"Go on. Believe in it if you can."
For a while they did not look at one another. "If it weren't for Anthony, I really would leave you," Sarah declared at last.
"What for?" Avery asked hopelessly, and then, seeing the opening. "Don't let Anthony stop you."
"You never talk to me—any more than you talk to Anthony. He hardly knows you."
"What is there to talk about?"
"Oh—God."
"I can't talk about my work, you know that. I tell you more than I should as it is. That's why you're always sneering at the Department, isn't it? You can't understand it, you don't want to; you don't like its being secret but you despise me when I break the rules."
"Don't go over that again."
"I'm not coming back," Avery said. "I've decided."
"This time, perhaps you'll remember Anthony's present."
"I bought him that milk lorry."
They sat in silence again.
"You ought to meet Leclerc," said Avery. "I think you ought to talk to him. He keeps suggesting it. Dinner… he might convince you."
"What of?"
She had found a piece of cotton hanging from the seam of her bedjacket. Sighing, she took a pair of nail scissors from the drawer in the bedside table and cut it off.
"You should have drawn it through at the back," Avery said. "You ruin your clothes that way."
"What are they like?" she asked. "The agents? Why do they do it?"
"For loyalty, partly. Partly money, I suppose."
"You mean you bribe them?"
"Oh shut up!"
"Are they English?"
"One of them is. Don't ask me any more, Sarah; I can't tell you." He advanced his head toward hers. "Don't ask me, sweet." He took her hand; she let him.
"And they're all men?"
"Yes."
Suddenly she said, it was a complete break, no tears, no precision, but quickly, with compassion, as if the speeches were over and this were the choice: "John, I want to know, I've got to know, now, before you go. It's an awful, un-English question, but all the time you've been telling me something, ever since you took this job. You've been telling me people don't matter, that I don't, Anthony doesn't; that the agents don't. You've been telling me you've found a vocation. Well, who calls you, that's what I mean: what sort of vocation? That's the question you never answer: that's why you hide from me. Are you a martyr, John? Should I admire you for what you're doing? Are you making sacrifices?"
Flatly, avoiding her, Avery replied, "It's nothing like that. I'm doing a job. I'm a technician; part of the machine. You want me to say double-think, don't you? You want to demonstrate the paradox."
"No. You've said what I want you to say. You've got to draw a circle and not go outside it. That's not double-think, it's unthink. It's very humble of you. Do you really believe you're that small?"
"You've made me small. Don't sneer. You're making me small now."
"John, I swear it, I don't mean to. When you came back last night you looked as though you'd fallen in love. The kind of love that gives you comfort. You looked free and at peace. I thought for a moment you'd found a woman. That's why I asked, really it is, whether they're all men … I thought you were in love. Now you tell me you're nothing, and you seem proud of that too."
He waited, then smiling, the smile he gave Leiser, he said, "Sarah, I missed you terribly. When I was in Oxford I went to the house, the house in Chandos Road, remember? It was fun there, wasn't it?" He gave her hand a squeeze. "Real fun. I thought about it, our marriage and you. And Anthony. I love you, Sarah; I love you. For everything . . . the way you bring up our baby." A laugh. "You're both so … Sometimes I can hardly tell you apart."
She remained silent, so he continued. "I thought perhaps if we lived in the country, bought a house . . . I'm established now: Leclerc would arrange a loan. Then Anthony could run about more. It's only a matter of increasing our range. Going to the theatre, like we used to at Oxford."
She said absently, "Did we? We can't go to the theatre in the country, can we?"
"The Department gives me something, don't you understand? It's a real job. It's important, Sarah."
She pushed him gently away. "My mother's asked us to Reigate for Christmas."
"That'll be fine. Look .. . about the office. They owe me something now, after all I've done. They accept me on equal terms. As a colleague. I'm one of them."
"Then you're not responsible, are you? Just one of the team. So there's no sacrifice." They were back to the beginning.
Avery, not realizing this, continued softly, "I can tell him, can't I? I can tell him you'll come to dinner?"
