The Whitehall Mandarin

by Edward Wilson

  ‘Perhaps you are. On the other hand, there’s a lot that you don’t understand about me – or yourself. You were born in an absurdly rich country into an obscenely rich family. You quickly got bored with fast cars, yachts and social snobbery so you decided to play with political ideology instead – the ultimate toy for the spoilt rich. I grew up in poverty, but I saw a lot worse poverty around me. I love those people and want to protect them.’

  ‘There are big differences between us. But we have one thing in common.’ Cauldwell smiled. ‘We are both traitors to the class we were born into.’

  It was Catesby’s turn to smile. ‘That’s not very original, Jeffers. It’s what Chou En-lai said to Khrushchev.’

  Cauldwell was a little taken aback. ‘And it’s just as true in their case.’

  ‘If Chou and Mao had been in charge in the Kremlin during the Cuban Missile Crisis the people of Moscow would now be radioactive ash. Your first job is to protect your people.’

  ‘Mao saved a quarter of the world’s population from near starvation and feudalism.’

  ‘And then starved thirty-five million of them to death during the Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1961.’

  ‘About 3 per cent of the population.’ Cauldwell flashed a cold smile. ‘Your own government’s policies starved a million Irish during the potato famine – 12 per cent of the population.’

  ‘You’re a little bundle of point-scoring facts aren’t you, Jeffers?’

  ‘Those facts are real lives and real human pain.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Catesby filled their cups from the Lao whisky bucket. ‘But Mao has made mistakes!’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re not a blind devotee?’

  ‘No, but I believe in discipline.’

  ‘So, Jeffers, what’s your future?’

  Cauldwell looked into his cup. ‘I don’t know. It depends on how the Party wants to make use of me.’

  ‘I’ve heard that the Cultural Revolution has spawned an anti-Western atmosphere in China. You might not be welcome.’

  ‘I think you’ve been misinformed. But even if that were true, I can always go back to Cuba.’

  ‘Are you sure they would have you?’

  Cauldwell shrugged.

  ‘I couldn’t do it,’ said Catesby, ‘even if I was a true believer.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Live a life of exile – never being able to come home.’ Catesby realised that the conversation had moved on. They were no longer playing spy games. Whether or not the Vietnamese were recording was irrelevant. They were two middle-aged men trying to make sense of their lives.

  ‘Back in the German days,’ said Cauldwell, ‘most of my American colleagues were convinced that you were working for Moscow – but I believed they were wrong. You weren’t subtle enough. Were you ever tempted to work for Moscow?’

  ‘No.’

  It was Catesby’s turn to stare into his cup. He wondered if the answer was completely honest.

  ‘What are your politics, William?’

  ‘I’m a democratic socialist. I don’t like violence – other than the odd punch-up. We didn’t need an armed insurrection to establish the National Health Service and to nationalise the mines and the railways. But that’s the way we do things in Britain. In other countries it’s different – and I sympathise.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound as if you’re going to be joining us?’

  ‘No, Jeffers. In any case, I don’t like the Cultural Revolution. It’s Mao turning into King Lear.’

  Cauldwell laughed. ‘You are one helluva revisionist!’

  ‘I feel sorry for you, Jeffers. You don’t have anything to fall back on – you’ve never had a personal life.’

  ‘No.’ Cauldwell smiled. ‘In any case, it’s bourgeois decadence.’

  ‘I think there are other complications.’

  ‘You’re right. The revolution doesn’t respect different forms of sexuality. It’s just a sacrifice I have to make for the greater good.’ Cauldwell looked momentarily wistful. ‘If it mattered that much, I would stay here. The Laotians don’t mind – and the Vietnamese simply don’t talk about it and pretend it doesn’t exist. I did have a lover – his name was Thien – but he died of malaria. I miss him.’

  ‘You’re easier to deal with, Jeffers, when you’re a monster.’

  ‘Oh, I can be that too.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Catesby, ‘when I was interrogating you at Lakenheath, you didn’t finish telling me about your pal Quentin.’

  Cauldwell’s face darkened and he stared into his cup. ‘He betrayed me.’

  ‘And you never forgave him.’

