“God, it’s lovely here,” said Sylvia.
“Sylvia, there’s something I have to ask you.”
Sylvia sighed.
“I must say, I knew this was coming. I’m afraid I know what you’re going to say, Robert. That you love me. That you want to marry me. That—”
She turned to him. “Robert,” she said, “you’re an awfully fine fellow. You saved my life. Twice, in fact. But—”
“Actually, Sylvia,” he said, “the question I had was something else: how long have you been working for Major Holly-Browning?”
She missed a beat, then smiled.
“Robert, I’m afraid I haven’t—”
He interrupted her. “You really are a little slut, aren’t you, darling? The major’s whore, sent to make sure poor Florry does his dirty deed. You never cared for me, except as a tool, as someone to be used. Give the old bastard credit, he saw my weaknesses. He knew how vulnerable I’d be to a sweet-faced tart who kept telling me what an impressive chap I was, who’d give me a bloody toss between the sheets. It was quite a performance, darling, especially the way you suddenly veered toward Julian and made me crazy with jealousy and made the job everybody so wanted done seem feasible. God, you deserve some kind of award.”
“Robert, I—”
“You must have thought it quite comical when I confessed I was a ‘British agent.’ You must have felt the contempt a professional feels for a feckless, hapless amateur with delusions of grandeur. But it finally penetrated, Sylvia. Do you know where you went wrong, old girl? The bloody apartment. Sampson had a villa, for some damned reason. I recall him telling me. That wasn’t his place we went to, it was yours. The major had it set up to get you out, not me. That’s how they had your picture for the passport. Yes, you were the major’s little secret weapon, eh?”
“Robert, stop. You’re all wrong, it’s—”
“You pathetic little quim. It must have been hard, Sylvia, hanging around that dangerous city that week, waiting. But you weren’t waiting for me, were you? You were waiting for word on Julian’s death. You had to know. That was the last part of your job, to make certain the poor bastard was dead.”
She stared stonily out across the pond. The terrible thing was that even now she looked beautiful to him. He wished he could hold her to him and make real his last illusion: that a better world could be theirs.
“Then you were too bloody good on the way out! You had it all figured. You’d gone over the route, you knew how to handle everything. You are something, Sylvia, I must say, you are a piece of work.”
She turned back, eyes gray green, face tight and beautiful. She smelled so wonderful.
“I don’t work for your major, Robert,” she said. “I swear to God I don’t.” She took a deep breath. “It’s what’s called MI-5, actually,” she said. “Security Service. We go after traitors, Robert. That’s our job. Yes, I spied on you, because I thought you were my country’s enemy. That is the truth. Without illusions and, damn you, without apologies.”
“Poor Julian. He thought we were both his friends. With friends like us, the poor sot hardly needed enemies.”
“He was a traitor, Robert. You reported so yourself in Tristram Shandy.”
“I was wrong. I leaped to a conclusion. I made a mistake.”
“No, you weren’t wrong. No matter how brave he was at that bridge and how he chummed up to you, he was a Russian agent. No matter what he told you, the truth was, he was working for the Russians. He was a spy, Robert. He was the enemy. And you wouldn’t have had the guts to deal with him if I hadn’t played my little game. Yes, Robert, I made you a killer. You killed Julian because I made you. Because it was the right thing. You couldn’t see your duty, but I saw mine.”
“You and all the rest of the voodoo boys, you’re wrong. About Julian. About everything. Julian was the only one that was right. He knew. In the end, it was just a game.”
“Stop it, Robert. You’re still an innocent.”
“Sylvia,” he said. “You are my last illusion, and my most painful one. God, you’re a cold bitch.”
“Somebody has to be, darling,” she said, turning back to the water, “so that the silly fools like you can write your silly books and feel as if you’ve done something for your country. It’s the Sylvia Lillifords and the Vernon Kells and the MI-5s that make the world safe for the fools like you, Robert. You really are the most perfect ass I’ve ever met.”
But he could see that she was crying.
“Good-bye, darling.”
