Chapter 11
Chapter 11
It was her first time on an airplane, but she was too numb to appreciate the luxury of it. She stared out the window at the endless sky and thought it all must be a dream. She wasn’t really leaving Rome, leaving the future she and Julia had planned. Julia had not been shot. Julia was not dead. The CIA had not stopped Lena in the trattoria and she had not been chased by dangerous men who’d threatened her or questioned for fifteen hours by the carabinieri.
God, the way the people at the academy avoided looking at her as she left, the humiliation of being brought to the flight gate flanked by carabinieri, the way people stared and then looked away as if they were afraid just looking might stain them with whatever stained her. She could see them wondering what she’d done to be brought to the airport under guard. The questions flashing through their eyes: Who did she murder? Was she dangerous? How dangerous? Where was she going and how could they avoid that flight?
Julia was dead. Lena could not stop reliving it. The shot ringing out. Her friend slumping to the ground. “Get up, Lena.” “Run.” “I was supposed to let you take the fall but I couldn’t do it.”
Finally, exhaustion took hold. Lena closed her eyes, but she couldn’t sleep. She saw the face of her questioner, she heard those endless questions: whyareyouinRome whoareyourfriends youwereamessenger ... and the CIA man, those piercing eyes, pill drops, and Julia with two names—no, a few names. Miss Kovalova. What kind of a name was that?
A Russian name.
Lena tried to push the thought away but it would not go. A Russian name, and she remembered Petra saying, “You understand now what you are part of?” and the man at the station saying that Lena was part of it too and there was no escape and the carabinieri asking if Lena had communist friends and telling her not to come back to Rome.
Julia, at the Pincio Terrace, brushing her lips against Lena’s ear. “You’re a good partner. I think I’ll keep you.”
Was that what she’d said? Was Lena remembering correctly?
A Russian name. Communists. “ You were a messenger ,” and the many jobs she’d done for Julia, the code words, the way Julia had distracted Lena with friendship and praise ... Had it been deliberate? Had it all been a lie? “You’re a good partner.” Just like Walter. Julia had taught her how to play a game. Julia had used her. Lena had been enchanted but the entire time Julia was only taking advantage of her, and she’d put Lena, unaware and stupid, in danger.
“I was supposed to let you take the fall ...” Was that the truth? Lena wasn’t sure. What had she really known about her friend? Nothing. Julia had evaded every question. All of it could have been a lie. What did it matter? It didn’t keep Lena from grieving, or from being afraid. Whatever the truth was, Julia had saved her and now Julia was dead and the danger was still there. Those men were still out there. And the CIA—they were unlikely to stay in Italy and they knew her name. Those men who had killed Julia ... who were they? Would they follow her to LA? What had they called her? Miss Gruner .
Lena’s sight blurred. She had been a fool, and she wavered between grief stricken and terrified. By the time she landed in LA, she was wrung out by emotion. When she got off the plane, she half expected CIA agents, or police officers, or whoever those men were to be waiting for her. She was relieved to see no one, but she didn’t quite believe it, and she suspected every too-interested look.
But it also wasn’t until she had landed that she realized she had nowhere to go. She’d given up her apartment and her job. The next session at Chouinard didn’t start until September, and how could she go there? They would know to look for her there. She couldn’t go back to Polly’s. After months in Rome, how could she return to who she’d been? She was no longer Elsie Gruner. She was Lena now, but ... not legally. They’d be looking for her. She had to find a way to hide.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of glass fronting—blond, elegant. No, not Elsie Gruner. Julia had made her into someone else. She was someone new. Could she continue to be that person? Was it possible to disappear into the Lena she’d become?
She couldn’t just stand there in the airport all day. For one thing, if anyone was looking for her, they’d easily find her here. But where to go? Who did she know in LA anymore? Walter was gone and she didn’t want to get anywhere near his opportunistic ego. Anyway, she didn’t trust him and he’d expect her to be Elsie and she would not—could not—go back.
Lena dragged her suitcase to the nearest pay phone. The battered directory nearly fell apart in her hands, but she flipped through the pages, hoping someone might occur to her. She flipped through the A s, the B s ...
Someone came to stand behind her, waiting for the phone.
C s . . . D s . . .
Disney. Lena stopped short. The memory flew into her head. Charlie saying he was an animator at Disney, that he’d gone to Chouinard, that he could write her a recommendation. Harvey with excitement in his eyes, “ We’re going to help you, honey. You’re going to be the best investment we’ve ever made .” She hadn’t seen them since the night of the raid on their house, but ... they’d been the closest friends she’d had in LA once. Nearly two years ago now. Who knew if they were still in LA?
