Out of nothing more than idleness of interest, Troy relayed Jack’s gossip to Rod. Rod rattled off the standard line that Troy had predicted about the “embarrassment to the government,” “the Americans will never trust us again,” and “looking like complete clowns on the world stage.”
And then he said, “You know, I narrowly missed meeting Szabo in nineteen forty.”
“How was that?” said Troy.
“When I got to the Isle of Man, they’d just shipped out a lot of internees . . . Australia, Canada . . . Szabo was one of the ones sent to Canada. One of the lucky ones. The boat bound for Australia got torpedoed. He shared a room with Arthur Kornfeld. I think they kept in touch for ages after—then Arthur quit physics. I think they drifted a little after that. Surprising really. Those sort of bonds last forever.”
There was a pause. Troy could not have said how long. Rod, hands in pockets, head down, kicking idly at a ball of paper he’d thrown down some time before.
Then he said, “Of course, I shared a room with Viktor.”
There were tears welling in the corners of his eyes. And Troy realized he did not grasp the depth of his brother’s grief, and that behind Rod’s assertion that he knew of no reason why Viktor had killed himself was a crippling desire to know—to have a motive, any motive, rather than none at all.
He said, “Rod, you’ve done the public bit—it was a terrific speech at the funeral—perhaps it’s time to do the private bit. Get all your old pals together. Have a wake for Viktor.”