Smiley's People

TWENTY-FIVE

Did Grigoriev sense the new alertness round him - the discreet freezing of gestures? Did he notice how the eyes of Skordeno and de Silsky both hunted out Smiley's impassive face and held it in their gaze? How Millie McCraig slipped silently to the kitchen to check her tape recorders yet again, in case, by an act of a malevolent god, both the main set and the reserve had failed at once? Did he notice Smiley's now almost Oriental self-effacement - the very opposite of interest - the retreat of his whole body into the copious folds of his brown tweed travelling coat, while he patiently licked his thumb and finger and turned a page?

Toby, at least, noticed these things. Toby in his dark corner by the telephone had a grandstand seat from which he could observe everyone and remain as good as unobserved himself. A fly could not have crossed the floor, but Toby's watchful eyes would have recorded its entire odyssey. Toby even describes his own symptoms - a hot feeling around the neckband, he says, a knotting of the throat and stomach muscles - Toby not only endured these discomforts, but remembered them faithfully. Whether Grigoriev was responsive to the atmosphere is another matter. Most likely he was too consumed by his central role. The triumph of the telephone call had stimulated him, and revived his self-confidence; and it was significant that his first statement, when he once more had the floor, concerned not the Karla Directorate, but his prowess as the lover of little Natasha : 'Fellows of our age need a girl like that,' he explained to Toby with a wink. 'They make us into young men again, like we used to be!'

'Very well, you flew to Moscow alone,' Smiley said, quite snappishly. 'The conference got under way, you were approached for an interview. Please continue from there. We have not got all afternoon, you know.'

The conference started on the Monday, Grigoriev agreed, obediently resuming his official statement. When the Friday afternoon came, I returned to my hostel in order to fetch my belongings and take them to Evdokia's apartment for our little weekend together. Instead of this, however, I was met by three men who ordered me into their car with even less explanation than you did - a glance at Toby - saying to me that I was required for a special task. During the journey they advised me that they were members of the Thirteenth Directorate of Moscow Centre, which everybody in official Moscow knows to be the elite. I formed the impression that they were intelligent men, above the common run of their profession, which, saving your presence, sir, is not high. I had the impression they could be officers rather than mere lackeys. Nevertheless I was not unduly worried. I assumed that my professional expertise was being required for some secret matter, that was all. They were courteous and I was even somewhat flattered...

'How long was the journey?' Smiley interrupted, as he continued writing.

Across town, Grigoriev replied vaguely. Across town, then into countryside till dark. Till we reached this one little man like a monk, sitting in a small room, who seemed to be their master.

Once again, Toby insists on bearing witness here to Smiley's unique mastery of the occasion. It was the strongest proof yet of Smiley's tradecraft, says Toby - as well as of his command of Grigoriev altogether - that throughout Grigoriev's protracted narrative, he never once, whether by an over-hasty follow-up question or the smallest false inflection of his voice, departed from the faceless role he had assumed for the interrogation. By his self-effacement, Toby insists, George held the whole scene 'like a thrush's egg in his hand'. The slightest careless movement on his part could have destroyed everything, but he never made it. And as the crowning example, Toby likes to offer this crucial moment, when the actual figure of Karla was for the first time introduced. Any other inquisitor, he says, at the very mention of a 'little man like a monk who seemed to be their master,' would have pressed for a description - his age, rank, what he tion of a 'little man like a monk who seemed to be their master', Not Smiley. Smiley with a suppressed exclamation of annoyance tapped his ballpoint pen on his pad, and in a long-suffering voice invited Grigoriev, then and for the future, kindly not to foreshorten factual detail :

'Let me put the question again. How long was the journey? Please describe it precisely as you remember it and let us proceed from there.'

Crestfallen, Grigoriev actually apologized. He would say they drove for four hours at speed, sir; perhaps more. He remembered now that they twice stopped to relieve themselves. After four hours they entered a guarded area - no, sir, I saw no shoulder-boards, the guards wore plain clothes - and drove for at least another half hour into the heart of it. Like a nightmare, sir.

Yet again, Smiley objected, determined to keep the temperature as low as possible. How could it have been a nightmare, he wanted to know, since Grigoriev had only a moment before claimed that he was not frightened?

