Safe Houses

by Dan Fesperman

  Sometime later Helen fell back to sleep. By then the room next door was quiet and the fellow with the cigarette was gone from the doorway across the street.

  * * *

  * * *

  A bright morning, a croissant and a coffee, and there she was on a Paris sidewalk, rejuvenated, a girl from Wixville strolling the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Even for someone more recently from Berlin it was impressive. On the corner just ahead, two North Africans, as thin as pipe cleaners, were selling plastic windup birds, releasing them into the breeze to attract the attention of tourists. The fluttery mechanical wing beats were as annoying as those of the pigeons. She smelled baking bread, the exhaust of a moped, the rainwater freshness of hosed-down cobbles. A feast for the senses.

  Then there were the women. It wasn’t what they wore, but how they wore it. She could have assembled exactly the same wardrobe and would have still stood out as the pretender. Maybe it was how they carried themselves, plus that bored look on their faces that said, Of course I’m marvelous, but so what?

  Helen’s dye job had been surprisingly successful, and she had dumped the wig in a trash can along Boulevard Saint-Germain, observed only by a boy in shorts on a bicycle who’d laughed aloud.

  A gust of cigarette smoke caught her unawares—Gitanes, like Baucom’s, and she briefly wished he were here, more for advice than for comfort. Then she drew a deep breath as exhilaration swelled behind her breastbone. I can do this, she thought. Win or lose, I can do this for a few days more.

  From overhead came a popping noise, and she glanced up to see a woman shaking a bedsheet from a high window. It startled her just enough to jolt her confidence, and she thought of all the people who must be looking for her by now. She nearly tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, and something like panic rose in her throat. Seeking shelter, she ducked into a small grocery to look out through the window, scanning the sidewalk crowds above rows of apples and oranges for possible surveillance. It took a moment for her to collect herself and head back out, and even then she paused a block later to remove her compact from her purse so she could check behind her while pretending to powder her nose.

  It reminded her that, back at the Farm, when she’d finished at the top of her class in spotting surveillance, her male classmates had groused about this technique—Hey, we can’t stop to powder our noses! But her skills had gone deeper than that. As their training officer had said, “She notices shit that you guys miss.” Like socks and shoes, for example, or other small giveaways that male operatives tended to pay scant attention to when assembling their own wardrobes.

  Beyond that, she’d developed a sort of sixth sense that had allowed her to spot anomalies in crowds and in movements. But that was during training, when she had relished the role of underdog, and many of her pursuers had also been trainees, lacking in finesse. Besides, she was out of practice. Would she again be able to function with the same easy sharpness?

  She glanced at a reflection on a shopwindow and kept moving toward her rendezvous.

  37

  The department store, Le Bon Marché, was as grand as Claire had said, with colonnaded arcades and wrought iron railings, a hall of wonders three stories high. Crisscrossing escalators rose toward a magnificent skylight. Mirrors here and there offered an almost panoramic rear view. But with noon approaching Helen was so anxious that she scarcely took notice, and her palms were sweating by the time she climbed to the second floor of the vast food hall next door.

  She paused behind a potted tree as the café loomed into view, and took stock of the clientele, hoping to pick out Claire from all the faces. Every table was full, and nearly all the customers were women. Only three sat alone, and each of them looked as effortlessly resplendent as the women Helen had been admiring out on the sidewalks. The air buzzed with conversation and the clatter of cutlery against china.

  Helen was on the verge of breaking cover when her training and a shard of lingering doubt stopped her. She backed away and made a quick reconnaissance. Almost no men anywhere, except for a few beleaguered-looking older fellows toting bags in the wake of their wives—not that this was any guarantee of harmlessness. She tried to glance through the square windows of the kitchen’s swinging doors, from which servers emerged every few seconds balancing trays with one hand. Behind them, in the flash openings, she saw chefs in white hats amid steam and smoke, and heard metallic scrapes and chops, the sizzle of a griddle. Satisfied that no one looked overly watchful or ready to spring into action, she stepped into view.

  One of the three solitary women smiled across the room at her, a brunette with darker lipstick than Helen was used to seeing on Americans. Her hair was pulled up in a bun, and she wore a blue scarf around her neck, just so. Alert brown eyes. When she waved, Helen waved back and began weaving through the tables.

  Claire stood in greeting. She was about the same height, and wore a yellow linen dress the color of sunlight. There were two shopping bags at her feet. You never would have guessed she was here for anything but pleasure. You never would have guessed she was anything but French.

  They hugged like old friends. For cover, Helen supposed, because she was resisting any sensation of relief. As they settled into their chairs, the situation still felt as if it might tilt in any direction.

  “I thought it might be you,” Claire said.

  “You saw me earlier?”

  “Checking the lay of the land? Yes. Smart.”

  Helen was a little crestfallen to have been spotted so easily when she had been so careful, and her discomfort went up another notch. She looked into Claire’s eyes and cut straight to the point.

  “You’d tell me wouldn’t you?”

  “Tell you?”

