An Absence of Light

She moved a bare foot over to his crossed feet and rubbed the top of it against the arch of his socked foot The gesture was the kind of small thing that can mean so much at just the right moment Neither of them said anything for a while. Graver could have kissed her just for these few moments, even if they proved not to last very long. He was thankful for this brief shared tranquility, for the companionship in silence, for the shared Merlot, and, even if their thoughts were miles apart, for her willingness to sit quietly with him and not feel that she had to keep up a conversation. He liked seeing her out of her dress clothes, jean-clad legs and shoeless feet beside his on the ottoman. He felt the uniquely human comfort of being with another person who cared whether or not you were tired or worried or simply wanted some company.

“What do you think about all this?” he asked, turning to look at her.

She did not answer immediately, and he watched her profile framed in her abundance of chestnut hair casually pulled back, her eyes fixed on something across the room as she thought.

“I think… that this is a pretty cruel business,” she said. She looked at him. “I think it’s complicated, and it’s addictive, and it’s cruel.”

“Addictive?”

“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t really realize it myself until all this happened. There’s this race to uncover layers and layers of secrets. You don’t know where it’s taking you, but you like the ride. It’s challenging. There’s risk. Like gambling. You have to put up something, a stake, to be able to play the game. And it’s voyeuristic. You get to look at people from the back of a mirror. Or through cracks in the walls.”

“You don’t like that part of it The spying.”

“Well, that’s refreshing,” she said.

“What?”

“Calling it what it is instead of ‘a collection effort’ or ‘strategic intelligence’ or any of those other doublespeak terms.”

She took a sip of her Merlot, and he watched her, concentrating on the shape of her lips on the rim of the glass, the way the dark wine entered her mouth.

“There’s something… maybe there’s something a little hypocritical about it Or something like that I don’t quite know how to talk about it,” she said.

She seemed suddenly embarrassed. The first time Graver had ever seen that in her face. She looked down at her glass.

“It’s not a simple business,” he said, not wanting her to feel awkward. That hadn’t been his intention in asking her.

“I didn’t like it that you lied to Ginny Burtell,” she said suddenly. “That was… I don’t know… very hard to watch.”

“It was hard to do,” he said.

She turned and looked at him. “Was it?”

He felt himself flush.

“I just didn’t like seeing it,” she went on. “I didn’t like… seeing how easily it came to you.”

For a moment he couldn’t swallow. What she had just said, softly, almost kindly, was an indictment, and he was all the more embarrassed because, perhaps, it had come easily-or at least maybe it hadn’t been as difficult as it should have been.

“Aren’t you going to tell her at all?” she asked.

“Lara, I can’t.”

She took a deep breath and looked into her wine again.

“God, it’s a terrible thing to see this at work,” she said. “I guess… it’s always been just paperwork to me before. I should have known better, that this kind of… messiness lay behind it all. It was stupid of me not to have thought about it.”

He didn’t know what it was that he felt, but he did know that she had seen something that he himself had not seen before. It was not that she had seen him deliberately lie. Surely she knew, too, that there was a larger purpose to his lying, maybe even that there were lives to be saved by it. It was, rather, that she had seen that it had come to him so easily. It was an appalling idea, and one that cut even deeper than having to admit-as he did more often lately-that all the reasons he gave himself for doing what he did were actually sounding more and more like rationalizations.

He could feel her sitting beside him in anticipation, waiting for him to say something, waiting for him to explain things he didn’t understand himself.

The awkward silence was interrupted by the telephone ringing again. Graver got up and walked to his desk and answered it.

“Graver, I’ve got a suggestion.” It was Arnette. “Paula’s just come in here. We’re going to put this thing on the computers and see what we come up with, but whatever it is we’re not going to want to waste any more time than is necessary once the information starts pouring out here. I just got through talking to Mona, and your people have agreed, so we’re going to put them up over here tonight I’ve got people working in shifts here, but your two are going around the clock, and they’re going to need some sleep or they’re going to conk out on me. So, we’ll work as late as we can, get three or four hours sleep, and then hit the ground running early in the morning. Okay?’’