The Looking Glass War

by John le Carré

  ‘I’ll go soon,’ Leiser said. ‘Don’t let me stay. Give me coffee and I’ll go.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘I’ve got money,’ Leiser said, as if it were the only thing he had. ‘Here.’ He climbed out of bed, fetched the wallet from his jacket and drew a hundred-mark note from the wad.

  ‘Keep it.’

  She took the wallet and with a little laugh emptied it out on the bed. She had a ponderous, kittenish way which was not quite sane; and the quick instinct of an illiterate. He watched her indifferently, running his fingers along the line of her naked shoulder. She held up a photograph of a woman; a blonde, round head.

  ‘Who is she? What is her name?’

  ‘She doesn’t exist,’ he said.

  She found the letters and read one aloud, laughing at the affectionate passages. ‘Who is she?’ she kept taunting him. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘I tell you, she doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Then I can tear them up?’ She held a letter before him with both hands, teasing him, waiting for him to protest. Leiser said nothing. She made a little tear, still watching him, then tore it completely, and a second and a third.

  She found a picture of a child, a girl in spectacles, eight or nine years old perhaps, and again she asked, ‘Who is it? Is it your child? Does she exist?’

  ‘Nobody. Nobody’s kid. Just a photograph.’ She tore that too, scattering the pieces dramatically over the bed, then fell on him, kissing him on the face and neck. ‘Who are you? What is your name?’

  He wanted to tell her when she pushed him away.

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘No!’ She lowered her voice. ‘I want you with nothing. Alone from it all. You and me alone. We’ll make our own names, our own rules. Nobody, no one at all, no father, no mother. We’ll print our own newspapers, passes, ration cards; make our own people.’ She was whispering, her eyes shining.

  ‘You’re a spy,’ she said, her lips in his ear. ‘A secret agent. You’ve got a gun.’

  ‘A knife is quieter,’ he said. She laughed, on and on, until she noticed the bruises on his shoulders. She touched them curiously, with respect, as a child might touch a dead thing.

  She went out carrying a shopping basket, still clutching the mackintosh at her neck. Leiser dressed, shaving in cold water, staring at his lined face in the distorted mirror above the basin. When she returned it was nearly midday and she looked worried.

  ‘The town’s full of soldiers. And Army trucks. What do they want here?’

  ‘Perhaps they are looking for someone.’

  ‘They are just sitting about, drinking.’

  ‘What kind of soldiers?’

  ‘I don’t know what kind. Russian. How can I tell?’

  He went to the door. ‘I’ll come back in an hour.’

  She said, ‘You’re trying to get away from me.’ She held his arm, looking up at him, wanting to make a scene.

  ‘I’ll come back. Maybe not till later. Maybe this evening. But if I do …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It will be dangerous. I shall have to … do something here. Something dangerous.’

  She kissed him, a light, silly kiss. ‘I like danger,’ she said.

  ‘Four hours,’ Johnson said. ‘If he’s still alive.’

  ‘Of course he’s alive,’ Avery said angrily. ‘Why do you talk like that?’

  Haldane interrupted. ‘Don’t be an ass, Avery. It’s a technical term. Dead or live agents. It has nothing to do with his physical condition.’

  Leclerc was drumming his fingers lightly on the table.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘Fred’s a hard man to kill. He’s an old hand.’ The daylight had revived him apparently. He glanced at his watch. ‘What the devil’s happened to that courier, I wonder.’

  Leiser blinked at the soldiers like a man emerging from the dark. They filled the cafés, gazed into shop windows, looked at the girls. Trucks were parked in the square, their wheels thick with red mud, a thin surface of snow on their bonnets. He counted them and there were nine. Some had heavy couplings at the rear for pulling trailers; some a line of Cyrillic script on their battered doors, or the imprint of unit insignia and a number. He noted the emblems of the drivers’ uniforms, the colour of their shoulder-boards; they came, he realized, from a variety of units.

  Walking back to the main street he pushed his way into a café and ordered a drink. Half a dozen soldiers sat disconsolately at a table sharing three bottles of beer. Leiser grinned at them; it was like the encouragement of a tired whore. He lifted his fist in a Soviet salute and they watched him as if he were mad. He left his drink and made his way back to the square; a group of children had gathered round the trucks and the drivers kept telling them to go away.

