In the infirmary, someone was sitting on Eisler’s bed. He took in the bruised side of the face, the bandage over the forehead cut, before he recognized Corporal Batchelor.
“What happened to you?”
“I walked into a door,” Batchelor said, his voice flat. Next to the neat pile of Eisler’s effects, his battered face was jarring, the disorder of violence. “How did you hear?” he asked, embarrassed.
“I didn’t. I came for these. Are you all right?”
The boy nodded.
“That must have been some door,” Connolly said, moving toward Eisler’s things. “You going to let him get away with it?”
The soldier shrugged. “It was just a door. I’ll live.”
“The unfriendly kind.”
The boy smiled weakly, wincing a little from the cut at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, the big unfriendly kind. I’ll have to be more careful at the PX.”
“Maybe next time you should just stay away,” Connolly said. Then, hearing the tone of his voice, “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s all right,” the soldier said, his face weary. “I had it coming.”
“Nobody has it coming,” Connolly said, suddenly angry for him, then aware that he didn’t know anything about it. What was it like living this way? Was every meeting a risk? He thought again of the ordinary world outside, so bright that it made any other invisible. And then it occurred to him that it might have been a different kind of misstep, the wrong question. Connolly’s fault.
“This didn’t have anything to do with-I mean, I hope you weren’t—”
“Snooping?” The boy shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. Just a door. I never heard a word, by the way. Since you ask.”
“I know. He wasn’t-we made a mistake.”
The boy looked at him. “So what was it?”
“We know it wasn’t that. Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to bother anybody.”
He nodded his head again. “Good. I’m glad about that, anyway.”
“So don’t go banging into any more doors. Not because of that.”
The soldier shrugged. “I’m just a bad judge of character, that’s all. I never was good at that. How about you?”
The question caught Connolly off-guard, as if it had come from another conversation. “Not very. Sometimes.” He moved to gather up Eisler’s things. “I still think you’ve got a lot of guts, though.”
The smile this time was fuller, a wry grimace. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“I also think you’re a damned fool to let him get away with it. You ought to turn the bastard in.”
When Batchelor looked up at him, his eyes seemed almost pleading. “I can’t. Don’t you know that? That’s the way it works. I can’t.”
Connolly thought about him as he walked toward Eisler’s apartment, carrying the valise. It shouldn’t be that easy to get hurt. He wondered what would happen to Batchelor after the war, when he would drift off the Hill to some other life, hidden from Connolly and everyone else until it showed up again on his face.
At least his mystery had its bits of visible evidence. Eisler’s had receded with him. Here were the clothes, the books, the old pictures. Connolly sat smoking for a while in Eisler’s living room, peering at the walls as if some idea lurked there, waiting to be found. Then he started going through the books. He took them down from the shelves, flipped through, then made piles on the floor. Nothing. He remembered that first night in Karl’s room, the presence in those few neat possessions, someone who was still living there and had been delayed on his way back. But Eisler was gone, perhaps had never been here at all. All these objects, rooms full of them, pared away until finally there was only one idea. Those last weeks with Connolly had been his one brief contact. And then he had gone back into hiding. What was it like to believe so completely, to let everything go but one thing? What was it like not to care who got hurt? Standing there with a meaningless German book in his hand, Connolly felt the room go empty. An entire life for a single idea. And it had been wrong.
15
“I won’t bloody do it,” she said, sitting up.
“You’ve got to.”
“I don’t.”
She had gathered the crumpled sheet around her as if she had been surprised by an intruder. The room was warm, closed against the afternoon light.
“You’re the only way it can work,” he said calmly.
She stared at him, then jumped out of bed and grabbed the clothes off the floor. She held them in front of her, then turned to the bathroom door, tripping in the dimness. “Bugger,” she said, stumbling toward the window. When she jerked the cord of the shade, the light of the room, amber and erotic, flashed harsh white. A cheap rug and Formica table, Connolly sitting up in the messy bed. He watched her try to pull on her slip, turning it around to find the opening, anxious to be covered.
“I’ll be with you. Every step,” he said.
She stopped, frustrated with the slip, and stood holding it.
“You’re lovely,” she said. “Lovely. Waiting till we’d done it before you’d ask. What did you think? A good slap and tickle and then a bit of spying on the side? There’s a good girl. You must be mad. I won’t.”
“Emma, please. I’ve explained it badly.”
“Have you?” she said, struggling with the slip again. “Cheat on one husband, then go and trap another. That’s roughly it, isn’t it? I won’t, thank you very much. He’s my husband. Or was. Is. Whatever he is, I’m not sending him to jail.”
“He won’t go to jail. They don’t want him-he’s the go-between. At the worst, they’d ship him home.”
“Yes? Funny, I can hear the keys rattling already.”
“I don’t understand you. He walked out on you.”
“Well, that’s not quite a prison offense yet, is it? They wouldn’t have enough jails.”
“It’s not about him.”
“It is to me. I don’t want to see him. He’s dead. And I’m not bringing him back to life. Just so you can put him away.”
“Nobody’s putting him away.”
“Well, whatever happens, it would be my doing, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t even know he existed if I hadn’t told you. Before you got your marvelous idea.”
“Calm down.”
“I won’t calm down,” she said. “I suppose you’ve already offered my services. That must have caused quite a stir in the security office. Lord, what a past. Who’d have thought. I didn’t know she went in for that sort of thing.”
“Nobody knows. Nobody’s going to.”
“What made you think I’d do it?”
“I thought you’d want to,” he said evenly. “We’ve got to find out. It’s important.”
“Want to? Why? For the good of the country? Don’t make me laugh.”
“I thought you’d do it for Karl.”
“Karl?” she said, disconcerted. “Karl’s dead.”
“So is Eisler. Maybe somebody else, for all we know.”
“Maybe the whole bloody world. Look, you carry the sword of vengeance. You’re good at it.”
“Emma, I need you to help me. He’ll trust you.”
“What makes you think so? Old times’ sake? Or am I supposed to go to bed with him? Is that it? Maybe you want to watch.”
“Don’t.”
“Is that it? Just like Mata Hari?”
“No, of course not. If you’d let me explain—”
“Oh, you. You’d talk the birds from the trees to get your way. I suppose we’ll be saving the world next. With me on my back.”
“Will you listen?”
“You listen,” she said, giving up on the slip and walking over to the bathroom. “Listen to yourself. You might be surprised what you hear.” She slammed the door behind her.
He sat on the bed for a minute, waiting, but there was only the sound of running water. He put on his pants and went over to the window, turning the slats of the blinds halfway to look out at the dusty parking lot. Her anger had surprised him. It seemed to thrash and spurt like some well that bursts deep down, thwarted till it reaches air. He thought of that night at the square dance, when it seemed no more than high spirits, when he had first wanted her. He wondered if she was douching, washing him away. He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke catch the light. The awful thing was, she was right. He’d waited till they were finished. He’d made love to her knowing he would ask.