Special Episode: End of May, 1961
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
I race down the cobblestone streets of Port Sitka, my hair streaming behind me, my feet pounding the pavement.
I had to abandon my high heels a few blocks back. I’m gasping big mouthfuls of warm, salty night air into my straining lungs. My heart is beating so hard that the thudding of it seems to blur my vision.
But I think I lost them.
I reach a street corner and stop, panting, looking over my shoulder. The tree-lined avenue and the sidewalks are empty.
I quickly weave my hair into something less wild and fix my hat. I touch a finger to my lipstick, then my eye makeup, feeling for imperfections.
The safety of a crowd is what I need right now, and it’s the full swing of tourist season in Port Sitka. Main Street is right around the corner. But I have to blend in, not make a conspicuous entrance. I need to look like anyone else visiting the town to breathe in the salt air and eat in the restaurants, relax in the ocean.
I stride swiftly around the peach-colored building and make for Main Street, my skirt swishing around my legs.
As I walk, I visualize it.
I’m only here for the beach, the fresh air, the getaway from the big city. I’m not a secret agent, not Leyla, not being chased. I’m a tourist, and I’m having a nice time. I’ve been laying on soft white sheets, walking through soft white sand, taking afternoon dips in the soft-breaking waves.
I step out into the crowded street with a relaxed, peaceful smile on my face. Scanning my eyes over the vendor tables, wondering if there’s somewhere I can get my hands on a weapon. Why did I leave my pistol at my rental cottage? I should have known that something like this was going to happen soon…
I can only pray that Rose is at home, or at the farmhouse watching Charlie, nowhere near Main Street. Just to be safe, I turn my gauzy reversible scarf to the side where the fabric is china-blue. She’ll know not to come close or acknowledge me at all, if she sees me wearing it like that.
I weave through the bustling tourists, keeping my eyes open for anywhere I can get my hands on something to defend myself with. But the vendor tables are selling fruit, postcards, chocolates. Beach house decorations, driftwood art, old books.
I stop at one of the home decor vendor stands and pretend to look at a cutlery set with fish-shaped handles, then go very still when I sense eyes on my back.
All around me, people are laughing and talking warmly. Stopping on the boardwalk to gaze out at the water, watching the seagulls coast on the wind high up in the blue arches of the evening sky. Music is spilling out softly from the open-air restaurants, just like every other night.
But someone in the crowd is watching me.
One of the men from the car that was following me? Or someone they had waiting in the crowd, just in case I came this way. Probably that.
I take a deep breath as I peer down at the spread of decorative napkin rings and candle holders and tablecloth weights. Trying my hardest to go unnoticed, and to let the other agent think they’ve gone unnoticed, too -
“There you are,” says an unfamiliar voice from behind me.
In perfect, unaccented English, which comes as no surprise. The other side has their people trained just as well as ours. My German shows no trace of an English accent, either.
I slowly turn my head and look at him over my shoulder.
I don’t recognize him, but it doesn’t matter who he is. He’s just another suit. What’s really important is the way his hand is lumped in the pocket of his overcoat. Holding something, something aimed right at my back.
I can tell from the crook of his thumb that his finger is on the trigger.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he goes on, presumably for the sake of the vendor behind the table, an old man watching us curiously. “You’d better come with me right now. Before we miss our dinner reservation.”
Don’t try anything, he says with his eyes.
I nibble my lip, then slowly take my empty hands out of my pockets, so he can see them.
“I know,” I answer, bending to the newspaper stand beside the vendor’s table. “I just wanted to get the paper.”
“We don’t have time for that.”
“Oh, it’ll be fast,” the vendor assures the Stasi agent standing behind me. “Let the lady have her newspaper!”
The agent barely manages to avoid rolling his eyes as I press thirty cents into the vendor’s hand, take the newspaper, and roll it up tight.
Nice try, he might as well have said out loud.
I can see his point. A rolled-up newspaper is not much of a weapon, definitely not compared to whatever he’s got in his pocket.
