7
Outside, he turned to the right on Revay Utca and walked towards St. Stephen’s. He stopped before the butcher shop to look at the rabbits and hares dangling head down from the hooks in the window. Every day the smell of rabbit goulash oozed under his door from Madame Angell’s kitchen, and when he looked at the rabbits he could still smell it. Rabbit had become the staple meat of the city. The Hungarians said it was better than the year before. Last year rabbits had been scarce.
He tried to push Susan’s letter out of his mind, and consider the economics of food. The rabbits were in the window because there was a schism between farm and city in Hungary. There were many schisms in the world, and each new one seemed to open another crack in the elaborate machinery of civilization, like chain reaction. They all stemmed from the primary schism between East and West. Hungary was of the East. Its forint was no good in the West. Its forint could not buy anything outside its own borders. Would the British and Americans accept forints for automobiles, and tractors, and machine tools, and blankets? Of course not. The canny Hungarian farmers did not trust the forint. The farmer wanted only enough forints to buy what could be bought inside Hungary, and this was not much. It was no use hoarding or saving forints. Remember what had happened to the pengo? It was better to hoard the solid things that come out of the ground. So the farmers sent to Budapest only what they were compelled to send. They held as much as they could. It was said there was more grain buried under the barns of the holds than ever came to the city. Like everyone else in the world, the Hungarian farmers were looking out for themselves. Because in Moscow there were secluded, badly informed, frightened men possessed of a mad vision, and in other capitals were small men of small vision and perhaps equal fear, because of this he had to walk around Budapest smelling rabbit.
It was all sort of crazy. It was as if the inmates of an asylum had locked up their keepers and formed a bureaucracy. And it could get worse. When war came—if war came—it would be like a football game played with Schmeisser machine pistols. At the end of the game all the players would be dead, most of the spectators would have holes in them, and the score would still be 0-0. Perhaps, as some of his friends hopefully predicted, they wouldn’t use atomic weapons, or germs, just as in the last war they hadn’t used gas. Well, in that case the war wouldn’t settle anything. It would be like playing without putting in the first string team. It would simply mean that it would be necessary to play the game all over again.
If it was going to happen, it would be the smart thing not to go up that hill. It would be smart, while time remained, to resign and have what fun he could. And his mind was back to Susan’s letter again.
8
He saw St. Stephen’s enormous dome looming above him, and in a way it reminded him of the Capitol, for the dome was almost as tall and just as massive. He knew, then, that he was going to go into St. Stephen’s. He had not been inside a church, to pray, for a long time. He had visited the abbey at Cassino, which had seemed like a planned Roman ruin with its skeleton whitened by two weeks of shellfire and bombs instead of two thousand years of weather. He had looked at quite a few ruined churches, and he had used two or three as O.P.s. But he had not been inside a church to pray for, oh, twelve or fourteen years. St. Stephen’s wasn’t his church. He was Presbyterian. But it was the nearest church and he needed to pray inside a church.
The climb up the marble entrance left his knees watery, although there were not many steps. Inside he paused to remove his hat, and found that as usual he had forgotten his hat. He walked to the central pillars, and examined the statue of Saint Ladislaus. He felt self-conscious, but no one was watching.
He walked towards a side altar and there were backless wooden benches before the altar, all unoccupied, for this was not an hour of Mass. He became aware of the quiet, the peace. There was a murmur inside St. Stephen’s, there was even music from the other side of the nave, and yet it was wonderfully quiet, and he drank gratefully of this quiet.
9
He did not know how long he had been there when he heard the creak of a man’s shoes coming down the aisle behind him, and was aware that somebody moved towards him along his bench. He thought, with all the other benches, why does he have to come here. In the soft light he was aware that the man knelt and crossed himself. He turned his head, and said, “Good Lord!”
“Shh!” said Leonides.
“Don’t do that to me!” Jeff said.
“That bomb did your nerves no good, eh, Jeff?”
“I’ll say not,” he managed to whisper.
“Yes, keep your voice low. We will attract no attention, praying here, unless we make noise.”
“What about the bomb?” Jeff asked. “Who did it?”
“Not us. The MVD was concerned because of it. They have orders not to unbalance things here. Not now. The situation is too tense. He is not quite ready. He will carefully choose his time, but the time, I am afraid, is short. We must somehow begin our operations. We must somehow divert Him.”
From the other end of St. Stephen’s there rose the chant of a choir. “Is that why you came here?” Jeff asked. “How did you know I was here anyway?”
“I have been watching. This is the third day I have been watching. It is important for you.”
“You mean your operations? Sure it’s important.”
“No, there is something more immediate. This girl, Telredy, who comes to see you—do you like her?”
“Yes, I like her. Why?”
“Then do not see her again. Never again see her.”
“Why shouldn’t I see her?”
“Because if you see her, she will die. Your Atlantis Project is known, Jeff. It is known that you are in it. Any Hungarian who you often see will, sooner or later, die or wish he were dead.”
