30

April 17, 1958

Dearest Kittredge,

The encounter with Chevi at the safe house went on for hours, but I will spare you the early portion, which consisted of my belaboring him not only verbally but actually coming close at times to hitting him physically. He is absolutely maddening. He tried to excuse himself for coming along with Libertad on the ground that he was there to protect me. “It would,” he kept saying, “have been a disaster for Hunt to commence anything with her,” and he nodded vigorously. “I will yet explain. She is not what she seems to be.” Then he would say nothing for a while.

Yes, I could have killed him. I would have if I had not been too miserably hung over and too quickly sobered up, and it was all of an hour before I could feel enough human interest to ask Chevi where he had picked up his Greek erudition. It turned out that he had spent a few hours stuffing himself with quotations. “A whim,” he said, “I did not wish to arrive empty-handed.”

“But how did you know he would not speak to you in Greek? He studied it in college.”

“He is a janissary. Janissaries retain no culture.”

“You are mad.”

“It was worth the chance.”

I was angry again. “Do not tell yourself that you are out of trouble,” I said.

“I recognize that I am not.”

“You are going to relinquish Libertad.”

“Oh,” he said, “that is not truly necessary.”

“It is completely necessary. Your fundamental relationship is with the Agency.”

“Yes. You are my first and only.”

“Let’s be done with all this,” I shouted. “You will give the lady up.”

“May we discuss it tomorrow?”

“Hell, no,” I shouted. “If you do not observe the absolute letter of this ruling, your termination is inescapable.” I nodded profoundly. “Toward those who betray us, our justice is unstinting.”

Actually, to terminate the relationship means I’ll be bombed by the Groogs. Why? they will ask. All the same, Chevi does not see through me. The use of such a word as unstinting certainly strikes fear into a compromised heart.

“I will see her no more,” he states suddenly. “I give her up as of this moment.” I have no idea if he is telling the truth. It is as sudden as if a wall had collapsed. “I am going to tell you the truth and then you will see that I have indeed protected you.”

I am thinking that we could turn him over to Pedro Peones. I am startled by how large my heart can feel when it is ice-cold. For the size of the fury I’m containing, I might as well have a boulder in my chest. Something in his lies disturbs me profoundly.

“You cannot begin to give her up,” I say, “until you tell the truth about her.”

He looks into my eyes. Our staring contest goes on for many moments and each of us takes turns at growing stronger than the other, or, should I say, less of a liar—I do not know. Finally, he says, “You do not know the truth, or you would never have asked for this meeting today.”

“Until you tell me, I cannot compare your knowledge with mine.”

He smiles at this evasion, but wanly. He is even more exhausted than myself. “I will tell you,” he says, “because the objective reality is now clear. I must denude myself of her.”

“Denude?”

“Desnudar .  .  . privar .  .  .” He finds it. “Divest myself of her. Indeed, I should not have supported her request to meet Hunt. When all is said, she is too impossible a whore.”

Now he wraps his arms mournfully around me in a full abrazo, as if we are brothers embracing at a wake, and says, “Libertad is not a woman, but the female transformation of what was once un hermafrodito.” He sighs so audibly that I receive all of his breath and the dead smell of onerous responsibilities carried too long. Since I have shown little response—I think he is speaking in metaphors—he adds, “true and profound change. Metamorfosis quirúrgica.”

“Surgical transformation?” I ask.

“Sí.”

“Where?”

“In Sweden.”

“Have you .  .  .?” I want to ask if there is a passage. Stupid questions jostle for position in my brain. “You have a good firm hand, my dear,” I can remember Hunt saying.

“She can assume the fundamental position,” Chevi says mournfully. “But only in the dark. She plays a deception with her fingers. She oils them. She performs some magic with her knuckles. She bragged to me once that she had seventy men in Las Vegas in thirty days, and not one was aware that he had not in fact entered her. That it was only un juego de manos.”

“A sleight of hand?”

“Yes. Prestidigitación.”

“Her breasts?”

“Hermaphrodites have breasts. In addition, she takes hormones.”

“All right. I’ve heard enough,” I said. In fact, I had been continuing the conversation because I knew that the moment I ceased asking questions, I would have to believe all that he said, and then I might be ill.

My emotions were so exceptionally crossed at this point that, Kittredge, I swear I could feel the simultaneous existence of Alpha and Omega, yes, Alpha, our own manly case officer out in the world of operations and paperwork had to wonder: Was he, himself, a homosexual? That stands out, doesn’t it? To be so attracted to a transvestite, or whatever else you could call it—a transsexual? I writhe in the bonds of embarrassment as I write this.

Yet, another part of me knows that Libertad, no matter how low and sordid she may be, is nonetheless an evocation of the female spirit. Somewhere out there between he and she, Libertad has managed to absorb the quintessence of femininity! She is not a woman, but she has become a creature replete with beauty. She is all the beautiful women put together! By Omega’s generosity of view, I could tell myself that I was not homosexual, but devoted to beauty, the beauty of women. Can you conceive of feeling such opposed emotions at once? Yes, of course you can, you are the only one who could.

