The Human Factor Part 33

Strange, he thought, that Sarah and Boris were the only people in the world who ever called him Maurice. To his mother he was simply 'dear' in moments of affection, and at the office he lived among surnames or initials. Immediately he felt at home in this strange house which he had never visited before: a shabby house with worn carpeting on the stairs. For some reason he thought of his father. Perhaps when a child he had gone with him to see a patient in just such a house.

From the first landing he followed Boris into a small square room with a desk, two chairs and a large picture on rollers which showed a numerous family eating in a garden at a table laden with an unusual variety of food. All the courses seemed to be simultaneously displayed an apple pie stood beside a joint of roast beef, and a salmon and a plate of apples beside a soup tureen. There was a jug of water and a bottle of wine and a coffee pot. Several dictionaries lay on a shelf and a pointer leant against a blackboard on which was written a half-obliterated word in a language he couldn't identify.

'They decided to send me back after your last report,' Boris said. 'The one about Muller. I'm glad to be here. I like England so much better than France. How did you get on with Ivan?'

'All right. But it wasn't the same.' He felt for a packet of cigarettes which was not there. 'You know how Russians are. I had the impression that he didn't trust me. And he was always wanting more than I ever promised to do for any of you. He even wanted me to try to change my section.'

'I think it's Marlboros you smoke?' Boris said, 'holding out a packet. Castle took one.

'Boris, did you know all the time you were here that Carson was dead?'

'No. I didn't know. Not until a few weeks ago. I don't even know the details yet.'

'He died in prison. From pneumonia. Or so they say. Ivan must surely have known but they let me learn it first from Cornelius Muller.'

'Was it such a great shock? In the circ.u.mstances. Once arrested there's never much hope.'

'I know that, and yet I'd always believed that one day I would see him again somewhere in safety far away from 'South Africa perhaps in my home and then I would be able to thank him for saving Sarah. Now he's dead and gone without a word of thanks from me.'

'All you've done for us has been a kind of thanks. He will have understood that. You don't have to feel any regret.'

'No? One can't reason away regret it's a bit like falling in love, falling into regret.'

He thought, with a sense of revulsion: The situation's impossible, there's no one in the world with whom I can talk of everything, except this man Boris whose real name even is unknown to me. He couldn't talk to Davis-half his life was hidden from Davis, nor to Sarah who didn't even know that Boris existed. One day he had even told Boris about the night in the Hotel Polana when he learned the truth about Sam. A control was a bit like a priest must be to a Catholic a man who received one's confession whatever it might be without emotion. He said, 'When they changed my control and Ivan took over from you, I felt unbearably lonely. I could never speak about anything but business to Ivan.'

'I'm sorry I had to go. I argued with them about it. I did my best to stay. But you know how it is in your own outfit. It's the same in ours. We live in boxes and it's they who choose the box.' How often he had heard that comparison in his own office. Each side shares the same cliches.

Castle said, 'It's time to change the book.'

'Yes. Is that all? You gave an urgent signal on the phone. Is there more news of Porton?'

'No. I'm not sure I trust their story.'

They were sitting on uncomfortable chairs on either side of the desk like a master and a pupil. Only the pupil in this case was so much older than the master. Well, it happened, Castle supposed, in the confessional too that an old man spoke his sins to a priest young enough to be his son. With Ivan at their rare meetings the dialogue had always been short, information was pa.s.sed, questionnaires were received, everything was strictly to the point. With Boris he had been able to relax. Was France promotion for you?' He took another cigarette.

'I don't know. One never does know, does one? Perhaps coming back here may be promotion. It may mean they took your last report very seriously, and thought I could deal with it better than Ivan. Or was Ivan compromised? You don't believe the Porton story, but have you really hard evidence that your people suspect a leak?'

'No. But in a game like ours one begins to trust one's instincts and they've certainly made a routine check on the whole section.'

'You say yourself routine.'

