THE LOOKING GLASS WAR by John LeCarré

The concierge said, “The valet will take your luggage.”

“I’m sorry,” said Avery, a meaningless apology, and signed his name while the man watched him curiously.

He gave the valet a coin and it occurred to him as he did so that he had given him eight and six. He closed the bedroom door. For a while he sat on his bed. It was a carefully planned room but bleak and without sympathy. On the door was a notice in several languages warning against the perils of theft, and by the bed another which explained the financial disadvantages of failing to breakfast in the hotel. There was a magazine about travel on the writing desk, and a Bible bound in black. There was a small bathroom, very clean, and a built-in wardrobe with one coat hanger. He had forgotten to bring a book. He had not anticipated having to endure leisure.

He was cold and hungry. He thought he would have a bath. He ran it and undressed. He was about to get into the water when he remembered Taylor’s letters in his pocket. He put on a dressing gown, sat on the bed and looked through them. One from his bank about an overdraft, one from his mother, one from a friend which began Dear Old Wilf, the rest from a woman. He was suddenly frightened of the letters: they were evidence. They could compromise him. He determined to burn them all. There was a second basin in the bedroom. He put all the papers into it and held a match to them. He had read somewhere that was the thing to do. There was a membership for the Alias Club made out in Taylor’s name so he burned that too, then broke up the ash with his fingers and turned on the water; it rose swiftly. The plug was a built-in metal affair operated by a lever between the taps. The sodden ash was packed beneath it. The basin was blocked.

He looked for some instrument to probe under the lip of the plug. He tried his fountain pen but it was too fat, so he fetched the nail file. After repeated attempts he persuaded the ash into the outlet. The water ran away, revealing a heavy brown stain on the enamel. He rubbed it, first with his hand then with the scrubbing brush, but it wouldn’t go. Enamel didn’t stain like that, there must have been some quality in the paper, tar or something. He went into the bathroom, looking vainly for a detergent.

As he reentered his bedroom he became aware that it was filled with the smell of charred paper. He went quickly to the window and opened it. A blast of freezing wind swept over his naked limbs. He was gathering the dressing gown more closely about him when there was a knock on the door. Paralyzed with fear he stared at the door handle, heard another knock, called, watched the handle turn. It was the man from Reception.

“Mr. Avery?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. We need your passport. For the police.”

“Police?”

“It’s the customary procedure.”

Avery had backed against the basin. The curtains were flapping wildly beside the open window.

“May I close the window?” the man asked.

“I wasn’t well. I wanted some fresh air.”

He found his passport and handed it over. As he did so, he saw the man’s gaze fixed upon the basin, on the brown mark and the small flakes which still clung to the sides.

He wished as never before that he was back in England.

The row of villas which lines Western Avenue is like a row of pink graves in a field of gray; an architectural image of middle age. Their uniformity is the discipline of growing old, of dying without violence and living without success. They are houses which have got the better of their occupants; whom they change at will, and do not change themselves. Furniture vans glide respectfully among them like hearses, discreetly removing the dead and introducing the living. Now and then some tenant will raise his hand, expending pots of paint on the woodwork or labor on the garden, but his efforts no more alter the house than flowers a hospital ward, and the grass will grow its own way, like grass on a grave.

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