Fatherland

But I'm not discussing it. Not in front of an SS officer. However trustworthy." It was Charlie, he said, whom he was most worried about. "You're going to come under a lot of pressure to keep your mouth shut."
    "I can handle it."
    "Don't be so sure. Kennedy's people—they fight dirty. All right. Let's suppose Luther has got something. Let's say it stirs everybody up—speeches in Congress, demonstrations, editorials—this is election year, remember? So suddenly the White House is in trouble over the summit. What do you think they're going to do?"
    "I can handle it."
    "They're going to tip a truckful of shit over your head, Charlie, and over this old Nazi of yours. They'll say: what's he got that's new? The same old story we've heard for twenty years, plus a few documents, probably forged by the Communists. Kennedy'!! go on TV, and he'll say, 'My fellow Americans, ask yourselves: why has all this come up now? In whose interest is it to disrupt the summit?' " Nightingale leaned close to her, his face a few centimeters from hers. "First off, they'll put Hoover and the FBI on to it. Know any left-wingers, Charlie? Any Jewish militants? Slept with any? Because sure as hell, they'll find a few who say you have, whether you've ever met them or not."
    "Screw you, Nightingale." She shoved him away with her fist. "Screw you !"
    Nightingale really was in love with her, thought March. Lost in love, hopelessly in love. And she knew it, and she played on it. He remembered that first night he had seen them together in the bar: how she had shrugged off his restraining hand. Tonight: how he had looked at March when he saw him kissing her; how he had absorbed her temper, watching her with his moony eyes. In Zürich, her whisper: "You asked if he was my lover. . . He'd like to be."
    And now, on her doorstep, in his raincoat: hovering, uncertain, reluctant to leave them behind together, then finally disappearing into the night.
    He would be there to meet Luther tomorrow, thought March, if only to make sure she was safe.
    After the American had gone they lay side by side on her narrow bed. For a long time neither spoke. The streetlights cast long shadows, the window frame slanted across the ceiling like cell bars. In the slight breeze the curtains trembled. Once there were the sounds of shouts and car doors slamming—revelers returning from watching the fireworks.
    They listened to the voices fade along the street, then March whispered, "Last night on the telephone—you said you had found something."
    She touched his hand, climbed off the bed. In the living room he could hear her rummaging among the heaps of papers. She returned half a minute later carrying a large coffee-table book. "I bought this on the way back from the airport." She sat on the edge of the bed, switched on the lamp, turned the pages. "There." She handed March the open book.
    It was a reproduction, in black and white, of the painting in the Swiss bank vault. The monochrome did not do it justice. He marked the page with his finger and closed the book to read its title. The Art of Leonardo da Vinci , by Professor Arno Braun of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.
    "My God."
    "I know. I thought I recognized it. Read it."
    " Lady with an Ermine, " the scholars called it. "One of the most mysterious of all Leonardo's works." It was believed to have been painted circa 1483-86, and "believed to show Cecilia Gallerani, the young mistress of Ludovico Sforza, ruler of Milan." There were two published references to it: one in a poem by Bernardino Bellincioni (died 1492); the other, an ambiguous remark about an "immature" portrait, written by Cecilia Gallerani herself in a letter dated 1498. "But sadly for the student of Leonardo, the real mystery today is the painting's whereabouts. It is known to have entered the collection of the Polish Prince Adam Czartoryski in the late eighteenth century, and was photographed in Krakau in 1932. Since then it has disappeared into what Karl von Clausewitz so eloquently called 'the fog of war.' All efforts by the Reich authorities to locate it have so far failed, and it must now be feared that this priceless flowering of the Italian Renaissance is lost to mankind forever."
    He closed the book. "Another story for you, I think."
    "And a good one. There are only nine undisputed Leonardos in the world." She smiled. "If I ever get out of here to write it."
    "Don't worry. We'll get you out." He lay back and closed his eyes. After a few moments he