Kingdom of Shadows

Ilya headed for the door. Morath stayed where he was. He glanced at his watch, followed along with the priest’s Latin phrases. He’d grown up with it, then, when he came home from the war, stopped going.

Finally, he rose and walked slowly to the back of the church.

Ilya was standing just inside the door, staring out into the rain. Morath stood beside him. “You’re staying here?”

He nodded toward the street. “A car.”

In front of the church, a Renault with a man in the passenger seat.

“For me, maybe,” Ilya said.

“We’ll go together.”

“No.”

“Out the side door, then.”

Ilya looked at him. They’re waiting at only one door? He almost laughed. “Trapped,” he said.

“Go back where we were, I’ll come and get you. Just stay where people are.”

Ilya hesitated, then walked away.

Morath was furious. To die in the rain on Tuesday afternoon! Out in the street, he hunted for a taxi. Hurried along the rue Peletier, then rue Drouot. At the corner, an empty taxi pulled up in front of a small hotel. As Morath ran for it, he saw a portly gentleman with a woman on his arm come out of the lobby. Morath and the portly gentleman opened the rear doors at the same moment and stared at each other across the backseat. “Forgive me, my friend,” the man said, “but I telephoned for this taxi.” He offered the woman his hand and she climbed in.

Morath stood there, water running down his face.

“Monsieur!” the woman said, pointing across the street. “What luck!”

An empty taxi had stopped in traffic, Morath thanked the woman and waved at it. He got in and told the driver where to go. “I have a friend waiting,” he said.

At the church, Morath found Ilya and hurried him to the door. The taxi was idling at the foot of the steps, the Renault had disappeared. “Quickly,” Morath said.

Ilya hesitated.

“Let’s go,” Morath said, his voice urgent. Ilya didn’t move, he seemed frozen, hypnotized. “They’re not going to kill you here.”

“Oh yes.”

Morath looked at him. Realized it was something Ilya knew, had seen. Had, perhaps, done. From the taxi, an impatient bleat of the horn.

He took Ilya by the arm and said, “Now.” Fought the instinct to stay low and sprint, and they trotted down the steps together.

In the taxi, Ilya gave the driver an address and, as they drove away, turned around and stared out the back window.

“Was it somebody you recognized?” Morath said.

“Not this time. Once before, maybe. And once, certainly.”

For long minutes, the taxi crawled behind a bus, the rear platform crowded with passengers. Suddenly, Ilya called out, “Driver, stop here!” He leapt from the taxi and ran down the entry of a Metro station. Chaussee d’Antin, Morath saw, a busy correspondence where riders could transfer from one line to another.

The driver watched him go, then twisted an index finger against his temple, which meant crazy in taxi sign language. He turned and gave Morath a sour look. “And now?” he said.

“Avenue Matignon. Just off the boulevard.”

That was a long way from Chaussee d’Antin, especially in the rain. Taking people from one place to another was fundamentally an imposition-clearly that was the driver’s view. He sighed, rammed the gearshift home, and spun his tires as he took off. “What goes on with your friend?” he said.

“His wife is chasing him.”

“Woof!” Better him than me.

A few minutes later he said, “Seen the papers?”

“Not today.”

“Even old J’aime Berlin is giving it to Hitler now.” He used the Parisian pun on Chamberlain’s name with great relish.

“What’s happened?”

“A speech. ‘Maybe Adolf wants to rule the world.’ “

“Maybe he does.”

The driver turned to look at Morath. “Just let him take his army up into Poland, and that’ll be the end of that.”

“I forbid you to see him again,” Polanyi said. They were at a cafe near the legation. “Anyhow, there’s a part of me wants to tell you that.”

Morath was amused. “You sound like a father in a play.”

“Yes, I suppose. Do you buy it, Nicholas?”

“Yes and no.”

“I have to admit that everything he says is true. But what troubles me is the possibility that someone on Dzerzhinsky Street sent him here. After all, anybody can buy an overcoat.”

“Does it matter?”

Polanyi acknowledged that it might not. If diplomats couldn’t persuade the British, maybe a defector could. “These games,” he said. ” ‘Hungarian diplomats in contact with a Soviet operative.’ “

“He said he had papers to prove it.”

“Papers, yes. Like overcoats. Any way to get back in touch with him?”

“No.”

“No, of course not.” He thought for a moment. “All right, I’ll mention it to somebody. But if this blows up, in some way we can’t see from here, don’t blame me.”

“Why would I?”

“Next time he calls, if he calls, I’ll see him. For God’s sake don’t tell him that, just accept the meeting and leave the rest to me.”

Polanyi leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You see, whatever else happens now, we must not do anything that will compromise the prime minister. Teleki’s our only way out of this mess-that little man’s a knight, Nicholas, a hero. Don’t go telling anyone this, but last week he paid some boys in Budapest to rub garlic on the doors of the foreign office, with a note that said ‘German vampires keep out.’ “

“Amen,” Morath said. “How could contact with a defector damage Teleki?”

“I won’t know until it’s too late, Nicholas-that’s the way things are done now. Sad, but true.”

Sad, but true for Morath was, on the last day of March, another letter from the prefecture. Once again, Room 24, and six days until the appointment to worry about it. The Roumanians, he guessed, would not go away, but it wasn’t a good guess.

They kept him waiting, outside the inspector’s office, for forty-five minutes. Calculated, he thought, but he felt it working on him anyhow. The inspector hadn’t changed: sitting at attention, square-faced and predatory, cold as ice. “You’ll forgive us for troubling you again,” he said. “A few things we’re trying to clarify.”

Morath waited patiently.

The inspector had all the time in the world. Slowly, he read over a page in the dossier. “Monsieur Morath. Have you, by chance, ever heard of a man called Andreas Panea?”

The name on the passport he’d obtained for Pavlo. He took a moment to steady himself. “Panea?”

“Yes, that’s right. A Roumanian name.”

Why this? Why now? “I don’t believe I know him,” he said.

The inspector made a note in the margin. “Please be certain, monsieur. Think it over, if you like.”