Well, not a nightmare exactly, sir, more a dream. At this stage, Grigoriev had had an impression he was being taken to the landlord - he used the Russian word, and Toby translated it - while he himself felt increasingly like a poor peasant. Therefore he was not frightened, sir, because he had no control over events, and accordingly nothing for which to reproach himself. But when the car finally stopped, and one of the men put a hand on his arm, and addressed a warning to him : at this point, his attitude changed entirely, sir : 'You are about to meet a great Soviet fighter and a powerful man,' the man told him. 'If you are disrespectful to him, or attempt to tell lies, you may never again see your wife and family.'

'What is the name of this man?' Grigoriev had asked.

But the men replied, without smiling, that this great Soviet fighter had no name. Grigoriev asked whether he was Karla himself; knowing that Karla was the code name for the head of the Thirteenth Directorate. The men only repeated that the great fighter had no name.

'So that was when the dream became a nightmare, sir,' said Grigoriev humbly. 'They told me also that I could say goodbye to my weekend of love. Little Evdokia would have to get her fun elsewhere, they said. Then one of them laughed.'

Now a great fear had seized Grigoriev, he said, and by the time he had entered the first room and advanced upon the second door, he was so scared his knees were shaking. He even had time to be scared for his beloved Evdokia. Who could this supernatural person be, he wondered in awe, that he could know almost before Grigoriev himself knew, that he was pledged to meet Evdokia for the weekend?

'So you knocked on the door,' said Smiley, as he wrote :

And I was ordered to enter! Grigoriev went on. His enthusiasm for confession was mounting, so was his dependence upon his interrogator. His voice had become louder, his gestures more free. It was as if, says Toby, he was trying physically to coax Smiley out of his posture of reticence; whereas in reality it was Smiley's feigned indifference which was coaxing Grigoriev into the open. And I found myself not in a large and splendid office at all, sir, as became a senior official and a great Soviet fighter, but in a room so barren it would have done duty for a prison cell, with a bare wood desk at the centre, and a hard chair for a visitor to sit on :

'Imagine, sir, a great Soviet fighter and a powerful man! And all he had was a bare desk, which was illuminated only by a most inferior light! And behind it sat this priest, sir, a man of no affectation or pretence at all - a man of deep experience, I would say - a man from the very roots of his country - with small, straight eyes, and short grey hair, and a habit of holding his hands together while he smoked.'

'Smoked what?' Smiley asked, writing.

'Please?'

'What did he smoke? The question is plain enough. A pipe, cigarettes, cigar?'

'Cigarettes, American, and the room was full of their aroma. It was like Potsdam again, when we were negotiating with the American officers from Berlin. "If this man smokes American all the time," I thought, "then he is certainly a man of influence." ' Rounding on Toby again in his excitement, Grigoriev put the same point to him in Russian. To smoke American, chain smoke them, he said : imagine the cost, the influence necessary to obtain so many packets!

Then Smiley, true to his pedantic manner, asked Grigoriev to demonstrate what he meant by 'holding his hands together' while he smoked. And he looked on impassively while Grigoriev took a brown wood pencil from his pocket and linked his chubby hands in front of his face, and held the pencil in both of them, and sucked at it in caricature, like someone drinking two-handed from a mug.

'So!' he explained, and with another volatile switch of mood, shouted something in high laughter to Toby in Russian, which Toby did not see fit, at the time, to translate, and in the transcription is rendered only as 'obscene'.

The priest ordered Grigoriev to sit, and for ten minutes described to him the most intimate details of Grigoriev's love affair with Evdokia, and also of his indiscretions with two other girls, who had both worked for hint as secretaries, one in Potsdam and one in Bonn, and had ended up, unbeknown to Grigorieva, by sharing his bed. At which point, if Grigoriev was to be believed, he made a show of courage, and rose to his feet, demanding to know whether he had been brought halfway across Russia in order to attend a court of morals : 'To sleep with one's secretary was not an unknown phenomenon, I told him, even in the politburo! I assured him that I had never been indiscreet with foreign girls, only Russians. "This too I know," he says. "But Grigorieva is unlikely to appreciate the distinction." '

And then, to Toby's continuing amazement, Grigoriev gave vent to another burst of throaty laughter; and though both de Silsky and Skordeno discreetly joined in, Grigoriev's mirth outlived everybody's, so that they had to wait for it to run down.

'Kindly tell us, please, why the man you call the priest summoned you,' Smiley said, from deep in his brown overcoat.

