John Le Carré: Three Complete Novels

by John le Carré

  “Until his accident,” Herr Kretzschmar put in.

  “Precisely,” Smiley said.

  “It was a traffic accident? An old man—a bit careless?”

  “He was shot,” said Smiley, and saw Herr Kretzschmar’s face once more wince with displeasure. “But murdered,” Smiley added, as if to reassure him. “It wasn’t suicide or an accident or anything like that.”

  “Naturally,” said Herr Kretzschmar, and offered Smiley a cigarette. Smiley declined, so he lit one for himself, took a few puffs, and stubbed it out. His pale complexion was a shade paler.

  “You have met Otto? You know him?” Herr Kretzschmar asked in the tone of one making light conversation.

  “I have met him once.”

  “Where?”

  “I am not at liberty to say.”

  Herr Kretzschmar frowned, but in perplexity rather than disapproval.

  “Tell me, please. If your parent company—okay, London—wanted to reach Herr Leipzig directly, what steps did it take?” Herr Kretzschmar asked.

  “There was an arrangement involving the Hamburger Abendblatt.”

  “And if they wished to contact him very urgently?”

  “There was you.”

  “You are police?” Herr Kretzschmar asked quietly. “Scotland Yard?”

  “No.” Smiley stared at Herr Kretzschmar and Herr Kretzschmar returned his gaze.

  “Have you brought me something?” Herr Kretzschmar asked. At a loss, Smiley did not immediately reply. “Such as a letter of introduction? A card, for instance?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing to show? That’s a pity.”

  “Perhaps when I have seen him, I shall understand your question better.”

  “But you have seen it evidently, this photograph? You have it with you, maybe?”

  Smiley took out his wallet, and passed the contact print across the desk. Holding it by the edges, Herr Kretzschmar studied it for a moment, but only by way of confirmation, then laid it on the plastic surface before him. As he did so, Smiley’s sixth sense told him that Herr Kretzschmar was about to make a statement, in the way that Germans sometimes do make statements—whether of philosophy, or personal exculpation, or in order to be liked, or pitied. He began to suspect that Herr Kretzschmar, in his own estimation at least, was a companionable if misunderstood man; a man of heart; even a good man; and that his initial taciturnity was something he wore like a professional suit, reluctantly, in a world that he frequently found unsympathetic to his affectionate character.

  “I wish to explain to you that I run a decent house here,” Herr Kretzschmar remarked when he had once more, by the clinical modern lamp, glanced at the print on his desk. “I am not in the habit of photographing clients. Other people sell ties, I sell sex. The important thing to me is to conduct my business in an orderly and correct manner. But this was not business. This was friendship.”

  Smiley had the wisdom to keep silent.

  Herr Kretzschmar frowned. His voice dropped and became confiding: “You knew him, Herr Max? That old General? You were personally connected with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was something, I understand?”

  “He was indeed.”

  “A lion, huh?”

  “A lion.”

  “Otto was crazy about him. My name is Claus. ‘Claus,’ he would say to me. ‘That Vladimir, I love that man.’ You follow me? Otto is a very loyal fellow. The General too?”

  “He was,” said Smiley.

  “A lot of people do not believe in Otto. Your parent company also, they do not always believe in him. This is understandable. I make no reproach. But the General, he believed in Otto. Not in every detail. But in the big things.” Holding up his forearm, Herr Kretzschmar clenched his fist and it was suddenly a very big fist indeed. “When things got hard, the old General believed in Otto absolutely. I too believe in Otto, Herr Max. In the big things. But I am German, I am not political, I am a businessman. These refugee stories are finished for me. You follow me?”

  “Of course.”

  “But not for Otto. Never. Otto is a fanatic. I can use that word. Fanatic. This is one reason why our lives have diverged. Nevertheless he is my friend. Anyone harms him, they get a bad time from Kretzschmar.” His face clouded in momentary mystification. “You are sure you have nothing for me, Herr Max?”

  “Beyond the photograph, I have nothing for you.”

  Reluctantly Herr Kretzschmar once more dismissed the matter, but it took him time; he was uneasy.

  “The old General was shot in England?” he asked finally.

  “Yes.”

  “But you consider nevertheless that Otto too is in danger?”

