Larry was furious, and wounded. They had lunch in the quiet dining room of the Knickerbocker, overlooking Fifth Avenue, because he wanted to avoid the communal table at the Brook, but even here, so private that business papers were not allowed at table, people came over to say hello, a hand on the shoulder and an innocuous comment about Uncle Ho’s keeping him busy and who was the fine young fellow with him. Larry put on his Van Johnson smile, but Nick could see his irritation, each interruption wasting precious time.
It was a typical Larry meeting, caught on the run, with a return plane to Paris waiting, a phone call expected, so that Nick became marginal, someone he’d managed to fit in. But Nick hadn’t wanted it either. Molly had taken the film to a photographer friend downtown, and Nick had watched it drop into her purse with dismay, afraid to let it out of his hands for even a minute. Outside, with its swarms of bright yellow taxis, New York was rich and busy and filled with sunshine, everything Prague was not, but all he could think about was Molly being followed or the photographer-how good a friend? — amazed at the pictures appearing in the fixing tray. But Larry had insisted; he had only the afternoon. So they both sat there, prickly, like pieces of tinder ready to ignite. When Larry said, “Chicken salad and iced tea. Two,” Nick wanted to jump on him. I can order myself. A kid again.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me? That’s what I want to know. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“I told you, he didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Well, that’s typical, isn’t it? I suppose you know your mother’s a wreck. For Christ’s sake, traipsing around behind the iron curtain without telling anyone. Now, of all times. What do you think I’m doing in Paris, going to the Louvre? Did you ever think how this would look for me?”
“No, Larry, I never thought about that.”
“Well, thanks very much.”
“It had nothing to do with you.”
“Of course it did. You’re my son.”
“I was his too.”
“I’m surprised you wanted to see him. After everything. Why didn’t you ask me to arrange it if it was so important to you? Do it the right way, not sneak around like this. Like some-” He hesitated. “Spy,” he said, unable to resist.
Nick looked at the man his father had thought would help. Mistaken about everyone to the end, except Nick. “What’s the right way? What would you have said?”
Larry looked away. “I’d have tried to talk you out of it, I suppose. What was the point, Nick? All these years.”
“The point was he wanted to see me. Before he died. I couldn’t say no to that.”
“Before he died?”
“I think he knew.”
Larry looked away, disconcerted. “What did he want, to tell you he was sorry?”
“More or less.”
“Christ. So off you go. Not a word. And the next thing I hear you’re in a Communist jail-”
“I was never in jail.”
“And now I’ve got the FBI all over me. Did you know your son is in Czechoslovakia? Oh, really. Fucking Hoover on the phone. Now I’m supposed to owe him one. God knows what that favor will be. Your son’s been arrested, but we got him out. Well, thanks, Edgar, I appreciate it. Do you have any idea what it’s been like?”
“They didn’t get me out. You don’t owe him anything.”
“Well, they still want to see you. Is there something else I should know before they start calling me again? What’s all this business about him coming back? What did he tell you?”
“He said he wanted to come home, that’s all. Maybe the FBI thought he meant it. I don’t know why. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.” Larry paused. “He said that, about coming back? Christ. What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t real, Larry, just some dream he had.” And here, with the sun flashing on the yellow taxis, was it anything more?
“How could he think-? Come home. He must have been out of his mind.”
“Yes, he must have been,” Nick said, an edge. “He killed himself.”
Larry stopped and looked down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
Nick said nothing, letting the moment hang there, everything awkward. The chicken salad arrived. Larry sipped his iced tea.
“They said you found the body. That must have been-” He switched tack, avoiding it. “How did he do it? They didn’t say.”
“He jumped off the balcony,” Nick said, matter-of-fact.
“Jumped?”
“It’s an old Prague custom. Like Jan Masaryk.”
“Yes,” Larry said, surprised at the reference. “I remember.”
Another awkward pause, a sip of tea.
“That doesn’t always work. Was he still alive when you found him?” Larry asked, his tone almost delicate, talking around it, like asking a cancer patient the details of his medication because you couldn’t ask how it felt to die.
