Now, after all the maddening lunatic bureaucratic customs-and-immigration routines were done with and they had checked into their hotel, it was dinnertime and they were in a town called Valdivia, a little past midway up F Spoke toward the rim. The gravity here was about.6, Enron figured. A little closer to Earth-normal than at the terminal, anyway. So far it wasn’t making much difference. He hoped Jolanda would be livelier when they got back to the room after dinner.
They entered the restaurant courtyard. An oily-looking head waiter unctuously seated them. Menus blossomed out of visors set in the tabletop.
“What do you want to drink?” Enron asked.
“What?” She blinked at him.
“To drink, to drink! Wake up, Jolanda!”
“Oh. To drink. I’m sorry, Marty. It must be the jet lag.”
“There isn’t any jet lag in shuttle travel. We came right up here, bam, quicker than it would take to go from California to Tel Aviv.”
“Well, it’s something, anyway. I feel so strange.”
“You don’t like it here?”
“Oh, no, that isn’t it It’s a wonderful place! I knew the space worlds were beautiful, fabulous, but I never really imagined—the stars, the moon—I mean, the splendor of it all, all these shining glass walls, the fantastic views you get everywhere—and the air—it’s so fresh I feel drunk, Marty.
I’ve never breathed air like this.” She gave him a moony, apologetic look. “I’m so excited that I’m dazed, I guess. I feel like this is all some sort of dream. Oh, Marty, I’m so thrilled that you brought me here. —Get me a whiskey sour, will you?”
Good. At least she was coming to life a little.
Enron managed a smile. After punching the drink orders into the tabletop computer he reached across the table, took her hand, stroked it affectionately, squeezed it. Winked. Tonight in the hotel, he thought, I will lick every square millimeter of your glorious oversized body, I will drive you crazy with sex, I will fuck you sixty ways from Tuesday. And then in the morning we will go looking for your friends, your shifty Los Angeles friends who are supposed to be here somewhere, the ones who are planning to toss the old Generalissimo into the matter converter and take possession of this place. And when we find them, your Davidov and the others—
His eyes were roving randomly past Jolanda’s shoulder, exploring in an automatically inquisitive sort of way the tables behind her, as he fondled her. Suddenly Enron caught sight of someone whose presence here startled him extremely.
Well, look who’s here! The eyeless Kyocera Hungarian!
Enron’s fingers tightened convulsively. Jolanda let out a little yelp of pain and surprise and pulled her hand away from him. She stared at him.
“Sorry,” he said.
“What is it? Is anything wrong?”
“No. Not really. But something very interesting. Don’t turn around, Jolanda. Just get up and walk across the courtyard. You need to pee, or something. Ask the waiter where to go. And take a good look on the way, without seeming to. The man sitting three tables behind us, facing in my direction. You’ll know which one I mean.”
She did exactly as she was told. Enron followed her with his eyes, watching the slow, undulating movements of her, the swaying of her hips, the ripplings of her great meaty buttocks. As she passed the Hungarian, she reacted only in the most momentary way, a quick tightening of her step and a brief sharp backward quiver of her elbows, as though a mild electrical shock had passed through her. Eyes less acute than Enron’s might not have noticed the response at all. Then she moved on, her loose gown floating grandly about her, and disappeared on the far side of the courtyard.
On the way back she stole another look, flicking a glance at the side of the Hungarian’s face as she went past him. She was wide-awake now, eyes bright, breathing hard, nostrils flaring. Excited, yes.
“Fascinating,” she said, taking her seat. “I’ve never seen a face like that.”
“I have.”
“You know him?”
“I’ve had some contact with him. Long ago.”
“An astounding face. I’d like to sculpt it, in clay. To run my hands over him and feel the bony structure underneath. Who is he, Marty?”
“A man named Farkas. George Farkas, Laszlo Farkas, Alexander Farkas—I forget the first name. Hungarian. They have about six first names in the whole country, Hungarians. If they aren’t Georges, they’re Laszlos or Alexanders. Or Zoltans. He works for Kyocera-Merck. Victor Farkas, that’s the name. Victor. The exception that proves the rule.”
“How do you know him?” Jolanda asked.
“I met him once. It was in—I don’t remember, Bolivia, Venezuela, some incredibly hot place that was all jungles and vines and palm trees, a place where you would sprout green moss on your skin if you stood still for five minutes. He is in my line of work, this Farkas.”
“A journalist?”
“A spy. His title with Kyocera-Merck is ‘expediter.’ My title with my employer is ‘journalist.’ We do the same sort of thing, Farkas and I, but he does it for Kyocera-Merck and I do it for the government of Israel.”
“I thought you worked for Cosmos magazine.”
He took her hand in his again. She has magnificent breasts, he thought, but she is really stupid. Perhaps there is a connection. She is a cow not just metaphorically, but a real one, a literal cow. She has been retrofitted with bovine genes to give her those splendid udders.
Quietly Enron said, “I thought I had told you all of this already and that you had understood it. The magazine work is my cover, Jolanda. I truly am a spy. That is what I do, actually, when I pretend to be a journalist. Is that clear enough? Are you willing to believe it? This was a matter that I thought was settled the night I was at your house.”
“I decided the next morning that you had only been joking.”
“A spy. Truly. When you told me about your friends in Los Angeles, the reason why I asked you to come up here with me and introduce me to them was that I saw a way that doing so would benefit my country. Not my magazine, but my country. I work for the state of Israel. Is that difficult for you to believe? When I left you that night, I called someone in Jerusalem on a secret scrambled line, I used code names and code words, I told them in spy language where I wanted to go and why I wanted to go there, and tickets for this trip were made available to me through special channels. And visas for us both. Do you think it is always so easy to get an entry visa to a place like this? But I did it in one night, because my government made the proper connections for me. I tell you this because I would not want you to be deceived about me in any way. I may seem sometimes like a bastard, but I am an honorable man, Jolanda.”
“The other night, when I said I had never slept with a spy before, you said that you were one. You said it just like that. I believed you and then afterward I didn’t. And now you’re saying it again.”
“If you want to believe I am a writer for a magazine, Jolanda, believe that instead. Believe whatever makes you happiest.”
Enron saw that she was going to go back and forth on the issue in what passed for her mind forever. Which was fine with him. If she were ever interrogated, she would provide her questioners with a torrent of ingenuous ambivalence. Sometimes telling people the simple truth about yourself is the best way of surrounding the reality of your profession with a haze of confusion.