Smiley's People

by John le Carré

  21

  His room was a tiny Swiss Versailles. The bombé writing-desk had brass inlay and a marble top, and a Bartlett print of Lord Byron’s Childe Harold hung above the pristine twin beds. The fog outside the window made a grey wall. He unpacked and went downstairs again to the bar where an elderly pianist was playing a medley of hits from the Fifties, things that had been Ann’s favourites, and, he supposed, his. He ate some cheese and drank a glass of Fendant, thinking: Now. Now is the beginning. From now on there is no shrinking back, no space for hesitation. At ten he made his way to the old city, which he loved. The streets were cobbled; the freezing air smelt of roast chestnuts and cigar. The ancient fountains advanced on him through the fog, the medieval houses were the backdrop to a play he had no part in. He entered the arcades, passing art galleries and antique shops and doorways tall enough to ride a horse through. At the Nydegg Bridge he came to a halt, and stared into the river. So many nights, he thought. So many streets till here. He thought of Hesse: strange to wander in the fog . . . no tree knows another. The frozen mist curled low over the racing water; the weir burned creamy yellow.

  An orange Volvo estate car drew up behind him, Berne registration, and briefly doused its lights. As Smiley started towards it, the passenger door was pushed open from inside, and by the interior light he saw Toby Esterhase in the driving seat, and in the back, a stern-looking woman in the uniform of a Bernese housewife, dandling a child on her knee. He’s using them for cover, Smiley thought; for what the watchers called the silhouette. They drove off and the woman began talking to the child. Her Swiss German had a steady note of indignation: “See there the crane, Eduard. . . . Now we are passing the bear pit, Eduard. . . . Look, Eduard, a tram . . .” Watchers are always dissatisfied, he remembered; it’s the fate of every voyeur. She was moving her hands about, directing the child’s eye to anything. A family evening, Officer, said the scenario. We are going visiting in our fine orange Volvo, Officer. We are going home. And the men, naturally, Officer, seated in the front.

  They had entered Elfenau, Berne’s diplomatic ghetto. Through the fog, Smiley glimpsed tangled gardens white with frost, and the green porticoes of villas. The headlights picked out a brass plate proclaiming an Arab state, and two bodyguards protecting it. They passed an English church and a row of tennis-courts; they entered an avenue lined with bare beeches. The street lights hung in them like white balloons.

  “Number eighteen is five hundred metres on the left,” said Toby softly. “Grigoriev and his wife occupy the ground floor.” He was driving slowly, using the fog as his excuse.

  “Very rich people live here, Eduard!” the woman was singing from behind them. “All from foreign places.”

  “Most of the Iron Curtain crowd live in Muri, not Elfenau,” Toby went on. “It’s a commune, they do everything in groups. Shop in groups, go for walks in groups, you name it. The Grigorievs are different. Three months ago, they moved out of Muri and rented this apartment on a personal basis. Three thousand five hundred a month, George, he pays it in person to the landlord.”

  “Cash?”

  “Monthly in one-hundred notes.”

  “How are the rest of the Embassy hirings paid for?”

  “Through the Mission accounts. Not Grigoriev’s. Grigoriev is the exception.”

  A police-patrol car overtook them with the slowness of a river barge; Smiley saw its three heads turned to them.

  “Look, Eduard, police!” the woman cried, and tried to make the child wave at them.

  Toby too was careful not to stop talking. “The police boys are worried about bombs,” he explained. “They think the Palestinians are going to blow the place sky high. That’s been good and bad for us, George. If we’re clumsy, Grigoriev can tell himself we’re local angels. The same doesn’t go for the police. One hundred metres, George. Look for a black Mercedes in the forecourt. Other staff use the Embassy car pool. Not Grigoriev. Grigoriev drives his own Mercedes.”

  “When did he get it?” Smiley asked.

  “Three months ago, second-hand. Same time as he moved out of Muri. That was a big leap for him, George. Like a birthday, so many things. The car, the house, promotion from First Secretary to Counsellor.”

  It was a stucco villa, set in a large garden that had no back because of the fog. In a bay window at the front Smiley glimpsed a light burning behind curtains. There was a children’s slide in the garden, and what appeared to be an empty swimming-pool. On the gravel sweep stood a black Mercedes with CD plates.

  “All Soviet Embassy car numbers end with 73,” said Toby. “The Brits have 72. Grigorieva got herself a driving licence two months ago. There are only two women in the Embassy with licences. She’s one and she’s a terrible driver, George. And I mean terrible.”