“No. No last words,” Nick said.
“It must have been terrible. Finding him.”
“Stay away from it. That’s why they thought I killed him, at first. It wasn’t jail, you know, just a few questions.”
“Christ, what a mess,” Larry said. “You’d think he’d have waited. Not while you were still there.”
“I don’t think he was thinking about that, Larry,” Nick said.
“No.” A quick step back.
“Maybe it’s because I was there. His seeing me. That’s what the police think.”
Larry grabbed his arm across the table, almost violent. “Don’t you think that. Ever. Don’t you do that to yourself.” Then he pulled his hand back and looked away. “Hell,” he said, general, meaningless, like shaking his fist in the air. He picked at his salad, letting the polite room settle around them. “What was he like?” he said finally, as if they were just making conversation.
“The same. Different. He was sick. I met his wife.”
“What’s she like? A Russian?”
“No, Czech. They met in Moscow, though. She didn’t talk much. He wanted to talk about old times.”
“Old times?”
“When I was a boy,” Nick said. “Not politics. Not what happened.”
“No, I guess he wouldn’t.”
“Jokes we used to have. You know.”
“No, I don’t,” Larry said, irritated, then caught himself. “Never mind. What else?”
“Nothing. We went to the country. We went to a Benny Goodman concert.”
“God.”
“He was just happy to see me. I thought so, anyway. I had no idea he was thinking about-”
“No, he was always good at that. The old Kotlar two-face.”
“Come on, Larry.”
He sighed and nodded, an apology.
What else? How Nick’s heart had turned over that first night at the Wallenstein? Putting him to bed? His face at the gallery, gazing at the fatted calf? The bottomless regret? None of it. “He showed me his Order of Lenin,” Nick said instead.
“Well, he earned it,” Larry said sourly. “I’m sorry, Nick. A couple of jokes and old fishing stories? I remember other things. I remember you. The way you walked around looking like you’d been kicked in the face.”
“I remember it too, Larry,” Nick said quietly.
“He shouldn’t have done it,” Larry said, as if he hadn’t heard. “Making you go there. All these years, and he just crooks his little finger like nothing happened. Jokes. I’ll bet he was charming. He was always charming.” He spoke the word as if it were a kind of smear. “He charmed me. Well, they’re all good at that. All smiles. You ought to sit across a table from them. Day after day. Not an inch. They don’t want us out, they want us to keep groveling. Showing you his medal-was that supposed to make you proud? What do you think he got it for?”
Nick stared at him, amazed at the outburst.
Larry put down his fork and looked out the window, visibly trying to retrieve control. “He shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “You might have got in real trouble. I didn’t know you were there.”
Nick waited a moment. “I’m sorry you were worried, but nothing happened. I’m back. He wasn’t charming. He was a sick old man. Now he’s dead. It’s over.” He paused. “What’s this all about?”
“I don’t know,” Larry said, still looking out the window. Then he turned back to Nick, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe I’m jealous. It’s hard to share someone.” He picked up his fork, then put it down again, as if a prop would distract him. “You were so stubborn. Like an animal. You wouldn’t trust anyone. And I thought, I’m not going to let this happen to him. Okay, at first it was for your mother. I never thought about having a kid, not even my own. You were just part of the package. But there you were. You wouldn’t give an inch either.” He paused, a smile. “Just like old Ho. Maybe you were my special training. But then it changed a little. Then a little more. The funny thing was, I wasn’t winning you over-it was the other way around. I loved being your father. All of it-all those things I didn’t expect. Christ, those hockey games.” He looked up. “I thought you were mine. You remember the way people would say we were like each other and you’d give me that look, our little secret? But I loved it when they said that. We are a little, you know. I see myself in you sometimes. I don’t know how that happens. Of course, I don’t see myself farting around London when you could be making something of yourself here. Well, I had to say it. But I know you will.” He looked straight at Nick. “You’re the hardest thing I’ve ever done. So maybe I’m jealous when someone has you so easily. One call and you come.”
“And if you called, I wouldn’t?”
