The Pure

food. Uzi was beginning to need a cigarette. He drank deeply instead. Liberty settled herself in her chair like a cat.
    ‘So,’ she said, half serious, half in parody, ‘tell me about you.’
    ‘There are things you don’t know?’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘Love life?’
    ‘That’s usually the first thing the CIA finds out.’
    ‘I’m not with the Agency any more, remember?’
    ‘You read their file.’
    ‘Tell me in your own words.’
    Uzi drained his bottle and waved to the waiter for another. ‘I fuck girls from Hungary. Among others.’
    Liberty smiled. ‘Fuck buddies, eh? For some reason I knew I’d get a cliché from you.’
    ‘It’s the truth. I don’t lie any more. I don’t have to.’
    ‘But it’s all bullshit, isn’t it? Just layers of stories with nothing underneath.’
    Uzi shrugged. She cleared her throat. ‘I can’t do love either.’ She paused. ‘It shows too much . . . weakness. Nothing since my husband died.’
    ‘Killed?’
    ‘Careless. He was a man with a lot of enemies. But let’s not talk about him.’
    ‘What do you want to talk about?’ said Uzi.
    ‘Your wife’s Hungarian?’
    ‘Please. I’m a nice Jewish boy.’
    Liberty laughed. ‘They don’t have Jews in Hungary?’
    ‘Not any more.’
    Uzi’s second beer arrived and he took a long draught. He had known every detail about Nehama: the sound she made when she rolled over in the night, the expression she wore when she was concentrating, the way that her left heel always wore down quicker than her right, the voice she used when she was trying to impress people, her way of laughing – and crying – when you least expected it. How, although she was insecure about her strength of mind, she would fight like a lioness to protect the people she loved. The time she was angry with him and stormed out the house, only to find she had nowhere to go.
    Liberty ordered a glass of house red.
    ‘No Pernod tonight?’ Uzi asked.
    ‘I hate that shit. It’s just for appearance’s sake. Mystique.’
    ‘You’ve got to be joking.’
    ‘I’m not. It’s the little things, Uzi. They make a difference. The Maybach, the Pernod, the restaurants, the clothes.’
    ‘The murders.’
    ‘Like I said, it’s the little things. Actually I hate being called Liberty.’
    ‘What do you prefer?’
    ‘My name, for fuck’s sake. My name. Eve Klugman.’
    Her wine arrived with the poppadoms, served by an unnecessary number of waiters. She leant over and broke one into quarters. For some reason, the cracking sound made him wince. He spooned some mango chutney on to his plate, tapping the end of the spoon on the china.
    ‘You see?’ said Liberty, biting into a poppadom. ‘We’re normal people really. Just out for a curry. Just normal.’
    ‘But we’re not,’ said Uzi. ‘We’re not, are we?’
    ‘Come on,’ said Liberty, frowning, ‘we can pretend. Just for tonight.’
    ‘Sure,’ he replied.
    There was a pause as the main course arrived.
    ‘Do you ever wonder,’ said Liberty, ‘what you’d be doing if your life had gone a different way?’
    ‘A parallel universe?’
    ‘I guess.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I thought you wouldn’t. I do. I know what I’d be doing. I’d be an attorney or something, living in Manhattan. With kids. Sometimes I wonder what I’d say if I met myself in the street.’
    ‘Nice thought,’ said Uzi. His curry was good.
    ‘You’d be a businessman. Travelling the world. The Mile High Club. All that.’
    ‘I’m already a member,’ said Uzi. ‘Everyone was, in the Office.’
    ‘Fucking Israelis,’ said Liberty, shaking her head.
    They finished their meal and went in search of a local pub. Liberty was casting a pleasant spell over him, and he wanted to leak some more intel, something that would really hurt the government. He had a piece of jumbo connected to the Washington Station in mind, but he knew it wasn’t safe, not out here. It could wait. They found a dimly lit pub on the Whitechapel Road and sat in a secluded corner in a pair of ancient leather armchairs. There they got steadily more drunk; with the alcohol they talked more naturally, more effusively, like old friends. They all but forgot about their guns. From the outside, they began to look like lovers.
    ‘In our game,’ said Liberty, leaning back into the creaking seat, ‘you know you’re going to be lonely. That’s the nature of the job, right? The secrets. All that.’
    Uzi shrugged in agreement and took a single gulp