Call For The Dead

'I heard later that he had made his career there. The administrative experience he had picked up during the war got him some Government job in the new republic. I suppose that his reputation as a rebel and the suffering of his family cleared the way for him. He must have done pretty well for himself?'

'Why?' asked Mendel.

'He was over here until a month ago running the Steel Mission.'

'That's not all,' said Guillam quickly. 'In case you think your cup is full, Mendel, I spared you another visit to Weybridge this morning and called on Elizabeth Pidgeon. It was George's idea.' He turned to Smiley: 'She's a sort of Moby Dick isn't she — bit white man-eating whale.'

'Well?' said Mendel.

'I showed her a picture of that young diplomat by the name of Mundt they kept in tow there to pick up the bits. Elizabeth recognised him at once as the nice man who collected Elsa Fennan's music case. Isn't that jolly?'

'But —'

'I know what you're going to ask, you clever youth. You want to know whether George recognised him too. Well, George did. It's the same nasty fellow who tried to lure him into his house in Bywater Street. Doesn't he get around?'

Mendel drove to Mitcham. Smiley was dead tired. It was raining again and cold. Smiley hugged his greatcoat round him and, despite his tiredness, watched with quiet pleasure the busy London night go by. He had always loved travelling. Even now, if he had the choice, he would cross France by train rather than fly. He could still respond to the magic noises of a night journey across Europe, the oddly cacophonous chimes and the French voices suddenly waking him from English dreams. Ann had loved it too and they had twice travelled overland to share the dubious joys of that uncomfortable journey.

When they got back Smiley went straight to bed while Mendel made some tea. They drank it in Smiley's bedroom.

'What do we do now?' asked Mendel.

'I thought I might go to Walliston tomorrow?'

'You ought to spend the day in bed. What do you want to do there?'

'See Elsa Ferman.'

'You're not safe on your own. You'd better let me come. I'll sit in the car while you do the talking. She's a Yid, isn't she?'

Smiley nodded.

'My dad was Yid. He never made such a bloody fuss about it.'

XII Dream For Sale

She opened the door and stood looking at him for a moment in silence.

'You could have let me know you were coming, ' she said.

'I thought it safer not to.'

She was silent again. Finally she said: 'I don't know what you mean.' It seemed to cost her a good deal.

'May I come in?' said Smiley. 'We haven't much time.'

She looked old and tired, less resilient perhaps.

She led him into the drawing-room and with something like resignation indicated a chair.

Smiley offered her a cigarette and took one himself. She was standing by the window. As he looked at her, watched her quick breathing, her feverish eyes, he realised that she had almost lost the power of self-defence.

When he spoke, his voice was gentle, concessive. To Elsa Fennan it must have seemed like a voice she had longed for, irresistible, offering all strength, comfort, compassion and safety. She gradually moved away from the window and her right hand, which had been pressed against the sill, trailed wistfully along it, then fell to her side in a gesture of submission. She sat opposite him, her eyes upon him in complete dependence, like the eyes of a lover.

'You must have been terribly lonely,' he said;

'No one can stand it for ever. It takes courage, too, and it's so hard to be brave alone. They never understand that, do they? They never know what it costs — the sordid tricks of lying and deceiving, the isolation from ordinary people. They think you can run on their kind of fuel — the flag waving and the music. But you need a different kind of fuel, don't you, when you're alone? You've got to hate, and it needs strength to hate all the time. And what you must love is so remote, so vague when you're not part of it.' He paused. Soon, he thought, soon you'll break. He prayed desperately that she would accept him, accept his comfort. He looked at her. Soon she would break.

'I said we hadn't much time. Do you know what I mean?'

She had folded her hands on her lap and was looking down at them. He saw the dark roots of her yellow hair and wondered why on earth she dyed it. She showed no sign of having heard his question.

'When I left you that morning a month ago I drove to my home in London. A man tried to kill me. That night he nearly succeeded — he hit me on the head three or four times. I've just come out of hospital. As it happens I was lucky. Then there was the garage man he hired the car from. The river police recovered his body from the Thames not long ago. There were no signs of violence — he was just full of whisky. They can't understand it — he hadn't been near the river for years. But then we're dealing with a competent man, aren't we? A trained killer. It seems he's trying to remove anyone who can connect him with Samuel Fennan. Or his wife, of course. Then there's that young blonde girl at the Repertory Theatre…'

'What are you saying?' she whispered; 'What are you trying to tell me?'

Smiley suddenly wanted to hurt her, to break the last of her will, to remove her utterly as an enemy. For so long she had haunted him as he had lain helpless, had been a mystery and a power.

'What games did you think you were playing, you two? Do you think you can flirt with power like theirs, give a little and not give all? Do you think that you can stop the dance — control the strength you give them? What dreams did you cherish, Mrs. Fennan, that had so little of the world in them?'

She buried her face in her hands and he watched the tears run between her fingers. Her body shook with great sobs and her words came slowly, wrung from her.

'No, no dreams. I had no dream but him. He had one dream, yes ... one great dream.' She went on crying, helpless, and Smiley, half in triumph, half in shame, waited for her to speak again. Suddenly she raised her head and looked at him, the tears still running down her cheeks. 'Look at me,' she said; 'What dream did they leave me? I dreamed of long golden hair and they shaved my head, I dreamed of a beautiful body and they broke it with hunger. I have seen what human beings are, how could I believe in a formula for human beings? I said to him, oh I said to him a thousand times; 'only make no laws, no fine theories, no judgments, and the people may love, but give them one theory, let them invent one slogan, and the game begins again? I told him that. We talked whole nights away. But no, that little boy must have his dream, and if a new world was to be built, Samuel Fennan must build it. I said to him, 'Listen; I said; 'They have given you all you have, a home, money and trust. Why do you do it to them?' And he said to me: 'I do it for them. I am the surgeon and one day they will understand? He was a child, Mr. Smiley, they led him like a child?'

He dared not speak, dared put nothing to the test.

'Five years ago he met that Dieter. In a ski hut near Garmisch. Freitag told us later that Dieter had planned it that way — Dieter couldn't ski anyway because of his legs. Nothing seemed real then; Freitag wasn't a real name. Fennan christened him Freitag like Man Friday in Robinson Crusoe. Dieter found that so funny and afterwards we never talked of Dieter but always of Mr. Robinson and Freitag.' She broke off now and looked at him with a very faint smile: 'I'm sorry,' she said;

'I'm not very coherent.'

'I understand,' said Smiley.

'That girl — what did you say about that girl?'