The Prodigal Spy (16 page)

By the time Nick got to Notting Hill Gate, he had a plan and the beginnings of an itinerary. He found Molly waiting on the street, looking at a Czech phrasebook, and she had changed herself again–plaid skirt, knee socks, sweater, and hair pulled back into a pony tail, a conventional American girl. Passport officials would know the type in a second.

“I thought I’d better start boning up,” she said, holding out the book.

“Perfect,” Nick said, implying that it was a prop.

“No, we’ll need it. Unless you speak German. They hate it, but they speak it.”

“Come on, let’s go. We need to hit the Hungarian consulate later.”

“We’re going to Hungary?”

“Vienna and Budapest. The old empire. I thought it would be better if Prague was a side trip. You know, as long as we’re in Vienna, so close, you couldn’t resist showing it to me. In case anyone checks.”

“When did you think all this up?”

“Last night. It has to be casual–a quick look-see and we’re on our way, before anyone notices. With an itinerary to prove it.”

“Why should we have to prove it?”

“I don’t know. Why did my father send you?”

“Are you trying to scare me? He just wants to see you.”

“Secretly.” He looked at her. “Do you want to back out?”

“You’re overreacting.”

“Maybe. I’ve never done this before.” He looked up at the modern building with the plaque of the Czech lion rampant bolted into the brick, as official as a jail. “It’s still a police state. We have to be careful.”

She shrugged. “Tell you what, then. You do all the talking. I’ll just think about my engagement trip. Budapest, for God’s sake.”

Nick smiled. “It’s nice. Lots of thermal baths. They told me so at Cook’s.”

“You went to Cook’s?”

“I want it all on paper. Tickets. Reservations.”

“Like an alibi.”

“Yes,” he said, looking at her. “Like an alibi.”

But in fact the process was no more sinister than getting a driver’s license. There were guards and applications to fill out and pamphlets about currency restrictions. On the walls, a portrait of a jowly man Nick assumed to be Husak. A few old people in line arguing in a language as remote as Chinese. Then forms were stamped and routed to out boxes, an iron curtain of paper. The visas would be good for three weeks, and they were required to exchange dollars for the whole period.

“But we’ll only be there a few days,” Nick said.

“Those are the currency regulations,” the woman said tonelessly. “You will perhaps find many things to buy.” An explanation from Oz, utterly without irony.

“When will they be ready?”

“Come back in three days. It’s possible.”

“We’re anxious to start.”

“Yes,” the woman said, shuffling papers. “All the world wants to go to Prague.”

Nick wondered if this was an office joke, but her face was impassive, already looking at the next person in line.

They paid the extra five pounds for the car and took the early hovercraft, skimming across the Channel to Ostend. They made good time through the flat, sprouting landscape, but by afternoon the mountains slowed them, and it was late when they finally reached Bern, as neat and atmospheric as a stage set. They found a pension on one of the arcaded streets not far from the bear pit, and after some soup and Alsatian wine in the empty dining room, went up to bed. Molly had said little during the drive but now began to unwind, turning playful from the wine.

“So how do we do this?” she said, pointing to the bed. “I’ve never been to bed with a man before. To sleep, I mean.”

“Pick a side.”

“Like brother and sister.” She threw a flannel nightgown on the bed and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she came back, toothbrush still in her mouth, Nick had already stripped to his shorts.

“Briefs. I knew it. We used to take bets–you know, in school. Briefs or boxers, I knew you’d be briefs.” She watched as he turned back the covers. “Do you sleep in them?”

“Tonight I do.”

“Don’t worry. I’m too tired to look.”

“Is that really what girls talk about?” he said, getting into bed.

“Of course. What do boys talk about?”

“Other things.”

“I’ll bet.”

She went into the bathroom to rinse, then came back and put on the nightgown, slipping the clothes off underneath. Nick sat in the bed, blanket pulled up to his chest, watching her.

“How do you do that?”

“Hooks. Trick of the trade,” she said, pulling in her arms and struggling with her shirt. “Ta-da.” The shirt fell to the floor, then, after a few minutes of wriggling, the bra. She held it up for him, dancing a little. “See?”

“If you want to put on a show, take my advice and don’t wear flannel.”

