The Secret Pilgrim

by John le Carré

  I signalled Toby straight away. I wasted time drafting different texts because my anger kept getting in the way. I understood only too well now why the Americans were refusing to give the Professor his passport, and why he had turned to us for one instead. I understood his air of last things, his listlessness, his lack of urgency: he was waiting to be sacked. I repeated Wagner’s information and asked whether it was known to Head Office. If not, the Cousins were in default of their sharing agreement with us. If, on the other hand, the Cousins had warned us, why hadn’t I been warned too?

  Next morning I had Toby’s slippery reply. It took a regal tone. I suspected he had got somebody to write it for him, for it was accent-free. The Cousins had given London a “non-specific warning” he explained, that the Professor might be facing “disciplinary enquiries at some future date on the subject of his broadcasts.” Head Office—by which I suspected he meant himself—had “adopted the view” that the Professor’s relationship with his American employers was not of direct concern to the Circus. Head Office also “took the point”—who but Toby could have made it?—that with so much operational work to occupy him, the Professor could be excused for any “small defects” in his cover work. If another cover job had to be found for the Professor, Head Office would “take steps at the appropriate time.” One solution would be to place him with one of the tame magazines to which he was already an occasional contributor. But that was for the future. The Professor had fallen foul of his employers before, Toby reminded me, and he had ridden out the storm. This was true. A woman secretary had complained of his advances, and elements of the Hungarian community had taken exception to his anti-Semitic views.

  For the rest, Toby advised me to cool down, bide my time, and—always a maxim of Toby’s—act as if nothing had happened. Which was how matters stood one week and twelve hours later when the Professor telephoned me at ten at night, using the emergency wordcode and asking me in a strangled but imperious voice to come round to his house immediately, entering by way of the garden door.

  My first thought was that he had killed someone, possibly his wife. I could not have been more wrong.

  The Professor opened the back door, and closed it swiftly after me. The lights inside the house were dimmed. Somewhere in the gloom, a Biedermeier grandfather clock ticked like a big old bomb. At the entrance to the living room stood Helena, her hands to her mouth, smothering a scream. Twenty minutes had passed since Teodor’s call, but the scream still seemed to be on the point of coming out of her.

  Two armchairs stood before a dying fire. One was empty. I took it to be the Professor’s. In the other, somewhat obscured from my line of sight, sat a silky, rounded man of forty, with a cap of soft black hair, and twinkling round eyes that said we were all friends, weren’t we? His winged chair was high-backed and he had fitted himself into the angle of it like an aircraft passenger prepared for landing. His rather circular shoes stopped short of the floor, and it occurred to me they were East European shoes: marbled, of an uncertain leather, with moulded, heavy-treaded soles. His hairy brown suit was like a remodelled military uniform. Before him stood a table with a pot of mauve hyacinths on it, and beside the hyacinths lay a display of objects which I recognised as the instruments of silent killing: two garottes made of wooden toggles and lengths of piano wire; a screwdriver so sharpened that it was a stiletto; a Charter Arms .38 Undercover revolver with a five-shot cylinder, together with two kinds of bullet, six soft-nosed, and six rifled, with congealed powder squashed into the grooves.

  “It is cyanide,” the Professor explained, in answer to my silent perplexity. “It is an invention of the Devil. The bullet has only to graze the victim to destroy him utterly.”

  I found myself wondering how the poisonous powder was supposed to survive the intense heat of a gun barrel.

  “This gentleman is named Ladislaus Kaldor,” the Professor continued. “He was sent by the Hungarian secret police to kill us. He is a friend. Kindly sit down, Herr Ned.”

  With ceremony, Ladislaus Kaldor rose from his chair and pumped my hand as if we had concluded a profitable deal.

  “Sir!” he cried happily, in English. “Latzi. I am sorry, sir. Don’t worry anything. Everybody call me Latzi. Herr Doktor. My friend. Please sit down. Yes.”

