I and My True Love

by Helen Macinnes

  She looked up at him then. “Yes,” she said. She gave an odd little smile, but he liked it. It was one she didn’t give many people, he hoped.

  “Yesterday morning,” she began...

  24

  Jan Brovic left the telephone booth. He could still hear Amy Clark’s quiet voice: “Is there anything we could do? Jan—is there anything?” But none of my friends can do anything, he thought. The kindness in her voice, the willingness to trust, had moved him. He had thought he was far beyond such emotion, but now it attacked him as he walked slowly through the drugstore. He forced his attention on the things around him, the pyramids of nylon hairbrushes, scissors, bath tablets, witch hazel, face powder and nail polish, separating the serious counter—with its chemist prescriptions and packaged medicines—from the counter fronted by a dozen leather and chromium stools. He was in control of his emotions again, as practical as his surroundings. He was observant, cold, suspicious.

  There were only four customers at the soda counter—two high school boys, a small girl, a middle-aged woman—all safe enough. Its two clerks were arguing mildly, wiping the chromium taps and the black slab counter as they talked. Across the store, the pharmacist was measuring a prescription. Near the entrance, the blonde girl who sold cigarettes and candy and magazines was preoccupied with her fingernails.

  He paused at the display of magazines and papers, he hesitated at the racks of comics and coloured postcards. Then he could postpone his exit no longer. Already, the blonde clerk had looked up to study a prospective customer. He walked into the street, his head bent forward, his chin tucked down, his eyes avoiding contact with the passers-by. And suddenly, as he stopped to light a cigarette and glance around him quickly, he became impatient of all precautions: he lifted his head and faced the pedestrians frankly; instead of walking round four blocks to complete a detour, he stepped off the sidewalk to cross the avenue directly.

  Here, on lower Connecticut, the expensive little shops filled with antiques and smart dresses had given way to a mixture of contrasts—large hotels, sandwich shops, bars closed for Sunday, small buildings that still lapped over from the turn of the century and waited to be pulled down for more hotels, more sandwich shops, more bars. The sidewalks had their usual collection of strollers, incurious, aimless. All safe enough, he decided as if to reassure himself that his impatience hadn’t been ill advised. For a moment, he loitered with the groups of walkers. Then quickly, he turned the corner to enter a short street, dingy and dull, quiet on Sundays. Here were the service entrances to the hotels, three night clubs with clever-cute names, a garage with its quota of used cars for sale, and—opposite the garage—two old brick houses separated by a gap which had become a parking lot.

  It was here, in the first of the two houses, that he had rented a room under the name of Carson almost four weeks ago. He had taken it with the idea that it would be a useful hiding place for the first few days, once he made his break for freedom. Then, the trees that were spaced along the grey sidewalks were black and lifeless. In his optimism, he had looked at them and smiled, thinking that before they were in leaf he would have escaped. The green buds were a symbol.

  He had watched the trees—for as he walked about Washington with Czernik or Vlatov, or sometimes even seemingly alone, he would take this street as a short cut between Connecticut and Seventeenth as many people did. He had walked past the house, not even glancing at it, but thinking of the room upstairs that was his, waiting for him when he was a free man. Now, the green buds had opened, the first bronze-coloured leaves were uncurling. The symbol was meaningless.

  Four steps led up to the veranda, its ironwork inspired by New Orleans, that stretched along the first floor of the house. The doorway, like the veranda, needed a coat of paint, but it was clean. The letter boxes carried six names. Carson looked as real as any of the others, printed or scrawled on the small pieces of paper or cardboard that fitted into the name-slots. Carson, 3rd floor, in his own disguised handwriting.

  The front door had been left unlocked. He shook his head over this evidence of trust or of carelessness. He made sure that the door was tightly closed, firmly held, before he climbed the staircase.

  It was a room on the top floor, at the front of the house. “With possibilities,” the renting agent had said. With possibilities. The phrase had amused him then.

