Mission to Paris: A Novel Read online

  He’d come a long way to get there. When he was twenty and working at the legation in Barcelona, the war ended, the Central Powers had lost, and the legation gave all its employees steamship tickets to the Austro-Hungarian port of Trieste. From there, Stahl had made his way to Vienna. Returned home, where to his mother he was a prodigal son, to his father a self-indulgent wastrel. He managed to live at the family apartment for a few weeks, then fled to stay on friends’ couches, and finally found a room in a cellar, half of which was given over to the storage of potatoes. A stage-struck friend – from one of the most aristocratic and impoverished families in the city – had taken to hanging around the great Viennese theatres, the ‘Burg’ and the Volksoper, and Stahl joined him and found an occasional job as an extra. He couldn’t sing, but enthusiastically mimed the words, and it was always good to have a handsome face in the crowd cheering the king. He carried his first spear in Aida, wore his first muttonchops – and had his first addictive sniff of the spirit gum that stuck them to his face – in The Merry Widow. In time, he won dramatic roles at some of the city’s smaller playhouses, worked hard, was noticed in reviews, and began to build a career.

  He loved acting.

  He’d been born to act – at least he thought so but he wasn’t the only one. It was the pure craft of it that excited him. When the circuits closed between actor and audience, when a line drew a laugh or, better, a gasp, when a pause lasted for precisely the right interval, when lines were picked up smartly from fellow players, when a silent reaction meant more than spoken words, he felt, and began to crave, that excitement. He loved also – that month anyhow – an actress named Berta and, in the spring of 1923, Berta decided to try her luck in Paris and Stahl went with her. There they lived passionately together for six weeks, almost, until she seduced a successful playwright and left for a better arrondissement. But Stahl wasn’t going anywhere. When he’d arrived in Paris it was as though a switch had been thrown in his life: everything at home and in school that had been ‘wrong’ with him was now somehow right.

  He worked hard to speak decent French, discovered the cafés where theatre people went, became one of them, and found roles he could play, even if he had to memorize his lines phonetically. By 1925 he’d been recruited for his first work in film – silent at the time, which forced the actors to communicate with face and body. Then, after Warner Bros.’ The Jazz Singer in 1928, the dam broke – the first French talking picture, Les Trois Masques, appeared in 1929. Later that year, Stahl had the lead role in his first sound film: the wealthy owner of a factory (Stahl) secretly goes to union meetings, falls in love with a tough slumgirl factory worker, defends the dignity of the working class, loses his family and his factory, runs away with the girl, and is shot dead at a street march in the last scene. And then, who happened to be in Paris on the honeymoon of his third marriage but Milt Freed, an executive at Warner Bros.

  Despite the fact that he and his new wife spoke only the most basic restaurant French, they took in a movie.

  ‘Stalka! Franz Stalka!’

  Stahl had just entered the hotel lobby. Shocked at hearing his real name, he stared at the man who’d called out to him: a chubby fellow with a shining bald head and a fringe of grey hair. Who was this, rising from a lobby chair, newspaper still in one hand, a huge grin on his face? Stahl had no idea, then he almost remembered, and then he did. Last seen, what was it, twenty years ago? By now the man was hurrying towards him.

  ‘It’s me, Stalka, Moppi, you can’t have forgotten!’ This in pure Viennese German.

  ‘Hello, uh, Moppi.’ This sudden incarnation was Karl Moppel, his boss at the Austro-Hungarian legation in Barcelona, lo these twenty years ago. A man he’d always called Herr Moppel, though he vaguely remembered other people at the legation using the nickname.

  Moppi shook his head. ‘Ach, I should have called you Fredric Stahl – of course I’ve followed your career. What are you doing in Paris?’

  ‘I’m here to make a film.’

  ‘Fantastic. I’m so proud of you, we’re proud of you, all the old gang.’

  ‘I’m glad, that’s very kind of you to say.’

  ‘Can we have coffee?’ Moppi said, looking at his watch. ‘I’m supposed to meet somebody but she hasn’t shown up.’

  ‘Let’s just sit in the lobby, all right?’

  ‘Of course. I can’t believe I’ve run into you.’ They took two chairs separated by a rubber tree. ‘I’ve often wondered what became of you, over the years. Then, maybe five or six years ago, I saw your picture on a poster at a movie theatre and I thought, I know that fellow! That’s Franz Stalka, who worked for us in Barcelona. I was delighted, really, delighted. What a success you’ve become.’

