The Content Assignment Page 2

  Ed said, “What a heaven-sent opportunity! Johnny, tell you what: we’ll go into a three-way partnership as blackmailers. Ellen can walk through the corridors upstairs at night, listening, and then without an incriminating word on paper we’ll—”

  I said, “And the language facility accounts for your job with the Army, despite your youth.”

  The black mist swayed softly as she shook her head. “I’m twenty-five years old, John. Some of the typists at the office are considerable younger than that.”

  Of course. She had been a schoolteacher. She couldn’t very well be the nineteen-year-old she looked to me. I had got the impression because of the shyness of her, the quietness, the complete repose. Young girls, after the early tom-boy teens and before the competitive, jangling twenties, sometimes go through an unselfconscious, restful stage during which they achieve a transient composure. That was what had misled me in Ellen—the peace of her.

  I saw Ellen Content twice more before the last time. Just four times altogether. We were together three evenings and one afternoon, in a period of a week, and on those four meetings I’d built my life ever since.

  The next night I took her dancing—a light mist moving quietly in my arms. And on that Sunday afternoon we went walking, saying little, I suppose, although we seemed to learn a great deal about each other. All the things we learned we had in common. We were both without relatives, for instance. That’s a stranger fact than you might think—but we were each the only child of now-deceased only-children parents, and we didn’t have the uncles, aunts, and cousins most people seem to have dotted around.

  We walked in the beautiful Tiergarten, and in spite of the war’s damage and the wet early-autumn weather, it was a lovely walk. Once as we sauntered along, following the winding lanes and lakes, a child’s ball hit me and cannoned off into the thick underbrush. I went after it and tossed it to the youngster. As I started back across the fifteen feet of grass separating me from Ellen I saw again, as I had each time we approached each other, the defenseless look, the aloneness of her. But when I reached her it was gone, and it was then, I think, that I knew finally. With me, she was shy but laughing. And the gay laugh chased the aloneness, and it was a rout that only I could perform.

  That was the day she told me something about myself. “I think you’re rather like me, John,” she said as we sat on a bench watching the play of sun and shadow on the little lake before us. “People think we’re self-sufficient, reserved, perhaps even taciturn, but we’re really just shy. In you, at least, the quality masquerades as ‘British reserve’—but in me it’s more noticeable because it’s so unlike most Americans.”

  And she said, “It’s odd that we should be so much alike and look so different. You’re tall and I’m small. And you’re fair and I’m dark, and your skin is tanned till it’s really very brown, and mine is stubbornly light.”

  “So we will always be able to let people satisfy their urge for the old clichés by telling themselves that opposites attract. But we’ll know better.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  And there it was, as simply as that. Our always was taken care of.

  4

  ELLEN said she had some work to clear up that Sunday night, but she agreed to join me on Monday evening for dinner.

  When I got back to my hotel room late on Monday afternoon, the phone was ringing. It was Ellen, and it seemed to me that she sounded rather upset.

  “I’m glad I reached you, John. Do you mind if Ed Bigeby and a girl join us this evening?”

  “Well, I’d rather be alone with you. But if he wants to, and you don’t mind—”

  “He didn’t especially want to. I’m afraid I rather insisted.”

  “I see.” I didn’t.

  “I feel—responsible. He dropped by the office and stopped to say hello. Natasha—her name is Natasha Paviloff—was sitting beside my desk—and you know Ed. He immediately insisted on taking her out. So I feel responsible.”

  “She’s very young?”

  “She’s twenty-three.”

  “I see,” I said again. But it didn’t seem to me quite necessary for a twenty-five-year-old to protect a twenty-three-year-old. And Ed’s wolf-like exterior was just that—a surface thing. After ten minutes with him anyone could see that he was certainly not a threat. But whatever Ellen wanted was all right with me, and so from a real desire to help her out, I said, “These European girls are brought up in such a protected way sometimes—”

  Ellen said flatly, “She’s an exotic dancer.”

