“You can’t,” Leamas replied listlessly.
“I don’t get you, old chap. Where are you staying?”
“Around the place. Roughing it a bit. I haven’t got a job. Bastards wouldn’t give me a proper pension.”
Ashe looked horrified.
“But Alec, that’s awful, why didn’t you _tell_ me? Look, why not come and stay at my place? It’s only tiny but there’s room for one more if you don’t mind a camp bed. You can’t just live in the trees, my dear chap!”
“I’m all right for a bit,” Leamas replied, tapping at the pocket which contained the envelope. “I’m going to get a job.” He nodded with determination. “Get one in a week or so. Then I’ll be all right.”
“What sort of job?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Anything.”
“But you can’t just throw yourself away, Alec! You speak German like a native, I remember you do. There must be all sorts of things you can do!”
“I’ve done all sorts of things. Selling encyclopedias for some bloody American firm, sorting books in a psychic library, punching work tickets in a stinking glue factory. What the hell _can_ I do?” He wasn’t looking at Ashe but at the table before him, his agitated lips moving quickly. Ashe responded to his animation, leaning forward across the table, speaking with emphasis, almost triumph.
“But Alec, you need _contacts_, don’t you see? I know what it’s like, I’ve been on the breadline myself. That’s when you need to _know_ people. I don’t know what you were doing in Berlin, I don’t want to know, but it wasn’t the sort of job where you could meet people who matter, was it? If I hadn’t met Sam at Poznan five years ago I’d _still_ be on the breadline. Look, Alec, come and stay with me for a week or so. We’ll ask Sam around and perhaps one or two of the old press boys from Berlin if any of them are in town.”
“But I can’t write,” said Leamas. “I couldn’t write a bloody thing.”
Ashe had his hand on Leamas’ arm. “Now don’t fuss,” he said soothingly. “Let’s just take things one at a time. Where are your bits and pieces?”
“My what?”
“Your things: clothes, baggage and what not?”
“I haven’t got any. Fve sold what I had–except the parcel.”
“What parcel?”
“The brown paper parcel you picked up in the park. The one I was trying to throw away.”
Ashe had a flat in Dolphin Square. It was just what Leamas had expected–small and anonymous with a few hastily assembled curios from Germany: beer mugs, a peasant’s pipe and a few pieces of second-rate Nymphenburg.
“I spend the weekends with my mother in Cheltenham,” he said. “I just use this place midweek. It’s pretty handy,” he added deprecatingly. They fixed the camp bed up in the tiny drawing room. It was about four-thirty.
“How long have you been here?” asked Leamas.
“Oh–about a year or more.”
“Find it easily?”
“They come and go, you know, these flats. You put your name down and one day they ring you up and tell you you’ve made it.”
Ashe made tea and they drank it, Leamas sullen, like a man not used to comfort. Even Ashe seemed a little subdued. After tea Ashe said, “I’ll go out and do a spot of shopping before the shops close, then we’ll decide what to do about everything. I might give Sam a tinkle later this evening–I think the sooner you two get together the better. Why don’t you get some sleep– you look all in.”
Leamas nodded. “It’s bloody good of you”–he made an awkward gesture with his hand–“all this.” Ashe gave him a pat on the shoulder, picked up his army mackintosh and left.
As soon as Leamas reckoned Ashe was safely out of the building he left the front door of the flat slightly ajar and made his way downstairs to the center hail, where there were two telephone booths. He dialed a Maida Vale number and asked for Mr. Thomas’ secretary. Immediately a girl’s voice said, “Mr. Thomas’ secretary speaking.”
“I’m ringing on behalf of Mr. Sam Kiever,” Leamas said. “He has accepted the invitation and hopes to contact Mr. Thomas personally this evening.”