The Eldorado Network (34 page)

Out of the past, where they all come from.' The woman ate another peanut, slowly. 'How long since you saw Harry?'

Six months. 'Julie picked up her glass, not to drink but to have something to hold. 'Madrid was where I finally gave up on him, if you want the whole godawful story.' I'll listen if you'll talk.'

'Well. . . First of all, when we got married, I used to live here central, Paris, Berlin, London, and .wait for Harry to come home. Trouble was he didn't come home very often. I'd see him once, maybe twice, in a month, then the phone would ring and . . . zip.' 'He's a good newspaperman. Great reputation.' "Oh, sure. Meanwhile I was living with the reputation and not the guy. So one day I got mad and decided we were going to live together if it meant hotels and suitcases for the rest of time. I called New York, they told me he was in Istanbul. Right, I flew to Istanbul. He'd gone to Budapest. I went to Budapest, he'd gone to Rome. I chased Harry to Rome, to Zurich, to Paris.'

'You could've cabled him to wait for you somewhere.'

'No, I had to catch him all by myself. I had to find him and grab him and say, "Okay, buster, from now on where you go, I go." It was crazy. Like a crusade.'

'What happened in Paris?'

'He wasn't there. Nobody knew where he was. I called New York. They'd sent him to Madrid. The airline schedules were all fouled up by the war. It took me three days to get to Madrid. As I flew in, so Harry flew out.'

'To Paris?'

'Helsinki. I sat down and cried. End of story, close quotes. You asked for it, you got it. Just another crumpled page torn from life's diary.'

'Why don't you go back to the States?'

Julie bundled up the napkin and lobbed it over the bar.' 'My family didn't approve of Harry. They said it would end in disaster.'

'Still, you might have to go back, sooner or later.'

'I can survive here. The agency sends me money.' Sometimes.

'I didn't mean that. I meant suppose Hitler beats Russia, and Britain has to quit? Life in Europe could become very rough for someone with your opinions, even in Spain. Maybe especially in Spain.'

Julie hunched her shoulders and looked away. The crowd was thinning; people were glancing at watches, shaking hands, waving goodbye. There was an atmosphere of anticlimax: the Barber Beano had been a non-starter. 'Maybe I should go to Russia and fight while there's still time,' she said.

'From what I hear, Moscow's in such a state of panic they wouldn't know what to do if you turned up leading an armoured brigade.' The last peanut had got eaten. She dusted her hands.

'Okay,' Julie said briskly, 'then I'll go to England and fight.'

'Have a good meal before you leave. They're down to a ration of two ounces of butter, two ounces of cheese, 25-cents' -worth of meat. That's per week. Just enough to make a light lunch for a Tennessee farmhand.'

'I don't care. I'm sick of Madrid and I'm sick of waiting. Waiting for Harry, waiting for America, waiting for some-thing worth waiting for.'

'Sweety,' said the woman from Life, 'with what you've got, it's a crime to wait. Don't waste it on a war, for God's sake. There's always going to be wars. Go fall in love. It's more laughs than getting bombed.'

'I just did,' Julie said.

'And?'

'He went to England.'

'What for?'

'Business.' Julie finished her drink. It tasted oily and unexciting. 'That's what he said, anyway. Business.'

'And what do you think?' They began to walk across the

room.

'I think I ought to forget him.'

They reached the door before the other woman spoke. You know, sometimes it's a great relief to be old and leathery and past all that jazz.' She smiled: a brief gift of great sympathy. 'You're in a spot, aren't you? I wish you all die luck. I think you may need it.'

'Me and the British both,' Julie said. 'Who knows? If we pool our luck, maybe we'll both win.'

George Clark sat with his back to the window, looking like the man who inspired the bowler hat. His whole build, stocky and strong, led up to a head which was as round as a football and so powerfully muscled that his face, at rest, looked grim. That build, clothed in a very dark suit and a very white shirt with a club tie of almost stilling restraint, demanded to be completed by a bowler hat.

Julie sat on a straightbacked chair and tried not to watch him reading her application form. She looked around the room: an official photograph of King George and Queen Elizabeth; two small potted shrubs (one not doing very well); a tiny model locomotive in a glass case; and a much-engraved silver cup, in need of polishing. Also, hanging behind the door, a bowler hat. He cleared his throat, and she leaned forward, eager to help. Her mouth still tasted of spearmint gum. She hoped she was now quite sober but she wasn't absolutely sure of it.