Poor Chevi. Libertad is an agent in the world of women, and he is an agent in the world of men. So he can assuage his loneliness—for who could be lonelier than Chevi?—by being close to her. I was now forbidding that.

I returned his abrazo, full of feeling for him, and we had a drink while he showed me the pictures of his wife and son that he carried in his wallet. Both are sturdy, both are dark, his wife a woman of olive eyes and raven hair. The gloom of the gargantuan tasks that lie upon the Communist world are fully in her expression. She has monumental breasts, a woman who would run weighty operations—whether in a factory, a family, or a Party cell. At least, such were Harry Hubbard’s concealed editorial sentiments. Chevi sighed again while looking at her—she was all he was going to have for a while. I felt a shiver in my soul. For both of us.

No doubt you will find a surfeit of bathos in this. I do myself. Be certain I was content to drive him home without further ado, but it all returned with a headache so soon as I had reached my hotel. The question was how much to divulge to Hunt next day at the office.

Let me break for dinner. A little churrasco, sausage, and black pudding will build me up for the last mile.

Later

The next day, Wednesday, did not go quite as expected. I was prepared for a horrendous session with Howard, which, if he considered AV/OCADO compromised, could bring on a thirty-six-hour stint with the Groogs on the Encoder-Decoder, but he was not at the office. Mid-morning, he called in to tell Nancy Waterston that he was going to accompany Nardone on a campaign swing for the next twenty-four hours.

“As for the rest of us,” Porringer muttered, “we just keep to the usual dumb and daily.”

Sherman was an unlikely ally, but, then, the virtue of a hangover may be that it freshens old clichés. Any port in a storm! Porringer, whatever his flaws, is not stupid.

We went out to one of those sprawling ubiquitous sidewalk cafés. Dusty metal chairs, coffee-sticky eating surfaces, ads for aperitifs on the awnings, ill-dressed housewives eating gritty ice cream, adolescents playing hooky from their lycée. I think the only place in the world where outdoor cafés really make sense is in Paris, but ours, alas, is not in Paris, but Montevideo, although it is named Café Trouville, no less, and must have forty or fifty dingy little round white metal tables sitting on the sidewalk of the Bulevar General Artigas. That, as you would expect, is an artery of traffic. Such conduits in South America get named after generals. Avenida de General Aorta, Bulevar de General Carótida, Avenida del Almirante Cloaca. If these misrepresentations are needlessly cruel to Montevideo, a city which has never done me any harm, it is because on mornings such as this, a second-rate seaport can certainly serve as the representative cloaca of our filthy world. Or is this describing my awful mood?

After the first twenty minutes (which consisted of listening to Porringer vent his gripes about Hunt), I got down to business. What does he, Porringer, know about Libertad?

“There’s very little I don’t know about her,” he states, and actually pats his stomach. “So, you open.”

Yes, he has all the hincty nasalities of a successful graduate student who is sitting on more bibliographical references than you can ever muster.

I decide to take a chance and prime his pump. That will probably get him to pool his information. It is always difficult for Porringer to hold back on command of a subject.

I tell him, therefore, what Chevi told me about the sex change.

“Yes,” he said, “I was debating whether to warn you about Chevi.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He shifted his seat. “He’s your agent. I don’t leave my farts in every lark’s nest.”

I was thinking he must have been waiting for AV/OCADO to blow up in my face.

As if he had read my mind, he added, “I didn’t want to get the Station in a stir about Libertad. Nor do you.”

“Can you tell me what you know about her?”

He nodded to himself as if Judge Porringer, having taken an agreeable recess, might be deciding in favor of the supplicant. “Well,” he said, “I didn’t like this business from the get-go. Peones could have any whore in Montevideo—I mean, he is more dedicated to rank pussy than I am. So what was he looking for in Cuba? It had to be a freak. It had to be. I sent inquiries up to Havana about the lady, and all I got back was cover-up. I checked it out, therefore, with a well-positioned friend in Western Div, but Libertad was back here with Peones before my pal could dispatch the primary material. I did learn that her Havana protector was a big Texas crony of the American Ambassador down there, and that was why we couldn’t squeeze any juice out of Havana Station. A little later, I discovered—just a little too late—that Libertad was one more drag-queen hermaphrodite who had gone to Sweden to get her fire-hose turned inside out.”

“Inside out?”

“You mean you are not witting to Swedish chirurgery?”

“Can’t say that I am.”

“Live and learn. A Swedish sawbones won’t just chop off your dick and testicles and hold out his hand for payment. These Olafs think they are virtuosos. They remove the inside meat, but save the outer skin of the sac and penis for the humanitarian reason that both swatches of epidermis are loaded with erogenous nerve endings. Then the surgical team cuts a new hole—which, I fear, leads nowhere—and lines it with all this premium tissue. Give me a Social Democrat every time, especially if he’s Swedish.”

