The drive back was long, slowed by patches of low-lying fog and wet mist that condensed on the windshield, forcing him to lean forward to make out the road. Occasionally tiny lights appeared in the darkness, like fireflies coming out of the woods, then joined the halting stream of cars inching toward Prague. He hadn’t expected traffic. In town, the streets had been almost empty, conduits for trams, but here in the country he saw that the cars had only been in hiding, parked in secret pockets of free weekend air.
Molly was restless, fiddling with the heater, then turning the radio knob to scratchy bursts of Czech that faded in and out until, fed up, she snapped it off and stared out the window. He could feel her next to him, bottled up, wanting to talk but not knowing how to start. He fixed his eyes on the road, where there were only red taillights, not old men with stories, a frail arm reaching up to him from the bed. Now she was rummaging through her bag, pulling things out as she dug deeper, crinkling paper, then finally extracting a thin, misshapen cigarette.
“Don’t say a word,” she said, lighting it. “Just don’t.” She drew on it deeply, and the smell of dope filled the car.
“I thought you left that in Austria.”
“I lied.” She rolled down the window, letting the smell escape into the air, shivering a little at the sudden chill. “Don’t worry. I just kept one. For a rainy day.”
He glanced in the rearview mirror, half expecting to see police lights, but there was only the dark. He rolled down his window a little, creating a draft. “What report?” he said finally.
She sighed. “The D.C. police report, from the night she died. I asked to see it.”
Nick looked at her. “Just a reporter doing her job,” he said, still angry. “Is that the story you’re writing? You want to make him a killer too? Great.”
“He did kill her,” she said quickly, then looked away, her voice apologetic now. “I’m not writing anything. I just said that.”
“Then why-”
She took another drag, stalling, then exhaled slowly. “Okay. She was my aunt. Rosemary Cochrane. My mother’s sister. That’s how I knew who he was. You’re not the only one who-” She stopped, looking over at him. “I know. I should have told you. I was going to. And then, things changed, and I thought, let it go. What’s the good? She’s dead. Why upset everything? Let him take it with him. And all the time here he is, packing his bags.”
Nick said nothing, too stunned to reply.
“I’m not writing anything.” she said again. “It was personal, that’s all.” For a minute there was no sound but the swish of the tires. Then she reached over and handed him the joint, a peace offering.
“Want a hit?” she said, and suddenly he did, a piece of the world they’d left at the border. He extended his right hand, eyes still on the road, and felt her place the joint in the V of his fingers. He drew on it, aware of the quick glare at the tip, then held the smoke in his lungs. They passed it back and forth, still not saying anything, until he felt it grow hot in his fingers.
“Keep it,” he said. “I’m driving.” He saw her place the end between the tips of her fingers and finish it with sharp intakes of breath.
“There. Clean,” she said, flicking it out the window.
“Feel better?”
“No. But I will,” she said. “Give it a few minutes.” But he could feel it already, moving through him with his blood, relaxing and buoyant at the same time. He eased into it, letting his mind drift with the mist on the road.
“God,” Molly said, leaning back in her seat, “that dinner.” He said nothing, listening to another conversation inside his head.
“It’s interesting, the way he does it,” she said slowly.
“Does what?”
“Tells the story. It’s all there, isn’t it? All the way to Canada. Everything but the first stop.”
Nick let a minute pass, watching the road. “Were you close?”
“No, I never knew her. I mean, I must have known her, but I don’t remember. We never talked about it. You know, the one unforgivable sin.”
“But what was she like?”
“Well, let’s see. Also born Bronxville. She wanted to be a singer.”
“Really? An opera singer?”
“A band singer. You know, nightclubs and things. She had this picture-one of those professional pictures they put in delis? ”Best wishes to Mel.“ Like that. She’s got this big smile and a flower in her hair. All set, you know? I never heard that she actually sang anywhere, though. She probably just did it to freak out my grandparents. Nightclubs. I mean.”
“Pretty radical.”
“It was, in a way. She was always doing that. Of course, it wasn’t hard with them. My grandfather got on a train in the morning and walked through the door at six-twenty every day of his life. They wanted her to go to Manhattanville — where else? — and when she went to NYU there was this big fight, and the next thing you know she’s waiting tables for money and-do you really want to hear this?”
Nick nodded.
“Of course, I got most of this from my grandmother, so consider the source. She still blamed NYU, right to the end. All those ‘undesirable influences’-that was the phrase. Anyway, there was Aunt Rosemary, waiting tables and being influenced. Funny, isn’t it? In a way my grandmother was right. I mean, that must have been when she-became political.”
“Became a Communist, you mean,” Nick said, saying it.
“If she was. An actual Communist, in the party. They never said that.” She stopped. “Talk about splitting hairs.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then she dropped out of school and went to Washington. She was a secretary for a while, I think. During the war. And then-well, the rest you know.”
“Except we don’t.”
“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I used to think about it, the way kids do. We had this box in the attic, you know, with the Mel picture in it, and I’d go through it, making up stories about her. Then I put the picture up in my room and my mother had a fit. I suppose she thought I’d turn out the same way.”
“What, a Communist?”
“No, man-crazy. She always thought that was the start of all the trouble.”
“What made her think that?”
“Oh, there’s always a man.” She waved her hand. “She had to tell herself something. The more she didn’t talk about what happened, the more it was there. You know when she told me? When they sent the suitcase back. The one she had in the hotel. I guess the police took it as evidence and then, months later, out of the blue, they delivered it and my mother had to explain it to me. She just sat there crying, and I guess that must have upset me, her crying, because that’s when she told me.”
“What was in it?”
“Nothing. You know, just overnight stuff-cosmetics, a nightgown. Nothing. It was the fact of it. And because they’d torn it all up. The lining was sliced-I guess they were looking for secret messages or something-and they never even apologized. She just sat on the couch with this beat-up bag and that was her sister, what was left of her, and-”
A nightgown, Nick thought. Planning to spend the night. A bag packed to meet someone.