  He looked round the bleak room, barely furnished, that had seemed miraculous four weeks ago. He walked over to the window and carefully—so that he would not be seen from the garage opposite—he opened it wide. The fresh evening air blew freely in, driving out the stale warmth of a room too long closed.

  He threw his hat on the narrow bed which stood disguised as a couch against a yellowed wall. He sat down in the armchair, facing the open window, watching the fading light, waiting.

  * * *

  “So that’s the picture,” Bob Turner said, grim-faced, as they walked down Connecticut Avenue.

  “That’s all I know,” Kate said. “Just bits and pieces.” That is all any of us ever knows, she thought, just the bits and pieces that we have found out for ourselves.

  “It’s more than enough.” He was angry now. “How did they draw you into this?”

  “How do we get tied up with anything?”

  He looked at his uniform. “Sure,” he said, “sure.”

  She suddenly stopped and touched his arm. “Here’s Fargo Street. What do we do?”

  “Let Brovic weep on our shoulders and tell us how sorry he is,” he said bitterly.

  She shook her head slowly.

  He calmed down. “We’ll walk along this side of the street. The apartment must be in one of those ruptured buildings, unless he’s rented a garret over one of the night clubs. That would be dramatic enough for Brovic.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Then why do you bother to come?”

  “Not for Brovic’s sweet smile.”

  For Sylvia’s sake? She looked at him.

  He said, almost roughly, “You’re here. So I’m here.” He caught her arm and held it. “Fifteen,” he said, reading the number on the first house they came to. “Careful, now,” he added with a hint of amusement for Brovic’s dramatics, as they climbed four steps and crossed a narrow balcony which stretched along the first floor of the house.

  “What shall I tell him?” Kate asked unhappily.

  “Wait and see how he plays it. Feel your way along.” And then his mood altered. Behind them, down at the foot of the steps, a man had paused to light a cigarette. Bob’s eyes searched for the name of Carson on the mail box in the doorway. It was there all right, sharing the third floor with W. Hirschfeld. But Bob didn’t ring the bell. His hand tightened warningly on Kate’s arm, as the stranger behind them mounted the steps slowly.

  “Hirschfeld, Hirschfeld...” Bob said, “where the hell is Hirschfeld? Didn’t he learn to write at school?”

  The man was still having trouble with his cigarette. He halted on the narrow balcony. Now, he had further trouble with his lighter.

  “There it is!” Kate said. “The difficulty isn’t with Bill’s writing, but with your eyes, darling.”

  “Is it?” Bob’s smile widened. “They’re a bit slow sometimes, I agree.” He looked round at the man who had come up behind him. “Sorry,” he said quickly, stepping aside from the door. “We’re in your way.”

  “After you,” the man said. He drew back politely.

  Bob turned to the row of names, blocking any view of them with his body. He placed his thumb over the Hirschfeld bell, but his third finger pressed down on Carson’s. “Perhaps Bill has gone to Maryland, this week-end,” he said.

  “But didn’t he invite you for a drink?”

  “Oh, you know Bill. Always vague. No, there he is, all right.” The door had unlocked, and as they slipped through into the hall, the polite little man stepped forward. Bob closed the door quickly, locking it definitely, leaving the stranger still outside.
>
  “Well?” Kate asked, as they climbed the staircase quickly.

  “Thank you for Bill,” he answered.

  “If we must play games, we might as well be inventive.”

  “I couldn’t think of anything but Wilfred. And that’s not the kind of name to invite you for a drink on a dry Sunday afternoon. Good old Bill Hirschfeld. Hospitable kind of guy.”

  “In his vague way.” Then she glanced up the last flight of stairs.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.” His face was serious, too.

  * * *

  In answer to Kate’s light knock, there was a movement from behind the door as though Jan Brovic had been standing there, listening to their approaching footsteps. “It’s Kate Jerold,” she said softly, “with a friend.”

