Secret Lovers

by Charles McCarry

  When they were alone, Cathy had little to say. They walked along the river. She led him up the steps to a café near the Beaux-Arts, and there they drank coffee and Cathy ordered Cointreau. “I can’t get enough of the taste of orange tonight,” she said. They crossed to the right bank and went down to the Seine again and walked in the dark, past men sleeping under the bridges and lovers embracing against the rough stones of the embankment. The electric glow of the city made the stars invisible, but there was a moon behind dark cirrus clouds on the horizon. Cathy walked with her eyes on her feet, as if the white shoes that she wore came into her circle of vision one after the other by some force independent of her body. They climbed back to the street at the Grand Palais, and walked onto the Pont Alexandre III. Midway across the bridge, Cathy stopped and looked over the railing. She placed Christopher’s hands on her breasts. Turning, she kissed him, and the taste and scent of orange passed from her mouth into his own. “I love you,” she whispered. Christopher tightened his arms around her. “Can’t you answer?” Cathy asked.

  Cathy’s parents were using their apartment. They had come over for the race meeting that began on Palm Sunday at Auteuil; they had a horse running in the President of the Republic Stakes. “Papa would like to have an American horse win that particular race while de Gaulle is president of France,” Cathy had said in the Ritz Bar. “He plans to show the general his shrapnel scars from Château-Thierry and ask him if he was ever wounded for France.”

  Christopher and Cathy slept at the Ritz. They had not made love since the night she had come to Christopher from Franco Moroni. Wine had left Cathy peaceful; she lay in the broad hotel bed, her face in shadow and then in the lamplight that came into the window from the Place Vendôme, and accepted pleasure quietly. But afterward she moved to the edge of the bed and shuddered, as Christopher had done on the train when he remembered the death of Bülow. He touched the skin of her hip. “Paul, don’t talk,” she said. She lay in silence, and when she spoke again, her voice was under control. “I used to watch you remember things and I could never understand why you wanted to keep secrets that caused you so much pain,” she said. Christopher stroked her hair.

  “Jesus,” she whispered, “I wish I didn’t understand now.”

  3

  While they were having breakfast the next morning, the telephone rang. Cathy answered, made no reply into the instrument, and handed it to Christopher.

  “Sorry to disturb you at the Ritz,” Bud Wilson said, “I hope it’s all right.”

  “It’s no disturbance.”

  “That’s good. I heard you were there with your wife and I remembered that we had a loose end with her. You never got back to me with the answer to that question. You know, about her circle of friends in Paris.”

  “Yes, I remember,” Christopher said. “I haven’t had a chance to ask her.”

  “Can you do it now?”

  Christopher put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Cathy,” he said. She turned a page of her newspaper and looked up.

  “When we met in Paris and went home on the train,” he said. “Did you tell anyone you saw here that I was in Germany?”

  She frowned. “Why would I?”

  “You didn’t talk to any outsider about me, about where I was?”

  “No. I know I’m not supposed to say, unless it’s someone with the Company I’m talking to.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone else?”

  “I saw you. I saw David walking with you in Saint-Germaindes-Prés. People like that, in passing. I’m more observant than you think. But I didn’t tell any secrets to any outsiders. Okay?”

  Christopher spoke into the telephone. “The answer is no,” he said.

  “Good. That makes things easier.”

  “Tell me,” Christopher said. “How did you happen to know to call me here?”

  Wilson laughed. “Elementary, my dear Watson,” he said with his heavy jocularity. “The Ritz is your kind of place, right?”

  While Cathy bathed, Christopher went out to a café, bought some jetons, and used the pay telephone to call the Embassy. “There’s not much news,” the self-conscious girl at the other end told him. “Martha Riley went through a red light and she wants to know if you can fix the ticket.”

  He put another token in the telephone and dialed the Rothchild’s number. Maria answered on the first ring. Christopher did not identify himself; Maria knew his voice. Her own voice was controlled.

