Bride of a Bygone War (25 page)

“But why can’t we apply for the security clearance right away?” she persisted. “Wouldn’t it be better to get the process started first and find out what’s necessary to speed up the approval?”

Lukash felt a mounting urge to change the subject. But he knew that once the matter was on the floor for discussion, Lorraine would never let it rest until a decision had been reached.

“Only if we’re prepared for me to lose my job,” he answered bluntly. “Remember, Lorraine, along with my official request for clearance to marry a foreigner, I’ll have to submit a signed resignation. If they clear you, they’ll tear up my resignation and forget about it. If they don’t clear you, they’ll accept the resignation and I’m out on the street. And Washington is a very expensive place to be an unemployed former civil servant.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand why you sound so different on this subject now than you did a month ago, Walter. Then you said you weren’t sure you wanted to stay in the Agency. You said that if you were going to start a new career, now was the time to do it, while you were still in your middle thirties and before you had children and a mortgage to worry about. You talked about finding a job representing an American company and selling their products in the Middle East. You said that’s what you’ve wanted to do ever since you learned Arabic. Have you changed your mind about all that, too? I need to know, Walter, because before I uproot my own way of life, I have to know what you’re planning to do with yours.”

“Damn it, Lorraine,” Lukash shot back. “It’s just not as simple as you make it out to be. Sure, I feel burnt out. And, sure, I think I could do better for myself on the outside. But remember, I’ve been an overseas case officer for more than eight years. I’ve paid my dues now. When I go back to Headquarters, I’ll be part of management; they’ll give me a country desk to run. The next time I go overseas I’ll be a deputy COS for sure, and maybe chief at a smaller post. But if I quit, it’s permanent. I could never get back in. I wouldn’t carry a diplomatic passport anymore, I wouldn’t have a top-secret security clearance, my old friends would treat me like a stranger, and my résumé would read as if I was a complete washout as a Foreign Service officer. I’d have to start all over again. I just don’t know if I could do it.”

“Then why don’t you just come out and admit it? You have no intention of leaving the Agency, and probably never did. And it’s not because you love your work so bloody much; it’s because you don’t have the courage to try something different. And that’s something I never expected from you, Walter. When I first met you, you were so brave and optimistic and free of commonplace worries, it took my breath away.”

“Those were the days, my friend…” he sang mockingly.
 

“Walter,” she continued, ignoring him. “I know that you didn’t have to help me escape from Saudi Arabia. Far from it—you did it without any authority from your government. No, you helped me because you thought it was the right thing to do, and because Samir was your friend, and, by God, for the sheer sport of it! You had so much spirit then!

“But from the day you received the cable ordering you to Beirut, something seems to have knocked that gallant spirit right out of you. Now you’ve become just like the Agency higher-ups you used to tell me were so lazy and complacent and corrupt. Lately I see you recreating yourself in their image, following in their footsteps, clawing your way up the ladder so you can be a chief of station someday just like them. But marrying a foreigner with a security problem puts all that at risk, doesn’t it? As long as you stay overseas, out of sight, you can have it both ways, living in the style that suits you and making your professional mark at the same time. But now you have to make a choice. And decisions have never been your strong point, have they, Walter?”

Lukash listened intently while Lorraine spoke. When she finished there was no anger in his eyes, only sadness and a lingering irony that kept him from appearing completely deflated.

“You know me too well, Lorraine,” he answered calmly. “No, I’m not very good at decisions. And I know that I’ve been unfair to you. But be patient just a little longer. I can’t tell you all the details yet, but I’m aware of where I’ve gone wrong and I’m doing my best to set things straight. I just need a little more time.”

Lorraine made no reply.

They ate in silence for a minute or more until Lukash poured the last of the beer into his glass and pushed his plate away. Lorraine set down her fork as well and wiped the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin. “I’m not very hungry, either,” she said softly.

