Tapestry of Spies

by Stephen Hunter

  Now, a clever man, a man with his wits and a little presence and a nice selection of identities, could get through. It must be driving poor Glasanov insane. With a battalion of NKVD troops, he could have closed the city down and gone through it like an archivist, examining each alley, each hallway. In days, he’d have him back. However, with only a skeleton of NKVD people, but mostly earnest, unpracticed Spaniards, Glasanov was doomed.

  Glasanov, I will be the death of you, Levitsky thought with a wicked little smile.

  “Comrade? Another schnapps?” asked the waiter.

  “No, I think not.”

  “We close soon, comrade. The curfew. Not like the old times.”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  “You look as though you’ve had a rough time of it, comrade.”

  “Some Anarchists. Working men who a year ago never spoke above a whisper. They were feeling mighty about their new world a few days ago and demonstrated their enthusiasm to an old man who wouldn’t sing their song or dance to their tune in an alley. They said I looked too bourgeois for my own good.”

  “Ay. Crazy ones, they’re all over the place. These are terrible times, comrade.”

  “But interesting,” said Levitsky.

  He took a last look about the room. The smoke in here made his eyes smart. Behind the bar, the mirror stood streaked with grease. The light was amber, almost yellow, shining off the walls and from the flickering candles and the weak bulbs in the glass cups mounted near the ceiling. The place was crowded—all the better—with men and women in uniform, with braids and berets and caps, with automatic pistols and boots, the fighters nut-brown from their days in the sun out at the firing line, the theorists pale from long days of argument and negotiation. They were all getting drunk and the air seethed with boasts and charges and challenges and lyrics and verses. He knew it: of course, easily. It was Petrograd in ’17, while the great Lenin was waging his war of bluff and maneuver against Kerensky and the provisional government.

  He looked back to the girl’s table. He didn’t think any of them at the table were NKVD. He could not, of course, be certain, but after so many years, he believed he knew NKVD on sight: something furtive and sly in the eyes, a certain inability to relax, a certain sense of one’s own authority.

  No. The waiter, maybe. Surely he informed for someone, but purely out of opportunism, not ideology. Who else? Perhaps that man over there in the black Anarchist’s beret who was, Levitsky had noticed, less drunk than he pretended, and whose eyes never ceased to roam.

  But Levitsky had to move. Fifteen minutes to curfew. Yes, it was time for the devil to move to the girl.

  He got up, edged through the crowd, standing patiently when a couple rose between himself and her and he waited for them to pass by. When they were gone, he proceeded meekly. He slipped next to her and bent to her; she had not yet noticed.

  She was a lovely girl, but he could see the gaiety was forced, she was not happy at all, as were the other young POUMistas. They were all excited about an upcoming battle.

  “The battle is an imperative process of history,” a young man was saying. “Your friend must take his chances like any comrade.”

  “If we take Huesca tonight, we take Barcelona tomorrow,” said an older man, some sort of POUMist leader.

  “And the revolution lives,” said the boy.

  “I just hate the waste,” he heard her say.

  “Ah. Fraulein Lilliford?” Levitsky said pitifully.

  She turned quickly, looking up.

  “Good lord, Sylvia, who on earth can this be?” someone at the table inquired.

  “Herr Gruenwald, no?” he said. “From the ship, the vasser, the boat, ja?” He began to jabber in excited German.

  “Herr Gruenwald, my God. Oh, you look so different. I do apologize for staring. It’s—”

  “Ja, Missy Fraulein.”

  “Look, do sit down—”

  “Sylvia—!”

  “This man was in the sinking with us. He’s been through a lot,” Sylvia said tartly. “Sit down, Herr Gruenwald. You look terrible. I’d heard that you’d been arrested by—”

  “Ja. Polizoi! Old business, a mistake, hah! Really hit an old man. My head—it vasn’t zo good before, but now is kaput. Krazy in der head! Hah!” He laughed abrasively and looked about the table to enjoy the shocked befuddlement of Sylvia’s new friends.

  “Well, it sounds dreadful” said Sylvia.

  “Good heavens, Sylvia, your collection certainly grows by the day. A mad, decrepit German cabin boy!”

  “Shut up, Stephen,” said the older man at the table. “The old fellow has had a rough enough time. One can tell from looking at him.”

