After the dinner they mingled over cocktails, made with real alcohol, thank God! Alex was in his element. Some of the government officials had not seen their homeland since the fifties, and therefore their memories were no different from Alex’s. They talked together like old buddies and reminisced about the place as if they had been there only yesterday. They spoke of a land that no longer existed, discussing policy for a people they did not even know.
Zosia fit in naturally as well. She spoke animatedly to a small group of second-generation exiles using a nearly neutral accent that was neither her father’s nor her husband’s. As Peter stood next to her, listening to her speak, he marveled at how she had nicely canceled both their influences.
He looked around and noticed Anna and Joanna sitting off to the side. Anna was becoming more familiar with English with each passing month, but she was still obviously uncomfortable in sustained conversation. He whispered his excuse into Zosia’s ear without interrupting her continuous stream of conversation and went over to join Anna and his daughter.
He lit a cigarette, one of the ones he had brought from home, and offered Anna one. She shook her head.
“Oh, that’s right. You’ve quit,” he said in German.
“Did the police get hold of you?”
“The police?” he repeated, alarmed.
“They wanted to interview you about that incident with the neo-Nazis. They called Alex today to try and track you down. We told them where you were.”
“No, they haven’t called yet,” he muttered.
“They said it shouldn’t take long, they have everything they need on the videotape.”
“Good. For some odd reason, I have an aversion to police.”
Anna nodded her understanding. “What do you think of them?” She indicated the surrounding British exiles.
“It’s nice being able to just relax at a gathering. I appreciate that.”
“Do you feel at home?”
He shook his head. “Naw, I don’t know these people. Maybe I read their names on a directive in the distant past, but I don’t know them. And they,” he added quite pointedly, thinking of the growing distance between the government and the governed, “don’t know me.”
“I wonder,” Anna mused, misinterpreting, “I wonder how it is that no one recognizes you or your story.”
“I’m glad they don’t. The idea scares me a bit.”
“You’re assuming they don’t know what really happened.”
“Yes, I suppose I am.” He scanned the crowd yet again. Did he want to be discovered? Might they be able to tell him what had happened all those years ago?
Anna studied his face for a moment. “You really loved her, didn’t you?” Her tone carried none of the accusation of their previous conversation.
He nodded without looking at her.
“It may be your only chance, son. Go see what you can find out. Somebody here must know.”
“Yeah, I guess I’ll walk around the room a bit.” He kissed Joanna, then kissed Anna on the cheek. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.”
He wandered the large room, mingling with the crowd, sipping the champagneprovided, and conversing with the occasional person who came up to him. There did not seem to be anyone who could offer him further information or explanations on his past, and he was about to give up and rejoin Anna and Joanna, when behind him he heard a familiar voice.
He turned carefully and studied the speaker: a man, not much older than he, talking knowledgeably, or at least pompously, to a small knot of English-Americans, that is, second- or third-generation exiles. The voice and the face belonged to a man he had known as Graham. Peter had given the Council what little he knew about Graham, but nothing had turned up in the files: he was not an acknowledged German agent nor had he been arrested nor was his name linked to their arrests. That was not surprising—Graham had been his immediate superior and their link to the rest of the organization; most of the group did not even know him, and nobody but Peter had known how to contact him.
Peter waited until Graham had finished his current exposition and had not yet launched into the next to walk up to the group and say, “Excuse me.”
Graham turned toward him, as did all the others. There was a pause as Graham studied him, then he smiled and said, “Yardley.”
Peter was stunned and it took him a moment to say, “So you do know me?”
“Yes. It was hard to tell from the TV since not everything in your story matched up. You know, you changed a few dates, added a wife . . .” Graham paused significantly, then suggested, “That was Allison, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Peter responded somewhat embarrassed.
“So, you finally got your chance to marry her. At least in your imagination, eh?” Graham added snidely.
“I amended my life under advice,” Peter replied calmly.
“Naturally, of course, of course,” Graham rushed to assure him. “Well, other than the details, I still had trouble feeling certain it was you. Your accent’s changed. Milder, i’n’it? And you look a bit different. Older, of course. Or is it something else? Not sure . . .”
As Graham mused, Peter studied his old comrade for clues. Why wasn’t Graham, or whatever his name was now, accusing him, or at least questioning him? Why no curiosity?
“But in person,” Graham continued, “there’s no mistaking you!”
“Kind of you to remember me,” Peter said with subdued irony. His suspicions were growing stronger with each overenthusiastic word Graham spoke.
“Let me introduce you to my friends here.” Graham was all smiles. “This is my dear old friend Alan Yardley, also known as Peter Halifax, also known as, er, any others?”
“Some.”
“And this is . . . oh, the group.” Graham gave up in good-natured confusion.
There were several pleased-to-meet-ya’s, which Peter essentially ignored. “You seem to be doing well for yourself,” he said to Graham.
Graham’s grin broadened. “Oh, yes. I’m here permanently now as an adviser to the Home Office.”
