Joseph Kanon - Defectors

Simon looked at him, a silent Who?

“Ian McAulife. You’ve probably never heard of him. No headlines, like Guy and Donald. But probably a hell of a lot more useful. Right under their noses at Harwell. For years,” he said, a trace of Service pride in his tone.

But Boris had turned rigid, alert to something in the air. “An English,” he said, and Simon could see that it had already begun, the drawing away from each other, the Service turning on itself, not wanting to be caught in the conspiracy in Elizaveta’s head. What would happen after Wednesday, a real crisis? The double agent no one suspected. He looked over at Boris, smoking his Russian cigarette. Maybe in Sochi when everything blew up, the defection still on his watch. Why hadn’t he seen it? Had he been part of it? Questions, while the Service tore itself apart. He’d be punished somehow, knee-jerk Service justice, the wheels as indifferent as he’d been, a political officer at the front, taking no prisoners. Simon looked away, another improbable moment, for a second on the other side of the board, worrying about an officer of the KGB.

He had laughed at Marzena, but in fact there were night sounds, sudden animal rustlings in the woods, a car engine in the distance. Going where at this hour? He looked at his watch, the barely visible dial. Two. Now a tinkling sound, ice in a glass. A thin strip of light under the door. Someone still up. Not Boris, who never used ice. Not Frank, who’d claimed exhaustion, the evening mostly spent on the phone to the office, more details.

Simon got out of bed and put on his robe, then opened the door a crack, gently, trying not to make noise. Joanna was on the couch, hunched forward over the coffee table, glass in one hand, turning pages with the other. Not a book, stiff paper, a photo album. Stopping for a minute, hand hovering over the page, staring, taking a drink without looking, the ice tinkling again, no louder than one of the insects outside. A cone of light from the small end table lamp, the rest of the room dark. Simon stood peering out, not moving. How long had she been out here—in her nightgown, unable to sleep, waiting for the house to quiet, to be alone. A girl surrounded by people, hair falling back. Now she put down the glass and folded her arms across her chest, pitching forward, rocking a little, her face turned so that he had to imagine tears, the sobs just twitches in her shoulders. Back and forth, holding herself, a silent keening. Then a loosening, a letting go, slumping back against the couch and lying on her side, still no sound. Simon waited, not wanting to intrude. Something he shouldn’t have seen. Another few minutes, no movement on the couch. But then he noticed the smoke, a thin stream rising from the ashtray, the cigarette still going.

He tiptoed out into the room. Joanna’s eyes were closed, her breathing even. Just put the cigarette out and go. On the table, next to the vodka bottle, the album was still open. Simon looked down. Family pictures, a couple with a child, the same front porch just outside. Smiles. A winter scene, Richie in a snowsuit on a sled, Frank in a fur hat pulling him. Blowing candles on a birthday cake. The life they used to have, not mentioned in the book, not talked about. He glanced at the couch, Joanna still sleeping, then reached down and turned a page. The dacha lawn, Richie just a toddler, the three of them together. Richie playing with her hair, pulling her head back, Joanna laughing.

He turned to the couch. She had pulled one arm up to her chest and now it moved with her breathing, her hair spread out behind her on the couch pillow. The way he remembered it. She hadn’t known then either, that he’d watched her sleeping, unable to move, afraid to wake her, break the spell of their good luck. Outside the soft Virginia countryside, wet with early morning, open, not dark woods behind a patrolled fence. The memory of it so strong that he felt he was living it now, could reach down and brush the hair from the side of her face, kiss her ear, tell her it was time to get up. Then get back into bed to watch the light come through the window, head next to hers.

She stirred for a second, as if she could feel him looking, then turned her head on the pillow, her face drawn, not the girl in Virginia, a different sleep, tormented by old pictures. Not Joanna at all, lazy with sex, someone else, worn out, listened to and watched so that even grief had to be muffled by running taps, the only private thing left. He stood, rooted, seeing the different face, not the memory anymore, the face she had.

He almost jumped when he felt the movement behind him. Frank put a finger to his lips, shh, then leaned down and rubbed out the cigarette. He took the album and closed it, shoulders slumped, something he’d done before, then looked up at Simon, still not speaking. He raised a finger to his lips again, then picked up the afghan lying on the arm of the couch and spread it over her lightly, so the touch of the fabric wouldn’t wake her. How many nights had he done this? Marriage was private. Frank had drawn a veil over theirs with an afghan. What were they to each other now? How could anyone know? People thought he and Diana were happy.

He looked down at the couch, the unhappy woman who cried without making a sound. When he looked back up, Frank was moving toward the table lamp, motioning with his head for Simon to go to his room, a kind of dismissal. I’ll take care of the lights. And my wife.

Joanna had sun for her party, a spring day warm enough for summer. A long wicker table and chairs had been set up on the lawn, something out of a tsarist era photograph, the family posed around an outdoor table with fields stretching behind, corsets and high collars, servants, a samovar bubbling on the table, the revolution just a thundercloud away. Now there were bottles of Georgian wine and Hannah Rubin in a dowdy sundress. Where had Joanna got the salmon? Gastronom 1 had been out for days. A friend had put her on to a plumber who did private work. “I know we’re not supposed to, but I had to get it fixed.” Did Joanna still get her hair done at the Pekin?

She was a slightly plump, friendly woman with curly hair and a New York accent, warm, the sort of woman who’d give treats to the kids in the neighborhood. Her husband was more recessive, happier behind a newspaper than talking, but willing to let her take the lead. Looking at them now, it was hard to believe they’d once been notorious, Hannah a courier with atomic plans in her purse, Saul the contact man for a small network of agents who’d favored, according to the Mirror, meetings at Chock full o’Nuts. The man they’d brought, more valuable than Burgess, was thin with receding hair and soft eyes, someone you wouldn’t notice on a bus, any clerk. Today he was visibly nervous, more aware perhaps of the dread that hung over the table, the news everybody was ignoring, Gareth’s name not yet mentioned. Marzena was late.

“How is she?” Hannah said. “It must be so hard for her. Such a terrible thing. Was she the one who found him?”

“No. Frank,” Joanna said.

Simon looked up. The first time he’d heard this.

“How awful,” Hannah said. “I can’t imagine. You know what they’re saying. Maybe it was like Gareth. One after the other.”

“Who’s saying?” Frank said.

Hannah looked at him, reprimanded. “You’re right. Gossip. It’s ridiculous. But what a thing for you,” she said to Simon. “Your first trip. You’ll think it’s always like this. But really it’s like anywhere else. You probably don’t believe that, the way the papers are. When I read Time, I can’t help it, I think, where are they talking about? But that’s nothing new. Anything to undermine the Soviet Union. What did they think at home about the Gary Powers trial? Were people at least embarrassed?”