The Prodigal Spy

“About sixty thousand,” Nick said. “Roughly.”

“Roughly,” his father repeated, taking it in. He looked at Nick. “I see. Wiseman. Think what it means, the work involved. And that was just HUAC, not the Senate committees, the state committees. All of them looking for information so they could run their own circus. People didn’t ask where it came from. Maybe they thought Welles dug it up all by himself. But where else? Only the FBI had that much. Those were Hoover’s committees. McCarthy’s especially, but Welles’s too. Hoover fed them, and then, when it suited him, he cut them off. The trouble was, they didn’t know what to do with the stuff. McCarthy, for God’s sake. Welles, always shooting from the hip and never hitting anything. Disappointing, the horses Edgar picked.” He paused. “But it came from him.”

“How?” Molly said, fascinated now.

“The usual ways. Hoover had to be careful. The leaks were illegal, for one thing, a small point. But there was his reputation–not a small point. He couldn’t be seen to be leaking information. Sometimes the field offices would help the local police. Then they could pass it off as their detective work. Sometimes a journalist would be tipped, one of the friendly ones. With the committees it was usually more direct–that was helping the government, after all. But in this case I think it might have come directly from him–he was close to Welles and this was sensitive, the sort of thing he liked to handle himself. He might not have wanted anyone else to know, even in the Bureau.”

“But does it matter? The fact is, they did know about her.”

“But how? Did you ever wonder why it started with her? That’s always been the strangest part of the whole business. She was the last person in the chain who’d be under suspicion. She wasn’t in the Government. No access. No history. You didn’t have to pass a security check to work at Garfinkel’s. Why investigate her? She should have been at the end of the trail, the small fry you round up with the others. But there weren’t any others. They never co

Molly said nothing, so Nick’s father answered for her.

“Somebody told them. That’s how it all started, all of it. That’s what I thought about on the ship,” he said, looking at her. Then he sighed, finished. “I still think about it.”

Di

“It’s all I kept from the house in Bubeneč. My mother had three closets just for the linens. And dishes–she prided herself on her china. All the women did. Of course, they had maids. So different then. You know, I never cared about these things when I was a girl. It was just the way we lived. Now it seems so beautiful–it reminds me, I suppose. Of that life. We had a large house, a villa. A music room, even. A greenhouse in the back–we always had flowers. But that was before the war.”

“Is the house still there?”

“Oh yes. But my father was killed, so we had to leave. The Germans took it. My mother lost everything–all those closets. But she kept these.”

They were still talking about the world before Munich, all parties and piano lessons, when they heard the car in the driveway. The rain had gone, leaving only the sound of water dripping off leaves, and in the quiet the engine seemed a roar, sputtering, then stopping, unmistakably there to stay. A

His father, seeing Nick’s face, smiled. “Don’t worry, Beria’s dead.” He got up and went over to the window, peering through the curtain. “František,” he said. Then, to Nick, “A friend. It’s all right.”

“What does he want?” A

“A drink. What else?” his father said lightly, opening the door.

But František had already had one. He was a bear of a man, tall and bearded, and when he entered the cottage, stooping to get through the door, his eyes had the wild, shiny look of drink. He stopped for a minute, weaving slightly, disoriented by the unexpected strangers and the formal table, then spoke to Nick’s father in rapid Czech. Without language, Nick watched them as a silent movie, forced to follow the story through gestures. He didn’t mean to break up the party. No, no, it was all right, come sit. Was something wrong? More Czech. A

“No telephone,” the man said to them in accented English, waving his hand to take in the cottage, apparently apologizing for having come.

Nick’s father poured him a glass, then some for himself.

“A suicide,” he explained to Nick, but the man understood the word and covered his forehead with his hand, and Nick saw his eyes moisten. When he spoke, in Czech, his voice was deliberate, almost without inflection, so that again only the gestures meant anything.

Molly got up and began to clear, motioning to A

“I’ll make some coffee,” A

František answered, but Nick’s father said to him, “In English,” nodding toward Nick.

“English, yes. Excuse me. You don’t speak Czech?”

Nick shook his head.

“It’s better, Czech, for bad news. Very expressive. The Eskimos have the words for ice. But we—” He poured two more glasses. “What do you say, Valter? We have the words for bad news, yes?” A look of disgust. He took a drink.

His father turned to Nick. “His brother was a writer.”

“A writer. Under Dubček, a writer. Then, poof, a tram driver, for Husák.”

“He was fired from the Writers’ Union,” his father explained, “so he had to work on the trams. That’s the kind of job they give you. An embarrassment, so people see.”

“They make you eat their shit,” František said. “To fill your mouth. No more words.” He glanced at his glass. “Then you’re quiet. So there is his brotherhood of Slavs. You remember that? He believed in that. We’re Slavs. They’re Slavs. Who else is there, the Germans? Now look at him.”

“A writers’ movement,” his father said to Nick, a text gloss.

“You like Prague?” František said suddenly. The opening, hopeless question.