Harlot's Ghost

by Norman Mailer

  Back to TSS. I find an unholy desire to tell you about the worst fiasco we ever had, which is why this letter has to be Ultra-BAP. It could fry my kishkes if read by the wrong eyes. Do not bother about the meaning of kishkes. That is argot from Yiddish and will advance nothing you’re interested in. I mention it only because the nominal head of TSS is named Gottlieb, and kishkes is the only Jewish word I ever heard him use. Of course, they assigned me to him—I guess they figure we have something in common. Well, not all that much. Some Jews are deep in tradition like my family, which is half religious-orthodox, half socialist—typically Jewish, ha, ha—but some Jews go in the other direction. They become mirrors of their culture. (Like me!) Like Disraeli, the British Prime Minister under Queen Victoria, born of Jewish parents, but they say he had the best upper-class English accent of anyone in the British Isles.

  Well, Gottlieb is like that except he’s cosmic in scope, interested in everything. Odd! He lives on a farm outside of Washington and gets up every morning to milk his goats. The farmhouse itself used to be a slave cabin, but Gottlieb is a Sunday carpenter, so it’s big enough now to house his family. Mrs. Gottlieb, incidentally, spent her childhood in India. That may be the explanation for the goats! She’s the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries. Gottlieb also raises Christmas trees. And he has a clubfoot, but loves all the same to square dance. He’s only a chemist with a degree from City College, but he’s nonetheless a genius.

  Which is why in summary he sounds like nothing but pieces and parts. I must say, he messed up. Of course, only a genius can when in concert with another genius like Hugh Montague. It actually happened three years ago, but it’s still the worst-kept secret at TSS. You can’t go out with a colleague for a drink and get a little intimate without being told The Story. I find it interesting. There’s some principle of reverse-morale here. Montague is so elevated that I think The Story makes him human for us. Of course he only failed in a judgment call. He put his bet on Gottlieb, and Sidney did the damage.

  Here’s the gen. (Old OSS word for poop.) Three years ago the big rumor at TSS was that the Sovs had synthesized some magic drug. They could not only control the behavior of their agents, but could fix a spy’s memory to self-destruct upon capture. They also had schizophrenia-inducing chemicals to free their agents from all moral concerns. Isn’t this what Communism is all about anyway! The magic drug is in the ideology! Anyway, Gottlieb had come upon a physical substance that turns a few corners in schizophrenia. It is called lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD for short, and TSS people harbor the hope that it will become our wonder drug, since present techniques of debriefing enemy agents are too slow. Allen Dulles wants a chemical spigot to turn a defector on and off. Kind of a truth cocktail. LSD inspires one to tell the truth.

  Now, it’s hard to be sure, Dix, because I only acquired this at several removes, but Gottlieb seems to have had a honey of a theory, worked out in collaboration with Mrs. Montague and her theories. It is built on the premise that the psychic wall which schizophrenia builds to close off communication between opposite parts of the personality is composed of an immense number of lies, and the truth is encysted behind it. Any drug that can induce schizophrenia might also, if used on a start-stop-start-stop basis, induce enough of a vibration in the lies of that schizophrenic wall to shake it and, conceivably, crack it. More normal people, in contrast, only choose the lies that will keep their ego intact. By the Gottlieb-Gardiner theory, a defector’s wall, whether psychotic or normal, can be shattered by the use of LSD. First, however, Gottlieb had to test the compatibility of LSD to his purpose. He and a few colleagues tried it on one another, but they were aware of the experiment. Unwitting LSD recipients were what was needed.

  So, one night at a small cocktail party a TSS researcher managed to slip a dose of LSD into a pony of Cointreau that a contract scientist was drinking. The victim was not witting of the experiment. Now, I don’t know his name—that fact is sealed, but let’s call him what he is—VICTIM.