  “Mr. Gruenwald, you look famished. May I buy you something to eat? What are you going to do?”

  “Ach! Ich—er, Gruenwald wait for papers, zen ship out. Nein, missy, I haben zie—haf place to stay. Und food. Ah, my head, it aches so bad zumtimes. Bombs. The Great War. To end all wars, ja? Metal plate, ja?” He tapped his skull, smiled broadly.

  “Missy Fraulein, it’s, ach, zomething zo stupid. It’s mein frau. My wife, ja? She is still in Deutschland and, ah, I have no vord from her. And of course, here, hah! politics gets in da vay. Dere is no Deutschland embassy—”

  “No, of course not. They are for the other side.”

  “I vish to zumhow send vord dat—dat I am all right. Ja. I remember from boat. Mr. Florry a journalist; he vas goink to zee Mr. Raines, another journalist. Ja? Perhaps such an intelligent fellow, Herr Raines, the journalist, he know a vay to reach my poor frau in Deutschland, ja.”

  “But Herr Gruenwald, I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  Levitsky, looking past her in the mirror, saw four men in overcoats enter. The largest of them was Glasanov’s Amerikanski.

  “Julian Raines and Robert Florry have joined the militia. They are at the front, at Huesca.”

  “Ach, a fighter,” Levitsky said, thinking, the fool! The utter idiot!

  Bolodin stood with his men at the front of the room, looking through it.

  Levitsky could not look at Bolodin in the mirror. Bolodin would have that extremely fine-tuned sense of being observed; he would feel the eyes upon him and swiftly locate their owner.

  “Look here, let me make some inquiries for you,” Sylvia said. “There are many Germans in our party. Perhaps I can locate somebody who knows a method of communication.”

  Bolodin was moving through the crowd. Levitsky kept his face down, his body hunched as if in rapt attention to what she was saying. He tried to concentrate on exits. He could dash for the back; no, they’d have him, strong young Bolodin would have him and smash him down. Bolodin approached; there were suddenly secret policemen all around.

  “Comrades,” somebody was saying, “you’ll excuse if we ask to see your papers.”

  “And who are you,” one of the POUMistas said defiantly. “Perhaps it’s we who should ask to see your papers.”

  “I am Ugarte, of the Servicio de Investigación Militar. We are responsible for the security of the revolution. You excuse this boring formality, of course. One has to take so many precautions these days. There are so many spies about.”

  “The revolution is in far more danger from Russian secret policemen than from anybody in the POUM,” said Sylvia. “You show us your papers.”

  “There are no Russians here. I don’t understand why our brothers and sisters in the Marxist Unification Party are so difficult,” said the policeman. “One would think they hadn’t the revolution’s best interests in mind.”

  It suddenly occurred to Levitsky: they mean to kill these children. It’s part of Glasanov’s—

  “I don’t think we need to resort to extreme methods,” said the smooth young secret policeman. “If, perhaps, we could all go outside and get this settled quickly and quietly with a discussion, then—”

  Bolodin stood at an oblique angle to Levitsky, his face impassive, his eyes hooded, almost blank. He had not looked at Levitsky at a
ll. He was looking instead at the older man called Carlos.

  “I am Comrade Carlos Brea, of the executive committee of the Party of Marxist Unification, and I will not—”

  “Comrade Brea, your reputation proceeds you. Surely you can understand the point of a few mild security precautions. We mean nobody any harm; we mean only to establish identities and then walk away.”

  Bolodin quietly separated himself. Levitsky watched as he pushed his way through the crowd and exited into the street.

  “Well,” said Brea, “I’ll go with you to our headquarters. Let the others stay. They have worked hard enough for their pleasure.”

  “That’s the spirit of cooperation. Indeed, the comrade is to be congratulated. Who says the different workers can’t function together?”

  “Carlos, don’t go,” said Sylvia.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m sure the SIM can guarantee my safety in front of witnesses.”

  “Of course, Comrade Brea.”

  “Carlos, some of us will go along.”

  “Nonsense. Stay here. I’ll be off; the rules, after all, must apply to everyone.”

  He rose and, with a smile for the youths at the table, threaded his way out with the policemen.

  “I don’t like it at all,” said one of the men. “They are getting more and more brazen. It’s a very disturbing trend.”

