Call For The Dead s-1

by John le Carré

  "I let him go. What else could I do? On paper he was suspect anyway — a rebellious Jew with a University place still mysteriously free. But I watched him. The term was nearly over and the long vacation soon to begin. In the closing debate of the term three days later he was dreadfully outspoken. He really frightened people, you know, and they grew silent and apprehensive. The end of the term came and Dieter departed without a word of farewell to me. I never expected to see him again."

  "It was about six months before I did. I had been visiting friends near Dresden, Dieter's home town, and I arrived half an hour early at the station. Rather than hang around on the platform I decided to go for a stroll. A couple of hundred metres from the station was a tall, rather grim seventeenth-century house. There was a small courtyard in front of it with tall iron railings and a wrought-iron gate. It had apparently been converted into a temporary prison: a group of shaven prisoners, men and women, were being exercised in the yard, walking round the perimeter. Two guards stood in the centre with tommy guns. As I watched I caught sight of the familiar figure, taller than the rest, limping, struggling to keep up with them. It was Dieter. They had taken his stick away."

  "When I thought about it afterwards, of course, I realised that the Gestapo would scarcely arrest the most popular member of the University while he was still up. I forgot about my train, went back into the town and looked for his parents in the telephone book. I knew his father had been a doctor so it wasn't difficult. I went to the address and only his mother was there. The father had died already in a concentration camp. She wasn't inclined to talk about Dieter, but it appeared that he had not gone to a Jewish prison but to a general one, and ostensibly for 'a period of correction' only. She expected him back in about three months. I left him a message to say I still had some books of his and would be pleased to return them if he would call on me."

  "I'm afraid the events of 1939 must have got the better of me, because I don't believe I gave Dieter another thought that year. Soon after I returned from Dresden my Department ordered me back to England. I packed and left within forty-eight hours, to find London in a turmoil. I was given a new assignment which required intensive preparation, briefing and training. I was to go back to Europe at once and activate almost untried agents in Germany who had been recruited against such an emergency. I began to memorise the dozen odd names and addresses. You can imagine my reaction when I discovered Dieter Frey among them."

  "When I read his file I found he had more or less recruited himself by bursting in on the consulate in Dresden and demanding to know why no one lifted a finger to stop the persecution of the Jews?" Smiley paused and laughed to himself: "Dieter was a great one for getting 'people to do things.'" He glanced quickly at Mendel and Guillam. Both had their eyes fixed on him.

  "I suppose my first reaction was pique. The boy had been right under my nose and I hadn't considered him suitable — what was some ass in Dresden up to? And then I was alarmed to have this firebrand on my hands, whose impulsive temperament could cost me and others our lives. Despite the slight changes in my appearance and the new cover under which I was operating, I should obviously have to declare myself to Dieter as plain George Smiley from the University, so he could blow me sky high. It seemed a most unfortunate beginning, and I was half resolved to set up my network without Dieter. In the event I was wrong. He was a magnificent agent."

  "He didn't curb his flamboyance, but used it skilfully as a kind of double bluff. His deformity kept him out of the Services and he found himself a clerical job on the railways. In no time he worked his way to a position of real responsibility and the quantity of information he obtained was fantastic. Details of troop and ammunition transports, their destination and date of transit. Later he reported on the effectiveness of our bombing, pinpointed key targets. He was a brilliant organiser and I think that was what saved him. He did a wonderful job on the railways, made himself indispensable, worked all hours of the night and day; became almost inviolate, They even gave him a civilian decoration for exceptional merit and I suppose the Gestapo conveniently lost his file."

  "Dieter had a theory that was pure Faust. Thought alone was valueless. You must act for thought to become effective. He used to say that the greatest mistake man ever made was to distinguish between the mind and the body: an order does not exist if it is not obeyed. He used to quote Kleist a great deal: 'if all eyes were made of green glass, and if all that seems white was really green, who would be the wiser?' Something like that."

