‘A long letter,’ he repeated. ‘Many pages. He read it, he got pretty excited. “Claus, ” he said. “Lend me some money. I got to go to Paris.” I lend him some money, five hundred marks, no problem. After this I don’t see him much for a time. A couple of occasions he comes here, makes a phone call. I don’t listen. Then a month ago he came to see me.’ Again he broke off, and again Smiley felt his restraint. ‘I am being frank,’ he said, as if once again enjoining Smiley to secrecy. ‘He was – well, I would say excited.’
‘He wanted to use the night-club,’ Smiley suggested helpfully.
‘ “Claus,” he said. “Do what I ask and you have paid your debt to me.” He called it a honey-trap. He would bring a man to the club, an Ivan, someone he knew well, had been cultivating for many years, he said, a very particular swine. This man was the target. He called him “the target”. He said it was the chance of his life, everything he had waited for. The best girls, the best champagne, the best show. For one night, courtesy of Kretzschmar. The climax of his efforts, he said. The chance to pay old debts and make some money as well. He was owed, he said. Now he would collect. He promised there would be no repercussions. I said “No problem.” “Also, Claus, I wish you to photograph us,” he tells me. I said “No problem” again. So he came. And brought his target.’
Herr Kretzschmar’s narrative had suddenly become uncharacteristically sparse. In the hiatus, Smiley slipped in a question, of which the purpose went far beyond the contexe ‘What language did they speak?’
Herr Kretzschmar hesitated, frowned, but finally answered : ‘At first his target pretended to be French, but the girls did not speak much French so he spoke German to them. But with Otto he spoke Russian. He was disagreeable, this target. Smelt a lot, sweated a lot, and was in certain other ways not a gentleman. The girls did not like to stay with him. They came to me and complained. I sent them back but they still grumbled.’
He seemed embarrassed.
‘Another small question,’ said Smiley, as the awkwardness returned.
‘Please.’
‘How could Otto Leipzig promise there would be no repercussions since he was presumably setting out to blackmail this man?’
‘The target was not the end,’ Herr Kretzschmar said, pursing his lips to assist the intellectual point. ‘He was the means.’
‘The means to someone else?’
‘Otto was not precise. “A step on the General’s ladder,” was his expression. “For me, Claus, the target is enough. The target and afterwards the money. But for the General, he is only a step on the ladder. For Max also.” For reasons I did not understand, the money was also dependent upon the General’s satisfaction. Or perhaps yours.’ He paused, as if hoping Smiley might enlighten him. Smiley did not. ‘It was not my wish to ask questions or make conditions,’ Herr Kretzschmar continued, picking his words with much greater severity. ‘Otto and his target were admitted by the back entrance, and shown straight to a séparée. We arranged to display nothing that would indicate the name of the establishment. Not long ago, a night-club down the road went bankrupt,’ Herr Kretzschmar said, in a tone which suggested he might not be wholly desolated by the event. ‘Place called the Freudenjacht. I had bought certain equipment at the sale. Matches. Plates, we spread them around the séparée.’ Smiley remembered the letters ACHT on the ashtray in the photograph.
‘Can you tell me what the two men discussed?’
‘No.’ He changed his answer : ‘I have no Russian,’ he said. He made the same disowning wave of his hand. ‘In German they talked about God and the world. Everything.’
‘I see.’
‘That’s all I know.’
‘How was Otto in his manner?’ Smiley asked. ‘Was he still excited?’
‘I never saw Otto like that before in my life. He was laughing like an executioner, speaking three languages at once, not drunk but extremely animated, singing, telling jokes, I don’t know what. That’s all I know,’ Herr Kretzschmar repeated, with embarrassment.