  The door opened then. Not fully. Brovic looked at Bob Turner. He gestured to them to come in, waited for a moment to reassure himself that the staircase and hall were completely silent, and then closed the door quietly, chaining it. Kate glanced at Bob, but now he seemed to accept all these precautions: there was no hint of amusement in his eyes.

  “Thank you,” Brovic said to Kate, and offered her the chair. He was watching Bob Turner carefully, trying to place him.

  “Leave me out of this,” Bob said curtly and he walked over to the window. He stood well to the side of the meagre curtains, looking down obliquely into the street. “I rang to make sure that Miss Jerold got safely here.” And away, he thought grimly.

  “I’ve seen you before,” Brovic said, searching his memory. “At the Union Station, wasn’t it? The day Miss Jerold arrived in Washington. You got into an Army car parked—”

  “Yes,” Bob said, “the day all this started.” He turned to face Brovic.

  “Yes.” Brovic sensed the young man’s animosity. He hesitated. “You’re quite right,” he added quietly, now watching Kate’s anxious face.

  “Why did you want to see me?” Kate asked. She noticed the quick glance he gave in Bob’s direction. “Bob knows as much as I do,” she said.

  “How much is that?”

  “Very little. I only know what Sylvia believes about you.”

  He stared at the ground in front of his feet, at a thin rag of carpet curling back from the dusty floorboards. There was a sudden tightening at his lips. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “All right,” he said, forcing his voice to be crisp and matter-of-fact. “First things first. Tell me about Sylvia. How is she? When did she leave? How? Where has she gone?”

  As he spoke the quick sentences, Kate watched his face. Yes, she thought, he is in love with Sylvia; and her greatest fear melted away. “Didn’t Amy tell you?”

  “I didn’t want to talk about anything important over the ’phone. Tell me now.”

  So Kate told him.

  Still something seemed not to satisfy him. “Sylvia left Georgetown early in the morning. And then you left. Why?”

  “She had a—a quarrel with Payton Pleydell.” She glanced over at Bob. “I was out late on Friday night. In the morning, I found Sylvia had gone. So I left. There was nothing to keep me there.”

  His eyes were troubled. “A quarrel? Did Sylvia tell you about it?”

  I explained too much, she thought. I would have done better to say only that Sylvia had left. “No,” she said slowly. She could feel Bob’s eyes on her, too. “I found Sylvia’s room upset.” She felt her spine stiffen, but she kept her face relaxed. Her calm voice surprised herself. This is the way Martin Clark would handle his answer, she told herself.

  “And Sylvia?” came the question she feared.

  “She went to the Clarks’ apartment. I found her there. She was all right.” She watched the fear and suspicion leave Brovic’s face. Why should she be trying so hard to spare him the ugly truth? And she had to...somehow.

  “Sylvia was all right?” he insisted, his eyes watchful.

  She nodded. “I think she had been able to cut herself off completely from the past, as if the quarrel had ended it, made the final break easy, cancelled all her debts.” Kate paused. She was talking too much out of nervousness.

  “At least, she seemed happy when she left for the train,” Kate said and paused again.

  “She was happy,” Kate added, “eager to leave, confident.”

  A shadow crossed Brovic’s face. “Where will she be now?”

  “She would reach Chicago this morning. We don’t know what train she’ll take out of there—it depends on the space she can find. But with luck, she should leave Chicago this afternoon, or this evening at the latest. So she ought to be in Denver by tomorrow morning. Monday, she will travel through the Rockies. She’ll be in Nevada by early Tuesday. Then she’ll go down through the Sierras and reach Oakland in the late afternoon?”

  “That’s the end of the journey?”

  “Yes. The train stops there. You can’t go any farther than that, unless you take a ferry across the Bay to San Francisco itself.” This was easier: this was the kind of questioning she could handle.

  “And then she’ll telephone your ranch?”

  “Yes. Father will come to meet her. She’ll be in Santa Rosita by Tuesday night. It’s less than three hours by car, south-east from Oakland.”

  “What will she find there?”

