Part 26 (1/2)

Levitsky was impressed. Bolodin had penetrated his own motives and taken his inquiries to the hospital, on the belief that Levitsky would be hanging around wounded Englishmen. Now he was up here on the road to Cab de Salou showing the picture of Levitsky from Deutsche Schachzeitung Deutsche Schachzeitung. If he showed it to the boy ...

They walked over to the cafe and commandeered a table near the sidewalk. Levitsky watched as Bolodin put his feet up on the railing and pulled out a brightly colored pack of cigarettes, plucked one out, and quickly lit it. He did not offer smokes to his companions, who sat on either side with the nervous alertness of bodyguards.

Levitsky looked at his watch. It was about nine thirty. The boy said the sergeant came in at ten. He looked around the cell for a way out and could see none. The boy sat in the front room with his machine pistol. He looked straight ahead.

Another locked room. As if the first weren't terror enough, he had to play the same- ”Boy. Hey, boy. Come here,” Levitsky called.

The boy grabbed his weapon and came back. He had sullen, stupid eyes and seemed bull-headedly frightened of making a mistake. His khaki uniform was too big; still, he was lucky to be here, and not out in the trenches somewhere, or caught by opposing factionalists and stood against the wall.

”Durutti?” Levitsky suddenly asked, naming the Anarchist hero killed leading a column of Anarchist troops in the Battle of Madrid late last year.

The boy looked at him suspiciously.

”Si, Durutti,” he said.

”Viva Durutti!” said Levitsky with enthusiasm. He gave the Anarchist's double-fisted salute. He'd actually known this Durutti in Moscow in 1935 at the Lux. The man was a hopeless dreamer and lunatic, exactly the sort of uncontrollable rogue who'd become a great hero in the civil war, but utterly worthless at any other time. The Anarchists were all like that: wedded to absurd notions of a stateless society. Durutti!” said Levitsky with enthusiasm. He gave the Anarchist's double-fisted salute. He'd actually known this Durutti in Moscow in 1935 at the Lux. The man was a hopeless dreamer and lunatic, exactly the sort of uncontrollable rogue who'd become a great hero in the civil war, but utterly worthless at any other time. The Anarchists were all like that: wedded to absurd notions of a stateless society.

”You're an Anarchist, no?” he asked.

”Si, I'm an Anarchist. Long live Anarchism. Death to the state!” proclaimed the boy.

Levitsky saw just the slightest chance.

”I'm an Anarchist also,” he said carefully, hoping his Spanish was right.

”No,” said the boy. ”Russians can't be Anarchists. Russians are all gangsters. Stalin is the head gangster.”

”I'm Polish,” said Levitsky. ”A Polish Anarchist.”

The boy looked at him darkly.

”Revolucion si, la guerra no,” Levitsky added, hoping again to approximate the idea of the Durutti slogan. Levitsky added, hoping again to approximate the idea of the Durutti slogan.

”Si,” said the boy.

”Comrade,” said Levitsky. ”Por favor ”Por favor. Look at this.” He smiled slyly.

He rolled up his sleeve, past the elbow. There on his right biceps a black fist clenched in ardent fury, ready to smite the governments and policemen of the world. The tattoo dated from 1911. He and several others of the Party had been trying to organize the Trieste millworkers but at every step of the way they were opposed by an Anarchist organization that loathed Bolsheviks. Levitsky had been directed to stop them, for their irresponsibility could so enflame the policemen of the Continent that revolutionary activity would be impossible for months. He'd penetrated their secret society under an alias and been tattooed with the black fist as part of his rite of pa.s.sage. When after months of careful maneuver he had finally met the ringleaders in a Trieste cafe, he'd betrayed them to the police. They were taken off and most of them had died in prison.

The boy looked at the mark on his arm, his eyes widening in wonder.

”Salud, comrade,” said the boy.

”Si. I salute. I salute Bakunin. I salute the great Durutti. I salute Anarchism!”

The boy went and got a key and opened the door and embraced him.

”Esta libre, hermano,” the boy said. the boy said. ”Libre!” ”Libre!” Free, he was saying. ”One Anarchist may not lock up another Anarchist. Free, he was saying. ”One Anarchist may not lock up another Anarchist. Esta libre. Viva la anarquia!” Esta libre. Viva la anarquia!”