  ‘What brings you to Paris, Moppi?’ Something inside Stahl curled up and quivered when he said that silly name.

  ‘Me? Oh, I work in the embassy now. Still a diplomat, old Moppi. It was the Austrian embassy but it’s German now, since the Anschluss in March.’

  ‘Were you pleased, when that happened?’

  Moppi looked serious. ‘It was unsettling, I’ll tell you that, and I didn’t like it at all, not at all. But you know, Franz – may I call you Franz?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘The political situation was very bad, we were on the brink of civil war in Austria and, in a way, Hitler saved us. Anyhow, beyond flags and things like that it doesn’t mean very much. Except calm and prosperity – how does one go about disliking that, I ask you?’

  ‘It would be difficult,’ Stahl said.

  Moppi sat back and gazed affectionately at Stahl, then slowly shook his head. ‘Just imagine, I know a Hollywood star.’

  ‘I’m the same person,’ Stahl said. ‘Older.’

  Moppi roared and wiped his eyes. ‘Yes, isn’t it so, I try not to think about it.’

  Now Stahl looked at his watch.

  ‘I’ll bet you’re busy, a fellow like you,’ Moppi said.

  Stahl offered a smile of regret that meant yes, he was busy.

  ‘Say, I have an idea, before you rush off. Some of the old gang from the military intelligence are in Paris now, one’s a diplomat, another has business here, why don’t we get together for a grand Parisian lunch? Talk over old times.’

  ‘From the what?’

  ‘Why our section at the legation – what did you think we were about?’

  ‘Moppi, I opened the mail.’

  ‘Yes you did – the so-called “Señor Rojas” writes to the consul, the so-called “Señor Blanco” requests a visa to visit his poor mother, “Señor Azul” has inherited a small house in Linz. That was what you called “the mail”, Franz, some of it, the important letters. Just the day-to-day details of a military intelligence section, quite humdrum in fact. No shooting, eh?’ He laughed.

  Stahl sat there, his mind working at all this when a well-dressed woman came quickly towards them. ‘Oh, Moppi, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I could not find a taxi.’

  ‘Look who’s here, Hilda!’ Moppi said, then, ‘Moppi, manners. Frau Hilda Bruner, allow me to present Herr Fredric Stahl.’ He beamed.

  The woman blinked and stared. ‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘You’re the movie star.’

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ he said, just rueful enough. They shook hands, her hand was warm and she held tight for a moment longer than usual.

  Moppi looked at his watch, which was thin and gold and expensive. ‘Later than I thought,’ he said. ‘We’d better go off to the restaurant or we’ll lose our reservation.’ He put his hand out and Stahl shook it. ‘You will have a lunch with us, maybe next week, won’t you? At least say you’ll think about it.’

  ‘I certainly will … think about it, Moppi. Wonderful to see you. And a pleasure to meet you, Meine Frau.’

  Moppi reached into the side pocket of his jacket, produced a business card and handed it to Stahl. Then he took Frau Bruner’s arm and the two of them headed for the door. Moppi looked back at Stahl and smiled, then called out, ‘See you soo
n!’

  As Moppi and Frau Bruner left the hotel, Stahl retreated to his suite. He had no memory of any intelligence section at the Barcelona legation. He assumed that, as in any foreign outpost, the Austro-Hungarian diplomats, especially the army and naval officers, tried to learn what they could of Spanish political and military institutions, but Stahl could recollect no codes, no secret writing, no discussion of operations, nothing like that. He’d read the names of the addressees, opened the envelopes, sometimes looked at the first few lines to make sure they were going to the right person, then sorted them into the proper mailboxes, that was all. Maybe Señores Red, White, and Blue had sent letters, but that meant nothing to an eighteen-year-old clerk. When the mail was done, he’d filed papers, emptied wastebaskets, delivered envelopes in the city, run errands, did whatever they told him to do. Yet this man Moppi – good God! – wanted him to believe he’d been involved in clandestine work, because … Because why? Because it made him vulnerable? Vulnerable to what? Some byzantine form of blackmail? Well, they could forget that. He’d never loved Austria, had disliked the smug hypocrisies of its culture, and now he hated what it had become: a land of Nazi Jew-baiters and book-burners. So he wasn’t going to have lunch or any other contact with Moppi and his pals. He would be polite, distant, and impossible to approach, and that was that.