"For pity's sake, John," she snapped, "don't try to run me like one of your wretched agents."
Haldane meanwhile sat at his desk, going through Gladstone's report.
There had twice been maneuvers in the Kalkstadt area— in 1952 and 1960. On the second occasion the Russians had staged an infantry attack on Rostock with heavy armored support but no air cover. Little was known of the 1952 exercise, except that a large detachment of troops had occupied the town of Wolken. They were believed to be wearing magenta shoulder-boards. The report was unreliable. On both occasions the area had been declared closed; the restriction had been enforced as far as the northern coast. There followed a long recitation of the principal industries. There was some evidence—it came from the Circus, who refused to release the source—-that a new refinery was being constructed on a plateau to the east of Wolken, and that the machinery for it had been transported from Leipzig. It was conceivable (but unlikely) that it had come by rail and had been sent by way of Kalkstadt. There was no evidence of civil or industrial unrest, nor of any incident which could account for a temporary closure of the town.
A note from Registry lay in his in-tray. They had put up the files he had asked for, but some were Subscription Only; he would have to read them in the library.
He went downstairs, opened the combination lock on the steel door of General Registry, groped vainly for the light switch. Finally he made his way in the dark between the shelves to the small, windowless room at the back of the building where documents of special interest or secrecy were kept. It was pitch-dark. He struck a match, put on the light. On the table were two sets of files: mayfly, heavily restricted, now in its third volume, with a subscription list pasted on the cover, and DECEPTION (Soviet and East Germany), an immaculately kept collection of papers and photographs in hard folders.
After glancing briefly at the Mayfly files he turned his attention to the folders, thumbing his way through the depressing miscellany of rogues, double agents and lunatics who in every conceivable corner of the earth, under every conceivable pretext, had attempted, sometimes successfully, to delude the Western intelligence agencies. There was the boring similarity of technique: the grain of truth carefully reconstructed, culled from newspaper reports and bazaar gossip; the follow-up, less carefully done, betraying the deceiver's contempt for the deceived; and finally the flight of fancy, the stroke of artistic impertinence which wantonly terminated a relationship already under sentence.
On one report he found a flag with Gladstone's initials; written above them in his cautious, rounded hand were the words: Could be of interest to you.
It was a refugee report of Soviet tank trials near Gustweiler. It was marked: Should not issue. Fabrication. There followed a long justification citing passages in the report which had been abstracted almost verbatim from a 1949 Soviet military manual. The originator appeared to have enlarged every dimension by a third, and added some ingenious flavoring of his own. Attached were six photographs, very blurred, purporting to have been taken from a train with a telephoto lens. On the back of the photographs was written in McCulloch's careful hand: Claims to have used Exa-two camera, East German manufacture. Cheap housing, Exakta range lens. Low shutter speed. Negatives very blurred owing to camera shake from train. Fishy. It was all very inconclusive. The same make of camera, that was all. He locked
up the registry and went home. Not his duty, Leclerc had said, to prove that Christ was born on Christmas Day; any more, Haldane reflected, than it was his business to prove that Taylor had been murdered.
Woodford's wife added a little soda to her Scotch, a splash: it was habit rather than taste.
"Sleep in the office my foot," she said. "Do you get operational subsistence?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, it isn't a conference then, is it? A conference isn't operational. Not unless," she added with a giggle, "you're having it in the Kremlin."
"All right, it's not a conference. It's an operation. That's why I'm getting subsistence."
She looked at him cruelly. She was a thin, childless woman, her eyes half shut from the smoke of the cigarette in her mouth.
"There's nothing going on at all. You're making it up." She began laughing, a hard, false laugh. "You poor sod," she said and laughed again, derisively. "How's little Clarkie? You're all scared of him, aren't you? Why don't you ever say anything against him? Jimmy Gorton used to: he saw through him."
"Don't mention Jimmy Gorton to me!"
"Jimmy's lovely."
"Babs, I warn you!"
