The Double Game

by Dan Fesperman

  “Don’t turn around,” I said, “but tell me if you recognize that man by the door.” I looked away to keep from making him suspicious. Litzi leaned back against the bench and idly scanned the room.

  “Which one?” she whispered.

  I turned. He was gone. An operative for the Hammerhead, or a product of my overactive imagination?

  “Never mind. Let’s go. We’re due at Karel’s in another fifteen minutes anyway.”

  The Old Town Square was pandemonium, an invasion not of tanks but of kilted drunks, peeing against the walls of sixteenth-century chapels and kicking soccer balls high in the air to land on the heads of the hordes below, like cannonballs from siege guns.

  “Poor Prague,” Litzi said.

  We threaded our way toward Karel’s.

  “How many years has it been?” Litzi asked as I pressed the button for his apartment.

  “Forty. We moved a couple of years after the Russians rolled in. Haven’t seen him since.”

  The buzzer sounded. No sooner had we pushed through the entrance than a door rattled open two stories above. A shaggy head loomed above the railing, and a big voice boomed down the stairwell.

  “My friend Bill! You are most welcome!”

  I laughed appreciatively. Litzi and I hustled up the steps to find him grinning hugely with his arms spread wide. Karel had grown into a woolly bear of a man. His brown-gray hair was clean but uncombed, in contrast to the Trotskyite beard that he’d trimmed to a point. He wore a folksy sweater of thick wool and a threadbare corduroy jacket that draped him like a horse blanket. His eyes were the same sparkling blue they’d been at age fourteen, with a gleam that said he was still up for anything.

  I introduced Litzi and he ushered us inside. Books and magazines were everywhere. Dust coated the screen of a small rabbit-ear television that barely postdated our friendship. Abstract paintings covered every wall.

  “First things first,” he said. He poured three amber shots of Becherovka, the local herbal liqueur, and passed them around.

  “To Bill,” he said, raising his glass, “who taught me to sing like John Lennon, party like Keith Richards, and sneak around like James Bond.”

  Litzi, who had never seen much of the Keith Richards side, seemed greatly amused. I grimaced at the medicinal bite of the Becherovka, but it released a flood of memory—two teen boys plotting their stratagems in alleyways and on riverbanks, with one eye out for parents and another for any available girl.

  “To Karel,” I said, “who taught me to run like the great Zátopek. For a lap or two, anyway. And who helped engineer my first real kiss.”

  He burst into laughter.

  “She is married again, you know. Three times now!”

  “And who was this lucky girl?” Litzi was enjoying our nostalgia.

  “Karel’s sister. She was sixteen.”

  “You were punching above your weight, old man. But she was willing, very willing.”

  “It was in that little courtyard near Maltese Square, the one with the funny statue of Saint George.”

  “The one you used to call Saint Lecher.”

  “Because of the creepy look on his face, like he was about to molest the dragon.”

  His sister wanted nothing more to do with me afterward. It turned out she’d only wanted to satisfy her curiosity about what it felt like to kiss a boy from the land of Elvis, Hemingway, and Radio Free Europe. The answer: Nothing special. I swallowed the last of the Becherovka, and couldn’t help but shudder.

  “Remember our first night of drinking this stuff?” Karel held up the green bottle, offering more as I held up my hand in refusal.

  “What I remember better is the hangover.”

  From the street below, a chorus of singing Scotsmen carried up through an open window. Karel stepped over for a look, smiling down toward the cobbles.

  “They’re everywhere,” I said. “Grown men with hairy legs.”

  “By dawn there won’t be a drop of single malt to be found in the city.”

  “In the square they were all drinking pils.”

  “That’s just to get their courage up. After the final whistle they’ll need the real stuff.”

  “The square is a shambles,” Litzi said. “Cans and bottles everywhere.”

  “Better than shell casings,” Karel said. “Although not nearly as much fun to dodge.”

  Another glimmer of his old self. He gestured toward the door.

  “Let us go and eat sausages and pig’s knuckles! Unless you’d rather have pizza like the Tartans?”

  “Pig’s knuckles it is.”

  As we walked to dinner we caught up on each other’s lives. Karel was teaching mathematics at a second-tier university and still listening to any new music from the West, now on an iPod. There was a Mrs. Vitova, but she had left the premises four years ago, when the last of their three children moved out on his own.

  He took us to a cozy restaurant where most of the diners spoke Czech. But when Litzi insisted on a nonsmoking table, they ushered us to an empty room in the back, where the hostess had to switch on a light. They must have concluded we were tourists, even with Karel along, because the waiter brought us sweet red wine in shot glasses nestled on beds of dry ice in goblets. He poured water over the ice to make the goblets steam like cauldrons, then grandly announced in English, “Our special cocktail, on the house!”

  We waited until he left, then burst out laughing.

  “And to think when I was fourteen I could pass for local,” I said.

  “Because your Czech was perfect! By the time you left you didn’t even have an accent.”

  “All gone now, I’m afraid.”

  “My parents were always very impressed by the way you tried to fit in.”

