Smith laughed. “You also said I would not be asked anything designed to humiliate me or to put me in a disgraceful light—but have it your way.”

  “I was visiting Europe last year,” said Smith, “and I’ll put the location and date no closer than that. I was a recent widower, a little lost without my wife, and rather determined to pick up the threads of life once again. I had not been much of a traveller before my retirement and I was anxious to make up for that.

  “I travelled alone and I was a tourist. Nothing more than that. I want to stress that in all truthfulness. I was not serving any organ of the government—and that’s true of any government, not just my own—either officially or unofficially. Nor was I there to gather information for any private organization. I was a tourist and nothing more and so steeped in innocence that I suppose it was too much to expect that I not get into trouble.

  “I could not speak the language of the country but that didn’t bother me. I can’t speak any language but English and I have the usual provincial American attitude that that’s enough. There would always be someone, anywhere I might be, who would speak and understand English.—And as a matter of fact, that always proved to be correct.

  “The hotel I stayed at was reasonably comfortable in appearance, though there was so foreign an aura about it that I knew I would not feel at home—but then I didn’t expect to feel at home. I couldn’t even pronounce its name, though that didn’t bother me.

  “I only stayed long enough to deposit my luggage and then it was ho, for the great foreign spaces where I could get to know the people.

  “The man at the desk—the concierge, or whatever he might be called—spoke an odd version of English that, with a little thought, could be understood. I got a list of tourist attractions from him, some recommended restaurants, a stylized map of the city (not in English, so I doubted it would do me much good), and some general assertions as to how safe the city was and how friendly the inhabitants.

  “I imagine Europeans are always eager to impress that on Americans, who are known to live dangerously. In the nineteenth century they thought every American city lay under imminent threat of Indian massacre; in the first half of the twentieth century, every one was full of Chicago gangsters; and now they are all full of indiscriminate muggers. So I wandered off into the city cheerfully.”

  “Alone? Without knowing the language?” said Avalon, with manifest disapproval. “What time was it?”

  “The shades of evening were being drawn downward by a cosmic hand and you’re right in the implication, Mr. Avalon. Cities are never as safe as their boosters claim, and I found that out. But I started off cheerfully enough. The world was full of poetry and I was enjoying myself.

  “There were signs of all kinds on buildings and in store windows that were beginning to be lit up in defense against the night. Since I could read none of them, I was spared their deadly prosiness.

  “The people were friendly. I would smile and they would smile in return. Many said something—I presume in greeting—and I would smile again and nod and wave. It was a beautiful, mild evening and I was absolutely euphoric.

  “I don’t know how long I was walking or how far I had gone before I was quite convinced that I was lost, but even that didn’t bother me. I stepped into a tavern to ask my way to the restaurant where I had determined to go and whose name I had painstakingly memorized. I called out the name of the restaurant, and pointed vaguely in various directions and shrugged my shoulders and tried to indicate that I had lost my way. Several gathered around and one of them asked in adequate English if I was an American. I said I was and he translated that jubilantly to the others, who seemed delighted.

  “He said, ‘We don’t see many Americans here.’ They then fell to studying my clothes and the cut of my hair and asking where I was from and trying to pronounce ‘Fairfield’ and offering to stand me drinks. I sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ because they seemed to expect it and it was a real love feast. I did have a drink on an empty stomach and after that things got even love-feastier.

  “They told me the restaurant I asked for was very expensive, and not very good, and that I should eat right there and they would order for me and it would be on the house. It was hands across the sea and building bridges, you know, and I doubt if I had ever been happier since before Regina had died. I had another drink or two.

  “And then after that my memory stops until I found myself out in the street again. It was quite dark, much cooler. There were almost no people about, I had no idea where I was, and every idea that I had a splitting headache.

  “I sat down in a doorway and knew, even before I felt for it, that my wallet was gone. So was my wristwatch, my pens—In fact, my trousers pockets were empty and so were my jacket pockets. I had been Mickey Finned and rolled by my dear friends across the sea and they had probably taken me by car to a distant part of the city and dumped me.

  “The money taken was not terribly vital. My main supply was safely back in the hotel. Still I had no money at the moment, I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t remember the name of the hotel, I felt woozy, sick, and in pain—and I needed help.

  “I looked for a policeman or for anyone in anything that looked like a uniform. If I had found a street cleaner, or a bus conductor, he could direct me or, better, take me to a police station.

  “I found a policeman. Actually, it wasn’t difficult. They are, I imagine, numerous and deliberately visible in that particular city. And I was then taken to a police station—in the equivalent of a paddy wagon, I think. My memory has its hazy spots.

  “When I begin to remember a bit more clearly, I was sitting on a bench in what I guessed to be the police station. No one was paying much attention to me and my headache was a little better.

  “A rather short man with a large mustache entered, engaged in conversation with a man behind a massive desk, then approached me. He seemed rather indifferent, but to my relief he spoke English and quite well, too, though he had a disconcertingly British accent.

  “I followed him into a rather dingy room, gray and depressing, and there the questioning began. It was the questioning that was the nightmare, though the questioner remained unfailingly, if distantly, polite. He told me his name but I don’t remember it. I honestly don’t. It began with a V, so I’ll just call him ‘Vee’ if I have to.

