“Let me give you all the facts,” Brovic said. “Some of them, Sylvia knows. But not all of them. If she did know, I wouldn’t have this worry... Listen carefully, because you must tell Sylvia.”
There it was, the full admission that he would never see Sylvia again.
He raised his head, straightening his shoulders, and he turned round to face them once more. Turner was no longer pretending to look down into the street. He and the girl were waiting, silent.
Brovic began speaking, hurriedly and yet calmly, as if he had to make everything clear as quickly as possible... In Czechoslovakia, he had been offered the job of coming to Washington, where he was to try to renew his old contacts and friendships. He had taken the offer, seeing in it a chance for eventual freedom. He had made arrangements for his father and the rest of the family to escape as soon as he had reached America. Word was to be sent to him when they were all safe. And then he would be free to act.
“I took this room,” he said, “and this was where I was going to come as soon as I got the letter from the family. I was going to ask your government for sanctuary. I was going to make a statement to the Press.” And now? Even if I could be free, I could do neither of these things. No one could believe me, now. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly, brushing off that emotional aside, and he heard his quiet voice going on, giving the exact facts.
When he had arrived in Washington, he made contact with certain of his old friends as he had been ordered to do. It was then he found out that the Communists knew a great deal about his past life in Washington, even the fact that he and Sylvia had once been in love. And at the same time, it became evident that the list of people who interested the Communists were all connected somehow with Payton Pleydell. They knew a good deal, too, about Pleydell. They knew he was on his way up to a still more important position in the government. They knew his strength and his weaknesses: his pride in his tolerance, his insistence on his liberalism; they knew that he had been influenced before in his political judgments. They had marked Pleydell down as a long-term project. They were trying to reach him through several contacts. But the one they thought was most hopeful for real results was his wife, Sylvia.
“Communists, you see,” Brovic said with almost a smile, “can be stupid, too.” Then he was grimly serious again as he added, “But I was as stupid as they were. By the time I realised I was drawing Sylvia into danger, it was too late. I had already met Sylvia, and there was no turning back. Yet I still thought I could win. It was”—and now he looked at Turner, facing him frankly—“it was my stupidity, to imagine I could somehow compromise with the Communists just long enough to suit my own purposes.”
He began to pace across the room again, his slight limp now more pronounced, his hands plunged deep in his pockets to hide his clenched knuckles. “Two major blunders in my life. First, I helped to sell out my country, through ignorance and blindness. And now—” He fell silent.
“But did you ever talk about Pleydell and his work to Sylvia?” Kate asked.
“No.” The word came out contemptuously.
“Then who did question Pleydell?”
“He wasn’t questioned directly. But his statements and evasions were all passed on to Czernik and Vlatov. They added up. That is how a lot of information is found out: the little pieces all add up.”
“Who passed them on?”
“Minlow.”
“Did he know what he was doing?”
“He knew they were Communists.”
“But did he know what he was doing?”
“He sat there, in front of Czernik and Vlatov, a drink in his hand, a smile on his lips, talking about things he had no possible right to discuss. Did he know what he was doing? Why was he there, in the first place?”
“Oh, why did he do it?” Kate asked helplessly.
“Americans always ask that. Why did this man behave in this way?” Brovic shook his head unbelievably. “Does that matter compared with what the man has done? That’s the question that should be asked: what has this man done? For that’s a fact you can measure. But why he has done it, is a secret he’ll try to keep. If ever he answers you, he will only give reasons that try to make him look as noble as possible. We’ve a modern weakness for that kind of apology. The minute a man says he’s done what he has done from idealism, we begin to excuse him.” His voice became bitter. “Especially if he has an honest face and good manners. But so have confidence men, so have poisoners. Do we find excuses for them? Of course, they haven’t yet offered idealism as their motives.” He stopped short.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice more normal. “It’s just that I’ve seen what the self-styled idealists did to my country. I’ve seen what’s happened to my people. We don’t ask why, now.”
