The World at Night by Alan Furst

Malmaison, Bougival, Louveciennes. The little restaurants facing the water had been for painters and dancers, once upon a time, but the money had always followed the kings, west from Paris and along the river, and eventually the cooks followed the money—the lobsters came and the artists went.
    “So,” Altmann said, “are you doing anything special?”
    “Not much. You’re still with Continental?”
    “Oh yes. Just the same as always. Everything changes, you know, except that it all stays the same.”
    Casson laughed. Altmann took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, shook it adeptly so that several popped up, and held it across the seat. Casson took one, Altmann lit it, then his own, with a polished lighter.
    “We’re bigger now,” Altmann continued. “There’s that difference. A good deal bigger, in fact.” A town fell away and they were in the countryside. Corot, Pissarro, they’d all painted up here. Autumn valleys, soft light, white clouds that rolled down from Normandy and lit up the sky. The most beautiful place on earth, perhaps. It struck Casson in the heart, as it always did, and he opened the window to get the glass out of his way. The car drifted to a stop as Altmann prepared to turn. There were yellow leaves on the road, little swirls of them when the wind blew, Casson could hear them scratching along over the rumble of the engine.
    They turned right, came back out on the river and headed west. Altmann drew on his cigarette, the exhaled smoke punctuated his words as he talked.
    “I hope you’re not waiting for me to discuss politics, Casson, because frankly it’s all gotten beyond me.” There was a man carrying a basket on a wooden footbridge that crossed the river. He turned to look at the glorious car, shifting the weight of the basket on his shoulder. “The things I’ve seen,” Altmann continued, “in Germany and France, the last five years, I really don’t know what to say about it.” He paused, then said, “It didn’t even occur to me that my phone call might offend you—but it does now, and if you like I’ll turn around and take you back to Paris. It’s just that I came back from Berlin and thanked God that Paris was as it always was, that nothing was burned or blown up, that I was going to be able to live here, on some kind of terms anyhow, and to make films. The truth is, you and I are lucky—we can simply get out of the world’s way while it destroys itself, we don’t have to be crushed by it. Or, maybe, I should turn around. It’s up to you, I’ll understand one way or the other.”
    “It’s too nice a day to go back to the city,” Casson said.
    “There’s bad blood between our countries, it’s no good, but it doesn’t have to be between us, does it?”
    “No, no, not at all.”
    Altmann nodded, relieved. On the left a cluster of houses, almost a village. Just on the other side, where the fields began, a restaurant, Le Relais. “Why not?” Altmann said. The tires crunched over the gravel by the entry as the Horch rolled to a stop.
    Inside it was quiet and it smelled good. A few local people were having lunch, they glanced up as Casson and Altmann came in, then looked away. The patron seated them in the bay by the front window, looking out over the flowers in the windowbox. Casson studied the handwritten menu, but there wasn’t much choice—basically the plat they’d cooked that day and a few substitutes, like an omelet that the kitchen could produce if you just had to have something else. So they ordered what there was—Altmann had a fistful of ration coupons—a platter of warm langouste, crayfish, not long out of the river, followed by an andouille, the Norman sausage the butchers made from the very bottom of the tub of leftovers, cooked in cider vinegar. All of it so good, in an off-hand way, that it made Casson lightheaded. For wine, what Le Relais offered was the color of raspberry jam, dry as a bone and sharp as a tack, in liter bottles without