Cui Bono?

Katharine Kerr

She is practicing the piano, playing Schubert, oddly enough, warbling along in her cracked alto with “The Earl King” when the doorbell rings. For a moment, as she lets her hands lie silent on the keys, she wonders if she’s misheard, but again the ring comes, a large bronze sound in a small cottage. Barbara, perhaps, stopping by after church — she rises and walks to the door, opens it to sunlight and the smell of honeysuckle. She blinks hard against the glare before she recognizes her visitor, and even then she doubts.

“Uh, hello?” he says.

“It you, Jack. My lord!”

Neither moves nor speaks for a moment. He stands as tall and straight as ever, as if he only pretends to wear vacation clothes, as if blue slacks and a green striped shirt are really a uniform in some secret military. His hair, gray now but still thick, his face tanned to leather, but the blue eyes sparkle, as sunny as she always remembered them. And what is he seeing in her? A skinny gray woman in baggy jeans and a torn shirt. She turns from the door.

“Wait,” he says. “I think I’m here to apologize.”

“You think?”

He shrugs, palms up.

“I’ve learned things that make me think I was wrong, all those years ago. Please? Talk to me?”

She looks past him to purple jacaranda and painfully bright sky while her heart pounds, remembering what it meant to be young.

“Come in.”

He follows her into the living room, stands looking round at the piano, the fireplace, the flowered couch and chair, the overflowing bookshelves, while she pulls the screen door to and latches it, leaving the other open for sun and air. She does not want to be shut into a room with him, ever again.

“A real California bungalow,” he announces.

“Yes. Would you like some ice tea? There’s no liquor in the house, I’m afraid.”

“No, don’t bother.” He perches on one end of the couch. “Sit down?”

She takes the chair, opposite and nearest the open door.

“It’s the Freedom of Information Act and all that,” he says. “I read some things that made me wonder.”

“You never were subtle, were you, Jack? Age doesn’t seem to have taught you much about manners.”

“Sorry.” He actually blushes, a faint color along cheekbone and ears. “But hell, do want to make small talk?”

She laughs, but she can hear the bitterness in it.

“Let me guess,” she says. “You’re still in Army Intelligence?”

“Just retiring as a colonel, yeah.” He hesitates. “Can I ask you, which was your real name? Rose or Helen? Or neither?”

“Both. Rose’s my first name, but Helen’s the middle one, and so I went by that. Von Sussmann was my mother’s maiden name. My real last name is Fergusson.”

“Then if you were using a fake name, you had to be in the Company. You were, weren’t you?”

She considers lying, finds a lie automatically at hand, even now, after so many years without the need to lie. She refuses to lie to him again, not about this, at least, no matter what trouble might come from truth.

“I was, yes.”

“Oh jesus. Then I do owe you. I owe you a bigger apology than I — “ He stares at her, his lips parted, mouth working.

“You believe me?”

“Yeah, of course I believe you. It tallies with everything. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it, because of the files I read? I mean, oh jesus! No manners at all, yeah. Helen — Rose — I’m sorry.”

The wound she thought healed peels open to bleed tears.

“Damn!” She turns away, fumbling for kleenex in her pocket, finds a crumpled wad to wipe her face.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve worked up to it. But for days, well, weeks, really, I’ve been trying to think of what to say. I mean, it took me a long time to even find out where you were. That friend of yours, Lisel, she’s still around Washington, you know. And that was another clue. I mean, she wouldn’t be working for a senator if you two were — well, what I thought you were, back then.”

“Nazi sympathizers? No, we weren’t. Not all all. Lisel is just a friend of mine who happens to have a German name, just like I told you, not that you believed me. Or was it Commie spies? No, I don’t remember you berating me for being a goddamn Commie.”

He winces and slumps back on the couch, turning to look across the room.

“I was only twenty-four,” he says. “An excess of zeal. What’s that phrase from? Some play or other?”