  “Tried? Locals used to ask me for directions. Same in Budapest, Vienna, and Berlin. Now, of course, even the cabdrivers can spot me a mile away. I’m thoroughly Americanized.”

  “Like half of Prague,” he said, clinking his glass to mine.

  Up to then I’d given little thought to how I might broach the subject of finding Karel’s old address in a KGB report. I suppose I was counting on some sort of natural opening to occur. I was right, as it turned out, although I never would’ve guessed the nature of the opening.

  “How are your parents?” I asked.

  “My mother is very fine. She lives in the country with her dog and a vegetable garden, bad knees and all.”

  “And your father?”

  “Dead. Eleven years. No, twelve. His lungs. Probably from all that dust in his factory. And the smoking, of course.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. He was always very kind to me.”

  Karel smiled like a wolf.

  “Your visits made him very happy. You were like an extra income for him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He informed on you! To someone in the Interior Ministry. He would always do it the very next day, and tell them whatever you said.”

  I set down my drink, incredulous.

  “Jesus. Did everybody inform on me when I was a boy? Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I never knew. He told me after you moved away. Being the son of a diplomat made you very interesting to them.”

  I shook my head. So much for all those fond memories.

  “He did ask me lots of questions.”

  “Especially about your father. That was his assignment.”

  “Great.”

  “Each time he reported they gave him an American twenty-dollar bill. He would exchange it for a hundred and sixty Tuzex crowns, equal to eight hundred regular crowns, except you could spend them at those special shops for party officials. Remember when we saw him coming out of there once, with that bag full of soap and chocolate bars? You were so impressed.”

  “Yes. I do remember.”

  “It was as much money as a shop clerk would make in a month. He told me later that whenever you came through our door it was like a visit from Father Christmas.”
r />   Karel laughed heartily, although I found it a bit hard to swallow. Litzi smiled sympathetically, the other family spy from my past. Well, I had my secrets, too, and now was the time to unveil them.

  “Did your dad ever mention any code names?”

  “Code names?” Karel laughed. “Hey, I don’t think it was that official. He was just a metalworker with a big mouth.”

  “So you never heard him mention the name ‘Fishwife’?”

  Karel began to grow uncomfortable.

  “Bill, why do you ask me this? What do you know?”

  Litzi looked down at her drink.

  “Well, I found your address in an old KGB report a few days ago. Along with the code name Fishwife, which they must have assigned to your dad. As a regular visitor to the Interior Ministry, it was probably routine.”

  Now it was Karel’s turn to look shocked and deflated, and I felt a twinge of guilt for striking back so heedlessly.

  “Relax, it was ages ago, the seventies.” The words seemed to bounce right off.

  “A KGB report? You’re sure?”

  Karel’s tone was grave. I suppose that even now, the idea of showing up on some ancient Soviet watchlist could pack a punch. He drained the last of the novelty cocktail, then peered into the empty glass as if deeply troubled.

  “I’m going to need something stronger than this. Is that why you got in touch with me, just to ask me this?”

  “No. Not the only reason. But that was part of it, yes. I saw the address on an old list of contacts, and it made me curious. It’s part of some research I’ve been doing, following up on old stuff from my dad’s life.”

  “Ah. I see. You are revisiting all of your old haunts, then?”

  “Yes. Like Antikvariát Drebitko. Remember all those bookstores my father went to?”

  “How could I not? Bookstores were dangerous places for Czechs, especially if they were known to sell Western newspapers on the sly. My father always told me to stay away unless I wanted to get a bad name with the police. Of course now all the old secret policemen run security firms for bankers and businessmen. But I remember nothing of any KGB people at our house. My father would have been too scared. These were small things he was doing, to help us get by.”

  “I’m in no position to judge him. That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

  He nodded, but it was clear he wanted to move on to a more comfortable topic.

  So we did, stiffly at first, and with the aid of a bottle of Frankovka—“a true Czech red,” as Karel said. The mood eased, but we carefully avoided any further mention of our fathers.

  Later, when we were all a little tipsy, he walked us to our hotel. As we prepared to say good-bye, I was convinced we’d weathered the storm. But my news must have still been preying on his mind. Just outside the entrance he stopped and raised a finger in the air.

  “There is something I remember now.” His eyes widened as he recalled the moment. “A visitor to our house. It really shook up my father.”

  “A Russian?”

  He shook his head.

  “And not a policeman, either. A foreigner. His Czech was terrible. I remember hearing him. My father sent me to my room, but I listened. No one else was home. He was a man who sold books. Or bought them, maybe. It wasn’t altogether clear, but I know he had a big bag of them. Old ones, like your father used to buy. He was young, dressed like a hippie. To me he looked stoned, which I remember really astonished me. He carried a cane, although he seemed to walk just fine.”

  Litzi glanced at me. A coldness bloomed at the base of my stomach, turning all that wine into chilly slush.

  “You never heard his name?”

  “No.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t make out enough of the words. But the next day, when I wanted to go to your apartment, my father told me to stay away for a while. In a few more days, of course, things were normal, and I never saw this man again.”

  “His accent. Was it German?”

  “Did you know him?” Karel looked surprised, even hurt, as if I’d been hoarding this secret from the beginning.

