Cockpit

by Jerzy Kosiński

  When my contact did not show up during the first two days, I assumed that the mission had been canceled, but on the third day, the local radio announced the capture of an American spy who had confessed there was a second American operating in Indonesia.

  The captured man had never seen me and had been arrested before being told of my cover. Although the Indonesians knew there was another operative in the country, they would not be able to apprehend me unless I revealed myself. Since now I could not leave the country without the risk of alerting the police, I decided to play out my cover role and join the conference.

  The group had turned out to be far larger than anticipated. Many of the psychiatrists had brought wives or husbands, and we had only three small planes at our disposal. It took several trips to transport our group from Djakarta to the institute in Borneo, and, once there, we discovered that there were not enough accommodations. Eventually, we were separated by sex and assigned to two large classrooms, each crowded with beds about two feet apart. A single door connected the dormitories, and each room had its own entrance to the outside.

  Among the psychiatrists was a young couple who appeared to be newlyweds. During the lectures and discussions that preceded the actual field work, they were constantly holding hands or caressing and were very protective of each other. Once, when I casually made a joke at her husband’s expense, the wife began cross-examining me angrily, questioning my theories and my scientific credentials. I answered her with the expert data prepared for me by the Service, but she remained hostile and suspicious.

  Strolling in the institute garden one morning, I saw her walking alone. I went over to join her, and she reluctantly allowed me to accompany her. As we were walking, a stray cat brushed against her leg. The cat’s arrival prompted me to test out a new defense device that I might have to use if I were discovered. I bent down and began to stroke its fur. The woman’s skirt brushed my forehead, and I looked up at her legs. Realizing I was staring at her, she turned away in embarrassment, and it was at that moment that I pressed the ring on my third finger into the cat’s neck. With my thumb, I moved the ring’s concealed activator to the release position and shot two pressurized doses of poison into the animal’s flesh.

  I had been ordered to take one shot to kill myself if I were ever captured. With two times that dosage in its system, the cat instantly shivered, grew rigid and fell dead at the woman’s feet. She screamed and jumped back, averting her eyes when I picked up the corpse and threw it under a bush. Walking back toward the institute buildings, I speculated that the animal must have died of a heart attack. She seemed to accept the explanation.

  During our afternoon break, I looked through a window into the woman’s dormitory and saw her sitting on her bed, fifteen cots away from the connecting door.

  About an hour after the lights were turned off that night, I slid from my bed and lay down on the floor. The only sounds in the room were the hum of the ceiling fans and an occasional snore. I began to crawl down the aisle between the rows of narrow beds, wearing only my short bathrobe; I could not tell whether the men I passed were fast asleep or only lying still. By the time I reached the connecting door, my chest and thighs were dusty and scratched from the rough wood. I opened the door just wide enough to be able to slide through.

  The women’s room was lit only by a dim red bulb over the main door, and I had to inch along, counting the beds. Someone coughed. A woman stretched and turned over. The psychiatrist’s wife was sleeping on her back, with the sheet pulled up to her chin. I made my way to the edge of her bed and tugged at the sheet. She shifted but did not wake up. I pulled the sheet again, and this time she began to open her eyes. I covered her mouth with my hand, pinning her head to the pillow. Still kneeling on the floor, I whispered that if she made a sound her husband would die as silently and quickly as the cat.

  I climbed onto the narrow bed, pressing hard against her, my hand covering her mouth while the other moved under her nightgown. She tried to push me away, but I reminded her to think of her husband, and she stopped resisting. I caressed and kissed her, but I did not enter her. After an hour, I lowered myself to the floor, whispered that I would come to her every night and slowly crawled back through the door, inching carefully along the floor until I reached my own bed.

  At breakfast, I sat across from her and her husband, pretending to listen to his pretentious theorizing. The woman said nothing and didn’t even glance in my direction.

  That night, I waited until well after midnight to slide off my bed and crawl through the door. I sat motionless on the other side for a few moments, waiting to see if I had been followed. If she had told her husband what I had done, he and others might be waiting for me to make my move. After I made sure no one had followed me, I began to crawl along toward her bed. She was awake. I motioned to her to undress, and she obediently slipped off her nightgown. I slid into bed alongside her. As my hand moved over her belly, she stifled a gasp and covered her mouth with the sheet.

  I turned her over and eased into her from behind. She stifled a moan, and I deliberately forced myself deeper into her. She was sweating, but she did not scream. I whispered that if she could reach a climax by exciting herself I would stop hurting her. At first she refused. I slid onto the floor, my head between her thighs. I bit into her flesh and held fast to it until her hand moved to push me away. She began to caress herself and I pressed my mouth against her hand. Wet from my tongue and warmed by my breath, her fingers moved back and forth frenetically. Before each climax, she bent forward, pressing her hand against the back of my head.

  The next day, the psychiatrist and his wife did not attend the afternoon session. I inquired about them and was told they had left that morning for another part of the country.

  Several days after the field work ended and I returned to Djakarta, I decided to leave Indonesia on the scientists’ charter flight. My passport was checked, and I was told I could go directly to the plane. I knew that if I was going to be arrested it would have to happen before I boarded.