“Well, you like to be the only one. Maybe it’s wrong. I never thought I’d have to share you, but I do. So I’ll learn. Even with him. I thought Walter was a fool-I’m sorry, I did, I can’t pretend. But I don’t want you to think I am too.”
“I don’t think you’re a fool.”
“Well, you will if I go on like this. A little unexpected, isn’t it? Maybe I’m getting old, a little fuzzy. But a stunt like this. Christ, Nick. Wait till Hoover tells you your kid is locked up somewhere.” Larry paused and Nick saw the hint of a question in his eyes. “But it’s all over now.”
“Yes, it’s all over.”
Larry glanced at his watch. “I have to run, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear. Go see your mother, she’s expecting you. You might skip the body details-you know, after he fell. She’s been- It brings everything back. So maybe just the old jokes. And how you weren’t in jail.” He paused, a glint. “And his wife.”
He got up and started out, Nick following. “I shouldn’t leave her, but I’ll be back Friday. It’s like the shuttle, back and forth to Paris every week. They love face-to-face in Washington these days, I don’t know why. Maybe they don’t trust the phones. Well, they’re right. Remind me to tell you the latest about Nixon and old Edgar. The War of the Roses. To tell you the truth, I don’t mind the planes. No calls. You get to read the papers.” They were on the bright marble steps, traffic honking, the quiet formal rooms behind them like some misplaced dream of London. “By the way, what’s with the hotel? You’ve got a perfectly good room at home sitting there.”
“I’m with a girl.”
“Really?” Larry said, interested. “Serious?”
But Nick ignored it. “We’re only here for one night. To see you. We go to Washington tomorrow.”
“What’s in Washington?”
“Friends.”
“What friends?”
Nick smiled at him, the suspicious parent. “Hers. This must be your car.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s black and important. Big aerial. Isn’t it?”
“Wise guy,” Larry said fondly.
“By the way, did you get a call from Jack Kemper?”
Larry looked at him, suddenly alert. “No, why?”
“He’s with the CIA in London. I used his name. I told the embassy in Prague I was working for him. That’s why they got me out. Not the Bureau. You don’t owe Hoover anything.”
Larry blinked, taking this in. “How do you know he’s with the CIA?”
“You told me. At the Bruces’ party.”
Larry looked at him, then smiled, an insider’s laugh. “Who said my kid couldn’t think on his feet? They’d better watch you.”
“Well, they may. And you. I heard Kemper was upset. That’s why I thought you should know.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Larry said, taking his hand, but Nick leaned over and hugged him. Larry held him for a moment, surprised and pleased. “I’m glad you’re home,” he said, no longer joking, an apology for the lunch.
“Get us out of Vietnam,” Nick said as Larry got into the car.
“I’m trying, believe me,” he said, then rolled up the window and the car slid toward Fifth Avenue.
The photographer was in a rundown building on Delancey Street, near the bridge, two unlit flights up.
“You Nick, man?” he said, opening the door a crack. Long hair, a face corrugated with old acne scars. When Nick nodded, the door opened into a huge empty space with exposed pipes, littered with tripods, light cables, and back screens. The living quarters seemed to be a camp bed and a trestle table overflowing with Chinese takeout cartons. A young girl in a flimsy short dress sat on a stool, smoking a joint. “Molly’s in there,” he said, nodding toward a bare red bulb hanging over an enclosed space. “Your prints are still drying. What the fuck are they, anyway? I mean, they’re in fucking Russian.”
What had Molly told him? “ Samizdat,” Nick said.
“Samitz who?”
“Underground manuscripts. They have to smuggle them out. You know, like Solzhenitsyn.”
“Far out.”
“Want a hit?” the girl said dreamily, holding out the joint.
Nick shook his head.
“I’m not going to get in any trouble or anything, right?” the photographer said.
“No, nothing like that. I appreciate your help.”‘
“Hey, no problem. Old Molly. Samizyet,” he said, shaking his head.
“What kind of photography do you do?” Nick said, to make conversation.
“Fashion,” he said, grinning. The girl giggled.
Molly came out, stuffing an envelope into her bag. “Hey, thanks, Richie.” She went over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “You do great work.”