“But Minlow didn’t know what he was doing,” Kate said.
Brovic said, “No? If I kill a man, what excuse can I offer to his family—that I didn’t know a knife in his back could be fatal?”
“You don’t like Minlow, I gather,” Bob Turner said, breaking his silence.
“Minlow? I hate and despise him,” Brovic said with a cold contempt that startled them both, “I and all the millions who’ve been trapped by the Communists. Sometimes as we listen to people like Minlow, as we watch them performing, we’re filled with such a rage, such a disgust, that we—that we—” He broke off, controlled his rising temper. “Don’t they realise how much they’re hated? For it is that kind of man, living in a free country, who has helped us rot in concentration camps and prisons while he praises our torturers and executioners. You don’t believe me? What is Minlow doing now, for instance? Writing a series of articles on the ‘realities’ of Czechoslovakia as it is today.” Brovic began to laugh, a bitter angry laugh. Then, just as suddenly, he was grimly serious. “Doesn’t he realise how he’s earned the hate of millions of people?”
That would be a new idea for Minlow to consider, Bob thought, a new conception of international understanding. He looked swiftly at Kate and saw horror in her face. Was this idea so new to her, too?
“Now you will say that I hate Minlow so much that all I’ve said about him is prejudice,” Brovic said.
Bob shook his head. He was remembering the way the South Koreans had talked to him. He was remembering the stories that other United Nations soldiers would sometimes tell, stories from the war that had been over for six years, stories of secret arrests and concentration camps, of forced labour and torture. The British and Americans would listen, polite but embarrassed. But neither the British nor the Americans had known what it was to live under enemy occupation. They couldn’t understand fully, just as Kate couldn’t conceive of mass hatred now. Then later, when the men who hated so bitterly proved they were good comrades, kindly, decent-hearted, the British and Americans felt ashamed of their embarrassment.
Now, because he was beginning to understand Brovic, and partly too because Kate was so silent, he found himself talking. “Betrayal always brings hate,” he said quietly. He came away from the window, as if he wanted to show he no longer stood apart from the scene.
“Yes,” Brovic said grimly. His face was taut. “Will Sylvia learn to hate me?”
“But you can’t go...” Kate’s voice faded.
“You will tell Sylvia that I never lied to her? I may not have given her all the facts, I may have hidden much. But I never lied about us. And that’s the important truth to remember.”
Kate stared at him. But he can’t go back, she told herself. She was not only thinking of Sylvia. She was thinking of Jan Brovic. “Oh, Bob!” she said. “Please argue with him, please talk to him.”
Bob said to Brovic, quietly, “Then your family didn’t escape.”
“They’re under house arrest.”
“When did you hear?”
“This morning. Czernik gave me a letter from my brother just after he told me about my recall.”
“He was making sure you would return?”
Brovic nodded. “I had to open it i
n front of him, just to pretend I had nothing to hide. He watched me read it.”
Bob Turner was silent.
Brovic said, “He must have had the letter for weeks. It was written just after I had reached America, on the day my family was supposed to escape.”
“They weren’t caught escaping?”
“They didn’t get the chance. They were under observation and a strong guard from the first hour of my absence. The letter was written to dictation obviously: that’s why Czernik had it.”
“Could it have been a fake?”
Brovic’s face was tense. He looked from Turner to Kate and then back again to Turner. His voice became harsh with emotion. “You’ve no reason to offer me sympathy, no reason to offer me hope.” He turned away from them both, trying to hide the tears that had sprung to his eyes. He stared fixedly at the faded yellow wall until he had regained control.
“The letter was in my brother’s handwriting,” he said at last. “So they were alive, when he wrote it. He didn’t make any reference to their planned escape, so that’s still their secret. They are safe, unless I fail to return.”
“What if your brother, next month or next year, says something the Communists don’t like to hear? Will he be ‘safe,’ then?”