  The Claridge version of a desk, an escritoire with glassed-in bookcase above the hinged writing surface, was by a window and Stahl set Moppi’s business card down on the polished wood and had a good look at it. The address was the German embassy on the rue de Lille. The card itself was impressive, printed on heavy stock, the letters sharp black against a crisp white background. Like new, he thought. And, when he picked up the card and held it at eye level, he caught a faint whiff of fresh ink.

  24 September. Now, finally, he could go to work. He’d been invited to a one o’clock lunch with Jules Deschelles, the producer for Après la Guerre. Deschelles had his office at 28, rue Marbeuf – just up the street from the hotel – a turn-of-the-century building with a doorway flanked by a wholesale butcher and a men’s haberdashery. Not fancy here, commercial and busy, which allowed Deschelles to pay a reasonable rent for an Eighth Arrondissement address. Crossing the first courtyard, Stahl found a second, then walked up to the fourth floor. Spotting a door with PRODUCTIONS on it he reached for the doorknob, only then noticing that it said PRODUCTIONS CASSON. Wrong producer! He knew of Jean Casson, who made dark, tasty little films about Parisian gangsters with hearts of gold and wildly stunning girlfriends. PRODUCTIONS DESCHELLES was further down the hall, past a spice importer and a travel agency.

  In the office there was a tough old bird of a secretary and Deschelles himself. He was about Stahl’s age, an ascetic sort of man, tall, thin, and exceptionally pale, with a scholar’s face – a scholar of some very esoteric subject – and glasses with fine silver frames. He seemed, to Stahl, finicky, holding his head back when he spoke, pursing his lips as he listened. Without ceremony, Deschelles handed him a copy of the script, Fredric Stahl carefully written in the upper corner of the cover. ‘I thought about mailing a script to you in Hollywood,’ Deschelles said. ‘But it wasn’t any good. Do you know of Etienne Roux?’

  Stahl didn’t.

  ‘He wrote the novel Trois Soldats, three soldiers, and a first draft of the screenplay. This is a second version, by two Parisian screenwriters who’ve been produced a dozen times.’ Deschelles stood up, retrieved a book from a pile on the windowsill, and handed it to Stahl. ‘Look it over if you have a moment, but eventually I’d like to have it back.’

  Stahl opened the book to the first page:

  At the end of the war, three soldiers found themselves far from home and penniless. Their enlistments were up, they had long been separated from their regiment, and they were, despite all the battles they’d fought, alive. This they had not foreseen, but soon set about making plans to find their way back to their native land.

  ‘Roux attempted the universal,’ Deschelles said. ‘The time was modern but unspecific, there were no nationalities, and the countries they passed through were not named. Very poetic, you could say, but my screenwriters had no patience for that. They rewrote it so the war now ends in 1918, the soldiers are in the French Foreign Legion, and the movie opens with them in a Turkish prisoner-of-war camp. They try to get—’

  ‘Yes, that was in the synopsis.’

  Deschelles went on to discuss the director, Emile Simon, who Stahl had never heard of but, as Deschelles described his career, was a familiar type – one of those dependable, competent technicians that no film studio could live without. He’d made a number of films, one of which Stahl remembered – it had played in American theatres – but had not seen. ‘He’s Belgian, from Antwerp,’ Deschelles said. ‘Not in any way the eccentric genius, far from it. Emile is good-natured, easy to work with, and he’s never made an actor look bad.’ After a moment, Des chelles added, ‘And he is very excited at the prospect of working with you, as all of us are. It will add a dimension to this film we never thought we’d have. A surprise, of course, but the best kind of surprise.’

  ‘A surprise?’ Stahl said. ‘What they said in California was that Paramount started this project with the idea that I’d be in it. Not so?’

  Deschelles hesitated, then proceeded carefully. ‘Ah, it’s my understanding that the idea came from Warner Bros. There was negotiation as to which Paramount actor could do a film for Warner, and that turned out to be Gary Cooper.’ He paused, then said, ‘We had originally cast Pierre Langlois as the lead, Monsieur Stahl, we’d signed a contract. And Pierre wasn’t so pleased to lose the role and Paramount had to find him something else.’

  ‘Really,’ Stahl said, because Deschelles had gone silent and he had to say something. ‘I wasn’t aware of all this. You’re sure?’