  “I’m glad you called,” she said. “I wonder if you’d be free to make a fourth at bridge today.”

  “Yes, I’d like that. What time?”

  “The usual time. I promise you a good tea.”

  “Fine. I’ll look forward to it.”

  Christopher hung up and waited for a moment before putting his last jeton into the telephone. A man waiting to use the instrument rapped loudly on the glass door of the booth. While Christopher dialed, the stranger opened the door and said in French, with exaggerated politeness, “It’s very kind of you to make all these calls while others are waiting.” Christopher pulled the door shut; the man went on gesticulating beyond the glass.

  Cathy came on the line after the phone had rung many times.

  “Something has come up,” Christopher said. “It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Paul, it’s Saturday. My mother has asked us to lunch with them. Papa wants to show us his horse.”

  “That’s all right. You go on ahead and I’ll be there in time for lunch.”

  “Paul, come with me now. I don’t want to show up alone. I can’t explain to them. They don’t understand.”

  Christopher waited. He could hear Cathy’s breathing. Disappointment caused her to pant, as if she were running.

  “One hour,” Christopher said.

  Cathy broke the connection.

  4

  Maria Rothchild was waiting in the open door, as she had been on his earlier visit. She wore a dressing gown, and a scarf covered her hair. Christopher had never before seen her disheveled. She led him into the kitchen and turned on the radio.

  “Where is David?” she asked.

  “He flew home yesterday, after we saw him.”

  She lit a Gauloise and inhaled deeply. the cigarette trembling in her lips. She crushed it in the sink. Maria, though she disposed of a whole package of Gauloises every day, never took more than one puff from a cigarette before putting it out. Christopher had never asked why.

  “Come with me,” Maria said.

  She led Christopher into the sitting room where Otto Rothchild received visitors. Rothchild, fully dressed and awake, sat in his chair; Bud Wilson sat in another. Behind Rothchild, on a card table, a lie detector had been set up, and a third man stood by the equipment.

  Rothchild lifted his head, as if he were much taller than Christopher, and must speak down to him.

  “Explain this,” he said.

  “Mr. Rothchild,” Wilson said, “Paul, here, is not involved in this procedure in any way.”

  Rothchild ignored him. “Maria,” he said, “has Paul explained this to you?”

  “Furthermore,” Wilson said, “your calling him here is a breach of security.”

  “Answer,” Rothchild said.

  “No,” Maria replied. “I didn’t discuss it with him. David is in Washington.”

  “Did David authorize this?” Rothchild asked.

  “His authorization is not required,” Wilson said. “This is a security investigation.”

  “Paul,” Rothchild said, “were you aware that this was going to be done?”

  “The possibility was mentioned to me,” Christopher said.

  “What was your reaction, please?”

  “Surprise that it had never been done before. And I thought you’d react to it pretty much the way you seem to be doing.”

  Christopher crossed the room and looked at the machine. He touched the blood pressure cuff, the chest band that measured respiration, the device that recorded the amount of sweat on the palm o
f the subject’s hand. “It’s the standard box,” the technician said. “You’ve seen them before.” The paper tapes were blank. Christopher went back and faced Rothchild.

  “What do you want me to do, Otto?” he asked.

  “Tell these people to take their machine and go.”

  “You can tell them that yourself. They’ll leave.”

  “But you won’t do it?”

  “I haven’t the authority.”

  “Haven’t the authority? You’re a supergrade staff agent, and you’re my case officer. How can they flutter your asset without your authorization?”

  Rothchild’s voice wavered. Christopher had never heard him refer to himself as an asset. Maria moved to her husband’s chair and sat on the arm.

  Wilson, one hand dangling over the arm of his own chair, cleared his throat. “Christopher seems to understand the situation,” he said. “I’ll explain it to you again, Mr. Rothchild. This is a routine flutter. It happens to be taking place in the midst of a security investigation, but that doesn’t mean that we think you’ve been lying to us. It’s just a matter of making the file complete.”

