The Spy Who Came in From The Cold

by Le Carre, John

  "But Smiley hated you, Mundt. We all did, I think, although we didn't say it. We planned the thing as if it was all a bit of a game.. . it's hard to explain now. We knew we had our backs to the wall: we'd failed against Mundt and now we were going to try to kill him. But it was still a game." Turning to the Tribunal he said: "You're wrong about Fiedler; he's not ours. Why would London take this kind of risk with a man in Fiedler's position? They counted on him, I admit. They knew he hated Mundt--why shouldn't he? Fiedler's a Jew, isn't he? You know, you must know, all of you, what Mundt's reputation is, what he thinks about Jews.

  "I'll tell you something--no one else will, so I'll tell you. Mundt had Fiedler beaten up, and all the time, while it was going on, Mundt baited him and jeered at him for being a Jew. You all know what kind of man Mundt is, and you put up with him because he's good at his job. But"--he faltered for a second, then continued--"but for God's sake, enough people have got mixed up in all this without Fiedler's head going into the basket. Fiedler's all right, I tell you.. . idealogically sound, that's the expression, isn't it?"

  He looked at the Tribunal. They watched him impassively, curiously almost, their eyes steady and cold. Fiedler, who had returned to his chair and was listening with rather studied detachment, looked at Leamas blankly for a moment.

  "And you messed it all up, Leamas, is that it?" he asked. "An old dog like Leamas, engaged in the crowning operation of his career, falls for a. . . what did you call her? . . . a frustrated little girl in a crackpot library? London must have known; Smiley couldn't have done it alone." Fiedler turned to Mundt. "Here's an odd thing, Mundt; they must have known you'd check up on every part of his story. That was why Leamas lived the life. Yet afterwards they sent money to the grocer, paid up the rent; and they bought the lease for the girl. Of all the extraordinary things for them to do, people of their experience, to pay a thousand pounds to a girl--_to a member of the Party_-- who was supposed to believe he was broke. Don't tell me Smiley's conscience goes that far. London must have done it. What a risk!"

  Leamas shrugged.

  "Smiley was right. We couldn't stop the reaction. We never expected you to bring me here--Holland, yes--but not here." He fell silent for a moment, then continued. "And I never thought you'd bring the girl. I've been a bloody fool."

  "But Mundt hasn't," Fiedler put in quickly. "Mundt knew what to look for--he even knew the girl would provide the proof--very clever of Mundt, I must say. He even knew about that lease--amazing really. I mean, how _could_ he have found out? She didn't tell anyone. I know that girl, I understand her. . . she wouldn't tell anyone at all." He glanced toward Mundt. "Perhaps Mundt can tell us how he knew?"

  Mundt hesitated, a second too long, Leamas thought.

  "It was her subscription," he said. "A month ago she increased her Party contribution by ten shillings a month. I heard about it. And so I tried to establish how she could afford it. I succeeded."

  "A masterly explanation," Fiedler replied coolly.

  There was silence.

  "I think," said the President, glancing at her two colleagues, "that the Tribunal is now in a position to make its report to the Praesidium. That is," she added, turning her small, cruel eyes on Fiedler, "unless you have anything more to say."

  Fiedler shook his head. Something still seemed to amuse him.

  "In that case," the President continued, "my colleagues are agreed that Comrade Fiedler should be relieved of his duties until the disciplinary committee of the Praesidium has considered his position.

  "Leamas is already under arrest I would remind you all that the Tribunal has no executive powers. The People's Prosecutor, in collaboration with Comrade Mundt, will no doubt consider what action is to be taken against a British _agent provocateur_ and murderer."

  She glanced past Leamas at Mundt. But Mundt was looking at Fiedler with the dispassionate regard of a hangman measuring his subject for the rope.

  And suddenly, with the terrible clarity of a man too long deceived, Leamas understood the whole ghastly tuck.