  "As I say, Dieter was a magnificent agent. He even went so far as to arrange for certain freights to be transported on good flying nights for the convenience of our bombers. He had tricks all his own — a natural genius for the nuts and bolts of espionage. It seemed absurd to suppose it could last, but the effect of our bombing was often so widespread that it would havr been childish to attribute it to one person s betrayal — let alone to a man so notoriously outspoken as Dieter."

  "Where he was concerned my job was easy. Dieter put in a lot of travelling as it was — he had a special pass to get him around. Communication was child's play by comparison with some agents. Occasionally we would actually meet and talk in a cafe, or he would pick me up in a Ministry car and drive me sixty or seventy miles along a main road, as if he were giving me a lift. But more often we would take a journey in the same train and swap briefcases in the corridor or go to the theatre with parcels and exchange cloakroom tickets. He seldom gave me actual reports but just carbon copies of transit orders. He got his secretary to do a lot — he made her keep a special float which he 'destroyed' every three months by emptying it into his briefcase in the lunch hour."

  "Well, in 1943 I was recalled. My trade cover was rather thin by then I think, and I was getting a bit shop-soiled." He stopped and took a cigarette from Guillam's case.

  "But don't let's get Dieter out of perspective;" he said: "He was my best agent, but he wasn't my only one. I had a lot of headaches of my own — running him was a picnic by comparison with some. When the war was over I tried to find out from my successor what had become of Dieter and the rest of them. Some were resettled in Australia and Canada, some just drifted away to what was left of their home towns. Dieter hesitated, I gather. The Russians were in Dresden, of course, and he may have had doubts. In the end he went — he had to really, because of his mother. He hated the Americans, anyway. And of course he was a socialist."

  "I heard later that he had made his career there. The administrative experience he had picked up during the war got him some Government job in the new republic. I suppose that his reputation as a rebel and the suffering of his family cleared the way for him. He must have done pretty well for himself?"

  "Why?" asked Mendel.

  "He was over here until a month ago running the Steel Mission."

  "That's not all," said Guillam quickly. "In case you think your cup is full, Mendel, I spared you another visit to Weybridge this morning and called on Elizabeth Pidgeon. It was George's idea." He turned to Smiley: "She's a sort of Moby Dick isn't she — bit white man-eating whale."

  "Well?" said Mendel.

  "I showed her a picture of that young diplomat by the name of Mundt they kept in tow there to pick up the bits. Elizabeth recognised him at once as the nice man who collected Elsa Fennan's music case. Isn't that jolly?"

  "But —"

  "I know what you're going to ask, you clever youth. You want to know whether George recognised him too. Well, George did. It's the same nasty fellow who tried to lure him into his house in Bywater Street. Doesn't he get around?"

  Mendel drove to Mitcham. Smiley was dead tired. It was raining again and cold. Smiley hugged his greatcoat round him and, despite his tiredness, watched with quiet pleasure the busy London night go by. He had always loved travelling. Even now, if he had the choice, he would cross France by train rather than fly. He could still respond to the magic noises of a night journey across Europe, the oddly cacophonous chimes and the French voices suddenly waking him from Engli
sh dreams. Ann had loved it too and they had twice travelled overland to share the dubious joys of that uncomfortable journey.

  When they got back Smiley went straight to bed while Mendel made some tea. They drank it in Smiley's bedroom.

  "What do we do now?" asked Mendel.

  "I thought I might go to Walliston tomorrow?"

  "You ought to spend the day in bed. What do you want to do there?"

  "See Elsa Ferman."

  "You're not safe on your own. You'd better let me come. I'll sit in the car while you do the talking. She's a Yid, isn't she?"

  Smiley nodded.

  "My dad was Yid. He never made such a bloody fuss about it."

  XII

  Dream For Sale

  She opened the door and stood looking at him for a moment in silence.

  "You could have let me know you were coming, " she said.

  "I thought it safer not to."

  She was silent again. Finally she said: "I don't know what you mean." It seemed to cost her a good deal.