Brovic shook his head. “I can’t buy his safety in the future. But I can’t sell it away from him, now. If I don’t go back, if I walk out of here to hide and escape—then I have my freedom, but they will pay for it. What chance of happiness would Sylvia and I ever have, if I kept remembering that?”
They were silent.
“You think I’m being dramatic?” he asked suddenly. “Central Europeans are always so emotional, isn’t that it?” But there was no bitterness in his voice now. “And yet, if anything, I am understating the danger my family faces. The children will be taken from their mother, never to see her again. My sister is about your age, Kate, a year older perhaps. She will be sent to a labour camp. It could be mining that she has to do—work that would be considered hard for a strong man. Starved, beaten, locked up each night with thieves and prostitutes as well as political prisoners.” He was silent for a moment.
“My brother would have similar treatment. And my father would be useful for one of the next trials, for he was a man that Czechoslovakia once honoured. Prison, interrogation, torture—oh yes, there have been tortures although civilised people do not like to hear of such things. Execution? If he’s lucky... But life imprisonment at the brute level is a warning to make those, still outside of prison, more obedient.”
And what will happen to you, yourself? Kate wondered. “Oh no!” she said. “If you go back—” She stopped herself in time. But Jan Brovic didn’t seem to hear her.
“There’s one thing that interests me,” Bob Turner said quickly, drawing their attention to him. “A certain amount of classified information was filched from us. But how did we learn about that? I don’t suppose your Mr. Czernik was particularly pleased to see this morning’s papers.”
Kate looked up at Brovic in surprise. “Why, of course!” she exclaimed. “That’s a defeat for Czernik, isn’t it?”
Brovic still was silent. But as he watched Kate, his face softened. His nervous pacing ceased. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. And it seemed to Bob Turner as if Brovic found some enjoyment in the first long draw.
“We must have a friend tucked away behind the little iron curtain in Washington,” Bob said. “Could he be traced?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“And even if they might trace the man, you’d still go back to Czechoslovakia?”
“Yes. More than ever, now.” Now, Brovic was thinking, I must act as if I had nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
“There must be something we can do,” Kate began. “There must be something—”
“There’s nothing. I can even be arrested by your government. Wasn’t that what you were thinking?”
She nodded.
“In any case,” he said, coming over to her and taking her hand, “that would only postpone my return, not prevent it.” He pulled her gently to her feet. “Now, go,” he said. “I must leave soon, too.”
“Didn’t they watch you, today?” Turner asked suddenly.
“Czernik had to attend an emergency meeting.” There was a fleeting smile for Czernik’s troubles. “Vlatov took the opportunity to see a girl. So I slipped out.”
“Someone followed you here. The little dark fellow with the pinched eyes and the permanent smile who was with you at Miriam Hugenberg’s party.”
“Vlatov?”
“He was interested in us when we arrived here. When I last looked out of the window, he was still down on the street, wandering around, trying to pretend he was part of the scenery.”
Brovic moved swiftly across the room and stood at the side of the curtains. “Yes,” he said, and he pulled the window shut cautiously. “I was careless today.”
“He’s not particularly careful, if you ask me. That’s no way to watch a house. Or is it his method of emphasising their power?”
“Czernik might have thought of that. Not Vlatov. This kind of work is new to him. He’s just a novelist who has been made to sing for his supper. He has a lot of friends over here: that’s his strong point. Not this kind of thing.” And there was Vlatov now, pretending to be interested in used cars, no doubt cursing the fact that his own idea of a pleasant evening had been ruined. “Did he notice what bell you rang downstairs?” Brovic asked suddenly.
“I think we disguised that.”
“Then I’ll leave here first. If you were to go now, and I were to follow you, even Vlatov might make a good guess that you had been with me. It’s”—he glanced over at Kate—“it’s better if you can’t be connected with me. Better for me, too.” He pointed to Bob’s uniform. He half smiled. “You aren’t military intelligence, by the way?”