'He advised me that he had special work for me in Berne on behalf of the Thirteenth Directorate. I should reveal it to nobody, not even to my Ambassador, it was too secret for any of them. "But," says the priest, "you shall tell your wife. Your personal circumstances render it impossible for you to make a conspiracy without the knowledge of your wife. This I know, Grigoriev. So tell her." And he was right,' Grigoriev commented. 'This was wise of him! This was clear evidence that the man was familiar with the human condition.'

Smiley turned a page and continued writing. 'Go on, please,' he said.

First, said the priest, Grigoriev was to open a Swiss bank account. The priest handed him a thousand Swiss francs in one hundred notes and told him to use them as the first payment. He should open the account not in Berne, where he was known nor in Zurich, where there was a Soviet trade bank.'

'The Vozhod,' Grigoriev explained gratuitously. 'This bank is used for many official and unofficial transactions.'

Not in Zurich, then, but in the small town of Thun, a few kilometres outside Heme. He should open the account under the name of Glaser, a Swiss subject : 'That I am a Soviet diplomat!' Grigoriev had objected. 'I am not Glaser, I am Grigoriev!'

Undeterred, the priest handed him a Swiss passport in the name of Adolf Glaser. Every month, said the priest, the account would be credited with several thousand Swiss francs, sometimes even ten or fifteen. Grigoriev would now be told what use to make of them. It was very secret, the priest repeated patiently, and to the secrecy belonged both a reward, and a threat. Very much as Smiley himself had done an hour before, the priest boldly set out each in turn. 'Sir, you should have observed his composure towards me,' Grigoriev told Smiley incredulously. 'His calmness, his authority in all circumstances! In a chess game he would win everything, merely by his nerves.'

'But he was not playing chess,' Smiley objected drily.

'Sir, he was not,' Grigoriev agreed, and with a sad shake of his head resumed his story.

A reward, and a threat, he repeated.

The threat was that Grigoriev's parent Ministry would be advised that he was unreliable on account of his philandering, and that he should therefore be barred from further foreign postings. This would cripple Grigoriev's career, also his marriage. So much for the threat.

'This would be extremely terrible for me,' Grigoriev added, needlessly.

Next the reward, and the reward was substantial. If Grigoriev acquitted himself well, and with absolute secrecy, his career would be furthered, his indiscretions overlooked. In Berne he would have an opportunity to move to more agreeable quarters, which would please Grigorieva; he would be given funds with which to buy himself an imposing car which would be greatly to Grigorieva's taste; also he would be independent of Embassy drivers, most of whom were neighbours, it was true, but were not admitted to this great secret. Lastly, said the priest, his promotion to Counsellor would be accelerated in order to explain the improvement in his living standards.

Grigoriev looked at the heap of Swiss francs lying on the desk between them, then at the Swiss passport, then at the priest. And he asked what would happen to him if he said he would rather not take part in this conspiracy. The priest nodded his head. He too, he assured Grigoriev, had considered this third possibility, but unfortunately the urgency of the need did not provide for such an option.

'So tell me what I must do with this money,' Grigoriev had said.

It was routine, the priest replied, which was another reason why Grigoriev had been selected : 'In matters of routine, I am told you are excellent,' he said. Grigoriev, though he was by now scared halfway out of his skin by the priest's words, had felt flattered by this commendation.

'He had heard good reports of me,' he explained to Smiley with pleasure.

Then the priest told Grigoriev about the mad girl.

Smiley did not budge. His eyes as he wrote were almost closed, but he wrote all the time - though God knows what he wrote, said Toby, for George would never have dreamed of consigning anything of even passing confidentiality to a notepad. Now and then, says Toby, while Grigoriev continued talking, George's head lifted far enough out of his coat collar for him to study the speaker's hands, or even his face. In every other respect he appeared remote from everything and everybody inside the room. Millie McCraig was in the doorway, de Silsky and Skordeno kept still as statues, while Toby prayed only for Grigoriev to 'keep talking, I mean talking at any price, who cares? We were hearing of Karla's tradecraft from the horse's mouth.'

The priest proposed to conceal nothing, he assured Grigoriev - which, as everyone in the room but Grigoriev at once recognized, was a prelude to concealing something.

