Текст книги "The Prodigal Spy"

Автор книги: Joseph Kanon

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Nick nodded. “Go find Brian.” She took a step toward the French window. “Hey,” he said, stopping her, because in the new light from the window her pale skin did suddenly begin to gleam, shifting like mercury. “Don’t disappear, okay?”

“Promise,” she said, and because the day had been lucky, he took her at her word.

The intimate dinner sat twenty-four and she disappeared after all, behind the floral centerpiece, so that like Davey, he had to tilt his head to see her. At this angle her hair bounced on top of the stems, another flower, and he watched her turn back and forth between her dinner partners, two gray-haired diplomats who preened for her attention like rival suitors. When she caught his look, her eyes laughed in a private joke. The dope had worn down to a familiar lull of well-being, but his senses still seemed sharp, catching the light off the crystal and the glow, refracted, in the soft red wine. With Larry near one end and his mother near the other, he was marooned in the middle, surrounded by people talking to each other, free to watch her. It was easier without words, he thought. This is what animals did–looks and body movements and smiles, tapping a sexual Morse code across the table.

“It’s not polite to stare, you know.” A woman’s voice, next to him.

“Sorry. Was I?” he said, turning to her, embarrassed.

But she was smiling. “I wish someone looked at me that way. She’s very pretty. Are you together?”

“Sort of,” he said, taking her in. She was still an attractive woman, but her face was loose and round, padded, Nick guessed, by years of too many extra glasses of wine. She seemed slightly drunk, shiny and amused, but not fuzzy.

“Sort of.” She laughed. “Well, you will be, if you keep that up. Youth,” she said, suggesting she’d enjoyed hers. “I tell you what. You just look and pretend to talk to me. I don’t mind a bit. I’m Doris Kemper, by the way. Jack Kemper’s wife.” She spoke the name, unknown to Nick, as if it guaranteed instant recognition.

“Nick Warren.”

“Ah. Larry’s son?”

Nick nodded.

“Well, that explains it. Your father always had an eye for the girls.”

“Really? Did you know him?”

“Not that way, if that’s what you mean. But I must say, I always wondered a little,” she said, oddly flirtatious. “He was quite the man about town. Do they use that expression anymore? Of course, this was all about a million years ago. Thank you,” she said to the waiter refilling her glass. “You can’t imagine how different Washington was then. People had fun.”

Nick watched her take another drink, trying to imagine her slim and eager for a night out. It occurred to him that if he just smiled encouragingly he wouldn’t have to talk at all.

“Well, they did,” she said, misinterpreting his look. “Of course, children don’t believe their parents were ever young. I know mine can’t. Then I heard he got married. We were overseas and I thought, well, that’s that. They’ll be hanging crepe all over town. If it lasts. But here you are, so I guess it did.”

“Where overseas?” Nick said, making conversation.

“Oh, everywhere. Athens. Rabat. Everywhere you had to boil the water.” She laughed to herself. “We were in Delhi for four years–that was the longest stretch.”

“Did you like it?”

“Well, Jack did. I had the children to raise. You know the tropics–one little scratch, and before you know it, it’s infected. You had to watch all the time. And the snakes.” She waved her hand, dismissing India, and when he followed it he found himself looking across the table again. Molly was listening to one of her suitors, fork poised in the air, her bare arms pale in the candlelight. He wondered if they would sleep together tonight. She’d stayed for dinner.

“You do have an eye,” Doris Kemper said. “I suppose he passed it on.” She picked up her glass. “Now tell me about yourself. What are you doing in London? Are you a lawyer too?”

“No, I’m finishing a degree at LSE.”

“That sounds interesting,” she said, clearly not believing it. “What in?”

“At the moment I’m doing research on the McCarthy period. You know, the witch-hunts.”

“People study that? Now I do feel old.”

“My professor’s writing a book about it.”