“Serves you right,” she said, sinking into the chair, propping her feet on the bed.

“Aren’t you coming to bed?”

“In a minute.”

“Well,” he said, snapping off his light but still sitting up, looking at her.

“This would be my mother’s idea of a perfect honeymoon.”

He watched her for a minute, then said, “Let’s not complicate things.”

She moved to the bed. “No.”

“Turn off the light and go to sleep.”

“Just like that.”

“Try it,” he said, rolling away from her on his side.

She got into bed quickly, pulling the covers up. “Want to hear something funny? I feel–I don’t know. Embarrassed. It’s like we’re married or something. Do you snore?”

“No,” he said, still on his side.

“How do you know?”

“Will you go to sleep, please? We want to make Vienna tomorrow.”

“It’s farther than you think.”

“Then we’ll have to start early. Go to sleep.”

She turned out the light and was quiet for a minute. Then she said, “Another day or two won’t make any difference, you know. I mean, he’s waited this long.”

Nick turned over, but there was no light to catch her face, so that his words seemed spoken to the darkness. “So have I.”

He turned away from her again, convinced they would spend hours pretending to sleep, but after a while he drifted off, no longer aware of her. It was the army’s one gift: you learned to sleep anywhere. When the rain started he was back at the cabin, listening to the steady drip on the roof, safe in his room. It got louder and he thought about the gutters, his father cleaning out the clumps of leaves so the water would run down the drainpipe at the corner, making a puddle near the porch.

A rattling noise woke him, and, disoriented, he was startled by the figure at the open window until he realized it was her. She was looking out, smoking, her head in profile against the dim light.

“What’s the matter?”

She jumped, as if he had tapped her on the shoulder. “Nothing,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t sleep, that’s all.”

“Would it be better if we had separate rooms?”

“It’s not that. Go back to sleep,” she said, her voice gentle again.

“You all right?”

“Just nerves. Middle-of-the-night stuff. That ever happen to you?”

He nodded in the dark. “What is it?”

“There’s no ‘it’.” It’s just that feeling you get when you know you’re going to make a mess of things. I do that a lot–make a mess of things.“ The rain blew in and she stepped back, brushing the front of her nightgown. ”And now I’m wet. My mother always said I didn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain.“

“Do you want to go back?”

“Not now.” She stopped, talking into the dark as if she could see him. “That’s the thing about making a mess–you can’t help it, even when you see it coming.”

“What are you worried about?”

“You, I guess. I mean, I got you into this. And now you’re so–I don’t know,
up
for it.” She paused. “You never know how things will turn out.”

He sighed. “Then let me worry about it. I want to go, Molly. You just–came along for the ride, okay? Come on, get into bed. It’s late.”

She stood still for a minute, then started lifting the nightgown over her head. “I have to take this off. It’s wet.” He heard the rustle of cloth, then saw the pale white of her skin, indistinct in the dark. She slipped naked into bed, curling up on her side in a protective ball. “Nick?” she said. “Don’t expect too much, okay?”

“I know.”

“I mean, things never go the way you expect.”

“I know,” he said, but lightly this time, edging further away. “Look at us.”

The next day was bright and clear and she began to enjoy herself, as if the rain had washed away the nighttime jitters with the clouds. They drove past steep meadows dotted with cows and wide farmhouses with window boxes, a calendar landscape without a smudge. The road swung through the mountains in perfectly engineered switchbacks and tunnels, encouraging speed, and they seemed to fly through the high, thin air, not even pausing at the rest stops, where tourists photographed each other against patches of glacier and the miles of valley just over the rail. It all looked, in fact, the way Nick had imagined it, Heidi meadows and bright wildflowers, but more painted than lived in, and by midmorning, feeling guilty because it was beautiful, he began to be bored. He knew he was meant to admire it–think of America, raging in its streets–but after a while all he wanted to do was turn the radio on, to disturb the peace. “What kind of people stay neutral?” Molly said, somehow reading his mind. She was in jeans, down in the seat with her feet up, content to let him drive. “When you’re traveling, you never meet anyone who says he’s Swiss. Germans, yes, everywhere you go, but never Swiss. Imagine liking a place so much you never go anywhere.” She pulled out a cigarette, lighting it away from the draft at the window. “It must be nice, not taking sides.”

