somehow, their whole lives turned around in a careless haste.
“I did think that at first,” his father said, starting to walk again. “I tried to tell them. But there were orders. You didn’t argue with that. Ever.”
“In the phone booth,” Nick said quietly. “In Union Station.”
His father turned, amazed. “How did you know that?”
“I followed you.”
“You followed me,” he repeated. When he looked at Nick, he softened, as if he could see a child’s face again. “Why?”
“I knew something bad was happening. I thought, in case-” He stopped, surprised to find himself embarrassed.
“In case,” his father said, still looking at him. “So I made you a spy too.” Then he smiled. “A better one, it seems. I had no idea.”
“You weren’t looking.”
“We’re supposed to, you know,” he said wryly.
Nick shrugged. “People don’t see kids. You had things on your mind.” He saw him again, in the herringbone coat, walking slowly up the hill, looking down at the snow, preoccupied. “Is that when you decided? After the phone call?” As if the chronology mattered.
“I didn’t decide, Nick. I did what I was told.”
“But if Welles didn’t have anything?”
“We didn’t know that then, only later. I suppose I believed him too. That there was something. I didn’t want to go to prison.” He stopped, turning. “So I went.”
“Without us,” Nick said, picking at it.
“Yes. Without you. It was usual to have the families follow. Like Donald’s.”
“But we didn’t.”
“No. Did I think your mother would come? I don’t know. At first I hoped, but I never heard. And then-well, by that time I knew Moscow better. It was the terror all over again, until Stalin died. No one was safe. War heroes.” He snapped his fingers, making them vanish as casually as the black cars in the night. “Even Molotov. He denounced his wife. The fool thought it would save his job. She spent seventeen years in the camps. Soviet justice.” He turned to Nick. “It was no place for you. I didn’t want you there, can you understand that? It would have killed your mother, that life. Later, when things got better-” He spread his hands. “You were already someone else.”
They had made a circle through some trees and were heading back to the fortress, to the stillness. The guard had left his post and in their absence was inspecting the car, running his hand along the smooth finish as if it were an exotic animal.
“It’s clearing,” his father said, looking up. “We’ll have sun.”
“Then let’s finish.”
“Yes.” He stopped, touching Nick’s elbow again. “A moment.”
The words sounded translated. Nick looked at him quickly, wondering whether the walk had tired him. Or was he trying to keep a distance from the guard? But his face, lost in thought, showed something else: an old man trying to find his place in a prepared speech.
“So why bring me out?” he said finally, picking up the thread. “The propaganda? That was part of it. Just being there. They like to show us off. Like the Africans they bring to the university. Living proof. Marx is everywhere-even in the jungle. No color bar in the International. Of course, the people think they’re savages-they just stare at them in the metro-so who’s fooling whom?” He paused, catching himself. “But they never used me that way.”
“They gave you a medal.”
“Yes. One press appearance, then no more. A lot of trouble to take, don’t you think, for a minute on the stage?”
“They had to help you. Isn’t that part of the deal?”
“For a Russian, yes, they would do that. But the rest of us — it would depend on what we knew. And what did I know? So why take the chance, if I was being watched, for instance?” he said, glancing slyly at Nick. “Someone had to get me out. Why put anyone at risk? Why not just leave me to the wolves?”
“Okay, why?”
His father looked at him, his eyes burning, finally there. “To protect someone else.”
For a moment Nick was silent, trying to take it in. “Do you know that?” he said quietly.
His father nodded. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. At first you flatter yourself-you want to believe you are important. But I wasn’t. It was never about me, Nick, what happened. It was always about someone else.”
Nick stared at him, so carefully led to the point that now he felt pinned by its sinking inevitability, the event of his life reduced to an accident. Not about them at all.
“Who?” he said.
His father began to walk again, his voice slipping back to its instructor tone. “Well, who did I know? The logical person was Schulman. It fit. He recruited me. He must have been valuable to them. He would insist on being protected. Richard Schulman. I didn’t know it was possible to hate someone that much. During the bad times I had that to hang on to. He’d get caught-it would happen to him, too. It didn’t, though.” He took a breath. “Which was just as well. It wasn’t him, you see. It was someone else.”
“Who?” Nick repeated.
“That’s what I want to find out.”
For an instant Nick wondered if his father was all right, his anger finally curdled over the years into an old man’s obsession. “Find out? How?”
“The woman is the key. I was sent away and she-died. So someone would be safe. Schulman? No. It should have been him, but he died too.” He glanced at Nick. “Quite naturally — later. There was no question about that. I saw the coroner’s report.”
Nick looked at him, appalled. How long had his father been working out his old puzzle, playing detective while his life passed by? Then he saw himself in London, arranging index cards like clues.
“So,” his father said, a blackboard pointer in his voice, “a new question. Who else did she know? Who recruited her?”
They were almost at the car now, and Nick turned to him, away from the guard. “Does it matter anymore?” he said gently. “So many years. Maybe he’s dead too.”
His father shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. It does matter. He’s still there.”
The guard, no longer shy, called over to them in rapid Czech, and Nick stepped aside when his father answered, jarred by the sudden volley of foreign words. Even the familiar voice seemed different, guttural and slurred. He looked at him, half expecting to see his face changed too, broad and Slavic.
“He wants to know what it can do on the highway, how fast,” his father said.
“I don’t know,” Nick said, his mind elsewhere. “What do you mean, he’s still there?”
“Later,” his father said quietly, then spoke in Czech again, affable now, sharing a foreign joke. Nick watched the guard widen his eyes, then shrug. “I told him ninety easy before it starts to rattle. He says his Tatra would fall apart.” The guard gave the car an admiring pat. “I think you’ve made a convert to the West.”
“Stop it,” Nick said, annoyed at his tone.
“Just smile and get in the car,” his father said, almost under his breath, and then spoke Czech to the guard again. Nick watched them chat for a minute, idle car talk outside the old camp walls, and felt again how surreal ordinary life was here. The past wasn’t forgotten, just ignored. Down the road, little girls had played in a pool.
“Never leave a bad impression,” his father said, getting in the car. “People remember.”
Nick put the car in gear and pulled away. “How do you know he’s still there?”
His father lit a cigarette. “Because I’ve been following him. Every agent has a pattern.”
“Following how?”
“Well, at first by accident,” he said, blowing smoke, easing into it. “We always acted alone in Washington. Burgess staying at Philby’s house-that kind of thing would have been impossible for us. We never knew each other. I had my contact, my control, at the Russian embassy, and that was it. No one else.”
“Then how do you know-”
