Seven Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

looking for?’ he asked.
    I muttered that we did.
    â€˜And what was that?’
    I looked at him, more surprised perhaps than I should have been by this flagrant reneging on his tacit contract to turn a blind eye: here after all was a man who had obviously broken every bond of decency with his fellow human beings. His face, or rather the swelling tissue at his neck, seemed to stare at me with a brazen leer as if to say, So what if I accepted a bribe to mind my own business? You know me better than that . . . However, it was apparently out of personal amusement, to remind me that we were both contemptible creatures, that he asked, rather than any real interest, for when I said, ‘Oh, just a few odds and ends,’ he merely gave a chuckle and let the matter drop.
    Upstairs, my mother and Kitty unpacked the linen. It had lain so long in the trunk that the folds seemed to have made permanent creases in the material, and the creases themselves had discoloured slightly, forming a grid-like pattern over everything we unfolded. But the silk-embroidered monograms were intact on every corner, shiny as the calm areas on ruffled water, and in spite of the poor state of the linen itself, my mother still seemed entirely satisfied with her idea.
    She and Kitty spent the next day washing the linen and wringing it through the mangle. The following morning, when my father returned from New York, he found them ironing it in the kitchen.
    It was evident that all was not well with him. Normallyhe was fastidious about his appearance, careful to keep his wavy black hair well combed, aspiring to a well-groomed anonymity in his dark suits, plain ties and clean white shirts. Even after his all-night flights back from New York he would look spruce and tidy, if a little tired. But this time there was a strange raggedness about him: his tie loose, his shirt dishevelled, his jacket crumpled as if he had used it for a pillow. Most unusually, he had not shaved at the airport. And there was a haggard look in his red-rimmed eyes as they roved around the pieces of linen draped all over the kitchen.
    â€˜What’s this?’ he asked, turning up the corner of a tablecloth and examining the embroidered initials.
    My mother told him, ‘I thought it might come in useful when we go to New York.’
    â€˜Put it away. Get rid of it.’
    It was extremely rare to hear him speak sharply to my mother. She retorted at once:
    â€˜What’s the matter with you, Joseph? Didn’t you sleep on the plane?’
    â€˜Kitty, leave us, would you?’
    Kitty slipped out of the kitchen. My father waited till he heard her close the door of her room.
    â€˜Are you out of your mind?’ he asked my mother.
    â€˜Joseph, please don’t speak to me in that manner.’
    â€˜As if your family isn’t enough of a liability already, you have to go flaunting your ridiculous heirlooms in front of strangers . . .’ He waggled the embroidered corner at my mother. ‘Von Riesen . . . What do you think this is, the Hapsburg Empire? The court of King Ludwig? Are you crazy?’
    â€˜I would hardly call Kitty a stranger.’
    â€˜You have no idea who she talks to.’
    My mother’s eyes gleamed dangerously. She asked in a tone of deadly self-control:
    â€˜Joseph, what is the matter? Did something happen in New York?’
    â€˜No!’ he shouted. He seemed to quiver. And for a moment a look of fear crossed his tired, careworn face.
    For my mother was right. Something had happened in New York. It appeared my father had made a blunder. What he had done, I learned later, was to have slightly overestimated his own licence to make concessions in the finer detail of an informal round of arms negotiation; a minute conciliatory gesture that he had believed himself empowered to offer, but which had been relayed to a member of the Soviet SALT II negotiating team stationed in Geneva and promptly aroused that personage’s imperial