Beggarman, Thief (38 page)

He didn’t believe, as Monika did, that the system was tottering and that a random bomb here and there was going to topple it, but at least he himself was no longer just an insignificant, replaceable cog in the whole lousy inhuman machine. His acts were being studied, important men were trying to figure out who he was and what he meant and where he might strike next. The disdain of his comrades in arms for him as Colonel’s pet was now an ironic joke, made juicier by the fact that they had no notion of what he was really like. And Monika had had to admit that she had been wrong when she had said he was worthless. Finally, he thought, they would put a weapon in his hand and order him to kill. And he would do it. He would read the papers the next day and would report meekly to work, filled with secret joy. He didn’t believe that Monika and George and their shadowy accomplices would ever achieve their shadowy purposes. No matter. He himself was no longer adrift, at the mercy of the small daily accidents of the enlisted man who had to say, “Yes, sir,” “Of course, sir,” to earn his daily bread. Now
he
was the accident, waiting to happen, the burning fuse that could not finally be ignored.

He counted the blocks as the bus trundled on. At the eighth block he got off. He walked briskly through a light drizzle the three blocks that George had told him to cover, smiling gently at the passersby. There was a taxi at the corner of the third block, standing there as though it had been ordered expressly for him. He settled back in it comfortably and enjoyed the ride to the Hotel Amigo.

He was just finishing his beer at the dark bar at the Amigo, the small room empty except for two blond men at a corner table who were talking to each other in what he took to be Hebrew when Monika walked in.

She swung up on a stool next to him. “I’ll have a vodka on ice,” she said to the barman.

“Did George order you to come?” he asked.

“I am having a social period,” she said.

“Is it Monika or Heidi?” he whispered.

“Shut up.”

“You said social,” he said. “But it isn’t. You were sent here to see if I followed instructions.”

“Everybody understands English,” she whispered. “Talk about the weather.”

“The weather,” he said. “It was rather warm this afternoon, wasn’t it?”

“Rather,” she said. She smiled at the barman as he put her drink in front of her.

He nursed the last bit of his beer at the bottom of the glass. “What would you do,” he asked, “if I were sent back to America?”

Monika looked at him sharply. “Are you being shifted? Have you been keeping something from me?”

“No,” he said. “But the Colonel’s been getting restless. He’s been here a long time. Anyway, in the army, you never can tell …”

“Pull wires,” she said. “Arrange for someplace in Germany.”

“It’s not as easy as all that,” he said.

“It can be done,” she said crisply. “You know that as well as I do.”

“Still,” he said, “you haven’t answered my question. What would you do?”

She shrugged. “That would depend,” she said.

“On what?”

“On a lot of things. Where you were sent. What kind of job you got. Where I was needed.”

“On love, perhaps?”

“Never.”

He laughed. “Ask a silly question,” he said, “and you get a silly answer.”

“Priorities, John,” she said, accenting “John” ironically. “We must never forget priorities, must we?”

“Never,” he said. He ordered another beer. “There’s a chance I’ll be going to Paris next week.”

Again she looked at him sharply. “A chance?” she asked. “Or definitely?”

“Almost definitely. The Colonel thinks he has to go and he’ll put me on orders to accompany him if he does go.”

“You must learn not to spring things like this suddenly on me,” she said.

“I just heard about it this morning,” he said defensively.

“As soon as you know for sure, you let me know. Is that clear?”

“Oh, Christ,” he said, “stop sounding like a company commander.”

She ignored this. “I’m not talking idly,” she said. “There’s a package that has to be delivered to Paris next week. How would you go? Civilian plane?”

“No. Army transport. There’s an honor guard going for some sort of ceremony at Versailles.”

“Oh, good,” she said.

“What will be in the package?”

“You’ll know when you have to know,” she said.

He sighed and drank half the fresh beer. “I’ve always been partial to nice, uncomplicated, innocent girls.”

“I’ll see if I can find one for you,” she said, “in five or six years.”

He nodded dourly. In the corner the two blond men were talking more loudly, as though they were arguing.

“Are those two men speaking Hebrew?” he asked.

She listened for a moment. “Finnish,” she said.

“Are they close? Hebrew and Finnish, I mean?”

