Smiley's People

by John le Carré

  “He was a leader, Max, he was a hero,” Mikhel declared. “We must try to profit from his courage and example.” He paused as if expecting Smiley to write this down for publication. “In such cases it is natural to ask oneself how one can possibly carry on. Who is worthy to follow him? Who has his stature, his honour, his sense of destiny? Fortunately our movement is a continuing process. It is greater than any one individual, even than any one group.”

  Listening to Mikhel’s polished phrases, staring at his polished boots, Smiley found himself marvelling at the man’s age. The Russians occupied Estonia in 1940, he recalled. To have been a cavalry officer then, Mikhel would now have to be sixty if a day. He tried to assemble the rest of Mikhel’s turbulent biography—the long road through foreign wars and untrusted ethnic brigades, all the chapters of history contained in this one little body. He wondered how old the boots were.

  “Tell me about his last days, Mikhel,” Smiley suggested. “Was he active to the very end?”

  “Completely active, Max, active in all respects. As a patriot. As a man. As a leader.”

  Her expression as contemptuous as before, Elvira put the tea before them, two cups with lemon, and small marzipan cakes. In motion she was insinuating, with fluid haunches and a sullen hint of challenge. Smiley tried to remember her background also, but it eluded him or perhaps he had never known it. He was a brother to her, he thought. He instructed her. But something from his own life had long ago warned him to mistrust explanations, particularly of love.

  “As a member of the Group?” Smiley asked when she had left them. “Also active?”

  “Always,” said Mikhel gravely.

  There was a small pause while each man politely waited for the other to continue.

  “Who do you think did it, Mikhel? Was he betrayed?”

  “Max, you know as well as I do who did it. We are all of us at risk. All of us. The call can come any time. Important is, we must be ready for it. Myself I am a soldier, I am prepared, I am ready. If I go, Elvira has her security. That is all. For the Bolshevites we exiles remain enemy number one. Anathema. Where they can, they destroy us. Still. As once they destroyed our churches and our villages and our schools and our culture. And they are right, Max. They are right to be afraid of us. Because one day we shall defeat them.”

  “But why did they choose this particular moment?” Smiley objected gently after this somewhat ritualistic pronouncement. “They could have killed Vladimir years ago.”

  Mikhel had produced a flat tin box with two tiny rollers on it like a mangle, and a packet of coarse yellow cigarette-papers. Having licked a paper, he laid it on the rollers and poured in black tobacco. A snap, the mangle turned, and there on the silvered surface lay one fat, loosely packed cigarette. He was about to help himself to it when Elvira came over and took it. He rolled another and returned the box to his pocket.

  “Unless Vladi was up to something, I suppose,” Smiley continued after these staged manoeuvres. “Unless he provoked them in some way—which he might have done, knowing him.”

  “Who can tell?” Mikhel said, and blew some more smoke carefully into the air above them.

  “Well, you can, Mikhel, if anyone can. Surely he confided in you. You were his right-hand man for twenty years or more. First Paris, then here. Don’t tell me he didn’t trust you,” said Smiley ingenuously.

  “Our leader was a secretive man, Max. This was his strength. He had to be. It was a military necessity.”

  “But not towards you, surely?” Smiley insisted, in his most flattering tone. “His Paris adjutant. His aide-de-camp. His confidential secretary? Come, you do yourself an injustice!”

  Leaning forward in his throne, Mikhel placed a small hand strictly across his heart. His brown voice took on an even deeper tone.

  “Max. Even towards me. At the end, even towards Mikhel. It was to shield me. To spare me dangerous knowledge. He said to me even: ‘Mikhel, it is better that you—even you—do not know what the past has thrown up.’ I implored him. In vain. He came to me one evening. Here. I was asleep upstairs. He gave the special ring on the bell: ‘Mikhel, I need fifty pounds.’”

  Elvira returned, this time with an empty ashtray, and as she put it on the table Smiley felt a surge of tension like the sudden working of a drug. He experienced it driving sometimes, waiting for a crash that didn’t happen. And he experienced it with Ann, watching her return from some supposedly innocuous engagement and knowing—simply knowing—it was not.

