Free Mission to Paris by Alan Furst Page B

Renate Steiner. Thank you for coming out here.’ She stood and said, ‘Let me find you a place to sit,’ walked to the end of the table and whipped a caveman’s bearskin off a chair. As she moved her own chair to face his, she said, ‘Not too much trouble finding me?’
    ‘Not so much – I’m used to studio lots.’
    ‘Yes, of course. Still, people get horribly lost out here.’ She settled herself in the chair and took off her silver-rimmed glasses.
    She was in her early forties, he guessed – a few silver strands in dark hair stylishly cut to look chopped off and practical – and wore a blue work smock that buttoned up the front. Sitting close to her, he saw that she was very fair-skinned, with a sharp line to her jaw and a pointy nose that suggested mischief, the tip faintly reddened in the chill of the unheated room. Her eyes were a faded blue, her smile ironic, and subtly challenging. The face of an intellectual, he thought – she would be partial to symphonies and serious books. She was dressed for the chill, in a long, loose skirt, thick black wool stockings, and laced, low-heeled boots. She wore no make-up he could see but somehow didn’t need it, looking scrubbed and sensible.
    ‘So then,’ she said. ‘ Après la Guerre , an appealing title, isn’t it, what with … everything going on right now. What do you think of the script?’
    ‘I’ve read through it a couple of times, and I’m almost done with the book – normally I would have finished it but it kept putting me to sleep.’
    ‘Yes, I felt the same way, but the script is better. Much better, would you say?’
    From Stahl, a nod of enthusiasm. ‘It has real possibilities, depending on who directs – Jules Deschelles was going to tell me who will replace Emile Simon but so far he hasn’t. A lot will depend on how it’s shot, on the music, and … but you know all that. You’ve been doing this for a while, no?’
    ‘Ten years, give or take. I started in Germany, with UFA, but we, my husband and I, had to leave when Hitler took power in ’33. We weren’t the sort of people he wanted in Germany – my husband was a journalist, a little too far to the left. So, late at night, we ran like hell and took only whatever money we had in the house. I wondered if we weren’t just scaring ourselves with this whole Nazi business but, a month after we left, some of our old friends disappeared, and you know what’s gone on there since ’33. After all, you’re from Vienna, or so I’ve read, anyhow.’
    ‘I left when I was sixteen, but that had to do with family, not politics. Later I went back for a few years, then lived in Paris before they brought me out to Hollywood.’
    ‘Do you like it there?’
    ‘I try to. I don’t think anybody actually likes it, not the people I talk to. Mostly they feel some mixture of gratitude and anxiety, because it pays a lot but after a while you discover it’s perilous – you can really say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and it’s probably wise to understand that a career in movies is temporary. On the other hand, I like America. Well, I like Americans , I’m not sorry to be one of them, as much as I am.’
    She shrugged. ‘You’re an émigré, like us. I don’t suppose you’d prefer to speak German, we can.’
    ‘Oh no, I have to speak French right now, think in French as much as possible.’
    She was silent for a moment, then, for no particular reason, smiled at him. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I suppose we have to go to work, get you measured up to be Colonel Vadic. Where’s he from, your colonel?’
    ‘“A Slav” is all it says in the script. In the book he’s from somewhere in the Balkans.’
    ‘Deschelles saw something there, in the book, let’s hope he was right,’ she said, then stood and drew a rolled yellow tape measure out of the pocket of her smock. ‘Could you stand in front of my mirror?’
    Stahl stepped onto a wooden platform in front of the mirror. Renate Steiner took a