European eye, honed by centuries of intense observations, could see through her mid-American veneer.
A new thought popped into my mind.
“Has anybody been killed doing this?” I asked.
“Not in a long time.”
Bowel-opening fear was not the proper response, so I said, “The sign-board says our train is boarding.”
“Keep your eyes peeled.”
At the gate, I looked back for the bench with the old woman in black, but she had moved forward to a few places behind us in the line. My knuckles must have been snow white on the suitcase handle. I wondered if I was really meant for courier duty. My dossier-covered desk with its green-shaded lamp seemed so homey, so safe, so far away, the monkish calligrapher’s table with scrolls awaiting the pen, shelter from the buffetings of the world, no treacherous old women in black dresses and shoe-daggers washed in nerve poison.
I followed McQuire onto a second-class car; she walked through several more until she found a compartment already occupied by four young women, apparently school-girls. They moved to allow us to sit together.
McQuire put her suitcase on the rack above her head, so I did the same. The schoolgirls watched intently as I helped McQuire position hers. Just as we were seated, the train started to move. McQuire settled in with aplomb, shaking open a copy of the Paris Herald Tribune. In a few minutes I saw the old woman go by our compartment, turn her head to see us, pause slightly and then go on. McQuire, who was deep in the news columns, had not noticed. I suddenly had to pee, but expected I ought to wait.
McQuire introduced herself in German and asked where the girls lived. München. Did they go to school there? Ja. Were they going on holiday? Ja, ja, bestimmt. Did they like to ski in Switzerland? Natürlich, Fräulein. Then followed a ten minute exchange of Teutonic chatter, McQuire and the girls nodding back and forth, smiling, laughing, in the end all turning to look at me.
“What?” I said.
“I just told the girls that you were my handsome nephew and studying to be an artist. Ein Kunstler.”
It was a four hour trip to Zurich, with a short stop at the border. The old woman came by our compartment several times, once stopping without shame to look straight in at me as the four girls and McQuire dozed. A cold winter rain devoid of compassion fell on me when she stared, her eyes near enough to mine to see their ice-blue color. Were those flecks of crimson in the blue? I wondered if she had a gun in the handbag that she clutched to her breast. Perhaps there was a special grommet hole in the leather and the gun was already aimed right at my nose. The silenced bullet would go straight through the grommet, not even scratching the weathered leather of her handbag, and slip through the window glass while my compartment companions slept. I was a dead man, I knew, but then she lowered the bag and moved on. The fear resounded in me for the next hour like a billiard ball caroming aimlessly from side to side, side to side.
At the border, the Swiss Customs men walked the car inspecting each passport in turn. McQuire produced ours from her bag and they nodded, asked her something in German, but she replied in English.
“I don’t speak good German. My nephew and I will be staying in Zurich only long enough for the museum. Thank you.” The girls looked at her strangely as they offered their papers, because the Fraülein spoke acceptable German. They knew something was amiss. I remembered a caveat from intelligence school: never speak a foreign language at borders, only English, even if you were multi-fluent. McQuire must have hundreds of these guidelines available for instant use, ready to wend our way through difficulties.
The customs men considered what she said, looked back at our passports, stamped them and closed our compartment door. In Zurich, everything went as planned. After being deposited at the Kunstmuseum, we strolled along an avenue with horse-chestnut trees and turned into a side street. There was a Marine at the consulate gate; he looked at McQuire’s passports, let us in immediately.
After the exchange of suitcases, McQuire led us to the Grand Hotel au Lac for a late lunch. The Stuttgart train did not depart until 1700. I could feel my knuckles more relaxed on the lighter replacement suitcase full of somebody’s shirts and socks. We were seated at a table with a view of the lake, where small steamboats arrived and departed, tight squadrons of black swans moving in and out of their way.
“Bradford, it went well.”
“I was sure that old woman had a gun in her purse.”
“What old woman?”
“The one who kept looking into our compartment. All in black.”
“Don’t let your artist’s imagination get the better of you.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t just another old lady.”
“Europe is full of old ladies in black.”
“But this one had the eyes of a killer. Flecks of crimson, I’m sure.”
“What nonsense. Let’s order our lunch.”
Perhaps she was right. I was too suggestive, too easy to unnerve. She ordered for us both while I tried to translate the menu. Lendenschnitte mit Anana. Mixed vegetables and Bratkartofflen. Coffee and thin slices of Munster Cheese for dessert. The knot that had been tying and retying itself behind my ear loosened a bit and gave me the first sense of well-being since we left Schloss Issel. Then I looked over McQuire’s shoulder to see the same woman in black at a far table, looking our way.
“Captain . . .” I started.
“Call me Aunty, Bradford.”
“Aunty, there’s the woman I told you about right at a table behind you. The woman in black.”
“Can I turn around? Is she looking?”
“She’s always looking.”
“Well, then it won’t matter.” She put on her glasses and turned around as only another woman can, moving her focus from table to table, slightly forward to an earlier table, then backwards, slowly backwards, not missing a single face, appearing to be propelled merely by a simple, sociable curiosity, until it landed on the old woman, almost directly behind McQuire. Some of the other women at tables in the restaurant secretly observed McQuire’s sweep with admiration. No man could have executed that circular camera movement with such bravura. McQuire nodded to the old woman. The old woman nodded back.
“Bradford, she’s one of ours. Works downtown as an analyst in the Villa Ingrid, but a killer in her own right.”
“You didn’t tell me. What’s her name?”
“There’s no need for you to know.”
“So, she followed us?”
“Our back-up. Those papers in the suitcases must have been really important.”
“Is that a machine gun in her purse?”
“Something very like it. Let’s see if we can get some more coffee.”
I lost sight of the Villa Ingrid woman on the return. No doubt it was not so urgent to protect our suitcases on this trip, so she would be sleeping with her feet
