A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY by John le Carré

Mondays first. Mondays are for invitations out. Buffet parties are favoured, de Lisle had told him in an aside at luncheon; they eliminate the pains of placement. Mondays are reserved for away matches. England plays the wogs. Away to a different kind of slavery. Harting was essentially a second division man. The minor Embassies. Embassies with small drawing-rooms. The B team played away on Mondays.

‘- and if it’s a girl, I reckon we could get a coloured nanny, an Amah; she could do the teaching, up to O-level at least.’

‘Can’t you keep quiet?’

‘Provided we have the funds,’ Cork added. ‘You can’t get them for nothing, I’m sure.’

‘I’m working, can’t you understand?’

I’m trying, he thought, and his mind drifted into other fields. He was with the little girl in the corridor, whose full unpainted lips faded so reluctantly into the feathery skin; he imagined that long appraising stare upon his nascent paunch and he heard her laughing as his own wife had laughed: Alan darling, you’re supposed to take me, not fight me. It’s rhythm, it’s like dancing, can’t you understand? And Tony’s such a beautiful dancer, Alan darling, and I shall be a little late tonight, and I shall be away tomorrow, playing an away match with my Monday lover. Alan, stop. Stop! Alan, please don’t hit me! I’ll never touch him again, I swear. Until Tuesday.

Harting, you thief.

Tuesdays were for entertaining at home. Home is a Tuesday; home is having people in. He made a list of them and thought: it’s worse than Blackheath. It’s worse than her bloody mother fighting for her fragment of power; it’s worse than Bourne­mouth and seed cake for the minister; it’s worse than black Sundays in Yorkshire and weddings timed for six o’clock tea; it is a custom-built, unassailable preventive detention of vacuous social exchange. The Vandelungs (Dutch)… the Canards (Canadian)… the Obutus (Ghanaian)… the Cortezanis (Italian)… the Allertons, the Crabbes, and once, sure enough, the Bradfields; this happy band was mingled with no fewer than forty-eight accountable bores defined only by their quantity: the Obutus plus six… the Allertons plus two…. the Bradfields alone. You gave them your full attention, didn’t you? ‘I understand he maintains a certain standard there.’ Champagne and two veg that night. Plover’s eggs paid for by the Russian taxpayer. His wife interrupted him: darling, why don’t we go out tonight? The Willoughbys won’t mind, they know I loathe cooking and Tony adores Italian food. Oh sure, sure: anything to please Tony.

‘- And if it’s a boy,’ Cork said, ‘I’ll take it on myself. There must be some facilities for boys, even in a place like that. I mean it’s a paradise, isn’t it, specially for teachers.’

Wednesday was welfare. Ping-pong night. Sing-song night. The sergeants’ mess: ‘Have a little something in that gin and whisky, Mr Turner, sir, just to give it bite. The boys say one thing about you, sir, and I’m sure you won’t mind me repeat­ing it, sir, seeing it’s Christmas: Mr Turner, they say – they always give you the Mister, sir, it’s not something they do for everyone – Mr Turner is tough; Mr Turner is firm. But Mr Turner is fair. Now, sir, about my leave…’ Exiles night. A night for worming an inch or two further into the flesh of the Embassy; come back, little girl, and just slip off those jeans. A night strictly for business. He studied the engagements in detail and thought: you really did work for your secrets, I will admit. You really hawked yourself, didn’t you? Scottish Dancing, Skittles Club, Exiles Motoring, Sports Committee. Sooner you than me, boy; you really believed. I’ll say that for you too. You really went for goal, didn’t you? You kept the ball and you went through the lot of them, you thief.

Which left – since the weekends were not marked with anything but references to gardening and a couple of trips to Hanover – which left Thursdays.

Guilty Thursdays.

Draw a box round Thursday, telephone the Adler and find out what time they lock up. They don’t. Draw another box round that box, measuring one and a half inches by half an inch, and decorate the margins in between with sinuous snakes; cause their forked tongues to lick suggestively at the sweet Gothic curves of the letter T, and wait for the throbbing of a tormented head to be assumed into the waking drumbeat of the cypher machines. And the result?

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