  Kate looked at him uncertainly, and then glanced over at Bob, who was watching Jan Brovic with a puzzled expression in his eyes. Bob’s face was still guarded, still hard, but the angry resentful look had gone.

  “Tell me,” Brovic said gently.

  “About Santa Rosita?”

  He nodded.

  “There’s the ranch house,” she began hesitatingly, “sitting on the slope of a small hill, with the other buildings down on the road that drives straight west through the valley and the orchards. The house is a simple, sprawling kind of place, not large, but well spread out so that it seems bigger than it is. Behind it, to the east, are more hills, folding into each other, rising away from the valley. They’re rounded, golden-green in colour, with clusters of trees, dark green trees all the darker because of the pale gold grass. And behind them are the high hills, more pointed, tree-covered entirely. And then come the mountains, the Sierras, stretching north and south for a thousand miles and so deep that, you take a day to travel through them. That’s where you find the jagged peaks, bared right down to their skeletons, still capped with snow, and the mountain lakes and water falls.” She stopped, looking at him. “I’m not exaggerating,” she said.

  “Go on,” he said. “That’s the background. What lies in front?”

  “The orchards. They stretch along the flat valley, without walls or fences. Apricot trees spaced with fig trees in neat rows between little veins of irrigation ditches. There are peach trees too. And vines on the lower slopes of the small rounded hills that edge the valley. In spring, when the blossom is out, you stand on our front porch and look at this sea of pink and white stretching for thirty miles and more.” She smiled. “Our ranch is only a small part of it, of course. But somehow it all belongs together. We just happen to share in it; that’s how it feels.”

  “Will she be lonely there?” he asked.

  Kate shook her head. “There’s too much to share. It is only people who have nothing to give who would feel lonely.”

  “What kind of people will she meet?”

  “There are the other ranches in the valley, and the workers who live there all year round, and the forestry people and the National Park rangers and the fire wardens in the mountains and the cattle ranchers back in the hills. It may sound lonely, but it isn’t. Perhaps when there aren’t so many people around, they are friendlier.”

  She thought over that. “They’ve got to be,” she added. “We don’t only share a view. Last year, the valley had a bad frost—” She fell silent. “And two summers ago, there was a drought and a forest fire that swept out of the Sierras... Yes, we share a lot of things.”

  Brovic didn’t speak.

  She said, “Mountains have a way of
putting you into proper proportion.”

  She said, “They give a kind of perspective.”

  She said, “Either you can face that, and you stay. Or you can’t and you run away from it. That has happened, too.”

  She said, still waiting, “Was that what you wanted to hear?” She looked at Bob Turner, and she realised then she had been speaking to him in those last ten minutes as much as to Jan Brovic.

  Brovic nodded. That’s where Sylvia will live, he thought. Santa Rosita. It could shield her, help her. That was what he wanted to be sure of. And now, too, he had a picture to carry with him in his mind. “Yes,” he said quietly, “that is what I wanted to hear. Now, I can see her—” He broke off.

  He rose to his feet. He began to pace about the room, and its peace was gone. “There are some things Sylvia must know,” he said, and his voice was suddenly harsh. “I didn’t tell her the whole truth about my mission here. For her own sake, I thought the less she knew, the safer she would be. I thought I was protecting her from useless worry, unnecessary strain.” He paused. And I only learned gradually what my full mission was, he thought: step by step, I had to learn it. “But these are excuses,” he said bitterly. “Excuses never alter the facts. When the complete charges against me are made public, as they will be, they won’t make a pretty picture—not even to Sylvia.” He looked at Kate, his grey eyes dark with unhappiness.

  “I think I can see the shape of the picture,” Kate said. “Sylvia won’t believe it.”

  “And yet the picture, on the surface, is true,” he said. The lines at the side of his mouth deepened with distaste. “Through my stupidity,” he added. He turned abruptly away.

  Kate shook her head. “Now, I don’t see what you mean,” she said slowly. Did Bob, standing so silent by the side of the window?