Joseph Kanon - The Prodigal Spy

Nick listened to the wheels of power while the midday traffic floated by outside.

“Fine,” Larry said, signaling to Nick that he was finishing. “And use the telex line, will you? I’ll be in and out. Right, later.” He hung up. “Nick,” he said fondly, shifting gears.

“How’s the Insider?” Nick said, a joke between them. A Newsweek cover story had labeled him Mr Insider, the old Democrat who served both parties and seemed beyond either, the surprise Nixon appointee to the negotiating team, brought back by the wrong party from his banishment to the wilderness during the Johnson years. That had been the one transition he hadn’t survived, trickier than Truman to Eisenhower, because Kennedy had liked him and that, for Johnson, had been that. Now he was in because he’d been out, his hands so clean in Asia that he’d become a statesman, not a fixer.

“Outside looking in, from the sound of it,” he said, smiling. “Seems I’m going to face an empty table in Paris tomorrow.”

“They’re objecting to you?” Nick said, surprised.

“They’ll get over it. They have to.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“This time? Old Cold Warrior, something like that. Hardline-that’s the actual phrase. Funny, back then I wasn’t supposed to be hard-line enough. Still, who was? Except Stalin.”

Nick smiled at the play of his mind. “Is it serious?”

But Larry was clearly enjoying himself. “No. Ho’s probably still away for the weekend, but nobody wants to say. The minute he gets back we’ll be bowing and drinking tea and off we go.”

“Good luck,” Nick said, looking at him seriously.

Larry looked up, not sure how to respond, but before he could say anything, Nick’s mother opened the bathroom door.

“Nick,” she said, smiling. “I didn’t hear you.” She was already dressed, a Chanel suit with a short skirt, and had clearly been putting on fresh makeup, so Nick expected an air-kiss, but she rushed across the room to hug him with the old warmth, her cheek tight against him.

“You’ll smear,” he said, laughing.

“Oh, darling, I don’t care,” she said, holding him. “Here. Let me look at you.” She pulled back, holding his upper arms, gazing at him fondly, and Nick wondered again if she saw his father. “I think you’ve grown. Is that possible? We’re supposed to stop. But Nick, the hair.” She touched the back of his neck.

“Too long?”

“Too scraggly. Just a trim? I’m sure they have a barber downstairs. It wouldn’t take ten minutes-”

“Mother.”

“Oh, I know, I know. But honestly, Nick, you can’t go to the Bruces’ like that. You really can’t.”

“We’re going to the Bruces‘?”

She sighed. “Oh, I know, darling, I’m sorry. We came to see you and now Evangeline’s carrying on about dinner. She’s been on the phone half the morning. I told her we’d said drinks but apparently she’s got half of London coming to some reception. So now it has to be dinner after, and — Anyway, it can’t be helped. You know what she’s like. You don’t mind, really, do you? Sasha will be there, I suppose. Weren’t you at school together?”

“No, she’s younger.”

“Oh. Well-”

“It’s my fault, Nick,” Larry said. “I can’t say no to David. He’s still the ambassador. Anyway, we can talk at lunch.”

Nick smiled to himself. One meal. One tie. “Fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. This all right?” He touched the lapel of his jacket. “For tonight?”

“Don’t tease,” his mother said lightly, enjoying herself. “A proper suit. I know you have one. Funny, isn’t it? Men used to come to London just to buy suits, and now look at everybody.”

“You’ll feel better at the Bruces‘. I’ll bet the rot hasn’t spread there yet.”

“Ho-ho,” his mother said, waving her hand. “But you do see about the hair. She’ll ask. I suppose they still have barbers here.” This to Larry, a dig at the hotel left over from an earlier conversation. “I knew we should have stayed at the Connaught,” she said, as if somehow the barbershop had already let them down.

“You wouldn’t want to be there today anyway,” Nick said, skating over it. “It’s a little noisy.” His mother raised her eyebrows. “There’s a demonstration right around the corner.”

“At the embassy, you mean,” she said, fixing the geography in her head. Then, looking at him, “You were there?”

Nick nodded.

“Oh, Nick, you didn’t. It’s not fair to Larry, it really isn’t. Think how it looks.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” he said, glancing at Larry.

“Darling, you have to. It’s just what the papers-”

“Nobody was looking at me,” he said. “Vanessa Redgrave was there.”

“What’s it got to do with her?” his mother said sharply.

Nick shrugged. “What’s it got to do with anybody?”

His mother sighed. “I’m not talking about politics. I’m talking about this family. Larry’s in a sensitive position right now-”

“I’m going to be a lot more sensitive if I don’t get something to eat,” Larry said. “Anybody else hungry? I’ll just go get my tie.” He ducked into the bedroom.

Nick’s mother followed him with her eyes, saying nothing, then went over to the coffee table and lit a cigarette. “It’s just-I don’t want anything to go wrong. He’s so happy being back. It might even do some good. This war,” she said, exasperated, as if she’d been given another inferior room. Then she paused, hearing herself, and lowered her voice. “You know what they’re like at the White House — they don’t trust anybody, and they hate the protests. They think it’s about them.”

“It is about them.”

“You know what I mean. They take it all personally.”

“They should.”

She glanced up at him, stubbing out the cigarette. “Oh, I can’t talk to you. Do you think you’re the only one against the war? Everybody’s against the war.”

“Not everybody.”

“Well, Larry’s trying to do something about it.” She softened. “Look, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. As if I ever could. But-well, Larry’s who he is. He’s public. And that makes you public too. They’ll use you to embarrass him.”

“Mother, nobody even knows who I am. There were thousands of people there today. Thousands.”

“But only one of them has a father going to the peace talks.”

He stopped, amused in spite of himself at the end run. “Well, I can’t argue with you there.”

She blushed, taking the salute, then said, “Oh, let’s not argue at all. I can’t bear it. Nobody talks about anything else anymore. I haven’t come all this way to argue about Vietnam.” She stopped, catching herself in the glint in Nick’s eyes, almost laughing. “Oh. Actually, I have, haven’t I? Well, Larry has. No wonder he doesn’t want me to stay. I suppose I cramp his style or something. Anyway, I just came to see you.”

“Between fittings.” He grinned.

She smiled back and came over to him. “Nick, I am on your side, you know. How do you think I felt when you went there? If anything had happened-”

“It didn’t. I was transferred out of the field, remember?” he said, a trial balloon, because he had always suspected Larry had arranged it. But if so, he could see from her expression that Larry had kept it a secret from her too.

“What difference did that make? You don’t stop worrying just because- Anyway, never mind. You’re here.”

“And now it might happen to somebody else. Lots of them.”

She took his point but ignored it, following her own thought. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. I never understood it. Everybody else got a deferment. Why didn’t you? If you feel the way you do?”