  “When was this?” he asked when she had left again.

  “Twelve days ago. One week last Monday. From his manner I am able to discern immediately that this is an official affair. He has never before asked me for money. ‘General,’ I say to him. ‘You are making a conspiracy. Tell me what it is.’ But he shakes his head. ‘Listen,’ I tell him, ‘if this is a conspiracy, take my advice, go to Max.’ He refused. ‘Mikhel,’ he tells me, ‘Max is a good man, but he does not have confidence any more in our Group. He wishes, even, that we end our struggle. But when I have landed the big fish I am hoping for, then I shall go to Max and claim our expenses and perhaps many things besides. But this I do afterwards, not before. Meanwhile I cannot conduct my business in a dirty shirt. Please, Mikhel. Lend me fifty pounds. In all my life this is my most important mission. It reaches far into our past.’ His words exactly. In my wallet I had fifty pounds—fortunately I had that day made a successful investment—I give them to him. ‘General,’ I said. ‘Take all I have. My possessions are yours. Please,’” said Mikhel and to punctuate this gesture—or to authenticate it—drew heavily at his yellow cigarette.

  In the grimy window above them Smiley had glimpsed the reflection of Elvira standing half-way down the room, listening to their conversation. Mikhel had also seen her and had even shot her an evil frown, but he seemed unwilling, and perhaps unable, to order her away.

  “That was very good of you,” Smiley said after a suitable pause.

  “Max, it was my duty. From the heart. I know no other law.”

  She despises me for not helping the old man, thought Smiley. She was in on it, she knew, and now she despises me for not helping him in his hour of need. He was a brother to her, he remembered. He instructed her.

  “And this approach to you—this request for operational funds,” said Smiley. “It came out of the blue? There’d been nothing before, to tell you he was up to something big?”

  Again Mikhel frowned, taking his time, and it was clear that Mikhel did not care too much for questions.

  “Some months ago, perhaps two, he received a letter,” he said cautiously. “Here, to this address.”

  “Did he receive so few?”

  “This letter was special,” said Mikhel, with the same air of caution, and suddenly Smiley realised that Mikhel was in what the Sarratt inquisitors called the loser’s corner, because he did not know—he could only guess—how much or how little Smiley knew already. Therefore Mikhel would give up his information jealously, hoping to read the strength of Smiley’s hand while he did so.

  “Who was it from?”

  Mikhel, as so often, answered a slightly different question.

  “It was from Paris, Max, a long letter, many pages, hand-written. Addressed to the General personally, not Miller. To General Vladimir, most personal. On the envelope was written ‘Most Personal,’ in French. The letter arrived, I lock it in my desk; at eleven o’clock he walks in as usual. ‘Mikhel, I salute you.’ Sometimes, believe me, we even saluted each other. I hand him the letter, he sat”—he pointed towards Elvira’s end of the room—“he sat down, opened it quite carelessly, as if he had no expectation from it, and I saw him gradually become preoccupied. Absorbed. I would say fascinated. Impassioned even. I spoke to him. He didn’t answer. I spoke again—you know his ways—he ignored me totally. He went for a walk. ‘I shall return,’ he said.”

  “Taking the letter?”

  “Of course. It was his fashion, when he had a great matter to consider, to go for a w
alk. When he returned, I noticed a deep excitement in him. A tension. ‘Mikhel.’ You know how he spoke. All must obey. ‘Mikhel. Get out the photocopier. Put some paper in it for me. I have a document to copy.’ I asked him how many copies. One. I asked him how many sheets. ‘Seven. Please stand at five paces’ distance while I operate the machine,’ he tells me. ‘I cannot involve you in this matter.’”

  Once again, Mikhel indicated the spot as if it proved the absolute veracity of his story. The black copier stood on its own table, like an old steam-engine, with rollers, and holes for pouring in the different chemicals. “The General was not mechanical, Max. I setup the machine for him—then I stood—here—so—calling out instructions to him across the room. When he had finished, he stood over the copies while they dried, then folded them into his pocket.”