“But it’s such an exaggeration. Witch-hunts. I suppose to young people–but really, you know, the whole thing has been blown all out of proportion. I remember the loyalty oaths. We all had to do that. The army hearings. But to hear people talk, you’d think that’s all that was going on. Not any of the good things. Most people didn’t even notice.”

“HUAC held over two hundred hearings then,” Nick said calmly, a statistician. “Three thousand witnesses. And that was just HUAC. Not McCarthy.”

“Really?” she said, too surprised to be offended. But she was already moving away, the lesson of a hundred dinner parties. “Of course, we were overseas most of the time.”

She leaned back to let the waiter remove her plate and looked at Nick as if the new angle had suddenly brought him into focus. “Now I remember,” she said. “Larry’s wife. She had a child. That’s right. There was a boy—” She stopped. “Oh.” Nick could see in her slack face the rest of it coming back to her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—” She floundered, in such obvious distress that Nick, almost as a reflex, helped her.

“That’s all right,” he said quietly.

But it wasn’t. It happened so rarely now that he was unprepared for it, that moment when someone knew. He felt the sinking in his stomach, always the same, found out by the giant pointing finger. He wished he weren’t still high, unguarded, because now it would all come back. He knew the sequence, the pictures that would flash through his mind and always end with the woman lying twisted on the roof of the car. Instead he turned to the bright table, willing himself to be distracted by the opulent silver and the spray of flowers, an imperial banquet. Doris Kemper, who misinterpreted the gesture and thought he was angry, put her hand on his arm.

“I didn’t mean—” she said, and because she was silly but still kind, Nick smiled back, letting her off the hook.

“I know,” he said. How quickly it could happen, he thought, when you weren’t expecting it. But that was his problem, not hers. She never meant a thing. She’d had a life of amahs and swimming pool parties and only remembered the snakes, dreaming of Maryland. And now, of course, she’d be curious. He could already see the irresistible questions forming in her eyes.

They were both rescued by the tinkling of a knife against a glass as the ambassador rose to propose a toast. Not a speech, he said genially, just a word of welcome, because it was always good to see old friends and particularly good when those friends were about to render a service to their country. They were all aware of the importance of Larry’s mission, and they were all grateful, he was sure, that the mission had been placed in such competent hands. If there was progress to be made, he would make it, and he carried with him, at the very least, the hopes and good wishes of everyone at this table and countless other tables back home. There was a little more, and a few ‘hear, hear’s, and they raised their glasses. Nick raised his too, feeling more than ever the anomaly of his position, the son of a traitor invited to sit at the high table. But Larry, smiling modestly at the group, seemed entirely at ease, and his mother, on the ambassador’s right, looked radiant. No one, in fact, saw anything but a happy family, not even Doris Kemper, who thought he had an eye.

The table was breaking up now, heading into the sitting room for coffee, and when he looked over at Molly towering over her diplomats, who turned out to be short, his mood changed. The hell with them all, tangled up in their money and pious hopes for Paris. Their world, not his. He was going to spend an evening with a girl who’d actually met someone in the Steve Miller Band. But when she returned his look she seemed nervous, flustered by the toast, as if the evening had been a high and they were coming down, back where they started, and he wondered if they would sleep together after all.

“Good luck with your project,” Doris Kemper said, shaking hands.

“I’ll try to look for the good things,” he said pleasantly.

“You do that.” She smiled, almost winking. “It’s still the greatest country in the world.”

The informality of the coffee hour made it easier to slip out early, and after paying his respects to the Bruces, he collected Molly and headed for the door. A hug and faint protest from his mother, but no one else seemed to mind, absorbed on their side of the generation gap.

“She’s a nice girl,” Larry said when Molly went to get her coat. “I thought you said you weren’t seeing anybody.”

“I’m not seeing her yet,” Nick said. “First date.”

“Quite a restaurant,” Larry said, nodding at the room. Men smoked near the fireplace, ignoring the women, who perched on the edges of the deep couches, busy with each other. A waiter was passing brandy. It looked to be a long night.

