Читать книгу Torch for a Dark Journey - Lionel Shapiro - Страница 6

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That stretch of the Meuse Valley where the river flows from the French frontier to Namur offers, on a fine summer day, a joyous view of rural Belgium. For a river so narrow and steeply banked, it is gentle; its movement is like a dog padding happily home. Any number of cottages and small hotels cling to these precipitous banks and teeter over the water. To the casual onlooker it would seem that their owners must have immense confidence in the amiable nature of the river, for a single irascible current might easily collapse the structures. That this doesn’t happen attests to its character. In the past houses have indeed tumbled into the stream but these mishaps were brought about by artillery shells, an explanation of which is unnecessary when one considers that the river connects the storied Ardennes with a fateful French town called Sedan.

On this day there was no artillery fire nor prospect of it, a circumstance which made the drive along the river road doubly pleasurable for an American named Philip Channing. Four and a half years before, in December of 1944, he had traveled the same road in an open jeep. Then the sky was dark and burdened with snow, and the threat of artillery fire was ever present because a German spearhead had thrust into the Ardennes as far as the town of Ciney, only ten miles to the east. He remembered that he had thought how beautiful it would be to drive along this road in lush summer when there was no war.

Now he was doing as he had dreamed he might. It was June of 1949, the sky was a luminous blue, the air warm, and to anyone intimate with the tragic history of this valley, peace was an invisible yet ardently living organism which garlanded the scene. His Citroën rolled easily on the road high above the east bank. The cottages and small hotels looked cheerful in new coats of paint, and the midday sun caused the river to sparkle with a brazen beauty like a pretty woman displaying too many diamonds.

It would be nice, he mused, to spend a day or two here, in a room which had the river flowing directly beneath its window. It would be more than nice. The war had never really ended for him as it did for the fighting soldiers. Some died and the rest went back home; for them the pattern was complete. He had been a war correspondent. After the surrender he had remained in Europe like an item of surplus supplies. He had roamed the ruins of Germany in search of stories; he had covered the Nuremberg trials, the stormy political conferences, and the riots in France and Italy. The shooting had stopped but the feel of war flowed on and he knew no sense of completion. If he could linger here contentedly, by this very river where his teeth had once chattered with cold and fear for his life, the full circle might be joined and the war might end for him.

But in peace no less than war foreign correspondents look at life, or death, and write it; they rarely touch it. Moreover, their editors refuse to recognize degrees of urgency. To Channing’s New York office everything was urgent, and an hour’s delay in the transmission of a picayune item was looked upon as a scurrilous betrayal of the public trust. He pushed ahead.

Approaching Dinant, he stopped at a roadside tavern. A garden attached to the tavern afforded a fine view of the river, and Channing took possession of a table and spread his road map over it. He sat in lonely grandeur, the only client in this charming place. When the tavern-keeper, a heavy individual whose blood-red countenance denoted a lifetime of good eating, had gone to fetch him a beer, he studied the map. Then he read for the fifth or sixth time the cable which that morning had launched him on his journey.

DROP LEOPOLD STOP PROCEED URGENTLY BONNAR ARGONNE PROVINCE FRANCE STOP TIPPED FAMED SCIENTIST KARLENE OUTSMUGGLED CZECHOSLOVAKIA ETCONTACTING UNISTATES OILMAN CLAYFIELD HOTEL SPA BONNAR STOP DOWNPLAY CLAYFIELD OIL ANGLE STOP OFFER KARLENE UPWARD ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REPEAT ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS EXCLUSIVE BYLINE SERIES SCIENTISTS LIFE BEHIND CURTAIN STOP IF UNWILLING RUSH OWN DEFINITIVE STORY.

BENDELS

He didn’t want to drop Leopold; he had spent a full week gathering material on the exiled monarch’s claim to the throne. Besides, he liked Brussels; it bubbled with a cozy gaiety which was a welcome change from the blatant night life of Paris. But Bendels was the boss, and if his tip on Karlene was genuine it would make a good story. He thought drearily on the time Bendels had sent him scurrying across the face of Europe to Vienna on a tip that someone knew where Martin Bormann was hidden. The journey ended in the house of an elderly Austrian whose only knowledge of Bormann consisted of the fact that his niece had been a scullery maid in the Nazi’s Berchtesgaden home ten years before. On the other hand it was a Bendels cable that had taken him to Messina in 1946 to unearth the best story of that year; it had made the front page of every client paper. One never knew about Bendels. How the man, sitting on the foreign desk in New York, smelled out these tips in odd corners of Europe was a mystery to Channing.

A tray with a glass of beer on it was placed before him by the thick hand of the tavern-keeper. The latter remained standing close to the table, waiting for his money. Channing tossed a ten-franc note on the tray. He did not touch the beer. If the man demanded immediate payment he would demand his change just as quickly.

The tavern-keeper caught up the note and dropped four francs in change.

He said in French, “You are an American.”

Channing nodded and sipped his beer.

The man said churlishly, “I suppose you are on your way to Bastogne. You want to know the route.”

Channing said, “I’m not going to Bastogne.”

“Then you are the only one. All the Americans go to Bastogne. Business is good there. One would think we didn’t suffer in the war. Only Bastogne.” He made a noise with his lips as if to spit.

“I’m going to Bonnar,” Channing said by way of cutting off the man’s complaint.

“The Spa Bonnar?”

“Yes.”

The other nodded, vastly impressed. “It’s very expensive—very expensive.”

Channing drained his beer. “What is the best road?”

“That is a question.” The tavern-keeper faced toward Dinant and pointed with his massive right arm. “The finest highway is through Beauraing. You enter France near Sedan, then follow the line of the frontier until you reach Bonnar. The shortest way, of course, is through Libramont and you cross the frontier directly at Bonnar. The road is not so good but you save an hour.”

Consulting his map, Channing said, “The Michelin doesn’t show a road going directly into Bonnar.”

“It is only a country road, not for tourists. But it is passable.” The man eyed the four francs still lying on the tray. “I wish you a good journey, m’sieu.”

Channing said, “Thank you.” He rose, leaving his change on the tray.

“It is I who thank you, m’sieu.” The tavern-keeper picked up the tray and flipped it so that the coins bounced neatly into his hand. “There’s four francs that won’t reach their greedy fingers in Bastogne.”

Channing drove through the cobbled streets of Dinant and turned away from the river toward Libramont. The wooded terrain of the Ardennes was lush with fresh summer greenery. No sign of war remained. Passing through the towns, he found them sleepy and content. The surrounding fields were neatly fenced and furrowed, as if men had never screamed and died here and made the earth wet with their blood. The urge to forget must be great, he thought; great and justified and peculiarly obscene.

Beyond Libramont the road became rough and dusty, and was empty of traffic except for an occasional cow. There were no towns in this area, only one or two hamlets to break the monotony of isolated farms and thick woods. He was not stopped at the Belgian border point. He passed into an open stretch of unplowed land and he spied in the distance a substantial building sitting majestically on a commanding height. This must be the Hotel Spa Bonnar, he reckoned. On the roadside well below the height of land he saw the French frontier post, a tiny hut which was distinguished by a flag fluttering limply in the summer breeze.

When he came closer he saw a narrow river flowing beneath the hotel, and on the opposite bank, clustered against the bend of the river, was the town of Bonnar.