  ‘I didn’t have the chance; he was killed in the war.’ Cauldwell smiled. ‘But it was an absolutely masterful betrayal.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You have to imagine the University of Virginia on a warm spring midnight when I was a student before the war. What we call The Lawn is a grassy Italianate piazza with colonnades and pavilions on each side. It’s a very romantic place – especially with a tease like Quentin. We used to play a little game acting out a poem called “Piazza Piece” by John Crowe Ransom. It’s about an old man, obviously a metaphor for death, trying to seduce a beautiful young girl. You think it’s silly?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. You might learn something. In any case, we dressed up for the game. I pretended to be the old man and put on a grey wig with an eighteenth-century frock coat and buckled shoes. Quentin would wear a hooped party dress, heels and a wig of black ringlets. We would weave in and out of the shadows of the colonnades passing a bottle of bourbon between us. Sometimes we would have a little audience – or someone playing a harpsichord in one of the pavilions. We usually stopped to polish Icarus’s balls.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Icarus; he flew too near the sun and his wings melted.’

  ‘I know the story, but I didn’t know you had to polish his balls.’

  ‘This Icarus was a bronze statue of an aviator, a memorial to Quentin’s uncle who been a pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille.’

  Catesby nodded. He knew the Escadrille had been a group of American volunteers who fought for France in World War One while the United States was still neutral. They were mostly Southern and mostly rich.

  ‘My father flew with them, but unlike Quentin’s uncle, my daddy survived.’

  ‘Why did you polish Icarus’s balls?’

  ‘We shouldn’t have. It wasn’t our job. The ball buffing is supposed to be done by the first-year girls at Sweet Briar College. Visiting Icarus at midnight with a tin of Brasso is part of the Sweet Briar initiation. As a sophisticated Englishman, I am sure you find this somewhat absurd.’

  ‘We have our own rituals. And Quentin was in drag as one of those girls?’

  ‘That was the idea – and he polished Icarus’s balls with relish. When they were dry and shining he caressed them and licked them – and gave me knowing glances as he progressed. Quentin was a cunning vixen – a master of deception and double bluff. Do you know what he did?’

  ‘I’m starting to see a pattern.’

  ‘What is that pattern, William?’

  ‘You never really know who anyone is.’

  Cauldwell gave a bleak smile. ‘You are clever. We were alone – or so I thought. I was deep in the shadows of the colonnade. The night was scented and dankly warm. I took a big swig from the bourbon bottle and put it down next to a Doric column to deliver my lines about being a dirty old man in a coat of dust. Quentin then delivered his line about being a young beauty waiting for her true love. For the first time there was real yearning in Quentin’s falsetto – and yet something different too. I walked forward – and was immediately reproved and pushed back.’

  ‘What a tease.’ Catesby looked at Cauldwell. ‘By the way, are you sure this hooch isn’t bugged?’

  Cauldwell smiled and nodded his head. ‘I went back to the bourbon bottle – and took another deep drink. At that age,
I needed courage. When I looked up again, the white skirt had parted to reveal gleaming thighs above high black-buttoned boots. I ought to have known then. The voice came again, but far less of a falsetto – a voice of absolute longing and abandon.’

  ‘And you obliged.’

  ‘It was too late to stop. I unbuttoned my flies and went forward to meet my fate. As soon as I put my arms around her I knew for sure that Quentin had betrayed me.’ Cauldwell smiled. ‘Laetitia had been after me since I was sixteen.’

  ‘His sister?’

  ‘Twin sister, in fact. She wanted it so much, was so hungry. We did it standing there in the colonnade. She wrapped her legs around me so that she was completely off the ground, but still managed to pump and grind as if she were a well-oiled machine on high revs. She clawed at me. Her passion was frightening. But the odd thing, the oddest thing, was that her real femininity was less feminine than Quentin’s fake femininity. And that, Catesby, is how I lost my virginity.’

  ‘Why have you told me this?’

  ‘To help you solve a riddle.’

  ‘Thanks.’ A flashbulb had popped in Catesby’s brain and briefly illuminated the missing woman from the Poussin – a veiled enigma in the mist.

