“Diamonds Are Forever. Have you read it? Bloody brilliant.”
“No,” I said. “Not my taste.”
“A Fitzgerald type, I suppose.”
“Compared to Fleming?”
“That Daisy! What a gal! I practically fell in love with her myself.”
“I think men are really more in love with Gatsby than they care to admit.”
“Not love. But we do want to be him. All men, all women, for that matter, secretly long for some great tragedy. It sharpens the lived experience. Makes for more interesting people. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Only privileged men romanticize tragedy.”
He slapped his meaty thighs. “I knew we had something in common!”
My fish sat cold on my plate, the breading soggy with grease, but I slowly cut off a piece and swallowed it. “I am looking to pick something up for the trip home, though. Know of any good bookshops around here?”
He stood up, downed his pint, and wiped away his foam mustache with his sleeve. “Fancy a game?” We headed to the back of the pub. I was terrible at darts but beat him handily, which I took as his way of saying he was willing to do business.
“Well, then,” he said after I bested him again. “Looks like I’m a little rusty.” He pulled out his pocket watch and I couldn’t help but smile at having called his choice of timepiece. “Have to be going. Taking the little missus to see Uncle Vanya at the Garrick.”
“I love a good Russian play,” I said.
“Who doesn’t?”
“Good reviews?”
“It’s closing in London soon, but should be in the States next year. You know how it goes. We Brits like to test things here before handing them over to you lot.”
Finally, we’re getting somewhere. “When does it open?”
“Early January.” He put on his coat and hat. “But they haven’t announced the exact date yet.”
“December would be ideal. I love taking in a good show around the holidays.”
“I don’t make the schedule,” he said.
“Well, I’ll keep my ear to the ground.”
“I know you will.”
He left, hurrying through the rain to an idling car parked out front. I went back in and ordered Bushmills, then settled up—Chaucer having left his bill to me, of course.
It started pouring as soon as I stepped outside. I arrived back at my hotel soaking wet and left a message at the front desk not to let any calls be put through to my room. “Tell them I’ve taken on a bit of jet lag and need my rest,” I said—code to let the Agency know the Russian Zhivago was as good as ours.
CHAPTER 15
THE SWALLOW
December came and a layer of fresh snow blanketed the District. I’d left Il dottor Živago in the designated confessional at St. Patrick’s the day I returned from Milan and had gone into a tempo office for debriefing the day after that. I told Frank everything—who’d attended, what the press was saying, what snippets of conversation I’d overheard, and, most important, what Feltrinelli had said in his speech. I went over every detail, except for the encounter with the man who’d managed to slip his card into my copy of the novel. Upon returning, I’d taken the card out of my cigarette case and placed it under a loose tile in my bathroom. Secrets were insurance in Washington, and a girl always needs a few in her back pocket.
Irina and I made plans to meet at the Reflecting Pool—to skate and then have dinner back at my apartment. After renting skates from a ski-masked man out of the back of his station wagon, we trudged our way through the snow toward the rink, but we never made it onto the ice. As we sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial undoing our boots, Irina blurted it out: Teddy had asked her to marry him. She didn’t tell me she’d said yes, but she didn’t have to. As she spoke, she fixed her gaze on the Washington Monument and never once turned to look at me.
I’d known it was a possibility. I’d known others who’d gotten engaged and married and even had children to cover their tracks, to avoid arrest, to live a “normal” life. Hell, I’d thought about doing the same once or twice. And after returning from Italy, I’d tried to end things with her a dozen times, but a dozen times just dug in deeper. I’d known it could happen—and yet. When I heard the words spill from her lips, I found myself unprepared. It was as if someone had removed a stone from my foundation and I wasn’t sure exactly when I’d collapse. But in the moment, I managed to keep it together. Kept my cool as I’d been trained to do under any circumstance. I congratulated her, saying I’d love to be the one to throw the happy couple an engagement party. Taken aback, she said, in a voice as small as a comma, that that wouldn’t be necessary. When I’d told Irina I didn’t feel like skating after all, that I had a headache and should probably go home and get some rest, she got up and left me on the cold steps. I watched her red hat become a smaller and smaller dot in the white landscape.
That evening, Irina showed up at my apartment, still dressed for skating. She looked as if she’d been walking since she left me on the steps—her nose red, her body shivering. She pushed her way into my apartment, shedding her boots, her hat, her scarf, her coat. When I told her I’d been sleeping, that I thought I might be coming down with a cold and that she shouldn’t get too close, she pressed her cold hands against my cheeks. “Listen,” she said, but didn’t say anything else. She kissed me, her lips adjusting to mine until they clicked into place. The kiss made me feel like crying; I felt a sense of loss as soon as she removed her mouth. “Listen,” she said again. Her words made me want to look away, but she wouldn’t let me. She stepped closer, her stockinged toes atop mine. Even without heels, she was taller than me by a forehead, and she held on to my face as if inspecting it.
She kissed me again, then slipped her cold hands into my robe. Her confidence took me aback. Was she pretending to be someone else, or had she actually become someone new and I just hadn’t noticed?
A tremor moved through my legs, and I sank to my knees on the pink carpet. She followed. My robe now open, she kissed my stomach, and a noise escaped my lips, an embarrassing sound. She laughed, which made me laugh. “Who are you?” I asked. She didn’t answer, concentrating instead on tracing the line of my pelvic bone. Maybe it was the reverse. Maybe I was the one who couldn’t recognize myself. I’d always maintained the upper hand with sex. I’d gauge my partners’ reactions and move, pose, and moan accordingly. This was different. She didn’t expect anything of me. I was powerless.
I kept thinking we would stop—that she’d come to her senses, that I would come to mine. That she’d back down. When I voiced this, she said it was too late. “No going back.”