Passport to Peril

by Lawrence Block

  “Oh,” she said. “I was just thinking.”

  “Of what?”

  “Nothing important. What’s that music?”

  “They’re having a songfest in the town square. Not the competition—that’s tomorrow afternoon and evening. Just a few hardy souls gathering in the rain and singing their heads off.”

  “It sounds nearby.”

  “Want to have a look?”

  “I’d like to.”

  “Drink up. We might as well get wet again.”

  The singing, as it turned out, was not near them at all. The city fathers had set up loudspeakers throughout the town, and the music was being carried over them. They walked blindly at first, trying to trace the source of the sound, until David stopped a man and obtained directions to the songfest. The rain had let up somewhat, and they walked arm in arm through the narrow streets to the public square. A small stage had been improvised there, and a giant of a man stood in its center, microphone in hand, singing a Republican anthem at top volume.

  “This is where you hear the rousing ones,” David told her. “All year long a man will tend his crops and sit in front of his fire and thank the Lord that the war’s over. But give him a festive occasion and a few extra drinks from a jar of punch, and he’ll be ready to lead an army into the Six Counties, and singing his head off about it. Then the next morning it’s back to work again.”

  The song ended, and the huge, bushy-haired man introduced a pair of singers from County Monaghan who launched into a driving rock ’n’ roll number made popular by the Beatles. It seemed so out of character to Ellen that she began laughing aloud.

  “Just perfect for a folk festival,” she said.

  “But that’s the whole point! Don’t you see? Folk music isn’t all neatly labeled and put in a drawer over here. The people aren’t even apt to think of it as a separate category. It’s just music, and anyone’ll sing any songs he happens to like, and at any time. Oh, there are folk-music purists here, I suppose, like anywhere else. And you won’t hear any rock ’n’ roll at the competition tomorrow. But when it’s just a case of a batch of people standing in the rain and singing, anything’s liable to come out.”

  She stood beside him, clutching his arm with one hand and her purse with the other. From time to time they chatted easily, then lapsed into equally comfortable long silences while they listened to the music and watched the crowd around them.

  “I wish I knew more about you,” he said at one point.

  “You know all there is to know.”

  “Do I? I don’t know who’s waiting for you back in the States.”

  “No one.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Only my agent, and his interest is limited to a percentage of my income. Is that the sort of interest you had in mind?”

  “No.”

  “Then there’s no one.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly. Do you really want to know more about me?” She shrugged. “There’s very little to know, I’m afraid. Wait, I have an idea…”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “My passport,” she said, fishing it out from her purse. “This will tell you everything there is to know about me. Age, height, weight, place of birth, color of eyes, color of hair—”

  “I already know that.”

  “Well, all those vital statistics.” She handed it to him. “Read on and discover the real Ellen Cameron.”

  “‘Name, Ellen Cameron,’” he read aloud. “No middle name?”

  “They never gave me one. Isn’t that sad?”

  “You were deprived. ‘Place of birth, Belvedere, New Hampshire.’ Well, I am learning things, after all. I thought you were a New York girl.”

  “Ever since college. There’s not much happening in Belvedere.”

  “Are your parents there?”

  “Buried there. My father died when I was small—I can hardly remember him—and mother died while I was at school.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Read on, sir.”

  “‘Date of birth’—ah, you’re, let’s see now, twenty-four? A satisfactory age. ‘Height, five feet five inches.’ Just tall enough for the top of your head to fit under my chin. That’s a more romantic way of looking at it, don’t you think?”

  “Infinitely so.”

  “‘Weight, a hundred and seventeen pounds, five shillings and sixpence—’”

  “It doesn’t say that!”

  “Well, skip the change, then. Just a good armful, that’s all.” He flourished the passport. “You know,” he said, “I have an idea. A very good idea.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He moved swiftly through the crowd and vaulted easily up onto the stage. He spoke in an undertone to the bushy-haired giant, who nodded and smiled and handed him the microphone.

  “We’re in for a rare treat tonight,” he announced. “A professional folk singer has come all the way from New York City to sing for us. Her name” —he consulted the passport— “is Ellen Cameron. Her place of birth is Belvedere, New Hampshire, and her height and weight are a secret. And now she’s going to honor us with a few songs.”

  There was a roar of applause. She shook her head at him, and he beckoned to her, and she sighed, shrugged, and gave in, joining him on the stage. The applause filled the night air.

  “I’ll never forgive you for this,” she told him in an undertone. “I can’t sing tonight.”

  “Of course you can. You’re among friends.”

  “I’m going to have to learn not to trust you.”

  “Never trust anyone.”

  “I don’t even have a guitar…”

  But the man with the bushy hair was presenting her with one, and she took it and curved her fingers over the strings. David slipped her passport into his pocket and dropped lightly down from the stage. “I’ll be listening,” he told her.

  “I don’t even know what to sing…”

  “Anything you want.”

  “Well…”

  “Go ahead!”

  She set the microphone in its stand, let her fingers toy with the strings of the guitar, and then, at last, began to sing…

  “I think I hate you,” she said.