“Quite an invitation,” Nick said. “Thanks. Good luck tomorrow.”

Larry nodded and shook his hand. “Don’t forget to call the lawyer.”

“I won’t. By the way, who’s Jack Kemper?”

Larry grinned. “What did he tell you?”

“He didn’t tell me anything.”

“Well, he wouldn’t. He’s CIA.”

In the hall, Molly was being helped into her gaucho cape, a remnant of her morning self. The servant, stiff and correct, held it as if it were mink, and as she slid into it, the two halves of her life seemed put together without matching.

“Shall I call you a taxi, sir?”

“No, thank you. We’ll find one.”

The man raised a dubious eyebrow, but nodded and opened the door. “Mind how you go,” he said, indicating the dark driveway, dense now with night mist.

But it was the obscurity Nick wanted. He took her arm on the steps and they walked out of the range of the house lights, over the canal toward Prince Albert Road.

“You okay?” he said.

“I’ve never felt so out of place in my life.”

“No, you were the hit of the party.”

“I kept thinking, what if they knew?”

“Knew what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. That I didn’t belong there, I guess.” She paused. “What was it like, growing up like that?”

“I didn’t grow up like that. It was just–normal, you know. The usual stuff. School. Sports. They went to parties, I did homework.”

“An all-American boy.”

“Mm. Eagle Scout.”

“You’re kidding.”

“On my honor,” he said, holding up three fingers in the oath position.

She stopped, looking at him. “You’re not what I expected.”

“You said that before. Anyway, I’m not a Scout any more.”

“No.”

“There’s something I’ve wanted to do all evening.” Before she could say anything, he put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her, pressing her lips gently until she opened her mouth and he tasted the faint trace of wine. But then she pulled back and put her hand between them.

“Don’t you want to?” he said, surprised.

She nodded. “That’s the problem. Then later you’d think—”

He grinned. “I’m not old-fashioned. I’d respect you in the morning. Promise. Scout’s honor.”

She bit her lower lip. “No, you don’t understand. Look, I need to talk to you. Let’s go somewhere.”

“No, here. What’s wrong?”

She looked to the side, avoiding him, then took a breath and turned back. “Okay. I was going to explain, but I couldn’t in there. And then—” She stopped. “Let me have a cigarette, will you?”

He fished one out of his pocket, still looking at her. He was amazed to see her hand trembling slightly as she took it. “What’s this all about?” he said, lighting it for her.

She inhaled as if drawing strength from it.

“I told you someone asked me to look you up. You never asked who.”

“Who?”

“I was supposed to give you a message. I never meant to—”

“Who?” he said, impatient now.

She looked up at him as if she were afraid of his reaction. “Your father.”

“Larry?” he said, so that he wouldn’t have to think anything else.

“No, your father. Walter Kotlar. I met him. He asked me to—” She paused, taking another drag on the cigarette. “He wants to see you.”

Chapter 5

IT WAS HER idea to go to Jules Bar. A pub would have been noisy, her flat impossible, and when they got into the taxi he seemed incapable of suggesting anything, so she said the first thing that popped into her head. He was quiet all the way to Jermyn Street, not sure where to start or whether to start at all, one thought canceling out the other until he felt empty, staring at the meter. She didn’t try to talk either, and for one crazy moment it seemed to him that they’d already entered the clandestine world, afraid to be overheard in taxis.

He wants to see you. Why? How? When the taxi stopped, she got out and paid and he just stood looking at the blue neon martini glass, now a little wary of her because, like a lover, she knew the most intimate thing about him.

“Who are you?” he said when they sat down. The bar was supposed to be like a New York cocktail lounge, dark and cool, little tables with flickering votive candles.

“Who I said. I just met him, that’s all.”

