The November Man

by Bill Granger

  And the three in Section would keep the secret because they had to.

  That was what Devereaux believed on the fifth of March.

  He was a man alone. He had always been.

  He had been a child of the streets in Chicago and had killed a gang member when he was twelve. He had grown tired of the trade long before he could leave it. He had never wanted a thing in his life except Asia—except the view of blood-red suns over morning paddies and farmers squatting in their pajamas to tell stories to one another. He had loved the idea of the East and joined Section to find the East and, because of the trade, lost the East forever. After that, he had found Rita Macklin.

  She was thirteen years younger than Devereaux. She had red hair and green eyes and a face of openness that was beautiful. She was very tough because she thought she was tough. She spoke the beautiful lilting accent shared by some people in Wisconsin and Minnesota. There was a song about her presence that always made people smile.

  Devereaux had met her; used her; slept with her; left her. And all the time, he fell in love with her more deeply than he had loved anything or anyone else in the world. Because of her—because it was possible—he had quit the trade and gone to sleep at the edge of the world.

  They lived together in Lausanne. They slept together. They went everywhere together and shared silences with each other. When she was away on her long assignments in far places, he was truly alone: The cold thing in him came back as before. When she was away, he was transformed back into what he had been.

  He walked the crooked streets of Lausanne every day and saw everything and filled his mind with the images of the trained spy. He saw too much, as a spy will if he becomes good at the trade.

  He walked down the hills of the city to the train station where he bought the newspapers every day from the same kiosk just inside the entrance. He was there nearly every day at ten in the morning—though he had not noticed he was now a man of fixed habits.

  He was tall, rugged, with deceptively large shoulders and flat, large fingers. His square face, creased with care lines, suggested the cold thing inside him. His hair was gray mixed with dark brown. He wore an old corduroy jacket most days now and shoved his hands deep into the pockets when he walked. His gray eyes watched and watched and saw too much; and saw nothing because the world held no consequences when you were withdrawn from it.

  He bought Le Monde, the Herald-Tribune, the European Wall Street Journal. Sometimes, because it was so well written, he bought Libération. He thought he should interest himself in the world for the sake of Rita Macklin and for the child they had taken in, Philippe.

  It was hard work. He was a man of silences who preferred the world to be a separate place. He read books that others might find gloomy, the kind of works of philosophy that are never fashionable. He felt solace in them. He had not expected much from existence for a long time. And then Rita had changed that. So he read newspapers to learn about the world.

  Philippe was the third member of the ménage. He was black and very tall for his age, which was now thirteen. He attended boarding school near Lugano, by the Italian border. He loved snow and he knew how to ski. He said he wished to be a sailor when he grew up—but he said it in the way of boys who are being boyish to please their fathers.

  Devereaux had taken him off the island of St. Michel at the last moment, almost by instinct, as the boy stood in the waters and pleaded to leave that place of hell. It had been another business in another time. Rita had understood that gesture, though no one else would have. Philippe did not love Devereaux because Devereaux did not expect love, not even from Rita Macklin. It was enough to love her.

  Rita was now in the Philippines. There was an election to cover, a riot and an assassination. It was an old story but Rita told him that all the stories were old ones. “Everything has been written before,” she said.

  “Shakespeare’s advantage,” Devereaux had replied.

  “Yes. Something like that. A cliché is only something well said in the first place.”

  He had been alone for three weeks; she would leave the Philippines for America then, to see her mother in the city of Eau Claire, in Wisconsin; and then to Washington, to see Mac, her old editor at the newsmagazine; and then back to Paris. They would meet again in Paris in four weeks’ time.

  He sat in the bar of the Continental Hotel and drank Kronenbourg poured into a cold glass and tried to understand the world according to Le Monde. It seemed that France was at the center of this world, just as it seemed the United States was at the center of the world portrayed in the Herald-Tribune.

  Devereaux said once to Rita Macklin that Switzerland was never at the center of the world. It was a good place to be.

  He spent his days like this: Walking, reading, seeing as much as he could, playing chess with the old man in Ouchy who came down to the chess pavilion on good days. They moved the large pieces around and walked on the board and considered all the moves and problems from the perspective of almost being participants. The old man said that he and Devereaux were the two best in the world because they had so much time to practice.

  Devereaux wondered if he could do this for the rest of his life. He had buried himself by making someone else assume his identity. He was safe, detached from R Section. He read and read and read, absorbing the worlds of Montaigne and Kierkegaard and Hegel. He read Dickens all the time because it represented a world more real to him than the one he was in.

  On Sundays, he would drive down to the school near Lugano and take Philippe out for the day. They might go to Italy and they might, in good weather, rent a sailboat on Lac Leman and sail down to Vevey and to the castle at Chillon. The man and the boy did not speak much to each other. It was all right; they both understood the value of silence.

  Besides, they both felt the absence of Rita on those Sundays when she was away. She warmed them both, a cold black child who had seen murder and war and a cold white man who had made murder and war. They felt damned unless she was with them.

  “Encore, s’il vous plaît,” Devereaux said to the woman behind the bar. It was just noon on the fifth of March.