  There was a pause. Then I said, “Ellen, in some ridiculous way I seem to have put you on the defensive. Whatever you want is just fine with me.”

  “Thank you, John. I can’t explain—exactly. Collect Ed and pick us up at my pension, yes?”

  “We’ll be there.”

  We were at the big boarding-house at a quarter to seven. Ed was bubbling over, and when Ellen came down the stairs into the common-room and introduced me to Natasha I could see the reason for his exuberance. Natasha was a tall blonde with long hair and long bones. Her movements were feline, graceful. She was, as Ed had told me several times on the way over, “a dish.”

  She also seemed to be a nice girl. After a very few minutes in her company, the exotic cheekbones, green eyes, long swaying hair, and romantic accent were replaced in my impressions by her basic wholesomeness.

  When the four of us got into the street I found myself at a loss for a suggestion where to go. I hadn’t thought beyond the moment of seeing Ellen—but when I was faced with the need to decide on food and entertainment, I found it was not an easy decision. We were an ill-assorted quartet—the ebullient Bigeby, the quiet Ellen, the exotic Natasha, and my own rather stiff self.

  We stood on the pavement for a minute while I struggled for a thought, but Bigeby beat me to it. “Let’s all go to The Russian Inn,” he said heartily. “Can’t think of a better place. I know a way to get over there that isn’t a bit dangerous—”

  Natasha said flatly, “No.”

  Ed looked surprised and a little chagrined, and Ellen spoke up quickly. I had a feeling she was rushing in to smooth things over, but I didn’t know what things or why they needed smoothing. She said, “Well, Ed, I don’t think it’s a very good idea. It would be a sort of busman’s holiday for Natasha—”

  Natasha said firmly, “And eet ees impossible.” There was an insurmountable finality in her voice.

  That finality definitely needed smoothing over. I said, “It’s still quite early. Let’s have a drink before we decide on dinner.” I thought a little of that common denominator might help bring us to a mutual decision.

  We were fairly near Ed’s and my hotel, so we wandered back there and settled in a small, dim, deserted lounge just off the lobby. But before we could order a drink I was paged. The boy said I was wanted on the phone, so I went to the telephones near the main desk, asked for my call, and said, “Hello?”

  The male voice that instantly poured out of the receiver was so excited and uneven that I couldn’t get a word of what he was saying. I realized after a moment that more than his excitement was standing in the way of my understanding; he wasn’t speaking either English or German. I couldn’t place the language at all.

  Then I caught two constantly repeated words—“Content” and “Natasha.”

  I said, “Hold on, please,” left the receiver dangling, and went back to the little lounge.

  “Ellen,” I said, “it seems to be for you. Or Natasha. I can’t understand the language.”

  Natasha rose straight up out of her low chair as if someone had jerked a string. I don’t think I had ever seen terror so clearly expressed on a face before.

  Ellen sat in complete composure for perhaps ten seconds. Then she said sharply, “Sit down, Natasha!” Natasha sat down again as if someone had dropped the string. Ellen said to me, “Please take me to the telephone, John.”

  We marched back across the lobby. I remember thinking, en route, that I would not have believed it possible for so small a girl to move so quickly without running, and without giving too great an impression of speed.

  At the desk Ellen grabbed the dangling phone and said, “Hello?”—but the rest of her conversation was incomprehensible to me. I realized in the middle of the short phrases she was very nearly barking into the mouthpiece that the language was probably Russian.

  After a full minute of the gibberish she hung up and stood motionless, staring at the wall. Then she turned around and transferred the blank stare to me.

  I said urgently, “Ellen!”

  She answered, “Yes, John. Let’s go back to the table.” But her preoccupation had not been broken.

  As we moved back across the lobby she said over her shoulder, “You’ll help if I need you, John?”

  “Of course. At any time, in any way.”

  She smiled up at me and said, “Thank you.” But I still had the bewildered feeling that I was on the periphery of her attention, that something had taken her far away from me.