  I remember how the scent of the hyacinths seemed to go so nicely with his smile. It was only slowly I began to realise I had no sense of danger. Some people convey danger all the time; others put it on when they are angry or threatened. But Latzi, when I was able to consult my instincts, conveyed only an enormous will to please. Which perhaps is all you need if you’re a professional killer.

  I did not sit down. A chorus of conflicting feelings was yelling in my head, but fatigue was not among them. The empty coffee cups, I was thinking. The empty plates with cake crumbs. Who eats cake and drinks coffee when his life is being threatened? Latzi was sitting again, smiling like a conjuror. The Professor and his wife were studying my face, but from different places in the room. They’ve quarrelled, I thought; crisis has driven them to their separate corners. An American revolver, I thought. But not the spare cylinder that serious players customarily carried. East European shoes, and with soles that leave a perfect print on every carpet or polished floor. Cyanide bullets that would burn off their cyanide in the barrel.

  “How long’s he been here?” I asked the Professor.

  He shrugged. I hated his shrugs. “One hour. Less.”

  “More than one hour,” Helena contradicted him. Her indignant gaze was fixed upon me. Until tonight she had made a point of ignoring me, slipping past me like a ghost, smiling or scowling at the ground to show her disapproval. Suddenly she needed my support. “He rang the bell at eight-forty-five exactly. I was listening to the radio. The programme changed.”

  I glanced at Latzi “You speak German?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Doktor!”

  Back to Helena. “Which programme?”

  “The BBC World Service,” she said.

  I went to the radio and switched it on. A reedy Oxford academic of unknown gender was bleating about Keats. Thank you, BBC. I switched it off.

  “He rang the bell—who answered it?” I said

  “I did,” said the Professor.

  “He did,” said Helena.

  “Please,” said Latzi.

  “And then?”

  “He was standing on the doorstep, wearing a coat,” said the Professor.

  “A raincoat,” Helena corrected him.

  “He asked if I was Professor Teodor, I said yes. He gave his name, he said ‘Forgive me, Professor, I have come to kill you with a garotte or cyanide bullet but I do not wish to, I am your disciple and admirer. I wish, to surrender to you and remain in the West.’”

  “He spoke Hungarian?” I asked.

  “Naturally.”

  “So you invited him in?”

  “Naturally.”

  Helena did not agree. “No! First Teodor asked for me,” she insisted. I had not heard her correct her husband before tonight. Now she had done so twice in as many minutes. “He calls to me and says, ‘Helena, we have a guest.’ I say, ‘Good.’ Then he asks Latzi into the house. I take his raincoat, I hang it in the hall, I make coffee. That is how it happened exactly.”

  “And cake,” I said. “You made cake?”

  “The cake was made already.”

  “Were you afraid?” I asked—for fear, like danger, was something else that was missing.

  “I was disgusted, I was shocked,” she replied. “Now I am afraid—yes, I am very afraid. We are all afraid.”

  “And you?” I said to the Professor.

  He shrugged again, as if to say I was the last man on earth to whom he would confide his feelings.

  “Why don’t you take your wife to the study?” I said.

  He was disposed to argue, then changed his mind. Strangers arm in arm, they marched from the room.

  I was alone with Latzi. I stood, he sat. Munich can be a very silent city. Even
in repose his face smiled at me ingratiatingly. His small eyes still twinkled, but there was nothing I could read in them. He gave me a nod of encouragement, his smile broadened. He said “Please,” and eased himself more comfortably into his chair. I made the gesture every Middle European understands. I held out my hand, palm upward, and passed my thumb across the tip of my forefinger. Still smiling, he rummaged in his inside jacket pocket and handed me his papers. They were in the name of Egon Braubach of Passau, born 1933, occupation artist. I never saw anyone who looked less like a Bavarian artist. They comprised one West German passport, one driver’s licence and one social security document. None of them, it seemed to me, carried the least conviction. Neither did his shoes.

  “When did you enter Germany?”

  “This afternoon, Herr Doktor, this afternoon at five. Please.”

  “Where from?”