  As it turned out, he did not react well. VICTIM returned to his home in a state of agitation. A very disciplined man, he fought the effects of the LSD. No symptoms of overt derangement presented themselves. The only manifestation was that he could not sleep. Then he began to tell his wife that he had made terrible mistakes. Only he could not specify what they were. After a couple of days, he was so agitated that Gottlieb sent him to New York to see one of our psychiatrists. Gottlieb’s own deputy stayed with VICTIM in a New York hotel room. VICTIM, however, got worse and worse. Finally, right in front of his keeper, he took a running dive through a closed window and crashed ten stories to his death. They gave his widow and children a government pension, and Gottlieb got away with a slap on the wrist. Montague sent a memo to Dulles: Formal punishment would tend to interfere with “that most necessary spirit of initiative and outright enthusiasm so prerequisite to this work.” Dulles did send a personal letter to Gottlieb scolding him for poor judgment, but no copy of this letter—at least so goes the gen—ever landed in Gottlieb’s file. Sidney is in fine shape at TSS these days.

  I had a strong reaction to the letter. I could read no further. The fear that I was being used by Harlot in careless fashion had just been confirmed. VICTIM kept falling in my mind.

  I had to reach a secure phone. Harvey had told me I was now being watched, but that was not certified, and Butler on several occasions had been caustic about the weakness of our surveillance personnel. It might be worth a chance. I put on my coat and went out the door. Immediately, I let myself back in. I had not only forgotten to slide Rosen’s letter under Butler’s door, but had neglected to put away C.G.’s transcript and tape. These tasks accomplished, I went out again, with considerably less confidence in my clarity of mind.

  A cab came by as I reached the curb, and I jumped in. We had not gone a tenth of a mile before I realized that this taxi could have been waiting on the street expressly for me. So I paid him off, darted up an alley, turned in the middle to see if I was being followed, and leaped in my heart as a cat jumped off a backyard fence.

  Nothing stirred, however, and so far as I could see by the light that came into the alley from the back windows of tenements on either side, nothing was in sight. So I walked back to where I had entered the alley, and the cab I had paid off was still waiting. I strolled past to catch the driver’s eye and he gave me a casual Berlin turn of his hand.

  I leaned into his window, however, and said, “Zwei Herzen und ein Schlag!” At which he started his motor and drove away quickly.

  This comedy proved felicitous to my mood. I no longer felt I was being followed and stepped along briskly for half a mile, occasionally doubling back on my steps. Then I took a cab directly to the Department of Defense, signed and made my way along the hall to the secure phone.

  At the canal house, Kittredge answered. “Harry, is it you?” she asked hesitantly, and added, “Do I sound as odd?” Her voice was fluted by the scrambler.

  “Well, how are you?” I asked. My leg was beginning to quiver at the risk of expressing more. “Oh, God,” I told myself, “I’m hopelessly in love.” Even a cruel distortion of her voice gave me pleasure.

  “It’s forever since you’ve been away,” she said. “I miss you outrageously.”

  “So do I.”

  “I can’t hear you,” she replied. “You sound underwater. Am I pressing some wrong button?”

  “Haven’t you used this kind of phone before?”

  “No, it’s Hugh’s. I wouldn’t dare go near. I thought it was him calling. He’s in London, you see. Left yesterday.”

  “Can you help me to reach him?”

  “Harry, I’m amazed he even told me which continent he’s on.”

  “So you don’t know if he’s coming to Berlin?”

  “He will. He asked if I had any sweet word to pass on to you. ‘Give him mille baisers,’ I told Hugh.”

  She began to laugh. I decided she couldn’t possibly have said that.

  “When Hugh calls
,” I limited myself to saying, “tell him that we have to talk. It’s urgent.”

  “Don’t be surprised,” Kittredge said, “if he drops in on you first. But, Harry . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “When you see him, don’t complain. He hates complaints.”

  “Well,” I said, “I won’t.” Speaking to her, my troubles did not seem as near.

  “I have wonderful news,” she said, “which I’ll impart to you on a better occasion.”

  “Give me a hint.”

  “Well, before too long, I’m going on leave of absence.”

  “To do what?”

