The Tailor of Panama

by John le Carré

  Together, the trio turned and advanced down the room, with the Sun King at its centre. Its destination was the presidential sanctum. The doors to it were not three feet from where Pendel stood. He hoisted a smile and, suitcase in hand, took a step forward. The silvered head lifted and turned in his direction, but the cornflower eyes saw only wall. The trio swept past him, the sanctum doors closed. Marco returned.

  “Are you the tailor?”

  “I am indeed, Señor Marco, and at His Excellency’s service.”

  “Wait.”

  Pendel waited, as must all who only stand and serve. Years passed. The doors opened again. “Make haste,” Marco ordered.

  Ask about his missing hours in Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

  A carved gold screen has been erected in one corner of the room. Gilded gesso bows adorn each fretted corner. Gold roses tumble down the staves. Backlit by the window, His Transparency stands regally before it in his black jacket and striped trousers. The presidential palm is as soft as an old lady’s but larger. Making contact with its silken cushions, Pendel has a memory of his Auntie Ruth chopping chicken for the Sunday soup while Benny sings “Celeste Aïda” at the upright piano.

  “Welcome back, sir, after your arduous tour,” Pendel murmurs through a chicane of glottal obstructions.

  But it is uncertain whether the World’s Greatest Leader receives the full force of this strangled greeting, because Marco has handed him a cordless red telephone and he is already speaking into it.

  “Franco? Don’t bother me with that stuff. Tell her she needs a lawyer. See you at the reception tonight. Catch my ear.”

  Marco removes the red telephone. Pendel opens his suitcase. Not a Bo-Peep costume but a half-made tail suit with discreetly reinforced breast panels to bear the weight of twenty orders sleeps safely in its scented tissue coffin. The virgin makes a silent exit as the Master of the Earth takes up his post behind the gold screen with its mirrored interior. It is an ancient artefact of the palace.

  The silver head so beloved of its people vanishes and reappears as the presidential trousers are removed.

  “If His Excellency would be so kind,” Pendel murmurs.

  A presidential hand appears round the side of the gold screen. Pendel lays the basted black trousers over the presidential forearm. Arm and trousers disappear. More phones ring. Ask about his missing hours.

  “It’s the Spanish ambassador, Excellency,” Marco calls from the desk. “Wants a private audience.”

  “Tell him tomorrow night after the Taiwanese.”

  Pendel stands face-to-face with the Lord of the Universe: the Grand Master of Panama’s political chessboard, the man who holds the keys to one of the world’s two greatest gateways, determines the future of world trade and the balance of global power in the twenty-first century. Pendel inserts two fingers inside the presidential waistband while Marco announces another caller, one Manuel.

  “Tell him Wednesday,” the President retorts over the top of the screen.

  “Morning or afternoon?”

  “Afternoon,” the President replies.

  The presidential waistline is elusive. If the crotch is right, the trouser length is wrong. Pendel raises the waist. The trousers rise above the presidential silk sock line, so that for a moment he looks like Charlie Chaplin.

  “Manuel says afternoon is okay as long as it’s only nine holes,” Marco warns his master severely.

  Suddenly nothing stirs. What Pendel described to Osnard as a blessed truce amid the fray has descended over the sanctum. Nobody speaks. Not Marco, not the President or his many telephones. The great spy is kneeling, pinning the presidential left trouser leg, but his wits do not desert him.

  “And may I enquire of His Excellency with respect whether we were able to relax during our highly triumphant Far Eastern tour at all, sir? Some sport perhaps? A walk? A little shopping, if I may make so bold?”

  And still no phone rings, nothing disturbs the blessed truce while the Keeper of the Keys to Global Power considers his reply.

  “Too tight,” he announces. “You make me too tight, Mr. Braithwaite. Why won’t you let your President breathe, you tailors?”

  “ ‘Harry,’ he says to me, ‘those parks they’ve got in Paris, I’d do the same for Panama tomorrow if it wasn’t for the property developers and the Communists.’ ”

  “Wait.” Osnard turned a page of his notebook, writing hard.

  They were on the fourth floor of a three-hour hotel called the Paraiso, in a bustling part of town. Across the road an illuminated Coca-Cola sign turned off and on, now flooding the room with red flames, now leaving it in darkness. From the corridor came the stampede of arriving and departing couples. Through the adjoining walls, groans of chagrin or delight and the accelerating thump of eager bodies.

  “He didn’t say,” said Pendel cautiously. “Not in as many words.”

  “Don’t paraphrase, mind? Just give it me the way he said it.” Osnard licked a thumb and turned a page.

  Pendel was seeing Dr. Johnson’s summerhouse on Hampstead Heath, the day he went there with Auntie Ruth for the azaleas.

  “ ‘Harry,’ he says to me, ‘that park in Paris, I wish I could remember its name. There was a little hut there with a wood roof, just us and the bodyguards and the ducks.’ The President loves his Nature. ‘And it was there in that hut that history was made. And one day, if all goes according to plan, there’ll be a plaque on the wooden wall, telling the world that on this very spot the future prosperity, well-being and independence of the fledgling state of Panama was determined, plus the date.’ ”

  “Say who he was talking to? Japs, Frogs, Chinese? Didn’t just sit there and talk to the flowers, did he?”

  “Not as such, Andy. There were clues.”

  “Give ’em to me”—licking his thumb again, a small slurp.

  “ ‘Harry, you’ll have to protect me on this one, but the brilliance of the Oriental mind is a total revelation to me, plus the French aren’t far behind.’ ”

  “Say what kind of Oriental?”

  “Not as such.”

  “Japanese? Chinese? Malaysian?”

  “Andy, I fear you are trying to put thoughts into my head which were not there before.”

  No sound except for the shriek of traffic, the clank and heave of air conditioners, the canned music to drown the clank and heave. Latin voices yelling above the music. Osnard’s ballpoint speeding over the pages of his notebook.

  “And Marco didn’t like you?”

  “He never did, Andy.”

  “Why not?”

  “Palace courtiers don’t like Turco tailors enjoying one-to-one powwows with their bosses, Andy. They don’t like, ‘Marco, Mr. Pendel and I haven’t spoken for an age and we’ve got a lot to catch up with, so be a good lad and go and stand the other side of that mahogany door till I give you a shout’—do they?”

  “Is he a poof?”

  “Not so far as my knowledge extends, Andy, but I haven’t asked him and it’s not my business.”

  “Take him out to dinner. Show him a time, give him a cut rate on a suit. Sounds like the sort o’ chap we ought to have on our side. Anything about traditional anti-American feeling raising its head among the Japs?”

  “Zero, Andy.”

  “Japs as the world’s next superpower?”

  “No, Andy.”

  “Natural leader o’ the emerging industrial states?—still no?

  Jap-American animosity?—Panama’s got to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea?—Pres feels like the ham in the sandwich—that type o’ thing?—no?”

  “Nothing above the normal in that regard, Andy; not on Japan; no. Well, there was just the one reference, Andy, now that it comes back to me.”

  Osnard brightened.

  “ ‘Harry,’ he says to me, ‘all I pray is that I never never never again have to sit down in a room with Japs one side of the table and Yanks the other, because keeping the peace between them puts years onto my life, as
you can see from my poor grey hairs,’ although I’m not sure that hair’s all his own, to be frank. I think it’s helped.”

  “Chatty, was he?”

  “Andy, it was pouring out of him. Once he’s got that screen round him, there’s no holding him. And if he ever gets onto Panama as all the world’s pawn, it’s the morning gone.”

  “How about his missing hours in Tokyo?”

  Pendel was shaking his head. Gravely. “I’m sorry, Andy. There we have to draw a veil,” he said, and turned his head towards the window in stoical refusal.

  Osnard’s pen had stopped in mid-caress. The Coca-Cola sign across the road switched him on and off.

  “Hell’s the matter with you?” he demanded.

  “He’s my third president, Andy,” Pendel replied to the window.

  “So?”

  “So I won’t do it. I can’t.”

  “Can’t do what, fuck’s sake?”

  “Reconcile it with my conscience. Grass.”

