Absolute Friends

by John le Carré

  And when they’ve had their talk, and agreed guidelines, she says, it would be nice if Ted came back to the house in time to kick a ball about with Jake in the garden, and perhaps Philip will drop by casually for a drink, as he often does, to talk party policy. And, when Philip sees the game going on, he can join in, says Kate. That way, Jake can see for himself that there’s no atmosphere. Things may have changed a little, but we’re all good friends together and Jake is our first priority. He will have two happy homes instead of one, which is something that rationally, in the long term, he’ll learn to accept. Because the one thing we’re all totally agreed about, says Kate, is that there will be no tug-of-war for Jake’s affections.

  In fact, so much is agreed in advance by the time Mundy boards the train at King’s Cross that he can’t help wondering whether—with all Eastern Europe on the boil and Sasha needing to report twice as often as Mundy can get to him—his journey is strictly necessary. But to his surprise it is. Mulling it all over on the train, he realizes that he agrees without reservation to everything she wants.

  Adamantly. Passionately.

  Jake’s love for his mother is more important to him than any love in the world. He will do anything to preserve it.

  And as soon as he climbs into the car, that’s what he tells her. As ever a useless negotiator in his own interest, he begs her, beseeches her, to allow him to take the entire blame for the failure of the marriage on his own shoulders. If keeping a low profile for the first few months of the separation will help, he’ll keep one. If kicking a ball about in the back garden with the Labor Party’s latest apostle of the New Direction is going to convince Jake that his mother has made a sound career choice, Mundy will kick it till he drops. And that isn’t altruism. That’s survival. His own as much as Jake’s. No wonder that even before they sit down to lunch, Mundy feels more postcoital than postmarital.

  “We’re doing it really well,” Kate assures him over the avocado and crab starter. “I just wish other people could be so civilized.”

  “Me too,” says Mundy heartily.

  They talk about Jake’s schooling. In Jake’s case only, Kate is half decided to waive her objection to private schools. Jake’s turbulent nature is crying out for individual attention. She has discussed this with Philip, of course, and with her constituency, and everyone’s agreed that provided it’s a special need, and there’s no obvious local alternative, and no unfortunate publicity, they can live with it. Mundy detests private schools but assures her that, if Jake really wants it, he’ll come up with the fees.

  “I’m just so sorry about the Council,” she says, over her trout with almonds and green salad. “It really upsets me, how little they seem to appreciate you.”

  “Oh, don’t blame the poor old Council,” Mundy exclaims gallantly. “They’ve been good to me in their own way. It’s not their fault.”

  “If you’d just been able to stand up for yourself.”

  “Oh, I know, I know,” says Mundy wearily, in their old spirit of togetherness.

  They talk about what Kate refers to as access, which to Mundy has a different connotation, but he quickly readjusts.

  “Philip’s got a book coming out in the spring,” she tells him over apple crumble and custard.

  “Super. Marvelous.”

  “Nonfiction, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  They talk grounds—or Kate does. As a prospective parliamentary candidate she obviously can’t consider admitting to adultery. If Ted thinks he should go that route, she’ll have no option but to drag up mental cruelty and desertion. How about settling for irretrievable breakdown?

  Irretrievable breakdown sounds great, says Mundy.

  “You have got someone, haven’t you, Ted?” Kate demands a little sharply. “I mean, you can’t have been sitting in London all these years with nobody.”

  Pretty much, that’s exactly what Mundy has been doing, but he is too polite to admit it. They agree it’s wiser not to discuss money. Kate will find herself a lawyer. Ted should do the same.

  A lawyer is always an arsehole.

  “And I thought we’d wait till after Philip’s new job has been confirmed, if it’s all right by you,” says Kate over a terminal coffee.

  “To get married?” Mundy asks.

  “To get divorced.”

  Mundy calls for the bill and pays it out of Amory’s brown envelope. What with the rain and everything, they agree it’s probably not the right evening for soccer with Philip. On the other hand, Mundy wants to see Jake more than he’s ever wanted to see anyone in his life, so he says maybe he’ll just come back home and give him a game of checkers or something, then grab a taxi to the station.

