Absolute Friends

by John le Carré

  Mundy climbs into his ancient car, Sasha moves to the driver’s seat of the Audi. For a while they maintain a companionable distance on the empty road, but as Sasha begins to outstrip him, Mundy has the momentary sensation that the car ahead of him is empty. But Sasha always comes back.

  Thrown once more upon the banalities of his daily life, Mundy struggles to put himself in the position of the owner of a lottery ticket that may or may not have won the jackpot. If it happens, it will be true. If it doesn’t happen, nobody but myself needs to be disappointed. At the same time, the events of the long night circulate in his memory like a movie he can’t switch off, whether he’s pointing out the glories of the Italian waterfall descending the slopes of the Hennenkopf, or explaining to Mustafa, in the great tradition of Dr. Mandelbaum, that to possess another language is to possess another soul.

  That woman in the headscarf who drove the Jeep, now—he asks himself. She drove like Jehu when I didn’t know where we were going, and like an undertaker when I did. Why?

  Or take gloves—he asks himself. The woman in the Sherpa coat who was standing on the spiral staircase fumbling in her handbag for the door key: she wore gloves. Strong, new, yellowy, spotty, tight-fitting pigskin jobs with heavy stitching. Mrs. McKechnie had a pair, and I hated them.

  But the woman who drove the Jeep was also wearing a new pair of Mrs. McKechnie’s gloves. And she had exactly the same resistance to eye contact as the woman on the spiral staircase. The woman on the spiral staircase kept her head down while she was fumbling. The woman in the Jeep wore a headscarf because when you drive you can’t keep your head down.

  The same woman, then? The same head, with or without the scarf? Or only the same gloves?

  Or take Richard’s carpet—he thinks. Everything in Richard’s upstairs lair was new, including Richard: new haircut, new blue blazer, new airline steward’s tie. But the newest thing of all was that deep-pile carpet. It was so new that when I stood up to shake Richard’s hand and looked down, I saw bubbles of fluff where our feet had been. And everybody knows that you can’t vacuum a new carpet, you can only brush it.

  So was the carpet purchased in Dimitri’s honor? Or ours? And how about the blazer?

  That carpet altogether—now that Mundy thinks about it—is a puzzle in its own right, whether it’s new or old. Or it’s a puzzle to Ted Mundy, the do-it-yourself homebuilder. Deep-pile wall-to-wall in an old chalet with lovely wooden floors? It’s daylight vandalism, ask Des.

  All right, it’s a matter of taste. But that doesn’t take care of the feeling that everything in the room, including Richard, has come out of the showroom on the same day.

  Or put another way: the feeling that this was a first night; and that as usual the props and costumes had only just made it through the lines.

  And if these quibbles seem trivial beside the splendor of Dimitri’s Grand Vision, perhaps that’s because I’m trying to bring it down to scale. If I don’t believe in the carpet, in other words, why should I believe in Dimitri?

  But I do believe in Dimitri! When Mad King Dimitri builds his castle in the air, I believe every golden word. Becoming his loyal servant and getting my debts paid looks like a contract made in heaven. It’s only when Dimitri stops talking that the doubts come creeping to the surface.

  Back and forth, night and day, while Ted Mundy waits to hear whether he’s won the jackpot.

  And while he waits, he watches.

  Ever since his undignified retreat from Heidelberg, he has put every possible inconvenience in the way of his mail. When an address has proved abusive he has changed it. The Munich apartment remains firmly on the secret list. At the Linderhof he is more vulnerable, but he has taken precautions. The staff pigeonholes are situated in the administrative offices. The letter M, being halfway down, is below the eye level of the casual passerby. It is perfectly reasonable that a diligent tour guide, hastening past the window on his way to quell a restless group of English Spokens, should neglect to check his mail. A whole week can go by easily—longer—before the equally diligent Frau Klamt pops out of her box and presses an ominous-looking envelope into his hand.

  Overnight, all that has changed. From defense, Mundy has moved to attack.

