Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst

Author:Alan Furst [Furst, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alan Furst
Published: 2010-07-09T08:32:33.304000+00:00

The editorial meeting for the new Liberazione was at midday on the twenty-ninth of April. Weisz hurried to get to the Europa, but he was the last one there. Salamone had waited for him, and began the meeting as he was sitting down. "Before we discuss the next issue," he said, "we have to talk a little about our situation."

"Our situation?" the lawyer said, alert to a note in Salamone's voice.

"Some things are going on that have to be discussed." He paused, then said, "For one thing, a friend of Carlo's was questioned by a man who represented himself as an inspector of the Sitrete. There's reason to believe that he wasn't who he said he was. That he came from the opposition."

A long silence. Then the pharmacist said, "Do you mean the OVRA?"

"It's a possibility we have to face. So take a minute, and think about how things are going in your own lives. Your daily lives, anything not normal."

From the lawyer, a forced laugh. "Normal? My life at the language school?" But nobody else thought it was funny.

The art historian from Siena said, "It all goes on as usual, with me."

Salamone, a sigh in his voice, said, "Well, what's happened to me is that I've lost my job. I've been discharged."

For a moment, dead silence, broken only by the muted sounds of cafe life on the other side of the door. Finally, Elena said, "Did they tell you why?"

"My supervisor wouldn't quite say. Something about not enough work, but that was a lie. He had some other reason."

"You think that he, too, had a visit from the Sitrete," the lawyer said. "And not the real one."

From Salamone, spread hands and raised eyebrows. What else can I think?

This was immediately personal. Every one of them worked at whatever they could find�the lawyer at Berlitz, the Sienese professor as a meter reader for the gas company, Elena selling hosiery at the Galeries Lafayette�but that was common emigre Paris, where Russian cavalry officers drove taxis. Around the table, the same reaction: at least they had jobs, but what if they lost them? And as Weisz, perhaps the luckiest of them all, thought about Delahanty, the rest thought about their own employers.

"We survived Bottini's murder," Elena said. "But this . . ." She could not say, out loud, that it was worse, but, in its way, it was.

Sergio, the businessman from Milan, who'd come to Paris with the passage of the anti-Semitic laws, said, "For the moment, Arturo, you won't have to worry about money."

Salamone nodded. "I appreciate that," he said. He left it there,

but what didn't need to be said was that their benefactor couldn't support them all. "This may be the time," he went on, "for all of us to consider what we want to do now. Some of us may not want to continue with this work. Think it over, carefully. Leaving for a few months won't mean you can't return, and leaving for a few months might be what you should do.

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