  “And the original?”

  “This also he put in his pocket.”

  “So you never read the letter?” Smiley said, in a tone of light commiseration.

  “No, Max. I am sad to tell you I did not.”

  “But you saw the envelope. You had it here to give to him when he arrived.”

  “I told you, Max. It was from Paris.”

  “Which district?”

  The hesitation again: “The fifteenth,” said Mikhel. “I believe it was the fifteenth. Where many of our people used to be.”

  “And the date? Can you be more precise about it? You said about two months.”

  “Early September. I would say early September. Late August is possible. Say six weeks ago, around.”

  “The address on the envelope was also handwritten?”

  “It was, Max. It was.”

  “What colour was the envelope?”

  “Brown.”

  “And the ink?”

  “I suppose blue.”

  “Was it sealed?”

  “Please?”

  “Was the envelope sealed with sealing-wax or adhesive tape? Or was it just gummed in the ordinary way?”

  Mikhel shrugged, as if such details were beneath him.

  “But the sender had put his name on the outside, presumably?” Smiley persisted lightly.

  If he had, Mikhel was not admitting it.

  For a moment Smiley allowed his mind to dwell upon the brown envelope cached in the Savoy cloakroom, and the passionate plea for help it had contained. This morning I had an impression that they were trying to kill me. Will you not send me your magic friend once more? Postmark Paris, he thought. The 15th district. After the first letter, Vladimir gave the writer his home address, he thought. Just as he gave his home telephone number to Villem. After the first letter, Vladimir made sure he bypassed Mikhel.

  A phone rang and Mikhel answered it at once, with a brief “Yes,” then listened.

  “Then put me five each way,” he muttered, and rang off with magisterial dignity.

  Approaching the main purpose of his visit to Mikhel, Smiley took care to proceed with great respect. He remembered that Mikhel—who by the time he joined the Group in Paris had seen the inside of half the interrogation centres of Eastern Europe—had a way of slowing down when he was prodded, and by this means in his day had driven the Sarratt inquisitors half mad.

  “May I ask you something, Mikhel?” Smiley said, instructively selecting a line that was oblique to the main thrust of his enquiry.

  “Please.”

  “That evening when he called here to borrow money from you, did he stay? Did you make him tea? Play a game of chess perhaps? Could you paint it for me a little, please, that evening?”

  “We played chess, but not with concentration. He was preoccupied, Max.”

  “Did he say any more about the big fish?”

  The drooped eyes considered Smiley soulfully.

  “Please, Max?”

  “The big fish. The operation he said he was planning. I wondered whether he enlarged upon it in any way.”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all, Max. He was entirely secretive.”

  “Did you have the impression it involved another country?”

  “He spoke only of having no passport. He was wounded—Max, I tell you this frankly—he was hurt that the Circus would not trust him with a passport. After such service, such devotion—he was hurt.”

  “It was for his own good, Mikhel.”

  “Max, I understand entirely. I am a younger man, a man of the world, flexible. The General was at times impulsive, Max. Steps had to be taken—even by those who admired him—to contain his energies. Please. But for the man himself, it was incomprehensible. An insult.”

  From behind him Smiley heard the thud of feet as Elvira stomped contemptuously back to her corner.

  “So who did he think should do his travelling for him?” Smiley asked, again ignoring her.

  “Villem,” said Mikhel with obvious disapproval. “He does not tell me in many words but I believe he sends Villem. That was my impression. Villem would go. General Vladimir spoke with much pride of Villem’s youth and honour. Also of his father. He even made an historical reference. He spoke of bringing in the new generation to avenge the injustices of the old. He was very moved.”

  “Where did he send him? Did Vladi give any hint of that?”

  “He does not tell me. He tells me only, ‘Villem has a passport, he is a brave boy, a good Balt, steady, he can travel, but it is also necessary to protect him.’ I do not probe, Max. I do not pry. That is not my way. You know that.”

  “Still you did form an impression, I suppose,” Smiley said. “The way one does. There are not so many places Villem would be free to go to, after all. Least of all on fifty pounds. There was Villem’s job too, wasn’t there? Not to mention his wife. He couldn’t just step into the blue when he felt like it.”

