Stained Glass (29 page)

“After I fry him, am I supposed to register the conventional emotions? Or do you have a special emotion reserved for me?”

“Cut it, Blacky, nobody likes this business. You're to be both dismayed and unbelieving. Electricity isn't your specialty, but you have never been given any reason to believe the scope was dangerous. You might yell a little at Conditti—his dad invented the thing. An accident is an accident.”

Singer then rehearsed Blackford in emergency instructions to be followed in the hideous event of a snafu. Blackford knew Rufus well enough to wonder whether Blackford's own elimination might be an integral part of the deal, and he voiced the suspicion.

“I give you my word it isn't.”

“I believe you, Singer, but I wouldn't have much trouble dismantling that assurance if I were Rufus. You could be under instructions to give me your word.”

“Well, Black, if you believe that, then you shouldn't ask me in the first place, because
ex hypothesi
I can't satisfy you.”

“Maybe I ought to tell you that a letter is waiting someplace to be sent to my lawyer if I'm not around to stop it? Shall I tell you that, Singer?”

“
Are
you telling me that?”

“No. I'm just wondering whether I
should
say that, even if I hadn't actually taken the precaution.”

“This is getting a little complicated, Black.”

“Yeah, let's drop it.” And, a moment later, “I'd better get moving. I've got to check with Erika later on tonight.”

“There's one thing more, Blacky.” Singer walked over to his briefcase, twiddled the combination lock, and drew out a pouchful of pipe tobacco. He reached inside and pulled out a metal-gray case. “The transmitter. Two switches: ‘Battery On,' and ‘Depress.' It's been tested.” He reinserted it into the pouch, and handed it to Blackford.

“Will I see you again, Singer?”

“I don't know, Blacky. If all goes well, they may pull me out right away.
You
have to stick around.”

“If I'm alive, Singer. And if I'm alive—”

“Yes?”

“I'm going to stay here until the chapel is finished. Put in that word for me. Okay?”

“The chapel will take another year, maybe.”

“In that case I'll stay here another year.”

“I understand.” He rose, reached for Blackford's coat, helped him on with it, and led him to the door, where he shook his hand warmly.

Blackford pulled into the courtyard, parked, and told the sentry at the palace he was expected by Erika Chadinoff. In the old dining hall he saw Erika at work with her Polish assistant on a manuscript. He went by her, waved silently so as not to interrupt her while giving instructions, sat down at Jürgen Wagner's desk and reached for the phone.

Erika had paused, so he sang out to her: “Got to put in a call—I forgot my mother's birthday. Do you mind?”

“No, go ahead. I can quit anytime, but there's always work to do.”

In the swivel chair he pivoted his back to Erika, dialed the long-distance operator, and gave his mother's number in London, inverting the last two digits. “Make that a collect call from Blackford Oakes. O-a-k-e-s. O for Otto, A for Adalbert, K for Kaiser, E for Emil, S for Sophie.”

His eyes combed the desk furiously. Unfamiliar with it, he did not know whether the neatness suggested it had already been inspected, or whether great neatness was the way of Jürgen Wagner. As if looking for a piece of paper, he opened the right-hand drawer and fussed with its contents. Here were two slender notebooks. The contents of the desk had presumably not been sequestered. The receiver still in his hand, even though the operator had said she would call back, he maneuvered to open the first notebook. He saw names and disbursements. The second listed contacts in different cities. As if failing to find what he was looking for, he opened the drawer on the left side. It was the stationery drawer. He thought it wise to scoop up a sheet of paper to scribble on. He felt a bulge under the pile of paper, probed it, and came up with a trim leather diary, small enough to fit in the pocket of his suit. He would read it that night.

“She's not in? All right, operator, cancel the call. I'll ring in the morning. Thank you.” He made a notation on the paper and stuffed it in his pocket.

He pivoted the chair back to face Erika. “All set?”

“All set.”

They drove in their own cars to the inn. It occurred to Blackford that, diary safely in hand, he had no official business left to discuss with Erika. So—they might just as well have a drink, he thought.

But seated in the saloon she began: “Did you know Jürgen Wagner was missing?”

