The Spy

by Garbo Norman

  Kreuger had flown to San Francisco to tell her in person, but had been given no thanks for his trouble. “I swear she came at me with both hands,” he told Burke. “I was the villain of the piece. I was the one who got you into this ugly business in the first place. I was the one who made it impossible for her to live with you. And naturally I was the one who finally sent you out to be buried in some anonymous grave.” Kreuger paused. “And if I want to be absolutely honest about it,” he said more softly, “I have to admit she was right.” This once, at least, something seemed to have gotten through to him.

  Angela finished with the laundry and stood for a moment, unmoving, in the center of the room, her face pensive as she considered a far wall, or some problem, or perhaps just the life about her. Then she sat down at a dressing table and brushed her hair, moving the brush slowly, lazily, and causing Burke to remember all the other times he had watched her do the same thing. Usually, then, he had been waiting for her in bed, enjoying the intimacy of the small ritual, along with the knowledge that he would soon be holding her. The perfume, he thought, next came the perfume, which was invariably Arpege and which, even now, when carried faintly to him by some passing woman, never failed to bring her back. In bed, as elsewhere, she had wanted only to add joy and richness to his life and bring him the fulfillmerit he chased in all the wrong places.

  She had once thought him a man who cared about the highest things. Had she loved him any less at the end? She claimed not. She had simply been unable to go on living with him. She had asked for no great sacrifices. She did not want him to shower her with material luxuries, or to appear regularly at meals, or to acquire memberships in exclusive clubs, or even to be more tolerant of her utterly intolerable mother. She asked only that he be with her from time to time and stop risking his life by doing what the passing years had caused her to understand and approve of less and less. For a logical woman, she seemed curiously blind to the fact that she was being illogical.

  At one point near the end, she said, “I can’t take any more of this.”

  “Any more of what?”

  “Of what you’re part of. Of what you’re doing,”

  “But you don’t really know what I’m doing.”

  “I don’t have to know.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.

  “I read the papers,” she said, her voice calm and oddly remote. “I listen to the news on the radio and watch it on television. Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “No, darling.”

  “Don’t call me darling. I’m not your darling.”

  “All right.”

  She stared at him in silence, as if she had exhausted a small, precious supply of argument. Then she began to cry. “Goddamn them! Goddamn them! Why can’t they leave you alone?”

  Since he was able to give her no answer, he just held her and stroked her hair as though trying to memorize it. And he thought, if there is such a thing as a distant garden somewhere, in which loving objects grow, the heart of Angela Burke must surely be one of its more delicate blossoms.

  But that had been more than three years ago.

  Now, leaving her dressing table, Angela switched off all lights except a bedside lamp, took a book from a shelf, and lay down to read. Burke strained to see the title of the dust jacket, but could not make it out. And if he could? What would he do then? Run out and buy the book for the shared reading experience? Probably, he thought, and wondered to what other ridiculous ends this new foolishness would finally lead him.

  Angela suddenly rose and left the room, and Burke carefully adjusted his feet on the clay pot upon which he was balanced. Flattened to the wall, his fingers grasping the smooth cold brick of the window ledge, he stared at the empty bed. Softly, he hummed an old tune. And like a computer with a smoothly functioning memorybank, his brain recalled the heroically maudlin lyrics:

  Are you lonesome tonight?

  Do you miss me tonight?

  Are you sorry we drifted apart?

  Does your memory stray, to a bright summer day,

  When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?

  Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?

  Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?

  Is your heart filled with pain?

  Shall I come back again?

  Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

  Burke laughed silently. At last count there were about three billion human beings in the world, each with some love, some secret pain, each believing that their particular feelings represented the true center of life and living. And here he stood, surely knowing better, yet balancing himself on an upside-down flower pot, silently serenading a lost wife with the mushy lyrics of an old-fashioned lover’s lament.

  Then he stopped laughing.

  Angela had come back into the bedroom, but not alone. A man was with her, a tall, dark-haired man with a heavy moustache who was smiling at something Angela had evidently just said. He seemed relaxed and comfortable, as if he had been with her in this room many times before, and Burke thought, Oh, Christ, I’ve got to get out of here.

  But he did not go. Instead, he looked at Angela. She was talking brightly, animatedly, using her eyes and hands in a way she had when she was going all-out. The man lit a cigarette and stood leaning against the dresser as he listened. Occasionally he grinned and nodded and Burke had the feeling he was someone Angela worked for or with, and that she was describing something that had happened in the office that day. When she had apparently finished her story, they laughed together and the man reached out and touched her hair where the lamplight caught it. Then he put out his cigarette; drew her close, and kissed her. Angela’s arms went around him and the fingers of one hand toyed with his earlobe. Of course, thought Burke, and felt much the same sensation he had once experienced in Buenos Aires, when he had briefly been in the hands of the wrong people and was about to have an electric current applied to his testicles. No switch had yet been touched and there was no current, but he had felt it tear through him nevertheless.