'Yes, it could be routine, some of it's quite open, but I believe it's a bit more than that. I think Davis's telephone is tapped and mine may be too, though I don't believe so. Anyway we'd better drop those call-signals to my house. You've read the report I made on Muller's visit and the Uncle Remus operation. I hope to G.o.d that's been channelled differently on your side if there is a leak. I have a feeling they might be pa.s.sing me a marked note.'

'You needn't be afraid. We've been most careful over that report. Though I don't think Muller's mission can be what you call a marked note. Porton perhaps, but not Muller. We've had confirmation of that from Washington. We take Uncle Remus very seriously, and we want you to concentrate on that. It could affect us in the Mediterranean, the Gulf, the Indian Ocean. Even the Pacific. In the long term...'

'There's no long term for me, Boris. I'm over retirement age as it is.'

'I know.'

'I want to retire now.'

'We wouldn't like that. The next two years may be very important.'

'For me too. I'd like to live them in my own way.'

'Doing what?'

'Looking after Sarah and Sam. Going to the movies. Growing old in peace. 'It would be safer for you to drop me, Boris.'

'Why?'

'Muller came and sat at my own table and ate our food and was polite to Sarah. Condescending. Pretending there was no colour bar. How I dislike that man! And how I hate the whole b.l.o.o.d.y BOSS outfit. I hate the men who killed Carson and now call it pneumonia. I hate them for trying to shut Sarah up and let Sam be born in prison. You'd do much better to employ a man who doesn't hate, Boris.

Hate's liable to make mistakes. It's as dangerous as love. I'm doubly dangerous, Boris, because I love too. Love's a fault in both our services.'

'He felt the enormous relief of speaking without prudence to someone who, he believed, understood him. The blue eyes seemed to offer complete friendship, the smile encouraged him to lay down for a short time the burden of secrecy. He said, 'Uncle Remus is the last straw-that behind the scenes we should be joining with the States to help those apartheid b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Your worst crimes, Boris, are always in the past, and the future hasn't arrived yet. I can't go on parroting, "Remember Prague! Remember Budapest!"-they were years ago. One has to be concerned about the present, and the present is Uncle Remus. I became a naturalised black when I fell in love with Sarah.'

'Then why do you think you're dangerous?'

'Because for seven years I've kept my cool, and I'm losing it now. Cornelius Muller is making me lose it. Perhaps C sent him to me for that very reason. Perhaps C wants me to break out.'

'We are only asking you to hold on a little longer. Of course the early years of this game are always the easiest, aren't they? The contradictions are not so obvious and the secrecy hasn't had time to build up like hysteria or a woman's menopause. Try not to worry so much, Maurice. Take your Valium and a Mogadon at night. Come and see me whenever you feel depressed and have to talk to someone. It's the lesser danger.'

'I've done enough, haven't I, by now to pay my debt to Carson?'

'Yes, of course, but we can't lose you yet because of Uncle Remus. As you put it, you're a naturalised black now.'

Castle felt as though he were emerging from an anaesthetic, an operation had been completed successfully. He said, 'I'm sorry. I made a fool of myself.' He couldn't remember exactly what he had said. 'Give me a shot of whisky, Boris.'

Boris opened the desk and took out a bottle and a gla.s.s. He said, 'I know you like J. & B.' He poured out a generous measure and he watched the speed with which Castle drank. 'You are taking a bit too much these days, aren't you, Maurice?'

'Yes. But no one knows that. Only at home. Sarah notices.'

'How are things there?'

'Sarah's worried by the telephone rings. She always thinks of masked burglars. And Sam has had dreams because soon he will be going to prep school a white school. I'm worried about what will happen to both of them if something happens to me. Something always does happen in the end, doesn't it?'

'Leave all that to us. I promise you we've got your escape route very carefully planned. If an emergency...'

'My escape route? What about Sarah's and Sam's?'

'They'll follow you. You can trust us, Maurice. We'll look after them. We know how to show our grat.i.tude too. Remember Blake-we look after our own.' Boris went to the window. 'All's clear. You ought to be getting on to the office. My first pupil comes in a quarter of an hour.'

