Connie ran on wildly, describing clues that led nowhere, the sources that vanished at the moment of discovery. It seemed impossible that her racked and drink-sodden body could have once more summoned so much strength.
‘Oh, George, darling, take me with you! That’s what you’re after, I’ve got it! Who killed Vladimir, and why! I saw it in your ugly face the moment you walked in. I couldn’t place it, now I can. You’ve got your Karla look! Vladi had opened up the vein again, so Karla had him killed! That’s your banner, George. I can see you marching. Take me with you, George, for God’s sake! I’ll leave Hils, I’ll leave anything, no more of the juice, I swear. Get me up to London and I’ll find his hag for you, even if she doesn’t exist, if it’s the last thing I do!’
‘Why did Vladimir call him the Sandman?’ Smiley asked, knowing the answer already.
‘It was his joke. A German fairy tale Vladi picked up in Estonia from one of his Kraut forebears. “Karla is our Sandman. Anyone who comes too close to him has a way of falling asleep.” We never knew, darling, how could we? In the Lubianka, someone had met a man who’d met a woman who’d met her. Someone else knew someone who’d helped to bury her. That hag was Karla’s shrine, George. And she betrayed him. Twin cities, we used to say you were, you and Karla, two halves of the same apple. George, darling, don’t! Please!’
She had stopped, and he realized that she was staring up at him in fear, that her face was somehow beneath his own; he was standing, glaring down at her. Hilary was against the wall, calling ‘Stop, stop! ‘ He was standing over her, incensed by her cheap and unjust comparison, knowing that neither Karla’s methods nor Karla’s absolutism were his own. He heard himself say ‘No, Connie!’ and discovered that he had lifted his hands to the level of his chest, palms downward and rigid, as if he were pressing something into the ground. And he realized his passion had scared her; that he had never betrayed so much conviction to her – or so much feeling – before.
‘I’m getting old,’ he muttered, and gave a sheepish smile.
He relaxed, and as he did so, slowly Connie’s own body became limp also, and the dream died in her. The hands which had clutched him seconds earlier lay on her lap like bodies in a trench.
‘It was all bilge,’ she said sullenly. A deep and terminal listlessness descended over her. ‘Bored émigrés, crying into their vodka. Drop it, George. Karla’s beaten you all ends up. He foxed you, he made a fool of your time. Our time.’ She drank, no longer caring what she said. Her head flopped forward again and for a moment he thought she really was asleep. ‘He foxed you, he foxed me, and when you smelt a rat he got Bloody Bill Haydon to fox Ann and put you off the scent.’ With difficulty she lifted her head to stare at him one more time. ‘Go home, George. Karla won’t give you back your past. Be like the old fool here. Get yourself a bit of love and wait for Armageddon.’
She began coughing again, hopelessly, one hacking retch after another.
The rain had stopped. Gazing out of the French windows, Smiley saw again the moonlight on the cages, touching the frost on the wire; he saw the frosted crowns of the fir trees climbing the hill into a black sky; he saw a world reversed, with the light things darkened into shadow, and the dark things picked out like beacons on the white ground. He saw a sudden moon, stepping clear before the clouds, beckoning him into seething crevices. He saw one black figure in Wellington boots and a headscarf running up the lane. and realized it was Hilary; she must have slipped out without his noticing. He remembered he had heard a door slam. He went back to Connie and sat on the sofa beside her. Connie wept and drifted, talking about love. Love was a positive power, she said vaguely – ask Hils. But Hilary was not there to ask. Love was a stone thrown into the water, and if there were enough stones and we all loved together, the ripples would eventually be strong enough to reach across the sea and overwhelm the haters and the cynics – ‘even beastly Karla, darling,’ she assured him. ‘That’s what Hils says. Bilge, isn’t it? It’s bilge, Hils!’ she yelled.