Part 8 (2/2)
Worst of all was my sense of dislocation, of holding a dozen conflicting theories in my head at once, and favouring each in turn. One minute I was insisting to myself that Bella was innocent, just as I had maintained to Haydon. The next I was asking myself how she could have communicated with her masters. The answer was, only too easily. She shopped, she went to cinemas, she went to school. She could meet couriers, fill and empty dead-letter boxes to her heart's content.
But no sooner had I gone this far than I ran to her defence. Bella was not bad. The photograph was a plant and the story about her father amounted to nothing. Smiley had said as much. There were a hundred ways in which the mission could have been blown without Bella having the least thing to do with it. Our operational security was tight, but not as tight as I would have wished. My predecessor had turned out to be corrupt. Might he not, in addition to inventing agents, have sold a few as well? And even if he hadn't, was it really so unreasonable of Brandt to suggest that the leak could have come from our side of the fence, not his? Now I would not have you think that, alone in his cot that night, the young Ned unravelled single-handed the skein of treachery that later took all George Smiley's powers to expose. A source can be a plant, a plant can be ignored, an experienced intelligence officer can take a wrong decision - all without the a.s.sistance of a traitor within the Fifth Floor's gates. I knew that. I was not a child, and not one of your grey-cheeked Circus conspiracy-theorists either.
Nevertheless I did ponder, as any of us might when he is stretched to the limits of his allegiance to his Service. I pieced together from my worm's-eye view all the rumours that had reached me on the Circus grapevine. Stories of unaccountable failure and repeated scandal, of the mounting anger of our American Cousins. Of meaningless reorganisations, wasteful rivalries between men who were today immortals and tomorrow had resigned. Horror stories of incompetence being taken as proof of grand betrayal-and unnerving evidence of betrayal dismissed as incompetence.
If there is such a thing as growing up, you may say that sometime that night I made one of those leaps into maturity. I realised that the Circus was much the same as any other British inst.i.tution, except that it was more so, since it played its games in the safety of sealed rooms, with other people's lives for counters. Yet I was pleased to have made my recognition. It gave me back the responsibility for my actions, which hitherto I had been a little too willing to lay at other people's feet. If my career till now had been a constant battle between submission and ident.i.ty, then you might say that submission had maintained the upper hand. But that night I crossed some sort of border. I decided that from then on, I would pay more heed to my own instincts and desires, and less to the harness that I seemed unable to dispense with.
We met at the safe flat. If there was neutral ground to be found anywhere, it was there. She still knew nothing of the catastrophe. I had told her only that Brandt had been summoned to England. We made love at once, blindly and hungrily; then I waited for the clarity of after-love to begin my interrogation.
I began playfully stroking her hair, smoothing it against her head. Then I swept it back with both my hands, and scooped it into a rough bun.
”This way you look very stern,” I said, aid kissed her, still holding it in place. ”Have you ever worn it like this?”
I kissed her again.
”When I was a girl.”
”When was that?” said, between our joined lips.
”You mean before Tadeo? When?”
”Until I went to the forest. Then I cut it off. Another woman did it with a knife.”
”Have you got a photograph of yourself like this?”
”In the forest we did not take photographs.”
”I mean before. When you wore it like a stern lady.”
She sat up. ”Why?”
”Just tell me.”
She was watching me with her almost colourless eyes. ”At school, they took our photographs. Why?”
”In groups? In cla.s.ses? What sort of photographs?”
”Why?”
”Just tell me, Bella. I need to know.”
”They took photographs of us in our cla.s.s, and they took photographs for our doc.u.ments.”
”What doc.u.ments?”
”For ident.i.ty. For our pa.s.sports.”
She did not mean a pa.s.sport as we understand it. She meant a pa.s.sport for moving about inside the Soviet Union. No free citizen could cross the road without one.
”A full-face photograph? Not smiling?”
”Yes.”
”What did you do with your old pa.s.sport, Bella?”
She didn't remember.
”What did you wear for it for the photograph?”
I kissed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”Not these. What did you wear?”
”A blouse and tie. What nonsense are you talking?”
”Bella, listen to me. Is there anyone you can think of, back at home, a schoolfriend, an old boyfriend, a relation, who would have a photograph of you with your hair back? Someone you could write to, perhaps, who could be contacted?”
She considered for a moment, staring at me. ”My aunt,” she said grumpily.
”What's her name?”
She told me.
”Where does she live?”
In Riga, she said. With Uncle Janek. I seized an envelope, sat her still naked at a table and made her write out their full address. Then I put a piece of plain writing paper before her and dictated a letter which she translated as she wrote.
”Bella.”
I lifted her to her feet and kissed her tenderly. ”Bella, tell me something else. Did you ever go to any school, of any kind, except the schools in your own town?”
She shook her head.
”No holiday schools? Special schools? Language schools?”
”No.”
”Did you learn English at school?”
”Of course not. Otherwise I would speak English. What's happening to you, Ned? Why are you asking me these stupid questions?”
”The Daisy sailed into trouble,” I said, still face to face with her. ”There was shooting. Brandt wasn't hurt but others were. That's all I'm allowed to tell you. We're to fly back to London tomorrow, you and I together. They need to ask us some questions and find out what went wrong.”
She closed her eyes and began shaking. She opened her mouth and made a silent scream.
”I believe in you,” I said. ”I want to help you. And Brandt. That's the truth.”
Gradually she came back to me and put her head on my chest while she wept. She was a child again. Perhaps she had always been one. Perhaps, by helping me to grow up, she had increased the distance between us. I had brought a British pa.s.sport for her. She had no nationality, of her own. I made her stay the night with me and she clutched me like a drowning girl. Neither of us slept.
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