  “Oh, Harry,” she said, “just think of me as being in Hong Kong.”

  Was she going undercover? Into Asia? I had instant visions of Kittredge in some opium den with Russian and British and Chinese operators.

  “Will I see you?”

  “Tell Hugh to take you back with him.”

  “He can’t do that. I would have to get clearance from Harvey.”

  “Hugh does not look at obstacles in the way others do,” she said.

  At this point, the Scrambler-Descrambler must have started to spark, for a great deal of static came over the line. We said good-bye in a series of staccato echoes. “Good-bye, can you hear me? Good-bye.”

  As I came out of the main door of the Department of Defense, I could see two men in dull gray overcoats standing about one hundred feet apart on the other side of the street. I took a sharp left and walked at a good pace to the corner. There I wheeled around abruptly. They had not moved. I turned the corner and peeked back. They still had not moved.

  I walked down the block, then retraced my steps to peer around the corner again. The two men were gone. I started to walk at random but now with the most overpowering certainty that I was not without a tail. I must have been in the hands of experts, however, for I saw nothing. If I had a sixth sense it was certainly not located between my ears.

  A cab was going by and I took it. On the way home I thought of looking for Wolfgang. I had no idea what I would do when I found him, nor did I have much sense of whether he would prove an aid to my fortunes, to Bill Harvey’s or, for that matter, to General Gehlen’s. I wanted to see him, however—if only to initiate an action. The desire came over me as powerfully as hunger for a cigarette on the day you are giving them up. Of course, I did not know where to locate Wolfgang. I could never find the alley of the cellar bar nor even, probably, its neighborhood. The place had been a distance off the Kufu, and good luck to all the miles of alleys and bomb-scarred housing off the Kufu. I gave up the idea with all the pain of relinquishing a true vocation—I felt not unlike a saint who has failed to climb the mountain chosen for his revelation.

  I also contained a feeling, however, dull as lead, but indubitably weighty, that I should hurry home. The actual sight of my street, however, increased anxiety, for on the block, a respectful distance from my doorway, were the same two men who had been waiting outside the Department of Defense. Of course, there was nothing to do about them but go up to my apartment.

  Five minutes later, the phone rang.

  “Glad you’re in,” said Harlot. “You didn’t seem to be half an hour ago.”

  “I was in the loo. Can’t hear the phone from there.”

  “Well, I’ll send a car. The driver is called Harry. Harry will pick up Harry. In twenty minutes.”

  “I’m not supposed to leave the premises,” I said.

  “In that case,” said Harlot, “I authorize you to go downstairs. Be prompt.” He hung up.

  15

  I WAITED THROUGH AN ODD TWENTY MINUTES, ALL TOO AWARE OF HOW the films one had seen could, on occasion, command as large a part of one’s brain as family and upbringing. I expected the two men on the street to knock at any moment on my door. I waited for Bill Harvey to arrive. I could also visualize Dix Butler coming into the living room accompanied by Wolfgang. Ingrid now entered the movie of my mind with the clear announcement that she had quit her husband for me. I listened with whole attention to the oaths of a drunk in the street below, but nothing ensued. Just the hoot of a lout. Time went by. When the twenty minutes were almost gone, I took C.G.’s transcript and went downstairs.

  Harlot drove up in a Mercedes. “Get in,” he said. “I’m Harry.” He moved for only a few feet before stopping beside one of the men in the surveillance team. “It’s all right,” he told them. “Go home now. I’ll call you as soon as I need you.”

  Then we accelerated down the street. “I’m debating whether we can talk at my hotel,” he said. “It’s reasonably safe and they don’t exactly know who I am, although it never pays to underestimate anyone in Berlin, as I’m sure you’ve discovered by now.”

