Tapestry of Spies (24 page)

The Maxim opened fire from quite nearby: its clatter was tremendous. It poured bullets out into the night at an incredible rate and seemed to Florry like some industrial instrument for the manufacture of wickets or camming gears, sparking and laboring mightily in its moorings. He could see Julian pluck the first pin from his bomb and then begin to slide toward the gap that marked the intersection between their trench and the larger enemy one.

What happened next happened fast, particularly after the long, slow miner’s descent toward it. A youth appeared as Julian stepped into the trench and pointed his rifle at him. Florry, just behind Julian, shot the young man in the face.

“Good show!” shouted Julian, bounding ahead and pulling the second pin, as he lobbed the bomb underhand toward the sound of the machine gun. In another instant he was back, knocking Florry flat. The burst, so close, lit the sky with burning fragments and hot wind and hurt their ears. The Maxim quit abruptly.

“Come on,” yelled Julian, clambering past him. Florry rose. There seemed other dark shapes coming from the Fascist position at them and he fired his remaining five chambers of four-five-five at them, driving them back, and turned to race after Julian.

“Come
on
, Stink,” screamed Julian, pulling him along. He was delirious with joy. “Good Christ, man, but that was bloody
marvelous
, that was more bloody fun than old Julian’s
ever
had! Blast, you potted him right in the bloody snout!”

But Florry felt only queasy and ashamed. He’d seen the boy’s face in the spurt of flame and he knew he was perhaps fifteen, with a vague sprig of mustache. The bullet had smashed into his brain, that huge four-five-five, heavy as the Liverpool Express, shattering the whole upper quadrant of his face. He lay in a slop of mud and blood, utterly defunct. Christ, why couldn’t it have been a Moorish sergeant or a German colonel, why a silly, dim little child?

Julian was yanking him along savagely. Explosions and gunfire seemed to be coming from every direction in the dark. Weird illuminations lit the horizon. The trench seemed endless. Bullets pranged into the dirt or thunked against the sandbags, making a peculiar
hop-hop
sound. Julian suddenly leapt back, pinning him to the ground. He heard, besides the thumping of Julian’s heart, the heavy sound of a mass of men running through the mud.
It must have been the attacking party, unsupported since the destruction of the Maxim gun.

“Listen. We’ll never make it back. I think there’s a party of them up ahead in the trench.”

“Ah! The bastards.”

“Yes. Unsporting of them, eh? Why don’t we crawl about a hundred meters or so out on the left. If we stay low, we should be all right. When they pass on by, we can return to our own lines. All right?”

“You clever chap.”

“Brilliant Julian, always thinking. Come on, then.”

Julian pulled himself out of the trench and pivoted to offer Florry a hand. Florry, thus assisted, scrambled out. Julian shimmied away, and Florry began to—

It was as if he were at the center of an explosion. There was no pain, only the stunned sense of a tremendous blow to the throat knocking him down, filling his eyes with light and drama. He fought for strength but could find none; he put his hand to his wound and was further stunned to discover his fingers were wet and black.

God, he’d been shot. He lay, waiting for death. The blood flowed over his tunic. The numbness and incoherence spread.

Julian appeared, inches from his eyes.

“I’m dying,” Florry said.

“Can you move?”

“I’m dying. Go on, get out of here.”

“Ah, rot, Robert. I’m the hero here,
I’ll
make the dramatic suggestions, the glorious sacrifice, all right? Lord, you’re a mess, Stinky. You look worse than when you pissed yourself up in fifth form.”

Somehow Julian got him turned over onto his belly and aimed in the proper direction. Florry floundered along ineffectively and Julian shoved him on, half-pushing,
half-pulling him. Above them, bullets tore through the night, occasionally popping with a rude sound and a cloud of spray into the wet ground. They seemed to move groggily for the longest time, but at last they reached a less barren area, where gullies and thick brush offered them some protection and Julian got him up and stumbling along.

Behind them, another machine gun opened up.

“Damn them, they’ve brought another gun up. Come on, Stinky.”

But Florry was at last spent.

“I don’t think I can make it.”

“Of course you can, old boy. Here, let me take another look. I don’t even think the thing hit you square. These bloody Spaniards can’t do
anything
right. A lot of blood, and you’ve messed a very nice tunic, but if you’ll just—”

“Julian, shut up. I can’t make it. I’m going to pass out.”

“Now, none of that. Come along.”

“Please, go on. Go on, damn you, you always were the brilliant one. Julian, why did you cut me? At school, you cut me dead. You filthy bastard.”

“Long story, old sod. No time for it now. Do come on, then, I think I see some of their chaps moving this way. We’re going to end up practice for pig sticking if we don’t—”

“Go on, damn you. Christ, it hurts.”

“Wounds are
supposed
to hurt. Every sod knows that. Now come along.”

“I-I-”

“Think of England, old boy. Think of the wonderful piece you can write for Denis Mason. You’ll be the toast of Bloomsbury.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Think of Sylvia, old man. Think of the beautiful Sylvia.”

“I can’t think of—”

“Think of her titties, old man. Great soft titties. Think of squashing them about in your fingers while she tells you she wants you to do it harder.”

“You filthy bastard!”

