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Le Carre, John - The Looking Glass War (v1.0)

Page 12

by The Looking-Glass War [lit]


  "No, of course," Leiser said politely.

  The bar was filling up.

  "I wonder whether you know of a different place where we might talk?" Haldane inquired. "We could eat, chat about some of the old gang. Or have you another engagement?" The lower classes eat early.

  Leiser glanced at his watch. "I'm all right till eight," he said. "You want to do something about that cough, sir. It can be dangerous, a cough like that." The watch was of gold; it had a black face and a compartment for indicating phases of the moon.

  The Under Secretary, similarly conscious of the time, was bored to be kept so late.

  "I think I mentioned to you," Leclerc was saying, "that the Foreign Office has been awfully sticky about providing operational passports. They've taken to consulting the Circus in every case. We have no status, you understand; it's hard for me to make myself unpleasant about these things—they have only the vaguest notion of how we work. I wondered whether the best system might not be for my Department to route passport requisitions through your Private Office. That would save the bother of going to the Circus every time."

  "What do you mean, sticky?"

  "You will remember we sent poor Taylor out under another name. The Office revoked his operational passport a matter of hours before he left London. I fear the Circus made an administrative blunder. The passport which accompanied the body was therefore challenged on arrival in the United Kingdom. It gave us a lot of trouble. I had to send one of my best men to sort it out," he lied. "I'm sure that if the Minister insisted, Control would be quite agreeable to a new arrangement."

  The Under Secretary jabbed a pencil at the door which led to his Private Office. "Talk to them in there. Work something out. It sounds very stupid. Who do you deal with at the Office?"

  "De Lisle," said Leclerc with satisfaction, "in General Department. He's the Assistant. And Guillam at the Circus."

  The Under Secretary wrote it down. "One never knows who to talk to in that place; they're so top-heavy."

  "Then I may have to approach the Circus for technical resources. Wireless and that kind of thing. I propose to use a cover story for security reasons: a pretended training scheme is the most appropriate."

  "Cover story? Ah yes: a lie. You mentioned it."

  "It's a precaution, no more."

  "You must do as you think fit."

  "I imagined you would prefer the Circus not to know. You said yourself: no monolith. I have proceeded on that assumption."

  The Under Secretary glanced again at the clock above the door. "He's been in a rather difficult mood: a dreary day with the Yemen. I think it's partly the Woodbridge by-election: he gets so upset about the marginals. How's this thing going, by the way? It's been very worrying for him, you know. I mean, what's he to believe?" He paused. "It's these Germans who terrify me. . . . You mentioned you'd found a fellow who fitted the bill." They moved to the corridor.

  "We're onto him now. We've got him in play. We shall know tonight."

  The Under Secretary wrinkled his nose very slightly, his hand on the Minister's door. He was a churchman and disliked irregular things.

  "What makes a man take on a job like that? Not you; him, I mean."

  Leclerc shook his head in silence, as if the two of them were in close sympathy. "Heaven knows. It's something we don't even understand ourselves."

  "What kind of person is he? What sort of class? Only generally, you appreciate."

  "Intelligent. Self-educated. Polish extraction."

  "Oh, I see." He seemed relieved. "We'll keep it gentle, shall we? Don't paint it too black. He loathes drama. I mean, any fool can see what the dangers are."

  They went in.

  Haldane and Leiser took their places at a corner table, like early lovers in a coffee bar. It was one of those restaurants which rely on empty Chianti bottles for their charm and on very little else for their custom. It would be gone tomorrow, or the next day, and scarcely anyone would notice, but while it was there and new and full of hope, it was not at all bad. Leiser had steak, it seemed to be habit, and sat primly while he ate it, his elbows firmly at his sides.

  At first Haldane pretended to ignore the purpose of his visit. He talked badly about the war and the Department; about operations he had half forgotten until that afternoon, when he had refreshed his memory from the files. He spoke—no doubt it seemed desirable—mainly of those who had survived.

  He referred to the courses Leiser had attended; had he kept up his interest in radio at all? Well, no, as a matter of fact. How about unarmed combat? There hadn't been the opportunity, really.

  "You had one or two rough moments in the war, I remember," Haldane prompted. "Didn't you have some trouble in Holland?" They were back to vanity and old times' sake.

  A stiff nod. "I had a spot of trouble," he conceded. "I was younger then."

  "What happened exactly?"

  Leiser looked at Haldane, blinking, as if the other had waked him, then began to talk. It was one of those wartime stories which have been told with variations since war began, as remote from the neat little restaurant as hunger or poverty, less credible for being articulate. He seemed to tell it at second hand. It might have been a big fight he had heard on the wireless. He had been caught, he had escaped, he had lived for days without food, he had killed, been taken into refuge and smuggled back to England. He told it well; perhaps it was what the war meant to him now, perhaps it was true, but as with a Latin widow relating the manner of her husband's death, the passion had gone out of his heart and into the telling. He seemed to speak because he had been told to; his affectations, unlike Leclerc's, were designed less to impress others than to protect himself. He seemed a very private man whose speech was exploratory; a man who had been a long time alone and had not reckoned with society; poised, not settled. His accent was good but exclusively foreign, lacking the slur and the elision which escapes even gifted imitators; a voice familiar with its environment, but not at home there.

  Haldane listened courteously. When it was over he asked, "How did they pick you up in the first place, do you know?" The space between them was very great.

  "They never told me," he said blankly, as if it were not proper to inquire.

  "Of course you are the man we need. You've got the German background, if you understand me. You know them, don't you? You have the German experience."

  "Only from the war," Leiser said.

  They talked about the training school. "How's that fat one? George somebody. Little sad bloke."

  "Oh .. . he's well, thank you."

  "He married a pretty girl." He laughed obscenely, raising his right forearm in an Arab gesture of sexual prowess. "God Christ," he said, laughing again. "Us little blokes! Go for anything."

  It was an extraordinary lapse. It seemed to be what Haldane had been waiting for. He watched him coolly for a long time. The silence became remarkable. Deliberately he stood up; he seemed suddenly very angry; angry at Leiser's silly grin and this whole cheap, incompetent flirtation; at these meaningless repetitive blasphemies and this squalid derision of a person of quality.

  "Do you mind not saying that? George Smiley happens to be a friend of mine."

  He called the waiter and paid the bill, stalked quickly from the restaurant, leaving Leiser bewildered and alone, his White Lady held delicately in his hand, his brown eyes turned anxiously toward the doorway through which Haldane had so abruptly vanished.

  Eventually he left, making his way back by the footbridge, slowly through the dark and the rain, staring down on the double alley of streetlights and the traffic passing between them. Across the road was his garage, the line of illuminated pumps, the tower crowned with its neon heart of sixty-watt bulbs, alternating green and red. He entered the brightly lit office, said something to the boy, walked slowly upstairs toward the blare of music.

  Haldane waited till he had disappeared from sight, then hurried back to the restaurant to order a taxi.

  She had turned the phonograph on. She was liste
ning to dance music, sitting in his chair, drinking. "Christ, you're late," she said. "I'm starving."

  He kissed her.

  "You've eaten," she said. "I can smell the food."

  "Just a snack, Bett. I had to. A man called; we had a drink."

  "Liar."

  He smiled. "Come off it, Betty. We've got a dinner date, remember?"

  "What man?"

  The flat was very clean. Curtains and carpets were flowered, the polished surfaces protected with lace. Everything was protected; vases, lamps, ashtray, all were carefully guarded, as if Leiser expected nothing from nature but stark collision. He favored a suggestion of the antique: it was reflected in the scrolled woodwork of the furniture and the wrought iron of the lamp brackets. He had a mirror framed in gold and a picture made of fretwork and plaster; a new clock with weights which turned in a glass case.

  When he opened the cocktail cabinet it played a brief tune on a music box.

  He mixed himself a White Lady, carefully, like a man making up medicine. She watched him, moving her hips to the record, holding her glass away to one side as if it were her partner's hand, and the partner were not Leiser.

  "What man?" she repeated.

