Blood of Victory (13 page)

Serebin ordered another Amalfi.

“My advice to you,” the colonel said, “is, stay out of the way.”

“Oh,” Serebin said, “we just want to talk to people, people who’ve helped in the past.”

“Surely not the same thing, not now. That was just, business. Commercial information, a little money in the right hands. I don’t think anybody really cared—it’s a way of life here.”

“What’s so different?”

“Everything.”

The old cellist lit a cigarette, holding it with thumb and forefinger, and smoked blissfully, leaning back in his chair, off in some other world. Serebin thought about what to say next.
Do the best you can,
Marie-Galante had told him on the train. Y
ou’ll just have to get your sea legs.

“We are realists,” Serebin said. “And we know it’s not the same, we know that some of the sources are no good now. And you’re right, colonel, this isn’t commerce, it’s politics, and that’s always been dangerous. But we do have money, and we will take good care of the people who help us. As you know, in times like these, money can mean, everything. So, if it used to be, say, five thousand Swiss francs, now it’s fifteen, or twenty.”

Momo Tsipler hit a dramatic chord on the piano and the Companions swung into the Offenbach theme, the
Mitteleuropa
version, clarinet leading the way, but emphatically the cancan.
“Animierdamen!”
Momo sang out—nightclub girls.
“Die Zebras!”

A dozen women came prancing and neighing onto the stage, then out into the audience. They were naked, except for papier-mâché zebra heads and little black and white shoes made to look like hooves. They went jiggling among the tables, playing with the patrons—a pat with a hoof, a nudge with a muzzle—whinnying from time to time, then galloping away.

The colonel’s voice rose above the hilarity. “Yes,” he said, “for some, perhaps, that would be sufficient.”

Madame Maniu leaned toward the colonel and spoke briefly in Roumanian.

Maniu nodded, then said, “I trust you understand our position in this. We will, of course, do whatever needs to be done.” His tone had stiffened, as though he were defending his honor.

“Well, yes, of course,” Serebin said.

One of the zebras came bounding to their table and, as she bent over the colonel and began to unknot his tie, Serebin found himself staring at an excessively powdered behind, which waggled violently and threatened to upset his Amalfi. Maniu smiled patiently, being a good sport his only option, while Serebin whipped the glass away and held it safely in the air. He was unaware of the expression on his face, but Marie-Galante watched him for a moment, then burst into helpless laughter. The zebra finally got the tie off and went cantering away with it, held high like a prize.

Marie-Galante wiped her eyes and said, “Oh dear God.”

The colonel persisted. “What I was going to say, was that we are very much indebted to Ivan Kostyka, but it has nothing whatever to do with money.”

In the center of the room, a great commotion. A zebra had snatched a pair of eyeglasses from a very fat man with a shaved head, who turned pink and tried desperately to look like he was having fun. And while he was perhaps too embarrassed to try to retrieve the glasses, his wife clearly wasn’t. She ran shrieking after the girl, who danced away from her, then climbed up on a table, put the glasses on the zebra head, and did a vivid dance on the general theme of myopia. Meanwhile, the Companions played away at full volume, the clarinet soaring to its highest register as the crowd cheered.

Maniu started to speak, but his wife put a hand on his arm, and they all sat back and watched the show. In time, the zebras went prancing off and, a few minutes later, a waiter appeared at the table, bearing Colonel Maniu’s tie on a silver tray.

“Our local amusements,” Madame Maniu said.

“Not so different in Paris,” Marie-Galante said. “It takes people’s minds off their troubles. Do you suppose that poor little man got his glasses back?”

“I expect he did,” Madame Maniu said.

“I promise you he did,” the colonel said. “That poor little man is something or other in the German legation.”

“Always politics,” Serebin said.

“Well, here anyhow,” Madame Maniu said.

“No, it’s everywhere.” Serebin finished his drink and looked around for a waiter. “Maybe time for the desert island.”

“I’ll go with you,” the colonel said. “But we better learn to speak Japanese.”

“You were telling us a story, colonel,” Marie-Galante said.

