The Spy Who Came in From The Cold

Leamas said nothing.

“When did you last see Smiley?” Mundt asked casually. Leamas hesitated, uncertain of himself. His head was aching terribly.

“When did you last see him?” Mundt repeated.

“I don’t remember,” Leamas said at last; “he wasn’t really in the outfit any more. He’d drop in from time to time.”

“He is a great friend of Peter Guillam, is he not?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Guillam, you thought, studied the economic situation in the GDR. Some odd little section in your Service; you weren’t quite sure what it did.”

“Yes.” Sound and sight were becoming confused in the mad throbbing of his brain. His eyes were hot and painful. He felt sick.

“Well, when did you last see Smiley?”

“I don’t remember . . . I don’t remember.”

Mundt shook his head.

“You have a very good memory–for anything that incriminates me. We can all remember when we last saw somebody. Did you, for instance, see him after you returned from Berlin?”

“Yes, I think so. I bumped into him. . . in the Circus once, in London.” Leamas had closed his eyes and he was sweating. “I can’t go on, Mundt.. . not much longer, Mundt. . . I’m sick,” he said.

“After Ashe had picked you up, after he had walked into the trap that had been set for him, you had lunch together, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Lunch together.”

“Lunch ended at about four o’clock. Where did you go then?”

“I went down to the City, I think. I don’t remember for sure . . . For Christ’s sake, Mundt,” he said holding his head with his hand, “I can’t go on. My bloody head’s. .

“And after that where did you go? Why did you shake off your followers, why were you so keen to shake them off?”

Leamas said nothing: he was breathing in sharp gasps, his head buried in his hands.

“Answer this one question, then you can go. You shall have a bed. You can sleep if you want. Otherwise you must go back to your cell, do you understand? You will be tied up again and fed on the floor like an animal, do you understand? Tell me where you went.”

The wild pulsation of his brain sUddenly increased, the room was dancing; he heard voices around him and the sound of footsteps; spectral shapes passed and repassed, detached from sound and gravity; -someone was shouting, but not at him; the door was open, he was sure someone had opened the door. The room was full of people, all shouting now, and then they were going, some of them had gone, he heard them marching away, the stamping of their feet was like the throbbing of his head; the echo died and there was silence. Then like the touch of mercy itself, a cool cloth was laid across his forehead, and kindly hands -carried him away.

He woke on a hospital bed, and standing at the foot of it was Fiedler, smoking a cigarette.

* * 18 * Fiedler

Leamas took stock. A bed with sheets. A single ward with no bars in the windows, just curtains and frosted glass. Pale green walls, dark green linoleum; and Fiedler watching him, smoking.

A nurse brought him food: an egg, some thin soup and fruit. He felt like death, but he supposed he’d better eat it. So he did and Fiedler watched.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Bloody awful,” Leamas replied.

“But better?”

“I suppose so.” He hesitated. “Those sods beat me up.”

“You killed a sentry, you know that?”

“I guessed I had. . . . What do they expect if they mount such a damn stupid operation? Why didn’t they pull us both in at once? Why put all the lights out? If anything was overorganized, that was.”

“I am afraid that as a nation we tend to overorganize. Abroad that passes for efficiency.”

Again there was a pause.

“What happened to you?” Leamas asked.

“Oh, I too was softened for interrogation.”

“By Mundt’s men?”

“By Mundt’s men _and_ Mundt. It was a very peculiar sensation!”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“No, no; not physically. Physically it was a nightmare, but you see Mundt had a special interest in beating me up. Apart from the confession.”

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