The American (10 page)

In the heart of Washington, one of the most beautiful of America’s cities – if you ignore the black suburbs where the indispensable working classes who keep the white man’s metropolis going live – is the Mall. It is a green park of grass and trees a third of a mile wide and one and three-quarters long, traversed by drives and bounded by avenues. At the east end, on its grand, arrogant little hillock, stands the US Capitol: it is like a wedding cake left on the table while the sweep cleaned the chimney. At the other end broods Lincoln in his white marble box, gruff as a judge and sternly gazing out at the corruption of the nation he vainly sought to unite. Halfway between the two stands the phallic needle of Washington’s Monument. To the north, set back behind the Ellipse, is the White House, around which security is tight: too many presidents have been premature in their ride across the Potomac and up the rise to the Arlington National Cemetery.

Tourists are not always what they seem. I have seen at least a dozen, within fifty yards of the presidential mansion, packing heat, as the Americans say. Two were women. They mingle and they watch, and they listen as they eat ice creams or popcorn, suck at Cokes or Pepsis in the summer heat. These, too, are not the experts but the rank-and-file workers of my world, the expendables, the cannon fodder.

It was here that it began, in the National Museum of Natural History. I was wandering the display rooms, cursorily gazing at dinosaur skeletons, when I sensed a shadow-dweller. I did not see him, yet I knew he was about. I looked for him, in reflections in the glass cases and around the groups of schoolchildren and tourists. I could not find him.

This was not a fancy on my part. I was, as I say, a novice, but I was already attuned to my seventh and eighth senses. The ninth and the tenth came in later years.

I went to the museum-shop area and lingered to make a few purchases. Nothing valuable: a pyrite crystal glued to a magnet, a fossilized fish from Arizona, some postcards and an American flag made of nylon with a tiny label upon it reading ‘Made in Taiwan’.

To buy something, even a bagel or a hot dog at a street-side stall, gives one good cover from which to observe. The tail thinks the target is busy with his money or his conversation with the vendor. For those with practice, the purchase and observation can be mingled so any surreptitious glancing about is unnoticed.

He was there. Somewhere. I still could not see him. He might have been the man in the open-neck shirt and Daks with a camera hanging from his shoulder. He might have been the young husband with the plump wife. He might have been the schoolteacher with his class or the old man tagging along behind a group of senior citizens from Oklahoma. He might have been the fattish man wearing his holiday-tour-company lapel badge upside down on his navy blue windcheater: this could have been a signal to a compatriot shadow-dweller. He could have been the party guide. He might even have been the Japanese tourist. I just could not tell.

I left the museum, turned right along Madison Drive, pausing at a van selling hot cookies. I could not discern him in the passers-by or those coming out of the museum, yet his reality was with me still. I bought two cookies in a waxed paper bag, walked past the National Museum of American History and across 14th Street.

There were a lot of people drifting my way along the sidewalks, over the grassy parkland. In the open air, in the wide space of the Mall, I stood a better chance of identifying the shadow-dweller.

I headed for the Washington Monument. Some boys of about ten, released momentarily from the strictures of their school party, were playing on the grass, throwing a softball to each other, catching it in cowhide mitts. I could hear the thud of leather from some distance.

Nearing the monument, I suddenly stopped and turned. Others were doing likewise, to see the dramatic view down the centre of the Mall, towards the Capitol.

I saw no one flinch, not even in the distance, not even for an instant. Yet I knew now who he was. He was a man with his wife and child, about thirty or thirty-five, six feet tall, 160 pounds, slimly built. He was dark-haired and wore a fawn jacket and brown trousers, a light blue shirt and a tie which he had loosened. His wife was auburn-haired, quite pretty in a flowery print dress with a leather shoulder-bag. Their child was a girl of about eight, incongruously blonde. She was holding the woman’s hand and it was this which gave them away. I could not exactly define what was wrong, what tiny cues told me this was not a family. The little girl’s hand just did not fit in the woman’s. The child did not walk, somehow, with the familiarity of a daughter with her mother.