“Two vodkas,” he said to the waiter, then turned back to her. “That seems appropriate, doesn’t it?”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

“I don’t know. Yes. Of course I want to hear it. Christ.” He lit a cigarette. “What were you doing in Moscow?”

“He’s not in Moscow. He’s in Prague.”

“All right. What were you doing in Prague?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“We have to start somewhere. Tell me. Or are you with the CIA too?”

She looked at him blankly, having had a different dinner partner. “Well, if you must know, I went to see a guy I knew in Paris. He’s from there. There were lots of Czechs in Paris last year. You know, before the invasion.”

“But he went back.”

She nodded. “I thought we were–well, wrong again. Imagine my surprise. He didn’t even want to see me. I suppose he thought it would get him in trouble. So like an idiot I show up at his door, and voila, the new live-in girl takes one look and–anyway, what’s the difference? Satisfied?” She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m not a spy. I just went to Prague to make a fool of myself.”

“My father was a spy,” Nick said simply.

“I know who he was.”

The waiter brought the drinks in Jules’s widemouthed martini glasses and he gulped his, managing half before it burned.

“So how did you meet him? After the girlfriend threw you out.”

“Well, that’s the funny thing. Jiří let me stay there -I think it was her idea, actually. To torture him or something. But I really didn’t have anywhere else and I’d already exchanged my money, so I just hung out and saw Prague. They took me places. To tell you the truth, I think Jiří liked the idea of people thinking he was with both of us. You know, that he had some ménage à trois going.”

“Did he?”

“No.” She glared at him, then let it go. “Anyway, they took me to a party one night and that’s where I met him. Your father.”

“At a party,” Nick said. “When was this?”

“Last month.”

“You took your time.”

She shrugged. “I went back to Paris. I wasn’t sure what to do. But I kept thinking about it. So.”

“So here we are.” He paused, looking down at his glass. “How did you find me?”

“Oh, he knew where you were. He knows all about you. I guess he keeps tabs.”

For a second, his life seemed to tilt on its axis. He kept tabs. He never left.

“How is he?” he said finally.

“He’s fine,” she said, which told him nothing he wanted to know. “I mean, I guess he is. I only met him once. Well, twice.”

He looked up at her. “Go ahead.”

“I met him at the party. I knew who he was. And I thought, well, maybe there’s a story. Maybe he’d talk to me–you know, give me an interview. He’s never given one.”

“No, never,” Nick said.

“So I thought there’d be a piece in it.”

“For Rolling Stone,” Nick said sarcastically.

“For somebody.”

“They weren’t even born,” Nick continued. “Do you honestly think anyone cares?”

“Are you kidding? Walter Kotlar? After all these years? Everybody’d want that piece.” She paused. “It would be a huge break for me. Anyway, I thought it was worth a try. So I asked him and he agreed to meet me.”

“You must have made some impression. He’s never talked to anyone before.”

“He didn’t then, either. Except about you. We met on the Charles Bridge and then we went for a walk. That’s when he asked me to get in touch with you.”

“On a bridge. Just like in the movies. In your trench-coats.”

“Well, it’s like that there. You have to talk outside.”

“And maybe somebody was putting you on. How do you know it was him? How do I know?”

“He said if you asked that to tell you he always remembered how you helped with the shirt. Whatever that means. He said you’d know.”

He felt his stomach move again, another tilt. The snowy street. The drain.

She looked at him. “It was him, wasn’t it?”

Nick nodded and then signaled to the waiter for another round. “Now what? I’m supposed to call him up and chat about old times?”

“No, he wants to see you.”

“What makes you think I want to see him?”

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

“Oh,” she said, at a loss.

“What did you expect? I’d be so thrilled he wants to see me after twenty years that I’d catch the next plane?”

“I don’t know what I expected. I thought you’d be–I don’t know, curious.”

“Curious. Is that how you’d feel if you saw a ghost?”

She looked at him for a minute, studying his face. “No. I guess I’d feel scared.”