“Anyway, that was Rosemary,” Molly said. “Public Enemy. Part of the Communist conspiracy. Remember that, in school? I thought they were talking about her. And I used to think, I know one but you don’t have to worry about her. She turned herself in.”
“Except she didn’t.”
“According to him.”
“But why would she?” Nick said, brooding. The others who talked, they were all tied up in the politics of it.
“You know, you lose one faith and you replace it with the opposite. And then the opposite has to destroy the first. They really did believe a conspiracy was threatening the country, because they used to believe in it themselves. So in some crazy way it was their duty to expose it, now that they were on the other side. But that doesn’t sound like her at all. Not from your description. How many nightclub singers have a problem with apostasy?”
She looked at him, the helpless beginning of a smile. “You know, I’ve never heard that word used before. In speech. Only in print. Is that how it’s pronounced?”
“You don’t want to talk about this.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe she had political convictions, I don’t know. What are they, anyway? What would you do to stop the war? Besides rallies and things. Suppose there was a way. What would you do? Name names? Maybe it wouldn’t seem like much if you really thought they were the enemy. Maybe you’re right-maybe she didn’t care about any of that. I don’t know. Maybe she just wanted a little attention. Anyway, she got it.” She paused. “While he was on his way to Canada.”
“You still think he’s lying.”
She said nothing, as if she had to think about it, then sat up and reached for a cigarette. “Yes.” He watched her light it, her movements stretched in time by the dope. “Now I know it.”
“How?”
“Remember that drive in the snow? All the little details. How he was dying for a smoke but he left his lighter behind?”
“So?”
“So they found it in the hotel room. That’s where he left it-it’s in the report. He still doesn’t know. I was watching. He probably still thinks he left it at home.” She turned to him. “He was there, Nick.”
“How do they know it was his?”
“They didn’t use these,” she said, indicating the disposable plastic lighter in her hand. “They had real lighters. With initials. W.K.”
“And O.K.,” he said softly.
She looked at him, puzzled.
“My mother. It was from her. She was always giving him stuff like that.” He stared at the road. “That still doesn’t mean he was there.”
“Have it your way. How else would it get there?”
“Somebody could have planted it.”
“Do you really think that’s likely?” she said quietly.
“No.” He remembered it in his father’s hand, shiny, always with him, like the wave in his hair.
“He was there,” she said, an end to it.
“That still doesn’t mean he killed her. I don’t believe it.”
“You mean you don’t want to.”
“Do you?”
“Want to? No. But that doesn’t change things.” She paused, biting her lip in thought. “I’ll give you this, though. I sat there and I thought, could he really do that? It doesn’t feel right.”
“How is it supposed to feel?”
“I don’t know. Threatening. But he’s not.”
“No.”
“Whatever that’s worth. Maybe that’s how they get away with it. They stop believing it themselves. So there’s nothing to pick up on.”
“Killer vibes.”
“I know, it sounds stupid. But there should be something. A little radar blip, you know? A little ping.”
“A little ping.”
She looked at him, then tossed her cigarette out the window and slumped down in her seat, burrowing in. “You’re right. It’s stupid. I mean, he was there. We know that. It’s just-”
“What?”
She shook her head. “Her lover. I can’t see them together.”
Nick was quiet, following his own thought, a blip across the screen.
“They weren’t together,” he said finally, sure. “He was devoted to my mother.”
“Yeah. So was mine. Every time he came back. Anyway, I don’t mean him. I mean her. He wasn’t her type. Not — I don’t know-flashy enough.”
Nick thought of him changing upstairs, the pale, slack skin. “No, he’s not flashy.”
“Still. People change.”
“No, they don’t.”
By the time they got to town they were alone again; the other cars had melted away into the dark edges of the city as mysteriously as they had come. The streets were deserted, wet cobblestones cut by the bumpy tram rails, whose metal caught their headlights and gleamed back at them through the mist. Dim pools of yellow light from the street lamps. It was, finally, the Prague of his imagination, Kafka’s maze of alleys and looming towers, spires poking suddenly through the fog. They drove along the river, Hradcany somewhere off to the right, then turned into streets where nothing was visible beyond the reach of the car’s lights and, still lulled by the dope, Nick felt that he had begun driving through his own mind, one confusing turn after another, going in circles. How could anyone live here? When they reached Wenceslas, the empty, lighted tram that appeared clanging in front of them seemed to come out of a dream.
The parky stalls were closed but the Alcron was still awake, the doorman leaping from the bright door as if he’d been waiting for them. The lobby was empty. Nick saw the bellhop and desk clerk glance up. The drug was wearing off, leaving only a pleasant tiredness and now the familiar sensation that everyone was watching them. For an instant he stopped, then smiled to himself. They were being watched; it was what people did here. Did they notice he was walking slowly? Then the bellhop yawned, and he saw that his cover would be exhaustion. It was only eleven, but everyone seemed ready for bed.
“A long day, Pan Warren,” the clerk said, handing him the key. “Not so nice for Karlovy Vary, the weather.”
Was he checking up or only being polite?
“You took the waters?”
Nick looked at him blankly, but Molly said, “Why do the glasses have those pipestems?”
“Pipestems? Ah, like a pipe, yes. To drink in. For the minerals, you see. To get past the teeth. Otherwise they would stain.”
“Ah,” Molly said. “Well, goodnight.”
The desk clerk smiled and bowed at them, satisfied.
“That was good,” Nick said as they crossed to the elevator.
“It’s the only thing I remembered about the place, those funny little glasses. Thank God. Now he can put it in his report. Our day at Karlsbad.”
Nick stopped. “But it wouldn’t be true. I mean, just because something’s in a report. There it is in black and white, but we were never there.”