  “He said, ‘You say your name is John Smith.’

  “‘Yes.’

  “He didn’t exactly smile. He said, ‘It is a very common name in the United States and, I understand, is frequently assumed by those who wish to avoid investigation.’

  “‘It is frequently assumed because it is common,’ I said, ‘and since it is common, why shouldn’t I be one of the hundreds of thousands who bear it?’

  “‘You have identification?’

  “‘I’ve been robbed. I’ve come in to complain—’

  “Vee raised his hand and made hushing noises through his mustache. ‘Your complaint has been recorded, but I have nothing to do with the people here. They merely made sure you were not wounded and then sent for me. They have not searched you or questioned you. It is not their job. Now—do you have identification?’

  “Wearily, and quietly, I told him what had happened.

  “‘Then,’ he said, ‘you have nothing with which to support your statement that you are John Smith of Fairfield, Connecticut?’

  “‘Who else should I be?’

  “‘That we would like to find out. You say you were mistreated in a tavern. Its location, please.’

  “‘I don’t know.’

  “‘Its name?’

  “‘I don’t know.’

  “‘What were you doing there?’

  “‘I told you. I was merely walking through the city—’

  “‘Alone?’

  “‘Yes, alone. I told you.’

  “‘Your starting point?’

  “‘My hotel.’

  “‘And you have identification there?’

  “‘Certainly. My passport is there and all my belongings.’

  “‘The name of the hotel?’

  “I winced at that. Even to myself my answer would seem too much to accept. ‘I can’t recall,’ I said in a low voice.

  “‘Its location?’

  “‘I don’t know.’

  “Vee sighed. He looked at me in a nearsighted way and I thought his eyes seemed sad, but perhaps it was only myopia.

  “He said, ‘The basic question is: What is your name? We must have some identification or this becomes a serious matter. Let me explain your position to you, Mr. Blank. Nothing compels me to do so, but I am not in love with every aspect of my work and I shall sleep better if I make sure you understand that you are in great danger.’

  “My heart began to race. I am not young. I am not a hero. I am not brave. I said, ‘But why? I am a wronged person. I have been drugged and robbed. I came voluntarily to the police, sick and lost, looking for help—’

  “Again, Vee held up his hand, ‘Quietly! Quietly! Some speak a little English here and it is better we keep this between ourselves for now. Things may be as you have described, or they may not. You are an American national. My government has cause to fear Americans. That, at least, is our official position. We are expecting an American agent of great ability to penetrate our borders on a most dangerous mission.’

  “‘That means that any strange American—any American encountered under suspicious circumstances—has, for a week now, been referred instantly to my department. Your circumstances were suspicious to begin with and have grown far more suspicious now that I have questioned you.’

  “I stared at him in horror. ‘Do you think I’m a spy? If I were, would I come to the police like this?’

  “‘You may not be the spy, but you may still be a spy. There are people who will think so at once. Even I view it as a possibility.’

  “‘But no kind of spy would come to the police—’

  “‘Please! It will do you good to listen. You may be a distraction. If you play chess, you will know what I mean when I say you may be a sacrifice. You are sent in to confuse and distract us, occupying our time and efforts, while the real work is done elsewhere.’

  “I said, ‘But it hasn’t worked, if that’s what I’m supposed to be. You’re not confused and distracted. No one could be fooled by anything as silly as this. It’s not a reasonable sacrifice and so it’s no sacrifice at all. It’s nothing but the truth I’ve been telling you.’

  “Vee sighed. ‘Then what’s your name?’

  “‘John Smith. Ask me a million times and it will stay my name.’

  “‘But you can’t prove it.—See here,’ he said, ‘you have two alternatives. One is to convince me in some reasonable way that you are telling the truth. Mere statements, however eloquent, are insufficient. There must be evidence. Have you nothing with your name on it? Nothing material you can show me?’

  “‘I told you,’ I said, despairingly. ‘I’ve been robbed.’

  “‘Failing that,’ he said, as though he hadn’t heard my remark, ‘it will be assumed you are here to fulfill some function for your country that will not be to the interest of my country, and you will be interrogated with that in mind. It will not be my job, I am glad to say, but those who interrogate will be most thorough and most patient. I wish it were not so, but where national security is at stake—’

  “I was in utter panic. I said, stuttering, ‘But I can’t tell what I don’t know, no matter how you interrogate.’

  “‘If so, they will finally be convinced, but you will not be well off by then. And you will be imprisoned, for it will not then be politic to let you go free in your condition. If your country succeeds in what it may be attempting, there will be anger in this country and you will surely be the victim of that and will receive a long sentence. Your country will not be able to intercede for you. It will not even try.’

  “I screamed. ‘That is unjust! That is unjust!’

  “‘Life is unjust,’ said Vee, sadly. ‘Your own President Kennedy said that.’

  “‘But what am I to do?’ I babbled.