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter. Chalk it up to an excess of zeal. Jesus, if you’d only given me a hint — “

“I couldn’t. You had to think, everyone had to think that I was a fossil, a loyal little member of the German-American Bund, hanging on to her fascist principles, still dreaming of her Aryan warriors and her dead hero in the bunker.”

“It sounds so damn silly now. And that crappy little organization you worked for. The Goethe Friendship League, wasn’t it? It was like something out of a bad movie, Nazis trying for a comeback. I don’t see how I could have believed it.”

“Well, the war hadn’t been over all that long.” she thinks. “It was what, ‘53? Not even ten years.”

“I still feel like a jerk. But anyway, a couple of months ago I was reading some old files, and they identified the League as a Soviet front. Pretty clever, coming up with a group that looked so far Right that no one would ever have suspected they marched on the Left. Or, well, sorry. Obviously your outfit figured it out. The file talked about a mole, too. Identified her as the secretary. I figured that had to be you, and jesus, I felt sick, thinking of the way I screamed at you that night, calling you a traitor.”

“It meant my cover was holding, didn’t it?” Rose tries to speak lightly, to toss off the line like a movie heroine, but the wound aches and trembles her voice.

“I’m sorry. Rose, I’m so sorry I don’t even know how to say it.”

She nods, vaguely affirmative, reaches for words, finds only memories of how much she loved him, finds, too, her memories of that evening in his tiny office, painted government green, a table littered with papers along one wall, two chairs, Jack in one, herself in the other, facing each other in bright light. He was handsome then, in a crisp 50’s uniform, thick stubble of blond hair, blue eyes glittering. In his rage he barely blinked until her own eyes hurt, watching him. And she, tall and awkward, convinced in her deepest soul that she was ugly, that she would always be ugly, that she would wander forever at the edge of other people’s loves as she had wandered for years at the edge of his, listening as he harangued and snarled and tore what little heart she had into pieces.

“You gotta quit,” he said. “You gotta quit tomorrow. We’ve got the goods on these guys, all right, and they’re fascists, plain and simple. If you don’t walk out of there tomorrow, I’ll know. I’ll know what kind of traitor you are.”

“It’s just a job. It’s about Goethe and literature and building bridges, Jack. All I am is the secretary.”

“Bull. Just bull, that’s all. If you don’t walk out of there, I never want to see you again.”

And he leaned back in the chair, arms crossed over his chest, and smiled.

Remembering brings back old habits of mind. For a moment, as she looks at the gray-haired man leaning back into the flowered cushions of her couch, she wonders if he’s really working for Army Intelligence, if he’s really come here to apologize, or if he’s playing some other game for some other organization. Then she reminds herself that thirty years have passed since she was a someone, even a small someone, who might be important to affairs of state.

“Partly it was the times, wasn’t it?” Jack goes on. “That writer, who was it? you remember? Anyway, some writer wrote a book called SCOUNDREL TIME. That pegs it, all right. The scoundrel time. You couldn’t trust anyone. I mean, with Tailgunner Joe taking aim at the Army. At Marshall, for crying out loud! At George Marshall, a real hero if there ever was one. I can still see him, the Senator McCarthy, him and his goddamned eyebrows, waving his goddamn scraps of paper around, claiming he had names.”

“Point of order.”

He laughs, and she smiles.

“You can bring back a whole era, saying that,” he agrees. “Point of order. Jeez, it must not mean much to the kids these days. Doesn’t to mine.”

“Probably not, no. How many kids do you have?”

“Just two, both boys, good kids. One’s in the Air Force, but I’ll forgive him. At least it’s not the Navy, huh?” He lets his grin fade. “Their mother’s gone. Cancer. A couple of years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” She is, too, for this woman she never met, for living so long with someone as difficult as Jack only to die early. “How awful.”

He shrugs, starts to rise, sits again.

“You will forgive me?”

She would like to speak, to blurt out a fast “of course,” or perhaps even a second-thought bitter “no, never.” She says neither, merely looks at him while she hunts for more words. He misunderstands the wait.

