The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (8 page)

He was wakened by Ashe, accompanied by a small,
rather plump man with long, graying hair swept back and a double-breasted suit.
He spoke with a slight central European accent; German perhaps, it was hard to
tell. He said his name was
Kiever—Sam
Kiever.

They had a gin and tonic, Ashe doing most of the
talking. It was just like old
times,
he said, in
Berlin
:
the boys together and the night their oyster. Kiever said he
didn’t want to be too late; he had to
work tomorrow. They agreed to eat at a Chinese
restaurant that Ashe knew of—it was opposite Limehouse police
station and you brought your own wine. Oddly enough, Ashe had some
Burgundy
in the kitchen,
and they took that with them in the taxi.

Dinner was very good and they drank both bottles
of wine. Kiever opened up a little on the second: he’d just come back from a
tour of
West Germany
and
France
.
France
was in a hell of a mess, de
Gaulle was on the way out, and God alone knew what would happen then. With a
hundred thousand demoralized colons returning from
Algeria
he reckoned fascism was in the cards.

“What about
Germany
?” asked Ashe,
prompting
him.

“It’s just a question of whether the Yanks
can hold them.” Kiever looked invitingly at Leamas.

“What do you mean?” asked Leamas.

“What I say. Dulles gave them a foreign
policy with one hand, Kennedy takes it away with the other. They’re getting
waspish.”

Leamas nodded abruptly and said, “Bloody
typical Yank.”

“Alec doesn’t seem to like our American
cousins,” and Ashe, stepping in heavily, and Kiever, with complete
disinterest, murmured, “Oh really?”

Kiever played it, Leamas reflected, very long.
Like someone used to horses, he let you come to him. He conveyed to perfection
a man who suspected that he was
about
to be asked a favor, and was not easily won.

After dinner Ashe said, “I know a place in
Wardour Street
—you’ve
been
there, Sam. They do you all
right there. Why don’t we summon a cab and go along?”

“Just a minute,” said Leamas, and there
was something in his voice which made Ashe look at him quickly. “Just tell
me something, will you? Who’s paying for this jolly?”

“I am,” said Ashe quickly.
“Sam
and I.”

“Have you discussed it?”

“Well—no.”

“Because I haven’t got any bloody money; you
know that, don’t you?
None to
throw about, anyway.”

“Of course, Alec.
I’ve
looked after you up till now, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” Leamas replied. “Yes, you
have.”

He seemed to be going to say something else, and
then to change his mind. Ashe looked worried, not offended, and Kiever as
inscrutable as before.

Leamas refused to speak in the taxi. Ashe attempted
some conciliatory remark
and he
just shrugged irritably. They arrived at
Wardour Street
and dismounted, neither
Leamas nor Kiever making any attempt
to pay for the cab. Ashe led them past a shop
window full of “girlie” magazines, down a narrow
alley, at the far end of which shone a tawdry neon sign: PUSSYWILLOW CLUB—MEMBERS
ONLY. On either side of the door were photographs of girls, and pinned across
each was a thin, hand-printed strip of paper which read
Nature Study.
Members Only
.

Ashe pressed the bell. The door was at once opened
by a very large man in a
white
shirt and black trousers.

“I’m a member,” Ashe said. “These two gentlemen
are with me.”

“See your card?”

Ashe took a buff card from his wallet and handed
it over.

“Your guests pay a quid a head, temporary
membership.
Your recommendation,
right?”
He held out the card and as he did so,
Leamas stretched past Ashe and took it. He looked at it for a moment,
then
handed it back to Ashe.

Taking two pounds from his hip pocket, Leamas put
them into the waiting hand of the man at the door.

“Two quid,” said Leamas, “for the
guests,” and ignoring the astonished
protests of Ashe he guided them through the curtained doorway into the
dim hallway of the club. He turned to the doorman.

“Find us a table,” said Leamas,
“and a bottle of Scotch. And see we’re left
alone.”

The doorman hesitated for a moment, decided not to
argue, and escorted them downstairs. As they descended they heard the subdued
moan of unintelligible music.
They
got a table on their own at the back of the room. A two-piece band was playing
and girls sat around in twos and threes. Two got up as they came in but the big
doorman shook his head.

Ashe glanced at Leamas uneasily while they waited for the whisky.
Kiever seemed slightly bored. The waiter brought a bottle and three tumblers
and they watched in silence as he poured a little whisky into each glass.
Leamas took the bottle from the waiter and added as much again to each. This
done, he leaned across the table and said to Ashe, “Now perhaps you’ll
tell me what the bloody hell’s going on.”

“What do you mean?” Ashe sounded
uncertain. “What
do
you mean, Alec?”

“You followed me from prison the day I was released,”
he began quietly, “with some bloody silly story of meeting me in
Berlin
. You gave me
money you didn’t owe me. You’ve bought me expensive meals and you’re putting me
up in your flat.”

Ashe colored and said, “If that’s the—”

“Don’t interrupt,” said Leamas fiercely. “Just
damn well wait till I’ve finished, do you mind? Your membership card for this
place is made out for someone called Murphy. Is that your name?”

“No, it is not.”

“I suppose a friend called Murphy lent you
his membership card?”

“No, he didn’t as a matter of fact. If you
must know, I come here occasionally to find a girl. I used a phony name to join
the club.”

“Then why,” Leamas persisted ruthlessly,
“is Murphy registered as the tenant
of your flat?”

It was Kiever who finally spoke.

“You run along home,” he said to Ashe.
“I’ll look after this.”

