Smiley's People (30 page)

Reaching the sanctuary of the Alster, he walked the pleasant footpath to the jetty where Villem had boarded the steamer. On weekdays, he recorded, the first ferry was at 7:10, the last at 20:15, and Villem had been here on a weekday. There was a steamer due in fifteen minutes. Waiting for it, he watched the sculls and the red squirrels much as Villem had done, and when the steamer arrived he sat in the stern where Villem had sat, in the open air under the canopy. His companions consisted of a crowd of schoolchildren and three nuns. He sat with his eyes almost closed by the dazzle, listening to their chatter. Half-way across he stood, walked through the cabins to the forward window, looked out, apparently to confirm something, glanced at his watch, then returned to his seat until the Jungfernstieg, where he landed.

Villem’s story tallied. Smiley had not expected otherwise, but in a world of perpetual doubt, reassurance never came amiss.

He lunched, then went to the main Post Office and studied old telephone directories for an hour, much as Ostrakova had done in Paris, though for different reasons. His researches complete, he settled himself gratefully in the lounge of the Four Seasons Hotel and read newspapers till dusk.

 

In a Hamburg guide to houses of pleasure, The Blue Diamond was not listed under night-clubs but under “amour” and earned three stars for exclusivity and cost. It was situated in St. Pauli, but discreetly apart from the main beat, in a cobbled alley that was tilted and dark and smelt of fish. Smiley rang the doorbell and it opened on an electric switch. He stepped inside and stood at once in a trim ante-room filled with grey machinery manned by a smart young man in a grey suit. On the wall grey reels of tape turned slowly, though the music they played was mostly somewhere else. On the desk an elaborate telephone system, also grey, flickered and ticked.

“I should like to pass some time here,” Smiley said.

This is where they answered my phone call, he thought, when I telephoned Vladimir’s Hamburg correspondent.

The smart young man drew a printed form from his desk and in a confiding murmur explained the procedure, much as a lawyer would, which possibly was his daytime profession anyway. Membership cost one hundred and seventy-five marks, he said softly. This was a one-time annual subscription entitling Smiley to enter free for a full year, as many times as he wished. The first drink would cost him a further twenty-five marks and thereafter prices were high but not unreasonable. A first drink was obligatory and, like the membership fee, payable before entry. All other forms of entertainment came without charge, though the girls received gifts appreciatively. Smiley should complete the form in whatever name he wished. It would be filed here by the young man personally. All he had to do on his next visit was remember the name under which he had joined and he would be admitted without formalities.

Smiley put down his money and added one more false name to the dozens he had used in his lifetime. He descended a staircase to a second door, which once more opened electronically, revealing a narrow passage giving on to a row of cubicles, still empty because in that world the night was only now beginning. At the end of the passage stood a third door and, once through it, he entered total darkness filled with the full blast of the music from the smart young man’s tape-recorders. A male voice spoke to him, a pin-light led him to a table. He was handed a list of drinks. “Proprietor C. Kretzschmar,” he read at the foot of the page in small print. He ordered whisky.

“I wish to remain alone. No company.”

“I shall advise the house, sir,” the waiter said with confiding dignity, and accepted his tip.

“Concerning Herr Kretzschmar. He is from Saxony, by any chance?”

“Yes, sir.”

Worse than East German,
Toby Esterhase had said.
Saxon. They stole together, pimped together, faked reports together. It was a perfect marriage.

 

He sipped his whisky, waiting for his eyes to grow accustomed to the light. From somewhere a blue glow shone, picking out cuffs and collars eerily. He saw white faces and white bodies. There were two levels. The lower, where he sat, was furnished with tables and armchairs. The upper consisted of six
chambres séparées,
like boxes at the theatre, each with its own blue glow. It was in one of these, he decided, that, knowingly or not, the quartet had posed for its photograph. He recalled the angle from which the picture had been taken. It was from above—from well above. But “well above” meant somewhere in the blackness of the upper walls where no eye could penetrate, not even Smiley’s.

The music died and over the same speakers a cabaret was announced. The title, said the
compère,
was Old Berlin, and the
compère’
s voice was also Old Berlin: hectoring, nasal, and suggestive. The smart young man has changed the tape, thought Smiley. A curtain lifted revealing a small stage. By the light it released, he peered quickly upward again and this time saw what he was looking for: a small observation window of smoked glass set very high in the wall. The photographer used special cameras, he thought vaguely; these days, he had been told, darkness was no longer a hindrance. I should have asked Toby, he thought; Toby knows those gadgets by heart. On the stage, a demonstration of love making had begun, mechanical, pointless, dispiriting. Smiley turned his attention to his fellow members scattered round the room. The girls were beautiful and naked and young, in the way the girls in the photograph were young. Those who had partners sat entwined with them, seemingly delighted by their senility and ugliness. Those who had none sat in a silent group like American footballers waiting to be called. The noise from the speakers grew very loud, a mixture of music and hysterical narrative. And in Berlin they are playing Old Hamburg, Smiley thought. On the stage the couple increased their efforts, but to little account. Smiley wondered whether he would recognise the girls in the photograph if they should appear. He decided he would not. The curtain closed. He ordered another whisky in relief.

“Is Herr Kretzschmar in the house tonight?” he asked the waiter.

Herr Kretzschmar was a man of commitments, the waiter explained. Herr Kretzschmar was obliged to divide his time between several establishments.

“If he comes, have the goodness to let me know.”

“He will be here at eleven exactly, sir.”

At the bar, naked couples had begun dancing. He endured another half-hour of this before returning to the front office by way of the cubicles, some of which were now occupied. The smart young man asked whom he might announce.

“Tell him it’s a special request,” Smiley said.

The smart young man pressed a button and spoke extremely quietly, much as he had spoken to Smiley.

