The Prodigal Spy

by Joseph Kanon

“It’s not polite to stare, you know.” A woman’s voice, next to him.

  “Sorry. Was I?” he said, turning to her, embarrassed.

  But she was smiling. “I wish someone looked at me that way. She’s very pretty. Are you together?”

  “Sort of,” he said, taking her in. She was still an attractive woman, but her face was loose and round, padded, Nick guessed, by years of too many extra glasses of wine. She seemed slightly drunk, shiny and amused, but not fuzzy.

  “Sort of.” She laughed. “Well, you will be, if you keep that up. Youth,” she said, suggesting she’d enjoyed hers. “I tell you what. You just look and pretend to talk to me. I don’t mind a bit. I’m Doris Kemper, by the way. Jack Kemper’s wife.” She spoke the name, unknown to Nick, as if it guaranteed instant recognition.

  “Nick Warren.”

  “Ah. Larry’s son?”

  Nick nodded.

  “Well, that explains it. Your father always had an eye for the girls.”

  “Really? Did you know him?”

  “Not that way, if that’s what you mean. But I must say, I always wondered a little,” she said, oddly flirtatious. “He was quite the man about town. Do they use that expression anymore? Of course, this was all about a million years ago. Thank you,” she said to the waiter refilling her glass. “You can’t imagine how different Washington was then. People had fun.”

  Nick watched her take another drink, trying to imagine her slim and eager for a night out. It occurred to him that if he just smiled encouragingly he wouldn’t have to talk at all.

  “Well, they did,” she said, misinterpreting his look. “Of course, children don’t believe their parents were ever young. I know mine can’t. Then I heard he got married. We were overseas and I thought, well, that’s that. They’ll be hanging crepe all over town. If it lasts. But here you are, so I guess it did.”

  “Where overseas?” Nick said, making conversation.

  “Oh, everywhere. Athens. Rabat. Everywhere you had to boil the water.” She laughed to herself. “We were in Delhi for four years-that was the longest stretch.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Well, Jack did. I had the children to raise. You know the tropics-one little scratch, and before you know it, it’s infected. You had to watch all the time. And the snakes.” She waved her hand, dismissing India, and when he followed it he found himself looking across the table again. Molly was listening to one of her suitors, fork poised in the air, her bare arms pale in the candlelight. He wondered if they would sleep together tonight. She’d stayed for dinner.

  “You do have an eye,” Doris Kemper said. “I suppose he passed it on.” She picked up her glass. “Now tell me about yourself. What are you doing in London? Are you a lawyer too?”

  “No, I’m finishing a degree at LSE.”

  “That sounds interesting,” she said, clearly not believing it. “What in?”

  “At the moment I’m doing research on the McCarthy period. You know, the witch-hunts.”

  “People study that? Now I do feel old.”

  “My professor’s writing a book about it.”

  “But it’s such an exaggeration. Witch-hunts. I suppose to young people-but really, you know, the whole thing has been blown all out of proportion. I remember the loyalty oaths. We all had to do that. The army hearings. But to hear people talk, you’d think that’s all that was going on. Not any of the good things. Most people didn’t even notice.”

  “HUAC held over two hundred hearings then,” Nick said calmly, a statistician. “Three thousand witnesses. And that was just HUAC. Not McCarthy.”

  “Really?” she said, too surprised to be offended. But she was already moving away, the lesson of a hundred dinner parties. “Of course, we were overseas most of the time.”

  She leaned back to let the waiter remove her plate and looked at Nick as if the new angle had suddenly brought him into focus. “Now I remember,” she said. “Larry’s wife. She had a child. That’s right. There was a boy-” She stopped. “Oh.” Nick could see in her slack face the rest of it coming back to her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t-” She floundered, in such obvious distress that Nick, almost as a reflex, helped her.

  “That’s all right,” he said quietly.