'What language do you teach him?'

'English. You mustn't laugh at me.'

'Your English is nearly perfect.'

'My first pupil today is a Pole like myself. A refugee from us, not from the Germans. I like him he's a ferocious enemy of Marx. You smile. That's better. You must never let things build up so far again.'

'This security check. It's even getting Davis down-and he's innocent.'

'Don't worry. I think I see a way of drawing their fire.'

'I'll try not to worry.'

'From now on we'll shift to the third drop, and if things get difficult signal me at once-I'm only here to help you. You do trust me?'

'Of course I trust you, Boris. I only wish your people really trusted me. This book code it's a terribly slow and old-fashioned way of communicating, and you know how dangerous it is.'

'It's not that we don't trust you. It's for your own safety. Your house might be searched any time as a routine check. At the beginning they wanted to give you a microdot outfit I wouldn't let them. Does that satisfy your wish?'

'I have another.'

'Tell me.'

'I wish the impossible. I wish all the lies were unnecessary. And I wish we were on the same side.'

'We?'

'You and I.'

'Surely we are?'

'Yes, in this case... for the time being. You know Ivan tried to blackmail me once?'

'A stupid man. I suppose that's why I've been sent back.'

'It has always been quite clear between you and me. I give you all the information you want in my section. I've never pretended that I share your faith-I'll never be a Communist.'

'Of course. We've always understood your point of view. We need you for Africa only.'

'But what I pa.s.s to you-I have to be the judge. I'll fight beside you in Africa, Boris-not in Europe.'

'All we need from you is all the details you can get of Uncle Remus.'

'Ivan wanted a lot. He threatened me.'

'Ivan has gone. Forget him.'

'You would do better without me.'

'No. It would be Muller and his friends who would do better,' Boris said.

Like a manic depressive Castle had had his outbreak, the recurrent boil had broken, and he felt a relief he never felt elsewhere.

2.

It was the turn of the Travellers, and here, where he was on the Committee, Sir John Hargreaves felt quite at home, unlike at the Reform. The day was much colder than at their last lunch together and he saw no reason to go and talk in the park.

'Oh, I know what you are thinking, Emmanuel, but they all know you here only too well,' he said to Doctor Percival. 'They'll leave us quite alone with our coffee. They've learned by this time that you talk about nothing except fish. By the way, how was the smoked trout?'

'Rather dry,' Doctor Percival said, 'by Reform standards.'

'And the roast beef?'

'Perhaps a little overdone?'

'You're an impossible man to please, Emmanuel. Have a cigar.'

'If it's a real Havana.'

'Of course.'

'I wonder if you'll get them in Washington?'

'I doubt whether detente has got as far as cigars. Anyway, the question of laser beams will take priority. What a game it all is, Emmanuel. Sometimes I wish I was back in Africa.'

'The old Africa.'

'Yes. You are right. The old Africa.'

'It's gone for ever.'

'I'm not so sure. Perhaps if we destroy the rest of the world, the roads will become overgrown and all the new luxury hotels will crumble, the forests will come back, the chiefs, the witch doctors there's still a rain queen in the north-east Transvaal.'

'Are you going to tell them that in Washington too?'

'No. But I shall talk without enthusiasm about Uncle Remus.'

'You are against it?'

'The States, ourselves and South Africa we are incompatible allies. But the plan will go ahead because the Pentagon want to play war games now that they haven't got a real war. Well, I'm leaving Castle behind to play it with their Mr Muller. By the way, he's left for Bonn. I hope West Germany isn't in the game too.'

'How long will you be away?'

'Not more than ten days, I hope. I don't like the Washington climate in all senses of the word.' With a smile of pleasure he tipped off a satisfactory length of ash.. 'Doctor Castro's cigars,' he said, 'are every bit as good as Sergeant Batista's.'

'I wish you weren't going just at this moment, John, when we seem to have a fish on the line.'

'I can trust you to land it without my help-anyway it may be only an old boot.'