  Still, he did not leave. And watching what came next, he was able to recall a discovery he had once made about pain. He had found that regardless of how bad it may be while it lasts, it is impossible to fully remember it afterward. So those fingers to an earlobe, those few anticipatory touches, caused nothing in him to match the kind of raw hurt that came with what followed. Because he saw it all, saw a body he knew as well as his own, responding to the touch of flesh that had absolutely nothing to do with all their years together, with all the sharing and the feeling and the rest of it that had made them what they were, separately and together. Finally, he thought, none of it made any difference. Flesh was flesh and they were all interchangeable. At the end of a life, a man, any man, surely had the right to expect something more than this. But to whom could he appeal? God? And what was he supposed to say? Listen, God, I’ve got a little complaint? Regardless of the name I’m using now or may have used in the past, I’m still Richard Burke, with all the good, bad, and in-between stuff that being Richard Burke has meant for forty-two years, and that I don’t like feeling that this never really mattered?

  Another foolish dialogue.

  Silently, Burke stepped down from the inverted flower pot, righted it, and placed it and the one he had knocked over earlier back where he had found them. Then leaving his former wife lying naked in the arms of an equally naked stranger, he walked home through the streets of the city.

  Chapter 8

  It was exactly the sort of college that Burke, as a boy, had once dreamed of attending — graceful old buildings, tree-shaded walks, an aura of high academic tradition set among Maryland’s gently rolling hills. But money had been tight and he had ended up, more practically, riding the subway each morning to C.C.N.Y’s grimy, downtown highrise. Almost a quarter century later, he still felt cheated.

  It was dark now, but he had arrived on campus while there was still some light and had driven around to check for pos
sible watchers. He had been here twice before for holidays with Tony and his parents and the Kreuger house had left a lasting impression. The shrubs were taller and thicker now, but half the front gate was still missing and the stone head of Rousseau stood above the doorway, looking as incongruous and formidable as ever. Driving past, Burke had not actually been able to read the philosopher’s words carved below his head, but remembered them well. Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. And he thought, if I have to take a chance on anyone, what better choice than a man who had chosen to live beneath these words.

  Parked a short distance from the house, Burke watched two students leave, then saw the kitchen light go on as the professor went in to prepare a solitary dinner. There were few things quite as alone, he thought, as a man alone in a kitchen. He had written Tony’s father a deeply felt note of condolence when his wife died a few years back, starting a warm correspondence that Burke had to end without explanation upon leaving the Service. Now the old man had lost his only son to a bullet in the head, and what sort of condolences could you offer for that?

  Burke waited, wanting to let Professor Kreuger finish his meal without interruption. Routine was important to the elderly, and at best his visit would be a shocker. In fact, deciding to come here at all had not been easy for him. Contacting anyone related to Tony or himself was a risk, but he had to start somewhere and knew of no better place. Or was coming here mostly a sentimental need to share his own mourning? Tony himself would have had little patience with any such concept, having believed that if nothing else killed in their line of work, sentiment would. Still, thought Burke, he was the one finally dead.

  When the kitchen went dark and a light appeared in the living room, Burke left his car, walked past the wrought iron half-gate and knocked on the door beneath Rousseau’s head. At once a dog started barking and a voice called, “Quiet, Casey! It’s only a student, you dummy.”

  The door opened and Walter Kreuger peered out, a tall, thin man with long, white hair that blew in the night wind. “Yes?” He stared at Burke without recognition, his floating white hair making him look like an ancient musician, too lost in cantatas to remember to have his hair cut.

  “It’s all right, Professor. It’s me … Richard … Richard Burke.” He gave the old man a moment to remember his voice, then smiled as further encouragement. “I’m okay and you’re not going blind or crazy. They’ve just done some work on my face. Don’t worry. It’s still me under here.”

  Kreuger squinted, took off his glasses, put them on again and squinted once more. “Good Lord.” He seemed unable to move. “Richard?”

  Burke’s smile was beginning to stiffen. “I’m sorry I had to hit you with it like this.”

  The old man’s fingers slowly opened the door wider. Moving as though in a trance, he stepped back to let Burke in. His dog, a shaggy, moplike mutt, was all over Burke, licking his hands and yelping until he picked him up. The air in the room was close and faintly sour with furniture polish. The remembered luster was there, in the cabinets and tables. His wife’s legacy, thought Burke, and he was faithfully keeping it up. The rest of the house could go to pot, but the cabinets and tables would glow like the vigil light in a memorial. Walter Kreuger himself had aged since Burke had seen him. His face was deeply lined, his hands lumpy with arthritis, his movements labored and painful. Still, his dark eyes were luminous, bright and wet as a baby’s as they struggled with what they saw.

  “Richard … Richard …” He closed the door and touched Burke’s arm. The flesh was solid but anonymous. “What in God’s name have they done to you?”

  Burke had forgotten the old man’s voice. Deep, resonant, oddly young, it belied the way he looked. Burke put down the dog, forced something extra into his smile and handed Walter Kreuger a bottle of Napoleon. “Get out the glasses, Professor. It’s a long story.”