Jeff had the queerest feeling, as if he and Leonides had been through this before. He looked at Leonides, sitting on the bench beside him, his big hands clasped, his round, cropped head bent. And when he looked he made a conscious effort to control his own features, and the effort made him realize that this was like the poker games in the Oriente. “What kind of project?” he said. “I don’t understand you, Leonides.”
Leonides half turned his head to meet Jeff’s eyes. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“You are a bad liar, Jeff.”
“That may be,” Jeff said. “But I remember you are a good liar. I’d like to have a nickel for every pot you pulled in with a busted straight.”
The chant died away, so that when Leonides spoke next it was only a whisper. “I am not bluffing, Jeff. If you think I am bluffing, continue with this Atlantis Project and see what injuries are caused. But do not continue, Jeff. Stop it quickly. I do not ask you to say yes, or no, only listen to what I have to say. The MVD knows of it all. The MVD knows that Keller is at the top, and you and a number of others below. I don’t know the MVD source exactly. I know it is from the United States, and probably from the White Russian colony in the United States. It is easy for the MVD to operate among White Russians. The Communists and their followers your FBI automatically suspects. The White Russians your FBI automatically trusts. Your FBI forgets that often the White Russians have primary interests in their motherland—family, estates, sweethearts. And a Russian is a Russian. The Germans learned that. They learned it when we emptied our political prisons, and formed the prisoners into divisions, and sent them to Stalingrad. The political prisoners fought well. They hated Him, but they loved Russia more.”
“Shhh,” Jeff said. A robed priest walked towards the altar, and did not glance at them.
“It is all right,” said Leonides. “It is not unknown for a Russian to empty his sins in church.”
Jeff said, “I have listened to what you had to say, Leonides. Now what about your operations? What’s cooking?”
“We are fearful for Yassovsky. He was sent to the Crimea from Moscow, and we have not heard from him since.”
“Anything else?”
> “Our radio is set. We have it in a truck in the Hochschwab. You know the Hochschwab?”
“The mountains in the British Zone in Austria? Yes. I’ve driven across the Semmering.”
“Not even the British patrol the Hochschwab. It will be safe for quite a time. It will do more harm to Him than all your wireless, and the BBC. We will call it RFR—Radio Free Russia.”
“How soon can I tell my Department?”
Leonides bent his head until his heavy chin touched his chest, and he appeared deep in prayer. His lips moved. “Soon now, please God.” Then he asked, “Have you yet told your one person?”
“Not yet.”
“Who will he be? I should know, if anything happens to you. Remember, something almost did happen, Jeff.”
Now, Jeff knew, he must decide. “Would Keller be all right?” he said.
The choir began a new chant, and Leonides raised his head and stared at the great painting of St. Stephen, offering a crown to the Virgin, over the altar. Jeff knew that Leonides was searching the files of his mind for what he knew of Keller. He was going through all the reports. He was evaluating intelligence. At last he said, “I do not think it should be Keller, Jeff. At first, one thinks Keller would be the right man. He is discreet. Until this information came from the United States, the MVD could discover nothing about his mission here. He is intelligent. For one his age he has risen fast in your Department. He has no vices, and no weaknesses. Perhaps that is why I do not like him. He is not quite human, and this news is for a human man, Jeff, a man of compassion.”
“Very well,” Jeff said, “I will tell someone else. I’ll tell Horace Locke, back in Washington.”
“You can communicate with him in secret?” Leonides repeated aloud, “Horace Locke.”
“I’ll find a way.”
The priest walked back from the altar, and this time he looked at the two men silent on the bench, and smiled. It was a strange thing, an unprecedented thing, to see a Russian and an American side by side in St. Stephen’s. He prayed for peace each day at this altar. Who could tell, perhaps his prayers were being answered?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1
WHEN JEFF GOT BACK to his room he fell across the bed. The short walk, and the hour spent in St. Stephen’s with Leonides, had tired him. In the morning he had been perfectly calm, but now his fingers tingled and the muscles in his arms and legs jumped at disconcerting intervals. He forced calmness upon himself. He had to think—think with logic and without emotion—think of Susan, think of Rikki and her danger, of the compromising of Atlantis Project, and of Leonides and his conspiracy.
He buried his face in the pillow, as if by shutting out the light his brain would become accustomed to the darkness of the future and peer through the darkness. But his brain wouldn’t operate properly. His imagination insisted on racing ahead of his logic, like a child breaking away from its mother, and pursuing the fleeting ghosts of possibility. Suppose Leonides was an agent provocateur, loyal to the MVD and the Politburo. Suppose Leonides was cunningly pumping him to confirm nebulous MVD information? His instinct and his judgment told him Leonides was an honest and decent man, but his imagination shouted beware. Suppose Rikki was in the pay of the MVD, or of the Hungarian secret police? Suppose the leak about Atlantis was not in America, but here in Budapest? He fell asleep when his mind, lost in the labyrinth of possibilities, curled up in exhaustion.
2
When he awoke he knew from the sun that it was afternoon. Rikki was there with a bowl of soup from Madame Angell’s kitchen. “Look what I brought you,” she said. “I hear this morning at the Legation that you are much better. Perhaps I cured you, no?”