It was the only option she had.
Quickly she turned back to the C s, looking for Chesterfield, not expecting to find anything. But it took only a second to spot his name. Harvey Chesterfield.
She picked up the receiver and fumbled for change, ignoring the impatient sigh of the man behind her. She put her finger in the dial and then paused, remembering the parties at Harvey and Charlie’s house, the CRC—a communist organization. The questions from the carabinieri about her associations in LA came back to her. What if she was being watched?
The man waiting said, “Please, miss.”
Harvey and Charlie were probably the last people she should call, given the trouble she’d been in. But who else did she know? It had been some time. Maybe they were no longer involved.
She just needed to get herself situated. She just needed a little bit of help for now.
She dialed the number.
The phone rang, and rang.
“Hello?” It was Charlie’s voice, Lena would have recognized it anywhere.
“Charlie! Hello, I’m sorry to call so late. This is—”
“Elsie? Elsie, is that you? My God, I can’t believe it! Where have you been? Where are you?” He sounded genuinely glad to hear from her.
Lena couldn’t help laughing. “I’m here. I’m here in LA. I just got in from Rome—”
“From Rome ?” She heard a muffled voice from the background. Charlie said, “Quiet! Yes, it’s really her!” Then, back to Elsie, “I’m sorry, Harvey’s asking questions.”
“It’s a long story—”
“Say no more. Tell me what you need.”
“A place to spend the night, if that’s all right?”
“Absolutely. Where are you?”
“At Los Angeles International Airport.”
“The airport ? You flew from Rome? That’s a pricey trip.”
“I didn’t pay for it. Actually ... I don’t know who did.”
More talk in the background, Charlie saying to Harvey, “Yes, we’re going to get her, just a minute—We’ll be there as soon as we can. We’ll meet you at Arrivals.”
The phone went dead. Lena put down the receiver and smiled at the man waiting, a complete stranger. “My friends are coming.”
She had to wave them down. The old Chrysler nearly drove right by her.
“My God, we didn’t recognize you!” Charlie said when she got into the car. “Look at you! Your hair—”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s more than that,” Harvey said. “There’s something else ... seriously, you have been transformed .” He ushered her into the front seat between them and pulled the car back onto the road.
“You two look just the same,” she said, which was true.
“Ha! That’s kind,” Charlie said. “But we have been speculating the entire way here about why you were in Rome—an expensive plane trip, with a mysterious patron?—and it’s obvious you’re very changed and if you don’t tell us what happened, Harvey will no doubt explode.”
“Not just me,” Harvey protested.
“Well, I didn’t have much of a choice on the trip,” she explained. “I had a scholarship from Chouinard to the American Art Academy.”
“So you did go to Chouinard!” Charlie nearly crowed. “We wondered.”
“Walter didn’t make you wait. Thank God.” Harvey frowned. “Where is Walter?”
“I left him. That is, we left each other. But mostly I left him.” Lena took a deep breath. “You were right. He was no good. I went to tell you, but that was the night you were raided. I saw it. I saw you get arrested. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t find you after that. I tried.”
The two men exchanged a grim glance. “There was nothing you could do,” Harvey said. “It’s good that you didn’t get involved. It’s been a nightmare since that night, frankly.”
“Some of which could be avoided.” Charlie spoke almost beneath his breath.
The quick tension between them was palpable. “I’m sorry if I raised a sore subject,” Lena said.
Charlie laughed shortly.
“I didn’t know if you’d still be in LA,” she went on carefully. “Or if you were in jail.”
Harvey said, “It turns out it’s not actually illegal to hold activist meetings in your house. Free speech, you know. But our landlord did not appreciate it, and we’re not living in Edendale anymore.”
“Venice Beach,” Charlie said. “A lovely little bungalow fit only for seagulls. But it’s what we can afford.”
She looked at him questioningly.
“Charlie was fired from Disney,” Harvey explained. “For holding subversive views, though they didn’t say that.”
“They’ll never say that. Instead I got a negative job review. Out the door the next day. I believe someone told them I was a member of the Communist Party, or the CRC, or possibly that I lived with another man, or ... who knows?”
“We think it was the FBI,” Harvey confessed.
An uncomfortable chill slid down Lena’s spine. The shadows of the academy library, the carabinieri crowding around her, her questioner’s relentless gaze flashed before her again.
“It’s a simple time. Only simple views allowed,” Charlie said.
“I know.” Lena sighed.
“Now, that is a telling sigh.” Charlie twisted in the seat to look at her full on. “You aren’t giving us the entire story, Elsie.”