  There was the sound of approaching footsteps and the door curtain twitched. Lopez entered and addressed Cauldwell. ‘Your transport is going to be ready soon.’

  Catesby studied the two Americans. Both came from wealthy privileged backgrounds and both had rejected their country to become Communists of one form or other. But despite that, there was a coolness between them. Lopez was much younger and seemed an edgy man of action. They both were killers, but Lopez wore the lethal persona more easily.

  Cauldwell stood up, turned to Catesby and shook his hand. ‘Thanks for lunch, comrade. When you find the path to democratic socialism, please let me know – but I won’t hold my breath.’

  ‘Next time you organise an orgy at Cliveden, can you get me an invite?’

  ‘It wasn’t at Cliveden. It was in Suffolk – a little patch of woodland overlooking the River Alde.’

  Another red snooker ball whirred across the baize and clunked into its pocket. The mystery was getting clearer.

  ‘Look after yourself, Jeffers.’

  ‘You too. I’m sure we’ll meet again.’

  Lopez stuck his head out of the door and shouted something in Vietnamese. Two PAVN soldiers appeared. They were more smartly dressed than most, with pith helmets bearing the enamel gold star on red insignia, and packing Makarov 9mm automatics in leather hip holsters.

  ‘My escorts have arrived,’ said Cauldwell. He smiled wanly. ‘I hope I’ve read the runes correctly. I don’t want to end up on the wrong side of history.’

  ‘But you meant well.’

  ‘I just love your English irony.’

  Catesby watched as Cauldwell disappeared into the late afternoon. Beams of sunlight filtered through the jungle canopy and made the image flicker like the end of an old film.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind some of that whisky,’ said Lopez.

  ‘I’ll get you a clean cup.’

  ‘Nah, I’ll use his.’ Lopez picked up Cauldwell’s cup and wiped it with his shirttail. ‘I don’t think I’ll get syphilis.’

  ‘How did you get on with your fellow American?’

  Lopez poured himself a whisky. ‘We got on fine. He thinks I’m an asshole and I think he’s an asshole.’

  ‘Sounds like the basis of a great friendship.’

  ‘Fuck no.’ Lopez laughed. ‘You’re pretty unsophisticated, aren’t you?’

  Catesby smiled, but didn’t reply. The American upper classes had a self-confident abrasiveness that left you speechless – which was just as well because they wouldn’t have listened to your answer in any case.

  ‘Cauldwell’s problem,’ said Lopez, ‘is that he’s never come to terms with his social background. Why are you laughing?’

  ‘Because you’re so funny. What about yourself? Have you come to terms with your privileged social background?’

  ‘Ah…’ Lopez raised his whisky cup. ‘Good point. But I don’t need to. When I look into a mirror I see that I am not one of them. I’m adopted.’

  Catesby wasn’t sure it made much of a difference. ‘In any case, you and Cauldwell disagree on matters of ideology?’

  Lopez shrugged. ‘If I was fighting in South America, I might be a Maoist, but not here. After defeating French and US imperialism, the Vietnamese don’t want to fall under Chinese imperialism.’

  ‘And Cauldwell doesn’t understand that?’

  Lopez drank the whisky and nodded. ‘Oh yeah, he does understand, but Cauldwell made his choice long ago and can’t change it now.’

  Catesby realised that Cauldwell and Lopez must have had some long talks. The full tragedy of Cauldwell’s dilemma began to sink in. Once you betrayed Moscow, you can’t say ‘sorry’ and go back. What Cauldwell had done was worse than spying for the West. He would never be forgiven for that. And one day they might kill him for it.

  ‘In any case,’ continued Lopez, ‘Cauldwell began to be an embarrassment. The Vietnamese decided they had to get rid of him one way or another. I can tell you, he is one nervous puppy. Some of the pro-Soviet faction want to bundle him up and send him off as a thank-you card to Moscow. But I think they might be packing him off to China instead. Who knows?’

  Catesby realised that Cauldwell had been putting on a brave face during their conversation.

  ‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ said Lopez. ‘The Vietnamese want to get rid of you too. You and Cauldwell might end up handcuffed together on the same flight to Moscow. Thanks for the whisky.’

  ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘You need it.’

  Left alone, Catesby began to take stock of his own situation. The worst-case scenario was the Donskoi crematorium; the best case was drinking himself to death in a gloomy Moscow flat with Kim Philby. Hanoi’s decision came sooner than he expected.

  »»»»

  ‘You fucking bastard. You fucking cunt bastard.’

  It wasn’t the first time Catesby had been woken in the middle of the night by a woman swearing at him, kicking his bed and pounding him with her fists. The last time he had deserved it. It had been a selfish betrayal of someone who loved him. But he had never met this woman. Catesby held his arms in front of his face to protect himself as she kept hitting. She finally stopped pounding with her fists, only to aim a foot at Catesby’s crotch which he deflected with a raised knee. Her attack suddenly came to an end. Catesby listened to her breathing hard, tired by the onslaught. Finally, a torch was flicked on and aimed at his face.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘if I’ve done something to hurt you.’

  ‘She sent you, didn’t she?’ The word ‘she’ was uttered with particular contempt.

  ‘No, I can assure you you’ve got that wrong.’ It was too dark to see her face, but Catesby assumed it was Miranda and that she was referring to her mother, Lady Somers.

  ‘You’re a lying fucking bastard.’

  ‘But I’m not lying about that. Someone sent me to find you, but it wasn’t Lady Somers. Anyway, you seem to have found me.’

  ‘You’re not funny, not funny at all. Who sent you?’

  Catesby mentioned the name of the French journalist who had taken him to Cu Chi and also Huynh. He then added, just to make sure that the PAVN base camp on the Laotian border wasn’t full of women with upper-class English voices, ‘You are Miranda?’

  ‘Of course I fucking am. But I still don’t believe you. I am not stupid. She sent you.’

  ‘Listen, Miranda,’ Catesby tried to sound calm, ‘that isn’t true. I’ve never spoken to your mother about you.’

  Miranda gave a bitter laugh. ‘Then you’re an idiot. You know fucking nothing.’

  Catesby stared at the dark shadow in front of him. There was something odd in her voice and manner.

  The torch started to fade and Miranda shook it. ‘Crappy Russian b
atteries.’

  ‘There are matches and candles on the table – and, by the way, the torch batteries are Chinese. Like useless backyard iron smelting, a product of the Cultural Revolution.’

  ‘I don’t need your commentary.’

  A match scraped and there was enough yellow light for Catesby to see Miranda’s face. Her hair was dark and straight like her mother’s, but the most striking thing was the pallor and tiredness of her face. She was in her twenties, but already a burnt-out case.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  Catesby had picked up his tunic and trousers, which were on the ground beside the bed, and began to pull them on under the green camouflage waterproof that served as a sheet. ‘I’m dressing.’

  Miranda gave a hacking laugh. ‘I thought you were having a wank.’

  The way her upper-class voice became inflected with the tone of the street was something that Catesby had noticed in other posh women. Sometimes it was an affectation – they were slumming it – but in Miranda’s case it was genuine. She had been dragged through the gutter and the dirt had become ingrained.

  Catesby sat barefoot on the side of the plank bed. The surreal irony of the scene seemed to crackle in the candle flame. Catesby, a high-ranking British intelligence agent, and she, the daughter of the head of the British Ministry of Defence, were both dressed in the field uniform of the PAVN, a Communist army at war with the West. And it wasn’t a fancy-dress party. In the near distance, the thunder of American bombs pounded into Asia. The tremors shook the table and made the candle shadows jump like frightened cats.

  ‘Just like the Blitz, eh?’

  Miranda remained impassive.

  ‘But, of course, you’re too young to remember that.’ Catesby felt his bare ankle brush a bottle beside the bed. It was the vodka that had been playfully sent by the Soviet Embassy. ‘I wouldn’t mind a drink. What about you? Even if the Russians have betrayed the revolution, they still produce good vodka.’ Catesby laughed. ‘Maybe the two facts are related. I am sure your Maoist friends are much more focused and puritanical.’

  ‘You talk too much.’ As she spoke, Miranda raised the candle to look for cups. She found them and held them out for Catesby to fill.