The Obedient Assassin: A Novel (15 page)

A
s they walked through the cavernous and echoing spaces filled with the blue smoke of incense, the murmur of prayers, and the slanting rays of sunlight, stained shades of blue and red and green, Sylvia kept stopping to consult her guide, a serious-looking book the size of a hymnal with an oxblood-red cover, filled with maps and long historical sections in fine print. With her handbag draped in the crook of her right arm, her weight resting on her left foot, her right canted forward, she would stand reading for minutes at a time, oblivious to the devout Indians shuffling past in shawls and
serapes
.

“Did you know the Spanish built this cathedral on the ruins of the Aztecs' main temple?”

“No, I had no idea.” Jacques reached for his cigarettes. “Incense, it smells like cat pee.”

“Darling, you probably shouldn't smoke in here.”

“No, I suppose not. But with all this smoke …” He felt impatient, wondering why she had to stop and read. Why couldn't she just look at what was in front of her?

She raised her head and smiled, pushing her glasses back. “Would you like to go? Are you getting hungry?”

“Yes, the smell of incense always brings back unpleasant memories.”

They drove the few blocks to an American restaurant Jacques knew that occupied a sixteenth-century Spanish mansion across from the Alameda. “It's like a big drugstore,” Sylvia said as they walked through a pharmacy and newsstand to the dining room, where the waitresses were dressed like Mexican Indians in long, colorful cotton gowns. Sylvia asked for a club sandwich and opened the guidebook once more. “This is so interesting,” she said after reading a bit. “Mr. Terry says that the Aztecs sacrificed people at the temple where the cathedral is. Thousands of people would watch. The priests would blow conch-shell horns and beat drums, then, just as the sun came up, they would slice open the chest of their victim, rip out the heart, and hold it up to the light. They believed the sun wouldn't rise if they didn't perform the sacrifice.”

“Sylvia, that's ghoulish.”

“No, this is interesting. The priests and nobles would cook and eat the bodies of the victims.”

She stopped to eat part of her sandwich. “Oh, listen to this. The Spaniards were appalled when they discovered that the Aztecs practiced cannibalism.”

“Yes, of course.”

“They destroyed the Aztecs' temples because they were cannibals, then made them convert to Catholicism where the sacrament involves eating the body and blood of Christ. How's that for confusing?”

After lunch, they took a brief stroll through the Alameda, a long formal garden with gravel paths, statues, and fountains. Sylvia wanted to visit the Palacio de Bellas Artes, but it was closed so they drove out Reforma past their hotel to the Chapultepec Castle, which stood on a hill, looking back toward the cathedral.

After climbing many flights of steps and walking through the living quarters of the emperor and empress Maximilian and Carlota, they found themselves on a terrace where Sylvia opened her guide and began to read. “Maximilian was a Hapsburg, did you know. I don't quite understand what he was doing in Mexico, but he was executed after four years.” She read a bit more then looked down at Reforma. “Carlota, his wife, was terribly jealous. They had the boulevard built so she could watch his carriage come and go from the palace on the Zocalo. She wanted to make sure he didn't stop along the way.”

 

The following morning, while Jacques was knotting his tie, Sylvia put a call through to Trotsky's secretaries in Coyoacán. Jacques listened as she identified herself, mentioning her sisters Hilda and Ruth. When she hung up, she said she had been invited for tea at four. “I thought they would be busy but they want me to come this afternoon.”

“At four,” said Jacques. “That's fine. I'll be free then.”

She hesitated for a moment, uncertain how to proceed.

“Is there a problem?“

“Yes, I don't think you should come.”

He looked at her reflection in the mirror. “Because of Mr. Lubeck?”

“No, do you think I would be that petty?”

“Then why?”

“Hilda and Ruth, everyone says the Stalinists here are doing everything possible to get Trotsky deported. The slightest infraction of the law could threaten Trotsky's status. I can't do anything that might endanger him.”

“I don't understand what you're saying.”

“You're here on a forged passport. I don't think you should go to the house.”

“Because of my passport?”

“It probably wouldn't matter, but still … you needn't drive me. I'll take a taxi or catch the trolley.”

“No, I'll take you. I won't have you running around the city alone.” He finished adjusting his tie and put on the jacket of his suit. “I have to go to the office but I'll be back in time to go to Coyoacán.”

When Jacques returned, Sylvia was dressed and ready to go, quietly excited to meet one of the great heroes of her life. For fear of making Jacques feel excluded, she talked about other things as they drove to Coyoacán. “This village was on the edge of the lake,” she said as they drove through Tacubaya. “This village, the next one, and Coyoacán were all on the edge of the lake when the Spaniards arrived.”

