To say that he was overwhelmed at the sight of her would be to underestimate the Saint’s capacity for subtleties of feeling. In addition to the normal elation produced by the close proximity of any exceptionally beautiful woman, he experienced a curious thrill at the thought that, Svengali-like, he was partly responsible for bringing the beauty into open bloom.
He bowed his respects, and Tanya smiled hesitantly. Her self-consciousness, like that of a girl going to her first formal dance, was as charming to an observer as it probably was uncomfortable for her. The brown hair which had been suppressed into a tight wad at the back of her head now fell free and soft around her face to her bare shoulders. Her face, though innocent of makeup except for lipstick, was lovely enough to have graced the cover of any Hollywood magazine — which struck Simon, who momentarily wished he had the time to arrange such a photographic appearance for her, as the perfect joke on both the magazine and the Soviet Secret Police.
“You’re a gorgeous woman,” he said simply, and kissed her hands.
“You are very kind. I still do not understand...”
“Why I’d get you these things?”
“Yes.”
“I like giving presents, especially to attractive young ladies who’re living in hotels in Paris with me. It’s a weakness of mine.”
Tanya underwent another of her incongruous blushes.
“You embarrass me.”
Simon gave her a devilish look as he took the stole she carried and draped it expertly over her shoulders.
“Do I detect a trace of still unviolated bourgeois morality?” he asked.
“You may detect all kinds of strange things. I am suddenly like a fish out of water, in a world I never saw with my own two eyes before, and with a man I...”
Simon looked at her expectantly without interrupting as she paused. Suddenly the old suspicious shadow fell across her face again.
“You think I come here without clothes to wear in the Paris restaurants?”
The Saint took her arm and pressed her hand.
“Tanya, don’t you have any proverb in Russia about gift horses? When I give intimate gifts such as dresses or lacy lingerie to a lady, it’s not because I think she has nothing else to wear. I promise you, my motives weren’t in the least noble or charitable.”
“Well, you would have been right,” she admitted with a sheepish little smile. “I did not have anything proper to wear.”
The telephone rang, and the Saint answered it. He recognized Ivan’s thick voice in the receiver.
“Dascha,” Ivan said tersely.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Dascha,” the MGB man repeated impatiently. “Say her dascha.”
Simon covered the mouthpiece with his hand and turned to Tanya.
“It’s Ivan. He wants me to say you ‘dascha,’ whatever that means.”
“My code name,” she explained, taking the phone. “You don’t expect him to ask for Colonel Smolenko.”
She engaged in some heated Russian interchange which seemed to grow increasingly angry on her part and sparse on Ivan’s. She clamped down the receiver as if hitting the table with her fist.
“Idiots. They traced Molière to a village twenty kilometers from Paris but have not found him yet.”
“Where’s Ivan now?”
“A café in some place called Villeneuve, south of here. They are trying to hire a car. They promise they find Molière by morning. They assure me that they have his location, how do you say it, pinned down? But they will not be back here tonight.”
“Well, that’s very good. I don’t think we need them. With the local boss — who I assume is Molière — on the run it should take the Ungodly at least until tomorrow to conjure up another blast. Let’s see Paris, shall we?”
They did not see all of Paris, but they saw some of the best that Simon knew, which was the best there was. After cocktails in the jam-packed sophistication of the George V, he took her to dinner at the Tour d’Argent, not perhaps so much for its famous canard à la presse as for the entrancing view over the Seine to the floodlit cathedral of Notre Dame. Then when they were full of rich food and beauty and a bottle of ’34 Cheval Blanc settled with ballons of Delamain cognac, the intimacy of a short taxi ride transported them with hardly a perceptible break to one of those impeccably discreet hideaways which still defy the rising din of the discotheques, for those who prefer the Old World trappings of romance, a place of candlelight, soft music for dancing, and an agreeable absence of tourists.
After a few glasses of champagne on top of their earlier libations, Tanya Smolenko was as off guard and mildly giggly as most other women would have been under similar circumstances. The Saint led her onto the minuscule dance floor, whose meager dimensions were designed to foster intimate contact rather than terpsichorean athletics, and took her in his arms.
“I must admit,” he said, “that this is one of the most peculiar experiences of my life.”
Their bodies swayed slowly together to the muted sounds of gypsy violins.
“Bizarre,” she said, “but very nice.”
“There’s no other place like Paris, really.”
“All cities look well at night.”
“Tanya,” he said, “why don’t you relax and enjoy it? Answer me truthfully: doesn’t all this make your heart beat just the tiniest bit faster?”
“My heart? Of course not. What does it have to do with my heart?”
“You must have a heart somewhere.”
He slipped his right hand around and under her breast for a moment.
“There,” he said, “you do have one. And you aren’t telling me the truth. I estimate it’s about twenty beats a minute above normal.”
“My heart rate is always high. It is my metabolism. It has nothing to do with Paris.”
“No? How flattering. Anyway, it’s a beautiful metabolism.”
He drew her closer to him, their eyes meeting in a wordless communication. Then his lips touched hers in a light leisurely way until she turned her head.
When they returned to the hotel, the trucks of fresh vegetables were rumbling through the city toward predawn market, and the streets were wet from their nocturnal washing. It was one of those late hours which are best left indefinite, so as not to evoke exhaustion the next day by their very recollection.
Simon simply avoided looking at his watch, prolonging the blissful timeless state in which he and Tanya had existed since the sun went down. And if he, who had known virtually all the pleasures of the world, was happy, Tanya, who apparently had known very little beyond the comparatively harsh environment of her birthplace, was euphoric. She was also slightly drunk, which the Saint was not.
As they entered the suite and Simon closed the door, she held both his hands and looked him in the face.
“I had a most beautiful time.”
“So did I, Tanya; I think you’d make any night a success — when you were off duty.”
She smiled and slipped her hands to his shoulders, shyly inviting another kiss. But the Saint, moving closer, noticed something on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stooping to pick up the envelope, “but these days one can’t be too careful. It’s for you, my dear. Feels light and flexible enough. Probably the only thing explosive involved will be me if it turns out to be a billet-doux from a rival admirer.”