  She was a pleasant-faced Swiss with small eyes and an intent expression. She thought she had a nose that was too large but she was wrong. She thought that Monsieur Devereaux, who came to the little café nearly every day, might be a professor at the university. He was always reading.

  She opened a bottle of Kronenbourg and poured it into the new cold glass. He liked chilled glasses and cold things. He had requested the chilled glass and she had been pleased to refrigerate his glasses for him.

  Devereaux sighed, put down the very funny column by William Safire in the Herald-Tribune, and tasted the new beer. It was sweet and bitter at the same time, the way beer can be when it is very cold and very welcome.

  He saw his face in the mirror behind the bar. He had been lost in newspaper words and had tried to forget about Hanley. Something had jarred him to think of Hanley again. So he had called Hanley yesterday and Hanley was gone. Gone.

  He called Hanley at home. He had never been to Hanley’s home but he knew all the numbers he needed to know. He had called and the telephone rang briefly and then an operator interrupted to explain, with a recorded voice, that the telephone number had been disconnected. Disconnected with no forwarding number.

  Hanley was gone; where had Hanley gone?

  Devereaux tasted the beer again. He stared at nothing at all and tried to picture Hanley in his mind and hear again the disjointed words of those two telephone calls, the first when he and Rita were making love, the second when she was gone.

  Claudette, who was the girl behind the wide oak bar, gazed at M. Devereaux and thought she might be in love with him. Why not? Didn’t he come every day to see her? Didn’t he give her extravagant tips? Exactly as a lover might do. He was shy; he wanted her attention. She was so ready to please him. Dear man.

  “That’s just it. No November. There are no spies. I think I can tell you. I need t
o tell you. And did you know that your November is on his way to Moscow?”

  Warning. Or threat?

  Rita had sprawled in bed, in afterlove, her nakedness warm and open, her body ajar. She had stared at him as he listened to Hanley that night, listened to the mad words: Warning. Threat. It didn’t matter.

  And then Hanley spoke of a nutcracker and that made no more sense and Hanley was truly mad, Devereaux had thought. Nearly two weeks before.

  Now, in the Herald-Tribune, he saw a little essay on the editorial page, arguing that the day of the spy was passed, that electronic devices had made the work of spies irrelevant. He had smiled as he read it and then he had thought of Hanley. He had decided to call Hanley. And Hanley was gone.

  Devereaux felt a peculiar chill growing inside the coldness already inside him. Rita Macklin was a million miles away. He felt the prickle on the back of his neck that signified awareness and the presence of danger. And yet, what was all around him but this dull life and the girl behind the bar with the small, secret smile?

  Devereaux did not trust R Section or Hanley. It was a matter of survival. It was a wise course.

  He frowned. Claudette saw the frown and frowned in sympathy, worried for the professor. She hurried along the polished oak bar to him and asked him, in French, if everything was all right.

  He tried a smile. He said yes. He looked away, back to his newspaper.

  So shy, Claudette thought. She blushed. She felt warm, thinking of him. It didn’t matter even if he was married. It didn’t matter. All right, she thought: Take me. He needs comfort and I am comfortable. I will make no demands; I earn my own way, I can do as I please. She thought of him holding her and his weight pressing down on her the length of her body, pressing her breasts and opening her legs. So close together.

  Devereaux stared at the paper and only thought: There was Hanley, Mrs. Neumann, who had buried the files, and Yackley. But had any of them told the others? Was Hanley saying that Colonel Ready convinced Moscow to come after him again? Spies were terrible at keeping secrets. Secrets were meant to be broken and exposed.

  There are no spies.

  Could it mean: There are no secrets?

  Hanley was dull, stable, and the most predictable man in the world. Was he drawing Devereaux back into the trade with riddles and puzzles? It was childish and very much like Hanley.

  Claudette decided she would surrender herself on the first night because the professor was too shy to be flirted with. He had to know he did not have to be shy. She would be the bold one.

  She offered him a bowl of pretzels.

  He was startled. He looked up at Claudette. She was young and fair and her eyes were empty and shining. He said no in a polite way and shut her out of mind.

  But she hovered now. “Another beer?”

  No. No. No.

  He rose from the chairlike stool with back and arms and put down a note that was probably too much to leave as a tip.

  She thanked him and tried to put meaning into her voice. She smiled at him. She had beautiful teeth.

  He tried another smile on her. He used smiles like disguises. He nodded and took his papers and walked out of the café.

  March was chill and damp and bright. Clouds brooded above the snowfields in the mountains. The lake at Ouchy below was choppy and bright. The day was a promise of warmth, which, after a long winter, was good enough. It was a day to be with friends and find warm places to drink in and find laughter. Devereaux only knew the old man from Ouchy who played chess as though it were war. All the Swiss men played at war all their lives. And they only took those things seriously that were not war.

  He wondered if Hanley had a new game.

  He walked up the steep streets to the upper town and was lost in thought and the exertion of the climb. He walked along the Rue Mon Repos and failed to see as clearly as he was trained to see. He was so preoccupied with thoughts of Hanley that the two men in the Saab who followed him had no trouble at all.