  “The file is complete,” Rothchild said. “You should read it. I’ve been in the employ of this organization since before it had a name. No one has ever questioned my integrity in all those years.”

  “No one is questioning your integrity now,” Wilson said. “Every person in this room–Christopher, your wife when she was an officer, myself, Charlie the tech over there–all of us from the Director on down have taken the polygraph. It’s required of everyone. We regard it as an essential security tool.”

  Christopher said, “Wilson, can I have a word with you?” They went into the kitchen together. Wilson did not wait for Christopher to speak.

  “The answer is, yes, it really is necessary,” Wilson said. “However, he can refuse.”

  “And be fired.”

  “That’s the usual procedure. For all I know he’s a special case, but if he is, he’ll be the first.”

  Wilson’s feet were planted firmly; he faced Christopher in the narrow kitchen as though he had been ordered to defend the room against enemy infantry.

  “Otto has always been a special case,” Christopher said. “I don’t know why he’s never been fluttered. It must seem very strange to you.”

  “Unbelievable. How did you guys let it happen? Jesus, Paul–he knows everyone. He could blow the whole outfit.”

  Christopher saw that there was no hope of explaining this lapse to Wilson. Rothchild was too valuable to lose; no one had wanted to take the consequences of offending him. He insisted on being trusted absolutely, and so far as anyone knew he had always been absolutely trustworthy. Patchen had given Rothchild what no other employee of the Agency had, his privacy.

  “All right,” Christopher said to Wilson, “get your tech out of the room and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Look,” Wilson said. “It’s just going to be a routine flutter. Is he queer, is he doubled, does he steal money. It’ll take thirty minutes, tops, if he loosens up.”

  Christopher sent Maria out of the room with the technician. Rothchild slumped in his chair as the door closed behind her. His eyes remained open and fixed on a point in space between himself and Christopher’s standing figure.

  “Otto,” Christopher said, “I’m sorry this is so upsetting to you. But it’s no worse than an electrocardiogram. You’ve had it done a hundred times to other men.”

  “Yes, and I suspected every one of them of playing me false.”

  “If you don’t agree, you’ll be terminated. No one will be able to prevent it. It’s a bad way to go out, after all you’ve done and all you’ve been.”

  “It’s an insult.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “What can it possibly mean at this of all times except that suddenly I am not trusted?”

  Rothchild’s eyes were still turned away. Christopher snapped his fingers. Rothchild, startled, looked into his face.

  “Otto,” Christopher said, “if I had known that you’d never been on the box, I wouldn’t have trusted you. Nor would any of us.”

  “That’s wonderful to hear. First I give up my health. Now my reputation goes.”

  Christopher made no acknowledgment that he had heard. He stared coldly at Rothchild; something moved in the agent’s eyes. Rothchild tugged his slack body, inch by inch like a very old man putting on a heavy garment, until he sat upright again. He gazed out the window. At last he nodded.

  Christopher called the technician back into the room. Maria returned and stood by with Christopher while the machine was connected to Rothchild. They removed his tweed jacket and lifted his arms while the tube was strapped around his chest. Christopher saw how wasted the muscles had become. Rothchild paid no attention to what was being done. The technician smeared a substance on the palm of Rothchild’s hand before attaching the device that measured perspiration. “The others can leave now,” the technician said. “We can make this very fast if you can relax, Mr. R.”

  To Maria, Rothchild said, “Uncross my legs, please.” Maria lifted the leg, holding it at the knee and the ankle, and placed the foot beside the other. Christopher watched impassively from the doorway.

  In the kitchen, Wilson suggested a game of gin rummy. He told Christopher, as he dealt the cards, that he always carried a deck in his pocket. Maria Rothchild watched the cards fall for a moment, and then, uttering an unbelieving laugh, left the room.

