“But you just got here.”
“I know. I know.”
“But when will you be back?” Emily pressed.
When Gennady was just a little older than Emily, so many adults had disappeared from his life, swept away by the war that had sucked everyone up like a vacuum cleaner. His father had gone without even a proper goodbye – said do svidanye like he was going to another day at work, and then disappeared forever.
Gennady went down on one knee to look Emily in the eye. “I won’t be back, myshka. I’m sorry.”
He understood then why his father left like he had. He hadn’t wanted to see Gennady cry.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Emily,” Gennady said. He took her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Go find your mother, myshka, all right? Tell her your father needs to talk to her.”
She ran off. He swung his raincoat on and left without buttoning it, and didn’t stop to do so until he had reached the end of the block, beyond the line of sight from the den window.
He lingered longer than was necessary. He was hoping that the door would open again: that Elizabeth would come running after him, to attempt a reconciliation, or at least say that she would talk to Daniel. To her, perhaps, he might be able to say, I’m sorry.
But the door remained closed. The cold rain was falling faster now, and he had left his umbrella inside.
Well, he couldn’t go back. He held his raincoat closed over his throat and trudged to the Metro station, and sat on the cold bench in the wind to wait for the next train. They didn’t run often on Saturdays. He tried to light a cigarette, but his hands were shaking too badly, and in the end he threw it away.
Chapter 11
Elizabeth grew very pale as she read Paul’s letter. At the end, she set the letter down and looked at Daniel, unspeaking.
“This is my fault,” Daniel said. “I told Gennady about Paul. Years ago.”
“And he told them? You’re sure?”
“I asked him today,” Daniel said. “Yes. Of course he did.”
“Oh, Daniel.” Elizabeth put her arms around him. Daniel felt this would be a good moment to break down, to bury his face in his wife’s shoulder and cry, but he felt stiff and frozen.
“I keep thinking,” Daniel said. “I keep trying to remember what else I might have told him. Who else might be in danger. Thank God,” he said, and laughed briefly, “Thank God I never told him about Mr. Gilman’s wartime lover. That would have been a plum to take to the KGB. But I told him about John…”
“But Daniel,” Elizabeth said. She put her hands on his cheeks. “John’s safe, he’s already out. Everyone already knows he’s gay, so the Soviets can’t blackmail him.”
Daniel let out a shaking breath. “Thank God,” he said, and he pressed his face into her hands. “If only Paul…”
But that was impossible. John’s university might be willing to employ an openly gay professor, but Paul was an FBI agent, and the FBI still fired people for that.
“The Soviets never would have been able to blackmail him if the FBI weren’t so prejudiced,” Daniel said. He couldn’t hold still any longer; Elizabeth let go of him, and he began to pace. “The FBI – hell! American society! If people weren’t so goddamn prejudiced, then it wouldn’t have mattered…”
That Daniel had told Gennady.
But they were – and Daniel had – and it did. And now Paul was dead.
“Paul would still be alive right now if I weren’t so stupid. If I’d never got drunk and kissed Gennady and told him everything – everything about Paul. I can’t imagine what I was thinking. I was so drunk I barely even remember the conversation.” Daniel pressed a hand over his mouth. “God alone knows what I said. Elizabeth,” he said, and he went down on his knees and took both of her hands, “promise me, promise me, if things get bad, I want you to take the children and get out of here.”
“What do you mean?”
“If Gennady… if the Soviets try to blackmail me.”
“Do you really think he’d do that?”
“I don’t know.” Daniel tried to collect his thoughts, but they refused to settle. In the end he just shook his head. “I don’t know. After the way things ended today…” Christ, he should have thought this through. “He might be angry. He might tell someone about me, and if he does, if they blackmail me… Elizabeth, I don’t want you dragged into it. Divorce me.”
She knelt beside him, holding his hands tightly. “I absolutely will not,” she said. “If it comes to that, I’ll send the children to stay with my parents, but I’m not going to let you face it alone. If it comes to that,” she added, with extra emphasis. “I can’t imagine Gennady would do that, Daniel. He loves you.”
