Free Cockpit by Jerzy Kosinski Page A

and the man continued.
    He explained that during our repeated dressing and undressing we had actually undergone the examination. Our physical would come later. Today, we had been filmed by teams of psychologists, who would study our behavior. The sullen candidates looked suspiciously around the room, checking for cameras.
    Days later, during one of many interviews with people from the Service, I was told I had achieved one of the highest scores in the examination. I had undressed and dressed each time with approximately the same speed, removing, piling and picking my clothes up again in the same order. I expressed no visible emotion during the test and accepted the changes in orders as if I had expected them all along. They noted that I circulated, joined no group but conversed easily with whomever stood near me.
    After months of training, I began my intelligence work in the United States. I made a formal Service inquiry about the Lebanese woman and was told that she had been an intelligence agent for years, but when she failed to acquire some strategic European documents she had been dropped.
    Apparently, her marriage to the Swiss industrialist had been arranged for intelligence purposes, and for those reasons had also been ended. The divorce had left her penniless and she was forced to work for a living. She was now settled in New York City, where she was known as Theodora.
    When I arrived at her apartment, she said she had known I would turn up sooner or later. I was shocked at the change in her. She had aged badly and become obese. Her face was heavily powdered a pasty white, and she wore thick false eyelashes, bright lipstick and garish rouge. She was dressed in a skin-tight black leather pants suit and an ill-fitting wig. Later, she told me she had lost so much of her own hair that she had to wear the wig all the time. Herliving room was filled with books inscribed to her, autographed movie stills and photographs of her and her ex-husband.
    She told me that after her dismissal, within a year of their arrival in America, she had found her first job with a real estate firm. One day she was asked to show a luxurious, furnished duplex apartment to the new United Nations’ representative of a recently founded republic. It was one of the most expensive apartments the agency had ever handled, and she would receive a substantial bonus if the diplomat bought it.
    The diplomat was a distinguished-looking older man dressed in a long, elaborately draped robe, his country’s national costume. Reserved and polite in the best British colonial tradition, he accepted a cup of tea and told Theodora how anxious he was to find a good home for his family. While he drank his tea and nibbled at the canapés, he chatted about his children. As he and Theodora toured the apartment, he inquired about its air conditioning, the closets, the kitchen facilities and the house telephone system.
    They had reached the upper floor. Just as she was about to show him the master bedroom, he grabbed her by the neck and tripped her with his leg. When she fell, he ripped off her underpants, and, with a single, rapid movement, shed his robe and covered her mouth with it to muffle her cries. He dropped onto her and spread her legs with his knees. He moaned and gasped as he raped her. When he was finished, he rolled off her, got up, wiped himself with her panties and neatly rearranged the robe around himself. In the most exaggeratedly polite manner, he apologized for his behavior, insisting that nothing like that had ever come over him before. He had simply been overwhelmed by her beauty, he explained, and would never forgive himself. Then he left.
    Since she needed the commission and was afraid to maketrouble, Theodora reported to her agency that the diplomat required a few days to make a decision. On the following afternoon, she received a giant bouquet of roses from him accompanied by a note of thanks. Her employer was delighted and congratulated her for