He didn’t see her until the end of the week. He sat listlessly at his desk or lying on Karl’s bed, absorbed in his own mystery. The days were hot and dry, a steady wind scratching at everyone’s nerves. The talk was of drought and an outbreak of chicken pox in the school and the frequent caravans to Trinity. The scientists seemed never to appear, locked full-time in the labs. There were no parties. A fight broke out in one of the enlisted men’s barracks, something to do with an insult taken, but really about the new tension of the work and the constant dry wind that made everything feel as suspended as dust.
Connolly didn’t notice any of it. Something had detonated in him, like one of Kisty’s tests, and he sat shuffling through the pieces, repeating her conversations in his head, wondering what had been meant, what she wanted him to believe. Mills avoided him, sensing the black mood that was smothering him, and when Connolly noticed him at all, it was only as a figure of a more cheerful betrayal. He read through Emma’s file, and Daniel’s, as if they were new characters on the Hill, people he’d never met. Why had she married him? He’d never asked. How many others? The mood festered in him, silently, until the surprise and hurt became pure anger, and when that happened he stopped thinking about anything else.
One day he saw her walking past Ashley Pond and he wanted to run over and take her by the shoulders. Why did you lie to me? But he couldn’t bring himself to ask her, and he realized with a sick feeling in his stomach that it was because he still wanted her. The wind blew her clothes against her and there was that rider’s stride, quick and straightforward, utterly without deceit. But why lie? What had she to do with Karl, with any of it? He drew his imaginary blackboard map, but she didn’t fit anywhere. Instead, she was in another map, an X at Theater-2 and the punch bowl, lines to Santa Fe, to Chaco, to-and he saw that she was everywhere on this personal map, it was about her, everything that had happened to him. Was any of it true? Where had they gone? Maybe just a lift into town. But the soldier hadn’t thought so, with his stupid, sly grin. The MP at Trinity hadn’t thought so either. In this hot, lazy afternoon with nothing to do but brood, no one was innocent. Not even him. He’d just been the next in line.
When they did meet, he was disarmed by her smile, easy and guileless, as bright as the day. Daniel had gone down to the test site again, and they went to the ruins at Bandelier, dodging the hot sun on the shady path along Frijoles Creek, down toward the waterfall that finally emptied into the Rio Grande. She was glad to see him, talking happily about nothing, pleased to be out. She hiked briskly along the trail in the boots and shorts she had worn at Chaco, when things were different. But in fact it all seemed the same, so clear and bright that for a moment he felt the weight of the past few days was nothing but an anxious dream, one of those nights whose gloom and dread were burned off by morning. She laughed when she washed her face in the stream, splashing him. He watched her, how easily she moved through her part, and he smiled back, unwilling to let her see him watching. He wanted her to say something, a disingenuous moment, so he could begin, but she hiked back in high spirits, and he waited. They ate a picnic near the Tyuonyi kiva, again like Chaco, with the sun overhead. There were no sounds but the stirrings of lizards and the faint hot breeze that blew the cottonweed seeds like bits of snow.
“You can see why they’d come here,” she said, her voice lazy and contented. “Water. Bottomland. Storage bins.” She pointed toward the caves hollowed out in the soft lava tufa above them. “Nothing like Chaco.”
“But they left.”
“Yes,” she said, facing the sun with her eyes closed. “Strange, isn’t it?”
In the quiet they heard a muffled explosion from one of the distant test canyons, a wave of intrusion from the Hill. They looked toward the sound, alarmed, but then it was over and everything was still again. She leaned back, closing her eyes to blot it out.
“Did the Germans come here too?” he said, stalling.
“I suppose they must have,” she said, not opening her eyes. “Or maybe it was the priests. It’s always the priests, isn’t it? Some bloody archbishop leading them to the promised land. Some idea. The Navajos were frightened by it, when they came. Found all these ready-made cities and never moved in. Wouldn’t touch them.”
“Maybe they were the Germans.”
“No. At least, we don’t think so,” she said, a seminar we. “No sign of fighting at all. Anyway, they’re not like that. They’re lovely. In the creation myth, one part of the darkness makes love to another and the one on top becomes light and rises up to be the first day. It’s lovely, that,” she said, her voice soft. “Think of ours. God blundering about making this and that, busy. Everything done in a week. No wonder we blow things up.”
“What happens after they have sex, the dark and the light?”
“They make the wind, the life force. I love the Navajos for that-everything beginning in bed.”
“They really say that?”
“Of course,” she said lightly. “Would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know. Would you?”
She opened her eyes and looked at him, but he didn’t say anything more and she let it pass. “There’s quite a lot of sex in the myth. The earth and the sky make love, and the moisture between them, the sweat, waters the earth and makes everything grow. Do admit, it’s a lot nicer than God just waving his hand here and there, making zebras and things. It’s funny, though, they don’t seem sensual at all, the Indians. But I suppose they must be.”
Her voice drifted away, so that in the quiet it seemed she had been talking to herself. She sat up and lit a cigarette, staring out at the swath of green near the creek, waiting for him to speak.