“Or this has all been one big honeytrap. Or – or maybe he’s just been stringing me along hoping I’d let slip some more pieces of intelligence.”
“Do you really think that?”
Daniel’s hands dropped from hers. He pressed his palms to the floor. “I don’t know. I’ve always been an idiot about him. I didn’t just mention Paul once, Elizabeth. I’ve talked about him with…” He could not bring himself to say Gennady’s name. “We’ve had whole conversations about Paul, and it didn’t even occur to me…” He pressed a hand over his face. “It didn’t even occur to me that I was compromising Paul. I got him killed, I practically threw him on the grenade in my place. I’ve been so cavalier about the risks of – God, dating a Soviet agent, how stupid could I be? I wish he’d gone ahead with the honeytrap,” Daniel said savagely. “At least then I wouldn’t have told him about Paul. Or maybe I would have,” he said, and his head sunk into his hands. “That’s the point of blackmail, after all. I doubt I would have had the guts to kill myself.”
Elizabeth took his head between her hands, and stroked his hair. “I love you, Daniel,” she said gently.
“Why?”
“You’re not going to believe any of the reasons I give right now,” she said. “Just know that I love you. We’re going to get through this.”
***
Four months passed. No blackmail threats arrived, no packets of incriminating photographs, and although Daniel hadn’t exactly expected them – a part of him still couldn’t distrust Gennady – another part of him could not let his guard down.
They’d waited fifteen years for Paul, after all. They’d wait for Daniel, too.
So when Mr. Gilman stopped by his desk and said, “Agent Hawthorne, if you’ll step into my office, please?”, Daniel was certain that the ax had finally fallen, and in a way he was relieved. At least now he didn’t have to wait any longer.
Daniel went into Mr. Gilman’s office, and shut the door, and sat down in the chair that Mr. Gilman indicated. Mr. Gilman settled in a chair himself and began to roll a paperweight in his palm. “You’ve been moping ever since Agent Preston’s death, Agent Hawthorne.”
Daniel felt a sort of shock, although it wasn’t so surprising that Mr. Gilman had noticed. He saw quite a lot for a man who seemed to spend most of his time peering absentmindedly at paperweights. “I was shocked to hear about his suicide,” Daniel said. “We haven’t been close for years, but when something like that happens… You always wonder if you could have done something to prevent it. If it was your fault.” His throat clogged. He felt he should stop talking, but against his will he kept going. “He must have felt very alone.”
“What do you know about the circumstances of his death?”
Daniel tried to remember what rumors were current in the Bureau, and couldn’t. “Just rumors,” he said vaguely.
Mr. Gilman considered Daniel with much the same benign gaze he had bestowed on his paperweight. “You understand,” he said, “that what I tell you next is not something that I want contributed to the rumor mill.”
Daniel nodded.
Mr. Gilman took a folder from his desk and slid it over to Daniel. “Agent Preston was being blackmailed by the Soviets,” he said. “We found these in his mailbox on the day of his death. I suppose
the Soviets were trying to tighten the screws.”
Daniel already had some idea what was in them, given the contents of Paul’s last letter. But naturally Mr. Gilman didn’t know about that, so he tried to prepare himself to look shocked.
But the photos really did shock him. They had been taken through a window, which gave an obscenely voyeuristic tinge even to the first photograph, even though it only showed two men, fully dressed, sitting on the end of a bed. Paul and a younger man, dark-haired, handsome.
Daniel could envision, vividly, horribly, similar photographs of himself and Gennady. That imaginary vision was so intense that he actually flinched when he flipped to the next photo and found Paul and the dark-haired man kissing and shirtless.
The rest of the photographs were practically a gay Kama Sutra. (Daniel noticed irritably, and was disgusted with himself for his irritation, that apparently now Paul was willing to be the passive partner. No, not just willing. Thrilled.)