  “Vienna, please. Vienna,” he repeated, in a breathless rush, as if making me a gift of the entire city, and gave another wriggling motion of his rump, apparently to achieve greater subservience. “I caught the first train to Munich this morning, Herr Doktor.”

  “At what time?”

  “At eight o’clock, sir. The eight-o’clock train.”

  “When did you enter Austria?”

  “Yesterday, Herr Doktor. It was raining. Please.”

  “Which papers did you present at the Austrian border?”

  “My Hungarian passport, Your Excellency. In Vienna I was given German papers.”

  Sweat was forming on his upper lip. His German was fluent but unmistakably Balkan. He had travelled by train, he said: Budapest, Györ, Vienna, Herr Doktor. His masters had given him a cold chicken and a bottle of wine for the journey. With best pickles, Your Honour, and paprika. More smiles. Arriving in Vienna, he had checked in at the Altes Kaiserreich Hotel, near the railway station, where a room had been reserved for him. A humble room, a humble hotel, Your Excellency, but I am a humble man. It was at the hotel, late at night, that he was visited by a Hungarian gentleman whom he had not seen before—“But I suspect he was a diplomat, Herr Doktor. He was distinguished like yourself!” This gentleman gave him his money and documents, he explained— and the arsenal that lay before us on the table.

  “Where are you staying in Munich?”

  “It is a modest guesthouse on the edge of town, Herr Doktor,” he replied, with an apologetic smile. “More a brothel. Yes, a brothel. One sees many men there, coming and going all the time.” He told me its name, and I had half a notion he was going to recommend a girl as well.

  “Did they tell you to stay there?”

  “For the discretion, Herr Doktor. The anonymity. Please.”

  “Do you have luggage there?”

  He gave the poor man’s shrug, quite unlike the Professor’s. “A toothbrush,” he said. “Some clothes. A bag, sir. Modest materials.”

  In Hungary he was by vocation an agricultural journalist, he said, but he had made himself a second living working for the secret police, first as an informer, and more recently, for the money, as assassin. He had performed certain duties inside Hungary but preferred—forgive him, Excellency—not to say what these were until he was assured he would not be prosecuted in the West. The Professor was his first “foreign duty,” but the thought of killing him had offended his sense of decorum.

  “The Professor is a man of format, Herr Doktor! Of reputation! He is not some Jew or priest! Why should I kill this man? I’m a respectable human being, good heavens! I have my honour! Please!”

  “Tell me your orders.”

  They were not complicated. He was to ring the Herr Professor’s doorbell, they had said—so he had rung it. The Professor was sure to be at home, since on Wednesdays he gave private tuition until nine, they had said.—The Professor was indeed at home.—He should describe himself as a friend of Pali from Debrecen.—He had taken the liberty not to describe himself in these terms.—Once inside the house, he should kill the Herr Professor by whatever means seemed appropriate, but preferably the garotte, since it was sure and silent, though there was always a regrettable danger of decapitation. He should kill Helena also, they said—perhaps kill her first, depending on who opened the door to him, they were not particular. It was for this contingency that he had brought a second garotte. With a garotte, Herr Doktor, he explained helpfully, one could never be sure of being able to disentangle the instrument after use. He should then telephone a number in Bonn, ask for Peter, and report that “Susi will be staying with friends tonight”— Susi being the Professor’s codename for the operation, Excellency. This was the signal for success, though in the present circumstance, Herr Doktor, it must be admitted that he had not been successful. Giggle.

  “Telephone from here?” I asked.

  “From this house, exactly. To Peter. Please. They are violent men, Herr Doktor. They threaten my family. I have no choice, naturally. I have a daughter. They gave me strict instructions: ’ ‘From the Professor’s house you will telephone Peter.’”

  This also surprised me. Since the Professor was identified to the Hungarian secret police as a Western asset—and had been for fifteen years—one might suppose they would be suspicious of his telephone.

  “What do you do if you’ve failed?” I asked.

  “If the duty cannot be fulfilled—if the Herr Professor has guests, or is for some reason not available—I am to ring from a phone box and say that Susi is on her way home.”

