Babayaga: A Novel (54 page)

Oliver looked curious. “The knife?”

“Yes, that first night,” said Will, “you wanted me to bring the knife to that meeting with Boris and Ned. I figure you couldn’t have planned on blackmailing me that early on, you didn’t even really know who I was yet.”

“Oh, yes. The knife.” Oliver nodded. “It sounds silly now but I had planned for us to do a little bonding together, a little ritual with a blood oath, something we boys used to do up at Camp Kinloch when I was young. It was only meant to be a bit of theater to show our commitment to the good fight, a bit of rah-rah.”

“What were we fighting for?”

“To remain here in Paris, of course, to stay on the agency dime. It was a time for serious action, Will, they were chopping funding, pulling the plug on us all. Now that de Gaulle’s back in, there’s no reason for them to stay. The local Communists have been neutered, the Russians are contained, and Germany’s quiet, which makes this conflict pretty much over. The big-theater stuff here is done, Washington has no need to keep funding it, which means all of us, the ad men, the journalists, the intellectuals, and even the poets, every single soul of us who’s been living on the company’s largesse, we’re all being cut off.”

“Come on, there weren’t that many people working for the agency,” Will said.

“Oh yes there were. You couldn’t throw a copy of
Fodor’s
across a Spanish Quarter café without hitting someone on their payroll. In the low season, pretty much every American you saw in this town was a penny ante spook of some sort. I’d rather hoped we could all rally together, all for one, one for all. Ridiculous, obviously, childish stuff, but that was another time, really. A whole other era.”

“It was two weeks ago,” said Will.

“Was it? Well, it seems like a lifetime, doesn’t it?” said Oliver. “Come to think of it, I suppose for Brandon it was.”

“So, what about Brandon, what was he was up to?” Will asked.

Oliver raised an eyebrow. “No one at the embassy offered any specifics, but it’s not too difficult to deduce. Clearly, his goals for those pharmaceutical experiments were not very different from what I was up to, ginning up the game so that he could stay here, overseeing wave after wave of hallucinogenic assaults against Ho Chi Minh’s godless hordes while sitting in the comfort of the Ritz bar. Ordinarily, he would have run that scientist’s operation through more proper channels, but doing it the right way would have eaten up too much time and he was desperate. He was going to be shipped out too; he had to rush. I think Brandon only wanted the same thing Ned, Boris, me, even you wanted. We all simply wanted to stay in Paris.”

“Looks like you’re the only one who’s staying.”

Oliver shook his head. “Not for long. I’ll probably ship home soon. I’ve got a friend at the
Herald Tribune
who’s offered me a spot at the sports desk. It’s not ideal. I’ll have to find some angle to make it interesting, but I need the job, right now the larder is pretty bare.”

“Really? What about your family money?”

Oliver smiled. “Here’s a little secret, Will: the money I come from is so old it’s dead. The great cod fortunes swam away some time ago. But that doesn’t matter, I’m always happy to work, I’ll be fine. What I’m curious about is what’s next for Paris? Look at this grand station, Will, think of this city, it’s been the eye of the hurricane for centuries, a firestorm of ideals, art, and philosophy, a place where fierce arguments became actual revolutions, which then exploded into bloody wars. Think about all that happened here, Pascal, Descartes, Voltaire, Napoléon, the barricades of the commune. This was it, the glistening pearl resting at the center of a grand transcendent battle for mankind’s soul. I wanted to be a part of it, to help in some small way to keep it going. But now it’s all over, the bullies and the bankers back home need a real war and what we’re doing here these days is far too subtle.”

“What do you mean, subtle?” Will asked.