I turn to walk beside him. We set off together through the busy street.
He reaches for my arm, clearly intending to pull me close and say something to me. He blinks in surprise and alarm when I dart up ahead of him, hastily weaving through the crowd.
Most people go very still and get very cooperative when there’s a gun aimed at their back. But most people aren’t secret agents.
I speed up, trying to put as much distance between him and me as possible.
I’m taking a serious gamble, right now. Placing all my bets on the hope that he won’t fire in the midst of the crowd. That’s too much attention for an agent to bring down on himself, especially in enemy territory. I would never do it. I can only hope that he knows better, too.
I hear him letting out a quiet stream of curses, pushing after me through the crowded night market. He’s moving faster than I am, and catching up.
I grip the newspaper tight in my hand, my heart racing. I tap it against my fingers, making sure it’s rolled up as tight as it can go. Then I glance at the Stasi agent behind me, pushing towards me as fast as he can without drawing too much attention to himself.
He’s so close now that I can look right into his eyes.
“Come on, snake,” I whisper beneath my breath, shifting the newspaper in my hand. “Let’s rattle.”
I whip around to face him and raise my voice to a loud, frantic, very high pitch.
“Won’t you please quit following me?” I wail, every word trembling with tears. “I don’t even know you!”
People all around me startle and spin around at the commotion. The Stasi agent comes to an abrupt stop as all eyes go to me, then to him.
He hesitates, then closes what little distance remains between us and takes me roughly by my arm.
“Don’t get hysterical, now, honey,” he says, with a soothing smile on his face, a thousand warnings flashing through his eyes. “You’re always-”
“Don’t touch me!” I cry out, and whack his forehead with the rolled-up newspaper.
He tumbles backwards and crashes down onto the cobblestones, hitting so hard that his hat flies off. He lays sprawled out, gasping, rapidly sinking towards unconsciousness.
There’s a collective gasp from everyone close enough to see. All eyes go to the agent, and I quietly disappear into the increasingly noisy crowd.
“What happened?” I hear someone shout.
“This man was bothering that woman, she swatted him with a newspaper and he tripped, or something - someone hold him, we should call the police!”
“Where did she go, is she alright?”
The growing noise provides nice cover. I silently slip away around the corner and off of Main Street, unseen.
As soon as I’m alone, I unroll the newspaper and look down at the tablecloth weight that I stole from the home decor vendor’s table, currently nestled in the inky pages. It’s shaped like a mermaid, but sculpted from some kind of dense metal, and it weighs a ton.
It’s going to slow me down.
I toss both the tablecloth weight and the newspaper into the nearest trash can, then undo my hat from my hair and toss that, too. It’s too noticeable, makes me too easily identifiable. They’ll be looking for it.
I set off down the sidewalk again, at the fastest pace I can go without attracting attention. I just need to get to Rose, then everything will be -
The black car that was following me before whips around a corner. It comes tearing down the street, burning rubber. It skids to a stop beside me before I can even blink, the blast of wind from it making my skirt flare out to one side around my legs.
There’s no one else on the sidewalk. No one to see the Stasi agent in the driver’s seat pull his Walther PPK on me. Blowback-operated, semi-automatic, double-action. Pointed right at my chest.
“Get in,” he says flatly.
I do.
As soon as I’m in the backseat, the driver lowers his PPK, pulls us away from the curb, and tears off down the quiet residential street. But the second agent, a bulky brunette beside him in the front seat, has his weapon comfortably grasped in his hand. Steadily pointed at me.
The man in the driver’s seat is strawberry blonde and slender, with dark brown eyes and a tiny birthmark on his jaw. The one who tried to snatch me from Main Street isn’t in the car.
“They sent three of you boys?” I’m still panting from the incident on Main Street, trying to get my breath back. “For little old me?”
“Don’t make this difficult,” the one driving the car says quietly.
“Do your agents at the farmhouse know that they’re not the only Stasi agents currently in town?” I ask the blonde, keeping a wary eye on the brunette. “Or do Jahn and Scholz not have the clearance level to know about that?”
