over the side, and the launch tugged at it but stayed where it was. ‘Now we wait,’ Polanyi said and shut the engine off. He took a silver flask from his pocket, had a drink, then passed it to Stahl, saying, ‘This will keep you warm.’ It was fruit brandy in the flask, slivovitz, distilled from plums. Stahl remembered it well — a good way to get plastered when he’d been a teenager in Vienna.
By four-thirty, the twilight was fading fast, soon enough it would be dark. A rowing boat suspended from davits at the stern was lowered into the water by Polanyi and Ferenc. ‘We’re going to have a look at the inn,’ Polanyi said to Stahl. ‘If somebody tries to board the launch, shoot him, don’t waste time on conversation. Otherwise, your job is to wait here.’
Stahl acknowledged the order and settled on the landward side of the launch, his back against the wall of the wheelhouse. The rowing boat moved off into the marsh at the edge of the river and, once the dip of the oars could no longer be heard, the silence deepened, broken only by gusts of wind that rustled the high reeds. Staring into the darkness, he thought he saw a momentary gleam of light near the inn — perhaps a flashlight — then it was dark once again. As the brandy’s warmth wore off, Stahl felt the cold, and wanted to move around but stayed where he was. If the launch was being watched, he wasn’t going to make himself an easy target. He couldn’t see the dial on his watch, but guessed the time set for the meeting had passed.
Then, in the distance, he heard a voice. Only a syllable or two, maybe a shout, maybe a cry of alarm, he couldn’t tell. Staying low, he moved to the railing and opened the holster, drawing the automatic, holding it ready in his hand. From the direction of the inn, two flat snaps, gunshots, followed by a fusillade that went on for a few seconds and shouting from various voices, the words indistinguishable. Something went whistling through the reeds, hit the water, and whined off into the night. Had somebody shot at him? No, a stray round from the gunfight. A moment of dead silence was ended by a single report, louder and deeper than the others, and the sound of a car’s ignition and an engine with the gas pedal on the floor in first gear. The car was headed away from him, back towards Komarom. Then, nothing. Where were Polanyi and the others? He started counting, because if nobody appeared he would have to go and see what had happened. Somebody hurt? Somebody dead? All of them dead? He counted to one hundred, then stood up, prepared to go into the marsh and work his way towards the inn.
But, it turned out, he didn’t have to. As the rowing boat emerged from the darkness, weaving through the reeds and willows, Polanyi called out, ‘It’s your friends, Herr Stahl, please hold your fire.’ Stahl relaxed and let out a long-held breath. Polanyi and his two friends pulled themselves over the open stern, then the count came towards him and handed him a shoe. Puzzled, he stared at it — a well-made man’s shoe, black, and recently shined, the sort of shoe worn in a city, worn in an office. ‘Booty from the raid,’ Polanyi said. ‘And yours if you want it, perhaps a trophy.’
‘What happened?’ Stahl said.
‘Well, they were there all right, three of them, wearing overcoats and hats. They were waiting for you outside the inn, in the trees on the far side of the road. Basically, we surprised each other, which happens in combat, and we fired at them as they fired at us, and nobody hit anybody, despite a lot of bullets flying around. But they weren’t there for a gun battle, they were there for an abduction — they were armed with pistols, and when the rifles took pieces out of the tree trunks they yelled in German and ran for their car. On the way, one of them lost a shoe.’
Ferenc, standing next to Polanyi, cleared his throat, a sound of polite disagreement. Then he said, ‘The Count Polanyi fired both barrels as they were running away and I believe he may have hit one of them, possibly in the backside — he leapt into the air and squawked — but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. We had a look around where the car had been parked and there may have been blood on the weeds. But who knows, it was dark, and torches don’t really give you enough light. Still, it might have been blood.’
‘Maybe,’ Polanyi said. ‘In any event, they ran away. So, honour satisfied. However, we did break into the inn and had a look, and I’m sorry but there was no sign of any suitcase or camera, or anything, really. The inn is closed for the winter, chairs stacked, windows boarded up, no sign of use.’
