“Where’s the meeting?” Ettley insisted.
“The meeting?” Orpen repeated, as if he had only half-understood. “It’s at eight o’clock. Eight o’clock.”
“I asked where is the meeting.” Ettley looked at Orpen still more closely. “When did you last have any sleep?” he asked. “Or are you ill?”
“Ill?” Orpen’s small bitter smile appeared and vanished. “Ill...yes, that might be it.” He sat down on a chair, leaning his elbows on the table, resting his head on his hands.
“For God’s sake, Orpen!” Ettley began in alarm.
Orpen said slowly, “Don’t worry. I’m not ill.” He took off his glasses. He drew a hand over his brows, over his eyes, and let it rest at his lips.
“Look,” Scott Ettley said, his relief giving away to irritation, “you aren’t the only one with troubles. Don’t you want to hear my news? Don’t you want to hear what’s been happening?”
Orpen raised his head, letting his hand fall on the table, and looked at the younger man. Again, the brief fleeting smile appeared, a smile with no humour but—so it seemed to Scott Ettley—much pity.
“Rona has left me,” Scott said. He turned away, unable to face Orpen. “Doesn’t that give you something to crow about?”
There was a silence. “I’m sorry,” Orpen said at last.
“Sorry?” Ettley’s anger was released. “You sorry? You made everything as difficult as possible from the first. It was you who started the trouble.”
“I?” Nicholas Orpen’s voice was almost inaudible. “Is that the way you see it, Scott? Didn’t you start the trouble for yourself?” He pressed his hand wearily to his eyes again, and then replaced his glasses.
Scott turned to stare at the older man.
“You can’t divide your loyalty,” Orpen went on. “If you’ve come for advice, here’s what I say. There are two things you can do. And only two. The first is that you devote yourself to your work, give all your obedience to the Party, and be glad that Rona had the impulse to break with you. The second is that you can return to Rona, tell her everything, ask her to stay with you, and renounce your loyalty to the Party. That’s your choice.”
“Orpen—are you—”
“No, I’m not crazy. That’s the only choice you have.”
“Renounce my...” Scott couldn’t finish the question!
There was silence in the room for a long moment. From outside came the shouts of boys playing in the street, the heavy roar of a truck pulling out of a warehouse, the warning horn of a car turning into a garage.
Scott said, “Do you realise what you’ve just suggested?”
Orpen nodded. “Yes, I know.”
Scott took a deep breath. Orpen is proving me, he thought, this is the final test. “I won’t betray the Party,” he said flatly. “It is more important than I am, or you, or Rona.”
Orpen rose, lifting his hands helplessly. He walked back to the window, and stood there, hidden by the curtains, while he looked down at the boys playing in the street. He said, his voice expressionless and clear, “It would be easier for you to break with the Party, now. Later, if you have doubts—later, if you find your conscience refuses to let you go on—later, it will be hell. An endless and torturing hell. The more deeply you are involved and the more you know—the more dangerous it is to leave. You see that, don’t you?”
Ettley smiled. “But I don’t see myself ever getting into the position of quitting.” He watched Orpen’s back. And he suddenly noticed, by the droop of the shoulders, by the bent head, an admission of hopelessness. Of defeat, almost. “Orpen,” he asked sharply, “what the hell’s wrong?” There was real concern in his voice. Have we run into trouble? he wondered, anxiously. But how? Everything had been working so smoothly, so well.
Orpen came back to the table. He looked searchingly at Scott Ettley, he looked long and carefully, and he saw sympathy and worry in the younger man’s eyes. His hand gripped Ettley’s shoulder. Then he picked up a paper from the table, a paper with blue-pencilled paragraphs, and handed it silently to Ettley.
“I saw this a couple of days ago,” Ettley said, glancing quickly over the account of the arrest and trial in Czechoslovakia of prominent Communists. “Well, they are getting what they earned, I suppose.” Traitors, he was thinking, traitors and deviationists.
“Are they?” Orpen took back the newspaper and laid it carefully on the table. He seemed to have forgotten about it, for his voice became more normal and there was a smile on his lips as he changed the subject. “Scott, do you remember a man called Jack who was here recently?”
