Mother Night Part 17

"So-?" I said.

"Every word by you in that trunk had been published," said Wirtanen.

"And-?" I said.

"Bodovskov had begun to replenish the trunk with magic of his own," said Wirtanen. "The police found a two-thousand-page satire on the Red Army, written in a style distinctly un-Bodovskovian. For that un-Bodovskovian behavior, Bodovskov was shot.

"But enough of the past!" said Wirtanen. "Listen to what I've got to tell you about the future. In about half an hour," he said, looking at his watch, "Jones' house is going to be raided. The place is surrounded now. I wanted you out of there, since it's going to be a complicated enough mess as it is."

"Where do you suggest I go?" I said.

"Don't go back to your flat," he said. "Patriots have taken the place apart. They'd probably take you apart, too, if they caught you there."

"What's going to happen to Resi?" I said. "Deportation is all," said Wirtanen. "She hasn't committed any crimes."

"And Kraft?" I said.

"A good long stretch in prison," he said. "That's no shame. I think he'd rather go to prison than home anyway.

"The Reverend Lionel J. D. Jones, D.D.S., D.D.," said Wirtanen, "will go back to prison for illegal possession of firearms and whatever else of a straightforward criminal nature we can pin on him. Nothing is planned for Father Keeley, so I imagine he'll drift back to Skid Row again. The Black Fuehrer will be set adrift again, too."

"And the Iron Guardsmen?" I said.

"The Iron Guardsmen of the White Sons of the American Const.i.tution," said Wirtanen, "are going to get an impressive lecture on the illegality in this country of private armies, murder, mayhem, riots, treason, and violent overthrow of the government. They'll be sent home to educate their parents, if such a thing is possible."

He looked at his watch again. "You'd better go now-get clear out of the neighborhood."

"Can I ask who your agent in Jones' house is?" I said. "Who was it that slipped the note into my pocket, telling me to come here?"

"You can ask," said Wirtanen, "but you must surely know I won't tell you."

"You don't trust me to that extent?" I said.

"How could I ever trust a man who's been as good a spy as you have?" said Wirtanen. "Hmm?"

37.

DAT OLD.

GOLDEN RULE ...

I LEFT LEFT W WIRTANEN.

But I hadn't taken many steps before I understood that the only place I wanted to be was back in Jones' cellar with my mistress and my best friend.

I knew them for what they were, but the fact remained that they were all I had.

I returned by the same route over which I had fled, went in through Jones' coalbin door.

Resi, Father Keeley, and the Black Fuehrer were playing cards when I got back.

n.o.body had missed me.

The Iron Guard of the White Sons of the American Const.i.tution was having a cla.s.s in flag courtesy in the furnace room, a cla.s.s conducted by one of its own members.

Jones had gone upstairs to write, to create.

Kraft, the Russian Master Spy, was reading a copyof Life Life that had a portrait of Werner von Braun on the cover. Kraft had the magazine open to the center spread, a panorama of a swamp in the Age of Reptiles. that had a portrait of Werner von Braun on the cover. Kraft had the magazine open to the center spread, a panorama of a swamp in the Age of Reptiles.

A small radio was playing. It announced a song. The t.i.tle of the song fixed itself in my mind. This is no miracle of total recall, my remembering the t.i.tle. The t.i.tle was apt for the moment-for almost any moment, actually. The t.i.tle was "Dat Old Golden Rule."

At my request, the Haifa Inst.i.tute for the Doc.u.mentation of War Criminals has run down the lyric of that song for me. The lyric is as follows: Oh, baby, baby, baby, Why do you break my heart this way?

You say you want to go steady, But then all you do is stray.

I'm so confused, I'm not amused, You make me feel like such a fool.

You smile and lie, You make me cry.

Why don't you learn dat old Golden Rule?

"What's the game?" I said to the card players.

"Old Maid," said Father Keeley. He was taking the game seriously. He wanted to win, and I saw that he had the queen of spades, the Old Maid, in his hand.

It might make me seem more human at this point, which is to say more sympathetic, if I were to declare that I itched and blinked and nearly swooned with a feeling of unreality.

