been under orders not to ask for photographs, lest a prospect take alarm. She was about as tall as Hanno, which put her on the short side among modem Nordics though average among her own kind, A full figure, lithely and erectly borne, gave the impression of more height. Her features were broad, blunt, comely. Blond hair in a Dutch bob framed fair skin. Quietly dressed, she wore low shoes and carried a shoulder bag.
Her brows lifted. Tongue touched lips. If she was nervous, which would be more than understandable, she mastered it gamely. “Mr... , Cauldwell?”
How could that husky voice sound familiar? Just deja vu, no doubt. Hanno bowed. “At your service, ah, Dr. Rasmussen,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”
She constructed a smile for him. “Miss Rasmussen will do, if you please. You will remember I am a veterinarian, not a physician.” Her English came readily, though the heavy accent was more Slavic than Danish. “I am sorry to be late. It is because of an emergency in my office.”
“That’s okay. You couldn’t leave an animal to suffer.” He recalled how much they made of shaking hands here and extended his. “I am glad you could, and would, come at all.”
Her grip was firm. The blue gaze intensified upon him, no longer shy. Not forward, either; watchful; he thought of a hunter. Yes, but it was also—puzzled, more than this curious meeting warranted? “Your agent made it sound ... interesting,” she said. “I can promise nothing until I have heard more.”
“Of course. We need to talk quite a lot; and then, if I am not presuming, I would like the pleasure of your company at dinner.” Win or lose, he would. Why did she excite him so? “The talk should be private. This hotel doesn’t have a bar, but we can find one close by, or a coffee shop or anything you wish, as long as we won’t be distracted or overheard.”
She went straighter to business than he had dared hope. “I think you are a gentleman, Mr. Cauldwell. Let us use your room.”
“Wonderful!” Old manners returned and he offered her his arm. She took it with a natural grace making up for the fact that she had obviously not had much practice.
They were silent in the elevator, never quite looking at each other. Damn, he thought, something about her haunts me. Could I have seen her before? Hardly possible. Oh, I have visited Denmark now and then, but while she’s sightly, she wouldn’t stand out in a crowd of such women as they’ve got here.
He had taken a top-floor suite. The hotel was fairly old, far from Copenhagen’s loftiest, but these windows gave a view over bustling downtown and lovely, soaring spires. Furnishings were comfortable, a little faded, reminiscent of a gentility well-nigh vanished from the world. She smiled more easily than at first. “You have good taste in places to stay,” she murmured.
“This is a favorite of mine,” he said. “Has been for a long time.”
“Do you travel much?”
“Going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. Please be seated. What would you like to drink? I have a small refrigerator, beer, akvavit, Scotch, soda, or I’ll be glad to send down for anything else.”
“Coffee, thank you.”
A cautious choice. He rang. Turning around, he saw that she hadn’t taken cigarettes from her bag. Probably then, unlike most Danes, she didn’t smoke. He wished for his pipe to soothe him but decided against it and settled facing her.
“I am not sure how much Becker made clear to you,” he began.
“Very little. I am frank about that. He told of the ... Rufus Institute? ; . . in America and how it wanted to study persons who ... can expect to live for many years. The interest in history—there are more measures of intelligence than that. I went away feeling very unsure. When you telephoned from across the ocean, I wondered whether to make this appointment. But I will hear you, Mr. Cauldwell.”
“I am the man who founded the Institute.”
She studied him. “You must be rich.”
He nodded. “Yes.” Himself alert for any clue whatsoever: “I am a great deal older than I look.”
Did the breath hiss inward between her teeth? “To me you seem young.”
“As you do to me. May I ask your age?”
“I told Mr. Becker.” Starkness stood forth. “No doubt he, or you, or a detective of yours checked the public records.”
He lifted a palm. “Hold on. Please. We both need to be honest, but let’s not push ahead too hard. AlJow me a few questions. You are Russian by birth?”
“Ukrainian. I reached Denmark in 1950. By now I am naturalized.”
He made his lips shape a soundless whistle. “Almost forty years ago, and you must have been adult then.”
Her grin was taut. “You are searching for people who age slowly, no? How old are you, Mr. Cauldwell?”
“I wonder if we shouldn’t postpone that subject a while,” he said carefully.
“Perhaps ... we ... should.” Both of them shivered.
“I don’t want to pry,” he said, “but I had better know. Are you married? I am not, currently.”
The flaxen head shook. “Nor I. I have not married in this country. I got permission to change my last name. ‘Olga’ is common enough in Denmark, but the rest of it, nobody could spell or pronounce.”
“And ‘Rasmussen’ here is like ‘Smith’ in the USA. You didn’t want to be more conspicuous than you could help, did you?”
“Not at first. Things have changed since.” She sighed. “I have wondered lately if I might even go back, now when they say the terror has been ended. Never a day but I have longed for my motherland.”
“You could have too much explaining to do.”
“Probably. I did go away as a refugee, an outlaw.”
That was not precisely what I meant, he thought; and I suspect she realizes it.
“The Danish government knows, down in its archives,” she proceeded. “I said little to Mr. Becker, but you may as well hear. During the war I was a soldier in the Red Army. Many Ukrainians wanted to be free—of Stalin or of the Soviet Union itself, because we are the old, true Russians. Kiev was the seed and the roofof the whole Russian nation. The Moskaly came later. Many of us welcomed the Germans for liberators. That was a terrible mistake, but how could anybody know, when for more than twenty years all we heard was lies or silence? Some men enlisted with Hitler. I never did, I tell you. One resists the invader, whoever he is. But when the Germans retreated, they left parts of the Ukraine in revolt. Stalin needed years to crush it. Have you heard this?”
“I know something about it,” he said bleakly. “If I remember aright, the resistance movement had a headquarters in Copenhagen. Just the same, hardly a word about what was happening got into the liberal—“ no, in Europe “liberal” retained its original meaning—“the Western establishment press.”
“I had been discharged, but I had friends, kinsmen, people of mine in the rebellion. Some openly fought, some were sympathizers who gave what help they could whenever they dared. I knew I was under suspicion. If I did not soon betray somebody to Stalin’s secret police, they would come for me. Then it would be the labor camp or the bullet in the head or worse.” Anguish reawakened. “But how could I join the rebels? How could I shoot at Russian soldiers, my comrades of the war? I fled. I made my way to the West.”
“That was an awesome doing,” he said, altogether sincerely. It had meant hunger, thirst, hiding, running, walk-big, slipping past guard posts, surviving on what scraps of food she chanced to find, for a thousand miles and more.
“I am strong,” she replied. “I had my sharpshooter skills. And I had prepared myself.” Fingers gripped the arms of her chair. “It was not my first time like that.”
Thunder racketed hi his skull. “I have ... had adventures ... of my own ... in the past.”
A knock sounded. Hanno got up and admitted a bellboy, who brought a tray with urn, cups, sugar, cream, and kringler. While he oversaw its placement and tipped the man, he said, because lightness was necessary but stillness impossible, “You’ve had a peaceful time since, I gather.”
He felt the same need was driving her. “I got asylum in Denmark.” From what officials, and how? he wondered. Not that it mattered. If you knocked around in the world long enough, you learned the ways of it, and the byways. “I wanted that because of the Ukrainian connection, but I came to love this country. They are dear people, and the land is so mild. I worked on a farm, decided I would like to be a veterinarian, went to school, studied English and German also, to talk with foreigners who might bring me their pets. Now I have a practice out in Kongens Lyngby, a nice suburb.”