I realized as I saw them that they had been in the museum shop. There, in the crush of museum visitors, the unnaturalness of the relationship between the mother and child had not been discernible. Now, in the open, it was obvious. I had to dodge these people.

The man, I reasoned, would be the one to follow me if I headed off at speed. He looked fit and athletic. I should not stand much of a chance over the open grass. The woman and the child would not follow: the former would contact other operatives in the field to head me off. The child would be a minor inconvenience.

I pretended not to notice them and carried on towards the monument. Just on the edge of its shadow, I stopped and sat on the grass to eat my cookies, now lukewarm. The pseudo-family continued towards me. They had not realized I had rumbled them.

Coming quite close to me, the woman reached inside her shoulder bag for a Kleenex. I was sure I heard the minute click of a shutter snapping, but it did not matter. I was prepared, had my face half-covered by my hands and a large piece of cookie.

The man pointed to the top of the obelisk.

‘This, Charlene honey,’ he said in what I recognized as just marginally too loud a voice, ‘was built by the people of America to honour the great George Washington. He was the first President of our country.’

The little girl craned her head back and peered up, her blonde curls hanging loose.

‘My neck hurts,’ she complained. ‘Why did they have to make it so high?’

After a while they moved away, informing the child all about Washington and his monument. Most of the tourists walked all around the obelisk: they wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial reflected in the oblong pool made for the effect. Yet my little family did not. It was the final confirmation I required.

Casually, I set off the way I had come, against the drift of pedestrians. Most were, I guessed, following a city-walk plan which dictated a stroll to see Lincoln after pausing by the Washington needle. My family dutifully followed me. I skirted the White House and Lafayette Square and started up Connecticut Avenue. I was booked into a hotel beyond Dupont Circle and assumed they knew this: they would be thinking I was going there.

I halted at a pedestrian crossing, waiting for the walk sign to light up. They halted some way back and the man pretended to retie the little girl’s shoe. This was a farce: I had noticed her white sandals were buckled. The mother busied herself with her shoulder bag. I guessed she had a walkie-talkie in it and was reporting my position.

The light changed. A taxi drew along the street. I hailed it and got quickly in.

‘Patterson Street,’ I ordered. The taxi swung round in an illegal U and headed off eastward down K Street.

I looked back. The walkie-talkie was out of the shoulder bag. The man was looking round frantically for another taxi, his right hand inside his jacket. The little girl stood against a scarlet fire hydrant looking perplexed.

At Mount Vernon Square I changed my instruction to the driver, to his chagrin. He drove down 9th Street, over the Washington Channel and the Potomac to the airport. Within twenty minutes I was on the next flight out of town. It did not matter to where.

There are always those who live in the shadows. I know them because I am one of them. We are brothers in the freemasonry of secrecy.

Yesterday my visitor called. I shall not give you a name. It would be foolish, the height of professional indiscretion. Besides, I do not know it myself. I have only Boyd, for that is how the note was signed.

This person was of average height, quite thin but well formed in a lean way with mousy brown hair which may have been dyed. A firm handshake. I like that: a person who grips you can be trusted within the established parameters of a relationship. A quietly spoken person, of few words, conservatively dressed in a well-cut suit.

We did not meet at the apartment but near the fountain in the Piazza del Duomo. The person was standing, as we arranged, by the cheese stall, wearing dark glasses and reading the day’s edition of
Il Messaggero
with the front page folded in half upon itself.

It was the agreed opening signal. I had to make mine. I went to the cheese stall.

‘
Un po’ di formaggio
,’ I ordered.

‘
Quale?
’ the old woman replied. ‘
Pecorino, parmigiano?
’

‘
Questo
,’ I answered, pointing. ‘
Gorgonzola. E un po’ di pecorino
.’

Gorgonzola, then pecorino: this was the formula, another cue in the game of recognition.

All the while, I was being watched. I paid with a five-euro note. The page of the newspaper slipped to the ground. I picked it up.

‘
Grazie
.’