“A penny for your thoughts,” she said finally. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Why should anything be wrong?”
“I don’t know. You’re all- coiled. You haven’t touched me all day, so something must be wrong. You’re not the Navajo type.”
He said nothing, working a stick in the ground, making idle patterns. “I want to ask you something, and I’m not sure how.”
He felt her stiffen beside him, an almost imperceptible movement, like one of the tiny lizards flitting behind a rock.
“Oh. Perhaps you’d better just ask, then.”
“Tell me about you and Karl.”
She exhaled smoke as if she had been holding her breath, and continued to look ahead. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Oh, everything.”
“You told me you scarcely knew him, but that isn’t true, is it? You were seen with him.”
“Quite the detective.” She paused. “Is it so important?” she said softly.
“Of course it’s important. He was murdered.”
“Well, I didn’t bloody murder him,” she said, facing him.
“Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie to you. It’s nothing to do with this. It wasn’t any of your business.”
“You did lie to me.”
“Have it your way, then,” she said, getting up. “It’s still none of your business.”
“Tell me,” he said, standing.
“What does it matter? It was over.”
“Tell me,” he shouted, his voice breaking through the still air like the far explosion.
“Tell me,” she mimicked. “All right, he was my lover. Better?”
Her words hung in the air, as if neither of them wanted to pick them up.
“Why?” he said finally.
“Why. Why. He asked me, I suppose. I’m easy. You ought to know.”
They glared at each other.
“Tell me,” he said quietly.
She broke the stare, looking down to rub out her cigarette. “Last year. A few times. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Maybe I didn’t want you to think I was that kind of girl.”
“Where?”
“Where?” she said, exasperated. “Places. There are places, you know.”
“Santa Fe?”
“Nowhere we’ve been, if that’s what you want to know,” she said angrily. “Someplace on the road to Albuquerque. Look, it happened. I can’t help that. It was over. What do the details matter? You’ve no right.”
“Yes, I do. Did you love him?”
“Stop it.”
“Did you?”
“Of course I didn’t bloody love him. We had sex. I enjoyed it. I didn’t enjoy it. Is that what you want to hear? Anyway, it stopped. I didn’t want Daniel to know. I was afraid.”
“You’re not afraid of anything.”
“I’m afraid of you,” she said, then looked away. “You want too much. ‘Tell me everything. Where did you go? Did you enjoy it? Were you ashamed?’ All angry and wounded, as if it had anything to do with you. I didn’t even know you. It had nothing to do with anybody, really. Except him. And then later he was killed. What did you want me to do, run over and tell everybody in security that we’d been having it off in some motel down the road? I was relieved. I thought nobody would ever know.”
“And it didn’t matter that there was a murder investigation?”
“Why should it? I didn’t know anything about that.”
“Even when they said it was a homosexual murder.”
She looked stunned. “What are you talking about?”
“They thought Karl was homosexual. They still do. They convicted a man because they thought it.”
“But why?” she said, bewildered. “That’s crazy. He wasn’t that.”
“You never told them otherwise.”
She shook her head, confused and angry. “That’s not fair. I never knew. You never told me, come to that. He was killed in the park-that’s all I ever heard. A robbery. Why would anyone think-” She trailed off, still trying to digest it.
“You’re sure.”
“What do you want to know?” she snapped. “What we did in bed? Is that part of the investigation? It was lovely, all right? Maybe he thought I was a boy. How would I know? It didn’t feel that way to me.”
“Emma, whoever killed him tried to make it look like that kind of crime. Probably so we wouldn’t look anywhere else. He succeeded. There was no reason to think otherwise, no-history. Until now. That’s why I had to know. That’s all.”
“Is it? Is that what this is about? I only went to bed with him, you know. I didn’t kill him.”
He turned away from her, squinting into the sun, his voice toneless and quick as he questioned her. “Did you go to Santa Fe with him that night?”
“No, of course not. It was over long before that.”
“Did you ever go to San Isidro?”
“No. Yes, I suppose so, when I first came here. Everybody does. Oh, what does it matter? Stop this.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t. You’re putting me on trial. For what? Did I hurt your feelings? Well, I’m sorry.”
“This isn’t about us.”
She was biting her bottom lip. “Isn’t it? I thought it was.”
“Emma,” he said patiently, “he wasn’t killed, he was murdered. That means there was a reason. It’s important. You’ve got to help me.”
She looked at him, disconcerted by his tone. “What do you want me to do? Tell the police I slept with him? That they’ve made a mistake?”
“No. It wouldn’t make any difference. They don’t care.”
She stared at him for a minute, taking this in. “But you do.”
“I just want to know.”
“No, that’s when you were just a cop. Now you’re judge and jury as well. I’ve told you-isn’t that enough? I went with him. I’ve done it before. You weren’t the first.”
“Why him?”
“I don’t know. He was good-looking. Maybe I was bored. It just happened. Is that so hard for you to believe?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Does it disappoint you? Did you think I was better than that?”
“It wasn’t like that,” he said evenly, sure now. “It didn’t just happen.”
