He went out to Ashley Pond, shrunken now in the drought, and walked around its necklace of dried mud. The late afternoon sun burned against the windows of Gamma Building, making rows of little fires. The Hill, as always, was in motion, trucks grinding past scientists rushing to meetings and secretaries in wobbly heels heading to the PX on their break. It all went on behind him, around him, while he stood apart on this margin of water. Karl hadn’t said anything. Why? Out of some improbable decency? No. Maybe he thought it wasn’t really over, that he could always return when his new interest had been satisfied. Or maybe he thought there was nothing to tell, just another European story they would never understand. Questions would have to be asked, about him too, already compromised. What good would it do? He lived to protect himself, now in a world of tapped phones and secret reports and files that told everything about the past except what it meant. You had to be careful. Loyalty was a bargaining chip-you had to hoard it until you could play it to advantage. And meanwhile the Hill would go on around him too, indifferent, busy with itself. Connolly saw him standing by the same pond, outside of things, looking for a way in. Why would they trust him? The Germans hadn’t, the Russians hadn’t. Would his new masters be any different? Unless he had something really important to offer, something more than a sloppy vetting. So he waited.
If it was true. Connolly picked up a small rock, threw it into the pond, and watched the water rearrange itself, like thoughts. He thought of Emma at the memorial service, coolly walking out on Daniel’s arm; saw her at Fuller Lodge, her back to him, laughing. Maybe everything was a performance, the practiced story. But he had made her do that-it had all been for him, hadn’t it? He had made her lie and now he distrusted the lie. He started back toward the dormitory, looking down at the ground as he walked. Maybe Karl hadn’t been sure either, waiting for something more. He only had her word for it. What did Karl really think? He thought he was beginning to know him, but Karl didn’t exist. He could only imagine him.
The dormitory was quiet, even the Ping-Pong table empty, and Connolly went straight to his room. He sat in the chair by the window with Karl’s file, staring at the picture that would somehow make him real. Dark, intelligent eyes. Had he trusted her? But Karl didn’t trust anyone. Goblins everywhere. He came to the right place for it. Maybe he hadn’t felt like an outsider at all; maybe he had liked it, his files and his private suspicions and the adrenaline thrill of a hunt. Maybe he’d felt at home. He knew how to live here, what he was expected to do. But what did he have for it? A car, some money just in case, and now the secret of his own death. Half the people up there are crazy.
Connolly stared at the room and realized with a shock that it looked exactly the way it had on his first night. Did he live here? A shaving kit on the washbasin, a bag in the closet, a book. Otherwise, the same. Neat. Empty. He hadn’t expected to stay. But the room in Washington was no different. Temporary until the war was over. He was living in other people’s stories. For how long? Then the war would be over and he would be back in his own, where nothing would happen. Unless it already had. He felt a panic so intense that it swept over him like a kind of nausea. If he sat back in the chair now he would disappear into Karl’s room, waiting to be sure.
He threw the folder on the floor and got up, standing so quickly that his head felt dizzy. When he hurried out of the building, blinking at the sun, his head was still light, but he felt his body coming back, filling up again. There was room now for everything-the insubstantial buildings, the clotheslines flapping white, the smell of gasoline. When he reached her building he almost laughed, remembering that other time, turning left, turning right, the neighbor with the coffee. This time he knocked without hesitation, loudly, so that when she opened the door she pushed against it as if he were a gust of wind. He looked at her face, the details of it, his own story.
“What do you want?” she said, still holding the door.
“I’m in love with you.”
“Oh,” she said, a sound, not a word, a reflexive whimper. Her body went soft, exhaling, shoulders easing as her eyes filled. The door seemed to open by itself, pushed by the same wind, and he was inside. For a minute they just looked, her eyes fixed on him, moist with relief but not crying, moving with his, alive with conversation. “You came back,” she said.
“I’m in love with you,” he said again.
She put her hands to the sides of his face and brought him down to kiss her, short drinking kisses, like gulps.
“Yes,” she said into his cheek.
“Do you know what that means?”
“No. Tell me.” Smiling now, teasing him. Then she kissed him again. “No, don’t. So much talking. Don’t say anything else.”
