His father looked at him, surprised by the shift. “That night?” He sat back, as if he needed to refresh his memory. “To Canada. There was a ship. I went to Detroit. It’s easy to cross there. We had to go all the way to Philadelphia to catch the plane, in case I was recognized at National. So unnecessary. That long drive-it took hours, I remember, because of the snow. The roads were still slippery. There had been a lot of snow.”
“Yes,” Nick said, remembering footprints.
“Hours. We almost missed the plane. I remember I was dying for a cigarette. I’d forgotten my lighter, and the driver didn’t have any matches. Can you imagine, a Russian who didn’t smoke? Finally I made him stop at a gas station outside Baltimore. He went in-he wouldn’t let me. I’d be recognized. By someone pumping gas in Baltimore.” He shook his head. “It never changes.”
Nick could feel Molly stir beside him on the couch, sitting erect, watching his father.
“I mean in Washington. Where did you go in Washington?”
“In Washington,” his father said, puzzled. “New York Avenue, I suppose. We took the Baltimore Pike. He picked me up out back and we took the pike, so it must have been New York. Does it matter?”
“You didn’t stop anywhere?”
“No,” he said easily, “of course not. We were in a hurry. He knew the roads would be bad. We could have had an accident, the way he drove. How different everything would have been. But he didn’t-we made it. Does it matter to you?” he said again. “All these details?”
“Yes.”
But his father eluded him, lost now in other details, telling stories beside the fire.
“I remember the ship. My bunk, anyway. I couldn’t go on deck. The crew wasn’t supposed to know I was there. They locked me in. Nothing to read. No air. A cell. I never knew what they were carrying. Grain? Pig iron, maybe. Who knows?”
Nick leaned back, listening.
“Then I got seasick, so they let me out, for the air. It was freezing. You had to hang on to something or the wind would knock you over. But at least it was outside. The crew pretended I wasn’t there-it was dangerous to ask questions in those days. I don’t know who they thought I was. I ate by myself. The captain had a little English, but nobody else. I don’t think I said ten words the whole trip.” He paused. “I had a lot of time to think.”
“About what?”
“You. Your mother. What would happen. I still thought I could work things out, that you’d join me. I suppose I thought it would be like Yalta, not so bad. Pleasant. When it got calmer, not so rough, I began to enjoy it a little. Something new. The way you feel on any trip. I’d never been on the ocean before. At night the sky-” He broke off. “Anyway, none of that happened. It was just the first cell. But I didn’t know that then.”
“They put you in a cell?”
He smiled faintly. “House arrest. First for the debriefing, then for my protection. It was worse than the ship in a way, that town. I could walk around, like on a deck, but the air wasn’t as good. And of course now I wasn’t going anywhere. I was already there.”
Why did they wait so long before they let you appear?“
“The news conference? It was like the ship. They didn’t know what to do with me. Nobody knew what Stalin wanted. He never trusted foreign operatives, never. To him they were something from the old Trotsky days-internationalists. Real Communists were Russian. He was a peasant. People thought he was some kind of statesman because they saw his pictures at the conferences, but he had a local mind. A little like Welles, in fact,” he said, smiling slightly, amused at the comparison. “Never trust a foreigner. And I think he liked the game. Let the Americans wonder-was I there, was I dead? Why give anything away if it might come in handy later? He could afford to wait. I wasn’t going anywhere. If he hadn’t died-” His father paused. “But that changed everything. Now they wanted to show us off. Me. The English. They wanted you to think spies were everywhere. And of course it worked. How many of us were there? Three? Four? Not so many. And Welles had everybody looking under beds. But the only one he ever found got away. At least I had that satisfaction.”
“He found two,” Molly said.
Nick’s father looked at her, as if noticing her for the first time. “Yes, two,” he said quietly, and nodded.
“And she got away too,” Molly said. “Just in time.”
Nick felt it, the edgy disturbance in the air, but his father seemed not to notice.
“I saw the paper on the ship. The captain got it before we left Canada, to give me something to read. I don’t think he had any idea who she was, why I kept looking at it.”
“So you had that satisfaction too.”
This time his father caught it, unmistakable, a piece being moved into place. He looked at her for a second, unsure why he was being attacked, and his voice, when he answered, was patient, calming a willful child. “No. I never wanted that. Never. Is that what you think?”
“None of it would have happened,” she said evenly, “if she hadn’t started it.” Another piece.
