floor. As the vodka gurgled out of the bottle, Walther shouted, ‘Max is my business, not yours-not any of yours! I have had enough from you and all of your
Craig remained stolidly in his place. ‘I’m not getting out.’
Walther strode noisily around the table. ‘Then I will have you thrown out, you capitalist scum-trying to tell me what to do-trying to tell me-a man honoured, revered, looked up to, worshipped-in the most powerful nation on earth-’
Suddenly, Walther cut his heated outburst short. His eyes went from Craig, to Krantz, and back to Craig, to the look of blank astonishment on Krantz’s features, to the look of complete scorn on Craig’s face. Except for their heavy breathing, the ticking of a clock, the creak of hinges off somewhere, the stateroom was a tomb of charged silence.
Craig spoke first. ‘You don’t want to escape, do you, Walther? I never expected you would. But-why not? Because you don’t give a damn about your brother or daughter? Or because you don’t give a damn about freedom? You don’t want freedom-do you, Walther?’
Rage covered Walther’s face like a distorted hood. He reeled towards Craig, lifting a fist as if to hit him. But he did not strike. Instead, he bellowed, ‘Freedom? Freedom? What do you sheep know of freedom-of the true meaning of freedom? You with your holy false words-mouthings dictated by your capitalist hyenas-the
They were only a few feet apart, but Craig did not flinch. Exultation swept upward through his veins. Reckless confidence, in knowledge of the truth, was his banner. ‘You speak like a Communist, Walther, exactly like a Communist. You’re not even being cautious. You’re one of them-not the decent people there-but the big ones, the cocky ones, so sure of your science and weapons-’
‘You ignorant lout!’ cried Walther. ‘What do you know of our science and our weapons? We are the fighters for peace-working day and night to save the world, keep it alive for you fools, to make one world-’
‘Your world, Walther, not mine,’ interrupted Craig. ‘You want your world on your terms, and it has nothing to do with average people anywhere. You want your world. You’ve been brainwashed-indoctrinated-forgotten the old past-want the new future where you and your adopted comrades will be the royalty.’
‘The workers will be the royalty!’ Walther shouted.
Craig studied the weaving old man, his pose lost, his stature taller, stronger, fanatical, and then Craig said, ‘You never intended to leave that world, Walther. I can see that now. You played along for the sake of the Party- it’s the Party, isn’t it, Walther? It’s the parroting, brainless, robot Party.’
‘Another disrespect against the Party and you’ll pay for it!’ Walther swayed, unbalanced by vodka and outrage. ‘The Party is the best of us-all eight million of the CPSU-and we are the cream, the best, the most decent brains on earth, and your fate is in our hands-remember that, remember-’
‘And so you played along for them, never intending to participate honourably even in blackmail? The bosses said go to Stockholm, suck in Max, get him back to East Berlin for us-so we can use him for evil-and then you come back to us, too. That was the game, wasn’t it?’
Walther’s mouth was strange, twisting, twisting, saliva-brimmed, with no word being uttered, until at last the hoarse words broke through. ‘Do you think I would come to you in a hundred years? I wanted to help them get Max on the right side, yes. And the girl-Emily-yes, if she would come. I owed it to her-after what I know of Ravensbruck, after what I guess of her life in America-to raise her under my roof, in a decent house, with my family. But to leave my family for the likes of Max or the lot of you? To leave a good Russian wife-my two young children? They are my life, they and my work and our cause.’
He caught his breath, panting out of fever and fury.
‘Dr. Krantz!’ The voice, clear and assured, came from the rear of the stateroom, and it was Emily’s voice.
All of them turned as one, startled, having forgotten her. She stood before the open door of the bedroom cabin, had apparently been standing there for some minutes. Now, shifting her coat from one arm to the other, head high, lips compressed, only her step uneven, she crossed to the group.
‘Dr. Krantz,’ she repeated, ‘should you speak to Dr. Eckart once more, tell him this. Tell him there can be no trade-because there is no one for whom Uncle Max can be traded.’
