A Perfect Spy

Pym had no need to think. His patent sincerity was out there speaking for him already.

“I’d play their game, sir. I’d divide them against themselves. Spread rumour, false accusation, suspicion. I’d let dog eat dog.”

“You mean you wouldn’t mind getting innocent chaps chucked into prison by their own police, then? Being a bit harsh, aren’t you? Bit immoral?”

“Not if it shortens the life of the system. No, sir, I don’t think I am. And I’m not persuaded about the innocence of these men of yours either, I’m afraid.”

In life, says Proust, we end up doing whatever we do second best. What Pym might have done better, I shall never know. He accepted the Firm’s offer. He opened his Times and read with a similar detachment of his engagement to Belinda. That’s me taken care of, then, he thought. With the Firm getting one half of me and Belinda the other, I’ll never want for anything again.

* * *

Turn your eye to Pym’s first great wedding, Tom. It occurs largely without his participation, in his last months of training, in a break between silent killing and a three-day seminar entitled Know Your Enemy, led by a vibrant young tutor from the London School of Economics. Imagine Pym’s enjoyment of this unlikely preparation for his married state. The fun of it. The free-wheeling unreality! He has chased Buchan’s ghost across the moors of Argyll. He has messed about in rubber boats, made night landings on sandy shores, with hot chocolate awaiting him in the vanquished enemy’s headquarters. He has fallen out of aeroplanes, dipped into secret inks, learned Morse and tapped scatological radio signals into the bracing Scottish air. He has watched a Mosquito aeroplane glide a hundred feet above him through the darkness, dropping a boxful of boulders in place of genuine supplies. He has played secret games of fox-and-geese in the streets of Edinburgh, photographed innocent citizens without their knowledge, fired live bullets at pop-up targets in simulated drawing-rooms, and plunged his dagger into the midriff of a swinging sandbag, all for England and King Harry. In spells of quiet he has been dispatched to genteel Bath to improve his Czech at the feet of an ancient lady called Frau Kohl, who lives in a crescent house of impoverished splendour. Over tea and muffins, Frau Kohl shows him albums of her childhood in Carlsbad, now called Karlovy Vary.

“But you know Karlovy Vary very well, Mr. Sanderstead!” she cries when Pym shows off his knowledge. “You have been there, yes?”

“No,” says Pym. “But I have a friend who has.”

Then back to base camp Somewhere in Scotland to resume the red thread of violence that has been spun into every new thing he is learning. This violence is not only of the body. It is the ravishment that must be done to truth, friendship and, if need be, honour in the interest of Mother England. We are the chaps who do the dirty work so that purer souls can sleep in bed at night. Pym of course has heard these arguments before from the Michaels, but now he must hear them again, from his new employers, who make pilgrimages from London in order to warn the uncut young of the wily foreigners they will one day have to tangle with. Do you remember your own visit, Jack? A gala night it was, close to Christmas: the great Brotherhood is coming! We had streamers hanging from the rafters. You sat at the directing staff’s table in the excellent canteen, while we young ’uns craned our necks to catch a glimpse of one of the great players of the Game. After dinner we gathered round you in a half circle, clutching our subsidised port, and you told us tales of derring-do until we crept off to bed and dreamed of being like you — though alas we could never really have your lovely war, even if that was what we were rehearsing for. Do you remember how in the morning, before you left, you called on Pym while he was shaving, and congratulated him on a damn good showing so far?

“Nice girl you’re marrying, too,” you said.

“Oh, do you know her, sir?” said Pym.

“Just good reports,” you said complacently.

Then off you went, confident you had scattered a pinch more stardust in Pym’s eyes. Which you had, Jack. You had. Except that what goes up with Pym has a way of coming down, and it annoyed him to discover that his impending marriage had received the Firm’s approval while it still awaited his.

“So what exactly are you doing for a living, old boy? Don’t quite understand,” Belinda’s father asked, not for the first time, during a discussion about whom to invite.

“It’s a government-sponsored language lab, sir,” said Pym, in accordance with the Firm’s sketchy guidelines on cover. “We work out exchanges of academics from various countries and arrange courses for them.”

“Sounds more like the Secret Service to me,” said Belinda’s father, with that queer cracked laugh of his that always seemed to know too much.