  “I wondered,” The old man floated around the room, searching out the snifters, fussing with the foil, the bottle, the whole ritual. “You weren’t at Tony’s services. I assumed you were away somewhere, out of the country. I knew if you weren’t there, you had a good reason.”

  His voice faded off as he poured the brandy, carefully measuring equal levels in two plump snifters. He handed one to Burke. His face was a staging of masks, a collapsing of flesh until the bones stood out. There was a private war going on.

  “I don’t understand,” he said with another voice, this one far off, anguished. “He never even let me know he was sick, never told me a thing, never gave me a chance to talk to him, then he put a bullet in his head.” He looked at the surgically altered face of Richard Burke. “It was bad enough to have to bury, him, but that way was the absolute worst.”

  Burke took a moment. “It wasn’t that way,” he said. “Tony wasn’t sick. And he didn’t shoot himself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He was murdered.”

  The old man stared at Burke. Then his hand began trembling so violently he had to put down his glass. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s part of the same long story.”

  So Burke carefully went over it all once more, but this time with Tony’s portion added. And Tony’s father silently listened, his eyes steady and clear once the first blow had been handled. He was not like some elderly people, Burke thought, watching him as he spoke, who finally became hardened toward their own and other’s suffering and death. No, his response was sharp and deeply felt, and Burke was touched with pain for him.

  He nodded when Burke had finished and looked vaguely around him, at the worn couch and chairs upon which his wife and son had once sat, at the polished tables and cabinets. He seemed disoriented, as if unable to remember where he was or what he was doing there. Then it passed. “Thank you for telling me,” he said. “I know you took a chance in coming here.”

  “It wasn’t only for you. I also need help.”

  “From me?”

  “You were closer to Tony than anyone. He talked to you. He may have said things.”

  “Not about his work — never about what he was doing. Until you just told me, I never even knew about you, not all these years.”

  “Yes,” said Burke, “but sometimes things creep in anyway. We’re all human. We still give off unconscious signals. Especially when we’re relaxed .with those we love. And Tony knew he was in trouble for a while. When did you last see him?”

  “About a month ago. He was on his way somewhere and stayed over.” The old man picked up his glass and stared at it.

  “He didn’t sleep much that night. I heard him walking around and found him poking through a couple of old picture albums. We had a drink and talked.”

  “What about?”

  “Everything and nothing. He seemed nostalgic and kept looking through these old albums. We also had a go at some of our regular political battles. We rarely agreed there, so that was nothing unusual. I claimed we were trying too hard to carve the whole world in our own image, and Tony laughed at me for being lost somewhere among Rousseau’s archaic moralities.”

  “May I see them?”

  “What?”

  “The picture albums.”

  Professor Kreuger rose. “What do you expect to find?”

  “Probably nothing. It’s just that I’ve never known Tony to be nostalgic about anything.”

  There were two large albums and they held the usual assortment of faded snapshots: of outings, holidays and family occasions, of the Kreugers and their friends posing self-consciously, of Tony, smiling and laughing from infancy up through middle age. They should outlaw these things, thought Burke, peering at a shot of the three Kreugers, frozen forever in a moment of youth, health, and summer sun. No one should ever have to be reminded of how they and those they loved looked twenty years ago.

  Burke pointed to an empty space surrounded by four stripped mounting corners. “What was here?”

  The old man looked. “One of Tony’s college pictures, I suppose. At least that’s what is o
n the rest of the page.”

  Burke flipped through the remainder of the album. There were no other empty places. He went back to the college page and studied the assortment of young men and women posing with and without Tony. Then he carefully removed every snapshot on the page. “I’d like to borrow these.”

  “Do you believe Tony took out that missing picture?”

  Burke shrugged. “I’m just poking around.” He stroked the dog, lying serenely beside him on the couch. “How did you find, out about Tony? Not from the newspapers, I hope.”

  “No, I received a phone call. It was very early in the mom-ing. It woke me.” In the yellow lamplight the old man’s face relived the call. “Every time the phone rings now I shake inside. I don’t know why. What else can they tell me?”

  “Do you remember who called?”

  “Some man. I think he said his name was Needham. Or maybe it was Naidham. Something like that. I’m afraid I wasn’t hearing too well.”

  “Could it have been Beecham?”

  “I suppose so. Do you know someone with that name?* Burke nodded.

  Walter Kreuger’s eyes seemed to cloud over. They went through Burke to the wall beyond, then past that too. “The bastards,” he whispered softly, “the filthy, murdering bastards. What did they want? He gave them everything — heart, brain, soul, all he had. He lived and breathed his work, his country. He cared about nothing else. He would never even marry, never risk having children, for God’s sake, because his loyalty might have been divided. He abstained from the most natural of impulses, stayed permanently isolated. And how did they finally pay him? With a bullet in the head. I thank God his mother didn’t live to see it.”

  His eyes returned to the album, to a picture of his son in a Boy Scout uniform complete with merit badges. “Look at him, an Eagle Scout at the age of fifteen. Even then he was a patriot. How that boy loved his country.” He began to cry. The tears ran down into his mouth and he swallowed them. “Forgive me. I thought I was all through with that.”