The Secret Life of Violet Grant (32 page)

“As I said, he was very good at what he did. They say he was better than Olivier, he could make you believe anything. And of course he was the right sort, bad and dangerous, the sort the ladies love to ruin themselves over, God knows why.” James lit his own cigarette and gazed across the room. “I'd give anything to have seen him in action.”

“You're sick. All of you. I know he loved her.”

“You have proof of this, Miss Schuyler?”

I touched my chest with my palm. “I know. Don't give me that smug smile, young man.”

“I'm not smiling. In any case, the two of them had an affair, Richardson and Mrs. Grant, I think we can agree on that, and Richardson was able to get the information we needed to neutralize the husband. We planted some false information with him, which did a little good. But this was the real coup: there was a guest in Wittenberg, at the Grants' country house, a German government official who was ambivalent about the prospect of war. Thought Germany would ultimately suffer, that it would bring down Europe, that sort of thing. A real Cassandra. So Richardson made contact with him, and together they worked out an alternative scenario, by which Richardson proposed a British-led guarantee of autonomy for Alsace—”

“Alsace?”

“A French province, lost to Germany a generation earlier in the Prussian War. The prospect of wresting it away from German control would coax France to remain neutral, at least for the critical period. Meanwhile the German chap, Richardson's contact, constructed an alternative deployment for his country's troops that would send all resources east instead. The idea being, you see, that Russia would refrain from mobilizing because it could not count on French support, and then Germany would have no imminent threat to mobilize against. The chain of dominoes would be stopped in its tracks.”

“Peter, Paul, and Mary,” I whispered. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. Audacious, wasn't it? Richardson went to Berlin—”

“With Violet.”

“With Mrs. Grant. She was apparently leaving her husband. He went to the British ambassador with the document, but there was nothing Goschen could do, he couldn't vouch for the integrity of the cables or the diplomatic pouches at that point, so Richardson decided to get it out of the country himself. That was his last communication from Germany, a coded cable he sent on the evening of July twenty-sixth, that he was on his way to the consulate in Zurich.”

“That was the night Dr. Grant was murdered.”

“Yes. So he fled with Mrs. Grant—”

“You see? He loved her. He would have left her behind at that point, if he didn't love her.”

“He was using her, Miss Schuyler. He was using her as a courier, in case he was stopped, in case he was found out as a British national. That's what we discovered today. These documents, which had gone missing from history, he had sewn them into the lining of Mrs. Grant's suitcase.”

“But why? If she didn't know they were there, if he was using her as you say, how would she know what to do with them?”

“I expect he gave her some sort of instruction. And he had another plan, a backup, as I believe you Americans call it, if he were in fact separated from Mrs. Grant.”

“And what was that?” I stubbed out my exhausted cigarette.

James jiggled his ice and noticed my predicament. He took out another smoke from his case, lit it against the glowing end of his own, and handed it to me. A long scar ran across the back of his right hand, which I hadn't noticed before, thin and vicious. His fingers lingered against mine. Another hand appeared in my head, smooth and unscarred, with a surgeon's adept fingers and close-clipped nails. It lay atop my naked breast to count the strikes of my heart,
gathump gathump
.
A bit elevated, I think, Miss Schuyler. A bit overstimulated. Whatever shall we do to relax you.

“Are you quite certain you want to hear all this, Miss Schuyler? All this ancient history. Because, to be perfectly honest, I'm finding the present moment decidedly more interesting.”

I drew my hand away from his to lift the cigarette to my lips. “How interesting that you find it interesting, James. Still, I'd like to finish what we started, before we plot ourselves any brand-new shenanigans. I'm just orderly that way.”

Our knees touched, stool to stool. James leaned his elbow intimately on the bar. His eyes were no longer flat and reptilian, but full of whiskey warmth.

“Orderly, are you?”

“Like a nurse with her favorite patient.”

James plucked a chip of ice from his drink and drew it along the back of my hand. “All right, then. Richardson was working with another pair of agents that summer. An American woman and her son. A woman called the Comtesse de Saint-Honoré, except that the young fellow with her wasn't really her son. He was another agent of ours, an extraordinarily precocious young American chap, who was pretending to be a student of Grant's for the summer.”

