In the restaurant car, Bond ordered Americanos and a bottle of Chianti Broglio. The wonderful European hors d’oeuvres came. Tatiana began to look more cheerful.
`Funny sort of man,’ Bond watched her pick about among the little dishes. `But I’m glad he’s come along. I’ll have a chance to get some sleep. I’m going to sleep for a week when we get home.’
`I do not like him,’ the girl said indifferently. `He is not kulturny. I do not trust his eyes.’
Bond laughed. `Nobody’s kulturny enough for you.’
`Did you know him before?’
`No. But he belongs to my firm.’
`What did you say his name is?’
`Nash. Norman Nash.’
She spelled it out. `N.A.S.H.? Like that?’
`Yes.’
The girl’s eyes were puzzled. `I suppose you know what that means in Russian. Nash means “ours”. In our Services, a man is nash when he is one of “our” men. He is svoi when he is one of “theirs”–when he belongs to the enemy. And this man calls himself Nash. That is not pleasant.’
Bond laughed. `Really, Tania. You do think of extraordinary reasons for not liking people. Nash is quite a common English name. He’s perfectly harmless. At any rate he’s tough enough for what we want him for.’
Tatiana made a face. She went on with her lunch.
Some tagliatelli verdi came, and the wine, and then a delicious escalope. `Oh it is so good,’ she said. `Since I came out of Russia I am all stomach.’ Her eyes widened. `You won’t let me get too fat, James. You won’t let me get so fat that I am no use for making love? You will have to be careful, or I shall just eat all day long and sleep. You will beat me if I eat too much?’
`Certainly I will beat you.’
Tatiana wrinkled her nose. He felt the soft caress of her ankles. The wide eyes looked at him hard. The lashes came down demurely. `Please pay,’ she said. `I feel sleepy.’
The train was pulling into Maestre. There was the beginning of the canals. A cargo gondola full of vegetables was moving slowly along a straight sheet of water into the town.
`But we shall be coming into Venice in a minute,’ protested Bond. `Don’t you want to see it?’
`It will be just another station. And I can see Venice another day. Now Iwant you to love me. Please, James.’ Tatiana leaned forward. She put a hand over his. `Give me what I want. There is so little time.’
Then it was the little room again and the smell of the sea coming through the half-open window and the drawn blind fluttering with the wind of the train. Again there were the two piles of clothes on the floor, and the two whispering bodies on the banquette, and the slow searching hands. And the love-knot formed, and, as the train jolted over the points into the echoing | station of Venice, there came the final lost despairing cry.
Outside the vacuum of the tiny room there sounded a confusion of echoing calls and metallic clanging and shuffling footsteps that slowly faded into sleep.
Padua came, and Vicenza, and a fabulous sunset over Verona flickered gold and red through the cracks of the blind. Again the little bell came tinkling down the corridor. They woke. Bond dressed and went into the corridor and leant against the guard rail. He looked out at the fading pink light over the Lombardy Plain and thought of Tatiana and of the future.
Nash’s face slid up alongside his in the dark glass. Nash came very close so that his elbow touched Bond’s. `I think I’ve spotted one of the oppo, old man,’ he said softly.
Bond was not surprised. He had assumed that, if it came, it would come tonight. Almost indifferently he said, `Who is he?’
`Don’t know what his real name is, but he’s been through Trieste once or twice. Something to do with Albania. May be the Resident Director there. Now he’s on an American passport. “Wilbur Frank.” Calls himself a banker. In No. 9, right next to you. I don’t think I could be wrong about him, old man.’