The Prodigal Spy

by Joseph Kanon

  “A little ping.”

  She looked at him, then tossed her cigarette out the window and slumped down in her seat, burrowing in. “You’re right. It’s stupid. I mean, he was there. We know that. It’s just-”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Her lover. I can’t see them together.”

  Nick was quiet, following his own thought, a blip across the screen.

  “They weren’t together,” he said finally, sure. “He was devoted to my mother.”

  “Yeah. So was mine. Every time he came back. Anyway, I don’t mean him. I mean her. He wasn’t her type. Not — I don’t know-flashy enough.”

  Nick thought of him changing upstairs, the pale, slack skin. “No, he’s not flashy.”

  “Still. People change.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  By the time they got to town they were alone again; the other cars had melted away into the dark edges of the city as mysteriously as they had come. The streets were deserted, wet cobblestones cut by the bumpy tram rails, whose metal caught their headlights and gleamed back at them through the mist. Dim pools of yellow light from the street lamps. It was, finally, the Prague of his imagination, Kafka’s maze of alleys and looming towers, spires poking suddenly through the fog. They drove along the river, Hradcany somewhere off to the right, then turned into streets where nothing was visible beyond the reach of the car’s lights and, still lulled by the dope, Nick felt that he had begun driving through his own mind, one confusing turn after another, going in circles. How could anyone live here? When they reached Wenceslas, the empty, lighted tram that appeared clanging in front of them seemed to come out of a dream.

  The parky stalls were closed but the Alcron was still awake, the doorman leaping from the bright door as if he’d been waiting for them. The lobby was empty. Nick saw the bellhop and desk clerk glance up. The drug was wearing off, leaving only a pleasant tiredness and now the familiar sensation that everyone was watching them. For an instant he stopped, then smiled to himself. They were being watched; it was what people did here. Did they notice he was walking slowly? Then the bellhop yawned, and he saw that his cover would be exhaustion. It was only eleven, but everyone seemed ready for bed.

  “A long day, Pan Warren,” the clerk said, handing him the key. “Not so nice for Karlovy Vary, the weather.”

  Was he checking up or only being polite?

  “You took the waters?”

  Nick looked at him blankly, but Molly said, “Why do the glasses have those pipestems?”

  “Pipestems? Ah, like a pipe, yes. To drink in. For the minerals, you see. To get past the teeth. Otherwise they would stain.”

  “Ah,” Molly said. “Well, goodnight.”

  The desk clerk smiled and bowed at them, satisfied.

  “That was good,” Nick said as they crossed to the elevator.

  “It’s the only thing I remembered about the place, those funny little glasses. Thank God. Now he can put it in his report. Our day at Karlsbad.”

  Nick stopped. “But it wouldn’t be true. I mean, just because something’s in a report. There it is in black and white, but we were never there.”

  Molly looked at him for an instant, then lowered her eyes. “But the lighter was.”

  “How can we be sure?”

  “Ask him.”

  Their room was stifling, the heavy drapes drawn tight, and while Molly ran her bath, he opened the windows, then lay on the bed in his underwear, feeling the cool night air move over him. His body was tired but alert, and when he closed his eyes he could hear the sounds around him with a sharp clarity: water splashing in the tub; the bells of the late trams below, carried in by the mist, disconnected, like the sounds of ships at night. He went over the day, putting it in order, as if the chronology would tell him something. In the report. What if all of it was true? None of it? Why would he lie? Or was it the usual mix, the half-truths of things left out or just forgotten? But which? Then he was in the cottage bedroom, his arm gripped, caught. Snug as a bug.

  There was a shaft of light from the bathroom when she opened the door, and he squinted at her, wrapped in her thin robe, toweling her hair. Her movements were languid, almost swaying.

  “Are you asleep?”

  “Thinking.”

  “About what?” she said idly, moving toward the window. When he didn’t answer, she said, “Okay. A penny? A Czech crown?”

  “About what it’s like for you. When you see him. I mean, if you really think he-” He trailed off, not able to say it.

  “What’s it like for you?”