Molly looked at him for an instant, then lowered her eyes. “But the lighter was.”
“How can we be sure?”
“Ask him.”
Their room was stifling, the heavy drapes drawn tight, and while Molly ran her bath, he opened the windows, then lay on the bed in his underwear, feeling the cool night air move over him. His body was tired but alert, and when he closed his eyes he could hear the sounds around him with a sharp clarity: water splashing in the tub; the bells of the late trams below, carried in by the mist, disconnected, like the sounds of ships at night. He went over the day, putting it in order, as if the chronology would tell him something. In the report. What if all of it was true? None of it? Why would he lie? Or was it the usual mix, the half-truths of things left out or just forgotten? But which? Then he was in the cottage bedroom, his arm gripped, caught. Snug as a bug.
There was a shaft of light from the bathroom when she opened the door, and he squinted at her, wrapped in her thin robe, toweling her hair. Her movements were languid, almost swaying.
“Are you asleep?”
“Thinking.”
“About what?” she said idly, moving toward the window. When he didn’t answer, she said, “Okay. A penny? A Czech crown?”
“About what it’s like for you. When you see him. I mean, if you really think he-” He trailed off, not able to say it.
“What’s it like for you?”
“I don’t see what you see.” He paused. “I can’t leave him like this. Whatever he’s done. I thought I could, but I can’t. But that’s me. You don’t have to go on with this. Not anymore.”
She stopped, still holding the towel to her hair. “You want me to leave?”
“Don’t you? You must hate him. All of it. I didn’t know. Why keep it a secret? No wonder you didn’t want to-”
She looked at him. “Is that what you think?”
“You can see what it’s going to be like. You’ll just get more involved. With someone you think-”
She stared at him for a second. “You’re a real jerk sometimes, you know?” she said softly. He looked up at her. “I’m not involved with him. I’m involved with you.”
A beat. “Are you?”
He watched her drop the towel, then heard the faint rustling silk of her robe as she came toward the bed. She ran her hand along his bare leg, stopping at the knee. “Don’t think so much, okay?” she said, moving it up to his thigh, stroking. “Why don’t we finish what we started. Before you started thinking.” She looked toward the stirring in his briefs and smiled.
“What are you doing?” he said, unable to move, paralyzed by the hand making slow circles on his thigh.
“I’m seducing you, before you throw me out.” She leaned close to him and shook her head slowly. “No more secrets, okay?”
He closed his eyes as her fingers moved across his pouch, lightly grazing his balls, to the inside of his other thigh. Then both hands were stroking him, moving up along his waist. She took the elastic band of the shorts and with elaborate slowness started pulling them down. “Want to help?” He raised himself slightly from the bed, a reflex, and felt the shorts slipping out from under him, his erection springing free. “Look at you,” she said, then ran her fingertips under his scrotum. He could feel the delicate scraping, then his penis swelling harder as her fingers moved up along the shaft, wrapped around the base in a slow pumping motion. “Still want me to go?” she said, gripping it gently, so that the tip seemed to get even harder, full to bursting.
“Not with that in your hand.”
She moved up onto the bed, straddling him, then leaned over, and her robe opened, filling the air with the smell of soap and bath oil. He reached up to touch her breasts, warm and smooth, and then her open mouth covered his and he could feel her hair around him, still damp from the bath, as if they were back in the rain. She drew a breath, kissing him lightly, and he moved his hands behind her, rubbing the silk, then pulling it up in folds until he could feel bare flesh. She arched back, resting on his hands, and drew the robe off, tossing it on the floor, her breasts swaying heavily as she moved.
“Molly-”
“Sshh.” She put a finger to her lips, then pointed it up at the ceiling corner. She leaned down and whispered, “Big brother, remember?”
To his surprise, he felt himself grow harder, an unexpected erotic kink. He could hear their breathing, the faint ringing of the trams outside, and he imagined someone cupping headphones, straining, aroused. Then she bent down to kiss him and he lost the room again, moving his hands over her skin, wanting to touch her everywhere. Still on her knees, she lowered her pelvis to him and he felt the scratch of her hair along his prick. It brushed over him slowly, back and forth, wiry and delicate, until every part of him was waiting for it, sensitive, so that he thought he might come just from the touch of the hair. Then, a little lower, he felt the wetness start beneath the hairs, the moist skin moving over him, slippery as quicksilver, until his penis was slick with it, ready to explode before he’d even entered her. Too soon.
He rolled over, pinning her under him. Her eyes caught the faint light, shining, and when he looked into them they stopped for a minute, no longer playful, and grew wider, as if her whole body were opening up. “Just us,” she whispered, grave and trembling, then took his head in her hands, drawing him down. He kissed her, then moved his lips down along her throat to her breasts, sucking them gently, making it last, feeling the nipples grow hard in his mouth before continuing down, wanting all of her, his feet sliding off the bed as his head went lower, along her belly. When he heard her gasp in anticipation, the sound itself was exciting. Make noise. Drown out the trams, the static in the headphones, everything.
He was there. He kissed her inner thighs gently, barely touching the skin, moving steadily toward the crease between her legs, then rubbed his face lightly across the hair, breathing her in. She shivered, a kind of physical noise, then moaned out loud when he started licking the edges of her crotch, long upward strokes, wetting the hair. His tongue moved toward the top of her slit, teasing it; then, using his hands to part the outer lips, he touched her clitoris with the tip, a series of light flicks, until he felt her move under him, drawing him closer. He lowered his head and placed his tongue between her lips, parting them with one long stroke, then back again, resting for a second at the top, then back, until they were both moving in a rhythm, her body rising to meet him, moving against him. Her cunt was wet now, as wet as his mouth, and he licked deeper, sucking, rolling her clitoris between his lips, then burying his face in her as she seemed to stretch wider, no longer secret, the wonderful pink skin all open to him.