“How would you know? Oh, you think you know something. You don’t know anything. Leave me alone.”
She turned to walk away but he grabbed her arm, bringing her back and holding her. “You’re lying to me again.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Just a casual fling? With Karl? No. Karl wasn’t like that. He liked to know things, that’s what he cared about. He knew something about you. So you slept with him. Because he made you. Or maybe it was your idea, to keep him quiet. That’s what happened, isn’t it? Was it your idea?”
“Leave me alone,” she shouted, pulling her arm free and moving away from him.
“What was it, Emma?” he said to her back. “What was so important that you’d do that? Did you give him money too, or was the motel enough?”
But she was walking away from him. “Go to hell,” she said. The low wall of the kiva stopped her and she stood against the piled stones looking down the canyon, not crying but heaving gulps of air. Connolly moved toward her slowly, afraid a quick movement would make her bolt. When he spoke his voice was gentle, soothing a startled horse.
“Emma, you’ve got to tell me. He was killed. You were the only one who knew him.”
“I didn’t know him,” she said, her back still to him. “I just slept with him. They don’t always go together. I thought I knew you.”
“Karl was blackmailing someone,” he began again. “He was getting money. If it wasn’t you, it was somebody else. Don’t you see what I’m saying? There’s somebody else. I’ve got to find out who. You’re the only one who can help me.”
She turned to face him, her eyes moist. “I can’t. Please.”
“But I will find out. You know that, don’t you? I’ve got to.”
“Why? Why you?”
“Because there’s been a crime and this isn’t just anyplace. It isn’t New York, it’s not even Santa Fe. It’s a weapons lab. That’s what they’re doing here. Not science. They’re making weapons. Secret ones. So everything’s different. Why do people get killed? Money? There isn’t any money here. Sex? Maybe. That would have been convenient for everybody. But what if it’s about the weapons? They can’t stop until they know. So they won’t. If it’s not me, it’ll be somebody else. Is there really anything so terrible you couldn’t tell me? You’ve got to trust me that much.”
“Do I?” she said, her face creased in a sarcastic smile. “I wonder why.”
“Because I’m going to find out anyway.”
She looked away, letting her shoulders slope wearily. “Yes, I suppose you will,” she said coolly. “For the good of the country or something. Nothing to do with you. A patriot. That was one lovely thing about Karl, he wasn’t a patriot. You can trust someone who doesn’t believe in anything. The rest of you-”
She walked back to where the remains of the picnic lay and lit another cigarette.
“Where do you want me to start? My first husband? He believed in everything. Mostly himself, it turned out.”
“You were married before?”
“Yes. Matthew. I seem to have a run of Ms. All great believers, too. Anyway, we were young-I suppose that’s no excuse, but we were-and he was a great rebel and so I adored him. He was fun. I don’t think you know how boring England can be. Sunday roast and all the eligibles in the Tatler and Matthew wasn’t having any of it. The people’s revolution was his line. God, all those treks to Highgate to see old Marx’s grave. My parents loathed him. So when he went off to Spain to fight the Fascists, naturally I went with him. My father always said I’d end up in Gretna Green-that’s where the wild girls elope to-but it turned out to be Madrid instead. That dreary registrar’s office. Not even a clergyman-you know how the comrades are about that. Actually, they weren’t very keen on marriage either, but free love in the trenches-well, it wasn’t madly me, was it? You can only take the country out of the girl so far. So there I was, Senora Matthew Lawson, International Brigade.”
“You were a Communist?”
She hesitated, as if his question had interrupted a reverie. “He was,” she said more seriously, drawing on her cigarette. “Party membership, the lot. You had to be, really, in the brigade. I was just-what? In love, maybe. Away. On my adventure. Not that I didn’t admire him for it. I did, tremendously. He believed in something. No one else seemed to. You know, the world is always coming to an end at that age and no one’s doing anything about it. Except then-well, it really was, wasn’t it? I thought he was right. Anyone could see the Germans were up to no good, and of course all the people one despised most didn’t seem to mind at all. Uncle Arthur. He actually went to the Olympics and said how inspiring it all was, the fool. That was typical. But Matthew, he knew, he actually did something. And then he was wounded. Nothing serious, a flesh wound it turned out, but I didn’t know that then. I thought he was going to die. You can see how romantic it was, me all weepy next to the cot in that awful field hospital and the comrades crashing around in Spanish, shooting anything that flew over, and my brave Matthew stopping the Fascists with his body while everyone back home was just out in the garden and being mean about the miners-oh, I was having my adventure. Sounds rather pathetic now, doesn’t it? It wasn’t, though. It was romantic. Exciting.”
