Waltenberg

  Lilstein has calmed down, he turns the pages of Flash Gordon, he smiles, he feels better, Morel has not betrayed him, Morel is a historian, a great historian, Roosevelt and the Japanese dagger between the shoulder-blades.

  At last Morel and Lilstein have left the bookshop, they have made for the southern exit of the Passage Marceau, the girl watches them leave, she is alone again, she has decided to ring Gilles, they’ll meet up at the Turk’s, then they’ll come back to the bookshop for a coffee, I’m not fair on Gilles, I love his skin, best if Gilles comes here at lunchtime, we’ll eat in the back of the shop, I’ll pop out and buy a few things, mayo salad, two small quiches, half-bottle of wine, apple tart, I’ll behave as if we had all the time in the world, we behave as if we didn’t know, without rushing, and when I’m on the table, I can stroke Gilles’s ears with my feet.

  Lilstein has begun to feel a lot better. Just before they reached the exit from the alleyway, an object turning in a shop window caught his attention, a rotating disc about fifty centimetres in diameter, on it a representation of the Knights of the Round Table, Lilstein cheers up, eleven miniature knights standing by their chairs, around the Table, and King Arthur in front of his throne, tin figures, less than ten centimetres tall, their right arms extended horizontally, pointing with their swords to the middle of the table, and on their left arms each holds a large helmet with a more or less fabulous creature on it, wolf, dragon, boar or hippocampus. Lilstein looks at the price-tag, six hundred francs for each Knight, nine hundred for the King, five hundred per chair, the Table is priced at one thousand three hundred francs and Lilstein bursts out laughing:

  ‘See that? Electric motor for turning the disc one thousand francs!’

  They have emerged on to the Boulevard des Italiens, Lilstein repeated ‘a thousand francs for legend-turning, a thousand francs’, Morel is happy to see him so relaxed. Lilstein had gone through a brief persecution crisis, he had doubted his friend, had come close to breaking off almost half a century of friendship, he blames himself, he feels he can trust him again, they have walked up the Boulevard des Italiens towards the Opera, grey sky, with blue breaks in it and a few drops of non-threatening rain.

  ‘Could we take a leisurely stroll down the avenue de l’Opéra?’ asked Lilstein, ‘I’d like to stay with you.’

  ‘Misha, sure it won’t tire you?’

  Lilstein said it was probably the last chance of a walk he’d have, the people in Bonn, oh yes, I know, these days we have to say the people in Berlin, but I haven’t got used to it yet, strolling, it won’t be long before the people in Bonn won’t be letting me do much strolling.

  They started making their way down the avenue de l’Opéra, after they’d gone a couple of dozen metres Morel stopped. He asked Lilstein: ‘Are you really sure you want to go all the way to the end? No cinemas, no restaurants, just the one bookshop, stocks books for tourists, there are just banks, bureaux de change and travel agents.’ Morel’s hand pointing to the signs around them:

  ‘Voyages Melia, Thomas Cook, Tourscope, Czech Airlines! All that’s left of this row of shop are businesses which enable you to get the hell out of here. Come on!’

  Morel took Lilstein’s arm, Lilstein put up no resistance, they went along the rue Daunou, emerged on to the Boulevard des Capucines, then on to the Madeleine.

  Lilstein’s mood was gloomy:

  ‘Gorbachev, perestroika, glasnost, truth, socialism with a human face, we almost won, a whole life vindicated, Morel, I’m going to turn myself in to the people in Bonn, I won’t say anything about us, I’m embarrassed that I suspected you of betraying me, please forgive me, very sincerely, if they interrogate me about you I’ll say I came to see you because you are a historian, I’ll make them believe I told you things for a big article you’re writing about the Cold War, that will give you something to exert pressure with, do you remember, my first words at Waltenberg, “You won’t be caught because there’ll be nothing to get caught for”, Morel, you have nothing to fear.’