Lukash left some banknotes on the table and followed Lorraine toward the door. The young waiter, who was unloading an elaborate
mezzé
two tables away for a family with four young boys, squinted to make out the denominations of the bills that had been left for him.

Lorraine was already out the door when Lukash heard a familiar voice call out somewhere behind him. “William. William Conklin—
un moment, s’il vous plaît
.”
 

It was as if a powerful blast of wind had caught him full in the chest and thrown him back a step. Lukash stretched out his hand for the doorframe to steady himself, but before his fingers could close around it, a hand closed around his shoulder and held it firmly in place.

“Monsieur. You will please excuse me, but a patron of ours insists on having a word with you.”

It was Boulos. He released Lukash’s shoulder, but only after pulling him far enough around that Lukash noticed a portly Lebanese of about fifty-five years wearing a blue serge suit and a paisley bow tie standing with his back to the wall behind the headwaiter’s station. The man fixed him with a malevolent glare, and Lukash could see that it was Victor Hammouche.
 

Victor rose slowly without taking his eyes from Lukash. “William,” he began, staring into Lukash’s eyes as if he half suspected the younger man might actually have risen from the dead. “Yes, it is you,” he said in French. “A bit heavier, perhaps, and older. But the eyes, the eyes are the same.”

“Excuse me, but I think you have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Walter Lukash.”

“What he says is correct, Victor,” Boulos interrupted, still in French. “I have seen it on his American Express card. Yaa, Allah, I should never have agreed to let you bother this poor man. You not only embarrass me, Victor, but you embarrass your niece. I tell you, Monsieur Walter is also a friend of Major Elie Musallam. He could not possibly be the same man as the William you talk about. If he were, it is inconceivable that Major Elie would not know of it.”

The argument appeared to shake Victor’s confidence only slightly. “But Elie was in France in those days. He never met William Conklin.”

“Surely he has seen photographs,” the headwaiter argued.

“Perhaps. But see how this man has cut his hair and grown a beard to alter his appearance. If I had not sat down with him so many times...”

Lorraine reentered the door and seemed confused by Lukash’s confrontation with the two Lebanese. “Is there some problem with the check, Walter?” she asked after an awkward silence on the part of the three men. “I have cash if you need it.”

Lukash answered her with a brave smile. “No, it’s just a case of mistaken identity, as far as I can tell. This gentleman seems to think I’m somebody he used to know.”

He turned to Boulos with an expression of ironclad self-assurance. “If your friend would like, I would be more than happy to answer any questions that might lay his concerns to rest. I wouldn’t want to leave here without setting this unfortunate thing straight.”

Lorraine shrugged her shoulders. “If you don’t mind, I would prefer to wait outside.” She turned on her heel and went back out the door.

As she did, Lukash saw Boulos aim a baleful glare at Victor Hammouche, as if his old friend were a child who had misbehaved unforgivably in public. “Thank you, Monsieur Walter, but I believe Victor is quite finished. I’m sorry if he has disturbed you. He meant no harm.”

“No harm, you say!” Victor exploded. “If César were alive, you would see what harm would be done to this man! Yes, this man, William Conklin, who married my niece and deserted her when she was carrying his child! Deny it if you will, but I am not so easily deceived. I know you, William Conklin, and the next time we meet you will answer for what you have done!”

* * *

Lukash unlocked the French doors of his flat and opened them for Lorraine to step onto the balcony. He followed her out and they stood at the rail surveying the view to the city’s commercial port, a broken canopy of tiled rooftops held up by cracked walls smudged with black soot. Lukash felt something hard under his instep and lifted his foot. A steel-jacketed machine-gun bullet lay on the marble floor, its sharp nose undamaged by the impact with which it had struck the stucco wall. He picked it up and presented it to Lorraine.

“I’ve found more than a dozen of these since I moved in,” he remarked easily, as if the bullet were a seashell he had found on the beach after the latest storm at sea. “God knows how many of them are on the west balcony. Nobody’s been out there to look since the French doors were boarded up the month before I moved in. And I’ll board these doors over, too, if the glass ever breaks. No sense in throwing good money after bad.”