  He made a tour of the town, went into a dozen cafés, but no one would talk to him because he was a stranger. Everywhere the soldiers sat or stood in groups, aggrieved and bewildered, as if they had been roused to no purpose.

  He ate some sausage and drank a Steinhäger, walked to the station to see if anything was going on. The same man was there, watching him, this time without suspicion, from behind his little window; and somehow Leiser knew, though it made no difference, that the man had told the police.

  Returning from the station, he passed a cinema. A group of girls had gathered round the photographs and he stood with them pretending to look. Then the noise came, a metallic, irregular drone, filling the street with the piping, rattling of engines, metal and war. He drew back into the cover of the foyer, saw the girls turn and the ticket-seller stand up in her box. An old man crossed himself; he had lost one eye, and wore his hat at an angle. The tanks rolled through the town; they carried troops with rifles. The gun barrels were too long, marked white with snow. He watched them pass, then made his way across the square, quickly.

  She smiled as he came in; he was out of breath.

  ‘What are they doing?’ she asked. She caught sight of his face. ‘You’re afraid,’ she whispered, but he shook his head. ‘You’re afraid,’ she repeated.

  ‘I killed the boy,’ he said.

  He went to the basin, examined his face with the great care of a man under sentence. She followed him, clasped him round the chest, pressing herself against his back. He turned and seized her, wild, held her without skill, forced her across the room. She fought him with the rage of a daughter, calling some name, hating someone, cursing him, taking him, the world burning and only they alive; they were weeping, laughing together, falling, clumsy lovers clumsily triumphant, recognising nothing but each himself, each for that moment completing lives half lived, and for that moment the whole damned dark forgotten.

  Johnson leant out of the window and gently drew on the aerial to make sure it was still fast, then began looking over his receiver like a racing driver before the start, needlessly touching terminals and adjusting dials. Leclerc watched him admiringly.

  ‘Johnson, that was nobly done last time. Nobly done. We owe you a vote of thanks.’ Leclerc’s face was shiny, as if he had only recently shaved. He looked oddly fragile in the pale light. ‘I propose to hear one more schedule and get back to London.’ He laughed. ‘We’ve work to do, you know. This isn’t the season for continental holidays.’

  Johnson might not have heard. He held up his hand. ‘Thirty minutes,’ he said. ‘I shall be asking you for a little hush soon, gentlemen.’ He was like a conjurer at a children’s party. ‘Fred’s a devil for punctuality,’ he observed loudly.

  Leclerc addressed himself to Avery. ‘You’re one of those lucky people, John, who have seen action in peacetime.’ He seemed anxious to talk.

  ‘Yes. I’m very grateful.’

  ‘You don’t have to be. You’ve done a good job, and we recognise that. There’s no question of gratitude. You’ve achieved something very rare in our work; I wonder if you know what it is?’

  Avery said he did not.

  ‘You’ve induced an agent to like you. In the ordinary way – Adrian will bear me out – the
relationship between an agent and his controllers is clouded with suspicion. He resents them, that’s the first thing, for not doing the job themselves. He suspects them of ulterior motives, ineptitude, duplicity. But we’re not the Circus, John: that’s not the way we do things.’

  Avery nodded. ‘No, quite.’

  ‘You’ve done something else, you and Adrian. I would like to feel that if a similar need arose in the future we could use the same technique, the same facilities, the same expertise – that means the Avery–Haldane combination. What I’m trying to say is’ – Leclerc raised one hand and with his forefinger and thumb lightly touched the bridge of his nose in an unusual gesture of English diffidence – ‘the experience you’ve made is to our mutual advantage. Thank you.’

  Haldane moved to the stove and began warming his hands, rubbing them gently as if he were separating wheat.

  ‘That Budapest thing,’ Leclerc continued, raising his voice, partly in enthusiasm and partly perhaps to dispel the atmosphere of intimacy which suddenly threatened them, ‘it’s a complete reorganisation. Nothing less. They’re moving their armour to the border, d’you see. The Ministry is talking about forward strategy. They’re really most interested.’

