A Quiet Flame

“They told me at your hotel.” She glanced around my room. “It’s a nice room. You’ve done all right for yourself.”

I had a private room at the British Hospital because they didn’t have a private room at the American Hospital and because Colonel Montalbán didn’t want Dr. George Pack from Sloan-Kettering in New York seen anywhere near the President Juan Perón Hospital, and especially nowhere near the Evita Perón Hospital. But I couldn’t tell Anna any of that. It was a very British room. There was a nice picture of the king on the wall.

“But why here instead of the German Hospital?” asked Anna. “I suppose you’re scared someone will recognize you, is that it?”

“It’s because my doctor is an American and doesn’t speak German,” I said. “And because his castellano isn’t much, either.”

“Anyway, I’m cross with you. You didn’t tell me you were ill.”

“I’m not, angel. Not anymore. As soon as I get out of here, I’ll prove it.”

“All the same, I think I would have mentioned something if it had been me who had cancer,” she said. “I thought we were friends. And that’s what friends are for.”

“Maybe I thought you’d think it was contagious.”

“I’m not an idiot, Gunther. I know cancer’s not contagious.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to take that risk.”

I could tell the king agreed with me. He didn’t look too well himself. He was wearing a naval uniform and enough gold braid to supply a shipful of ambitious officers. There was pain in his eyes and in the sinews of his thin hands, but he seemed the type to stick it out in silence. I could tell we had a lot in common.

“And talking of risk,” I told her sternly, “I meant what I said, angel. You’re to say nothing about what happened. Or to ask questions concerning what we found out about Directive Eleven.”

“I don’t know that we found out very much,” she said. “I’m not convinced you’re the great detective my friend said you are.”

“Well, that makes two of us. But either way, this is not something people in this country want anyone asking about, Anna. I’ve been in this business a long time and I know a big secret when I smell one. I didn’t tell you this before, but when I mentioned Directive Eleven to someone in SIDE, he started twitching like a divining rod. Promise me you won’t talk about it. Not even to your father and your mother and your rabbi confessor.”

“All right,” she said sulkily. “I promise. I won’t say anything about any of it. Not even in my prayers.”

“As soon as I’m out of here, we’ll put the wheels in motion again. See what we can find out. In the meantime, you can answer me this question. What are you? A Jewish Catholic? Or a Catholic Jew? I’m not sure I can tell the difference. Not without chucking you in the village pond, anyway.”

“My parents converted when they left Russia,” she said. “Because they wanted to fit in when they got here. My father said that being a Jew made you too noticeable. That it was best to keep a low profile and seem like everyone else.” She shook her head. “Why? Have you got something against Jewish Catholics?”

“On the contrary. If you go back far enough, you’ll find that all Catholics are Jewish. That’s the great thing about history. If you go back far enough, even Hitler’s Jewish.”

“I guess that explains everything,” she said, and kissed me tenderly.

“What was that for?”

“That was in lieu of some grapes. To help you get well soon.”

“It might just help, at that.”

“Then so should this: I’ve fallen for you. Don’t ask me why, because you’re too old for me, but I have.”

I HAD OTHER VISITORS, but none of them as lovely as Anna Yagubsky, and none who made me feel as good. The colonel looked in on me. So did Pedro Geller. And Melville from the Richmond Café. He was kind enough to beat me at chess. It all felt very civilian and commonplace, as if I were part of a community instead of a man in exile from his own country. With one very tall and scar-faced exception.

He was about six-feet-four, and two hundred fifty pounds. His hair was thick and dark and, brushed back from a broad, lumpy forehead, looked like a Frenchman’s beret. His ears were enormous, like an Indian elephant’s, and his left cheek was covered with the Schmissen beloved of German students for whom a dueling saber had been a more attractive diversion than a slim volume of poetry. He was wearing a light-brown sports jacket, a pair of very baggy flannel trousers, a white shirt, and a green silk tie. His shoes were very polished and stout and probably contained a tape-recording of a military parade ground. In his left hand was a cigarette. I guessed he was in his early forties, and when he spoke German, it was with a strong Viennese accent. “So, you’re awake,” he said.

I sat up in bed and nodded. “Who are you?”

He picked up in his huge mitts the surgical pliers—the ones that were supposed to open the clips on my neck in case anything went wrong with my windpipe—and started to play crab with them.

“Otto Skorzeny,” he said. His voice sounded almost as rough as my own, as if he gargled with battery acid.