  “Who occupies the rest of the house?”

  “The landlord. A professor at Berne University, a creep. A while ago the Cousins got alongside him and said they’d like to run a couple of probe mikes into the ground floor, offered him money. The professor took the money and reported them to the Bundespolizei like a good citizen. The Bundespolizei got a scare. They’d promised the Cousins to look the other way in exchange for a sight of the product. Operation abandoned. Seems the Cousins had no particular interest in Grigoriev, it was just routine.”

  “Where are the Grigoriev children?”

  “In Geneva at Soviet Mission School, weekly boarders. They get home Friday nights. Week-ends the family make excursions. Romp in the woods, langlauf, play badminton. Collect mushrooms. Grigorieva’s a fresh-air freak. Also they have taken up bicycling,” he added, with a glance.

  “Does Grigoriev go with the family on these excursions?”

  “Saturdays he works, George—and, I am certain, only to escape them.” Toby had formed decided views on the Grigoriev marriage, Smiley noticed. He wondered whether it had echoes of one of Toby’s own.

  They had left the avenue and entered a side-road. “Listen, George,” Toby was saying, still on the subject of Grigoriev’s week-ends. “Okay? Watchers imagine things. They got to, it’s their job. There’s a girl works in the Visa Section. Brunette and, for a Russian, sexy. The boys call her ‘little Natasha.’ Her real name’s something else but for them she’s Natasha. Saturdays she comes in to the Embassy. To work. Couple of times, Grigoriev drives her home to Muri. We took some pictures, not bad. She got out of the car short of her apartment and walked the last five hundred metres. Why? Another time he took her nowhere—just a drive round the Gurten, but talking very cosy. Maybe the boys just want it to be that way, on account of Grigorieva. They like the guy, George. You know how watchers are. It’s love or hate all the time. They like him.”

  He was pulling up. The lights of a small café glowed at them through the fog. In its courtyard stood a green Citroën deuxchevaux, Geneva registration. Cardboard boxes were heaped on the back seat like trade samples. A foxtail dangling from the radio aerial. Springing out, Toby pulled open the flimsy door and hustled Smiley into the passenger seat: then handed him a trilby hat, which he put on. For himself, Toby had a Russian-style fur. They drove off again, and Smiley saw their Bernese matron climbing into the front of the orange Volvo they had just abandoned. Her child waved at them despondently through the back window as they left.

  “How is everyone?” Smiley said.

  “Great. Pawing the earth, George, everyone of them. One of the Sartor brothers had a sick kid, had to go home to Vienna. It nearly broke his heart. Otherwise great. You’re Number One for all of them. This is Harry Slingo coming up on the right. Remember Harry? Used to be my sidekick back in Acton.”

  “I read that his son had won a scholarship to Oxford,” Smiley said.

  “Physics. Wadham, Oxford. The boy’s a genius. Keep looking down the road, George, don’t move your head.”

  They passed a van with “Auto-Schnelldienst” painted in breezy letters on the side, and a driver dozing at the wheel.

  “Who’s in the back?” Smiley asked when they were clear.<
br />
  “Pete Lusty, used to be a scalp-hunter. Those guys have been having it very bad, George. No work, no action. Pete signed up for the Rhodesian Army. Killed some guys, didn’t care for it, came back. No wonder they love you.”

  They were passing Grigoriev’s house again. A light was burning in the other window.

  “The Grigorievs go to bed early,” Toby said in a sort of awe.

  A parked limousine lay ahead of them with Zurich consular plates. In the driving seat, a chauffeur was reading a paperback book.

  “That’s Canada Bill,” Toby explained. “Grigoriev leaves the house, turns right, he passes Pete Lusty. Turns left, he passes Canada Bill. They’re good boys. Very vigilant.”

  “Who’s behind us?”

  “The Meinertzhagen girls. The big one got married.”

  The fog made their progress private, very quiet. They descended a gentle hill, passing the British Ambassador’s residence on their right, and his Rolls-Royce parked in the sweep. The road led left and Toby followed it. As he did so, the car behind overtook them and conveniently put up its headlights. By their beam, Smiley found himself looking into a wooded cul-de-sac ending in a pair of tall closed gates guarded on the inside by a small huddle of men. The trees cut off the rest entirely.