“No.” She laughed and kissed his cheek. She had decided to be Monika now, he saw, not Heidi.

“So,” he said, “business hours are over.”

“For the day.”

“For the day,” he said and finished his beer. “You know what I would like to do?”

“What?”

“I’d like to go home with you and fuck.”

“Oh, dear,” she said with mock gentility, “soldier talk.”

“The afternoon’s activities have made me horny,” he said.

She laughed. “Me, too,” she whispered. “Pay the nice man and let’s get out of here.”

It was dark by the time they got to the street where they lived. They stopped on the corner to see if they were being followed. As far as they could tell they were not. They walked slowly on the opposite side of the. street from his house. There was a man standing, smoking a cigarette, in front of the building. It was still drizzling and the man had his hat jammed down low over his forehead. There wasn’t enough light for them to see whether they had ever seen the man before.

“Keep walking,” Monika said in a low voice.

They went past the house and turned a corner and went into a café. He would have liked another beer but Monika ordered two coffees.

When they came back fifteen minutes later, they saw, from the opposite side of the street, that the man was still there, still smoking.

“You keep walking,” Monika said. “I’ll go past him and upstairs. Come back in five minutes. If it looks all right, I’ll turn on the light in the front room and you can come up.”

Billy nodded, kissed her check as though they were saying good-bye and went on toward the corner. At the corner he looked back. Hazard of the trade, he thought. Eternal suspicion. The man was still there but Monika had disappeared. Billy turned the corner, went into the café and had the beer that Monika had vetoed. When he left the café he walked quickly around the corner. He saw that the front room light was on. He kept on walking, his head down, over to the side of the street where the man was waiting in front of the house and started up the steps, taking his keys out.

“Hello, Billy,” the man said.

“Holy God! Dad!” Billy said. In his surprise he dropped his keys and he and William Abbott almost bumped heads as they both bent over to pick them up. They laughed. His father handed Billy the keys and they embraced. Billy noticed that the smell of gin, which he had associated with his father since early childhood, was absent.

“Come on in,” Billy said. “How long have you been waiting?”

“A couple of hours.”

“You must be soaked.”

“No matter,” Abbott said. “Time for reflection.”

“Come on upstairs,” Billy said, opening the door. “Uh—Dad—we won’t be alone. There’ll be a lady there,” he said as he led the way upstairs.

“I’ll watch my language,” Abbott said.

Billy unlocked the door and they both went into the little foyer and Billy helped his father off with his wet raincoat. When Abbott took off his hat, Billy saw that his father’s hair was iron gray and his face puffy and yellowish. He remembered a photograph of his father in his captain’s uniform. He had been a handsome young man, dark, smiling at a private joke, with black hair and humorous eyes. He was no longer a handsome man. The body, which had been erect and slender, was now saggy under the worn suit, a little round paunch at the belt line. I will refuse to look like that when I am his age, Billy thought as he led his father into the living room.

Monika was in the small, cluttered living room. Monika did not waste her time on housework. She was sitting in the one easy chair, reading, and stood up when they came into the room.

“Monika,” Billy said, “this is my father.”

Monika smiled, her eyes giving a welcoming glow to her face. She has sixty moods to the hour, Billy thought as Monika shook hands with Abbott and said, “Welcome, sir.”

“I saw you come in,” Abbott said. “You gave me a most peculiar look.”

“Monika always looks at men peculiarly,” Billy said. “Sit down, sit down. Can I give you a drink?”

Abbott rubbed his hands together and shivered. “That would repair a great deal of damage,” he said.

“I’ll get the glasses and ice,” Monika said. She went into the kitchen.

Abbott looked around him approvingly. “Cosy. You’ve found a home in the army, haven’t you, Billy?”

“You might say that.”

“Transient or permanent?” Abbott gestured with his head toward the kitchen.

“Transiently permanent,” Billy said.

Abbott laughed. His laugh was younger than his iron-gray hair and puffy face. “The history of the Abbotts,” he said.

“What brings you to Brussels, Dad?”

Abbott looked at Billy reflectively. “An exploratory operation,” he said. “We can talk about it later, I suppose.”

“Of course.”

“What does the young lady do?”

