The Obedient Assassin: A Novel (22 page)

Ovakimian sneezed violently, then shifted in his chair to extract a folded handkerchief from his hip pocket. He opened the handkerchief, blew his nose into the white cotton fabric, then refolded the handkerchief.

“When?” asked Ramón.

Caridad and Eitingon looked to Ovakimian.

He took a small calendar from his wallet to study. “In August, surely. Before the end of the summer.”

Ramón waited till the meeting was over and he was out on the street with Caridad and Eitingon. He searched his mother's face as they stood together on the sidewalk with pedestrians eddying around them.

“You didn't tell me?”

“I didn't know that this would happen.”

“But if this was the contingency plan from the very beginning.”

“The plan was fail-safe. If not for David Siqueiros, Plan A wouldn't have failed.”

“Didn't you think I should have at least known what might be in store for me?”

Her mouth tightened and her sternum lifted as she straightened her shoulders. “You had no need to know. I wasn't going to leave you in Spain. I needed you with me. I'm your mother. I needed you.”

“What kind of mother are you?” he asked in Catalan. “What kind of mother would do this?”

“I saw what was possible, but I didn't want you to have false hopes, to be disappointed. If that fool had done his job, you still wouldn't know.”

Ramón felt his face growing hot, mottling with anger. “I don't want to do this.”

“Of course you don't but it's too late to back out.”

“I'm not sure I can.”

Caridad gave him her most withering look. “Don't speak to me that way.”

“Not here, not on the street,” Eitingon hissed. “You're drawing attention.”

“Do you think I care? Do you think any of these people are going to notice? You two have dragged me into this fiasco. You misled me and lied to me. You're both incompetent! You completely fucked up the operation, and now you want me to rescue you.”

“Ramón, son, you're going too far.”

“Not far enough,” he answered, turning on his heel and walking away.

Y
ou left your car with the guards?” Sylvia asked, leaning back and smiling at Jacques with a look of surprise, a daiquiri in her right hand. She was giving a party for him and was rather satisfied with her efforts. “Darling, whatever made you think to leave your car with Trotsky's guards?”

“I knew they could use it,” he explained, smiling for the benefit of Sylvia's sisters and for Walta and Manny, and a few of the others from Paris. “That Ford of the Old Man's is always breaking down.”

“But that you even thought of it?”

“I spent so much time waiting for you in front of the house, I got to know some of the guards pretty well.”

“And you were there the night of the attack,” said Walta.

“I was in Mexico, but no, of course I wasn't at the house. If I had been, things would have been different. I don't like to criticize others. You never know what you will do in an emergency, but what happened was shameless. Trotsky's guards didn't fire a shot to protect him. Not one shot!”

While Jacques talked, Sylvia slipped into the kitchen to check on the dinner. Clemmy had made her fried chicken, and Jacques had provided the daiquiris and several bottles of wine. He had seemed different to her in the few days he'd been in the city. He not only listened when everyone discussed politics but had begun to enter into the argument, referring to Trotsky as the Old Man.

His visit had started badly. His first day in town Jacques had come home furious from his meeting with Lubeck, so angry that he couldn't talk. He refused to tell her what had happened, but she gathered that he had been betrayed by Lubeck and was thinking about leaving his job. He seemed better now, as if he had made an important decision.

Hearing the Rosmers arriving, Sylvia returned to the living room. Marguerite carried the same black handbag; Alfred was wearing his dark suit and tie.
“Mon cher! Mon cher!”
Marguerite said, holding Jacques's face in her hands, her eyes alight with pleasure. They started speaking French, something about a journey and mountains. Finally, Marguerite turned to the others, taking Jacques's arm. “This dear man drove us all the way from Mexico City to Veracruz. Remember when we got lost in that terrible arrondissement. Oh, it was terrible. Vultures walked the street.”

Jacques laughed. “Marguerite, we weren't lost. It was only one wrong turn.”

“Yes, but we had a boat to catch!”

“You exaggerate terribly. Let me get you a daiquiri. Wine? Alfred?”

