Part 18 (1/2)

”You know Potapov?” I asked her.

”No,” she said.

”You?” I asked Kraft.

”No,” he said. ”Why don't you tell me about him?”

”He's a communist agent,” I said. ”He's trying to get me to Mexico City so I can be kidnaped and flown to Moscow for trial.”

”No!” said Resi.

”Shut up!” Kraft said to her. He stood, threw the magazine aside. He went for a small pistol he had in his pocket, but I got the drop on him with the Luger.

I made him throw the pistol on the floor.

”Look at us-” he said wonderingly, as though he were an innocent bystander, ”cowboys and Indians.”

”Howard-” said Resi.

”Don't say a word,” Kraft warned her.

”Darling-” said Resi tearfully, ”the dream about Mexico-I thought it was really coming true! We were all all going to escape!” She opened her arms. ”Tomorrow-” she said weakly. going to escape!” She opened her arms. ”Tomorrow-” she said weakly.

”Tomorrow-” she whispered again.

And then she went to Kraft, as though she wanted to claw him. But there was no strength in her hands. The hold they took on Kraft was feeble.

”We were all going to be born anew,” she said to him brokenly. ”You, too-you, too. Didn't-didn't you want that for yourself? How could you speak so warmly about the new lives we would have, and still not want them?”

Kraft did not reply.

Resi turned to me. ”I am a communist agent-yes. And so is he. He is is Colonel Iona Potapov. And our mission Colonel Iona Potapov. And our mission was was to get you to Moscow. But I wasn't going to go through with it-because I love you, because the love you gave me was the only love I've ever had, the only love I ever will have. to get you to Moscow. But I wasn't going to go through with it-because I love you, because the love you gave me was the only love I've ever had, the only love I ever will have.

”I told you I wasn't going through with it, didn't I?” she said to Kraft.

”She told me,” said Kraft.

”And he agreed with me,” said Resi. ”And he came up with this dream of Mexico, where we would all all get out of the trap-live happily ever after.” get out of the trap-live happily ever after.”

”How did you find out?” Kraft asked me.

”American agents followed the scheme all the way,” I said. ”This place is surrounded now. You're cooked.”

38.

AH, SWEET MYSTERY.

OF LIFE ...

ABOUT THE RAID- About Resi Noth- About how she died- About how she died in my arms, there in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Reverend Lionel J. D. Jones, D.D.S., D.D.- It was wholly unexpected.

Resi seemed so in favor of life, so right for life, that the possibility of her preferring death did not occur to me.

I was sufficiently a man of the world, or sufficiently unimaginative-take your choice-to think that a girl that young and pretty and clever would have an entertaining time of it, no matter where fate and politics shoved her next. And, as I pointed out to her, nothing worse than deportation was in store for her.

”Nothing worse than that?” she said.

”That's all,” I said. ”I doubt that you'll even have to pay for your pa.s.sage back.”

”You're not sorry to see me go?” she said.

”Certainly, I'm sorry,” I said. ”But there's nothing I can do to keep you with me. Any minute now people are going to come in here and arrest you. You don't expect me to fight them, do you?”

”You won't fight them?” she said.

”Of course not,” I said. ”What chance would I have?”

”That matters?” she said.

”You mean-” I said, 'why don't I die for love, like a knight in a Howard W. Campbell, Jr., play?”

”That's exactly what I mean,” she said. ”Why don't we die together, right here and now?”

I laughed. ”Resi, darling-” I said, ”you have a full life ahead of you.”

”I have a full life behind me-” she said, ”all in those few sweet hours with you.”

”That sounds like a line I might have written as a young man,” I said.

”It is a line you wrote as a young man,” she said.

”Foolish young man,” I said.

”I adore that young man,” she said.

”When was it you fell in love with him?” I said. ”As a child?”

”As a child-and then as a woman,” she said. ”When they gave me all the things you'd written, told me to study them, that's when I fell in love as a woman.”

”I'm sorry-I can't congratulate you on your literary tastes,” I said.

”You no longer believe that love is the only thing to live for?” she said.

”No,” I said.