An Honorable Man (8 page)

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A car's headlights pulled into the driveway and filled the kitchen with blinding light. It idled momentarily outside the cottage and then the engine was cut.

Beth opened the back door on the third knock and saw a tall man, with a prominent jaw and a big chest, standing in the dim glow of the kitchen's light. He wore a wide-brim hat and a long gray overcoat.

She found Mueller in the living room where she'd left him.

“There's a man at the door asking for you,” she said. “I think he's Russian.”

“Show him in,” Mueller said. “Then if you don't mind, would you close the door behind you? I'll see him alone.”

Mueller ushered the Russian to the far end of the enclosed porch by the wide bay window that looked onto the cove. He didn't know this man, but he knew his type in the hierarchy of the
rigid Soviet system. A trusted man, but not a senior officer made to stoop to being the messenger boy. He was glad they hadn't sent the driver, thinking they could end this with an apology. There was no greeting, no handshake, no false cordiality. Mueller didn't offer the man a seat or a smile. It was a brief conversation. The Soviets had come to Mueller, so they would be agreeing to his terms.

  •  •  •  

Beth couldn't make out what was being said behind the closed door. She leafed through the newspaper she'd brought, but it quickly bored her. She found herself glancing at the closed door until she could stand it no longer. She opened a book he'd left on the counter. A photograph stuck out like a bookmark. It was a black-and-white photo of a young boy in Lederhosen by a farmhouse and on the back, in child's handwriting,
Daddy.
She gazed at the boy and thought she saw a resemblance. She studied the smile on the face and the look of surprise of a uniformed man in the background waving the camera away.

She knelt at Muller's duffel bag, anxious at the prospect of prying into his private life. She listened for a shift in their voices, or the scraping of a chair on the floor, to detect if they were wrapping up. She vigorously wiped her sweating hands on her apron and slowly undid the bag's zipper. Her hand touched rolled cotton socks, starched shirt collars, a belt, shoes, and deep in a corner she found a tennis ball.
Odd
, she thought.
Where is his racket
? The pistol was there too, and she was careful to set it aside. A camera, a book of poetry, but nothing that would re
veal his life, or compromise it. No diary. No letters. Then a small envelope inside the book and in it more photographs of the boy. There he was at a birthday cake. And there he was in Prater Park, the boy and his father standing at the Giant Ferris Wheel. The photo was a closed surface, unsatisfying, and it didn't open up. The unguarded moments were the best. The boy waving at the camera while riding a bike with training wheels.

The door handle turned and Beth sat bolt upright. She returned the photos, stuffed everything in the bag, and zipped it shut. Back at the table, she smiled when the men entered.

She let the guest out of the house, just as she had let him in, without a word of greeting or farewell. She stood in the open door and felt the evening breeze lift her hair, and she wrapped her arms on her chest against the chill. She watched him get in his sedan, a big man with dark eyes that gave her a cold look.

  •  •  •  

Mueller was at the dinner table Beth had set. He watched her fill their bowls with noodle soup and set a basket of bread between them. Neither spoke.

“I hope you don't mind leftovers,” she said. “I took yesterday's chicken and added a few vegetables. How does it taste?”

“It's good.”

They sat together without speaking. There was the sound of eating, spoons dipped, soup tasted, and a heightened sense of quiet. Mueller raised his eyes and saw her staring at him.

“Who are you?” she asked.

Mueller was surprised by his vague urge to tell her where
he'd grown up, who his parents were, how he'd gone off to war and seen things that no young man should have to see, but this urge passed quickly. “We don't need a past to enjoy this moment, do we?” Then, “I'd prefer if you didn't ask.”

She head-cocked slightly, contemplating that thought. “Then who is he?” She nodded to where the stranger had walked out. “He is in our moment.”

“He works in the Soviet embassy.” A hint, he thought.

“That's all?”

“He was involved with the car that hit me. It will all be worked out.”