  They arrive at the house and, while Kate puts on a kettle, Mundy waits in the sitting room feeling like an insurance salesman and peering at the places where he would put flowers if he were still resident, and at the clumsy arrangement of the furniture that wouldn’t take five minutes to fix if Jake just gave him a hand. And he reflects that he possesses too many of the domestic concerns that Kate manages perfectly well without, but then Kate grew up with a family whereas Mundy was always trying to invent one. His thoughts are still running in this direction when the front door flies open and Jake marches into the room accompanied by his friend Lorna. Without a word he storms past his father, switches on the television and crashes onto the sofa with Lorna at his side.

  “What are you doing back from school so early?” Mundy asks suspiciously.

  “Sent,” says Jake defiantly, without turning his head from the screen.

  “Why? What have you done?”

  “Teacher says we’re to watch history in the making,” Lorna explains smugly.

  “So we’re watching it, anything wrong with that? What’s for tea, Mum?” says Jake.

  Teacher is right. History is indeed being made. The children watch, Mundy watches. Even Kate, who doesn’t regard foreign policy as an election winner, watches from the kitchen doorway. The Berlin Wall is coming down, and hippies from both sides are jumping about on what’s left of it. Hippies from the West have long hair, Mundy notices in his numb state. Newly liberated hippies from the East still wear it short.

  At midnight Mundy’s train delivers him to King’s Cross. From a phone box he calls the emergency number. Amory’s voice tells him to leave his message now. Mundy says he hasn’t got one, he’s just wondering whether there’s anything he should be doing. He means, he’s frightened stiff for Sasha, but is too well trained to say so. He gets an answer of sorts when he arrives at Estelle Road, but it was left on the machine six hours ago. “No squash tomorrow, Edward. Courts are being renovated. Sit tight and take lots of water with it. Tschüss.” He switches on the television.

  My Berlin.

  My Wall.

  My crowds vandalizing it.

  My crowds storming Stasi headquarters.

  My friend locked inside, waiting to be mistaken for the enemy.

  Thousands of Stasi files being flung into the streets.

  Wait till you read mine: Ted Mundy, Stasi secret agent, British traitor.

  At 6 a.m. he goes to a phone box in Constantine Road and again calls the emergency number. Where does it ring? In the Wool Factory? Who’s bothering to deceive the Stasi anymore? At Amory’s home—where’s that? He leaves another meaningless message.

  Back in Estelle Road, he lies in the bath listening to North German radio. He shaves with enormous concentration, cooks himself a celebratory breakfast but has no appetite for it and leaves the bacon on the doorstep for nextdoor’s cat. Desperate for exercise, he sets off for the Heath but ends up in Bedford Square. His front-door key works, but when he presses the bell to the inner bailey, no nice English girl wearing her father’s signet ring welcomes him aboard. In an unscripted fit of frustration, he gives the door a violent shake, then hammers on it, which sets off an alarm bell. A blue light is flashing in the porch as he steps outside and the din of the bell is deafening.

  From a
public telephone in Tottenham Court Road tube station he again calls the emergency number and this time gets Amory live. In the background he hears Germans shouting and assumes his call has been patched through to Berlin.

  “What the fuck do you think you were doing at the Factory?” Amory demands.

  “Where is he?” Mundy says.

  “Disappeared from our screens. Not at his office, not at his apartment.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “We’ve looked, that’s how. What do you think we’ve been doing? We’ve checked his flat and frightened his neighbors. The consensus is, he saw the way the wind was blowing and got out before he was clubbed down in the street or whatever the hell’s going on.”

  “Let me look for him.”

  “Marvelous. Do that. Bring your guitar and come and sing outside the prisons till he hears your golden voice. We’ve got your passport in case you’ve forgotten. Ted?”

  “What?”

  “We care about him too, all right? So stop making a martyr of yourself.”