In a private psychiatric clinic in Switzerland, said the priest, there was confined a young Russian girl who was suffering from an advanced state of schizophrenia : 'In the Soviet Union this form of illness is not sufficiently understood,' said the priest. Grigoriev recalled being strangely touched by the priest's finality. 'Diagnosis and treatment are too often complicated by political considerations,' the priest went on. 'In four years of treatment in our hospitals, the child Alexandra has been accused of many things by her doctors. "Paranoid reformist and delusional ideas... An over-estimation of her own personality... Poor adaptation to the social environment... Over-inflation of her capabilities... A bourgeois decadence in her sexual behaviour." Soviet doctors have repeatedly ordered her to renounce her incorrect ideas. This is not medicine,' said the priest unhappily to Grigoriev. 'It is politics. In Swiss hospitals, a more advanced attitude is taken to such matters.' It was essential that the child Alexandra should go to Switzerland.

It was by now clear to Grigoriev that the high official was personally committed to the girl's problem, and familiar with every aspect of it. Grigoriev himself was already beginning to feel sad for her. She was the daughter of a Soviet hero - said the priest and a former official of the Red Army who, in the guise of a traitor to Russia, was living in penurious circumstances among counter-revolutionary Czarists in Paris.

'His name,' the priest said, admitting Grigoriev to the greatest secret of all, 'his name,' he said, 'is Colonel Ostrakov. He is one of our finest and most active secret agents. We rely on him totally for our information regarding counter-revolutionary conspirators in Paris.'

Nobody in the room, said Toby, showed the least surprise at this sudden deification of a dead Russian deserter.

The priest, said Grigoriev, now proceeded to sketch the manner of the heroic agent Ostrakov's life, at the same time initiating Grigoriev into the mysteries of secret work. In order to escape the vigilance of imperialist counter-intelligence, the priest explained, it was necessary to invent for an agent a legend or false biography which would make him acceptable to anti-Soviet elements. Ostrakov was therefore in appearance a Red Army defector who had 'escaped' into West Berlin, and thence to Paris, abandoning his wife and one daughter in Moscow. But in order to safeguard Ostrakov's standing among the Paris émigrés, it was logically necessary that the wife should suffer for the traitorous actions of her husband.

'For after all,' said the priest, 'if imperialist spies were to report that Ostrakova, the wife of a deserter and renegade, was living in good standing in Moscow - receiving her husband's salary, for example, or occupying the same apartment - imagine the effect this would have upon the credibility of Ostrakov!'

Grigoriev said he could imagine this well. The priest, he explained in parenthesis, was in no sense authoritarian in his manner, but rather treated Grigoriev as an equal, doubtless out of respect for his academic qualifications.

'Doubtless,' Smiley said, and made a note.

Therefore, said the priest somewhat abruptly, Ostrakova and her daughter Alexandra, with the full agreement of her husband, were transferred to a far province and given a house to live in, and different names, and even - in their modest and selfless way - of necessity, their own legend also. Such, said the priest, was the painful reality of those who devoted themselves to special work. And consider, Grigoriev - he went on intently - consider the effect that such deprivation, and subterfuge, and even duplicity, might have upon a sensitive and perhaps already unbalanced daughter : an absent father whose very name had been eradicated from her life! A mother who, before being removed to safety, was obliged to endure the full brunt of public disgrace! Picture to yourself, the priest insisted - you, a father - the strains upon the young and delicate nature of a maturing girl!

Bowing to such forceful eloquence, Grigoriev was quick to say that as a father he could picture such strains easily and it occurred to Toby at that moment, and probably to everybody else as well, that Grigoriev was exactly what he claimed to be : a humane and decent man caught in the net of events beyond his understanding or control.

For the last several years, the priest continued in a voice heavy with regret, the girl Alexandra - or, as she used to call herself, Tatiana - had been, in the Soviet province where she lived, a wanton and a social outcast. Under the pressures of her situation she had performed a variety of criminal acts, including arson and theft in public places. She had sided with pseudo-intellectual criminals and the worst imaginable anti-social elements. She had given herself freely to men, often several in a day. At first, when she was arrested, it had been possible for the priest and his assistants to stay the normal processes of law. But gradually, for reasons of security, this protection had to be withdrawn, and Alexandra had more than once been confined to State psychiatric clinics that specialized in the treatment of congenital social malcontents - with the negative results which the priest had already described.

'She has also on several occasions been detained in a common prison,' said the priest in a low voice. And, according to Grigoriev, he summed up this sad story as follows : 'You will readily appreciate, dear Grigoriev, as an academic, a father, as a man of the world, how tragically the ever-worsening news of his daughter's misfortunes affected the usefulness of our heroic agent Ostrakov in his lonely exile in Paris.'