When he stopped, then began the slow long strokes of a new cycle, she moaned again and grasped his head, trying to stop him and move with him at the same time. “Soft,” she whispered, but when he licked more lightly, a wet kiss, she didn’t want that either and pulled him harder into her until he was buried again and her body squirmed around him. Her breathing had become a kind of ragged pant and he felt she was close now and moved up again, covering the top of her slit and tonguing it from below, a constant stroke. “Come with me,” she said out loud, gasping. “Come with me.” But when he moved up onto the bed and slid into her, his mouth still wet with her, he could feel her walls clutching him, a tremor, and before he could move she was already there, coming around him with a cry, her body heaving.
He lay still for a second, feeling her, the moist inside now just part of his own body, permanently attached, then slowly began to move, drawing himself almost to the edge of her lips before sliding in again. Her vagina, already sensitive, continued to ripple against him, like aftershocks, urging him, and he began to go faster, adjusting his rhythm to her. She gasped out loud, a gift to the microphones, and he could hear the squeak of the bedsprings now, drowned out when his head had been down inside her, and their breathing, even louder, keeping pace, their strokes audible, a slapping of wet skin, the room alive with noise, as if the sounds themselves were racing, about to come. She clutched him and he felt her spasm again but now he couldn’t stop, thrusting on top of her orgasm, trying to keep it alive so that when finally he spurted into her they were both shuddering.
Afterward they lay curled up, quiet, his prick soft against her bottom, his arm flung over her, protecting her from the night air that crept along their bodies, drying the sweat. Neither of them moved, and he lay surprised by the stillness, wondering what had happened. There was none of the odd embarrassment he usually felt after sex, the impulse to cover himself, find his clothes and go. Now there was only an easy familiarity, as if they had finally run out of secrets and could lie here naked forever, everything known, an old couple. She turned and traced a finger along his face, reading it like Braille, wiping the wet from his mouth. “Look at you,” she said softly.
He reached over and brushed the hair back from her face, smoothing it, taking her in. “I like your freckles,” he said lazily.
“I used to have more.”
“You did?”
“Uh-huh. You lose them as you get older. Like hair,” she said, touching his bare temple.
“Careful.”
She smiled, her eyes catching the dim light. “I was right, wasn’t I?” She kissed him lightly, then snuggled closer. She reached down to pull up the covers, but he stopped her.
“No, I want to look at you.”
“Then close the window. I’m getting goosebumps.”
“Where?” he said, running his hand along her hip. But he got up and went over to the window, closing the pane but keeping the curtains open to the street light.
“I love the way it jiggles,” she said from the bed, looking at him. “How does it feel when it bobs around like that?”
“Little,” he said. He stood by the bed for a moment, his eyes moving along her body.
“Oh,” she said, turning away slightly from his gaze. “Don’t. I feel so-exposed.”
No secrets. He bent over and kissed her breasts, feeling her shiver when he opened his mouth on her.
She was already dressed, putting on lipstick at the mirror. He felt the air on his behind, jutting out of the tangled sheets, and covered himself.
“Well, it’s alive,” she said.
“What time is it?” He glanced at the bedside clock. “Christ.”
“Sleep well?” she said. “It must have been the-” She raised her eyes to the ceiling, then put two fingers to her mouth, pretending to draw in smoke. “You know what.”
“Oh, that’s what it was.”
“What else?” She came over to the bed and sat on the edge, touching his chest. “Morning skin. Like a baby’s.”
He took her wrist, drawing her to him, but she shook her head. “You’ll muss. Anyway, I’m off.”
“Where?”
“See the sights. He wanted to meet you alone, didn’t he? Narodni Gallery. Better get cracking.”
He got up, holding the sheet. “You always this cheerful? Where is it, anyway?”
“By the castle. Take a number 22 tram. You can’t miss it. God, look at the bed. What will the maid think?”
He grinned.
She picked up her raincoat, then stopped. “Nick?”
He looked up, waiting, but she shook her head.
“Never mind.” Then, hesitantly, “It’s going to be all right, isn’t it?”
He nodded, still smiling as she closed the door.
In the lobby, he wondered if everyone could tell, read his mood, like a permanent flush on his skin. His face felt loose, ready to break into a loopy grin, but he came down outside, deflated by another dreary Prague sky. The rain had left the city damp and grimy, as if nothing could wash away its essential grayness. For the first time, the thought of seeing his father depressed him.
On the tram, bottle blondes and grim faces; no one talked. Had this conductor been someone else once? They creaked through the old streets, the passengers’ heads nodding with stolid patience, dazed with routine. No one had spent the night in someone else’s body, alive with sex. When they crossed the river, even the Baroque stucco of the Mala Strana, pale yellow in the sun that first day, had turned dark, a dirty mustard.
The gallery seemed to be arranged chronologically, so that the rooms began in the Middle Ages, static allegories with pudgy Slavic babies and soldiers holding lances and spiked shields, Christ rising from his coffin, his feet still dripping blood from the crucifixion nails. Artists painted what they saw; here they’d seen atrocities, a culture of occupation.
He looked around for his father, but the rooms were empty. A guard, bored, stared at his feet. Nick thought he should wait near the entrance, but the room was oppressive and he moved along to the next-Italian, flesh pink with light, bowls of fruit. What would he say today? Another theory of history?
Nick found him in the room beyond, staring at a picture. He smiled when he saw Nick and lifted his hand to touch him, then withdrew it. They stood there awkwardly, a chance meeting in public. Nick glanced at the painting.
“The fatted calf,” his father said, following his eyes. “A lot to expect, don’t you think? After all that.”
“The prodigal,” Nick said automatically.