Sorry.

Not so.

I confess to a ghastly lack in myself. Anything I see or hear or feel or taste or smell is real to me. I am so much a credulous plaything of my senses that nothing is unreal to me. This armor-plated credulity has been continent even in times when I was struck on the head or drunk or, in one freakish adventure that need not concern this accounting, even under the influence of cocaine.

There in Jones' bas.e.m.e.nt, Kraft showed me the picture of von Braun on the cover of Life Life, asked me if I knew him.

"Von Braun?" I said. "The Thomas Jefferson of the s.p.a.ce Age? Sure. The Baron danced with my wife once at a birthday party in Hamburg for General Walter Dornberger."

"Good dancer?" said Kraft.

"Sort of Mickey Mouse dancing-" I said, "the way all the big n.a.z.is danced, if they had to dance."

"You think he'd recognize you now?" said Kraft.

"I know he would," I said. "I ran into him on Fifty-second Street about a month ago, and he called me by name. He was very shocked to see me in such reduced circ.u.mstances. He said he knew a lot of people in the public relations business, and he offered to talk to them about giving me a job."

"You'd be good at public relations," said Kraft.

"I certainly don't have any powerful convictions to get in the way of a client's message," I said.

The game of Old Maid broke up, with Father Keeley the loser, with that pathetic old virgin still stuck with the queen of spades.

"Well," said Keeley, as though he'd won much in the past, as though a rich future were still his, "you can't win them all."

He and the Black Fuehrer went upstairs, pausing each few steps to count to twenty.

And then Resi, Kraft-Potapov and I were alone.

Resi came over to me, put her arm around my waist, laid her cheek against my chest. "Just think, darling-" she said.

"Hmm?" I said.

"Tomorrow we'll be in Mexico," she said.

"Um," I said.

"You seem worried," she said.

"Me worry?" I said.

"Preoccupied," she said.

"Do I look preoccupied to you?" I said to Kraft. He was studying the picture of the swamp again.

"No," he said.

"My good old normal self," I said.

Kraft pointed to a pterodactyl that was winging over the swamp. "Who would think a thing like that could fly?" he said.

"Who would ever think that a ramshackle old fart like me would win the heart of such a beautiful girl, and have such a talented, loyal friend besides?" I said.

"I find it very easy to love you," said Resi. "I always have."

"I was just thinking-" I said.

"Tell me your thoughts," said Resi.

"Maybe Mexico isn't exactly what we want," I said.

"We can always move on," said Kraft.

"Maybe-there at the Mexico City airport-" I said, "maybe we could just get right on a jet-"

Kraft put his magazine down. "And go where?" he said.

"I don't know," I said. "Just go somewhere very fast. I suppose it's the idea of movement that excites me; I've been sitting still so long."

"Um," said Kraft.

"Moscow, maybe," I said.

"What?" said Kraft incredulously.

"Moscow," I said. "I'd like very much to see Moscow."

"That's a novel idea," said Kraft.

"You don't like it?" I said.

"I-I'll have to think about it," he said.

Resi started to move away from me, but I held her tight. "You think about it, too," I said to her.

"If you want me to," she said faintly.

"Heaven!" I said, and I jiggled her to make her bubble. "The more I think about it, the more attractive it becomes," I said. "If we only stayed in Mexico City for two minutes between planes, that would be long enough for me."

Kraft stood up, exercising his fingers elaborately. "This is a joke?" he said.

"Is it?" I said. "An old friend like you should be able to tell if I'm joking or not."

"You must be joking," he said. "What is there in Moscow that could interest you?"

"I'd try to locate an old friend of mine," I said.

"I didn't know you had a friend in Moscow," he said.

"I don't know that he's in Moscow-just somewhere in Russia," I said. "I'd have to make inquiries."

"What's his name?" said Kraft.

"Stepan Bodovskov-" I said, "the writer."

"Oh," said Kraft. He sat down again, picked up the magazine again.

"You've heard of him?" I said.

"No," he said.

"What about Colonel Iona Potapov?" I said.

Resi twisted away from me, stood with her back to the farthest wall.