“Yes. Kurt told me this morning. Do you have any reason to suspect he has a line on you? Or me?”

“No. But I know he didn't like you, and a few days ago he suggested to Wintergrin that he suspend all activity in the chapel until after the election. Roland told me—Axel told him, and said he had vetoed Wagner's suggestion.”

“Well,” said Blackford, “maybe he's defected!”

She did not want to play. “I sent in a report on his disappearance.”

Blackford nodded. “Maybe I'll do the same thing.”

She looked at him under the light. He was dressed in a blue blazer, gray flannel pants, and a narrow regimental tie. Probably what he wore as a sophomore at Yale, she thought correctly. The fingers of his right hand were fiddling with his wine glass. His head was slightly bent, the light above his head drew out the blond in his hair, and she sensed the distraction in his pale, slender, almost childlike features. He was perhaps projecting the role his fingers would play tomorrow? Might as well wade into it.

“Bolgin raised a point. If Axel's feet are off the floor when he sits down on the stool, there wouldn't be a ground.”

“Crap.”

“Does that mean you don't want to talk about it?”

“It means it's unlikely Bolgin has thought about anything more comprehensively than we have, especially anything that elementary. The scope itself provides the ground. He could be tap dancing on it and still he'd be a goner. Don't worry about it.”

“You're doing the only thing, Black”—she reached out her hand. “I know your feelings about him and his movement. I understand your feelings about him personally. But he is an anachronism. I mean, look at that place. Count Axel von Euchen Wintergrin indeed! Private castle. Private chapel. Lord of the manor stuff. This isn't Graustark.”

“Better Graustark than your little Siberian resorts.”

“Let's not get into that again. The point is he projected himself as the leader of an insurrectionary movement that's moved us toward a great war, and everyone who matters has agreed he's got to go, it's that simple.”

He looked up at her. What could have made her, at twenty-three, so talented, and so …
dumb
.

“For the record, Erika, everybody who matters
didn't
agree he's got to go.
Our
people agreed to the elimination”—here he was, himself using that word!—“because
you
gave
us
no alternative. That's the official view of it. God knows it isn't
my
view of it. I'd, have told Gromyko to go straight to hell, which is where he's going in due course anyway.”

“I'm glad you're not President of the United States.”

“And I wish
you
were Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. I'd like to hear
you
issue orders to kill someone in cold blood. You're taking refuge in the concept of Higher Authority—”

She interrupted him. “Aren't you?”

He breathed deeply. “Erika,” he said patiently, “I didn't mean to be provocative. But your organizational discipline is for the purpose of imposing the will of one man the will of one ideology, if you insist—or others.
Our
organization is defensive in nature. Its aim is to defeat your aggressive intentions. The acceptance of discipline in the one enterprise isn't the equivalent of the acceptance of discipline in the other enterprise. I accept the need for discipline. I am troubled only by my human revulsion at the discrete enterprise we're engaged in, and by an awful feeling that the West is aborting a great historical opportunity. But please, don't say that Goering following Hitler's orders is the equivalent of Montgomery following Churchill's orders. You begin by the dissimilarities between Churchill and Hitler. That factor wrecks all derivative analogies.”

“Stalin has his weaknesses, but he also has his great strengths.” Erika thought it imprudent to continue the argument.

“Yeah, he eats people. But it's very good for the blood. And the muscle tissue. And the complexion.”

“Come on, Blackford.”

But he had risen, leaving money for the drinks.

“Sorry, Erika. I'm bad company tonight.”

She got up. “Never mind. I understand. And”—she tapped him lightly on the hand; if she had said to him “good luck,” he thought, he might just hit her—“remember, perhaps not next week or next year even, but one day you'll see that cooperation between our two movements is the right thing.”

He said nothing, but leaned over, in the European manner, and brushed his lips on her right hand, rubbing her determined fingers thoughtfully.

CHAPTER 22

On Friday, November 12, the temperature was muggy-cool, morning light gray, the southerly wind bringing in the depressing, unseasonal föhn that sleazes over Europe with dumpy barometric pressures that enervate and depress (in Munich the doctors decline nonemergency surgery during a föhn). Blackford, at twenty-six, was immune to vicissitudes in the weather. He enjoyed the sun, but more often than not, if otherwise absorbed, didn't really notice whether it was shining. Today he was unaware of the weather, having taken no notice of it since waking at the summons from his alarm after a hectic sleep; though at last, his mind was made up.