  He stood at the window, straight-backed like a soldier. The flashing heart on the roof played over the houses, caught the staves of the bridge and quivered in the wet surface of the Avenue. Beyond the houses was the church, like a cinema with a spire, fluted brick with vents where the bells rang. Beyond the church was the sky. Sometimes he thought the church was all that remained, and the London sky was lit with the glow of a burning city.

  "Christ, you're really gay tonight."

  The church bells were recorded, much amplified to drown the noise of traffic. He sold a lot of petrol on Sundays. The rain was running harder against the road; he could see it shading the beams of the car lights, dancing green and red on the tarmac.

  "Come on, Fred, dance."

  "Just a minute, Bett."

  "Oh, for Christ's sake what's the matter with you? Have another drink and forget it."

  He could hear her feet shuffling across the carpet to the music; the tireless jingle of her charm bracelet.

  "Dance, for Christ's sake."

  She had a slurred way of talking, slackly dragging the last syllable of a sentence beyond its natural length; it was the same calculated disenchantment with which she gave herself, sullenly, as if she were giving money, as if men had all the pleasure and women the pain.

  She stopped the record, careless as she pulled the arm. The needle scratched in the loudspeaker.

  "Look, what the hell goes on?"

  "Nothing I tell you. I've just had a hard day, that's all. Then this man called, somebody I used to know."

  "I keep asking you: who? Some woman, wasn't it? Some tart."

  "No, Betty, it was a man."

  She came to the window, nudging him indifferently. "What's so bloody marvelous about the view anyway? Just a lot of rotten little houses. You always said you hated them. Well, who was it?"

  "He's from one of the big companies."

  "And they want you?"

  "Yes . . . they want to make me an offer."

  "Christ, who'd want a bloody Pole?"

  He hardly stirred. "They do."

  "Someone came to the bank, you know, asking about you. They all sat together in Mr. Dawnay's office. You're in trouble, aren't you?"

  He took her coat and helped her into it, very correct, elbows wide.

  She said: "Not that new place with waiters, for Christ's sake."

  "It's nice there, isn't it? I thought you fancied it there. You can dance too; you like that. Where do you want to go then?"

  "With you? For Christ's sake! Somewhere where there's a bit of life, that's all."

  He stared at her. He was holding the door open. Suddenly he smiled.

  "O.K. Bett. It's your night. Slip down and start the car, I'll book a table." He gave her the key. "I know a place, a real place."

  "What the hell's come over you now?"

  "You can drive. We'll have a night out." He went to the telephone.

  It was shortly before eleven when Haldane returned to the Department. Leclerc and Avery were waiting for him. Carol was typing in the private office.

  "I thought you'd be here earlier," Leclerc said.

  "It's no good. He said he wouldn't play. I think you'd better try the next one yourself. It's not my style anymore." He seemed undisturbed. He sat down. They stared at him incredulously.

  "Did you offer money?" Leclerc asked finally. "We have clearance for five thousand pounds."

  "Of course I offered money. I tell you he's just not interested. He was a singularly unpleasant person."

  "I'm sorry." He didn't say why.

  They could hear the tapping of Carol's typewriter. Leclerc said, "Where do we go from here?"

  "I have no idea." He glanced restlessly at his watch.

  "There must be others, there must be."

  "Not on our cards. Not with his qualifications. There are Belgians, Swedes, Frenchmen. But Leiser was the only German speaker with technical experience. On paper, he's the only one."

  "Still young enough. Is that what you mean?"

  "I suppose so. It would have to be an old hand. We haven't the time to train a new man, nor the facilities. We'd better ask the Circus. They'll have someone."

  "We can't do that," Avery said.

  "What kind of man was he?" Leclerc persisted, reluctant to abandon hope.

  "Common, in a Slav way. Small. He plays the Rittmeister. It's most unattractive." He was looking in his pockets for the bill. "He dresses like a bookie, but I suppose they all do that. Do I give this to you or Accounts?"

  "Secure?"

  "I don't see why not."

  "And you spoke about the urgency? New loyalties and that kind of thing?"