“You see how happy everyone is? Even the jealous brother.” His father smiled shyly. “Maybe that’s why we have stories. So things come out better.” He paused. “It means wasteful, you know, not wandering. He wasted his inheritance, his gifts. Well.” He turned to Nick. “So you got back all right? Anna was worried. We don’t have much time,” he said, looking at his watch. “I’m sorry. There’s a service for Frantisek’s brother. I have to go. It would be noticed.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“A tourist? That wouldn’t be appropriate,” he said gently. “They’ll all be there, watching. To write about Masaryk after all these years-everything about him is still political. Even a funeral.”
“Then why go? Won’t you be-”
“I have to go, for Frantisek. He and Anna were children together. If we don’t go, it’s political. It would mean that we knew what he was doing. Not just writing stories.”
“I thought everyone knew. He said-”
His father nodded. “Now we pretend we didn’t. Welcome to Oz. Walk with me to the Loreto. It’s worth seeing-all the tourists go. The service isn’t far from there. It’ll give us a few minutes.”
Nick followed him out of the room, then past the walls of impaled martyrs. “But we have to talk.”
“We will. Later.”
They were out on the cobblestoned square.
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell you exactly what to say.” He reached into his breast pocket and drew out an envelope.
“I can’t carry anything out,” Nick said, flustered, physically drawing away from it.
His father looked at him, then smiled, holding out the envelope. “No. These are tickets, for tonight.”
“Oh.”
“Benny Goodman. They’re hard to get. Everyone wants to see Benny. Nothing changes, you see.”
Nick said nothing, feeling teased. An evening out.
“I didn’t know he was still alive,” he said finally. They were crossing the square toward the Czernin Palace. There were no cars.
“Oh yes. He’s very popular here-we’re a little behind. His goodwill tour. You’ll enjoy it. We can eat afterward.”
Nick stopped, annoyed. “Look, I need to talk to you.”
“I know,” his father said, putting a hand on his arm. “You’re worried. There’s no need. You’ll see.” He continued walking. “This is where Masaryk was killed, by the way.” He indicated the high palace walls. “In the interior courtyard.”
“They found the lighter,” Nick said suddenly.
“What lighter?” his father said, still walking.
“Yours. The one Mom gave you.”
Now he stopped, his face bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
“They found it in the hotel room. That night. It’s in the police report.”
His father frowned, as if he’d misunderstood, then looked away, thinking to himself. Nick watched him as he stared at the ground, apparently at a loss. Was he thinking of what to say?
“That’s interesting,” he said finally, but not to Nick, working instead on some interior puzzle.
“Is that all you can say?” Nick said, thrown by his response.
“But how is that possible?” his father said, again to himself.
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
“A police report? But it’s a mistake. The FBI handled the case, not the police.” He paused, still thinking. “Of course they would have been called first. At the hotel. But the FBI took it over. It was a Bureau case always. There’s nothing like that in their file.”
“How do you know?”
His father looked up at him. “Because I’ve seen it. Don’t you think I would have remembered that? Why would they leave it out?” He shook his head. “It’s a mistake.”
“No,” Nick said. But what made him so sure? “It’s in the police report. Don’t you understand what I’m saying? You can’t go back. They know.”
“Know what?” He looked at him again. “Oh, I see. I left it there. After I-” He paused, a new idea. “Is that what you think?”
“You tell me.”
“Nick, how could I have left it? I already told you-”
“You don’t tell me anything. Except what you want me to hear.”
“I’ll tell you again,” his father said quietly. “I wasn’t there.”
“Then how do you explain this?”
“I can’t.” He looked down. “I don’t know what it means. I have to think.”
“Let me know what you come up with. But maybe you should think twice about traveling. They think you were there. The statute of limitations doesn’t run out on this.”
His father touched Nick’s elbow. “You know who was there. We’ll find him. Trust me.” The cord again, pulled tighter.
“No questions asked,” Nick said. “I’m not supposed to know what’s going on. You said last night you had something valuable. What? Or am I not supposed to know that either?”
“It would be better.”
“No. I need to know what you’re doing. What I’m doing. You need to trust me. I’m not just a messenger.”
“No,” his father said. “You’re the key to everything.”
Nick stared at him.
“Listen to me, Nick. They’re not going to accuse me of anything. Not some old crime.” He glanced up. “Which I didn’t commit. They’re going to ask for me.”
“They’re what?”
“How else do you think this can work? A rescue mission to smuggle me out? I’m not worth an international incident. The Americans would never do that. It has to be a trade, a quiet trade. I can’t escape-think what that would mean for Anna. I have to go legally. A plane from Ruzyne. With the comrades waving.”
“What’s the trade?”
“They can offer Pentiakowsky, a prize catch. For one broken-down defector. Do you think Moscow would resist such a deal?”
“Why would they do that?” Nick said, trying to follow the thread. “Why would they ask for you in the first place?”
“Because you asked. You and your mother. A humanitarian request. You came to see me-I know, all this secrecy, but that’s only for now, until we’re ready. Once the arrangements start, it’s in their interest to protect me. They’ll have to know you were here so the story makes sense. There’s always the personal element, even in politics. You were shocked by what you saw. My health. I need an operation. That’s true, by the way, I do. They know that. I can’t get it here. So the trip would have a certain appeal, even to a dedicated old socialist. How we cling to life. So you appealed to your father, the other one. A man close to the President.”
“What?”
“Yes, to Larry. No one else. He can make the deal, arrange things. I’ll tell you what to say.”
The surprise of it made Nick feel giddy, as if a missed step were pitching him farther down. “Larry,” he said, trying to catch himself. “Why Larry?”
“Because he can do it. Arrange things. And he’ll believe you. He’ll know it’s not a trick.”
“No,” Nick said quickly, not wanting to hear the rest. “You don’t know what you’re asking. He can’t.” Isn’t it enough to involve me? He saw the mad plan spreading like a stain, touching everybody.
