by Joseph Kanon
When the train started with a jolt, Nick was pitched to the side of the narrow cabin. The window, painted over for privacy, had no view. He could hear the slow moving of the wheels, then the clicks as they passed over the points in the yard, switching left, gathering speed, until the car was rocking steadily, on its way. They would be passing through the dormitory towns now, drab concrete towers with washing hanging from the balconies. He opened the door and started toward Molly, balancing himself in the center of the swaying car.
“You all right?” she said when he took his seat next to her, still breathing heavily. “You’re sweating.”
Through the window, the country was racing by in a blur. He took her hand and held it, then, an uncontrollable nervous reaction, broke into a grin, almost laughing out loud. “How did you get past them?”
But all he said was, “We made it,” still grinning, in a private haze of well-being.
“We’re not out yet,” she said, but she smiled back, catching his mood. “I thought I was going to throw up.”
“You?”
She nodded. “We just learn to put a good face on it. Girls. In case you haven’t noticed.”
He looked at her, then down at her legs. “They did.”
“I told you I could help,” she said, then looked at him seriously. “I did, didn’t I? Telling Zimmerman. I didn’t know what to do. I thought, what if I’ve given you away? But he seemed so worried.”
“You were right.”
“Then, on the train, he never said a word. Didn’t even look at me. I didn’t know what was happening, except that they hadn’t got you yet.”
“He didn’t want them to know about you. They’d have taken you off.” He touched her arm. “It doesn’t matter now. We made it.”
He leaned back and reached for a cigarette, looking out the window, content just to breathe. No more buildings, just trees.
“What happens now?” Molly said after a while.
“We stop at Brno, I think. Then the border.”
“No, I meant after.”
He lit the cigarette. “We finish it. We find out who killed her.”
“Oh, Nick, I don’t care about that.”
“It’s the same person who killed him.”
“In Washington,” she said slowly. “That’s what this is all about.” She turned to him. “Whatever it is.” A question.
“When we’re out of the country,” he said, answering it.
“For my own protection. Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?”
“No. I don’t want you sticking your neck out for me.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” she said. “Stick my neck out. I’m in love with you.”
He stopped. Out of nowhere, like the whistle on the platform, a rush of adrenalin. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
He looked at her, helpless. “I don’t know what to say back.”
She smiled. “You don’t have to say anything back. I just thought you’d like to know.”
He leaned over and kissed her, just brushing her lips, tentative, as if he were looking for words.
“Stick my neck out,” she said, her face close. “My God.”
“But if something happens-”
She put her mouth on his. They were still kissing, oblivious, when the conductor came into the car, trailed by the customs inspector. Nick sat up, embarrassed, then saw instantly that she’d brought him luck again. The men were amused, raising eyebrows at each other, glad of a break in the routine. Up ahead, tickets were taken, bags hauled down from the overhead rack. The luggage. Still not over. In a panic, Nick tried to think of the right excuse. Our things were sent ahead. We’re just going to Vienna for the day. None of it was logical. They’d notice someone without luggage. But in the end they didn’t even ask.
“American?” the conductor said, smiling, as he flipped the passport. “I have brother in America. Detroit. You know Detroit?”
Nick shook his head. “New York.”
“Ah, New York. You have good time in Prague?”
For a second Nick wanted to laugh, hysterical. A wonderful time. But the man was addressing Molly, flirting, his eyes on her legs.
“It’s very beautiful,” she said, the standard answer. How many times could they hear it?
“Like yourself,” the conductor said, courtly, handing the passports back.
They had begun to move along when the customs officer noticed the urn on Nick’s folded coat and said something in Czech.
“What is?” the conductor asked, evidently translating.
Nick felt his palms grow slick. “Ashes,” he said, then pointed to the end of the cigarette. “Ashes. My father.”
The conductor frowned. Something that didn’t make sense. “Open, please.”
Nick picked up the urn, unscrewed the top, and held it out. “Ashes,” he said again.
“Ah, ashes,” the conductor said, pretending to understand. He rested his finger on top, preparing to go through it. What did he expect to find? Drugs? Jewelry? There had to be a word.
“Krematorium,” Molly said suddenly, giving it a German pronunciation, catching the man just as he was about to poke inside. He stopped and made a face, squeamish, looking at a corpse, and handed the urn back to Nick. He spoke a line of Czech to the other, threw an odd look at Nick, then gave it up-Americans were inexplicable-and moved down the car to harass traveling Czechs. Nick screwed back the top, relieved, and put the urn under his coat. His father had made it out. “You’re shaking,” Molly said, watching him. “What was that all about? Have you got something in there?”
Nick nodded.
“I don’t think I can go through this again. That was like the station. What are you doing? You’ve got to tell me.”
Nick looked at her, the worried eyes. In his hands. Willing to walk through a gate, sick to her stomach. “Yes,” he said. “Everything.”