“Why, yes!” Scott Ettley was surprised. It was less than a month ago when Jack had paid his last visit to Orpen’s room just before flying back to Europe. He had talked a good deal about his experiences during the war in organising Communist cells in the French underground. That was the night, Ettley remembered, he had ’phoned Rona at her sister’s—the night that Paul Haydn had been up there and had brought Rona home—the night that had started Rona’s betrayal. “Yes, I remember that night well,” he said. Then, forcing himself away from thoughts of Rona, he added, “Did Jack get safely back to France?”
“He got safely back. Not to France. He was only assigned to France during the war.”
“I thought he was French.” There was amazement, a touch of disbelief in Scott Ettley’s voice. A touch of correction, too, Orpen noted with amusement. Young men always knew so much.
“He isn’t French. That was only his cover.”
“Efficient.”
“Yes. What did you think of him, by the way?”
“He seemed all right to me. Very much all right.” Orpen nodded. Then he said, “He’s probably the best friend I’ve ever had. I used to work in close contact with him when I was visiting Europe. I’ve talked with him a lot. A good man, a sound man.”
“Plenty of guts,” Ettley said, remembering Jack’s story of the German occupation. “He’s been a fighter for a long time. Didn’t he serve in Spain?”
“He’s served longer than that. He began with Lenin in Switzerland in 1916.”
“It must be something to be known that way,” Ettley said half-admiringly, half-enviously. Yes, that was something to be proud of...
“Yes,” Orpen said quietly. Then he suddenly pointed to one of the names of the Communists on trial in Czechoslovakia. “There he is!”
Ettley stared at him as if Orpen had suddenly turned insane.
“There he is!” Orpen repeated. “Now they say he was in Nazi pay. Now they say he’s an American spy. That’s Jack—a man who devoted thirty-four years of his life to the Party, five of them in prison, eighteen months of them in a German concentration camp—a man who helped make Czechoslovakia a Communist state.”
“He is a Czech?” That was all Ettley could say at first. He read the charges against Jack again. “I can’t believe it,” he said slowly. “Why, it’s only three or four weeks since he was right here in this room.” Talking and arguing with all the zest of a man half his age. Then Ettley began to see what must be wrong. He looked up suddenly at Orpen. “This can’t be pleasant for you,” he said sympathetically. “But surely you won’t be blamed for having been deceived by Jack? We all were. Spies can infiltrate the most careful organisation. We know that.”
“You think that is what is worrying me?” There was almost contempt in Orpen’s voice.
“Well, what then?” Scott asked. It was the only possible explanation. But Orpen was taking it all too seriously. After all, his own record was faultless: he had done his share of fighting and suffering. Then Scott, speaking now consolingly, said, “And I suppose our present visitor from Czechoslovakia is here to find out what information Jack extracted from us? But Jack didn’t do too much damage, did he? He did most of the talking, it seems to me.”
“You think Jack is a traitor?”
“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
Orpen smiled. “Let me put you right about one thing,” he suggested. ??
?Then the rest will seem clearer.”
“And what have I got wrong?”
“Our present visitor from Czechoslovakia, called Comrade Peter, whom you met for five minutes or so, is not a Czech.”
“No?” And I spent longer with Comrade Peter, wherever he comes from, than just five minutes, Scott thought angrily.
“No. He only visited that country recently. He’s making a tour of inspection. First it was Hungary, then Bulgaria, then Poland, then Czechoslovakia. He leaves a trail of accusations and trials.”
“You are hinting he’s tracking down disloyalty and inefficiency?”
“Or men who have fought for Communism in their country and think they ought to be allowed to run it when they succeed.”
“What could he hope to do over here?” Ettley was incredulous.
“Mark the men who might be future deviationists. They will never get very far in their political careers, it doesn’t matter how loyal or efficient they are as Communists.” Orpen’s voice suddenly dropped and became desperate in its intensity. “Don’t you see, Scott? Once we are in power, those of us who want to be free of foreign controls are going to find ourselves in the dock like Jack, labelled as traitors.”
Scott Ettley said worriedly, “You’re ill, Orpen; you don’t know what you are saying.”