“No, don’t you leave, you bastard,” she spat at him. “I’ll tell it all. I went to Spain to get them. To get them all, all those clever, bright pretty young people in the Hotel Falcon who think revolution is so beautiful and communism is a new religion. Yes, I got them all, by name and by number, and it all goes back to the MI-5 files. They’re dead in England, and they don’t know it. And I’ll get you, Robert, I will. You think you’re going to write a book about all this, Robert? Well, we’ll stop you. With Official Secrets, we’ll close you down. You’ll never publish anything, Robert. You’re done, before you’ve even begun, God damn you, you’re just like them. Soft, a dreamer, ready to piss on your inheritance.”
Florry looked at her, and realized how full of hate she was, how she was nothing, in the end, except a kind of terrible hate.
“You’ve made me a clever boy, Sylvia. You’ve taught me some very interesting lessons about the future. And I don’t think you’ll stop me writing what I know. The funny thing is, darling, I still love you.”
He smiled, then stood up and walked away, wondering if it would ever stop hurting.
Florry went back to England and presented Julian’s mother with the ring. The old lady was still beautiful and she lived in a glorious town house all hung with pictures of the Raines men down through the ages, but the thing did not seem to mean much to her. She simply put it on the table and did not look at it again. She did not appear to have been crying much, but then weeks had passed since the news.
“Did my son die well, Mr. Florry?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Florry.
“I thought he might have. It’s a gift the Raines men all seem to have,” she said. “They are perfect rotters in life, but they die well. It was true of his father. Would you care for some tea?”
“No ma’am. I’d best be going.”
“Do you know, they’re saying awful things about my son. That he was a traitor. Have you heard these stories?”
“Yes, I’ve heard the stories. They’re untrue. No man knows that better than I.”
“Good. Well, if you know that, it’s a start, one supposes. Are you sure you won’t stay?”
“No, thank you.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Florry.”
“Good-bye, Lady Cecilia.”
And then she added, “Tell the truth, won’t you?”
“I shall try,” he said.
“You do know what the truth is, don’t you, Mr. Florry?”
“I think I do, yes,” Florry said.
“Incidentally, they sent me something from Spain. It was some poetry that Julian was working on before he died. I can’t think why. I always hated Julian’s poetry, and this last I can’t begin to understand. I believe the work was called ‘Pons.’ I’d like you to have it.”
“Well, I really—”
“Please, Mr. Florry. I insist. You gave me the silly ring, now let me give you his last verse, all right?”
Florry waited patiently until the old lady returned, and took the foolscap. Yes, come to think of it, he’d seen Julian scribbling away in their little bunker in the trenches.
He thanked her, took it, and left.
Only later, in his little bed-sitting room, did he look at it.
To the trenches outside Huesca,
We came as comrades but stayed as lovers.
Our fingers froze, our rifles jammed,
And when we died, were doubly damned,
for History had passed to others.<
br />
It had no lesson, or only one:
that the test was ours and had begun.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Hunter is the author of nine novels, including the national bestsellers Black Light, Dirty White Boys, Point of Impact, with over three million copies in print, and his latest Time to Hunt. He is also the chief film critic for The Washington Post and the author of a collection of criticism, Violent Screen. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Published by
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Grateful acknowledgment is made for the following:
“We are the hollow men.” From “The Hollow Men” in
Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T. S. Eliot,
Copyright 1936 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.;
Copyright © 1963, 1964 by T. S. Eliot.
Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
and Faber and Faber Ltd.
“These in the hour when heaven was falling.”
From “Epitaph for an Army of Mercenaries” from
The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman, Copyright 1922
by Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Copyright 1950 by Barclays Bank Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Publishers.
“If I should die, think only this of me.
There’s some foreign field that is forever England.”
From Rupert Brooke’s “The Soldier.”
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. The author’s use of names of actual persons, living or dead, and actual places are incidental to the purposes of the plot and are not intended to change the entirely fictional character of the work.
Formerly titled The Spanish Gambit
Copyright © 1985 by Stephen Hunter
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