“What did that man want at the restaurant?” Lorraine interrupted as she rolled the bullet absently between index finger and thumb.

“Oh, he seemed to think I was somebody he knew named William. I told him I was perfectly content to remain a Walter.”

“Wasn’t he the same man who kept staring at you last week when we ate at L’Olivier? Don’t you remember? The table by the entrance?”

Lukash scowled at her, irritated that Lorraine had not only noticed the man but remembered him.
 

“Walter, stop looking at me like that; you know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Why is he so interested in you? Did you know him when you were here before?”

“How would I know?” Lukash evaded, tilting his head back derisively in the Lebanese manner. “It’s been five years; people change, memories fade. He could have been a neighbor of mine, or a shopkeeper downtown somewhere. You know how it is in the Third World. A Western diplomat is a sort of celebrity; someone you nod to on your way to work will turn up a month later to hit you up for a visa.”

“If you really had so very many Lebanese acquaintances when you were here before,” Lorraine pressed, “it seems odd that I’ve never heard you talk about them. After spending nearly a year here, I would think you would have known at least a few people well enough to want to look them up when you came back five years later.”

“Oh, I had friends, but they were mostly a party crowd—not exactly the type who become faithful pen pals after you move away. In those days I used to do my Arabic tutorial in the morning, study all afternoon, then drop in at the Pickwick or the Charles for a drink or two and join a group to go out for dinner and a little dancing. I’d do that four or five nights a week sometimes, since I didn’t have any agents to meet up with after dark. By the time I left Lebanon, I had a list of phone numbers as long as your arm. But since then the telephone system has been reduced to utter ruin. I tried a few of the old phone numbers the first couple of days after I arrived here—couldn’t get through to a single one.”

“But it’s just not like you to isolate yourself like this, Walter. In Amman you knew flocks of Jordanians and people at all the Western embassies. We always had somebody joining us for dinner. Here you live like a hermit. It’s as if you were hiding from something.”

“My assignment here requires a low profile, Lorraine. If the Syrian army and the Palestinian Resistance knew what I was doing here, they might well take offense. I’d rather they didn’t find me.”

“Yes,” Lorraine conceded, “but the way you’ve been acting still doesn’t add up. Until you were reassigned here, I can hardly recall you ever saying a kind word about working a country desk at Headquarters. Or staying in the Agency until retirement. You always said that the only part of the job that interested you was being a case officer overseas. Not being a station chief—you said that the title of chief simply entitled a person to do twice the work for half the fun, and that you didn’t like the kind of people you saw your friends turn into when they became chiefs of station.”

“So maybe I’ve grown up just a little since then,” Lukash responded testily. “Maybe I don’t want to be a case officer knocking out reports on Syrian order of battle when I’m forty. It’s not that far away anymore. There are guys my age with a lot less experience than I have who are already being sent out as station chiefs in the Gulf. There’s no standing still in a big organization—either you move up the ladder, or you fall off and become a nobody.”

“Oh, Walter, why has it become so difficult to talk to you? One day you say it’s too early to discuss a topic, and then the next day, without the slightest warning, you adopt a fixed position and won’t entertain a single contrary thought.”

“And are you so different?” Lukash challenged. “This must be the ninth time I’ve heard you talk about going to live in Washington.”

“Now you are just being mean. Is your memory so short that you don’t remember asking me to move back to Washington with you? We were going to find a little house to renovate somewhere along Reservoir Road, not far from Chain Bridge, so that you could drive in to Langley every morning—and we’d still be close to Georgetown. I would find a job flying the North Atlantic route out of Dulles Airport. You were so excited about it that I became excited, too. It was the one constant I could look forward to amid all the changes I’d been through. Well, this time I’ve made up my mind: I’m moving to Washington when my contract is finished here whether you come along or not. It started out being your idea. but, by God, I’m going to carry it through with you or without you.”