“Working in the government? Congratulations.” Peter could hardly keep the sarcasm out of his tone.
“And you?”
“Surviving,” Peter replied tersely.
“Staying here?”
“Can’t say.”
“Oh, you should. You don’t want to go back there. It’s so . . .”
“Filthy?” Peter asked, using one of the typical complaints of the Americanized English.“Miserably damp?” he suggested into Graham’s embarrassed silence. “Or is it the appalling food?”
Graham glanced at his young friends and shrugged a chagrined apology.
“Oh, I’m sure they’ve said it all themselves. Horrid place full of ill-tempered, violent, chain-smoking—”
“Alan!” Graham looked abashed; his friends glanced at each other with guilty recognition.
“—alcoholics who insult them all the time and don’t appreciate the sacrifices they’ve made to come and learn about us and our vile culture.” Then, indicating Graham’s friends, Peter added, “Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what you think?”
None dared to answer, though several shifted uneasily.
“So you’re alive,” Graham said to say something.
“Obviously. And you’re not surprised?”
“A bit. But you always were slippery. If anyone was going to survive that fiasco, it would have been you.” Graham smiled at his young friends.
“Doesn’t that raise any questions in your mind?”
“What? Questions? Um, well, I guess I’m curious how you pulled it off. Bad luck about the arrest afterwards. Hey, where’d you get the lousy papers? Street purchase?”
“No, they belonged to me when I first joined.”
“Oh, that was clever.” Graham sucked on his cigarette. The little audience was fascinated, and he obviously loved being the center of attention. “But you know, you aren’t supposed to keep things like that.”
“Well, it’s not too late to issue a sanction,” Peter sneered.
“Oh, we’d never do that! No, my boy, we’re just glad you pulled through. Messy business, what?”
Peter rubbed his chin, then risked saying, “Yes, you don’t come out of it all that well, do you?”
“Oh, so you heard.” Graham’s voice conveyed disappointment.
“Yes, but I’d like to hear your version. It only seems fair.”
“It wasn’t anything like what you heard! I told them to warn you all immediately. I really insisted waiting was too dangerous. I argued so vociferously, I was nearly cited for insubordination!”
“Obviously. You know, I appreciate your concern. We all do, every last fucking corpse!” Peter stopped, then resumed in a more conversational tone,“But despite your best efforts, you couldn’t convince them.”
“No! But you know, they were in a bit of a bind. They could hardly go arresting-someone that high up without a reasonable suspicion.”
“Of course.”
“And I couldn’t disobey orders and tell you that he had your names. You might have let on that we were on to him!”
“Couldn’t have that, could we?” Peter replied coolly. He had noted Graham’s change from they to we.
“No, you might have blown the operation. You know, gone into hiding or something.”
“And there was no reason for us to do that, was there?”
“Well . . .” Graham snorted with anger. “Blasted security! They just don’t take it seriously enough here! Why they ever let him get hold of so much information! They should have been more suspicious earlier on. Of course, that is what tipped us off in the first place.”
“So you had our names on a list in a file drawer, eh?” Peter asked sardonically.
“Oh, not that bad!”
“A locked file drawer,” Peter amended bitingly.
Graham’s eyes widened with sudden suspicion, then he asked, “How did you know all this? Who told you?”
“You just did.”
Graham seemed to swallow a few curses, then filled in the awkward silence by saying, “Well, if it’s any consolation, old boy, the moment he gave you all away, we had him then.”
“Ah, that is consoling. Hanged him, no doubt.”
“Er, no. The Americans won’t let us hang traitors. They’ll happily fry drug dealers, but I’m afraid we have to put our baddies in prison.”
“For ever and ever?” Peter asked, sure of the answer.
“Well, he was released three years ago.”
“You can give me his name,” Peter spoke gently, “or I can look it up in the news files. Which?”
“Oh, Yardley. Alan! He was really quite senior! And with the royal connection . . .”
“I thought we both belonged to the English Republican Army,” Peter hissed. “Since when have we started covering them for their stupid loyalties!”
“Alan, come now, you know the political realities!” Graham let his eyes stray meaningfully toward his groupies. “We had to be careful! Strength in unity, my boy.”
“Don’t ‘my boy’ me!”
“Come on,” Graham pleaded, “you don’t want to pursue any vendettas. It’ll look bad for us if you go digging up old dirt!”
“Oh, you needn’t worry,” Peter assured him in a cold tone. “If I’m going to take revenge on anyone, it will be you. You’re the one who didn’t warn us. You’re the one who sacrificed all of us to please your royalist masters. You’re the one they’re calling for.”
“Alan! It wasn’t my fault!”
“I hear them calling you, don’t you?” Peter raised a hand to his ear, listening to ghostly voices.
“Alan! Aren’t you listening? It wasn’t me! It wasn’t my fault!” Graham insisted desperately.
“Come join us, Graham, we miss you! That’s what they’re saying,” Peter interpreted for his audience. “I think it’s only fair I help you join them, don’t you?”