She frowned, unsatisfied by his answer. She broke a piece of bread she'd baked, placing it on his dish, and taking another for herself, which she dipped in her soup.

“You have a son, don't you?”

Mueller raised his eyes.

“I found his photograph.” She pointed at the book on the counter. “How old is he?”

“Six.”

“Does he live with you?”

“His mother has him. It's a long story.” Mueller wanted to say more but stopped himself. “He is growing up without me. I didn't think it would matter. . . .” He saw her eyes grow curious and he considered how much to share, how much to hold back. Then he told a story. He spoke without emotion, as if he were speaking about someone else, and his voice became quiet, his tone guarded. He didn't see his son often because the boy lived in Austria, outside Ratz, and his travels to Europe had been reduced since coming
to Washington, so he'd seen the boy twice, and even when he did visit, his relationship with the boy's mother was terrible. The boy spoke German, little English, so Mueller spoke German to his son, and that fact, he knew, as he thought about how their lives would diverge, made it hard to see what sort of attachment the boy would have—and who he would be to his son. And what did the mother tell the boy to turn him against Mueller?

“In my last visit I was inside the farmhouse I'd been given for the visit and he was outside by the woodshed. We were in the mountains. December. Cold had come. We needed firewood for the stove, and he was eager to help so I let him take the axe. He was at the chopping block turning little logs into kindling with one-handed hits on a log he held in position with his other hand. I watched him from the window without letting him know he was being watched. It was dangerous, of course, but he'd insisted and what could I do? I wanted him to appreciate our brief time together. ‘No' is a difficult word for the guest parent. And I admired how he tried to imitate my style of one-handed chopping. Suddenly I jumped from the table and cried, ‘No!'

“I burst out the back door. I saw blood on his hand and fear in his eyes. ‘Let's see,' I said. He was crying, but he put his hand out. The finger was cut below the tip. I took him to the house, washed the wound, and applied a bandage to stop the bleeding. The cut was shallow, but he was mortified. I said the bandage would do, but I asked if he wanted to go to the clinic. He shook his head defiantly. ‘It's only a little cut,' he said tearfully. Of course, he didn't believe that, but he wanted to show me that he was brave. He got in my lap and I comforted him. He asked me if I'd ever cut
myself as a child when I chopped wood. I knew he was comparing himself to me. We are God to our children at his age. I could lie to him to make him feel better. The right thing to do was to lie—and sometimes a lie is required—but I had promised I would never lie to him. It was a promise I made to myself to earn his respect, so I said ‘No.'

Mueller said the last word and was suddenly quiet, almost moody. He broke a piece of bread from the torn loaf and twice dipped it in his soup, then ate. He looked up at Beth, eyes fierce. “There. That's a story about my son. Does it tell you what you want to know?”

She looked at him for a moment. He'd slumped in his chair. Her voice was sympathetic. “You love him, don't you?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat to hide his emotion. “I do.”

“I'm glad that I'm here,” she said. “I'm glad that we met.”

He was surprised when her eyes reddened. She reached across the table and put her palm over his hand. Neither spoke. The moment lingered, each looking at the other, each understanding he had a world of hurt that she would never know. A part of him that was inaccessible. She withdrew her hand and wiped her eye with her knuckle. She smiled kindly.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I don't mean to get emotional. I didn't know what to expect when you collapsed on the road. I couldn't just leave you. And here we are. I've enjoyed this week. Ever since I was a little girl I've woken up in the morning with a dread that everything good in my life will go away. I live today's regrets for tomorrow's disappointments.” She looked around the little cottage that she'd brightened with flowers. “This will end. You will leave.”

“Not tomorrow.”

“Soon enough.”

He didn't answer. Nor did he avert her eyes. He nodded.

She washed the dinner dishes, handing them to him to dry. He stacked plates in an orderly row in the drain rack. When they finished she went to the bathroom and then joined him in the bedroom.