“Well, hell, I don’t blame you. I acted like a bastard. Hell, I a bastard to you, that night.”

“That’s not — “

“But if I’d known who you were working for — “ He shakes his head hard. “Scoundrel time. Couldn’t trust anyone. Hey, maybe they said it about him, huh? An excess of zeal, I mean. Maybe some writer said that about McCarthy.”

“Maybe so. A lot of people thought he was a hero, certainly.”

“Well, in his own mind I’m sure he was. Saving the country from the Commies.”

Her surprise, her utter and complete shock that he would not know the truth makes her laugh aloud. He stares, bewildered.

“Jack, have I been remembering it wrong? You were already in Army Intelligence then, weren’t you?”

“Of course. Just a buck lieutenant, but I was. Why?”

Most likely they wouldn’t have told him, she realizes, not his particular higher-ups.

“And of course, your officers must have found out you’d been dating me. And here I was, this suspect girl with her German name and her German job.” All at once something comes clear. “No wonder you were so angry that night.”

“Well, yeah. Trying to protect my own backside did come into it. But you’re getting at something. What the hell is it?”

 “Promise me that you’ll never repeat what I’m telling you.”

He goggles at her.

“I mean it, Jack. Promise.”

“Okay. I promise.” He’s grinning, making an easy joke. “Unless it’s a matter of national security.”

“It is, but they know all about it already.”

Again he stares.

“Well, here,” she says. “Think for a minute, about what things were like back in the late 40’s, early ‘50s. It’s no wonder you didn’t trust me, really. You’ve already said it — no one could trust anyone. But think about the way things were. Here was the whole country, absolutely panicked about Communists. No one much thought about anything else for years. The entire government was paralyzed, really.”

“Well, of course. Jesus, even the President was afraid to act. Eisenhower hated McCarthy. I don’t care what any of those intellectuals say, I know it in my guts, he hated the man. But what the hell was he supposed to do? Speak out, and have everyone start wondering about him? That would have been real bad for the country.”

“Exactly. McCarthy had everyone terrified. Even your people. I don’t suppose military morale had ever been that low before. Look what happened to industries, key ones like computers, losing important people. Either they were being blacklisted or they were resigning before they could be. Everyone remembers what happened in Hollywood, now, because that’s glamorous, but they were blacklisting scientists, too, and they meant a lot more to the country than actors.”

“Yeah, and all those college professors, resigning rather than take a loyalty oath. You know, that made me so goddamn mad, that they wouldn’t sign. I thought yeah, they’re Commies, all right. But now, well hell, you look back on things, and you’re not so sure. We might have lost some good people, in with the rotten apples. And the suspicion and all that — yeah, you’re right. Paralyzed, that’s the word for the way the country was then.”

“And what about our prestige in Europe? Right after the War, good lord, Americans were heroes. We’d saved Europe, and thanks to Marshall, we were rebuilding it. Everyone loved us, everyone wanted to be just like us. The Soviets had no prestige at all. In a few years, Communism would have started to fade away, maybe, for all we know now. But then all of a sudden, McCarthy came along, and we started acting like absolute fools in European eyes. Hasn’t it ever dawned on you, Jack, how much prestige we lost, running around hunting for Communists under beds? We were the laughingstocks, not the Soviets.”

“That poor little misguided bastard!”

“Misguided? What makes you think so?”

All at once he sits up straight, pure attention. She feels her mouth twist in a bitter smile.

“Think, Jack! When there’s been a murder, what’s the first thing the police ask? Cui bono. Who benefits. Well, somebody almost murdered America. Who stood to benefit the most? Whose hands did McCarthy play right into?”

“Oh my god.” His voice drops to a bare whisper. “The Commies.”

“Exactly. They both knew, your outfit and mine I mean, they knew perfectly well that the Soviets had planted moles all over the States. That’s why McCarthy managed to get as far as he did, isn’t it? He exposed a few unreliable agents for bait, people they wanted to get rid of who didn’t know too much, and the intelligence community swallowed it whole. Our higher-ups assumed at the beginning that he was going to be useful.”