He sank back against the seat and began to talk, his voice low, almost a murmur, so that the other passengers thought they were simply a couple making plans. Molly said nothing, afraid he would stop if she interrupted, but her eyes talked back, wide and interested, then grave, finally intimate, part of it now. Outside they were passing through a Schweik landscape, passive, gentle hills wriggling across the countryside. Once they paralleled a road, passing a car, and Nick thought of Zimmerman driving his colleagues through the same rolling country to the empty cottage, giving Nick time, shrugging his shoulders when they got there, mistaken again. Another glance at his watch. How much time? It would only take a phone call to the border. But who would leave a car?
After Brno, even Molly became fidgety.
“Maybe we shouldn’t sit together,” Nick said. “In case.”
“You leave and I’ll scream.”
“You don’t have to go on with this. Now that you know. It’s dangerous.”
“Will you stop?” She glanced up, a hint of her old spirit. “At least you’re not boring. God. Imagine spending the rest of your life with Jeff Foster.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Can’t you see I’m just nervous? How much longer, anyway?”
But the border, when they got there, was empty and placid, as quiet as the crossing where they’d driven in. The train screeched to a halt, then idled while Czech guards in gray uniforms boarded and did another passport run, to make sure everyone was stamped for Vienna. The conductor, following, beamed at Nick and said, “American,” as if it were a kind of secret handshake. Minutes passed. Nick watched the guards move through the cars, examining papers, everything in slow motion. One phone call. Maybe this is how the Russian Jews felt, waiting for the cage door to open.
Molly sat rigidly, not saying anything. He was sweating again. Out the window the conductor was talking to one of the border guards on the tracks, this one in blue. What did the uniforms mean? Nick looked toward the control shed at the crossing, its roof laced with wires, where the call would come in. More minutes. The
n the clump of boots, the guards getting off the train, a whistle, and the barrier gate began to rise.
The engine grew louder, revving up, but the train stayed in place, as if it needed a push. Then the car began to slide forward, slowly, into the no-man’s-land between the barriers. Another crossing gate going up, another group of uniforms waiting, and they were across, shuddering to a second stop as the Austrians got on. Nick looked behind. The Czech gate was going down. Were they technically in Austria, beyond recall? The new guards, speaking German, were perfunctory but correct, somehow more sinister than the shaggy Czechs, like movie Nazis. They stamped passports and moved on, efficient. Nick kept looking back toward the Czech sector, expecting to see someone running out of the signal house, waving his hands. But it had to be all right now.
And a few minutes later it was. The train picked up speed, leaving the border behind, streaming into the woods. Molly took his hand and squeezed it, but he was too drained to respond. He had been so focused on the crossing, a pinpoint of space, that everything beyond seemed a blank. Vienna. What if the embassy knew, had people waiting for them? He moved his hand, feeling the urn, just as deadly as before. But what did the film actually say? They were out, but the air wasn’t free, full of questions.
“Everything’s going to be different now,” Molly said, squeezing his hand again. But it wasn’t. The landscape was the same, unassuming hills and fields. It still wasn’t finished. They’d want him, if they knew. But they didn’t, not even Silver. They might watch, but they didn’t know. If he was careful. Nothing was different. Even the fear was the same, not left behind barbed wires. It stayed with you, like a new sense. There was no geographical alchemy. You took Prague with you.
Part III
NAMING NAMES
Chapter 16
Larry was furious, and wounded. They had lunch in the quiet dining room of the Knickerbocker, overlooking Fifth Avenue, because he wanted to avoid the communal table at the Brook, but even here, so private that business papers were not allowed at table, people came over to say hello, a hand on the shoulder and an innocuous comment about Uncle Ho’s keeping him busy and who was the fine young fellow with him. Larry put on his Van Johnson smile, but Nick could see his irritation, each interruption wasting precious time.
It was a typical Larry meeting, caught on the run, with a return plane to Paris waiting, a phone call expected, so that Nick became marginal, someone he’d managed to fit in. But Nick hadn’t wanted it either. Molly had taken the film to a photographer friend downtown, and Nick had watched it drop into her purse with dismay, afraid to let it out of his hands for even a minute. Outside, with its swarms of bright yellow taxis, New York was rich and busy and filled with sunshine, everything Prague was not, but all he could think about was Molly being followed or the photographer-how good a friend? — amazed at the pictures appearing in the fixing tray. But Larry had insisted; he had only the afternoon. So they both sat there, prickly, like pieces of tinder ready to ignite. When Larry said, “Chicken salad and iced tea. Two,” Nick wanted to jump on him. I can order myself. A kid again.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me? That’s what I want to know. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“I told you, he didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Well, that’s typical, isn’t it? I suppose you know your mother’s a wreck. For Christ’s sake, traipsing around behind the iron curtain without telling anyone. Now, of all times. What do you think I’m doing in Paris, going to the Louvre? Did you ever think how this would look for me?”
“No, Larry, I never thought about that.”
“Well, thanks very much.”
“It had nothing to do with you.”
“Of course it did. You’re my son.”
“I was his too.”
“I’m surprised you wanted to see him. After everything. Why didn’t you ask me to arrange it if it was so important to you? Do it the right way, not sneak around like this. Like some-” He hesitated. “Spy,” he said, unable to resist.