  “If this was a setup. If they were about to come charging out from those swinging doors to take me in.”

  At first, Claire looked hurt. Then she smiled ruefully.

  “I suppose I should be reassured by that question. I’ll admit that it did unsettle me a little when you seemed to trust me so easily.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve insulted you.”

  “No. You’ve asked the right question. And, to answer it, I never would’ve let you down so easily as this. They would have nabbed you the moment you walked into the store. And all of them would have been carrying one of these.”

  Claire reached into her handbag and slid a photostat across the table. It was a picture of Helen. They’d used the photo from her Agency ID, which they’d snapped on the morning of her arrival in Berlin following an overnight flight.

  “It came in last night.”

  Helen slid it back and swallowed hard, staring at the table as she imagined the photo being distributed at CIA outposts all across Europe.

  “And now it’s my turn to be a little harsh. So please look me in the eye again, if you don’t mind, because this game of precaution works both ways. I need to see the identity you’re traveling under. You can pass it under the table.”

  Helen took the Canadian passport from her purse, slipped it to Claire, and then watched her flipping the pages in her lap, checking entry and exit stamps to make sure there was nothing alarming.

  “It’s quite good,” Claire said.

  “I suppose it is, if it’s taken me this far.”

  “Who got it for you?”

  “A friend. But he doesn’t know about you.”

  “Must be quite a friend.”

  Helen blushed, but said nothing more. Claire handed back the passport and then took her hand across the table, as if preparing to swear a blood oath.

  “Thank you. I know it’s hard putting your fate into someone else’s hands, so I’m going to reciprocate. We’re in this soup together now, my friend, and will be until we’ve either emptied the bowl or one of us has knocked it to the floor, and broken it into a thousand pieces. All right?”

  “All right.”

  Clair
e released her hand but not her gaze. Helen began to relax. Confidence was half the battle, and she sensed that she was at last in competent hands.

  “The dye job is quite good, too,” Claire said, her tone lightening. “Impressive.”

  “Speaking of being impressed, how do you manage it?”

  “Manage what?”

  “To look just like the rest of them.” She gestured to encompass the room. “Who needs cover when you can pull that off?”

  Claire smiled and dipped her head, an appealing show of modesty. She, too, was lowering her guard.

  “In the end it was osmosis. I went through a full year of trying, all to no effect. Finally I just gave up. Then one morning I woke up and I just knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “What to wear, how to wear it. How to walk, how to speak, when to look people in the eye. The right expression of disdain. How to drink my coffee and sip my wine. When to flirt, when to ignore. At first I thought I must be imagining it. Then within a week three different Frenchwomen, in from the provinces, stopped me in the street to ask for directions.”

  “Amazing.”

  “You’re from North Carolina?”

  “Yes. Wixville.”

  “You don’t have an accent.”

  “An act of will. It was that or never be taken seriously by anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line.”

  “Then maybe we really are sisters. I’m from north Georgia, a town with fewer people than are in this store right now, and here we are speaking like newscasters on the eleven o’clock anchor desk.”

  “When did you get rid of yours?”

  “College. Georgia Tech. Part of it was my roommate, Marion from Massachusetts, as cool as a codfish. Spoke like a proper Brahmin, and there I was drawling and y’alling my way through rush week and first semester. Then one night we’re watching some late-night talk show and there’s Lester Maddox, our esteemed former governor who used to chase blacks out of his fried-chicken joint with an axe handle. He’s sitting on a stage in Manhattan, making an ass of himself in front of the whole country, all the while sounding exactly like me and three-quarters of the freshman class. You’re damn right I got rid of it.”

  Helen was about to reply when Claire leaned forward as if to impart a confidence. Still smiling, but with eyes now glittering with intensity, she lowered her voice and said, “Don’t turn around, but there is a silent and resolute-looking fellow in a smart suit standing in the corner just over your left shoulder, over by the register. Get out your compact and tell me if you recognize him.”

  Helen did as she was told.

  “No. I’ve never seen him.”

  “I think he’s with store management, so it’s probably fine. Just wanted to make sure. Down to business, then. Here.”

  Claire reached into her handbag and handed over a copy of Paris Match. The photostat from the office had gone back into Claire’s purse without Helen noticing.

  “I brought that article I told you about. The one about overly aggressive men?”

  A few extra pages had been neatly and expertly attached in the middle of the magazine.

  “Thanks. Looking forward to reading that.”

  “Take extra good care of that. It’s one of the last two copies, and I’m not sure I’d be able to lay my hands on the other one.”

  “Oh. I see.” Helen placed it reverently into her handbag.

  “I could always write a new one from memory, but it would never have quite the same weight. Not in a case this sensitive.”

  Helen checked her compact again. The man in the suit was gone.

  “I think we’re safe for now,” Claire said. “We should have a drink to make ourselves feel better, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. A drink is exactly what’s called for. When I finally start to breathe again, I might even want lunch.”

  “I can order for both of us, unless you’d like me to translate the menu?”