“So you don’t think that you, some day, could be Jack? It couldn’t happen here?” Orpen began to laugh. “My God!” he said, almost hysterically. Then he took a deep breath. “Don’t look at me that way, Ettley. I’m no traitor. I’ve worked for the Party. And I’m loyal to it. But will we get our Party when we are in power?”
“But America is different. It’s bigger, farther away. We make our own decisions.”
Orpen sat down wearily. “Not one important decision is ever made by us. Not one. I know that.”
Ettley stared at him unbelievingly. Then he said, hesitatingly, accusingly, “Well, you need the help and the experience of those who led the way in revolution. That’s only logical. You’ve accepted that for years. And then one little newspaper report comes along and you talk like a—” Ettley couldn’t say the word. He flushed, shrugged his shoulders as if to excuse himself.
But Orpen said it for him. “A traitor?” He shook his head slowly. “This did not happen to me overnight, Scott. It’s been a battle of months, and I’ve been forcing myself to avoid the issue. First, the Hungarian purge, and then the Bulgarian arrests... I knew some of those men, too. I persuaded myself they had made a fool out of me. But now, there’s Jack. I know him too well. I can’t accept this!” He struck a blow at the newspaper with his clenched fist. “If anyone is making a fool of me, of you, of all the rest of us, it is Comrade Peter and the men who give him orders. We work and fight and suffer for the revolution. But they will win it.”
Scott Ettley didn’t speak. The flush had left his cheeks. His face was pale, his eyes were troubled. Then he found the explanation he had been seeking. Peter had discovered some fundamental errors in Orpen’s work—the scandal attached to Thelma’s apartment, for instance; Peter wouldn’t approve of important meetings having been held in such a place—and Orpen was being disciplined. Orpen saw demotion ahead of him. And his years of work, his pride in having been a martyr were making him bitter. Bitter and dangerous.
Orpen was saying, “Open your eyes, Ettley! Who helped you get as far as you have? You don’t think you did it under your own steam, do you?”
“I owe you a certain amount,” Ettley said stiffly. “But I don’t owe you everything. Let’s get that straight!”
“Yes, let’s get that straight. It’s true. You don’t owe me everything; you owe it most of all to your father.”
“What?” Ettley’s lips were tight with anger.
Orpen’s voice became patient. “Scott, I’m telling you this so that you will listen to me. Call it shock treatment if you like. But it’s the truth. You owe everything to your father. If he hadn’t been the owner of a newspaper, would I ever have been instructed to develop you so thoroughly, so carefully? If your father had been a plumber or a druggist, where would you be today? Attending mass meetings, handing out leaflets, carrying a picket sign, being given little odd jobs to do. Would you ever, in ten years, have met Comrade Peter? In twenty years? No. You can thank your father for your usefulness to us.”
There was a pause. “Where is the meeting tonight?” Scott Ettley asked in a tight, cold voice.
Nicholas Orpen looked at him. “Now is the time to see what will happen to you,” he warned. “Now is the time to leave. With little to worry you,” he added unhappily.
“Leave the Party?”
“Until it’s safe from foreign control. Until then, we are only betraying it.”
“You’re not sick. You’re crazy!”
“No,” Orpen said wearily, almost hopelessly. “I’m only seeing things in their future shape. Scott, have I ever given you bad advice?”
Scott looked down at him, and moved forward from the mantelpiece where he had been standing. “Yes,” he said quietly.
“Ah,” Orpen said, thinking of Rona too. “But that wasn’t bad advice, Scott.” Then he rose. And in a quiet grave voice he gave Ettley the address of the house where the meeting was to take place. It was on the west side, this time.
Scott Ettley picked up his hat, looked round the disordered room and then turned to the grey-haired man who stood watching him so quietly. Something in the troubled eyes touched him. He found himself saying, “Shall I see you at the meeting?”
Nicholas Orpen shook his head slowly.
“What are you going to do?”
There was a hesitation, a gesture of helplessness from Orpen. “I don’t know,” he said hopelessly. “I don’t know.”
* * *
In the street, the warehouse doors were beginning to close. The last trucks had pulled away. A mechanic stood at the bleak black entrance of the deserted garage, pointing out a direction to a quiet inoffensive man in a neat dark suit. The man offered the mechanic a cigarette, gave him his thanks and, keeping a wary eye alert for the baseball that the kids were throwing over his head, set out at a leisurely steady pace after Scott Ettley.