It wasn’t till the last photograph that Daniel paused. The Kama Sutra had ended. Paul and his young man had fallen asleep, spooned together, Paul’s arm slung around his partner’s chest and his face resting in the man’s thick shoulder-length curls.
Daniel felt like his heart was going to claw its way out of its chest. For a moment it was jealousy: Paul had never held him like that. Then the jealousy was gone, and it was only grief, because here was Paul relaxed and happy and loving and this was what he got for it. Blackmail and a bullet in his head.
“Naturally the young man was a honeytrap set by the Soviets,” Mr. Gilman said.
“A honeytrap,” Daniel echoed, his voice a whisper.
Paul truly had fallen on the grenade meant for Daniel.
“Yes. I realize that many people would find this an even more sordid cause of death than any of the rumors. But I thought it might help you to know that he died a hero, protecting the secrets of the United States.”
Daniel knew that was exactly how Paul must have seen it, and he felt disloyal because it made him feel sick instead. “He died heroically protecting the Bureau,” Daniel said, “which would have fired him the instant it had any proof of his homosexuality.”
Mr. Gilman fell silent at the bitterness in his voice. After a pause, he said, “You know perfectly well that’s not true. If it was, Agent Preston would have been fired sixteen – hmm, seventeen years ago, is it?”
“You had no proof,” Daniel shot back, “just suspicions, and that was enough to get us both demoted. And Paul’s career never really recovered, did it? Mine only got back on track because I got married.”
“Agent Preston could have gotten married too.”
“No, he couldn’t. He’s not like you and me.”
Mr. Gilman frowned, very slightly. He took off his glasses and rubbed the little indentations that they left on either side of his nose. “He knew that when he joined the Bureau.”
“He died heroically protecting the Bureau whose policies made him feel he had no choice but to commit suicide. He loved the Bureau, and the Bureau would have thrown him out like yesterday’s trash – ”
“Don’t shout at me, Agent Hawthorne. I have no desire to put you on administrative leave.”
Daniel caught his breath. He swallowed and pressed his sweaty hands against his thighs.
Mr. Gilman resettled his glasses on his nose. He picked up his smallest millefiori paperweight. “I hadn’t realized you and Paul were still so close.”
Daniel felt tired suddenly. He almost wanted to fling himself on that sword: Yes, we’re so close, we’ve been carrying on in secret for years, please fire me.
“No. It’s just that… Well, he sent me a suicide note,” Daniel confessed. “Maybe he had no one else to tell…”
“I don’t suppose you kept the note?”
“No. He asked me to burn it,” said Daniel. “He didn’t want anyone to know.” He probably ought to destroy the volume of Whitman that Paul had given him, too, the one with all the Calamus poems marked. “You ought to destroy these,” Daniel added, nodding at the photographs. “Paul would never have wanted anyone to see them.”
“You’re not in a position to tell me what to do with a piece of evidence, Agent Hawthorne.”
“Evidence of what? Paul is dead. There’s nothing you can prove against him.”
“Evidence that might help us locate ongoing Soviet spy operations on our shores.”
“How the hell are these photos going to do that?” Daniel’s hands were shaking.
“You never know,” Mr. Gilman said, “which piece of evidence might crack a case.”
Daniel took up the photographs and tapped them against the desk to straighten them. Then he ripped them down the middle.
Mr. Gilman set the paperweight down sharply. He and Daniel faced each other over the desk.
“I believe you ought to take that administrative leave, Agent Hawthorne. Six months, perhaps?”
“No,” said Daniel. “I’m quitting.”
He jammed the torn photographs into his briefcase. Mr. Gilman didn’t try to stop him – which probably meant that these were just copies of the originals.
But when Daniel stood, Mr. Gilman stood too. “Agent Hawthorne,” he said. “Reconsider. You’re a good agent. The Bureau – ”
“The Bureau won’t even notice I’m gone,” Daniel said. Blood rushed to his face and rushed out again. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”
He left before Mr. Gilman could wheedle any further. He was not at all sure that he could remain firm for much longer.