“Everybody takes sides.”

She looked at him for a second, then waved her hand toward the landscape. “They didn’t. They just let everybody go to hell. And they’re doing okay.”

“Up here in cloud-cuckoo-land. You wouldn’t last a day.”

“No? Maybe not. Anyway, it’s probably just the air. Not enough oxygen to decide anything one way or the other.”

“How much more of this?” he said, nodding toward the road.

“Miles. Austria’s pretty much the same. This part, anyway. You can hardly tell the difference.” She took a long pull on the cigarette, blowing the smoke out in a steady stream, suddenly moody. “Of course, they weren’t neutral there. They were Nazis.”

“So much for your theory,” he said. “About the air.”

“Maybe they got talked into it,” she said quietly, still looking ahead.

“That’s not the way I heard it.”

She glanced at him, surprised, as if he’d interrupted another thought, then shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe the air’s heavier over there.”

Oddly enough, it was. As they crossed the border the sky grew dark with clouds, so that the morning seemed more than ever like some bright Alpine mirage floating above the gray. The middle of Europe was overcast, too far from the sea for the winds to lift its gloomy cover. Even the buildings began to take on a leaden weight, dreary with concrete and slate. They had lunch on a terrace built for sun with a small cluster of middle-aged ladies wearing overcoats and hats.

“What’s it mean, anyway, briefs or boxers?” Nick said, to break her mood.

She smiled. “Well, boxers are a little country club, maybe.” She paused. “Can I ask you something? Why did you change your mind?”

He looked at her face, open and curious. “I didn’t change it,” he hedged. “You just took me by surprise. Of course I want to see him. Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know. If I felt the way you did—”

“How do I feel? I don’t know from one day to the next. I won’t know until I see him, I guess.”

“Okay,” she said, backing off.

He leaned over, putting his hand on hers. “Look, I think I owe him this much, that’s all.”

Her eyes widened. “Owe him?”

“Remember before when I said people always take sides? What if it’s the wrong one? That ever happen to you?” He felt her hand start under his, trapped, and he realized he’d been pressing down, so he released it. “It happened to me. I went to Vietnam. People change. Maybe he needs to tell somebody, get it out.”

She moved her hand away, drawing it down into her lap. “He’s been there a long time, Nick,” she said softly.

“Don’t expect too much–I know. So maybe he hasn’t changed. Maybe he just wants to tell me his war stories.”

“Are you nervous?”

He glanced up, feeling her eyes on him, then covered the moment by pulling out some notes to put on the bill. “Well. This isn’t getting us there.”

She watched him put the money on the plate. “Would you do something for me?” she said. “Let’s pretend we’re not going there. Until we do. Let’s just be tourists.”

“All the world wants to go to Prague,” he said.

She smiled. “But not today. Prague can wait a little.” They stayed the night in Salzburg and the next day left the main highway for the old road through the valley, storybook Europe with monasteries perched on bluffs over the river. The farther east they drove, the more remote the landscape felt. Nick saw the chemically sprayed vineyards and mechanized farms, but what he imagined were ox carts and peasant houses with superstitious chains of garlic at the window. Churches swirled in Baroque curves and flared out on top in bulbs. The German signs, funny and indecipherable at the same time, made the roads themselves seem unreal, as if they were traveling away from their own time.

They decided to stop at Durnstein, where the ruined castle, almost theatrically gloomy now at dusk, was likely to guarantee a few tourist hotels, and were amazed to find the town full. They went from one inn to another in a light drizzle, achy from the long day’s drive, until finally the desk clerk at the Golden Hind sent them to Frau Berenblum’s, a block away. She had been slicing bread when they rang the bell and, alarmingly, answered the door with the knife still in her hand, but she had rooms.

“
Zwei Zimmer
,” she said to Molly.

Nick, who understood this much, said, “Tell her we only need one.”

“
Zwei Zimmer
,” she repeated, glowering at him and pointing at Molly’s ringless finger.

“Two rooms,” Molly said. “She’s worried about my virtue. If she only knew. Cheer up, though, we get to share a bath, and you never know where that’s going to lead. Want to get the bags? She already thinks you’re a pig, so try to be polite.”