He dressed carefully. The costume was the same, the light-brown corduroy pants, the light-blue shirt and beige sweater, but his motions were more deliberate than usual, and as he shaved he looked at his reflected face for the first time he could remember other than to satisfy himself that he had successfully shaved. He noticed that his cheeks were obtrusively pale, his' hair lifeless, his lips dry. So he slapped his face to see if the color would return, and thought suddenly of Lady Macbeth, and wondered wildly whether he would be pale forever. He gave up his self-inspection after a few seconds, reaching no conclusion about his face other than that it interested him not at all.

He stared briefly at the hot rolls and butter, drank a half cup of black coffee, and walked across the street to the pay telephone.

There was no need, really, to call Singer. The rules of the agency were: Communicate upstairs as infrequently as is efficient. The rule of thumb is to communicate disturbing news, not reassuring news. He had only reassuring news. Wagner's diary did indeed make mention of the chapel, under a heading of “Areas and Persons to Be Investigated.” Wagner had drawn lines down the column up to the chapel, suggesting that investigations had been completed to that point but not including it.

But now Wagner's diary no longer existed. It had been cremated in the little fireplace in Blackford's room, and no copy could reasonably be assumed to survive it.

All this he told Singer Callaway, using the code, but really why he called—he knew, and Singer knew—was on the miraculous chance that Washington had suddenly thought better of the plan, granting a reprieve.

He didn't put the question directly, but he did ask whether he shouldn't telephone Singer later in the day—he was pleading, actually, for an, opportunity to make yet another appeal—“in the event you had anything to report.” Singer replied slowly, and a little sternly, that no change in plans was conceivable at this late moment, that in the incredible event that such a change should be ordered, he, Blackford, could count on his old friend, Singer, to communicate to him, in time, an interdictory message. So Blackford rehitched himself to the work wheel.

He spent the first half hour with Overstreet, who pronounced the restructuring of the chapel's trussed roof complete, the timbers and crossmembers sound and stalwart. The carpenters were busy now on the choir stalls, the lathe whining away at the kiln-dried wood under the watchful eye of Conditti, transmuting it into the subtle arabesques of an unknown master.

“You know the count's coming in this afternoon to check the glass?”

“That's Conditti's department.”

“Yeah, I know. But after he's through looking at the glass, why don't we show him the first meter or so of the choir stall, to see what he thinks of it?”

“Why not? He'd
better
think well of it. We've only got one of the best woodworkers in Europe doing it.”

“What did you say?”

Overstreet raised his voice to be heard over the lathe, and repeated himself. Blackford nodded, and walked over to the chromoscope, beckoning Conditti to join him.

“Wintergrin's coming in to check the blue this afternoon. Let me have a look at it.”

Conditti laid out the sample crystals in the frame, tightened it, and inserted it in the chamber at knee level. Blackford leaned over, looked into the viewing port, and put his hands on the control levers.

“Okay. Light her up.”

Conditti pulled the switch and Blackford found himself looking into a deep blue, rich, dark, but translucent. With his right hand he slowly decreased the intensity of the beam. The blue got darker, and, finally, opaque. Under the frame was the lettering 1-B-5.

“Next,” Blackford said and Conditti clicked the second frame into position. This blue, 2-B-6, was noticeably lighter.

“I'll try 'em side by side.”

Blackford turned the zoom control permitting all six blues, substantially reduced in size, to be seen at once. He fiddled with the light intensifier and let his eyes travel back and forth from the lightest blue to the darkest, straining to evaluate not only translucence but richness. Viollet-le-Duc, in the
Dictionary of French Architecture
, holds that “the first condition for an artist in glass is to know how to manage blue. The blue is the light in windows, and light has value only by opposition.” So Blackford instructed Conditti to arrange on the tray a border of yellows, purples, greens, in identical sequence, to surround each blue, so that the eye could judge the composition. Conditti went to work and Blackford went to his office.