by Ken Follett
"You didn't need more of it, afterwards?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I don't relish losing control of myself to that extent. But I'm glad I know what it's like."
"That's what I hate about getting drunk--the loss of self-possession. Although I'm sure it's not in the same league. At any rate, the couple of times I've been drunk I haven't felt I've found the key to the universe."
She made a dismissing gesture with her hand. It was a long, slender hand, just like Eila's; and suddenly Dickstein remembered Eila making exactly the same graceful gesture. Suza said, "I don't believe in drugs as the solution to the world's problems."
"What do you believe in, Suza?"
She hesitated, looking at him, smiling faintly. "I believe that all you need is love." Her tone was a little defensive, as if she anticipated scorn.
"That philosophy is more likely to appeal to a swinging Londoner than an embattled Israeli."
"I guess there's no point in trying to convert you."
"I should be so lucky."
She looked into his eyes. "You never know your luck."
He looked down at the menu and said, "It's got to be strawberries."
Suddenly, she said, "Tell me who you love, Nathaniel."
"An old woman, a child and a ghost," he said immediately, for he had been asking himself the same question. "The old woman is called Esther, and she remembers the pogroms in Czarist Russia. The child is a boy called Mottie. He likes Treasure Island. His father died in the Six-Day War."
"And the ghost?"
"You will have some strawberries?"
"Yes, please."
"Cream?"
"No, thanks. You're not going to tell me about the ghost, are you?"
"As soon as I know, you'll know."
It was June, and the strawberries were perfect. Dickstein said, "Now tell me who you love."
"Well," she said, and then she thought for a minute. "Well . . ." She put down her spoon. "Oh, shit, Nathaniel, I think I love you."
Her first thought was: What the hell has got into me? Why did I say that?
Then she thought: I don't care, it's true.
And finally: But why do I love him?
She did not know why, but she knew when. There had been two occasions when she had been able to look inside him and see the real Dickstein: once when he spoke about the London Fascists in the Thirties, and once when he mentioned the boy whose father had been killed in the Six-Day War. Both times he had dropped his mask. She had expected to see a small, frightened man, cowering in a corner. In fact, he had appeared to be strong, confident and determined. At those moments she could sense his strength as if it were a powerful scent. It made her feel a little dizzy.
The man was weird, intriguing and powerful. She wanted to get close to him, to understand his mind, to know his secret thoughts. She wanted to touch his bony body, and feel his strong hands grasping her, and look into his sad brown eyes when he cried out in passion. She wanted his love.
It had never been like this for her before.
Nat Dickstein knew it was all wrong.
Suza had formed an attachment to him when she was five years old and he was a kind grown-up who knew how to talk to children and cats. Now he was exploiting that childhood affection.
He had loved Eila, who had died. There was something unhealthy about his relationship with her look-alike daughter.
He was not just a Jew, but an Israeli; not just an Israeli, but a Mossad agent. He of all people could not love a girl who was half Arab.
Whenever a beautiful girl falls in love with a spy, the spy is obliged to ask himself which enemy intelligence service she might be working for.
Over the years, each time a woman had become fond of Dickstein, he had found reasons like these for being cool to her, and sooner or later she had understood and gone away disappointed; and the fact that Suza had outmaneuvered his subconscious by being too quick for his defenses was just another reason to be suspicious.
It was all wrong.
But Dickstein did not care.
They took a taxi to the flat where she planned to stay the night. She invited him in--her friends, the owners of the flat, were away on holiday--and they went to bed together; and that was when their problems began.
At first Suza thought he was going to be too eagerly passionate when, standing in the little hallway, he gripped her arms and kissed her roughly, and when he groaned, "Oh, God," as she took his hands and placed them on her breasts. There flashed through her mind the cynical thought: I've seen this act before, he is so overcome by my beauty that he practically rapes me, and five minutes after getting into bed he is fast asleep and snoring. Then she pulled away from his kiss and looked into his soft, big, brown eyes, and she thought: Whatever happens, it won't be an act.