  “Yes, but I think he has chosen to be.”

  Herr Kretzschmar was pleased with this answer and nodded energetically twice.

  “So do I. I also. This is my clear impression of him. I told him many times: ‘Otto, you should have been a high-wire acrobat.’ To Otto, in my opinion, no day is worth living unless it threatens on at least six separate occasions to be his last. You permit me to make certain observations on my relationship with Otto?”

  “Please,” said Smiley politely.

  Putting his forearms on the plastic surface, Herr Kretzschmar settled himself into a more comfortable posture for confession.

  “There was a time when Otto and Claus Kretzschmar did everything together—stole a lot of horses, as we say. I was from Saxony, Otto came from the East. A Balt. Not Russia—he would insist—Estonia. He had had a tough time, studied the interior of a good few prisons, some bad fellow had betrayed him back in Estonia. A girl had died, and he was pretty mad about that. There was an uncle near Kiel but he was a swine. I may say that. A swine. We had no money, we were comrades and fellow thieves. This was normal, Herr Max.”

  Smiley acknowledged the instructive point.

  “One of our lines of business was to sell information. You have said correctly that information was a valuable commodity in those days. For example, we would hear of a refugee who had just come over and had not yet been interviewed by the Allies. Or maybe a Russian deserted. Or the master of a cargo ship. We hear about him, we question him. If we are ingenious, we contrive to sell the same report in different versions to three or even four different buyers. The Americans, the French, the British, the Germans themselves, already back in the saddle, yes. Sometimes, as long as it was inaccurate, even five buyers.” He gave a rich laugh. “But only if it was inaccurate, okay? On other occasions, when we were out of sources, we invented—no question. We had maps, good imagination, good contacts. Don’t misunderstand me: Kretzschmar is an enemy of Communism. We are talking old history, like you said, Herr Max. It was necessary to survive. Otto had the idea, Kretzschmar did the work. Otto was not the inventor of work, I would say.” Herr Kretzschmar frowned. “But in one respect Otto was a very serious man. He had a debt to settle. Of this he spoke repeatedly. Maybe against the fellow who betrayed him and killed his girl, maybe against the whole human race. What do I know? He had to be active. Politically active. So for this purpose he went to Paris, on many occasions. Many.”

  Herr Kretzschmar allowed himself a short period of reflection.

  “I shall be frank,” he announced.

  “And I shall respect your confidence,” said Smiley.

  “I believe you. You are Max. The General was your friend, Otto told me this. Otto met you once, he admired you. Very well. I shall be frank with you. Many years ago Otto Leipzig went to prison for me. In those days I was not respectable. Now that I have money, I can afford to be. We stole something, he was caught, he lied and took the whole rap. I wanted to pay him. He said, ‘What the hell? If you are Otto Leipzig, a year in prison is a holiday.’ I visited him every week, I bribed the guards to take him special food—even once a woman. When he came out, I again tried to pay him. He declined my offers. ‘One day I’ll ask you something,’ he said. ‘Maybe your wife.’ ‘You shall have her,’ I told him. ‘No problem.’ He
rr Max, I assume you are an Englishman. You will appreciate my position.”

  Smiley said he did.

  “Two months ago—what do I know, maybe more, maybe less—the old General comes through on the telephone. He needs Otto urgently. ‘Not tomorrow, but tonight.’ Sometimes he used to call that way from Paris, using code-names, all this nonsense. The old General is a secretive fellow. So is Otto. Like children, know what I mean? Never mind.”

  Herr Kretzschmar made an indulgent sweep of his big hand across his face, as if he were wiping away a cobweb. “‘Listen,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t know where Otto is. Last time I heard of him, he was in bad trouble with some business he started. I’ve got to find him, it will take time. Maybe tomorrow, maybe ten days.’ Then the old man tells me, ‘I sent you a letter for him. Guard it with your life.’ Next day a letter comes, express for Kretzschmar, postmark London. Inside, a second envelope. ‘Urgent and top secret for Otto.’ Top secret, okay? So the old guy’s crazy. Never mind. You know that big handwriting of his, strong like an army order?”

  Smiley did.

  “I find Otto. He’s hiding from trouble again, no money. One suit he’s got, but dresses like a film star. I give him the old man’s letter.”