“I don’t feel scared,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “Let me tell you about my father. He walked out on us. Just left. Defected. That’s the word everybody prefers. Gives it a sort of ideological cast. But what he really did was run. And we had to clean up the mess. My mother. Larry. Christ, not to mention the country. Sometimes I think that’s the worst thing he did. That stupid fucking committee–he made them legitimate. They got something right finally. They just stepped right into it, and after that there was no stopping them. There were Communists in the State Department. Well, one. And they couldn’t get him. So then how many others? And on and on. That’s another little gift he left us.”

“You can’t blame him for that,” she said quietly.

“But he did it,” he said, placing his hand on hers for emphasis. “That’s the point. They were right. Before him they had nothing. And then—” He caught himself, pulled back his hand, and took another drink. “We had to pretend he was dead. And after a while he was dead. I don’t want to bring him back. You saw a ghost, that’s all.”

He stopped, waiting for her reply, but she said nothing.

“You know what I did the day he gave his press conference? That was the first time he came back from the dead. I played baseball. There was a game that afternoon and I saw him on television and I thought, Oh God, it’s starting all over again, everybody will know, they’ll throw me out of the game or look embarrassed or something. They’ll know. But they didn’t. I went to the park and nobody said a thing–the kids, the coaches, nobody. We just played ball, as if nothing had happened. Because it hadn’t. That’s when I realized it was over. I wasn’t his son anymore. I was somebody else.” He looked at her. “I’m still somebody else.”

“If you say so.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means I don’t believe you.”

He felt the lurch again, found out, back at the table with Doris Kemper.

“Have it your way. You delivered your message. Why did you, anyway? I mean, why bother? What’s in it for you?”

“I told you. He promised to talk to me.”

“And you believed him? He’s been known not to tell the truth, you know. In fact, he’s famous for it.”

“He’s not like that.”

“Really. What is he like?”

“He’s—” She searched for a word. “Sad.”

Nick looked at her, not quite sure how to take this. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? Forget it.”

“Old-sad,” she said thoughtfully. “He’s old. Don’t be angry. He just wants to see you.”

“So why not pick up the phone? They have phones there, don’t they? Why you? I don’t get it.”

“He wants me to bring you.”

Nick stared at her, dumbfounded. “Come again?”

“He said you’d need a cover. I guess that’s me. You’d be with me. He told me you had a different name. I didn’t realize it was that Warren.”

“Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. He walks up to you at a party and says go get my son and I’ll give you an interview. But don’t tell anybody, because I’m being watched. And you agree to do it? This doesn’t strike you as a little crazy? If you’re that hard up for a story, why not interview Barbara Hutton? Nobody remembers her either.”

“I’m just telling you what he said.”

“But why go through this? He’s not a prisoner, you know. He’s allowed visitors.”

“I know. I kept wondering about that too. What I think is, he doesn’t want them to know who you are. I don’t know why. He wants them to think you’re somebody else.”

“Your fiancé.”

“Look, I thought it was crazy too. All the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Why do you think it took me so long? But I kept thinking about it. First of all, it’s like that there. They’re all a little spooky. Jiří thought everybody’s phone was tapped. So maybe it’s crazy, but they ought to know. They live there. They’re always arranging to meet in parks, things like that. So I thought, well, maybe he thinks that way. He’s used to it. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought there was something else. Not just being careful. Like he had it all worked out. The problem was, I couldn’t figure out what. Then it occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t supposed to know, but you would. That you’d know what he meant.” She had been leaning forward, her voice eager, but now she sat back, opening her hands. “So I thought I’d better tell you. Just in case.”

Nick shook his head, staring at the glass. “What exactly did he say to you?”

“Exactly? He wants to see you. Don’t tell anybody. He said you’d understand.”

“No, about the shirt.”