Nick looked at the man his father had thought would help. Mistaken about everyone to the end, except Nick. “What’s the right way? What would you have said?”
Larry looked away. “I’d have tried to talk you out of it, I suppose. What was the point, Nick? All these years.”
“The point was he wanted to see me. Before he died. I couldn’t say no to that.”
“Before he died?”
“I think he knew.”
Larry looked away, disconcerted. “What did he want, to tell you he was sorry?”
“More or less.”
“Christ. So off you go. Not a word. And the next thing I hear you’re in a Communist jail-”
“I was never in jail.”
“And now I’ve got the FBI all over me. Did you know your son is in Czechoslovakia? Oh, really. Fucking Hoover on the phone. Now I’m supposed to owe him one. God knows what that favor will be. Your son’s been arrested, but we got him out. Well, thanks, Edgar, I appreciate it. Do you have any idea what it’s been like?”
“They didn’t get me out. You don’t owe him anything.”
“Well, they still want to see you. Is there something else I should know before they start calling me again? What’s all this business about him coming back? What did he tell you?”
“He said he wanted to come home, that’s all. Maybe the FBI thought he meant it. I don’t know why. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.” Larry paused. “He said that, about coming back? Christ. What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t real, Larry, just some dream he had.” And here, with the sun flashing on the yellow taxis, was it anything more?
“How could he think-? Come home. He must have been out of his mind.”
“Yes, he must have been,” Nick said, an edge. “He killed himself.”
Larry stopped and looked down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
Nick said nothing, letting the moment hang there, everything awkward. The chicken salad arrived. Larry sipped his iced tea.
“They said you found the body. That must have been-” He switched tack, avoiding it. “How did he do it? They didn’t say.”
“He jumped off the balcony,” Nick said, matter-of-fact.
“Jumped?”
“It’s an old Prague custom. Like Jan Masaryk.”
“Yes,” Larry said, surprised at the reference. “I remember.”
Another awkward pause, a sip of tea.
“That doesn’t always work. Was he still alive when you found him?” Larry asked, his tone almost delicate, talking around it, like asking a cancer patient the details of his medication because you couldn’t ask how it felt to die.
“No. No last words,” Nick said.
“It must have been terrible. Finding him.”
“Stay away from it. That’s why they thought I killed him, at first. It wasn’t jail, you know, just a few questions.”
“Christ, what a mess,” Larry said. “You’d think he’d have waited. Not while you were still there.”
“I don’t think he was thinking about that, Larry,” Nick said.
“No.” A quick step back.
“Maybe it’s because I was there. His seeing me. That’s what the police think.”
Larry grabbed his arm across the table, almost violent. “Don’t you think that. Ever. Don’t you do that to yourself.” Then he pulled his hand back and looked away. “Hell,” he said, general, meaningless, like shaking his fist in the air. He picked at his salad, letting the polite room settle around them. “What was he like?” he said finally, as if they were just making conversation.
“The same. Different. He was sick. I met his wife.”
“What’s she like? A Russian?”
“No, Czech. They met in Moscow, though. She didn’t talk much. He wanted to talk about old times.”
“Old times?”
“When
I was a boy,” Nick said. “Not politics. Not what happened.”
“No, I guess he wouldn’t.”
“Jokes we used to have. You know.”
“No, I don’t,” Larry said, irritated, then caught himself. “Never mind. What else?”
“Nothing. We went to the country. We went to a Benny Goodman concert.”
“God.”
“He was just happy to see me. I thought so, anyway. I had no idea he was thinking about-”
“No, he was always good at that. The old Kotlar two-face.”
“Come on, Larry.”
He sighed and nodded, an apology.
What else? How Nick’s heart had turned over that first night at the Wallenstein? Putting him to bed? His face at the gallery, gazing at the fatted calf? The bottomless regret? None of it. “He showed me his Order of Lenin,” Nick said instead.
“Well, he earned it,” Larry said sourly. “I’m sorry, Nick. A couple of jokes and old fishing stories? I remember other things. I remember you. The way you walked around looking like you’d been kicked in the face.”
“I remember it too, Larry,” Nick said quietly.
“He shouldn’t have done it,” Larry said, as if he hadn’t heard. “Making you go there. All these years, and he just crooks his little finger like nothing happened. Jokes. I’ll bet he was charming. He was always charming.” He spoke the word as if it were a kind of smear. “He charmed me. Well, they’re all good at that. All smiles. You ought to sit across a table from them. Day after day. Not an inch. They don’t want us out, they want us to keep groveling. Showing you his medal-was that supposed to make you proud? What do you think he got it for?”
Nick stared at him, amazed at the outburst.
Larry put down his fork and looked out the window, visibly trying to retrieve control. “He shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “You might have got in real trouble. I didn’t know you were there.”
Nick waited a moment. “I’m sorry you were worried, but nothing happened. I’m back. He wasn’t charming. He was a sick old man. Now he’s dead. It’s over.” He paused. “What’s this all about?”