  “Are you out o’ your mind? This is gold dust, man. We’re talking major, major bonus. Tell me what Pres said to you about his missing Japanese hours while he was trying on his bloody knickers!”

  It took Pendel much heart searching to overcome his reticence. But he managed it. His shoulders fell, he loosened, his gaze returned to the room.

  “ ‘Harry,’ he says to me, ‘if your customers ever ask you why I had such a light schedule in Tokyo, you’re please to tell them that while my wife was inspecting a silk factory with the Empress, I was having myself my first ever piece of Japanese tail’—which is not an expression I would use, Andy, as you know, neither in the shop, nor in the home—‘because in that way, Harry, my friend,’ he says to me, ‘you will raise my stock in certain circles here in Panama, while putting other elements off the scent regarding the real nature of my activities and the highly secret talks I was conducting on the side, for the ultimate good of Panama despite what many may think.’ ”

  “Hell did he mean by that?”

  “He was referring to certain threats that have been made against his person and suppressed in order not to alarm the public.”

  “His words, Harry, ol’ boy, mind? Sound like the bloody Guardian on a wet Monday.”

  Pendel was serene.

  “There were no words, Andy. Not as such. Words were not needed.”

  “Explain,” said Osnard while he wrote.

  “The President wishes a special pocket inside the left breast of all his suits, to be added in total confidence. I’m to get the length of barrel from Marco. ‘Harry,’ he says, ‘don’t think I’m being dramatic and never tell it to a living person. What I’m doing for the new emerging infant state of Panama which I love will cost me blood. I’m saying no more.’ ”

  From the street below, the jackass laughter of drunks rose at them like mockery.

  “One king-sized bonus assured,” Osnard said, closing his notebook. “What’s the latest on Brother Abraxas?”

  The same stage, a different setting. Osnard had found a flimsy bedroom chair and was sitting astride it with his podgy thighs spread and the backrest rising from his crotch.

  “They’re hard to define, Andy,” Pendel warned, pacing, hands behind his back.

  “Who are, ol’ boy?”

  “The Silent Opposition.”

  “I’ll say they are.”

  “They’re holding their cards close to their chests.”

  “Hell for? Democracy, isn’t it? Why keep mum? Why not get up on their soapboxes, call out the students? Hell are they being silent about?”

  “Let’s just say Noriega taught them a sanitary lesson and they’re not going to take the next one lying down. Nobody’s ever going to put Mickie in prison again.”

  “Mickie’s their leader. Right?”

  “Morally and practically, Mickie is their leader, Andy, though he’ll never admit it and neither will his silent supporters, neither will his students that he’s in touch with or his people on the other side of the bridge.”

  “And Rafi stakes them.”

  “All the way.” Pendel turned back into the room.

  Osnard pulled his notebook from his lap, propped it on the back of the chair, resumed his writing. “List o’ members anywhere? Got a platform? Set o’ principles? What bonds ’em?”

  “They’re for cleaning up the country, one.” Pendel paused to let Osnard write. He was hearing Marta, loving her. He was seeing Mickie, sober and reconstructed in a new suit. His breast was filling with loyal pride. “They’re for furthering Panama’s identity as a single fledgling democracy when our American friends have finally upped sticks and left the scene if they ever do which is always doubtful, two. They’re for educating the poor and needy, hospitals, improved university grants and a better deal for the poor farmers, rice and shrimp particularly, plus not selling off the country’s assets to the highest bidder irregardless, including the Canal, three.”

  “Lefties, are they?” Osnard suggested between bouts of composition, while he sucked the plastic helmet of his ballpoint with his little rosebud mouth.

  “Not more than is decent and healthy, thank you, Andy. Mickie is left leaning, true. But moderation is his watchword plus he’s got no time for Castro’s Cuba or the Coms, no more has Marta.”

  Osnard grimacing in concentration while he wrote. Pendel watching him with growing apprehension, wondering how to slow him down.

  “I’ve heard quite a good joke about Mickie, if you want to know. He’s in vino veritas but upside down. The more he drinks, the more he keeps silent in his opposition.”

