Tom Smith - Agent 6

Nara translated. Yolande was content to sit and watch Leo’s reaction. When Nara had finished, Yolande took down a photograph of her father working in the restaurant, handing it to Leo.

– I was fourteen years old when Jesse was shot. It changed my life, not because I knew the man but because it changed my father. Up until then he ran this restaurant and ran it well. He was a businessman to his bones. After Jesse’s murder, he became an activist, organizing speeches and rallies, printing leaflets. I hardly ever saw him. The restaurant got into trouble. It became a place to debate. Lots of customers stopped coming here, scared of being seen in case they were labelled a radical. Those who weren’t afraid, those who worked with my father, took free meals in payment for their services. Money ran short. Politics got him into trouble with the law: they almost closed the restaurant down. They sent inspectors who said the kitchens were dirty, which was a lie because I used to clean them myself.

Leo’s interpretation of the photograph had been correct: Yolande had been a girl caught up in the protests rather than being at the forefront of them. Her heart was here, in the business, not the politics of the time. There was anger too. She saw this restaurant as her inheritance: she’d cleaned it, learned how to manage it, only to have others threaten it. Most of the anger was towards the injustice of the inspectors but some of it was for her father too.

– In the end, my father’s health got worse, so I took over the restaurant, changed everything except the name, turned it back into a business. No more politics. No more talk of changing the world. No more free meals.

While Nara translated, William joined the conversation, saying:

– My father used to say the best kind of activism was to run a good business, to pay your taxes, to make yourself the establishment.

Yolande shrugged.

– Jesse paid a lot of tax, more in a year than I’ve paid in my lifetime. Didn’t buy him any favours. They still hated him.

She opened a drawer, taking out cigarettes and a glass ashtray shaped like a leaf. From her reluctance, it seemed to be a habit she was trying to quit. Leo asked:

– Who killed him?

Yolande lit the cigarette.

– Is that what matters to you? The individual responsible? Or the thinking behind it?

Leo checked with Nara to see if he’d understood her question. He didn’t need to consider his answer for very long.

– I’m only interested in the individual. I’m not fighting against any system.

Yolande inhaled.

– We don’t know for sure who killed Jesse. My father reckoned it was the FBI. I never contradicted him but it didn’t ring true. The FBI had already beaten Jesse down. They’d taken everything he had, his career and his money: they’d smeared his name. It didn’t make sense to kill him. Maybe they were just so full of hatred they didn’t need a reason but as a businesswoman I find that hard to swallow.

A waitress brought in coffee, pouring it for each of them, allowing Nara to catch up with the translation. Leo took out his notes, transcribed from Elena’s diary. He said to Nara:

– On the day of Jesse Austin’s murder, my daughter arrived in Harlem, to speak to him, to persuade him to address the demonstration outside the United Nations. She encountered an FBI agent coming out of Austin’s apartment. She refers to him in the document as Agent 6. Ask if they have any idea who this might be?

Yolande thanked the waitress as she left.

– An FBI agent at Jesse’s apartment. There was a man who’d go round there. I don’t remember his name. Anna – Austin’s wife – used to tell my father about him. That was a woman full of love, rarely had a bad word to say about anyone, but she hated that agent more than anyone else alive.

Yolande rubbed her head, unable to recall the name. She took a sip of her coffee, pained by the refusal of the name to come to her. They sat in silence for some time. Leo waited, watching her.

Even though her first cigarette was still lit and resting in the ashtray, Yolande lit a new cigarette and sucked on it, blowing smoke in the air.

– I’m sorry. I don’t remember.

She was lying. Leo had seen the transition in her expression. She’d tried to conceal the moment by smoking as she was reminded of the price that her father had paid for becoming involved. With the memory of Agent 6’s name came the memory of the type of man he was. Elena’s description of Agent 6 returned to Leo: He scares me. Yolande was scared. Leo turned to Nara. – Explain to Yolande that I understand why she doesn’t want to be involved. Promise her that I would never reveal her name. Also say to her that I will find out what happened on that night, with or without her help. Listening to the translation, Yolande leant forward, close to Leo. – Jesse’s murder is a secret that’s been buried a long time. Not too many people want you to dig up the truth. Not even people round here. Times have changed. We’ve moved on. She looked into Leo’s eyes. – I see the same determination I used to see in my father. And my father would never have forgiven me if I didn’t help you. She sighed. – Agent 6 was almost certainly a man called Yates, Agent Jim Yates.

Nara remained silent for most of the bus ride from New York, her attention fixed on the view out of the window. Realizing the depth of the implications, she’d grown ever more certain that the investigation posed a serious threat to their asylum and questioned the wisdom of attempting to expose a controversial case when their lives depended upon the grace of their American hosts. Their actions were wilfully provocative, unwise at a time when their existence was supposed to be secret. What did Leo expect to achieve after sixteen years? There would be no trial, no arrests, his wife’s name would not be cleared – the history books would not be rewritten. Though she had not articulated these thoughts, nor had she tried to talk Leo out of his decision, he clearly sensed her doubts. Perhaps, in turn, she did not oppose his plans because she sensed his own thoughts – a confrontation with Agent Yates was inevitable.

After the discussion at Nelson’s restaurant, Yolande had taken Leo and Nara to her home, allowing them to search through her father’s extensive collection of newspaper articles from the time of the murder, covering the night’s events and subsequent commentary on the killings. Yolande kept the book of clippings as if it were a family album. In some ways it was, since it contained the only photographs she possessed of her father through his years as an activist. Most of the articles Leo had read in the public library but there were some, printed in local newspapers and on protest leaflets, that he’d not encountered. Among them there was one reference to FBI Agent Yates. Yolande argued that the largely absent figure of Yates, missing from the mainstream media coverage, was surely proof that he was involved somehow – it was illogical for such a pivotal officer, a man who’d visited Jesse Austin on the day of his murder, not to feature more prominently. The only article that mentioned Yates had been sent to Nelson by a fellow activist in New Jersey two months after the murder, a small article in a local paper, reporting that Teaneck resident Jim Yates had retired from the FBI due to his wife’s poor health and was planning to spend more time with her. There was a photograph. The article had spun the news like the man was a hero. Nelson had annotated the article with the question: What was the real reason for his retirement?

From what Leo could gather from Nelson’s comments and scribbled remarks that criss-crossed the clippings, the individual responsible was less important to him than the system they were part of. His energies were directed into trying to achieve wider societal change – a dreamer, just like Elena and Jesse Austin. Leo had given up ideological ambitions a long time ago: they had brought him close to ruin just as they had nearly bankrupted Nelson’s business. Dreaming of a better world was not without its dangers.