She stopped, looking toward the creek as if it were the past, then shook her head. “Well, never mind. You don’t want to hear all that. You want to know about Karl. That was Berlin. We went to Berlin-I never knew whether it was Matthew’s idea or the party’s. The party’s, I suppose. I don’t know if he had any ideas by then. He liked being a soldier. It suited him. Which is odd when you think of it, since he’d never obeyed an order in his life. But now he did. I suppose he thought they were moving him back from the front lines to some other unit. Anyway, we went. Not so romantic this time, though. It was useful to them to have an Englishman there. The Huns always gave us a wide berth-I suppose they thought we were all like Uncle Arthur. The German comrades couldn’t do much. I think they were paralyzed with fear. I know I was. But Matthew-well, naturally he was up for anything. I’d no idea what he was actually doing-he kept telling me it was better my not knowing, but of course that only meant I imagined the worst. I hated it. Terrible little flats. Not that I minded that, really. I was doing a course at the university, that was our cover, and students weren’t expected to live high. And God knows it was better than Spain. Berlin was pretty. If you weren’t being thrown into jail, you could have a good time there. But I hadn’t come for any of that. I was just-isn’t it awful? I suppose I was actually a camp follower, just like those women they used to drag along. Except my soldier was never there. He was always out fighting the good fight. And of course it was the good fight, so you couldn’t complain. I’d go to the meetings just to be with him. You can’t imagine the dreariness of it, all secret and squalid and-endless. Hours of it. Matthew would natter on and I’d just drift off. I doubt he even noticed I was there. But Karl did. At least, he said he did. I don’t remember him being there, but I wasn’t seeing much of anything then except Matthew and how miserable I was. But Karl remembered me. Evidently I made a striking impression. So.”
She got up and began to walk, absently kicking small stones as she paced.
“So you went to bed with him because he saw you at a few meetings?”
She snorted, a pretend laugh. “I said I’d tell you what happened. I didn’t say it would make sense.”
His stare followed her as she paced, waiting. “When was all this?”
“Just after he got here. I was getting a pass and he recognized me. And then later he asked me about it. Wondered why it wasn’t in my file.”
“And why wasn’t it?”
“Nobody ever asked. I was just a wife. Daniel was vetted in London. They knew I’d been in Spain. So had lots of people. It was the thing to do. Maybe no one there thought anything of it. But you know what it’s like here.” She turned to face him. “Look, I was scared. Is that so hard for you to understand? Being here is all Daniel ever cared about. You know what happens if they pull your security clearance. I couldn’t do that to him. Just because his wife went to some silly meetings? They didn’t mean anything anyway. I don’t even remember what they talked about. It was all-innocent. But would your lot believe that? ‘Why didn’t you tell us before? Who else was there?’ You know what it’s like. They’d never trust him after that.”
“Is that where you met him? At the meetings?”
“No,” she said dismissively, “he didn’t know anything about that. We met at the university.”
“So it was your little secret.”
“I didn’t think it mattered. It didn’t. And then later-well, then it was too late. They’d always want to know why I hadn’t told them in the first place. I just wanted things to go on as they were. No one was the wiser. What did it matter?”
“But Karl was wiser.”
“Yes.”
“So you decided to do Daniel a real favor and make a new friend.”
She stared at him. “That’s right. I needed a friend.”
“And was he? A friend?” She shrugged and turned away, pacing again.
“What else?”
“Why should there be anything else?”
“Because there is. Emma, half the people on the Hill went to political meetings ten years ago. You didn’t sleep with him for that.”
“Maybe I wanted to. Who knows why we do things? Why do you?”
“What else?”
“Oh, leave me alone.”
“What happened in Berlin? To your husband?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He left.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes, just like that. He deserted me.” She looked at him for a reaction. “I guess my charms weren’t enough to keep him. He must have had something more important to do.”
“But where did he go?”
“I’ve no idea. I never heard from him. I assume he died. Given everything.”
“Did you try to find him?”
“No. He left me, you see. He didn’t want to be found.”
“What did you do? Go back to London?”
“No, I stayed on.”
“You stayed on. In Berlin. With a missing Communist husband.”
“Nobody knew he was my husband. That was-I don’t know, part of it. Look, I know it sounds silly now, but things were different then. He didn’t want anybody to know. For my sake. In case something happened.”
“What the hell was he doing?”
“Oh, don’t get your hopes up. He wasn’t the Comintern’s man in place or anything like that. At least, I don’t think so. Probably just leaflets and setting up those awful meetings. But he liked to pretend it was dangerous. Maybe it was. Anything was then, I suppose. Anyway, he thought so.”
“So you stayed.”
Emma shrugged again. “I didn’t fancy running home to Daddy. I’d made my bed-I thought I’d better lie in it.”
“In Berlin,” he said skeptically. “Living hand to mouth with the Nazis in the street.”
“That’s right. Stupid, wasn’t it?”
He watched her as she lit another cigarette, not meeting his eyes. “Tell me, Emma,” he said quietly.
She blew out the smoke, raising her head to look at him. “I was pregnant.”
He waited for a minute, but she simply continued to smoke, staring at him. “What happened?”
“I got rid of it. I killed it.”
“God-”
“Well, what was I supposed to do?” she said, her voice breaking for the first time.
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Didn’t you? Well, never mind. It doesn’t make any difference. I had it-taken care of. One office visit. Easy, really. Not so easy to arrange, though. The Germans had views on that sort of thing.” She snorted. “Matthew always thought he was so frightfully clandestine. Try finding a friendly doctor-that was the real secret world.”