Financially they would be fine. They had saved up, there was money in the bank, Elizabeth’s paintings would tide them over till he got another job. But he had always dreamed of being an FBI agent, and he felt he might be sick as he walked away.
In his car, before he even left the parking lot, Daniel set the photos on fire with the car’s cigarette lighter. They shriveled up to nothing in the ashtray.
He kept only one, the last: the photo of Paul and the young man curled up together, asleep. That sweetness was empty and false, a honeytrap, but he couldn’t bring himself to set it on fire.
When he got home, he put the picture in his shoebox. He hadn’t touched the box since he’d sent Gennady away, and when he opened the box, the old Christmas photo of Gennady hit him like a punch in the chest. Gennady glowing with pleasure as he unwrapped his unexpected present, and Daniel leaning against the back of the chair and smiling down at him.
Daniel settled the picture of Paul on top and closed the lid gently, and then sat a long time in the dark bedroom with the box on his lap.
A week later he wrote a letter to Gennady.
***
They met nearly a month after that, when the leaves were turning yellow, in the very early morning at an all-night diner. Bleary-eyed truck-drivers sat in the booths; nurses swung past the counter to grab a cup of coffee on their way into the hospital.
“We could have met later, you know,” Daniel told Gennady.
Gennady cast weary eyes up at him. Daniel suspected that Gennady had suggested this early hour because he hoped Daniel would refuse. “Why are we meeting?” Gennady asked.
“I wanted…” Daniel played his coffee cup between his hands. “I wanted to see you again before you go back to the Soviet Union.”
“Why?”
“I wanted…” Daniel tried to sip his coffee. It was scalding hot. “I wanted to apologize.”
“What do you have to apologize for? – Thank you,” Gennady added, his sharp voice softening as the waitress put down their plates of food: eggs and toast for Daniel, a single enormous pancake for Gennady. But then she left, and Gennady continued, his voice lower but still razor sharp. “I ought to be the one apologizing. I’m the one who got your friend killed.”
“The FBI got Paul killed,” Daniel said. “American society got Paul killed by being so goddamn prejudiced. I… well, here.”
He took a folder from his briefcase and slid it across the table. Gennady l
ooked for a long time at the photograph Daniel had saved. Daniel had taped it back together.
Then he flipped the folder shut and looked back at Daniel. His face was still hard and cold. “So? I told Arkady about Paul fifteen years ago. So it took them a long time to get photographic evidence to blackmail him, that’s all.”
Daniel couldn’t meet his gaze. He poked at the yolk of his sunnyside up egg. “Gennady, fifteen years is a long time. For all we know, the KGB found out about Paul on their own more recently. And even if that’s not the case,” Daniel added hastily, because he could see Gennady was about to object, “even if the KGB did look into him because of some note in an old file, it was my fault for mentioning him to you. I blamed you for it because I couldn’t bear…”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. Gennady’s stone face softened. “You were very drunk when you told me, Daniel.”
“And you were just doing your job. You always said I should have been more careful what I told you, and you were right.”
Gennady sighed. “Say it was both of our faults, then,” he said. “This association was always going to hurt someone in the end.”
The diner was getting busy now. The waitresses and the cooks shouted cheerfully at each other. Gennady cut long straight lines through his pancake, then sliced crossways to make squares, and ate the squares methodically. Daniel had never seen him eat anything with so little relish.
Halfway through the pancake Gennady set down his fork. “Daniel,” Gennady said. “Do you remember when I told you that we couldn’t be friends?”
“No.”
Gennady sighed. “Of course you don’t. You were very drunk.”
Then a stray wisp of memory wriggled. “That was the time when…” Daniel’s voice dwindled and his face warmed.
When he had gotten drunk and kissed Gennady. When he had told Gennady all about Paul.
“This is what I meant,” Gennady said. “This was always going to happen, or something like this. We were both assigned to report on each other from the start, Daniil. And we both tried to…” He paused, and took up his fork and swabbed a square of pancake in the maple syrup. “To craft those reports in such a way that we would protect each other. I think that’s true, isn’t it?”
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