"Poor Clarkie. Do you remember," his wife asked reflectively, "that nice little dinner he gave us in his club? The time he remembered it was our turn for welfare? Steak and kidney and frozen peas." She sipped her whisky. "And warm gin." Something struck her. "I wonder if he's ever had a woman," she said. "Christ, I wonder why I never thought of that before."
Woodford returned to safer ground.
"All right, so nothing's going on." He got up, a silly grin on his face, collected some matches from the desk.
"You're not smoking that damn pipe in here," she said automatically.
"So nothing's going on," he repeated smugly, and lit his pipe, sucking noisily.
"God, I hate you."
Woodford shook his head, still grinning. "Never mind," he urged, "just never mind. You said it, my dear, I didn't. I'm not sleeping in the office so everything's fine, isn't it? So I didn't go to Oxford either; I didn't even go to the Ministry; I haven't a car to bring me home at night."
She leaned forward, her voice suddenly urgent, dangerous. "What's happening?" she hissed. "I've got a right to know, haven't I? I'm your wife, aren't I? You tell those little tarts in the office, don't you? Well, tell me!"
"We're putting a man over the border," Woodford said. It was his moment of victory. "I'm in charge of the London end. There's a crisis. There could even be a war. It's a damn ticklish thing." The match had gone out, but he was still swinging it up and down with long movements of his arm, watching her with triumph in his eyes.
"You bloody liar," she said. "Don't give me that."
Back in Oxford, the pub at the corner was three-quarters empty. They had the saloon bar to themselves. Leiser sipped a White Lady while the wireless operator drank best bitter at the Department's expense.
"Just take it gently, that's all you got to do, Fred," he urged kindly. "You came up lovely on the last run-through. We'll hear you, don't worry about that—you're only eighty miles from the border. It's a piece of cake as long as you remember your procedure. Take it gently on the tuning or we're all done for."
"I'll remember. Not to worry."
"Don't get all bothered about the Jerries picking it up; you're not sending love letters, just a handful of groups. Then a new call sign and a different frequency. They'll never home on that, not for the time you're there."
"Perhaps they can, these days," Leiser said. "Maybe they got better since the war."
"There'll be all sorts of other traffic getting in their hair; shipping, military, air control, Christ knows what. They're not supermen, Fred; they're like us. A dozy lot. Don't worry."
"I'm not worried. They didn't get me in the war; not for long."
"Now listen, Fred, how about this? One more drink and we'll slip home and just have a nice run-through with Mrs. Hartbeck. No lights, mind. In the dark: she's shy, see? Get it a hundred percent before we turn in. Then tomorrow we'll take it easy. After all, it's Sunday tomorrow, isn't it?" he added solicitously.
"I want to sleep. Can't I sleep a little, Jack?"
"Tomorrow, Fred. Then you can have a nice rest." He nudged Leiser's elbow. "You're married now, Fred. Can't always go to sleep, you know. You've taken the vow, that's what we used to say."
"All right, forget about it, will you?" Leiser sounded on edge. "Just leave it alone, see?"
"Sorry, Fred."
"When do we go to London?"
"Monday, Fred."
"Will John be there?"
"We meet him at the airport. And the Captain. They wanted us to have a bit more practice … on the routine and that."
Leiser nodded, drumming his second and third fingers lightly on the table as if he were tapping the key.
"Here—why don't you tell us about one of those girls you had on your weekend in London?" Johnson suggested.
Leiser shook his head.
"Come on then, let's have the other half and you give us a nice game of billiards."
Leiser smiled shyly, his irritation forgotten. "I got a lot more money than you, Jack. White Lady's an expensive drink. Not to worry."
He chalked his cue and put in the sixpence. "I'll play you double or quits; for last night."
"Look, Fred," Johnson pleaded gently. "Don't always go for the big money, see, trying to put the red into the hundred slot. Just take the twenties and fifties—they mount up, you know. Then you'll be home and dry."
Leiser was suddenly angry. He put his cue back in the cradle and took down his camel's hair coat from its peg.
