Sophie just shrugged, flattered that anyone thought her worthy of employment these days, and later, after she’d posed the idea two more times, Sophie finally said, “Of course, Zora. I’m yours.”
When asking a woman to betray her husband and country, the question cannot be posed outright. It must be worked into. No matter how willing the traitor is, subtlety is still required. That first day they spent five hours together, moving from the mall to a bar in the Conrad Hilton. When Zora suggested the move, Sophie hesitated, but Zora cut the silence short with “Emmett is working late tonight—where do you have to be?”
“How did you know that?”
“Information, draga. Information is everywhere.”
So they ended up in the Jayda Lounge, Zora drinking Ketel One neat, Sophie diluting hers with cranberry juice. “Remember that club in the fortress?” Zora asked.
“A world away from this.”
“Look over there.”
She nodded at a table by the window that overlooked the Nile and the Cairo cityscape, where three men and a smoldering blonde were gathered. The men were large under their expensive suits, the pristine fabric straining to contain them. Two were shaved bald. “Russians?” Sophie asked.
“You were always astute, Sofia. The girl—she’s a friend of mine.”
Not once had the girl looked over at their table.
“What do you mean?”
Lowering her voice, Zora said, “Do not stare, draga. I mean that she works for me.”
Sophie looked again at the sexy young thing. With her curves and mascaraed eyes and the long slice down the side of her dress, exposing so much thigh, she looked like candy—that was the only word Sophie could think of to describe her. She didn’t look like an employee of anything having to do with “information.” There seemed to be only one industry to which she was suited. Then the simple girl in Sophie understood, and she took a drink. “But who do you work for, Zora?”
“For myself.”
“But you sell to someone.”
“Those are my clients, draga. Not my employers.”
“Who are your clients?”
“There has to be some confidentiality, no?”
It was an answer of sorts, but Sophie was curious. “Just name one.”
“Why don’t you guess?”
“Serbia.”
“You know how patriotic I am.”
This didn’t feel right, and it took a moment for Sophie to remember why. “You used to call governments the first sin of humanity. You hated them.”
Zora smiled. “I grew up, Sofia. Countries, like corporations, are not people; they’re not worthy of hatred. Nor are they worthy of love.”
“And all that other nonsense?”
“What nonsense?”
“The nationalism. The propaganda. All that stuff about the Croats. I looked into it after I got home. You really took some liberties with the facts.”
Zora rocked her head, considering this. “We all fall victim to enthusiasms now and then. If I remember right, you did, too.”
This was a different woman from the one she’d known in Yugoslavia, the one who had preached a love of Serbian soil. Her logic was less Balkan and more in line with how Sophie thought: Love was wasted on nation-states, even if that nation-state was the United States of America. Too much enthusiasm was bound to get you in trouble.
Since early 2001, she and Emmett had lived outside of America, and she often wondered how they would feel once they finally returned to the country that Emmett represented to the rest of the world. How American could one be after so long away? Or did it work the other way—was distance making them more American? She’d seen both tendencies in expats. Some immersed themselves in another culture, speaking English only when there was no other option, and prattled on about the mistakes America made throughout the world. Others—like Emmett—became defenders and progressively more acute apologists against the wave of anti-American sentiment that existed everywhere on the planet. It was his job, she supposed, to defend questionable wars and extraordinary renditions and executions by drone attack, but he was often emotional about it, and the question she always wanted to ask him was: Do you really know what it is you’re defending anymore?
When was the last time they had driven out to Wal-Mart to load up on the week’s groceries? They’d never attended a PTA meeting or voted in municipal elections, and the recession had had little effect on them. They didn’t really even know what it was like to live in a city where they could listen in on strangers’ conversations and actually understand every word—she’d forgotten what it was like to swim in a sea of English. Maybe this was why, during the occasional political argument at this or that diplomat’s residence, Sophie grew so easily tongue-tied and confused. Unlike Emmett, she didn’t have a government-approved list of rebuttals filed away. Every anti-American complaint sounded perfectly reasonable to her, and all she ever wanted to do was agree. Why get upset? After all, they weren’t complaining about her personally, and they weren’t complaining about someone she loved.
One thing about Zora had not changed in twenty years: her confidence. Sitting in the Jayda Lounge, Sophie again felt overwhelmed by this Serbian woman’s surety. Being with someone so convinced of the rightness of her actions was a little intoxicating, and she felt the buzz again. “Do you have other clients?”
Zora smiled and tapped a nail against the side of her glass. “Information wants to be free—that’s what people are saying these days. I wouldn’t go that far, though. I believe I should be paid well for it.”
When she smiled again, Sophie found herself smiling as well. Then an involuntary laugh escaped her. “Who are you now, Zora?”
Her eyes widened, big and dark and full of glamour. “I am an angel come down to raise you from the dead.”
2
By the time Stan left the apartment on Saturday morning, she was only able to sit on the sofa and stare into space. She’d been in town a single night, and she was already exhausted: It had been a while since she’d dealt with this level of anxiety. Budapest had been dull, but it had been a vacation from deceit, from the faces upon faces. In Budapest there had been no clandestine hours with Zora’s flash drives, sucking out all of Emmett’s precious information; there had been no more clandestine meetings in cafés and suburban squares where Zora praised her, no visits to parks and crumbling buildings to seek out dead drops. And the lies—so many lies for Emmett and Stan and whoever else she ran into, for Zora had told her that the investigators could come from anywhere. They will suspect you eventually—make no mistake—but you’re very good, draga. You know how to mix and circulate and present. Thus the lies had been for everyone. In Budapest she had lied to Glenda and Mary and Tracey and Anita about little things, but often the lies were only to give herself little injections of adrenaline. Budapest, really, had made her soft.
Once she pried herself out of her lethargy she poured another coffee and did what she’d been waiting to do: She made the call again, using Stan’s old cell phone. Again, the Arabic recording told her that Zora’s number had been disconnected.
Did she really think this would work so easily, six months later? A single phone call, and presto: Zora Balašević would be back in her life?