“Oh, I’ve heard of you,” Jeff said, seating himself. “You dance at the Arizona.”
“She is the dancer at the Arizona,” Keller said. “I told Rikki last night that you were interested in the exchange of talent, and other cultural matters, between Hungary and America, and Rikki said she hoped you’d be here tonight, and here you are. I think you two will find a great deal to talk about together.”
“I’m sure of it,” Jeff said. Fred was bird-dogging a target for him. Fred was telling him that Rikki was a prospect for Atlantis Project. Fred was certainly generous with his women. He must be, as Quincy Todd had said, a dedicated man.
Then the piano’s artistry ended, and a waiter brought fresh drinks, and Quincy and Marge came back to the table, and Quincy said, “Later.”
“They’ve got secrets,” said Marge Collins. “Those two have secrets together.”
Quincy laughed and said, “Yes, we’ve got secrets—both of us.”
Keller told the classic tale about the American correspondent who was pushed around by a Russian general, and his awful revenge. He cabled home reports that the Russian general—who actually was no more cooperative than any other Russian general, and less than most—was chummy with his Anglo-American opposite numbers on the Allied Control Council. The story was seen by the Russian Embassy in Washington, relayed back to Moscow, and the Russian was recalled, and presumably sent to Siberia. Jeff didn’t listen. He had heard the yarn before, and anyway he was watching Rikki.
She was, he supposed, the perfect Magyar type, and in Hungary are born some of the most beautiful women in the world. The soft glow of the room fired her coppery hair with many tiny lights. Her cheek bones were wide and prominent, her face triangular, her skin golden as if she had carefully rationed her hours in the California sun, and yet there was no sun in Budapest at this season. Her nose was straight, and her nostrils so mobile that their movement changed her expression. Her full lips were never quite shut, so that she always appeared expectant. Her eyes were dark, and long and slanted. Jeff knew he was looking at a product of four thousand years of invasion and conquest, in which many armies and many races had rolled across the Danube at this gate to the West. In her he could see the Tartars, and the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan; the Turk storming up the Balkan peninsula in a tide that ended only at the gates of Vienna; a trace of Byzantium, and a trace of Judea; Arpád the Conqueror leading his Magyars through the Carpathians out of the mysterious steppes; the arrogance of a Roman legionnaire; the chic of a French émigré; the legs of a Viennese actress. She was mixed by an old civilization. She was wonderful. She was European.
He asked her if she would like to dance, and she said not yet, that they should wait until the rest of the band came, and then they would do a czardas together. He said he didn’t know how to do a czardas. He had always believed himself clumsy on a dance floor. He was of the jitterbug era, but he could never bring himself to try a dance strictly American, much less some wild Hungarian thing.
She said she’d teach him. He said, “You speak American English.”
She said, “I’ve been dancing at the Arizona for ten years. The Arizona is exactly like an American club. All the tourists used to come to the Arizona, and when your Military Mission came to Pest after the war, it was their first stop. Even before food.”
“I don’t wonder,” Jeff said. “I don’t wonder.”
He got a little drunk, because he was envious of Fred, and finally he dared a czardas with Rikki. Everybody laughed, and applauded, and Rikki said he danced very well, and he was drunk enough so that he believed her.
5
Then Quincy Todd summoned him with his eyes, and they left the table and went into the men’s room. They were alone.
“All right,” Quincy began, “give.”
“You first,” Jeff said. “Did you go back afterward and give her her language lesson?”
“Uh-huh.”
Then Jeff told Quincy he had met Leonides in Bari, and run into him by accident, and there was nothing to do but bull with him about old times. Quincy Todd was satisfied. “I don’t know what Morgan Collingwood would do to us,” he said, “if he knew you were drinking with a Russian, and I was out with a Rumanian gypsy waitress. I really don’t know.”
“Just out with her?”
“That’s all. She’s a funny girl. Real moral. Nice girl, Marina.”
“That Russian,” said Jeff, “is a nice guy.”
“So we both forget it,” Quincy said. “Within these four walls.”
“These four walls,” Jeff pledged, and they went back to the table.
6
It was not until the evening was well along that Rikki spoke of the rumor. “I don’t know whether any of you would tell me,” she began, “even if you knew. But I heard it this afternoon at rehearsal. A high American official, flown secretly from Washington, had a conference last night with the Red Marshal. Here. In Budapest.”
“Nonsense,” Keller said.
“Oh, no, it is not nonsense,” Rikki said. “They met in a restaurant. Some say a restaurant on the Vaçi Utca, and some say on Andrássy Utca. People saw them.”
“Really?” said Quincy Todd.
“Yes. They talked of peace agreements.”
“But there is peace,” Todd said.
“I mean real peace.”
“I can hardly believe it,” Jeff said, because he was nervous, and because he felt he should say something.
“It must be true,” said Rikki, “because all stocks went up on the Bourse this afternoon. And in the Black Bourse the forint rose. Yesterday the forint was twenty to the dollar, black. Today it is fifteen. Everybody is thrilled. Everybody is excited.”
Quincy Todd looked at him in the oddest way, and Jeff asked Rikki to dance again, because he wanted her to talk no more of it.
