Tapestry of Spies (47 page)

The young man went proudly to the window. Levitsky followed his shape with his one good eye. He was a soft, dark blur against the whiter purity of the opening.

“Lovely view! That mountain. Magnificent! Not as beautiful as the Caucasus, of course, but beautiful, nevertheless. Sends shudders up one’s spine, Emmanuel Ivanovich. So, how do you like the room? It’s nice, isn’t it? Indeed, yes, the very best. Do you know that doctor? He’s the best also. London-trained. No shitty Russian
medicine for dear old Emmanuel Ivanovich Levitsky. No! Can’t have it! Only the best Western medicine!”

The fellow laughed.

“Well, Ivanch,” he said, allowing himself the intimacy of the romantic diminutive form of address, something permitted under normal etiquette only between family members, “I must be off, but I’ll be back tomorrow and every day until you’re strong enough to travel. I shall guard you like a baby and tend you like a mother.”

Levitsky stared up at him furiously.

“Why?” said Pavel, with a smile. “Because the boss himself has ordered it. Your old revolutionary comrade Koba has taken a personal interest in this. I am, one might say, his personal representative here. Koba wants you back, healthy and sound and chipper in Mother Russia.”

He bent over the old man to complete the thought before walking out.

“ … for your execution.”

J
UST BEFORE NIGHTFALL, FLORRY LEANED AGAINST THE
glass and made out the approach of a small station house that sat above what appeared, in the fading light, to be a seedy beach town spilling away in chalky white desolation down a slope to the water’s edge. The station wore a sign that said, in rusted-out letters,
PORT BOU.

“Christ, we’ve made it,” said Florry, feeling a sudden surge of exaltation. “Look, Sylvia, has anything so scabby ever looked so bloody lovely to you?”

The train halted at last and Florry removed Sylvia’s grip from the overhead. It was only a few seconds until they had left the train, edging out among the crowd. Stepping down, Florry smelled the salt air and heard the cries of the birds that must have been circling overhead. Up ahead, he could see that the tracks ended up against a concrete barrier; beyond that, there was a fence; and beyond that, France.

“Do you see? There’s a train,” he said, pointing beyond the wire to the continuation of the track. “It must be the overnight to Paris.”

“You should try to get us a compartment,” said Sylvia.
“We are traveling as man and wife; to do otherwise would appear ridiculous.”

“I say, you’ve thought awfully hard about this.”

“I rather want to survive, that’s all.”

“You know, it’s probably not necessary. We’re out. We could stay in separate—”

“Let’s play the fiction out to London.”

He could not help but laugh. “You seem to know more about this business than I do.”

They followed the drift of the passengers toward the guard post, a smallish brick building nestled near the barbed wire by a crude pedestrian gate—the whole affair had a rough, improvised look to it—and a line had already formed into which they slipped. It seemed to be a dream play set under the calm Mediterranean moon, the line of passengers filing listlessly into the little shack under the scrutiny of sleeping
carabineros
—no revolutionary Asaltos here—for a cursory examination. If you had the passport you were all right.

Florry handed his and Sylvia’s over to the man, an old-time civil servant, who didn’t give them a second look, except to run mechanically their names off against his list.

“¿Arma de fuego?”

“Eh?”

“Firearms, Señor Trent?”

“Oh, of course not,” said Florry, remembering his vanished Webley and the automatic he’d tossed away.

The man nodded.

“Go on to French customs,” he said.

“That’s it?” said Florry.

“Sì,
señor
. That’s it.”

They stepped out of the building and through the gate and into another little shed, which turned out to contain
two little booths, each with its policeman. Florry got into one line and Sylvia the next and in time they arrived at the tables. The officer game him a quick, lazy glance.

“¿No tiene equipaje a portar de España?”

“Er, sorry?”

“Do you have bags?” the man said in French.

“Oh. My wife has it.”

“You take no bags from Spain?”

“We believe in traveling light.”

The man nodded him on and he emerged to find that Sylvia had already made it through and was waiting with her grip.

“Hullo,” she said.

“Hullo. No problems?”

“No. The fellow opened the bag and began to go through it, but your awful raincoat was in the way and the woman behind made a scene about missing the Paris train. He was a decent chap. Rather, a lazy one. He just waved me on.”

It then occurrred to them that they were standing at the gate into France. They stood in line to present their passports to the frontier gendarme, who made a disinterested examination, and ultimately issued the proper stamp.

“Bien,”
he said.

“Merci,”
said Florry.

It was that simple: they stepped outside the shed, and they were in France.

“One should
feel
something,” Florry said. “Relief, or some such. What I feel like is a smoke.”

“I feel like brushing my teeth,” Sylvia said.

The French train up ahead hooted. Near it, a temporary French station had been built, the mirror image of the Spanish installation on the other side of the frontier.

“We must hurry,” she said.

“I’ll get tickets. Darling, see if there’s a tobacconist’s, about, will you, and get cigarettes. American, if they’ve got them. Pay anything. And get some chocolate. I love chocolate.”

He raced for the ticket window.

“Do you have a first-class compartment left open for Paris?” he asked in French.

“Yes. Several, in fact; there’s not many first-class travelers who leave Spain, monsieur. Not since July.”

“I only have pesetas. Can you make the exchange for me?”

“I will only charge a small percentage.”

“It’s only fair.”

He pushed the money across to the man and waited while the fellow figured it out and paid him back with the tickets.

“I only took a little extra.”

“Fine, fine,” said Florry, grabbing them and trying to quell his exuberance.

“You must hurry; this train leaves in a few minutes.”

“Believe me, this is one train I won’t miss.”

He turned and ran toward it, to find Sylvia waiting at the door to the sleeping car.

“I’ve got it,” he said. “God, look at that!”