“Don’t joke like this, Alan. It’s too weird. Stop it. Please, stop it! They told me to hold off warning you! They just mistimed it, that’s all. The flight, I was going to leave more time, but . . . It would have been such a scandal if they had got it wrong—they couldn’t just arrest him without firm proof! I was just following orders! Honestly . . .”
Peter shook his head, dropping the psychic act.“No, Graham, or whoever you are, I’m not buying that. Our lives were always cheap to our American-born masters. We all knew that and we had nothing but contempt for those buffoons! But you were there! You knew us and you let us swing! I always knew you were a pompous arse, but I never took you for a murderer!”
The little audience of American-born future masters backed off slightly in preparation for the violence that was sure to follow, but Peter disappointed them; showing a self-control they had not expected, he turned and walked away.
Graham stared after him, watching as his old comrade left the room, then he recovered his composure and, smiling weakly at his little audience, raised his glass. “Excitable sort!” he toasted with a forced little laugh.
Peter went out the massive front doors and into the hallway. There he hesitated a moment, wondering what to do. He was furious, but he was equally helpless. Retribution was impossible unless he wanted to spark a diplomatic incident and destroy everything they had worked for. Squabbling among and within the allies was one of their greatest problems; it weakened their position in the NAU and left them vulnerable to attacks from the Nazi sympathizers in America.
He sighed heavily, lit a cigarette, and stepped cautiously outside. The traffic on Fifth Avenue had abated a bit, but it was still impressive. He glanced around—no reporters anywhere, the embassy had kept their word. He sat on the steps in the evening heat and smoked, enjoying the momentary solitude, thinking of his lost friends.
He ran through Graham’s words in his mind and heard again his halfswallowed excuse: The flight—I was going to leave more time . . . Therein probably lay the entire truth: they had held Graham in America until they were sure of what orders to give; Graham had been sent back with a warning but had arrivedtoo late. The ministry had cut it too fine, waiting for their irrefutable proof, Graham had screwed up getting the message to them fast enough, and probably, somewhere, something inevitable like a late train or a flight delayed by a thunderstorm had cost all his friends their lives.
He cleaned some nonexistent dirt out from under his fingernails and wondered: Had a message been sent to his flat that very night, the night he was out with Allison? Was there an unanswered knock on his door, a sheet of paper shoved under it? He was the only one who knew how to contact everyone else quickly. How close had Graham come to warning him? That very night would have cut it perilously close, but there would have been time, time enough. He should ask Graham if he had made it as far as London, if a messenger had knocked on an unanswered door. He should ask, he thought, but he would not; he did not want to know. On that score it was better to remain in blessed ignorance.
“Dad?”
He turned around to see Joanna standing at the top of the steps and motioned for her to join him. She sat next to him and he gave her a hug.
She waved her hands around her face and grunted.
“What’s the matter?”
“Those things stink.” She pointed at his cigarette.
He looked at his cigarette as if seeing it for the first time and thought of all the times Karl had blown smoke in his face. It had been a ritual every time he had lit Karl’s cigarette, and it had stunk then. “Yeah, they do, don’t they?”
“They’re awful.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie, I didn’t know they bothered you.” Of course, Joanna had not grown up surrounded by constant smoke. “You’d make a good American,” he added to tease her.
She grimaced. “Uncle Ryszard’s place smelled awful—I could hardly breathe!”
“Oh, I’m sorry! Why didn’t you say something? Maybe we could have done something about it.”
> She shrugged. “Genia said not to. She said her father would yell at me.”
“You should have told me; I would have talked to him.”
“But he would have yelled at you.”
“I’d have just yelled back, honey.”
“Doesn’t Uncle Ryszard outrank you?”
“Not on things like that, sweetie. Next time something bothers you, you tell me and I’ll see what I can do. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He inhaled from the cigarette, suddenly feeling a guilt he had never felt before. He made a point of blowing the smoke away from her, of holding the cigarette off to the side, but still he felt guilty. How odd!
“And I’ve heard they’re not good for you,” Joanna said suddenly.
He smiled at her concern. “Yeah, I’ve heard that, too.”
“So why do you do it?”
“I don’t know,” he replied truthfully. “Habit, I suppose.” At the time he had heard of the dangers, it had not seemed particularly relevant since the risks he was taking were such that his future health was hardly a concern, but maybe now they were important; maybe it would determine whether he would see Joanna’s children grow up. He didn’t want to miss that. Nor did he want to spend years hacking and coughing and spitting like so many of his elder colleagues had, the way Alex did. “Your mother doesn’t let me smoke near her now that she’s pregnant. And I can’t smoke at home. Seems a bit pointless, doesn’t it?”
Joanna nodded, clearly surprised that an adult could see sense so easily.
“Would you like me to quit?”
She nodded enthusiastically.
Never before had it mattered. Never before was a future so possible. Maybe the past would not matter if the future was full of hope. “Okay. I’ll stop.” He ground the cigarette out on the stone steps. “There! All done.”
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