  “We ought to arrest a few of them and—”

  Sylvia turned to Levitsky. “Perhaps you could meet me someplace tomorrow night, Herr Gruenwald. In the meantime, I’ll make some inquiries and—”

  Then they heard the shots from the street and a second later a woman came in shrieking, “Oh, God, somebody shot Carlos Brea in the head, oh Christ, he’s bleeding on the pavement!”

  In the panic, and the grief, and the outrage, Levitsky managed to slip away. He knew he had to get to the front now to get to Julian. And he also knew who had shot Carlos Brea.

  16

  THE ATTACK

  THEY COULD HEAR THE DIVERSIONARY ATTACK OF THE Anarchists on the other side of the city: the heavy clap of bombs, followed by the less authoritative tapping of the machine guns. The plan called for the Anarchists to go in first, from the west. The Fascists would rush reserves over to meet that assault; then the POUMistas and the Germans of the Communist Thaelmann Brigade would jointly rush the city from the east.

  Florry shivered in the rain: it had turned the trench floor into mud and made its walls as evilly slick as gruel. It would be a terrible ordeal to scramble up and out. He peeked over the parapet. In the mist and dark, the Fascist lines were invisible.

  “Do you think they know we’re coming?” somebody asked.

  “Of course they know we’re coming,” said Julian cruelly. “D’you think they can keep a secret on the Ramblas? That’s the fun of the evening.”

  “Julian, do be quiet,” said Billy Mowry strictly. “It’s only a few minutes now.”

  “Yes, commissar, of course, commissar,” said Julian. “Do you know,” he said to Florry, not dropping his tone a bit, “in the Great War they kicked footballs toward the Hun. Perhaps we ought to kick copies of the bloody great Das Kapital.”

  “Julian, damn you, I said stuff it,” yelled Billy Mowry.

  “Touchy chap,” Julian said. “I was feeling quite gallant, too. Best to go into battle with a quip on one’s lips, eh, Stinky?”

  “I’m too wet for quips,” said Florry.

  “Yes, well I’m too frightened not to quip. Hush me if I bother you. But I cannot seem to stop chatting. Dear old Julian, never at a loss for words.”

  It was odd; the wait affected each differently. Florry felt sleepy with dread; he could not force himself to think about what lay ahead. Julian, on the other hand, could not think of anything else.

  “Gad, I wonder which will be worse. The machine guns or the wire. In France, the men hated the wire. It would snare them and they’d be hung up like department-store mannequins. The more one struggled, the more one was sucked in. My poor father at the Somme ran into a bit of the stuff. Ghastly, eh?”

  “I know about your father. Can’t you recite some poetry or something?” Florry said.

  “Ah, poetry. Yes, poetry before battle. How English. And I’m supposed to be rather good at poetry, aren’t I? How about, ‘In the end, it’s all the same/In the end, it’s all a game.’ Hmmm, no, all wrong. Somehow it doesn’t feel much like a game about now. What about, ‘We are the hollow men/We are the …’ No, that’s not appropriate either. Er, ‘If I should die, think only this of me, there’s some corner of a foreign field that’s forever POUM.’ Good heavens, how appalling! Trouble is, they don’t write any good war stuff anymore. It’s out of fashion. They only write antiwar stuff, no help at all to a bloke about to go over the top, eh? I feel like something cheerful and powerfully seductive, something that would make me hungry to die for somebody else’s party and someone else’s country.”

  “I don’t believe that poem has been written.”

  “Hasn’t, has it? Well, you haven’t read the great ‘Pons’ yet. If I ever can put a tail on the beast, it’ll move me from seventh greatest living poet on up to third. And if bloody Auden should drop dead of a dose of clap from some Chineeboy, why then I’m second. Gad how exciting!”

  “Recite a line, then.”

  “Hmm. All right.

  Among the Druids, in the Druid hall,

  the fire flickers, shadows fall

  The past, an icy castle, slowly settles,

  while they boil the future in their kettles.

  And death was inches, dark was all.”

  Florry waited. “Go on.”

  “Out of words, old man. That’s where it stops.”

  “God, it’s brilliant, Julian.”

  “What’s it mean, Jules?” said the man on the other side of Julian.

  “Now, Sammy, don’t you worry. It’s just words.”