“How did you?”
“Daniel helped me,” she said simply. “Surprised? No German would have touched me. But he knew the refugees. They were always open for a bit of business.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was a long time ago.”
“No. For asking.”
She nodded. “Yes. It makes things different, doesn’t it? It’s not always nice knowing things.”
“And that’s why you helped him get out?”
She smiled wryly. “Take one life and save another? Maybe it was something like that, I don’t know. I didn’t look into things then, I just did them. Maybe you can sort it out for me.” Her eyes were moist. “I don’t know why I’m explaining all this to you. Hardly what you want for your report, is it?”
“No.”
“Anything else, then? While you’ve got the light in my face?”
“Why did it stop?”
“Well, there’s a question. Because I asked. I just couldn’t anymore.”
“And he agreed? He didn’t insist? Threaten you?”
“Threaten me? Karl? It wasn’t like that. You’ve become as mad as the rest of them. He didn’t bloody blackmail me. I’m sorry, but he didn’t. That’s what you want to think. He never threatened me. He knew things. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have mattered-not exactly the end of the world to go to a meeting, is it? — but in a place like this it was-awkward, okay? There wasn’t time to sort anything out. I thought they’d send Daniel packing. So.” She paused, looking away. “Anyway, it’s done. Now you’ll tell them anyway, so it seems I needn’t have bothered.”
“But he didn’t care?”
She considered this for a minute, as if the idea were new to her. “You know, oddly enough, I don’t think he did. Oh, he was fond of me in his way, but in the end I don’t think it interested him very much. He wasn’t-personal. He was afraid of it. It’s hard to explain. Once he had his file complete, I think he just wanted to move on.”
“You liked him.”
“I felt sorry for him. It’s a terrible thing, not being able to trust anyone. Prison did that, I guess. I often wondered what happened to him there-oh, I don’t mean physically, the fingers and all that. But inside. It made him a little crazy, I think. Goblins everywhere.” She paused, wiping sweat from her face with her handkerchief. “Anyway, he came to the right place for it. Here he got paid for not trusting anybody. I think he liked that better than sex, all the-untangling. He was excited by that. Maybe it was just prison all over again, get them before they get you. He couldn’t help it anymore. He always thought somebody was out to get him.”
“Somebody did.”
“Yes,” she said, then went over to gather up the picnic things. “I think you’d better take me home now. I’ve had enough time in the confessional. It’s not as good for the soul as they say.”
Connolly watched her pack the knapsack, gracefully picking up the cups, making room for the Thermos. What was she thinking? For a moment he thought he finally understood the pleasure Karl took in it, that tension of not knowing, of wondering what was true.
“Did he ever mention anyone else?”
“What? Any other bad security risks? No.”
He followed her to the car. “Don’t you think it’s strange, his just letting go like that?”
“I didn’t say he was pleased-he just didn’t make a fuss, that’s all. I didn’t think about it, I was relieved. Maybe he was too. Maybe he found someone more interesting. When you’re paranoid-isn’t that the word? — there’s nothing more boring than an open book. No mystery there. After all, he knew everything about me.”
He stopped at the car door. “Do I?”
She hesitated. “I thought you did,” she said softly. “Everything that mattered. I thought-well, never mind what I thought.” She busied herself putting the pack in the car, then stood up, looking at him over the roof. “There is one more thing. I wasn’t going to tell you, but you may as well know. Maybe it will make a difference to you.” She hesitated again, still not sure. “Karl was-well, Karl was very good at what he did, you know. He knew things that even I didn’t know. Don’t ask me how.” He waited. “I suppose you can find out anything if it’s really what you care about,” she said to him with a wry half-smile. “He knew that Matthew was still alive.”
“I thought-”
“So did I. I’d no idea. You can see what that means, can’t you?” she said, her voice pleading. “I was frantic. Daniel only got out because of the marriage. Now he’s British.”
“You thought they’d send him back?”
“No, not then,” she said, her voice trembling. “We weren’t exactly sending trains into Berlin. But what about now? If the marriage isn’t real, what happens to him? Is he supposed to go back to Poland? I can’t let that happen to him.”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you know? I didn’t. So logical. I couldn’t be, don’t you see? I couldn’t think straight. All I knew was that Daniel would have no legal status at all and it was my fault. I had to do something.”
“So you went with him.”
“Yes, I went with him,” she said, almost shouting. “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? I needed time. I thought after the war I’d sort it out-I couldn’t do it here. Besides, no one knew.”
“Except Karl.”
“Yes, except Karl. And now you. Michael, I’m asking you-”
“Don’t. Don’t ask me.”
She bit her lip again, her face resigned. “At least Karl-”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I can’t help it. I saved him once-I won’t let anything happen to him. I thought it all died with Karl. Do I have to buy you too? Or have you already had everything you want?”
“Get in the car.”
They drove up the dirt canyon road in silence, Emma looking out the side window, her face blotchy but dry. Connolly stared at the road, as if he could quiet the jumble in him with a grip on the wheel.
“You can have the marriage annulled.”
“Yes,” she said absently.