  "May I come in?" said Smiley. "We haven't much time."

  She looked old and tired, less resilient perhaps.

  She led him into the drawing-room and with something like resignation indicated a chair.

  Smiley offered her a cigarette and took one himself. She was standing by the window. As he looked at her, watched her quick breathing, her feverish eyes, he realised that she had almost lost the power of self-defence.

  When he spoke, his voice was gentle, concessive. To Elsa Fennan it must have seemed like a voice she had longed for, irresistible, offering all strength, comfort, compassion and safety. She gradually moved away from the window and her right hand, which had been pressed against the sill, trailed wistfully along it, then fell to her side in a gesture of submission. She sat opposite him, her eyes upon him in complete dependence, like the eyes of a lover.

  "You must have been terribly lonely," he said;

  "No one can stand it for ever. It takes courage, too, and it's so hard to be brave alone. They never understand that, do they? They never know what it costs — the sordid tricks of lying and deceiving, the isolation from ordinary people. They think you can run on their kind of fuel — the flag waving and the music. But you need a different kind of fuel, don't you, when you're alone? You've got to hate, and it needs strength to hate all the time. And what you must love is so remote, so vague when you're not part of it." He paused. Soon, he thought, soon you'll break. He prayed desperately that she would accept him, accept his comfort. He looked at her. Soon she would break.

  "I said we hadn't much time. Do you know what I mean?"

  She had folded her hands on her lap and was looking down at them. He saw the dark roots of her yellow hair and wondered why on earth she dyed it. She showed no sign of having heard his question.

  "When I left you that morning a month ago I drove to my home in London. A man tried to kill me. That night he nearly succeeded — he hit me on the head three or four times. I've just come out of hospital. As it happens I was lucky. Then there was the garage man he hired the car from. The river police recovered his body from the Thames not long ago. There were no signs of violence — he was just full of whisky. They can't understand it — he hadn't been near the river for years. But then we're dealing with a competent man, aren't we? A trained killer. It seems he's trying to remove anyone who can connect him with Samuel Fennan. Or his wife, of course. Then there's that young blonde girl at the Repertory Theatre…"

  "What are you saying?" she whispered; "What are you trying to tell me?"

  Smiley suddenly wanted to hurt her, to break the last of her will, to remove her utterly as an enemy. For so long she had haunted him as he had lain helpless, had been a mystery and a power.

  "What games did you think you were playing, you two? Do you think you can flirt with power like theirs, give a little and not give all? Do you think that you can stop the dance — control the strength you give them? What dreams did you cherish, Mrs. Fennan, that had so little of the world in them?"

  She buried her face in her hands and he watched the tears run between her fingers. Her body shook with great sobs and her words came slowly, wrung from her.

  "No, no dreams. I had no dream but him. He had one dream, yes ... one great dream." She went on crying, helpless, and Smiley, half in triumph, half in shame, waited for her to speak again. Suddenly she raised her head and looked at him, the tears still running down her cheeks. "Look at me," she said; "What dream did they leave me? I dreamed of long golden hair and they shaved my head, I dreamed of a beautiful body and they broke it with hunger. I have seen what human beings are, how could I believe in a formula for human beings? I said to him, oh I said to him a thousand times; 'only make no laws, no fine theories, no judgments, and the people may love, but give them one theory, let them invent one slogan, and the game begins again? I told him that. We talked whole nights away. But no, that little boy must have his dream, and if a new world was to be built, Samuel Fennan must build it. I said to him, 'Listen; I said; 'They have given you all you have, a home, money and trust. Why do you do it to them?' And he said to me: 'I do it for them. I am the surgeon and one day they will understand? He was a child, Mr. Smiley, they led him like a child?"

  He dared not speak, dared put nothing to the test.