She led him into the little single bedroom at the back of the flat, overlooking the courtyard. She stayed here so often that it was regarded as her room; indeed some of her clothes were in the wardrobe and the drawers. She sat on the edge of the single bed and took off her shoes. Dickstein stood in the doorway, watching. She looked up at him and smiled. "Undress," she said.
He turned out the light.
She was intrigued: it ran through her like the first tingle of a cannabis high. What was he really like? He was a Cockney, but an Israeli; he was a middle-aged schoolboy; a thin man as strong as a horse; a little gauche and nervous superficially, but confident and oddly powerful underneath. What did a man like that do in bed?
She got in beneath the sheet, curiously touched that he wanted to make love in the dark. He got in beside her and kissed her, gently this time. She ran her hands over his hard, bony body, and opened her mouth to his kisses. After a momentary hesitation, he responded; and she guessed he had not kissed like that before, or at least not for a long time.
He touched her tenderly now, with his fingertips, exploring, and he said "Oh!" with a sense of wonder in his voice when he found her nipple taut. His caresses had none of the facile expertise so familiar to her from previous affairs: he was like . . . well, he was like a virgin. The thought made her smile in the darkness.
"Your breasts are beautiful," he said.
"So are yours," she said, touching them.
The magic began to work, and she became immersed in sensation: the roughness of his skin, the hair on his legs, the faint masculine smell of him. Then, suddenly, she sensed a change in him. There was no apparent reason for it, and for a moment she wondered if she might be imagining it, for he continued to caress her; but she knew that now it was mechanical, he was thinking of something else, she had lost him.
She was about to speak of it when he withdrew his hands and said, "It's not working. I can't do it."
She felt panic, and fought it down. She was frightened, not for herself--You've known enough stiff pricks in your time, girl, not to mention a few limp ones--but for him, for his reaction, in case he should be defeated or ashamed and--
She put both arms around him and held him tightly, saying, "Whatever you do, please don't go away."
"I won't."
She wanted to put the light on, to see his face, but it seemed like the wrong thing to do right now. She pressed her cheek against his chest. "Have you got a wife somewhere?"
"No."
She put out her tongue and tasted his skin. "I just think you might feel guilty about something. Like, me being half an Arab?"
"I don't think so."
"Or, me being Eila Ashford's daughter? You loved her, didn't you?"
"How did you know?"
"From the way you talked about her."
"Oh. Well, I don't think I feel guilty about that, but I could be wrong, doctor."
"Mmm." He was coming out of his shell. She kissed his chest. "Will you tell me something?"
"I expect so."
"When did you last have sex?"
"Nineteen forty-four."
"You're kidding!" she said, genuinely astonished.
"That's the first witles
s thing you've said."
"I . . . you're right, I'm sorry." She hesitated. "But why?"
He sighed. "I can't . . . I'm not able to talk about it."
"But you must." She reached out to the bedside lamp and turned on the light. Dickstein closed his eyes against the glare. Suza propped herself up on one elbow. "Listen," she said, "there are no rules. We're grown-ups, we're naked in bed, and this is nineteen sixty-eight: nothing is wrong, it's whatever turns you on."
"There isn't anything." His eyes were still closed.
"And there are no secrets. If you're frightened or disgusted or inflamed, you can say so, and you must. I've never said 'I love you' before tonight, Nat. Speak to me, please."
There was a long silence. He lay still, impassive, eyes closed. At last he began to talk.
"I didn't know where I was--still don't. I was taken there in a cattle truck, and in those days I couldn't tell one country from another by the landscape. It was a special camp, a medical research center. The prisoners were selected from other camps. We were all young, healthy and Jewish.
"Conditions were better than in the first camp I was at. We had food, blankets, cigarettes; there was no thieving, no fighting. At first I thought I had struck lucky. There were lots of tests--blood, urine, blow into this tube, catch this ball, read the letters on the card. It was like being in a hospital. Then the experiments began.