“How did Karl find him?”
“No more. Please.”
“How?”
“He’s here.”
Connolly almost stopped the car in surprise. “Here? On the Hill?”
“No. In the States. For years. Karl used to keep tabs on aliens who were friendly to the comrades. It was his specialty, remember?”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. New York. He was, anyway. Karl lost track of him when he left Washington and all his precious files there. It shouldn’t be hard if you want to find him.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Did Karl tell him?”
“Karl didn’t know him. He was just a name in a file.”
“Does he know where you are?”
“Nobody knows where I am. I’m a post office number. Box 1663, Santa Fe. New name. New person.” She trembled again. “I got clean away, remember? A lovely new life.”
They were approaching the turnoff road for the west gate. “Let me off here. I’ll walk in.”
He looked at her. “Walk?”
“Yes, walk. Why not? I’m a great hiker, didn’t you know? I could do with a walk now. Besides, there’s my reputation to consider.” He stopped the car. “Well,” she said, not wanting to get out yet, “I’ll see you.”
“Emma, what you said before, about his not blackmailing you. There must have been someone else. There’s the money.”
She smiled sadly. “You never give up. What are you suggesting? That I gave him the idea? Is that my fault too? Once he saw how easy it was with me, he went on to better things? Maybe he did. You find out, Michael. I don’t care.” She opened the door, half getting out. “Will you put us in your report too?” When he opened his mouth, she put her fingers to his lips, barely touching them. “No, don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear it-it’s all in your face. Do what you have to do. I’ll just get out here.” She kept her hand on his face, a Braille touch, keeping him still. “I seem to have made a mess of things, haven’t I? You always want things to make sense. Sometimes they make sense and it’s still a mess.” She ran her fingers across his mouth as if she were kissing him. “It was nice for a while, though. Before it was such a mess. No, don’t say anything.” She dropped her hand and got out of the car, then leaned through the window. “You’d better go on first. It’ll look better.”
He sat there for a minute, not knowing what to say, and then it was too late. She had moved off to the side, starting to walk, and when he put the car in gear and saw her in the rearview mirror she was looking somewhere else.
He drove back to the office, random phrases darting through his mind so quickly he could not assemble them. They bounced off each other, uncontrollable, until all they lived for was their speed. Fission. He knew in some part of him that he had no reason to feel angry or betrayed or shamed at his own inability to know what to do, how he ought to feel, but the feelings bounced off each other too, like glandular surges that swept through his blood, drowning thought. He saw her with Karl, in some motel room like theirs, sweaty and half lit. She had felt sorry for him. And Karl? What had he felt? Surprise at his good luck? Or did he worry, wondering what it all meant? But he had kept quiet, cared enough to lie for her. Now she wanted him to lie, another Karl. For Daniel. Because she cared enough to protect him but not enough to be faithful.
But who was he to accuse her of that? He’d never even thought about Daniel before, betraying him again and again, because for them it had been different, as natural and carefree as a hike through the canyon. I didn’t know you then. But what if she had? Would it have been any different? It always comes back to that. She had walked in through the gate. I thought it died with him. But no, this was crazy. You’ve become as mad as the rest of them. And suddenly he felt for the first time what it had been like for Karl, this endless noisy suspicion ricocheting so loudly inside him that he couldn’t hear anything else. And when it stopped-and now it did-his mind blank-absolutely nothing. She disappeared in the rearview mirror. He felt as empty as Karl’s room.
When he parked and walked through the Tech Area fence, his mind was still cloudy and preoccupied, but it was Weber who didn’t see him, bumping so hard into his shoulder that he was stopped in midflight.
“Ouf. Pardon, pardon,” he said in the all-purpose French used in crowds at railway terminals. He looked up at Connolly dimly through his glasses, trying to focus his memory. “Ah, Mr. Connolly. The music. Yes, I’m so sorry. I’m late again, you see.”
“No, my fault. I was just thinking.”
Weber smiled. “Thinking,” he said, savoring the word. “For us now it’s only the work. So close.” He fluttered his hand in the air. “Every day a new deadline. But no matter. We’re almost there.” The w was a v.
“So I hear.”
Weber looked up at him sharply, a pinprick of alarm, then put it aside, too absorbed to pursue it. “We all work too hard-even thinking. You look like Robert. All the troubles of the world. No time even for music. Do you play?”
Connolly smiled to himself. “No, but I like to listen.”
“Good, good, come tomorrow. A small gathering. So many at Trinity now, of course.”
Before Connolly could answer, Weber started off, his mind busy again with formulas. Connolly watched him go, bustling toward the gate, encased in his private bubble. He seemed the very soul of the Hill, all distraction and yeast cakes and the determined icepick at the dance.
But the sudden jolt to Connolly’s shoulder had awakened him, like someone shaking him to get up for work. He knew that later he would sink back into his private obsession, the terrible feeling of having broken something he didn’t know how to fix. But what did any of it have to do with the case? At least there was still that. He thought of Weber peering up, trying to place him. Karl had known Emma right away. All she had had to do was walk into the office.