Clark cleared his throat again. 'Mrs Conroy,' he said, 'may I ask: why do you want to go to the United Kingdom?'

'To help you guys win the war.' The words came out promptly and confidently and they sounded exactly right.

'I see.' He scratched his left eyebrow while he looked again at her application form. 'Yes. Mrs Conroy . . . May I ask: how?'

Julie spread her hands. 'Any way you like,' she said. 'Just lead me to the action.'

'I see. You do realise, of course, that there's actually not an awful lot of action in the United Kingdom at the moment.' He opened his eyes very wide.

'Sure. I mean, I wasn't counting on becoming a Commando, exactly.'

'May I ask, Mrs Conroy: what were you counting on becoming?'

'Like I said, whatever you need. I just want to--'

'Yes, indeed: to help. Please understand that your willingness and sincerity are not in doubt. Could you, for instance, be a nurse?'

'Sure. If necessary.' Julie forced a smile. She didn't want to be a nurse.

'And have you any nursing qualifications?'

'No, but. . .' She cast around for a good, strong counter argument and found nothing. 'I can learn,' she said.

'As it happens we have no shortage of nursing volunteers,' Clark said. 'What we need rather urgently is more trained people.'

'I can drive a car,' Julie said doggedly. 'In fact I drive damn well.'

'Splendid.' Clark rewarded her with a smile but immediately his face lapsed into muscular gloom. 'The fact remains that you do it on what we insular British persist in calling the wrong side of the road, so even that skill would require some retraining . . . How are your typing and shorthand?'

Julie shook her head. Clark grunted softly and pursed his lips. In the mild, late-afternoon silence there came the faint sound of distant, rhythmic chanting. It reminded Julie of going to college football games. Clark appeared not to bear anything. He was thinking.

'Look, Mr Clark,' she said. 'You British need all the friends you can get. Okay, here's one friend. I'm young, healthy, not too stupid, and I hate the Germans. Now surely to God, if there's something I can do to make life difficult for Nazis, that's got to be good for your side.'

'Oh, undoubtedly,' Clark agreed. 'I wonder . . . Were you thinking perhaps of taking them on at tennis?'

Julie sat back and stared. Outside, the chanting was growing more distinct and more jubilant. 'You heard about that game, huh?' she said.

'Word soon gets around. I must say it bucked us up no end, Mrs Conroy.'

'I'm glad.'

'We'd been losing rather a lot of convoys, and it was a relief to have something to smile at. However trifling.'

'If I had my way the U.S. Navy would be out there now, blasting those U-boats out of the Atlantic.'

Clark nodded his appreciation. Now the noise had reached the street outside; they could hear the hurrying beat of feet like a muffled drumroll beneath the eager chant. He got up and closed the windows. 'Do you understand Spanish?' he asked.

'Not much. Not enough to understand that stuff. What's going on out there?'

'I can't really tell.' Clark's room was on the second floor. 'We often get this sort of thing; there are embassies all around here. One doesn't mind the noise, but they do drop such a lot of litter in the street.' He came back to his desk. 'I'll be frank, Mrs Conroy. There is nothing you could do to assist the British war effort. On the contrary, His Majesty's Government would find itself with another mouth to feed at a time when food is already extremely scarce and likely to become more so. Therefore . . .' Clark paused and glanced sideways as the noise in the street gained a new level. '! regret I cannot recommend your application for approval.'

Julie had seen it coming and was ready to counter-attack. 'Listen, this is my war too, you know! If Britain goes under, how the hell is the United States ever going to stop Hitler? You think I want that kind of future? You just get me to London, Mr Clark. I'll soon find some way to help beat those bastards, if it's only by giving blood to the Red Cross three times a week.'

