The Deep Cover | paragon soul
a vignette about two spies.
Berlin is nice this time of year, Mr Aldrich. My Turkish connections inform me that an operative narrowly missed you in his Istanbul strike. Can you still see the silhouettes of the umbrellas, if you close your eyes? But you do not hear me.
You will lean over the railings of the Glienicke, and rub the scar in your temple, and your ears will ring with the sound of clicking steel. Your wristwatch blinks midnight, and you close your eyes and picture her silhouette in the shower on the second floor of that townhouse on the Upper East Side. She is humming a tune. Monteverdi perhaps. Her bedsheets are scented, and she puts bleu de chanel behind her ear. She leans into the bedside mirror and you picture her dark webbed lashes and you wince and you see the dark canopy of the umbrellas and the smell — Do you smell that burnt sweet plastic scent? You do.
This is a dangerous waltz we are dancing, I tell you. But the curtain has closed in Warsaw and the Balkans. Budapest is full of birdwatchers. The Viennese expats are not responding to our ciphers. See? We are being choked by moles. Hush. Do you sense the wake?
You will pull your coat tighter, but a sliver of Berlin frost sneaks down your neck and kisses the base of your spine. You will feel a tingle. You will gasp for air. Now you see the web of steel suspensions on the Gleinicke and you close your eyes and you imagine her dark lashes and glittering eyes. Now you see that the only things which glimmer are the stars beyond the metal beams of the bridge.
The ground is cold, Mr Aldrich, deadly cold. I see your eyes widen at that name. You are clever, to be here of all places. Taci, mio caro — you have done well. You grit your teeth and curl up like a baby. And I will whisper in you ear as you languish in that darkness — that Berlin is, indeed, quite nice at this time of year.
Ne mai sí dolci baci — You will not receive from her
da quella bocca havrai — kisses as sweet as mine,
ne più soavi. Ah taci! — nor softer. O, hush!
taci, che troppo il sai. — Hush, he knows it too well.- Claudio Monteverdi: Lamento Della Ninfa.
