The prodigal spy

“No, I do. See, over here-you’re a foreigner. We can’t lend-” He paused, apologetic.

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“I’m just taking up space here. Let me get this.” He put some money on the bar. “Sorry to hear about it, by the way. To go that way. Sad. Must be hard for you.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry.”

“At least I got to see him again. That’s something, anyway.”

“Why didn’t you want anybody to know? If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, collecting the change.

“He didn’t want it. He was afraid-you know, if the press got hold of it. He wanted it to be just family.”

“I heard he was sick.” Bielak hesitated. “Is that why he did it?” A trial balloon for the party line.

Nick nodded. “I suppose. I don’t know.”

“No. We never do, do we, when they go like that. Not really.”

“No, not really.”

Bielak got up from the stool. “What did he leave you, anyway? That we’re going to pick up. If you don’t mind my asking.”

“What? What would he have left? ”The Order of Lenin,“ Nick said, leaving Bielak, for once, with no reply.

Outside, he saw the tails come to attention, their faces registering surprise at Bielak’s appearance.

“Listen, I think you should know that the police have been following me since he died. I mean, I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bielak said easily. He looked at Nick seriously. “Your father was a hero. What do they know? Traffic cops.” Nick caught the tone: rival agencies, then, not colleagues, like the squabbling offices in the embassy. Who did Bielak work for? It occurred to him, a grisly irony, that he had inadvertently picked the perfect chauffeur, the only way he could ever have left Prague without an escort.

“How far is it?” Bielak asked.

“Out past Theresienstadt.”

“Oh, nice,” Bielak said. “The country, I mean.”

What Nick hadn’t counted on was that Bielak would want to talk, using the long drive as a pretext for a fishing expedition, casting for information. Nick’s life. His father’s health. And after a while Nick began to welcome the distraction, so preoccupied with shaping his answers, the careful feints, that he had no time to think about what really concerned him, what he would do if the list wasn’t there. A wasted trip. But it had to be. All of it had to be true. Everything he’d said.

The questions told him something else-Bielak hadn’t known about him before, which meant his superiors hadn’t known either. The connection had come out with the death, surprising them as much as the police, the unexpected son. His father had been careful right up to the end. The order to kill had come from somewhere else.

They fell behind a convoy of trucks, back flaps open to reveal sitting rows of soldiers. When the road opened out to a long stretch, Bielak beeped his horn and passed, waving to them as he pulled in front.

“Russians?” Nick said.

“And Poles. Some Hungarians. They’re here for the Warsaw Pact maneuvers.” Did he really believe it?

“You never see them in town. I thought they’d be everywhere. You know, since-”

“The invasion?” Marty said, almost playful. “That’s what they call it in the West. Some invasion. See for yourself. You notice they never say NATO troops have invaded Germany. They’re guests. Only the Russians are occupiers. But the Americans stay and the Russians go home when the maneuvers are over. So where’s the occupation, Germany or here? It’s always the same. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.”

“No. So when do they go home?”

“When the Government asks them to. Right now it’s useful. We could use a little order. Things go too far. These kids-they play right into the hands of the capitalists, and they don’t even know it. Your father understood. That’s why he came last year, to help out.”

Nick froze. “Help out how?” he asked quietly.

“Well, the Czechs wouldn’t look at a Russian cross-eyed. But a Czech-American with a Czech wife? He could talk to anybody.”

And report back. Selling them, the way he had sold sailors who jumped ship in San Francisco. Still in the game, not retired, not everything true. What had he been buying this time? The flat with a view? A way to bring Anna home? Or the chance to get in the files again, get something worth a few dissidents?

“How do you know this? Did you work with him?” Nick said, remembering his father’s easy dismissal.

Bielak squirmed in his seat. “No, no. But you hear things.” He paused. “He wasn’t wrong, you know. Things were going off the rails here. They see the flashy cars, but they forget what the West is really like.” He paused. “But maybe you don’t agree.”

Nick glanced at him, the unlikely defender. Who still believed in the great dialectic, without his wife, thousands of miles from the old Glen Island Casino. A capacity for self-deception as limitless as faith.

“What are your own politics?” Bielak said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I don’t have any,” Nick said. “My father had enough for one family.”