  "He found the old loyalties more attractive." He put the bill on the table.

  "And politics . . . some of these exiles are very . . ."

  "We spoke about politics. He's not that sort of exile. He considers himself integrated, naturalized British. What do you expect him to do? Swear allegiance to the Polish royal house?" Again he looked at his watch.

  "You never wanted to recruit him!" Leclerc cried, angered by Haldane's indifference. "You're pleased, Adrian, I can see it in your face! Good God, what about the Department! Didn't that mean anything to him? You don't believe in it any more, you don't care! You're sneering at me!"

  "Who of us does believe?" asked Haldane with contempt. "You said yourself: we do the job."

  "I believe," Avery declared.

  Haldane was about to speak when the green telephone rang. "That will be the Ministry," Leclerc said. "Now what do I tell them?" Haldane was watching him.

  He picked up the receiver, put it to his ear then handed it across the table. "It's the exchange. Why on earth did they come through on green? Somebody asking for Captain Hawkins. That's you, isn't it?"

  Haldane listened, his thin face expressionless. Finally he said, "I imagine so. We'll find someone. There should be no difficulty. Tomorrow at eleven. Kindly be punctual," and rang off. The light in Leclerc's room seemed to ebb toward the thinly curtained window. The rain fell ceaselessly outside.

  "That was Leiser. He's decided he'll do the job. He wants to know whether we can find someone to take care of his garage while he's away."

  Leclerc looked at him in astonishment. Pleasure spread comically over his face. "You expected it!" he cried. He stretched out his small hand. "I'm sorry, Adrian. I misjudged you. I congratulate you warmly."

  "Why did he accept?" Avery asked excitedly. "What made him change his mind?"

  "Why do agents ever do anything? Why, do any of us?" Haldane sat down. He looked old but inviolate, like a man whose friends had already died. "Why do they consent or refuse, why do they lie or tell the truth? Why do any of us?" He began coughing again. "Perhaps he's underemployed. It's the Germans: he hates them. That's what he says. I p
lace no value on that. Then he said he couldn't let us down. I assume he means himself."

  To Leclerc he added, "The war rules: that was right, wasn't it?"

  But Leclerc was dialing the Ministry.

  Avery went into the Private Office. Carol was standing up.

  "What's going on?" she said quickly. "What's the excitement?"

  "It's Leiser." Avery closed the door behind him. "He's agreed to go." He stretched out his arms to embrace her. It would be the first time.

  "Why?"

  "Hatred of the Germans, he says. My guess is money."

  "Is that a good thing?"

  Avery grinned knowingly. "As long as we pay him more than the other side."

  "Shouldn't you go back to your wife?" she said sharply. "I can't believe you need to sleep here."

  "It's operational." Avery went to his room. She did not say good night.

  Leiser put down the telephone. It was suddenly very quiet. The lights on the roof went out, leaving the room in darkness. He went quickly downstairs. He was frowning, as if his entire mental force were concentrated on the prospect of eating a second dinner.

  Eleven

  They chose Oxford as they had done in the war. The variety of nationalities and occupations, the constant coming and going of visiting academics and the resultant anonymity, the proximity of open country, all perfectly suited their needs. Besides, it was a place they could understand. The morning after Leiser had rung, Avery went ahead to find a house. The following day he telephoned Haldane to say he had taken one for a month in the north of the town, a large Victorian affair with four bedrooms and a garden. It was very expensive. It was known in the Department as the Mayfly house and carded under Live Amenities.

  As soon as Haldane heard, he told Leiser. At Leiser's suggestion it was agreed that he should put it about that he was attending a course in the Midlands.

  "Don't give any details," Haldane had said. "Have your mail sent poste restante to Coventry. We'll get it picked up from there." Leiser was pleased when he heard it was Oxford.

  Leclerc and Woodford had searched desperately for someone to run the garage in Leiser's absence; suddenly they thought of McCulloch. Leiser gave him power of attorney and spent a hasty morning showing him the ropes. "We'll offer you some kind of guarantee in return," Haldane said.

 

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