8 January. There was to be no end-of-production party at the castle — the cast and crew voted — but Avila said he would arrange something when they were back home. And so they all packed, and Stahl spent a few minutes saying goodbye to Polanyi. The count had no appetite for sentiment, and waved off Stahl’s expression of gratitude. ‘I’ll see you in Paris, my friend,’ he said. ‘That’s where I work, at the legation, and I like the idea of having a movie star at my social evenings.’
‘I would enjoy it,’ Stahl said. ‘But I suspect I’ll be heading off to California.’
‘Oh I think you’ll be back, once the current mess is resolved. So, until then…’ They shook hands, and Stahl realized that Polanyi had thoroughly enjoyed saving his life and was sorry to see him leave.
‘I’ll just go to my room,’ Stahl said, ‘and bring your pistol back.’
‘No, no,’ Polanyi said. ‘You keep that, it’s my gift to you.’
The road to Budapest was now open and Stahl and Renate and the other emigres headed for the airfield, and the chartered plane, in three taxis that came to get them at the castle. Staring out of the window at the winter fields, Stahl wondered about Polanyi. Something about him, Stahl couldn’t say exactly what that was, reminded him of J. J. Wilkinson. Maybe Polanyi was a working diplomat, but Stahl thought there might be a little more. He had, Stahl thought, some spy in him. Maybe more than some.
The airport was crowded and busy, but the emigres were in good spirits, they had worked hard, earned money, were now headed home to the people that cared about them. Stahl, as the leader of the group, stood at the end of the passport control line, Renate at his side. What they had together had grown, in front of the castle fireplace; they had a future now, and that changed them. The passport officers were slower that day, they checked photographs against faces, asked about Hungarian money and art, and took their time making sense of various official papers: some of the emigres were travelling on French documents, some on the Nansen passports issued to stateless persons by the League of Nations, and some on German passports that would never be renewed but were still valid. The officers also had a list. One did not like seeing a list, one knew what that might mean.
And so it did.
When it came Renate’s turn — the rest of the emigres waiting on the other side of the desks — the officer, a rather intellectual-looking fellow with a trim beard, said, ‘Madam Steiner, I must ask you to wait for a minute. I’ll see to the gentleman with you first, it won’t take long.’
It didn’t. Stahl’s American document was quickly stamped. Then the officer excused himself and walked a few steps to an office directly opposite the passport control area.
‘What could be wrong?’ Stahl said. ‘Have you used your passport before?’
‘Not since I came to Paris. And we crossed into France at night, like everyone else, through a forest. The Nazis weren’t going to let us out. One of my friends tried to leave in the official way, to her sorrow.’
The door of the office was open and they could see the control officer, in conversation with a man who wore a suit. Back and forth they went, not animated in the least, simply dealing with some sort of problem. Finally, the officer returned to his desk. He looked at Stahl and said, ‘You may proceed, sir, you don’t have to wait here.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Stahl said. ‘We’re travelling together.’
‘I’m afraid there’s some difficulty in approving Madam Steiner’s exit. Apparently, German officials wish to question her regarding her husband, who is being sought by the German police, and they have requested that we detain her until she can be questioned. I regret the inconvenience, but we must honour their request. It’s not usually done this way, but it does happen sometimes.’
‘Are you sure?’ Stahl said. ‘Steiner is a common name in Germany.’
‘Perhaps they’ve made an error. But, even if they haven’t, this shouldn’t be too hard to straighten out, she needs simply to visit the German legation here in Budapest. However, since she’ll have to travel later, there’s no reason you should miss your flight. Madam Steiner will surely be following on in a day or two.’
‘Go ahead,’ Renate whispered to him. ‘Go. Get out of here.’
‘I believe we’ll travel together,’ Stahl said to the officer. ‘So I’ll have to wait as well.’