  Wilson won the first two hands. He played with intense concentration and his broken fingers handled the cards with great delicacy. Christopher was reminded of a fat girl he had known in school who was a graceful dancer; she had had a habit of singing as she waltzed, and Wilson, too, hummed a tune as he chose cards and discarded.

  Only a few minutes passed before the technician came into the kitchen and took Wilson away with him. Christopher heard the shower running on the other side of the wall, and Maria’s sharp smoker’s cough as the water was turned off. She returned to the kitchen, dressed in one of her pleated skirts, a cardigan around her shoulders. Wilson returned, putting on his coat. He gave Christopher and Maria a quizzical look.

  “Charlie put me on the box,” he said. “He wanted to test it. He thought it might be out of commission.”

  “Is it all right?” Christopher asked. “I don’t think this ought to be prolonged.”

  “On me, the machine works all right,” Wilson said. “Maria, what kind of operation, exactly, did your husband have?”

  “It’s called a sympathectomy,” she said. Her eyes widened and she put her flattened palm over her mouth. “Now that’s really funny,” she said, and began to laugh.

  “They cut the nerves along the spine, and some in the neck, too,” Christopher said. “It controls his high blood pressure.”

  A smile spread over Wilson’s face. “Scared the hell out of Charlie,” he said. “He thought Rothchild had died on him. Nothing on the box registered except a little bit of respiration. He’s got no readable blood pressure, he doesn’t sweat. Nothing happens. ”

  Maria’s eyes danced as she listened. “Of course nothing happens,” she said. “The nerves that control sweating were cut by the surgeon, and when Otto goes unconscious he has no blood pressure. It really is too funny for words. All this pomposity, with Paul of all people having to pull rank, and then Otto’s body turns out to be an unbreakable code.”

  In the sitting room, Rothchild had been rearranged in his chair by the technician. Christopher went in to say good-bye to him, and together they heard Maria’s strident laughter pealing in another part of the house.

  With his arched nose and his bottomless eyes, Rothchild looked like the mummy of an Inca, skin turned to parchment by the icy air of a mountain tomb. He laughed aloud, a dozen sharp bursts of breath. A tear of merriment ran crookedly through the hatch-work of wrinkles on his cheek.

  EIGHT

  1

  The early sun began to warm the earth, and a gust
ing wind blew streams of ground mist, like the breath of an animal in winter, over the green lawns of the racecourse. Cathy stood by the rail with her hands in her pockets and a long red scarf down the back of her coat. She had been awake for less than half an hour but her eyes were clear and her skin was touched with color; after sleep or passion or grief, her face at once regained its perfection, showing no traces of the changes that had passed over it.

  “They’re going to breeze him now,” she said. Her father’s Thoroughbred, moving onto the track at the opposite side of the infield, was invisible, cloaked in mist to the stirrups. The horse was a bright bay, and seemed to carry its rider, an exercise boy wearing a yellow sweater and a cloth cap turned backward, through a cloud. Proof that the horse was not in fact flying came to them in a moment, as they first felt the vibration and then heard the sound of its hoofbeats on the turf. Cathy hugged Christopher’s arm in both of hers. “Oh, come on!” she whispered, and the young stallion burst out of the mist and bore down on them with clods of earth flying from his shoes. They smelled the animal, sweat and breath, as he flashed by. Cathy watched him until the boy turned him off the track and the grooms led him back to the stables.

  She and Christopher walked toward the gates. “I like horses better in the morning, when you’re in private with them, than when they’re racing,” Cathy said. “Once, at home, when I was little, Papa and I watched a gray colt breezing. He held me up so I could see. It was a perfect morning, sunburnt, the way it can be in Kentucky in the springtime. Watching the colt run–he’d named him Owen Laster after a friend–my father had tears in his eyes. He said, ‘Catherine, a blooded horse is the only thing in the world lovelier in my sight than you.’ I’ve never forgotten those words. It’s strange how you don’t get the things you want most. I always wanted Papa to name a horse for me and he never did. Just as you won’t write a poem about me, Paul.”