7
It was two in the morning before he got to bed, feeling the fag end of his drink, and wishing he had another but knowing he’d be better in the morning if he took no nightcap. He dreaded hangovers. Not that his hangovers were any worse than anyone else’s. It was that a hangover could kill your day. You couldn’t think properly. Jeff liked to think. He liked the stimulus and exercise of thought.
He was turning out the light when Madame Angell came through his door. “The news!” she said. “The news!”
“What news?”
“I was just listening to Moscow broadcasting in Spanish to South America. Fancy what they said!”
“What?”
“They denied a report by the Swedish news agency that said the Russian Foreign Minister and your Secretary of State met here—in Budapest!”
“So what? So they denied it?”
“Then it must be so,” said Madame Angell. “My flaming oath!”
“Don’t you ever believe it!” Jeff said, and pulled the covers over his head. In a strange world, this was a strange city.
CHAPTER NINE
1
ONE DAY in mid-December the Admiral’s secretary, a yeoman seconded to the State Department, called Fred Keller and said the Admiral would like to see him at once. Ordinarily the Admiral didn’t issue such preemptory orders, through another party, to Keller. Ordinarily their discussions were informal, and held in the Legation residence over brandy or in the private corner at the Park Club which everyone called “admiral’s country.”
So Keller was disturbed. He was a little afraid of the Admiral anyway, although he was sure he never showed it, and certain that no one else could notice. When he forced himself to inspect this uneasiness, or fear, he only knew that the Admiral’s hearty voice and didactic statements alarmed him. The Admiral could be wrong with loud and unchallengeable conviction. He told the Admiral’s secretary he’d be right over.
2
Fred Keller was born June 1, 1909, in his father’s town house. His father, who was always described as “the well known sportsman,” was playing polo on Long Island at the time. This was to form the pattern between father an
d son henceforth. Fred knew his father only as a forbidding, overbearing, remote, and excessively masculine man whom he saw on occasions that grew less and less frequent. They were usually unpleasant occasions. His mother could not bear to punish Fred. This was exclusively his father’s job when his father was around. In the end his father disappeared altogether with the woman Julia Keller called “that prostitute from Carácas.”
Thereafter Fred never felt quite safe in the world of men. He never felt safe in the Admiral’s office. The Admiral, now that he thought about it, reminded him of his father.
3
When Fred Keller walked into the Admiral’s office he was careful to conceal his unease. It was necessary to treat the Admiral with respect, but also it was necessary to maintain equality. When the Admiral sensed that a man was afraid of him, or awed by his rank, then that man’s life became miserable.
The Admiral pointed to a chair. “Sit down, Fred,” he said.
Keller sat down. It was best to be silent until the Admiral showed what was on his mind. Keller was sure there was nothing wrong with his work. Everything was moving smoothly.
“Fred,” the Admiral said, “I just got a confidential letter from a friend of mine in Washington. I can’t tell you his name, but he’s very high in the government. I’ve been thinking over what he said, and I think we’d better speed up our operations.”
“You mean Atlantis Project, I suppose, sir?”
“Well, yes. That’s about the only thing we’ve got going here that isn’t routine. Everything else would rock along whether I was here or not, but I’d like to see something come of Atlantis in a hurry.”
Keller knew that while the Admiral had his idiosyncrasies, he was politically shrewd. His career proved that. He had gone into O.N.I., which had once been regarded as the graveyard of ambitious officers, at precisely the right time. And now, when political and traditional warfare merged into one, he occupied a strategic post of command. Keller said, “I thought it was agreed, sir, that we should move slowly and with caution.”
“Times change. Events move faster, and we have to speed up to keep pace. Besides, there’s always the chance of competition.” The Admiral leaned back in his chair. “What one man can think of, another can think of. I’d like to see us put this thing across first, wouldn’t you, Fred?”
Now Keller knew what was up. In some other part of the world, somebody else was working on something approximating Atlantis Project. The Admiral, naturally, wanted the kudos that would go to those associated with the first success. Everyone remembered what Mark Clark and Robert Murphy had done in North Africa. Nobody remembered the names of those who built organizations behind the lines, later, in Italy, the Philippines, Belgium, and Burma.
“It may be dangerous to speed things up,” Keller said. “We have to be sure of our recruits. We don’t want to enlist any double agents. And remember that our own personnel isn’t too experienced. This sort of thing is new to them, and—”
Keller hesitated, as he sought to frame words that would be clear to the Admiral, and yet not make him impatient and scornful. “And what?” the Admiral demanded.
“We have to remember that our own personnel is American. They have been brought up to believe there is something unclean about this type of work. Some of them don’t like to use the Foreign Service as a cover. Fundamentally, they like to be frank and open.”
“You have to fight fire with fire, don’t you?” the Admiral said.
“Yes you do. But it takes a period of indoctrination.”
“They’ve had enough indoctrination.” The Admiral’s voice showed the discussion was over. “I want to be able to report to Washington in one month that Atlantis has been formed, and is working. We’ve got to show results. You get that now, Fred, one month.”
“Very well, sir.”
“I don’t want any slips.”
