By far his least favorite part of the day was language class. His instructor was Vibviana, a pretty but severe West Zlabian defector. She explained that the agency had developed its methods based on developmental psychology research that pinpointed the years from birth to three as the critical period for language acquisition.
“To facilitate better, you must return please to frame of mind of young children’s.”
Twice a day, for two hours, Pfefferkorn became a Zlabian. In his first lesson he assumed the role of a newborn. He submitted to being diapered and burped while Vibviana, his fictive mother, sang him lullabies and told him stories based on the Zlabian national poem, Vassily Nabochka. Every successive lesson advanced him through one developmental year, so that by the end of the second day he was four years old and already well acquainted with the horrors of West Zlabian childhood. His fictive family, played by a rotating cast of agents, included a beloved and mentally retarded older brother, a crone of a grandmother, and countless aunts, uncles, cousins, and goats. Everyone lived under one tiny thatched roof, so that when Vibviana suffered at the hands of Pfefferkorn’s fictive father (a violent, alcoholic factory hand), Pfefferkorn was forced to sit in the corner and listen to the sounds of slaps, screaming, and broken crockery, followed by maudlin apologies and vigorous make-up sex.
It was not fun.
That was the idea, Paul said. The Zlabian psyche was steeped in abuse, degradation, and poor hygiene, and the sooner Pfefferkorn got used to it, the better.
Never before had he had so much one-on-one time with his son-in-law. In his daily policy briefings, Paul—or op com, as the other agents called him—shed his bumbling accountant’s façade, revealing himself as savvy, quick, and cynical, the kind of oversmart young patriot capable of smoothly steering his country into a disastrous foreign war. He had a way of talking around the issue that inspired confidence and dread in equal measure.
“You love her,” Pfefferkorn said.
Paul turned from the projection screen, which showed a timeline charting the ramifications of the 1983 West Zlabian currency devaluation. He stared at Pfefferkorn for a moment, then switched off the laser pointer. “I thought I made that clear.”
“I need to hear it again.”
“I love her.”
“How much.”
“Well, it’ll take me some time to prepare a full report.”
“You proposed to her after what? Three months?”
“Five.”
“And before that? How long was it in the works?”
“People get married for lots of different reasons,” Paul said.
Pfefferkorn said nothing.
“I love her,” Paul said, “with all of my heart.”
“How do I know that?”
“How did you know it before?”
“I didn’t,” Pfefferkorn said.
“Then you’re no worse off,” Paul said. “Better, in fact, because I’ve shown you my hand.”
Pfefferkorn said nothing.
“Don’t forget Carlotta,” Paul said.
“I haven’t forgotten her.”
“You’re doing this for her.”
“I know that,” Pfefferkorn said.
There was a silence.
“What really happened to Bill?” Pfefferkorn asked.
“Boating accident,” Paul said.
The grandfather clock chimed.
“Time for your language lesson,” Paul said. “Vibviana says you’re coming along nicely.”
The fourteenth year of Zlabian boyhood had been an annus horribilis in which Pfefferkorn’s beloved and mentally retarded older brother died of tapeworms, his pet goat was clubbed to death by an irate neighbor, he flunked his Vassily Nabochka qualifying exam, and he lost his virginity to an elderly prostitute who taunted him mercilessly after he ejaculated prior to entry. On the plus side, he had mastered the subjunctive.
“I feel hollow inside,” Pfefferkorn said.
“That’s the spirit.”
66.
The night before Pfefferkorn’s departure, the core members of the team threw him a graduation party. Vibviana played the accordion and sang folk songs taken from Vassily Nabochka. Sockdolager got thunderingly drunk and tried to kiss her. Pfefferkorn delivered him an elbow to the solar plexus that left the larger man sinking to his knees, gasping for breath. Everyone applauded and commended Pfefferkorn on the unified fluidity of his motions. Gretchen applied a sparkly gold sticker to his shirtfront. The sticker was in the shape of a shooting star and said SUPERSTAR!
The next morning he awoke to an empty house. It was his first moment of repose since his arrival, and it allowed him to reflect on the ordeal ahead. For all their efforts to prepare him, nobody, not even Paul, could predict with confidence what would happen once he crossed into West Zlabian territory. Pfefferkorn realized the hectic training schedule had served a dual purpose: first, to ready him for grueling undercover work in a burgeoning war zone, and second, to prevent him from dwelling on the fact that there was a strong chance he would not make it back alive.
He heard the drone of an approaching seaplane.
He took his wheelie bag and walked to the kitchen. He cupped his hands and drank water straight from the tap, possibly for the last time. He wiped his hands on his pants and headed down to the dock.
The seaplane nosed toward the surface of the lake, skipping twice before splashing down. As it drew near the dock, Pfefferkorn did not move to greet it. He was in no mood for air travel. He was frightened, lonely, and hungover. But these were not problems he could afford to admit. He had a mission, one demanding intestinal fortitude and stoicism. He stared hard at the sky. It was the hard stare of a man hardening himself to hard truths. He sensed changes, hard ones, taking place within his soul. He peeled the sparkly gold star from his chest and cast it, in a hard and masculine manner, into the wind. From this point on, he would have to earn his stripes. He grasped the handle of his wheelie bag and strode purposefully toward his destiny.
FOUR
(Welcome to West Zlabia!)
67.
Like an aging actress too proud to pack up the greasepaint, the Hôtel Metropole had hobbled along bravely in the service of increasingly ill-fitting roles. The kings and potentates who had inaugurated her beds had, over the last one hundred and fifty years, been steadily supplanted by a procession of apparatchiks, spooks, journalists, and johns, and the quoined limestone façade, once smart and coquettish, was now grim with soot. Nobody had informed the staff, who continued to wear their red melton jackets with indefensible dignity, addressing without irony the haggard tarts prowling the lobby as “madame.”
The desk clerk transcribed Pfefferkorn’s false passport number into the registry. “It is honorable to welcome you, Monsieur Kowalczyk.”
Pfefferkorn smiled somberly. At the far end of the desk, bluebottles mobbed a bowl of rotting fruit. He slung his jacket over his shoulder and swabbed his greasy forehead. If he ever wrote another thriller, he planned to make the travel scenes more realistic, with plenty of page space devoted to stale coffee and smelly upholstery. The past twenty-four hours had taken him through five different countries and as many security checkpoints. His disguise was working. At no point had he been subjected to more than a cursory inspection, and he had found it surreal to stand at a newsagent in Schiphol Airport, stroking his false moustache, gnawing a round of Edam, and reading about the manhunt still on for him, while a lady beside him reached for the rack of best sellers and selected a copy of that international blockbuster Bloed Ogen.