  7

  DR. GODDARD

  Hanley was not given clothing. He understood the technique. Everyone in intelligence knew the technique and used it. The naked prisoner is like the naked patient or the naked captive: They are all rendered defenseless by their nakedness.

  Hanley sat on the vinyl side chair in the examining room. His naked bottom pressed against the vinyl. He wondered if it was cleaned with disinfectant after each use.

  It was the first full day of his captivity. They had given him oatmeal with prunes for breakfast. He had wanted to gag.

  And no coffee.

  “Coffee isn’t good for you,” chirped the nun who had brought his tray.

  “Where is this place? Why am I—”

  “When you see the doctor,” she said, smiling and flitting about the room like a nervous bird. She said “doctor” as though saying “God.”

  He sat on the vinyl chair and stared at the man at the empty desk. He guessed there was a tape recorder set up somewhere. On the cheerful blue wall behind the desk was a very bad print of a painting by Modigliani in which a reclining woman is represented in bright colors. Hanley did not like modern art. Hanley did not like sitting on a vinyl chair wearing a ridiculous hospital gown. He wasn’t sick; he was tired. He had felt frightened and confused last night; now he felt anger.

  “My name is Dr. Goddard,” began the man with the salt-and-pepper beard and the guileless brown eyes. He had large hands and clasped them on top of the desk. He spoke in a voice that was made for a lecture hall. He smiled at Hanley.

  “Doctor of what? And where am I? And why was I brought here?”

  “This is St. Catherine’s,” said Dr. Goddard, still smiling. His glasses were brown and round and owlish. He seemed to have all the time in the world. “This is a hospital. Do you remember anything?”

  “I remember two goons who came to my apartment and showed me some papers. I said there had to be a mistake but that I would go with them. And then one of them wanted to put me in a straitjacket, for God’s sake. What is this place, a nut house?”

  “Unfortunate word,” said Dr. Goddard. The voice was a pipe organ played by Lawrence Welk.

  “You don’t have any right—”

  “Mr. Hanley. I assure you we have every right. You understand this is a matter of both national security and your wellness.”

  Hanley blinked. “What did you say?”

  “Mr. Hanley. St. Catherine’s is equipped with all the best medical equipment. We intend to examine you thoroughly for physical causes of your… depression. But I think this will go deeper than mere physical causes.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What are the causes of depression?” said Dr. Goddard as though speaking to a classful of students. “Many. A chemical imbalance is certainly involved. Perhaps some trauma that has created a subtle neurological impairment. Perhaps—”

  “Who are you, Dr. Goddard? What kind of a doctor are you?”

  “I’m a psychiatrist, Mr. Hanley. As you suspected.” He smiled with good humor. “There. I’m not so frightening, am I?”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Hanley said. “But you can’t keep me in a place against my will.”

  Dr. Goddard said nothing.

  Hanley stood up. “I want my clothes—”

  “The hospital gown is appropriate when—”

  “I want my goddamn clothes,” Hanley said.

  And Dr. Goddard did a strange thing. He took out a can of Mace from his white cotton jacket and sprayed Hanley in the eyes.

  Hanley was in his fifties. It had been forty years since he had been assaulted physically. He understood the uses of assault, he understood terror. But in that moment, he was hurtled back more than forty years to when he was a child. Suddenly he was falling, his eyes stung by the liquid, the burning creeping over his face. He cried out in pain. And no one came to him.

  The pain and burning lasted a long time and he thought he made a fool of himself, writhing helplessly on the floor, his sense
s distorted by the pain and the suffocating powerlessness. His hospital gown was opened; he realized his backside was naked to anyone who might see him. He didn’t care in that moment. He wanted the pain in his eyes to end.

  Dr. Goddard gave him a damp towelette. He wiped at his face.

  “You’re not harmed,” Dr. Goddard said. His voice was Bach playing variations on the fugue.

  “Why did you do that? How dare you—”

  “Mr. Hanley. I am the doctor,” Dr. Goddard said.

  “You’re a goddamn sadist. Is this a prison? Who sent you?”

  “You were referred by your superior officer,” said Dr. Goddard.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know all about you. I have access to your 201 file, profile chart, skills index rating, your entire dossier. I know all about you. I don’t want you to see me as the enemy.”

  Hanley had staggered to his feet.

  “Sit down,” Dr. Goddard said in that voice lurching into the third Brandenburg Concerto. The notes progressed relentlessly. It was enough to drive a person crazy.

  Hanley sat. His bare behind was cold on the cold vinyl seat. He shivered. He felt humiliated, as though he might be a child again, forced into some ridiculous position because of something he knew was not his fault. It had not happened to him this way since he was in the sixth grade, nearly a lifetime ago.

  “We are here to help you,” began the voice, sounding the theme. “You have altered your behavior severely in the last six months and your superior is concerned for your mental balance. You have become moody and distant—”

  “I was tired,” Hanley began.

  Dr. Goddard stared at him. When the room was silent again, he resumed:

  “Tiredness is a symptom of a greater problem. Your problem, in all likelihood, is not physical. It is deeper than that.”

  “Why?” said Hanley.

  “Why what?”

  “Why is it deeper than that?”