Yet again, Grigoriev had been impressed by the remarkable sense of feeling - he would call it even a sense of direct personal responsibility - that the priest, through his story, inspired.

His voice arid as ever, Smiley made another interruption.

'And the mother is by now where, Counsellor, according to your priest?' he asked.

'Dead,' Grigoriev replied. 'She died in the province. The province to which she had been sent. She was buried under another name, naturally. According to the story as he told it to me, she died of a broken heart. This also placed a great burden on the priest's heroic agent in Paris,' he added. 'And upon the authorities in Russia.'

'Naturally,' said Smiley, and his solemnity was shared by the four motionless figures stationed round the room.

At last, said Grigoriev, the priest came to the precise reason why Grigoriev had been summoned. Ostrakova's death, coupled with the dreadful fate of Alexandra, had produced a grave crisis in the life of Moscow's heroic foreign agent. He was even for a short time tempted to give up his vital work in order to return to Russia and take care of his deranged and motherless child. Eventually, however, a solution was agreed upon. Since Ostrakov could not come to Russia, his daughter must come to the West, and be cared for in a private clinic where she was accessible to her father whenever he cared to visit her. France was too dangerous for this purpose, but in Switzerland across the border, treatment could take place far from the suspicious eye of Ostrakov's counter-revolutionary companions. As a French citizen, the father would claim the girl and obtain the necessary papers. A suitable clinic had already been located and it was a short drive from Berne. What Grigoriev must now do was take over the welfare of this child, from the moment she arrived there. He must visit her, pay the clinic, and report weekly to Moscow on her progress, so that the information could at once be relayed to her father. This was the purpose of the bank account, and of what the priest referred to as Grigoriev's Swiss identity.

'And you agreed,' said Smiley, as Grigoriev paused, and they heard his pen scratching busily over the paper.

'Not immediately. I asked him first two questions,' said Grigoriev, with a queer flush of vanity. 'We academics are not deceived so easily, you understand. First, I naturally asked him why this task could not be undertaken by one of the many Swiss-based representatives of our State Security.'

'An excellent question,' Smiley said, in a rare mood of congratulation. 'How did he reply to it?'

'It was too secret. Secrecy, he said, was a matter of compartments. He did not wish the name of Ostrakov to be associated with the people of the Moscow Centre mainstream. As things were now, he said, he would know that if ever there was a leak, Grigoriev alone was personally responsible. I was not grateful for this distinction,' said Grigoriev, and smirked somewhat wanly at Nick de Silsky.

'And what was your second question, Counsellor?'

'Concerning the father in Paris : how often he would visit. If the father was visiting frequently, then surely my own position as a substitute father was redundant. Arrangements could be made to pay the clinic directly, the father could visit from Paris every month and concern himself with his own daughter's welfare. To this the priest replied that the father could come only very seldom and should never be spoken of in discussions with the girl Alexandra. He added, without consistency, that the topic of the daughter was also acutely painful to the father and that conceivably he would never visit her at all. He told me I should feel honoured to be performing an important service on behalf of a secret hero of the Soviet Union. He grew stern. He told me it was not my place to apply the logic of an amateur to the craft of professionals. I apologized. I told him I indeed felt honoured. I was proud to assist however I could in the anti-imperialist struggle.'

'Yet you spoke without inner conviction?' Smiley suggested looking up again and pausing in his writing.

'That is so.'

'Why?'

At first, Grigoriev seemed unsure why. Perhaps he had never before been invited to speak the truth about his feelings.

'Did you perhaps not believe the priest?' Smiley suggested.

'The story had many inconsistencies,' Grigoriev repeated with a frown. 'No doubt in secret work this was inevitable. Nevertheless I regarded much of it as unlikely or untrue.'

'Can you explain why?'

In the catharsis of confession, Grigoriev once more forgot his own peril, and gave a smile of superiority.

