Private Life (51 page)

know if I hear anything."

She thanked him and gave him the information, grateful that he seemed to think

Andrew was simply a crackpot. It was only after they hung up that she began to wonder

about that phrase "if I hear anything."

Andrew came in in the early afternoon, and she served him an apple and a

liverwurst sandwich. He seemed a little abashed. Margaret knew she had to think

carefully and move slowly in order not to waste her opportunity. She felt a wisp of that

old temptation--curtain rising, play commencing--but she put it away and said, "I read the

papers, Andrew, and put them back on your desk. Why did you show them to me?"

"Well, of course, I wondered what you think."

"What I think?"

"If you agree with me."

"About whether I am the unwitting center of a nest of spies who are using me to

get to you?"

"Why, yes. I wanted to get your opinion."

"You say you've already sent everything in."

"I

have."

"So what does my opinion matter?"

"Well, my dear, who else have I got to ask?"

She couldn't help acknowledging that, in other circumstances, this remark might

strike her as poignant, or even funny, but now she said, soberly, "I do not think that I am

the unwitting victim of a nest of spies."

"Well, of course, they would be sure to solicit your affections." He seemed to

have no idea of how insulting this remark was. He finished his sandwich and picked up

the apple.

She made her voice very firm. "My relationship with the Kimuras is almost purely

a formal one. I've visited them a handful of times, and Naoko has come to the knitting

circle. Did you also turn in reports on the other members of the knitting circle?"

He said, "Do you remember the party for Mr. Kimura?"

"Of course I do."

"I saw Pete back there, behind the garden, in the alley."

"Did you speak to him?"

"I only saw him from the back. He was taking things away, a box of things, like

papers. When he saw me, he hurried away."

"I thought you only saw him from the back."

"But he saw me out of the corner of his eye. He took a large box out of the alley

and turned left; then, moments later, a car drove away."

"Was he in it?"

"I couldn't tell. The man died two days later. I think Pete was taking his papers. I

wonder what you think. You have good instincts. You could be unwitting but still have a

sense that something is going on, and then, when someone suggests what it might be, it

sounds right to you. It clicks."

"So--you're hoping that your theory will click with me?"

"I think it will, yes."

"You've already sent it in."

"I haven't said anything about Mr. Kimura's papers, or Pete carrying them off, but

at least we know where they were last seen, and they could be picked up and perused."

"This is nonsense, Andrew." But she wanted to say "insanity." She should have

started with the word "insanity," but she had done her usual thing, which was to be wifely

and reasonable, which allowed him to weave a net of plausibility around her, and now

they were discussing a piece of insanity as if it might be true.

"Then, my dear, I will just have to use my own judgment and draw my own

conclusions. That boy went to Japan."

"He wanted to get married and live a normal life, which he couldn't live here!"

"That was a plausible excuse."

"It's a reason! I believe it."

He sat for a long time, looking first at his shoes and then at her. Stella jumped into

his lap, received no attention, and jumped down again. Finally, he said, "My dear,

perhaps it is that I can't get over your betrayal of me."

The guilty, Margaret thought, are always undone by the accusation. In her chest,

the reaction began instantly, before she even pictured Pete, or their tryst in Atherton--it

was a sense of being paralyzed and set on fire at the same time, accompanied by a casting

about for evidence as to where the deception went wrong, and indecision as to whether to

confess or to brazen it out. But it was not that she kept silent. It was that she couldn't

speak.

Andrew took a very deep breath and smoothed down his mustache. At last, he

said, "It was Len Scanlan who told me."

"Len Scanlan! Why would you believe a thing he said?"

"Because I sensed it was true. My own instincts were confirmed."

"Are

you--"

But he didn't even seem to notice that her voice was strangled. He went on in an

injured tone: "It was when we went to Saratoga. We were driving along, and he said--I'll

never forget it--'I'm sure it's difficult for you, Captain Early, when even your wife doesn't

believe you. When even your wife finds you a shade ridiculous.' And I saw at once it was

true. The little secret smiles. The way you had about the typing. As if you were humoring

me, or dandling me along like a child. As if my ideas were ridiculous to you."

There was a long pause, which felt like the insensate pause of lifting a heavy

weight, as Margaret came to understand that he and she were not thinking of the same

betrayal at all.

She finally said, "And, by contrast, of course, Leonard Scanlan believed every

word you wrote and every word you uttered?"

"He did then. Not later, of course. Though I feel that he has always understood

and appreciated my theories. Two scientists often agree on basics, and then fall out over

details. The coming of his wife was not good for our partnership."

She exclaimed, "It was an evil thing, and entirely typical of Len Scanlan, that he

should whisper such things in your ear. He was a flatterer and a sneak." Andrew seemed

taken aback by the sharpness of her words, and did not meet her gaze. She took a deep

breath and managed to say in a calmer tone, "I was not indulging myself in secret

smiles."

"Perhaps not, my dear. But even so, you don't believe in my work, and you

haven't for many years." He got up from the table and went into his study. Margaret sat

looking at the apple core sitting on the plate and petting Stella. When she felt herself

more composed, she got up, went to his study door, and knocked. He answered. She

opened the door and said, quite smoothly, she thought, "Have you confronted Pete with

your suspicions?"

"I don't think that's my job. I wouldn't know how. Others do that who are trained

to read facial expressions and that sort of thing."

"You're afraid of him!"

Andrew said nothing to this for a moment, then, "I like Pete. I've always liked

Pete."

"Why would you denounce him as a spy, then?"

"That has nothing to do with liking or disliking. He is or he is not."

"What would he be spying on?"

