Blood of Victory (8 page)

They were right. Serebin tossed his valise in the back of the cab and climbed in after it. “In the rue Dragon,” he said. “Number twenty-two.” As the driver started the engine, a woman came to the passenger side window. A Parisian housewife, she wore a wool scarf tied over her head and the ubiquitous black coat, and carried a string bag of battered pears and a
baguette
. She broke an end off the bread and offered it to the dog, who took it gently in his mouth, dropped it between his paws, and looked up at the driver before licking the crust. “You are very kind, madame,” the driver said gravely, putting the car in gear.

He drove off slowly, down a street with a few people on bicycles but no other cars at all. The taxi was a
gazogène,
a tank of natural gas mounted upright in the lidless trunk, its top rising well above the roof. Gasoline was precious to the Germans, and the allocation for occupied countries was only two percent of their use before the war.

Across the Pont d’Austerlitz, then along the
quai
by the river, low in its walls in winter, the water dark and opaque on a sunless afternoon. For Serebin, every breath was gold.
This city.
The driver took the Boulevard St.-Germain at the Pont Sully. “Come a long way?”

“From Istanbul.”

“Bon Dieu.”

“Yes, three days and nights.”

“Must have been a pleasure, before the war.”

“It was. All red plush and crystal.”

“The Orient Express.”

“Yes.”

The driver laughed. “And beautiful Russian spies, like the movies.”

They drove very slowly along the boulevard, through the 5th Arrondissement and into the 6th. Serebin watched the side streets going by; rue Grégoire de Tours, rue de Buci—a shopping street, rue de l’Echaudé. Then the Place St.-Germain-des-Prés, with a Métro station and the smart cafés—the Flore and the Deux Magots. Then, his very own rue du Dragon. Cheap restaurant with neon signs, a club called Le Pony—it was clearly a nighttime street, with the usual Parisian tenements crowded together above the sidewalk.

“Here we are,” the driver said.

The Hotel Winchester.
Le Vanshestaire,
a hopeful grasp at English gentility by the owners of 1900, now run-down and drifting just below
quaint
. Serebin paid the driver and added a generous tip, took his valise and briefcase, and entered the musty old lobby. He greeted the
propriétaire
behind the desk and climbed five flights to his “suite”—two rooms instead of one and a tiny bathroom.

In the bedroom, he went directly to the French doors that served as windows, opened them, and looked out into the street. His red geraniums, the famous
Roi du Balcon,
king of the balcony, had been dutifully watered during his absence but they were fast approaching the end of their days. In the room, a narrow, creaky bed with a maroon coverlet, an armoire, things he liked tacked to the wall—a Fantin-Latour postcard, an ink drawing of a nude dancer, an old photograph of the Pont Marie, an émigré’s watercolor of the Normandy countryside, a publicity still from a movie theatre, Jean Gabin and Michelle Morgan in
Port of Shadows,
and a framed Brassaï of a pimp and his girl in a Montmartre café. He had a telephone, a clamshell used as an ashtray, a Russian calendar from 1937.

Serebin looked out at the wet cobblestone street, at the half-lit windows of the shops, at the gray sky and the falling snow.

Home.

8 December. The social club of the International Russian Union was on the rue Daru, a few doors down from the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the Russian Orthodox church in Paris. Inside, a few men played cards or read and reread the newspaper.

“I can’t believe you came back.” Ulzhen looked gloomy, a Gauloise hung from his lips, there was gray ash on the lapels of his jacket.

Serebin shrugged.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I had to leave, but I didn’t like it where I went, so I came back.”

Ulzhen shook his head—who could talk to a crazy man? Boris Ulzhen had been a successful impresario in St. Petersburg, staged ballets and plays and concerts. Now he worked for a florist on the rue de la Paix, made up arrangements, delivered bouquets, bought wreaths and urns from émigrés who stole them from the cemeteries. His wife had managed to smuggle jewelry out of Russia in 1922 and by miracles and penury they made the money last ten years, then tried to go to America but it was too late. Ulzhen was also the director of the IRU in Paris, nominally Serebin’s boss but, more important, a trusted friend.

“Terrible about Goldbark,” he said.

“It is. And nobody really knows why it happened.”

“It happened because it happened. Next it will happen to me and, you know what? I wouldn’t care.”

“Don’t say that, Boris.”

