“I was not so prominent then. But it was useful, yes. I knew many people. Heisenberg. Many.”
“So your bosses knew them too. Then you had to get out. And you kept doing the same thing in England.”
“In Manchester, yes.”
“How did it work there?”
“Mr. Connolly. Do you really expect me to tell you that? I made reports. I met with people, I don’t know who.”
“And you told them about Tube Alloys.”
“Yes, of course. Mr. Connolly, would you please sit down? You’re making me anxious, all this back and forth. You can smoke if you like.”
“Sorry.” Connolly sat down, feeling reprimanded, and lit a cigarette. “You don’t mind?”
“It’s Robert’s hospital,” Eisler said with a small smile.
“Then you came to the Hill early last fall,” Connolly continued. “Karl would have known right away. He’s probably the one who got your file-he took an interest in that. But there wasn’t anything there. It’s what isn’t there,” he said aloud to himself. “And Karl knew. You’d done some work together in the good old days. So he asked you about it-he couldn’t resist that-but he kept it to himself. Why, I wonder. Or was Karl still a Communist too? That Russian jail just another story?”
“You are too suspicious. The mirror in a mirror? No, the jail was real. You had only to see his hands. He was never the same after that-certainly not a Communist. He renounced everything. It was not so much-” He stopped, searching. “Not so much what they did to him there, as perhaps the feeling-how can I say it? — that they had renounced him.”
“And the pain didn’t help. A disillusioning experience all around.”
Eisler glanced up at his sarcasm, then looked away again. “Yes, it must have been.”
“So you made him think you felt the same way.”
“Yes, that was very easily done,” he said with a hint of pride. “A matter of the past. You know, Mr. Connolly, when you stop loving a woman you can’t imagine what anyone else might see in her.”
Connolly was jarred by his tone. In the lamp’s small circle he felt, absurdly, that they might be swapping stories around a fire.
“So you’d both seen the light. But nothing in the file-he wouldn’t like that. That’s the sort of thing that would worry Karl.”
“You forget there was nothing in his file either. He could understand not making a point of it here. In a place like this. People are not so understanding-they don’t know what it was like there. Would he have kept his job? It would be natural to let the sleeping dog lie. For both of us. I assure you, he was-sympathetic.”
“Sympathetic enough to put the bite on you.”
Eisler looked at him, puzzled.
“You gave him money, didn’t you? What was that for, old times’ sake?”
“Oh, I see. You think he threatened to expose me? No, no, it was not like that. Karl was an opportunist, but not a traitor. If he had really thought I was still-active, nothing would have stopped him. Certainly not a little money.”
“But you gave him money. Not a little. And he kept your secret. And it wasn’t blackmail.”
Eisler waved his hand. “You insist on this term. It’s not precise. What do you think he said to me? Thirty pieces of silver for my silence? This is a fantasy, Mr. Connolly. Be precise.”
“Well, why did you give it to him? Six hundred dollars, wasn’t it?”
Eisler looked up, pleased. “Very good. A little more, but that is close. How did you know?”
“What did he say it was for?” Connolly said, ignoring his question.
“He appealed to me. He had the chance to buy members of his family out. There are such cases, you know. How much for a life? And he had very little.”
“His family’s dead.”
“Yes, of course. It was much too late for such arrangements. That was all in the past, when they were letting people out. But that is what he said. I did not contradict. I knew it was-an opportunity for him.”
“Did he know you thought that?”
Eisler shrugged. “I can’t say. I didn’t question him. I was generous. Perhaps he felt our past was a bond between us, that he could approach me this way. Perhaps he enjoyed seeing how far he could go. A game. He could trust me not to say anything. It was very strange. I think, you know, he felt I was the only person he could trust.”
“Maybe the first time,” Connolly said, picking up the story. “But after-it was too easy. He asked for more money and you gave it to him. And then again. Why? He’d be suspicious. So he started following you-where you went. Especially off the Hill. He liked driving around. Were you aware that he was tailing you?”
“No.”
“So you never saw him at any of your meetings?”
“There was only one other. He wasn’t there.”
“How did you set them up?”
“The first had been arranged before I came. The second you know. I already had the date; I would be contacted about the place. The book arrived and I knew.”
“And this time Karl was there.”
“Yes.”
“And he saw that you were passing information. There were papers?”
“Yes.”