“Fucking A. You got them all? Don’t leave nothing in there.”
“All here,” she said, patting the bag. “I’ll see you, okay?”
“Yeah. Say hi to your mom.”
As they were leaving, the girl with the joint began lifting the dress over her head, her body as thin as a child’s.
“The people you know,” Nick said when they hit the street, bright after the dark stairs.
“Richie? We went to high school together.” She laughed to herself. “In the glee club.”
They stopped at a bookstore on Fifth Avenue to buy a Russian-English dictionary.
“What’s the point?” Nick said. “We can’t translate this. It’d take months.”
“No, but we might get some idea what it is. What were you going to do, get one of the girls at the UN? Would you mind taking a look at these? Just a few espionage documents I happened to pick up. By the way, do you have a safe-deposit box or something? For the negatives.”
“No. I’ll put them somewhere at home. I have to see my mother anyway.”
“Alone?”
Nick nodded.
“A little too early to take me home to Mom, huh?”
“A little too early for Mom. She’s got other things on her mind.”
“Okay. Maybe I’ll run up to Bronxville and see mine. Since we’re being so good.”
“But you’ll be back tonight?”
“Hmm.” She looked at him. “I’m not that good. Besides, I always wanted to stay at the Plaza. How rich are you, anyway?”
He smiled. “Rich.”
“And Catholic. You are Catholic, aren’t you?”
“Baptized, anyway.”
“She’ll die. She’ll just die.”
The photographs, in impenetrable Cyrillic, seemed to be a series of reports, not a simple list.
“See how they’re dated up here? Like memos.”
“This is impossible, Molly. Even if we figure out the letters, we still have to translate the Russian.”
“Well, the numbers help. We can figure out the dates,” she said eagerly. “And see the words in block capitals? They all have them. It’s a format, if we can figure it out. They sign off that way too.”
But the dates, once deciphered, were all recent, none of them reaching back to his father’s time.
“They’re the active ones, that’s why,” Molly said. “These are the reports they’re getting now. I’ll bet the caps are names. Look, this one’s Otto. So who’s Otto?”
“A code name,” Nick said, then sighed. “We have to know the context, Molly. Look at the dates-they’re not consistent. It’s a selection. Maybe they’re the incriminating ones. Each one nails somebody, if you understand it.”
“Hold on,” she said, distracted, looking something up in the dictionary. Nick walked over to the window and looked across the street to where the hansom cabs were idling in the afternoon sun.
“Serebro,” Molly said, running her finger down a page. “Yes. Come look.” But Nick was still eyeing the street, watching the taxis pull up under the 59th Street awning. She brought the book over to him, pointing to the word.
“Silver,” he said. “By him or about him?”
“By him. The signature.”
He glanced at the photograph. A report, exactly like the others, same format, so not original, typed by someone in Moscow. From cables? By Nina, perhaps, his father’s friend, Silver’s admirer. “Yes, but we have to know what it says. Didn’t any of your friends go into the translating business?”
“No, only dirty pictures.” She hesitated. “You could ask your father. He’d know someone.”
“You could ask Jeff,” he answered back. “Want the phone?”
“Look, let’s think about this. What would reports say? Not necessarily who they are, just what they’re passing on. I mean, the reports still might not identify them. You’d have to know who the code names referred to.”
“Great. No, we need the context. I mean, if it’s a trade report, it’s someone in Commerce. Like that.”
“But how would we know exactly who in Commerce? Are you listening to me? What are you looking at?”
“It’s a pickup zone,” Nick said, still watching out the window. “So why is that car just sitting there? The doorman acts like he doesn’t even see it.”
“Maybe it’s waiting.”
“I don’t think so. Two guys. Feels like old home week to me.”
“Let me see,” Molly said, getting up, accidentally knocking the photographs to the floor. “Shit.” She bent down, collecting them.
“One of them’s on the corner, so they’ve got both entrances covered.”
“Don’t get paranoid,” Molly said, still crouched down, sorting the pictures. “I’ll bet it’s a divorce. This isn’t Prague, remember?”