  “Which is a fat one,” Smiley suggested, thinking of the seven pages of photocopy paper. Thinking of Mikhel’s black machine parked like an old tank in the library.

  “Sure. A long letter. He opened it while I was there—”

  Herr Kretzschmar broke off and stared at Smiley, and from his expression seemed, reluctantly, to recognise a restraint.

  “A long letter,” he repeated. “Many pages. He read it, he got pretty excited. ‘Claus,’ he said. ‘Lend me some money. I got to go to Paris.’ I lend him some money, five hundred marks, no problem. After this I don’t see him much for a time. A couple of occasions he comes here, makes a phone call. I don’t listen. Then a month ago he came to see me.” Again he broke off, and again Smiley felt his restraint. “I am being frank,” he said, as if once again enjoining Smiley to secrecy. “He was—well, I would say excited.”

  “He wanted to use the night-club,” Smiley suggested helpfully.

  “‘Claus,’ he said. ‘Do what I ask and you have paid your debt to me.’ He called it a honey-trap. He would bring a man to the club, an Ivan, someone he knew well, had been cultivating for many years, he said, a very particular swine. This man was the target. He called him ‘the target.’ He said it was the chance of his life, everything he had waited for. The best girls, the best champagne, the best show. For one night, courtesy of Kretzschmar. The climax of his efforts, he said. The chance to pay old debts and make some money as well. He was owed, he said. Now he would collect. He promised there would be no repercussions. I said ‘No problem.’ ‘Also, Claus, I wish you to photograph us,’ he tells me. I said ‘No problem’ again. So he came. And brought his target.”

  Herr Kretzschmar’s narrative had suddenly become uncharacteristically sparse. In the hiatus, Smiley slipped in a question, of which the purpose went far beyond the context: “What language did they speak?”

  Herr Kretzschmar hesitated, frowned, but finally answered: “At first his target pretended to be French, but the girls did not speak much French so he spoke German to them. But with Otto he spoke Russian. He was disagreeable, this target. Smelt a lot, sweated a lot, and was in certain other ways not a gentleman. The girls did not like to stay with him. They came to me and complained. I sent them back but they still grumbled.”

  He seemed embarrassed.

  “Another small question,” said Smiley, as the awkwardness returned.

  “Please.”

  “How could Otto Leipzig promise there would be no repercussions since he was presumably setting out to blackmail this man?”

  “The target was not the end,” Herr Kretzschmar said, pursing his lips to assist the intellectual point. “He was the means.”

  “The means to someone else?”

  “Otto was not precise. ‘A step on the General’s ladder’ was his expression. ‘For me, Claus, the target is enough. The target and afterwards the money. But for the General, he is only a step on the ladder. For Max also.’ For reasons I did not understand, the money was also dependent upon the General’s satisfaction. Or perhaps yours.” He paused, as if hoping Smiley might enlighten him. Smiley did not. “It was not my wish to ask questions or make conditions,” Herr Kretzschmar continued, picking his words with much greater severity. “Otto and his target were admitted by the back entrance, and shown straight to a séparée. We arranged to display nothing that would indicate the name of the establishment. Not long ago, a night-club down the road went bankrupt,” Herr Kretzschmar said, in a tone that suggested he might not be wholly desolated by the event. “Place called the Freudenjacht. I had bought certain equipment at the sale. Matches. Plates, we spread them around the séparée.” Smiley remembered the letters “ACHT” on the ashtray in the photograph.

  “Can you tell me what the two men discussed?”

  “No.” He changed his answer: “I have no Russian,” he said. He made the same disowning wave of his hand. “In German they talked about God and the world. Everything.”

  “I see.”

  “That’s all I know.”

  “How was Otto in his manner?” Smiley asked. “Was he still excited?”

  “I never saw Otto like that before in my life. He was laughing like an executioner, speaking three languages at once, not drunk but extremely animated, singing, telling jokes, I don’t know what. That’s all I know,” Herr Kretzschmar repeated, with embarrassment.