  Until now, he has observed the passage of mail vans in and out of the Linderhof much as he might log the maneuvers of enemy vehicles. No longer. A mail van is hardly out of the castle gates before Mundy is poking his head round Frau Klamt’s door, asking her whether there’s anything for him.

  Which is how it comes about that, eight days after his descent from the mountaintop, in the ten minutes’ grace allowed to him between his third and fourth tours of the day, a breathless Ted Mundy learns that he is invited to call his bank manager in Heidelberg at his convenience to arrange a meeting at which will be discussed the disposal of credit payments received by wire transfer and amounting between them to 500,000 U.S. dollars.

  The bank has fielded no fewer than three executives, which strikes Mundy as pretty rich, considering how many times he has had to listen to the incredibly boring Herr Frinck on the subject of paying people to sit around and watch other people work.

  Herr Frinck himself sits at the center, Brandt and Eisner roost either side of him. Herr Doktor Eisner is from our insolvency department. Herr Brandt, a mere commoner, is a senior manager from our head office. Sometimes, head office likes to slum it, says Frinck—or, as he prefers to put it, participate proactively at client level. Has Mundy any objection to his presence? Mundy couldn’t be happier with Herr Brandt’s presence. He feels like the boy in the painting, waiting to be asked when he last saw his father. He has put on his suit for the occasion. It’s too heavy and he is puzzled to find that it has shrunk: the sleeves keep riding up to his elbows. Inside it, he feels stupid, sticky and nervous, which is how he always feels when money is the only subject on the agenda. Herr Frinck inquires after the health of—he offers a broad-minded smile—Frau Mundy. In accordance with bank protocol, the lingua franca today is English. When three German bankers face one penurious English client, it is self-evident that their English will be superior to his German.

  “She couldn’t be better, thank you,” Mundy replies heartily to Frinck’s question. “Well, at her age, what else would you expect?”—bark.

  The reminder that the bank’s client is supporting a young and doubtless extravagant common-law wife brings no joy to the faces of Herr Frinck or Herr Doktor Eisner. Herr Brandt from head office, on the other hand, seems to think it rather sporting of him. Herr Frinck laments the war. Deeply disturbing, he says, prodding the bridge of his spectacles with his fat forefinger. The consequences totally unforeseeable, puff, puff. It was all fine and well for Berlin to take the high moral ground, but America has made it clear there would be a price to pay, and now we are waiting for the bill. Mundy says, however much it is it will be a price worth paying. He practically offers to pay it himself. His generous instincts are grimly noted.

  Herr Frinck has prepared a list of Mundy’s many creditors. Herr Doktor Eisner has run his eye over it. Herr Frinck wishes to make a statement in view of the presence of sleek Herr Brandt from head office. The behavior of Mr. Mundy throughout this whole matter has been exemplary. Mr. Mundy had every opportunity and indeed encouragement to declare himself legally bankrupt. To his credit he resisted. Now everybody, including the bank, can be paid in full. It is most gratifying, says Herr Frinck. It is admirable. Interest may safely be charged at the full rate, a most rare outcome in these circumstances.

  Herr Doktor Eisner declares Mr. Mundy to be a true English gentleman. Herr Frinck seconds this. Mr. Mundy says, in that case he’s the last of a breed. The joke is either not appreciated or not understood—except by handsome Herr Brandt, who is moved to inquire, in the lightest possible of tones, where in heaven’s name Mr. Mundy got all this money from.

  “We are looking at three transfers,” Herr Brandt announces. He has them among the papers before him as he speaks, in three separate folders of transparent p
lastic which he now passes to Mundy for his inspection. “From United Chemical of Guernsey, two hundred thousand, per order of client. Voilà! From Crédit Lyonnais in Antigua, two hundred thousand per order of client. Voilà! From Morgan Guaranty Trust, Isle of Man, one hundred thousand, also per order of client. Big banks in small places. But who are the clients, Mr. Mundy?”

  Grateful that Sven, Richard and Angelo have briefed him for this eventuality, Mundy pulls a regretful and, he hopes, convincing smile. “Don’t think I can entirely answer that one, Herr Brandt. The negotiations are at a rather delicate stage, to be frank.”

