of your life, which I quite understood. Everyone needs his privacy.”
With the uttering of those words, the spirit of my mother was conjured into the space between us. I was sure Dad sensed it as well. But we let the moment pass, as always.
“Does this mean her name is still in some embassy file, or even at the Agency?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He was uncomfortable now. “Maybe as a footnote.”
It made me sorry for Litzi, but also for myself, unflattering as that sounds. This was the woman I had entrusted with everything, yet she hadn’t leveled with me. And if she was willing to withhold that secret-well, you get the idea.
I stood to pack, although in some ways the trip was already ruined. Right or wrong, I could no longer trust Litzi.
“Don’t take it so hard, son. Those were very different times, especially for families like hers.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
19
Litzi stood at the far end of the train platform, striking a cinematic pose in an overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat, a suitcase at her feet. Her face lit up when she saw me coming, a lover’s glow. Mine had flickered out at breakfast.
I greeted her with a dry peck on the cheek. Nothing felt right or comfortable, and she sensed it immediately.
“What’s wrong? Has something happened?”
“Just a hectic morning. Took longer to pack than I thought, a few other things.”
The words rang false and she eyed my small suitcase. Thankfully she didn’t press the point. Our seats were reserved, and we had a compartment to ourselves. The first thing I wanted was a drink, but the cart wouldn’t be coming by until we were under way. I’d been wondering for the past hour how to bring up the subject of her duplicity, and I was still pondering the question when I realized she was chattering away about something from the past. I only caught the end of it.
“… that old wine bar just off the square, what do you think?”
“I’m sorry. I zoned out for a minute.”
“I was just wondering if that old wine bar was still there that we went to before, the one right off the Old Town square.”
I remembered it, a cozy little wine restaurant in a cellar with vaulted stone ceilings. At the time I’d been convinced it was the very spot where Sarah Gainham had set a key scene in her 1959 Prague novel, The Stone Roses. In the book, one of the waiters turned out to be not only a murderous Soviet spy, but also a woman.
“You spent the whole meal looking for cross-dressing waiters, as I recall,”
I couldn’t help but smile, which unfortunately made Litzi conclude I was back to my old self. The sooner I confronted her, the better. Maybe there would even be enough time for one or both of us to leave the train before it departed, if necessary.
“Look, Litzi, there’s something-”
“What’s happening?” she said.
She was gazing out the window, back toward the terminal. I turned and saw a column of policemen at a trot along the platform, six in all. Whistles blew. A porter hustled by our compartment, keys jangling. Litzi gripped my hand. It was an eerie replay of Bad Schandau, and once again the authorities seemed to be heading straight for us.
Footsteps thundered in the corridor. A policeman stopped at our compartment.
“Litzi Strauss and William Cage?”
“Yes?” I answered.
“Your passports, please.”
A second policeman joined him, resting a hand on a holstered gun.
“It’s them,” the first one said. “You will both come with me, please.”
This time I didn’t have to ask what it was all about, but I did anyway for the sake of appearances. The answer was almost the same as it had been thirty-seven years earlier.
“No questions. Just come.”
The big difference this time was the reaction of the passengers. In East Germany almost everyone had averted their faces, lest they be summoned next. Today’s audience was raptly attentive. A small boy waved from a window until his mother yanked back his hand. An older man squinted at us above his reading glasses, then shook his head in disapproval. And in the last passenger car, at the second window from the rear, Lothar Heinemann sat watching me, eyes alight. As I was moving out of sight he nodded slightly, as if to say, “See you in Prague-if you ever make it.”
Then the train hissed and groaned and, with a massive lurch, began sliding away toward Prague without us. Litzi reached toward me, but a policeman slapped away her hand.
“Two cars,” one said. “They are to be interrogated separately.”
Just like old times.
They sent a tag team to question me, two cops in civilian clothes in a room with all the expected trimmings- hard chair, bare table, harsh lighting, and a two-way mirror.
One cop was blond and short, a little pudgy, with the ruddiness of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. He would have fit right in as a wurst vendor at the Hoher Markt. Heightening the effect was a mustard stain near the bottom of his tie.
The other one, who seemed to be in charge, was taller with brown hair and a downturned mouth, a sleepy cast to his eyes. He took his time getting started, sifting through a file folder as if it contained the world’s most interesting material, while the shorter cop slouched in a chair with his hands behind his head. Other than the sound of pages turning, there was only the hum of the tube lighting. Two other plainclothesmen, one of them female, had taken Litzi to a room down the hall.
Finally the taller cop stood.
“Tell us what you were doing yesterday at number 11 Kollnerhofgasse at approximately four p.m.”
“Visiting someone for an interview. I’m a freelance journalist doing a story for Vanity Fair. ”
I referred them to the letter of introduction, which they’d already found while searching my pockets. They weren’t impressed.
“Who were you visiting? Name and apartment number, please.”
“I don’t remember the number, but it was the fourth floor. The door was to the right as you came up the landing. The name was Vladimir Miller.”
“Miller? No one by that name resides in that building.”
“It was the name on the mailbox.”
He looked at his partner. I couldn’t tell what passed between them, but then the shorter one stood and produced a photo. It was the same one that had run in the newspaper.
“Is this the man you knew as Vladimir Miller?”
“Yes.”
“So you did see him?”
“Yes.”
He seemed surprised I’d admitted it so easily. The taller one spoke again.
“What was the purpose of your visit?”
“I told you. It was for a magazine story.”
“Yes, but let’s talk about the real reason. What kind of information were you there to collect?”
Now I had a problem. My answer had to be generic enough to match whatever Litzi said, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell them everything and make this a bigger deal than it already was. For all I knew they might even charge me with espionage. But I didn’t know how much Litzi would say. She would be living in Vienna long after I’d moved on (provided I was allowed to), and spilling my secrets might be the easiest way out for her. My only hope