If they’re alarmed that I know the real names of their agents, it doesn’t show.
“No need to alarm them when we’re investigating someone suspicious. Until we’re sure that someone is a problem.” The brunette gives me an icy look, his eyes filled with daggers. “They’ll find out soon.”
I bite my lip. The fact that my question was answered is a very bad sign. No clean Stasi agent would ever hand a CIA operative information, unless they were certain that the CIA agent wasn’t going to live long enough to pass it along to anyone.
“We should tie her up before we go too much further,” the blonde agent says to the one in the passenger’s seat. “This way is too risky.”
“She’ll be no risk at all as soon we get on the roads without streetlights.”
“Listen,” I cut in, in an increasingly frantic voice, “You don’t have to do this, it doesn’t have to go this way!”
“Yes, we do.” The blonde agent keeps his eyes on the road, not looking at me. “And yes it does.”
“No!” I press my fingers over my mouth, my eyes welling with tears. “No no no, please, we - we can work s-something out - we can make a deal, or - I have information, information you’d want-”
“That was easy,” the brunette snickers, switching to German. “We didn’t even have to get her to an interrogation room. No wonder the girls don’t last long in this field.”
The blonde agent rolls his eyes and doesn’t laugh, but the brunette lets out a laugh at his own joke, his gun lowering for a moment.
I let my hat pin slide down from where it was hidden up my sleeve. I give it a little spin in my fingers, then move like a flash, while the agent with the gun is still distracted.
Neither of them seems to realize that anything happened until the sharp, metal tip of my hat pin is pressed to the inside of the driver’s ear. I’m putting in only the tiniest little prick of pressure. Just hard enough for him to feel it, know it’s there, and understand his situation.
He freezes, staring straight ahead, his eyes widening. The second agent blinks, then rushes to lift his weapon.
“Do it and we’ll see how far the pin can go,” I say sharply, staring right into his eyes.
He lowers his half-lifted gun, hesitating.
“Do what she fucking says!” the other agent snaps in German, his hands holding tight to the steering wheel.
“Weapons back here,” I add. “Both of them, please.”
The brunette agent grits his teeth angrily, then tosses his gun into the backseat, and the driver’s gun, too.
I keep the hatpin in place as I pick up the closer PPK, then aim it at him.
“What do you want?” the brunette asks roughly, his voice barely containing his fury. “Information?”
“That was easy,” I answer, smiling sweetly at him. “I didn’t even have to get you to an interrogation room. No wonder the boys don’t last long in this field.”
“What the fuck do you want?” he repeats, spitting out every word with immense venom.
The agent driving the car lets out a long breath as the hatpin falls away, pushing a hand through his strawberry blonde hair. I relax back against the leather interior of the car, keeping the weapon aimed.
“For now, just a ride,” I say lightly, leaning one elbow up on the seat. “Take a left right here.”
~~~~
Rose opens the door of her house, then goes perfectly motionless in the pool of warm light spilling out from it.
“Hello, darling!” I give her an adoring smile from behind the two Stasi agents, keeping one gun aimed at each of their heads. “You look beautiful! How was babysitting?”
She stares at me, her stunning green eyes wide with alarm, her mouth moving but no words coming out. She presses her trembling fingers over her lips, looking incredulously between the three of us.
“What-?” She shakes her head, half in disbelief. “What-?”
“I’m sorry about this.” I wrinkle my nose at her apologetically. “I need you to wipe their memories.”
The two agents look at each other swiftly, a few muffled words breaking through the gags tied around their mouths.
“Did you gag them with your stockings?” Rose gasps, taking a closer look.
“It was all I had on me, and I already used their ties for their hands.” I wink at Rose from between the two agents. “Don’t worry, darling. The stockings are gone, but I’ve still got my garter belt. The garters you like, too. Promised I’d wear them over, didn’t I?”