“Things got out of hand kind of fast.”

“Exactly. Very fast, and in a way that no one anticipated. What’s the obvious answer? That he was working with the moles, not against them, to create a national panic.”

“Jesus. Jesus H. Christ.”

It’s her turn to cross her arms over her chest, her turn to smile, as he rises, begins to pace, back and forth from the front door to the dining room and back again. All at once he stops, swirling on one heel to glare at her.

“Why didn’t they tell the truth? After it was all over, I mean.”

“What good would that have done the country? What kind of respect would Eisenhower have gotten from the public? What kind of faith in the government would the people have had, if their own government had been duped? Besides, they might have panicked, you know, a sort of “war of the worlds” effect. If McCarthy turned out to be a Communist mole, how could anyone trust anyone? We might have ended up with a constitutional crisis in this country. It looked possible then, anyway.”

“Makes sense, yeah.” He sits back down, shaking his head, letting his hands hang limp between his knees. “Jee-sus!”

She lets out her breath in a long sigh and sinks back into the comforting cushions of her favorite chair. From outside comes the sound of a passing car, moving slowly. Birds are squabbling in the jacaranda tree. All at once she wonders if she should have spoken, wonders if her information will be taken back to some superior officer, both the information itself and the fact that she’d spoken of it. And wonders why she spoke — perhaps because this time, she’s the one who has something to hold over him. Secret information has always meant power. Even old information brings a little bit of power, in a relationship where, or so it seems to her, he always held her in his hand like a playing card.

“I mean, you’re certain?” Jack looks up abruptly. “McCarthy really was a mole?”

“Certain? Well, honestly, can either of us be certain of anything that happened then? That’s what I pieced together, and it makes a lot of sense, but for all I know, I was fed things in the hope I’d innocently pass them along.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, that’s true.”

She looks away, remembering the final scene, played out for the entire country on television, such a new thing then, television, at the time of the Army-McCarthy hearings. Half of the entire country saw McCarthy settling into his chair, smiling round the chambers, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his usual scraps of paper. He was a good actor, Tailgunner Joe. He had lied for years about the names and the very existence of names on other scraps of paper just like that crumpled notecard. He showed no sign of fear, not a flicker, when he glanced down and saw written on that scrap his code name in the Soviet organization. The Pope, they’d called him. We hear the Pope is on TV. Those were the words on the paper — or at least, they were if her information was accurate, if indeed Lisel had slipped such into his jacket pocket moments before the hearing began. Probably she had. He’d certainly broken later, when another army officer who believed in America as much as Jack did had leaned across a table down on the Senate floor. Oh yes, Joe had crumbled remarkably fast when that officer barked out his famous challenge.

“Have you no shame, sir?” She has spoken aloud. “That’s another one of those lines, yeah,” Jack says. “Brings it all back. I heard that after the session ended, he went running back to his office and grabbed a bottle, guzzled about a quart’s worth by the time he was done. Well, if that’s true. But everyone knew he drank like a fish.”

“Oh yes, everyone knew.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. His health started failing right after that, didn’t it? Quite quickly.”

“Jesus! You’re not saying there was something in that whiskey, are you?”

“No, I’m not, as a matter of fact. Just an odd coincidence, I’m sure.”

“Well, it took him a long time to die. But then it would. I mean, the people who’d hired him knew what they were doing. He wouldn’t have dropped dead right away or anything suspicious like that.”

“If anyone had hired him.”

“Ah come on, Rose! You’re the one who’s telling me — “

“A theory. Nothing more.”

“You don’t trust me, do you.” It was not a question.

“Should I?”

He winces, rubs both hands across his face and through his hair.

“Maybe not,” he says at last. “After the way I acted that night. But I swear to you, I’m not here for any other reason than to apologize. I mean, jesus, Tailgunner Joe’s been dead a long time now.”