  It’s a full five months before Sasha’s letter arrives. How Mundy passed them is afterwards unclear to him. Soccer afternoons with Jake in Doncaster. Soccer afternoons with Jake and Philip. Ghastly threesome dinners with Philip and Kate which Jake refuses to attend. Dismal weekends with Jake alone in London. Films Jake needs to see and Mundy loathes. Spring walks on the Heath with Jake trailing two paces behind. Hanging around the British Council as the blessed day of Early Retirement by Mutual Consent draws near.

  The same old handwriting. Blue airmail paper. Postmarked Husum, North Germany, and addressed to Estelle Road, NW3. How the hell did he know my address? Of course—I put it in my visa application a thousand years ago. He wonders why Husum is familiar to him. Of course—Theodor Storm, author of The Rider on the White Horse. Dr. Mandelbaum read it to me.

  Dear Teddy,

  I have reserved two luxurious suites in your name at the Hotel Dreesen in Bad Godesberg for the night of the 18th. Bring everything you possess in the world, but come alone. I wish neither to say hullo nor goodbye to Mr. Arnold, who can go fuck himself. I came to Husum in order to confirm that the Herr Pastor is truly buried. I regret so much that he is not alive to witness the exalting sight of Our Dear Führer annexing East Germany by means of God’s Almighty Deutschmark.

  Your brother-in-Christ,

  Sasha

  * * *

  Sasha has lost weight, though he had little enough to lose. The Western superspy is folded like a starved child into the corner of a winged chair big enough for three of him.

  “It was force of nature,” Mundy insists, wishing he didn’t sound so apologetic. “It was all there, banked up, ready to happen. Once the Wall was down, there was no stopping the process. You can’t blame anyone.”

  “I blame them, thank you, Teddy. I blame Kohl, Reagan, Thatcher and your duplicitous Mr. Arnold, who gave me false promises.”

  “He gave you nothing of the kind. He told you the truth as he found it.”

  “Then in his profession, he should know that the truth as he finds it is always a lie.”

  They fall quiet again, but the Rhine is never quiet. Though it is nighttime, chains of barges charge ceaselessly past the windows, and by their din they could as well be passing through the room. Mundy and Sasha are sitting in darkness, but the Rhine is never dark. The sodium lamps that line the towpath shine upward onto the oval ceiling. The lights of the pleasure boats flit at will across the pilastered walls. On Mundy’s arrival, Sasha led him to the window and gave him the tour: Across the river from us, Teddy, you will see the mountaintop hotel where your revered prime minister Neville Chamberlain resided while he was giving half of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. In this hotel where we are sitting—I dare think these very rooms—Our Dear Führer and his retinue consented to receive Mr. Chamberlain’s generous gift. How the Führer would have adored to be with us here tonight, Teddy! East Germany annexed, Grossdeutschland reunited, the Red Peril put to rest. And tomorrow the world.

  “I have messages for you from Mr. Arnold,” Mundy says. “Shall I convey them to you?”

  “Please do.”

  “Within reason, it’s whatever you want. Resettlement, a new identity, you’ve only to say. Apparently you told them at the beginning that you didn’t want money. They’re not expecting to hold you to that.”

  “They are the soul of generosity.”

  “They’d like to meet you and talk your future through with you. I’ve got a passport for you in my pocket and a couple of tickets for tomorrow morning’s flight to London. If you don’t want to go to them, they’ll come to wherever you’re prepared to meet them.”

  “I am overwhelmed. But why are they so anxious for my welfare when I am a spent force?”

  “Maybe they have a sense of honor. Maybe they don’t like to think of you wandering round like a zombie after all you’ve done for them. Or maybe they don’t want to read your memoirs.”

  Another long silence, another infuriating new direction. Sasha has set down his whiskey and picked up a mint chocolate. He is fastidiously peeling the silver paper from it with his fingertips. “I was in Paris, that much is certain,” he recalls, in the practical tones of someone attempting to reconstruct an accident. “I have a label from Paris attached to my suitcase.” He selects an edge of chocolate and nibbles at it. “And in Rome I was undoubtedly a night porter. Now that’s a profession for retired spies. To watch over the world while it’s asleep. To sleep while it goes to the devil.”

  “I think we can do better than night porter for you.”