Nick said nothing. The man below lit a cigarette.
“Well, bless me for a fool,” Molly said. “Nick, look.”
“What?”
“I thought they were all alike, but look. At the end.” Nick came over. “It’s a list.”
He took the photograph. “But of what?”
“Code names and addresses. Five of them. See. That’s NW at the end.”
“Washington.”
“There’s Otto. Come on, we can translate this. The street names’ll be in English.”
“What were the letters for Silver?”
She glanced down the list. “He’s not here.”
But someone can lead me to him. “Never mind. Let’s do the others.” He grinned at her. “How’d you get so smart anyway?”
“Bronxville High,” she said. “Look at Richie.”
The maid opened the door, someone new, a thin black woman wearing a housedress and comfortable bedroom slippers.
“She’s in there, feeling sorry for herself. See if you can get her to eat something.”
His mother was sitting on the long couch, staring out across the park. The room was almost dark.
“There you are,” she said, holding out her arms. “I was getting worried.”
He leaned down and kissed her, smelling the gin on her breath. “Want a light?” he said, reaching for the lamp.
“No, leave it. It’s nice like this. Anyway, I look terrible.” Her face in fact was blotchy, like a blur sitting on top the sharp edges of her perfect suit and its gleaming brass buttons. “I’m having a cocktail.” She glanced up. “Just one. You?” He shook his head. “I don’t know why. I don’t really like them.” She took a sip from the wide-mouthed glass. “Did you see Larry?”
He took a seat beside the couch, unnerved by her voice-dreamy, the way it had been the day after his father left.
“He said you were in jail.”
“No,” Nick said. “The police just asked me some questions. I’m all right.”
She turned her eyes back to the window. “What did he look like?”
“The same. Thinner. Not as much hair.”
“Waves,” she said absently. “It’s hard to imagine-” Nick waited.
“Was he happy?” But she caught the absurdity of it herself. “Before the end, I mean.” She reached for a cigarette.
“No. Not happy. I think he just made the best of it. While he could.”
“Isn’t it terrible? I don’t think I could stand it if he’d been happy. Isn’t it terrible. To feel that.”
“He asked about you.”
“Did he?” she said, her voice almost eager, and then she was crying, her face scrunched like a child’s. “I’m sorry,” she said, running a finger under her eyes. “I don’t know why I mind so much. I didn’t expect to. You’d think-” She took out a handkerchief and wiped her face. “I must look like hell. I’ve been doing this all day. Silly, isn’t it? It’s just that I keep thinking-” Nick looked at her curiously. All these years without a word. She blew her nose. “What did he say?”
“He wondered if you’d ever want to see him again.”
“If I’d ever want to see him again,” she repeated dully, staring at the handkerchief. “I won’t now, will I? He’s really gone, not just away somewhere.” She paused. “I’ve never been a widow before. All of a sudden, you’re alone.” She tried to smile, airy. “Nobody to go dancing with. Hear the songs. He was a good dancer, did you know?”
“No.”
“We used to have fun. I’d get all dressed up, he liked that, and-” She stopped again, catching his look. “Don’t worry. It’s just that it all comes back. All the fun.” Her eyes went back to the window, fixed somewhere in the fading light. A silence. “See him again,” she said slowly. “I wanted to see him every day. Every single day.”
I hope you die, she’d said.
“I never knew you felt that way. I mean, after-”
“Didn’t you? No, nobody did. Maybe I didn’t myself. I thought it would stop,” she said to herself, still staring out the window. “How do you stop? I was in love with him,” she said simply. The rest of it doesn’t matter, you know. Not any of it. I was in love with him.“ Her voice was dreamy again. ”People don’t say that anymore, do they? ‘In love.’ “
Nick looked at her, remembering his awkwardness on the train.
“But then, we were all like that. Drugged with it. That was our drug. All those songs. It’s what everybody wanted, to fall in love. Maybe it was the war, I don’t know. But I did. Just like in the songs. He would just walk into the room.” She paused. “Just walk into the room. That’s all. And I’d be-” She stopped and looked at him. “Am I embarrassing you? Children never think their parents feel anything.” Her face softened. “But you’re not a child anymore. You look so much like him. The same eyes.”