  “I’m pretty sure his name is Lothar Heinemann. And if I had to guess, I’d say he’s in Prague right now. He might even be watching us.”

  Karel wheeled around like a cornered bull, almost stumbling from all the wine. Litzi gave me a look that said I’d again been needlessly cruel, but our surroundings gave no cause for alarm. Drunken Scotsmen were still in abundance, along with an approaching phalanx of tourists lurching to and fro on Segways.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s me he’s interested in.”

  Our farewell was subdued, and I felt bad for Karel. He invited us back anytime, but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it. I should’ve kept my mouth shut about Lothar. I knew Litzi thought so, too, and she kept her distance as we crossed the lobby.

  “Why Lothar?” she finally asked, as we wearily climbed the stairs. “He must have been more than just a book scout.”

  “My dad thinks he used to hunt down rare titles for people in the Agency. Maybe their arrangement was for more than just books. Otherwise the idea that he talked to Karel’s dad makes no sense at all.”

  “Unless he was KGB.”

  “That’s a sobering thought.”

  “Even if he was, you shouldn’t have unloaded on your friend Karel like that. Czechs of a certain age are still haunted in a way you’ll never understand.”

  Like her father, she meant. No wonder she was feeling protective.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  We were exhausted, and probably would have been asleep within seconds of entering our room, if not for the message that greeted us when I flipped on the light.

  “Not again,” Litzi groaned. “How did he find us?”

  Another one of my Gohrsmühle envelopes was perched on the pillows like a complimentary mint.

  “Who knows? More marching orders, I guess. Wonder which book he’s torn apart this time?”

  But this time there was only a folded sheet of stationery with a single typed line.

  7 p.m., 22 Divadelni

  “He must mean tomorrow,” Litzi said. “Do you know the address?”

  “Quite well.” So well that I was stunned to see it again in black and white. “It’s our old apartment building, where Dad and I lived. Down by the river, third-floor balcony on the left. I guess my handler is trying to make me feel at home.”

  I forced a smile, but Litzi didn’t join me.

  “I thought you weren’t going to follow any more bread crumbs until you knew who was dropping them.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “And now?”

  “Maybe I should go back on the offensive.”

  “How?”

  “If the next crumb is waiting at my old apartment, I ought to be able to think of something. I did live there for three years.”

  I lay awake for at least an hour, hectored by questions. Why did my handler want me to visit my old apartment? How had he tracked us down so quickly? And what could I possibly do to gain some—any—sort of advantage over his manipulation as this strange journey tunneled ever deeper into my past?

  But my last waking thought was of the Lemaster passage that had hounded me throughout the train ride from Vienna.

  Beware the Friendlies.

  Easy for you to say, Richard Folly.

  I fell asleep with Litzi in my arms.

  22

  Room by room, the bookstore known as Antikvariát Drebitko had spread like a termite colony. Over the years its sagging shelves had tunneled down hallways, eaten through retaining walls, and crawled into the windowless hideaways of three adjacent buildings along a cobbled alley in Prague’s Old Town.

  My father once compared browsing there to exploring an abandoned mine.

  “If you go,” he warned, “take a headlamp, watch for bats, and keep your eyes peeled for buried gems.”

&n
bsp; The proprietor in those days was a wiry, hard-bargaining Czech named Václav Bruzek, who had long ago given up on trying to sort titles alphabetically or even by native tongue, although he had separated fiction from nonfiction and had established chaotic ghettoes for subjects such as travel, history, politics, and biography. Most of the books were in Czech, but the English and German interlopers easily numbered into the hundreds, and the supply was often interesting enough to make my dad’s foraging expeditions worthwhile. Dad had curried favor by giving Bruzek embassy copies of the International Herald Tribune, which boosted Bruzek’s black market trade in forbidden newspapers. In turn, Bruzek tipped Dad to his choicest acquisitions.

  “How does he sell those newspapers without getting in trouble?” I’d once asked.

  “Who do you think his customers are, Bill? Party officials, secret police. The very people he needs to keep happy to stay open.”

  It was an early lesson in institutionalized hypocrisy, and the art of playing both sides against the middle. Such talents must have made Bruzek an attractive, yet risky, choice when Lemaster began setting up his courier network.

  Back then, Bruzek had been in his late thirties. If he was alive, he’d be pushing eighty.

  A bell jangled as we entered, summoning a thin fellow in his mid-twenties, shirttail out, a pencil tucked behind his ear. He worked his thumbs at a phone while managing to negotiate his way down crooked rows of tables and shelves.

  “I will be with you in a moment,” he said in perfect English. His phone twinkled as he sent the message, then he looked up with an air of inquiry.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m hoping to find Václav Bruzek. The elder, in case there’s a junior.”

  “And you are?”

  “An American journalist. My father was an old customer of Václav’s in the late sixties. I’m writing a piece for Vanity Fair magazine about the old days.”

  He narrowed his eyes at the mention of the old days.

  “My uncle doesn’t talk much about those times.”

  So he was alive, at least, and this was his nephew.

  “Do you know where I could find him?”