“It’s only English tobacco, darling,” she said, holding up a pack of Ovals.

“This must be heaven,” Florry said. He could not stop himself from smiling.

“I’m sorry they didn’t have American. The tobacconist had just sold all his American cigarettes to some hulking Yank.”

“It doesn’t matter, Sylvia. We’re safe at last.”

The train whistled.

“Come on, it’s time to get aboard,” he said.

* * *

They ate in the first-class dining car, and whatever one could say against the French, the French knew how to cook. The meal was—or perhaps this was merely an expression of their parched tastes after so many months in Red Spain—extraordinary. Afterward, they went to the parlor car and had a drink and sat smoking as the train hurled through the darkened countryside of southern France.

“Paris by morning,” said Florry. “I know a little hotel in the Fourteenth Arrondissement. Sylvia, let’s go there. We’ve earned a holiday, don’t you think? There’s enough money, isn’t there? We haven’t to face the future quite yet, do we?”

Sylvia looked at him: her gray green eyes beheld him curiously, and after a bit, a smile came to her face.

“It really is over, isn’t it? Spain, I mean,” she said.

Florry nodded.

“Well,” she said. “Let me think about it will you, Robert?”

“Of course.”

She hadn’t said no—quite. And it sounded wonderful: a fortnight of luxury in a small, elegant hotel in the most civilized country in Europe after what had been the least civilized. Florry sat back against the comfortable chair, smoking an Oval. Maybe the woman would be his after all. He felt he owed it to himself to begin to feel rather good.

But of course exactly the opposite occurred. A curious melancholy began to seep through him. He seemed to still smell Spain somehow, or still dream it, even when wakeful. He remembered Julian in the dust, begging for death. He remembered the bridge exploding. The blast, for all its fury, had meant nothing after all it had cost
them. He remembered the POUM rifles leveled at them, and the comical idiocy of the trial, and the Communist Asaltos heading up the mountain with their Hotchkiss gun. He remembered Harry Uckley’s empty holster. He remembered the night attack on Huesca and firing his revolver into the boy’s face. He remembered the abrupt cold numbness when the bullet struck him. He remembered the ship digging beneath the surface and the flames on the water.

“Robert, what on earth is wrong?”

“Julian,” he said. “I wish I had not let Julian down at the end. I know he meant so much to you.”

“Julian always got what he wanted,” said Sylvia with odd coldness. “And never what he deserved.”

She touched his arm. “Forget the war. Forget politics. Forget it all. Forget Julian.”

“Of course you’re right. Absolutely. One mustn’t let oneself get to brooding on things one is helpless to alter. And I swear I won’t.”

But it was a lie. Even as he saw her pretty face he remembered Julian. Hold my hand. I’m so frightened. Kill me.

“Yes,” she said. “I could not get the American cigarettes, and so I should not feel as if I’ve failed, eh?”

“I say, shall we have another drink?” he said cheerfully.

“Pardon me, folks.”

They turned, and looked up into the eyes of a rather large, almost handsome man in a suit standing in the aisle.

“I hate to interrupt,” he said, “the name’s Fenney. Ed Fenney. I saw you on the train out of Barcelona. I just heard the lady say she’s sorry she missed the American cigarettes. I bought them all. Look, here, take these.”

It was a pack of American Camels.

“Mr. Fenney, it’s really not necessary,” said Sylvia.

“No, I know how you get, missing your best smokes. I just got a little greedy at the border. My apologies, miss. Please, take these. You Brits and us Americans, we ought to stick together. It’s going to be us against the world one of these days, you just wait.”

He smiled. There was something peculiarly intense about him and remotely familiar, but he seemed so eager to please that Florry found himself accepting the cigarettes.

“Well, thanks awfully,” he said. “Would you care to join us?”

“No, listen, after a long day like this, I really want to turn in. I’ve calls to make in Paris tomorrow, have to be sharp. Nice seeing you.” He left.

“Robert, I’m awfully tired, too,” said Sylvia.

“Well, then. That seems to be that. Shall we go?”

It was nearly midnight: they walked through the dark, rocking corridor from car to car until at last they found their compartment. They entered; the porter had opened the bed and turned it back.

“Not much room in here, is there?” he said.

“The French are so romantic,” Sylvia said. She held up a single red rose that had been placed in a vase by the tiny night table that had been folded out of the wall.

Florry pulled the door shut behind him, snapping it locked. When he turned, Sylvia had undressed to her slip and washed her hands and face in the small basin. He went to her bag and opened it. Julian’s ring had fallen out of the pocket of his coat and worked its way into the corner of the case. He picked it up, looked at it.

This is all there is of my friend Julian Raines, he thought. There was little enough to it: a simple gold band, much tarnished, much nicked, as well it should be.
The inscription inside it read, “From this day forth, Love, Cecilia.” It was dated 6-15-04.

For luck, Florry thought, and gave it a little secret kiss.

There was a knock at the door.

“Who on earth could that be?” he said.

“It’s Ed Fenney, Mr. Florry,” came the voice through the door.

“Oh. Well, what on earth—”

“Listen, I have an extra carton of Camels here. I might not see you in the morning. I’d like to give them to you.”

“Well, it’s not necessary but—”

“It’d be my pleasure.”

Florry turned, gave Sylvia a quizzical look, and turned to the door.

“Robert, don’t. We don’t know—”

“Oh, he’s just a big, friendly American. Just a moment,” he called, getting the door unlocked, even as he wondered how this Fenney knew his name. “You know, this is awfully damned kind—”

The man hit him in the stomach and he felt the pain like an explosion; he hit him twice again, driving him back, filling his mind with astonishment and, by the power of the blows, his heart with fear.

Yet even as he fell, Florry was trying to rise, for the man had just smashed Sylvia across the face with the back of his hand.