The mechanic picked up the ball which had rolled near his feet, and threw it back to the boys. He felt pretty good. In the three days he had been working there, that was the first visitor Orpen had allowed to enter his room. And McMann, all dressed up as the new superintendent, tinkering with an electric outlet in the hall of Orpen’s house, would be feeling pretty good too. As soon as McMann had signalled that the fair-haired, well-dressed stranger was a visitor for Orpen, the ’phone call had been made from the garage. And a reinforcement, suitably dressed, had arrived to leave his car and be ready to follow. Now, it was up to the quiet man.
The mechanic threw away the cigarette and admired the makings of a fine sunset this evening—a cleared sky, a nice grouping of high clouds behind the midtown office buildings. He didn’t even seem to glance at the house that interested him as he turned back into the huge cavern of the garage. But from where he worked, he could keep his eye on the one necessary patch of street. That was lucky, he thought. In another half hour I’d have been off duty. If that fellow with the fair hair had come an hour later, then the night watchman would have been the guy who had the excitement of making a ’phone call. It didn’t sound so very much, and it might mean nothing at all. But anyone who visited Orpen was liable to be interesting! That was a cheering thought with which to end a long day.
20
After leaving Orpen, Scott Ettley returned to his own apartment. He walked quickly, urgently, but the route he followed was as random and bewildered as his own mind. Orpen couldn’t mean what he had said. It couldn’t be true. Orpen had only been testing him, surely. Orpen was ill, crazy... But what if Orpen did mean it? There, Ettley’s thoughts stopped. Beyond that question, they could not reach out.
In his apartment, he changed his clothes, discarding his smart double-breasted grey suit for an inconspi
cuous brown tweed jacket, old flannels, a grey shirt and a plain brown tie. He was now driven by a cold excitement that steadied his nerves, made him feel alert and capable. As he dressed, he worked out a plan for reaching the west side in good time for the meeting. This was not a night on which to be late.
And then he set out. He walked towards Lexington, stopping at a drugstore for a quick sandwich and a cup of coffee. In spite of himself, he began thinking about Orpen again. So I owe everything to my father, he told himself. But do I? We’ll see about that. His worry over Orpen changed to bitterness and anger. We’ll see about that, he thought again, as he paid his cheque. He left the drugstore in a grim mood.
He walked half a block, his nondescript brown felt hat pulled well down over his brow. He lit a cigarette, and dropped the matches. As he bent to pick them up, he could look back along the street. There seemed to be just the usual crowd drawn out of doors by a hint of good weather on a spring evening. Certainly there was no one immediately behind him who could possibly be following him. Still, it was necessary to be careful. He was on his own tonight. From now on, he was definitely on his own. Yes, he admitted frankly then, Orpen had indeed meant what he said.
Did the Committee know about Orpen? Did Comrade Peter? Or was Ettley the first with this news? It was vital, of that there could be no doubt. Orpen must have held a key post in the Party. Jack proved that. Jack had been one of the leaders in Czechoslovakia, and it wasn’t likely that Orpen had worked so closely with him without being on the same high level. In that case, Ettley’s report would be urgent.
Suddenly, Ettley’s excitement left him. He was filled with a sense of shame, a sense of fear, as if Orpen were facing him, reading his thoughts.
No, he decided. I’ve no report on Orpen to make. That isn’t my job. If Orpen is finished, then he is finished. I won’t help in that.
A bus came lumbering down Lexington. He boarded it, counting out his small change. The door wheezed shut behind him, and then opened again with a resigned sigh as a man left on the sidewalk knocked sharply on its window. “You’ll kill yourself yet,” the driver warned the latecomer, who was red in the face, breathing heavily. “What’s all the rush?” The bus started forward, the driver’s bitter eye on the traffic lights which were about to change to red. The man, lurching suddenly with the abrupt start, let his money drop. He bent to pick it up, and all that Ettley noticed before he took a seat in the rear of the bus was a neat grey hat searching for a dime on the floor. “Rush, rush, rush, that’s all people think of,” the driver informed his load of passengers while he changed a dime with one hand, steered with the other, and watched the traffic ahead to gauge the lights he might be able to jump.