The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré

‘Well I mean take the Silent Opposition. Nobody’s even heard of it apart from us. Why hasn’t it done something – leaked something to the press – spoken up?’

Maltby was already scoffing. ‘But my dear chap! That’s its name. That’s its nature. It’s silent. It keeps its counsel. Awaits its hour. Abraxas isn’t a drunk. He’s a bravura hero, a closet revolutionary for God and country. Domingo isn’t a drug dealer with an oversized libido, he’s a selfless warrior for democracy. As to the students, what is there to know? You remember how we were. Scatty. Inconstant. One thing one day, another thing the next. I fear you’re becoming jaded, Nigel. Panama’s getting you down. Time you took Paddy to Switzerland. Oh, and yes’ – he went on, as if there were something he had omitted to say – ‘nearly forgot. Mr Luxmore-Mellors will be bringing the gold bars,’ he added, in the tone of someone tying a last administrative knot. ‘One can’t trust banks and courier services in these cases, not in the dark world of intrigue that you and I are entering, Nigel, so he’s posing as a Queen’s Messenger and bringing them by diplomatic bag.’

‘The what?’

‘Gold bars, Nigel. It seems they’re what one gives to Silent Oppositions these days in preference to dollars or pounds or Swiss francs. I must say one can see the sense of it. Can you imagine running a Silent Opposition on pounds sterling? They’d devalue before one had mounted one’s first abortive putsch. And Silent Oppositions don’t come cheap, I’m told,’ he added in the same throwaway tone. ‘A few million is nothing these days, not if you’re counting on buying a future government at the same time. Students, well, one can rein them in a bit, but do you remember how we used to get into debt? Good quartermastering will be essential on both fronts. But I think we’re up to it, Nigel, don’t you? I see it as a challenge myself. The sort of thing one dreams of in the midlife of one’s career. A diplomatic El Dorado without the sweat of all that panning in the jungle.’

Maltby was musing. Stormont, tight-lipped at his side, had never known him so relaxed. Yet of himself he knew nothing at all. Or nothing he could explain. The sun was still radiant. Crouched in the blackness of the bandstand, he felt like a life-prisoner who can’t believe that the door of his cell stands open. His bluff was being called – but what bluff? Whom had he been fooling, except himself, as he watched the Embassy flourish under Osnard’s spurious alchemy? ‘Don’t knock a good thing,’ he had warned Paddy sharply when she had dared suggest that BUCHAN was a bit too gorgeous to be true, particularly when you got to know Andy a bit better.

Maltby was philosophising:

‘An Embassy is not equipped to evaluate, Nigel. We may have a view, that’s different. We may have local knowledge. Of course we do. And sometimes it appears to conflict with what is told us by our betters. We have our senses. We can see and hear and sniff. But we don’t have acres of files, computers, analysts and scores of delicious young debutantes scampering up and down corridors, alas. We have no overview. No awareness of the world’s game. Least of all in an Embassy as small and irrelevant as our own. We’re bumpkins. You agree, I take it?’

‘Did you tell them this?’

‘Indeed I did, and on Osnard’s magic telephone. One’s words are so much more weighty when they’re said in secret, don’t you agree? We are aware of our limitations, I said. Our work is humdrum. From time to time we are granted glimpses of the bigger world. BUCHAN is such a glimpse. And we are grateful, we are proud. It is neither proper nor appropriate, I said, that a tiny Embassy, charged with reading the mood of the country and propagating the views of our own government, should be called upon to pass an objective judgment on matters too large for our horizons.’

‘What made you say that?’ Stormont asked. He meant to be louder, but something was catching his throat.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *