“We were talking about Anna,” I blurted before I could stop myself; there was a sharpness in my tone that surprised and unnerved me a little. “Sorry,” I added quickly, “I just —”
“I’m sorry too,” Danforth interrupted, and he appeared to mean it genuinely; his discursive narrative was not a storyteller’s tactic designed to keep the hook in place but merely the tangled product of an aged mind. “It’s just that talking about Anna, it brought back how brave they were, the women of the war. They should build a memorial to them someday, Paul. A bronze sculpture in Washington or on Whitehall. Something quiet, but suggestive, to remind us of their sacrifice.” A look of utter heartbreak swam into his face. “It’s the lost we must remember, Paul. The ones who never had a chance to sit by the fire and lift their grandchildren into their laps and tell them the stories of their service.”
“Of course,” I said sincerely.
For a moment we seemed to reach another level in our understanding, not only of each other but of what was truly owed to those toward whom history had not been kind.
“Anyway, about Anna,” Danforth continued, then stopped. He seemed at sea in his own tale. “Forgive me, Paul, but where was I?”
“You said Clayton wanted you to find out more about her,” I reminded him.
Danforth nodded. “Yes, that’s right. But without asking her questions directly. The idea was for me to insinuate myself into her life.” Suddenly a pained smile formed on his lips, and a faint sadness came into his eyes. “And so I became a spy.”
“Did you find anything surprising about her?” I asked.
“No,” Danforth said. “The surprise was about me.”
~ * ~
Oak Bar, Plaza Hotel, New York City, 1939
She arrived exactly on time, dressed in the business clothes she’d worn to the office. In a quick aside earlier that day, Danforth had conveyed to Anna what he called “Clayton’s latest instructions”— they should be seen together in more casual settings — along with the fact that Clayton had given no reason for this. That was typical of Clayton, Danforth had added with a small shrug designed to dismiss the importance of the meetings; it was part of Clayton’s “shadowy style.”
Anna had nodded quickly in response, like a soldier under orders, then agreed to meet Danforth at the Plaza that evening.
“Hello,” she said as she took a seat opposite Danforth. She glanced about but said nothing else, though it seemed to him that she had immediately absorbed various aspects of the room — the dark paneling, the lighted bar, the older man with his young mistress — that she had made careful note and would be able to recall these things, as a musician might remember the melody of a theme heard only once.
“Would you like something to drink?” Danforth asked. “Perhaps a glass of wine?”
“I’d rather have a cup of tea,” Anna said. She drew the scarf from her head, and in the way he’d noticed many times before, she seemed momentarily uncomfortable, as if even this modest disrobing was inappropriately seductive. She reminded him of the serving girls of Ireland who kept their eyes averted even as they placed or removed plates, as if doing otherwise would somehow compromise their chastity. How old it truly was, he thought, the Old World.
He motioned the barmaid over to the table and ordered.
They talked of nothing in particular. The wine and tea came. Danforth lifted his glass in a toast. “To your success,” he said.
She smiled softly, touched his glass with her cup, then focused her attention on a young couple who’d taken a remote corner table, their hands locked together, their gaze intensely fixed on each other, everything else quite invisible to them.
“They must be in love,” she said.
The way she said it had an eerie inwardness to it that made Danforth recall the death of Henry Stanley, the great explorer. He’d lived near Big Ben at the end, and not long before his death, the great bell had sounded, a somber accounting that had awakened an inexpressible understanding in him. “How strange,” Stanley had murmured, “so that is time.”
Danforth had no idea how to say any of this, however, and so he said, “I take it you’ve never been in love?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “And you?”
He thought of Cecilia, with whom he’d been out only the night before, how bright her smile was, the life that sparkled in her, the happiness she offered him, everything, everything but . . . what?
“Yes,” he said, and put that
“It must be wonderful,” Anna said.
“I’m sure you’ll know someday,” Danforth told her.
She nodded crisply, as if cutting off an irrelevant discussion. “I’m leaving for Europe soon,” she told him.
This news, coming to him by way of Anna herself, made her imminent departure more real, and Danforth felt the disquiet not only of her going but of the loss of some vital opportunity. It was as if he’d made a minimal offer on something small and precious but had lost it to a higher bidder.
“Would you like to have dinner?” he asked, since there now seemed little else he could give her. “We could have it in the Palm Garden.”
Anna considered this a moment. “No,” she said finally. “Let’s have it at my apartment. If you don’t mind leftovers.”
“Your apartment?”
