“Thank you. Why do you deliberately remind me?”
“Maybe because we both were there. Italy. A few years back.”
“I see. And you feel that I should be reminded of Italy a few years back?”
He broke a piece of rye bread into thirds, buttered a section thinly, and handed it to her. Her eyes never left his face. “Maybe I feel we were members of the same dub.”
This time there was no hesitation at all. “Scarcely an exclusive one.”
“Some branches of it were.”
Her glance dropped to her plate, and she began to eat, and Johnny retired again behind her chair. She spoke after a moment without looking around. “What is your name? Your surname?”
“Killain.”
“You're not French, then?”
“No. Your name's Muller, but you're not German.”
Her head came up, and she stared across the room. “A married woman changes her name.”
“Your maiden name could've been Muller, too, but that wouldn't make you German, either.”
“So it seems I am not German.” She pushed a square of meat absently about her plate with her fork, then speared it purposefully. “My beef is getting cold.”
She completed her meal in silence, and when she had finished he removed her dishes, scraped off the table crumbs, and poured her coffee. She extracted a cigarette from a tiny metallic case, and he lighted it for her. He made a one load trip with her dishes to the oven where he stacked them neatly, and then returned to his position behind her chair. She motioned him forward with a wave of the cigarette. “Come around here where I can see you. And stop standing at attention like that. Sit down.”
Johnny sat on the chair beside the bed, and she studied him, the tired eyes shadowed in the worn face. She pointed the cigarette at him. “There must be a reason for the diligence with which you extract information without ever asking a direct question?” She inspected his silence gravely, and when she resumed her voice was level and calm. “At my age one does not blithely discard small favors, small comforts. Not out of hand, at least. Since your advent I have eaten much better, but unless you can convince me that there is an essential point to this cat-and-mouse business into which we seem to be drifting, I shall have to forego these meals in your company.”
Smoke drifted up from her cigarette in a long, wavering line as she again studied his continued silence, and her tone was puzzled when she continued. “I believe that I sense in your attitude an aura of concern, of protectiveness. If I am correct in this assumption I think that you had better explain yourself.”
Johnny's voice was hard and abrupt. “You're in trouble.”
She stiffened, then shook her head slowly and put down her cigarette with a sigh. “I'm sorry. I have to say-”
“That it's none of my business.”
“-that you are presumptuous to an egomaniacal degree, certainly-“ She reached for the cigarette again and stubbed it out decisively. “I think that you should leave now.”
Johnny rose from his chair, removed her cup and saucer, dumped and cleaned her ash try and replaced it, and folded her tablecloth and placed it on the card table. He made all his movements deliberate in the hope of provoking her to further speech, but he was halfway to the door before she spoke again from her frowning concentration. “I am a complete stranger to you. Even if I were in trouble, why should you be interested, let alone concerned?”
He spoke shortly, over his shoulder. “I'm the elected godparent of all the stray cats in the neighborhood.”
He was surprised to hear her laugh. “Self-elected, I'm sure.”
When he turned she was still smiling. She had removed another cigarette from her case and was tapping it on the back of her wrist reflectively. “There is an unkind name for such as you, young man, and yet I feel that no un-kindness is meant. Come back here and sit down. I see that we shall have to bring this to a conclusion.” He paused on the way to light her cigarette, and when he had re-seated himself her eyes resumed their steady contemplation of him. “Now.” She spoke deliberately. “I am not in trouble. Is that clear?”
“No.”
“Attend me. I am not in trouble.”
“That's not the truth.”
“I don't like the implications of such an assertion.”
“Regardless-” Johnny swept an arm in an exasperated semicircle. “Your being here like this-”
“The circumstances of my being here need not concern you. Kindly remember that.”
“You're in trouble,” he said stubbornly.
“You will of course have to permit me to be the judge of that.” Again the cigarette pointed at his silence. “Why? Why this persistence? This solicitude?”
“I just got a feelin' you're my kind of people, that's all.”
“Listen to me a moment.” Her smile was pleasant but firm. “You're not a gentleman, but I would think a man in the better sense of the word. I want you to believe that I am in no more trouble than I have been at any time in the past ten years, let us say, and your help or offer of help is not indicated or requested. I have over-indulged myself in talking to you, because I have been lonely. You are more perceptive… yes, and more sensitive than I might reasonably have expected, and I have said more than I should at times. You have somehow succeeded in dredging up things I had thought more deeply submerged, but all this has got to stop. Now.” She waited, but Johnny sat motionless. “I will ask you one question, and then we will have an end to all this foolishness. What were you doing in Italy?” Johnny grinned at her. “Runnin' errands.” “For whom?”
He shrugged. “People with more brains 'n me. Seemed to be a lot of 'em.”
“What exactly were you doing?” “Is this a one-way street, ma'am? Are we tradin'?” She bit her lip. “Everything I pursue with you… this is all so foolish, all these little words about another time and another life-” Johnny outwaited her hesitation. “All right. And then once and for all, it is finished. There will be no further discussion, or probing. Is it understood?” “You might bring it up yourself.” “Don't trouble yourself with the possibility. Now what were you doing in Italy?”
It was his turn to hesitate. “I was along to shore up the timbers on a few undercover operations.”
She nodded matter-of-factly. “Placing you in a little different perspective, it becomes almost obvious. One has only to look at you bursting in all directions from that ridiculous uniform. I take it that you were not a man of peace, and that since you sit here now in appearance reasonably intact that you had the necessary qualifications to be a successful man of violence.”
“Includin' the attitude.”
Her hands had knitted themselves tightly together on the table, fingers interlaced. “It is important. I myself lacked it. And for whom did you commit these successful violences?”
“Originally for an unpublicized branch of U.S. Intelligence.”
She stared down at her hands. “I am… was Viennese. I had lived in Italy for years, although not recently at that time. I was recruited by a group in France to go back, for a purpose. I had a minor success or two, and then my purpose was discovered. I had no reason to expect differently, I suppose, but they treated me-well, despicably. I found that I was not so tough-fibred as I had imagined. I had a great deal of difficulty in re-orienting myself afterward.”
“Afterward?”
“After I was liberated.”
“And now?”
Her lips firmed. “We will not speak of now. We will not speak of Italy again. It has bad memories for me, and thinking of it or talking about it is not good for me. And now I am sure I must be keeping you from your duties.” She rose, and Johnny reluctantly followed suit. She held the door for him as he rolled the wagon out into the corridor, and then it closed quietly behind him.
He turned to stare thoughtfully at the impassive door panel. “Killain, you accident of nature,” he accused himself. “That's a lady in there. Not a woman, or a female, or a broad, or a twist, or a frail, or a skirt. A lady.” He pushed the silently moving oven down the corridor and around to the push-button means of descent.