The two agents twist to look at me, then whip around to look at Rose again, their already wide eyes getting even wider.
“Oh-!” Rose lets out a stunned laugh, her cheeks blushing deeply. “Oh, oh my god - come on, get inside!”
“You heard her,” I tell the agents, gesturing with the tip of one of the PPK’s. “In.”
Both agents look ready to attempt to flee, despite their situation. But they think better of it and step into Rose’s house, with all the eager enthusiasm of people being walked towards the gallows.
I direct both of them into the coat closet, then close the door and push the nearest chest of drawers in front of it.
“What happened?” Rose stammers, her frantic voice on the verge of breaking. “Leyla? Where are your shoes, what’s-?”
“I’m afraid I had to stow two Stasi agents in your closet, my sweet,” I answer, busy checking the windows to make sure that we weren’t followed. “I’m sorry I’m so late! They went after me when I went to pick us up some donuts for our movie night. There’s one more agent at the police station whose memory we’ll need to deal with, too. But he can wait for later. I’m fairly sure he’ll be unconscious for a while.”
Rose presses her palms to her temples, staring at me in blank disbelief.
“We don’t have to cancel our movie night because of this, do we?” I set down one of the PPK’s so I can touch a finger to Rose’s cheek, making a pleading face at her. “I was looking forward to it all day. The kids in town call the drive-in the passion pit, you know. I thought we could have some fun, if we can find a nice dark place to park.”
“Leyla!” Rose takes my face in her hands, her voice ringing with alarm. “Did you mean what you just said?”
“What, about my garters? Absolutely, darling.”
I lift my skirt and flash them at her.
A scandalized laugh bursts from Rose, who clasps her hands over her mouth, then lets out a begging, despairing sort of moan.
“Oh, Leyla, be serious! I meant what you said about the Stasi agents!”
She keeps her voice to a hush even when she’s trying to yell at me, gentle thing. Even when she stamped her foot, it didn’t make any noise.
I gaze down at her affectionately, wondering at the way she holds my whole heart in her hands.
“I’m sorry, Rose,” I murmur, growing serious. “We’re facing down so much. Sometimes I just - need to see you laugh.”
She pauses, blinking up at me. A small, timid smile turns up her lips. She hesitates, then - slides her hand up beneath my skirt and gives one of my garters a fast, playful little tug, her knuckles brushing my thigh.
I let out a shocked, breathless giggle. That flirty move was something I would do in a heartbeat, but for Rose to do it… I’m almost malfunctioning as a result, my cheeks blushing fiercely, my heart going wild.
I love her so much in this moment that I let out an agonized whimper and drop my head, struggling to hold myself together, barely able to look at her.
We secretly call each other wife, and still this happens to me.
Rose watches me with gorgeous, puzzled green eyes as I nearly fall apart, apparently unaware of what she just did to me.
But seriousness and silence fall over both of us before long. We look at each other unhappily. Neither of us wants to say it, but I have to.
“The Stasi must be getting suspicious.” I keep my voice to the softest possible whisper, just enough for her to hear it over the noise I know Rose always hears. “It won’t be long before my people are suspicious, too. They might send someone else to work with me and watch me. If that happens…”
I don’t need to finish my sentence. Rose and I both already understand all of the potential catastrophic consequences that would have.
“Our plan,” I begin slowly, and Rose nods like she knows where I’m going with this.
“I’m working on it.” She gestures to the armchair, looking exhausted. “But it takes time, and then I need time to let my powers restore before I can keep going.”
I look down at the armchair, where the big piece of fabric is bunched up on the armrest. On the table beside it, there’s Rose’s thimble and threader, her needle cushion, and a box filled with colorful spools of thread.
Her sewing needle is attached by bright green thread to the fabric, like she was working on it when I got here.
I still don’t completely understand how she does it, but this is how she channels her power when she needs to do particularly complex magic.
Memories are like threads, she said to me, when she explained. Lots of different threads, all woven together. This is going to be the most complicated piece of magic I’ve ever done… I’m going to need a lot of thread.