Levitsky could see the American Bolodin through the open doorway, sitting at the cafe, and beyond that he could see an elderly man in Guardia Civil uniform head across the square, and at that same moment, a black Ford, the Twenty-ninth Division staff car, with Julian Raines and Robert Florry in the rear, pulled through the square and disappeared down the road and out of town.

”Viva la anarquia!” said Levitsky, and he meant it, for dark forces had been loosed in the world. said Levitsky, and he meant it, for dark forces had been loosed in the world.

He embraced the boy and, seconds later, slipped out.

24.

TRISTRAM SHANDY.

THE MAJOR WAS EXTREMELY NERVOUS. HE COULDN'T concentrate, he couldn't sit still, he couldn't take tea. His stomach felt sour and uneasy: dyspepsia, that scourge of the office animal. By the end he had given up all pretense of organized activity and simply stood at the window, looking down the five floors in late afternoon to the street. He stood there for several hours. He felt if he moved he would somehow curse his enterprise and fate it to catastrophe. concentrate, he couldn't sit still, he couldn't take tea. His stomach felt sour and uneasy: dyspepsia, that scourge of the office animal. By the end he had given up all pretense of organized activity and simply stood at the window, looking down the five floors in late afternoon to the street. He stood there for several hours. He felt if he moved he would somehow curse his enterprise and fate it to catastrophe.

Finally, the black car pulled up and he watched as the queer, eager figure of Mr. Vane popped out. Vane moved with appropriate dispatch into the building. The major thought his heart would burst, but at the same time he felt the killing imperative to maintain a certain formality for the proceedings. Thus he seated himself at his desk, turned on the light, took out and opened his fountain pen, removed from the rubble a sheet of paper, and began to doodle. He drew pictures of flowers. Daffodils. He could draw beautiful daffodils.

He heard the opening of the lift and the slow, almost stately progress of Mr. Vane, who advanced upon him as a glacier must have moved down from the Pole during the Age of Ice. At last the door to the outer office opened; there was a pause while the orderly and precise Mr. Vane took off his coat, hung it on a hanger-b.u.t.toning the top b.u.t.ton, of course, for the proper fall of the garment-and hung the hanger on the rack; then put his jaunty little Tyrolean in his desk drawer, the second one on the right-hand side.

”Sir. Major Holly-Browning?” The man stood in the doorway with the practiced diffidence of a eunuch in a harem.

”What! Oh, I say, Vane, I didn't hear you come in. You gave me a start. Back already, then?”

”Yessir.”

”Well, that's fine. Any difficulty?”

”No sir. Well, actually, sir, the plane from Barcelona was slow in getting off the ground. Then I must say I had crisp words with an F.O. chap at Heathrow who insisted that he take the pouch all the way to Whitehall before opening it.”

”You should have called me.”

”I prevailed, sir.”

”Then you've got it?”

”Yessir.”

”Well, why don't you set it on the table? Then perhaps you'd like to freshen up, perhaps get a bite. I want to finish this d.a.m.ned report before I get to it.”

”Yessir. Here it is then, sir. I'll be back shortly. Please feel free to call me if you want anything.”

”Yes, Vane. Very good.”

Vane set the thing on the table near the window. He turned and left and the major did not look up to watch him. He listened to him leave. He continued to play at working for some minutes. He told himself he would wait fifteen minutes. He did not want to rush, to queer the thing with impatience. He had waited quite a bit, after all.

The last observation had the effect of sending him back. He set the pen down. The daffodils were forgotten. He remembered the dark cellar of the Lubyanka in the year 1923.

He remembered the Russian sitting across from him, the eyes bright with intelligence and sympathy. It had been a brilliant, patient performance, seductive and terrifying. Levitsky had invited Holly-Browning to resist, to argue; and each argument had been gently and delicately deflected. The man was a genius of conviction; he had that radiant, enveloping charm that reaches out through the brain and to the heart; it enters and commands.

It was very late in the interrogation, and Holly-Browning was reduced to bromides.