“Yes, he has. An awfully long time. But things are never going to be the same again, here in America, thanks to him. All the wiretaps and the spying and the suspicion — it’s still all out there. Do you think we’d have had Watergate if McCarthy had never existed?”

“Maybe not.” Jack gets up and stands, hands shoved in his pockets, looking out the door. “Cui bono. I get your point. If he’d wanted to betray his country, he couldn’t have done a much better job.”

Rose watches him, merely watches for a long time, while the sound of another car swells then fades on the street.

“Did he want to?” Jack says abruptly.

“I’ve told you everything I’m going to. You’re going back to Washington, aren’t you? You’ve got all the files there. Dig for it, if you want to know more.”

“Bet they destroyed the important ones, if it was true.”

“You’d think so. People do dumb things sometimes. Look at Nixon and his stupid tapes.”

“Yeah, yeah, but there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“What makes you think that?”

Jack sits down, heavily, on the edge of the couch so he can lean forward and study her face.

“Ah, forget it. Doesn’t matter if there is or not. I meant it, when I said that I came here to apologize. That’s what matters.”

He’s right, Rose supposes. The past is gone, McCarthy buried. If indeed he’s telling the truth about his contrition, then that truth, the truth of the moment between them here in this room in the ‘80’s, is the only truth that can matter, that does matter now.

“I do forgive you,” she says. “You couldn’t know what I was, and I couldn’t tell you. It was the times, I suppose, and the jobs we’d taken on.”

“Thanks.” Suddenly he wipes his eyes on shirt sleeve, an awakward fumble of a gesture. “Ah Jesus. Sorry. Means a hell of a lot to me.”

Only then, seeing the damp of tears on striped cloth, does she truly believe that he found her to apologize and for no reason more. She waits, wondering how quickly he will leave, hoping he leaves soon, before he stays long enough to give his leaving the power to wound her once again.

“Well, hell,” Jack says. “You want to go have lunch?”

“What?”

“Guess that’s a lot to ask, after everything.”

“No. I mean, well — maybe it is, but why?”

“What do you mean, why? Why go have lunch?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Because I haven’t seen you for over thirty years, and you haven’t seen me for over thirty years. Ah jeez, Rose. Can’t we just sit down and talk?”

“Can we?”

She means the question seriously, and he takes it as such, letting her think, saying nothing till she’s decided.

“Well, why not. Maybe that’s all anyone can do now, talk things out and maybe heal the old suspicions.”

“Yeah. Maybe so. The scoundrel time’s over for us, anyway.”

“Is it? I hope so, Jack. I really really hope so.” Rose gets up quickly, heading toward the back of the bungalow. “I’ll just put on some better clothes.”

“Sure. I’m not going to take you out to lunch in those.”

And in spite of herself, she laughs, hurrying out of the room before some tick of her face, some falsehood in her smile, can betray the final truth, the one she will never tell him, the one, she hopes, he will never learn. She was the agent who, in the end, passed along the code name to the CIA, used the code name, in fact, to buy immunity. Her masters in the League trusted her, believing her one of them. One she had been, too, a fellow traveler on the Bolshevik way, an ardent believer in the people’s revolution.

Not even her love for Jack would have made her betray that revolution, nor would any other love have made her leave the Party. But Stalin’s crimes, the deaths, the purges, and the camps, above all the camps — she remembers another wound, deeper than any Jack could hand her, one that will never heal, her sense of betrayal, her horrified disgust when she could no longer pretend that those stories, those reports were merely the lies of the enemies of the People. From disgust blossomed searing hatred, the revenge-lust of a true lover scorned.

“No better than the Nazis,” she whispers aloud. “Stalin was no better than the rotten Nazis. Thank god I saw it. Thank god I saw it in time.”

And she weeps, just a little, while she pulls a dirty shirt over her head and drops it on the floor.

Copyright © 1994 Katharine Kerr

First published in Alternate Outlaws

ed. Mike Resnick, Tor, 1994