I and My True Love

by Helen Macinnes

  Then even as the others in the coach stirred and woke and stared out of the windows in amazement, wonder or horror, she began to drift into sleep. And nothing awakened her until the morning was half over and she found she had left Nevada and was already in California.

  The woman beside her smiled to welcome her back into life. She reached across Sylvia to pull up the window shade. “That better?” she asked. “But you’ve missed a lot of the Sierras. Pretty, aren’t they?”

  Pretty was an odd choice in words. The mountains were majestic, high, sharp-shaped, covered with melting snow and deep rich forests. A torrent of a river plunged down through its deep chasm far below the train, whose speed had slowed to a gentle feeling of its way along the twisting curves. But Sylvia nodded and said, “Yes, it’s pretty.” She was thinking that the woman beside her had left the window shade drawn to let her sleep. “I spoiled your view,” she added.

  “Oh, there are plenty of other windows.” She pointed to the river far below them. “It’s rushing to the Pacific, too.” Then, as Sylvia stretched her cramped body, she took charge. What about freshening up? What about something to eat? There, now, don’t you feel better?

  Yes, Sylvia was saying with a smile, yes, yes, and yes. To agree was the simplest way. And, in the end, she did feel better. She even began to talk, to ask questions about the orchards, as the white world of mountains sank away into a wide plain where the bright sun brought the fruit trees and gardens to life. And it was with surprise that she watched her friend begin to gather her suitcase and packages.

  “Sacramento,” the woman in the green suit explained. She lifted down a paper bag from the rack and uncovered a flowered hat. She arranged it carefully on her crisp curls, took a fresh pair of cotton gloves from her pocket-book, and perked up the last touch of starch on her frilled blouse. The train was slowing down.

  “I got this for you,” Sylvia said, remembering to search in her pocket. She drew out the postcard she had bought in Salt Lake City. It was a picture of a bronze plaque, a group of people pushing and pulling a handcart over harsh earth.

  “Oh!” the woman said, delighted. “My grandson will love it. He’s at the age for stories and pictures about them. And you got this specially!” She beamed her thanks, her smile as warm and whole-hearted as the sun on the earth outside. “Well, here we are.” She gathered up all her bundles. “Now, take good care of yourself,” she said suddenly, and plunged hurriedly along the aisle towards the platform, her flowered hat already slightly springing free from its pins, her glasses slipping, her light green suit cheerfully proclaiming her coming.

  On the tree-edged platform, a thin young man with a small child in his arms hugged her and a round-faced little boy pulled at her skirt. But after all the exclaiming was over, she still remembered to turn back to the train and wave in the right direction before the little group moved slowly towards the row of parked cars under the massive trees. And suddenly, Sylvia wished that the wrinkled green suit still sat beside her.

  27

  The Oakland station was the end of the line. The passengers divided into two streams, one that waited for the ferry to take them across the Bay to San Francisco, the other that moved slowly towards the street.

  Sylvia hesitated. Her plans had changed. She wasn’t going to telephone the Jerolds at Santa Rosita. She wasn’t going to Santa Rosita. Not yet. I’ll send George and Margaret a telegram, she thought: I’ll tell them that I’m going to find a job and then I’ll let them know my address. And they’ll understand. I don’t want to see friends, now. Not while I wait for this trouble to clear. I’ll be better among complete strangers, people who don’t know who I am or why I’ve come here, people who don’t have to try and shield me, people who won’t pity me.

  The crowd jostled her, urging her to make up her mind. But instead of walking towards the telegraph office, she found herself standing in front of the bookstall. Which papers were reliable, which least sensational? Their strange names meant nothing to her. In the end, she bought all the latest editions of everything she could find. She had travelled almost incessantly for three thousand miles, but the news from Washington would have passed her on the journey.

  Perhaps there’s no further news, she thought, as she found a seat in the waiting-room. Perhaps the whole thing has died down. At least, the headlines dealt with other people’s troubles, not with hers. And if the piece of information was as little important as the official at the State Department had said...