  They went as far as the Madeleine, which Lilstein thought very ugly. Morel pointed out to his friend the old shop front of Berck’s, the stamp-dealer’s, and the mustard maker’s emporium just next to it. In the distance, to the north, they could make out the church of Saint-Augustin, Morel talked about a small square next to the church, he’d grazed his knees there and pushed toy cars around it over a period of years, he added:

  ‘There’s also the Army Club, you can’t see it from here, it’s on the left, just before you get to Saint-Augustin, you’ve never been there? not even by proxy?’

  In the end they walked along the rue Royale, towards the Place de la Concorde. Morel was moved. At last Lilstein found a note of gentleness in Morel’s voice. When they reached the rue Saint-Honoré, Morel stopped, he looked at the Obélisque, he asked:

  ‘Misha, do you know why I betrayed you?’

  Chapter 14

  1991

  We Never Suspected You for One Moment!

  In which we learn the reasons that motivated the mole after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

  In which we hear final revelations concerning the life of Lena and the death of Hans.

  In which the question arises of who should serve the tea in the White House.

  In which young people have a great time without giving a second thought to what old persons think.

  Paris, the quais of the Seine, September 1991

  What’s the good of a vacuum cleaner if the power’s cut off?

  Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana

  Lilstein did not react to Morel’s question.

  Morel continued:

  ‘Do you know why I went over to the CIA, Misha? Because I’m a better Marxist than you.

  ‘I betrayed you because I realised it was all over. You remember advising me to have two souls? I went over to the Americans when I realised your precious socialism was fucked, that Gorbachev wouldn’t last long, that my idealistic soul would never float back down to earth, Gorby is currently making a hash of it, and is taking the old dream down with him.

  ‘I had a head start on you, for a long time I’d been seeing it clearly, output potential, production outcomes, fifteen million Germans available and all that could be manufactured was plastic motor cars, I ask you!

  ‘The Trabant on the motorway, next to the Audis, the Mercedes, and the official slogan, “Overtaking – our way”, I had a start on you because I’m more materialistic than you are, Misha, you’d placed all your hopes in Gorbachev but without having an “objective reason” for doing so, you had too much faith in the spirits you’d been summoning to the rescue since you were a teenager, whereas I knew that Gorbachev couldn’t rely on those “real social forces” as they used to be called once, perestroika, glasnost, hot air. The future isn’t something to put on a pedestal.

  ‘I’m a historian, a historian has a feel for these things, the role of material conditions, and that held even truer for Honecker, you remember Honecker with his panama hat and big round glasses, saluting youth march-pasts by waving a small yellow and red teddy bear? That’s all there ever was, march-pasts, and a regime which was only right twice a day, like a stopped watch, and to get a lawn-mower you had to recycle an electric drill and to make an electric drill you had to recycle a hair-drier, and you fingered dissidents in order to hide what you were really up to, those were the material conditions, the housewife saying to her hubby “go to town and even if you can’t find anything bring me back something!”

  ‘Hardly surprising you needed a wall to protect all that! And the USSR, even more grotesque! Those two souls, Misha! One dreamy, the other cynical, no, you’re wrong, it wasn’t the cynical soul that came off best, it was the idealistic soul which stuck its heels in, the one you’d offered the leading role. I intend to go on being part of the game.

  ‘I went to the CIA because I’m a better Marxist than you, I told them everything about the past, I had several interviews, handsome office, windows, lost in a corner of a vast room ful
l of computers, just like the offices of a large newspaper; when the people I talked to wanted privacy they lowered the blinds, they didn’t do it often, there were half-a-dozen of them, six civil servants and a tape-recorder, lists of questions, and no one departed from his script, to begin with I found this dangerous, a bogus kind of professionalism, I thought I’d made a stupid mistake in coming to them, I’d thought I’d walk into the realms of alternative truths and I had come to earth among yahoos clutching questionnaires and pencils for ticking boxes with, I was very scared, I almost warned you, told you to vanish.’