“Send the crate of eggplants. I’ll tip the deliveryman.”

Serebin laughed. “You’ll survive. Life will get better.”

“We hardly have heat. My daughter is seeing a German.” He frowned at the idea. “Last year she had a Jewish boyfriend, but he disappeared.”

“Probably went to the Unoccupied Zone.”

“I hope so, I hope so. They’re going to do to them here what they did in Germany.”

Serebin nodded, the rumors were everywhere.

“Better not to talk about it,” Ulzhen said. “When’s the magazine coming out?”

“As soon as I do the work. Maybe after Christmas.”

“Be nice for Christmas, no?”

“I suppose.”

“Got anything special?”

Serebin thought it over. “About the same.”

“It’s good for morale, what with winter coming. Not much festive, this year. So, at least a few poems. What about it?”

“I’ll try.”

“I’d be grateful if you would,” Ulzhen said.

“Boris, I want to get in touch with Ivan Kostyka. I called at the office on Montaigne but they said he wasn’t in Paris.”

For a long moment, Ulzhen didn’t answer. “What do you want with him?”

“It’s business,” Serebin said. “I met somebody in Istanbul who asked me if I could contact him. If Kostyka likes the idea there might be a little money in it for me.”

“You know what he is?”

“Everybody knows.”

“Well, it’s your life.”

Serebin smiled.

“Let me see what I can do. Maybe stop by tomorrow, or, better, Thursday.”

“Thank you,” Serebin said.

“Don’t thank me, it’s not free. You have to try to get some money for us. We’ve got to do Christmas baskets, a hundred and eighty-eight at last count.”

“Jesus, Boris—so many?”

“Could yet be more. Now, I have a friend I can call, but, if Kostyka agrees to see you, you have to take that filthy sonofabitch by the heels and give him a good shake.”

“I will, I promise.” Serebin glanced at his watch. “Look, it’s almost one o’clock, let me buy you lunch.”

Ulzhen shook his head. “Save your money.”

“Come on, Boris, I’m serious. Black market lunch.”

Ulzhen sighed. “Three-thirty, I have to be at the store.”

9 December. Dinner at Chez Loulou, deep in the medieval lanes of the 5th Arrondissement. Before the war, a mecca for the daring American tourist: checkered tablecloths, candles in wine bottles, expensive food, nasty waiters, bohemian adventure thick in the air. And not much had changed. Here was
Leutnant
Helmut Bach, of the city’s most recent tourist invasion, arriving for dinner with a black turtleneck sweater beneath his satin-collared overcoat and a beret set at a rakish angle on his Teutonic head.

“Ilya! Am I late? I’m so sorry—the Métro...”

No, Serebin was early. And, not incidentally, two
pastis
to the good.

Beneath the Pigalle
apache
costume was a Saxon in his early thirties. Pale brown hair—cut close on the sides, wispy on top, blue eyes, brass rod for a spine, and an air of quivering anticipation, expectancy; something wonderful must happen,
soon
. A functionary in the diplomatic administration—it had to do with protocol, official visitors—Bach had come looking for Serebin not long after the combat Wehrmacht had been replaced by an occupation force. Serebin couldn’t help liking him, and the biography of Rilke was real, an autographed copy on Serebin’s bookshelf.

“Lately I’m working on Rimbaud. Ach, freedom. In the words, in, the
veins
. You don’t read it, Ilya, you breathe it in.” His eyes were wounded, a rose flush across the tops of his cheeks. “Why are we Germans not like that?”

So you can love that. But Serebin didn’t say it. After all, this was only dinner talk, and not so bad. It went reasonably well with the
pâté
of hare, with the duck
aux olives
and cabbage fried in the dripping, with the pear tart. Helmut Bach
snowed
ration coupons, and ascended to fierce courtesy when Serebin tried to produce his own. Look, he was damned sorry that his unromantic countrymen had beaten the French army and taken Paris but really what the hell could either of them do about that?

Serebin liked the dinner, and he ate with pleasure, except for a few moments when the conversation scared him. Maybe
scared
wasn’t the word,
alerted
might be better. In fact, he was only just beginning to understand what his affiliation with Polanyi was going to mean.

“You know, Ilya, I’m trying to teach myself Russian—the only way to understand why Russians love Pushkin, so they say. Would you be offended if I asked you to help me out? A word or a phrase, now and then? A rule of the grammar?”