He was under the blanket, his clothes draped over a chair. He watched her undress, first removing her sweater and then reaching behind to undo her bra. He felt her slip under the covers beside him and he felt the startling intimacy of her nakedness lightly touching his body.

“Come closer,” she said.

He considered the request. Considered how he should show her that she was a desirable woman, and that he was attracted to her. And he considered the wrongness of what they were about to do. Realized they were doing what she had said not to do, creating tomorrow's disappointments. He turned to her. Her breath was close, warm, and he could feel the faint beating of her heart. Did every good beginning have to end in disappointment?

She reciprocated his touch, gathering his hair, bunching it, and affectionately messing his combed look. She moved her fingers to his face, finding his nose, touching one eye, then the other, and drew her fingertips across the seam of his lips. Her touch released a riot of sensation in his skin. Their arms wrapped each other and their bodies entangled in a slow unfolding of flesh. She drew her hand along the inside of his thigh moist with sweat, and reached into his boxer shorts. Her tongue moved to his mouth
and she pressed her lips on his with hungry kisses that he was returning.

She slept with him again the next two nights. They spent their days walking along the beach with lunch basket and blanket, and one afternoon she got him out onto the bay in a small sailboat. They sailed on the bay to an island of scrub oaks and made love on the beach under a blanket. On the last day she inspected his leg wound and opined that he was recovered, and she removed the sutures. When they were eating dinner that night he said he had to take care of something the next day. He would be gone for a little while, he said. He'd be back. She nodded. She smiled and said, “You don't have to lie to me. We've had something. It's enough. If it's gone, that's okay. We had it. You can't take that away.”

7

RECRUITMENT

H
E'S WAITING
for you.” The maître d' at Harvey's took Mueller's coat and pointed to a corner booth in the rear of the bustling restaurant. Mueller glanced in the bar's large mirror to consider the people who sat alone nursing a drink.

“I'm not late, I hope.”

“You know him, Mr. Mueller. He's always early.”

Mueller appreciated how the maître d' knew to ease the anxiety of the late-arriving customer. Mueller kept his duffel bag and made his way through the restaurant packed with a lively lunch crowd, drinking Capitol Hill staffers, voices rising to compete with louder voices at adjacent tables. No one he knew.

Mueller slid in the rear booth beside the director. He nodded at a third place setting. “Anyone else joining?”

“Just us.” The director fingered the stem of his half-finished martini, no ice, three olives. He looked at Mueller. “Well?”

“They made contact.”

“Who did they send?”

Mueller gave a name. “I asked for Vasilenko.”

“You're sure it wasn't him?”

“I'm sure. We knew each other in Vienna.”

“I understand Altman's sister found you on the road.”

“The long arm of coincidence.”

“What happened?” the director said.

“I wanted a scratch on the hand. I misjudged. Got too close. I was thrown.”

The director looked at Mueller. “Keep her out of it.”

“She's not in it.”

“Her father is an old friend.” The director waved over the waiter, who collected the extra setting. The director gave his order without looking at the menu, choosing from memory, and Mueller repeated the order to save time.

“Oysters?” the director asked. “They're fresh. In season.”

“If you are.”

“Cocktail?”

Mueller shook his head. “Water, no ice.”

“Still set on leaving?” The director threw back his drink and ordered a second. “No second thoughts?”

“No. I'm out.”

“You're not out. Not yet. I need you until this is done.” The director leaned back. “You're good at this, George, because you have the right kind of intelligence. Teach for a year. You'll get bored.”

The two men talked shop until the oysters arrived. Soon
after, a waiter carried in the two main-course dishes and placed them on the white tablecloth. The director tucked his napkin into his loose collar, making a bib for himself, and took the grilled baby back ribs in his hands. Mueller laid his napkin on his lap and eyed the greasy meat. “Use your fingers,” the director said. “It's barbecue. Best goddamn barbecue in the city.”

“They made a mistake,” Mueller said. He had the director's attention with that comment. “The driver had no driver's license. None of them do. They are embarrassed. We came to an arrangement.”