Page 415 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"You'll find your Russian useful. Polish schoolchildren have been learning Russian for thirty-five years. But you should learn some Polish too."

"Okay."

"That's all."

Cameron stood up. "Thanks." He went to the door. "Could we discuss this some mo

re, Florence?" he said. "Maybe over dinner?"

"No," she said firmly. Then, just in case he had not got the message, she added: "Definitely not."

He went out and closed the door. Warsaw! On balance, he was pleased. It was a foreign posting. He felt optimistic. He was disappointed she had turned down his invitation to dinner, but he knew what to do about that.

He picked up his coat and went outside to his car, a silver Mercury Capri. He drove into Washington and threaded through the traffic to the Adams Morgan district. There he parked a block away from a storefront massage parlor called Silken Hands.

The woman at the reception desk said: "Hi, Christopher, how are you today?"

"Fine, thanks. Is Suzy free?"

"You're in luck, she is. Room Three."

"Great." Cam handed over a bill and went farther inside.

He pushed aside a curtain and entered a booth containing a narrow bed. Beside the bed, sitting on a plastic chair, was a heavyset woman in her twenties reading a magazine. She wore a bikini. "Hello, Chris," she said, putting down the magazine and standing up. "Would you like a hand job, as usual?"

Cam never had full intercourse with prostitutes. "Yes, please, Suzy." He gave her a bill and started taking off his clothes.

"It'll be my pleasure," she said, tucking the money away. She helped him undress, then said: "You just lie down and relax, baby."

Cam lay on the bed and closed his eyes while Suzy went to work. He pictured Florence Geary in her office. In his mind, she pulled the green sweater over her head and unzipped her plaid skirt. "Oh, Cam, I just can't resist you," she said in Cam's imagination. Wearing only her underwear, she came around her desk and embraced him. "Do anything you like to me, Cam," she said. "But please, do it hard."

In the massage parlor booth, Cam said aloud: "Yeah, baby."

*

Tanya looked in the mirror. She was holding a small container of blue eye shadow and a brush. Makeup was more easily available in Warsaw than in Moscow. Tanya did not have much experience with eye shadow, and she had noticed that some women applied it badly. On her dressing table was a magazine open at a photograph of Bianca Jagger. Glancing frequently at the picture, Tanya began to color her eyelids.

The effect was pretty good, she thought.

Stanislaw Pawlak sat on her bed in his uniform, with his boots on a newspaper to keep the covers clean, smoking and watching her. He was tall and handsome and intelligent, and she was crazy about him.

She had met him soon after arriving in Poland, on a tour of army headquarters. He was part of a group called the Gold Fund, able young officers selected by the defense minister, General Jaruzelski, for rapid advancement. They were frequently rotated to new assignments, to give them the breadth of experience necessary for the high command to which they were destined.

She had noticed Staz, as he was called, partly because he was so good-looking, and partly because he was obviously taken with her. He spoke Russian fluently. Having talked to her about his own unit, which handled liaison with the Red Army, he had then accompanied her on the rest of the tour, which was otherwise dull.

Next day he had turned up on her doorstep at six in the evening, having got her address from the SB, the Polish secret police. He had taken her to dinner at a hot new restaurant called the Duck. She quickly realized that he was as skeptical about Communism as she was. A week later she slept with him.

She still thought about Vasili, wondering how his writing was going, and whether he missed their monthly meetings. She was viscerally angry with him, though she was not sure why. He had been crass, but men were crass, especially the handsome ones. What she was really seething about was the years before his proposal. Somehow she felt that what she had done for him during that long time had been dishonored. Did he believe she had just been waiting, year after year, until he was ready to be her husband? That thought still infuriated her.

Staz was now spending two or three nights a week at her apartment. They never went to his place: he said it was little better than a barracks. But they were having a great time. And all along, in the back of her mind, she had been wondering if his anti-Communism might one day lead to action.

She turned to face him. "How do you like my eyes?"

"I adore them," he said. "They have enslaved me. Your eyes are like--"

"I mean my makeup, idiot."

"Are you wearing makeup?"

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