“Oh, you cannot imagine what this man meant to us!” Marguerite told the others as Jacques left the room. “Always so thoughtful. Such kindness at every turn.”

“And you're moving here?” she said to Jacques as she accepted her drink.

“Yes, in a month or two. We're opening an office in New Jersey.”

“Have you found an apartment?”

“No, I will let Sylvia handle that. She knows what we want.”

“Marguerite, the news from Paris,” said Sylvia. “I was so sad.”

Marguerite shook her head, tears coming to her eyes. “Yes, it was ghastly. This is such a wretched world we live in. The news is always ghastly.”

“Tell them about the telephone call you received today,” Alfred prompted.

Marguerite put her hands to her face. “Natalia Sedova telephoned this afternoon! The extravagance, I could hardly stand it! They had just found that young American, Sheldon Harte.”

“Natalia Sedova and Trotsky found him?” asked Jacques.

“No, the authorities, that foolish Colonel Sanchez and his detectives. Oh, it was gruesome. They found him in a little village out beyond Coyoacán.”

“But that can't be true,” said Jacques. “He was in the mountains with Siqueiros. They took him to the mountains.”

Sylvia, Marguerite, Alfred, and the others turned to Jacques.

“In the mountains with Siqueiros?” Sylvia repeated. “Jacques, where did you hear that?”

“Someone in Mexico told me. I don't remember who. Everyone believes Siqueiros is hiding in the mountains and that he took Harte as a hostage.”

“No, they killed him while he was sleeping,” said Marguerite. “He was wearing his underpants and a blue sweater over a shirt just like a little boy.”

Jacques listened in horror as Marguerite told how the police had found a bloodstained mattress on a cot in the little house that Siqueiros had rented in the country beyond Coyoacán. Siqueiros'
escondite
! The killers had slashed the mattress trying to get rid of the bloodstains and poured lime on the floor where blood had run into the cracks. They carried Harte's body down to the cellar, where they buried him in a shallow grave, covering his body with lime. To the Mexican police, Harte looked alarmingly white, like a white giant being unearthed.

The Arenal brothers, Jacques remembered them shooting the dog with such foolish cruelty. Did they taunt Harte? He must have been terrified alone in the shack with the Mexicans, unable to understand what they said. He must have been terrified just as Pablo was in Spain when he was strapped with dynamite and marched in front of the tanks.

“Colonel Sanchez brought the body to the Palacio Municipal in Coyoacán,” Marguerite went on. “Trotsky went to identify it. Natalia Sedova said that after that had happened he finally broke down and wept when he saw the boy.”

“I can't believe it,” Jacques moaned, shaking his head.

Marguerite glanced at him. “That's right. You knew Harte, didn't you? I remember introducing you to him when Alfred was in the hospital.”

“Why did he open the gate?” asked Sylvia.

“He had no idea what he was doing,” said Marguerite. “Those people used him, then killed him so he couldn't talk. They tossed him away like a piece of trash.”

W
eeks later, after Jacques disappeared again, Sylvia kept coming back to the packets of money. The narrow manila envelopes tied with a green string, sealed with red wax had to be some sort of clue. Black-market pesos, Jacques explained. He'd bought pesos in New York and would make a killing in Mexico.

The day he left, he sent his luggage ahead to the train station, then asked Sylvia to go downstairs with him to his safe-deposit box at the Pierpont. With the door closed, he removed his jacket, placed the packets on the table, and rolled large rubber bands up over his striped shirtsleeves. He slipped the envelopes beneath the rubber bands. Nothing showed when he put on his jacket, and she didn't think about the pesos after they got in a taxi to Grand Central. The mysterious packets, the production of hiding them was in character for Jacques. She saw him board the train, then, the faithful wife, stood and waved from the platform as he waved back from his compartment.

Jacques telephoned from San Antonio two days later to say that he was catching a flight to Mexico City. The heat in the South had been brutal, and San Antonio was an inferno. The following day his telegram arrived:
arrived safely mexico. all well. will write soon. love, jac
.

Then nothing.

Sylvia knew a letter from Mexico could take weeks or even months to reach New York. She knew telegrams went astray. She didn't begin to worry until two weeks had passed, but then the old anxiety returned, the memories of his disappearance in Paris.

Only then did she focus upon the strangeness of the manila envelopes. Why did he make such a show of hiding them? Why did he even bother? He knew he wouldn't go through customs in New York. He wouldn't pass through customs until he landed in Mexico City, where one's luggage was rarely checked. She began to dwell upon the envelopes as a clue to his disappearance. She began to count the days since he'd gone missing, to race home to check the mail, to jump when the telephone rang. At night, she jolted awake to the knowledge that Jacques had disappeared once again. He was in trouble. He was sick or dying. He had been robbed and killed for the pesos.

Or perhaps he didn't love her. There was always that.

Then, finally a telegram arrived:
am very sick and need your help. please come. i'm at the montejo. love, jac.

She called an international operator and placed the call, person-to-person. “We will call back when we have your party,” the woman said. Thirty minutes later, the telephone rang. Over static and humming on the line, Sylvia could hear the operator asking Jacques to identify himself. His voice was weak, a hoarse whisper. “You may go ahead,” the operator finally said.

“Jacques, what's wrong? What happened to you? I've been frantic about you.”

“Can you come?” he whispered, each word heavy as a stone.

“Yes, but what's the matter?”

“I'm sick.” He paused to gather strength. “I got sick in a village near Orizaba, too sick to leave.” The line began to hum, a strange voice emerging. “I'll explain when you get here.”

T
he following evening, a bellboy let Sylvia into the suite at the Montejo. It was raining outside and the bedroom was dark, the shades drawn. She could make out Jacques's dark hair against the pillow. “Jacques,” she said, stopping to turn on a lamp. She sat down on the edge of his bed, putting her hand to his forehead. His skin was clammy, his hair matted, his face gaunt, his eyes sunk into their sockets. “Jacques, I'm here.”

Eyelids flickering open, lips chapped, a white film in the corners of mouth, he rasped, “Thank you for coming.”

“What happened?”

“The water, food, I guess. I couldn't get away. I thought I was going to die. I'm still so weak.”

“Has a doctor been here?”

He shook his head.

“Oh, Jacques! Why ever not?”

She was telephoning the front desk to get a doctor when Jacques began to moan. “My stomach,” he said, struggling to get up. She helped him to the bathroom, then, hearing the liquid onset of diarrhea, went back to the phone in the living room.

“I'm sorry,” he apologized as he came out. “I can't help it.”

“The hotel is sending a doctor.”

She helped him back into bed.

“Where are your clothes, the rest of your things? There's nothing here but a knapsack.”

“Everything is in storage at the Shirley Courts.”

“I'll call them in the morning. You're going to need a change of pajamas.”

“Yes, I'm filthy.” He closed his eyes, drifting off. She sat with him until the doctor came, a portly Mexican who spoke broken English. “Amoebas,” he decided after examining Jacques. “An amoebic infection.” He called prescriptions in to a pharmacy and gave Sylvia nursing instructions. After he left, she asked room service to send ginger ale and soda crackers. She gave Jacques his medicine and sat with him through the night, holding a glass to his mouth, and helping him into the bathroom. When he had fever, she sponged his face with a damp towel. When he had chills, she covered him with a blanket.

“No, no, no,” he would moan, thrashing back and forth.

“Did I talk in my sleep?” he asked in a lucid moment, when he found Sylvia sitting in her chair, reading a book.

“A little. Do you feel better?”

He watched her. His eyes followed her as she brought a glass of water.

T
he following day while he slept, she arranged for his belongings to be sent from the Shirley Courts and rounded up tins of soup. She began to unpack his luggage, helped him into a shower and a clean pair of pajamas, made sure that he took his pills on time, fed him soup and juice. She dozed in a chair by his bed, listening to him breathe, watching the shadows on his face.

The fever began to let up; the bouts of diarrhea and cramps came farther apart. But his cheeks and eyes were sunken in, his skin an unhealthy shade of green. Late in the afternoon when he seemed stronger, she asked what had happened.