  Walking to the plane, I spotted the psychiatrist and his wife ahead of me, both suntanned and wearing safari jackets. I caught up with the couple, who were burdened down by their heavy luggage, and, as I carried only a light attache case, I offered to help them. The psychiatrist handed me a bag containing his movie cameras, but his wife barely acknowledged me.

  The three of us joined the large crowd waiting to board. Suddenly, I saw a military police car racing toward us. My legs felt weak. I had trouble catching my breath. I put down the camera bag and the attache case. The police car screeched to a stop and two officers got out and approached us. My thumb located the activator on the inside of the ring. I raised my hand toward my face, but, before I could trigger the shot, the psychiatrist’s wife bumped into me and I staggered backward and fell. She was smiling as I got up. She had tripped over her bag, she said, and apologized for her clumsiness. One of the policemen announced that all passengers were to board through the rear door in the tail of the plane. Then they saluted, got into their car and drove away.

  The psychiatrist’s wife said she hoped I hadn’t smashed my ring when I fell, and I assured her that it didn’t matter because it wasn’t worth much. Taking my hand, she remarked that she never trusted a man who wore jewelry and hated animals. She and her husband sat nine rows behind me on the plane. Just after takeoff, she curled up in his arms and, whenever I looked at her, she seemed to be sleeping.

  During my later years in the Service, I was frequently sent to western Europe as an industrial representative. I addressed large gatherings, gave press interviews and appeared frequently on television in many foreign capitals.

  Once, in the course of a live TV news program, I found myself disagreeing with local reporters, who rebutted me angrily and at length.

  Later that evening, I was supposed to attend a dinner given by the head of the opposition party, but by the time the TV program ended I was angry and tired and hardly up to a formal social occasion.
Irritated that I had to go, I rushed back to the hotel, forced myself to sleep for an hour, then took a shower, shaved and changed into my dinner clothes.

  By the time I arrived at the state rotunda, the courtyard was filled with limousines. I hurriedly presented my invitation to one of the guards and was escorted through long, mirrored corridors teeming with reporters and security men.

  I entered a drawing room where guests were gathered, and was relieved to see that cocktails were still being served. Bored and tired, I wandered through the crowd looking for my host, whom I knew only from his press photographs. I noticed several guests whispering to each other as I passed, and it occurred to me that they had seen the TV program and were probably as shocked by my opinions as the reporters had been.

  At the far end of the room, I noticed a tall, exquisite woman. As I stared at her, she suddenly came toward me. Her presence made me uncomfortable.

  “I am your hostess,” she introduced herself. “How good of you to come. I saw you on the news tonight.” She extended her hand, which I kissed, feeling how cool her smooth, long fingers were. “My husband and I watched you defend yourself against the members of our press.” She attempted to put me at ease. “Here you were, a guest of our government, and they treated you as an enemy,” she continued, guiding me gracefully through the crowd. Her tall, distinguished husband had spotted us and was making his way through the crowd to greet me. After we had exchanged pleasantries, he turned away to speak to other guests, leaving his wife and me alone.

  “You must forgive my staring at you,” I said to her, “but I was wondering why nature gave you so much and others so little.”

  She smiled. “Perhaps nature was not as generous as you think. After all, you don’t know me.” She paused as two reporters photographed us.

  “No, I don’t,” I replied, when they moved off. “It must be difficult for any man to know you.” I pointed to another photographer who was aiming his camera at her and said, “As a beautiful woman and as the wife of a man destined to govern his country, you’re always watched.”

  She abruptly changed the subject by asking how long I would be staying in the city.

  “I’m leaving for Paris early in the morning,” I told her.

  “I envy you. Paris is magnificent at this time of year.”

  “Do you often visit Paris?” I asked.

  “I do, but always with my husband on official business. There’s never enough time for me to just stroll or sit in a café.”

  Her relaxed attitude made me feel easy, even a bit brash. “I’ll be in Paris for a week, staying at the Bradley,” I said. “It’s a new hotel where no one knows me. Why don’t you join me there?”

  She returned my gaze and, in a cool voice, asked, “Is this what Americans would call instant seduction?”

  Her husband was heading toward us with two couples in tow. “Not seduction,” I said quickly. “Merely an attempt to discover if nature is as generous as it sometimes seems.”

  In a second, her husband was at her side, playfully chastising her for abandoning the other guests, then he whisked her away. During dinner, I often looked in her direction but she never returned my glances. While coffee and liqueurs were served, I slipped away, returned to my hotel and prepared for Paris.

  My first two days there were hectic. I attended long conferences, tedious seminars and executive dinners with industrial representatives from the provinces. The talk was taxing and the food heavy. After dinner, too exhausted to accompany my colleagues to a nightclub, I usually went straight back to my hotel room.

  The third morning the telephone woke me. Half asleep, I groped for the receiver and heard a woman’s voice whispering my name in a heavy foreign accent. The accent was familiar, but the voice was not. “You left our reception without saying goodbye,” she said.

