told me then that in the early days of the war he'd decided to enlist to defend Belgium, his country, while imbued with patriotic spirit. But as soon as he heard the crack of the first cannons, he immediately crossed to Holland and sought asylum. I feigned a certain disdain.
"I need you to do my hair."
In fact, I desperately needed to regain some self-esteem until my luggage arrived. The money Franz had given me was enough to keep me going for one or two months while I thought of a way to return to Paris. I asked where I could stay--temporarily, since I had at least one friend there, and he would help me until things calmed down.
One year later, I was settled in The Hague, thanks to my friendship with a banker I'd met in Paris. He'd rented a house for me where we used to meet. At one point, he stopped paying the rent without saying exactly why, but perhaps it was because he considered my tastes, as he'd once told me, "expensive and extravagant." In reply, I told him: "Extravagant is a man ten years my senior wanting to regain his lost youth between the legs of a woman."
He took that as a personal insult--which was my intention--and asked me to move out of the house. The Hague had already been a dreary place when I'd visited as a child; now--with rationing and the absence of nightlife due to the war raging in neighboring countries with increasing fury--it had turned into an old-age home, a nest of spies, and a massive bar where the wounded and deserters went to drown their sorrows and get into brawls that usually ended in death. I tried to organize a series of theatrical performances based on ancient Egyptian dances--since no one knew how they danced in ancient Egypt and the critics couldn't dispute its authenticity, I could do this easily. But theaters had little in the way of audiences and no one accepted my offer.
Paris seemed like a distant dream. But it was the only true north in my life, the only city where I felt like a human being and everything that means. There, I was allowed both what was accepted and what was sinful. The clouds were different, the people walked with elegance, and conversations were a thousand times more interesting than the dull discussions in The Hague's hair salons, where people hardly spoke for fear of being heard by someone and reported to the police for denigrating and undermining the country's neutral image. For a while, I tried to inquire about Maurice Van Staen. I asked a few school friends who had moved to Amsterdam about him, but he had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth with his henna techniques and his ridiculous fake French accent.
My only way out now was to get the Germans to take me to Paris. And so I decided to meet with Franz's friend, first sending a note explaining who I was and requesting his help to realize my dream of returning to the city where I had spent much of my life. I had lost the weight I'd gained during that long and dark period; my clothes never made it to Holland and, even if they arrived now, they would no longer be welcome. The magazines showed that the fashion had changed, so my "benefactor" had bought me all new things. Not of Parisian quality, of course, but at least the seams didn't rip at the first movement.
When I entered the office, I saw a man surrounded by every luxury denied to the Dutch: imported cigarettes and cigars, libations from the four corners of Europe, cheeses and charcuterie that had been rationed in the city's markets. Sitting behind a mahogany desk with gold filigree was a well-dressed man, more polite than any of the Germans I had ever met. We exchanged pleasantries and he asked me why it had taken me so long to visit him.
"I didn't know you were expecting me. Franz..."
"He told me you would come one year ago."
He got up, asked what I would like to drink. I chose aniseed liqueur, which the consul served himself in Bohemian crystal glasses.
"Unfortunately, Franz is no longer with us; he died during a cowardly attack by the French."
From the little I knew, the rapid German onslaught in August 1914 had been held at the Belgian border. The idea of reaching Paris quickly, as the letter I had been entrusted with read, was now a distant dream.
"We had everything so well planned! Am I boring you with this?"
I asked him to continue. Yes, I was bored, but I wanted to get to Paris as soon as possible and I knew I needed his help. Ever since I'd arrived in The Hague I had to learn something extremely difficult: the art of patience.
The consul noted my look of ennui and tried to summarize what had happened as much as possible. They had sent seven divisions to the West and advanced onto French territory with speed, getting as far as fifty kilometers from Paris. But the generals had no idea how the General Command had organized the offensive, and that brought a retreat to where they were now, close to a territory bordering Belgium. For practically one year, they hadn't been able to move without soldiers on one side or the other being massacred. But no one surrendered.
"When this war is over, I'm sure that every village in France, no matter how small, will have a monument to their dead. They keep sending more and more people to be sliced in half by our cannons."
The expression "sliced in half" shocked me, and he noticed my air of disgust.
"Let's just say that the sooner this nightmare is over, the better. Even with England on their side, and even though our stupid allies--the Austrians--have their hands full trying to halt the Russian advance, we will win in the end. For this, however, we need your help."
My help? To stop a war that, according to what I'd read or heard at the few dinners I attended in The Hague, had already cost the lives of thousands? What was he getting at?
Suddenly I remembered Franz's warning, which reverberated inside my head: "Do not accept anything Kramer might propose."
My life, however, could not get any worse. I was desperate for money, with no place to sleep and debts piling up. I knew what he was going to propose, but I was sure I could find my way out of the trap. I had already escaped many in my life.
I asked him to go straight to the point. Karl Kramer's body stiffened and his tone changed abruptly. I was no longer a guest to whom he owed a bit of courtesy before addressing more important matters; he began to treat me as his subordinate.
"From your note, I understand you wish to go to Paris. I can get you there. I can also get you an allowance of twenty thousand francs."
"That's not enough," I replied.
"This amount will be adjusted as the quality of your work becomes apparent and the probationary period is completed. Don't worry; our pockets are lined with money when it comes to this. In return, I need any sort of information you can get in the circles you frequent."
Frequented, I thought to myself. I didn't know how I would be received in Paris after a year and a half; especially when the last news anyone had of me was that I was traveling to Germany for a series of shows.
Kramer took three small flasks from a drawer and handed them to me.
"This is invisible ink. Whenever you have news, use it, and send it to Captain Hoffmann, who is in charge of your case. Never sign your name."
He took a list, scanned it up and down, and made a mark next to something.