A girl performed a striptease, a young, drab girl
with a dark bruise on her thigh. She had that pitiful, spindly nakedness which
is embarrassing because it is not erotic; because it is artless and un-desiring.
She turned slowly, jerking sporadically with her arms and legs as if she only
heard the music in snatches, and all the time she looked at them with the
precocious interest of a child in adult company. The tempo of
the music increased abruptly, and the
girl responded like a dog to the whistle, scampering back and forth. Removing
her brassiere on the last note, she held it above her head, displaying her
meager body with its three tawdry patches of tinsel hanging from it like old
Christmas tree decorations.

They watched in silence, Leamas and Kiever.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me that we’ve
seen better in
Berlin
,”
Leamas suggested at last, and Kiever saw that he was still very angry.

“I expect
you
have,” Kiever replied
pleasantly. “I have often been to
Berlin
,
but I am afraid I dislike night clubs.”

Leamas said nothing.

“I’m no prude, mind, just rational. If I want
a woman I know cheaper ways of
finding
one; if I want to dance I know better places to do it.”

Leamas might not have been listening.
“Perhaps you’ll tell me why that sissy
picked me up,” he suggested. Kiever nodded.

“By all means.
I
told him to.”

“Why?”

“I am interested in you. I want to make you a
proposition, a journalistic
proposition.”

There was a pause.

“Journalistic,” Leamas repeated. “I
see.”

“I run an agency, an international feature
service. It pays well—very well—for interesting material.”

“Who publishes the material?”

“It pays so well, in fact, that a man with
your kind of experience of…the international scene, a man with your
background, you understand, who provided convincing, factual material, could
free himself in a comparatively short time from further financial worry.”

“Who publishes the material, Kiever?”
There was a threatening edge to
Leamas’
voice, and for a moment, just for a moment, a look of apprehension seemed to
pass across Kiever’s smooth face.

“International clients.
I have a correspondent in Paris who disposes of a good
deal of my stuff. Often I don’t even know who
does
publish. I confess,” he added with a disarming smile, “that I don’t
awfully care. They pay and they ask for more. They’re the kind of people, you
see, Leamas, who don’t fuss about awkward details; they pay promptly, and
they’re happy to pay into foreign banks, for instance, where no
one bothers about things like
tax.”

Leamas said nothing. He was holding his glass with
both hands, staring into it.

Christ, they’re rushing their fences, Leamas
thought; it’s indecent. He remembered some silly music hail joke—”This is
an offer no respectable girl could accept—and besides, I don’t know what it’s
worth.” Tactically, he reflected, they’re right to rush it. I’m down and
out, prison experience still fresh, social resentment strong. Fm an old horse,
I don’t need breaking in; I don’t have to pretend they’ve offended my honor as
an English gentleman.

On the other hand they would expect
practical
objections. They would expect him to be afraid; for his Service pursued
traitors as the eye of God followed Cain across the desert. And finally, they
would know it was a gamble. They would know that inconsistency in human
decision can make nonsense of the best planned espionage approach; that cheats,
liars and criminals may resist every blandishment while respectable gentlemen
have been moved to appalling treasons by watery cabbage
in a departmental canteen.

“They’d have to pay a hell of a lot,”
Leamas muttered at last. Kiever gave him some more whisky.

“They are offering a down payment of fifteen
thousand pounds. The money is
already
lodged at the
Banque Cantonale
in
Bern
.
On production of a suitable identification, with which my clients will provide
you, you can draw the money. My clients reserve the right to put questions to
you over the period of one year on
payment
of another five thousand pounds. They will assist you with any…resettlement
problems that may arise.”

“How soon do you want an answer?”

“Now.
You are not
expected to commit all your reminiscences to paper. You will meet my client and
he will arrange to have the material…ghost written.”

“Where am I supposed to meet him?”

“We felt for everybody’s sake it would be
simplest to meet outside the
United
Kingdom
.
My client suggested
Holland
.”

“I haven’t got my passport,” Leamas said
dully.

“I took the liberty of obtaining one for
you,” Kiever replied suavely; nothing in
his voice or his manner indicated that he had done other than
negotiate an adequate
business
arrangement. “We’re flying to
The Hague
tomorrow morning at
nine forty-five
.
Shall we go back to my flat and discuss any other details?”

Kiever paid and they took a taxi to a rather good
address not far from St. James’s Park.

Kiever’s flat was luxurious and expensive, but its
contents somehow gave the
impression
of having been hastily assembled. It is said there are shops in
London
which will sell
you bound books by the yard, and interior decorators who will harmonize the
color scheme of the walls with that of a painting. Leamas, who was not
particularly receptive to such
subtleties, found it hard to remember that he was in a private flat and not a
hotel. As Kiever showed him to his room (which looked onto a dingy inner
courtyard and not onto the street) Leamas asked him:

“How long have you been here?”

“Oh, not long,” Kiever replied lightly,
“a few months, not more.”

“Must cost a packet.
Still, I suppose you’re worth it.”

“Thanks.”

There was a bottle of Scotch in his room and a
syphon of soda on a silver-plated tray. A curtained doorway at the farther end
of the room led to a
bathroom
and lavatory.

“Quite a little love nest. All paid for by
the great
Worker
State
?”

“Shut up,” said Kiever savagely, and
added, “If you want me, there’s an intercom telephone to my room. I shall
be awake.”

“I think I can manage my buttons now,” Leamas retorted.

“Then good night,” said Kiever shortly,
and left the room.
He’s on edge,
too, thought Leamas.

Leamas was awakened by the telephone at his
bedside. It was Kiever.
“It’s
six o’clock
,” he said,
“breakfast at half past.”

“All right,” Leamas replied, and rang off.
He had a headache.

Kiever must have telephoned for a taxi, because at
seven o’clock
the doorbell
rang and Kiever asked, “Got
everything?”

“I’ve no luggage,” Leamas replied,
“except a toothbrush and a razor.”
“That is taken care of. Are you ready otherwise?”