  “I don’t see what you see.” He paused. “I can’t leave him like this. Whatever he’s done. I thought I could, but I can’t. But that’s me. You don’t have to go on with this. Not anymore.”

  She stopped, still holding the towel to her hair. “You want me to leave?”

  “Don’t you? You must hate him. All of it. I didn’t know. Why keep it a secret? No wonder you didn’t want to-”

  She looked at him. “Is that what you think?”

  “You can see what it’s going to be like. You’ll just get more involved. With someone you think-”

  She stared at him for a second. “You’re a real jerk sometimes, you know?” she said softly. He looked up at her. “I’m not involved with him. I’m involved with you.”

  A beat. “Are you?”

  He watched her drop the towel, then heard the faint rustling silk of her robe as she came toward the bed. She ran her hand along his bare leg, stopping at the knee. “Don’t think so much, okay?” she said, moving it up to his thigh, stroking. “Why don’t we finish what we started. Before you started thinking.” She looked toward the stirring in his briefs and smiled.

  “What are you doing?” he said, unable to move, paralyzed by the hand making slow circles on his thigh.

  “I’m seducing you, before you throw me out.” She leaned close to him and shook her head slowly. “No more secrets, okay?”

  He closed his eyes as her fingers moved across his pouch, lightly grazing his balls, to the inside of his other thigh. Then both hands were stroking him, moving up along his waist. She took the elastic band of the shorts and with elaborate slowness started pulling them down. “Want to help?” He raised himself slightly from the bed, a reflex, and felt the shorts slipping out from under him, his erection springing free. “Look at you,” she said, then ran her fingertips under his scrotum. He could feel the delicate scraping, then his penis swelling harder as her fingers moved up along the shaft, wrapped around the base in a slow pumping motion. “Still want me to go?” she said, gripping it gently, so that the tip seemed to get even harder, full to bursting.

  “Not with that in your hand.”

  She moved up onto the bed, straddling him, then leaned over, and her robe opened, filling the air with the smell of soap and bath oil. He reached up to touch her breasts, warm and smooth, and then her open mouth covered his and he could feel her hair around him, still damp from the bath, as if they were back in the rain. She drew a breath, kissing him lightly, and he moved his hands behind her, rubbing the silk, then pulling it up in folds until he could feel bare flesh. She arched back, resting on his hands, and drew the robe off, tossing it on the floor, her breasts swaying heavily as she moved.

  “Molly-”

  “Sshh.” She put a finger to her lips, then pointed it up at the ceiling corner. She leaned down and whispered, “Big brother, remember?”

  To his surprise, he felt himself grow harder, an unexpected erotic kink. He could hear their breathing, the faint ringing of the trams outside, and he imagined someone cupping headphones, straining, aroused. Then she bent down to kiss him and he lost the room again, moving his hands over her skin, wanting to touch her everywhere. Still on her knees, she lowered her pelvis to him and he felt the scratch of her hair along his prick. It brushed over him slowly, back and forth, wiry and delicate, until every part of him was waiting for it, sensitive, so that he thought he might come just from the
touch of the hair. Then, a little lower, he felt the wetness start beneath the hairs, the moist skin moving over him, slippery as quicksilver, until his penis was slick with it, ready to explode before he’d even entered her. Too soon.

  He rolled over, pinning her under him. Her eyes caught the faint light, shining, and when he looked into them they stopped for a minute, no longer playful, and grew wider, as if her whole body were opening up. “Just us,” she whispered, grave and trembling, then took his head in her hands, drawing him down. He kissed her, then moved his lips down along her throat to her breasts, sucking them gently, making it last, feeling the nipples grow hard in his mouth before continuing down, wanting all of her, his feet sliding off the bed as his head went lower, along her belly. When he heard her gasp in anticipation, the sound itself was exciting. Make noise. Drown out the trams, the static in the headphones, everything.