  “Welcome to the Soviet Embassy, George,” Toby said, very softly. “Twenty-four diplomats, fifty other ranks—cipher clerks, typists, and some very lousy drivers, all home-based. The trade delegation’s in another building, Schanzeneckstrasse 17. Grigoriev visits there a lot. In Berne we got also Tass and Novosti, mostly mainstream hoods. The parent residency is Geneva, U.N. cover, about two hundred strong. This place is a side-show: twelve, fifteen altogether, growing but only slow. The Consulate is tacked onto the back of the Embassy. You go into it through a door in the fence, like it was an opium den or a cat house. They got a closed-circuit television camera on the path and scanners in the waiting-room. Try applying for a visa once.”

  “I think I’ll give it a miss, thanks,” said Smiley, and Toby gave one of his rare laughs.

  “Embassy grounds,” Toby said as the headlights flashed over steep woods falling away to the right. “That’s where Grigorieva plays her volley-ball, gives political instruction to the kids. George, believe me, that’s a very distorting woman. Embassy kindergarten, the indoctrination classes, the Ping-Pong club, women’s badminton—that woman runs the whole show. Don’t take my word for it, hear my boys talk about her.” As they turned out of the cul-de-sac, Smiley lifted his glance towards the upper window of the corner house and saw a light go out, and then come on again.

  “And that’s Pauli Skordeno saying ‘Welcome to Berne,’” said Toby. “We managed to rent the top floor last week. Pauli’s a Reuters stringer. We even faked a press pass for him. Cable cards, everything.”

  Toby had parked near the Thunplatz. A modern clock tower was striking eleven. Fine snow was falling but the fog had not dispersed. For a moment neither man spoke.

  “Today was a model of last week, last week was a model of the week before, George,” said Toby. “Every Thursday it’s the same. After work he takes the Mercedes to the garage, fills it with petrol and oil, checks the batteries, asks for a receipt. He goes home. Six o’clock, a little after, an Embassy car arrives at his front door and out gets Krassky, the regular Thursday courier from Moscow. Alone. That’s a very itchy fellow, a professional. In all other situations, Krassky don’t go anywhere without his companion Bogdanov. Fly together, carry together, eat together. But to visit Grigoriev, Krassky breaks ranks and goes alone. Stays half an hour, leaves again. Why? That’s very irregular in a courier, George. Very dangerous, if he hasn’t got the backing, believe me.”

  “So what do you make of Grigoriev, Toby?” Smiley asked. “What is he?”

  Toby made his tilting gesture with his outstretched palm. “A trained hood Grigoriev isn’t, George. No tradecraft, actually a complete catastrophe. But he’s not straight either. A half-breed, George.”

  So was Kirov, Smiley thought.

  “Do you think we’ve got enough on him?” Smiley asked.

  “Technically no problem. The bank, the false identity, little Natasha even: technically we got a hand of aces.”

  “And you think he’ll burn,” said Smiley, more as confirmation than a question.

  In the darkness, Toby’s palm once more tilted, this way, that way.

  “Burning, George, that’s always a hazard, know what I mean? Some guys get heroic and want to die for their countries suddenly. Other guys roll over and lie still the moment you put the arm on them. Burning, that touches the stubbornness in certain people. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think I do,” said Smiley. And he remembered Delhi again, and the silent face watching him through the haze of cigarette smoke.

  “Go easy, George. Okay? You got to put your feet up now and then.”

  “Good night,” said Smiley.

  He caught the last tram back to the town centre. By the time he had reached the Bellevue, the snow was falling heavily: big flakes, milling in the yellow light, too wet to settle. He set his alarm for seven.

  22

  The young woman they called Alexandra had been awake one hour exactly when the morning bell sounded for assembly, but when she heard it she immediately drew up her knees inside her calico night-suit, crammed her eyelids together, and swore to herself she was still asleep, a child who needed rest. The assembly bell, like Smiley’s alarm clock, went off at seven, but already at six she had heard the chiming of the valley clocks, first the Catholics, then the Protestants, then the Town Hall, and she didn’t believe in any of them. Not this God, not that God, and least of all the burghers with their butchers’ faces, who at the annual festival had stood to attention with their stomachs stuck out while the fire-brigade choir moaned patriotic songs in dialect.

