Evil for Evil

THIS WAS THE Holy Land, and I had never felt so far from home. From the narrow balcony outside Diana’s room, I watched traffic flow along a side street, beyond the impossibly green gardens gracing the grounds of the King David Hotel. An old Arab pulling a donkey hustled it to the side of the road as a British Army staff car sped by, the sound of its insistent horn echoing off the stone buildings. The donkey raised its head, braying as the dust settled and the staff car vanished. The old man put his arms around the donkey’s neck and spoke to it, nodding, and scratched the animal behind its ears. The donkey flicked its tail and followed him back into the street, where they both resumed their slow, deliberate gaits.

I wondered what the old man had said. I wondered what I would say when I returned to the room. I doubted it would be anything as persuasive.

“Billy,” Diana said from inside, “are you coming in?”

“Yes,” I said as I brushed back the thin curtains fluttering in the slight breeze. “I am.”

Everything had been just right. We were on leave, traveling with the general, staying at ritzy joints from Cairo to Jerusalem, the kinds of hotels the British built so the Victorians would feel at home while seeing the sights. Hotels with thick walls between the guests and the funny dark-skinned locals. But I hadn’t even thought about that. I’d been content to enjoy this time with Diana, until I found out the secret she had kept hidden from me.

Diana sat on the edge of the bed, holding a glass of water pressed to her chest. Her khaki blouse was unbuttoned. Water beaded on the glass and dripped onto her flushed skin. The overhead fan turned lazily, moving the heat in circles. I poured myself a glass of water and drank half of it as I sat in the brocade-covered armchair near the open balcony door. The fabric was hot and itchy but I liked my chances better in it. I might feel a breeze and I might be able to resist the sight of Diana’s moist skin and the curving rivulets of sweat as they disappeared beneath the damp folds of her FANY uniform.

“Are you angry with me?” She asked the question casually, as if she had no idea.

“When were you going to tell me?” I replied.

She looked away as she raised the glass to her forehead, rolling it above her closed eyes. Little beads of water fell onto her cheeks. Or were those tears she was trying to hide? Or worse yet, were there no tears, only English sweat and Egyptian water?

“It’s too hot, Billy. Please.”

“You used me. Then you played me for a sap.”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

Maybe that was true. Sort of. I had been used so often in this war that maybe I expected everyone to take a turn.

“OK,” I said. “You didn’t use me. But you have been stringing me along, making believe everything was fine.”

“Everything is fine. Or was, until you started behaving so poorly.”

“I wish we could go back to how it was.”

“We worked quite well together, didn’t we?” Her voice was wistful.

We had indeed. Diana Seaton and I were both on General Eisenhower’s staff. I was in something called the Office of Special Investigations. Not many people had heard of it, which was the point. The general didn’t want anything that warranted a special investigation to get a lot of attention. That might hurt the war effort. But he did want things taken care of—quietly, if possible. That was my job.

Diana Seaton had joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry at the start of the war. Then she’d volunteered for the Special Operations Executive, the British outfit that sent spies and saboteurs behind enemy lines. She’d barely survived a mission in Algiers a year ago. After her recuperation, General Eisenhower had taken her on as a liaison officer at Allied Forces HQ in Tunisia. Maybe he did that because he needed another liaison officer or maybe because I was his courtesy nephew. It was hard to tell with Uncle Ike.

“We were great together,” I said. “They didn’t stand a chance against the two of us.” I had to smile when I said it.

We’d been sent with an advance party to Cairo, to prepare for a visit by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and a boatload of bigwigs who were going to stop off on their way to Tehran to chew the fat with Stalin. As part of her liaison duties, Diana had checked with various British intelligence services, including the SOE HQ for the Mediterranean Theater. They’d gotten wind of a German agent in contact with a group of Egyptian Army officers who weren’t too happy about the Brits running their country. As I was of Irish extraction myself, I could see their point. The English had a way of mistaking other people’s countries for their own backyard, and the people who lived there for servants or slaves. It was one of the things that made Diana and me such an odd pair. Her father had been knighted at some point, and she was definitely upper crust. Me, I was from the South End. Boston Irish. We were a bad mix.

