And?” asked Caridad. “Will she help you?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s difficult to tell.”
“Why not? She liked you well enough.”
“But that means nothing to a woman like her. She used me as a toy.”
“What does she say about Trotsky?” asked Eitingon.
“She had a long letter from him. Something happened in Mexico but she won’t talk about it. Whenever I mention him, she changes the subject.”
They were in Eitingon’s flat. Caridad looked ashen after making countless telephone calls and smoking countless cigarettes. Catalonia had fallen—Tarragona, Barcelona, Girona. It would be only a matter of weeks before Franco’s troops took Madrid. Half a million Spanish refugees were pouring over the border into France.
Ramón believed that Lena would be safe. Her father had kept his distance from the Left and maintained alliances with Franco’s machine in Barcelona. But in the chaos of a war zone there were always accidents and mistakes. One never knew what would happen. The wrong people were killed.
Ramón felt as if the earth were trembling beneath his feet, as if an avalanche had started as he was climbing a mountain. He listened as Caridad placed yet another call to Perpignan, trying to find a Party operative who could tell her what was happening on the border with Spain.
Eitingon stood up and began pacing back and forth across the room. “What do you want to do?” he asked Caridad when she hung up.
“I want to see the children. Jorge is old enough to take care of himself, but Montserrat and Luis are too young for this. I want to go to Ripollet.”
“I’ll drive you,” said Ramón.
“What about Sylvia?” said Eitingon.
“I’ll tell her I have to go to Brussels to see Mama. I won’t be gone long.”
“Ramón, don’t forget you’ve broken with your family. We don’t want to lose Sylvia. At this point, that’s all we have. And you couldn’t get across the border.” Eitingon got up and started to pace. “All of this is taking too long. We’ve spent months and we’re still in Paris, no closer to Mexico.”
“Is Sudoplatov unhappy?” asked Caridad.
“No, not yet. But we need to show signs of progress.”
“We’ve had to wait for Siqueiros,” said Caridad. “There’s no point in going to Mexico without him. How often have we told him this? He won’t take orders. He doesn’t listen to us.”
“Of course he won’t. Siqueiros is an artist, Mexico’s greatest hero.” Eitingon stopped at a window, parting the curtain to look out. “But we chose him. The plan is ours. Our heads are on the chopping block.”
“Should we replace Siqueiros?” asked Caridad.
“No, that would send the wrong signal to Moscow, draw their attention. They aren’t thinking about us—at least not yet. The war in Spain will be over soon, and David will have to go back to Mexico.”
“Speaking of going back,” Ramón interjected, “Sylvia’s still threatening to leave.”
Caridad and Eitingon looked at each other. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Let her go,” said Caridad. “Tell her you will follow. We might as well start moving toward Mexico.”
“I’ll need a Belgian passport. I can’t use my Spanish passport.”
“We’ll have one forged. That’s not a problem.” She shook a cigarette from a pack to light from the end of one burning in an ashtray.
Walking back to the flat, Ramón thought of Lena. She and her family would suffer hardships in Barcelona but thousands would be executed, the blood would pour, bodies scraped into mass graves. Hundreds of thousands Spaniards would be displaced.
Caridad had seen it coming. She told him what was going to happen the day she appeared at the front in Aragon. Now she was walking half a block ahead of him on the sidewalk, a precaution should they encounter Sylvia coming from the flat.
It was cold out, gray, but spring would come, the tiny acid green buds making a haze on the trees. He had been in Paris a year and what he had pretended—to be a resident—had become a reality. He felt divided, as if he had become two people. He had told the story of Jacques Mornard and the aristocratic family in Brussels so often that it was as real as his past in Spain. He looked at the Parisians he met on the street, studying their faces, wondering how they could go calmly about their business. Surely they felt the tremors of their own coming avalanche.
He stopped at an outdoor flower stall to buy a small bouquet of violets for Sylvia. He avoided looking at the newspapers on the kiosk as he approached his building, fishing keys from his pocket. He opened the heavy wooden door to the street, stepping into the cold interior of the building. The blue-and-white check curtain in the concierge’s window flicked to the side, revealing for a moment the woman’s eyes. He’d tipped her generously to assure that Sylvia—l’Américaine, sa femme—didn’t learn that his mother was also living in the building. “Ah, the wife, the mother. It is not a good situation,” the concierge surmised. “Well, what she doesn’t know …”
He switched on the light for the first flight of stairs, then for the second. Caridad would by now be in her flat, lighting a cigar, heating water for coffee. As he opened his door, he heard Sylvia typing. She looked up, removing her pale blue glasses.
Did she seem distant? Cold?
“I brought you a gift,” he announced, “a little bouquet of violets. They’re very humble but sweet.”
“You thought of me.”
“Of course, I’m always thinking of you.”
Noticing the thick airmail envelope on the table and that she didn’t come to greet him, he felt a different variety of anxiety sweep through him, the fear that she had seen through his charade.
“You went out for the mail.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Anything interesting?”
“A letter from my sisters.”
“What do they say?”
“The usual. They’re worried about Germany and think I should come home.”
“Yes, that is the usual.” He went into the bedroom to hang up his coat, then to the kitchen to get a small glass of water for the violets. “I’m pouring a glass of wine. Would you like some?”
“No. Not yet. I have more to do.”
He sat down on the sofa with his wine, lighting a cigarette. “Darling, come and sit with me. I’ve missed you.”
She looked up from her work. “Just a moment. Let me finish this one sentence.”
“No, please. We need to talk.”
He held out his hand as she joined him, taking hers in both of his. “That’s better. You know, these are not just words that I say. I really did miss you.”
She moved closer to snuggle against him.
“I wish you wouldn’t work so hard. It must be something about Americans. It doesn’t seem natural.”
“I’m sorry, Jacques. It’s just that … You wanted to talk about something?”
“Perhaps your sisters are correct. Perhaps it’s time you leave.”
“But Jacques, what about us.”
“Paris is safe for the moment but we shouldn’t take chances.”
“And what about my work?”
“Yes, there’s also that. I happened to speak to our editor today. He says he won’t be needing any more reviews.”
“Why not? Isn’t he happy with them?”
“I asked him, but he was evasive so I knew something was wrong. I assume it has to do with what’s going on in general.”
Sylvia looked stunned, taken aback. “Jacques, what will we do?”
“I will follow you, of course. You’re my wife. I’m your husband. We’ll be together.”
She smiled but with hesitation. “But what would you do in New York?”
“The World’s Fair starts in New York before long. A friend told me the French Pavilion needs people who speak English. That’s a possibility.”
“Oh, Jacques, that would be wonderful. You’d like New York. It’s not Paris, but we could be happy there.”
“It will take a while for me to arrange my documents. I could follow you in a month or two.”
“But you would come? You wouldn’t disappear again?”
“Darling, I never disappeared.”