Neither Five Nor Three

  Scott Ettley looked after her in amazement. “Rona!” he called, “Rona!” Then he began to run after her. But before he could reach her, a Madison bus had halted at the corner; its doors opened and Rona jumped in. The bus was already moving away from the corner as he reached it. He rapped on its side, but it didn’t stop. He stood, looking after it, cursing.

  “Too bad,” a man said at his elbow. “But give a bus driver a green light and there’s no holding him. Write the company, why don’t you?”

  “Who asked you?” Scott said and turned away. He walked quickly back toward his car, his face flushed, his mouth tight. He cursed the driver again. He cursed the interfering idiot at the street corner. He cursed himself.

  When he got into the car, he sat still for some minutes. And now, he was only thinking of Rona. I’ve lost her, he thought wearily. I’ve lost her... Then he roused himself. “I haven’t,” he said aloud, “I haven’t lost her. And I won’t. I’ll give up a lot, but I won’t give up Rona.”

  He started the car, and drove slowly towards Rona’s street. Her windows were in darkness. But even if they had been lighted, he couldn’t have stopped. It was half-past ten. At eleven o’clock, he had to be at Nicholas Orpen’s. (Thelma had been quite explicit about that. “Eleven o’clock, without fail,” she had said.) He would call Rona tomorrow. Early. Perhaps even later tonight, after the visit to Orpen was over. He glanced up at the dark windows once more. No, he would call her tomorrow, perhaps even at midday. She would have to learn a little discipline too.

  As he drove away from her street, back to his apartment where he could leave the car safely and then walk to Orpen’s, he had lost the fear that had gripped him outside of the restaurant. He was still thinking of Rona. But now he was half-amused, half-angry.

  11

  By eleven o’clock on Sunday night, Third Avenue was already half-asleep. Only the bars and cafés were still lit. A few taxis, their tyres jolting over the trolley lines, sped under the shadows of the El. The small shops lay in darkness; the genuine Second Empire tables, the Biedermeier chests, the positively real antiques, the crystal candelabra and painted porcelain vases, the sun-spray clocks and gilt spindle-leg chairs, all huddled together in the black windows. Keeping them company, the garbage cans stood waiting at the closed entrances to the walk-up apartments overhead.

  A man in shirt-sleeves was having a quick cigarette at a darkened doorway. A woman waited patiently while her dog nosed round a curb. A group of people straggled home from a neighbourhood movie. Two policeman walked slowly, steadily, covering their beat. A man and a woman passed, arguing. Four people in evening dress waited at a corner for a taxi. A drunk went his lonely way. A cat prowled, alert and suspicious. An elevated train roared, half-empty, up the avenue.

  Scott Ettley left Third Avenue, entered the street where Nicholas Orpen lived, and approached a drab row of houses standing grimly across the road from a blank soot-grimed wall of garages and warehouses. Farther east, new apartment houses had their uniformed doormen and smart chauffeurs; westward, beyond Third Avenue, the brownstone houses had been converted into expensive small apartments. But here, the row of brownstone houses hadn’t been painted for years; there were no window boxes, no bright-coloured doors. The steps were peeling, the railing sagged, the basement area was heaped with overflowing garbage.

  It was a forlorn stretch of street, dark and forsaken at night except for the parked automobiles that hugged the curb. Orpen’s front room was on the top floor. Its windows, heavily shaded, showed only a crack of light. The other windows of the house were in darkness. Here, most people went to bed early. If, to begin with, Orpen’s neighbours had been surprised by his late visitors, they had learned to accept that as normal. “He’s a writer,” they would say with a shrug. That explained a lot of things. And in New York few questions were ever asked, anyway.

  Scott Ettley gave his accustomed ring and waited. The door opened automatically, letting him into a cramped hall, poorly lit by one bulb, cluttered with a shabby baby carriage and a battered tricycle. There was a box telephone on the wall at the foot of the steep staircase, but Orpen had installed his own upstairs: he didn’t like exercise.