  She knew about the annual festival because it was one of the few Permitted Expeditions, and she had recently been allowed to attend it as a privilege—her first, and to her huge amusement it was devoted to the celebration of the common onion. She had stood between Sister Ursula and Sister Beatitude and she knew they were both alert in case she tried to run away or snap inside and start a fit, and she had watched an hour of the most boring speechifying ever, then an hour’s singing to the accompaniment of boring martial music by the brass band. Then a march past of people dressed in village costume and carrying strings of onions on long sticks, headed by the village flag-swinger, who on other days brought the milk to the lodge and—if he could slip by—right up to the hostel door, in the hope of getting a sight of a girl through the window, or perhaps it was just Alexandra trying to get a sight of him.

  After the village clocks had chimed the six, Alexandra from deep, deep in her bed had decided to count the minutes till eternity. In her self-imposed rôle as child, she had done this by counting each second in a whisper: “One thousand and one, one thousand and two.” At twelve minutes past, by her childish reckoning, she heard Mother Felicity on her way back from Mass, her pompous Moped snorting down the drive, telling everyone that Felicity-Felicity—pop-pop—and no one else—pop-pop—was our Superintendent and Official Starter of the Day; nobody else—pop-pop—would do. Which was funny because her real name was not Felicity at all; Felicity was what she had chosen for the other nuns. Her real name, she had told Alexandra as a secret, was Nadezhda, meaning “Hope.” So Alexandra had told Felicity that her real name was Tatiana, not Alexandra at all. Alexandra was a new name, she explained, put on to wear in Switzerland specially. But Felicity-Felicity had told her sharply not to be a silly girl.

  After Mother Felicity’s arrival, Alexandra had held the white bed sheet to her eyes and decided that time was not passing at all, that she was in a child’s white limbo where everything was shadowless, even Alexandra, even Tatiana. White light bulbs, white walls, a white iron bed frame. White radiators. Through the high windows, white mountains against a white sky.

  Dr. Rüedi, she thought, here is a n
ew dream for you when we have our next little Thursday talk, or is it Tuesday?

  Now listen carefully, Doctor. Is your Russian good enough? Sometimes you pretend to understand more than you really do. Very well, I will begin. My name is Tatiana and I am standing in my white night-suit in front of the white Alpine landscape, trying to write on the mountain face with a stick of Felicity-Felicity’s white chalk, whose real name is Nadezhda. I am wearing nothing underneath. You pretend you are indifferent to such things, but when I talk to you about how I love my body you pay close attention, don’t you, Dr. Rüedi? I scribble with the chalk in the mountain face. I stub with it like a cigarette. I think of the filthiest words I know—yes, Dr. Rüedi, this word, that word—but I fear your Russian vocabulary is unlikely to include them. I try to write them also, but white on white, what impact can a little girl make, I ask you, Doctor?

  Doctor, it’s terrible, you must never have my dreams. Do you know I was once a whore called Tatiana? That I can do no wrong? That I can set fire to things, even myself, vilify the State, and still the wise ones in authority will not punish me? But instead, let me out of the back door—“Go, Tatiana, go”—did you know this?

  Hearing footsteps in the corridor, Alexandra pulled herself deeper under the bedclothes. The French girl is being led to the toilets, she thought. The French girl was the most beautiful in the place. Alexandra loved her, just for her beauty. She beat the whole system with it. Even when they put her in the coat—for clawing or messing herself or smashing something—her angel’s face still gazed at them like one of their own icons. Even when she wore her shapeless night-suit with no buttons, her breasts lifted it up in a crisp bridge and there was nothing anyone could do, not even the most jealous, not even Felicity-Felicity whose secret name was Hope, to prevent her from looking like a film star. When she tore her clothes off, even the nuns stared at her with a kind of covetous terror. Only the American girl had matched her for looks, and the American girl had been taken away, she was too bad. The French girl was bad enough with her naked tantrums and her wrist-cutting and her fits of rage at Felicity-Felicity, but she was nothing beside the American girl by the time she left. The sisters had to fetch Kranko from the lodge to hold her down, just for the sedation. They had to close the entire rest-wing while they did it, but when the van took the American girl off, it was like a death in the family and Sister Beatitude wept all through evening prayers. And afterwards, when Alexandra forced her to tell, she called her by her pet name, Sasha, a sure sign of her distress. “The American girl has gone to Untersee,” she said through her tears when Alexandra forced her to tell. “Oh, Sasha, Sasha, promise me you will never go to Untersee.” Just as in the life she could not mention, they had begged her: “Tatiana, do not do these mad and dangerous things!”