Of Irish Blood (37 page)

“No one following us,” he said. “A little holiday for Madame without her husband,” he added while grinning at me in the rearview mirror.

I’m not an adulterous wife, I wanted to say. I’m a secret agent. I mean, is everything about
l’amour
in this city?

But not one of the men rushing out of the station even glances at me, though Maud’s Paul Poiret dress is very becoming and I carry the parasol with a certain flair if I do say so myself. I guess it’s
bonjour
to
l’amour
these days.

I look up at the statues that sit on the roof of the station. Two female figures. One represents the city of Verdun, the other Strasbourg.

Very formidable women both of them. No dalliances for them. Look at the arms on the one labeled Strasbourg. Not happy that the Boche hold her city. She’d like to go into battle herself instead of having to wait to be rescued.

Well, lady, I say to her, here’s one of your own sex ready to fight. And it’s with a distinctly martial tread that I enter the train station.

Crowds of people coming at me—all of them seem to be coming from the direction I’m heading, getting off trains from Berlin, Budapest, Belgrade, and Istanbul too, judging from the fellow with the fez who walks toward me trailing women and children and porters carrying suitcases and baskets and long wrapped packages. And he’s not the most laden.

Dozens of family stand surrounded by boxes and trunks. Fathers shout in bad French. I don’t need Madame Simone’s bones to feel war approaching. The French papers keep saying if Germany declares war, the army will attack the Germans on all fronts. Stop the Boche and do it fast. The crowds at the Gare de l’Est don’t seem to agree.

The Orient Express lives up to Maud’s description. I feel as if I’m entering the lobby of the Palmer House, only it’s on wheels.

I find a porter and stand in the corridor rattling on to him in English about how lovely the train is and I’m so glad I bought a first-class ticket. Two men in dark overcoats walk past me speaking to each other in German.
“Amerikanische,”
I hear. Very disdainful. Good. I hope any other German agents or English spies on the train see me as a featherbrained American woman who has no idea she’s heading into a Europe that’s on the brink of mobilizing for war.

“Mobilize.”

Abstract to me until the train reaches the French-German border. Through the window I see a troop of about, I don’t know, a thousand German soldiers, marching along the railway tracks behind ten officers on horseback who wear helmets with pointed spikes on the top.

Are they meeting the train? I wonder. Following it?

The German police board the train and walk from compartment to compartment. I’m glad I had the sense to sit with two of the few women on the train. Mother and daughter, I’d say, and not short of money from the look of their clothes. They too have Louis Vuitton hand luggage and parasols. I’d kind of shaken Maud’s train case and parasol at them as I came into the compartment. The older woman nodded me into their space but hadn’t spoken to me.

The policeman who stands in the doorway of our compartment is a tubby fellow, barely able to button his uniform tunic. Not very fearsome until he looks through the window at the troop of soldiers who’ve stopped on the road across from the platform, then back at us and smiles. Jesus.

The policeman bows to the older woman. She hands him her passport and he takes it in both of his hands.
“Danke, danke,”
I hear.

I pick out “Baroness” from the policeman’s jumble of German. I try to give the impression that I’m traveling with the women, catching the girl’s eye and smiling as the policeman
“danke”
s her mother again, hands back the passport, and turns. It doesn’t work. Very stern and correct with me the policeman is, and again jerks his head toward the army troop outside. He ignores my outstretched passport. I thank God I have a proper document. This fellow would disdain Judge Craig’s letter. The policeman starts asking me questions in German. Of course, I don’t understand a word of it. I keep repeating “I’m going to Strasbourg for Easter” in English, but he only talks over me; then he waves away my passport.

“He wants to know where you are going,” the baroness says in English.

“I told him, to Strasbourg for Easter.”

Another question.

“Where do you come from?” she translates.

“Paris,” I say.

Which seems to annoy him.

“Is that your birthplace?” the woman says.

“Oh dear God no, America,” I say, “born and raised.” Again I try to hand my passport to the policeman.

Finally, he takes it, turns the pages over, holds up the photograph, looks at me.

“American,” I say again.

“Tell him what city,” the woman says.

“Chicago,” I say.

Another rush of German from the policeman. But finally I hear a word I recognize: Milwaukee. And then, am I hallucinating? Schlitz Beer.

“He says…” the baroness begins.

“It’s okay, I understand.”

I point to the policeman and say, “Milwaukee?” And then point to myself: “Close to Chicago, my home.” Nice and slow and loud.

“He doesn’t understand English,” the baroness says. “No matter if you screech at him or drag out your words.”

Screech? That’s a little harsh, I think. But the baroness takes over and before long I find out that this fellow’s brother does indeed live in Milwaukee and works as a brewer at Schlitz. The policeman gives me back my passport and he’s gone. The train moves away, the army troop doesn’t.

It’s a good fifteen minutes before I thank the baroness.

“At first, he thought you were English. Not good to be English in Germany now,” she says.

“Oh,” I say. “But you speak English so well.”

“I had a British governess. A most bossy woman. Typical of her countrymen. You know it’s the English who are pushing the Russians to make war on us,” she says.

“Oh,” I repeat. Seems the safest response.

“Very disappointing,” she says. “England should be our natural ally, two Saxon nations, but they feel entitled to rule the world so stir up the Russians. Of course, the French already see a Boche under every bed and if they can count on the British army, well, who knows what the fools will do!”

The young woman says something to her mother.

“She wants to know what America is like,” the baroness says.

“Well, policemen don’t get on trains and check your papers and scare the life out of you, I can tell you that.”

And yet if that fellow worked alongside his brother at Schlitz, he’d probably be a perfectly nice man. The baroness tells me I will enjoy Strasbourg and to be sure to have a meal of
Flammekueche
, sauerkraut, and
Gerwürztraminer
wine. She has me write down the words.

“I’m extra grateful,” I say, and do a little bowing and scraping myself as I leave the compartment of the train.

More soldiers at the station. I note two of the pointy-hat fellows watching the passengers as they present their tickets. But they don’t stop me. Good. Step one.

Maud has made a reservation for me at a small hotel. It must be a very old part of the city because all the buildings are half-timbered like paintings of England in Shakespeare’s times.

The desk clerk speaks to me in French, which suddenly sounds wonderfully familiar. “I’m just staying overnight,” I say. “Going to the eleven o’clock Easter Mass.”

That’s where I’m to meet the agent, a shivery word, in front of the astrological clock near the Tower of the Angels, at 12:30.

I tell the clerk I’d like to find a restaurant that serves, and I read from my paper, “
Flammekueche,
sauerkraut, and
Gerwürztraminer
.”

“You mean
tart
flambé,
” he says, “and
choucroute
.”

“I do?”

He tells me that Alsatian food is delicious but I cannot go out to dinner here if I am alone.

He’s speaking quick French, but I get the gist. Any restaurant I go to will be full of German soldiers eating and drinking. Wouldn’t I like a tray in my room with all the Alsatian specialties?

I mention the tour boat I saw offering a ride on the canals surrounding the city.

“Non,”
he says,
“Non. Non. Beaucoup le Boche.”

So all I see of Strasbourg is the view from my window. Even Matisse would have a hard time making something from the wall I’m facing. But the food is good.

Hard to fall asleep with the envelope with the ten-thousand-dollar draft under my pillow. But I finish the
Gewürztraminer
and that makes me nicely drowsy. Another reason to stay dead in France, I think. No wine in Chicago.

I’m up and out early. The sun is bright on the white buildings all crisscrossed with dark wooden braces. I understand why the French want this city. It is beautiful. I find the cathedral, which looks very like Notre-Dame. The same rose window, gothic arches, and the spires. But this cathedral’s made of a pinky stone that seems to glow this Easter morning. Dim inside except for the paschal candle’s pinpoint of flame near the altar.

Very fancy vestments on the whole load of priests who process onto the altar as the service begins.
Introibo ad altare Dei.
The Latin of the Mass is familiar but one vigorous-looking priest preaches the sermon in German. Lots of German soldiers in uniform throughout the congregation. They stare up at him. Something martial in the words booming down from the pulpit. I imagine the French military men attending Mass in Notre-Dame de Paris at this moment. Praying for peace? Probably not. Victory, whatever that means.

A crowd gathers in front of the famous astrological clock after Mass. What a stupid place to meet my contact, I think. And so typically Maud—always overly theatrical. Why not one of the dark corners in the back? No one in Strasbourg has taken the least notice of me since I left the train, but what if someone in this crowd sees an odd exchange between two strangers? Plenty of Boche soldiers around me right now. Are they looking at me? “The Germans are convinced every British tourist is a spy because, well, German tourists often do collect intelligence,” Maud had told me. “They might suspect Americans too.”

“So being an innocent traveler won’t protect me if I’m caught?” I asked her.

“Don’t get caught,” she said.

So I’m very alert and determined not to be distracted by the mechanical show.

But once the figures start moving, I’m transfixed.

First an elaborately painted angel rings a bell, which makes a second angel appear. Then Death moves forward to observe a parade representing the span of life—a child, a young man, an adult, and old man pass by. After them, all twelve apostles assemble in front of Christ. The crowd claps. No one else hears the woman next to me say in careful English, “It took over two hundred and fifty years to build this cathedral.” The code phrase.

“My country’s not even two hundred years old yet,” I say.

She hands me a guidebook.

“Perhaps you’d like to read more.”

I take the book and sit down on a rush seat to look at it. She wears a hat with a veil over her face. She’s older than I am, I’d say, and screens me with her body as I slip the envelope with the check into the book, close it, and hand it back to her.

“Thank you,” I say. “Fascinating.”

She is putting the book into her bag when I feel a tap on my shoulder. Damn. A German soldier. Officer I’d say from all the gold braid on the sleeve of his uniform.

“You are English?” Gargling the words. Not a linguist, this fellow. He carries one of those spiky helmets. Tall, not bad-looking in a stiff, stone-faced kind of way with gray hair. Too old to be just flirting with me. Trouble.

“English? Me? Good lord, no. I’m an American, General, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Now, don’t tell me. You have a cousin in Milwaukee, right? One of the Schlitzes maybe or Pabsts? Haven’t had a chance to try your beer yet, but that
Gerwürztraminer
packs quite a kick and…”

Of course he hasn’t the slightest notion what I’m going on about but
“Gerwürztraminer”
registers. “You drink wine?” he says.

“That’s why I’m in Strasbourg. Go to Mass, drink, eat
flammekueche
and sauerkraut. That’s me.”

Oh dear God what am I doing? Answering questions he hasn’t even asked me. Making him suspicious. Which he is.

“Show me your papers! Passport, train tickets!”

Great. Well, God forgive me, but I put my hand right on his decorated sleeve and look up into his eyes and say, “Oh General, I left all my documents at the hotel! I’m such a birdbrain, I was afraid I’d lose them.” Smiling like a fool.

But I can see that the woman in the veiled hat, my contact, is well away now. I squeeze his other arm, the one he’s got wrapped around the spiky helmet. Am I overdoing it? He calls over another soldier. Again I play the idiot woman. This man’s English is better. He repeats, “Birdbrain. What is that?” I shrug my shoulder, point to my head. “Flighty,” I say.

They confer.

“You will take me to your hotel,” the general says.

“Wonderful,” I say, “you can look over my papers while we drink
Gerwürztraminer
.”

So now I’m walking through Strasbourg on the arm of a Boche officer.

The clerk at my hotel does not approve.

Mein Herr is all ready to accompany me up to my room, but I manage to settle him down at a table in the lobby.

I go up to the clerk. “Wine for the general,” I say loudly. The clerk only stares.

“I’m in trouble,” I whisper in French. “Got to get this fellow drunk.”

The clerk nods.

“I’ll be right back,” I say to the general and hurry to my room.

I throw my things into Maud’s train case. The Orient Express leaves at 4:00 p.m., it’s 2:00 now. Have to distract this fellow and then give him the slip. How far does a Daughter of Erin have to go?

A tall silver bucket on the table, linen napkins, two glasses. The clerk’s French, after all, can’t keep himself from setting a lovely table.

I sit down and hand my passport to the general. The way he stares at the open page I can tell he can’t read a word but he recognizes the ticket folder that says Orient Express.