T
he carriage is as still as moonlight. Violet rises and sinks on Lionel's chest, listening to the motionless air.

A distant shout. A faint bang, like a carriage door.

Lionel slides out of the bed and pulls Violet with him. “Get dressed. No, not the pajamas. Your clothes. That's it.”

She struggles to cover her guilt: her damp belly, her flushed chest. Lionel fastens her stays with calm fingers and hands her her stockings. He tugs on his drawers, his shirt, his trousers. He fastens his braces and slings them over his enormous shoulders. From the valise he takes a dark object and slides it into his waistband. Violet's breath sticks in her lungs.

Lionel slides on his jacket and snaps the valise shut. “Ready?”

“For what?”

He cracks open the compartment door and glances down the corridor. Violet hears another bang, louder this time, and voices hurrying in urgent German. “Christ,” mutters Lionel. He draws her into the corridor and taps on the compartment next door.

It opens to reveal Henry's dark head. “Sir?”

“We're leaving.”

“Leaving?”

Jane's voice. “The third rendezvous?”

“Yes.”

The door closes. Lionel tugs Violet to the rear end of the wagon-lit just as the steward appears at the opposite end. “Sir? Herr Brown?” he calls.

“Just taking Mrs. Brown for a bit of air!” Lionel calls gaily.

“Sir! You can't! There is a police matter . . .”

Lionel forces open the door, tosses down the valise, and leaps to the ground. He turns and holds out his arms. “Now, Violet!”

She jumps into his chest, into the warm and shadowed night. Without a pause, he takes her hand and picks up the valise and runs to the edge of a dark-rimmed wood.

•   •   •

VIOLET STUMBLES
between the trees, clutching Lionel's steady hand. “But the steward!” she pants. “Won't he raise the alarm?”

“Jane will take care of him.”

Ahead, the trees open up into a clearing. The moon has vanished, but the faint light of the rising dawn illuminates the shapes around them. Lionel stops at the edge, takes out his watch, and makes a slow rotation, taking in every shadowy detail of the landscape around them.

Violet sinks atop a fallen log and draws in as much air as she can. They must have run a mile, at least. “Where are we?” she asks.

“Judging by the time and the mountains off to the south, I'd say we're about fifty miles from the border.”

“Fifty miles!”

He turns and looks at her. “Are you all right?”

“It's nothing. Just . . . my stays, I suppose . . .”

“Oh, damn. Of course. I'm sorry.” He unbuttons her blouse and pulls it apart, over her shoulders. His fingers find the tapes at the sides of her stays and loosens them. “Better?”

“I won't ask where you acquired your familiarity with ladies' underthings.”

“And I won't ask why the devil you persist in wearing such wretchedly uncomfortable garments.”

“Walter . . .” She stops.
Walter likes my waist small and my breasts high.
Or rather, Walter
liked
. What had begun as an effort to please her lover's exacting taste had become a habit, a vanity she could not quite shake, like the gradual lengthening of her hair. Her small waist and her high breasts had become as essential to her sense of herself, of Violet Schuyler, as her intellect.

Lionel buttons her blouse again. “When we're in Paris, Violet, replacing your lost wardrobe, you'll start fresh, won't you?”

“Yes.”

“You'll buy whatever suits
you
. Because I don't happen to give a damn what you wear during the day.” He winks a hungry eye and leaves the night unaccounted for.

“Yes.” She smiles. They stand in the middle of an unknown woods, having leapt off a train in the night, pursued by German police, and Lionel is discussing her wardrobe. Making saucy remarks, as if nothing's the matter, as if everything is well in hand. As if the shops of Paris are only a mile or two away.

He does it on purpose, of course. To keep her calm, to keep her from panicking. We can't have the lady panicking now, can we?

Lionel picks up the valise. “Off we go, then. Thank God you've got sensible shoes, at least.”

“One never knows when one's going to be tramping through the countryside at sunrise, after all.” Violet takes his hand.

“One never knows.”

•   •   •

AN HOUR LATER,
they're riding bicycles, which Lionel has found in a shed. The shed was in the village of Gomaringen, which they reached just as the sun crowned the rooftops and turned the distant glaciers a delicate shade of pink.

