He gestured at Kozhevnikov with the wine glass. “And so they will ship you back to Moscow in the morning … maybe even tonight … and let the experts deal with you.”

  Kozhevnikov slumped back in his chair. He knew the Quiet Man was right and he could see that the Quiet Man knew that he knew. “What do you want from me?” His voice sounded tired.

  “It’s rather stuffy in here. Finish your drink and we can go outside where the air is bracing and walk.”

  “A walk? Where?” Kozhevnikov still had not touched his wine.

  The Quiet Man smiled. “Not far. And don’t worry about your target. We can take you to him after we’re done. It will be as if you had always been thirty meters behind him.”

  Kozhevnikov seized his wine glass and quickly drank the entire contents, ignoring the grimace on the Quiet Man’s face.

  Outside, the Quiet Man buttoned up his coat. “I’m sorry, I fear I have been rather impolite; allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Cuthwick.” He held out his hand.

  Kozhevnikov did not take it. Cuthwick? The man must be British and to Moscow the British imperialists were as bad as the Americans, only more feeble.

  “Well then, we might walk this way,” the Quiet Man said, gesturing at the length of the La Villette. He started walking and Kozhevnikov followed. Might? The British snobs and their bloody subjunctives; they turned the English language unto something even more difficult than the French. At least we’re walking downhill, he silently concluded. As they walked, glum thoughts still crowded his mind and he did not notice that the young man who had been chatting up the blonde in the café was now right behind him.

  The Quiet Man stopped when he was parallel with a gray Citroën sedan, one of a million in the Paris region. The young man suddenly came up and unlocked the front door on the passenger side, then reached around and popped up the lock on the back door. The Quiet Man opened it and gestured to Kozhevnikov to get in. After he did, the Quiet Man slid in beside him and the young man opened the driver’s side door and sat behind the wheel.

  “Where to, sir?” He was speaking to the Quiet Man while watching Kozhevnikov in the rear view mirror.

  “Oh, here and there, nowhere in particular, I’m just going to have a chat with our new friend.” He withdrew a fancy cigarette case made of onyx and silver that flashed as they approached and passed a street light. He opened it and offered one to Kozhevnikov. “Go ahead, they’re not drugged; they’re perfectly safe, if you’re not afraid of cancer. American, with filters.” He took one himself and lit it.

  Kozhevnikov waved the case away. “You said you wanted to talk. What about?”

  “Automobiles. We work for a large automobile importing firm.” He drew on his cigarette then rolled down the window a crack and exhaled. “We are looking at the possibility of importing Russian cars.”

  “And just where will you import them?”

  “All over. We have an international clientele, quite distinguished firms.” The Quiet Man stared at him. “But this could only come about if they are worthwhile.”

  “Why come to me? You should speak with the manufacturers in Moscow.” Kozhevnikov asked the question although he already knew the answer.

  “Because they might not give us straight answers and because you have a good knowledge of Soviet automobile engineering.”

  I knew it. Kozhevnikov followed this silent conclusion with a dozen silent curses. The Soviet Embassy is a sieve. How would Comrade Grubkin like to hear that? He cursed again when he realized he could never tell him.

  “Now take your limousines,” the Quiet Man continued. “Solid, well-built from all appearances. The ZIL 4014, for instance. That might very well suit a wide array of our customers.” He puffed again on his cigarette and exhaled. “We would like an independent opinion … from you. And, of course, we would pay for your advice.”

  Kozhevnikov suddenly felt relieved. There could be no harm in confirming what was already public information. “What exactly are you looking for?” He managed to keep his voice even, regarding that as a minor triumph.

  “The ZIL 4014 floor plan. Can you sketch it out for is?”

  “Of course, but ….” Kozhevnikov was about to add that they could find it in any Russian automotive journal but suddenly realized that if he told them that, they might want something else, something more difficult.

  “But what, comrade?” The Quiet Man’s voice softly floated in the air.

