How’s it look? John asked, his words starting to slur. The director of photography nodded and the operators checked the gate and someone said looks good and John said one more for safety so you did it all again and as the work progressed I felt myself coming into focus. Every time Meg Arran sang a high note against the recording of herself singing it in another room on another day it struck me as so artificial I began to wheeze and the deep laughter rising inside me brought clarity. Meg noticed my spluttering and looked so furious John called cut and you had to do the take again and each time it went a little faster, six takes in the end, gate checked, and then John yelled, print that last one, it was the angriest piece of singing I’ve seen in forty-five years.
When he turned around Mary was standing behind him. Where have you been? John spoke in a whisper loud enough for the whole stage to hear.
In my suite, Marsh. Waiting for you.
I’ve been to your suite. You weren’t there.
Mary stood still so her makeup and hair could be fixed. I went for a cup of coffee and then Krug wanted to see me.
John tried to force Mary to make eye contact with him but she kept turning her head. Okay, John shouted to the room, we do it from the top but with Faye’s entrance and number. Master shot and then close-ups.
Everything started again. You were playing, the Arran Sisters singing, and when the number was finished Mary appeared from behind a curtain at the back of the set and mumbled through ‘Crazy He Calls Me’. After a dozen takes John was still unsatisfied but there was no time for perfection. Half an hour later, between one set-up and another, the stage consumed by the chaos of lights being adjusted and the camera rig moved, Mary disappeared again. As usual, Nick Charles had an explanation. She needed to speak privately on the phone with your housekeeper, Mr. Marsh, about arrangements for the party. They were interrupted earlier because someone showed up at the house. A couple of men.
John glanced at me. I knew what he was thinking, that it was probably the same men who had been sitting outside the house that morning, and if not them then their colleagues. A different breed of autograph hound. John called for a break and I looked across the set to where you were reading a newspaper. The lights drained the life from your complexion, and in an awful flash I imagined how you might look in death. Later, I wondered if it might have been a moment of foresight, but perhaps it was only coincidence, as such occasions must be.
John turned to me with a sudden expression of panic, no doubt brought on by all the bourbon and bromide sloshing through his system. Will you help me? he asked. In that moment I pitied him, this man who called me his best friend, and because when I glanced at you there was no invitation for me to approach, no glimmer in your eye that said, please, Desmond, find an excuse to come stand beside me and speak for half an hour while we wait, I went with John.
Of course, I said, let’s go.
Not long after I left Los Angeles, I received that letter you wrote, unsigned but unmistakably in your hand, your voice, castigating me, expressing incomprehension at the way I had drawn out the deception and failed to tell you what I was planning until my plans were already complete. Now I think that I had to disappoint you, to make you hate me, because if I had not, if I continued to believe you still loved me, I would never have been able to leave you.
Although I still dream that we might have gone on living in happiness despite the pressures of government and society and the industry that employed us, I know this is fantasy. I had to leave to save us both from misery and my unfolding disaster. I had to remove myself from America so that all temptation to see you again, a temptation that has dogged me for decades, would be impossible to satisfy. In every instant of desiring to see you again, I have been faced with the insuperable barrier of travel. At first this was genuine, material, because I could not return to America without risking that legal action might be taken against me. Once that threat had passed, the obstacle became psychological, me saying to myself, But how can you go back? You are no longer of that place. Even a brief visit would reopen the wounds of exile. You would see that you no longer belong, that you have adapted not just to another kind of life, but to another culture entirely. America would refuse you and you would find no place for yourself there.
Henry James once wrote that ‘Americans, rightly or wrongly, are commended for the ease with which they adapt themselves to foreign conditions’, and yet adaptation takes time, while acculturation – or its cousin assimilation – may require a lifetime to achieve. On my walk this morning through the Piazza della Signoria, pausing to stare at the statue of Hercules and Cacus, I noticed a young man, tall and bronzed and muscular, unmistakably American, unmistakably also a soldier, wearing mirrored sunglasses and hoisting a camouflage rucksack, glancing wildly around him as if a backfiring truck in the Via Calimala were an IED. He made himself a target, as so many Americans abroad seem unwittingly to do, and I felt sorry for him even as the militarism of his bearing, the unapologetic Americanness of his attire and attitude, the ways in which he seemed unconscious of how his appearance might affect the locals in this place, in any place not his by birthright, profoundly irritated me. I wanted to help him as much as I longed to shout at him to get rid of the damn rucksack and take off the mirrored aviator glasses and wear something other than jeans and running shoes. Try to blend in, adapt by changing yourself, not only by assuming you can go on living as if you were at home in your own land. Adaptation means change. Adapt or die.
Instead, I nodded at him, tipped my hat, and he looked at first as if he could not imagine I might be addressing him. I nodded again, offering an Aschenbachian flourish, a camp flick of the wrist, me in my pale linen suit and matching panama, my cane, my hungry eye, and this time the soldier understood. What am I doing, I asked myself, for this young man is precisely the type who might take offense and fly at me in fury, ending my long life before I have yet accomplished all that I wish.
