by Joseph Kanon
“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 diffe
rence 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.
Chapter 17
They took a taxi at dawn and waited, groggy, at the Eastern terminal for the first shuttle. New Jersey was a nap, and then they were circling Washington, Nick at the window feeling he’d entered a time machine, twenty years compressed into minutes. The monuments lined up as they always had along the Mall, changeless. His house somewhere to the left of the Capitol. But on the ground everything was different, whole streets of boxy new office buildings beyond the White House, bland and faceless, a discount Bauhaus, like a rebuilt city in Germany. They checked in at the Madison, its ornate ballroom still littered with last night’s wedding, then went for a walk. A few of the trees were still in flower. Everyone carried briefcases.
“Where are we going?” Molly said.
“The Mayflower. I want to see it.”
And of course it looked smaller, the awning he remembered near the car in the picture just an awning, the public spaces inside a little tired, no longer waiting for Truman’s car. He stood in the lobby for a few minutes, creating lines of sight between the reception desk and the elevators and the big room where the United Charities ball must have been, then gave it up. He’d imagined it a hundred times, the forbidden place of his childhood, but it was just a hotel.
They rented a car, a plain Buick, and started going down the list, driving out toward the grand houses on Embassy Row, only to discover that the first address was the Russian embassy itself.
“Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?” Molly said. “Maybe it’s like the Americans in Prague. They have to live in the compound.”
“No, there wouldn’t be room. They have too many people. Besides, I’ll bet they like to live out. It’s probably one of the attaches. They’d be in residence. It would help if we had the real names.” He put the car back in gear. “Anyway, I don’t want the Russians.”
“Somebody will.” She looked down at the paper in her hand. “Valuable little list, isn’t it?”
“Yes, they killed him for it.”
“Did they know he had it?”
“I don’t know,” he said wearily. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
She looked up.
“This isn’t going to be easy. I thought once we had it-” He remembered that feeling, a jolt of triumph, when his hand had felt it under the woodpile.
“Five names,” Molly said calmly. “They can’t all be Russian.”
The next address was a quiet row house north of Dupont Circle, on a leafy block not far from the Phillips Collection.
“God, you’d never think,” Molly said. “So what do we do, just sit here?”
“Let’s see what happens. Maybe he’ll come out.”
When the door opened half an hour later, it wasn’t a man but a white-haired woman, who bent over to water one of the potted plants on the stoop, then idly looked up and down the street-an old woman with all the time in the world.
“This can’t be right,” he said impatiently. There was no one in the street but a mailman making his way down the row. The woman put the watering can inside, then came back on the stoop to wait; evidently the mail was one of the events of her day. She talked to the mailman for a few minutes, her mouth moving rapidly with words inaudible across the street, even with the car window rolled down.
“Look,” Molly said. “She’s getting a lot of mail, I mean a lot. Maybe it’s not just her in the house. You know, maybe she rents out.”
“She acts like it’s hers,” Nick said, watching her flip through the envelopes, absorbed.
“She’s just nosy.”
“Okay, I’ll find out,” Nick said, opening the door.
“What are you going to say?”
“I’m not sure.”
But it was remarkably easy, an unsuspicious world away from Prague. He had only to identify himself as someone from the Government-the Washington password — checking on her boarders, and she leaped at the diversion.
“You mean the Russian girl. There isn’t any trouble, is there? They told me there wouldn’t be any trouble. I mean, I never had a Russian, but she seems all right. Quiet. Of course, she plays these records, but I don’t mind that really. You have to expect things like that when you rent. Has she done something?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Nick said. “We just like to keep tabs, see if she’s giving you any trouble. They’re guests here, you know. Sometimes they forget that. We do get complaints.”
“Really?” she said, interested, settling in. “Well, no, she’s good as gold. No men coming around. Of course, I don’t know what she does on her own time, but she’s been no trouble to me. I won’t rent to men, just girls. That’s what Mr Baylor said before he passed away. When he was fixing up the apartments. They’ll make a nice income, but you don’t want men in the house, it’s not worth it. Me being alone. Of course, these days girls are just the same as men, aren’t they? But Irina’s all right. It’s just those language records. But I suppose she’s learning. The other girl doesn’t complain.”
“She doesn’t live alone?”
“Oh yes, the flats are self-contained. They don’t even have to share a bath. Mr Baylor put another one in, said I could charge more if people had their own place. And they’ll keep to themselves. But of course you can hear the records, the way she plays them. Still, Barbara never complains, so I just leave well enough alone. As long as they pay on time, that’s what Mr Baylor used to say.”
“Mr Baylor.”
“My husband.” She looked at him. “Where did you say you were from?”
“Immigration,” Nick said, on firm grou
nd now. “We just like to check. Thank you. I’m glad there’s no trouble.”
“No trouble at all. Shall I tell her you were here?”
“You can,” Nick said carefully, “but sometimes it upsets them. You know what it’s like where they come from.”
Mrs Baylor nodded. “I do.”
“We don’t want them to think it’s like that here. Not with a routine check.” He had taken out a notepad and was pretending to write. “These last names,” he said, shaking his head.
“Aren’t they something? I can never remember either. Oh, well, here,” she said, flipping through the mail until she found a store catalogue. “ K at the end. Kova.”
He glanced at it. “Thanks.”
“Any time. You couldn’t do better, letting people like her in. Better than some we’ve already got.”
Nick got in the car and waved to Mrs Baylor as he drove off.
“Irina Herlikova,” he said to Molly. “Quiet as a mouse.”
“I wonder what she does.”
“She’s learning the language.”
“No. For them.”
The third address, surprisingly, was on D Street, in a black neighborhood southeast of Capitol Hill. Not a slum, but tattered, the respectable brick fronts frayed around the edges, needing paint.