“Oh.” She frowned, concentrating. “Tell him I always remembered how he helped with the shirt. He’ll know.” Like that, anyway. I don’t know exactly. At the time, I didn’t think–is it some kind of code?“

The word made Nick smile. “No. And this isn’t Nancy Drew either. No codes. No invisible ink. There was a shirt, so yes, I know it’s him. That’s it.”

“But what do you think it means?”

Nick looked at the table for a minute so she would think he was trying to sort out his thoughts, not push them away. It was starting again. Secrets. Listening at doors. But it didn’t have to start. All he had to do was push it away.

“I think it means you met an old man at a party. Maybe he’s sorry about what happened. So am I. But that doesn’t mean I want to see him. It’s a little late for apologies.”

“You’re wrong. There’s something else–it’s not that simple.”

“Look, I’m sorry you came all this way—”

“I was coming anyway,” she said, annoyed. “Don’t worry.” Then she leaned forward again, making a last effort. “What if I’m right? How could you not want to know?”

He looked at her, then signaled for the bill. “It takes practice. After a while, it works. Everything goes away and the last thing you want to do is bring it back. What do you think would happen if we went? A few awkward days with someone I don’t even know anymore? All taped by you for some magazine?”

“That’s not fair. I never said I wanted to do that. You don’t have to take it out on me.”

“Take what out?”

“Whatever it is that’s making you like this.”

“Right. Sorry.” He pulled out some money to put on the plate with the bill.

“So you won’t,” she said, gathering her purse.

“You go. Tell him you saw me and I said he owes you the interview. Ask him why he defected. Ask him why that woman jumped out the window. I’d buy a copy of that story myself.”

She looked up. “Why she– ?”

“Forget it. Come on, we’d better go.” He shook his head. “It’s been a strange day.” He looked at her. “I thought–well, never mind what I thought.”

“I didn’t do this right.”

“No, you were perfect. How else? It’s like telling someone he’s got cancer–it’s hard to warm up to it. Anyway, I got the message.”

“But you’re not going to see him.”

“Look, it isn’t just me. You’ve met my family. How do you think they’d feel about this little weekend reunion? I can’t do that to them. It’s impossible.”

“Don’t tell them. They don’t have to know. Nobody has to know.”

“Just me and every photographer in Moscow.”

“You’re not listening. That’s the last thing he wants. Nobody would know it’s you. Anyway, he’s in Prague. It’s different.”

“What makes you think he’s still there? Maybe he’s gone back.”

“No, he lives there now. His wife is Czech.”

He had been about to stand up to leave but now he stopped, amazed. “His wife?” It had the full shock of the unexpected. He had imagined his father as he was that night, back in the snow, literally stopped in time. Now suddenly he too had become someone else. Nick sat back in his chair, as if he’d been winded. “Christ. His wife.”

“Didn’t you know?”

“I don’t know anything about him,” he said, and for the first time he saw that it was true. What had his life been all these years? It hadn’t stopped at the press conference. There’d been jobs and apartments and wives, a whole unknown life.

But Molly took his surprise for disapproval. “Your mother remarried,” she said gently. “After the divorce.”

“They weren’t divorced,” he said offhandedly. “It was annulled.”

“Annulled? But how—”

“You mean because of me? Oh, that wouldn’t stop the Church. It just–never happened. They’re pros at that. My mother had connections,” he said, thinking of Father Tim and his puppet strings. “Not that there was any problem. A Communist? They don’t think there’s anything worse than that. Let’s go,” he said, standing up.

“I never met her,” she said, trying to hold him. “The wife. I saw her at the party, but I didn’t meet her.”

“I don’t want to know,” he said, holding up his hand. “Really.” He stopped. “Are there children?”

“Not that I know of.” She put the cape over her wonderful dress. “Just you.”

“Not me,” he said, and led her out of the bar.

It was late, but there was a taxi outside, unexpected luck.

“Will you drop me?” she said, an invitation.

“No. I’ll walk.”