He was like a water buffalo. Impossible to get him moving; once under way, no reason to stop. “I had,” he said, “a few questions of my own. Here we were with Hunt. A Station Chief whose idea of covert action is to own the local cops. Howard is in love with Peones, and Peones is in love with La Lengua. And I am in possession of information that is going to be about as popular as syphilis on a petri dish. But you know me. I still want more. So I ask around in the local bagnios, and, kid you not, brother, they are ready to tell all. In her pre-Havana days, Libertad used to be named Roderigo. Roderigo Durazno, no less. A specialty act. Full penis and testes which he couldn’t use for much, and full set of breasts. Kind of a centerpiece for orgies. You know.” He put down his cup and grimaced. “This coffee is awfully sour.” He waved to the waiter, pointed to his empty espresso, and said, “Roderigo wanted a sea change. Saved his pesos. Went to Sweden. After the operation, she went to Las Vegas to try out the new hole.” (Kittredge, I can’t help it. This is how he speaks. Think of him as a technician in Carnal Engineering.) “Well, Hubbard, her plumbing didn’t function like the Swedish scientists had predicated. The new hole was too delicate to take the guff. Maybe some wires got crossed. And her back hole, which in days of yore in Montevideo had been the old reliable, was now, because of its proximity to the operation, not employable for anything but the evacuative function—which is what God intended in the first place until all us dirt farmers came along. So the good old days of taking it up the ass were done. How does she manage now? The whorehouse madams with whom she still pals around tell me she’s got a trick with her hands can fool any man. I find that hard to believe, but there you are. She nailed her Texan in Las Vegas, he took her to Havana, and she kept it secret from him for many a month. He thought he had himself a dynamite blonde who loved to fuck in the dark. I don’t care how much money a man makes, he can still be the stupidest asshole alive, wouldn’t you say? How about a sandwich and a drink? This talk has made me hungry.”

So we lunched at Café Trouville on tapas and cerveza and watched the traffic grind along. “Any time,” he said, “that a hooker can fool a john by simulating a vagina with a little oil and five good fingers, you can count on it—she will brag. And other whores will brag on her. It must have traveled from Cape Horn to the Caribbean. Havana Station picked it up. Wonderful news for them. They had to tell the American Ambassador that his Texas crony was living with a surgical bombshell scandal. After they all came up for air, the Texan prepared to divest himself. In consequence, Libertad wrote a love letter to Pedro Peones, who used to know her as Roderigo Durazno. Now, when he saw nude photographs of her as a blonde, he went insane. Too bad I only found this out too late. Needless to say, Libertad makes me nervous. Any man born half a woman who gives his nuts and dick to the fishes is not likely to say to the KGB, ‘Go away, you are not a good Christian.’” He nodded. “That’s my take.”

I now asked the question I had been afraid to ask. “Does Howard know about Libertad?”

“You better get to understand Howard and the Agency. They’re both old ladies. Grand old ladies.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Ever been in a room with a grand old lady when somebody toots? To tell the truth, I never have, but they say the grand old lady doesn’t miss a stitch. The fart, señor, he do not exist.”

“Come on, Porringer, Howard’s no fool.”

“I did not suggest he was dumb—I was saying he knows when to breathe. So long as Peones is the fullback who will always get us the three yards we need, Howard will choose not to be witting.” Porringer burped. “Looks like we’re coming around to you again, joven. Concerning AV/OCADO, I would say that I am worried, but not frantic. Analyze the options. I would assume Chevi is still reliable. Could you say there is any possibility that he is a double agent?”

“It doesn’t add up,” I said. “Why would the PCU wreck its own ranks just to build a double agent who does not lead us, but merely feeds us?”

“He led you to Libertad.”

“True.”

“All the same, I kind of agree. It doesn’t add out. All that finesse to set up a double agent in Montevideo? Not worth it. I think we have to take first things first.” He reflected, and then he repeated somberly, “First things first.”

Kittredge, I’ve noticed the odd remarks that people do repeat on occasion. I wonder if it’s not the double, if separate, assent of Alpha and Omega, a way of saying, yes, all of me is behind this, first Alpha, now Omega, both parties accounted for. “Yes,” Porringer decided, “let’s keep the lid on. You and me can live with this. We don’t want to get Howard upset. He’ll have to call in people from Western Division to look it over. On the other hand, if and when AV/OCADO blows up, you will catch most of it. Well, you certainly get it now if you tell, and, if you wait, it may not blow. Chevi, meanwhile, has to keep away from Libertad. He will, once you make it triple crystal clear that if he don’t, his ass is in Peones’ iron hands.”

We shook our iron hands on that, and quit Café Trouville. I would fill you in on what has happened since, but it has all been quiet. Nothing new has occurred. Kittredge, we’re caught up to date.

Let me conclude, then, with one odd remark of Sherman Porringer’s. On the way back to the office, he said, “Satisfy one mystery for me?”

“Sure.”

“Why doesn’t my wife have a single decent word to say about you?”

“She told me once that she didn’t like my accent.”

“Oh, that could bear improvement, but I still don’t get it. You may be nothing remarkable, but I guess you’re half-ass okay with me. Even if you can’t hold an eggshell.”

Can a noble society be founded on the judgment of one’s peers?

Love to you, dear Kittredge, Herrick