But he did not. He blushed beneath his bronzed skin, grinning almost despite himself. He took off his glasses, nodded back at me, and I noticed his hand twitch, as if he were governing an impulse to salute. Poor boy, poor fool. I should have liked to talk to him, to find out what he had seen, whether he had just arrived from Afghanistan or elsewhere, why he had pitched up in Florence on a cold spring morning.
As he walked away I decided to follow, tapping my cane on the uneven streets so that he knew I was not trying to conceal my pursuit. He could not help stopping to ogle the displays at Rivoire as I ogled him, the store’s windows already stocked with extravagant Easter eggs, and as he did so he noticed me once more. I removed my hat and touched my hair, almost involuntarily, because it occurred to me that this young man shared your coloring, Myles, the olive complexion, hair the same blond as your own, pale blue eyes precisely the shade of my suit. But this time I saw impatience, a response less flattered than anxious, and so I nodded once more and turned away from the soldier, back towards the Palazzo Vecchio. It would have been foolish to follow one of your doppelgängers, a phantom who resembles you only in the most obvious ways but lacks the clarity of your gaze or the vulnerability of your bearing as you used to walk through my world.
You see, though, how I continue to chase you even now, to allow myself these moments of derangement and fantasy as consolation for the agonies of loss.
Nathalie
The doorbell rang at the Marsh residence on Summit Drive and Nathalie Gebhart, just returned from taking her sons and the Marshes’ daughter Iris to school in Mr. Marsh’s dark sedan, straightened her apron and spoke into the intercom.
Yes, may I ask who is this?
Is that Mrs. Nathalie Gebhart?
Speaking.
Could we have a word, Mrs. Gebhart?
But who might you be? I don’t just open this gate to anyone. You could be crazy people for all I know. Or autograph hounds. We are not interested in that. Crazy people especially. Explain yourself.
We’re agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We�
��d like to have a word.
Nathalie sucked a breath and checked her hair in the hall mirror, smoothed the cloche of artillery-helmet curls, opened the front door, clopped across the brick-paved drive, and stepped up to the gate where a black coupe was idling with two men in the front, both in dark suits, wearing snap-brim hats. One man was swarthy, the other pale.
Do you gentlemen have some identification or something like this? You may say you are agents and suchlike but without badges I am not so stupid as to let you inside this property. You could be rapists or murderers. Some sex stranglers even.
The agents eyed each other, one passing the other a wallet. The pale one, who had spoken into the intercom, held up his own and the other man’s identification badges. I’m Agent Lawrence Leopold. This is my partner, Stygius Loeb.
Stygius?
His father was a professor of Classics at Harvard. Disgraced.
But Stygius is a terrible name for a boy.
They called me Gus at school. You can call me Agent Loeb, said the swarthy man in the passenger’s seat.
Might we come inside?
But do you have some kind of warrant? Is that not necessary in this situation?
Agent Leopold looked at Agent Loeb and then they both looked at Nathalie Gebhart.
We don’t want to make this unpleasant, do we, Mrs. Gebhart?
No, of course we do not, said Nathalie, opening the gate and standing to one side while Agent Leopold drove the car onto the property and parked it in front of the garage.
The two men stepped out, closed their respective car doors with ginger force, and followed, unsmiling, as Nathalie led them into the house and through the front hall to the living room. The three of them stood on the plush pink carpet waiting for something to happen. The clock in the hall chimed.
Always this clock is so slow. I must get her fixed. Perhaps you gentlemen would like to sit?
The men nodded and sat next to each other on a pink davenport facing the window that looked onto the drive and the gate and their car parked in the sun. As the cushions collapsed under their weight the men slid towards each other so their knees were touching until Agent Loeb edged away from his partner.
I’m afraid Mr. and Mrs. Marsh are both at the studio. I have just got off the phone with Mrs. Marsh because of you ringing the bell at the gate. At this moment now it is just me here in the house. The children, they are all of them at school. I have much work to do. My employers are hosting a so huge party tonight. Some people will be arriving later, quite soon now, to set up the tables and such.
That’s why we’ve come at this hour, Mrs. Gebhart, said Agent Leopold. We know the plans.
We know that caterers—
Not just caterers, but Chasen’s.
Indeed, Chasen’s, as well as decorators and technicians from the studio are coming.
We have been conducting enquiries.
We have very reliable sources.
We know the day’s schedule.
You see, we wished to speak with you privately, Mrs. Gebhart, said Agent Loeb, which is why we have chosen the hour of our calling down to the minute.
To speak with you.
Without being interrupted.
What, to speak with me? Nathalie drew her knees together, crossed her ankles, and tucked them under the slipper chair where she was sitting. Cocked her head to one side. Clutched pearls she was not wearing. Perfect coquette pose. Masterful in its execution.
That’s what we said, ma’am, to speak with you.
To speak with you alone, ma’am.
But, gentlemen, do you not want some coffee? Only I have just made a pot to see me through the morning, and there is plenty should you wish. Cream and sugar? Maybe also some cookies that only just now I bake?
Agents Loeb and Leopold frowned at each other.
No, ma’am, no coffee.
Thank you, ma’am, no, ma’am. We won’t be needing any cookies.