He shook his head. “I decided to climb Orizaba before I left Mexico. I went up to a village to adjust to the altitude. I didn't tell you because I knew you would worry. There were flies on everything. I must have eaten something bad. I got so sick I couldn't leave.”

“You're still sick. When you feel better, you can tell me what happened.”

 

The third day, he put on his robe and slippers to eat a bowl of soup in the living room. “You've been bored,” he said.

“Not really. You've kept me busy. And I've been reading.”

“Yes, I kept seeing you with a book. What is it?”

“Freud,
The Interpretation of Dreams
.”

The spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. “And did you interpret my dreams?”

“No, you haven't told me your dreams.”

“Did I talk in my sleep?” he asked, suddenly anxious.

“Some, but you never said anything that made sense. You kept saying the name Ramón. You sounded as if you were very concerned about him. Who is Ramón?”

Jacques hesitated. “I'm not sure. It's a common name. There was probably a Ramón in the village where I was.”

“I still don't understand what you were doing in that village, how you got there.”

“I went with a group I met when I first got here. Carlos Patiño, the manager of the Pan Am freight office, organizes expeditions. We climbed to about forty-five hundred meters but the altitude was too much for us. The others left, but I decided to give myself a chance to acclimate. It was a poor Indian village, no running water, no electricity. I was going to try again, but I got sick. The Indians tried to help me, but I was too sick. I couldn't move and every time they brought me a cup of tea or soup it made me sicker.”

“And how did you get back?”

“One of the Indians went down the mountain to the next village, where there was a man who owned a truck. I paid him to bring me into the city. It was the longest trip I've ever made. I kept having to get out of the truck and squat by the road.”

T
he next morning, Jacques showered, shaved, and put on a suit. “You look dreadful,” Sylvia told him. “You must have lost fifteen pounds. Your clothes hang on you.”

“That bad?”

“You shouldn't go out.”

“It's work, an errand I've put off too long.”

Downstairs, he got a cab to take him to Coyoacán. On the way he felt cramping deep in his gut and feared he'd have to ask the driver to stop. He had dreaded the trip, that wave of sadness when they turned onto Calle Viena, where the yellow Buick waited in front of the entrance. The sound of hammering came from inside the wall. Joe Hansen waved from the turret and Jake Cooper opened the reinforced door. “We thought you were never coming for your car,” said Cooper.

“Yes, I'm sure. What's all the racket?”

“We're reinforcing the place, beefing up security. The comrades in New York sent a big check. Hey, you don't look so good.”

“I got sick in the mountains.”

“I guess you heard about Harte?”

“Yes, in New York. The Rosmers told me.”

“None of us ever believed he was a Stalinist. The Old Man took it really hard when they found his body. You heard how he was killed?”

“Yes. Yes. You know I'm not altogether well.”

“I'll get your keys. They're in the library. Come on in and say hello.”

“No, I'd better wait for you here.”

Moments later, Jake returned with Otto Schüssler and Natalia Sedova following him. “Mr. Jacson, welcome home,” she said, shading her eyes against the sun to see him better. “My, you look as if you've been ill.”

“Yes, I'm afraid I've had dysentery. Sylvia came down to nurse me.”

“Sylvia is here in Mexico? No one told us she's here.”

“I've kept her busy, and it was an unexpected trip.”

“We'd like to see her. Will you bring her for tea?”

“Yes. She doesn't know I'm here now. She would have wanted to come, and as you see, I'm not quite myself.”

“I'll have one of the secretaries telephone her.”

“Is your husband well?”

“Yes, but working too hard. He's put aside his Stalin biography to write an analysis of the GPU's assassination tactics. He believes that will do more to protect us than all of this construction work.” She smiled sadly. “Seva has asked about you.”

“Oh, Seva!” In his fever, he had almost forgotten about the boy.

“He has asked about you. It was difficult for him after Marguerite and Alfred left.”

“Yes, I can't tell you how badly I feel for Seva.”

“Seva? Yes, you and Sylvia spent time with him on your outings with the Rosmers.”

Jacques winced slightly, the difficulty of choosing his words, the pain of remembrance. “I had a childhood with many disruptions. I know what it is to be a boy his age.”