“I’m not Elsie anymore. I’m Lena. Or ... I need to be Lena. And I need a new last name. And a whole new identity.”
They went quiet.
“This sounds serious,” Charlie said.
“I know I can trust you, but ... I think ... I don’t want to bring you trouble, but I don’t know where else to turn.”
“Best to tell the story in the car then,” Harvey said. “We’re not entirely sure the house isn’t bugged.”
“By who?”
“Who else? Our illustrious FBI,” Harvey said.
Lena closed her eyes briefly. The FBI. And yet, who else could she trust but Harvey and Charlie? “Am I ... should I be ... is it safe to be at your house?”
Charlie said, “You know, it might be very confusing for them, in a good way, to hear a woman’s voice there, but tell us your story, Els—Lena, how interesting, that might take me a few days to get used to. When you’re done, we’ll tell you what we think.”
So Lena told them. The street and traffic lights streaked past the windows, reminding her of the neon of Rome, as she told them about Julia and the pickups and deliveries, and then Terence Hall and the CIA and the chase in the Piazza dei Cinquecento, Julia’s death and then the carabinieri grilling her about her associations in LA and on and on until she’d been escorted to the airport and out of the city with the warning to not return.
She finished to silence.
Then Charlie said quietly, “What do you think you were involved in?”
“I’m not sure. But I think Julia was a communist and ... they said she had a few names, and Kovalova, well, it’s Russian, isn’t it?”
Neither of them answered. They didn’t have to.
“You didn’t know what you were picking up and delivering?”
“No, but they made it sound ... suspicious.”
“And that attaché was poisoned. By Julia?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Els—Lena,” Harvey said. “These men really said you were part of it and you couldn’t escape?”
She nodded.
Soberly, Harvey said, “I don’t think you should tell this story again. Not to anyone. You can trust us to say nothing, but this world now is strange. Now that the Soviets have the bomb, McCarthy and HUAC see a spy in every communist or fellow traveler. The House Un-American Activities Committee is no joke. I think it’s safer for you to just keep this to yourself.”
Charlie nodded. “You don’t know who’s watching. Or listening. Just forget it ever happened.”
Their words frightened her, though she knew they were true. “I don’t think I can forget.”
“Then take it as a warning. You’re lucky you’re alive and not in some Italian jail. You don’t want to end up in an American one.”
Harvey’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Treat it as if it happened to someone else in a faraway land. You’re going to have to become someone they can’t find. We can help you with that.” He looked at Charlie. “Can’t we?”
Charlie nodded. “You’ll need a new last name. A birth certificate. With that you can get anything else. Fortunately, we know an artist or two ...”
“I told you they’d come in handy,” Harvey said.
Charlie rolled his eyes. “I’m going to pretend you never said that. And you, my dear, are saying goodbye to the past. Hopefully forever. Don’t ever mention Rome again.”
They had reached the Ocean Park amusement pier, battered and neglected, but still busy on a Friday night with the Aladdin Ballroom. The old luxury hotels of the promenade were pensioners’ slums now, and beyond them the shadows of insect-like oil derricks split the horizon, eerie in the streetlights and through the fog coming off the ocean. Finally Harvey stopped before a small house with a sinking roof set back behind a hedge of wild rose. Lena frowned; it did look hospitable only for seagulls. The porch light revealed flaking paint and a sagging stoop, and behind the house an oil derrick towered menacingly.
“It takes up the whole backyard,” Charlie confessed. “Harvey hangs washing on it.”
Forty-eight hours ago, she’d been on her way to Venice; how ironic to end up in Venice Beach instead. The thought caught and twisted her sorrow. A faintly fetid sewer stink blew in with the breeze and mixed with that of the salt from the ocean and the dank fog and the roses. They took her inside—a small living room, a kitchen with ill-hung cupboards, and a bedroom and bathroom beyond. But they had the same furniture, and the posters and pictures on the walls, the books and the bookcases from their Edendale house, and in that way it felt like home. Still Lena was dismayed to see that the loss of Charlie’s job meant that all they could afford was this mean little place.
“The couch is yours,” Harvey told her, bringing out blankets and a pillow. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”
“Only until I can get my feet underneath me,” she promised. “I don’t want to put you out.”
“Don’t worry about that. Charlie works at the liquor store on Pacific. I do Saturdays at the Jewish bakery because the owners can’t. We won’t be walking all over each other.”
“A liquor store? Oh, Charlie. And Harvey—a bakery?”
He grinned at her. “I don’t mind it, actually. I meet some interesting people.”
Harvey threw her a pillow. “They have delicious babka. I’ll bring one home when I’m off.”