Пол Кавана - The Triumph of Evil

“Or with almost anything.”

“Yes.”

He considered. “If Heidigger is a part of this, that does change things. In a fundamental way. Still—”

“Yes?”

“As I told you. I have retired. I haven’t wanted work. I haven’t wanted... that sort of life.”

“And you are comfortable here?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I wonder, though,” Vanders said. “I wonder how much a man can decide whether or not he wants the sort of life that has been his. There is a saying to the effect that a man may change his shoes but must walk forever upon the same two feet. How much can we change ourselves, do you suppose? It is an interesting question.”

“I have thought often about it. Quite often.”

“It takes long thought.”

Brown lit another cigarette. Dorn felt an unaccustomed longing for tobacco. He had given it up almost two years earlier on a doctor’s advice, and couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt such an urgent craving for a cigarette. It amused him.

“This piece of work,” he said. “It would help to know more about it.”

“What I said earlier was true enough. The work would be similar enough to things you’ve done before. What would be involved, really, would be not so much a single act or action as an ongoing association. There is a country that might be inclined to change its government. It is easier, I think, for a country to change its government than for a man to change his life.”

“Is there CIA involvement?”

“In a sense. A community of interests on the part of some Agency people. You could call it that. Certainly nothing official. I believe you’ve worked with them in the past.”

“And at cross-purposes, on occasion.”

“It wouldn’t be a factor.”

“Perhaps not.” He thought for a moment. “I presume you wish an answer, and that there is some sort of time factor involved. When would all of this begin?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That soon.”

“You would talk to Heidigger tomorrow. As far as when your particular role would turn active, I couldn’t say.”

“Yes. I would have to think about this.”

“Understandable.”

“I have no phone. If I could reach you perhaps this evening.”

“We will be in transit, unfortunately. But there is a number you could call at nine-thirty tonight.” He took a blank memo slip from a leather case and uncapped a fountain pen and jotted down a number from memory. He waved the slip so that the ink could dry before handing it to Dorn. The numbers looked European, and the seven was crossed.

“The line is presumably untapped, but we take the usual precautions as a matter of course. Please call collect. As close to nine-thirty as possible.”

“What name shall I use?”

“Mine will do.”

“Leopold Vanders.”

“Yes.” The two stood up abruptly, as if in response to a subtle signal. “I believe that’s all. Please call, wherever your thinking leads you. And I hope you’ll decide affirmatively. There is something I respond to in you. We could probably exchange some absorbing stories, you and I. Not that we ever will, but the capacity exists.”

As they reached the door, Dorn said, “The country in question wouldn’t be Cuba, would it? Because I wouldn’t want to be involved if it were Cuba. I really can’t work with those people.”

“No. Nor I, if it comes to that. Obviously I can’t tell you the country, but it’s not Cuba.”

“I suppose I would guess Haiti, if I were guessing.”

“You ought to be allowed one guess. Not Haiti. A more substantial country than Haiti, I would say. And that, actually, is all I will say. Good-day, Mr. Dorn.”

“Mr. Vanders. Mr. Brown.”

Their car was at the curb, a late Ford station wagon with Florida plates. Brown drove. Dorn watched the car disappear from view. He looked at his watch. She was late, which was as well. Just a few minutes late so far. He thought of canceling her lesson. Did he want company or solitude right now? It was hard to say.

Neither Cuba nor Haiti. It could, he decided, be any place at all. Africa, South America. He read a local newspaper on an infrequent basis and made no attempt to keep up with things. Not that this sort of affair would likely be predictable through published news stories.

Did no one retire? Was it so impossible to change one’s feet, so futile to change one’s shoes?

He had fresh tea made when she rang the doorbell. How fresh she looked, he thought, as he often did. How young, how untroubled.

“I almost didn’t come,” she said.

“Then I should have had to drink both cups of tea.”

“I can’t have a lesson, really. I mean, I can’t pay you. Not today, at least. I’ll probably have the money next week, and I could pay you then, but I can’t be positive, see.”

“It doesn’t matter. Come in the kitchen, see my baby birds.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I was thinking about them the other day. They’re all right?”

“They seem to be.”

She sipped at her tea after exclaiming over the birds. “Oh, it’s peppermint,” she said.

“Spearmint, actually.” And then in German, “I found it growing in the yard. It makes nice tea, don’t you think?”

They went on talking idly in German. She had a surprising facility for the language, doubly surprising in that she seemed quite without motivation for learning it. She was his only pupil, one of three who had responded to a note he’d hung on the bulletin board at the Student Union. The other two were young men, both interested in learning French as preparation for a year at a French university. He had given them several lessons each before discovering that the lessons bored him immeasurably. Since he had undertaken them as an antidote to boredom, there was little point in continuing them.

But when Jocelyn came, there was an immediate mutual sense of mental stimulation. She was planning no junior year in Cologne or Munich. Indeed, she had already dropped out of the university and continued to live in town and spend time on the campus only because there was nothing else she cared to do.

“I would like to learn a language,” she had told him. “Only I can’t decide which one. French, German, Spanish, Serbo-Croat. Was Russian on the list, too? I can’t remember.”

“Yes, Russian also.”

“I think it would be sensational to know Serbo-Croat, but what would I do with it? I don’t suppose I could ever find anyone to talk to.”

“Only in Yugoslavia.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“Yes, from Croatia.”

“How do you pronounce your first name? Is it Anglicized or what?”

“It was originally Mee-lesh. There was a diacritic mark over the s. But I pronounce it Miles. It’s simpler for everyone, and after all this town is rather far from Croatia.”

“Miles from Croatia. What language should I learn? What language would you most enjoy teaching?”

He told her it ought to be one she liked the sound of, and spoke paragraphs of each. In the other languages he said nothing significant, but in German he found himself saying, “You have spun gold for hair and pink cream for skin. Were I not beyond such things I would lift your skirt and spend hours kissing your pudenda.”

After she had selected German and had a first lesson, he found himself wondering at his words. Such private jokes were not usual behavior for him.

In the months that followed he found himself taking increasing pleasure in the time they spent together. She came once a week at the start, then increased to Tuesdays and Fridays. Although the lessons were theoretically to last an hour, she generally stayed the full afternoon. He charged her five dollars a lesson. He would have been happy to forgo payment — ten dollars a week was an expense to her, and of no importance to him — but he had been careful not to suggest this lest it alter the structure of their relationship. She was the only friend in his present life and he did not want to do anything that might deprive him of that friendship.