  “From any particular phone box?”

  “All phone boxes are suitable, Herr Doktor, in the event of a non-completion. Peter may then give further instructions, he may not. If not, I return at once to Budapest. Alternatively, Peter may say, ‘Try again tomorrow,’ or he may say, ‘Try in two days.’ It is all in the hands of Peter in this case.”

  “What is the Bonn telephone number?”

  He recited it.

  “Turn out your pockets.”

  A khaki handkerchief, some badly printed family snaps, including some of a young girl, presumably his daughter, three East European condoms, an open packet of Russian cigarettes, a wobbly tin penknife of obvious Eastern manufacture, a stub of unpainted pencil, 960 West German marks, some small change. The return half of a second-class rail ticket, Vienna–Munich–Vienna. I never in my life saw such miserably assembled pockets. Did the Hungarian Service have no despatchers? Checkers? What the Devil were they thinking of?

  “And your raincoat,” I said, and watched him fetch it from the hall. It was brand-new. The pockets were empty. It was of Austrian manufacture and good quality. It must have cost serious Western money.

  “Did you buy this in Vienna?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Doktor. It was raining cats and dogs and I had no protection.”

  When?”

  “Please?”

  “What with?”

  “Please?”

  I discovered he could anger me quite quickly. “You caught the first train this morning, right? It left Vienna before the shops opened, right? You didn’t get your money till late last night when the Hungarian diplomat visited you. So when did you buy the coat and what did you use for money? Or did you steal it? Is that the answer?”

  First he frowned, then he laughed indulgently at my breach of good manners. It was clear that he forgave me. He opened his hands to me in generosity. “But I bought it last night, Herr Doktor!” When I arrived at the station! With my personal Valuten that I brought with me from Hungary for shopping, naturally! I am not a liar! Please!”

  “Did you keep the receipt?”

  He shook his head sagely, advice to a younger man. “To keep receipts, Herr Doktor? I give you this advice. To keep receipts is to invite questions about where you get your money. A receipt—it’s like a spy in the pocket. Please.”

  Too many excuses, I thought, releasing myself from the brilliance of his smile. Too many answers in one paragraph. All my instincts told me to trust nobody and nothing about the story that was being told me. It was not so much the sloppiness of the as
sassination plan that strained my credulity—the implausible documents, the contents of the pockets, the shoes—not even the basic improbability of the mission. I had seen enough of low-level Soviet satellite operations to regard such amateurishness as the norm. What disturbed me about these people was the unreality of their behaviour in my company, the feeling there was one story for me and one for them; that I had been brought here to perform a function, and the collective will required me to shut up and get on with it.

  Yet at the same time I was trapped. I had no choice, and no time, but to take everything they had told me at face value. I was in the position of a doctor who, while suspecting a patient of malingering, has no option but to treat his symptoms. By the laws of the game, Latzi was a prize. It was not every day that a Hungarian assassin offered to defect to the West, no matter how incompetent he was. By the same token, the man was in considerable danger, since it was unthinkable that an assassination operation of this consequence could be launched without separate surveillance.

  When in doubt, says the handbook, take the operational line. Were they watching the house? It was necessary to assume so, though it was not an easy house to watch, which was what had commended it to Teodor’s handlers fifteen years ago. It stood at the end of a leafy cul-de-sac and backed on to the river. The way into the garden led along a deserted tow-path. But the front porch was visible to anybody passing by, and Latzi could have already been observed entering it.

  I went upstairs and from the landing window surveyed the road. The neighbouring houses were in darkness. I saw no sign of stray cars or people. My own car was parked in the next sidestreet, close to the river. I returned to the drawing room. The telephone was on the bookcase. I handed Latzi the receiver and watched him dial the number in Bonn. His hands were girlish and moist. Obligingly, he tilted the earpiece in my direction, and himself with it. He smelt of old blanket and Russian tobacco. The phone rang out, I heard a man’s voice, very grumpy, speaking German. For somebody awaiting news of a killing, I thought, you’re doing a good job of pretending you aren’t.