  * * 24 * The Commissar

  Liz stood at the window, her back to the wardress, and stared blankly into the tiny yard outside. She supposed the prisoners took their exercise there. She was in somebody's office; there was food on the desk beside the telephones but she couldn't touch it. She felt sick and terribly tired; physically tired. Her legs ached, her face felt stiff and raw from weeping. She felt dirty and longed for a bath.

  "Why don't you eat?" the woman asked again. "It's all over now." She said this without compassion, as if the girl were a fool not to eat when the food was there.

  "I'm not hungry."

  The wardress shrugged. "You may have a long journey," she observed, "and not much at the other end."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The workers are starving in England," she declared complacently. "The capitalists let them starve."

  Liz thought of saying something but there seemed no point. Besides, she wanted to know; she had to know, and this woman could tell her.

  "What is this place?"

  "Don't you know?" The wardress laughed. "You should ask them over there." She nodded toward the window. "They can tell you what it is."

  "Who are they?"

  "Prisoners."

  "What kind of prisoners?"

  "Enemies of the state," she replied promptly. "Spies, agitators."

  "How do you know they are spies?"

  "The Party knows. The Party knows more about people than they know themselves. Haven't you been told that?" The wardress looked at her, shook her head and observed, "The English! The rich have eaten your future and your poor have given them the food--that's what's happened to the English."

  "Who told you that?"

  The woman smiled and said nothing. She seemed pleased with herself.

  "And this is a prison for spies?" Liz persisted.

  "It is a prison for those who fail to recognize socialist reality; for those who think they have the right to err; for those who slow down the march. Traitors," she concluded briefly.

  "But what have they done?"

  "We cannot build communism without doing away with individualism. You cannot plan a great building if some swine builds his sty on your site."

  Liz looked at her in astonishment.

  "Who told you all this?"

  "I am Commissar here," she said proudly. "I work in the prison."

  "You are very clever," Liz observed, approaching her.

  "I am a worker," the woman replied acidly. "The concept of brain workers as a higher category must be destroyed. There are no categories, only workers; no antithesis between physical and mental labor. Haven't you read Lenin?"

  "Then the people in this prison are intellectuals?"

  The woman smiled. "Yes," she said, "they are reactionaries who call themselves progressive: they defend the individual against the state. Do you know what Khrushchev said about the counterrevolution in Hungary?"

  Liz shook her head. She must show interest, she must make the woman talk.

  "He said it would never have happened if a couple of writers had been shot in time."

  "Who will they shoot now?" Liz asked quickly. "After the trial?"

  "Leamas," she replied indifferently, "and the Jew, Fiedler." Liz thought for a moment she was going to fall but her hand found the back of a chair and she managed to sit down.

  "What has Leamas done?" she whispered. The woman looked at her with her small, cunning eyes. She was very large; her hair was scant, stretched over her head to a bun at the nape of her thick neck. Her face was heavy, her complexion flaccid and watery.

  "He killed a guard," she said.

  "Why?"

  The woman shrugged.

  "As for the Jew," she continued, "he made an accusation against a ioyal comrade."

  "Will they shoot Fiedler for that?" asked Liz incredulously.

  "Jews are all the same," the woman commented. "Comrade Mundt knows what to do with Jews. We don't need their kind here.
If they join the Party they think it belongs to them. If they stay out, they think it is conspiring against them. It is said that Leamas and Fiedler plotted together against Mundt. Are you going to eat that?" she inquired, indicating the food on the desk. Liz shook her head. "Then I must," she declared, with a grotesque attempt at reluctance. "They have given you a potato. You must have a lover in the kitchen." The humor of this observation sustained her until she had finished the last of Liz's meal.

  Liz went back to the window.

  In the confusion of Liz's mind, in the turmoil of shame and grief and fear, there predominated the appalling memory of Leamas as she had last seen him in the courtroom, sitting stiffly in his chair, his eyes averted from her own. She had failed him and he dared not look at her before he died; would not let her see the contempt, the fear perhaps, that was written on his face.