  “The sketch would be rough, not draftsman’s standards.”

  The Quiet Man reached into the breast pocket of his coat and produced a piece of white paper and a pen. “Could you do it here? Now?”

  “Yes, if you really want it tonight.”

  The Quiet Man raised his voice to the driver. “Find a spot and pull over, even if it’s illegal. We’ll only be a moment.”

  After the car stopped, Kozhevnikov quickly sketched the floor plan and handed it over.

  The Quiet Man peered at it. “Now, can you show us on the sketch how you would armor the ZIL? Where, what type of armor and how thick, and what you think the new weight might be?”

  Kozhevnikov took back the paper and started working. When he was done, he handed the paper to the Quiet Man, who quickly glanced at it before stuffing it in his coat pocket, his hand returning with a small envelope. “Go ahead, open it.”

  Taking the envelope, Kozhevnikov opened it and counted out $1000 in American hundred-dollar bills. “Thank you,” was all he could say.

  “Righto,” the Quiet Man said to the driver, “let’s get to the restaurant. Our friend has a target to follow.” He turned to Kozhevnikov. “You will be pleased to know that your man followed his usual routine with his mistress. You can pick up your surveillance at the restaurant.”

  “Is that all you need from me?” Kozhevnikov gestured toward the Quiet Man’s coat pocket where the sketch was safely stashed. His voice was firm, the worry banished to some cerebral Siberia.

  The Quiet Man sighed. “Well, there is one more thing.”

  “What?” Suddenly Kozhevnikov was worried again.

  “Dubos. The man you have under surveillance.”

  “What about him?”

  “Well, you see, we are interested in him, too.”

  “You want me to report to you, as well?” Kozhevnikov’s words were laced with anger.

  “No, not in the least, we would never ask that of you.” The Quiet Man smiled.

  “What then?” Kozhevnikov was puzzled.

  “Simply put, there will be times when we don’t want you to watch him, but to file your usual report as if you had.”

  “I will not! Here, take your goddamned money back.” Kozhevnikov threw the envelope onto the Quiet Man’s lap. His face was flushed with rage and embarrassment that this little imperialist swine could think that he could be so easily compromised.

  “Yes, you will.” The Quiet Man’s voice was no longer soft. It was time for the cake or death approach, to present this flabby man with the only two choices available to him. “For if you don’t, the sketch you drew, showing how the ZIL limousine your Party leaders use is armored, will find its way to Comrade Grubkin. Yes, we know all about Grubkin. And along with the sketch will be this little envelope with the American money. And then there will be the anonymous call to Grubkin from ‘a friend,’ asking if he has examined the sketch and money for fingerprints.” The Quiet Man leaned forward and spoke to the driver. “What do you think our new friend’s breaktime will be, Geoffrey?”

  The driver laughed. “Oh, I’d say no more than five hours. If they flutter him first, then three hours should do. Not even enough time for the Lubyanka hoods to enjoy themselves.”

  The Quiet Man named Cuthwick turned back to Kozhevnikov. “So that is why you will do this favor for us. And when you do, we will give you back the sketch and the envelope, which will have much more money it.”

  “Keep your goddamned money.” Kozhevnikov’s voice was still filled with rage, but this time it was the rage of the defeated.

  * * * *

  After he finished typing his report he was too tired, too afraid, and too sick at heart to get up and bring the piece of paper to Grubkin. He placed the report in a manila envelope, sealed it with the “eyes only” security tape and took it over to the typists’ pool. “Good morning, comrade,” he said, smiling at Iliana. “I am working on something important and it would be a favor to me if you could take this report to Comrade Grubkin and place it in his in-box.”

  “Of course, Filip. It would be my pleasure.” She smiled back at him and took the envelope, touching his hand with hers. He entrusted her with this task of office courier because not only did she so obviously like him but because she actually was not a typist, but the gate keeper to the residentura’s strong room. Thus, after transmission to Moscow Center, the report would eventually come to her to be locked away.