'He was emotional,' he said. 'I asked myself. Afterwards, with Evdokia, next day, lying at Evdokia's side, discussing the matter with her, I asked myself : What was it between the priest and this Ostrakov? Are they brothers? Old comrades? This great man they had brought me to see, so powerful, so secret all over the world he is making conspiracies, putting pressure, taking special action. He is a ruthless man, in a ruthless profession. Yet when I, Grigoriev, am sitting with him, talking about some fellow's deranged daughter, I have the feeling I am reading this man's most intimate love letters. I said to him : "Comrade. You are telling me too much. Don't tell me what I do not need to know. Tell me only what I must do." But he says to me : "Grigoriev, you must be a friend to this child. Then you will be a friend to me. Her father's twisted life has had a bad effect on her. She does not know who she is or where she belongs. She speaks of freedom without regard to its meaning. She is the victim of pernicious bourgeois fantasies. She uses foul language not suitable to a young girl. In lying, she has the genius of madness. None of this is her fault." Then I ask him : "Sir, have you met this girl?" And he says to me only, "Grigoriev, you must be a father to her. Her mother was in many ways not an easy woman either. You have sympathy for such matters. In her later life she became embittered, and even supported her daughter in some of her anti-social fantasies." '

Grigoriev fell silent a moment and Toby Esterhase, still reeling from the knowledge that Grigoriev had discussed Karla's proposition with his mistress within hours of its being made, was grateful for the respite.

'I felt he was dependent on me.' Grigoriev resumed. 'I felt he was concealing not only facts. but feelings.'

There remained, said Grigoriev, the practical details. The priest supplied them. The overseer of the clinic was a White Russian woman, a nun, formerly of the Russian Orthodox community in Jerusalem, but a good-hearted woman. In these cases, we should not be too scrupulous politically, said the priest. This woman had herself met Alexandra in Paris and escorted her to Switzerland. The clinic also had the services of a Russian-speaking doctor. The girl, thanks to the ethnic connections of her mother, also spoke German, but frequently refused to do so. These factors, together with the remoteness of the place, accounted for its selection. The money paid into the Thun bank would be sufficient for the clinic's fees and for medical attention up to one thousand francs a month, and as a hidden subsidy for the Grigorievs' new lifestyle. More money was available if Grigoriev thought it necessary; he should keep no bills or receipts; the priest would know soon enough if Grigoriev was cheating. He should visit the clinic weekly to pay the bill and inform himself of the girl's welfare; the Soviet Ambassador in Berne would be informed that the Grigorievs had been entrusted with secret work, and that he should allow them flexibility.

The priest then came to the question of Grigoriev's communication with Moscow.

'He asked me : "Do you know the courier Krassky?" I reply, naturally I know this courier; Krassky comes once, sometimes twice a week to the Embassy in the company of his escort. If you are friendly with him, he will maybe bring you a loaf of black bread direct from Moscow.'

In future, said the priest. Krassky would make a point of contacting Grigoriev privately each Thursday evening during his regular visit to Berne, either in Grigoriev's house or in Grigoriev's room in the Embassy, but preferably his house. No conspiratorial discussions would take place, but Krassky would hand to Grigoriev an envelope containing an apparently personal letter from Grigoriev's aunt in Moscow. Grigoriev would take the letter to a safe place and treat it at prescribed temperatures with three chemical solutions freely available on the open market - the priest named them and Grigoriev now repeated them. In the writing thus revealed, said the priest. Grigoriev would find a list of questions he should put to Alexandra on his next weekly visit. At the same meeting with Krassky, Grigoriev should hand him a letter to be delivered to the same aunt, in which he would pretend to be writing in detail about his wife Grigorieva's welfare, whereas in fact he would be reporting to the priest on the welfare of the girl Alexandra. This was called word code. Later, the priest would if necessary supply Grigoriev with materials for a more clandestine communication, but for the time being the word code letter to Grigoriev's aunt would do.

The priest then handed Grigoriev a medical certificate, signed by an eminent Moscow doctor.

'While here in Moscow, you have suffered a minor heart attack as a consequence of stress and overwork,' said the priest. 'You are advised to take up regular cycling in order to improve your physical condition. Your wife will accompany you.'

By arriving at the clinic by bicycle or on foot, the priest explained, Grigoriev would be able to conceal the diplomatic registration of his car.

The priest then authorized him to purchase two second-hand bicycles. There remained the question of which day of the week would be best suited for Grigoriev's visits to the clinic. Saturday was the normal visiting day but this was too dangerous; several of the inmates were from Berne and there was always the risk that 'Glaser' would be recognized. The overseer had therefore been advised that Saturdays were impracticable, and had consented, exceptionally, to a regular Friday-afternoon visit. The Ambassador would not object, but how would Grigoriev reconcile his Friday absences with Embassy routine?