“He never stopped loving you either.” A kindness, but wasn’t it true? He remembered the look on his father’s face when he asked about her.
“Did he say that?” Her eyes moist again.
Nick nodded, not quite a lie.
“No, you never stop. I don’t think I realized it until I heard.” She turned back to the window. “I thought he — took it with him. Everything. The way he took the fun. And then I heard and it all came back. He was there all the time. Nobody else. I didn’t know.” She started crying again, shuddering, shaking her head. “Nobody told me I’d miss him. Nobody told me. Then you’re alone.” She turned her head, a thin wail, no louder than a sigh.
Nick looked at her, dismayed. “You’re not alone.”
She reached over and put her hand on his arm. “I know, honey, I didn’t mean it that way.” She sniffled, visibly pulling herself back. “What would I have done without you? It’s different, that’s all.”
“I mean you have Larry.”
“I never loved Larry,” she said flatly, putting out her cigarette. “I never loved anyone but your father. Not for a day. Didn’t you know that?”
No, I didn’t, Nick wanted to say. “But you married him.”
“Yes. I don’t know why. I suppose to make him stop asking me. Maybe I thought it would be safer-better for you. Who knows why we do things? Maybe I thought it would be a way to forget.” Her hand was still at the ashtray, rubbing the cigarette out. “I was wrong about that. In a way it made it worse, all the pretending. Anyway, I did. Not very fair to him, I suppose, but it’s what he wanted.”
“He’s crazy about you.”
“Larry?” She looked up at him. “Larry was never faithful to me in his life. Not that I cared. Well, at first. Then it was a relief, really. I never had to worry about him. Larry always took care of himself.” She paused. “Now I am embarrassing you.”
“How did you know?” Nick said, disbelieving. Where had he been while their lives were going on?
“Oh, darling, people are always helpful. Telling you things. For your own good. I suppose they thought I’d mind. Divorce him, which is always interesting. But, you see, I didn’t care. I mean, he never flaunted it, there was no reason not to go on as we were. He was always very fond of you.” She shrugged, ironic. “A model husband. It’s just the way he is. So why should I mind?”
“You don’t really mean that.”
“No, not really,” she said quietly. “But that’s the way it worked out. I don’t know what he expected, marrying me. I often wondered. I think he wanted it because he wanted it. The idea of it. But after a while it didn’t matter. You get used to everything, even the looks. ”Poor Livia.“ That’s the only part that used to bother me, the way they’d look at you. As if you didn’t know. Tim was the worst. Those eyes. Like he was praying for you.” She touched Nick’s arm. “You ought to go see him, by the way. He’s had a stroke now. They were giving him speech therapy. Funny, isn’t it, to think of Tim tongue-tied. Funny how life works out. One day you’re-” She broke off. “And the next day you’re a widow. And it’s all gone.” She turned to Nick. “I’m glad you saw him. No matter what. You were everything to him. Was it all right, when you saw him? The way it was? I remember when you were little, that look he’d get on his face-” She reached for the handkerchief. “He couldn’t get enough of you.”
“It was the same,” Nick said, suddenly claustrophobic in the dark room, the air itself swallowed up in her longing.
“He must have known. To want to see you before. It’s terrible, knowing like that.” As if his father had been lying in a hospital bed, waiting for the end, not being hurled over a balcony. The only way she would imagine it now, her dying lover.
Nick stood up and turned on the light. “It’s getting dark.”
She looked up, surprised, then nodded into the handkerchief. “And here I am wallowing. There’s not much point, is there? Going on like this. There,” she said, wiping her eyes again, “all gone. Now. How about taking an old lady out to dinner? We’ll go somewhere nice.” She stood up and glanced at him. “I suppose you’re dressed. It doesn’t seem to matter these days. I’ll just go put on my face.” She stopped. “I’ll be all right. Really. Somewhere nice. Lutece.”
Nick checked his watch. “Can we get in? I mean-”
“Darling. Use Larry’s name.” She started to move away, then turned. “Nick, all this about Larry-I shouldn’t have told you that. You mustn’t mind. He cares about you. All this other-it doesn’t matter, really. It’s just life. My life, not yours.” She tried a smile. “Well, I won’t be a minute. We’ll have dinner. You can tell me everything that happened. How he lived. All that. Was he still funny?”
“Not as funny.”
“Oh,” she said, a catch in her throat, then dismissed it. “Well, everything. Even the bad parts.”
“Are you sure you want to know? Maybe it’s better if-”
“Yes,” she said, looking at him seriously. “It’s important. Everything about him. I have to know. All these years, nobody would talk about him. I was supposed to be-I don’t know, ashamed, I guess. Larry wouldn’t. I think it embarrassed him. Maybe he thought it would hurt me. But it can’t now. I want to talk about him.” She paused, looking down, her voice faltering. “You see, I didn’t know before. There isn’t going to be anyone else. I’m not ashamed. He was the love of my life.” Then she turned and left.
Nick stood for a minute looking at the rich, soft room, the dull sheen of silver boxes and picture frames in the half-light, their old ormolu clock on the mantel, then went over to the window. Across the park, the familiar apartment towers had begun to light up: Majestic. Beresford. El Dorado. Movie castles, not the grim Hradcany, looming over a dark city. None of it had to happen. All their happiness. To protect somebody else.
“I won’t be a minute,” she called from her dressing room, her voice almost an echo.
She took ten. But when she appeared she was ready to go out, hair brushed back, lips red, fixed in a smile, the prettiest girl at Sacred Heart.
“How do I look?” she said.
“You look beautiful.”
Her face softened, a real smile. “You always say that.”
Molly was late.
“Remind me never to complain about Czech trains again,” she said, flinging her bag on the hotel bed, full of energy. “At least they run. I had to wait an hour and then we got stuck. And of course she had to wait with me. Good old Kathleen. Made me realize why I left home in the first place. Still, it was worth it. Wait till you see what I’ve got.” She looked over at him, noticing his distant expression. “How was your mother?”
“Sad,” he said quietly, not wanting to discuss it. “What have you got?”
“What they call evidence.” Molly sat, poking in her bag. “Take a look. Rosemary’s last letter. My mother had it all these years-not a word. She said she never showed it to anyone because it was too shameful. Despairing. Anyway, I wheedled it out of her.”
“A suicide note?” The letter was written on old correspondence paper, one sheet folded over to make four sides, the writing thick and hard, almost pressed through so that the ink had barely faded.
“I don’t think so. Look.” No margins, the girlish handwriting running from side to side in a solid block.
Dear Kathy,
Thanks so much for the $. I know things aren’t easy for you either and I wouldn’t have asked but I’m almost flat. I’ll pay you back when I’m on my feet again. I wish I knew when that will be. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do and when all this business is going to end. I could tell from your letter, Kathy, that you think it’s all my fault but honestly it’s not, please don’t think that. I don’t know how it started, it’s like a bad dream, and I just wish it would end. The newspapers don’t bother me much now but I guess they’ll start up again and then I don’t know what. At least now I’ll have some $ for a new dress.
You ask me if I’m sorry I got involved with the ‘Reds’ in the first place. I suppose you want me to say yes, so yes. But I still think what they say makes a lot of sense. I guess all I can say is that it sounded like a good idea at the time. I am sorry that I got talked into doing what I did. You know I would never do anything against this country. I didn’t think it was ’treason‘ the way they say in the papers. I was just helping out, for a good cause. Well, I know better now but that doesn’t help much. I thought one confession was enough. At least it wouldn’t be on my conscience. But I guess Washington isn’t like the church. They always want more-no absolution. I thought I was finished with it but I guess I wasn’t.
So I don’t know what I’m going to do. Pray for me, if you think God is still listening. Thanks again for the $. Give my love to Molly and don’t be angry with me.