  Back at his desk he sat there frozen, his head in his hands, unable to think coherently. What had he done? Grubkin was sure to find something suspicious about the report, despite the promises of the Quiet Man that everything would appear normal. He should have stayed in Moscow, gone to work in the auto factory, even designing trucks that would never run properly would have been better than this. But simultaneously with that thought came rushing the realization that the choice had never been his. When the Party comes knocking at your soul, you must always be home to welcome them. He continued to sit there, unmoving, frozen in terror.

  “Does your head hurt, Filip?” Iliana’s voice suddenly shocked him. He took his hands away from his face and looked up to see her standing there, holding the sealed manila envelope, a look of concern on her face. The terror inside him increased as she thrust the envelope at him. “Comrade Grubkin said to tell you it was a decent job but to take a look at the notes he wrote in the margin before I lock it up.”

  Suddenly all the terror he had felt floated away and he smiled at the woman. He took the envelope and thanked her. When she did not turn and leave he asked, “Yes, comrade?”

  “Your head, does it hurt? Are you ill?”

  He drew deep breath. “Oh, no, it is nothing, I was just trying to puzzle out that important assignment I told you I am working on.” When she left, he closed his eyes and placed his hands back on his face. He breathed slowly, calming his racing heart which was now leaping for joy instead of constricting in fear. It was going to be fine, he knew. All he had to do was think everything through carefully and do what the Quiet Man wanted.

  * * * *

  The next meeting with the Quiet Man was at a small bookshop, not even a librairie, really nothing more than a bookstall with cases filled randomly with used books, many of them about art. The bookshop was deep in Montparnasse, just off of the Rue d’Alésia and not far from his flat. If Kozhevnikov saw the Quiet Man holding a copy of Finnegan’s Wake, then it would be safe. He arrived early and only found the proprietor, an old lady with gray hair tied in a bun and wearing a drab black sweater over a faded print dress. She was sitting on a wooden chair next to a table half-filled with books, its empty space serving as her counter. There was no cash register, all proceeds immediately disappearing into one of the pockets of the sweater, only to later reappear in some jar in the woman’s kitchen. There would be no money here to help stock the Elysée Palace’s sumptuous wine cellar.

  He smiled at the thought and greeted her with a slight nod, avoiding a pair of cold gray eyes, and began rummaging through the stacks as if he were really in the mood to buy something.

  He stopped in front a shelf of art books and was scanning the titles when his eyes fell upon the cover of a large folio with a black and white ink drawing of a strange machine on its cover. The machine had pistons and cams, wheels and rotors, fan belts and an engine, all attached by lines that continued on and ended in mid-air. The engine was at the top of the contraption and decorated with a star. Around the star was a sickle, fashioned into part of a fan belt that moved a series of cogs. In the middle of the contraption were another star and another sickle-belt that turned nothing.

  Kozhevnikov was fascinated. Who was the comrade who drew this? Everything was so irrational and yet all connected. Had the artist been hallucinating? He opened the dust jacket and looked at the inside of its front. A legend in bold script announced in English that the cover art was “The Roaring of Ferocious Soldiers,” by Max Ernst, 1919. 1919? He knew from his study of the Party’s history and the workers’ movement that the German proletariat had attempted a revolution that year. Was this Ernst a Communist? Why had he never heard of him?

  He began leafing through the folio and found another Ernst drawing, this one of a machine built upon a tractor tread. On top of this machine, whose purpose he could not discern, was a star inside another star, unattached to the machine, floating in mid-air. How strange, he thought, it is so much like me, floating unattached yet near a machine whose real purpose I also cannot fathom.

  Kozhevnikov turned the pages. There were drawings and paintings of machines and autos by French and Italian artists that also fascinated him. He was particularly intrigued by more strange contraptions. This time they were not pen and ink drawings like those of Ernst but photographs of things that had been actually built. The artist was Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp? Well, at least he knew of Duchamp. The artist who had given up his art to play chess. How Russian that was, he thought.