When he got to his desk, however, he simply sat there staring, not sure where to begin.
“What’s wrong?” Mills said.
“Nothing. Why?”
“I don’t know. You look funny. Everything all right?”
“As rain,” he said absently, then, aware of Mills watching him, picked up the phone to call Holliday.
“Howdy,” Doc said when he got on. “I was just about to call you.”
“Let me ask you something,” Connolly said briskly. “You examined the body.”
“Well, I saw it-”
“Could a woman have done it?”
“Not unless she was one hell of a strong woman. He was hit more than once, you know. Kicked too. Not many women’d do that. At least, I hope not. What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Just a little crazy, I guess.”
“It’s the altitude. You ought to watch that. They say half the people up there are crazy.”
Connolly said nothing, running his finger along the edge of the phone, his mind elsewhere.
“Want to know why I was going to call?” Doc said finally.
“I’m sorry. Yes. Sure.”
“You’re going to like this. Cheer you right up. You know those bars you told me to look into, the ones we haven’t got? Turns out you were right. We got one.”
Connolly said nothing but looked up from the phone, puzzled.
“Now I suppose I got to keep my eye on it. Wish I could say I was better off knowing about it, but I doubt it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m getting to it. Turns out there was a little loose talk there and one of my boys heard about it. ‘Course, everybody was quiet as a mouse before, but now that they’ve got the guy-well, you know how it is. A few beers and-”
“Doc-”
“All right, all right. Hold on. You going to let me tell this my way? Seems one of the customers was in the park that night. Taking care of a little business. He don’t want to talk about that, though. Anyway, point is he saw someone taking old Karl into the bushes. Just like you figured-thought he was drunk. Car pulls up and before you know it the two of them are heading somewhere quiet. Our boy don’t think nothing of it. Tell you the truth, sounded like he was annoyed. Didn’t want any company around.”
“What was he doing there?”
“Said he was taking a leak.” Holliday paused. “Yeah, I know, looks like I got to keep an eye on the Alameda now too. All kinds of stuff going on I didn’t know about.”
“Did he get a look at him?”
“Nope. Said he was tall.”
“Tall.”
“That’s right. Now Ramon, he struck me as on the short side, wouldn’t you say? So I asked him about that. But he says tall. ‘Course, given what he might have been doing there, maybe anybody’d look tall.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else. Next thing he knew was when he heard the car driving away. Like I said, he didn’t think nothing of it. And then, when it comes out there’s a body found there, well the whole thing just goes right out of his head. You know.”
“He didn’t see his face?”
“No. Tall, that’s it. I asked.”
Connolly was quiet. “So what have we got?” he said.
“Not much. He’s not even what you’d call a real witness-all he saw was two guys going into the bushes, one of them drunk. Court of law, it wouldn’t mean shit. But he saw what he saw. Only reason I got it out of him now is he probably thinks it was Ramon he saw and it’s all over anyway. He’s the nervous type. But I figured you’d like to know you weren’t imagining things. Happened just like you thought.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Doc. What about the car?”
In the pause, Connolly felt he could see Doc smiling.
“Oh, I almost forgot that. He did see that. Funny thing, isn’t it, he didn’t see the guy but he did remember the car.”
“Let me guess.”
“If you said a Buick, he wouldn’t argue with you.”
“You still holding him?”
“No, I’ve got no call to do that. I could charge him with something, but why would I want to go and do that and stir up everybody? He was practically pissing in his pants the way it was. Now what’s all this about a woman? You on to something up there?”
“No, nothing. Just thinking out loud. Trying to figure out, you know, how strong-”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll be down in a few days. I’ll fill you in.”
“What’s the matter? Your phone tapped?”
Suddenly he was Karl again. His hand instinctively recoiled from the black telephone, as if Doc’s words had carried their own shock. Of course. Oppenheimer’s phone. His. Naturally they’d do that. He looked over at Mills, blandly signing forms, paying no attention. He tried to remember everything he’d just said, imagining it typed up, one carbon for the files. Was there a phrase that drew the eye, that would have to be passed along? His mind was busy again.
“Mike?” Doc said.
But don’t let them know that you know. “That click you hear is me hanging up, Doc,” he said easily. “I have to go. I’ll call you. And thanks.”
Then, the receiver back in its cradle, he looked at it again. They had every right to know. That’s what they were all doing here. Karl, at least, had known that, had stayed alert.
After a while he felt Mills looking at him.
“Now what?” Mills said.
“Nothing. I’ve been thinking. You know those security files?” Karl had noticed her right away.
“Intimately.”
“The vetting and the updates. I want to see everybody who arrived on the Hill-when was the first two hundred bucks? October? Let’s say from September on. Just the new arrivals. Foreigners. How many do you think there are?”
Mills shrugged. “Some. The Tube Alloys group came through Canada about then. They’d all be foreign. But not Americans?”
“If they were naturalized. First I want the ones who were vetted abroad.”
Mills raised his eyebrows. “What’s up?”
“We’re looking for any left-wing history-groups, contributions, Popular Front, any of it.”
“Communists?”
“Not officially. What was it Karl said to you? It’s what’s not there. I think that’s what Karl knew. A Communist who wasn’t there.”
Mills looked at him for a minute. “What makes you think so?”
“A hunch.”
“A hunch.”
“That’s right,” Connolly said, looking at him directly.
“Okay. I’ll get started on the arrival list. You want to look at all these yourself?” It was another question.
“Both of us,” Connolly said. “But no one else. No reports.”
Mills stood in front of the desk, raising his palms in a kind of pleading. “It’s my job, Mike.”
Connolly looked up at him, just a soldier following orders, but what he heard was himself, talking to Emma, mad as the rest of them, and then the noise in his head began to clear and he felt ashamed. “Trust me a little,” he said, and now the voice was hers.
He went out to Ashley Pond, shrunken now in the drought, and walked around its necklace of dried mud. The late afternoon sun burned against the windows of Gamma Building, making rows of little fires. The Hill, as always, was in motion, trucks grinding past scientists rushing to meetings and secretaries in wobbly heels heading to the PX on their break. It all went on behind him, around him, while he stood apart on this margin of water. Karl hadn’t said anything. Why? Out of some improbable decency? No. Maybe he thought it wasn’t really over, that he could always return when his new interest had been satisfied. Or maybe he thought there was nothing to tell, just another European story they would never understand. Questions would have to be asked, about him too, already compromised. What good would it do? He lived to protect himself, now in a world of tapped phones and secret reports and files that told everything about the past except what it meant. You had to be careful. Loyalty was a bargaining chip-you had to hoard it until you could play it to advantage. And meanwhile the Hill would go on around him too, indifferent, busy with itself. Connolly saw him standing by the same pond, outside of things, looking for a way in. Why would they trust him? The Germans hadn’t, the Russians hadn’t. Would his new masters be any different? Unless he had something really important to offer, something more than a sloppy vetting. So he waited.
If it was true. Connolly picked up a small rock, threw it into the pond, and watched the water rearrange itself, like thoughts. He thought of Emma at the memorial service, coolly walking out on Daniel’s arm; saw her at Fuller Lodge, her back to him, laughing. Maybe everything was a performance, the practiced story. But he had made her do that-it had all been for him, hadn’t it? He had made her lie and now he distrusted the lie. He started back toward the dormitory, looking down at the ground as he walked. Maybe Karl hadn’t been sure either, waiting for something more. He only had her word for it. What did Karl really think? He thought he was beginning to know him, but Karl didn’t exist. He could only imagine him.
The dormitory was quiet, even the Ping-Pong table empty, and Connolly went straight to his room. He sat in the chair by the window with Karl’s file, staring at the picture that would somehow make him real. Dark, intelligent eyes. Had he trusted her? But Karl didn’t trust anyone. Goblins everywhere. He came to the right place for it. Maybe he hadn’t felt like an outsider at all; maybe he had liked it, his files and his private suspicions and the adrenaline thrill of a hunt. Maybe he’d felt at home. He knew how to live here, what he was expected to do. But what did he have for it? A car, some money just in case, and now the secret of his own death. Half the people up there are crazy.
Connolly stared at the room and realized with a shock that it looked exactly the way it had on his first night. Did he live here? A shaving kit on the washbasin, a bag in the closet, a book. Otherwise, the same. Neat. Empty. He hadn’t expected to stay. But the room in Washington was no different. Temporary until the war was over. He was living in other people’s stories. For how long? Then the war would be over and he would be back in his own, where nothing would happen. Unless it already had. He felt a panic so intense that it swept over him like a kind of nausea. If he sat back in the chair now he would disappear into Karl’s room, waiting to be sure.
He threw the folder on the floor and got up, standing so quickly that his head felt dizzy. When he hurried out of the building, blinking at the sun, his head was still light, but he felt his body coming back, filling up again. There was room now for everything-the insubstantial buildings, the clotheslines flapping white, the smell of gasoline. When he reached her building he almost laughed, remembering that other time, turning left, turning right, the neighbor with the coffee. This time he knocked without hesitation, loudly, so that when she opened the door she pushed against it as if he were a gust of wind. He looked at her face, the details of it, his own story.
“What do you want?” she said, still holding the door.
“I’m in love with you.”
“Oh,” she said, a sound, not a word, a reflexive whimper. Her body went soft, exhaling, shoulders easing as her eyes filled. The door seemed to open by itself, pushed by the same wind, and he was inside. For a minute they just looked, her eyes fixed on him, moist with relief but not crying, moving with his, alive with conversation. “You came back,” she said.
“I’m in love with you,” he said again.
She put her hands to the sides of his face and brought him down to kiss her, short drinking kisses, like gulps.
“Yes,” she said into his cheek.
“Do you know what that means?”
“No. Tell me.” Smiling now, teasing him. Then she kissed him again. “No, don’t. So much talking. Don’t say anything else.”
“I don’t care about the rest. I can’t lose you.”
“No,” she said, her head back, shaking it happily. “No. You can’t. Tell me again.”
“Come to bed.”
And this time, she took his hand and led him into the other room.