  ‘I am. Well, maybe better to say as sure as anyone can be in this business. As you know, some films, by the time they reach the movie theatres, have led very complicated lives. Yet, even so, there on the screen is the most tender love story, or a great battle between a hero of the people and a wicked king.’ After a moment, he said, ‘You’re not, um, disappointed, are you?’

  Stahl smiled and said, ‘Far from it.’ In his imagination he could hear Buzzy Mehlman’s voice: Just do the movie, Fredric, let me worry about what goes on behind the scenes.

  Deschelles looked relieved – Stahl’s delivery of the far from it line had been persuasive. ‘You’re aware,’ he said, ‘that a French production is often chosen, by the American award committees, as the best foreign film of the year – since 1931 that’s been true. Perhaps Warners sees it from that angle; success in France, followed by success in America, and then in the international markets. Which will make you more valuable, in future productions.’

  Stahl nodded in agreement, but this was courtesy. Somebody wasn’t telling the truth and, if he understood what Deschelles had said, that somebody was Walter Perry. Buzz Mehlman had a very wry touch when it came to the mechanics, and the ethics, of the film business and Stahl could imagine him saying, ‘What? A movie studio lied? Oh no!’ Nonetheless, here he was, in Paris with a contract and a movie to be made: this was his career, but he had no idea how to protect himself. In fact, he’d been put in a position where he had to do as the studio wished. Once again, in Stahl’s imagination, a dark grin from his agent. As the silence in the office grew, Deschelles finally said, ‘Shall we go out and have something to eat?’

  They left the office, walking towards the river on the sunny, windy afternoon, Deschelles chatting about the other people who would be working on the film, Stahl responding now and again, the script and the novel firmly beneath his arm. Eventually they arrived at a Lebanese restaurant and settled in at a table. ‘I hope you like Lebanese cuisine,’ Deschelles said.

  Stahl said he did.

  As he looked over the menu, Deschelles said, ‘I always order the mezze, but the portions are generous so, if you don’t mind, I’ll get one order we ca
n share.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all.’ This wasn’t true, Stahl very much liked the little appetizers served as mezze, but producers as a class, spending a lot of money every day, could be stingy in small matters. When Deschelles excused himself to go to the WC, Stahl opened the script and paged through it, stopping to look at some of his character’s lines. COLONEL VADIC, as the script had it, is at a castle in Hungary, and explains how he, as a Slav, rose to command – normally reserved for French officers. Wounded in battle, he was declared ‘Français par le sang versé’ – French by spilled blood – which in the Foreign Legion qualified him to become an officer.

  Deschelles returned, a delicious mezze arrived soon after – stuffed grape leaves, salty white cheese, falafel – Stahl’s favourite, mashed chickpeas fried up in little pancakes – and hummus, Stahl’s other favourite. As the main course was served, ground lamb and pine nuts baked in layers, Deschelles nodded his head towards a nearby table and spoke in a confidential voice, ‘I think you’ve been spotted.’

  As Stahl followed Deschelles’s eyes, a man sitting alone at the table became interested in his newspaper. ‘He knows who you are and he wants to stare,’ Deschelles said, ‘but that’s very rude here. He’s avoiding us now, because he’s been caught at it.’ Stahl had been stared at many times in public, but some sort of intuition suggested that this man wasn’t a movie fan, he was something else.

  For dessert, they shared three small squares of baklava.

  Back at the Claridge, Stahl was headed for the elevator when the manager called out to him, ‘Oh Monsieur Stahl.’ Stahl went over to the desk. ‘A letter for you, sir, delivered by hand. The messenger asked that it be given to you in person.’

  Stahl thanked him and went up to his suite. Inside a manila envelope, a formal envelope held a folded note card: on the front, printed in some elaborate form of italic: The Baroness Cornelia Maria von Reschke und Altenburg. When he opened the card he found the message: French written in careful, spidery script: ‘My dear Monsieur Stahl, I can only hope you will forgive an invitation on such short notice but I’ve just now learned that you are in Paris and I am a most devoted admirer of your films. I am having a cocktail party at six tomorrow evening and would be so very pleased if you would join us. Please telephone my secretary, Mlle Jeanette, at INV 46-63 if you would like further information.’ The signature, Maria von Reschke, was a thing of beauty, as was the address, a street in the Seventh he had never heard of.