“Think of her wonderful cunt, old man, all wet and fishy and warm. Think of grousing it out as a piggy snorts after truffles. That should revive your interest in living.”

“You filthy fucker, Julian. I ought to—”

“Yes, that’s the spirit, chum. Come along then.”

“Julian, you bastard—”

“Stink, she’s just quim. Damned good quim, I’d bet, but quim just the same. Come
on
, old boy.”

Up ahead, they saw figures on the crestline coming toward them.

L
ENNY MINK FELT GOOD, FOR ONE THING, IN THE SOUR
aftermath of the Levitsky debacle, he had received a promotion from the desperate Glasanov. He was now a major in the SIM and had control of his own unit. But he had other reasons for his joy. For in the matter of Levitsky, he had a considerable edge on everybody else. He knew that the chances of spotting the old Jew randomly were almost nil; Levitsky was simply too smart for that, too shrewd, too much the devil. But Lenny knew why he was here. To see his boy.

To get the gold.

Lenny had figured it out. The old Jew was after the same thing he was. What else could explain the desperation and the cunning and the courage of the old man?

Old devil, Lenny thought, you’re not so special. Just another Jew on the track of a big score. You’ll see your boy and he’ll tell you, huh? He’ll point you in the right direction. You’ve just got to find him.

And his boy was English.

Thus it took no great powers of deduction but only simple cleverness to identify and establish surveillance
on the several concentrations of Englishmen around Barcelona. For surely the old devil would be found sniffing in their fringes. These were not many: there was, first off, the press corps, a group of gray-suited cynics that gathered each night in the Café de las Ramblas and sat nursing whiskeys and grousing bitterly about their assignments and their editors and exchanging sarcastic bets on the outcome of it all. Lenny ordered that Ugarte, his number one, who did all the talking, take up a nightly position there.

“Suppose I get bored, boss?”

“I break every bone in your body. Every single one, no?”

Ugarte had a particularly unpleasant laugh, more a whinny, which he issued at that point, partially to conceal his extreme nervousness. Bolodin frightened him, too.

“Look,” said the American, leaning across and pinching him playfully. “You do what I say, when I say it, and you’ll come out of this okay. Okay?” He spoke English because among Ugarte’s attainments was the language.

“
Sí
, yeah, boss.”

Lenny’s other trusted aid was Franco, called Frank for obvious reasons, an ex-butcher who had beaten his wife to death in 1934 and was freed from his life sentence in August of 1936 by the libertarian Anarchists, who did not believe in prisons. Lenny stationed him outside the British consulate.

Both men carried with them hand-drawn copies of the original etching from the 1901
Deutsches Schachzeitung
, as adjusted and improved by Lenny’s suggestions after having seen the old man at close range in the cell. It was a reasonable likeness. Lenny knew therefore that if things went as they should, it would only be a matter of
time before one of them tumbled across the old man. He had a hunter’s confidence and a con artist’s patience.

He positioned himself on the Ramblas, across from the third and most likely spot where Levitsky might be counted on to appear: the Hotel Falcon, the enemy headquarters, with its flapping red POUM banner. It was full of Brits. These were the idealistic kids who came to take part in the revolution but didn’t quite have the guts to join the fighting. They always came
here
, no place else. As he sat in the 1933 Ford, he conceived the idea that it was like some kind of fancy college club or something, and there seemed to be a lot of screwing and drinking and singing going on. It was a party or something.

Lenny sat outside it day after day, smoking the Luckies he bought on the black market, quietly watchful, utterly imperturbable, in his blue serge suit, his almost handsome, almost ugly, blunt features calm and under control. He merely watched and smoked.

It was on the third day when he noticed her.

She was pretty and slim and lively. Everybody liked her, he could tell. She was the sort of girl you could like a lot.

I never had a girl like that, he thought.

In time, he grew to hate her. She made him think of who he was, and what he was, and he didn’t like that one bit. It was her eyes, those sleepy, calm, knowing gray green eyes, and the way she stood, so ladylike and refined, and the way she listened so intently. She seemed to work for their English-language newspaper,
The Spanish Revolution
, which they sent out, and it meant she knew everybody. One night, Glasanov had them do a crash job on some guy named Carlos. They picked him up at the Grand Oriente and the girl was there. Lenny hung back. He didn’t want her looking at him. He was so
close to her, yet he kept his face down, not looking at anything because he was somehow ashamed.

The next day, a boy showed up and handed him a note from Ugarte which said he’d seen Levitsky; he’d been calling himself Ver Steeg and claimed to be a Dutch journalist and was heading out to the front. The boss had better get out there fast.

Lenny looked back at the girl. The POUM people were all low today because of poor Carlos.

He thought, You bitch, someday I’ll be really fucking big and then you’ll know who I am.

Some day I’ll have gold. And I’ll have you.

T
HE INTELLIGENCE AND PROPAGANDA COMMISSAR OF THE
Twenty-ninth Division, as the POUM militia was called, issued his communiqué about the glorious victory at Huesca a day and a half later at his headquarters at the big, battered house at La Granja. The recipients of the news were a crew of mangy reporters who had spent the intervening hours in transit to the front by any means possible, in the hope of actually seeing something.

The statement was typed and posted on a bulletin board outside militia headquarters. It read,