Love, Rosemary
P.S. You’ll be happy to hear I haven’t been seeing my ‘friend’. I wish I was, in spite of everything. Since this business started, it’s been hard. “Good,” I can hear you say, but he’s not what you think. He’s not even married like the other one so don’t worry about that. Just scared, like everybody else here. I’m sort of a famous character here (!). I guess I should leave Washington when all this is over but where would I go? Well, maybe God will forgive this too. Got to run. Thanks again. I’ll pay you back. Promise.
Nick read it twice, trying to connect the simple schoolgirl scrawl to the twisted figure on the car roof. Everybody wanted to be in love then.
“What’s the evidence?” he said finally.
“Well, it has to be some kind of evidence. It’s the last thing she ever wrote. What was on her mind.”
“A new dress,” Nick said quietly.
“Which you don’t buy if you’re going to- Not if you have to borrow money for it.”
“We knew that. You don’t take your nightgown either. Who’s the man? Did your mother say?”
“She didn’t know. Just that Rosemary was seeing somebody. The married one was in New York, before she went to Washington. She and my mother had a big fight about him-you know, how wrong it was-so she was probably a little gun-shy after that about her love life. Especially if she was borrowing money from Mother Kathleen. Anyway, it sounds like he ditched her.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Nick said thoughtfully. “Just scared.”
“Maybe just careful. Of a famous character. Well, that’s one piece of evidence, anyway. It wasn’t my father. He was married at the time.”
“Unless he lied to her.” She caught his look. “Well, people do. All right, I don’t think he did it either.”
She took the letter back and looked down at it. “Maybe I’ll try confession too. Look what it did for Aunt Rosemary. You notice how nothing’s her fault? Her conscience is clear. Pretty crazy, the whole thing, the more you look at it.” She glanced up. “I don’t think she was sorry about anything. She just wanted my mother to think so. The guy’s not so bad. Even the Communists still make a lot of sense. She was just helping out. I love the exclamation mark-little innocent me. Just a bad dream. ‘I don’t know how it started.’ How hard would it be to figure that one out? ‘I don’t know how it started.’ ”
“But she didn’t,” Nick said. “My father told us. She never volunteered. They went after her.”
“Well, either way. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is somebody else started it. Everything that happened.”
But he was talking to himself, another conversation, and Molly wasn’t listening. “‘Give my love to Molly,”’ she said, pointing to the phrase. “If she saw me twice in her life, it was a lot. She was probably just getting ready to put the touch on old Kathleen again. You know, my mother thought she was wonderful. Wild, but-you know. That’s why she kept it. I’ll bet she never thought Rosemary was just fooling her too. God.”
“She wasn’t fooling anybody. She seems more sad than anything else.”
“You keep saying that. You’ve got sad on the brain. You need cheering up.” She reached up and put her hand on the back of his neck, tossing the letter on the bed. “Let’s forget about them. Kathleen asked me if I was in New York with a man.” She giggled. “So I told her I’d seen Richie. I thought she’d die.”
“So would I, if I were your mother.”
“But you’re not, are you?”
“No.”
“And you’re not married.”
“No.”
“So there’s nothing to worry about. Just my soul.” She stretched her neck and kissed him. “Here’s an idea. Let’s smoke a joint and make love. All night.” She nodded to the ceiling. “No microphones.”
“I liked the microphones,” he said, smiling. “Where’d you get the stuff?”
“Well, I did see Richie. There’s no end to his talents.”
He kissed her. “Was he a good kisser?”
“Are you kidding? I couldn’t get past the Clearasil. Anyway, I don’t kiss just anybody.”
“No?”
“No. Consider yourself lucky.”
“I do,” he said into her ear, a murmur. “But let’s skip the joint. We have to get up early.”
“We do? Why?”
“Our friends down there left after I got in,” he said, still whispering, back at the Alcron. “So they’re probably on a shift, not working all night. I figure they won’t get here before seven, so if we leave early, they won’t even know we’re gone.”
She pulled back, surprised, as if someone had turned on the news. “You’re good at this, aren’t you?”
“I have help. You’re the one who got the letter.”
“Maybe you should take it up. What are you going to do when this is all over?”
“Go work for Jeff,” he said.
“I work for Jeff,” she said, kissing him.