Lionel whistles as he pedals. The valise is strapped to the back of his bicycle with a length of weathered rope, also from the shed. Violet insisted on leaving a few deutschemarks behind. “You're not cut out for this work, are you?” he said, shaking his head.

“No, thank God. I prefer my laboratory.”

“And you shall have it, my love. By God, you shall have the finest laboratory in Europe, if I have to lay each brick with my own hands.”

Violet flattens her eyebrows at his radiant mood, his happy whistling. Both bicycles are made for men, and she has gathered her skirts like harem trousers about her legs. She keeps her gaze pinned to Lionel's gray wool back as they pedal through the hot valley. She doesn't want to see the spectacular scenery, the triumphant surrounding mountains. After all, the landscape will exist forever.

She only wants to see Lionel.

•   •   •

IN THE AFTERNOON,
as the sun burns through Violet's blouse and the perspiration rolls down her skin, Lionel stops by a river. “It's damned hot,” he says, dismounting the bicycle. “Let's cool off.”

Violet balances her feet on the pedals and glances about. There's nobody near, only the grass and trees, the broad cool river flashing white in the sun. Lionel is already pulling down his braces, unbuttoning his shirt. He looks at her and grins. “Come on, then.”

“What, without any clothes?”

“Of course, without any clothes.” He toes off his shoes and shucks his trousers from his thick legs.

“Here, in the open?”

“There's nobody here but us.” The afternoon light covers his burly body in gold. Without waiting, he jumps into the water. A splash explodes in the quiet air. “Ah, marvelous. Come in, Violet. Swim with me.”

Swim with me.
Violet shakes her head and glances at the horizon. Her muscles ache, her skin throbs with heat, while yards away, the cool river
beckons. Lionel beckons, with his long brown fingers and his cheerfully wicked smile.

Violet swings her leg over the bicycle, props it against a tree, and finds the fastening of her skirt.

When she looks over the bank of the river, Lionel is paddling on his back, gazing up at the pale sky as if he's not running for his life, hurrying to the border as fast as he can. “I thought we were in a rush,” she says, covering her naked parts awkwardly with her hands.

Lionel's gaze finds her. He scrambles upright. “God, look at you.”

“Aren't we in a rush?”

He holds out his arms. “You were about to topple off your bicycle. You need a rest. An hour won't make any difference.”

Gingerly, Violet steps down the bank and into the water. “Oh, it's freezing.”

“Come on, then. You do know how to swim, don't you?”

“Yes.” Violet draws in her breath and pushes herself forward through the mountain-fed current, toward the radiant Lionel, whose arms are still stretched toward her.

Later, as they scramble dripping on the riverbank, Lionel drags her face against his. “You do believe me, Violet? You trust me, don't you?”

She can't answer. How can she answer, when his body is against hers, when they are soldered together like this?

He holds himself still and hot against her skin. “Violet, tell me you trust me.”

She takes his face between her palms and kisses him.

“Violet cannot let a lie,” he says, in his softest voice.

Violet's eyes are closed. Lionel's skin is warm beneath her cheek, smelling of grass and clean water. A drowsy bee lingers near her hair; she is too spent to brush it away. “It doesn't matter. We're together, here, right now. Does it matter if we can't read each other's minds?”

“I can read yours.”

“And what do you read there?”

“Doubt.”

“Yes. Can you say to me honestly, can you
promise
you've told me everything? There's nothing else?”

He lifts himself away and reaches for his jacket pocket. “To answer your earlier question,” he says, lighting a cigarette, “it
does
matter, practically speaking. This isn't a holiday. We're on the run, Violet. If we get in another tight spot, like we did on the train, you'll have to do exactly as I say. Obey me without question.”

She wraps her arms around her bare skin and watches him, the way the sun touches the tip of his nose, the sprinkles of hair on his unshaven cheek. “I obeyed you on the train, didn't I?”

“Why?”

“Because I know you wouldn't hurt me. You must have some sort of use for me, some feeling for me, or you'd have left me in Berlin.”

“Christ, Violet. Some sort of
feeling
for you. Is that what this is, the two of us? Just some sort of
feeling
for each other?”