 

The upstairs office was clean as a doctor’s surgery with a polished plastic desk and a lot more machinery. A closed-circuit television supplied a daylight version of the scene downstairs. The same observation window that Smiley had already noticed looked down into the
séparées.
Herr Kretzschmar was what the Germans call a serious person. He was fiftyish, groomed, and thickset, with a dark suit and a pale tie. His hair was straw blond like a good Saxon’s, his bland face neither welcomed nor rejected. He shook Smiley’s hand briskly and motioned him to a chair. He seemed well accustomed to dealing with special requests.

“Please,” Herr Kretzschmar said, and the preliminaries were over.

There was nowhere to go but forward.

“I understand you were once business partner to an acquaintance of mine named Otto Leipzig,” Smiley said, sounding a little too loud to himself. “I happen to be visiting Hamburg and I wondered whether you could tell me where he is. His address does not appear to be listed anywhere.”

Herr Kretzschmar’s coffee was in a silver pot with a paper napkin round the handle to protect his fingers when he poured. He drank and put his cup down carefully, to avoid collision.

“Who are you, please?” Herr Kretzschmar asked. The Saxon twang made his voice flat. A small frown enhanced his air of respectability.

“Otto called me Max,” Smiley said.

Herr Kretzschmar did not respond to this information but he took his time before putting his next question. His gaze, Smiley noticed again, was strangely innocent.
Otto never had a house in his life,
Toby had said.
For crash meetings, Kretzschmar played key-holder.

“And your business with Herr Leipzig, if I may ask?”

“I represent a large company,” Smiley said. “Among other interests, we own a literary and photographic agency for freelance reporters.”

“So?”

“In the distant past, my parent company has been pleased to accept occasional offerings from Herr Leipzig—through intermediaries—and pass them out to our customers for processing and syndication.”

“So?” Herr Kretzschmar repeated. His head had lifted slightly, but his expression had not altered.

“Recently the business relationship between my parent company and Herr Leipzig was revived.” He paused slightly. “Initially by means of the telephone,” he said, but Herr Kretzschmar might never have heard of the telephone. “Through intermediaries again, he sent us a sample of his work, which we were pleased to place for him. I came here to discuss terms and to commission further work. Assuming, of course, that Herr Leipzig is in a position to provide it.”

“Of what nature was this work, please—that Herr Leipzig sent you—please, Herr Max?”

“It was a negative photograph of erotic content. My firm always insists on negatives. Herr Leipzig knew this, naturally.” Smiley pointed carefully across the room. “I rather think it must have been taken from that window. A peculiarity of the photograph is that Herr Leipzig himself was modelling in it. One therefore assumes that a friend or business partner may have operated the camera.”

Herr Kretzschmar’s blue gaze remained as direct and innocent as before. His face, though strangely unmarked, struck Smiley as courageous, but he didn’t know why.

You’re messing around with a creep like Leipzig, then you better have a creep like me look after you,
Toby had said.

“There is another aspect,” Smiley said.

“Yes?”

“Unhappily the gentleman who was acting as intermediary on this occasion met with a serious accident shortly after the negative was put into our care. The usual line of communication with Herr Leipzig was therefore severed.”

Herr Kretzschmar did not conceal his anxiety. A frown of what seemed to be genuine concern clouded his smooth face and he spoke quite sharply.

“How so an accident? What sort of accident?”

“A fatal one. I came to warn Otto and talk to him.”

Herr Kretzschmar owned a fine gold pencil. Taking it deliberately from an inside pocket, he popped out the point and, still frowning, drew a pure circle on the pad before him. Then he set a cross on top, then he drew a line through his creation, then he tutted and said “Pity,” and when he had done all this he straightened up, and spoke tersely into a machine.

“No disturbances,” he said. In a murmur, the voice of the grey receptionist acknowledged the instruction.

“You said Herr Leipzig was an old acquaintance of your parent company?” Herr Kretzschmar resumed.

“As I believe you yourself were, long ago, Herr Kretzschmar.”

“Please explain this more closely,” Herr Kretzschmar said, turning the pencil slowly in both hands as if studying the quality of the gold.

“We are talking old history, of course,” said Smiley deprecatingly.

“This I understand.”

“When Herr Leipzig first escaped from Russia, he came to Schleswig-Holstein,” Smiley said. “The organisation which had arranged his escape was based in Paris, but as a Balt, he preferred to live in northern Germany. Germany was still occupied and it was difficult for him to make a living.”

“For anyone,” Herr Kretzschmar corrected him. “For anyone at all to make a living. Those were fantastically hard times. The young of today have no idea.”

“None,” Smiley agreed. “And they were particularly hard for refugees. Whether they came from Estonia or from Saxony, life was hard for them.”

“This is absolutely correct. The refugees had it worst. Please continue.”

“In those days there was a considerable industry in information. Of all kinds. Military, industrial, political, economic. The victorious powers were prepared to pay large sums of money for enlightening material about each other. My parent company was involved in this commerce, and kept a representative here whose task was to collect such material and pass it back to London. Herr Leipzig and his partner became occasional clients. On a free-lance basis.”

News of the General’s fatal accident notwithstanding, a swift and most unexpected smile passed like a breeze across the surface of Herr Kretzschmar’s features.

“Free lance,” he said, as if he liked the words, and were new to them. “Free lance,” he repeated. “That’s what we were.”

“Such relationships are naturally of a temporary nature,” Smiley continued. “But Herr Leipzig, being a Balt, had other interests and continued over a long period to correspond with my firm through intermediaries in Paris.” He paused. “Notably a certain General. A few years ago, following a dispute, the General was obliged to move to London, but Otto kept in touch with him. And the General on his side remained the intermediary.”

“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.