There was no problem, Grigoriev replied. It was always permissible to trade Fridays for Saturdays, so Grigoriev would merely apply to work on Saturdays instead; then his Fridays would be free.

His confession over, Grigoriev treated his audience to a swift, over-lit smile.

'On Saturdays, a certain young lady also happened to be working in the Visa Section,' he said, with a wink at Toby. 'It was therefore possible we could enjoy some privacy together.'

This time the general laughter was not quite as hearty as it might have been. Time, like Grigoriev's story, was running out.

They were back where they had started, and suddenly there was only Grigoriev himself to worry about, only Grigoriev to administer, only Grigoriev to secure. He sat smirking on the sofa, but the arrogance was ebbing from him. He had linked his hands submissively and he was looking from one to the other of them, as if expecting orders.

'My wife cannot ride a bicycle,' he remarked with a sad little smile. 'She tried many times.' Her failure seemed to mean whole volumes to him. 'The priest wrote to me from Moscow : "Take your wife to her. Maybe Alexandra needs a mother, also." ' He shook his head, bemused. 'She cannot ride it,' he said to Smiley. 'In such a great conspiracy, how can I tell Moscow that Grigorieva cannot ride a bicycle?' Perhaps there was no greater test of Smiley's role as the responsible functionary in charge, than the way in which he now almost casually transformed Grigoriev the one-time source into Grigoriev the defector-in-place.

'Counsellor, whatever your long-term plans may be, you will please remain at the Embassy for at least another two weeks,' he announced, precisely closing his note pad. If you do as I propose, you will find a warm welcome should you elect to make a new life somewhere in the West.' He dropped the pad into his pocket. 'But next Friday you will not visit the girl Alexandra. You will tell your wife that this was the substance of today's meeting with Krassky. When Krassky the courier brings you next Thursday's letter, you will accept it normally but you will afterwards continue to maintain to your wife that Alexandra is not to be visited. Be mysterious towards her. Blind her with mystery.'

Accepting his instructions, Grigoriev nodded uneasily.

'I must warn you however that if you make the smallest error or, on the other hand, try some trick, the priest will find out and destroy you. You will also forfeit your chances of a friendly reception in the West. Is that clear to you?'

There were telephone numbers for Grigoriev to ring, there were call-box to call-box procedures to be explained, and against all the laws of the trade, Smiley allowed Grigoriev to write the whole lot down, for he knew that he would not remember them otherwise. When all this was done, Grigoriev took his leave in a spirit of brooding dejection. Toby himself drove him to a safe dropping point, then returned to the flat and held a curt meeting of farewell.

Smiley was in his same chair, hands clasped on his lap. The rest of them, under Millie McCraig's orders, were busily tidying up the traces of their presence, polishing, dusting, emptying ashtrays and waste-paper baskets. Everyone present except himself and Smiley was getting out today, said Toby, the surveillance teams as well. Not tonight, not tomorrow. Now. They were sitting on a king-sized time bomb, he said : Grigoriev might at this very moment, under the continued impulse of confession, be describing the entire episode to his awful wife. If he had told Evdokia about Karla, who was to say he would not tell Grigorieva, or for that matter little Natasha, about his pow-wow with George today? Nobody should feel discarded, nobody should feel left out, said Toby. They had done a great job, and they would be meeting again soon to set the crown on it. There were handshakes, even a tear or two, but the prospect of the final act left everybody cheerful at heart.

And Smiley, sitting so quiet, so immobile, as the party broke up around him, what did he feel? On the face of it, this was a moment of high achievement for him. He had done everything he had set out to do, and more, even if he had resorted to Karla's techniques for the purpose. He had done it alone; and today, as the record would show, he had broken and turned Karla's handpicked agent in the space of a couple of hours. Unaided, even hampered by those who had called him back to service, he had fought his way through to the point where he could honestly say he had burst the last important lock. He was in late age, yet his tradecraft had never been better; for the first time in his career, he held the advantage over his old adversary.

On the other hand, that adversary had acquired a human face of disconcerting clarity. It was no brute whom Smiley was pursuing with such mastery, no unqualified fanatic after all, no automaton. It was a man; and one whose downfall, if Smiley chose to bring it about, would be caused by nothing more sinister than excessive love, a weakness with which Smiley himself from his own tangled life was eminently familiar.