  He was there. He kissed her inner thighs gently, barely touching the skin, moving steadily toward the crease between her legs, then rubbed his face lightly across the hair, breathing her in. She shivered, a kind of physical noise, then moaned out loud when he started licking the edges of her crotch, long upward strokes, wetting the hair. His tongue moved toward the top of her slit, teasing it; then, using his hands to part the outer lips, he touched her clitoris with the tip, a series of light flicks, until he felt her move under him, drawing him closer. He lowered his head and placed his tongue between her lips, parting them with one long stroke, then back again, resting for a second at the top, then back, until they were both moving in a rhythm, her body rising to meet him, moving against him. Her cunt was wet now, as wet as his mouth, and he licked deeper, sucking, rolling her clitoris between his lips, then burying his face in her as she seemed to stretch wider, no longer secret, the wonderful pink skin all open to him.

  When he stopped, then began the slow long strokes of a new cycle, she moaned again and grasped his head, trying to stop him and move with him at the same time. “Soft,” she whispered, but when he licked more lightly, a wet kiss, she didn’t want that either and pulled him harder into her until he was buried again and her body squirmed around him. Her breathing had become a kind of ragged pant and he felt she was close now and moved up again, covering the top of her slit and tonguing it from below, a constant stroke. “Come with me,” she said out loud, gasping. “Come with me.” But when he moved up onto the bed and slid into her, his mouth still wet with her, he could feel her walls clutching him, a tremor, and before he could move she was already there, coming around him with a cry, her body heaving.

  He lay still for a second, feeling her, the moist inside now just part of his own body, permanently attached, then slowly began to move, drawing himself almost to the edge of her lips before sliding in again. Her vagina, already sensitive, continued to ripple against him, like aftershocks, urging him, and he began to go faster, adjusting his rhythm to her. She gasped out loud, a gift to the microphones, and he could hear the squeak of the bedsprings now, drowned out when his head had been down inside her, and their breathing, even louder, keeping pace, their strokes audible, a slapping of wet skin, the room alive with noise, as if the sounds themselves were racing, about to come. She clutched him and he felt her spasm again but now he couldn’t stop, thrusting on top of her orgasm, trying to keep it alive so that when finally he spurted into her they were both shuddering.

  Afterward they lay curled up, quiet, his prick soft against her bottom, his arm flung over her, protecting her from the night air that crept along their bodies, drying the sweat. Neither of them moved, and he lay surprised by the stillness, wondering what had happened. There was none of the odd embarrassment he usually felt after sex, the impulse to cover himself, find his clothes and go. Now there was only an easy familiarity, as if they had finally run out of secrets and could lie here naked forever, everything known, an old couple. She turned and traced a finger along his face, reading it like Braille, wiping the wet from his mouth. “Look at you,” she said softly.

  He reached over and brushed the hair back from her face, smoothing it, taking her in. “I like your freckles,” he said lazily.

  “I used to have more.”

  “You did?”

  “Uh-huh. You lose them as you get older. Like hair,” she said, touching his bare temple.

  “Careful.”

  She smiled, her eyes catching the dim light. “I was right, wasn’t I?” She kissed him lightly, then snuggled closer. She reached down to pull up the covers, but he stopped her.

  “No, I want to look at you.”

  “Then close the window. I’m getting goosebumps.”

  “Where?” he said, running his hand along her hip. But he got up and went over to the window, closing the pane but keeping the curtains open to the street light.

  “I love the way it jiggles,” she said from the bed, looking at him. “How does it feel when it bobs around like that?”

  “Little,” he said. He stood by the bed for a moment, his eyes moving along her body.

  “Oh,” she said, turning away slightly from his gaze. “Don’t. I feel so-exposed.”

  No secrets. He bent over and kissed her breasts, feeling her shiver when he opened his mouth on her.

  She was already dressed, putting on lipstick at the mirror. He felt the air on his behind, jutting out of the tangled sheets, and covered himself.

  “Well, it’s alive,” she said.

  “What time is it?” He glanced at the bedside clock. “Christ.”

  “Sleep well?” she said. “It must have been the-” She raised her eyes to the ceiling, then put two fingers to her mouth, pretending to draw in smoke. “You know what.”

