Chapter One
HOTEL EUROPEJSKI
In the dying light of an autumn day in 1937, a certain Herr Edvard Uhl, a secret
agent, descended from a first-class railway carriage in the city of Warsaw.
Above the city, the sky was at war; the last of the sun struck blood-red embers
off massed black cloud, while the clear horizon to the west was the color of
blue ice. Herr Uhl suppressed a shiver; the sharp air of the evening, he told
himself. But this was Poland, the border of the Russian steppe, and what had
reached him was well beyond the chill of an October twilight.
A taxi waited on Jerozolimskie street, in front of the station. The driver, an
old man with a seamed face, sat patiently, knotted hands at rest on the steering
wheel. “Hotel Europejski,” Uhl told the driver. He wanted to add, and be quick
about it, but the words would have been in German, and it was not so good to
speak German in this city. Germany had absorbed the western part of Poland in
1795-Russia ruled the east, Austria-Hungary the southwest corner-for a hundred
and twenty-three years, a period the Poles called “the Partition,” a time of
national conspiracy and defeated insurrection, leaving ample bad blood on all
sides. With the rebirth of Poland in 1918, the new borders left a million
Germans in Poland and two million Poles in Germany, which guaranteed that the
bad blood would stay bad. So, for a German visiting Warsaw, a current of silent
hostility, closed faces, small slights: we don’t want you here.
Nonetheless, Edvard Uhl had looked forward to this trip for weeks. In his late
forties, he combed what remained of his hair in strands across his scalp and
cultivated a heavy dark mustache, meant to deflect attention from a prominent
bulbous nose, the bulb divided at the tip. A feature one saw in Poland, often
enough. So, an ordinary-looking man, who led a rather ordinary life, a
more-than-decent life, in the small city of Breslau: a wife and three children,
a good job-as a senior engineer at an ironworks and foundry, a subcontractor to
the giant Rheinmetall firm in Düsseldorf-a few friends, memberships in a church
and a singing society. Oh, maybe the political situation- that wretched Hitler
and his wretched Nazis strutting about-could have been better, but one abided,
lived quietly, kept one’s opinions to oneself; it wasn’t so difficult. And the
paycheck came every week. What more could a man want?
Instinctively, his hand made sure of the leather satchel on the seat by his
side. A tiny stab of regret touched his heart. Foolish, Edvard, truly it is. For
the satchel, a gift from his first contact at the French embassy in Warsaw, had
a false bottom, beneath which lay a sheaf of engineering diagrams. Well, he
thought, one did what one had to do, so life went. No, one did what one had to
do in order to do what one wanted to do-so life really went. He wasn’t supposed
to be in Warsaw; he was supposed, by his family and his employer, to be in
Gleiwitz-just on the German side of the frontier dividing German Lower Silesia
from Polish Upper Silesia-where his firm employed a large metal shop for the
work that exceeded their capacity in Breslau. With the Reich rearming, they
could not keep up with the orders that flowed from the Wehrmacht. The Gleiwitz
works functioned well enough, but that wasn’t what Uhl told his bosses. “A bunch
of lazy idiots down there,” he said, with a grim shake of the head, and found it
necessary to take the train down to Gleiwitz once a month to straighten things
out.
And he did go to Gleiwitz-that pest from Breslau, back again!-but he didn’t stay
there. When he was done bothering the local management he took the train up to
Warsaw where, in a manner of speaking, one very particular thing got
straightened out. For Uhl, a blissful night of lovemaking, followed by a brief
meeting at dawn, a secret meeting, then back to Breslau, back to Frau Uhl and
his more-than-decent life. Refreshed. Reborn. Too much, that word? No. Just
right.
Uhl glanced at his watch. Drive faster, you peasant! This is an automobile, not
a plow. The taxi crawled along Nowy Swiat, the grand avenue of Warsaw, deserted
at this hour-the Poles went home for dinner at four. As the taxi passed a
church, the driver slowed for a moment, then lifted his cap. It was not
especially reverent, Uhl thought, simply something the man did every time he
passed a church.
