Free The Double Game by Dan Fesperman Page A

caffeinate in order to cope with those European mornings when the sun didn’t rise until nine.
    I remember the moment perfectly. My bill was paid, and I was contemplating where to go next, when Litzi strolled in with a toss of blond hair and a flicker of the most expressive brown eyes I’d ever wanted to dive into. She was a little tall for my taste, but judging by her furtive movements, she was a fellow renegade, also gone AWOL. I caught her eye as she paused by the newspaper table. She smiled fleetingly, then chose a copy of the same paper I was reading. I took it as a positive development—call and response, sign and countersign, as if we were already in secret communication.
    In those days I was often awkward around girls, and I’d already guessed she was slightly older than I. Yet, for some reason—her welcoming smile? the lingering high from the toke I’d just shared with my friend Brenner in the Stadtpark?—she seemed within reach of my romantic capabilities. This rare burst of confidence made all the difference in my eventual approach. For once I was not like the fumbling Richard Folly or the morose George Smiley. I was instead, however briefly, more like one of those dashing fellows who were forever cuckolding my heroes.
    She took a seat along the same wall, at the second table down, a mere six feet to my left. The electric effect of her presence seemed to make the wool stand up on my sweater. The waiter took her order, then she opened her paper with another glance my way. Sensing that the opening might be my last, I spoke up with uncharacteristic nerve.
    “Meeting someone?”
    “No. You?”
    I improvised. “Harry Lime.”
    “From that silly movie, you mean?”
    “ Silly? The Third Man is only one of the greatest films ever made. Written by an even greater novelist.”
    “Graham Greene’s too Catholic for me. The book’s not even a proper novel, you know. He wrote it originally as a screenplay. Did you know that?”
    Of course I did, thanks to my father, who had nonetheless indulged me with a paperback of the book Greene eventually published. It wasn’t really an espionage tale, but it was rife with spylike duplicity, and prescient in its late-forties depiction of Cold War tensions. So yes, I certainly did know it. But mostly I was thrilled that she knew. It wasn’t the sort of arcana girls usually came up with. She was preaching to the converted, and we both knew it. In my excitement I blurted a non sequitur.
    “He lived around the corner, you know.”
    “Graham Greene?”
    “Harry Lime, the Orson Welles character. In the movie they say his address is Stiftgasse 15, but they shot all his apartment scenes at Josefstadt 5. It’s the building with those Venus sculptures out front. Or whatever they are.”
    “Maybe you can show me, after I’ve finished my coffee.”
    “I’d be glad to.”
    “As long as no one from my school sees me first.”
    “Same here.” We laughed, the kinship of fugitives.
    As we went out the door a few minutes later she actually took my arm, a gesture that felt exciting and old-fashioned at the same time, and at that moment I knew I was on to something more profound and special than any previous flirtation. We were together until the day I moved to Berlin, roughly a year later. The relationship changed us both, mostly for the better.
    All this reminiscing broke my concentration, and when I checked my watch it was only a few minutes before 10:30. Wondering if my contact had also arrived early, I scanned the room for likely suspects.
    To my left, in the corner booth up front, were a middle-aged man and woman, both wearing scarves. A small “Reserviert” placard indicated they were regulars, entitled to a Stammtisch, or customary table. They were discussing the German satirist Kurt Tucholsky. To their right sat a quiet elderly woman wearing a double strand of pearls. Along the opposite wall, facing me from across the room, was a young couple too absorbed in each other to