'As I've already explained--'

'Okay, I lied, I'm a trained nurse and fighter pilot and I can type three thousand words a minute.' Julie was leaning forward, gazing hard at George Clark's sombre face when a brick shattered the window and, still spinning end-over-end, rushed at her head. Her hands were gripping the arms of the chair and she thrust herself sideways, twisting her neck and contorting her face. The last thing she saw was Clark's solid torso surrounded by glittering fragments; the brick battered her shoulder and the chair crashed over backwards in a wild somersault of pain and shock and confusion. She lay for a long moment, stunned, and heard clearly the tinkle of glass on polished floorboards, followed by a raucous, exultant roar gushing through the hole. Then she dimly saw the extraordinary sight of George Clark vaulting over his desk, landing nimbly beside her, and kicking the chair away. She felt herself being dragged rapidly across the room, her shoes coming off, sunlight suddenly giving away to deep shadow, a hard, cool corner propping her up. The racket in the street swelled- and faded and swelled again like waves on a beach. Clark was gone, then he was back. Cushions slid behind her. For a while she felt sick and she closed her eyes. Elsewhere, more windows were being broken. When her eyes opened, Clark was sitting cross-legged in front of her. One ear was brilliantly red. It was all very strange. 'As soon as you can,' he said, 'I think you should try to

raise that arm.' Julie thought about that. Clark, she decided, seemed to know best. Another brick smashed through their window and they saw it whizz across the room, a long way off. Glass fragments tumbled harmlessly over the desk. She sat up and slowly raised her arm. Her shoulder felt like a sack of cement. "Good,'  he said.   'That  means  your  collarbone isn't broken "'How did you jump over that desk?' she asked weakly. I used to play scrum-half for Blackheath.'

She looked at him. He was serious. 'I don't know what that means,' she said.

It means you learn to move bloody fast unless you want your head kicked in.' Julie gave up on that. 'Who threw that goddam rock at

'Probably the Falange. ' The Spanish Government couldn't let such a demonstration happen unless they approved, so it must be the Falange. Do you hear those slogans?' They listened to the pounding chant of the mob. 'They're expressing support for Germany's invasion of Russia.'

'By chucking rocks?' Well, this is the British Embassy.' Julie began a gesture of disgust which sent a streak of pain flaring through her shoulder. 'Who the hell do those bums think they are?' she demanded. 'I'm a neutral! And Spain's neutral! Tell 'em to go chuck their rocks at the Russians!'

'No doubt some of them will,' Clark said. 'The Falange is ] already recruiting volunteers to fight on the Russian front. As to your neutral status ..." He found a piece of glass in a fold of his sleeve and delicately removed it. 'I wonder ii anyone is really neutral any more.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Well, take the Irish Republic. They say they're neutral, but that didn't do Dublin any good last month when the Germans bombed it by mistake.'

'Just shows how crazy they are,' Julie grumbled.

'Of course. Then there's Sweden. Is Sweden neutral? She's just allowed a division of German troops to cross her territory, en route from Norway to Finland. Finland, of course, is stuffed quite full of German troops. One could argue that the Russians are quite entitled to, as you put it, chuck rocks at neutral Finland.'

'I don't care,'Julie said. 'America's certainly neutral, and I'm American, and my shoulder's American, and as far as I'm concerned that rock counts as a declaration of war. Your ear's bleeding.'

'I know. The blood congeals more readily if one doesn't touch it.'

'You sound like this sort of thing happens all the time.'

'Oh, occasionally. Stoning the embassy is an irregular event in the diplomatic calendar. This is my sixth or seventh, I suppose.'

Outside, there was a short lull.

'Egypt too is technically neutral,' Clark said. 'We, of course, have even more troops in Egypt than Hitler has in Finland. As for Turkey--'

'I don't care,' Julie said. 'How much longer are we going to be stuck here?'

Clark checked his watch. 'The Spanish police usually allow them fifteen minutes. We can expect relief before long.'

He was right. Soon the wail of approaching sirens cleared the demonstrators from the street. Clark fetched Julie's shoes and helped her up. 'I expect you could do with a cup of tea,' he said.

'Tell me something,' Julie said. 'Why have you been going on and on about neutrals?'

'To show you that this war is a confused and confusing affair,' he told her. 'One cannot always join in on one's own terms.'

'Or stay out, either,' she said, touching her shoulder gingerly.

'Quite so.' Clark took his bowler hat and opened the door for her.

Lionel Christian came back from the lavatory as Otto Krafft was opening the afternoon mail in the anteroom. It was the colonel's fourth visit that day; Otto could tell where he'd been by the smell of soap on his hands. It was Spanish soap and it smelled of lemons. A great number of lemons.