Free Blood of Victory by Alan Furst Page B

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