  Smiley glanced discreetly at the observation window and at the grey boxes of machinery. He glimpsed once more in Herr Kretzschmar’s little television screen the soundless twining and parting of the white bodies on the other side of the wall. He saw his last question, he recognised its logic, he sensed the wealth it promised. Yet the same lifetime’s instinct that had brought him this far now held him back. Nothing at this moment, no short-term dividend, was worth the risk of alienating Kretzschmar, and closing the road to Otto Leipzig.

  “And Otto gave you no other description of his target?” Smiley asked, for the sake of asking something; to help him run their conversation down.

  “During the evening, he came to me once. Up here. He excused himself from the company and came up here to make sure the arrangements were in order. He looked at the screen there and laughed. ‘Now I have taken him over the edge and he can’t get back,’ he said. I did not ask any more. That is all that happened.”

  Herr Kretzschmar was writing his instructions for Smiley on a leather-backed jotting pad with gold corners.

  “Otto lives in bad circumstances,” he said. “One cannot alter that. Giving him money does not improve his social standards. He remains”—Herr Kretzschmar hesitated—“he remains at heart, Herr Max, a gypsy. Do not misunderstand me.”

  “Will you warn him that I am coming?”

  “We have agreed not to use the telephone. The official link between us is completely closed.” He handed him the sheet of paper. “I strongly advise you to take care,” Herr Kretzschmar said. “Otto will be very angry when he hears the old General has been shot.” He saw Smiley to the door. “What did they charge you down there?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Downstairs. How much did they take from you?”

  “A hundred and seventy-five marks for membership.”

  “With the drinks inside, at least two hundred. I’ll tell them to give it back to you at the door. You English are poor these days. Too many trade unions. How’d you like the show?”

  “It was very artistic,” said Smiley.

  Herr Kretzschmar was once again very pleased with Smiley’s answer. He patted Smiley on the shoulder: “Maybe you should have more fun in life.”

  “Maybe I should have done,” Smiley agreed.

  “Greet Otto for me,” said Herr Kretzschmar.

  “I will,” Smiley promised.

  Herr K
retzschmar hesitated, and the same momentary bewilderment came over him.

  “And you have nothing for me?” he repeated. “No papers, for example?”

  “No.”

  “Pity.”

  As Smiley left, Herr Kretzschmar was already at the telephone, attending to other special requests.

  He returned to the hotel. A drunken night porter opened the door to him, full of suggestions about the wonderful girls he could send to Smiley’s room. He woke, if he had ever slept, to the chime of church bells and the honk of shipping in the harbour, carried to him on the wind. But there are nightmares that do not go away with daylight, and as he drove northward over the fens in his hired Opel, the terrors that hovered in the mist were the same as those that had plagued him in the night.

  17

  The roads were as empty as the landscape. Through breaks in the mist, he glimpsed now a patch of cornfield, now a red farmhouse crouched low against the wind. A blue notice said “KAI.” He swung sharply into a slip-road, dropping two flights, and saw ahead of him the wharf, a complex of low grey barracks dwarfed by the decks of cargo ships. A red-and-white pole guarded the entrance, there was a customs notice in several languages, but not a human soul in sight. Stopping the car, Smiley got out and walked lightly to the barrier. The red push-button was as big as a saucer. He pressed it and the shriek of its bell set a pair of herons flapping into the white mist. A control tower stood to his left on tubular legs. He heard a door slam and a ring of metal and watched a bearded figure in blue uniform stomp down the iron staircase to the bottom step. The man called to him, “What do you want then?” Not waiting for an answer, he released the boom and waved Smiley through. The tarmac was like a vast bombed area cemented in, bordered by cranes and pressed down by the fogged white sky. Beyond it, the low sea looked too frail for the weight of so much shipping. He glanced in the mirror and saw the spires of a sea town etched like an old print half-way up the page. He glanced out to sea and saw through the mist the line of buoys and winking lamps that marked the water border to East Germany and the start of seven and a half thousand miles of Soviet Empire. That’s where the herons went, he thought. He was driving at a crawl between red-and-white traffic cones towards a container-park heaped with car tyres and logs. “Left at the container-park,” Herr Kretzschmar had said. Obediently, Smiley swung slowly left, looking for an old house, though an old house in this Hanseatic dumping ground seemed a physical impossibility. But Herr Kretzschmar had said, “Look for an old house marked ‘Office,’” and Herr Kretzschmar did not make errors.