Christopher's Ghosts by Charles McCarry Read Free Book Online Page A

no wine because alcohol drunk in the evening gave Hubbard bad dreams. The conversation was normal. Lori had received a letter from her Aunt Hilde, who wanted to know if they were coming to Rügen for midsummer, which fell on the next weekend.
    “Are we going?” Hubbard asked.
    “Of course,” Lori replied. “I’ll write to her tonight. We always go to Rügen for midsummer night.”
    “Good,” Hubbard said. “Maybe we can sail.”
    After supper, each under his own reading lamp as if God were in his heaven and all was right with the world, Lori wrote her letter to Hilde while Hubbard read the three-week-old Saturday Evening Post that O. G. had saved for him. He laughed at the Post ’s cartoons, devoured every word of fiction in every issue, especially the serialized novels of James Warner Bellah, but never read the articles. Hubbard did not trust journalism, did not believe that it could ever approximate the truth because everyone lied to journalists. Paul held a volume of Balzac, his summer reading assignment, in his lap. The book might as well have been printed in Sanskrit. The type swam away. He could not concentrate. He was still in the American church with Rima’s breath in his ear, her leg against his, his hand in her hand.
    “Paul,” Lori said, “time for Schatzi’s walk.”
    The Christophers had no servants. When the cleaning woman, who also did the laundry, came on Wednesdays, Lori locked up her husband’s manuscripts and sent him out for a long walk while she stayedhome and supervised. Otherwise they did their own chores, with Lori as maid of all work, Hubbard as dishwasher, and Paul in charge of odd jobs. One of these was to take the family schnauzer for a walk. The little dog was one of several thousands in the city whose name was Schatzi—“Sweetheart.” It had belonged to a dog-loving Social Democrat who fled Germany and left it in their care. At nine-thirty Paul took Schatzi out on its leash as usual. The nearest public grass was six blocks away, in a small wooded park with gravel walks and a fountain at its center. Paul had arranged to meet Rima by the fountain at ten o’clock sharp. They had decided in the American church that they must always behave as if they were under surveillance. The streets swarmed with dog walkers and cigar smokers. Paul noticed no one following him, but it was impossible to be certain in this sea of potential informers that he was not being watched.
    Rima waited by the fountain as arranged. To Paul’s surprise, she led a dog of her own, another kind of small terrier. She wore a head scarf, ends tied under her chin. She walked slowly away down one of the wider gravel walks. He waited until she was far ahead and then, keeping his distance, he followed. She turned onto a narrow path, then into the trees. Here there was no artificial light at all apart from the distant glow of street lamps beyond the park’s spiked iron fence. They were alone. The earth beneath their feet was spongy, damp. He smelled ferns, rotting vegetation.
    “Whose dog is that?” Paul asked in a whisper.
    “It belongs to a neighbor, an old lady,” Rima replied, also in a whisper. “I’m doing a good deed.”
    With a few deft movements, Rima leashed the dogs to trees. Then she took Paul’s hand and walked him a few steps away from the dogs. She took his face in her hands. She whispered, “Can you see me?”
    “No.”
    “Nor I you. It’s all right. We have four other senses. Wait. I’m going to take off my scarf.”
    After a moment, she shook her head. Her hair, no longer braided, fell free. It was perfumed. He smelled her skin. He did not move.
    Rima said, “I look different now.”
    “I wish I could see you.”
    Rima said, “There are other ways to see.”
    Paul could barely talk. He said, “What?”
    “Do something,” Rima whispered.
    Paul groped in the darkness and put his hand on her hair. He stroked it, put his nose into it, put both hands under it, touched her cheeks, lifted