  “Ah,” says Herr Brandt, disappointed, and inclines his handsome head to one side. “But a little bit, maybe? Off the record,” he suggests. Winningly.

  “The money’s by way of an advance. Start-up money,” Mundy explains, using Sven’s term.

  “Against what exactly, Mr. Mundy?”

  “Reopening the school on a profitable basis. I’ve been conducting some rather confidential talks with an international foundation. I didn’t want to tell the bank till it was pretty much a done thing.”

  “Wonderful. Well done. So what is actually the orbit of this foundation? This is really most interesting, I must say,” Herr Brandt adds aside to his two colleagues, with the enthusiasm appropriate to a man from headquarters visiting his troops on the ground.

  “Well, one thing it does is foster the spread of English,” Mundy replies, drawing again on his briefing. “English as Esperanto, basically. Giving the world a common language as a means to international understanding. They’ve got big institutional money riding on it.”

  “Excellent. I’m impressed.” And Mundy can tell from Herr Brandt’s sunny smile that he really is. “And they have selected your school here for development? As part of their scheme?”

  “Among others, yes.”

  “How far have your talks progressed, if I am not being indiscreet?”

  Mundy is aware that his briefing has about run its course. All the same, he hasn’t endured ten years of the Professor’s probings, not to mention months of hard sweat at the Edinburgh School of Deportment, without acquiring a few skills.

  “Well,” he begins boldly. “I’d say, give or take a bit—you can never be sure of anything, of course—we’ve just about arrived in clear water. We’re not talking about what you’d call hard-nosed professional negotiations, obviously, but even a non-profit-making foundation has to satisfy its own criteria.”

  “Naturally. And what criteria are we considering here, if I may be so curious?”

  Never hesitate. “Well, for openers, the proportion of non-Caucasian students we take. It’s a global foundation, so naturally they’re looking for diversity.”

  “Naturally. And what else, please?”

  “Criteria?”

  “Yes.”

  “The syllabus, clearly. The culture content. The level of attainment we hope to reach after a specific period of instruction. Performance generally.”

  “Religion?”

  “What?”

  “You are not a Christian organization?”

  “Nobody’s talked to me about religion. If we’re multiethnic, presumably we’re multifaith.”

  Herr Brandt has flipped a file open with a smack and is peering into it with an expression of cheerful confusion.

  “Listen. I tell you what we did, okay?” He treats Mundy to a radiant smile. “You let us into your secret, we let you into ours, okay? We mounted a little exercise. Sometimes we do that. We traced one of these payments back to its roots—only one—not always easy, okay? All the way back to the bank behind the bank behind the bank. It took a lot of guesswork at first, but we did it. From Guernsey we went to Paris. From Paris to Athens. And from Athens to Beirut and from Beirut to Riyadh. End-station was Riyadh. Maybe you see now why I ask you about religion.”

  If they try to put you in the dock, slam back at them. The truth is what is demonstrable.

  “I’ve no doubt these people bank all over the world,” Mundy retorts testily. “For all I know they’ve got Arab backers, why not?”

  “Arab backers who support the spread of English?”

  “If they’re interested in furthering international dialogue, why not?”

  “And use such complicated banking routes?”

  “Shy, probably. You can hardly blame them these days, can you, when every Muslim is by definition a terrorist.”

  Herr Frinck is clearing his throat and Herr Doktor Eisner is fidgeting ostentatiously with his papers, lest Herr Brandt from head office has forgotten that Mr. Mundy’s common-law wife is a Turk. But Herr Brandt’s handsome smile takes care of everything.

  “And you have a contract, obviously, Mr. Mundy,” he says comfortably.

  “I told you already. We’re still negotiating the small print,” Mundy replies, by now on the edge of indignation.

  “Indeed you did. But in the meantime you have a short-term contract, no doubt. Not even the most benevolent foundation would provide so much money without a contract of some sort.”

  “No.”

  “Then, an exchange of letters.”

  “Nothing concrete that I’m able to show you at this stage.”

  “Is the foundation paying you a salary?”