  Lilstein says nothing. Nothing more to say. He looks at the Obélisque on the Place de la Concorde, a couple of hundred metres away. Talking won’t help. He’s not surprised. He’d been expecting betrayal. Now it’s Morel’s turn to do the talking. It’s his day. In one single moment their friendship has ended, gone without anger. The anger had been earlier, in the bookshop, with the first suspicion. And now that Lilstein would be needing it, there is no anger. Lilstein listens, he tries to get the hang of some of what Morel is telling him, he tries to get a grip, he has always succeeded in getting a grip, but that was because other people didn’t know him very well. Morel is different, Lilstein always told Morel everything, transparency, it was transparency which had kept them together all this time, Morel knows that Lilstein now wants to take back the initiative, so no point in trying to react, Morel will have anticipated this.

  Lilstein listens while the man he trained tells him how he betrayed him, because Morel didn’t just defect, he could have gone over to the CIA and covered his old friend, giving his name but remaining selective, giving Lilstein space and time. But he did none of that. Where will the threat come from now? Another car? Lilstein steps back from the kerb.

  Morel takes a step forward:

  ‘Come on, Misha, I’ll show you, Place de la Concorde, the Obélisque, the Hôtel Crillon, the American Embassy.’

  At these last words, Lilstein tensed up. He had no wish to go to the Place de la Concorde. Morel agreed to turn left, along the rue Saint-Honoré, towards the Palais-Royal. Lilstein let him talk, all the while steering clear of the kerb.

  ‘One morning a woman invited me to lunch, Misha, in Washington, I’d seen her around a couple of times, she’d come into the room where I was being interrogated, some of the men would stand, she was black, African-American as they say nowadays.

  ‘She’d cast an eye over some papers, exchange a few words, look at me without saying a word, then leave, very beautiful, dazzling smile, firm calves, tall, but not too tall, middling height, the invitation was to a French restaurant, yes, she insisted on paying, a restaurant with photos of Toulouse on the walls and rugby pennants, black and white, the proprietor of the restaurant came by, kissed her on both cheeks saying “Bonjour, Maisie”, corner-table, and three men came and sat at another table, between us and the rest of the room, Maisie chose for us, cassoulet, an authentic Toulouse cassoulet, made the previous day, lamb, confit de canard, not forgetting the bacon rind and pork hock, a spiral of Toulouse sausage, covering of breadcrumbs, for the gratin and browning, spoon in it sticking straight up, when the patron asked what wine she said, in accentless French “no fucking contest a Madiran!” The patron laughed, his Madiran is dark cherry, with hints of strawberry and blackcurrant, but it’s an assertive wine, it’s not there to accompany anything, it shouts out for attention with every mouthful.

  ‘A very hearty lunch, yet Maisie is slim, “I eat whatever I want, this evening the gym, need the energy”, I insisted on serving her, I dropped a bean in her Madiran, I also spilled sauce on the tablecloth, clumsy Frenchman stuff, they love it.’

  Lilstein and Morel are now on the corner of the rue Richepance, outside the windows of the Blue Dwarf, in one there’s a display of electronic games, in the other a collection of dolls from around the world. Morel goes on:

  ‘Maisie’s skin is light, black but light, just as I’m thinking about this she said “some not very great white chief must have raped one of my ancestors”, she started by chewing on a bean, a solitary bean, she smiled at the patron, she loves Europe, two years in Toulouse and one in Berlin, political science at Toulouse and musicology in Berlin, great big eyes, teeth to smile with, emphasises her cheekbones, she added “we’ve decided to cooperate with you, we never suspected you for one moment, that’s why we’re going to cooperate with you”.

  ‘I was very proud when I heard Maisie say “cooperate”, it meant I wouldn’t get a penny, but at the same time it was high praise, “we saw you come and go several times, but we never suspected you, our big blunder.”

  ‘Americans are like that, Misha, they conform to type, they make a mistake, its creates a problem, so solve the problem, a beautiful woman, just into her forties, face to go with it, no stretching of the skin, fine lines denoting intelligence, clear eyes, curly hair, she has relaxed, she just loved the South of France, walking through the South of France with friends, got as far as the Gers, “we walked through farmyards and had such fun telling the fowl they used for foie gras apart from the fowl they used for confit”, they did bed and breakfast, for breakfast their hosts served them foie gras and pork scratchings, “I can still hear the voice of the guy who said eat up, it won’t do you any harm, there’s no butter just goose-fat.”