  Avery said, ‘More interested than in the Mayfly area?’

  ‘No, no,’ Leclerc protested lightly. ‘It’s all part of the same complex – they think very big over there, you know – a move here and a move there – it all has to be pieced together.’

  ‘Of course,’ Avery said gently. ‘We can’t see it ourselves, can we? We can’t see the whole picture.’ He was trying to make it better for Leclerc. ‘We haven’t the perspective.’

  ‘When we get back to London,’ Leclerc proposed, ‘you must come and dine with me, John: you and your wife; both come. I’ve been meaning to suggest it for some time. We’ll go to my club. They do a rather good dinner in the Ladies’ Room; your wife would enjoy it.’

  ‘You mentioned it. I asked Sarah. We’d love to. My mother-in-law’s with us just now. She could baby-sit.’

  ‘How nice. Don’t forget.’

  ‘We’re looking forward to it.’

  ‘Am I not invited?’ Haldane asked coyly.

  ‘Why, of course, Adrian. Then we shall be four. Excellent.’ His voice changed. ‘Incidentally, the landlords have complained about the house in Oxford. They say we left it in a poor state.’

  ‘Poor state?’ Haldane echoed angrily.

  ‘It appears we have been overloading the electrical circuit. Parts of it are quite burnt out. I told Woodford to cope with it.’

  ‘We should have our own place,’ said Avery. ‘Then we wouldn’t have to worry.’

  ‘I agree. I spoke to the Minister about it. A training centre is what we need. He was enthusiastic. He’s keen on this kind of thing, now, you know. They have a new phrase for it over there. They are speaking of ICOs. Immediate Clarification Operations. He suggests we find a place and take it for six months. He proposes to speak to the Treasury about a lease.’

  ‘That’s terrific,’ Avery said.

  ‘It could be very useful. We must be sure not to abuse our trust.’

  ‘Of course.’

  There was a draught, followed by the sound of someone cautiously ascending the stairs. A figure appeared in the attic doorway. He wore an expensive overcoat of brown tweed, a little too long in the sleeve. It was Smiley.

  22

  Smiley peered round the room, at Johnson, now in earphones, busy with the controls of his set, at Avery staring over Haldane’s shoulder at the signal plan, at Leclerc, who stood like a soldier, who alone had noticed him, whose face, though turned to him, was empty and far away.

  ‘What do you want here?’ Leclerc said at last. ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I was sent.’

  ‘So were we all,’ Haldane said, not moving.

  A note of warning entered Leclerc’s voice. ‘This is my operation, Smiley. We’ve no room for your people here.’

  There was nothing in Smiley’s face but compassion, nothing in his voice but that dreadful patience with which we speak to the insane.

  ‘It wasn’t Control who sent me,’ he said. ‘It was the Ministry. They asked for me, you see, and Control let me go. The Ministry laid on a plane.’

  ‘Why?’ Haldane inquired. He seemed almost amused.

  One by one they stirred, waking from a single dream. Johnson laid his earphones carefully on the table.

  ‘Well?’ Leclerc asked. ‘Why did they send you?’

  ‘They called me round last night.’ He managed to indicate that he was as bewildered as they. ‘I had to admire the operation, the way you’d conducted it; you and Haldane. All done from nothing. They showed me the files. Scrupulously kept … Library Copy, Operational Copy, sealed minutes: just like in the war. I congratulate you … I really do.’

  ‘They showed you the files? Our files?’ Leclerc repeated. ‘That’s a breach of security: interconsciousness between Departments. You’ve committed an offence, Smiley. They must be mad! Adrian, do you hear what Smiley has told me?’

  Smiley said, ‘Is there a schedule tonight, Johnson?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Twenty-one hundred.’

  ‘I was surprised, Adrian, that you felt the indicators were strong enough for such a big operation.’

  ‘Haldane was not responsible,’ Leclerc said crisply. ‘The decision was a collective one; ourselves on the one side, the Ministry on the other.’ His voice changed key. ‘When the schedule is finished I shall want to know, Smiley, I have a right to know, how you came to see those files.’ It was his committee voice, powerful and fluent; for the first time it had the ring of dignity.