“I know what I’m asking. Do you think I would ask him if I didn’t have to? He took my family.” An edge, finally, in his calm voice, a bitterness not quite put away. “But now that’s an advantage. He owes me this much. One favor. He’ll do it.” He paused. “He’ll do it for you.”
And I’ll do it for you. A link snapping shut in a chain. Every link already assigned.
“It’s the right story,” his father continued, not seeing Nick’s face fall. “Pentiakowsky for an old spy? Never. But I’m not just an old spy. I have friends in high places.” He stopped. “A son in high places. Lucky for me, but even luckier for Moscow. To get Pentiakowsky back for a political favor? A stupid trade-but Americans can be stupid that way. Sentimental.” He looked at Nick. “They’ll believe you. Not just a messenger, you see. There is no story without you.”
Nick looked at the ground, feeling his chest tighten, his breath grow short. “You have it all worked out,” he said, thinking, all of us, he’ll use all of us. “What makes you think Larry will do it?”
“He wouldn’t. He’s not sentimental. Or his boss. It’s only the story, Nick. For Moscow. The truth is that I have to give them something.”
“Something valuable.”
His father nodded. “More valuable than Pentiakowsky. Then they’ll do it. It’s the only way.”
“Then why would Moscow let you go?”
“They don’t know I have it. They’ll be suspicious-that’s their nature-but they won’t know. There’s no trace-I’ve been careful. No one knows. Only you.”
“Not yet.”
“No, not yet.”
Nick waited, his silence an unspoken demand. His father looked back toward the open square, then wet his lips, an old man’s nervous gesture.
“I’m going to give them what they always wanted. Names. In America. I have a list. And documents.” He saw the dismay in Nick’s face. “I have to pay, Nick. You don’t get a fatted calf, not in real life. What else do I have?”
“And what happens to them, the people on your list?”
His father shrugged. “They’ll be replaced. Then it begins all over again. But meanwhile-”
“You get Silver,” Nick finished.
His father shook his head. “Not yet. But they can lead me to him. One of them. There’s a pattern, you see. People don’t change. There’s always a pattern if you can find it.”
“And you did.”
“I think so.” His father looked at him carefully, then said, “You disapprove.”
“They’re your people.”
“My people,” he said, almost scornfully. “Yes. Agents expect it, you know, sooner or later. Somebody always gives it away. What do you want me to say, Nick? That it’s not a dirty business?” He looked away. “It never seems so in the beginning. You just think you’re doing the right thing, like a soldier. But in the end-”
His voice drifted and Nick followed it down the gray street, unable to look at him.
“So you do want me to take something,” he said quietly. “The documents.”
“No, of course not. I would never put you at risk. I told you that. Anyway, they’re a passport for me. I take them.”
“Then how will Larry know that all this is for real?”
His father looked at him curiously, as if Nick hadn’t been listening. “Because it’s you. He’ll believe you.”
Nick’s chest, already tight, seemed to clench further. Not just a messenger.
“You see how important-that no one know. Just the fact of it, that such a list exists, is dangerous for me.” His father paused. “Now you.”
“Are you trying to frighten me?”
“No, protect you. I’ll tell you what to say when you leave, not before. Just in case. Who Larry should contact. No one else, just the principals. He must understand this. Everyone talks. On both sides. But if we move quickly-”
“Before your names can run for cover, you mean,” Nick said. “Your chips.”
“No,” he said, cut by the edge in Nick’s voice. “Before the leaks. There are always leaks. Before he knows. I wouldn’t be safe here.”
“You won’t be safe there either. They’ll know it was you.”
“That depends. Sometimes it’s better to let people stay in place for a while.”
“To watch them.”
His father nodded. “Or turn them. It’s been known to happen.”
“Come play on our side,” Nick said evenly. “Your choice.”
“Nick-”
“Do you know them, the people you’re going to sell?”
“No.”
“That must make it easier.”
“Yes, it does.” He looked at Nick steadily. “Your scruples are misplaced,” he said, his voice cool, a kind of reprimand. Then, backing down, “Nick, it’s the only way.” He turned, wanting to bring it to an end. “Walk with me. I’ll be late.”
Nick stared at his back, the familiar hunch of his shoulders, then took a step, pulled along.
“And what if they don’t leave them in place? Then what happens?”
“What you’d expect. The usual scurrying.”
“I mean, what happens to you? Your life wouldn’t be worth-”
“Like the old Comintern days? Send someone out to deal with me? Not anymore. I’ll be all right, once I’m there.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
He smiled a little. “Never bet against yourself, Nick.” Nick glanced up, recognizing it, his old rule of thumb, when they played cards at the cabin. “That sort of thing’s a little old-fashioned, even for the comrades. I’ll be all right, if we move quickly.”
“How quickly? Larry’s in Paris. You know, at the peace talks. He won’t be able to just drop everything.”
“To negotiate for me? Yes, he will. Nobody wants peace. But they’ll want this.”
I don’t want it, Nick thought, so clearly that for a second it seemed he’d said it out loud. But his father’s face, eager, full of plans, registered nothing, and Nick looked away before it could show on his own, the one betrayal his father did not expect. And was it true? Maybe it would be different later, when it was over. Maybe it was this he didn’t want, the plotting and covered tracks, looking over his shoulder, the tired city, gray, expecting the worst.
“Then why wait?” he said suddenly, an escape hatch. “I could go this afternoon.”
“This afternoon?” His father turned to him. “So soon.”
“What’s the difference? Nobody knows I’m here anyway.”
“But they will later. They’ll check. Visa dates. The hotel. It has to look right. It wouldn’t make sense, your coming for a day. That’s not a visit.” He stopped. “Besides, I don’t want you to leave.”
“But the sooner we-”
“Just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case.”
“Don’t bet against yourself,” Nick said,
“No. But sometimes-” He paused again. “In case it goes wrong,” he finished. “At least we have this time.” He put his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “It’s not so long for a visit. I’ll show you things.” A weekend parent, offering treats.
Nick nodded, embarrassed. How could he go?
But before he could say anything else, make an excuse that would play, he saw his father look past him. He withdrew his hand, alert.
“V alter, jak se mate?”
Nick turned.
“Anna,” his father said, but it was another Anna, broader and short, slightly out of breath from climbing the hill. She said something in Czech, but his father answered in English, “No, we have ten minutes. I’ll walk with you. An American,” he said, nodding toward Nick, an explanation for the English. “I was showing him the way to the Loreto.”
“ Dobre odpoledne,” Nick said, offering his hand. “Nick Warren.”
“How do you do? Anna Masaryk.”
“Masaryk?”
“My uncle,” she said automatically, smiling a little at his surprise.
For a second he was jarred, as if she had stepped out of history, straight from the death scene in the Czernin courtyard over the wall. But she was no older than his father, someone you could meet in the street.
“You heard they took Milos‘s book?” she said to his father.
“Now it begins all over again. How many years this time? All that work.”
“Maybe he kept a copy.”
“What difference? They’ll never allow it now. They don’t want us to know.”
“You know,” his father said, consoling.
“Me? I always knew. But to prove it-they’ll never allow it. They’re afraid of the truth.” She caught Nick’s glance and said, “Excuse me. You’re visiting Prague?” Then Nick saw her look quickly at his father and back again, as if there were something she didn’t understand. Had she noticed the resemblance?
“He’s just been to the Narodni Gallery,” his father said before he could answer. “Now the Loreto.” A tourist.
“Ah, yes. There’s a very good Goya. I hope you saw it.”
Nick nodded, hoping he wouldn’t have to describe it. What Goya? Were they going to talk about art?
“Of course, the best are in the Prado. But this is very good. It’s lucky that we have one.”
“Perhaps one day you’ll see the others,” Nick said. “In Madrid.”
The woman looked at him wryly. “I doubt it. It’s not allowed, to go there.”
“Oh,” Nick said, stumbling. “Well, perhaps when things are looser again.”
“It was never allowed. Not since ‘37.”
“Czechoslovakia doesn’t recognize Spain,” his father said, helping. “It’s still considered a Fascist state.”
“Oh,” said Nick, feeling awkward. Another wrong turning in the maze. The old categories, still current, like Masaryk’s death. Everything was yesterday here. No one had moved on. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” Anna said. “For the Goyas. You’re staying in Prague long?”
“No, only a few days.”
“Perhaps you would come to tea. If you have time.”
A casual invitation, to a stranger in the street?
“Yes, if I can,” Nick said vaguely, ducking it.
“Valter, you bring him. I never see you anymore. We’ll have a salon.” Was she trying to find out if they knew each other? “It’s good to speak English,” she said to Nick. “You can tell me about the new books. I like to keep up, but it’s so difficult now. Well, we’ll be late. Tomorrow then, if you can. Valentinska Street. It’s in the book. But of course Valter knows.” She took his father’s arm.
“Goodbye,” his father said, shaking Nick’s hand, acquaintances. “I hope you enjoy the Loreto.”
Nick looked at him, waiting for some sign, but his father avoided eye contact and moved off with her, an old couple on their way to a funeral. They reached the corner, and then his father stopped and walked back.
“I told her I forgot to ask your hotel,” he said quickly. “There’s something-the police report. How did you see it?”
Well, how? “A friend got it for me,” Nick said.
His father nodded to himself, thinking. “Was it a copy? You know, a carbon?”
“I don’t remember. Why?”
“They turned everything over to the Bureau. But if they kept a copy, that would explain it. Why they have it.”
“Does it matter? It’s there.”
“But not in the Bureau file. It doesn’t make sense.” He shook his head. “If they found the lighter, what happened to it? It would have been evidence, something like that. So why didn’t they use it?”
“You were gone.” Nick looked at him. “Maybe they will.”
“They still have it?”
Did they? “I don’t know. All I know is they found it. Or said they did.”
“In the hotel room,” his father said to himself. “My lighter.”
“Yes. The one with your initials.”
“But how did it get there?” he said, frustrated, like someone searching for his glasses.
“Well, that’s the question.”
“Yes,” his father said slowly, preoccupied again. “If I could remember-” His eyes narrowed in concentration, lost in his puzzle.
Over his shoulder, Nick saw Anna Masaryk still waiting on the corner. “I’m staying at the Alcron,” he said.
His father glanced up, then nodded and turned without a word, the way old people hang up the phone without saying goodbye, their part of the conversation finished. Nick watched him go, his head bent in thought, until Anna called something to hurry him and he was back in his Czech life, offering her his arm, almost courtly. Then they turned the corner and Nick was alone.
Now what? Unexpectedly, he had the afternoon. But he didn’t want to see anything. Not the Loreto and its famous chimes. He wanted it to be over. He stared down the empty street.
When he heard the footsteps behind him, he froze. Had someone been watching? The steps grew nearer, then passed-a man in a long winter coat, glancing at Nick out of the corner of his eye. He stopped a little farther along and turned, and Nick waited for him to speak, but instead he whistled, and then Nick felt the dog sniffing at his feet. The man said something, presumably apologizing for the dog, then called and began to walk again, looking back once over his shoulder, suspicious. Nick smiled to himself, relieved. What if everything were just as it seemed? A man with a dog. A friendly invitation to tea. Maybe she did like to talk about books, ordinary after all, just a dumpy woman with a magical name. Maybe they were all what they seemed here. Except his father.