  But how could she have done otherwise? If Leamas had only told her what he had to do--even now it wasn't clear to her--she would have lied and cheated for him, anything, if he had only told her! Surely he understood that; surely he knew her well enough to realize that in the end she would do whatever he said, that she would take on his form and being, his will, life, his image, his pain, if she could; that she prayed for nothing more than the chance to do so. But how could she have known, if she was not told, how to answer those veiled, insidious questions? There seemed no end to the destruction she had caused. She remembered, in the fevered condition of her mind, how, as a child, she had been horrified to learn that with every step she made, thousands of minute creatures were destroyed beneath her foot; and now, whether she had lied or told the truth--or even, she was sure, had kept silent--she had been forced to destroy a human being; perhaps two, for was there not also the Jew, Fiedler, who had been gentle with her, taken her arm and told her to go back to England? They would shoot Fiedler; that's what the woman said. Why did it have to be Fiedler--why not the old man who asked the questions, or the fair one in the front row between the soldiers, the one who smiled all the time? Whenever she turned around she had caught sight of his smooth, blond head and his smooth, cruel face smiling as if it were all a great joke. It comforted her that Leamas and Fiedler were on the same side.

  She turned to the woman again and asked, "Why are we waiting here?"

  The wardress pushed the plate aside and stood up.

  "For instructions," she replied. "They are deciding whether you must stay."

  "Stay?" repeated Liz blankly.

  "It is a question of evidence. Fiedler may be tried. I told you: they suspect conspiracy between Fiedler and Leamas."

  "But who against? How could he conspire in England? How did he come here? He's not in the Party."

  The woman shook her head.

  "It is secret," she replied. "It concerns only the Praesidiunt Perhaps the Jew brought him here."

  "But _you_ know," Liz insisted, a note of blandishment in her voice, "_you_ are Commissar at the prison. Surely they told _you?_"

  "Perhaps," the woman replied complacently. "It is very secret," she repeated.

  The telephone rang. The woman lifted the receiver and listened. After a moment she glanced at Liz.

  "Yes, Comrade. At once," she said, and put down the receiver. "You are to stay," she said shortly. "The Praesidium will consider the case of Fiedler. In the meantime you will stay here. That is the wish of Comrade Mundt."

  "Who is Mundt?"

  The woman looked cunning.

  "It is the wish of the Praesidium," she said.

  "I don't want to stay," Liz cried. "I want--"

  "The Party knows more about us than we know ourselves," the woman interrupted. "You must stay here. It is the Party's wish."

  "Who is Mundt?" Liz asked again, but still she did not reply.

  Slowly Liz followed her along endless corridors, through grilles manned by sentries, past iron doors from which no sound came, down endless stairs, across whole courtyards far beneath the ground, until she thought she had descended to the bowels of hell itself, and no one would even tell her when Leamas was dead.

  She had no idea what time it was when she heard the footsteps in the corridor outside her cell. It could have been five in the evening--it could have been midnight. She had been awake--staring blankly into the pitch-darkness, longing for a sound. She had never imagined that silence could be so terrible. Once she had cried out, and there had been no echo, nothing. Just the memory of her own voice. She had visualized the sound breaking against the solid darkness like a fist against a rock. She had moved her hands about her as she sat on the bed, and it seemed to her that the darkness made them heavy, as if she were groping in the water. She knew the cell was small; that it contained the bed on which she sat, a handbasin without taps, and a crude table; she had seen them when she first entered. Then the light had gone out, and she had run wildly to where she knew the bed had stood, had struck it with her shins, and had remained there, shivering with fright. Until she heard the footstep, and the door of her cell was opened abruptly.

  She recognized him at once, although she could only discern his silhouette against the pale blue light in the corridor. The trim, agile figure, the clear line of the cheek and the short fair hair just touched by the light behind him.

  "It's Mundt," he said. "Come with me, at once." His voice was contemptuous yet subdued, as if he were not anxious to be overheard.

  Liz was suddenly terrified. She remembered the wardress: "Mundt knows what to do with Jews." She stood by the bed, staring at him, not knowing what to do.