I showed up the next day with all the different colors the shop had available. Put handfuls and handfuls of thread in her fingers.
Do what it takes, I told her. I’ll keep you and Charlie safe in the meantime.
But it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is going to take her some time.
I can always buy her more thread. I don’t know how long I can go on buying us more time.
“I understand.” I drop my forehead to rest against hers. “But if my people send an agent, and that agent has their memories wiped on my watch, and I can’t explain what happened - they’re going to know I’m not really their agent anymore. Then we’re all in very serious danger. You, me, Charlie…”
Rose opens her mouth to answer, then stops. She bites her lip, her eyes suddenly filling up.
“Are we - are we going to be okay, Leyla?” she whispers, her trembling voice raw and hoarse. “Are we going to get the life we’ve been planning? Because I - I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but there are s-so - so many obstacles, so many ways this could all go wrong before we can even-”
“Rose.” I wrap my arm around her lower back, drawing her closer to me. “We can do this, darling. We will do this. One day we’ll cozy up on the couch and tell our grandchildren about this, when they’re old enough to understand. We’ll be just fine.”
Rose doesn’t answer, but she takes a few deeper breaths. I lower my head and brush a lingering, adoring kiss onto her mouth.
“Trust me,” I whisper, my heart pounding against my ribs. “You’re my wife. I’ll always keep you safe.”
She sniffles softly, slowly nods her head. “I’ll always keep you safe, too.”
We hold each other close for a moment. I stroke my fingers through her hair, then kiss the tears off of her beautiful scarred face, each kiss imbued with all the tenderness coursing through me.
Rose lifts her mouth to mine and kisses me with sweet, breathless warmth, her arms sliding to lock around my neck. I kiss her just as sweetly, then take a handful of her hair and pull her head back, teasing her mouth further open.
Her breath stumbles eagerly, and mine does, too. That place where her knuckles brushed my thigh is a stripe of pure heat, somehow still burning my skin.
I shiver a little, and we both go stumbling back a few steps, blindly feeling for a wall to push each other up against.
“Hey!” Someone bangs on the closet door, apparently having gotten their gag and binds off. “Let us out now, or you’re going to regret it!”
Rose hastily breaks off the kiss we were locked in. We look into each other’s eyes, panting and startled.
“Oh, right, the - the Stasi agents in my closet!” She goes rushing towards it, letting out a helpless laugh. “Only you could make me forget about something like that!”
“Slowly, darling!” I call out, darting after her. “Here, let me.”
I settle the PPK against my palm, keep my aim steady as I ease open the door.
The two Stasi agents blink in the sudden light. Then they both freeze when they see Rose, standing before them with glowing green magic swirling to life in her eyes.
The brunette one begins cursing softly in German. The strawberry blonde one is blank-faced, his dark brown eyes enormous.
“Can you really wipe our memories?” he asks, in a surprisingly even voice.
The shock, maybe. Whatever it is, my sweet Rose can’t help but try to reassure him.
“It won’t hurt,” she promises. “And I won’t take them all. Just the memories about us, and this. Like this, see?”
She reaches out and taps her index finger to the brunette agent’s forehead before he can react.
He goes silent and still, staring at her blankly, his panicked expression falling away.
“That’s all,” she tells him, softly and gently. “You can go.”
He stares down at her, then around at the room, a faintly confused look coming over his face. The puzzled crease between his eyebrows deepens, but he bends down and scoops up his hat from the floor.
Still looking vaguely confused, he tips his hat to me and Rose, then quietly shows himself out.
“Don’t worry,” Rose says quietly, to the remaining agent. “I won’t take anything precious from you. That’s the opposite of the kind of magic I do.”
He stares at her in silence, all the color drained from his face, his eyes unreadable.
“Could you take everything?” he asks abruptly, his voice roughening. “If - if someone wanted that? If they - could you take everything?”
