Then I lifted the camera. From below, through the lit windows, I could see the lines where the walls hit the ceiling. I could see the top cabinets in the kitchen, the still fan in the bedroom. Then I saw the girl come to the window. There was her head, and the tops of her shoulders. Then she lifted one hand.
For a moment, it almost seemed as if she were waving. As if she’d seen me, and was signaling to me from the window, just as she’d signaled to him at the station.
But she wasn’t moving. She’d only lifted that hand. She was standing like a conductor does, in the moment before the music gets started, with his hand lifted and his thumb and forefinger drawn together, as if holding a bead.
Then I realized she was drawing the shades. She had the cord pinched in her hand, and in that instant I could see her pretty well. She was looking straight toward me, as if she could see me. Then, with a quick tug, she drew down the shades. Then the lights went out altogether.
I checked my watch. It was 11:05.
Then the apartment seemed to have been abandoned completely. I had to remind myself that Opp and the girl were still there, even though I couldn’t see them. It was then, when I was suddenly alone, that I noticed the leaves hanging around me. They were thick and lacquered, dark green and shaped like canoes. Their undersides were lightly furred. Their spines were the color of rust.
LATER, WHEN I’D BEEN REASSIGNED, I THOUGHT OF THAT GIRL EVERY time I saw one of those trees, which are somewhat uncommon in San Francisco. But still, I’d sometimes see one. And as soon as I caught a glimpse of those leaves, I’d remember that scent: dusty and a little bit sweet. Then I’d think of that girl, driving up Montgomery Street in her green Plymouth. I’d see the way she stepped out of the driver’s-side door and walked briskly up to her building.
At the entrance, it always took her a minute to find the right key. And she was almost always alone, at least in those months after Opp went back to the mesa. All that time I tailed her, he never came back. By then, I imagine, he knew he couldn’t pull off such a dumb stunt.
He knew he’d screwed up. Security on the mesa let him know pretty quick. From that point on, he understood he had to be more security minded. There were leaks on the mesa. We’d caught him in a lie. He had to prove we could trust him.
So we’d gotten him to start giving names of people who might be suspicious. He was reluctant, of course, and agonized about the whole thing, but then we’d remind him of that stupid trick, and he didn’t want to lose his position. Maybe he also didn’t want his wife to find out. So he gave a few names, and he didn’t risk another trip back to the city.
That was all for the best. Time was ticking out on those weapons. He needed to stay there and focus.
But still. There were nights when I almost wanted him to try it again. Waiting under that tree, outside the girl’s windows, I almost wished he’d drive up in a cab. Leap out, run up to her building.
But he never came. After he kissed her cheek on the sidewalk outside the airport, she walked back to the Plymouth. He headed through the glass doors into the airport. And after that he never came back.
Those months after he left, she started working later at the hospital. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it wasn’t. Most nights, she headed straight home after work.
That was the basic routine, though sometimes there were slight variations. Once or twice, she had a friend over to the apartment. A few times she went to a bar in the city. Sometimes, after work, she headed to the grocery store. But eventually she always ended up driving back home, climbing that hill in her Plymouth, then walking toward the front door of her building.
When she looked for the right key, she bent her neck and frowned deeply. And every night, once the door closed behind her, I waited for the lights to come on with that same uncertainty, as if she might have gotten lost on the staircase. Or as if I’d allowed her to escape on my watch.
I always breathed a sigh of relief when the lights came on in her windows. I learned to see her shadow on the living room wall. I learned to differentiate the light she turned on when she walked in and the colder light of the refrigerator spreading out through the kitchen.
Outside, standing under that tree, I wondered what she was doing. Had she poured herself a drink before bed? Had she cooked herself something simple to eat? How did she pass those final hours before she lay down for the evening?
And, when she did lie down, did she rest her head on the pillow knowing I was standing outside, looking up at her window?
Maybe she had an inkling. Maybe it unsettled her. Or maybe it made her feel less alone, as if there were someone looking out for her while she slept.
That’s what I tried to believe. I didn’t think she was the leak, even though Pash was convinced. By then, we had her phone tapped. We steamed open her letters. But all those months, Opp didn’t contact her again. She didn’t meet with any Communists, or any of his friends and former students who showed up on our list of suspects.
Most mornings, like I’ve said, she just reported to the hospital. All day, she met with her patients. At night she drove back up the hill. Following her in her routine, it was easy to forget that there was a war on.
Sometimes, a lamp came on around three in the morning. Then, after a while, she’d come to the window to smoke. She’d sit on the ledge. All I could see in the darkness was the light at the tip of her cigarette, flaring orange, then fading. Sometimes I was sure that she saw me. I convinced myself we were watching each other. Both of us waiting to say the first word. Both of us poised on that ledge, prepared for something we had a feeling was coming but couldn’t quite comprehend yet.
When that plane passed overhead, flying so slowly it seemed impossible that it wouldn’t just fall out of the night, I was sure that she saw it, too. I was sure she felt the same fear.
But in the end I had no idea. I had no clue what she was thinking when she came to the window to smoke. She and I never once exchanged words.
Once, on a Saturday, I found a book she left on a park bench. It opened up to a poem by Donne. I read it a few times, trying to make out the sense of the words, as if they were a message she’d left me.
But I can’t say I understood it. It was a strange, violent poem. I left the book on the bench, adhering to Pash’s directives, and as far as I know, she never went back to get it.
THE ONLY REAL INTERACTION WE HAD WAS THAT NIGHT IN NOVEMBER, when she came out of the grocery store. She had three oranges in one hand, a yellow pad in the other, and a bottle of wine under her elbow.
She’d parked the Plymouth out front. At the driver’s-side door, she tucked the oranges into the crook of her elbow, where she was also holding the wine. Then, with her head down, she fumbled in her pocketbook for the car keys.
I’d ducked into the store when she came out, but even through the fake banana leaves in the window display, I could see that she was struggling. I knew she hadn’t slept much the previous night. That morning, on her way out to the car, I’d seen thumbprints under her eyes.
Now she was trying to accomplish too much, standing there by the door of her car, with the wine and the oranges under her elbow. She was clumsily fumbling around when, for no reason, in a weird and inexplicable act of aggression, the keys she’d been searching for leaped out of her purse.
There was a flash of silver, like a fish jumping out of the water.
Then, with a dexterity that surprised me, she reached out and caught them. But doing that, of course, she dropped the oranges and the wine. The bottle shattered. The oranges started rolling away, and without thinking, I ran out of the store and started darting around, picking them up.