Night Soldiers

given The Great Stalin’s attitude toward Trotsky, who sits in Mexico and pulls the strings of his puppets, this lack of discipline is going to receive close attention. I advise you to stay away from them, Andres, if you wish to keep your knees unsoiled.”

“Naturally Moscow is upset. Obedience is everything to them, but this is the way of it and you will not change the Spaniards. They have itched all their lives to stop dreaming, to act, after twenty years of talk. And it is their freedom they love most of all, because it is chained to their manhood. Stick your nose in at your peril.”

Sascha held his hand up like a traffic policeman. “No treason, comrade, it’s too hot today.”

“I intend none. But find a way to tell them the truth.” The implied ending of the sentence, for a change, hung in the smoky air.

Sascha brought forth a crooked smile, in which all the ironies in his life danced and played. “Very well,” he said, “I shall certainly start tomorrow. But, for today, let me first put you on the proper path. We have an alternate plan-not so good as the armory, but it will have to serve.”

“Of course, comrade.” Cardona smiled.

“Do you have a camera?”

“I know where to get one.”

“Good. Make certain the film is especially light sensitive. Thursday morning, the first Soviet tank column will reach Madrid-an historical moment. It is moving up from the docks in Alicante and will take a route from the east, entering the city on the Paseo de la Infanta Isabella. We are timing the arrival for dawn and taking other measures to ensure that the entry is as secret as possible. What we want you to do is to take a roll of photographs of these tanks. Not the entire roll, of course, shoot the first few frames on something mundane, as though the film were already in the camera. Invent a good story for being out there, in case they ask. Take the roll, undeveloped, to your contact at Farmacia Cortes. The photos must be clandestine in nature, of course, tilted horizons, out of focus-let them see what a brave fellow you are. You’ll want to be discreet anyhow, for those tank commanders are country fellows, and they’d as soon make daylight shine through you as anyone else. Make sure you photograph the relevant items-tank numbers, commanders’ insignia, the usual drill. It is our intention that the photos soften the blow if your new friends are distressed over the failure at Avenida Saldana, but, most important, we want you to become the keenest sword in the Fifth Column. We want you to glitter in their eyes so that they will show you off to their superiors. Eventually, we think, you will see a German. Now, need I go back over the ground?”

“No. I understand. And it will be a pleasure,” Cardona said, “a great pleasure to see a German.”

“Poor Andres. Is he tired of being a Spaniard?”

“In truth, yes.”

“Do not despair, Andrushka, just a little while longer.”

It was dusk-fields shadowed in purplish light, sunset faded to a few red streaks in the western sky-when they wound their way down the hill from San Ximene. Sascha seemed exhausted; he lay slumped against the passenger door and worked hard at the Fundador until he conquered it-a bottle new that morning. It was, Khristo thought, the performance that sucked the life out of him. The role of case officer demanded an actor of extraordinary range: mother’s warmth, father’s discipline, the acuity of a favorite teacher, the strength of a playing-field hero. Cardona was betting his life that Sascha was good at his job-it was that simple. For months, Khristo had watched him rise to the performance, time and time again.

“Should you not turn on the lights?” Sascha asked.

“I will, in a while. The windshield bugs are terrible here.”

“How can you see to drive?”

“It’s a white road.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll stop if you want to get in back.”

“No, I’m better up here.”

They drove in silence. When it was finally dark, Khristo turned on the headlamps and watched moths dancing in the beams. When Sascha spoke again, his voice was thick with exhaustion. “Save him,” he said. “I want you to promise me that.”

“Who? Andres?”

“Yes. You promise?”

“Of course. You will be at my side to make certain of it.”

“I think not.”

No point, Khristo thought, in pursuing this. Sascha trailed these hooks until you bit. He was, like other intelligence officers, stricken with an urge to confide. It was too strong, like a devil that beat you over the head with your own secrets until you had to let one out. To relieve the pressure you would tell half a secret, or an old, used-up secret, or boast of the secrets you knew. The cursed things had a life of their own, like weeds they threatened to grow right out of your head into plain sight.

“You’ve read his file?” The voice picked up a little.

“Not allowed.”

“Shit.”

“The junior officer is confined to knowledge of tactical intelligence. Strategic intelligence is the sole responsibility of senior staff. Section three. Paragraph eight.”

“More shit.”

“I quote you gospel.”

“You are like a market peddler, Khristo, like a Jew you count kopecks. Tactical intelligence. Strategic intelligence. The difference between waiters’ gossip and ambassadors’ gossip. What notions, really. The thoughts of men whose backsides have grown into their chairs.”

Khristo laughed.

“I’m funny. That Sascha, he will make you laugh.”

“Thank God.”

“I’ll miss you.”

For a time, Khristo thought he had gone to sleep, but then his voice returned from the darkness.

“Roubenis. That is Andres’s true name, Roubenis. Avram Roubenis.”

“Greek?”

“Armenian-at least his father was Armenian-with a Greek name. As for his mother, she was the unhappy result of an amour between a German commercial traveler and a Turkish hotel maid.”

“In a word, a little of everything.”

“Just so. Thus he speaks Turkish, Armenian and demotic Greek. Also Russian, as you have seen. Spanish and English, and he can swear handsomely in Arabic. He was first a spy at the age of fourteen, in 1908. He would sneak up on Turkish encampments, listen to the chatter of the guards, and inform the villagers. To hide or not to hide-that was how they fought back.”

“A survivor, then.”

“The word does no justice. A monument, perhaps, to stepping through the fire quickly and going on with life. He was born under the Ottoman Empire, in a little village near Yerevan, Armenia, at the edge of the Caucasus range. Just north of the border point where eastern Turkey meets northern Iran. In the year 1909, the Turks murdered two hundred thousand Armenians-including the father. They cut off his head with a sword. Avram and his mother saw it happen from where they were hiding, in a rooftop cistern.

“The mother was a great beauty-blond hair like a Fraulein, black eyes like an Anatolian Turk. The soldiers would have made short work of her. There was cruelty beyond imagination-in reprisal for an attack against an officer, hundreds were blinded, left to walk around as living reminders. But Avram and his mother escaped. She sold herself to a merchant and he took them west, all the way across Turkey, in a horse and wagon. I believe there was a baby sister who died of cholera along the way. Eventually they reached Smyrna. You know it? A disputed city, first Greek, then Turkish, on the Aegean coast of Turkey. There, the merchant determined that he would enjoy both mother and son in his bed. The mother was cunning. As the merchant undressed, she pulled his shirt over his head and Avram killed him with a brick he had hidden in the wagon. They dragged his body into a marsh and took his gold.