“There won’t be any, sir,” Keller said, because he knew that was what the Admiral wanted to hear.
He felt relieved when he left the Legation. Nothing had gone wrong. The Admiral wasn’t angry about anything. He was just requesting faster movement, as any commander might put ahead an invasion’s D-Day. He shouldn’t allow the Admiral to upset him like this.
4
One by one, that afternoon, Fred Keller called in the men on his team. They were, ostensibly, Commercial Attachés, oil technicians, financial experts, or in the offices of the Naval, Military, and Air Attachés.
He had assigned one to each likely field in the economic and cultural life of the country. They were seeking recruits against the day when there would be no American Mission in Budapest. They had been instructed to estimate these recruits carefully—estimate their political alliances, their balance, their discretion, their courage, their potential use and influence in the body of the city and the nation.
Keller, in keeping with standard security practice, called in the men of his team singly. It was not necessary or desirable that they know each other. This was protection against the possible unmasking of Atlantis from the lowest echelons. Each man on the team knew only what was necessary to form his own cell.
He didn’t get to Jeff Baker until the following morning. He had purposely saved Baker for last. He had great hopes for Baker. For one thing the Budapest theater was traditionally a center of anti-totalitarian activity. And he had confidence in Baker’s work. Baker seemed to show more imagination and perception than some of the others. Baker was a Princeton man.
5
Fred Keller lived in the Dohany Utca in an apartment which once had been the property of the Baron Toth. Wherever Fred lived he lived graciously. He knew the mechanics of travel and shipping, even in these difficult times. He had not been satisfied with Baron Toth’s furnishings, and he had managed to get enough of his own stuff shipped across to do over the living room and master bedroom. He felt at home here. Surrounded by familiar objects—selected by his mother years ago—he felt secure and safe.
At nine o’clock he called Baker and told him to come over, “whenever you have the chance,” but in a tone that would let Jeff know it was important. Baker said he’d be thirty minutes.
Keller told his butler to run up coffee. He himself preferred tea in the mornings, but he knew Baker drank an inordinate amount of coffee. He told the butler to dust the living room. He had the best butler in Eastern Europe, wooed away from the British Embassy by paying wages in dollars instead of pounds. But sometimes the butler was careless with the morning dusting. Keller could not abide a living room begrimed with ashes and disheveled with empty cups and glasses in the morning.
He changed his tie, and took off his lounging robe, and put on a sweater and sports jacket. He examined his hair in the bathroom mirror, and touched his temples with a dark liquid. He was too young to show gray.
He wondered how far Jeff Baker had progressed with Rikki Telredy. He discovered he had difficulty in imagining Baker as a lover. In one way Baker seemed only a lank and immature boy, and yet he possessed that lacquer of sophistication, that outer hardness, that comes to those who have been part of a conquering army. He found it difficult to estimate those kids. It was strange how little one man knew of the inner life of another man.
6
When Jeff arrived, the room was dusted and immaculate, and the coffee made. “Forget your hat again?” Keller greeted Baker.
Jeff put his hand on top of his head and said, “I did, didn’t I?”
“There’s really no harm to it, forgetting your hat,” Keller said. “Except it makes you conspicuous. In this town a man without a hat, particularly an American, is conspicuous.”
“I’ll try to remember,” Jeff promised.
Keller asked him how he was progressing, and Jeff told him fairly well. “Offhand,” Jeff said, “most of the theatrical people dislike the Russians and like the Americans, and they aren’t bashful about saying so. But I haven’t been making any judgments on words alone. I’ve been trying to test their inner loyalties by presenting pro
blems and situations and observing their reactions.”
“That’s smart,” Keller agreed, “but we’ll have to move faster from now on.”
“I can’t say,” Jeff said, “that I’m sure of more than a few yet. Sure enough to ask them to join Atlantis.” He had indexed them all in his head—the good, the doubtful, and the bad. Most were doubtful. Only a few were bad. Budapest had seen the Red Army. Perhaps it would have felt the same towards any army that in smoky-eyed anger and brute passion broke into the citadel of its civilization. Perhaps any army would have sacked and raped, and piled up its debt of hurt and hatred, had it rolled into the city over a carpet of its own dead, and with the memory of its own sacked and raped cities standing in its eyes. Jeff had seen Buda’s suburbs of the dead—the acres of small wooden pyramids with the wood cracking and the red paint flaking off them as if they had been jerry-built in the boomtime of death. The army Budapest had seen was the Red Army, and Jeff deduced that was why most of the people were on the side of America.
“Well, how do they stack up—your theatrical people?” Keller inquired.
Jeff had listed, in his mind, something akin to a salesman’s list of prospects. Now he ran through this list for Keller—the singers, composers, fiddlers, dancers, directors, playwrights, exhibitors, actors, producers.
“You ought to be able to do something with that Zukats,” Keller told him when he had finished. “I should think he’d be completely dependent on Hollywood.”
“He may be,” Jeff said. “But he’s a smoothie. I’m seeing him again this afternoon.”
“And Miss Genghis Khan—what about her? You shouldn’t have any trouble with her. She wants to get to America.” Everyone in the Legation called Rikki Telredy Miss Genghis Khan.