“Yes,” Maniu said, a sigh in his voice. “I suppose you should hear it. What happened to us was this: in the spring of ’38, Codreanu and his followers were arrested. Codreanu himself had murdered the prime minister, at the railway station in Sinaia, and he and his thugs were plotting to overthrow the king and take the country for themselves. So, certain trusted officers, and I was one of them, one of the leaders, managed this arrest, done in such a way that there was no violence. But the Iron Guard wouldn’t go away. Cheered on by their supporters—philosophy professors at the university, civil servants, just every sort of person, they assassinated Calinescu, the prime minister who’d ordered the arrest. Six months later, as the uprising continued, somebody lost patience with the whole business and Codreanu and his followers were executed. ‘Shot while trying to escape.’ Now that’s the oldest story in the world, and for all I know they may actually have been trying to escape, but true or not doesn’t matter. Codreanu was a threat to the state, so it was either that, or have him as dictator.

“The Iron Guard vowed revenge, it was like somebody had knocked down a hornets’ nest. One of their responses was to let it be known that I was involved in the original arrest. They didn’t come after me—maybe more couldn’t than didn’t, I was very careful—but our two daughters, in school in Bucharest, were harassed. By schoolmates and, far worse, even by some of the teachers. I mean, they
spit
on them, on
children
. When Kostyka found out about this, he arranged for them to go to boarding school, in England, where they are now. I suppose we could have gone as well, but I wasn’t going to be thrown out of my own country, you understand, not by these people. So, you see, our friend helped us when we were in trouble, and paid for it. Now, if we’re needed to do this work again, we’ll do it. But please, for God’s sake, be careful.”

“For now,” Serebin said, “we need only to know who we can trust.”

“For now?” The question mark was barely there—Maniu’s irony well tempered by courtesy.

“We’ll have to see,” Serebin said. “There may...” He stopped short as he saw the singer Valentina, working her way toward them through the crowd.

A waiter brought two chairs, and they all squeezed in together. The second chair was for the singer’s gentleman friend, gray and diffident, older—maybe fifty to her thirty, with stooped shoulders and a hesitant smile. “Gulian,” he said, introducing himself with a nod that passed for a bow, and said little after that. Across the table, Valentina was not much like the typical
chanteuse.
A studious girl, beneath the rouge and mascara, soft and pretty, probably Jewish, Serebin thought, and conservatory-trained, working as a nightclub singer because she needed the money.

Serebin ordered champagne, and Marie-Galante proposed a toast to Valentina. “To thank you for your song,” she said. “I am
Parisienne.
”

“Piaf is inspiring,” Valentina said. Like most educated Roumanians, she spoke reasonably good French. “I heard her in Paris. Twice. Before the war.”

“We’re at the Athenée Palace,” Serebin said. “Buying folk art for our shop on the rue de Seine.”

“Yes? That must be interesting.”

They managed to make small talk, just enough, Marie-Galante coming to the rescue each time it faltered, then Valentina excused herself—she must have a few minutes before the next show started.

When they’d gone, Serebin said, “Who is he?”

“A businessman,” Maniu said. “Very rich, one is told. And very private.”

Conversation continued, but Serebin’s mind wandered, here and there. The evening was winding down, he could feel it. Madame Maniu glanced at her watch and Colonel Maniu mentioned that he had a car and driver and offered them a ride back to the hotel, but Marie-Galante caught Serebin’s eye and he declined. Not long after that they said good night, and Serebin asked for the check.

As they headed for the door, Serebin looked back at the table. The waiter had collected what remained of the bottle of champagne, and the half-empty glasses, and was carrying them, very carefully, back to the kitchen.

It was long after midnight when they left. Snow was falling, soft and heavy in the night air, and the street lay in the still silence that comes with snow. A
trasuri,
a horse-drawn cab, stood alone in front of the Tic Tac Club.

Serebin helped Marie-Galante up the step. “The Athenée Palace,” he told the cabman. They sat close together on the old cowhide seat, and Marie-Galante rested her head on his shoulder. The cabman, in heavy mustache and crushed hat, flicked the reins and they moved off down the street.