  “That’s sad. Because I think…”

  “Yes?”

  They were walking together down Strand Street toward her hotel. He had lit a cigarette. He passed it to her, and she drew on it, then returned it to him. The singing was still going on, and the loudspeakers made it sound as though the music were bouncing all around them. It was raining lightly again, but she did not mind the rain. She had sung half a dozen songs on the little stage, with the audience eager for more, and she did not really hate him at all, she loved him, and he had almost told her that he loved her, and she thought her heart was going to burst from it all.

  “I wonder if it’ll rain tomorrow.”

  “Probably,” she said.

  “If it doesn’t, maybe we can go to the beach.”

  “Is the water warm enough for swimming?”

  “I don’t think so, but we can stretch out on the sand and watch the waves. Maybe we could pack a lunch and eat it on the beach.”

  “I haven’t done that in ages.”

  “Sound like fun?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh…”

  “Something the matter?”

  “Well, you’ll be needing this sooner or later.” He handed her passport to her. “I almost forgot to give it back to you.”

  “I wouldn’t have been able to leave Ireland.”

  “No, you’d have to stay.”

  I wouldn’t mind, she thought. I wouldn’t mind at all.

  At the door of her hotel they stopped and turned to face one another. “I’ll pick you up after breakfast,” he said. “If the weather’s good, maybe we can go down to the beach. We should be able to buy sandwiches at one of the cafés. I’ll bring a blanket to sit on. Or if it’s raining again we can find something else to do.”


  “All right.”

  “Ellen…”

  “There are people around.”

  “Do you care?”

  “I should, shouldn’t I?” She looked at him, then let her eyelids drop shut. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t care.”

  He kissed her. She snuggled up close to him and let her arms slide around his neck. He was so tall, she thought, and so strong, and his mouth was on hers and his arms around her and…

  “I’d better go.”

  “If you don’t go now I won’t want to let you go at all.”

  “And I won’t want to. Oh, David…”

  He kissed her gently, then released her. “Tomorrow morning, after breakfast. Good night, Ellen.”

  “Good night.”

  He loves me, she thought, floating deliriously up the stairs. I love him and he loves me. She wanted to burst into song, wanted to shout her news from the rooftops.

  I won’t be able to sleep, she thought, slipping out of her clothes and into her bed. I won’t be able to sleep, because I am in love and the thought will keep me awake all night and…

  She closed her eyes and slept like a lamb.

  Nine

  When she awoke the sunlight was streaming in through her window. She blinked at it and rubbed sleep from her eyes. The sky was cloudless, the day ideal for the beach. She dressed quickly and went downstairs for breakfast, sharing a table with Sara Trevelyan.

  The Cornish schoolteacher was filled with plans of her own. There was a shop in town where bicycles could be rented, she told Ellen, and she intended to hire a cycle for the day and cycle north and west, exploring the remnants of prehistoric Ireland, the old earthen forts that stood as relics of ages long past.

  “And I do want to see this,” she said, passing her guidebook to Ellen. “Gallarus Oratory. One of the most perfect and best preserved early-Christian church buildings in Ireland, unless this booklet is telling me lies. See how perfectly shaped it is? Like a boat turned topside-down. And there’s not a drop of mortar holding those stones in place, or so says the book. ‘Carefully fitted together and completely watertight after more than a thousand years.’ Can you imagine that?”

  “It sounds remarkable.”

  “I’d like to see it.” The older woman smiled. “I don’t suppose you’d care to keep an old lady company, would you?”

  ‘‘Oh…”

  “It might be a pleasant trip for two. And it doesn’t look as though it’s about to rain, although I certainly don’t trust this country in that respect. Do you like to cycle?”

  “I haven’t in years. I’d love to go, but—”

  “You have other plans.”

  She nodded. “A young man I met in Dublin. He turned up in Dingle last night. It was quite unexpected. He asked me to go to the beach with him today.”

  “How grand! I’m sure that will be more enjoyable than a trip through the countryside with an old lady who talks too much. An Irish boy?”

  “American.”

  “Ah. And he chased all across the country after you, did he? I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourselves. I’d ask you to bring back a few pretty shells for me, but I suspect you’ll have better things on your mind. Oh, you’re blushing! Quite becoming, I assure you. I didn’t know young ladies blushed in this modern age. I’m happy to see that they still do. I hope your young gentleman is worthy of you, Ellen.”

  A few tables away, the Koenigs were methodically working their way through a breakfast of eggs and sausages. The doctor’s wife was a plump woman with dyed blond hair and a vacant, faintly bovine expression. The two children, both boys, showed no great resemblance to either parent. They were ten or twelve years old, Ellen guessed, and she wondered if children that age were capable of appreciating the greater delights of foreign travel. At the moment they seemed totally preoccupied with their food.

  She wondered again where she might have seen Koenig. He did look familiar, there was no getting around it. Probably, as he had suggested, she had passed him in the street once in New York or Philadelphia. And yet she couldn’t avoid the feeling that she had seen him more recently than that, in Tralee or Dublin…

  She finished her breakfast, then went outside to smoke a cigarette and wait for David. He appeared just a few minutes after ten, a large paper sack in one hand, a blanket folded over his arm.