  Smiley moved towards the centre of the room. ‘Something’s happened; something you couldn’t know about. Leiser killed a man on the border. Killed him with a knife as he went over, two miles from here, at the crossing point.’

  Haldane said, ‘That’s absurd. It needn’t be Leiser. It could have been a refugee coming west. It could have been anyone.’

  ‘They found tracks leading east. Traces of blood in the hut by the lake. It’s in all the East German papers. They’ve been putting it over the wireless since midday yesterday …’

  Leclerc cried, ‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe he did it. It’s some trick of Control’s.’

  ‘No,’ Smiley replied gently. ‘You’ve got to believe me. It’s true.’

  ‘They killed Taylor,’ Leclerc said. ‘Have you forgotten that?’

  ‘No, of course not. But we shall never know, shall we? How he died, I mean … whether he was murdered …’ Hurriedly he continued, ‘Your Ministry informed the Foreign Office yesterday afternoon. The Germans are bound to catch him, you see; we have to assume that. His transmissions are slow … very slow. Every policeman, every soldier is after him. They want him alive. We think they’re going to stage a show trial, extract a public confession, display the equipment. It could be very embarrassing. You don’t have to be a politician to sympathise with the Minister. So there’s the question of what to do.’

  Leclerc said, ‘Johnson, keep an eye on the clock.’ Johnson put his earphones on again, but without conviction.

  Smiley appeared to want someone else to speak, but no one did, so he repeated ponderously, ‘It’s a question of what to do. As I say, we’re not politicians, but one can see the dangers. A party of Englishmen in a farmhouse two miles from where the body was found, posing as academics, stores from the Naafi and a house full of radio equipment. You see what I mean? Making your transmissions,’ he went on, ‘on a single frequency … the frequency Leiser receives on … There could be a very big scandal indeed. One can imagine even the West Germans getting awfully angry.’

  Haldane spoke first again: ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘There’s a military plane waiting at Hamburg. You fly in two hours; all of you. A truck will collect the equipment. You’re to leave nothing behind, not even a pin. Those are my instructions.’
r />   Leclerc said, ‘What about the target? Have they forgotten why we’re here? They’re asking a lot, you know, Smiley: a great lot.’

  ‘Yes, the target,’ Smiley conceded. ‘We’ll have a conference in London. Perhaps we could do a joint operation.’

  ‘It’s a military target. I shall want my Ministry represented. No monolith; it’s a policy decision, you know.’

  ‘Of course. And it’ll be your show.’

  ‘I suggest the product go out under our joint title: my Ministry could retain autonomy in the matter of distribution. I imagine that would meet their more obvious objections. How about your people?’

  ‘Yes, I think Control would accept that.’

  Leclerc said casually, everyone watching, ‘And the schedule? Who takes care of that? We’ve an agent in the field, you know.’ It was only a small point.

  ‘He’ll have to manage by himself.’

  ‘The war rules.’ Leclerc spoke proudly. ‘We play the war rules. He knew that. He was well trained.’ He seemed reconciled; the thing was dismissed.

  Avery spoke for the first time. ‘You can’t leave him out there alone.’ His voice was flat.

  Leclerc intervened: ‘You know Avery, my aide?’ This time no one came to his rescue. Smiley, ignoring him, observed, ‘The man’s probably been caught already. It’s only a matter of hours.’

  ‘You’re leaving him there to die!’ Avery was gathering courage.

  ‘We’re disowning him. It’s never a pretty process. He’s as good as caught already, don’t you see?’

  ‘You can’t do it,’ he shouted. ‘You can’t just leave him there for some squalid diplomatic reason!’

  Now Haldane swung round on Avery, furious. ‘You of all people should not complain! You wanted a faith, didn’t you? You wanted an eleventh Commandment that would match your rare soul!’ He indicated Smiley and Leclerc. ‘Well, here you have it: here is the law you were looking for. Congratulate yourself; you found it. We sent him because we needed to; we abandon him because we must. That is the discipline you admired.’ He turned to Smiley. ‘You too: I find you contemptible. You shoot us, then preach to the dying. Go away. We’re technicians, not poets. Go away!’