The Miernik Dossier - Charles McCarry [55]
Automatic emotion: Why has she followed us? What is her secret purpose? From whom does she take instructions? All this is nonsense. I will never get away from the beating of my rabbit’s heart. Obviously she has come to make it up with Nigel. It will not be easy. He sat morosely through the whole meal, avoiding my eyes. There can be no question that he knows. Were I in his place (and of course I am: if he shares Ilona’s body with me, I share it with him) I would accept things for what they are: a whim of Ilona’s, an indulgence of her sexual curiosity that will never happen again. “Bad luck, Tadeusz!”
Christopher watched the byplay with his usual amusement. There is something about him that Zofia likes. After the adventures they’ve had together, this is natural. It is to Paul that she always talks (they lapse into German when the rest of us are talking about something else: I wonder why?). The contrast between Zofia and Ilona is extraordinary. One cannot judge a sister’s sexuality, but there is something withheld in Zofia, whereas Ilona is so accessible. It is more than manners, more than coloring—the one girl pale and blond, the other olive and black. The girls do not like each other. Ilona’s attitude: “I permit you to talk to the American, but the others are mine—and so would he be mine if I wanted it that way.” Zofia’s attitude: “I see what you mean, and I understand perfectly how you achieve your results.” They have an inborn talent for insult, women.
Tomorrow we sail. All this with Ilona will be behind me. It is a shock, seeing her when I never expected to see her again. After tomorrow, this will finally be true. Regret makes a cold supper. The fact of the matter is, I would abandon the journey, abandon all I have promised myself to do at the end of the journey, abandon my friends—if Ilona were to come to me instead of Nigel. A few doors away, they are together. I know what it is to be sore with love: with sex, as Kalash would say. Even sex is more than I hoped for. It would be enough for me; love is for the beautiful. What is more ludicrous than jealousy in an ugly man? And yet. And yet. And yet. And yet!
51. REPORT BY CHRISTOPHER.
23 June. Our ship’s sailing has been postponed for at least two days. Engine trouble, says the purser. Egyptian stupidity, says Kalash. She is an oily old freighter called, of all things, the S.S. Nefertiti. Her registry is Egyptian. The purser was evidently afraid of losing our passage money, as he loaded the Cadillac, had our baggage taken aboard, and collected our tickets before giving us the news about the delay. He tells us that we are welcome to stay aboard while repairs are made. “Better view of Naples Bay from the deck than any luxury hotel,” the purser said. He’s right about that, but we’ll move back to the Commodore anyway.
The delay is serious for Miernik. The voyage takes six days, so his passport would expire before he reached Alexandria. (I’m beginning to wish that his people had fixed him up with an American passport, or at least an Ecuadorian one.) You will have further cause to suspect him, despite all his dilemmas, when I tell you that he burst into Arabic during the discussion with the purser; Kalash says he speaks it well, with a Syrian intonation. Miernik was too upset by the change in the sailing schedule to bother to explain how he happens to speak this language so much better than he told me he did.
Once Miernik is inside Egypt, he can at last throw away his Polish passport; the Sudanese laisser-passer Kalash obtained for him will get him out of the country. (But not into it: his visa is stamped on the Polish passport.) Interminable