Joseph Kanon - Defectors

“You can tell her. On the ferry.”

“When we’re safe and sound,” he said, drawing a line.

“That’s right,” Frank said, not seeing it.

Simon felt something twist in his chest, a tightening. Save yourself.

“Okay, come back,” McPherson shouted. “Straight toward me.”

They started walking. Two men in a park. The photograph another lie, their real faces erased, like an old Stalinist picture.

They were another hour, Simon joining Boris on the bench to smoke, Jo gone home to fix lunch.

“Complicated. Photography,” Boris said, watching McPherson change lenses.

“Why don’t you come with us to Leningrad?” Simon said. The devil you know.

“Thank you,” Boris said, pleased, taking this for a compliment. “It’s important to you, this trip? To see the art? It would be better to stay in Moscow.”

“Better?”

“For Colonel Weeks. Better to stay close to the office.”

The medieval fortress, Moscow’s mental geography.

Simon looked at him. What had Frank told him? Anything? Off in the Sochi sunshine while Frank made his play. Or was he part of it, another sleight of hand. But part of what? Which side of the board?

“Why?”

“Busy time. It’s good for Colonel Weeks to be busy again.”

“Hasn’t he been?”

But now Boris said nothing, closing down, the Lubyanka a protected world.

“Anyway, it’s too late now,” Simon said. “He’s gone to so much trouble—”

“For you. To show you Russia. Good things here. But sometimes you need to—what’s the English? Protect—no, watch your back.” Easy and idiomatic, not his usual halting phrases.

“Does he need to do that?” Imagining a maze of office corridors, shadows.

Boris smiled a little. “A precaution. Many changes now at the Service.”

Like the old days at Navy Hill, then down at State, glancing over your shoulder. Not sure of anyone, except Frank.

“Then I’ll get him back as soon as I can,” Simon said easily. “Not that he listens to me.”

“To you, yes. Think of the book, the episode with the Latvians.”

Simon glanced over. Hearing everything, not just reading Izvestia.

“Well, sometimes. Maybe we can just do Leningrad and back. Skip Tallinn,” he said, trying it. What did he know? “What’s there anyway?”

But Boris didn’t bite. “Yes, maybe just Leningrad. It’s better, I think.” Not playing on either side.

He sat back, as if somehow this had settled things, and drew on his cigarette, squinting at the water. “Maybe he will have to swim for it,” he said.

“What?”

“The boy,” Boris said, pointing to a child squatting at the edge of the pond. “His boat. No air to move it.”

Simon looked at the boat, lying still in the water, the boy trying to make waves by splashing. No way to reach it until a breeze came up again. Trapped on the water, rocking gently in its coordinates. Boats were unreliable that way, sometimes a trap, impossible to maneuver quickly. Thinking. Now a leap, not plodding anymore, an idea that pulled its own details behind it. Too late once you were on the water, vulnerable. Better to be off the board, an unexpected move. In plain sight.

He got up and walked toward the pond. McPherson, finally done, was packing up his equipment.

“Let me give you a hand,” Simon said, grabbing a tripod. Then, to Frank, “Are you really gone all afternoon?”

Frank looked at him, surprised at the question.

“I was just wondering if I could borrow Boris. I mean, if he’s not going—”

“Borrow?”

“To take me to Tolstoy’s house. It’s the one thing I wanted to see, and if we’re leaving tonight—”

“Tolstoy’s house?” Frank said, a tolerant smile. “The book man. I forgot.”

“If I go by myself, he’ll just have to get somebody else to tail me, so it’s easier—”

“Yes,” Frank said, a glance at McPherson, embarrassed by this. “Let me ask. Strictly speaking, it’s his time off. When I’m at the office.” The office, neutral, as if it were still an insurance company. Simon watched him head for Boris’s bench.

“Would you take another message,” Simon said.

“To DiAngelis.”

“No. Remember Spaso House? The guy who introduced us?”

“Hal Lehman.”

“You know how to reach him?”

“We’re in the same building. Press ghetto. They put us all together. Saves tails,” he said, a quick nod in Boris’s direction.

“Tell him I want to see him. Tolstoy’s house. After lunch.”

McPherson waited.

“I promised him a story. And now we’re leaving.”

“So you want to meet him at Tolstoy’s house.”

“Two birds with one stone.”

McPherson just looked.

“Can you do it? Get the message to him? I don’t want to call.”

McPherson nodded. “If he’s around. What’s the story?”

“Family stuff. How did it feel seeing Frank again—all these years.”

“How did it?”

“This one’s for UPI. Not Look. After the pictures run, don’t worry.”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’m freelance.” He turned, looking back at Frank. “He doesn’t seem to have many regrets, does he?”

“No,” Simon said, “not many.”

Tolstoy’s house, hidden from the street behind a long wooden fence, was a country house in the city, solid and plain rather than grand, set on grounds that seemed to be outgrowing their keepers, scraggly and wild in patches, even the grass along the gravel walkways needing a trim. There was a white-haired woman in a kiosk at the entrance who, surprisingly, spoke to them in French, like a governess in one of the novels.

“Deux? Voilà, un plan de niveau de la maison.” She handed him a worn sheet of plastic, protecting a faded floor plan.

Boris frowned, the French like some Romanov ghost, a reproach, then saw that Simon was charmed and let it pass. The place itself seemed another ghost, deserted in mid-afternoon, only a gardener clipping away at the side of the house, the same stillness he remembered at the Novodevichy. Boris found a shaded chair near the entrance and settled in as watchdog.

The quiet followed Simon inside, through the big dining room, settings in place for a family dinner, then up the stairs to the large salon, where Tolstoy had read to Chekhov and Gorky, and Sofia offered supper. Where was everybody? The meeting should look like an accidental encounter in a public place, not something arranged. Finally he saw two women in the next room, heads together, admiring Sofia’s knickknacks. He glanced at his watch. Lehman was supposed to be here first. A Spartan bedroom, the daughter’s. Then Tolstoy’s study, the desk where he wrote, and Lehman standing beside it. A pretense of surprise.

“Why here?” he said.

“Sort of place a publisher would go, don’t you think? Look, his shoemaking tools.”

“He made his own shoes?”

“To make a point.” He glanced behind him, the two women still inspecting Sofia’s drawing room. “Thanks for coming. We have to be fast. I’ve got the KGB waiting downstairs.”

Lehman looked up.

“Just part of the service. For my protection. But curious. You know. So we have to be—”

“You have a story for me? The interview?”

“Well, that too. But better. You may not want it. All I ask is that if you don’t, you just say so and go away and you never saw me. Agreed?”

“What’s going on?”

“Agreed?”

“Agreed. Why wouldn’t I want it?”

“It comes with some strings attached. For one thing, you’d be chucked out. Maybe worse. Still interested?”

Lehman peered at him. “They’re going to throw me out anyway.”

“This would guarantee it.”