Oliver shrugged. “Well, American factories need orders for jeeps and jets, and American politicians need full employment. A cold war doesn’t get you that, only a real war will do the trick. After all, every soldier hit with a bullet means another new job listing, and every jeep blown up means another order on the books. So they’ve got that kind of war now and, well, bully for them. But when we pull out of here, that’s it for this place. As funny as it seems, this was the last battle for Paris, the final act, and now, mark my word, this city will be abandoned, not by people but by history. The local intellectuals will go on with their philosophies, and de Gaulle will wrestle with his little Algerian conundrum, but the idea of France as the beating, vibrant heart of the world is over. They will be left with nothing but dull tourists coming over, packed like wet sardines on those new Pan Am and TWA flights, pouring out in record numbers to overwhelm the palaces, plazas, and galleries. They won’t have the slightest notion that they’re standing where Marat shrieked to the crowds, or where Baudelaire searched for his absinthe, or where a Stravinsky ballet—a
ballet
, mind you—caused a bloody riot. They won’t see Degas for the shifty little snob he was, and, my lord, they won’t bother reading Proust. For them, all this will be little more than one of those cheap roadside attractions you see up in the Catskills, all will be trivial. The mighty dynamo is dead.”

“Okay, well, then,” Will said with a grin, “sounds like it’s a good time to hit the road.” He stood up and looked over toward the waiting train. “They’re probably boarding now, Oliver. Thanks for coming, I appreciate it.”

“Ah, yes, of course, sorry for going on like that. Ridiculous of me, really,” said Oliver, rising to his feet. “But I am glad I could see you off. That’s what friends are for, right?”

Will suspected Oliver was only being polite, they weren’t true friends. Oliver was too naturally opaque, maintaining a safe distance from the world; and Will was little more than a stray white tennis ball that had rolled onto Oliver’s court from some clumsy beginner’s match. But there was no one else for Will now in Paris, and so this tall, thin man with the cool smile and his insouciant manner was probably the closest thing to a friend Will had left.

Oliver walked him to the platform. “You really think you can find her?”

“I can try.” Will said. “She mentioned Spain, so I thought I’d start looking there.”

“You know, Spain isn’t particularly small.”

Will grinned. “I know that.”

“And while your Zoya is an exceptional woman, I have to say—”

“I’m going to find her, Oliver.”

“Yes, yes, of course you are.” Oliver gave him a bittersweet smile, as if he had done all he could. Will shook his hand and headed down the walkway. Looking back, he saw Oliver still standing at the head of the platform, his hand held up in a halfhearted farewell.

Perched high in the station, a pair of owls sat resting upon the broad steel girders, watching quietly as the traveler made his way down toward the waiting train, his shadow growing long in the low, waning light.

X

It was the last ferry of the night. As the engine started up, its blue-gray diesel smoke blew back across the deck, mixing with white wisps of sea fog. Zoya lay in the lorry’s open bed, tucked, unseen, amongst paneling, packing crates, and rolls of insulation. The truck was parked on the deck amid long haulers, buses, and passenger cars. As the ferry eased away from the Copenhagen docks, bouncing softly into the choppy, cold waters of the Oresund Strait, the boat engine’s groan matched the ache in her heart.

A narrow crack of the night sky was visible between the bales and tall boxes, and a low orange moon peeked down at her. She tried to distract herself, thinking about a newspaper article she had read a few months before about how the Russians, those old friends from so long ago, had recently sent a rocket up beyond the atmosphere, aimed at the lunar surface. That is so like us, she thought, we are always reaching up, clawing and grabbing, first for the fruits on tree branches and now for the stars. Even the spires of our small town churches and city cathedrals seem to be stretching up, straining to scratch at heaven’s peak.

She imagined what the Soviet rocket must have looked like, sailing away from the confines of the earth. The thought reminded her of sieges she had witnessed, long ago, where the long, red streak of cannonballs arced high above the desolate, dusky wreckage of battlefields before falling against the failing buttresses of those great sinking cities.

Ah, you poor stupid moon, she thought, you idiot stone, circling up there, watching over us for so long. You must have thought you were safe from us, eternally remote, discreetly distant. I could have told you it does not matter how far you go or where in the darkness you hide, no place is safe from the fumbling throes of man.