With the breeze wafting through the windows of the car, she tried to imagine the blue water, the boats coming and going, the Aztec city larger and more beautiful than any in Europe. The Spaniards had begun draining the lake when they invaded, and as the city grew in population the lake had all but disappeared. The air was rich with exotic smells. People and livestock wandered along beside the road.

She was charmed when they arrived in Coyoacán with its cobblestone streets and immense stone walls draped with bougainvillea. Jacques showed her the zocalo with its municipal palace, church, and gardens, then proceeded to Calle Viena, where Sylvia let out a small gasp when she saw the walls, topped with concertina wire, guard towers, and machine-gun turret. “Oh, it's a prison.”

“More like a fortress, I'd say.”

A drowsy Mexican policeman leaned against the raw brick hut that stood on the street between the fortress and a field of corn. Across the valley, the volcanoes loomed against the sky, a curl of smoke rising above El Popo. Jacques parked the Buick at an angle toward the wall, jumped out to get Sylvia's door, and walked her to the entrance, a fortified steel door set into the wall next to a metal garage door shut tight. When she rang the bell, a metal slot opened in the door. She gave her name, and a moment later, an electric lock on the door buzzed; the door opened a couple of inches, followed by the sound of a heavy iron bar scraping concrete. The door finally swung open to a view of a black Dodge and a bit of green garden beyond.

Jacques watched Sylvia disappear inside, then glanced up to the wall where a young man with rusty brown hair stood, holding a bolt-action Springfield rifle. Sensing a flicker of interest, Jacques nodded, then returned to the Buick. Leaving the door open, he turned on the radio and tuned in a Glenn Miller song. He smoked a cigarette, then got out of the car and took off his jacket as if he were too warm. Aware that the guard was watching, he went to the front of the car, where he put his right foot up on the bumper to retie his shoelace. He checked his left shoe, then began a tour around the Buick to inspect the tires. He was tapping the third tire with the toe of his shoe when a voice came from above. “How do you like the Buick?”

He looked up and smiled at the young man. “It's a good car but not as responsive as the Citroën.”

“You're not from the States?”

“Canada. What about you?”

“New York. My old man drives a Buick.”

“Does he?”

“I'd rather have a Packard.”

“They're said to be good. I've seen a couple here in Mexico.”

The young man shifted the rifle then looked down on his side of the wall to check if he was being observed.

“What's your name?” asked Jacques.

“Sheldon. Sheldon Harte, but a lot of the Mexicans call me Roberto.”

“Why is that?”

“That's my first name, Robert. Robert Sheldon Harte. And I guess Sheldon's sort of hard for them to pronounce. E-sheldon,” he said to demonstrate.

“Yes, I see what you mean.”

“Everybody here has a couple of names, code names, aliases, noms de guerre. They take new names when they join the movement. Funny, the Jews always take Christian names, but never the reverse.”

The young man looked down again, and after a moment another guard appeared, a large, strapping man with black hair, prowlike nose, and a square jaw. He'd tied a red bandana round his neck and wore a big revolver in a holster hanging from a wide leather belt. Jacques nodded his head, then went back to his car. He had accomplished what he wanted. Next time, they would know he was Sylvia's husband.

After an hour and a half or so, the reinforced metal door opened and Sylvia stepped out onto the street looking radiant. “You had a nice time,” Jacques said, helping her into the car.

“Yes. Yes, I did. You'll never guess who's here. Do you remember the Rosmers? Marguerite and Alfred? We went to their house for that meeting in Périgny. They both remembered you, Marguerite, especially. She wanted to know about my handsome aristocratic husband.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“That you were waiting for me outside. I explained about your passport.”

“What did they say about that?”

“Nothing, really. I invited them to have dinner with us one evening. I hope you don't mind.”

“No, not if you want them.”

She assured him the Rosmers were thrilled by the invitation. They'd been living for months in a tiny little room at the back of the garden and had brought the Trotskys' grandson from France. He was orphaned when Sedov was murdered. Alfred and Marguerite stayed to help him get adjusted. Now they couldn't go back to France.

“If you want them, I'm pleased. We can entertain them at our hotel.”

“I also volunteered to help in the office. I need something to do while you're at work, and Trotsky is desperate for help. He's fallen behind on his biography of Stalin, and his publisher in New York won't send money until Trotsky sends more chapters. And he can't work on the chapters because he has to take magazine and newspaper assignments for the ready cash. It's a vicious cycle.”

“Trotsky doesn't have money?”

“I can come out on the trolley. They said I'd be perfectly safe. Marguerite takes the trolley all the time.”

“You want to come here and work for Trotsky? What would you do?”