  Mikhel made a very military gesture. Pushing out his lips till his moustache was almost on its back, he tugged shrewdly at his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “The General also asked me for maps,” he said finally. “I was in two minds whether to tell you this. You are his vicar, Max, but you are not of our cause. But as I trust you, I shall.”

  “Maps of where?”

  “Street maps.” He flicked a hand towards the shelves as if ordering them closer. “City plans. Of Danzig. Hamburg. Lübeck. Helsinki. The northern seaboard. I asked him, ‘General, sir. Let me help you,’ I said to him. ‘Please. I am your assistant for everything. I have a right. Vladimir. Let me help you.’ He refused me. He wished to be entirely private.”

  Moscow Rules, Smiley thought yet again. Many maps and only one of them is relevant. And once again, he noted, towards his trusted Paris adjutant Vladimir was taking measures to obscure his purpose.

  “After which he left?” he suggested.

  “Correct.”

  “At what time?”

  “It was late.”

  “Can you say how late?”

  “Two. Three. Even four maybe. I am not sure.”

  Then Smiley felt Mikhel’s gaze lift fractionally over his shoulder and beyond it and stay there, and an instinct that he had lived by for as long as he could remember made him ask: “Did Vladimir come here alone?”

  “Of course, Max. Who would he bring?”

  They were interrupted by a clank of crockery as Elvira at the other end of the room went clumsily back to her chores. Daring to glance at Mikhel just then, Smiley saw him staring after her with an expression he recognised but for a split second could not place: hopeless and affectionate at once, torn between dependence and disgust. Till, with sickening empathy, Smiley found himself looking into his own face as he had glimpsed it too often, red-eyed like Mikhel’s, in Ann’s pretty gilt mirrors in their house in Bywater Street.

  “So if he wouldn’t let you help him, what did you do?” Smiley asked with the same studied casualness. “Sit up and read—play chess with Elvira?”

  Mikhel’s brown eyes held him a moment, slipped away, and came back to him.

  “No, Max,” he replied with great courtesy. “I gave him the maps. He desired to be left al
one with them. I wished him good night. I was asleep by the time he left.”

  But not Elvira, apparently, Smiley thought. Elvira stayed behind for instruction from her proxy brother. Active as a patriot, as a man, as a leader, Smiley rehearsed. Active in all respects.

  “So what contact have you had with him since?” Smiley asked, and Mikhel came suddenly to yesterday. Nothing till yesterday, Mikhel said.

  “Yesterday afternoon he called me on the telephone. Max, I swear to you I had not heard him so excited for many years. Happy, I would say ecstatic. ‘Mikhel! Mikhel!’ Max, that was a delighted man. He would come to me that night. Last night. Late maybe, but he will have my fifty pounds. ‘General,’ I tell him. ‘What is fifty pounds? Are you well? Are you safe? Tell me.’ ‘Mikhel, I have been fishing and I am happy. Stay awake,’ he says to me. ‘I shall be with you at eleven o’clock, soon after. I shall have the money. Also it is necessary I beat you at chess to calm my nerves.’ I stay awake, make tea, wait for him. And wait. Max, I am a soldier, for myself I am not afraid. But for the General—for that old man, Max—I was afraid. I phone the Circus, an emergency. They hang up on me. Why? Max, why did you do that, please?”

  “I was not on duty,” Smiley said, now watching Mikhel as intently as he dared. “Tell me, Mikhel,” he began deliberately.

  “Max.”

  “What did you think Vladimir was going to be doing after he rang you with the good news—and before he came to repay you fifty pounds?”

  Mikhel did not hesitate. “Naturally I assumed he would be going to Max,” he said. “He had landed his big fish. Now he would go to Max, claim his expenses, present him with his great news. Naturally,” he repeated, looking a little too straight into Smiley’s eyes.

  Naturally, thought Smiley; and you knew to the minute when he would leave his apartment, and to the metre the route he would take to reach the Hampstead flat.