At last, the imposing Hotel Europejski, with its giant of a doorman in visored
cap and uniform worthy of a Napoleonic marshal. Uhl handed the driver his
fare-he kept a reserve of Polish zloty in his desk at the office-and added a
small, proper gratuity, then said “Dankeschön.” It didn’t matter now, he was
where he wanted to be. In the room, he hung up his suit, shirt, and tie, laid
out fresh socks and underwear on the bed, and went into the bathroom to have a
thorough wash. He had just enough time; the Countess Sczelenska would arrive in
thirty minutes. Or, rather, that was the time set for the rendezvous; she would
of course be late, would make him wait for her, let him think, let him
anticipate, let him steam.
And was she a countess? A real Polish countess? Probably not, he thought. But so
she called herself, and she was, to him, like a countess: imperious, haughty,
and demanding. Oh how this provoked him, as the evening lengthened and they
drank champagne, as her mood slid, subtly, from courteous disdain to sly
submission, then on to breathless urgency. It was the same always, their private
melodrama, with an ending that never changed. Uhl the stallion-despite the image
in the mirrored armoire, a middle-aged gentleman with thin legs and potbelly and
pale chest home to a few wisps of hair-demonstrably excited as he knelt on the
hotel carpet, while the countess, looking down at him over her shoulder,
eyebrows raised in mock surprise, deigned to let him roll her silk underpants
down her great, saucy, fat bottom. Noblesse oblige. You may have your little
pleasure, she seemed to say, if you are so inspired by what the noble Sczelenska
bloodline has wrought. Uhl would embrace her middle and honor the noble heritage
with tender kisses. In time very effective, such honor, and she would raise him
up, eager for what came next.
He’d met her a year and a half earlier, in Breslau, at a Weinstube where the
office employees of the foundry would stop for a little something after work.
The Weinstube had a small terrace in back, three tables and a vine, and there
she sat, alone at one of the tables on the deserted terrace: morose and
preoccupied. He’d sat at the next table, found her attractive-not young, not
old, on the buxom side, with brassy hair pinned up high and an appealing
face-and said good evening. And why so glum, on such a pleasant night?
She’d come down from Warsaw, she explained, to see her sister, a family crisis,
a catastrophe. The family had owned, for several generations, a small but
profitable lumber mill in the forest along the eastern border. But they had
suffered financial reverses, and then the storage sheds had been burned down by
a Ukrainian nationalist gang, and they’d had to borrow money from a Jewish
speculator. But the problems wouldn’t stop, they could not repay the loans, and
now that dreadful man had gone to court and taken the mill. Just like them,
wasn’t it.
After a few minutes, Uhl moved to her table. Well, that was life for you, he’d
said. Fate turned evil, often for those who least deserved it. But, don’t feel
so bad, luck had gone wrong, but it could go right, it always did, given time.
Ah but he was sympathique, she’d said, an aristocratic reflex to use the French
word in the midst of her fluent German. They went on for a while, back and
forth. Perhaps some day, she’d said, if he should find himself in Warsaw, he
might telephone; there was the loveliest café near her apartment. Perhaps he
would, yes, business took him to Warsaw now and again; he guessed he might be
there soon. Now, would she permit him to order another glass of wine? Later, she
took his hand beneath the table and he was, by the time they parted, on fire.
Ten days later, from a public telephone at the Breslau railway station, he’d
called her. He planned to be in Warsaw next week, at the Europejski, would she
care to join him for dinner? Why yes, yes she would. Her tone of voice, on the
other end of the line, told him all he needed to know, and by the following
Wednesday-those idiots in Gleiwitz had done it again!-he was on his way to
Warsaw. At dinner, champagne and langoustines, he suggested that they go on to a
nightclub after dessert, but first he wanted to visit the room, to change his
tie.
And so, after the cream cake, up they went.
For two subsequent, monthly, visits, all was paradise, but, it turned out, she
was the unluckiest of countesses. In his room at the hotel, brassy hair tumbled
on the pillow, she told him of her latest misfortune. Now it was her landlord, a
hulking beast who leered at her, made chk-chk noises with his mouth when she
climbed the stairs, who’d told her that she had to leave, his latest girlfriend
to be installed in her place. Unless … Her misty eyes told him the rest.
Never! Where Uhl had just been, this swine would not go! He stroked her
shoulder, damp from recent exertions, and said, “Now, now, my dearest, calm
yourself.” She would just have to find another apartment. Well, in fact she’d
already done that, found one even nicer than the one she had now, and very
private, owned by a man in Cracow, so nobody would be watching her if, for
example, her sweet Edvard wanted to come for a visit. But the rent was two
hundred zloty more than she paid now. And she didn’t have it.