“I'm not sure. He's writing the first draft of the biography in Russian. I suppose I could proof the English translation as it comes back. Or I could help with the research. Do you mind?”

“No, and don't worry about taking the trolley. I come out here on business so it won't be a problem.”

A
nd so Jacques became a presence at the gate of 45 Calle Viena
.
He would drop Sylvia off, disappear for an hour or two to call on investors in San
Á
ngel, the neighboring suburb, then return to wait for her. He made a point of not asking her questions—how many guards there were, who worked in the house—but he listened carefully, remembering the names, slowly putting together a roster.

“Oh yes, Sheldon,” Alfred Rosmer said in French as he held out his glass for Jacques to fill with champagne. They were in Jacques and Sylvia's suite at the Hotel Montejo. Jacques had found two good bottles of champagne and arranged for the hotel kitchen to send up canapés and prepare what he hoped would be a simply roasted chicken that they would eat in the dining room. Rosmer took a sip from his glass, then wiped his gray drooping mustache. He had spent so much of his life arguing politics, first as a syndicalist then as a leader of the Communist Party in France, he found it a relief to be with this young businessman who could afford so many good things in life.

“Sheldon doesn't really fit in with the other men,” said Rosmer. “I'm not sure what it is.”

“Sheldon Harte?” said Marguerite. “He's a romantic. He came to Mexico with romantic notions about writing a play. And he's from a wealthy Park Avenue family, while the other men are working class.”

“But I think it's more than that,” Alfred replied.

“What would it be?”

“I'm not quite sure, so would rather not say. Marguerite, what was that story about Sheldon and the wheelbarrow?” he asked.

Marguerite Rosmer's face lit up. A stout woman—plump to her husband's thin—she had a jovial, shrewd face, full cheeks, and a large bosom. She became amused, telling how Sheldon, just after arriving, gave away the key to the front gate while he was on guard duty. One of the Mexicans working on the renovation of the house kept coming and going with a wheelbarrow, and Sheldon, deciding it was too much trouble to keep opening the gate, finally handed him the key.

Marguerite started to laugh, then, seeing the blank expression on Sylvia's face, she explained. “His job was to guard the gate, not give the key away.” Marguerite dabbed at her eyes.

“And the one who wears the red bandana?” asked Sylvia.

“That's Jake Cooper, a different sort altogether,” Alfred said. “He's a truck driver from the American Midwest. His parents were Jewish immigrants, terribly poor. The Teamsters union sends men down to work as guards for Trotsky. They're all volunteers.” Alfred took out his pipe to chew on. “They come and go; some are better than others. But Trotsky has never worried about security. After a revolution and a civil war he's not easily threatened.”

After dinner, as Jacques was opening a bottle of wine, Sylvia asked Alfred about the book he was planning to write. “Yes, Moscow under Lenin,” he said, “those first seven years.”

“If Lenin had lived, would everything be different?” Sylvia asked.

“We want to think that. I gave years of my life to Lenin, but, in truth, he was the source of some of the problems we have now. He concentrated too much power in the Party and the Central Committee. He was so intent on defeating the Czar that in some ironic and unconscious way he created a dictatorship in the Czar's image. Trotsky kept warning Lenin, and Trotsky was right. That was the crux of his disagreement with Lenin in those early years. Trotsky wasn't without flaws, but he had remarkable vision.”

“But you won't join the Fourth International?” said Sylvia.

As if to gather his thoughts, Alfred took out his tobacco pouch and loaded the bowl of his pipe. “Trotsky is an old friend, a man I admire. But no, something for me changed when I was expelled from the Party in '24.”

“When was it that Trotsky changed?” asked Jacques, returning to the table.

“Trotsky? Change in what way?” said Alfred.

“Turn away from Marxism and the revolution.”

Alfred raised his eyebrows. “But my dear boy, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Trotsky never deviated from Marx or Lenin.”

Jacques opened his mouth to speak but caught himself. He focused his attention on pouring the wine as Alfred gave a brief disquisition on Marxist theory, saying that Marx had always believed that for a workers' revolution to succeed, it had to be an international movement. Otherwise, economic surpluses would be wasted on nationalistic wars over markets and raw materials. It was Stalin who initiated a policy of revolution in one country, decreeing that the Soviet Union would no longer support revolutionary movements in other countries.

Jacques focused on the wineglasses and gave no sign that he was listening. Alfred pressed the tobacco down in the bowl of the pipe with his thumb and struck a match, then leaned forward as if seized by a thought.

“Did you follow what happened in Spain?” he asked.

Jacques blinked away the impulse to say that he was there, that he was a Spaniard who knew all there is to know about the war in Spain. Instead he shook his head. “No, I'm afraid not.”

“Ah well, then it's a topic for another evening.”