  “Tells you a whole lot when he’s sober, though, doesn’t he, our Mickie? You could hang him, some o’ the stuff he’s told you.”

  “He’s a friend, Andy. I don’t hang my friends.”

  “A good friend. And you’ve been a good friend to him. Maybe it’s time you did something about it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Signing him up. Making an honest joe out o’ him. Putting him on the payroll.”

  “Mickie?”

  “Not such a big deal. Tell him you’ve met this well-heeled Western philanthropist who admires his cause and would like to lend him a helping hand on the q.t. Don’t have to say he’s a Brit. Say he’s a Yank.”

  “Mickie, Andy?” Pendel whispered incredulously. “ ‘Mickie, would you like to be a spy?’ Me go to Mickie and say that to him?”

  “For money, why not? Fat man, fat salary,” Osnard said, as if stating an irrefutable law of espionage.

  “Mickie wouldn’t care for a Yank one bit,” said Pendel, wrestling with the enormity of Osnard’s proposal. “The invasion got right under his skin. State terrorism is how he calls it, and he’s not referring to Panama.”

  Osnard was using the chair as a rocking horse, coaxing it back and forth with his ample buttocks.

  “London’s taken a shine to you, Harry. Doesn’t always happen. Want you to spread your wings. Put a full-scale network together, cover the board. Ministries, students, trade unions, Legislative Assembly, Presidential Palace, Canal and more Canal. They’ll pay you responsibility allowance, incentives, generous bonuses, plus increased salary to set against your loan. Get Abraxas and his group aboard, we’re home free.”

  “We, Andy?”

  Osnard’s head remained gyroscopically still while the rump of him went on rocking. His voice sounded louder on account of being lowered.

  “Me at your side. Guide, philosopher, chum. Can’t handle it all alone. No one can. Too big a job.”

  “I appreciate that, Andy. I respect it.”

  “They’ll pay subsources too. Goes without saying. Many as you’ve got. We could make a killing. You could. Long as it’s cost-effective. Hell’s your problem?”

  “I haven’t got one, Andy.”

  “So?”

  So Mickie’s my friend, he was thinking. Mickie’s opposed enough already and he doesn’t need to oppose anymore. Silently or otherwise.

  “I’ll have to think about
it, Andy.”

  “Nobody pays us to think, Harry.”

  “All the same, Andy, it’s who I am.”

  There was one more subject on Osnard’s agenda for that evening, but Pendel didn’t grasp this at first because he was remembering a warder called Friendly who was a master of the six-inch elbow jab to the balls. That’s who you remind me of, he was thinking. Friendly.

  “Thursday’s the day Louisa brings work home, right?”

  “Thursdays is correct, Andy.”

  Dismounting thigh by thigh from his rocking horse, Osnard fished in a pocket and extracted an ornate gold-plated cigarette lighter.

  “Present from a rich Arab customer,” he said, handing it to Pendel where he stood at the centre of the room. “London’s pride. Try it.”

  Pendel pressed the lever and it lit. He released the lever and the flame went out. He repeated the operation twice. Osnard took back the lighter, fondled its underparts, returned it.

  “Now take a squiz through the lens,” he ordered with a magician’s pride.

  Marta’s tiny flat had become Pendel’s decompression chamber between Osnard and Bethania. She lay beside him, her face turned away from him. Sometimes she did that.

  “So what are your students up to these days?” he asked.

  “My students?”

  “The boys and girls you and Mickie used to run with in the bad times. All those bomb throwers you were in love with.”

  “I wasn’t in love with them. I loved you.”

  “What happened to them? Where are they now?”

  “They got rich. Stopped being students. Went into the Chase Manhattan. Joined the Club Unión.”

  “Do you see any of them?”

  “They wave at me from their expensive cars sometimes.”

  “Do they care about Panama?”

  “Not if they bank abroad.”

  “So who makes the bombs these days?”

  “No one.”

  “I get a feeling sometimes there’s a sort of Silent Opposition brewing. Starting at the top and trickling down. One of those middle-class revolutions that will flare up one day and take over the country when nobody’s expecting it. An officers’ putsch without officers, if you get me.”