The Whole Man Read Free

that was gone now; there were still shrapnel scars and bullet pocks, however, and some smashed windows were still out. The police were no longer in charge. Uniformed or not, they had to show passes on entering, and the armed men guarding the door had shoulder patches saying denmark. Sarah Howson looked at them, and not for the first time since Pond’s death wondered how he had convinced himself that he and his companions would win out when the world stood ready to act against them.
    In the lobby of the building the officer spotted and called to a uniformed woman whose blouse bore white insignia with a red cross instead of the national identification marks. She was pleasant-voiced and smiling, and Sarah Howson let her take the shawl-wrapped bundle of her son.
    The smile vanished the instant hands discerned, through the thin cloth, the twisted spine and lopsided shoulders.
    “Your baby will be well looked after until you leave,” the officer said. “This way, please.” He pointed down a door-flanked corridor. “It may be necessary to wait awhile, I’m afraid.”
    They went to an office overlooking the square in front of the building. The evening sun lighted it, orange and gold over the pale-gray walls and brown and dark-green furniture.
    “Sit down, please,” the officer said, and went to the desk to pick up the receiver of the intercom. He dialed a three-digit code, and waited.
    Then: “Miss Kronstadt, please.”
    And after a further pause: “Oh, Miss Kronstadt! We have rather an interesting visitor. One of our bright young sanitary experts was down at the municipal incinerators yesterday, getting them back in regular operation, and he happened to spot a name on a letter when it blew out of the truck being unloaded. The name was Gerald Pond. We had him listed for dead, of course, so we didn’t follow up until this afternoon, when we found out he had a mistress still living at the same address—”
    He stopped, and looked at the phone as though it had bitten him. Rather slowly, he said, “You mean I just send her home? Are you sure she wasn’t …? Damn! I’m sorry, I should have checked with you first, but I never thought you’d have reached her so quickly. Okay, I’ll have her taken home. … What?”
    He listened. Sarah Howson felt a stir of interest disperse the cloud of her apathy, and found that if she paid attention she could just catch the words from the phone:
    “ No, keep her there a few minutes. I’ll drop in as soon as I can. I would like to have another chance to see her, though I doubt if we can use more information on Pond then we have already—there’s a two-hundred-page dossier here now.”
     
    The officer cradled the phone with a shrug and opened the pocket of his jacket to extract a pack of curious cigarettes with paper striped in pale-gray and white. He gave one to Sarah Howson and lighted it for her with a lighter made from an expended shell case.
     
    The door opened and the woman came in briskly—the one with man-short hair and Israeli shoulder patches. Sarah Howson crashed out her cigarette and looked at her.
    “I’ve seen you before,” she said.
    “That’s right.” A quick smile. “I’m Ilse Kronstadt. You were in the city hospital when I called there the other day.” She perched on the edge of the desk, one leg swinging. “How’s the baby?”
    Sarah Howson shrugged.
    “You’re being looked after all right? I mean, you’re provided with proper rations, proper services for the kid?”
    “I guess so. Not that—” She broke off.
    “Not that diaper service and formula coupons help much with the real problem,” Ilse Kronstadt murmured. “Isn’t that what you were going to say?”
    Sarah Howson nodded. Distractedly, she played with the dead butt of her cigarette. Watching her, Ilse Kronstadt began to frown.
    “Is it right—about your grandfather, I mean?” she said suddenly.
    “What?” Startled, Sarah Howson jerked her head back. “My grandfather—what about