  Scott climbed the narrow stairs, treading as quietly as possible on the cracked linoleum. There was always the smell of cooked food hanging around each narrow landing. From behind the closed doors of the apartments which he passed, there was either deep silence or heavy snoring. The other tenants in the house had work that took them out early in the morning. Often, they would be rising, getting breakfast, even as Orpen was going to bed. (“He’s a writer,” they’d say with a shrug. He wore tweed jackets and old flannel trousers, even on Sundays. He kept no holidays, either. Or perhaps every day was a holiday to a writer. A lazy kind of life, sitting around.)

  Orpen’s door stood closed. But as Scott knocked, again using his own signal, it opened at once. He entered a comfortable room, well furnished with a massive desk, a table, armchairs, bookcases, and an excellent phonograph with a huge horn. Heavy curtains were drawn across the windows. Reading lamps gave a quiet look to the whole room. The pile of records near the phonograph, the books on the mantelpiece and chairs, the heap of folded newspapers and magazines on the table, all increased this feeling of peaceful living.

  Orpen was taking off his glasses, polishing them quickly before he put them on again. Behind him, on the desk near the windows, were pages of manuscript covered carefully by a huge sheet of blotting paper. He was a man of less than medium height, slender, with a thin quiet face. Just a very ordinary-looking man, with a slow, gentle way of talking. His sparse hair was mid-brown, his eyes a mid-grey. His skin was sallow. (There were days on end when he never left his two small rooms.) Yet his movements were quick, decided. His gestures were emphatic. His accent, carefully trained, was indefinable.

  Now, as he took Scott’s outstretched hand and gave it a quick, brief shake, he could have been—with his friendly smile, his watchful eyes, his tweed jacket, his background of books—a middle-aged professor at a New England college. He might have discarded his instructorship at Monroe, but he had never discarded its ways.

  “Come in, come in,” he said, closing the door and locking it. He waved Scott to the most comfortable chair, and opened two cans of beer that stood waiting on the table.

  “Well?” he asked, when he too was settled in an armchair facing Scott. With an impatient movement, he switched off the lamp beside him. “My eyes,” he said wearily. “I’ll have to get stronger glasses.” Then he sat, quite motionless, watchful. Scott waited, but it was he who had to speak first.

  “Thelma gave me your message,” Scott said uneasily. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was six minutes past eleven.

  Orpen followed his glance. “You must learn to be punctual,” he said with his quiet humourless smile. He pulled his pipe out of his jacket pocket. “Well, what is wrong? You don’t look particularly happy.”

  “I had a little trouble tonight,” said Scott. “Rona.” He had meant to mention Rona only at the end of this meeting, but Orpen had a way of making him blurt everything out in the first few minutes.

  “Ah? Didn’t she enjoy the party at Thelma’s?”

  “It was you who told me to take her there.” He couldn’t keep a note of reproach out of his voice.

  “And now you see for yourself,” said Orpen with considerable bite to his words.

  Scott looked up at him sharply. The light beside him got in his eyes; he couldn’t see Orpen’s face clearly.

  Orpen was pulling out his tobacco pouch, filling his pipe methodically.

  Scott rose, and began walking around the room. “I told you it was too soon to take Rona to one of Thelma’s parties. She isn’t ready for that, yet.”

  “Nor will she ever be.” Orpen’s voice was angry. He lit his pipe, his eyes narrowing. “Come back and sit down, Scott. I didn’t bring you here to argue about Rona Metford. I’ve told you before, as your friend, that she isn’t the girl for
you. When I think of all the women you could have fallen in love with—” he broke off, and flung his hands up in mock despair. He was being amused, now.

  “I’m in love with Rona,” Scott said quietly. “We’re getting married. In September.” He came back to his armchair then.

  “Are you?”

  There was a note in Orpen’s voice that kept Scott from answering.

  Orpen went on. “You aren’t staging a small revolt by any chance? That would be foolish. At this stage of your work. I’m speaking as a friend, Scott.”

  Scott shook his head slowly. “It’s just that I’m—well, I’m tired of all this...” He hesitated.

  “All this what?”

  “All this play-acting. I’d like something definite, something that achieves real results.”

