Momentarily oblivious to his surroundings, Craig became aware that he had found the real motive for personal action. He reasoned the motive further; Walther, father, had come back into Emily’s life as Walther, stranger. The accident of blood did not necessarily establish the sire. Rather, closeness and love and responsibility and sacrifice made the sire. By this standard, Max Stratman, not Walther Stratman, was Emily’s male parent. If Max were snatched from her now, she would be condemned to life servitude with an utter stranger. Since she would not have Craig, and could not have Max, she would have no one but herself-and this self could not survive alone. For Emily, this emptiness would be the deeper death before dying.
Standing in the entry hall, thinking, Craig was vaguely dissatisfied and wanted to rationalize his action further. There was also, he told himself, the matter of the greater good: Walther was an unknown quantity, whereas the free world needed Max, dared not lose him. Ergo: reject Walther to save Max and Emily. Ergo: find Walther, and convince him that he should go back voluntarily to where he came from. If Walther truly loved Emily-more, if he was concerned with the future freedom of mankind-he would be persuaded.
But the pretentiousness and unfairness of this determination nagged at Craig. He tried to dismiss it, yet it was there, persistently begging a hearing. Reluctantly, Craig gave the defence its kangaroo hearing. Yes, in an ancient time, Walther had played Sydney Carton to his brother Max’s Charles Darnay. Yes, Walther had suffered a long slavery under a system he abhorred, and deserved parole at any cost. Yes, Walther should be freed to enjoy his last years. That was justice. Nevertheless, for once, Craig looked upon justice as the baser choice. His emotions clung to the original impulse, go back, Walther.
Craig’s quest was now clear. If he failed in it-failed to find Walther or, finding him, failed to convince him-there would be time enough to return to Max without imperilling Eckart’s deal. The consequences of failure were automatic. He would have to return to this room and tell Max Stratman the truth and let him do what would have to be done. Max Stratman would offer himself to the exchange at once. He would offer himself because of brother love and Emily love and, most compelling of all, because of the old swollen guilt. He would do so, without second thought, if Craig returned helpless in an hour and three-quarters, and he would do so this moment, if Craig marched into his bedroom and woke him with Eckart’s news. But not yet. Craig’s passionate need for Emily, for her safety and her peace of mind and what he now knew was right for her, shook him. He was animated into action.
Pocketing the anonymous typewritten note, he hid the miniature tape recorder in the entry hall cupboard. Then, taking his pen, he added a thoughtful postscript to Max Stratman’s note left for his niece: ‘Have taken Emily out on the town. We’ll meet you at Concert Hall. Best, Craig.’ Now he lifted the receiver of the telephone and spoke to the operator. Did she have a number for one Nicholas Daranyi? He waited restlessly, and then the operator reported that there was no listing of any Daranyi in Stockholm.
Craig hung up, and promptly his mind went to Lilly. At this hour, she would be in the Nordiska Kompaniet. He would find her, and through her find Daranyi. It was the best that he could do, he told himself helplessly.
Swiftly, he strode out of the Stratman suite, hastened through the corridor, and rode the elevator down to the lobby.
The lobby was, as ever, crowded. Craig pushed through the circle of people trying to enter the elevator, jostled against the Marceaus, with no time to murmur a civil apology, and started towards the stairs leading to the revolving door and the outside.
As he reached the topmost step, he thought that he heard his name. He turned, and heard the stentorian voice again. ‘Craig.’
It was Gunnar Gottling, in his eccentric fur cap and mangy coat, his bloodshot eyes and drooping bushes of moustache, not this time hiding his outgoing affection, tramping towards Craig. ‘You old son of a bitch,’ he was bellowing, ‘I was just ringing your room. I wanted to tell you I reread all those crappy books of yours the last couple days and-’
Craig cut in. ‘Gottling, I’ve got no time for tea talk today. There’s trouble, and I-’
‘What trouble you in?’ Gottling’s face and manner had taken on the protective ferocity of a giant grizzly bear-U. horribilis-and there was no avoiding him. ‘You look pale as a spectre, and you look sore as hell. What’s eating you? Tell Gottling.’
Craig became aware that Gottling’s voice carried, and many eyes were on them. He lowered his own voice. ‘I’m not in trouble. Someone else is-and it’s a matter of life and death-so-’
He started to go, when Gottling clamped his arm. ‘I am here to help, Craig. What can I do?’
Craig had started to say to Gottling that there was nothing he or anyone could do, and then, at once, he realized that Gottling could be of help. This was his city, this Stockholm, and he was a part of the best and the worst of it, and he was fearless. The question was his dependability.
‘How much can I trust you?’ asked Craig.
‘Cut that crap,’ said Gottling angrily. ‘I won’t fall in front of any trains for you-but I’ll go damn far. What’s your trouble? Abortion, blackmail, somebody’s arm you want to break? Just say it. Since that night in the Wärdshus, I got to thinking-that tall drink of water isn’t such a bad-’
‘Have you got your car with you?’
‘You bet your ass.’
‘I’ve got some mighty important calls to make, and I haven’t got much time.’
‘Hop in,’ said Gottling.
And he thundered down the stairs after Craig, and through the spinning door behind him, and then caught up and pointed off to his compact Volvo station-wagon alongside the quay. Craig had forgotten his overcoat, but the last of the setting sun was still visible, and the air was only slightly chilled.
They trudged through the low-packed snow, and Craig began to speak of what had happened and was happening in a sort of oral shorthand. With brevity, he filled Gottling in on his relationship with Emily Stratman.
Once inside the station-wagon, Gottling looked at him questioningly.
‘Just a few blocks for the first stop,’ said Craig. ‘Nordiska Kompaniet.’
Gottling started the car, and crouched over the wheel in his near-sighted way, as Craig picked up his story. He related all he knew of Emily’s tardiness which became absence, of his visit to her room, the typewritten sheet, and then he recited what he had heard on the miniature tape machine, feeling better to know that another shared the facts, should anything happen to him.
When he had finished, Gottling belched across the wheel, and cursed classically. ‘Those friggin’ Commies,’ he said.
‘We don’t know-’
‘The hell we don’t,’ said Gottling. ‘Who wants the old man in East Berlin, anyway? Those little Prussky puppets? They’re go-betweens. It’s the big boys who want Stratman on their side. Goddammit, Craig, don’t you ever read the papers any more? Every other week some fag Englishman or little American with goggles turns up in Moscow and says peace it’s wonderful, and hands them a briefcase of discoveries. Do you think all the defectors do it just for love and money? Well, maybe most, because their heads are screwed on backwards, but dollars to doughnuts, every tenth man is blackmailed into crossing the line-they’re holding a relative or somebody-and the poor bastard scientist or diplomat-what can he do?’ They were on Hamngatan, and he swung the Volvo to the kerb. ‘Here’s your N.K. What gives here?’
Craig opened the door. Then, one foot still on the floorboard, and the other on the kerb, he explained, in rapid-fire sentences, about Lilly Hedqvist and Nicholas Daranyi and himself.