Tours of the Black Clock

79

IN THE MERE MOMENTS since the broadcast the streets have filled with people, shouting and cheering and embracing that the war in Europe is over. Some wonder out loud whether the Germans will now declare war on America. I run the whole way to Megan and Courtney, dodging revelers and honking cars, civil guards posted on the corners who are hailed as though they just got back from England in the last five minutes. On the quays of the Wien-Fluss small victory parades are taking place spontaneously. From Megan’s street I can see the light in our flat, it seems a silent light in the middle of the din.

I run up the stairs, every flight. At the top the door stands ajar and I know something’s wrong.

All the lights are on, everything’s in its place. I go from room to room; I don’t call her name but say it normally, just to confirm to myself it won’t be answered: Megan. It isn’t answered. There’s no sign of Courtney.

I’m thinking, It’s such a hot night, and there’s much ruckus in the street; they went out. I think it but I know it isn’t so. I sit in the flat ten, fifteen, twenty minutes that ache in their passage. I look up finally to see one of the neighbors in the doorway, an old man from the flat below. He darts away. By the time I’ve chased him downstairs he’s got his room closed and locked; I bang on the door for him to open. I’m shaking it by the knob and about to rip it off the wall when the neighbor across the hall protests.

“What’s happened to my family,” I say.

“Soldiers,” she says.

I go back down into the street. People are running up and down the sidewalks swilling beer and shouting. On the other side is a man I know is a spy. I’ve never seen him before but I know because he looks like every other spy who’s tailed me over the last five years. I walk across the street to him. Like all these other very subtle spies he looks away from me as though he doesn’t notice me at all; when I get right up to him he’s still pretending he doesn’t see me. I hold him by the waist and lift him over my head and hang him on one of the streetlamps. I slap him and tell him, “Get Holtz.” Some other people gather around in the throes of their jubilation; they’ve decided this must be political in the way everything is now. “Get Holtz,” I say again, and no one likes my accent much. Maybe one of them wants to hit me in the head with a shovel, maybe another would as soon shoot me. “Leave him be!” the spy is screaming at them; I guess I must be the most invulnerable man in the world at this moment.

I take him off the streetlamp and put him on the ground. “I’ll be across the street,” I say. I return to the flat.

Holtz is there in about forty minutes. He looks terrible. Things don’t improve when he sees me. He comes into the flat, I’m sitting in the same place I’ve been since I got here; he looks around the flat and knows what’s happened. Something in me sinks to see him as surprised as I am. I understand now that he’s not in control of the situation. “They’re gone,” I say from where I sit.

He doesn’t say anything at first; for a man whose country has just taken over the English empire, he doesn’t appear enthusiastic. “Banning,” is all he can muster. It was a poor precedent, ever allowing him to call me that. I’ve set another precedent tonight: the lights are on. “Banning.” He shrugs pathetically.

“Tell them,” I say, “tell them I want to make the swap tonight.”

He looks utterly befuddled. “The swap?”

“That, or I’ll kill him. Tell them. I won’t wait.”

He’s still doing his befuddled act. “What are you talking about?”

I shake my head. “I won’t wait. Z for my family, in an hour.”

“Z?” It’s a good act, I give him credit. “Banning, you’ve …You’re disturbed at this moment, I think.” He says it slowly, as though gingerly handling a grenade where the pin is loose. “Z’s in Berlin, Banning. Berlin. We’ve conquered England this evening.”

He doesn’t understand the true situation. I understand the true situation. “No point you and I discussing this, let’s take matters up with the big boys. Whoever’s in Vienna now that can handle it.” I get up from my seat. “I’ll be at the other flat. You tell them we swap tonight, that I won’t wait.” I walk by him, our shoulders clash. Out in the street the spy’s waiting by the same lamp; he steps back at the sight of me. He looks up at the lighted window. “Back to the other flat,” I advise him. After a moment he nods.