Diana stood behind me and began rubbing my neck.

“It was exciting,” she said.

“And dangerous,” I said. I tried to sound adamant but it was hard with Diana’s hands working on the tense muscles in my shoulders.

“I didn’t want to spoil this trip,” she said, finally answering my question. “I was going to tell you before we left. How did you find out?”

“Kay mentioned it. She seemed to think I already knew.”

“I’m sorry, Billy.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I am going.”

“Why?” I shook off her hands and stood to face her. “Why you? Why volunteer?”

“Because I can make a difference. Because I can’t bear to sit at a desk and have people think I’m here only because of you.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Yes! I can’t sit idly by while others risk their lives. While you risk yours. I was trained by the SOE, Billy. There’s a job for me to do, and I can’t do it sitting around headquarters!”

“But you almost were killed—”

“Yes. I was raped, beaten, drugged, and I almost killed myself because of it,” she said, rattling off the physical and emotional wounds she’d suffered as if they were items on a shopping list. She faced me. “It was a nightmare, and you rescued me, Billy. In many, many ways. But now I’m better. It’s behind me, and it’s time I moved on.”

“But—”

“But nothing, Billy. I’m going back on active duty with the SOE. I’ve proved to myself that I’m ready.”

“You needed me, you know.”

“You bastard,” Diana said.

It was true. Diana had done her part, putting the pieces together, but when it came time to hunt down the German and his renegade Egyptian pals, it was my job. Diana had begged to come along. To observe, she had said. There were four of us, all well armed, so I had agreed. It was an adventure, I’d told myself. I hadn’t understood that Diana needed to test herself, to see if she could stand up once again to danger and death. She’d passed the test, and ended up saving my life to boot. But that didn’t change the fact that she’d used me, no matter how she dressed it up. And that to get me to allow her to tag along, she’d used all her wiles. Succumbing had been a bad move on my part, except for the bit when she’d stopped that Kraut from killing me.

I wanted to scare her, to make her think twice about parachuting into France or Greece or wherever the SOE needed a female agent. I wanted her with me and—I had to admit—I wanted her waiting for me when I got back from wherever Uncle Ike sent me next. I hated the thought of worrying about her once more, of not knowing if she was alive or dead. Or worse.

“If you do this, I won’t be there to back you up, Diana. You’ll be all alone.”

“I’m all alone right now,” she said. She buttoned her blouse and put her shoes on. “I’m going for a walk. Please be gone by the time I get back.”

“Don’t go, Diana, please,” I said. I took her by the arms and held her, breathed in her scent, felt the heat rising from her skin. “I love you.”

“No, you don’t,” she said. “You want to possess me. I’ve been waiting for you to learn the difference.”

She twisted out of my embrace and left, slamming the door behind her. I stood there, unsure of what to do next, the
tick tick tick
of the ceiling fan in the empty room marking the beats of my heart.

CHAPTER • TWO

I FOUND KAY in the hotel bar. Then I saw a waiter and ordered two Irish whiskeys. Doubles. I asked Kay if she wanted anything.

“I’m fine, Billy. But what sorrows are you drowning?”

She raised her glass and drank, her gaze fixed on me over the rim. Kay Summersby was a knockout, with dark, wide eyes set above prominent cheekbones. Her smile was infectious, and I had a hard time staying miserable around her. But I was working at it as hard as I could.

“Diana and I had a fight.”

“Billy, you shouldn’t waste time quarreling. Not the two of you, not in the middle of a war. Life’s too short, believe me.” Her smile vanished, and she reached for a cigarette.

I lit it for her, but she avoided looking straight at me. Her fiancé had been killed in combat several months ago but I didn’t think she was still broken up. She had the look of having suffered a more recent wound.