As the word was spoken, I saw the head tilt to one side. There was a smile. I could see lines form at the corner of the eyes, a young person’s eyes.

‘
Prego
,’ I answered, adding, ‘you are most welcome.’

The newspaper was folded, I collected my change and followed some paces behind through the market stalls to the
gelateria
-cum-bar outside of which stood some tables and chairs on the pavement. My contact sat beneath a Martini umbrella. I sat opposite across the metal table which rocked unevenly on the pavement.

‘It is hot.’

The sunglasses were removed and put down. The eyes were deeply hazel, but contact lenses can tint an iris and I guessed these were coloured.

The waiter came out, flicked a cloth over the table and emptied the tin ashtray down a draining grate in the gutter.

‘
Buon giorno. Desidera?
’

He spoke with a tired voice. It was nearly midday and the sun was hot.

I did not order. This was the final fail-safe, the final check. My visitor said, ‘
Due spremute di limone. E due gelati alla fragola. Per favore
.’

Again, there was a smile and I saw the skin by the eyes line once more. The waiter nodded. I noticed my visitor’s smile was devious, cunning: there was something sharp about it, acutely discerning. It was like the crafty, falsely subservient expression one sees in the eye of an artful dog which has just robbed the butcher’s shop.

We did not speak until the drinks and ice creams arrived.

‘It is hot. My car has no air conditioning. I asked for one but . . .’

The words trailed off. Thin, artistic fingers like a musician’s removed the plastic straw from the drink and sipped at it.

‘What car have you?’ I asked but received no reply. Instead, the hazel eyes moved quickly across the market crowd, from one passer-by to the other.

‘Do you live far off?’

The voice was subdued, more suited to an intimate tête-à-tête in a private cubicle in a cosy restaurant than conversation across a rickety street-café table.

‘No. Five minutes’ walk at the most.’

‘Good! I’ve had enough in the sun for today.’

We ate our ice creams and drank our drinks. We did not speak again until it was time to leave. The waiter brought the bill.

‘Let me,’ I offered, reaching for the slip.

‘No. My shout.’

Such an English expression, I thought: British, at any rate.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite.’

It was if we were old friends sparring in a comradely fashion over a bill in a London restaurant. Business friends. In part, this was the case, for we were doing business.

‘You leave. I’ll get my change and come after you.’

We made our way to the
vialetto
. At all times, my visitor kept at least thirty metres back.

‘Very nice,’ was the comment as I let us in to the cool canyon of the courtyard, the fountain dripping gently in the quiet. ‘You’ve found a very nice spot. I do like fountains. They add such – such peace to a place.’

‘I like it,’ I replied.

It was at that moment, perhaps, for the first time, I felt a distinct affinity for the little town, the valley and the mountains, sensed their deep tranquillity and wondered if, when it was all over, I should stay this time, eke out my leisure years here, not move on to another temporary abode and subterfuge.

We went up the stairs and into my apartment; my visitor sat in one of the canvas chairs.

‘I wonder if I might beg a glass of water? It is so frightfully hot.’

Frightfully: another English phrase.

‘I have cold beer. Or wine. Capezzana Bianco. It is semi-sweet.’

‘A glass of wine. Please.’

I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The beer bottles clinked in the door rack. I could hear movement in the chair as the wood frame creaked. I knew what was going on: my room was being surveyed, searched for whatever that sort of person looked for in a strange place, something to offer reassurance, security.

I poured the wine into a tall-stemmed glass, a tumbler of beer for myself, then carried the refreshments through on an olive-wood tray. I handed the wine glass over and watched as my guest sipped it.

‘Much better.’ The smile half formed. ‘We should have arranged for wine in the bar, not lemon juice.’

I sat on another of the chairs, put the tray on the floor and raised my beer.

‘Cheers!’ I said.

‘I do not have long.’

‘Quite.’ I took a pull of my beer and set the tumbler back down on the tray. ‘What exactly are your requirements?’

The eyes moved across to the windows.

‘You have a fine view from here.’

I nodded.