He turned down the hill, toward the Mala Strana, replaying the conversation in his head. Easier not to know them. Was he any different? He remembered them shooting blindly into the jungle, everyone in his platoon, ten minutes of random fire. And then the odd stillness afterward, no sound at all, his ears still ringing. You couldn’t trust yourself there either, all of your senses on alert. A twig snapping was enough to set them off. They were lucky that day, no snipers when they located the bodies. One had been shot in the face, his jaw blown open, hanging slack with blood and pieces of bone, and Nick had stared at him, wondering if he had done it. There was supposed to be a connection, the thud of your bullet hitting a body, maybe a scream, but he hadn’t heard anything over the noise of the fire. Some actually claimed victims, like pilots after a dogfight, but they were lying. No one knew. It was easier. Later, in his safe job at the base, he walked around the airstrip with a clipboard, taking inventory on the shipments, and he would see the body bags lined up for the flight home, plastic, like garbage bags, held together with tape. He checked his list, then handed in the manifest and went for a beer. That easy, if you didn’t know them.
He stopped for a minute on the street near some scaffolding where workmen were replastering an old melon-colored facade, and he realized he was sweating. When you started thinking about it, all of it came back, even the heat.
He followed the streets downhill, zigzagging as if he were shaking off a tail, a real spy game, so that when he reached the river he saw that he had overshot the Charles Bridge. It was warmer near the water, the trees in late bloom, and he stood for a few minutes looking at the city, couples huddled on benches, trams, everything ordinary. He started walking downstream toward the next bridge. Could a voice be the same if it lied? What did you trust, a muddled story full of loose ends, or an old man’s hand, the same touch, unmistakable. He stopped to light a cigarette, leaning against a tree. It was when he looked up, blowing smoke, that he saw her on the bridge.
She was standing with a man, talking down at the water, and Nick, startled, moved further behind the tree. Who did she know here? His anger surprised him, a jealousy that went through him like a quick flash of light. Jiri, whom she wasn’t going to see again. When had she arranged it? This morning while he was still asleep, drunk with sex? Nick leaned forward to see what he looked like. But he was ordinary too, his body hidden in a raincoat, his face down, a head full of brown hair. Anybody. But they’d been to bed, making private sounds, holding each other afterward. Until he’d moved on, feckless. Why see him again?
Now they seemed to be arguing, Molly shaking her head. He put his hand on her and she brushed it away. He took her by the arms, turning her toward him, saying something, but she broke away, stepping backward, and Nick realized suddenly that he had got it wrong. Not a meeting she’d wanted. She shook her head again, and Nick could imagine her refusal. No. There’s someone else. He felt a flush, possessive. There was someone else now. Was she as surprised as he had been? Maybe she was tying up her own loose ends, sure now that it had happened. The one thing you could trust. Eyes deceived, not bodies. When he had been inside her, he had felt it, a different touch, just as unmistakable.
Jiri was talking again, and Nick saw her nodding, not looking at him. Then he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, a goodbye, and this time she didn’t resist it, letting his mouth stay next to her until he was finished and turned away. Nick saw him reach the end of the bridge and dodge across the street, not even a wave back, and felt in spite of himself a last prick of jealousy. Just an old boyfriend, but still a part of her he would never know.
He had moved away from the tree, but she continued staring at the river, absorbed, and even when she looked up her eyes went past him, not seeing what she didn’t expect. Was she thinking about what to say to him later? I saw Jiri. He imagined her voice, breezy and matter-of-fact. I mean, I was curious. Wouldn’t you be? But he’s just the same. Her face, however, was somber, not jaunty at all, and in a minute she looked at her watch and walked away. Should he follow her? There was still the afternoon. But by the time he reached the bridge she was already gone, getting on a tram, her secret safe.
She was gone for hours. He lay on the bed waiting, listening to the maids pushing their carts in the hall, gossiping in Czech.
“You’re back,” she said when she opened the door, surprised. “What happened?”
“He had to go to a funeral.”
“Oh. I wish I’d known,” she said easily. “We could have spent the day together.”
He looked at her. She wasn’t going to say a word. Why not? “Where did you go?”
“The usual. Old Town Square, the clocktower.” Not a word.
She held up a Tuzex bag. “Shopping. I got something for your father. Remy, no less. Not cheap, either, even with dollars.”
“That’s the last thing he needs.”
“I know, but it’s what he’ll want.”
“That was nice.”
“We didn’t take anything yesterday. You know, for a house present. So I figured-” She smiled at him. “I’m a well-brought-up girl.”
“You could have fooled me.”
She grinned. “Yeah. Well.”
“So you’ve been busy.”
“A little bee. What about you? Have you been here all day?”
“No. I took a walk. Down by the river.”
He watched, expecting to see her hesitate, but she was fishing for something in her bag. Not a nicker. “Look what else I got.” She held up tickets. “Laterna Magika. The hit of the Czech pavilion.”
“The Czech what?”
“You know, at Expo, in Montreal. Don’t be dense. Everybody’s heard of them. We can’t go without seeing Laterna Magika.”
“Yes, we can.”
“No, really, they’re good. I promise you. Don’t you like mimes?”
“I didn’t mean that.” He reached into his shirt pocket for the other tickets. “Benny Goodman. My father got them.”
“You’re kidding.”
“He’s very big here. So I’m told.”
She sat next to him on the bed, taking the tickets. “What time? Maybe we can go after. Anna looks like the early-to-bed type.” She slipped the tickets onto the bed. “Okay, no Magic Lantern. He’s full of little surprises, isn’t he?”
“All the time.”
“What happened today?”
“Nothing. That was the surprise. We didn’t even get to talk.”
“So do you want to go out? Do something?”
“No.”
“Nothing?” She leaned over him. “We have the afternoon.”
“Let me think about it.”
“I only do it once, you know.”
“What?”
“Seduce you. After that you have to ask.”
He looked at her. What had she really said on the bridge?
“So ask,” she said, bending to him.
When he reached up to her he was sure again, the feel of her skin as familiar now as his own.