  She was wasting time, she was building up hope. And yet, somehow, she felt her hope was not false.

  Quietly, methodically, she laid the first paper on her knee. Nothing on the front page. Her hope quickened as she turned the pages slowly.

  And then, there on the sixth page, was Jan’s name. Jan had been recalled to Prague: Jan had already left Washington.

  No, she said, no, no. Had she screamed it aloud? But the faces around her hadn’t lifted. Only the man who sat opposite was looking at her. She lowered her eyes, but the lines of newsprint were blurred and merging and she couldn’t read them.

  “Slow business waiting for trains.” The man had risen and sat beside her. He smiled as she looked up, a confident smile, taking in her figure and her face. She sat, unmoving, silent, staring at him, a red-faced, slick-haired, thick-lipped man with exaggerated shoulders and a hand-painted tie.

  He looked at the blue eyes and the dark lashes, the soft skin, the curve of cheek and the rounded chin. He said, “But there’s no need to sit here. What about joining me in a drink? It’s just about time for a cocktail.” He glanced at his ostentatious watch.

  She still stared at him. And then it seemed as if she had heard him at last. She gathered up the papers and her suitcase with a sudden quick movement that left him startled. She was gone before he could even say, “Here, don’t run away. I won’t eat you.” She didn’t even look back.

  The ferry boat had not yet left. She entered the bare waiting-room where the travellers stood in patient groups. The doors opened, and the crowd moved forward, drawing her with it. She no longer decided anything; she moved as the people moved, halted as they halted. When she had to fumble in her bag for money for the ferry ticket, it seemed as if her hands belonged to a stranger. And the feet that carried her across the narrow pier, over the gangplank on to the covered deck of the broad little ship, belonged to this stranger, too.

  She stood at the edge of the rail, her small suitcase at her feet, the papers under one arm, the other hand holding her hat against the whipping breeze. The sharp air brought her back to life again.

  The ferry was already half-way across the Bay. She looked up at the girders of the Oakland Bridge high overhead, watching the electric trains and trucks speeding across the water; and above them, on the upper level of the bridge, were the highways and their constant stream of cars. Each man with his own job, his own purpose... She looked at the hills and trees that lay to the north, with their cluster of towns and settlements, linked across the Golden Gate to San Francisco. On that bridge, too, the cars formed an unending line. Each man travelling to where he belonged... She looked at the city itself, at the towers and tiers of white houses rising steeply from its many hills.

  Then she looked down at the small suitcase by her feet. “Where am I really going?” she asked aloud. She leaned her elbows on the rail and stared at the swirling currents of the deep water, as strong and relentless as life itself.

  “Careful!” a man’s voice warned her. “You could fall over there.” He smiled as she turned to look at him, and then he saw her face and the smile vanished.

  “Thank you,” she said. She picked up her suitcase and moved away.

  * * *

  She found a room in a hillside hotel that was small and cheap. As she looked at the narrow rectangle with its single window facing a busy street, she remembered for a moment the suite of rooms that Payton had engaged at the St. Francis on her last visit here. Then she crushed down the memory. That was gone, all of it. And for th
at, there wasn’t even the stirring of regret but a feeling of thankfulness.

  She laid her handbag on the yellow oak dresser and stared at herself in the mirror. How could she look so normal? Her hair had been wind-blown on the ferry, the colour had been whipped to her cheeks by the salt air, and the blue eyes that returned her stare were seemingly calm. How could she look so normal? How could a face lie like that? Suddenly it twisted, as her heart twisted, and she turned away to throw herself on the narrow bed and smother the storm of weeping on its pillow.

  When she rose, the wild fit of anguish had passed. But everything she did now had a feverish haste. She stripped herself, and bathed, and dressed in clean clothes. She tidied the room quickly, dropping the papers, which she had carried here so carefully, into the waste basket. Then she picked up the telephone. “I want to make a call to Washington.”