A hundred reichsmark, he thought. “Perhaps I can help,” he said. And he could,
but not for long. Two months, maybe three-beyond that, there really weren’t any
corners he could cut. He tried to save a little, but almost all of his salary
went to support his family. Still, he couldn’t get the “hulking beast” out of
his mind. Chk-chk.
The blow fell a month later, the man in Cracow had to raise the rent. What would
she do? What was she to do? She would have to stay with relatives or be out in
the street. Now Uhl had no answers. But the countess did. She had a cousin who
was seeing a Frenchman, an army officer who worked at the French embassy, a
cheerful, generous fellow who, she said, sometimes hired “industrial experts.”
Was her sweet Edvard not an engineer? Perhaps he ought to meet this man and see
what he had to offer. Otherwise, the only hope for the poor countess was to go
and stay with her aunt.
And where was the aunt?
Chicago.
Now Uhl wasn’t stupid. Or, as he put it to himself, not that stupid. He had a
strong suspicion about what was going on. But-and here he surprised himself-he
didn’t care. The fish saw the worm and wondered if maybe there might just be a
hook in there, but, what a delicious worm! Look at it, the most succulent and
tasty worm he’d ever seen; never would there be such a worm again, not in this
ocean. So …
He first telephoned-to, apparently, a private apartment, because a maid answered
in Polish, then switched to German. And, twenty minutes later, Uhl called again
and a meeting was arranged. In an hour. At a bar in the Praga district, the
workers’ quarter across the Vistula from the elegant part of Warsaw. And the
Frenchman was, as promised, as cheerful as could be. Likely Alsatian, from the
way he spoke German, he was short and tubby, with a soft face that glowed with
self-esteem and a certain tilt to the chin and tension in the upper lip that
suggested an imminent sneer, while a dapper little mustache did nothing to
soften the effect. He was, of course, not in uniform, but wore an expensive
sweater and a blue blazer with brass buttons down the front.
“Henri,” he called himself and, yes, he did sometimes employ “industrial
experts.” His job called for him to stay abreast of developments in particular
areas of German industry, and he would pay well for drawings or schematics, any
specifications relating to, say, armament or armour. How well? Oh, perhaps five
hundred reichsmark a month, for the right papers. Or, if Uhl preferred, a
thousand zloty, or two hundred American dollars-some of his experts liked having
dollars. The money to be paid in cash or deposited in any bank account, in any
name, that Uhl might suggest.
The word spy was never used, and Henri was very casual about the whole business.
Very common, such transactions, his German counterparts did the same thing;
everybody wanted to know what was what, on the other side of the border. And, he
should add, nobody got caught, as long as they were discreet. What was done
privately stayed private. These days, he said, in such chaotic times, smart
people understood that their first loyalty was to themselves and their families.
The world of governments and shifty diplomats could go to hell, if it wished,
but Uhl was obviously a man who was shrewd enough to take care of his own
future. And, if he ever found the arrangement uncomfortable, well, that was
that. So, think it over, there’s no hurry, get back in touch, or just forget you
ever met me.
And the countess? Was she, perhaps, also an, umm, “expert”?
From Henri, a sophisticated laugh. “My dear fellow! Please! That sort of thing,
well, maybe in the movies.”
So, at least the worm wasn’t in on it.
Back at the Europejski-a visit to the new apartment lay still in the future-the
countess exceeded herself. Led him to a delight or two that Uhl knew about but
had never experienced; her turn to kneel on the carpet. Rapture. Another glass
of champagne and further novelty. In time he fell back on the pillow and gazed
up at the ceiling, elated and sore. And brave as a lion. He was a shrewd
fellow-a single exchange with Henri, and that thousand zloty would see the
countess through her difficulties for the next few months. But life never went
quite as planned, did it, because Henri, not nearly so cheerful as the first
time they’d met, insisted, really did insist, that the arrangement continue.
And then, in August, instead of Henri, a tall Frenchman called André, quiet and
reserved, and much less pleased with himself, and the work he did, than Henri.
Wounded, Uhl guessed, in the Great War, he leaned on a fine ebony stick, with a
silver wolf’s head for a grip.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from The Spies of Warsaw
by Alan Furst
Copyright © 2008 by Alan Furst.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Random House
Copyright © 2008
Alan Furst
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6602-5