  When we reached the table, Ellen sat down without speaking and took a small notebook and a pencil out of her bag. She tore out a sheet of blank paper and wrote something on it.

  Natasha looked as if she hadn’t moved since we left the table, and Ed looked bewildered. Natasha opened her mouth, as if it were a difficult gesture to accomplish, and asked, “Papa?”

  Ellen was very brisk. It struck me that she even looked brisk. The cloudy black hair was still cloudy, but it was I thought insanely, a disciplined cloud. The beautiful dark eyes seemed to have gained depth and purpose. Her always erect carriage, which had previously seemed charming and endearing in one so small, now looked forceful and determined. When she spoke there was a timbre in her still melodious voice that I had not he
ard there before.

  She said to Natasha, “Yes, it was Papa. But nothing has really happened. Now, please do exactly as I ask. Ed”—Ed switched his puzzled gaze from Natasha to Ellen—“Ed, take Natasha to this address.” She handed him the slip of paper on which she had made a note, “When you get there, ring the door-bell four times—little, short rings. When the door opens, say, ‘I’ve come about the bathroom pipe.’ They’ll let Natasha in. Then destroy this address, go and have a drink and some dinner, and forget the whole thing.

  “Ed”—she leaned forward and her voice took on a persuasive ring, a note of real strength—“it’s not easy to dismiss such an adventure. Especially if you’re a newspaperman. But lives, many lives, including Natasha’s, hang on your behaviour. And if you got a story no one would let you print it. So forget it. Don’t go into the house, and don’t hang around after you’ve delivered Natasha.

  “Natasha, go with Ed. Wait there. I’ll come soon. And I’ll bring them with me.”

  Ellen turned and looked at me. It was an odd feeling to have her look at me like that. This time her defenselessness was gone not because I was present but because she was caught up in another world in which she didn’t really need me at all. But after a second she took me with her into that world because she said, “Do you want to come with me, John?”

  5

  IN front of the hotel we hailed two cabs. Natasha and Ed got into the first. I noticed that Ed was almost carrying Natasha, who still behaved like a marionette whose strings were slack. Ellen and I got into the second taxi, and she called out a rather lengthy address in German. I’ve wondered since if she was deliberately protecting me from that address by making it sound as complicated as possible.

  We skidded along the wet streets of Berlin for what seemed like a considerable length of time until we were in a remote suburban section. The houses were pleasant, comfortably middle-class, rather like Maida Vale in London. We stopped in front of one of them, got out, and I paid and dismissed the driver. We had started up the walk to the front door when Ellen stopped. She stood perfectly still on the dark walk, staring at the front door, which was clearly visible in the soft light from within. I followed her gaze and realized why, in the dark night, the entrance was so evident. The door was partially open.

  Then Ellen started to run.

  We entered into a hall. It was a big house, and in addition to the stairway going upward there was a bewildering multiplicity of doors. But Ellen had apparently been there before. She went directly to the door on the left of the entrance and opened it. Then we were in a drawing-room, an empty drawing-room. We stood still for a minute and then we heard a soft rustle from a farther door at the rear of the drawing-room. Ellen rushed towards that rear door, and I kept pace behind her.

  We entered an old-fashioned, overfurnished back parlour. On the floor was an elderly man, his face almost obscured by a magnificent beard. He was bleeding profusely from a wound in his stomach. A telephone receiver was lying beside him and the body of the instrument was a foot away. But the fact that the receiver was off made no difference because, farther along, the wire had been cut, and it was hanging uselessly about three feet from the box on the wall. On the opposite side of the room a handsome woman of late middle age was sitting on the floor, her back against a chair’s legs. Her hair was meticulously groomed into a pile on top of her head. For a moment I didn’t understand why she didn’t get up and help the old man. Then I noticed her foot. It was sticking out at an odd angle.