That wouldn’t have bothered the old Serebin, but now he wondered what, if anything, it might mean. Just as it wouldn’t have bothered the old Serebin to ask Ulzhen a favor, because the old Serebin wouldn’t have lied to a friend about what he was doing. But he had lied, and he didn’t know exactly why.
To protect Boris Ulzhen.
Did it? Really?

And there was worse to come.

“So then, you must tell me about your journey to decadent Bucharest.” Were the papers correct, the accursed
Ausweis,
all that kind of thing? To think, that a man had to get permission—to travel!

He hadn’t stayed long. Went on to Istanbul.

“Ah. And did you see your friend, your woman friend?”

Had he told Bach about Tamara? Well, maybe. He had all his life told all sorts of people all sorts of things. They crossed his mind like shooting stars, were said, forgotten. Could there be people who remembered,
everything
? God, he hoped not.

Bach’s voice was delicate. “Her condition, is improving?”

“Actually, it’s not so good. One can only hope for the best.”

“Not so good, Ilya?”

“No.”

“You must not think me intrusive, but there is a famous doctor in Leipzig, an old friend of my family. He is known to be the most brilliant internist in Europe, with access to every kind of specialist, no matter where—Leipzig, Heidelberg, Berlin. As a favor to me, he will see her.”

“Very kind of you, Helmut.”

“What friends do! You could bring her to Leipzig, everything would be arranged.”

“Well...”

“Please, Ilya, think seriously about this. You might be asked to give a brief talk—with a translator, of course. Just coffee and cakes, a few of your admirers. Small price for a friend’s health, no?”

Serebin nodded slowly, feigned uncertainty, a man not entirely sure of what he ought to do. The kitchen door thumped open and shut as a waiter came out with a tray. Bach threw his hands in the air, his face lit with excitement.

“Ilya!
Tarte aux poires!
”

14 December. The evening train to St. Moritz had only three cars and stopped at every mountain village, one prettier than the next. Strings of lights glistened on the snow, the harness bells of a horse-drawn sleigh jingled in the frozen air. Once, amidst the rhythm of the idling locomotive, Serebin could hear an accordion in a tavern by the station, where a Christmas wreath with a burning candle hung in a window. When the train left, crawling slowly around the long curves, there was moonlight on the forest. Serebin shared the compartment with two Luftwaffe officers, their skis and poles standing in the corner. In silence, they stared out the window.

From Paris to the eastern border, the towns were dark, streetlamps painted blue—landmarks denied to the British bomber squadrons flying toward Germany. There’d been a long stop at Ferney-Voltaire, the last German passport
Kontrolle
in France, while Gestapo officers searched the train, looking for people who were not permitted to leave. Then another stop, even longer, at the border
contrôle
in Geneva, while Swiss officers searched the train, looking for people who were not permitted to enter.

Serebin dozed, tried to read a short story submitted to
The Harvest,
the IRU literary magazine, found himself, again and again, looking out at the night. He’d met the infamous Ivan Kostyka on four or five occasions, over the years. The first time in Odessa—a story assigned by
Pravda
on the visit of “the renowned industrialist.” So, they’d wanted something from him, and sent Serebin along as a token of their high esteem. Then, in Paris, during a cultural conference in 1936, a lavish party at Kostyka’s
grand maison
in the 8th Arrondissement. Next, a year later, in Moscow, where Serebin was one of twelve writers invited to an intimate dinner, essentially furniture, as Kostyka met with captains of Soviet industry. Finally in Paris, the spring of 1940, Kostyka embracing his Russian heritage at the IRU Easter party and making a donation that was just barely generous. But then, Kostyka was known to be a genius with numbers, especially when those numbers counted francs or roubles.

Or dollars, or pounds, or drachma, lei, or lev. By then, Kostyka knew who Serebin was, or, at least, the people around him did. Claimed he’d read Serebin’s books and found them “stimulating, very interesting.” It was possibly the truth. One of the versions of Kostyka’s life had him born in Odessa, to a Jewish family, poor as dirt, called Koskin. However, cosmopolitan figures who moved in powerful circles were often believed to be Jews, and Kostyka had never revealed the secret of his birth. Another version had him born Kostykian, in Baku, of Armenian descent, while a third favored Polish origins, Kostowski, somewhere near the city of Zhitomir.