She looked at him. “Well, at least I got to meet the ambassador.” She hesitated at the taxi’s door, listening to the motor turn over like a rickety machine, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re crazy. He’s worth ten of them, those people at dinner. I don’t care what he did.”

Nick smiled slightly. “I know. They’ve probably done worse. They just didn’t do it to me.”

“Neither did he.”

“I don’t want to see him, Molly. I can’t.”

“You don’t want to see me now either, do you?”

He leaned against the open door, waiting for her to get in. “I wish I did. No one ever wanted to meet me before.”

“No?” She smiled, then shrugged. “Well, don’t let it throw you. I just turned up at the wrong door again, that’s all.” She got into the cab, then almost immediately pulled down the window. “I hate to ask, but do you have a fiver? I’m flat. I’ll pay you back.”

He took out the note and handed it to her. “That’s okay. I’m feeling rich today,” he said, thinking of Larry.

“Thanks. You know where to find me if you change your mind.” She tilted her head slightly. “By the way, did anyone ever tell you? You look like him.”

He stared at her through the window. “Who?” She rolled her eyes, giving up, and sat back in the seat as the taxi pulled away.

He walked all the way back to his flat, cutting through Soho and its halfhearted dingy lights, then the quiet squares north of Oxford Street.

In the months after his father left, when he knew he would hear, he would listen for the phone, check the mail even after they had moved, always ready. It was only a question of when the message would come. If there were people in the room, he was prepared to cover, the way his mother had in front of the police. Code. But the message didn’t come, and after a while he forgot what he’d been waiting for. No, he always knew. Come with me. Join me. And now that it had come, delivered by this unlikely girl, he felt ambushed, standing at the phone too startled to reply. Why now? This way? A summons like an old long-distance connection, scratchy and unclear, barely audible over the thin wires. What did his father want?

He could fly there in a few hours–Vienna was farther–not the end of the world. He wouldn’t have to cross the barbed wires and guard dogs in the movies of his youth. Just show a passport, with its harmless new name, and join the line of German tourists waiting for the bus. In and out. See where Kafka lived. Wenceslas Square, which wasn’t a square but a long street. He knew because he’d seen the Soviet tanks on television last year, lined up against the students.

What would they say to each other? Where did you go that night? How was it arranged? Why didn’t– ? But what was the point? Everything he wanted to know, that drew him, was further away than Prague, back irretrievably on 2nd Street. That was where they still lived, in some dream of the past. It was what he couldn’t tell Molly, because he hadn’t known it then himself. He was afraid of ghosts. They were too fragile. If you disturbed them, they vanished. If he saw a nice old man living with a Czech wife somewhere west of Vienna, his father would be gone for good.

The house was quiet; even vigilant Mrs Caudhill in the ground-floor flat had gone to bed. It was an ugly Victorian redbrick, one of four whose bay windows stuck out like prows in a row of modest Regency terrace houses, and he’d been lucky to find it. A room at the top back, “overlooking the garden,” which turned out to be a birdbath and a clump of rhododendrons that never bloomed. When he opened his door and switched on the desk lamp, still tiptoeing from the climb up the dim stairs, he could see everything in a glance: a bookcase of boards and bricks with a record player in the middle, a daybed and a cast-off easy chair, a desk with typewriter and stacks of index cards, an electric fire in front of the bricked-up fireplace. He flicked the fire on, rubbing his hands. It was always cold in England, and they put the water pipes outside the houses, where they could freeze.

He sat down, still in his suit, then got up to make some tea on the gas ring. It was only when he went over to look out the window that he realized he was pacing, jittery and caged. He wouldn’t sleep. Anxiety had sopped up the alcohol, leaving his mind too sharp to rest. He thought of rolling a joint, but that would run the risk of an unwelcome thought floating in, and he didn’t want to think. Everyone smoked in Vietnam because it was surreal and then you couldn’t tell the difference. Now he needed to do something, crossword puzzles or solitaire, to keep his attention on the immediate.