Younger (23 page)

A few days later, there was a draft in the email folder saying only, “Marina back yesterday. U can reach me at # below Monday. 1 pm my time again.”

That was Sunday; Monday, she took pains to look as unlike Anna, Tanya, or Lisa as she could. She felt uneasy. She knew she was pushing her luck using the same call center yet another time. After today, she’d have to switch. She wore dark clothes and, even though it was mild rather than chilly, the duffel coat. At the last minute, she stuck on the black wig. With darker lips and cheeks, she became a stranger once again.

In her nervousness, she got to Adenauerplatz early. Not wanting to hang around the call center, she grabbed a cappuccino from the underground bakery at the U-Bahn station. But she could drink only half before she dumped it and rode the escalator up to the street. She usually took the stairs, not just for the exercise but because the escalator led to the opposite side of the broad Kurfürstendamm from the call center. But today she had time to waste, knew her disguise was good, and was more alert than ever.

Out of all the empty seconds and minutes spent and misspent in Anna Wallingham’s life, these were probably the most important of all, because if she’d gone up right away, she’d already be in the call center. Because if she’d finished her cappuccino and then taken the stairs, Martin Kelm would have been right behind her—or by her side.

She saw him on the other side of the street before she’d even cleared the top of the moving stairway. They must have just missed each other among the multiple exits underground. He’d just come up the stairs from the U7, by the stairs that were her usual route. The other side of the Ku’damm was about two hundred feet away, but in profile Kelm was unmistakable, his distinctive pointy nose giving him away.

Anna stepped off the escalator as briskly as she could on legs like jelly, being sure to turn fully away from the street as she did so, then walking straight to the window of a drugstore and gazing at Kelm in its reflection until he was out of the frame.

Then, slowly, slightly, she moved to watch him almost straight on. He didn’t look like either MI6 or a private eye today. In overalls and an ill-fitting denim jacket, his blond hair uncombed, he could have been just another Croatian or Polish workman going to call his family back home. Because, of course, he halted in front of the call center, his hand on the door. Anna quickly turned again and took a left into Wilmersdorferstrasse, walking away quickly but a little bent over and favoring her right side like someone with a bad knee. As soon as she was around the corner, she ducked down a side street, then doubled back to the main thoroughfare farther toward the east, hailing the first taxi that came by.

It took the whole of the fifteen-minute cab ride for Anna’s pulse rate to slow to normal, then just minutes to get her things together and leave her keys with a note to her roommates, some hogwash about that boyfriend of hers asking her to meet him in Barcelona. She’d pulled off her wig before entering in case anyone was home, but she carefully re-donned it before leaving, pulling her rolling suitcase behind.

In the taxi heading to Südkreuz, she texted David on her cheap cell:
Sorry. Can’t talk today. In touch soon.
Then she opened the phone, removed the German SIM card, and tossed it out the window as the driver tsk-tsked in the mirror. “Mein chewing gum,” she said apologetically, shrugging. He tsk-tsked again.

The station’s departures board listed a train leaving for Prague in just minutes. Anna bought a ticket for cash from the self-service machine, grabbed her backpack from the locker, and rushed to the track, just beating the train’s arrival. Her luck was holding: she found a second-class window seat with no one seated next to it or across the aisle, without a reserved sign, and close to the toilet, so she could bolt herself in and pull the emergency cord if anyone came after her. She pushed the large case into the space behind the seats, keeping her backpack on the empty seat next to her. The train, being German and in Germany, left precisely on time, which meant that less than an hour after spying the pointy nose of Martin Kelm poking its way back into her life, Anna was back on the run.

When the food cart came around, she bought a sandwich, chips, water, and coffee. Then she sat back and tried to unwind. Anna would be on this train more than four hours, and there was no way anyone in the entire world could know where she was headed.

She’d been halfway hoping she was wrong about Kelm, since his being in MI6 would mean he was her ally. But today’s sighting put the kibosh on the creep’s credibility. He could have been MI6 pretending he was a detective or some slick shamus masquerading as SIS—but an Eastern European laborer, he was not.

About an hour out of Berlin, her food and drinks still untouched on the tray table, Anna grabbed her bags and rolled her suitcase into the cramped lavatory compartment. She divided things between her handbag, backpack, and the case. The
YOU
NGER she had left, she unhesitatingly dumped in the metal toilet bowl. Then she pushed the flush button and watched as, she thought sardonically, her youth literally went down the toilet. The product may have been proven safe and effective, but it was toxic through and through. She had expected the product to bring her not only financial security but also happiness. Instead, it had brought her terror and perhaps fresh heartache if she lived to see David again. To others, it had brought death.

She wasn’t looking forward to being fifty-seven again. Not really. But she was looking forward to staying alive. Besides, she
was
fifty-seven and she
was
Anna Wallingham. If Anna Wallingham was unemployable, she would find a way to survive without working for other people. Hadn’t her whole life been about surviving? Wasn’t everyone’s? If she had been in a more humorous mood, she would have found her beloved slogo, “YOU, only
YOU
NGER,” laughable. All she wanted now was to be “YOU, still alive.”