  “A glorious day,” he announced. “The beach beckons.”

  “It does indeed.”

  “I hope you like ham sandwiches.”

  “I’m mad for ham sandwiches.”

  “And I had them fill a Thermos bottle with coffee. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a Thermos bottle in Dingle. They seem to call them something else here, and storekeepers gave me the blankest of stares. So I had to explain just what it was that I wanted. Something to keep coffee hot, I said. One man presented me with a portable gas stove. Communication became impossible. I persisted. At last I triumphed. See what I go through for your sake, sweet Ellen?”

  “You’re a wonderful madman.”

  “I’m David the Rambler from Clare. I’m Kelly the Boy from Kilann. I’m taking a beautiful young lady to the beach. Ready?”

  “Ready when you are, C. B.”

  “Onward!”

  She sat on the blanket, her knees tucked beneath her. David was at the water’s edge, his arm curved to send a flat stone skipping over the surface of the sea. He turned and walked to join her.

  “Overcast already,” he said. “I think it’s going to rain.”

  “It does look that way.”

  “At least we had a few hours of sunshine. Is there any of that coffee left?”

  She poured him a cup. “It’s beautiful here.”

  “Yes.”

  “I love the shore. There’s something positively hypnotic about the waves rolling in. Like a campfire. I can sit and stare at a campfire for hours and never say a word. David?”

  “What?”

  “I was thinking.”

  “Will a penny buy your thoughts this time?”

  “You can have them free of charge. I was thinking that I don’t really have to go to Berlin.” He looked at her, puzzled, and she averted her eyes and rushed on. “It’s not really a very important festival,” she said. “It’s an honor to be chosen, and I don’t suppose the State Department would be elated if I failed to show up, but they’d barely miss me. I don’t have a very important part in the proceedings. They could get along without me.”

  “But I thought you were so excited about it…”

  “I was.” She fumbled for a cigarette, and he scratched a match, cupping his hands to shield the flame from the wind. She drew on the cigarette, hoping she could find the right words, hoping she would not sound forward to him. “I was very excited about Berlin,” she said. “But since then I’ve had enough folk music to last me awhile. I don’t think I’m up to the rush and bustle of another festival. It would be a whole new country to get used to, and tons of people, and no sleep and all that singing, and I don’t really feel equal to it.”

  “What would you do? Go back to New York?”

  “No.”

  “Then…”

  She took a deep breath. “I thought I might…oh, I thought maybe I could come to Connemara with you.” She paused, and the silence was overpowering. “There’s just no way to say this without sounding dreadful, is there? I don’t want to leave Ireland. I’m enjoying myself too much. And I’d love to see Connemara. The things you’ve told me about the area make it sound magnificent. Maybe I could even learn Irish myself. I know I’d be able to pick up an enormous amount of Gaelic music. I could buy more tape and come back with some really exciting material. Stuff no one’s even touched so far. And…”

  She went on, parading all the reasons she could think of before him, talking as much to convince herself as to convince him. I just don’t want to leave him, she thought. I’m afraid, afraid I won’t see him again. And I can’t give him up…

  When she finished he got s
lowly to his feet. She watched him move slowly to the water’s edge. He bent over and scooped up a handful of small stones. One by one he skipped them out to sea. After a few moments she rose and walked forward to stand by his side.

  “I think you should go to Berlin,” he said slowly.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Ellen, there’s nothing I’d like more than to have you with me in Connemara. I hadn’t even thought of it until you mentioned it. I hadn’t dared. I only knew how I felt about you, you see. I couldn’t be sure that you felt the same way about me.”

  “Oh, David…”

  His hands found her shoulders, and his eyes sought hers. “But you have to go to Berlin. You say you don’t want to now, and I’m sure you don’t, but if you pass up this chance you’ll be sorry later. You’d start to regret it the minute we got to Connemara. You’d wonder what sort of an opportunity you were passing up. You’d keep thinking about it, and you’d start to see me as a man who was already getting in the way of your career—”

  “Oh, don’t be silly!”

  “It’s the truth. You do have to go to Berlin, you know. And Berlin won’t last forever. How long is it, a week? You could come back to Ireland as soon as the festival is over. Unless you’ve decided by then that you don’t want to see me.”

  “That won’t happen.” She swallowed. “Would you want me to come?”

  “More than anything.”

  He kissed her. She felt warm and secure in his arms, and yet there was a feeling of awkwardness between them that had not been present the night before. She had been too forward, she told herself. She had made a suggestion that it was not her place to make, and he had tactfully but definitely rejected it, and she felt personally rejected in the bargain. Now they were awkward with each other, and it might take them time to get over it.

  She felt a drop of rain on her hand, then another on her forehead. “I think it’s starting to rain,” she said.

  “Yes, I just felt a drop.”

  “I suppose we’d better get back to town.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  He shook the sand out of the blanket, folded it neatly, and slung it over his arm. She took his hand, and they headed slowly back toward town.