"To this day I don't know whether there was any real scientific curiosity behind it. I mean, if somebody did those things with animals, I could see that it might be, you know, quite interesting, quite revealing. On the other hand, the doctors must have been insane. I don't know."
He stopped, and swallowed. It was becoming more difficult for him to speak calmly. Suza whispered, "You must tell me what happened--everything."
He was pale, and his voice was very low. Still he kept his eyes shut. "They took me to this laboratory. The guards who escorted me kept winking and nudging and telling me I was glucklich--lucky. It was a big room with a low ceiling and very bright lights. There were six or seven of them there, with a movie camera. In the middle of the room was a low bed with a mattress on it, no sheets. There was a woman on the mattress. They told me to fuck her. She was naked, and shivering--she was a prisoner too. She whispered to me, 'You save my life and I'll save yours.' And then we did it. But that was only the beginning."
Suza ran her hand over his loins and found his penis taut. Now she understood. She stroked him, gently at first, and waited for him to go on--for she knew that now he would tell all of the story.
"After that they did variations on the experiment. Every day for months, there was something. Drugs, sometimes. An old woman. A man, once. Intercourse in different positions--standing up, sitting, everything. Oral sex, anal sex, masturbation, group sex. If you didn't perform, you were flogged or shot. That's why the story never came out after the war, do you see? Because all the survivors were guilty."
Suza stroked him harder. She was certain, without knowing why, that this was the right thing to do. "Tell me. All of it."
He was breathing faster. His eyes opened and he stared up at the blank white ceiling, seeing another place and another time. "At the end . . . the most shameful of all . . . she was a nun. At first I thought they were lying to me, they had just dressed her up, but then she started praying, in French. She had no legs . . . they had amputated her, just to observe the effect on me . . . it was horrible, and I . . . and I . . ."
Then he jerked, and Suza bent and closed her mouth over his penis, and he said, "Oh, no, no, no!" in rhythm with his spasms, and then it was all over and he wept.
She kissed his tears, and told him it was all right, over and over again. Slowly he calmed down, and eventually he seemed to sleep for a few minutes. She lay there watching his face as the tension seeped away and he became peaceful. Then he opened his eyes and said. "Why did you do that?"
"Well." At that time she had not understood exactly why, but now she thought she did. "I could have given you a lecture," she said. "I could have told you that there is nothing to be ashamed of; that everybody has grisly fantasies, that women dream of being flogged and men have visions of flogging them; that you can buy, here in London, pornographic books about sex with amputees, including full-color pictures. I could have told you that many men would have been able to summon up enough bestiality to perform in that Nazi laboratory. I could have argued with you, but it wouldn't have made any difference. I had to show you. Besides--" She smiled ruefully. "Besides. I have a dark side, too."
He touched her cheek, then leaned forward and kissed her lips. "Where did you get this wisdom, child?"
"It isn't wisdom, it's love."
Then he held her very tightly and kissed her and called her darling and after a while they made love, very simply, hardly speaking, without confessions or dark fantasies or bizarre lusts, giving and taking pleasure with the familiarity of an old couple who know each other very well; and afterward they went to sleep full of peace and joy.
David Rostov was bitterly disappointed with the Euratom printout. After he and Pyotr Tyrin had spent hours getting it doped out, it became clear that the list of consignments was very long. They could not possibly cover every target. The only way they could discover which one would be hit was to pick up Dickstein's trail again.
Yasif Hassan's mission to Oxford thereupon assumed much greater importance.
They waited for the Arab to call. After ten o'clock Nik Bunin, who enjoyed sleep the way other people enjoy sunbathing, went to bed. Tyrin stuck it out until midnight, then he too retired. Rostov's phone finally rang at one A.M. He jumped as if frightened, grabbed the phone, then waited a few moments before speaking in order to compose himself.
"Yes?"
Hassan's voice came three hundred miles along the international telephone cables. "I did it. The man was here. Two days ago."