“It’s about her going back to the SOE,” I said. “I don’t want her to.”

“But she is anyway,” said Kay. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, and she didn’t even tell me! She should at least have talked it over with me.”

“Oh dear,” Kay said. “I didn’t realize I’d spilled the beans. I thought you knew.”

“I was probably the last to find out,” I said, taking a gulp of one of the drinks that had been set in front of me.

“Tell me, Billy. Why is it that men always look at every decision a woman makes as if it revolves around them? You’re moping about here instead of going out on the town with Diana and toasting her success, all because she did something without consulting you. As if she needed to. Your feelings are hurt, that’s all.”

“But she could get killed. Look what happened to her in Algiers—”

“Look what happened to you in Sicily.”

“What about it? I’m OK now.”

“Exactly.”

Kay raised a slender hand and nodded to her empty glass as a waiter passed. He skidded to a halt and took it, assuring her he’d be right back with a fresh drink. Kay could always count on attracting attention, mostly the admiring type, from men, and occasionally the jealous sort from women, especially if they were attached to those admiring men. She’d been a model before joining up with the Mechanised Transport Corps, and it showed in her graceful movements, calm assurance, and killer good looks. But she was no debutante dressed up in khaki. She’d driven an ambulance in the East End of London during the Blitz, digging out the living and the dead from bombed and burning buildings, before she’d been assigned as Uncle Ike’s driver. When Kay was sent to North Africa, her transport had been torpedoed, and she’d spent a night bobbing in a lifeboat on cold ocean waves as destroyers depth-charged the waters around the survivors. And she’d endured her own loss in this war, so I had to admit she might know what she was talking about.

“OK, I get your point. It’s just that where I come from women don’t go off and jump out of airplanes behind enemy lines.”

“Where I come from, Billy, women don’t go off to drive generals about England and North Africa. Yet, here I am.” She bestowed a smile on the waiter as he placed her gin and tonic on the table and disappeared behind a potted palm tree. The bar was filling up as the cocktail hour approached. Civilians in white linen suits mingled with British officers in lightweight khaki. Except for the heat and the tropical clothing, we could have been in London.

“Where do you come from, Kay?”

“The same place as your family came from, Billy. Ireland. Country Cork, to be exact. My father was a colonel in the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and my mother was British. I’m a rare example of Anglo-Irish accord.”

“It’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Helping the British to hang on to their empire?”

“Only half odd to me, Billy. But yes, I know what you mean. The Black and Tans burned the center of Cork in 1920, so I’m familiar with the heavy hand of the British Empire.”

“I know,” I said. “My uncle Dan told me that afterward the Black and Tans tied pieces of burnt cork to their revolvers, as a message to anyone who resisted them: If they burned Cork, they could burn out any town or village they wanted to.” I could recall the stories Uncle Dan had told of the Irish Civil War, when the British recruited veterans of the World War to bolster the ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary. They were issued a mixture of surplus military uniforms and police uniforms. The army uniforms were khaki, the police uniforms darker. The colors gave them their name, a name that in my family stood for brutal repression and arbitrary killings.

“Well, we’re a long way from Ireland, and the Nazis make the Black and Tans look like naughty schoolboys, so I think we’re on the right side.”

I wasn’t so sure about the comparison. The Black and Tans had been a law unto themselves, foreign soldiers putting down a rebellion in my homeland. But I didn’t want to argue with Kay. I started on my second drink instead and made small talk.

“Are you enjoying the trip?” I asked. After the Cairo conference, Uncle Ike’s boss, General George C. Marshall, had ordered him to take a brief vacation. Uncle Ike decided to play tourist, and took a bunch of us along to see the pyramids in Egypt, and then on a short flight to Jerusalem to see the Holy Land. Kay and a couple of other secretaries from headquarters had come along, as had Uncle Ike’s aide, Colonel Tex Lee, and Sergeant Mickey McKeogh, his orderly. Diana and I rounded out the party.

