Smiley’s People by John le Carré

‘You were describing how you were approached by members of the Thirteenth Directorate,’ Smiley said, when all was quiet again. ‘Known also as the Karla Directorate. Kindly continue with your narrative, Counsellor.’

TWENTY-FIVE

Did Grigoriev sense the new alertness round him – the discreet freezing of gestures? Did he notice how the eyes of Skordeno and de Silsky both hunted out Smiley’s impassive face and held it in their gaze? How Millie McCraig slipped silently to the kitchen to check her tape recorders yet again, in case, by an act of a malevolent god, both the main set and the reserve had failed at once? Did he notice Smiley’s now almost Oriental self-effacement – the very opposite of interest – the retreat of his whole body into the copious folds of his brown tweed travelling coat, while he patiently licked his thumb and finger and turned a page?

Toby, at least, noticed these things. Toby in his dark corner by the telephone had a grandstand seat from which he could observe everyone and remain as good as unobserved himself. A fly could not have crossed the floor, but Toby’s watchful eyes would have recorded its entire odyssey. Toby even describes his own symptoms – a hot feeling around the neckband, he says, a knotting of the throat and stomach muscles – Toby not only endured these discomforts, but remembered them faithfully. Whether Grigoriev was responsive to the atmosphere is another matter. Most likely he was too consumed by his central role. The triumph of the telephone call had stimulated him, and revived his self-confidence; and it was significant that his first statement, when he once more had the floor, concerned not the Karla Directorate, but his prowess as the lover of little Natasha : ‘Fellows of our age need a girl like that,’ he explained to Toby with a wink. ‘They make us into young men again, like we used to be!’

‘Very well, you flew to Moscow alone,’ Smiley said, quite snappishly. ‘The conference got under way, you were approached for an interview. Please continue from there. We have not got all afternoon, you know.’

The conference started on the Monday, Grigoriev agreed, obediently resuming his official statement. When the Friday afternoon came, I returned to my hostel in order to fetch my belongings and take them to Evdokia’s apartment for our little weekend together. Instead of this, however, I was met by three men who ordered me into their car with even less explanation than you did – a glance at Toby – saying to me that I was required for a special task. During the journey they advised me that they were members of the Thirteenth Directorate of Moscow Centre, which everybody in official Moscow knows to be the elite. I formed the impression that they were intelligent men, above the common run of their profession, which, saving your presence, sir, is not high. I had the impression they could be officers rather than mere lackeys. Nevertheless I was not unduly worried. I assumed that my professional expertise was being required for some secret matter, that was all. They were courteous and I was even somewhat flattered…

‘How long was the journey?’ Smiley interrupted, as he continued writing.

Across town, Grigoriev replied vaguely. Across town, then into countryside till dark. Till we reached this one little man like a monk, sitting in a small room, who seemed to be their master.

Once again, Toby insists on bearing witness here to Smiley’s unique mastery of the occasion. It was the strongest proof yet of Smiley’s tradecraft, says Toby – as well as of his command of Grigoriev altogether – that throughout Grigoriev’s protracted narrative, he never once, whether by an over-hasty follow-up question or the smallest false inflection of his voice, departed from the faceless role he had assumed for the interrogation. By his self-effacement, Toby insists, George held the whole scene ‘like a thrush’s egg in his hand’. The slightest careless movement on his part could have destroyed everything, but he never made it. And as the crowning example, Toby likes to offer this crucial moment, when the actual figure of Karla was for the first time introduced. Any other inquisitor, he says, at the very mention of a ‘little man like a monk who seemed to be their master,’ would have pressed for a description – his age, rank, what he tion of a ‘little man like a monk who seemed to be their master’, Not Smiley. Smiley with a suppressed exclamation of annoyance tapped his ballpoint pen on his pad, and in a long-suffering voice invited Grigoriev, then and for the future, kindly not to foreshorten factual detail :

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