  The girl at the telephone exchange in the little lobby downstairs seemed startled. She recovered enough to say that the hotel couldn’t put such a call on the bill.

  “I’ll pay it now if you’ll send a boy up for the money,” Sylvia said. “But put the call through at once. It’s urgent. Here’s the number.” She gave it slowly, carefully. “Person to person,” she added. “I want to speak to Mr. Martin Clark.”

  “Three minutes?”

  “That will do,” Sylvia said. Half a minute, even ten seconds would be enough for Martin’s answer to her question.

  But the girl had her doubts. “I’ll let you know when the three minutes are up,” she volunteered. “Clark. And what was that first name?”

  “Martin,” Sylvia said. “Martin Clark.”

  * * *

  Then all she had to do was to wait, standing very still in the lonely room with the golden evening sky turning slowly to grey, deepening into night. What frightened her most was her blankness of mind: she could no longer think, no longer shape any reason or explanation. All she could do was to stand still, like this, alone, watching the darkening sky.

  At last the call came through. “Martin,” she said, trembling with relief to hear his voice. “Martin...”

  He said something she couldn’t understand.

  “Martin, please tell me the truth. I’ve read the report that Jan has gone. Is it true, Martin? Is it true?”

  He was silent.

  “I want the truth,” she said desperately, and now the last hope in her heart was fading like the light outside the narrow window. She heard Martin say, “I think he was forced to go.”

  “He’s gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh...” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “No, don’t worry. I’ll be all right. Did Jan see Kate before—before—”

  “Yes. Bob Turner was there, too.”

  “What did Jan say?”

  “Kate’s written you a letter. He wanted you to know everything.”

  “But—” she began. I know, she thought, I know all I need to know.

  “Kate and Bob both believed him,” he said quickly. “I do, too.”

  Did they all think she might doubt Jan—had Jan tortured himself about that, too? “I know,” she said. “His family—” She bit her lip cruelly. “I know,” she repeated. “He had to go back.”

  “Czernik and Vlatov are leaving,” he said, his voice more cheerful. “We asked for them to be recalled: personae non gratae.” He talked on, but she scarcely listened.

  They will blame Jan, she thought. Czernik and Vlatov will blame him. “He will never escape now,” she said, interrupting Martin. Then his last words forced their way into her mind. “Sorry—what was that you said?”

  “You saw the news about Payton’s resignation?”

  “No.”

  “His name got into the papers. So he thought it best to resign.” She fell silent. Best? It completed the picture of a husband twice betrayed. “How very sorry everyone must be for him,” she said. She wanted to laugh, but the laugh turned to a gasp as she fought back her tears.

  “Where are you, Sylvia?” Martin asked, suddenly worried. “Sylvia! Are you ’phoning from Santa Rosita?”

  “No. I’m in San Francisco.” Her voice strengthened. “I’m going to find a job—give myself something to do.”

  “That’s best.”

  “Yes.” She spoke confidently now. “It’s the only thing to do. How’s Amy?”

  “But I told you—first thing! Twins. Boys.”

  “Already?”

  “This afternoon. And Amy’s fine, too.”

  “Oh, Martin—my love to all of you.” Then she said very clearly, “Tell Amy I’ll write soon—as soon as I’m settled. And tell Kate, too, will you?”

  “Send us your address right away.”

  “I’ll do that,” she promised. “As soon as—”

  The strange voice broke in. “Your time is up, sorry!” it told her briskly.

  “Thank you.” She almost smiled. And then, to Martin, “I’ll be all right,” she said quickly, calmly.

  She listened to his last goodbye. He seemed reassured.

  * * *

  Now, the thoughts in her mind were clear, as clear and cold and precise as the shapes and shadows of a brightly lit street.

  Jan had gone back. He had never promised to stay unless he was free to stay. It was the chance they had taken, and they had always known it as that and no more. If they hadn’t taken it, there would have been no happiness. And she had had happiness. A month of happiness. There had been pain with it, too, but perhaps pain was the emphasis that intensified the joy you felt, distilled your happiness until it was crystal clear and pure, a bitter sweet essence that couldn’t be measured by length of time.