It was so quiet they did not speak. The cold night smelled good after the smoky cellar. Serebin closed his eyes and, for a time, there was only the squeak of the turning wheels and the steady trot of the horse on the snow-covered pavement. When the horse slowed, abruptly, Serebin looked up to see where they were. They had come to an intersection, where the strada Rosetti met the Boulevard Magheru. Not far from the hotel, he thought. The horse went a little further, then stopped, its ears pricked for a moment, then flattened back against its head.
Now what?
The cabman made a clicking sound but the horse didn’t move, so he spoke to it, very gently, a question. Suddenly, Marie-Galante’s hand went rigid on his arm, so tight he could feel her fingernails, and he smelled burning. In the distance, a muffled snap, then another, and a third.

The cabman turned and looked at them. Calmly, Serebin waved him on, saying “Just go ahead” in French. The cabman called the horse’s name and it took a few steps, then stopped again. Now the cabman spoke to them. They didn’t understand the words but they could see he was frightened—of what lay ahead but, also, of disobeying well-dressed people who came out of nightclubs. “It’s all right,” Marie-Galante said. “It’s all right.”

He tried once more, this time cracking a green leather whip above the horse’s withers. The horse lowered its head and moved off at a fast trot. A minute went by, maybe whatever was going on, a few blocks away, was over. But it wasn’t. Somewhere in the next street, a sharp crack and a rolling echo, cut by the rhythmic thump of a machine gun, followed by shouted orders. The air above the cab sang for an instant and the horse twisted in its harness and reared up as the cabman fought the reins. The cabman’s eyes were wide when he turned around. “
Va rog, domnul,
” he pleaded. Serebin knew at least this much Roumanian, it meant “please, sir.” Up ahead, Serebin saw two shadows, running low from one doorway to the next. “
Va rog, domnul,
” the driver said, pointing to his horse. He repeated it, again and again, and Serebin could see he was crying.

“We have to get out,” Serebin said.

He climbed down, and helped Marie-Galante, who tried a few steps in the snow, then took her shoes off and walked quickly beside him. Behind them, the cabman turned the
trasuri
in a wide circle, then disappeared back down the street.

“I hate Bucharest this time of year,” Marie-Galante said, breath coming hard.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“For the moment.”

“Over there,” he said, heading toward the arched entryway of an apartment building. The arch covered a porte cochere, which ran some thirty feet back to a massive door with a griffon’s head on the iron ring that served as a handle. Serebin tried the handle, then pounded on the door.

He gave up, after a while, and they settled against the wall that supported the arch, deep in shadow. “I better put these back on,” Marie-Galante said, hanging on to Serebin and forcing one wet foot at a time into the suede heels. There was a brief silence, then the machine gun started up again, a series of three-round bursts that went on and on, and were joined first by scattered rifle shots, then a second machine gun, sharper and faster than the first.

The smell of fire intensified until Serebin’s eyes began to water, and a drift of black smoke floated over the snow. Across the street, a window on the top floor was cranked open, the creak of rusty metal absurdly loud against the background of gunfire. A silhouette with rumpled hair thrust itself out the open window, shook its fist, and shouted angrily. A second voice, a woman’s voice, shouted even louder, the silhouette disappeared, and the window was cranked shut.

Serebin laughed. Marie-Galante said, “And don’t ever,
ever,
let me catch you doing that again!” Then, a moment later, “You don’t suppose it’s going to be a
long
coup d’état, do you?”

“What we want now is daylight, that usually makes a difference.” He looked at his watch. “Almost two, so...”

“Three hours. Want to beat on the door again?”

“No.”

“Sing ‘Frère Jacques’?”

A beam of yellow light appeared on the street. It swept from one side to the other, returned, and went out. From the same direction, back toward the nightclub, came the irregular beat of an old car engine. “
Merde,
” Marie-Galante said. “We’re on the wrong side of this thing.”

The car crawled toward them, they pressed themselves against the icy stone wall beneath the arch, as far as possible into the shadow. “Don’t cross over,” Serebin said.

The car came into view, then stopped almost directly in front of the entryway. Painted on the door was a fiery crucifix crossing a dagger. “The Iron Guard cavalry,” Serebin said.

“Shh.”

The searchlight was mounted on the roof. As the car idled, it snapped on, probed the entryway, crept up the side of the building, then went off.

“They know,” Serebin whispered.
The door. A telephone call.