Moscow Crossing by Sean Flannery

Author:Sean Flannery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

15

On the day that Horn had decided to stop studying for the priesthood and join the service instead, he’d taken a week off to run away. It was spring. He was driving a Mustang convertible in those days. With the top down he headed south from Georgetown, through the hills of Maryland and Virginia to the sand dunes of the Carolinas. The season hadn’t really started yet, so he was practically alone in the beachside motel overlooking Pamlico Sound. The first couple of days he spent most of his time in his room, going out only for meals. On the third day, though, he walked along the beach, where he had begun to do his most serious thinking. Over the next couple of days he would stop at times to sit on the sand and stare out across the sound toward Cape Hatteras. Sometimes he took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his trouser legs to his knees, and waded in the chilly water. At other times he would take off running for all he was worth, as if he could somehow exorcise the devil rising in his head by the sheer physical act of movement. “The grass always seems greener,” his father who was fond of platitudes used to tell him when a bout of wanderlust would strike particularly hard. “But every one of us carries the means of his own dissatisfaction. Wherever we go, it comes with us. Don’t forget it.” He hadn’t. Not then. Not now.

Anna’s photograph lay in the middle of the bed, her eyes following him around the hotel room, crying for help that he could not give her. He wanted to run, but he could not. The photograph had been imperfectly dried, and it was already starting to turn yellow. The corners had curled up from his pocket, making the photo seem very old; Anna had come from a very long time ago. She wasn’t real, not now. Horn walked around the bed looking at her face from different angles, trying to get her voice out of his head, trying to see only a photograph of a sad, beautiful woman, and not the accusing eyes, the pleading eyes, begging for help. She would die in Moscow, and her secret love would die with her. His mistake had been in going to see her. In speaking with her face-to-face. He did not want to compound his error now by doing something stupid. Write your report, Jack, he told himself. Leave it be. Christine is waiting.

He had arrived in Helsinki at eleven o’clock, and after clearing customs had taken the shuttle across to the new Rantasipi Airport Hotel. It was extremely cold here. Walking from the shuttle bus into the hotel he had heard the jet engine sounds from across the airport as if he had been standing right on the runway; every noise, every smell was unnaturally crisp and clean. He had registered under his Horton workname, surrendering his passport for the overnight police

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