Tim Powers - Declare

“My mother never said, sir. She would never speak of him.”

“He was a Catholic priest, wasn’t he?”

“That was the opinion of our neighbors, sir. My mother never said.”

From the hall behind Hale came a man’s cultured drawl: “It was Jimmie Theodora who told you to joe-join the Com-Communist Party, wasn’t it, Mr. H-Hale?”

Hale knew before he turned around to look that he had heard the voice before, but under some peculiar, disturbing circumstance-in the radio-amplified buzzing of les parasites? in a dream, in a nightmare?-and so he was not completely startled to recognize the smiling, dark-haired man who now slouched into the electric light, his suitcoat rumpled as if from recent constriction under an overcoat and his dark brown hair flattened at the top and dusted with snow over his collar. He appeared to be in his early thirties, though his features were already heavy with evident dissipation.

It was the man Hale had dreamed about two nights ago, who in the dream had walked down a sunlit beach toward Hale, speaking in bird cries, and had subsequently split apart into two men.

Braced by the familiarity of the voice, Hale was able to meet the man’s intense stare without any change in his worried, earnest expression-though before the man strode around to the front of the room Hale did furtively button his coat to hide the ankh belt buckle. But his heart was thudding in his chest, for he now realized how very profoundly he had been hoping that all of this morbid and alarming dream stuff would prove to have been left behind in Paris.

Hale glanced levelly past the newcomer at the men behind the table; the civilian nodded and said, “Answer Mr. Philby’s question.”

“I didn’t meet Mr. Theodora until after I had been arrested, sir,” said Hale in a voice no shakier than it had been before. “It was a friend from CLS, who was attending one of the other Oxford colleges, who suggested I join. He was a member already.”

Philby nodded genially. “You’re all C-Communists these days, aren’t you? Jimmie p-probably didn’t even have to suggest it. Why was it the sss -the City Police, rather than the Metrop-po-politan force, that detained you in Covent Garden?”

Hale lifted his hands and let them fall. “I have no idea, sir.” There was a sheen of sweat now on the Philby man’s forehead, and Hale wondered if he always stammered.

“I don’t believe your father is a C-Cath-cth-a priest,” said Philby. “Was he, is he, in the s-secret service? Drummond’s is the preferred secret service bank. Theodora could h-h-hardly be your father-who is?”

“I don’t know,” said Hale clearly.

Philby’s pouchy face was still cheerful, but his voice was strident and almost angry as he said, “You were born in P-Phh-fucking- Palestine , allegedly on the Feast of the Epiphany-and you’re a, a Ca-tho-lic, Roman variety, Papist!-‘Our Father which art in Amman, Hajji be thy name!’-so you m-must know that Ep-p-piphany is when the Three Why-Wise Men arrived at last in Bbbeth!-lehem! just south of Jerusalem, ‘following yonder star.’” He took a deep breath and let it out, and then gave Hale a bright, boyish smile. “True?”

Hale remembered telling Elena his own interpretation of the passage she had quoted from the Book of Job: If the world is run according to any rules at all, those rules are beyond Job’s comprehension. And beyond mine too, he thought now fearfully; even here at home, in England.

“Uh,” Hale said, “Yes, sir.” His hesitation in answering had probably not looked unnatural-even the men behind the table were now staring at Philby uncertainly.

Philby sighed, and then went on in a more quiet voice, “Theodora stage-managed your skewed C-Covent Garden arrest, in order to set you up as one of his p-private spies to undermine the Soviet n-networks in France-and he did it in d-d-isobedience to his masters at…in Whitehall.”

Hale supposed this was the exact truth; but “not even Churchill,” Theodora had said; and ever since his mother had taken Hale to meet his “godfather” in ’29, Theodora had for good or ill been his image of the King’s Man, the representative of the Crown.

“But I wasn’t doing anything the Theodora person had told me to do,” said Hale, “and I certainly wasn’t undermining the Sov-”

Philby interrupted him: “Theodora’s politics calcified in about 1920. You are aware, Mr. Hale, that the S-Soviet you-Union is at present an- ally -of England?”

“Well, exactly, sir,” ventured Hale, “though I believe I’m being detained now for working for them, at considerable personal risk, against Germany.” It was a fairly cheeky thing to say here, but Hale believed it was in character for his cover.

“You- unspeakable little shit,” said Philby. “Do you expect anyone to b-believe that the service’s most rabid anti-Communist took c-c-custody of a young Party member and accidentally let him escape to Europe, to work for a Soviet spy network in P-Paris?-with no nn-intentions to impede that n-network’s efforts against Hitler, nor to d-damage the fragile alliance between the Soviet Union and Ig-Ig-England?” He took a deep breath and let half of it out, like a marksman preparing to fire. “Is it then your claim that Theodora was so smitten with your willowy figure and blond locks that he freed you in exchange for indulgence in activities with which I suppose upon reflection you cannot be unfamiliar?”

Managed to say that straight out, thought Hale sourly. He opened his mouth to begin to answer, but the old colonel spoke up first.

“Catholic priest or no,” the colonel growled, “I doubt Mr. Hale’s father was ever engaged in activities prejudicial to the safety of the Realm.” Philby turned on the officer with an expression Hale wasn’t able to see; but the man went on imperturbably, staring straight back at Philby from under lowered white eyebrows, “And we’d certainly have heard if Mr. Hale had ever been editor of, oh, any periodical like Germany Today.”

Bewilderedly, Hale wondered if these things were true of Philby’s father and of Philby. Certainly the remarks had been offensively meant.

Philby gave a harsh laugh. “I c- came here to off-to offer Broadway’s ass-assiss-assiss-Broadway’s help,” he said. “Unofficially, as a volatile-damn it-as a voluntary li-aison between the s-services.” He waved behind him toward Hale. “This man came out of your-out of Europe through Lisbon, and even as head of the Iberian sub-section in Broadway I c-could have simply taken Hay-Hay-Hale’s case right out of your hands. And allow me to inform you, in case you haven’t b-been to town lately, that I am presently acting head of the entire counter-espionage section.”

The civilian at the table had steepled his fingers and was nodding thoughtfully. “You could have,” he agreed, frowning. “I think we would contest it now; in which case the Cabinet Secretary would likely just move to defer the question until the real head of section returns. I doubt your C would argue with that.”

“Hale has ob-obviously been doing work for an officer of…for one of our old Robber Barons in Broadway.”

“Possibly. Even probably. Not obviously.”

The phrase Iberian sub-section, in that Oxbridge voice, was still echoing in Hale’s head, and it had almost reminded him of something; but an officer who had not previously spoken now asked, plaintively, “So is bloody Hale a British spy or a Communist spy?”

The civilian at the table pushed back his chair and stood up. He wasn’t looking at anyone, but Hale got the impression that his words were addressed to Philby: “We’ll keep him-safe, here-until we can find out. He’s had a medical examination and proves out fit; it would be very puzzling indeed if he were to-die, say, before all this is sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction. Guard, escort Mr. Hale back to his room. Mr. Philby, it is good of you to have given us your time.”