Page 4 of Deck the Halls in Secret Agents

Judging by the sun, it was mid afternoon when George woke. He blinked groggily at the ceiling, taking in the sun and the quiet that succeeded the cessation of the blizzard, and noticed for the first time the glass mistletoe sculpture hanging above the bed. The green glass leaves glittered in the sunlight. Very pretty. Inspired by Calder’s mobiles, maybe.

It smote George that he’d lived in Paris for months and never even gone to the Louvre, let alone the Centre Pompidou. A far cry from his younger self, always dragging Nicholas Merton to the Tate Modern while Nicholas informed him that art was the opiate of the masses. “I think you mean religion,” George had informed him. “Or maybe Hollywood. The Soviet Union you’re so fond of,” for Nicholas, English university student socialist, was a profound admirer of the Soviet Union, “spends buckets on fine art.”

“But is it fine art,” Nicholas had replied, eyeing a somewhat unfortunate piece of modern statuary, “if it looks like something that washed up after a storm?”

“Modern art can be just as rubbish as any other kind of art,” George retorted. “But it can also be sublime. C’mon and see the Calder.”

Nicholas hadn’t admitted, in so many words, that George was right. But he had stood before Calder’s mobile, watching it drift and dip in the light cross breezes of the gallery, and he had nodded at George and smiled, that small smile of his, as if it pleased him that George had won the point.

Now the glass mistletoe mobile twinkled high above George’s head. They must have shifted as they napped, because now George lay on his back and Nikolai half on top of him, one arm curled around George, the top of his head tucked under George’s chin. George lowered his face to kiss the top of Nikolai’s head, only Nikolai’s hair tickled his nose, and George sneezed.

Nikolai’s eyelashes fluttered against George’s chest. Nikolai lifted his head. He smiled suddenly, that rare real smile of his, not so broad and toothy as his fake one. George smiled too, and for a strange sweet moment they lay there and smiled at each other.

“Morning,” Nikolai said at last.

“Afternoon, I think.”

“Whatever.” Nikolai relaxed back against George’s chest, and George relaxed too, almost melting back into the mattress.

He ought to get up, of course. Return to the search. Thrust aside the warm blankets, move away from the even warmer Nikolai, search yet another rolltop desk for letters that might or might not implicate some doddering old Soviet general… God, who cared?

If he got back to Paris with nothing to show for this trip, that would give them just the excuse they wanted to park him at a desk.

George attempted to toss aside the blanket. He succeeded only in letting in a billow of cold air, and then Nikolai caught the blanket and pulled it back. “What are you doing?” he scolded.

“We ought to get up and look for those letters.”

“Ugh.” Nikolai lay down against George’s chest, not relaxed anymore but with the fixed intent of keeping him there, rather after the manner of a cat determined that his nice warm human will not get up. “I don’t think they exist.”

“What?”

“These supposed love letters.” Nikolai made a gesture as if casting them away. “Oh so conveniently in the attic of a chateau. I think our informant made them up.”

“What?” George felt offended on behalf of both their agencies at the suggestion that they could have been so easily taken in. “No. Why?”

Nikolai sighed. “The Soviet Union is collapsing.” He looked squarely at George as he said it. “The Cold War—ending. An informant’s meal ticket—gone. So, he makes up one last story, gets paid by both sides, enough so he can live on the beach somewhere for twenty years, no?”

“Son of a bitch.” It made entirely too much sense. How would he and Nikolai have arrived at the same chateau at the exact same time if the informant hadn’t sold the story to both sides?

“No reason not to lie now,” Nikolai went on, musing. “In the past, he knew they would only continue paying if he gave good information, but now…” A shrug. “There will be no more payouts either way. So. He knows the kind of lies we like. Smart man. I should do the same. And you too,” he said, poking George’s shoulder, “cash in while you still can. What work will there be for a Soviet expert when America’s enemy number one is somewhere in the Middle East?”

“We’ll still need Russian operations,” George objected weakly.

“You will,” Nikolai agreed, “but you won’t have them. Too short-sighted.”

If that wasn’t the Agency, the whole damn US of A, in a nutshell. “I’m tired of spying anyway,” George announced.

Over the last couple of years, he had thought variations on this theme too many times to count. But it was still a shock to hear himself say it.