  We drove in silence for a time. “Yes, let’s go there,” Harlot decided. “We can drink in the Lounge. There’s no way the management would ever put up with the installation of any bugs. The woodwork is too precious. In the bedrooms, yes, but never the Lounge, not at the Hotel Am Zoo. It’s an old place,” said Harlot, “and nicely reconstructed. The portier is an exceptional fellow, I can tell you. Why, the last time I was here, there were no places available on commercial planes flying out of Berlin. And, for reasons of no concern to you, I did not wish to use the Air Force. Not that week. So I asked the portier to see what he could do. Two hours later, I came by his desk and he was beaming. ‘Dr. Taylor,’ he tells me, ‘I managed to get you the very last seat out of Berlin, Lufthansa, this afternoon. In Hamburg you will connect with Scandinavian Airlines directly to Washington.’ He was so obviously pleased that I had to ask him how he did it. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I told the ticket office that you, Dr. Taylor, are the famous American poet, and it is absolutely essential that you be able to attend the Gisenius concert in Hamburg this evening! The rest is easy. Scandinavian Airlines has boodles of seats for America. You will be able to stretch out.’ Yes,” said Harlot, “that sort of skill is disappearing all over the place.”

  “And Dr. Taylor was your cover name?”

  “Obviously.” He seemed annoyed that I had not enjoyed his story more. “What impresses you about the choice of Dr. Taylor?”

  “Schneider is the word for tailor. Are you that close to Gehlen?”

  Harlot looked to be at a rare loss. “Do you know,” he said, “it could have been unwitting.”

  I made no reply. I was not sure of anything I felt. “Well,” he added, “Gehlen is awful, and I really can’t bear that slippery sort of complacency you find in ex-Nazis who’ve gotten away with it. They carry such a subtle strain of self-pity. But all the same, Harry, I work with Gehlen closely. He’s good at his job, and you have to respect that. The task is Sisyphean in its difficulties.”

  “I’m not sure he’s all that good anymore,” I said. “In my opinion, he is no longer a match for Harvey.”

  “Oh, dear, you will always be loyal to whomever you work for. It’s that Cal Hubbard strain. Pure bulldog. Except you’re mistaken. I happen to have gone over the transcript Gehlen sent me, and I can promise you, given what each man had to lose and gain, Gehlen came off well. Harvey was an impetuous fool to tip his hand on Wolfgang.”

  “I still don’t understand how you can put up with Gehlen.”

  “Oh, anyone else with such a life would show no redeeming qualities. I choose to breathe on the ember of humanity I see in that little German.”

  We had come to the hotel. He left the car for the doorman, and steered me directly to the Lounge. “I had,” I said as soon as we sat down, “a talk with Mrs. Harvey. It’s here in this transcript. I think it’s what you want.” He pocketed the papers and the tape without looking at them. That annoyed me. I may have been reluctant to do the job, but I wanted to be praised on how well I had brought it off. “She’s loyal to her husband,” I said. “So I don’t know that you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  He smiled—was it condescendingly?—and brought forth the pages he had just put away, reading them with an occasional tap of his finger. �
�No,” he said on finishing, “it’s perfect. It confirms everything. One more arrow in the quiver. Thank you, Harry. Good work.”

  I had the feeling, however, that if I had not nudged his attention back to the transcript, he would not have looked at it for quite a while. “Is it of real use to you?” I persisted.

  “Well,” he said, “I’ve had to move without it. In the event, what with a few things speeding up, I have had to proceed on the assumption that C.G. would say just about what she did say. So, we’re all right. Now, let’s have our drink—two slivovitz,” he said to the waiter coming up. It obviously did not occur to him that I had no love for the drink he ordered.

  “I want to get you ready for the next step,” he said on the waiter’s departure.

  “How much trouble am I in?”

  “None,” he stated.

  “For certain?”

  “Ninety-five percent.” He nodded. “Tomorrow morning Bill Harvey and I have an appointment.”

  “Will I be there?”

  “Most certainly not. But it will go the way I expect it to go, and in the late afternoon, you and I are booked to take the Air Force shuttle to Frankfurt and connect there with Pan American overnight for Washington. You’ll be one of my assistants until we decide what you should do next. Congratulations. I cast you into the pit and you’ve survived.”