Chapter 19

Shortly after the train pulled into Prague, Anna checked into a budget hotel near the station. It was shabby, and the bathroom’s fetid smell made keeping both the toilet lid and bathroom door closed at all times a necessity. But it was just for the night, and the room was clean even if the bed was harder than a park bench. She pulled the old I-need-to-unpack-my-passport trick on a desk clerk who cared only about getting back to computer solitaire. Since he’d never be seeing any ID, she filled out the registration card as “Lisa Smith,” paid in cash for the room plus the extra night’s deposit that would be sacrificed, and then, carrying anything of value and with her cash in her boots as always, she locked her suitcase and went in search of an Internet café.

She found one with a call center attached and checked room rentals online. One in Vinohrady sounded fine, just three Metro stops from the old center, in what her
Time Out
guide called a good area. She made an appointment with a man named Adam to come by first thing in the morning. Then she wandered down to the famed Old Town Square with its Astronomical Clock. The pastel-painted gabled buildings lining the huge square lent it the air of a medieval fantasyland. Prague might be the most beautiful city she’d ever visited. She hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

The winding streets surrounding the square led her to the Vltava River. Prague Castle towering over everything made her think of Franz Kafka, whose books she’d loved in college. Now, here she was in his hometown, where, like Josef K. and Gregor Samsa, she was no longer sure who she really was and couldn’t figure out what was going on.
Kafkaesque
for sure,
she thought wryly.

She’d read about Kafka’s old haunt, Café Louvre, and walked in that direction. Up two flights of stairs in the warm and noisy café, she snagged a table by one of the wide windows overlooking the street—the better to see who entered.

She gave in to thoughts of how pleasurable it would have been to be here with David. That would never happen, of course. She couldn’t stay long enough for him to join her, and, much as she hated thinking about it, she couldn’t count on his sticking with her after he found out who she really was. As for Kelm’s sudden appearance, not for a moment did she think David might have given her up. If she couldn’t trust him, she could trust no one.

By the time she left, a chilly drizzle was making the cobblestones slippery. She walked in Kafka’s footsteps, taking care not to fall.

Adam was a gangling, bearded, thirtyish Czech PhD candidate. “What you call poli-sci, yes? Political science.” The apartment, which he said had been his grandfather’s, was a sprawling four-bedroom space on the third floor of a classic mint-green stucco Liberty building close to the Náměstí Míru Metro station, from which reaching both the main train station and Old Town would be quick and easy.

The place was opulent compared to the apartment in Berlin, with some of Adam’s grandparents’ antiques still in place. The other rooms were let to Tadeusz, an economist for a banking consultancy, and Heather, described by Adam as an “older, retired” Englishwoman. “She’s here until next week,” he said. “She came to study our medieval art.”

The room that would be hers was charming, with a view over downward-sloping streets. “
Vinohrady
means ‘the king’s vineyards,’ which this land was originally. When you’re up high like this, you can see it’s slightly raised.”

“This is perfect,” Anna said, “and the stairs will keep me in shape. I expect to stay a week or two, maybe longer, so I can pay you for two weeks now and whatever I don’t use, you can keep. How’s that?”

“That’s excellent,” he said cheerfully. “You and Heather share one bathroom and Tadeusz and I another. We all share the refrigerator. I make sure there is coffee, fruit, and other food on the counter before I leave for class at seven-thirty. There’s a jar to put money in for what you use. Then we all take care of our own lunch and dinner. You can cook for yourself if you like. But there are inexpensive cafés all over this area.”

Before he could ask for the dreaded passport, she fumbled in her bag for her wallet. “Let me pay you now.” She held up a two thousand Czech crown note, a lovely shade of lavender. “Your currency is so beautiful. I especially love this one.”

“The euro is not so pretty, no? Nor the dollar: all one color, all one size. Strange for a country that celebrates diversity.”

“American diversity rarely applies to money and success.”

Adam nodded thoughtfully. “Funny. The land of freedom, America. Here, in the Czech Republic, we give thanks every day for our freedom. Because we lost it for so long, we value it more than riches.”

A blush crept up from his beard to infuse his cheeks. “Sorry. I get too passionate sometimes. We Czechs can be very sentimental in our unsentimental way. Lugubrious rationalists, if you will. So, you can move in now, if you like.”

“That sounds good. Do I need to fill out anything?”

“Just write down your cell phone number and name, and I’ll give you a receipt and a key. Then you can relax, and I must be off to school. I have classes to teach.”

“Oh, you teach, too?”

“Just a remedial course today. Yah, I teach, I study, I work on my dissertation, and on weekends I drink too much and stay at my girlfriend’s place.” He grinned. “That’s my life. So, welcome to Prague. There’s a supermarket up on Slezská and a good pizzeria in Náměstí Míru. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Once the all-too-trusting Adam was gone, Anna—rather than stealing the valuable heirlooms—fixed herself a cup of tea, dropping change in the collection pot on the kitchen counter. After that, she collected her suitcase from the hotel and lugged it up the stairs to the apartment, then went only as far as the pizzeria for lunch. With Kelm closing in, she felt even more vulnerable on her own. She took off the black wig, then stretched out on the bed for a nap, too weary to plan her next move. She couldn’t contact David without a plan, but she couldn’t unmuddle her thoughts, and she wasn’t steeled to check the Drafts folder at her “studiocitygirl” account yet. She hoped she hadn’t put David in any danger. She didn’t know how she could live with herself if she had.