Now he sounded relieved as he entered upon this topic. "Well, my dear, I've

turned that over in my mind. He was a man with many friends. When he left Russia, they

stayed behind and were drawn into different camps. When he went back, in 1917, which

camp did he enter and which camp did he betray, and how did those camps themselves

betray one another? The ins and outs of this are perhaps imponderable for a Westerner.

He spent several years in Japan, and he came to the U.S. with his tastes formed, in part by

that experience. We don't know what he left behind in Japan, who claimed his loyalties

there. He's been very quiet on that subject. And then he came here. Is his loyalty to this

country? To our aims in the Pacific or elsewhere? Or is he tainted with that distrust of

Western imperialism that seems to be motivating the Japanese and the Russians? Perhaps

he thinks that those countries should throw off their chains. It could be as simple as that.

You don't have to hate your tormentor in order to operate on the principle that the

torment is unjust and must be rectified."

She leaned against the doorjamb and stared at him. Once again, as so often before,

it all sounded so plausible that it seemed easy to be convinced. She could give in to Pete

as a spy, and to the Aether, and to Einstein's investigations on the West Coast. Who was

she to tell the difference between those things and the impact craters on the moon being

like gunshots in the mud and the
Panay
incident and the Spanish flu turning up in

Kansas? Who was she to say yes to one thing and no to another? That seemed to be the

kernel of their conflict--if he couldn't convince her, his own wife, then who could he

convince? If he couldn't convince her, then he was all the more at the mercy of people

like Len Scanlan and, what was his name, his enemy in Michigan, and even strangers,

like that fellow Malisoff. As she stared at him staring at her, she thought, What is at

stake, really? What do I have to lose?

Andrew said, in his pushing, eager tone, "And then there is this. He has shown a

suspicious degree of interest in my theories. He has questioned and probed me."

It popped out: "He was flattering you."

He looked hurt.

She felt her assurance enlarge, and said, "Aren't you afraid that you will be

viewed by the--the--President as a crackpot?"

"No, my dear. I am not."

He spoke with such self-confidence that she said, "I have to tell you, Andrew, that

what you've done is ... breathtakingly irresponsible, given the atmosphere we are living

in. I cannot go along with this, or allow it to continue. Unless you write to your contacts

and renounce these claims, I'll have to do something myself. I'll have to. It will be

embarrassing for you, whatever I do, but I will do it anyway. Do you understand me?"

He was intimidated, at least for now. At least for now, he said, "Then what Len

said ..."

"It doesn't matter what Len said about how I view your ideas. That is beside the

point." The snake picture was hanging on the wall, behind him and slightly to the left.

She went on, "Andrew. Look at that picture. It's called
The Gift
. Look at it. It's a beautiful

picture. It's a picture of Len Scanlan."

He turned around and looked at the picture. She walked out.

BUT she was not uninfected; her forceful denial gave way to uncertainty. She did

not press him the next day or the day after that about withdrawing his reports. She told

herself that she didn't press him because she had that same feeling that she'd had with

Agent Greengrass--all references of any kind to these matters were damaging, and

possibly denials were more damaging than assertions. What one wanted above all was to

be forgotten. But she made an early date with Pete, with whom she lunched at the Palace

Hotel with some frequency now. And the first thing she asked, almost before they sat

down, was how Mrs. Kimura and Naoko, who had moved to Japantown after Mr.

Kimura's death, were doing.

"They don't like it," said Pete.

"Why is that? I thought it would be a cocoon for them, with Vallejo so crowded.

Down by their old shop, there's a racket night and day, with all the new workers and their

saloons."

"Cocoons can be very constricting, and anyway, Japantown is not an enclave of

kindly and well-meaning families going out for church picnics every chance they get.

There are drunks everywhere, Margaret. Unhappy and nervous men make angry drunks."

"Surely they haven't been threatened."

"Surely everyone has been threatened, if only by roaming hoodlums. And Lester

is hardly ever at home, and, of course, what he does during the day, on his job, is

impossible to know."

"He's a bookkeeper. That should be quiet enough."

"It should be, but although Lester has a bookkeeper's skills, he doesn't have a

bookkeeper's character. He's a little bit too inquisitive." He shook his head.

They picked off some of the leaves of the artichoke they were sharing, and Pete

took a sip of his wine.

She spoke as if idly. "Of course, Andrew is sure he's a Japanese spy." How

ridiculous it was to say this! Her pulse quickened.

Pete didn't smile. "Lester's not canny enough for that. He's more the patsy that

spies buy drinks for and then get information out of. Naoko is sure he's involved with

gangs or smuggling. He may be."

"You seem to know what you're talking about."

"Do I? I must have read
The Thirty-nine Steps."
Now he smiled.

"Andrew saw that movie."

"You see, then. Anyway, no American would tell a Japanese man anything, even

a tall Japanese man with an American accent. They'd be more likely to beat him up, and

Lester knows that. And discretion, thy name is not Lester Kimura. People who talk all the

time have a much harder time being spies."

"Why is that?"

"Well, if you are a quiet, nondescript sort of person, pleasant in your way, but

bland, and, say, a little plump, people talk in front of you, because they don't attribute any

keenness to you. And if you seem a bit thick, they dismiss you out of hand. You find that,

with plenty of application, you can introduce yourself almost anywhere, gather

information, and disappear. Your life as a spy is a long and productive one." He smiled

and added, "It especially helps to be an Englishman and have superior manners, but not

everyone can manage that."

She wiped her fingers on her napkin and said, "You're teasing."

"I know what I'm talking about." He picked up the artichoke heart and scraped