  It was then that I recognized her. Suddenly, I felt elated and fully awake. “Are you in Paris?” I asked.

  “Of course not. I am in my country, in my bedroom and in my bed. Where else would I be at this hour in the morning?”

  “But where is your husband?” I asked.

  “In the bathroom, taking a shower.”

  I caught my breath. “Suppose he hears you?”

  “He can’t as long as the shower’s going.” She paused. “I’m coming to Paris.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. On the noon flight.”

  “For how long?”

  “One day.”

  “With your … ?” I began.

  “Alone,” she answered. “Are you still curious how ‘generous’ nature is?”

  “More than ever.”

  “Please reserve a room for me at the Hôtel de La Mole. I used to stay there when I was married to my last husband, so use my former name, Leuwen.” She spelled it for me.

  “Shall I meet you at the airport?” I asked.

  “Please don’t. Someone might see us. I’ll call you from the hotel.”

  “I’ll wait for your call. Until tomorrow, then.”

  “Until tomorrow,” she whispered and hung up.

  I couldn’t sleep. Feeling a need to fill the time, I dressed and went at once to La Mole. It was an elegant old hotel, which could be entered either from the main lobby or through a bar on the side street, as well as through the garage.

  I presented myself to the reception manager as a travel agent who had come to select a room for Madame Leuwen, a client of mine. The manager checked his reservations and asked if Madame would like a single room. I suggested a suite, instead, and after visiting three or four of them I settled on a large corner one whose door did not open off the main corridor and could not be seen by anyone looking out from the elevator. I ordered flowers to be delivered for Madame Leuwen’s arrival and asked the manager to give the lady’s reservation his personal attention.

  I spent the rest of the day concluding as many of my business affairs as possible. By midafternoon I felt nauseated and my body ached. I realized I was feeling the strain of the trip and decided to see a doctor. Several physicians recommended by my associates could not see me soon enough. I checked the phone book and found a physician whose name suggested my own national origin. I called him, introduced myself and told him I needed immediate medical assistance. I asked him in Ruthenian whether he still spoke his parents’ language, and he answered fluently in it that, even though his schedule was full, he would see me at once.

  His office, which was also his home, was in an old section of Paris. He was in his sixties, gray-haired, with a beautifully chiseled face. His suit was cut in the fashion of the late twenties, and he wore a monocle. He led me through a dark apartment filled with massive old furniture.

  His white examination room contained old-fashioned, enamel medical equipment and evoked the atmosphere of another century. He apologized for the disorder in his office by saying that his wife had died a few months earlier and the paid help he now had to rely on was very poor. He asked me to undress while he put on a white lab coat and washed his hands; then he checked my weight and gave me a cursory examination.

  “Barring some invisible malady, you’re not ill but simply underweight, run down and overworked,” he pronounced. “Your heart seems to be slightly arrhythmic, but you are a sportsman, which might explain it. Your present exhaustion combined with increased metabolic rate and radically low blood pressure produces occasional dizziness. What you need now is rest, exercise and a sound diet.”

  “Nevertheless, doctor, I came to you for help with a specific complaint,” I said as I dressed.

  “What is the problem?”

  “I have an important engagement tomorrow and I need a drug, injections if necessary, to get through it.”

  “But you’re not ill, only over-tired,” he reiterated.

  “A lady friend of mine is arriving tomorrow for a one-day visit. I may never see her again and I want to be strong enough to have a memorable time with her.”

  The doctor got up from his desk and looked at me. “Is she yo
ur fiancee?” he asked.

  “No, but I want to know her as intimately as if she were.”

  He moved closer, winking at me with an eye surrealistically enlarged by the monocle. “Is she, by chance, married?”

  “I can’t see what her marital status has to do with my request,” I said, barely hiding my annoyance.

  “If you want my help, you must be honest with me.”

  “She is married.”

  “Is her husband alive?”

  “Yes. But he is not coming with her.”

  “Do they have children?”

  “I believe so.”

  “What are their ages?”

  “I should think they would be in their teens,” I said.

  He rubbed his chin. “Then this woman is older than you?”

  “Possibly.”

  The doctor paced the room and returned to where I sat. “How well do you know her?” he asked.

  “I met her only once, a few days ago. I need to know her and I don’t intend to fail. Do you understand me, doctor?”

  “Don’t excite yourself,” he said. “By the way, does she love you?”

  “She hardly knows me, but perhaps one day she might love me, and I don’t want to postpone that day for a minute.”

  The doctor sat down across from me. He removed his monocle and put on a pair of glasses. “I could be your father,” he said sternly. “If I were, would I condone what my son is about to do? Are you an only child?”

  “I am.”

  “I knew it. Would your father want his only son turned into an instrument to satisfy an aging, adulterous wife?”

  “I am nobody’s instrument. Besides, my father never dealt in such matters. My mother was his only woman.”

  He tapped his pen against the wood of the desk. “You are living an existence contaminated by vice,” he said. “Why don’t you settle down with a woman who loves you? You could irrigate the dry land, help bring peace to the region.”