“Sour grapes,” Nikolai suggested.

“Maybe,” George conceded. “Or maybe I’m just too damn old for this game. And anyway,” he said, with sudden violence, “sometimes I think it is just a game, it hasn’t made any kind of real difference, it’s just a bunch of spymasters playing chess with each other and getting people killed because it’s more fun to play with high stakes.”

He stopped. His heart was beating fast, and he knew that Nikolai could feel it, because he could feel the answering pounding of Nikolai’s heart.

Suddenly George couldn’t bear the intimacy. He sat up, both Nikolai and the blanket sliding off him, and pulled on his boxers. Facing away from Nikolai, he admitted, “I don’t think we ever wanted to beat you. Not really. We were having too much fun.”

Nikolai didn’t answer. George buttoned up his shirt. He pulled on his pants, then turned around to look at Nikolai.

Nikolai wasn’t looking at George. He had folded his arms behind his head, and lay gazing up at the glass mistletoe sculpture. “Very nice,” he said. “Like the work of that artist you like so much.”

George felt a rush of fondness for him. He turned away to search for his slippers.

Nikolai’s wry voice floated up behind him. “We never wanted to beat you, either. Where would we get our blue jeans then?”

George turned back to him. “That’s what I mean,” he said. “If no one really wanted to win, then was it just a big game all along?”

“Isn’t playing at war better than having a war for real?” Nikolai asked.

George had found one of his slippers. He twisted the curly toe.

“I think—” Nikolai twined the fringe of the blanket around his fingers. “I think, perhaps, none of us understood what we were fighting for. Capitalist, Communist, we think we are so opposed, but in the end we all had the same goal, that it should never come to nuclear war, because if it did then we would all die. So, yes, we have been playing chess. It’s all been a big game. And when it is over, the board will still be there.”

He sat up slowly, and George saw in the stiffness of the movement a glimpse of the old man that Nikolai would one day be.

“That is what I tell myself,” Nikolai said, “when I think of all the pawns who have died. Castles, knights even. We thought we were dying for Communism, which was meant to be the end of history. But perhaps there is no end of history, except when humanity ends. Perhaps they died so history could continue. And perhaps,” he said, with a sigh, “that’s a better death.”

He had been speaking to himself more than George, his gaze focused inward. But now he looked up and gave a small deprecating shrug, himself again, no longer young but not yet old. “Or so I tell myself.”

“It’s true, though. We haven’t blown up the planet.” George felt a little chastened at his own bitterness.

“Ah, but what you said is true, too. The pawns had to die to give the game savor for the chessmasters. Perhaps it was noble, their sacrifice, but the chessmasters who demanded it? No.”

There was a little silence then. George was tapping his slipper against his palm. Finally he pulled it on and began to hunt for the other. “Let’s go downstairs and get something to eat,” he suggested.

At once Nikolai began to dress. In the time it took George to find find his second slipper, Nikolai was fully dressed, but for one sock. “You go ahead,” he told George. “I’ll follow as soon as I’ve found my sock.”

“Oh, I’ll wait,” said George, instantly back in spy mode. Nikolai was trying to get a clear field to look for the letters.

Nikolai looked at him, then suddenly smiled and waggled a finger. “Ah, your mind is on your mission, as always,” he said. “Even when it’s a stupid mission. That general? Too senile to be blackmailed anyway. Doesn’t remember what happened yesterday. You might get some nice intelligence about World War II.”

George threw the penguin shaped pillow at him. Nikolai caught it and tossed it back, then gave a crow of delight and darted at the floor: he had found his sock. “Where are our sweaters?”

“We left them back over there somewhere.”

“Race you to the Rudolph sweater.” Nikolai took off before he’d finished the sentence. George chased after, and tackled Nikolai just a hair too late: Nikolai had already flung himself on top of the sweater. They tussled briefly, George trying to distract Nikolai by kissing the side of his face. But Nikolai, giggling, slipped away like an eel, and he danced away and pulled the sweater over his head before George was back on his feet.

George gave in gracefully. “You look hideous,” he informed Nikolai.

Nikolai proudly smoothed the sweater. “You are grieving the loss of your pompom,” he replied, giving Rudolph’s nose a gentle squeeze and casting on George a naughty smile.

