So she would be a bird in his life, Danforth thought, a bird for whom he had briefly provided a nest and who would soon take flight and then simply disappear over the horizon.
“When is she leaving?” he asked.
“We’d like her in place within a few weeks. No later than mid-May.”
“Why the hurry?”
“Because things are heating up, as I’m sure you’re aware,” Bannion answered.
“Where is she going?”
“There’s no need for you to know that,” Bannion answered. A disquiet surfaced in his eyes, as if he’d suddenly spotted trouble in the distance. “And once she’s gone, you should never mention her to anyone.”
“I understand,” Danforth said. “I’ll never say her name again.”
Bannion gave no hint of how he received this declaration, only glanced to the right, where a beat-up sedan had come to a halt at the far end of the park. There were two men in the front seat and one in the back, a configuration that appeared to draw Bannion’s grim attention. He waited until one of the men got out and walked into a nearby store, then he turned back to Danforth. “You should be aware that they may already be onto the Project,” he said. “And if so, they’ll stop at nothing. So right now, all of us have to watch our backs, because they could be anyone, anywhere.”
Danforth found this assertion slightly paranoid. “Who is this mysterious ‘they’?” he asked doubtfully.
“German sympathizers, of course,” Bannion answered. “The type who break up anti-German rallies. If they find out what we’re doing, they’ll do whatever has to be done to stop it.” Bannion looked at Danforth in a way that made Bannion’s doubts about him quite plain. “So the point is to get Anna in place before anyone has a chance to betray her.”
“I would never betray her,” Danforth said firmly.
Bannion’s smile was hard to read. “Let’s hope you’re never tested.”
With that he turned and made his way across the wintry park.
There was something both comforting and scary in his determined stride, Danforth thought, the robotic severity of a man who could be trusted to do whatever had to be done, no matter how extreme. Such was the way of men whose Great Ideal had failed them, he supposed, and in that failure left scar tissue on their souls.
With Bannion gone, Danforth had no reason to remain in the park, but he found himself compelled to linger there awhile. He did not know why, save that the park gave him a sense of comfort, of rootedness. The bandstand was freshly painted, the perfect symbol of a small town whose inhabitants had no reason to mistrust the world. The still-naked trees, the distant swings, the small fountain, all of it now seemed terribly vulnerable, a naive realm that had to be protected by men like Bannion, who he suddenly imagined as quite capable of anything. This had not come from what Bannion had said but from the flinty nature of the exchange, the dead earnestness he’d seen in Bannion’s eyes. Danforth knew that in a less perilous time, he would have been the last to entrust any aspect of his country’s good to such a man. But now history seemed to demand the Bannions of the world, men without reserve, men without limits, men who cared little for the usual dictates of governance and who made those who could be ruled by them seem weak and dithering.
~ * ~
Century Club, New York City, 2001
I felt a pang of disappointment. To lose his innocence? Was this to be Danforth’s story, some little moment of moral quavering? If so, it was familiar in the extreme. Worse, it was irrelevant, since Danforth’s personal transformation, however trivial or profound, had nothing to offer in terms of useful tactical information. I could almost hear Dr. Carlson, my superior at the center, fire off the inevitable question:
“Innocence,” I said blandly, “that’s a hard thing to nail down, don’t you think?”
Danforth picked up the dessert menu. “Not in terms of knowing who they actually are,” he said. “We always know who the innocent are.”
“But as a concept, it’s somewhat complicated, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Only when it should more accurately be called naivete,” Danforth said. “I had a contact in the French Resistance.” He continued to peruse the menu as he spoke. “He was of no great value. A courier, not much more. He was arrested and taken to Hotel Lutetia. Do you know it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s at forty-five boulevard Raspail,” Danforth went on. “During the war it served as Gestapo headquarters in Paris, and so there were quite a few interrogation rooms. Augustin was taken to one of these rooms, of course. He was interrogated for a while. There were a lot of people screaming in his face and a few stinging slaps, but nothing really unbearable. He didn’t know anything, so he couldn’t tell them anything. After a time, the treatment became more severe, and before it was over he was pretty well broken.” He looked up from the menu. “The apple tart isn’t bad.”
I nodded.
Danforth returned to the menu, studying it thoughtfully as he continued. “All of this shouting and slapping was done by Germans.”
He put down the menu and summoned the waiter. “The apple tart for me. And you, Paul?”
“I’ll have the same.”
The waiter stepped away.
“Out of the blue, a uniformed Paris policeman came into the room,” Danforth continued. “And do you know