  He had gone back, his mission uncompleted, never attempted. She, alone, knew that. Perhaps the men who had sent him to Washington guessed it. What happened to those who failed when it ought to have been easy to succeed? What happened to those who had let their mission be discovered?

  He would never be able to escape. The realists who had chosen him for their mission would now mark him as a traitor. They would gather the evidence, fit it into the pattern they needed. He would be arrested, tried, sentenced to death. As a warning to others, as a proof that the realists couldn’t fail— that their ideas had been right and the mission would have succeeded if he hadn’t drawn it into publicity. What was the word they used—saboteur? Saboteur and spy.

  He had known all that. But he had gone back to keep the first part of the bargain with his family. He had known all that, and he had gone back.

  She took a deep breath, and her pain and love cut through her heart with the sharpness of a sword.

  “Oh, Jan,” she cried, sharing now the agony of his decision. “Oh, Jan, did you ever think that I would doubt you?”

  * * *

  Her movements became as clear as her thoughts. She sat down at the rickety table, switching on the meagre light, and found a few sheets of writing paper in its drawer. She rationed them carefully.

  The first letter was to her father and mother, a serious yet confident note, reassuring them as she had reassured Martin Clark. She spoke briefly of a violent quarrel with Payton, her flight from the house in Georgetown, and the help that the Clarks had given her. She had come west, to a strange part of the country where she was unknown, because that, at least, might spare Whitecraigs additional publicity.

  She stopped writing for a moment. Whitecraigs, she thought, with its green meadows and rounded trees; and its empty paddock and paint-spattered porch; and its littered hall and shadowed rooms where even the furniture seemed lost in memories. And Jennifer’s sharp voice in the kitchen and Annabel’s mirthless laugh. And her mother, turning in bewilderment from the heap of letters on her desk, saying sadly, “Poor Payton, how terrible for him! I must write him a note. How could Sylvia be so rash?” Then she’d sigh and wipe her glasses and add comfortingly, “Still, it was her problem after all, I suppose.” Upstairs, withdrawn into his room, forgetting the day, avoiding the others’ voices, her father would push aside the new
spapers that Jennifer would bring him. “Later, later!” he would say, angrily perhaps. Or coldly? Or with no emotion left in his voice?

  She covered her eyes with her hand for a minute. Then she went on writing dutifully. She sent her love to the children, and a cheerful greeting for Ben and Rose, and she finished with a promise to write again as soon as she had found a permanent address.

  The second letter was to Kate, and once more she spoke of finding a job, something to keep her mind occupied, something to lead her over this bad gulf into the future.

  She sent a brief note to Amy, telling her that everything was under control.

  And she drafted a business-like telegram to Santa Rosita.

  By the time she pushed the creaking chair away from the table, it was dark. She had a headache, and she felt sick, but she could blame that partly on hunger. She powdered her face carefully—how could it look almost normal? she wondered again—and arranged her hair and added colour to her lips. She slipped her coat over the fresh dress. She remembered her ear-rings and the heavy bracelet she always wore on her left wrist. She arranged her brush and comb and powder and face cream and mirror on the dressing-table, as if she had settled in the room for a few days’ visit. She unpacked the rest of her belongings and placed them neatly in a drawer. And she even remembered to lay her nightdress on the pillow.

  At the door, she hesitated. Then she remembered the papers in the waste basket. She took them with her. So many papers there might attract attention. She left them on a littered tray outside another bedroom door.

  * * *

  In the lobby, the reception clerk looked at her with pleasure and approval.

  Certainly, he said to all her requests for help and fulfilled them quickly, delighted with his own efficiency and her smile of thanks. Airmail stamps? Certainly. Telegrams? He’d attend to that right away. She wanted to leave some money in his safe? But of course, didn’t pay to carry extra money around these days, better to take with you what you needed and no more, that was his opinion, and here was the receipt.