“Yes, and Ike needed a break. I’m so glad General Marshall ordered him to take one. He hasn’t had a day off for months. Neither have the rest of us.”

“I never thought I’d see the Garden of Gethsemane.”

“It was so very sad,” Kay said, her eyelids flickering as she looked away from me, her hand playing around her mouth. I thought she might cry.

Uncle Ike had taken us to the Mount of Olives, where the thick, gnarled olive trees reminded me of Sicily. The Garden of Gethsemane is on the western slope, next to a church built over a rock where the Franciscan monks told us Jesus prayed the night before his arrest, while his disciples drifted off to sleep. I thought about how easy it always has been to get men to do unimaginable things. Roman soldiers nailing men to crosses, Black and Tans burning homes and shooting Irishmen, Nazis committing mass murder. Indeed it was all so very sad, but I didn’t think that’s what gave Kay her faraway look.

“What’s wrong, Kay?”

“Don’t mind me, Billy,” she said, shaking her head as if coming out of a dream. “Diana is who you should be thinking of. Don’t let your pride kill what the two of you have together.”

“If she has her way, we won’t be together.”

“Don’t be a fool!” Kay slammed her glass down, drawing brief stares and raised eyebrows. She grabbed her uniform jacket from the back of her chair and pulled it on, thrusting her arms in angrily. As she did, a packet of postcards fell from an inside pocket. I recognized them as the ones Uncle Ike had bought outside the church and handed out to all of us. I knelt to pick them up and Kay hurriedly pushed me away.

“Leave them,” she said, her voice shaky. Our hands collided and she dropped a postcard onto the table. It fell facedown, revealing a familiar scrawl across the back.

Good night. There are lots of things I could say—you know them. Good
night.

He hadn’t signed it but he didn’t need to. I knew Uncle Ike’s handwriting well enough. Kay’s eyes met mine as she scooped the card to her breast.

“Don’t be a fool, Billy,” she said.

Then she was gone. I was glad there was whiskey left in my glass.

Good night.

What were the things she knew, things Uncle Ike could have said, but didn’t?

Good night.

What did it mean? With that question, I laughed at myself. What else could it mean? I didn’t want to think about it. Outside of my dad and Uncle Dan, there wasn’t a man in the world I respected more. We were some kind of distant cousins, on my mom’s side. She was related to Aunt Mamie, so the general and I weren’t exactly blood relations but he was family. Problem was, so was Aunt Mamie. Jerusalem was a world away from Boston and Abilene but even so I didn’t think it right. I felt a bit like a prude but I couldn’t help it, maybe because I looked up to Uncle Ike so much. He always seemed to know the right thing to do. He was the one I looked to when I couldn’t tell right from wrong, the one who taught me the terrible mathematics of war. Some will die today so that more will live tomorrow. He bore the weight of that equation silently, and you had to look closely to see how it burdened him.

I didn’t want him writing love notes to Kay. I didn’t want her lecturing me on how to work things out with Diana, and I didn’t want Diana going off and getting herself killed. I wanted everything to be exactly as it was before we came to Jerusalem.

“Billy? I thought I’d find you here,” said Mickey McKeogh, appearing from behind palm leaves. “The boss wants you, pronto.”

“OK, Mickey,” I said, draining my glass. “We going back to the war?”

“Dunno, Billy. Be a shame to leave this place. Almost as nice as the Plaza.”

Mickey was a fellow Irishman who had been a doorman at the Plaza Hotel in New York City before the war. He knew his hotels. Since nothing was as nice as the Plaza, this was high praise for the King David. I followed him through the lobby, hoping that whatever came next would take my mind off Diana, Kay, and Uncle Ike.

I couldn’t get that postcard out of my mind. A picture of the Garden of Gethsemane on one side, Uncle Ike’s unsigned declaration on the other. I thought about that slab of rock in the church, the one the monks said Jesus prayed and wept on. And then I remembered another thing from my Sunday School lessons about the Garden of Gethsemane.

It was where Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. With a kiss.

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