‘I want to thank you, Count Polanyi,’ Stahl said. ‘And to thank Ferenc and Anton as well. For doing this, for…’
Polanyi raised a hand. ‘You are welcome. As it happens, we don’t like seeing Germans with guns on Hungarian soil and we would do it again tomorrow if we had to. In fact we may have to, time will tell. And, as for the cameras, I will telephone to Budapest in the morning and see what can be arranged. We make plenty of movies in Hungary, and I know one or two people who might be able to help.’
‘I can only say thank you once again.’
‘Well, wait until tomorrow for that. By the way, do you want to keep the shoe?’
‘I think not,’ Stahl said.
‘In that case…,’ Polanyi said, nodding towards the river.
Stahl flipped the shoe over the railing.
Polanyi went to start the engine while Ferenc and Anton cranked the rowing boat back onto the launch. As they pulled away from the shore, Polanyi turned on a spotlight mounted on the roof of the wheelhouse and the beam swept the black water ahead of them as they made for Komarom.
There were cameras in Budapest — in fact there were two Mitchells, which made life easier for the cameraman and, by the morning of the third, the company was again at work, shooting inside the castle, and then staging the climactic gun battle, using for background the blackened stone walls and two windows that opened on the courtyard. And it did look, once Avila worked out the angles, like ‘somewhere in the Balkans’. The first part of the scene, a fight in a bar, had been shot at Joinville, so what they filmed now was the climax: Colonel Vadic’s heroism, Pasquin’s jolly bravery, and the lieutenant’s wounding that leads to his death speech. The actors playing the Balkan thugs were more than frightening, one of them a Russian giant discovered by Avila, who found him working as a nightclub doorman.
From Stahl’s perspective it worked perfectly well — mostly running and shooting, no subtle acting required. But he sensed that the cast and crew had been rattled by the theft and were more than ready to go back to Paris. There were, according to Avila, two or three retakes they could do at Joinville, or perhaps not, it would be up to Deschelles. Essentially, for all practical purposes, the filming of Apres la Guerre was complete. The movie would have its final edit and music would be added in the weeks to come, but Stahl’s work on the production was finished.
That night, Stahl and Renate had the discussion that they had been, for some time, avoiding. They pulled two wing chairs up to the huge fireplace and Stahl built a splendid fire. Once it was blazing, he settled in his chair and said, ‘We haven’t talked about this, but I think the time has come. I don’t like it, but, with everything that’s happened, I had better get out of France as soon as I can.’
‘Yes, I saw it coming,’ Renate said. ‘Once you got that telephone call at my apartment I started thinking, and I began to realize that, after the movie was done, you’d be better off leaving the country.’
‘I did want to stay, there was a time when I thought about staying for a while, or even longer. In a proper world, Paris is where I belong.’
‘I know,’ Renate said. ‘It’s no secret, how you feel.’
‘And you as well, Renate. No?’
‘Oh yes, it was… When my husband and I were struggling to get out of Germany, Paris was my dream. Just get there, I thought, and everything will be perfect. But it turned out that this wasn’t so, not for my husband, wherever he is tonight, and not really for me either, until I met you. Then it, the city, kept its promises.’
‘How would you feel if you came back to California with me? You wouldn’t have to stay if you hated it. Because people do, you know, truly hate it.’
‘Oh I’m sure I would hate it — I’m a European, in my heart. And I doubt I could work there.’
‘You could. I know people who can make it possible.’
‘But what about a visa? It takes months now — half the world wants to go to America.’
‘That won’t be a problem. I think the embassy might move you up the list. And, if for some reason they won’t, we’ll just have to get married.’
It gladdened Stahl’s heart to see her smile in the usual way as she said, irony just barely touching her voice, ‘A proposal?’
They looked at each other for a time, then Stahl said, ‘I don’t want to lose you, Renate. We should be together.’
‘Then that is what we shall do,’ Renate said. ‘Now, no more of this, let’s get into bed before we freeze to death.’
