And speaking of building, guess what, my boy?'
'What?'
'I've started the terrace steam bath and I've handed over the plans for the gazebo down by the streams. Nobody interrupts Emmanuel Weingrass until his designs are completed to his satisfaction!'
'Manny, you're impossible!.'
'I may have heard that before.'
Milos Varak walked down a gravelled path in Rock Creek Park towards a bench that overlooked a ravine where offshoot waters of the Potomac rushed below. It was a remote, peaceful area away from the concrete pavements above, favoured by the summer tourists wishing to get away from the heat and hustle of the streets. As the Czech expected, the Speaker of the House of Representatives was already there, sitting on the bench, his thatch of white hair concealed by an Irish walking cap, the visor half over his face, his long, painfully thin frame covered by an unnecessary raincoat in the sweltering humidity of an August afternoon in Washington. The Speaker wanted no one to notice him; it was not his normal proclivity. Varak approached and spoke.
'Mr. Speaker, I'm honoured to meet you, sir.'
'Son of a bitch, you are a foreigner!' The gaunt face with the dark eyes and arched white brows was an angry face, angry and yet defensive, the latter trait obviously repulsive to him. 'If you're some fucking Communist errand boy, you can pack it in right now, Ivan! I'm not running for another term. I'm out, finished, kaput come January, and what happened thirty or forty years ago doesn't mean doodlely shit! You read me, Bom?'
'You've had an outstanding career and have been a positive force for your country, sir—also my country now. As to my being a Russian or an agent from the Eastern bloc, I've fought both for the past ten years, as a number of people in this government know.'
The granite-eyed politician studied Varak. 'You wouldn't have the guts or the stupidity to say that to me unless you could back it up,' he intoned in the pungent accent of a northern New Englander. 'Still, you threatened me!'
'Only to get your attention, to persuade you to see me. May I sit down?'
'Sit,' said the Speaker as if addressing a dog he expected to obey him. Varak did so, maintaining ample space between them. 'What do you know about the events that may or may not have taken place some time back in the fifties?'
'It was 17 March 1951 to be exact,' replied the Czech. 'On that day a male child was born in Belfast's Lady of Mercy Hospital to a young woman who had emigrated to America several years before. She had returned to Ireland, her explanation, indeed, a sad one. Her husband had died and in her bereavement she wanted to have their child at home, among her family.'
His gaze cold and unflinching, the Speaker said, 'So?'
'I think you know, sir. There was no husband over here, but there was a man who must have loved her very much. A
rising young politician trapped in an unhappy marriage from which he could not escape because of the laws of the Church and his constituents' blind adherence to them. For years this man, who was also an attorney, sent money to the woman and visited her and the child in Ireland as often as he could… as an American uncle, of course—’
'You can prove who these people were?' interrupted the ageing Speaker curtly. 'Not hearsay or rumour or questionable eyewitness identification but written proof?'
'I can.'
'With what? How?'
'Letters were exchanged.'
'Liar!' snapped the septuagenarian. 'She burned every damned one before she died!'
'I'm afraid she burned all but one,' said Varak softly. 'I believe she had every intention of destroying it, too, but death came earlier than she expected. Her husband found it buried under several articles in her bedside table. Of course, he doesn't know who E is, nor does he want to know. He's only grateful that his wife declined your offer and stayed with him these past twenty years.'
The old man turned away, the hint of tears welling in his eyes, sniffed away in self-discipline. 'My wife had left me then,' he said, barely audible. 'Our daughter and son were in college and there was no reason to keep up the rotten pretence any longer. Things had changed, outlooks changed, and I was as secure as a
