Sheklov, listening, felt a renewal of that unaccountable exaltation that had struck him on the way into Cowville.
“Where are we going?” Lora said faintly.
“Canada,” Danty said. “Put you off a hundred miles or so from here, if you like. If you promise not. to set the series on us, or the pigs.”
“Canada?” Sheklov snapped, before Lora could answer. “But it’s not as simple as–”
“The grapevine tells you where youycan still get across,” Magda broke in. “We know a couple of places. Dodgy, but with Danty to take care of us, we’ll make it. And of
course the moment you set foot on Canadian soil, they’d die rather than turn you back . . .”
“I don’t want to be put out,” Lora said abruptly. Danty and Sheklov looked at her hard.
“No,” she emphasised. “If it’s true that-that my father brought a Russian agent into . . . 7” It turned into a question, and died away. Danty nodded vigorously.
“Whatever Ivan saysl” he insisted.
“Then lie lied to me all my life,” Lora whispered. “I don’t want to see him again as long as I live. And that’s not crazy talk. I’m cold sober again, and I mean it.”
In which case . . .
Sheklov felt as though he were going over the edge of a cliff into deep, icy water. But he said, “My name isn’t Ivan. It’s Vassily.”
. acv ,
Lora huddled away into the corner of the rear seat and could be heard faintly crying-not sobbing. simply snuffling. Headlights on the other half of the road shot towards them like tracer-bullets.
Sheklov thought: Regarding success and failure alike. . .
Well, at the moment he was compelled to, whether or not he had-achieved detachment. Because he had absolutely no inkling which had overtaken him. Either he had failed, spectacularly and monstrously, and was going to have to kill himself and his companions in order to avoid exposure of Turpin. or else he had succeeded in some manner he did not understand.
Danty knew 1 was due to come ashore. He was there when 1 arrived watching me. He saw Turpin’s car take me away.
He had turned ofl the site. How did he know the way to do # safely? Turpin said he would hardly dare to try the job without a schematic.
He appeared to be claiming that he foresaw the submarine being blown up if the site were not switched ofl. Then he left it switched off, thereby ensuring-he said as much-that we would be here, in this mess.
The whole thing is crazy! And so am 1!
Yet, behind all these surface thoughts, there was a kind of echo: recollection of what Magda had said, twice.
“Danty was born at the wrong end of time.”
A joking commentl Must bel But it had a-a ring to it. An overtone. Some all-important hidden meaning. Tantalising, like having a word on the tip of your tongue and being unable to utter it.
There had been silence in the car, except for Lora’s soft weeping, for many miles. It was as though his admission concerning his identity had been a minor climax in the course of events, and, it being passed, Danty was content to wait for some new pattern to develop. Magda, at the wheel, was patently too depressed to talk; she wore an
expression of unspeakable sadness, revealed flick-flick-flick by the oncoming headlamps.
From all the various directions in which his mind had been scattered, Sheklov forcibly pulled himself back together. He reviewed what had to be said; having organised it, he spoke.
“Dantyl”
“Yes?”
“I probably don’t need to tell you that this-this talent of yours has completely blown my mind. I don’t believe it, but I’ve been driven to accept it.”
“That figures,” Danty said dryly, and added: “Vassilyl By the way, what kind of a name is that? Is it Russian?”
“Yes. Though it was Greek originally. Funny, you knowl” Sheklov gave a short, harsh laugh. “It means ‘king.’ Not the ideal name for a good third-generation Party man.”
“But you’re not one,” Danty said.
“I-” Sheklov began, and broke off. After a moment, ‘he admitted, “No, in some ways I guess not.”