  But it wasn’t. It happened so rarely now that he was unprepared for it, that moment when someone knew. He felt the sinking in his stomach, always the same, found out by the giant pointing finger. He wished he weren’t still high, unguarded, because now it would all come back. He knew the sequence, the pictures that would flash through his mind and always end with the woman lying twisted on the roof of the car. Instead he turned to the bright table, willing himself to be distracted by the opulent silver and the spray of flowers, an imperial banquet. Doris Kemper, who misinterpreted the gesture and thought he was angry, put her hand on his arm.

  “I didn’t mean-” she said, and because she was silly but still kind, Nick smiled back, letting her off the hook.

  “I know,” he said. How quickly it could happen, he thought, when you weren’t expecting it. But that was his problem, not hers. She never meant a thing. She’d had a life of amahs and swimming pool parties and only remembered the snakes, dreaming of Maryland. And now, of course, she’d be curious. He could already see the irresistible questions forming in her eyes.

  They were both rescued by the tinkling of a knife against a glass as the ambassador rose to propose a toast. Not a speech, he said genially, just a word of welcome, because it was always good to see old friends and particularly good when those friends were about to render a service to their country. They were all aware of the importance of Larry’s mission, and they were all grateful, he was sure, that the mission had been placed in such competent hands. If there was progress to be made, he would make it, and he carried with him, at the very least, the hopes and good wishes of everyone at this table and countless other tables back home. There was a little more, and a few ‘hear, hear’s, and they raised their glasses. Nick raised his too, feeling more than ever the anomaly of his position, the son of a traitor invited to sit at the high table. But Larry, smiling modestly at the group, seemed entirely at ease, and his mother, on the ambassador’s right, looked radiant. No one, in fact, saw anything but a happy family, not even Doris Kemper, who thought he had an eye.

  The table was breaking up now, heading into the sitting room for coffee, and when he looked over at Molly towering over her diplomats, who turned out to be short, his mood changed. The hell with them all, tangled up in their money and pious hopes for Paris. Their world, not his. He was going to spend an evening with a girl who’d actually met someone in the Steve Miller Band. But when she returned his look she seemed nervous, flustered by the toast, as if the evening had been a high and they were coming down, back where they started, and he wondered if they would sleep together after all.

  “Good luck with your project,” Doris Kemper said, shaking hands.

  “I’ll try to look for the good things,” he said pleasantly.

  “You do that.” She smiled, almost winking. “It’s still the greatest country in the world.”

  The informality of the coffee hour made it easier to slip out early, and after paying his respects to the Bruces, he collected Molly and headed for the door. A hug and faint protest from his mother, but no one else seemed to mind, absorbed on their side of the generation gap.

  “She’s a nice girl,” Larry said when Molly went to get her coat. “I thought you said you weren’t seeing anybody.”

  “I’m not seeing her yet,” Nick said. “First date.”

  “Quite a restaurant,” Larry said, nodding at the room. Men smoked near the fireplace, ignoring the women, who perched on the edges of the deep couches, busy with each other. A waiter was passing brandy. It looked to be a long night.

  “Quite an invitation,” Nick said. “Thanks. Good luck tomorrow.”

  Larry nodded and shook his hand. “Don’t forget to call the lawyer.”

  “I won’t. By the way, who’s
Jack Kemper?”

  Larry grinned. “What did he tell you?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t. He’s CIA.”

  In the hall, Molly was being helped into her gaucho cape, a remnant of her morning self. The servant, stiff and correct, held it as if it were mink, and as she slid into it, the two halves of her life seemed put together without matching.

  “Shall I call you a taxi, sir?”

  “No, thank you. We’ll find one.”

  The man raised a dubious eyebrow, but nodded and opened the door. “Mind how you go,” he said, indicating the dark driveway, dense now with night mist.

  But it was the obscurity Nick wanted. He took her arm on the steps and they walked out of the range of the house lights, over the canal toward Prince Albert Road.

