Ever since, on their way back down the tunnel, and later in Kerim’s office while they discussed what Bond had seen, Bond had racked his brains for a solution to this maddening bit of dumb crambo and now, looking without focus at the dying sun, he was still mystified.
Bond finished his drink and lit another cigarette. He put the problem away and turned his mind to the girl.
Tatiana Romanova. A Romanov. Well, she certainly looked like a Russian princess, or the traditional idea of one. The tall, fine-boned body that moved so gracefully and stood so well. The thick sweep of hair down to the shoulders and the quiet authority of the profile. The wonderful Garboesque face with its curiously shy serenity. The contrast between the level innocence of the big, deep blue eyes and the passionate promise of the wide mouth. And the way she had blushed and the way the long eyelashes had come down over the lowered eyes. Had that been the prudery of a virgin? Bond thought not. There was the confidence of having been loved in the proud breasts and the insolently lilting behind–the assertion of a body that knows what it can be for.
On what Bond had seen, could he believe that she was the sort of girl to fall in love with a photograph and a file? How could one tell? Such a girl would have a deeply romantic nature. There were dreams in the eyes and in the mouth. At that age, twenty-four, the Soviet machine would not yet have ground the sentiment out of her. The Romanov blood might well have given her a yearning for men other than the type of modern Russian officer she would meet–stern, cold, mechanical, basically hysterical and, because of their Party education, infernally dull.
It could be true. There was nothing to disprove her story in her looks. Bond wanted it to be true.
The telephone rang. It was Kerim. `Nothing new?’
`No.’
`Then I will pick you up at eight.’
`I’ll be ready.’
Bond laid down the receiver and slowly started to put on his clothes. . . Kerim had been firm about the evening. Bond had wanted to stay in his hotel room and wait for the first contact to be made–a note, a telephone call, whatever it might be. But Kerim had said no. The girl had been adamant that she would choose her own time and place. It would be wrong for Bond to seem a slave to her convenience. `That is bad psychology, my friend,’ Kerim had insisted. `No girl likes a man to run when she whistles. She would despise you if you made yourself too available. From your face and your dossier she would expect you to behave with indifference–even with insolence. She would want that. She wishes to court you, to buy a kiss,’–Kerim had winked–`from that cruel mouth. It is with an image she has fallen in love. Behave like the image. Act the part.’
Bond had shrugged his shoulders. `All right Darko. I daresay you’re right. What do you suggest?’
`Live the life you would normally. Go home now and have a bath and a drink. The local vodka is all right if you down it with tonic water. If nothing happens, I will pick you up at eight. We will have dinner at the place of a gipsy friend of mine. A man called Vavra. He is head of a tribe. I must anyway see him tonight. He is one of my best sources. He is finding out who tried to blow up my office. Some of his girls will dance for you. I will not suggest that they should entertain you more intimately. You must keep your sword sharp. There is a saying “Once a King, always a King. But once a Knight is enough!” `
Bond was smiling at the memory of Kerim’s dictum when the telephone rang again. He picked up the receiver. It was only the car. As he went down the few stairs and out to Kerim in the waiting Rolls, Bond admitted to himself that he was disappointed.
They were climbing up the far hill through the poorer quarters above the Golden Horn when the chauffeur half turned his head and said something in a non-committal voice.