She looked down and stroked Noelle’s hair. The sleeping young girl had nestled her head on Zoya’s chest, wrapping her arms around her waist. Underdressed for the north, they had been huddling together like this for the last two days to stay warm. Zoya remembered how Elga often used to say a woman’s hands had poor circulation because her hot blood was always staying busy in her mind, keeping her out ahead of the brutes.

The russet chicken rested by their side, it seemed to be sleeping too. Zoya had found the girl where the old ghosts said she would be, waiting for her on the outskirts of Paris in a small park near Gagny, but the bird in the girl’s arms had been a surprise. Leave it to those women to forget to mention the chicken, Zoya thought. She wondered how she would care for the girl, what tricks she should be taught. The ghosts will help us, she thought, or at least they will do their best to try. She would find the girl a pair of wool mittens in the morning.

Pulling Noelle close, Zoya tried to settle in and rest as the churning ferry boat carried them north. The diesel’s thick cloud of exhaust trailed behind the boat, dimming the stars, one by one, as their course bore them deep into the comfort of the coming winter’s darkness.

Sleepily, her thoughts drifted back to Will. She had not wanted to leave Paris. She had taken the girl back into the city with her and found them a place to stay. She thought they could be there for a while, perhaps she had hoped to stalk him. Both curious and protective, she wanted to watch her rabbit try to find his way. But instead it was he who had flushed her out, the way the shock of gunfire frightens fowl from the brush.

It was only a few days after she had last seen him, when she and Noelle were holed up in the Bercy Hotel. She went into a baker’s shop to pick up a baguette, and there she heard the song. It caught her ear right away, as if it were hunting for her, calling to her. She had glanced around the shop until she found the little transistor radio the baker had perched up in the corner. The song came out of the little speaker, tinny and rough with static:

Zoya, Zoya, Zoya,

the girl with the forever fragrance,

the girl with the magical style,

come back to me,

come back, I need to be near

Eglantine, Eglantine, Eglantine.

It was a jingle for a cheap perfume, but she knew it was really a message for her. He was trying to lure her back. She recalled the way he had described advertising, like a campaign in a war. So he had sent the song out riding the invisible airwaves, raining down all over the city to find her. It was as good a trick as the most skilled witch could concoct. She could sense his desperation: he would use all the weapons he had mastered, everything he could muster. This was merely the first shot from his cannonade.

She went back to the small hotel, got the girl, packed up, and left. She knew there would be no rest for her in Paris. She had to take the girl and go.

Offended and shaken, she knew, too, that Will would never stop trying to find her. Once he had tried and failed with every tool in his arsenal, he would begin to search for her on foot. He would sense that she was gone and then he would go out searching blindly. He would run down endless trails to stone-cold dead ends, he would look for her in empty hotel lobbies and sun-bleached squares, he would wander through twisted warrens of uncountable cities and sleepy port towns, he would stumble across the jagged terrain of a thousand torn horizons. Perhaps the owls would lead him back to her, but probably not. It was for the best if they let him go, for he should never stop, he should always be running the wrong way. Yes, she thought, never slow down, Will, keep searching, fruitlessly, endlessly, let this be your punishment, for my heart burns, like the stinging, raw palm of some lost and drowning sailor when the storm has pulled the last rope from his grasp. Who knows if I will heal or if I will ever be whole. You have softened me, made me vulnerable, creating a weakness here in my heart where I can afford none. You asked a lioness to be a lamb, you asked a crocodile to help you ford the river, you lay with the viper and dared to ask her not to bite, and the sad thing is, I tried, with every fiber, every muscle, I tried, Will. But now, I will live forever and this pain shall never perish, and that is why I curse you. I have made you heroic, and you will stay strong for a long time, broad-chested and sharp-eyed, and my curse will drive you onward, she thought, until, finally, you are broken, like a blind and ruined horse tearing through the briars. Maybe the owls will guide you back to me, maybe not, but I hope with my whole heart they keep you running the wrong way. I hope they make you suffer through it all. It is the oldest and most simple curse on earth, and when properly applied, no cure can be found. Some might call it love.

“Zoya, Zoya, Zoya…”