  “You okay?” he said.

  “I’ve never felt so out of place in my life.”

  “No, you were the hit of the party.”

  “I kept thinking, what if they knew?”

  “Knew what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. That I didn’t belong there, I guess.” She paused. “What was it like, growing up like that?”

  “I didn’t grow up like that. It was just-normal, you know. The usual stuff. School. Sports. They went to parties, I did homework.”

  “An all-American boy.”

  “Mm. Eagle Scout.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “On my honor,” he said, holding up three fingers in the oath position.

  She stopped, looking at him. “You’re not what I expected.”

  “You said that before. Anyway, I’m not a Scout any more.”

  “No.”

  “There’s something I’ve wanted to do all evening.” Before she could say anything, he put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her, pressing her lips gently until she opened her mouth and he tasted the faint trace of wine. But then she pulled back and put her hand between them.

  “Don’t you want to?” he said, surprised.

  She nodded. “That’s the problem. Then later you’d think-”

  He grinned. “I’m not old-fashioned. I’d respect you in the morning. Promise. Scout’s honor.”

  She bit her lower lip. “No, you don’t understand. Look, I need to talk to you. Let’s go somewhere.”

  “No, here. What’s wrong?”

  She looked to the side, avoiding him, then took a breath and turned back. “Okay. I was going to explain, but I couldn’t in there. And then-” She stopped. “Let me have a cigarette, will you?”

  He fished one out of his pocket, still looking at her. He was amazed to see her hand trembling slightly as she took it. “What’s this all about?” he said, lighting it for her.

  She inhaled as if drawing strength from it.

  “I told you someone asked me to look you up. You never asked who.”

  “Who?”

  “I was supposed to give you a message. I never meant to-”

  “Who?” he said, impatient now.

  She looked up at him as if she were afraid of his reaction. “Your father.”

  “Larry?” he said, so that he wouldn’t have to think anything else.

  “No, your father. Walter Kotlar. I met him. He asked me to-” She paused, taking another drag on the cigarette. “He wants to see you.”

  Chapter 5

  It was her idea to go to Jules Bar. A pub would have been noisy, her flat impossible, and when they got into the taxi he seemed incapable of suggesting anything, so she said the first thing that popped into her head. He was quiet all the way to Jermyn Street, not sure where to start or whether to start at all, one thought canceling out the other until he felt empty, staring at the meter. She didn’t try to talk either, and for one crazy moment it seemed to him that they’d already entered the clandestine world, afraid to be overheard in taxis.

  He wants to see you. Why? How? When the taxi stopped, she got out and paid and he just stood looking at the blue neon martini glass, now a little wary of her because, like a lover, she knew the most intimate thing about him.

  “Who are you?” he said when they sat down. The bar was supposed to be like a New York cocktail lounge, dark and cool, little tables with flickering votive candles.

  “Who I said. I just met him, that’s all.”

  “Two vodkas,” he said to the waiter, then turned back to her. “That seems appropriate, doesn’t it?”

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “I don’t know. Yes. Of course I want to hear it. Christ.” He lit a cigarette. “What were you doing in Moscow?”

  “He’s not in Moscow. He’s in Prague.”

  “All right. What were you doing in Prague?”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “We have to start somewhere. Tell me. Or are you with the CIA too?”

  She looked at him blankly, having had a different dinner partner. “Well, if you must know, I went to see a guy I knew in Paris. He’s from there. There were lots of Czechs in Paris last year. You know, before the invasion.”

  “But he went back.”

  She nodded. “I thought we were-well, wrong again. Imagine my surprise. He didn’t even want to see me. I suppose he thought it would get him in trouble. So like an idiot I show up at his door, and voila, the new live-in girl takes one look and-anyway, what’s the difference? Satisfied?” She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m not a spy. I just went to Prague to make a fool of myself.”

  “My father was a spy,” Nick said simply.

  “I know who he was.”

