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Eisenstein’s; dark shadows and melodramatic eye close-ups and surging music. He looked at Marcia. She was wearing cut-offs and a halter top, lounging on the sofa with her legs crossed. Earlier, after the shower, they had discussed marriage. It wasn’t something either of them particularly felt they needed; and yet there seemed an inevitable drift toward it. He watched the black-and-white images change.
    Marriage, he thought. Should I get married, should I be good? Who was it that had written those lines?
    But it was Burckhardt who was uppermost in his mind. The old man had reached the rank of major general, but what was his history? Thorne seemed to recall that, during the war years, his father and Burckhardt had been involved in an intelligence-gathering agency. Later, after Truman had come into office and Thorne’s father had been elected to the U.S. Congress for the first time, they had worked together on a committee responsible for financing and overseeing the success of Operation Vittles against the Russian blockade of Berlin. Burckhardt, at that time, had been a liaison officer between the congressional committee and the staff of Lucius Clay, the American commander in Germany. Later still, after Thorne’s father had been elected to the U.S. Senate, they had continued their acquaintance, building it over the years into a friendship.
    This much Thorne knew: the periphery of the major general’s career where it came in contact with that of his father. But what about the spaces? What had Burckhardt done during the late 1950s, the 60s, and in recent years? What then? It would be relatively easy to find out—if he wanted. It would also be reasonably easy to assume that the major general had, as Marcia suggested, freaked out. Blank pages, after all. The suburban restaurant, the out-of-the-way rendezvous. You could see the shadowy outlines here of some imagined conspiracy on the old man’s part. If that was what you wanted to see.
    â€œDoesn’t this flick interest you?” Marcia was asking.
    â€œI haven’t been following it,” Thorne said.
    Marcia finished her martini. “Seminal in the history of film, Philistine,” she said. She got up from the sofa to mix fresh drinks. He watched her move around in the half-dark of the living room.
    She brought him a drink. “Notice the olive impaled on the toothpick,” she said.
    â€œWhich I loathe.”
    â€œExactly.” She sat on the arm of his chair. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if it should be a civil or a religious ceremony, right? It’s befuddling your brain. How many guests, where do we honeymoon, crap like that.”
    â€œYou’re a regular mind reader,” he said.
    â€œAh-hah.” She touched him lightly beneath the chin. “The old warrior’s empty manuscript, no?”
    â€œSomething like that.” He tasted his martini.
    She was silent for a time, watching him, the palm of one hand flat against the side of her face. “I never thought I’d love somebody like you,” she said.
    â€œWho did you imagine loving?”
    â€œDunno. A professor of English lit, maybe. You know the kind, spectacles, quiet manner, bookish. But a thunderball in the bedroom.”
    â€œAre you complaining?” Thorne asked.
    â€œUh-huh.” She leaned forward and kissed him. She tasted faintly of vermouth, olives.
    When she drew her face back she said: “Maybe the old guy was trying to tell you something. It’s like how we students of lit are always being told to read between the lines.”
    â€œExcept there aren’t any lines,” Thorne said. “There aren’t any lines.”
    Now, now there was no more running, nothing to run for—beyond fear there was a vacuum, a place where you accepted your end. His assailant’s eye, a bird’s eye, the predator. He felt strong hands on his shoulders, a vise around his neck, and he