The officer met Stahl’s eyes, then, with a covert nod of the head towards the other side of the control desk, he let Stahl know that he had best join his friends while he still could. Stahl didn’t move. ‘Well,’ the officer said, ‘that’s up to you.’
In a taxi, headed for the Hotel Astoria, Renate tried, and failed, not to show her reaction to the denied exit. After a brooding silence, she said, ‘I really thought we were safe. I really did. But that kind of thinking is a curse. Funny, but I never learn, a fault in my character perhaps. But it was nice while it lasted, wasn’t it. Should I go to the German legation?’
‘Don’t be like that, Renate. You’d never come out and you know it.’
‘Then what?’
‘There’s surely an American consulate in Budapest, I’ll get in touch with them as soon as we’re settled in the hotel.’
‘But the chartered aeroplane is gone, Fredric. It’s gone, it flew away to Paris. And, when I looked at the notice board in the airport, every flight, it seems, requires a transfer in Berlin. Where will I go?’ She was, he thought, close to tears, but would get no closer.
He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re going with me,’ he said.
The Astoria was almost full, but a small single room remained and Stahl took it. They didn’t unpack, they sat side by side on the edge of the bed and schemed. There was no telephone in the room, so Stahl went down to the desk and placed a call to the American consulate. The woman who answered the phone was, by her accent, American, and Stahl spoke English with her. She knew who he was, and told him he could see a consular officer that afternoon. America would help them, he believed, but, just in case, he booked a call to Buzz Mehlman. ‘As soon as the foreign operator gets through,’ he told the hotel clerk, ‘please call me. I’m in room sixty-five.’
It was three-thirty by the time he reached the American consulate, six-thirty in the morning Pacific Coast Time, so he was safe there because he’d called Buzz at the William Morris office. The consular official was a young fellow called Stanton, and he, a committed movie fan, was eager to help. Yes, he would telephone Mr Wilkinson at the Paris embassy but he doubted there was much he could do, this problem had to be dealt with locally. Stahl explained what had happened in the airport but went no further. It was Renate Steiner who needed help, because the Reich officials were being… Stanton filled in the word: ‘Difficult?’
‘A polite word,’ Stahl said. ‘At least that.’
‘Okay,’ Stanton said. ‘Basically you and your friend have to get out of Hungary, and the difficulty here is that she’s technically a German citizen. Now what I can do is this: I’m going to approve a visa for her to travel to the US, giving us at least some official standing to intervene with the authorities in Budapest — they don’t have to honour the German request.’
‘How long will that take?’
Stanton drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I always hope for days, but I’ve seen days become weeks. Still, it’s a chance. And once the Hungarians release her, you can charter another aeroplane and fly right over Hitler.’
‘This is very good of you,’ Stahl said. ‘I think I’ll go back to the Astoria and bring her over here.’
‘See you later,’ Stanton said. ‘And now I can write to my mom in Ohio and tell her I met Fredric Stahl.’
On the street outside the consulate was a long line — people applying for American visas. The line disappeared around the corner, Stahl had no idea how far it went after that.
At the hotel, he told Renate to grab her passport and they would go immediately to the consulate. She had set her suitcase on the luggage rack and unpacked a few things. ‘Do you think you could lend me a handkerchief?’ she said. ‘I seem to have left mine back in the room.’
‘Of course,’ he said, put his suitcase on the bed and opened it up. Renate, standing by his side, said, ‘What’s that?’
‘An automatic pistol that Polanyi gave me.’ After a brief search, he found a handkerchief, handed it to her, and said, ‘Now can we go?’
By 5.15, Hungarian time, Renate had a visa to travel to America. If she could ever get out of Hungary alive. At 7.40, Stahl’s call to the William Morris Agency was put through and he went down to a telephone cabin in the lobby. The secretary who answered the phone found Buzzy right away. ‘Fredric? Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s a long story, but what’s happened is that I’m with a woman friend, we were shooting on location in Hungary, and the border officials won’t let us out.’