  ‘Maisie even wanted to settle down in one of those out-of-the-way places, one morning a van stopped, a pick-up, the driver had come to have breakfast with them, on the pick-up were hives, he’d come a long way, he was moving them to the lavender, he talked to her about beekeeping, she’d spent a quarter of an hour working out whether she could give up everything and become an itinerant apiarist moving between fir and lavender.

  ‘At one point she signalled to one of the men who were watching us in this Washington restaurant, I was surprised because the man shook his head, the signal she gave looked like an order, it wasn’t a question like when you open your eyes wide as you look at someone, it was a frown, brows down, and the man said no with a great deal of authority, I couldn’t make it out, they wouldn’t have fooled you, I had misled myself, she wasn’t as high-grade as I’d thought, the top man was sitting at the other table, and he’d sent my African-American on her way, elbows on table, hand under his chin, he’d said no with his head.

  ‘I’d taken him for a bodyguard, and he had the power! Maisie had cleared the ground, now we were going to get to the serious stuff, with the real top man, I’d never seen him before, I’d made a mistake, I’d opened up to a subordinate, good cop and now I’d located the bad cop, too late, the guy who’ll say “my assistant here somewhat overstepped the mark, you’re here simply to do what you’re told, cooperation is out of the question”, but the man wasn’t ready to get out of his chair, he sent his Afro-American assistant on her way, she had style, she smiled, she tried to save face, she closed her eyes. Then the man got up, very athletic type, he came over to us, not the cooperating kind.

  It’s at this point that Lilstein began to relax. He’s happy about what happened to Morel in that American restaurant, caught in the act of over-reaching himself, through excessive self-confidence, Morel is still an amateur, he still lets himself be guided by his reactions, especially with women. Lilstein has long believed Morel to be invulnerable because he no longer had a wife, no more Marguerite, but all the Americans had to do was dangle a women with a modicum of allure in front of Morel for him to stop thinking straight, Lilstein would never have made the same mistake, he would have spotted the second team, he reminds Morel of this as they stand looking at the dolls in the window of the Blue Dwarf, he reminds him of basic principles, he regains the initiative in a few slow sentences, just like in the good old days: the professional first puts up a curtain, my young French friend, he watches everything that passes in front of the curtain, and if all is well only then does he move on to the stage himself. Morel had walked into a trap, such a comfort. Lilstein does not say this last thought aloud, he looks around him, he’s not going to let himself be lif
ted.

  Morel heard Lilstein out, thanked him, then went on with a kind of amused affection in his voice:

  ‘The sporty type took out a packet of cigarettes, he offered one to Maisie, lit it, went back to his table. He was only a bodyguard, Misha, just a bodyguard, a gun-carrier and cigarette-dispenser, for a lady who wanted to cut down on her smoking. I’d given myself a scare. Maisie inhaled deeply, she glanced at her cigarette and said “I’m trying to give up too, you managed it twenty years ago, that right? after a six-month stint with Gallia, the day they elected you to the Collège de France? smoke bother you? we’re going to cooperate seriously.”

  ‘For all these years they hadn’t managed to pin me down, Misha, and yet they knew all about Gallia, you really protected me well. You shouldn’t have bet your shirt on Gorbachev. The CIA hadn’t managed to get to me. I told them all about the past, but that wouldn’t have been enough to make me interesting, they need a project, they have a thing about projects, programmes.

  ‘If they were talking about cooperation it meant that I had a future I could sell them. I told them Gorbachev is going to fail. At the time, they really liked my analysis of Gorbachev’s future.

  ‘Maisie invited me to dinner a second time insisting “it’s still on me”, same Toulouse restaurant, same cigarette-carrying bodyguards, same cassoulet.