Holbrook looked down at the crowd and murmured in his Princeton accent: “You’re a lucky, crazy Cajun, Sam. Are you in love with the girl?"
“I don’t know.”
“Then you’re not, or there’d be no doubts. She’s a beauty."
“All right, don‘t keep hammering at it,” Durell said irritably.
“You know we couldn’t have peeped if they shot you, Sam? McFee would just have had to cross you off the book as expended”
“That’s the way the game is played,” Durell said. “But they didn’t shoot me. And by midnight I’ll be in Stockholm, talking to McFee on the transatlantic cable."
“He’ll he sore about that map.“
“I don't think so.”
“He’d have liked to have it. And the Pentagon brass will miss that touch of egg in their beer.”
Durell said, “Are you a. card player, Alex?”
“Only Embassy bridge.”
“Can you remember every card in every play of every hand?”
“Hell, no, I’m no genius. I’m just a dub.”
Durell said, “Grandpa Jonathan used to splash a couple of decks of cards over the deck and let me look at them for just five seconds and then he swept them up and handed the mess to me. I’d have to replace every card exactly where they fell when he had tossed them to the winds. I got so that it became fairly easy to do.”
Holbrook looked at him. “I‘ll be damned. Cajun, the map—”
“I can draw it precisely in every detail, exactly, any time.”
Holbrook laughed softly, lit a cigarette, gave one to Durell.
He looked astonished and happy. From the street below came new shouts and commands and the thudding of militant boots tramping forward as one. The connecting door to the next room opened and Valya came in.
Something in the way she stood and looked at him made him speak quietly to Holbrook. “Be a good chap and step out in the corridor for five minutes, will you, Alex?”
“That’s about all the time you have before you leave for Vnoukovo.”
“Then don’t make me waste any of it. Get out."
When he was gone, Valya came slowly into the room. She looked different, not as he had seen her the first time, nor as he remembered her from the night in the marshes. Already, that time seemed far away and remote; not forgotten, because he would never forget any of it and didn‘t want to forget it; but it was in the past, where it was futile to think much about it.
She wore a blue silk dress that looked summery and graceful on her tall, firm figure. Her hair was braided in loops on either side of her head. She looked regal and composed, and her eyes were different than they had been before; there was decision and a deep serenity in their grave depths.
“You look lovely,” he said and he did not smile.
“Sam, do we have time to talk here?”
“A few minutes. Your papers are in order. There won‘t be any more trouble about it.”
“I am very appreciative. I realize what you paid for them, in order to help me. I am afraid you will hate me.”
“Hate you? Why?"
“I have been talking to Kronev,” she said.
Something careful was very still inside him. “And?.”
“All of Zadanelev’s followers are rounded up. His plans and his ambitions are smashed. The people who died—died for the Soviet Union-—the soldiers as well as Gregori and the others. It is not important now who killed them. It was not important to Gregori to know the name of the soldier who handled the machine gun, was it?”
“I suppose not. But—”
“Kronev says no charges will be made against me. I am free to go back to my job with Intourist. I will not be bothered. I am not in danger here, Sam.”
“Do you believe him?” Durell asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“You would be taking a chance—”
She said quickly, “Sam, I want to stay. I can’t leave my country.” All at once she crossed to him and her arms were around him with a tight desperation. She pressed her face against his and he smelled the fragrance of her hair and felt the softness and firmness of her body. He held her tight. He knew she was weeping. Her words were muffled against his ill-fitting borrowed suit. “How can I make you understand what it is to be a Russian? If I went with you, I would be a traitor and a coward far worse than Mikhail ever feared he was. I would betray him and the reason he died, and all the others, too. Can you understand?”
“I think so."
“I love you, Sam. But you never once said you loved me, too."
“Valya—”
She touched his lips with her fingertips. Her eyes were smiling and misty. “Don’t say anything just to make me feel better. It is all right. I don’t want you to hate me. You gave Kronev the map in order to help me.”
Durell looked down at her, startled; and when he saw what was in her eyes, his mouth twitched and he laughed softly. Valya looked puzzled as he held her away from him at arm’s length.
“When did you make up your mind to stay here, Valya? Was it just now?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Look at me. Was it back there in the plane?”
“Even before that,” she whispered.
“But you didn’t tell me because you wanted me to give Kronev the map in exchange for you, right?”
“It belongs here, in my country,” she said quietly.
“So you let me trade the map for a safe conduct in your name that you never intended to use, right?”
“It—there was once an American correspondent here in Moscow, and I was assigned to help him as an Intourist representative. He—he taught me to play a little poker, too,” Valya said.
Durell kissed her. There was lipstick on her mouth, with the faintest trace of cherry blossoms. and all at once he thought of Washington and how it was back there, back home in the spring. And all at once he thought of Deirdre Padgett in her Maryland house on the Chesapeake. He would go back to her. He would see her again. He would tell her once more what he could about his job and the way he felt about his duty. He would cable her from Stockholm when he cabled McFee. And he knew that Deirdre would be waiting for him at the airport when he landed there, at home.
Amusement stirred him, and Valya’s mouth moved with relieved laughter. too. And then their kiss changed strangely from the light farewell he meant it to be and he felt her body move closer to him and her arms tightened about him. He felt a quickening in him and a heartache and he did not want to let her go.
Alex Holbrook knocked on the door.
“Listen, Cajun, the airport car is here. Are you ready to leave?”
Durell looked into the girl’s eyes. “In a moment.”
He felt shaken. He had the sudden feeling that something very precious and unique had just escaped him forever. And then he thought of Deirdre, waiting for him at the airport in Washington.
"Go," Valya whispered. “Now. Hurry.”
He looked long at her again and then he released her and turned to the door and went out without glancing back.
THE END
Assignment - Suicide Page 18