  “Oh, that’s what it was.”

  “What else?” She came over to the bed and sat on the edge, touching his chest. “Morning skin. Like a baby’s.”

  He took her wrist, drawing her to him, but she shook her head. “You’ll muss. Anyway, I’m off.”

  “Where?”

  “See the sights. He wanted to meet you alone, didn’t he? Narodni Gallery. Better get cracking.”

  He got up, holding the sheet. “You always this cheerful? Where is it, anyway?”

  “By the castle. Take a number 22 tram. You can’t miss it. God, look at the bed. What will the maid think?”

  He grinned.

  She picked up her raincoat, then stopped. “Nick?”

  He looked up, waiting, but she shook her head.

  “Never mind.” Then, hesitantly, “It’s going to be all right, isn’t it?”

  He nodded, still smiling as she closed the door.

  In the lobby, he wondered if everyone could tell, read his mood, like a permanent flush on his skin. His face felt loose, ready to break into a loopy grin, but he came down outside, deflated by another dreary Prague sky. The rain had left the city damp and grimy, as if nothing could wash away its essential grayness. For the first time, the thought of seeing his father depressed him.

  On the tram, bottle blondes and grim faces; no one talked. Had this conductor been someone else once? They creaked through the old streets, the passengers’ heads nodding with stolid patience, dazed with routine. No one had spent the night in someone else’s body, alive with sex. When they crossed the river, even the Baroque stucco of the Mala Strana, pale yellow in the sun that first day, had turned dark, a dirty mustard.

  The gallery seemed to be arranged chronologically, so that the rooms began in the Middle Ages, static allegories with pudgy Slavic babies and soldiers holding lances and spiked shields, Christ rising from his coffin, his feet still dripping blood from the crucifixion nails. Artists painted what they saw; here they’d seen atrocities, a culture of occupation.

  He looked around for his father, but the rooms were empty. A guard, bored, stared at his feet. Nick thought he should wait near the entrance, but the room was oppressive and he moved along to the next-Italian, flesh pink with light, bowls of fruit. What would he say today? Another theory of history?

  Nick found him in the roo
m beyond, staring at a picture. He smiled when he saw Nick and lifted his hand to touch him, then withdrew it. They stood there awkwardly, a chance meeting in public. Nick glanced at the painting.

  “The fatted calf,” his father said, following his eyes. “A lot to expect, don’t you think? After all that.”

  “The prodigal,” Nick said automatically.

  “You see how happy everyone is? Even the jealous brother.” His father smiled shyly. “Maybe that’s why we have stories. So things come out better.” He paused. “It means wasteful, you know, not wandering. He wasted his inheritance, his gifts. Well.” He turned to Nick. “So you got back all right? Anna was worried. We don’t have much time,” he said, looking at his watch. “I’m sorry. There’s a service for Frantisek’s brother. I have to go. It would be noticed.”

  “Do you want me to come?”

  “A tourist? That wouldn’t be appropriate,” he said gently. “They’ll all be there, watching. To write about Masaryk after all these years-everything about him is still political. Even a funeral.”

  “Then why go? Won’t you be-”

  “I have to go, for Frantisek. He and Anna were children together. If we don’t go, it’s political. It would mean that we knew what he was doing. Not just writing stories.”

  “I thought everyone knew. He said-”

  His father nodded. “Now we pretend we didn’t. Welcome to Oz. Walk with me to the Loreto. It’s worth seeing-all the tourists go. The service isn’t far from there. It’ll give us a few minutes.”

  Nick followed him out of the room, then past the walls of impaled martyrs. “But we have to talk.”

  “We will. Later.”

  They were out on the cobblestoned square.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll tell you exactly what to say.” He reached into his breast pocket and drew out an envelope.

  “I can’t carry anything out,” Nick said, flustered, physically drawing away from it.

  His father looked at him, then smiled, holding out the envelope. “No. These are tickets, for tonight.”

  “Oh.”

  “Benny Goodman. They’re hard to get. Everyone wants to see Benny. Nothing changes, you see.”