  “He said, ‘Convince me your story is true. Show me something! Remember something! Prove your name is John Smith. Take me to the tavern; better yet to the hotel. Present me with your passport. Give me anything, however small, as a beginning, and I will have sufficient faith in you to try for the rest—at some risk to myself, I might add.’

  “‘I appreciate that, but I cannot. I am helpless. I cannot.’ I was babbling. All I could think of was that I was facing torture and an extended prison term for the crime of having been drugged and robbed. It was more than I could bear and I fainted. I’m sorry. It is not a heroic action, but I told you I wasn’t a hero.”

  Halsted said, “You don’t know what they had put in your drink in the tavern. You were half-poisoned. You weren’t yourself.”

  “It’s kind of you to say so, but the prospect of torture and imprisonment for nothing was not something I could have faced with stoicism on my best day.

  “The next memory I have is that of lying on a bed with a vague feeling of having been manhandled. I think some of my clothing may have been removed.

  “Vee was watching me with the same expression of sadness on his face. He said, ‘I’m sorry. Would you care for some brandy?’

  “I remembered. The nightmare was back. I shook my head. All I wanted was to convince him of my utter innocence somehow. I said, ‘Listen! You must believe me. Every word I have told you is true! I—’

  “He placed his hand on my shoulder and shook it. ‘Stop! I believe you!’

  “I stared at him stupidly, ‘What!’

  “He said, ‘I believe you. For one thing, no one who was sent on a task such as yours might have been, could have portrayed utter terror so convincingly, in my opinion. But that is only my opinion. It would not have convinced my superiors and I could not have acted on it. However, no one could be as stupid as you have now proved to be without having been sufficiently stupid to step into a strange tavern so confidingly and to have forgotten the name of your hotel.’

  “‘But I don’t understand.’

  “‘Enough! I have wasted enough time. I should, properly, now leave you to the police, but I do not wish to abandon you just yet. For the tavern and the thieves within, I can do nothing now. Perhaps another time after another complaint. Let us, however, find your hotel. Tell me anything you remember—the decor—the position of the registration desk—the hair color of the man behind it—were there flowers? Come, come, Mr. Smith, what kind of street was it on? Were there shops? Was there a doorman? Anything?’

  “I wondered if it were a scheme to trap me into something, but I saw no alternative but to try to answer the questions. I tried to picture everything as it had been when I had walked into the hotel for the first time less than twelve hours before. I did my best to describe and he hurried me on impatiently, asking questions faster than I could answer.

  “He then looked at the hurried notes he had taken and whispered them to another official of some sort, who was on the spot without my having seen him enter—a hotel expert, perhaps. The newcomer nodded his head wisely and whispered back.

  “Vee said, ‘Very well, then. We think we know what hotel it was, so let us go. The faster I locate your passport, the better all around.’

  “Off we went in an official car. I sat there, fearful and apprehensive, fearing that it was a device to break my spirit by offering me hope only to smash it by taking me to prison instead. God knows my spirit needed no breaking.—Or what if they took me to a hotel, and it was the wrong one, would they then listen to anything at all that I had to say?

  “We did speed to a hotel, however. I shrugged helplessly when Vee asked if it was the hotel. How could I tell in pitch-darkness? And I feared committing myself to what would turn out to be a mistake.

  “But it was the correct hotel. The night man behind the desk didn’t know me, of course, but there was the record of a room for a John Smith of Fairfield. We went up there and behold—my luggage, my passport, my papers. Quite enough.

  “Vee shook hands with me and said, in a low voice, ‘A word of advice, Mr. Smith. Get out of the country quickly. I shall make my report and exonerate you, but if things go wrong in some ways, someone may decide you should be picked up again. You will be better off beyond the borders.’

  “I thanked him and never took anyone’s advice so eagerly in all my life. I checked out of the hotel, grabbed a taxi to the nearest station, and I don’t think I breathed till I crossed the border.

  “To this day, I don’t know what it was all about—whether the United States really had an espionage project under way in that country at that time or whether, if we did, we succeeded or failed. As I said, some official asked me to keep quiet about the whole thing, so I suppose the suspicions of Vee’s government were more or less justified.

  “In any case, I never plan to go back to that particular country.”

  Avalon said, “You were fortunate, Mr. Smith. I see what you mean when you said you were puzzled by the ending. Vee, as you call him, did make a sudden about-face, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t think so,” interposed Gonzalo. “I think he was sympathetic to you all along, Mr. Smith. When you passed out, he called some superior, convinced him you were just a poor jerk in trouble, and then let you go.”

  “It might be,” said Drake, “that it was your fainting that convinced him. If you were actually an agent, you would know the dangers you ran, and you would be more or less steeled for them. In fact, he said so, didn’t he? He said you couldn’t fake fear so convincingly and you therefore had to be what you said you were—or something like that.”

  Rubin said, “If you’ve told the story accurately, Mr. Smith, I would think that Vee is out of sympathy with the regime or he wouldn’t have urged you to get out of the country as he did. I should think he stands a good chance of being purged, or has been since that time.”

  Trumbull said, “I hate to agree with you, Manny, but I do. My guess is that Vee’s failure to hang on to Smith may have been the last straw.”