Summary

In Chapter 49, Charlotte described her upbringing in France, recalling the Nazi occupation of her village near Nantes. She moved to Beirut to be a correspondent after attending university in the Sorbonne, where she developed communist sympathies. She described meeting Kim Philby in the bar of the Hotel Normandie, and after some months learned she was pregnant with his child. Philby gave her some money for the child before fleeing Beirut to Moscow. After having the baby, Charlotte returned to France in 1965 to her home town, then to Paris after her father threw her out. The child grew up playing games with Charlotte like counting the number of steps between buildings, until a man named Comrade Lavrov, or Sasha, appeared in Paris.

Chapter 50 picks up where the previous left off. Sasha brought a letter to Charlotte from Philby, who asked if the child...