The answer, of course, had to be no. We were both agents at war, trained to trust no one. Hadn’t Lupa been sitting in Marcel’s seat just before he’d been poisoned? But then another thought occurred to me: it really wasn’t my decision to make. I’d been ordered to find and work with Lupa. I didn’t have to trust or respect my superiors, but as a soldier I had to obey them.
And there was another point: I had already revealed myself to the younger man. If he was not to be trusted, then my usefulness here in Valence was at an end. Now my own vulnerability, here in Lupa’s quarters, could become my own best test of his credibility. Simply put, if I were alive in the morning, he would have proven himself worthy of my confidence. It may not have been the most professional of solutions, but in my wearied state it made a great deal of sense.
One final consideration, even more unprofessional, forced itself into my consciousness. With Marcel dead, perhaps I simply needed to trust someone to fill the hole he had left. With more instinct than reason, I felt Lupa to be the man for that role.
“I have to believe in you,” I said at last. “I have no choice.”
He sipped at his beer and stared into the fire. Quite some time passed. “I suspect everyone,” he said finally.
A wave of regret over the loss of my friend passed over me. “Please,” I said. “I need your help.” He started to blur before me as fatigue set in. I put my hand over my eyes and felt his come to rest on my shoulder.
“Come,” he said, “we’ll talk in the morning.”
He took me back to his quarters, down a hall that seemed to be a dead end. He put down a mattress on the floor and brought a thick blanket for it.
“Let us be careful,” he said almost gently. We were by now speaking in the familiar. “We’re going to be needing each other.” I lay down and blew out the candle beside me. He retreated a few steps, then stopped. “Do you mind if I call you Jules?”
“No.”
“Satisfactory.” Another pause. “I am very sorry.”
I slept for seven hours. When I woke up, my clothes had been sent out and already returned, so I dressed and walked back out to the kitchen. No one was there. I went outside and found Lupa on the sidewalk finishing his beer. It was still drizzling, but the awning had been pulled.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
I felt miserable, so I merely grunted. He ordered me a petite calva; and I drank it off quickly.
“Have you been awake long?” I asked.