She considered Craig gravely, her countenance dry-eyed and composed. ‘Thank you, Andrew,’ she said.
Kranz was waiting at the stateroom door. He went first. Emily was the next to go. Then it was Craig who left.
Not one of them looked back at Professor Walther Stratman…
When they had arrived at his single room on the fifth floor of the Grand Hotel, Craig helped Emily inside, switching on the lights as they entered. Emily was heavy against his supporting arm, and twice she stumbled. ‘I’m all right,’ she muttered, ‘I’ll be all right.’
They had emerged from the cabin cruiser at Palsundet only fifteen minutes before, and the memory of it still hung over them. No sooner had Krantz led them up to the white pine deck than the athletic young Swedish guard had appeared, suspicious and edgy. Krantz had sternly rattled forth his explanation in Swedish, mentioning Walther once, invoking Eckart twice, and then the guard had conceded their passage.
Swiftly, they had made their way along the canal, waiting once when Emily had protested that she was weak. During that interlude, Craig had felt the cool white flakes of snow on his cheeks, as satisfying as Emily’s warm presence leaning against him. Lingering thus, Craig had studied the dark waters of the canal and Langholmen island directly across, almost hidden behind the haze of the low mist, and then the snow came thicker. Where earlier it had seemed menacing, it now seemed a suspension in time, both cheerful and welcome.
After that, they had departed from the desolate embankment, and gone up through the hard, slippery park area, Krantz wheezing, and Craig concerned only for the one on his arm.
When they had come into the lights of Soder Malarstrand, the traffic was still heavy in the packed snow, and the bright municipal decorations a proper jubilee. At the limousine, speckled with dry snow, Craig had asked Krantz to drive them to the hotel, and he had eagerly assented.
Inside the cosy automobile, as it slid into the traffic, Emily had sat straight and rigid a moment, staring ahead, then suddenly she had closed her eyes and choked forth a sob.
Craig had watched her with deep concern, aware of how depleted were her emotional resources. ‘I’m sorry, Emily. It must be shattering.’
‘No,’ she had said, shaking her head vigorously. ‘I-I almost cried because-only because I’m so relieved, at last. All afternoon, I did not know where I was, how to think, what should be done. Now it’s solved. He-he’s not my father at all-at least-not the father I knew. And the thought of having to give up Uncle Max for him or anyone-’ She paused. ‘But thank God for you, Andrew, thank God for you.’
She fumbled for his hand, and he met her hand with his own, and brought her close against him. She dropped her head on his shoulder, eyes wearily closing, and sighed like a little girl who had been lost and was now safely in her sheltering bed again.
‘Andrew-’ she had murmured, and the receding voice was shaded and troubled.
He waited, and he said, ‘Don’t bother to talk. I’m here. I’ll always be here.’
‘No,’ she had said, ‘no, Andrew-’
He had tried to understand this refusal to accept him, and had been about to contend with it, when he saw that she slept. He had sat all through the ride, arm about her rocking with the motion of the limousine, wondering and wondering, until the time when they had drawn up before the canopy of the Grand Hotel.
‘Here we are,’ he had whispered, disengaging himself, and rousing her. The doorman had opened the rear door, but it had been Krantz, skittering around from the driver’s seat, who had shoved the doorman aside to assist Emily and Craig out of the car.
Going past the worried Krantz, Craig had remembered that he represented unfinished business. A decision must be made. Requesting Emily to wait, and the doorman to look after her, Craig had returned to Krantz. Wordlessly, they had walked several yards from the car.
Krantz, distractedly brushing the snowflakes from his face, had gazed up at Craig. ‘What are you going to do?’
Studying the servile physicist, Craig had known that there was only one thing he could do. From the beginning, when Daranyi had indicted the physicist, Craig had looked upon Krantz as Rumpelstilzchen, the evil dwarf, but now,
