Joseph Kanon - The Prodigal Spy

“Nobody belongs here. The Czechs are stuck, that’s all. So is he.” She walked back toward the rain, folding her arms over her chest. “How is it supposed to work, anyway? Swap him for one of theirs?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t think he wants me to know. He seems to have it all planned.”

“He’s crazy. You don’t go back. You just don’t. It’s a one-way thing.”

“And what if he could? And I didn’t help?” he said, almost to himself.

“So you’re going to.”

“I don’t know.”

“I do. I can tell. Look, I don’t want any part of this.”

“It doesn’t involve you.”

“That’s right,” she said sharply. “I just came along for the ride.” She looked up at the leaves, dripping now with rain, closing in on them. “Well, you’re full of little surprises today. No wonder you’re all excited. Nick to the rescue. God. He still thinks he can get away with it.”

“He didn’t get away with anything. It’s a long time, twenty years, to live like this. For something you didn’t do.”

She glared at him, a sudden inexplicable anger. “Is that what he said?”

“He’s not a traitor-not the way you think.”

“Really? How many ways are there?”

He looked at her, surprised at her tone. “What’s wrong?”

“Him. Everything. I can’t believe he’s doing this.”

“He’s sick.”

“I know he’s sick,” she said quickly. “Why do you think I came? I thought that’s what he wanted-to tell you about her. You know, a little confession. So good for the soul. I’d finally get to hear it from him.” She looked at him. “All right, from you. Why not? I wanted to know how it happened.”

“How what happened?”

“Ask him. Before you start all this.”

“I’m asking you.”

“He can’t go back, Nick. He killed her. He thinks they don’t know, but they do. They’ve always known.”

“He didn’t kill her.”

She nodded. “He did, though. He was there, in the hotel room. It’s in the police report. You can see it for yourself. He was there. He’s lying to you, Nick.” She turned to him. “Still want to get him out?” Then she stepped out into the rain and started up the hill without looking back.

The storm went on all afternoon, trapping them indoors, and Nick retreated into a kind of hangover wariness, afraid that the smallest gesture might give him away while he waited for his head to clear. Around him they busied themselves with the usual motion of a rainy day. A fuss was made about their wet clothes, exchanged for dry upstairs, Anna’s old slacks and sweater hanging loosely on Molly, a child playing dress-up, his father’s fitting him comfortably, uncannily like his own. He watched his father make a fire in the wood stove, poking at the kindling, and then they were in their usual cabin places, his father in his rocker, sitting opposite, Molly curled up in the corner of the couch with a mug of tea. Nick looked at the coffee table, half expecting to see the Sunday paper folded open to the puzzle, a pencil lying across the filled-in blocks. What did they used to do? Play Hearts. Read. Now they talked, not free to withdraw, moving words like pieces in a board game to fill the time.

Molly avoided him, chatting lazily with Anna, afraid to meet his eyes. What police report? But the presence of the others, the makeshift family, made it impossible to talk about anything he wanted to know. They picked at conversation, strained, like old army friends who think they want to see each other but have only the past in common. What they should see in Prague. What it was like last August when the tanks rolled in, everyone’s trace memory. The almost comic surprise of the Soviet soldiers, expecting to be welcomed, dodging stones. Finally Anna got up to start dinner, leaving an empty moment of silence.

“Where did you go that night?” Nick said suddenly. “The night you left?”

His father looked at him, surprised by the shift. “That night?” He sat back, as if he needed to refresh his memory. “To Canada. There was a ship. I went to Detroit. It’s easy to cross there. We had to go all the way to Philadelphia to catch the plane, in case I was recognized at National. So unnecessary. That long drive-it took hours, I remember, because of the snow. The roads were still slippery. There had been a lot of snow.”

“Yes,” Nick said, remembering footprints.

“Hours. We almost missed the plane. I remember I was dying for a cigarette. I’d forgotten my lighter, and the driver didn’t have any matches. Can you imagine, a Russian who didn’t smoke? Finally I made him stop at a gas station outside Baltimore. He went in-he wouldn’t let me. I’d be recognized. By someone pumping gas in Baltimore.” He shook his head. “It never changes.”

Nick could feel Molly stir beside him on the couch, sitting erect, watching his father.

“I mean in Washington. Where did you go in Washington?”

“In Washington,” his father said, puzzled. “New York Avenue, I suppose. We took the Baltimore Pike. He picked me up out back and we took the pike, so it must have been New York. Does it matter?”

“You didn’t stop anywhere?”

“No,” he said easily, “of course not. We were in a hurry. He knew the roads would be bad. We could have had an accident, the way he drove. How different everything would have been. But he didn’t-we made it. Does it matter to you?” he said again. “All these details?”

“Yes.”

But his father eluded him, lost now in other details, telling stories beside the fire.

“I remember the ship. My bunk, anyway. I couldn’t go on deck. The crew wasn’t supposed to know I was there. They locked me in. Nothing to read. No air. A cell. I never knew what they were carrying. Grain? Pig iron, maybe. Who knows?”

Nick leaned back, listening.

“Then I got seasick, so they let me out, for the air. It was freezing. You had to hang on to something or the wind would knock you over. But at least it was outside. The crew pretended I wasn’t there-it was dangerous to ask questions in those days. I don’t know who they thought I was. I ate by myself. The captain had a little English, but nobody else. I don’t think I said ten words the whole trip.” He paused. “I had a lot of time to think.”

“About what?”

“You. Your mother. What would happen. I still thought I could work things out, that you’d join me. I suppose I thought it would be like Yalta, not so bad. Pleasant. When it got calmer, not so rough, I began to enjoy it a little. Something new. The way you feel on any trip. I’d never been on the ocean before. At night the sky-” He broke off. “Anyway, none of that happened. It was just the first cell. But I didn’t know that then.”

“They put you in a cell?”

He smiled faintly. “House arrest. First for the debriefing, then for my protection. It was worse than the ship in a way, that town. I could walk around, like on a deck, but the air wasn’t as good. And of course now I wasn’t going anywhere. I was already there.”

Why did they wait so long before they let you appear?“

“The news conference? It was like the ship. They didn’t know what to do with me. Nobody knew what Stalin wanted. He never trusted foreign operatives, never. To him they were something from the old Trotsky days-internationalists. Real Communists were Russian. He was a peasant. People thought he was some kind of statesman because they saw his pictures at the conferences, but he had a local mind. A little like Welles, in fact,” he said, smiling slightly, amused at the comparison. “Never trust a foreigner. And I think he liked the game. Let the Americans wonder-was I there, was I dead? Why give anything away if it might come in handy later? He could afford to wait. I wasn’t going anywhere. If he hadn’t died-” His father paused. “But that changed everything. Now they wanted to show us off. Me. The English. They wanted you to think spies were everywhere. And of course it worked. How many of us were there? Three? Four? Not so many. And Welles had everybody looking under beds. But the only one he ever found got away. At least I had that satisfaction.”