  "Hurry, you fool." Mundt had stepped forward and seized her wrist. "Hurry." She let herself be drawn into the corridor. Bewildered, she watched Mundt quietly relock the door of her cell. Roughly he took her arm and forced her quickly along the first corridor, half running, half walking. She could hear the distant whirr of air conditioners; and now and then the sound of other footsteps from passages branching from their own. She noticed that Mundt hesitated, drew back even, when they came upon other corridors, would go ahead and confirm that no one was coming, then signal her forward. He seemed to assume that she would follow, that she knew the reason. It was almost as if he were treating her as an accomplice.

  And suddenly he had stopped, was thrusting a key into the keyhole of a dingy metal door. She waited, panic-stricken. He pushed the door savagely outwards and the sweet, cold air of a winter's evening blew against her face. He beckoned to her again, still with the same urgency, and she followed him down two steps onto a gravel path which led through a rough kitchen garden.

  They followed the path to an elaborate Gothic gateway which gave on to the road beyond. Parked in the gateway was a car. Standing beside it was Alec Leamas.

  "Keep your distance," Mundt warned her as she started to move forward. "Wait hete."

  Mundt went forward alone and for what seemed an age she watched the two men standing together, talking quietly between themselves. Her heart was beating madly, her whole body shivering with cold and fear. Finally Mundt returned.

  "Come with me," he said, and led her to where Leamas stood. The two men looked at one another for a moment.

  "Good-bye," said Mundt indifferently. "You're a fool, Leamas," he added. "She's trash, like Fiedler." And he turned without another word and walked quickly away into the twilight.

  She put her hand out and touched him, and he half turned from her, brushing her hand away as he opened the car door. He nodded to her to get in, but she hesitated.

  "Alec," she whispered, "Alec, what are you doing? Why is he letting you go?"

  "Shut up!" Leamas hissed. "Don't even, think about it, do you hear? Get in."

  "What was it he said about Fiedler? Alec, why is he letting us go?"

  "He's letting us go because we've done our job. Get into the car; quick!" Under the compulsion of his extraordinary will she got into the car and closed the door. Leamas got in beside her.

  "What bargain have you struck with him?" she persisted, suspicion and fear rising in her voice. "They said you had t
ried to conspire against him, you and Fiedler. Then why is he letting you go?"

  Leamas had started the car and was soon driving fast along the narrow road. On either side, bare fields; in the distance, dark monotonous hills were mingling with the gathering darkness. Leamas looked at his watch.

  "We're five hours from Berlin," he said. "We've got to make Köpenick by quarter to one. We should do it easily."

  For a time Liz said nothing; she stared through the windshield down the empty road, confused and lost in a labyrinth of half-formed thoughts. A full moon had risen and the frost hovered in long shrouds across the fields. They turned onto an autobahn.

  "Was I on your conscience, Alec?" she said at last. "Is that why you made Mundt let me go?"

  Leamas said nothing.

  "You and Mundt are enemies, aren't you?"

  Still he said nothing. He was driving fast now, the speedometer showed a hundred and twenty kilometers; the autobahn was pitted and bumpy. He had his headlights on full, she noticed, and didn't bother to dip for oncoming traffic on the other lane. He drove roughly, leaning forward, his elbows almost on the wheel.

  "What will happen to Fiedler?" Liz asked suddenly and this time Leamas answered.

  "He'll be shot."

  "Then why didn't they shoot you?" Liz continued quickly. "You conspired with Fiedler against Mundt, that's what they said. You killed a guard. Why has Mundt let you go?"

  "All right!" Leamas shouted suddenly. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you what you were never, never to know, neither you nor I. Listen: Mundt is London's man, their agent; they bought him when he was in England. We are witnessing the lousy end to a filthy, lousy operation to save Mundt's skin. To save him from a clever little Jew in his own Department who had begun to suspect the truth. They made us kill him, do you see, kill the Jew. Now you know, and God help us both."