“Nothing so romantic,” Bob remarked as coolly as possible. “But what excuse will you give Vlatov for being here?” His question was asked partly to change the subject, partly to keep Jan Brovic alert. But he needn’t have worried about that.
“I’ll find something trite enough to satisfy Vlatov. I came here to meet a girl, but she didn’t turn up and so I went away. That’s Vlatov’s idea of a reasonable explanation. I may even sub-let this room to him. He could use it.” Brovic smiled wryly. Then he lifted his hat from the bed, and from his pocket he drew a letter. He came over to Kate and held it out.
He said, “It’s short. I couldn’t risk giving any explanation. I couldn’t risk being searched and having them read it. But you’ll tell Sylvia everything?” His eyes searched Kate’s face. “I’ll always love her,” he said quietly.
Kate took the envelope, unaddressed except for Sylvia’s name. And then her lips began to tremble. He held her hand for a moment and then suddenly kissed it. She stood, gripping the letter, listening to his footsteps.
Bob was at the door. “Goodbye,” he said, and he put out his hand.
Jan took it. “Don’t wait here long.”
Bob nodded.
“Goodbye,” Jan said. He gave a firm handshake. He glanced at Kate, then back at Bob. He opened the door and was gone.
For a moment, Bob and Kate stood looking at each other. Bob said, “We’ll start leaving as soon as he reaches the street.”
They stood at the side of the window, drawing close together as they looked down along the street. There was Vlatov, the stiffly dressed little man, as harmless to look at as any of the Sunday strollers who passed him by. Then they saw Jan Brovic, stepping out from the sidewalk to cross the street. He was lighting a cigarette.
We are watching a dead man, Bob thought, and he turned quickly away.
25
Kate turned away from the window, too.
They stood talking. Then Jan laughed. And then he and Vlatov walked away together. She began to cry.
“Not here,” Bob said quickly, “not here, Kate. We’ve got to go out that front door looking as if we had
just been having a drink with W. Hirschfeld, remember?” He took out a handkerchief and dried the tears on her cheek. “Now look,” he said, “this isn’t much good if you keep them flowing. That’s right: you freeze the flow and I’ll mop up. Come on, let’s put at least a flight of stairs between us and this room.” He pocketed Sylvia’s letter carefully, picked up two lipstick-stained cigarette ends near the chair where Kate had sat, looked round for any other evidence of their visit, and then hustled her through the door.
As they crossed the landing, the door opposite opened and a young man came out. He was short and heavily built, his hair was creamed and brushed; his face was round, as ingenuous as the broad Windsor knot in his hand-painted tie. His mild eyes looked at them uncertainly. He hesitated on the topmost step.
“Are you Carson?” he asked and risked a smile. “Glad to meet you. I was beginning to think there was no such person. I’m Hirschfeld.”
“We aren’t Carson,” Bob said. “But glad to know you all the same.” He began to go downstairs quickly, pulling Kate along with him, but he talked over his shoulder so that Hirschfeld followed closely. “We were looking at Carson’s apartment for a sub-let. Caroline doesn’t think much of the kitchen.”
“Cooking facilities aren’t what they might be, around here,” Hirschfeld agreed. “I eat out, myself, most of the time.” He looked at Caroline appraisingly as they reached a landing. Damned pretty girl, he thought, but she had been crying. “Too bad it didn’t suit,” he said awkwardly.
“Oh, we’ll find something,” Bob said.
“I’ve got a friend,” Hirschfeld said thoughtfully. “She wants to sub-let this summer. When are you thinking of moving in?”
By the time they reached the street, Hirschfeld was giving Bob his friend’s address. They stood together on the sidewalk for a minute as Hirschfeld added the last details. “Just tell her Walt sent you,” he finished and he shook their hands.
“Thanks,” Bob said, “thanks a lot.”
“See you soon again probably,” Walt added as a bonus—he said goodbye less easily than hallo—and started towards Connecticut Avenue. So they took the direction of Seventeenth Street.