  The waiter brought the drinks in Jules’s widemouthed martini glasses and he gulped his, managing half before it burned.

  “So how did you meet him? After the girlfriend threw you out.”

  “Well, that’s the funny thing. Jiri let me stay there — I think it was her idea, actually. To torture him or something. But I really didn’t have anywhere else and I’d already exchanged my money, so I just hung out and saw Prague. They took me places. To tell you the truth, I think Jiri liked the idea of people thinking he was with both of us. You know, that he had some menage a trois going.”

  “Did he?”

  “No.” She glared at him, then let it go. “Anyway, they took me to a party one night and that’s where I met him. Your father.”

  “At a party,” Nick said. “When was this?”

  “Last month.”

  “You took your time.”

  She shrugged. “I went back to Paris. I wasn’t sure what to do. But I kept thinking about it. So.”

  “So here we are.” He paused, looking down at his glass. “How did you find me?”

  “Oh, he knew where you were. He knows all about you. I guess he keeps tabs.”

  For a second, his life seemed to tilt on its axis. He kept tabs. He never left.

  “How is he?” he said finally.

  “He’s fine,” she said, which told him nothing he wanted to know. “I mean, I guess he is. I only met him once. Well, twice.”

  He looked up at her. “Go ahead.”

  “I met him at the party. I knew who he was. And I thought, well, maybe there’s a story. Maybe he’d talk to me-you know, give me an interview. He’s never given one.”

  “No, never,” Nick said.

  “So I thought there’d be a piece in it.”

  “For Rolling Stone,” Nick said sarcastically.

  “For somebody.”

  “They weren’t even born,” Nick continued. “Do you honestly think anyone cares?”

  “Are you kidding? Walter Kotlar? After all these years? Everybody’d want that piece.” She paused. “It would be a huge break for me. Anyway, I thought it was worth a try. So I asked him and he agreed to meet me.”

  “You must have made some impression. He’s never talked to anyone before.”

  “He didn’t then, either. Except about you. We met on the Charles Bridge and then we went for a walk. That’s when he asked me to get in touch with you.”
r />   “On a bridge. Just like in the movies. In your trench-coats.”

  “Well, it’s like that there. You have to talk outside.”

  “And maybe somebody was putting you on. How do you know it was him? How do I know?”

  “He said if you asked that to tell you he always remembered how you helped with the shirt. Whatever that means. He said you’d know.”

  He felt his stomach move again, another tilt. The snowy street. The drain.

  She looked at him. “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  Nick nodded and then signaled to the waiter for another round. “Now what? I’m supposed to call him up and chat about old times?”

  “No, he wants to see you.”

  “What makes you think I want to see him?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh,” she said, at a loss.

  “What did you expect? I’d be so thrilled he wants to see me after twenty years that I’d catch the next plane?”

  “I don’t know what I expected. I thought you’d be-I don’t know, curious.”

  “Curious. Is that how you’d feel if you saw a ghost?”

  She looked at him for a minute, studying his face. “No. I guess I’d feel scared.”

  “I don’t feel scared,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “Let me tell you about my father. He walked out on us. Just left. Defected. That’s the word everybody prefers. Gives it a sort of ideological cast. But what he really did was run. And we had to clean up the mess. My mother. Larry. Christ, not to mention the country. Sometimes I think that’s the worst thing he did. That stupid fucking committee-he made them legitimate. They got something right finally. They just stepped right into it, and after that there was no stopping them. There were Communists in the State Department. Well, one. And they couldn’t get him. So then how many others? And on and on. That’s another little gift he left us.”

  “You can’t blame him for that,” she said quietly.

  “But he did it,” he said, placing his hand on hers for emphasis. “That’s the point. They were right. Before him they had nothing. And then-” He caught himself, pulled back his hand, and took another drink. “We had to pretend he was dead. And after a while he was dead. I don’t want to bring him back. You saw a ghost, that’s all.”