  She said, in a strained whisper in fairly good English, “They didn’t know he had called. He tricked them. We saw them outside, and he quickly telephoned you. Then as they came in he pretended he was just starting to try to get a call through—and he quickly dropped the receiver as if they had caught him. He hoped he would gain a reprieve—but they shot him anyway.”

  Tears started to fall down her cheeks, but her expression of supreme shock didn’t change and her whisper remained even and clear. It occurred to me that she was so deep in a nightmare that she had lost reality. She spoke as if from a dream world, her gaze set, and her facial muscles unmoving, despite the tears. “Then one of them went upstairs to look for Natasha. When they couldn’t find her, they said they were going out to pick her up, and they would be back. One of them stamped on my leg”—she didn’t look down—“so I wouldn’t be able to go for help. Have you got Natasha, Miss Content? You promised, Miss Content.”

  Ellen still stood just in front of me, where she had arrested her pell-mell flight into the room. She said, “I’ve got her, Mrs. Paviloff. I’ve got her safe as I promised I would have, under the name we all agreed on. She’s waiting for you. And now I’ll take you to her. Has he told you anything, Mrs. Paviloff?”

  “No. He never will. He says Natasha and I must be safe.”

  The bearded old man on the floor said something I couldn’t understand. I realized, as I heard the accented word “Content” followed by a question mark, that he was the man who had called the hotel.

  Ellen said, “Yes. I’m right here, Mr. Paviloff.” Then, as she went to him, she branched into Russian again. She knelt beside the old man, and after a minute she sat down and took his head in her lap. He started to talk, a gasping, rasping, guttural series of tones—each sounding as if it were his last.

  I said, “Ellen, shall I go for help?”

  She looked up at me from the old man’s face almost with irritation, as if I had interrupted an important business conference. Then her face cleared, and she said, “No, John. You heard her. They’ll be back. So the important thing is to get her out of here.”

  “What about him? He’s in worse condition, I should think.”

  “Too much worse, John. It would be pointless.”

  “Oh.” I paused to assimilate the unaccustomed idea of death in the back parlour. Then I added, “Well, then, what about you? If they’ll be back—whoever ‘they’ are—I certainly don’t want you waiting here to greet them.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “Think for a minute, John. Mrs. Paviloff says they didn’t know he had telephoned. So they have no reason to suspect that anyone will be here. If they return before I’ve left all I’ll have to do is to go out of the back door, or hide in the coal-bin, or even under a bed. They’re not going to search for someone they don’t think is here.”

  “But they’ll search for Mrs. Pav—her.”

  “Think, John. Think! Because they’ll think. They’ll think that if Mrs. Paviloff managed to walk, as she will seem to have done, she would walk out—to get help. So they’ll be in more of a hurry than ever, because they’ll decide that people are coming. No, John. I’ll be all right. Just take her and get out of here as fast as possible.” She started murmuring to the old man again.

  I stood helplessly in the entrance-way to the room. I had been rooted to that spot since we came through the door. I said, “But, Ellen, her leg is broken. If I lift her without a proper splint the pain will be excruciating.”

  Ellen looked up at me impatiently, and then a small sweet smile broke through and for a minute I had the Ellen I loved back again. But it was a very small minute, because her next words were quite other than my short experience with her had taught me to expect. “John, dear. You knock her out with a short right to the chin. Or a left, whichever you are better at. To save her the pain. Then you lift her up and walk out of the door. You go a short block to the right, where you’ll be on a more frequented street. You get the first cab, which won’t be easy, because there won’t be many in this neighbourhood at this hour. If necessary, hail a car and pray they speak some English—your German is not the most comprehensible I’ve heard. Tell them you had an automobile accident and your car won’t operate. Get them to take you to the Unter den Linden office. When you get there ask for William Eider. He’ll be there, even at this hour. Explain exactly what has happened here. Mr. Eider will take Mrs. Paviloff to join Natasha. And he’ll get a doctor to her. Her leg will be no worse in half an hour than it is now. Then you go home and follow the instructions I gave Ed. I’ll call you in the morning.”