Rostov clenched a fist in suppressed excitement. "Jesus. What a piece of luck."
"What now?"
Rostov considered. "Now, he knows that we know."
"Yes. Shall I come back to base?"
"I don't think so. Did the professor say how long the man plans to be in England?"
"No. I asked the question directly. The professor didn't know: the man didn't tell him."
"He wouldn't." Rostov frowned, calculating. "First thing the man has to do now is report that he's blown. That means he has to contact his London office."
"Perhaps he already has."
"Yes, but he may want a meeting. This man takes precautions, and precautions take time. All right, leave it with me. I'll be in London later today. Where are you now?"
"I'm still in Oxford. I came straight here off the plane. I can't get back to London until the morning."
"All right. Check into the Hilton and I'll contact you there around lunchtime."
"Check. A bientot."
"Wait."
"Still here."
"Don't do anything on your own initiative, now. Wait until I get there. You've done well, don't screw it up."
Hassan hung up.
Rostov sat still for a moment, wondering whether Hassan was planning some piece of foolishness or simply resented being told to be a good boy. The latter, he decided. Anyway, there was no damage he could do over the next few hours.
Rostov turned his mind back to Dickstein. The man would not give them a second chance to pick up his trail. Rostov had to move fast and he had to move now. He put on his jacket, left the hotel and took a taxi to the Russian Embassy.
He had to wait some time, and identify himself to four different people, before they would let him in in the middle of the night. The duty operator stood at attention when Rostov entered the communications room. Rostov said, "Sit down. There's work to do. Get the London office first."
The operator picked up the scrambler phone and began to call the Russian Embassy in London. Rostov took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
The operator said, "Comrade Colonel David Rostov
will speak to the most senior security officer there." He motioned Rostov to pick up the extension.
"Colonel Petrov." It was the voice of a middle-aged soldier.
"Petrov, I need some help," Rostov said without preamble. "An Israeli agent named Nat Dickstein is believed to be in England."
"Yes, we've had his picture sent to us in the diplomatic pouch--but we weren't notified he was thought to be here."
"Listen. I think he may contact his embassy. I want you to put all known Israeli legals in London under surveillance from dawn today."
"Hang on, Rostov," said Petrov with a half laugh. "That's a lot of manpower."
"Don't be stupid. You've got hundreds of men, the Israelis only have a dozen or two."
"Sorry, Rostov, I can't mount an operation like that on your say-so."
Rostov wanted to get the man by the throat. "This is urgent!"
"Let me have the proper documentation, and I'm at your disposal."
"By then he'll be somewhere else!"
"Not my fault, comrade."
Rostov slammed the phone down, furious, and said, "Bloody Russians! Never do anything without six sets of authorization. Get Moscow, tell them to find Feliks Vorontsov and patch him through to me wherever he is."
The operator got busy. Rostov drummed his fingers on the desk impatiently. Petrov was probably an old soldier close to retirement, with no ambition for anything but his pension. There were too many men like that in the KGB.
A few minutes later the sleepy voice of Rostov's boss, Feliks, came on the line. "Yes, who is it?"
"David Rostov. I'm in Luxembourg. I need some backing. I think The Pirate is about to contact the Israeli Embassy in London and I want their legals watched."
"So call London."
"I did. They want authorization."
"Then apply for it."
"For God's sake, Feliks, I'm applying for it now!"
"There's nothing I can do at this time of night. Call me in the morning."
"What is this? Surely you can--" Suddenly Rostov realized what was happening. He controlled himself with an effort. "All right, Feliks. In the morning."
"Goodbye."
"Feliks--"
"Yes?"
"I'll remember this."
The line went dead.
"Where next?" the operator asked.
Rostov frowned. "Keep the Moscow line open. Give me a minute to think." He might have guessed he would get no help from Feliks. The old fool wanted him to fail on this mission, to prove that he, Feliks, should have been given control of it in the first place. It was even possible that Feliks was pally with Petrov in London and had unofficially told Petrov not to cooperate.
