Tapestry of Spies

The boy whispered a last statement.

“I no longer believe in it, Emmanuel Ivanovich Levitsky, in any of it, revolutions, politics, history. It’s all just murder and theft. But I have found a new faith to sustain me over the years. I believe in you. I love you.”

The boy slipped away into the darkness.

Pavel rolled the wheelchair across the hangar toward the aircraft, chatting idiotically.

“I hope that wasn’t too hard on you, old man. He quite insisted. What a hero that one is. You recruited well, old fox. You recruited quality. GRU understands, even if Koba and NKVD do not,” said Pavel. “We will sacrifice anything to save him, even you, old hero. For that young man is the future.”

And I am the past, thought the Devil Himself, as they passed under the shadow of the great wing.

44 A WALK IN THE PARK

In the end, the gendarmerie cared less for the body than the pistol. Florry explained ? endlessly ? that it had been his assailant’s, that he had never seen it before he was set upon and it was just the sheerest luck that he’d managed to get hold of it in the scuffle. He was detained three nights in Limoges, the next city along the line after the incident, while they tried to figure out what to do with him and while Sylvia recovered in hospital. He was ultimately levied a stiff fine by a skeptical prefecture and admonished to leave the province swiftly, which he proposed to do as soon as Sylvia could travel.

As for the body of the mysterious assailant, its papers proved false and nobody would claim it and nobody could explain it. Florry offered no precise opinions as to who this person had been: a crazed thief, perhaps, clearly someone with dreadful mental difficulties. The body was disposed of in a pauper’s field without ceremony by an undertaker and his teenage assistant. Its effects ? including the grip, which, unknown to them all, contained a good deal of money as well as further false papers ? simply disappeared in the uncaring clumsiness of the French rail system.

Sylvia kept telling Florry to go on and that she would catch up to him in Paris, but he insisted on staying. When her swelling had finally gone down, and she was released from the hospital, he suggested they go for a walk in the park. He had a question, he said, and he had to ask it, he had to know the answer.

It was by this time July, a gloriously beautiful day, not as hot as the French Julys can be but sunny and bold. No country seems more alive in the sunlight than France, and they spent that afternoon walking around in a beautiful park until at last they came to a bench hard by a pond in a glade of poplars. The air was full of dust and light and the birds were singing.

“God, it’s lovely here,” said Sylvia.

“Sylvia, there’s something I have to ask you.”

Sylvia sighed.

“I must say, I knew this was coming. I’m afraid I know what you’re going to say, Robert. That you love me. That you want to marry me. That?”

She turned to him. “Robert,” she said, “you’re an awfully fine fellow. You saved my life. Twice, in fact. But?”

“Actually, Sylvia,” he said, “the question I had was something else: how long have you been working for Major Holly-Browning?”

She missed a beat, then smiled.

“Robert, I’m afraid I haven’t?”

He interrupted her. “You really are a little slut, aren’t you, darling? The major’s whore, sent to make sure poor Florry does his dirty deed. You never cared for me, except as a tool, as someone to be used. Give the old bastard credit, he saw my weaknesses. He knew how vulnerable I’d be to a sweet-faced tart who kept telling me what an impressive chap I was, who’d give me a bloody toss between the sheets. It was quite a performance, darling, especially the way you suddenly veered toward Julian and made me crazy with jealousy and made the job everybody so wanted done seem feasible. God, you deserve some kind of award.”

“Robert, I?”

“You must have thought it quite comical when I confessed I was a ‘British agent.’ You must have felt the contempt a professional feels for a feckless, hapless amateur with delusions of grandeur. But it finally penetrated, Sylvia. Do you know where you went wrong, old girl? The bloody apartment. Sampson had a villa, for some damned reason. I recall him telling me. That wasn’t his place we went to, it was yours. The major had it set up to get you out, not me. That’s how they had your picture for the passport. Yes, you were the major’s little secret weapon, eh?”

“Robert, stop. You’re all wrong, it’s?”

“You pathetic little quim. It must have been hard, Sylvia, hanging around that dangerous city that week, waiting. But you weren’t waiting for me, were you? You were waiting for word on Julian’s death. You had to know. That was the last part of your job, to make certain the poor bastard was dead.”

She stared stonily out across the pond. The terrible thing was that even now she looked beautiful to him. He wished he could hold her to him and make real his last illusion: that a better world could be theirs.

“Then you were too bloody good on the way out! You had it all figured. You’d gone over the route, you knew how to handle everything. You are something, Sylvia, I must say, you are a piece of work.”

She turned back, eyes gray green, face tight and beautiful. She smelled so wonderful.

“I don’t work for your major, Robert,” she said. “I swear to God I don’t.” She took a deep breath. “It’s what’s called MI-5, actually,” she said. “Security Service. We go after traitors, Robert. That’s our job. Yes, I spied on you, because I thought you were my country’s enemy. That is the truth. Without illusions and, damn you, without apologies.”

“Poor Julian. He thought we were both his friends. With friends like us, the poor sot hardly needed enemies.”

“He was a traitor, Robert. You reported so yourself in Tristram Shandy.”

“I was wrong. I leaped to a conclusion. I made a mistake.”

“No, you weren’t wrong. No matter how brave he was at that bridge and how he chummed up to you, he was a Russian agent. No matter what he told you, the truth was, he was working for the Russians. He was a spy, Robert. He was the enemy. And you wouldn’t have had the guts to deal with him if I hadn’t played my little game. Yes, Robert, I made you a killer. You killed Julian because I made you. Because it was the right thing. You couldn’t see your duty, but I saw mine.”

“You and all the rest of the voodoo boys, you’re wrong. About Julian. About everything. Julian was the only one that was right. He knew. In the end, it was just a game.”

“Stop it, Robert. You’re still an innocent.”

“Sylvia,” he said. “You are my last illusion, and my most painful one. God, you’re a cold bitch.”

“Somebody has to be, darling,” she said, turning back to the water, “so that the silly fools like you can write your silly books and feel as if you’ve done something for your country. It’s the Sylvia Lillifords and the Vernon Kells and the MI-5s that make the world safe for the fools like you, Robert. You really are the most perfect ass I’ve ever met.”

But he could see that she was crying.

“Good-bye, darling.”

“No, don’t you leave, you bastard,” she spat at him. “I’ll tell it all. I went to Spain to get them. To get them all, all those clever, bright pretty young people in the Hotel Falcon who think revolution is so beautiful and communism is a new religion. Yes, I got them all, by name and by number, and it all goes back to the MI-5 files. They’re dead in England, and they don’t know it. And I’ll get you, Robert, I will. You think you’re going to write a book about all this, Robert? Well, we’ll stop you. With Official Secrets, we’ll close you down. You’ll never publish anything, Robert. You’re done, before you’ve even begun, God damn you, you’re just like them. Soft, a dreamer, ready to piss on your inheritance.”

Florry looked at her, and realized how full of hate she was, how she was nothing, in the end, except a kind of