  “Ready boys,” came Billy Mowry’s call through the rain. “It’s almost time.”

  “How’s that for inspiration! At least in an aristocratic army, the officers can quote a line of verse at the key moment. ‘These in the hour when heaven was falling’—”

  “That’s about mercenaries, old boy,” Florry said through chattering teeth, “who took their wages and are dead. We are not mercenaries. At any rate, if we are, the pay is bloody low.”

  “Au contraire, chum, it’s bloody high. A clean soul. Freedom from one’s little secrets, eh? From the little men inside one who are always clamoring to get out, eh?”

  “All right, lads,” Billy sounded calm in the rain, “it’s time.”

  “Good heavens, it is, isn’t it?” Julian said. He reached inside his tunic and pulled out what appeared to be a ring on a chain, brought it swiftly to his lips and kissed it. “There, now I’m all safe,” he said. “My old dad was wearing it at the Somme day he cashed in. Wedding ring. It’s my lucky piece. Never done me wrong. Care for a smooch, Stink?”

  “Thanks, no. I don’t think my lips are working.”

  “Tally-ho, then. Good hunting, and all that rot.”

  “Luck to you, old man,” said Florry, unsure how he meant it. “I’ll tell you my secrets one day, too.” And he became lost in the struggle to get himself up the wall—he’d lost some strength—but with a sliding, grunting kind of athletic twist, he suddenly achieved it, staggered onto wet but solid ground, and found himself standing up, pretty as you please, in front of the trench in which he’d cowered for weeks. It was both a curiously liberating and curiously vulnerable sensation. All up and down the line, in the ghostly mist, men were rising, shaking themselves off like wet terriers, unslinging their rifles, and facing their death. They were like the children of the Hydra’s teeth, Florry thought, his fancy education delivering him a fancy metaphor at just the right time: half-mythical creatures slouching out of some dimly remembered far ago time and place. A hideous joy cut through Florry as he slid the great bayonet-heavy Mosin-Nagent from his shoulder and brought i
t to the high port. Bombs—grenades—hung on his belt and he wore his Webley at his hip.

  “Pip, pip,” said Julian, next to him, with a wicked smile that Florry could see through the murk. “I do believe the glorious adventure is about to commence.”

  Indeed it was. The line, like some kind of creature itself, began to move out across no-man’s-land.

  Florry no longer felt the cold or the wet and once or twice stepped into a huge cold trough, the water slopping over his boot tops, but it meant nothing. They moved steadily through the mist, toward the Fascist lines. He could feel the incline beginning to rise under him and the heavy, sloshy weight of the clinging mud grow at his feet.

  The plan was simple yet dangerous: to approach silently—the rain helped them here—to the wire at the outer limits of the Fascist lines, cut it, get inside it, and hurl a wave of bombs, then leap into the trench before the Fascists had a chance to recover from the blasts. It all, therefore, depended most fragilely on surprise, but the soldiers moved like knights to Florry’s ears, clanking and lumbering in the dark. Yet from beyond there was no response.

  They seemed to have been walking for hours. Had they lost direction like souped-in aviators and now headed the wrong way? These thoughts nagged at Florry as he fought through a mass of brush and up a little gulch; for a moment, he was entirely alone. He felt as if he were the last man on earth.

  “Jolly fun, eh?” Julian, close at hand, muttered in a stage whisper.

  At last they got through the vines and Florry realized with a start that they had covered the ground and had made the wire, which curled cruelly before them in the steady rain. It all had an underwater slowness to it, the steady pelt of the rain, the soaked, heavy clothes, the mud-heavy boots, and now men crouched with the deliberation of scientists to ready themselves for the final few feet. In the slanting sheets of water that descended out of the sky upon them, Florry made out the figure of one fellow scurrying ahead with a kind of lizard’s urgency. Billy Mowry, a hero as well as a leader, took it upon himself to scamper up the slope to perform the most dangerous task, the cutting of the wire. He lay on his back under the evil stuff and Florry could see the snippers come out and begin to twist and tug at the strands. Florry knelt, the fingers of one hand nervously playing with his rifle. With his other, he pulled a bomb off his belt. It had two pins. Cradling his rifle against his shoulder, he pulled the easy one out and let it drop. Now he had only to yank the hard one and throw it in four seconds.