George briefly considered attempting to remove the sweater by force (which would end, of course, back on the mattress). But at this interesting moment his stomach grumbled, and he sighed. “Do you think they still have the buffet set up?”

“I don’t know.” Nikolai stretched. “Biffy may not have laid in supplies to feed five hundred guests trapped by a blizzard.”

“Oh, God.” George considered this grim possibility. “Maybe he’s already sending them home by one-horse open sleigh.” And it occurred to him that, though their disappearance hadn’t been noticeable in the swirling gaiety of the Christmas Eve party, their reappearance might be if the party was emptying out. “Maybe we should go down separately.”

“Right. I’ll leave you alone in the attic so you carry on the search,” Nikolai scoffed good-naturedly. “You have a word for this, don’t you? Workaholism? The letters can wait. The mince pies may already be gone.”

So they went down to the great hall together. Although the massive Christmas tree still glittered resplendently, the great hall had that anticlimactic Christmas afternoon look. The guests, their Santa hats drooping, slumped in every available couch and soft chair, their desultory conversations interrupted by occasional jaw-cracking yawns.

“Roads must still be closed.” George’s spirits rose. “We might be stuck here a while, Nick.” He would have to remember to think of Nikolai as Nick again.

“The Biffys of the world can always convince the government to send a snowplow.”

This was too true for argument. “We’ll have to come back later.”

“They probably don’t heat the place when no one is here.”

“That’s true,” George said. “It’d be warm in May, though,” he added, and they grinned at each other, as if this was a plan for a rendezvous, when really of course they’d both be back as soon as the chateau stood empty again. Keep each other warm.

The buffet had been replenished, thank goodness. Baskets of croissants, trays of cured meats, a tempting array of cheeses on an elegant wooden cutting board accompanied by a silver cheese knife… Nick took one of each cheese, that was so like him, and George followed his lead, because he realized suddenly that he was ravenous.

The weary revelers filled all the available seats in the great hall, and spilled to fill the small parlor with its intricate gingerbread houses, too.Further investigation disclosed a library, the bookshelves lined with snowglobes, and a music room with a few indefatigable carollers singing along with a small bell choir; but neither of these rooms had any seats, either. At last they discovered a few uninhabited seats in the Santa drawing room.

A life size Santa stood in the corner. Two half-size Santas flanked the TV, which blatted gently at a couple of guests sprawled in armchairs covered in Santa-patterned slipcovers. Smaller Santas stood on every surface, beaming chubbily on George in a way that seemed, en masse, rather ominous.

They found a table over by the window, and avoided the gaze of the Santas by looking out on the glimmering white snow as they ate their way through their bounty. At last, defeated by the final slice of cheddar, George sat back with a sigh. Nick arose. “Where do you think they’ve put the desserts?”

“I can’t believe you have room for dessert.”

“I always have room for dessert,” Nick said gravely, scanning the room, and then his face grew bright and focused and he made a beeline for a sideboard, where reposed sugar cookies and slices of plum pudding.

George rose too. He drifted vaguely after Nick, as if pulled by some magnetic current, then realized that he was following Nick like a puppy and cut away to look at the TV instead.

It was some sort of French news program, the sound turned so low that George couldn’t make out the words. George watched the talking heads chat without taking anything in, until suddenly the scene cut to Mikhail Gorbachev, premier of the Soviet Union, standing at a rostrum giving some sort of speech.

Nick joined George behind the armchairs. His empty plate dangled forgotten from one hand.

The camera cut to a flagpole. The Soviet hammer and sickle flag was lowered, and in its place, the Russian tricolor rose.

In voiceover, the French newscasters droned on. George, straining to hear, began to catch words. Historic occasion… A new era dawns… The final dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics…

Mikhail Gorbachev was resigning as the premier of the Soviet Union. The last frail thread of the Soviet Union’s existence had snapped.

George could not take it in. The picture on the TV switched from Gorbachev to the newscasters, who repeated over and over the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as if they too couldn’t quite understand what was happening and hoped that repetition might help.

Without a shot fired, the Cold War had ended. The old world, George’s world, was dead.

He turned suddenly to Nikolai. And that was when he realized, once and for all, that it was all up with him as a spy.

Because Nikolai was gone. While George stood gawping at the TV, Nikolai had disappeared, and George hadn’t even noticed him go.