Rose pauses, caught by surprise. She exchanges a baffled glance with me, and I narrow my eyes at the agent, wondering if this is some kind of trick. He’s a gifted actor, if so. His deep brown eyes are watering up, even though he’s blinking hard, as if he’s trying to fight the tears back.
“Could you?” he asks again, his voice suddenly begging.
“Everything?” Rose repeats, tilting her head to the side.
He nods earnestly, his eyes swimming with tears.
Rose hesitates, then steps closer to him. I watch him intently, reflexes poised for any unexpected movements. But he holds perfectly still as Rose places her palm on his forehead and closes her eyes.
“Oh,” she says after a moment, her voice terribly sad, fracturing at the edges. “Your memories - are-”
“But I could start over, this way,” he cuts in, his voice breathless with tears. “I could forget. You could - please. Please.”
Rose considers in silence, then nods slowly. His breath catches in disbelief, and he closes his eyes, breathing hard.
“Not everything, though,” Rose tells him. “I’ll leave you one or two precious things.”
He shakes his head desperately. “No, I don’t want - I don’t want any of it.”
“They’ll be on a subconscious level,” Rose explains gently. “You’ll always love hot applesauce on your pancakes, the way you had it that one time when you were five. Little things like that. So that you’ll still be - you.”
A tear rolls down his cheek. He nods silently, once.
He’s holding his breath, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
The magic in Rose’s eyes sparkles like crushed emeralds before she lowers her hand. The man lifts his head, a mildly confused expression on his face.
“Keep a low profile,” Rose says quietly. “And English is your first language, not German. That’s what you’ll remember, because you need to blend in to stay safe here. You can’t ever go back, now.”
He looks at her like he’s trying hard to remember who she is, but slowly nods. “Okay.”
Rose gestures to the door, speaks in a gentle, soothing voice. “You can go.”
The man walks out through the door that the first agent left open. He stops just beyond the door, taking slow, deep breaths of summer air.
Rose follows him out. I shadow her to the doorway, keeping a close eye on her.
She stops next to the man, standing between the bunches of wildflowers framing the pathway to her house.
He touches his fingertips to his cheek, stares down in faint confusion at the tears left on them. Then he lifts his eyes up to the midnight blue sky, gazes up at the glittering stars.
“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Rose asks softly.
He smiles, his eyes full of reflected stars. “It really is.”
He tips his hat at Rose, then sets off down the driveway. I move to stand beside her as she watches him go.
“They always find me,” she murmurs, in a wavering voice. “The hurting ones.”
I lean down to fold my arms around Rose, pressing the side of my face to hers. “I’m here for you now, darling. When you’re hurting for them.”
Roses closes her eyes, folds her fingers around my arms.
“He’s not hurting anymore,” I add.
“No.” There’s something like relief in Rose’s voice as she watches the man walk slowly away down the road, his wondering eyes on the night sky. “Not anymore.”
~~~~
I sit on the floor in front of Rose’s armchair with her feet on my lap. Gently massaging her toes. Watching her.
She’s sewing on the piece of magic. A strange, inexplicable process. She sits very still for long stretches, her eyes blazing and sparkling with vivid green light. Every few minutes, she adds a single, careful stitch.
“Didn’t you want to go to the movie?” I had asked her, when she sat down to work. “You said that Top Hat is one of your favorites. Who knows when there will be another screening? We can’t exactly borrow the print and projector and bring them home! What if we don’t get another chance to see it again?”
“This has to come first,” she said simply, already settling the fabric onto her lap. “This is always what comes first, for me.”
I know she wasn’t talking about the fabric. She was talking about me, and Charlie.
I’m happy to sit here for hours and watch her work. I love to. Besides, this is the only way I can help her do it. She says it helps just to have me close by.
“Why does it help, darling?” I ask, suddenly curious. “To have me nearby?”
“Because I love having you this close.” Rose leans down to press a lingering kiss onto my mouth, draws back, and gazes into my eyes. Then she sits back and adds another stitch, a small, secret smile on her face. “So easy to hear the music, this way.”
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