Smiley’s People by John le Carré

‘But you, Herr Lachmann, represent the forgiveness of the authorities. Yes, I am afraid you do.’

She sighed, and gave him a tired smile of indulgence, but when he looked at the table he saw that she had seized hold of her thumb, and was forcing it back upon itself till it looked like snapping.

‘Perhaps you are my father, Herr Lachmann,’ she suggested with a smile.

‘No, alas, I have no children,’ Smiley replied.

‘Are you God?’

‘No, I’m just an ordinary person.’

‘Mother Felicity says that in every ordinary person, there is a part that is God.’

This time it was Smiley’s turn to take a long while to reply. His mouth opened, then with uncharacteristic hesitation closed again.

‘I have heard it said too,’ he replied, and looked away from her a moment.

‘You are supposed to ask me whether I have been feeling better.’

‘Are you feeling better, Alexandra?’

‘My name is Tatiana,’ she said.

‘Then how does Tatiana feel?’

She laughed. Her eyes were delightfully bright. ‘Tatiana is the daughter of a man who is too important to exist,’ she said. ‘He controls the whole of Russia, but he does not exist. When people arrest her, her father arranges for her to be freed. He does not exist but everyone is afraid of him. Tatiana does not exist either,’ she added. ‘There is only Alexandra.’

‘What about Tatiana’s mother?’

‘She was punished,’ said Alexandra calmly, confiding this information to the icons rather than to Smiley. ‘She was not obedient to history. That is to say, she believed that history had taken a wrong course. She was mistaken. The people should not attempt to change history. It is the task of history to change the people. I would like you to take me with you, please. I wish to leave this clinic.’

Her hands were fighting each other furiously while she continued to smile at the icons.

‘Did Tatiana ever meet her father? ‘ he asked.

‘A small man used to watch the children walk to school,’ she replied. He waited but she said no more.

‘And then?’ he asked.

‘From a car. He would lower the window but he looked only at me.’

‘Did you look at him?’

‘Of course. How else would I know he was looking at me?’

‘What was his appearance? His manner? Did he smile?’

‘He smoked. Feel free, if you wish. Mother Felicity likes a cigarette occasionally. Well, it’s only natural, isn’t it? Smoking calms the conscience, I am told.’

She had pressed the bell : reached out and pressed it for a long time. He heard the jingle of Mother Felicity’s keys again, coming towards them down the corridor, and the shuffle of her feet at the door as she paused to unlock it, just like the sounds of any prison in the world.

‘I wish to come with you in your car,’ said Alexandra.

Smiley paid her bill and Alexandra watched him count the notes out under the lamp, exactly the way Uncle Anton did it. Mother Felicity intercepted Alexandra’s studious look and perhaps she sensed trouble, for she glanced sharply at Smiley as if she suspected some misconduct in him. Alexandra accompanied him to the door and helped Sister Beatitude open it, then shook Smiley’s hand in a very stylish way, lifting her elbow up and outward, and bending her front knee. She tried to kiss his hand but Sister Beatitude prevented her. She watched him to the car and she began waving, and he was already moving when he heard her screaming from very close, and saw that she was trying to open the car door and travel with him, but Sister Beatitude hauled her off and dragged her, still screaming, back into the house.

Half an hour later in Thun, in the same café from which he had observed Grigoriev’s visit to the bank a week before, Smiley silently handed Toby the letter he had prepared. Grigoriev was to give it to Krassky tonight or whenever they met, he said.

‘Grigoriev wants to defect tonight,’ Toby objected.

Smiley shouted. For once in his life, shouted. He opened his mouth very wide, he shouted, and the whole café sat up with a jolt – which is to say, that the barmaid looked up from her marriage advertisements, and of the four card-players in the corner, one at least turned his head.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *