Free Tapestry of Spies by Stephen Hunter Page B

notice since he came aboard three days earlier and discovered her on the deck. She was as slender as a blade, with a neck like a cocktail-glass stem. She had a mass of tawny, curled hair. She was about his own age, with gray green eyes. He did not think her terribly attractive, but nevertheless found himself taking great pleasure in the sound of her laughter or the sense of her attention when he talked politics with the sardonic old Witte.
    “Oh, Mr. Florry,” she had said, boldly speaking first, “you know so
much.”
    Florry knew it not to be true, but found himself smiling again.
    By five, the
Akim
had begun to move again, and shortly before nightfall, the passengers could see the long, thin line of the Spanish coastline.
    “Look, Mr. Florry,” Sylvia called from the rail. “There it is. At last.”
    Florry went to her.
    “Hmm, just looks like the other side of the Thames to me. One supposes one should feel some sense of a greatadventure beginning. I’d rather spend a night in a bed that doesn’t rock quite as much as this one.”
    She laughed. “You’re such a cynic”—and she gave him a slightly oblique look from her oddly powerful eyes—“except that you
aren’t.”
    “I tend to put my own comforts first, I suppose. Before politics and before history. And before long, I hope.”
    She laughed again, which pleased him. Then she said, “I don’t feel the adventure, either, to tell the truth. What I feel is a sense of confusion. This war is a terrible mess. Only this fellow Julian Raines, the poet, can seem to make any sense of it. Did you read his piece on Barcelona?”
    The name struck him uneasily.
    “Brilliant fellow,” he said uncomfortably, hoping to be done with the subject.
    “His explanations are the clearest,” she said with what seemed to be a kind of admiration. “What an extraordinary place it must be. On the occasion of the army rebellion, the armed workers beat them down. Then they refused to turn the guns over to the government and established a revolutionary society and are preparing for the next step. Which would be the establishment of a true classless society.”
    “God, what a nauseating prospect,” said the count. “No, my dear, you’ll see. The tension will mount between the Russian Communists and the libertarian, anti-Stalinist Anarchists and Socialists, and there’ll be an explosion.”
    “In which case,” Florry said, “we all obey Florry’s First Rule of Revolution, which is: when the bombs go bang, find a deep hole.”
    They both laughed.
    “You make it sound like a war, Mr. Florry. You havebeen reading your Julian Raines, too. He’s very pessimistic about the Popular Front. He feels that—”
    “Yes, I know, Sylvia. I
have
read all of Julian’s pieces. He’s awfully good, I admit it.”
    “It’s a surprise, actually. I loathe his poetry. I loathe ‘Achilles, Fool,’ the poem about his poor father on the wire. My father also died in the Great War, and I don’t see it as a game at all.”
    “Julian inspires passions,” said Florry, looking out across the sea at the dark jut of land, profoundly aware that he himself did not.
    “Oh, do you know him, Mr. Florry?” She squealed with delight, vivid animation coming into her eyes. Florry stared at the life on her face, hating it.
    “We were at school together,” he said. “Rather close, at one time, actually.”
    “He must be the most brilliant writer of his generation,” she said. “Oh, could you possibly
introduce
me. He could teach me so much.”
    “Yes, I suppose. One never knows, of course, how these things will work out, but I suppose I might be able to. He’ll be quite busy, of course. As will I.”
    “Oh, of course. As will I.” She laughed. “To imagine, learning from
both
Robert Florry and Julian Raines. What an unusually lucky chance. The correspondent from
The Spectator
and from
Signature.”
She laughed again. “I feel so lucky.”
    Florry looked at her. There was something about