That was a blow. Luke had hoped everything might come back to him in a flash. 'Christ,' he muttered.
'Don't be downhearted,' Billie said kindly. 'Sufferers have all their faculties, and are able to relearn what has been forgotten; so they can usually pick up the threads of their lives and live normally. You're going to be fine.' _,.-.
Even while he was hearing horrible news, he found himself watching her with fascination, concentrating his attention first on her eyes, which seemed to glow with sympathy, then her expressive mouth, then the way the light from the desk lamp fell on her dark curls. He wanted her to carry on talking for ever. He said: 'What might have caused the amnesia?'
'Brain damage is the first possibility to consider. However, there's no sign of injury, and you told me you don't have a headache.'
That's right. So what else?'
'There are several alternatives,' she explained patiently. 'It can be brought on by prolonged stress, a sudden shock, or drugs. It's also a side effect of some treatments for schizophrenia involving a combination of electric shock and drugs.'
'Any way to tell which affected me?'
'Not conclusively. You had a hangover this morning, you said. If that wasn't booze, it might be the after effects of a drug. But you're not going to get a final answer by talking to doctors. You need to find out what happened to you between Monday night and this morning.'
'Well, at least I know what I'm looking for,' he said. 'Shock, drugs or schizophrenia treatment'
'You're not schizophrenic,' she said. You have a real good hold on reality. What's your next step?'
Luke stood up. He was reluctant to leave the company of this bewitching woman, but she had told him all she could. 'I'm going to see Bern Rothsten. I think he may have some ideas.'
'Got a car?'
'I asked the taxi to wait'
I'll see you out'
As they walked down the stairs, Billie took his arm affectionately Luke said: 'How long have you been divorced from Bern?'
'Five years. Long enough to become friends again.
'This is a strange question, but I have to ask it Did you and I ever date?'
'Oh, boy,' said Billie. 'Did we ever.'
.
1943
On the day Italy surrendered, Billie bumped into Luke in the lobby of Q Building.
At first she did not know him. She saw a thin man of about thirty in a suit that was too big, and her eyes passed over him without recognition. Then he spoke. 'Billie? Don't you remember me?'
She knew the voice, of course, and it made her heart beat faster. But when she looked again at the emaciated man from whom the words issued, she gave a small scream of horror. His head looked like a skull. His once-glossy black hair was dull. His shirt collar was too large, and his jacket looked as if it were draped over a wire hanger. His eyes were the eyes of an old man. 'Luke!' she said. 'You look terrible!'
'Gee, thanks,' he said, with a tired smile.
'I'm sorry,' she said hastily.
'Don't worry. I've lost some weight, I know. There's not a lot of food where I've been.'
She wanted to hug him,- but she held back, not sure he would like it He said: 'What are you doing here?'
She took a deep breath. 'A training course - maps, radio, firearms, unarmed combat.'
He grinned. You're not dressed for jujitsu.'
Billie still loved to dress stylishly, despite the war. Today she was wearing a pale yellow suit with a short bolero jacket and a daring knee-length skirt, and a big hat like an upside-down dinner plate. She could not afford to buy the latest fashions on her army wages, of course: she had made this outfit herself, using a borrowed sewing machine. Her father had taught all his children to sew. I'll take that as a compliment,' she said with a smile, beginning to get over her shock, 'Where have you been?'
'Do you have a minute to talk?'
'Of course.' She was supposed to be at a cryptography class, but to heck with that.
'Let's go outside.'
It was a warm September afternoon. Luke took off his suit coat and slung it over his shoulder as they walked alongside the Reflecting Pool. 'How come you're in OSS?'
'Anthony Carroll fixed it,' she said. The Office of Strategic Services was considered a glamorous assignment, and jobs here were much coveted. 'Anthony used family influence to get here. He's Bill Donovan's personal assistant now.' General 'Wild Bill' Donovan was head of OSS. I'd been driving a general around Washington for a year, so I was real pleased to get posted here. Anthony's used his position to bring in all his old friends from Harvard. Elspeth is in London, Peg is in Cairo, and I gather you and Bern have been behind enemy lines somewhere.'
'France,' Luke said.
'What was that like?'
He lit a cigarette. It was a new habit - he had not smoked at Harvard - but now he drew tobacco smoke into his lungs as if it were the breath of life. 'The first man I killed was a Frenchman,' he said abruptly.
It was painfully obvious that he needed to talk about it 'Tell me what happened,' she said.
'He was a cop, a gendarme, Claude, same name as me. Not really a bad guy - anti-Semitic, but no more so than the average Frenchman, or a lot of Americans for that matter. He blundered into a farmhouse where my group was meeting. There was no doubt what we were doing - we had maps on the table and rifles stacked in the corner, and Bern was showing the Frenchies how to wire a time bomb.' Luke gave an odd kind of laugh, with no humour in it. 'Damn fool tried to arrest us all. Not that it made any difference. He had to be killed whatever he did.'
'What did you do?' Billie whispered.
'Took him outside and shot him in the back of the head.'
'Oh, my God.'
'He didn't die right away. It took about a minute.'
She took his hand and squeezed it. He held on, and they walked around the long, narrow pool hand in hand. He told her another story, about a woman Resistance fighter who had been captured and tortured, and Billie cried, tears streaming down her face in the September sunshine. The afternoon cooled, and still the grim details spilled out of him: cars blown up, German officers assassinated, Resistance comrades killed in shoot-outs, and Jewish families led away to unknown destinations, holding the hands of their trusting children.
They had been walking for two hours when he stumbled, and she caught him and prevented his falling. 'Jesus Christ, I'm so tired,' he said. 'I've been sleeping badly.'
She hailed a taxi and took him to his hotel.
Luke was staying at the Carlton. The army did not generally run to such luxury, but she recalled that his family was Wealthy. He had a corner suite. There was a grand piano in the living room and - something she had never seen before - a telephone extension in the bathroom. f She called room service and ordered chicken soup and scrambled eggs, hot rolls and a pint of cold milk. He sat on the couch and began to tell another story, a funny one, about sabotaging a factory that made saucepans for the German army. 'I ran into this big metalworking shop, and there were about fifty enormous, muscle-bound women, stoking the furnace and hammering the moulds. I yelled: 'Clear the building! We're going to blow it up!' But the women laughed at me! They wouldn't leave, they all carried on working. They didn't believe me.' Before he could finish the story, the food came.
Billie signed the check, tipped the waiter, and put the plates on the dining table. When she turned around, Luke was asleep.
She woke him just long enough to get him into the bedroom and onto the bed. 'Don't leave,' he mumbled, then his eyes closed again.
She took off his boots and gently loosened his tie. A mild breeze was blowing in through the open window: he did not need blankets.
She sat on the edge of the bed watching him for a while, remembering the long drive from Cambridge to Newport almost two years ago. She stroked his cheek with the outside edge of her little finger, the way she had
