to make these.”

“You can have another, if you like.”

She grinned and said, “Don’t tempt me.”

“No? I shouldn’t?”

“You were saying, about the conference.”

“I really don’t care about the conference, Anna.”

“Perhaps you have-ah, a professional reason, to go there.”

“I don’t.”

“Then …?”

“I’m on this train because I found out about the conference, and guessed, hoped, that you would be on this train.”

She hunted around in her handbag and found her cigarette case-Bacchus and the naked nymphs-put a cigarette between her lips, and leaned forward as he lit it. “So,” she said, “an adventure on a train.”

“No,” he said. “More.”

She looked out the window, then said, voice husky, her faint accent stronger, “There’s no need to say such things, colonel.” When she turned back toward him it was clear that she didn’t at all mind the idea of an adventure.

“But it isn’t just something to say.” He paused, then added, “And, by the way, it’s Jean-Francois. I think we agreed on that.”

Suddenly, she was amused. “If I had a pocket mirror …”

He didn’t understand.

“Well, you look quite a bit like a colonel, at the moment,” she said. “Jean-Francois.”

The tension broke. His face relaxed, and he put his hand on the table, palm up. After a pause, she took it, then inhaled on her cigarette and blew the smoke out like a sigh of resignation. “Oh Lord,” she said. “I’d bid all of this goodby, you know, after the night of the storm.” She waited a little, then said, “I suppose you’ve taken a fancy room, all to yourself.”

“I have.”

“And there we shall go.”

“Yes. Now?”

“I’d like that second gin you suggested, if you don’t mind.”

“Why would I? I’ll have another brandy.”

She squeezed his hand.

He beckoned to the waiter.

They carried their drinks back to his compartment. “My, my,” she said. “Lilies.” He helped her off with her coat, inhaling her perfume, and hung it on a hook as she put her beret on the luggage shelf. The compartment was almost entirely filled by the bed, so she sat across the far end, her back against the panel by the window. She took her boots off, revealing black stockings, wiggled her toes, and sighed with relief.

Unlacing his shoes, Mercier said, “A long day?”

“Dreadful. All sorts of people to see in Cracow.”

The train slowed, then entered a small station and, with a hiss of steam, came to a halt.

“What’s this?” she said. “Not Brno, not yet.”

“Kravina. Border control. Did you give your passport to the conductor?”

“Yes. When I got on.”

Mercier took his jacket off and folded it on the luggage rack above him, put his tie on top of it, and settled at