  “They’ve costed in an initial fifty thousand dollars for staff fees. I get ten thousand of them. That’s two months’ pay in advance. Once the school reopens, they’ll raise me fifty percent.”

  “And your appointment is residential?”

  “Eventually. Once the house is ready.”

  “Plus expenses?”

  “Presumably.”

  “And a car?”

  “Down the line. If it’s necessary.”

  “So not a bad salary for a teacher with your financial record. I congratulate you. You are clearly a very tough negotiator, Herr Mundy.”

  Suddenly everybody is standing. There is work to be done: checks to be signed, securities to be released and pledges redeemed. Herr Doktor Eisner’s department has everything prepared. Shaking Mundy’s hand and gazing reverently into Mundy’s eyes, Herr Brandt is anxious to reiterate his heartfelt admiration for Mundy’s acumen. It was purely a head office exercise, nothing personal; a bank these days lives with one foot in the law courts. Herr Frinck confirms this. So does Herr Doktor Eisner. Speaking as a lawyer, Eisner confides to Mundy as he leads him upstairs, he has never known a time when the banking industry was so beset with legal pitfalls.

  The schoolhouse is still there. It hasn’t, like Number Two, The Vale, disappeared; no builder’s board offers family homes on a ninety percent mortgage. It’s the same faithful old aunt it always was, frowning down at him from its ivy-clad bay windows and slate-clad turrets and bell tower with no bell. The same arched front door with coach bolts like cardigan buttons awaits him. He advances shyly. First, he must open the padlock on the front gate with its wishing-well canopy. He does so, then walks slowly up the brick path to the six steps leading to the porch, where he stops and turns, and confirms as if he doubted it that the same magical view is also intact—across the river to the old city with its spires, then upwards, and upwards again, to the red ruined castle stretched along the Kaiserstuhl.

  The house had been an idiotic choice from the start. He knows that now. Half of him knew it at the time. A commercial school, stuck on a hillside—parking for three cars only, the wrong side of town, convenient for nobody? Yet it was a fine roomy house. And a snip at the price, as Des would say, provided you were prepared to roll your sleeves up, which Mundy was, even if Egon preferred to sit and fiddle the books in the conservatory. The front garden had four good apple trees—all right, you don’t buy a house for its apple trees. But there’s a vineyard at the back, and once the school took off, he was going to make his own Château Mundy and send a few bottles to old Jake to put down.

  And above the vineyard runs the Philosophers’ Path—he can see it now through the apple trees. And above the path, the Heiligenberg, and some of the bes
t woods in Germany to walk in—if you walk, which admittedly not all mature students do.

  Or look at the literary associations—weren’t they worth anything? Hadn’t Carl Zuckmayer and Max Weber lived a couple of hundred yards from here? The very street named after Hölderlin? What more does today’s upwardly mobile young executive want from a language school, for heaven’s sake?

  Answer, unfortunately: a great deal.

  The latchkey turns, and when he puts his weight against the door it yields. He steps inside and is ankle-deep in junk mail. He closes the door and stands in three-quarter darkness because of the ivy over the windows, and for the first time in months allows himself to remember just how much he loved the place, and how much of himself he invested here only to look on helplessly while it all slipped away from him: the money, the friend he trusted, the dream of getting it right at last.

  Lost in marvel at his own folly, he picks his way through the wreckage of his too-recent past. In the central hall where he is standing, the pupils assembled for classes and were sorted according to need into four tall rooms. The splendid staircase got its light from the art nouveau skylight, and if the sun was up as you crossed the hall, colored shards of red and green and gold slid over you. His old classroom is bare: desks, chairs, coatracks, all gone, sold. But his writing is still on the blackboard, and he can hear his own voice reading it:

  As a valued customer of British Rail, we would like to

  apologize to you for the presence of the wrong kind of

  snow on the line.

  Question: Who is the customer?

  Question: Who is the subject of the sentence?

  Question: Why is this the wrong kind of sentence?

  He is perching as if by magnetic power on his old spot in the window bay: just the right height for a beanstalk like me, and a nice bit of evening sun while you’re waiting for your last class to arrive.