  Orpen said sharply, “Smoke screens have their uses in any battle. Believe me, Scott, there’s nothing irrelevant in this fight. Everything is at stake. And every means must be used. Every means,” he insisted, “no matter how irrelevant, how trivial it may seem. You do as you are instructed, you ask no questions, and we’ll get results.”

  “I’ve always followed your instructions,” Scott said. He thought of all the nights in those last six months, when he had had to curtail an evening with Rona, even cancel it, for the sake of Orpen’s meetings, Orpen’s arrangements.

  “But until you got tied up thoroughly with this Metford girl, you didn’t evade my orders.”

  “I don’t evade them,” Scott insisted.

  “You’ve been getting restless.”

  “But—” Scott began.

  “But what?”

  “I’ve begun to feel you don’t trust me,” Scott said with some hesitation.

  “What makes you feel that?” Orpen looked amused.

  “Four years ago, when I was discharged from the army, I came to you. I told you how I felt. I knew, from the old days, that you’d agree with me.”

  “And I did,” Orpen said.

  “You did more than that. You made me believe I could be of some real use; you said there was real work waiting for me, an essential job to be done.”

  “Only after I had talked with you for over a year,” Orpen reminded him sharply. Then he smiled. “You make me sound a very slap-dash recruiter,” he added. “Not that I ever doubted your sincerity. But we need more than sincerity, you know. We need discipline, determination.”

  “I’ve tried to give proof of that, too,” Scott said quietly.

  “Yes, you’ve done very well. You’ve been accepted. You’ve followed instructions and kept yourself clear of suspicion. You’ve learned most of the disciplines. Except patience, I’m afraid.”

  “But I don’t seem to have done anything of importance,” Scott argued.

  “You’ve been working with me. You don’t think that’s of any importance?” For a moment, Orpen was angry. Then his mouth relaxed once more, and he said with amusement, “Because I’ve been your friend for so many years, you are quite sure I’m of no importance?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “No? Well, perhaps my job is of no importance.” And yet, the expression in his voice showed that he didn’t believe what he had suggested. Suddenly, he rose from his chair. He went over to the desk. He spoke over his shoulder, as he searched among some papers. “Have you decided about Rona Metford?” he asked quietly.

  Scott looked up. Orpen’s voice had warned him. “What has Rona got to do with all this?” he asked quietly.

  “Everything.”

  “I don’t see—”

  “You’ll have to see, Scott. You have only one choice. If you want the assignment that is waiting for you.” Orpen returned from the desk to his chair. He was carrying a sheet of paper.

  “An assignment?”

  “Yes. Difficult. But important. We consider it of prime importance.” There was no doubting Orpen’s sincerity as he emphasised these last words.

  Scott’s face changed. He sat forward on his chair, alert, expectant. But he waited for Orpen to explain, as if to prove that he had learned the discipline of patience. It wasn’t easy, though. He could tell from Orpen’s smile that this assignment was as important as he had hoped for.

  Then Orpen looked down at the piece of paper in his hand. He pursed his lips. Scott waited.

  Orpen said, “About Rona Metford... Until now I’ve always spoken to you as a friend. I’ve listened to your explanations, I’ve watched your compromises, and I’ve waited for you to realise that you can’t put your own wishes before your duty to the Party. You’ve been persuading yourself that you can handle Rona, that your personal life was your own affair. Now, I’m going to speak to you officially. Your personal life is our affair. We can risk no breach of security. And Metford is dangerous.”

  Scott said, “She isn’t politically mature, I agree. I haven’t tried to educate her. You told me to avoid political discussions. But, if you let me handle this, she can learn to follow Party doctrine without ever having to become an accepted member. That would be safe enough.”

  Orpen threw back his head and laughed. “Safe? My dear Scott, safe? After this evening at Thelma’s? I got full reports on that, you know.”

  “But she has had no instruction. If you will let me—”

  “Nonsense. She’s completely unreliable. She has already done a lot of damage. She lost Blackworth his job at Trend. She put the finger on him.”

  “By accident. She didn’t even know what she was doing. She’s told me the story.”