Anna woke feeling less shaky and went into the living room to find Heather, the “older” woman, seated on the couch reading a guidebook to Milan. She’d called, “Hello?” before taking any steps down the hallway, and a slim woman with gray hair in a long braid smiled up as Anna entered the room. “You must be Lisa. Adam told me you were here.”

“Hello, Heather.” She took a seat in a worn leather club chair.

“Nice, isn’t he, Adam? So’s Tadeusz. Handsome young devil, too, that one. My second husband was a Pole, so I’ve a soft spot. And what brings you to Prague?”

The fiction about being a budding novelist seeing Europe that rolled off her tongue seemed less like fiction than ever. Perhaps she really would write a novel when she got back to the States. She’d certainly developed a sense of plot and drama in the past months. Meanwhile, she tried to figure out just how old Heather was. About her own age, she supposed.

“I took early retirement in March at age fifty-nine,” the other woman said as if reading Anna’s mind. “I’m a fiend for medieval and Renaissance art, and perhaps on my way to being a writer, too—which is to say I’m thinking of scribbling a book about contrasts in European religious art during the two periods.” She laughed. “It’s easy to be overly ambitious when one’s just thinking, rather than writing.”

“Are you going to Italy?” Anna nodded at the book.

“I started there, so I’m a bit Rococo’d out. Those churches in Naples and Rome! Like walking into overdecorated wedding cakes. I have to make my way back down south again, to Bulgaria to see their icons, but in the meantime”—she held up the book—“I missed Milan, and da Vinci’s
Last Supper
is calling me there.”

The word
supper
did it. Anna suddenly noticed the time on an ornate antique wall clock. “Is it really six? Oh, dear, I’ll be up all night, napping like that during the day. Sorry, but I’ve got to run to the market to pick up some food. Need anything?”

“I’ll come along, if you don’t mind. I can show you the way. Plus, I’ve figured out what some of the Czech words mean. The language makes grocery shopping an obstacle course.”

After the supermarket, they stopped at a nearby café Heather liked, ostensibly for coffee, but once they sat down, for an early dinner of duck and red cabbage instead.

What a pleasure to speak with someone her own age! Heather had been in Prague almost three weeks and knew it well. Anna, who’d run out of reading material—she was down to just her Czech and Italian guidebooks—was pleased to learn that Heather knew a good secondhand English bookshop. “It’s across the river, near the Kafka Museum. If you’re a fan, you could plan a whole day’s trip over there. See the Castle, too. Just take the tram in the square near the flat. I’d come along, but I was just there.”

“I’ve gotten used to sightseeing alone. It’s not that easy meeting people when you’re on the move.”

“Yes, and now that summer’s over, it’s mostly school groups and slackers in their twenties, isn’t it? Hard to find older people—well, very hard to find them my age unless they’re retired couples or Elderhostel groups, but even hard to find at thirty or forty, I’d imagine.”

That conversation had Anna standing in front of the mirror when she got back to the apartment, where her eyes confirmed what Heather’s words implied. Cutting back on
YOU
NGER and then stopping it completely had already left its mark. She was definitely in the “Lisa” phase now—and going in reverse. She looked about thirty-five already, she thought, not forty yet. Still, at this rate, she’d be looking close to her real age within two weeks. What would she tell her roommates then? That she’d had a peel that was wearing off and was a fortyfivishsomething? She wondered how women with plastic surgery kept track of the lies about their age. It was work.

Tadeusz—short, ponytailed, built like a dancer—was just leaving the apartment when they got back. His regal good looks were balanced by a charmingly goofy gap-toothed grin. “We’ll have a chat this week, Lisa. I want to hear all about you and your American life. Now I’m off to meet Tibor. It’s Blond Night at the Barbie Club, all drinks for us blonds half price, Lisa. You should come, too.” He wrinkled his nose. “But why did Adam tell me you had dark hair?”

“Oh, my hair was a mess from traveling so I put on this wig I have. Incognito, you know,” she joked. “And right now I’m too tired to go anywhere but to sleep. Have fun!”

“I’ll be sorry to leave,” Heather said a few minutes later as she and Anna were sipping a last glass of wine in the living room. “These boys have been terrific. Czech men are so elegant, and the younger ones are all ravishing. Girls, too. The Czech Republic is the supermodel capital of the world, you know.

“Anyhow, speaking of leaving, if you decide not to stay here long, you might think of coming with me. I’m renting a car and dropping it off in Milan—a little splurge so I can drive through the Austrian countryside. I’d be happy for the company, and you wouldn’t even have to share the driving. So, if you want to head that way, just let me know. I leave in a week.”