No? said Nathalie, the word drawn unnaturally out and tumbling down through a pregnant decrescendo.
No, the men said in unison.
So how might it be that I can help you this morning? Bright again. Quick recovery. Super instincts.
We have been attending to your movements since you entered the country in 1946 with your ex-husband. That is, your American ex-husband, Mr. Archibald Anderson.
Not your first and now late husband Wilhelm Gebhart.
Just to be clear.
We want no confusion on this point, ma’am.
No, indeed, as Agent Loeb says, not Wilhelm Gebhart but Mr. Archibald Anderson.
Nathalie shook her head as if she had smelled something rotten. Archie was not such a nice man. Cruel to my boys. But what do you mean you have been attending to my movements? This sounds very strange. Nathalie lowered her chin, cocking her head to the opposite side.
The government has been waiting for the right moment to capitalize on your obvious talents.
They should be put to good use, ma’am.
And now is the time. Agent Leopold had dark green eyes and long, slightly red lashes which fluttered whenever he came to the end of a sentence. Also coquettish, in a more menacing way. Also masterful.
My talents? Nathalie laughed. It was a professional-grade performance. You must be mistaken, dear agents, I have no talents. Polishing silver. And my cherry pancakes, made with yeast and a dusting of confectioner’s sugar. That is a talent maybe you could say. Also a nice onion cake recipe I learnt from my mother. I once played the violin with some skill, but not many years now. Schubert. But any fool can play Schubert. Nothing I would call talent. I came to this country after the war with Archie to find a better way of life. I always admire you Americans your directness.
Don’t be so modest, Frau Gebhart. We know about your talents.
No, it is true, you have to believe me, I am only just a housekeeper these days.
What was your job in Germany, before you came to America?
In Germany I was only ever a housewife. My late husband, Wilhelm, he was—
Your late husband was an officer in the Abwehr and executed by the Gestapo following his involvement in the Solf Tea Party. You also worked for the Abwehr but were already in Britain at the time of said Tea Party, having entered the country with your sons posing as refugees. A nice little family of spies. The British eventually captured you and turned you pretty quick from what we hear.
Threat of execution of the youngest Gebhart son, is what our intelligence says.
And you became one of their most effective double-cross agents, codenamed The Baker. In London, you met your American husband, that is Archibald Anderson, who was stationed in England. You married and returned with him to Detroit, Michigan, in 1946. In 1947, you divorced Anderson and moved to Los Angeles where you immediately entered the employ of Mr. and Mrs. John Marsh. Excuse me, ma’am, is this too direct an approach?
Nathalie’s feet came forward and she planted her dark brown shoes on the floor, pushed herself back in the chair, and slumped a little. Her neck straightened. Her head was square on her shoulders. The clock ticked in the hall but the ticking seemed to slow and all the movements of the woman and two men to thicken and sag. Agent Loeb was smiling. He had good straight teeth but breath so foul Nathalie could smell it from across the room.
No, if I were to be honest with you, dear agents, this is something of a relief.
No charades.
Fine, gentlemen, no charades.
Drop the strudel-English shtick.
Fine, if that’s what you prefer, she said. Her voice dipped an octave and flipped to BBC English. After nearly four years in this country and having shared the bed of one – more than one in fact, if we’re showing all our cards – I’ve come to the depressing conclusion that you Americans are, at base, immutably the same. You are a nation of bullies.
Agents Loeb and Leopold glanced at each other peripherally before returning their focus to Nathalie Gebhart.
You are quite fluent in English, af
ter all, said Agent Leopold.
More so than our intelligence—
What my colleague means is, you are better trained than we had been led to believe.
My husband and I were both very rigorously prepared during our time in the Abwehr, but let me assure you, since I have little doubt you are wondering, that we were neither of us committed Nazis. In fact, we were trying to work against the party, as I assume you must know.
The intelligence on your husband was clear, said Agent Leopold.
On you, not so much.
But that’s no longer of interest to us. Any ideological sympathies you might have harbored for the Nazis we are willing to excuse as, let us say, a temporary—
A moral lapse, Agent Loeb interrupted.
That chapter of history is closed as far as we are concerned – by which I mean, as far as Agent Loeb and myself are concerned.
And as far as the men to whom we report are concerned.
Agent Loeb means the Director of the FBI.
Do you mean to say that J. Edgar Hoover himself knows about me? By name? Nathalie asked, blue eyes sparkling.
That is not something we can confirm.
Neither confirm nor deny, ma’am.
So what can I do for you gentlemen and your illustrious Director now that we’ve cleared the air about my unfortunate past, which, you must understand, was entirely a matter of historical circumstance?
We’re here because you know how to handle yourself in covert operations.
That’s the assumption on which the Bureau is working.
Nathalie reached for an enamel box on the side table nearest her chair, withdrew a cigarette, lit the end with a ceramic lighter in the shape of a pug dog whose squashed snout exhaled a flame, inhaled, held the smoke in her chest for longer than seemed physically possible, and blew it directly in the faces of the two agents. Agent Loeb paddled the air with one hand. Nathalie noticed that his nails had been professionally manicured.
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