The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel полностью

Holy crap, thought Nate, this is a psychological smorgasbord. He processed her story in parts: lingering resentment of the system; absence of communist ideology; strong work ethic and meticulous attention to detail; feeling isolated and disenfranchised and contemplating an uncertain future; and committed to and dependent on the spiritual aspects of yoga. This was an astounding collection of exploitable motivations right out of the textbook—almost too good to be true. A few more contacts, a sympathetic ear and a friendly smile, and he could subtly determine Grace’s willingness to help him, her need to belong to a cause, her desire to give meaning to her life, to work toward a more liberal China. The case officer in him noted that she did not ask questions of him, which was a little strange.

They walked after dinner in Central, on empty sidewalks past buildings too tall to see the tops shrouded in fog. Grace linked her arm in Nate’s—that mystery perfume washed over him—and he steadied her a little. They flagged a taxi, which careered up Garden Road onto Magazine Gap Road to the front door of Grenville House, fifteen stories of luxury apartments perched on the side of the jungly hill looking over the tops of the high-rises on the next level below, slices of the harbor visible between the forest of buildings. Grace said the Peninsula Hotel paid her astronomical rent; otherwise, she would be living in a moldy flat in Kowloon. Propriety in mind, Nate chastely bussed her good night on the cheek and was going to leave, but she spilled her purse on the lobby floor digging for her keys, and giggled that she shouldn’t have had that third glass of wine. Nate chivalrously rode up in the elevator with her, and got her key in the door. She tilted her head, and said he should come in to see how she lived, because, after all, he seemed interested in her. “You are interested in me, aren’t you, Nathaniel?” she drawled. Okay, take this slow, he thought.

Grace kicked off her shoes and led him into a large living room with picture windows and a herringbone parquet floor, without a stick of furniture or anything on the white walls—Nate cracked wise that he loved what she did with the room. The air was redolent with that same fragrance. Three large wicker baskets were lined up against the wall. At the end of the room an immense gong (from Tibet, Grace said solemnly) hung from a varnished standing frame, with a large white pillow on the floor in front of the dimpled seven-foot bronze disk. On either side of the gong were black lacquer console tables with matching Chinese cloisonné candlesticks, a deep copper bowl, and a squat black-granite carving that Grace called a shivalinga, an idol to the Hindu deity Shiva, the patron god of yoga. This is nothing less than an altar in a yoga church, thought Nate.

Nate picked up the gong hammer, but Grace said, “No, not that way, I’ll show you,” and lightly ran the felt head of the hammer around the edge of the dimpled disk that started a low moan as the palpable vibrations started, then were overlaid with a higher whine as the harmonics mingled. She dropped the hammer, and shook herself, and Nate figured the wine had caught up to her, but she straightened and walked close to him, and he braced for either a kiss or projectile puking, but in a small voice she asked whether he wanted to see Kundalini energy, her style of yoga, the coiled snake at the base of the spine. It was a little creepy. Nate remembered Bunty thinking maybe she was a bunny boiler, but she was tipsily offering to show him the wellspring of her soul after two dates, and he said yes, of course; the snake at the base of the spine, sure. Then things got weird.