French politics — some people can be accused, but others, higher up, can’t be. They’re too powerful. But that’s a theory, my theory, and there could be all sorts of other explanations.’
‘And the spy? What happened to him?’
‘Vanished. As spies do. There was some talk that he went to London.’
‘So, you’re saying I shouldn’t approach the Surete.’
‘No, Mr Stahl, that may be something you should do, but not now. And, if you do, you should know that they might not respond. Better for you, at the moment, to think about the future, what comes next.’
‘I wish I knew,’ Stahl said. ‘I’m going to have a drink after I leave here, but, beyond that…’
‘You’re going to work, you’re going to make a movie. Now, speaking of the movie, I have to say that the possibility of an intentional attack on this man, Becker?’ — he glanced at his notes — ‘Brecker, in order to put pressure on you, is extremely unlikely. For someone to use a chair to break somebody’s wrist in the midst of a brawl in a dark room, to be able to do this on purpose, is nearly impossible. If the chair had hit Brecker in the shoulder you would never even have heard about it. Not that they wouldn’t try to damage the movie, they would, they would do just about anything you can imagine and some things you can’t.’
Now Stahl felt better, realizing that Wilkinson probably had it right. ‘I mentioned the festival of mountain cinema. If I don’t go, what would they do?’
‘You can find that out by not going.’ Wilkinson paused, then said, ‘There’s no question of your going, is there?’
Stahl spoke slowly, saying, ‘There wasn’t, at first, the very idea of helping them was… sickening.’
‘If you went it would certainly become known, here and in Hollywood. It might well damage your career, isn’t that so?’
‘The director, Avila, wouldn’t like it, maybe the producer as well, he’s hard to read. On the other hand, if I said that Warner Bros. asked me to go, they might not hold it against me.’
‘Well, yes, but what about Hollywood?’
Stahl didn’t answer immediately. Finally he said, ‘They might not notice, it would happen far away, in Europe, and, if they did notice, they very well might not care. The studio executives may dislike the behaviour of the Nazi government but they still do business in Germany, all they can, it’s a big part of the foreign market. The German exhibitors will only show certain films — they’ll take nothing with politics, they like musicals, they like dancing peasants, buxom maidens, singing pirates — but those sell plenty. Germans love to go to the movies, it’s encouraged, Hitler and Goebbels and Goering are big movie fans. Hitler has a passion for being seen in public with actresses, for being photographed with them, while Goebbels takes them to bed, and Goering’s wife Emmy was an actress. All of which adds up to this: if I appear at a festival in Berlin it could be seen as publicity, nothing more.’
‘But you hate the idea of going, don’t you?’
‘I hate the idea of doing what these people want me to do. And then, what will they want next?’
‘That’s worth considering — it wouldn’t end there.’ They sat in silence for a moment, then Wilkinson said, ‘Are you tempted to go, Mr Stahl? Even if the attack on Brecker was an accident, you saw what might happen.’
From Stahl, a reluctant yes — a nod and a grim face. He would be backing away from a fight and he didn’t like it.
‘I believe,’ Wilkinson said thoughtfully, ‘that it might not matter if you went. A sacrifice, for your pride, but a sacrifice made for tactical reasons; for the movie, even for your country.’
Again, Stahl nodded. ‘Do you know, Mr Wilkinson, the worst part of this whole thing?’
Wilkinson waited to hear it.
‘Being attacked, and not fighting back. Just sitting here and letting them come at me.’
‘That I understand,’ Wilkinson said. ‘But I hope you realize you’re not the only one. I mean, I would never think badly of you for not fighting, I’m a diplomat, I make myself agreeable to some of the most vile people on earth, I smile at them, I make them laugh if I can, I sit next to them at state banquets where I listen to them boast and brag about their triumphs, and then I suggest another glass of wine and then another. To them, I’m the most genial fellow in the world. And they are murderers, vicious, filth.’
‘Yes, but in time… In time you act against them, if you can.’
‘Maybe. I do what I do on behalf of our government and, if the policy is to defeat them, then I will work hard at it, with pleasure.’
Stahl glanced at the window, which looked out over a darkened courtyard. Down below he could hear the sound of footsteps, maybe high heels, crossing the cobbled surface, and then a woman laughed.
‘You mentioned something,’ Stahl said, ‘the last time we spoke, about information, about my telling you if I found out something interesting, maybe important.’
‘What are you saying, Mr Stahl?’
‘Perhaps I would discover something, if I went to Germany.’
‘Oh I doubt that. What would you do? Meet a Wehrmacht general and try to get information? “Say, General Schmidt, how’s that new tank performing?” Believe me, you’d just get into trouble.’
‘Well, it was a thought.’
‘Put it out of your mind, that’s dangerous stuff, not for you.’
‘Really? Why not for me?’
‘Spying is a brutal business, and, if you get caught…’
‘What if there’s a war and France is lost? What if I might have done something, anything, even a small thing, and didn’t? What would I think of myself? I put that as a question but the truth is I know the answer. These people, these Nazis, are scum, Mr Wilkinson, but from the perspective of being here, in Europe, in Paris, it looks to me like they’re winning.’
‘They are. Right now, today, they are. And that’s from somebody who knows a lot more than you do.’
‘But you say there’s nothing I can do.’
‘Oh, I didn’t quite say that.’
ESPIONAGE
In Germany, in August of 1938,
A jewish emigre couple called Grynszpan was informed by the authorities that their residence permits had been cancelled and they would have to reapply for permission to remain in the country. They knew they needn’t bother; the Nazi government wanted to get rid of them, two among seventeen thousand Jews of Polish origin, all of whom would have to return to Poland. In March of that year, however, Poland had annulled the citizenship of almost all resident alien Jews in Germany and Austria. So the Grynszpans couldn’t stay where they were, but had nowhere else to go. On 26 October, the Gestapo resolved this paradox by arresting twelve thousand Jews, taking whatever they owned, putting them in boxcars, then herding them across the border to the Polish town of Zbaszyn, where the Poles refused to admit them.
Stranded in a field outside Zbaszyn, the Jews were without shelter and had very little to eat. So the Grynszpans, desperate for help of any kind, sent a postcard to their son, Herschel, who had fled Germany in 1936, at the age of fifteen, and was living illegally in Paris. On 31 October, Herschel Grynszpan received the postcard but there was nothing to be done, not by him, not by anyone he knew. Unable to help the people he loved, he was caught up in that particularly volatile mix of sorrow and anger and, by 7 November, he could bear it no longer. With the last of his money, he bought a revolver and ammunition, took the Metro to the Solferino station, walked to the German embassy on the rue de Lille and told the reception clerk he wished to speak with an official. The clerk told him he would be seen by a junior diplomat called Ernst vom Rath and sent him upstairs. When Grynszpan entered the office, he raised the revolver and shot vom Rath five times. Grynszpan, a farewell postcard to his parents in his pocket, made no attempt to run away, and was arrested by the French police. Vom Rath was taken to the hospital, where he died on 9 November.
The Nazi leadership was enraged — the more so for being shocked. How could such a thing happen? A Jew, a member of a weak and degenerate race, had had the audacity to attack a German? Imagine! Jews didn’t fight back, they were expected to be meek, and to suffer in silence. So Herschel Grynszpan’s action was seen as a racial insult,
