The Last Goldfish in Prague

The cat—Barnaby, a battle-scarred tom with one ear and zero patience—stared at me from the windowsill. I'd been running for thirty years. Not the aerobic kind. The kind where you leave cities in the middle of the night with one suitcase and a passport that says you're someone else. Prague was supposed to be different. My last stop before the quiet life I'd been promising myself since Berlin.

She was gone when I woke. The note on the pillow said she'd learned things she shouldn't have. Which was rich, considering I was the one who'd been a spy for two decades, not her. I'd told myself I retired. I'd told myself I was done with the Game. But lies are the first thing you master in this profession, and the ones you tell yourself are the easiest to believe.

I walked to the park near our apartment. Old men were playing baseball on the dusty diamond—Americans, expats, businessmen who'd probably sold their souls in boardrooms instead of safe houses. I watched them run bases they'd already paid for, swinging at pitches they'd already missed. It reminded me of her. Elena. She'd loved baseball. Said it was the only honest game there was—everything happens where everyone can see it.

"You look like someone who's lost something important."

The old man on the bench beside me didn't look dangerous. That's what made him dangerous. He was feeding pigeons, his hands steady. The goldfish bowl on his lap caught the morning light, casting wavering shadows across his face like the bars of a cell.

"She knew," I said. "About the Moscow job."

"Everyone knows about the Moscow job," he said mildly. "That's not why she left."

The goldfish—orange, absurdly ordinary—swam in lazy circles. It had no idea it was being used as a prop in a conversation that could get us both killed. Or maybe it did. Maybe fish were smarter than we gave them credit for. Maybe that's why they didn't bother with lungs, with walking on land, with running.

"Why did she leave?"

"Because you're still running," he said, and his voice wasn't unkind. "Some cats, you let them out the door, they never come back. Others sit on your windowsill and watch you pack, knowing you're not going anywhere, not really. Not where it counts."

He stood, leaving the goldfish bowl on the bench between us.

"Your employers send their regards. And this—" he gestured to the bowl "—is your retirement package. Take care of it, and it takes care of you. Fail, and you'll wish you were still in the Game."

I watched him walk away, a ghost in a city of ghosts. The cat on my windowsill back home, the woman who'd left, the life I couldn't quit—I'd been running in circles for so long I'd forgotten what a straight line looked like.

The goldfish swam toward the glass, its mouth opening and closing in silent judgment. It knew. They all knew. I picked up the bowl and started walking. Some directions only reveal themselves when you finally stop running.