  At another section in the book, he stopped and stared at the names. Tatlin, Goncharova, Malevich, El Lissitzky, Popova, Vesnin. They were Russians and again he had never heard of them, had never before seen their work. Why? Had they been traitors? Anti-Soviets? His mind whirled with sudden thoughts. Even if they had been traitors, their work was wonderful, and did it not belong to the Russian people? There but for the grace of The Party could have been me. But only if I lived somewhere else, if I was somebody else.

  He was stunned by his own thoughts but forced his fingers to continue turning the pages. He stopped again when he saw a drawing of a machine that had a large fan, like the ones that cooled the engines of the ZIL limousines. Underneath two of the horizontal fan blades were penned the words: “A L’Ombre D’Un Boche.” The artist was Francis Picabia. The folio had many more drawing by Picabia and Kozhevnikov was enamoured by them, as well. Was the artist also a comrade, an anti-fascist? Kozhevnikov suddenly realized that he didn’t care. Francis Picabia was such a beautiful name. Every fiber of his being now wanted to make it his and he closed the book. He stood there, silently mouthing “I am Francis Picabia” over and over, until he knew that he must make it true, go far, far away, as far away from Moscow as possible, to the mountains of Peru, maybe the beaches of Mexico. Change his name to Picabia and change his life. He could draw, only technical drawing to be correct, but perhaps he could also become an artist, really become Picabia.

  The narrow aisle between the stacks was lit by a dim solitary fluorescent bulb hanging from the ceiling. It flickered like a candle, casting strange shadows over the rows of books. It was quiet as he stood there, head bowed, clutching the folio as if it were the Bible, silently mouthing his litany like one of the reactionary Orthodox prayers that he had heard his grandmother say. The only sound was the occasional soft scrape of the chair in the front of the store.

  A creak of the floorboards interrupted his concentration and he raised his head. At the back of the shop, near the end of the aisle, there was a small, humped mass. The Quiet Man had arrived early and was holding the James Joyce book in his hand. It was safe to approach. So why wait for the appointed time? Still clutching the folio, Kozhevnikov eased down the aisle. When he reached the Quiet Man, he touched his shoulder and announced, “Hello.”

  His contact turned and smiled. The smile disappeared when he saw the shock on Kozhevnikov’s face.

  “I’m sorry,” Kozhevnikov stammered at the strange face. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “I am Picabia,” the man announced.

  “No, you cannot be,” Kozhevnikov said. “I am Picabia. I am Picabia. I must be Picabia! I will become Picabia,” he was shouting now, angry at this little man trying to steal his new identity. “And I will live in the mountains of Peru! Or live on the beach in Mexico!”

  The chair in the front of the shop scraped against the floor again; this time loudly, with a sense of urgency. He could hear the patter of feet on the creaking floorboards and the old woman’s breath on his neck.

  “Don’t touch me, I am Picabia!” he shouted again. Then he shoved the not-Picabia with both of his hands. The man did not move. He shoved him again but he still stood his ground in the narrow aisle. Everything was whirling in his mind, it was going all wrong. He kept shoving the man but the man would not move.

  He suddenly felt a hand seize his shoulder and shake it. A soft hand, cool like the one the blond woman in the café had touched him with.

  “Filip! Wake up, wake up!”

  Why was she so rude? He opened his eyes and looked around. He was at his desk and Iliana the typist was staring at him with her silly cow eyes.

  “Are you feeling ill?”

  Before he could answer, he saw Grubkin hurrying toward them.

  “What is going on?” Grubkin asked.

  Kozhevnikov could only stammer out, “I … I don’t know what happened.”

  Grubkin turned to Iliana. “Well, comrade?”

  “I heard him yelling and when I came over to his desk, I saw that he was asleep and I shook him awake. That is all.”

  “That is not all, comrade. What was he yelling?”

  “Something about he was Picabia, not somebody else. Or was it?” She was suddenly confused.