  “Please. Do the honors, as long as the drink comes first.”

  Claire picked up the wine list.

  “Let’s see. A little early for an aperitif, but I think the occasion calls for one.”

  She raised her right hand and a trim young waiter appeared almost instantly. Claire rattled off a stream of French. He nodded and departed. Within seconds he returned with two wineglasses and a beaded bottle, which he expertly corked and then placed into a silver ice bucket after filling their glasses.

  “To our success,” Claire said, raising her glass. “And to the continued survival of Elizabeth Waring Hart.”

  Helen clanked their glasses, a little too sharply. Then she smiled and sipped, expecting only wine but getting something stronger and more interesting, with a hint of orange peel.

  “What is this?”

  “Lillet. A Bordeaux that got itself mixed up with a dose of liqueur and a touch of quinine, chilled to a turn. It can be an acquired taste.”

  “I’ve acquired it. It’s perfect.”

  She took another swallow and sank back in her chair before speaking again.

  “I have to say, all that training is coming in handy, and I don’t just mean the surveillance games. In school I was always the clumsiest girl in gym class. But at the Farm I got to do things that had always been for men only—handling guns, rappelling off a helicopter skid with an M-16 strapped to my back, self-defense drills with karate chops and body throws.”

  “Same here. I remember how fresh it all felt. How new. All the boys had to do was revert to their natural state. They stopped shaving, did chin-up competitions, and generally acted like adolescents, thrilled to be blowing things up. And there I was, getting up every morning before the five a.m. run so I’d have time to wash and blow-dry my hair.”

  Helen laughed and took another sip.

  “I held my own,” Claire said, “that was what counted.”

  “Me as well. I’ve never forgotten.”

  “And as your reward, you get to have more of this.”

  She refilled Helen’s glass. Here was yet another Agency employee bucking up her resolve with an exquisite drink. Baucom had never been willing to say much about what made him want to help, apart from sex and personal loyalty, but Helen sensed that Claire’s motives might be had for the asking.

  “Tell me something,” Helen said. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I thought we’d established that. To stop Gilley.”

  “That was earlier, before I’d left my sanity behind, before I was a runaway. Back when all we were doing was sending notes through the mail. Now? You’re risking your career. Maybe more.”

  “My career? Let me tell you what that consists of these days. For the last two weeks they’ve had me keeping tabs on a high-ticket prostitute who might—repeat, might—be having an affair with a French cabinet minister. As if anyone in France would actually mind. No sign of the minister, of course. If it goes on for another week I’m going to invite her out for drinks just to break the monotony. Oh, merci!”

  The waiter had appeared with their lunches. Helen’s was a mushroom omelet with a salad. Routine enough, she supposed, but the aroma made her realize she was ravenous. She dug in.

  “Does everything in Paris taste this good?”

  “What, you’re not homesick for currywurst?”

  Helen smiled.

  “Anyhow, that’s my career, such as it is. I’ve asked for better assignments, but all of those go to the lads.”

  “Lads?”

  “It’s what a Brit friend of mine over at the local MI6 shop calls the boys in her outfit. Lads. They act about fifteen, and never show the slightest interest in what I’m doing. Unless, of course, I’m away on an unexplained absence for more than an hour at a time.” She briskly checked her watch and made a quick scan of the room. “Otherwise, I’d be perfectly content to stay here drinking Lillet
until six.”

  “Do you need to leave?”

  “I can talk a good enough game to explain away this afternoon, so don’t worry on that score. Besides, I don’t think you realize how deeply I feel about our cause.” She nodded toward the magazine poking from Helen’s purse. “You’ll see, it’s all in there.”

  “Bad?”

  “It wasn’t just rape. It was torture. Hours of it. Justine, one of our agents, was bleeding when I found her. The only reason I found out is that he overstayed his time at the safe house. I showed up to meet a contact, and there they were. Ten minutes later and I would’ve missed him. He was getting dressed and she was lying on the bed. When I asked what was going on he said it was a private matter, none of my business, and she wouldn’t say a word. So I slipped her my phone number and two days later I guess she finally got up her nerve, so we met and she told me everything.”

  “What did you do?”

  “The first thing I did was arrange for a new cover for Justine, to keep her safe.”

  Helen should have thought of that. It might have saved Anneliese. She put down her fork with a piece of omelet speared at the end, her appetite gone.

  “Then I wrote it up and filed it as an addendum to my weekly report.”

  “To your chief of station?”

  “Yes. Or, as I now think of him, my POS COS. Piece of shit.”

  “Ah. Like mine. What did he do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Unsubstantiated rumor. The ravings of a woman scorned. He said Justine had a history of that. He said it so many times that I started thinking there might be something to it. I hadn’t been there until the end, after all. Maybe she’d embellished it. Then I heard about Marina. I hope you’ll meet her, but I can’t say anything more about that yet. Her cover’s too deep, in a place far too dangerous for me to discuss it here. But she’s going to tell you her story.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as Audra and I make the arrangements.”

  “Audra knows what we’re doing?”