  "Five years ago he met that Dieter. In a ski hut near Garmisch. Freitag told us later that Dieter had planned it that way — Dieter couldn't ski anyway because of his legs. Nothing seemed real then; Freitag wasn't a real name. Fennan christened him Freitag like Man Friday in Robinson Crusoe. Dieter found that so funny and afterwards we never talked of Dieter but always of Mr. Robinson and Freitag." She broke off now and looked at him with a very faint smile: "I'm sorry," she said;

  "I'm not very coherent."

  "I understand," said Smiley.

  "That girl — what did you say about that girl?"

  "She's alive. Don't worry. Go on?"

  "Fennan liked you, you know. Freitag tried to kill you . . . why?"

  "Because I came back, I suppose, and asked you about the 8.30 call. You told Freitag that, didn't you?"

  "Oh, God," she said, her fingers at her mouth.

  "You rang him up, didn't you? As soon as I'd gone?"

  "Yes, yes. I was frightened. I wanted to warn him to go, him and Dieter, to go away and never come back, because I knew you'd find out. If not today then one day, but 1 knew you'd find out in the end. Why would they never leave me alone? They were frightened of me because they knew I had no dreams, that 1 only wanted Samuel, wanted him safe to love and care for. They relied on that."

  Smiley felt his head throbbing erratically. "So you rang him straight away," he said. "You tried the Primrose number first and couldn't get through."

  "Yes," she said vaguely. "Yes, that's right. But they're both Primrose numbers?"

  "So you rang the other number, the alternative.."

  She drifted back to the window, suddenly exhausted and limp; she seemed happier now — the storm had left her reflective and, in a way, content.

  "Yes. Freitag was a great one for alternative plans?"

  "What was the other number?" Smiley insisted. He watched her anxiously as she stared out of the window into the dark garden.

  "Why do you want to know?"

  He came and stood beside her at the window, watching her profile. His voice was suddenly harsh and energetic.

  "I said the girl was all right. You and I are alive, too. But don't think that's going to last." She turned to him with fear in her eyes, looked at him for a moment, then nodded. Smiley took her by the arm and guided her to a chair. He ought to make her a hot drink or something. She sat down quite mechanically, almost with the detachment of incipient madness.

  "The other number was 9747?"

  "Any address — did you have an address?"

  "No, no address. Only the telephone. Tricks on the telephone. No address," she repeated, with unnatural emphasis, so that Smiley looked at her and wondered
. A thought suddenly struck him — a memory of Dieter's skill in communication.

  "Freitag didn't meet you the night Fennan died, did he? He didn't come to the theatre?"

  "No?"

  "That was the first time he had missed, wasn't it? You panicked and left early?"

  "No. . . yes, yes, I panicked."' "No you didn't! You left early because you had to, it was the arrangement. Why did you leave early? Why?"

  Her hands hid her face.

  "Are you still mad?" Smiley shouted. "Do you still think you can control what you have made? Freitag will kill you, kill the girl, kill, kill, kill. Who are you trying to protect, a girl or a murderer?"

  She wept and said nothing. Smiley crouched beside her, still shouting.

  "I'll tell you why you left early, shall I? I'll tell you what I think. It was to catch the last post that night from Weybridge. He hadn't come, you hadn't exchanged cloakroom tickets, had you, so you obeyed the instructions, you posted your ticket to him and you have got an address, not written down but remembered, remembered forever: 'If there is a crisis, if I do not come, this is the address': is that what he said? An address never to be used or spoken of, an address forgotten and remembered for ever? Is that right? Tell me!"

  She stood up, her head turned away, went to the desk and found a piece of paper and a pencil. The tears still ran freely over her face. With agonising slowness she wrote the address, her hand faltering and almost stopping between words.

  He took the paper from her, folded it carefully across the middle and put it in his wallet.

  Now he would make her some tea.

  She looked like a child rescued from the sea. She sat on the edge of the sofa holding the cup tightly in her frail hands, nursing it against her body. Her thin shoulders were hunched forward, her feet and ankles pressed tightly together. Smiley, looking at her, felt he had broken something he should never have touched because it was so fragile. He felt an obscene, coarse bully, his offerings of tea a futile recompense for his clumsiness.