career ran off the rails, thanks to the denied visa. I expected the book passage to be something about dashed dreams or pouting young men.
It was far more cryptic. The page was from Le Carre’s A Perfect Spy, my favorite of his non-Smiley books. It was the tale of Magnus Pym, a Philby-style mole whose father was a charming con artist. Le Carre supposedly wrote it as a sort of personal exorcism, unloading his emotional baggage over his own dad. In that sense, at least, Magnus was the author’s alter ego. But in another way he was more like me-an only child raised by a single parent, the product of an insular upbringing in which father and son were almost always on the move. The marked excerpt was a mere sixteen words.
Love is whatever you can still betray, he thought. Betrayal can only happen if you love.
I was still trying to figure out what that could possibly have to do with Belgrade ’92 when I heard Litzi come back into the room.
“Bill?” She sounded worried.
“In the toilet. Be right out.”
“You went out for beer?” She’d found the six-pack on the bed.
“Sorry, I was thirsty. Tried to catch you on your way out.”
I folded the message into my pocket, then flushed the toilet and ran water from the tap. When I opened the door I saw that she, too, had picked up some beer.
“You shouldn’t have left. I doubt the desk clerk is very vigilant.”
“You’re probably right about that.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Your face doesn’t look like ‘nothing.’ Did something happen?”
“Everything’s fine.”
She watched me a few seconds more. I considered telling her about the message. But it was more personal than the others, and it troubled me for reasons I couldn’t yet explain. The part about love and betrayal might even be referring to her, so for the moment I kept it to myself. If she was still hiding details of her career with the Verfassungsschutz, why couldn’t I hide this? But the main reason was that I didn’t want to have to explain what had happened back in ’92, or, rather, the aftermath, which I’d handled so poorly.
The food was Chinese, and tasty, and the atmosphere grew more relaxed as we stuffed ourselves with dumplings and garlic chicken. By the time we finished, the room smelled of grease and soy sauce, and we’d downed four of the beers.
We watched some Hungarian television on a wavering black-and-white tube, then packed for an early getaway, brushed our teeth, and climbed into bed. There was no question of sex. Each of us was exhausted, worried, and, more to the point, too wary to make a move. Still, when she rolled up against me later in the sag of the narrow bed, I placed a hand on her waist and snuggled closer. It was a start. But toward what?
I awakened hours later, when it was still dark. The words of the message were still tumbling around in my head. I slipped out of bed and stood barefoot by the window, listening to the night for any sound of movement. I took the note from my trousers, unfolded it as quietly as possible, and reread the quote by the light over the bathroom sink.
Whose betrayal, I wondered? And whose love? And how was any of it relevant to the task at hand, or even to Belgrade ’92? If the note had made any sort of demand upon me, ordering me to appear at a certain time, say, or by a certain deadline, I probably would have defiantly ignored it. But by leaving things open-ended-”Visit anytime. You’re expected”-my handler had turned the request into an enticement, a lure, and as I pulled on my trousers I surrendered to its power.
I shut the door behind me with a tiny click. The innkeeper was gone from his darkened post. When I reached the street I took out my map of the city. Trams and subways weren’t running at this hour, but my destination was only about a mile away, so I set out on foot. Every step echoed in the empty streets, and for blocks I stared cautiously into the depths of every shadow. As I eased into a rhythm, my nervousness abated. Clearly I was alone.
The address was a house, a crumbling three-story Hapsburg fortress built of stone, with grand dormers, a spired turret, and a pitched slate roof. I rang the bell, but there was no sound in response, so I knocked loudly, then began counting the seconds beneath my breath. At eleven I heard footfalls on the stairs. The only other sound was the hum of a streetlamp.
Someone was coming, a heavy but uncertain tread, like a man leery of falling. Old, I guessed. A key rattled and clicked. The door opened just enough for an eye to peer out at me from a face full of folds and wrinkles. The door swung free.
With Belgrade as a point of reference, I recognized him right away, even after nineteen years. He looked as grumpy and disagreeable as ever.
“Cage,” he croaked. “Inconvenient as always.”
“The message said anytime.” My voice misted in the autumn chill. “I decided to take you at your word.”
“ I didn’t write that.”
He glanced up and down the street, then motioned me inside.
“You’d better be alone.”
“As far as I know.”
He wore a white silk robe and felt slippers. He didn’t offer a hand in greeting, which was just as well because I wouldn’t have taken it.
“You do know who I am?” he asked.
“Of course. Milan Bobik.”
Bobik had been the press spokesman for the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry. He was the official who, after days of testy wrangling, had finally marched me into a conference room and explained that my visa request had been denied. The decision, he emphasized, was final and irrevocable, and no manner of appeal or pleading would ever make it otherwise. To my mind, Bobik embodied the beginning of my end.
The Post protested the decision, but recalled me from the field and sent a more acceptable candidate. The following week I sat down with my wife, April, to say that, until I had a chance to regroup professionally, perhaps we’d better postpone our plans for starting a family. At least by one year, preferably two. That’s when she told me she was pregnant with David. He was the greatest gift of my life, and at the time I treated him as a millstone, an ambush. As I said before: Beware the thwarted man, particularly if he is in his mid-thirties and is already gazing off with trepidation toward the bitter end. I acted like an immature ass, spoiled and undeserving, and now here I was back at the source, although I suppose I’d known for all of these nineteen years that the real source of the problem was me.
Bobik sat me down in his kitchen, which smelled of onions and old plumbing. He flipped on a ceiling light, squinted, then retrieved a bottle and two glasses from a cabinet and set them on the table.
Slivovitz, of course, the Balkan plum brandy that had lubricated more than a dozen years of war and revolution, and entire centuries of aggrievement.
“Drink first, you will need it.” He didn’t forget to help himself.
“What are you doing in Budapest?” I asked.
“When Milosevik fell, Belgrade was not the right place for people like me. So here I am. All those cowards who came here during the war to dodge conscription are now back in Belgrade, pretending to be true Serbs. I should have waved to them as we passed at the border.”
“What do you do now?”
“It is too late for a chat. Drink.”
I polished off the brandy in two swallows, a cheap store-bought brand that was as about as smooth as sulfuric acid. He poured another shot.
“You will need them both.” A grim nod of certainty, but I shook my head and pushed away the glass. He shrugged, drained it himself, then stood and went to a desk in the hall, where he slid open a drawer. He walked back to the table holding a folded paper in his right hand.
“I understand, Cage, that you and your father are both collectors. I am as well, especially of items that are likely to appreciate in value.”
He handed me the paper, then remained standing as I unfolded it and began to read. It was a letter, dated