  “Yes, her story. Did anyone else notice the way Blackworth was selecting articles for publication? Did that fool Weidler see that Blackworth was ‘slanting’ his use of material? No. He had to wait until Metford put that word into his mouth. And what is Blackworth’s report on her?” Orpen held up the sheet of paper, angrily, almost threateningly. “She said he had been printing one-sided arguments amounting to distortion. Distortion! Blackworth gave Trend the only true facts it has ever published.”

  Scott looked down at his hands. He interlocked his fingers. He said, “Blackworth made a mistake in publishing those articles on housing. Rona’s been making a study of that for almost a year. It was the one thing on which she could trip him up—she had the facts and figures. If he hadn’t published that series, he would still be working at Trend.”

  Orpen stared at him. Scott’s face flushed as he realised what he had said.

  Orpen said, “Our facts are the real facts. They show the United States as we see it. That is the only realism, the only truth.” Then his voice quieted, and he said softly, “She is beginning to corrupt you. You have proved my point about her. She is unacceptable.” He let the report on Rona fall beside his chair.

  Scott said nothing. He rose. He stood with his arm leaning on the mantelpiece, his head bent, his eyes staring down at the narrow black hearth with its scattered pipe ashes and cigarette stubs and burnt matches.

  Nicholas Orpen rose too. He never remained seated when another man stood over him. He went over to the table and picked up a newspaper. “We’re in danger, Scott,” he said. “We are at a moment of crisis. This wave of hysteria, this witch-hunting...” He dropped the paper in disgust. “We need men like you, loyal, dependable, intelligent. Men who have attracted no attention. Men who can remain unnoticed. Yes, Blackworth was a fool. I agree. But not for your reasons. He misjudged his margin of security... He took five years to build up; he came hurtling down in one morning. And every time that happens, we not only lose a good position, we have to work against increasing curiosity, increasing suspicion. But you aren’t a fool, Scott. You’ve calculated every step of the way. Your only mistake has been Rona Metford. And even with her you’ve been efficient.”

  Orpen paused. His voice changed again, became cold and hard. “But you are reaching a point where she’s an extravagance you can’t afford. We don’t trust her. You keep telling me she is ignorant. We don’t trust her to stay ignorant. She will find out. And your work will be undone. Your usefulness will
be over. You will be discredited. Do you know what happens to those who are discredited?”

  Scott left the mantelpiece. He paced across the room. He stopped by the phonograph, looking down at the pile of record albums on the floor at his feet. On the evening he had spent here listening to them, had he been calculating each step of the way? Or had he willingly shut his eyes and let each step be calculated for him?

  Orpen was repeating, “What happens to those who are discredited? They are discarded. Once they are discovered, we must write them off as a loss. They may have to wait years before they can be of any real use. Or they may have to change their names, their identities, start all over again where they can’t be recognised. It’s a slow, wasteful business. It sets us back. Do you think we can feel any particular confidence in those who’ve let themselves be discredited?”

  “No,” Scott said at last. He sat down on the nearest chair. He covered his eyes with his hand.

  “What’s your decision?” Orpen asked sharply. “Are you with us?”

  “You can trust me,” Scott said slowly, with difficulty.

  “I want a direct answer. Don’t be a fool, Scott!”

  Scott raised his head. “I’m not the only one who’s a fool. What about Murray?”

  “What about him?” I told him, thought Orpen angrily, to keep a better guard on his tongue after Scott reported his indiscretion at Metford’s party. “What about Murray?”

  “He brought Paul Haydn to Thelma’s. What was Haydn doing there?”

  Orpen relaxed. “Murray’s been testing him. Haydn’s a simple-minded soul. He’s got no ideas of his own.”

  “Hasn’t he? Rona told me that he agreed with her about Thelma, about Murray, about everything that happened this evening.”

  It was Orpen who was silent this time.

  “Do you know Haydn’s war service?” Scott asked.

  “Of course we know,” Orpen said irritably.

  “Do you know that a lot of his activities were only cover for Military Intelligence?”

  Orpen said, “And did Metford tell you this, too?”