“Because God knows you're competent at what you do. You take care of those who depend on you.”

“I'm flattered.”

“And because, in the end, I don't care. Whether you really love me or not, whether you're telling me the truth about everything, or anything, or nothing. Whether or not you plan to go on your way once we're safe in Switzerland—”

“To
abandon
you.”

“—once you've accomplished your mission, and begin another one. I've thrown my lot in, haven't I? I sink or swim with you. If I've only got a day of you left, I'll take it.”

“What does that mean?”

“What do you think it means?”

Lionel stands with his hands linked behind his head, watching the sky. The cigarette dangles from his full lips. “Ah. Do you love me, then, Violet? Do I have that, at least?”

“I love you, Lionel.”

He grinds out the cigarette against a tree and turns to kiss her. “There, now. That wasn't so hard, was it?”

•   •   •

VIOLET AND LIONEL
cycle on, toward the mountains. The grassy hills pass by, the sweet-laden orchards, the abundant fertility of July. Every three or four kilometers, a village rises up along the road, gray-roofed and somnolent under the summer sun. They pass a few farmers, who wave and call greetings as if all Europe is not on the brink of war.

Violet doesn't want the day to end. She wants to cycle forever, exhausted and happy, watching Lionel's broad gray back shift with the effort of pedaling. They must stop for the night at some point, and he will make love to her again, as sure as the coming darkness, and perhaps even again before dawn. How many more times will Violet lie with Lionel? Twice? A dozen? A thousand? If she keeps pedaling, if they never stop, can they hold back the inevitable?

Evening falls softly. They find a barn and share a picnic dinner, nestled in straw. Violet aches in every bone. She has bicycled thirty miles at least today, most of it upward, winding around the Alpine foothills. Her blouse is unbuttoned, her dusty shoes and stockings laid out nearby. She watches in bewilderment as Lionel moves about the hayloft, checking the doors and windows, whistling softly as he examines his revolver. He's in his element, doing what he was born to do: the way Violet feels solving a page of equations, or calibrating a perfectly designed experiment.

He glances at her. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing. You. You can't really intend to give all this up and settle down with a dull woman scientist.”

Lionel sets the revolver down on the wooden floor beside the straw and prowls toward her on his hands and knees, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight, like the panther she imagined him all those weeks ago in Berlin. “I can't think of anything more exciting,” he says.

•   •   •

LIONEL COULD
have broken her hold like a spiderweb, but he doesn't. He falls against her, shuddering like a dying man. “So you'll take
that
risk,” he says, when he can speak again. “But you won't trust
me.
You want me to father a child on you one moment and betray you the next.”

“I don't
want
you to betray me.”

“But you think I might.”

“All the more reason to want this now. To be selfish. To keep as much of you as I can.”

Lionel's head sinks into the straw next to hers. His breath is still hard and rapid, his heartbeat like a bass drum. “You'll kill me, Violet.”

He is so heavy, so warm and excessive. How can she ever be empty of him, in want of Lionel? It defies imagination. The straw prickles her back. His thick elbows stab her shoulders; his hands cradle her hair as if she were made of rubies.

He says, “We'll be married in Zurich. At the British consulate.”

Violet doesn't answer. She tightens her arms and legs and keeps him safe inside her, as long as she possibly can.

The light retreats through the windows. Not a sound reaches them, there in the hayloft, as if they're the only two people in the world: only his breathing and hers, the rustles of straw, the tiny movements of their bodies in the loneliness.

Lionel lifts himself away and draws on his trousers.

“Where are you going?” she asks, half asleep. The sudden exposure makes her shiver.

“Just to smoke.” He lays his jacket over her chest and shoulders. Violet listens to the creak of wood as he climbs down the ladder from the hayloft and crosses the floor below. In his absence, the silence is primeval. She curls herself into a ball, so that she fits entirely inside the weight of his jacket, and closes her eyes. She sees Lionel standing next to the barn,
perhaps leaning his bare shoulder against the wall, smoking quietly under the sliver moon. His gray eyes squint into the darkness, and his arms are crossed, and the pale smoke drifts thoughtfully along the side of his face.