“She’s a translator at NATO,” Billy said. He did not feel called upon to tell his father that Monika also was plotting the destruction of the capitalist system and had almost certainly contributed to the recent assassination of a judge in Hamburg.

Monika came back with three glasses, ice and a bottle of Scotch. Billy saw his father eyeing the bottle hungrily. “Just a small one for me, please,” Abbott said. “What with the plane trip and all and walking around Brussels the whole, livelong day, I feel as though I’ve been awake for weeks.”

Billy saw that his father’s hand shook minutely as he took the glass from Monika. He felt a twinge of pity for the small man, reduced in size and assurance from the father he remembered.

Abbott raised his glass. “To fathers and sons,” he said. He grinned crookedly. He made the ice twirl in his glass, but didn’t put it to his lips. “How many years is it since we’ve seen each other?”

“Six, seven …” Billy said.

“So long, eh?” Abbott said. “I’ll spare you both the cliché.” He sipped at his drink, took a deep, grateful breath. “You’ve weathered well, Billy. You look in good shape.”

“I play a lot of tennis.”

“Excellent. Sad to relate, I have neglected my tennis recently.” He drank again. “A mistake. One makes mistakes in six or seven years. Of varying degrees of horror.” He peered at Billy, squinting like a man who has lost his glasses. “You’ve changed. Naturally. Matured, I suppose is the word. Lines of strength in the face and all that. Most attractive, wouldn’t you say, Monika?”

“Moderately attractive,” Monika said, laughing.

“He was a nice-looking child,” Abbott said. “But unnaturally solemn. I should have brought along baby pictures. When we get to know each other better, I’ll take you to one side and ask you what he says about his father. Out of curiosity. A man always worries that his son misjudges him. The sting of siredom, you might call it.”

“Billy always speaks of you lovingly,” Monika said.

“Loyal girl,” said Abbott. “As I said, the opportunities for misjudgment are infinite.” He sipped at his drink again. “I take it, Monika, that you are fond of my son.”

“I would say so,” Monika said, her voice cautious. Billy could see that she was unfavorably impressed by his father.

“He’s told you, no doubt, that he intends to reenlist.” Abbott twirled his glass again.

“He has.”

Ah, Billy thought, that’s what brought him to Brussels.

“The American Army is a noble and necessary institution,” Abbott said. “I served in it once, myself, if my memory is correct. Do you approve of his joining up again in that necessary and noble institution?”

“That’s his business,” Monika said smoothly. “I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“If I may be inquisitive, Monika,” Abbott said, “I mean—using the prerogative of a father who is interested in his son’s choice of companions—I hope you aren’t offended …”

“Of course not, Mr. Abbott,” Monika said. “Billy knows all about me, don’t you, Billy?”

“Too much,” Billy said, laughing, uneasy at the tenor of the conversation.

“As I was saying,” Abbott said, “if I may be inquisitive—I seem to detect the faintest of accents in your speech—could you tell me where you come from? I mean originally.”

“Germany,” she said. “Originally, Munich.”

“Ah—Munich.” Abbott nodded. “I was in a plane once that bombed Munich. I am happy to see that you are too young to have been in that fair city for the occasion. It was early in nineteen forty-five.”

“I was born in nineteen forty-four,” Monika said.

“My apologies,” Abbott said.

“I remember nothing,” Monika said shortly.

“What a marvelous thing to be able to say,” Abbott said. “I remember nothing.”

“Dad,” Billy said, “the war’s over.”

“That’s what everybody says.” Abbott took another sip, slowly. “It must be true.”

“Billy,” Monika said, putting down her half-finished glass, “I hope you and your charming father will excuse me. I have to go out. There are some people I have to see.…”

Abbott rose gallantly, just a little stiffly, like a rheumatic old man getting out of bed in the morning. “I hope we will have the pleasure of your company at dinner, my dear.”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Abbott. I have a date for dinner.”

“Another evening …”

“Of course,” Monika said.

Billy went into the foyer with her and helped her into her raincoat.

He watched as she wrapped a scarf around her tangled hair. “Will I see you later?” he whispered.

“Probably not,” she said. “And don’t let your father talk you out of anything. You know why he’s here, I’m sure.”