There he was: standing in front of a bald tree wearing a cap and belted jacket, his right arm across his body, his hand just below his heart. The article accompanying the photograph was in French, but I recognized the word Nobel. “What does this say?” I asked my English-speaking waiter when he returned with my petit pain au chocolat.
“Boris Pasternak has won the Nobel Prize.”
“Well, that’ll spike book sales,” I said. “Have you read it?”
“Of course!”
Everyone had read it. Thanks to my former employer, Doctor Zhivago had crossed the border undetected, finding its way back to the country where it was written. The Nobel wasn’t part of the Agency’s plan—not as far as I knew—but I was sure they’d take credit for it anyway. I could picture them: standing in a circle, grins on their faces, celebrating with vodka shots. The only face I didn’t imagine in that circle was Henry Rennet’s. I knew he was no longer in Washington. In fact, I knew his exact location.
The day I arrived in Paris, I checked in to the Hotel Lutetia—not under the name Sally Forrester or Sally Forelli, or any other name I’d used before, but under my new name Lenore Miller. I then dropped a letter addressed to Sara’s Dry Cleaners into a bright yellow post box. The letter contained the coordinates of Henry’s location in Beirut and details of his new mission helping to launch a radio station to broadcast Western-friendly, pro-Chehab messages.
Giving up Henry was not my first plan. If Frank had been right about Henry’s being a mole, I thought I could acquire enough information to ruin him through the proper channels. All those years that the Old Boys’ Club thought I was just twirling my hair and giggling mindlessly at their dumb jokes, what I had really been doing was listening. But when Henry got word that I was poking around about him, he put a swift end to my Agency days. Oh well. Plan B.
Only Bev knew I’d left the country. She didn’t ask where I was going, but when I told her I’d be buying a one-way ticket, my old OSS friend quietly got up and left her kitchen, returning a few minutes later with an envelope fat with money. “His gin rummy money,” she said, pressing it into my hands. “He’ll never miss it.” I said I couldn’t possibly accept it, and she told me to stop being stupid. Then she slipped off the diamond tennis bracelet her husband had given her—an apology for yet another dalliance. “Pawn it.”
My last night in Washington, I put on a record and got out my suitcase, still not knowing where I’d be going. I just knew that I needed to leave, to go someplace where I wouldn’t know a soul—that there’d be no going back after I did what I was about to do. It wasn’t until I removed my beige cashmere sweater from a drawer and discovered the Eiffel Tower print I’d planned to give Irina—still wrapped in butcher paper and tied with red string—that I made up my mind.
* * *
They sent word by way of roses. Two dozen, white as a peace offering, placed on my vanity while I was out. I plucked the small card from the bouquet: Nice to hear from you, it read in Italian. I turned the card over. Blank.
It was unnerving to think they had been in my room, had gone through my things. The room was now certainly bugged. It was like seeing a spider during the day, then thinking you feel it crawling on you in the middle of the night. But after I gave them the intel on Henry, surveillance was expected. I had no one to talk to, so it made me laugh to think of them listening to me listening to the Chet Baker record I’d purchased at a flea market. Perhaps they’d eventually tire of “My Funny Valentine” and listen in on someone else.
* * *
Weeks passed. The white roses wilted, their shriveled petals piling up on the vanity. The newness of the City of Light had worn off, and I was running out of Bev’s money. And not knowing what, if anything, had become of Henry began taking its toll. When I thought of him—and I always thought of him—my insides felt as if they were filling up with cold, dark smoke. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d lie on my back and picture the black smoke twisting