“Hello, Rikki,” he said, swinging his legs off the bed and shaking the sleep from his head. Now he must act. He must act at once and decisively, so there would be no mistake. “Thanks for the soup, Rikki. It was very thoughtful of you. I’m hungry and I’ll eat it. But put it down on the table and get out of here, Rikki. I can’t see you again.”
He observed the impact of his words on her face. He was saying it the wrong way. Her mouth opened, and her eyes were dark and wet with pity. “Jeff,” she said, “what is wrong? You are sick again?”
“Rikki, it’s dangerous for you to be here. I can’t explain it all, but you’ll have to get out. Right now. Go on now, Rikki.”
She put the soup down on the table so that it slopped over the rim of the bowl. “What kind of man are you!”
“This is for your own good, Rikki.”
She saw the pile of opened letters on the desk. “Now I see,” she said. “Now I see.” She smiled as if nothing was funny. “My Jeff has a letter from his Susan. He has remorse. You Americans, you are funny. Not funny ha-ha. Funny peculiar. The happier you are the bigger your conscience.”
“Nothing of the sort,” Jeff said. He was on the defensive. This was going badly.
“Last night were you thinking of your Susan?” she demanded.
He stood up, and tried to say what he had to say quietly, without affront or anger. “Rikki, this isn’t a matter of Susan. This is you, Rikki. This is your life.”
She came close to him, and her hands touched his chest and crept up to his shoulders. “You Jeff! You silly! I understand. This Susan, she is no doubt a lovely girl. And you can go back to her, Jeff. I will not hold you. I want nothing from you, Jeff—nothing. I only wish to give. When you go back you can have your Susan. I will even talk of her with you, without jealousy. I know how you Americans like to talk of your women. I will look at her pictures. I will agree that she is pretty. But now, while you are here, you will have me.”
Jeff took her hands in his hands, and thought how helpless they seemed in his hands, and said, slowly so there could be no misunderstanding, “You would not do me much good as a corpse.”
Her expression changed. He had frightened her. She didn’t say anything. She was beginning to understand.
“You can’t come up here any more, Rikki. We can’t meet anywhere any more. You should not go to Fred Keller’s again. You should not eat or dance at the Park Club. You should never enter the Legation.”
She lowered her head, and said, “Why not” but she said it as if she already knew the answer.
“Americans are poison for you, Rikki.” He thought, this is the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. This is the worst. America had been the important dream of her life, and he was excising that dream. He was banishing her. He was creating an exile in her own land. It was like giving her a lift, and then dumping her off in the desert.
“This thing of which we talked?” she asked, without raising her head. “This Hungarian maquis? Cannot I be in that?” It was as if a little girl had been ordered to take off her party dress because she was not welcome at the dance. and who begs at least to be allowed to serve in the kitchen.
He knew that as soon as he talked to Keller there wouldn’t be any Atlantis Project. “No. You’ll have to forget that.”
“So you have given up, you Americans?”
“I have given up that idea. Can’t you guess why? Can’t you guess why I can’t see you any more? Why you shouldn’t be seen around any Americans?”
“Yes, I know. But it is very discouraging, Jeff. I am sick. I am empty. You know, all my life was with your people. I thought I was one of you. Now I am alone.” She turned away from him, and went out into the hallway, and presently he heard her footfall on the stairs, and the diminishing sound was slow and heavy, and not that of a dancer.
3
Jeff looked at the soup. He was no longer hungry. Then he realized he must see Fred Keller at once. He should have called Fred before he fell asleep. His carelessness disturbed him. How many other lives besides Rikki’s were in danger he did not know. He did not know how many others in the Legation were working on Atlantis Project, or who they were, or how many Hungarians might be suspected, and under observation of the MVD and Rajk’s outfit.
He picked up the telephone. When the operator he
ard his voice she shifted him to another operator, who spoke English, and at the same time he heard a tiny, annoying hum. When he spoke again there was a hollow reflection to his voice. The call was being monitored. This was S.O.P. Everyone in the Legation assumed that all their calls would be monitored. But Jeff hated it. The intrusion on his privacy enraged him, so that sometimes he shouted horrid things into the phone when he knew the call was being recorded. He knew this was indiscreet and not according to the rules, but it relieved his feelings.
Since it was assumed that all calls were overheard, conversations were always oblique, monosyllabic, or rich in slang peculiar to this one Mission in this one nation at this time in history.
When Fred answered the phone Jeff said, “It’s me.”
“Hi-ya?”
“Okay. I’ve got to see you.”
“I’m pretty well tied up.”
“Got to see you right away.”
“You can’t. I’ve got appointments with Lower Slobbovians all afternoon, and I expect Miss Genghis Khan for dinner.” Lower Slobbovians were Hungarians.
Jeff said, “No she’s not.”
“Why not?”
“She’s sick and can’t get well.” That meant that she was suspected by the MVD.
“Oh. That’s too bad. Yes, you’d better come up at eight.”
“That’s not all,” Jeff said.
“What else?”
“Wait until you hear. You should see me right now.”
“I can’t. That’s all there is to it.”