  “And from Rome, I must have taken a train to Paris and from Paris to Hamburg, and from Hamburg to Husum where, despite my ragged appearance, I persuaded a taxi driver to take me to the house of the late Herr Pastor. The front door was opened by my mother. She had a cold chicken waiting for me in the refrigerator and a bed warmed for me upstairs. We may therefore deduce that I had telephoned her in the course of my travels and advised her of my intention to visit her.”

  “Sounds a reasonable enough thing to have done.”

  “I have read that there are primitive tribes who believe that someone must die in order for someone else to be born. My mother’s renaissance confirms this theory. She nursed me day and night with considerable skill for four weeks. I was impressed.” An anchor chain shrieks and drowns. A ship’s horn laments its passing. “But what will become of you, Teddy? Is Mr. Arnold equally openhanded with his countrymen? How about footman to the Queen?”

  “They’re talking of buying me a partnership in a language school. We’re discussing it.”

  “Here in Germany?”

  “Probably.”

  “Teaching German to the Germans? It’s high time. One half speaks Amideutsch, the other Stasideutsch. Please begin your work as soon as possible.”

  “English actually.”

  “Ah, of course. The language of our masters. Very wise. Has your marriage failed?”

  “Why should it have done?”

  “Because otherwise you would have retreated to the bosom of your family.”

  If Sasha is hoping to goad Mundy, he has succeeded.

  “So we’re bereft,” he snaps. “Great. Washed up. Two Cold War bums on the skids. Is that who we are, Sasha? Is it? So let’s have a bloody good cry about it. Let’s go all passive and self-pitying and agree there’s no hope for anyone. Is that what we’re here to do?”

  “It is my mother’s wish that I escort her back to Neubrandenburg, where she was born. There is an establishment for the elderly with which she has been in correspondence. Mr. Arnold will please pay the fees until her death, which cannot be far off.” He takes a card from his pocket and lays it on the table. The Ursuline Convent of St. Julia, Mundy reads. “Mr. Arnold’s money may be tainted, but the Herr Pastor’s is untouchable and will be given to the wretched of the earth. I wish you to come with me, Teddy.”

  The river traffic is so loud at this moment that Mundy does not immediately catch
Sasha’s last words. Then he sees that he has sprung to his feet and is standing before him.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Sasha?”

  “Your luggage is still packed. So is mine. We have only to pay the bill and go. First we take my mother to Neubrandenburg. She’s a nice woman. Good manners. You want to share her with me, I won’t be jealous. Then we go.”

  “Where to?”

  “Away from the Fourth Reich. Somewhere there’s hope at last.”

  “Where would that be?”

  “Wherever hope’s the only thing they can afford. You think the war’s over because a bunch of old Nazis in East Germany have traded Lenin for Coca-Cola? Do you really believe that American capitalism will make the world a sweet safe place? It will pick it dry.”

  “So what are you proposing to do about it?”

  “Resist it, Teddy. What else is there to do?”

  Mundy doesn’t answer. Sasha is holding up his suitcase. In the darkness it looks larger than he is, but Mundy doesn’t move to help or stop him. He remains seated while he runs through a list of extraneous bits and pieces that all of a sudden are very important to him. Jake wants to go glacier skiing in May. Kate wants Estelle Road back. She’s proposing to base in London and commute to her constituency so that Philip can be closer to the seat of power. Maybe I should find a crash course somewhere, get myself a degree in something. Amid all the honking and hooting from the river, he doesn’t even hear the door close.

  And still Mundy remains there, slumped in his armchair, methodically working his way through a glass of nearly neat Scotch, listening to the clatter of a world he is no longer part of, savoring the emptiness of his existence, wondering what’s left of him now that his past has walked out on him, and how much of him is usable, if any of him is, or is it better to write off the whole mess and start again?

  Wondering also who he was when he did all that stuff he’ll never do again. The deceiving and pretending—in the name of what? The Steel Coffin and the army greatcoat on the autobahn—for whom?

  Wondering whether what he did was worth a busted marriage and a busted career and a child I daren’t look in the eye.