"What's the matter, Fred, what the hell's the matter now?"
"For Christ's sake, let me lose! Stop behaving like a bloody jailer. I'm going on a job, like we all did in the war. I'm not sitting in the hanging cell."
"Don't you be daft," Johnson said gently, taking his coat and putting it back on the peg. "Anyway, we don't say hanging, we say condemned."
Carol put the coffee on the desk in front of Leclerc. He looked up brightly and said thank you, tired but well drilled, like a child at the end of a party.
"Adrian Haldane's gone home," Carol observed. Leclerc went back to the map. "I looked in his room. He might have said good night."
"He never does," Leclerc said proudly.
"Is there anything I can do?"
"I never remember how you turn yards into meters."
"Neither do I."
"The Circus says this gully is two hundred meters long. That's about two hundred and fifty yards, isn't it?"
"I think so. I'll get the book."
She went to her room and took a ready-reckoner from the bookcase.
"One meter is thirty-nine point three seven inches," she read. "A hundred meters is a hundred and nine yards and thirteen inches."
Leclerc wrote it down.
"I think we should send a confirmatory telegram to Gorton.
Have your coffee first, then come in with your pad."
"I don't want any coffee." She fetched her pad.
"Routine Priority will do, we don't want to haul old Jimmy out of bed." He ran his small hand briskly over his hair. "One: advance party, Haldane, Avery, Jackson and Mayfly arrive BEA flight so and so, such and such a time December nine." He glanced up. "Get the details from Administration. Two: all will travel under their own names and proceed by train to Lubeck. For security reasons you will not repeat not meet party at airport but you may discreetly contact Avery by telephone at Lubeck base. We can't put him on to old Adrian," he observed with a short laugh. "The two of them don't hit it off at all." He raised his voice: "Three: party number two consisting of Director only arriving morning flight December ten. You will meet him at airport for short conference before he proceeds to Lubeck. Four: your role is discreetly to provide advice and assistance at all stages in order to bring operation Mayfly to successful conclusion."
She stood up.
"
Does John Avery have to go? His poor wife hasn't seen him for weeks."
"Fortunes of war," Leclerc replied without looking at her. "How long does a man take to crawl two hundred and twenty yards?" he muttered. "Oh, Carol—put another sentence onto that telegram: Five: Good Hunting—Old Jimmy likes a bit of encouragement, stuck out there all on his own."
He picked up a file from the in-tray and looked critically at the cover, aware perhaps of Carol's eye on him.
"Ah." A controlled smile. "This must be the Hungarian report. Did you ever meet Arthur Fielden in Vienna?"
"No."
"A nice fellow. Rather your type. One of our best chaps … knows his way around. Bruce tells me he's done a very good report on unit changes in Budapest. I must get Adrian to look at it. Such a lot going on just now." He opened the file and began reading.
Control said, "Did you speak to Hyde?"
"Yes."
"Well, what did he say? What have they got down there?"
Smiley handed him a whisky and soda. They were sitting in Smiley's house in By water Street. Control was in the chair he preferred, nearest the fire.
"He said they'd got first-night nerves."
"Hyde said that? Hyde used an expression like that? How extraordinary."
"They've taken over a house in North Oxford. There was just this one agent, a Pole of about forty, and they wanted him documented as a mechanic from Magdeburg, a name like Freiser. They wanted travel papers to Rostock."
"Who else was there?"
"Haldane and that new man, Avery. The one who came to me about the Finnish courier. And a wireless operator, Jack Johnson. We had him in the war. No one else at all. So much for their big team of agents."
"What are they up to? And whoever gave them all that money just for training! We lent them some equipment, didn't we?"
"Yes, a B2."
"What on earth's that?"
"A wartime set," Smiley replied with irritation. "You said it was all they could have. That and the crystals. Why on earth did you bother with the crystals?"
"Just charity. A B2, was it? Oh well," Control observed with apparent relief, "they wouldn't get far with that, would they?"
Le Carre, John - The Looking Glass War (v1.0) Page 18