“You look as though you’ve been seeing things,” Corporal Kaufmann says as Pym returns to the jeep.
“It’s my stomach,” says Pym.
But on the journey back to Graz he began to feel better. Life is duty, he reflected. It’s just a question of establishing which creditor is asking loudest. Life is paying. Life is seeing people right if it kills you.
* * *
There were half a dozen reconstructed Pyms wandering the streets of Graz that night, Tom, and there isn’t one of them I need now feel ashamed of, or wouldn’t happily embrace as a long-lost son who had paid his debt to society and come home, if he knocked on Miss Dubber’s door at this moment and said, Father, it’s me. I don’t think there was a night in his life when he thought less about himself and more about his obligation to others than when he was patrolling his city kingdom under the shadows of crumbling Hapsburg glories, pausing now at the leafy gates of Membury’s spacious married quarters, now at the doorway to Sabina’s unprepossessing apartment house, while he made his plan and flashed them reassuring promises. “Don’t worry about a thing,” he told Membury in his heart. “You will suffer no humiliation, your lake will continue to be stocked and your post will be safe for as long as you care to adorn it. The Highest in the Land will continue to respect you as the presiding genius of the Greensleeves operation.” “Your secrets are in my hands,” he whispered to Sabina’s unlit window. “Your employment by the British, your heroic brother Jan, your exalted opinion of your lover Pym are all secure. I shall cherish them as I cherish your soft warm body sleeping its troubled sleep.”
He took no decisions because he had no doubts. The lone crusader had identified his mission, the skilled spy would take care of the detail, the loyal attacher would never again betray his friend in exchange for the illusion of being a servant of national necessity. His loves, his duties and allegiances had never been clearer. Axel, I owe you. Together we can change the world. I will bring you gifts as you brought gifts to me. I will never again send you to the camps. If he contemplated alternatives, then it was only to reject them as disastrous. Over the last months the inventive Pym had built Sergeant Pavel into a figure of joy and admiration in the secret corridors of Graz, Vienna and Whitehall. Under his skilful hand the choleric little hero’s drinking, womanising and quixotic bursts of courage had become a legend. Even if Pym were prepared to break Axel’s trust a second time, how could he go to Membury and say: “Sir. Sergeant Pavel does not exist. Greensleeves is my friend Axel, who requires that we give him genuine British secrets”? Membury’s kindly eyes would pop open, his innocent face would collapse in lines of sadness and despair. His trust in Pym would wither, his reputation with it: Membury to the lantern, sack Membury; Membury, his wife and all his daughters, go home. An even worse disaster would result if Pym were to strike a compromise by visiting Axel’s dilemma upon the fictitious Sergeant Pavel. He had played that scene, too, in his imagination: “Sir. Sergeant Pavel’s frontier-crossings have been noticed. He has told the Czech secret police that he has a British agent in play. We must therefore give him chickenfeed to back his story.” Div. Int. had no mandate to run double agents. Graz even less so. Even a defector in place was stretching things. Only Greensleeves’ insistence on being handled by Pym personally had prevented a takeover by London long ago, and there was already a lot of earnest talk going on about who would get Pavel when Pym’s military service expired. To place Sergeant Pavel in the position of a double agent would unloose a string of immediate consequences, all frightfuclass="underline" Membury would lose Greensleeves to London; Pym’s successor would discover the deception in five minutes; Axel would once more be betrayed and his chances of survival forfeit; the Memburys would be posted to Siberia.
No, Tom. As Pym walked the momentous night away under a canopy of unreachable ideals, eschewing Sabina’s bed in his purity of soul, he was not tormenting himself over great choices. He was not examining his immortal spirit in anticipation of what purists might call a treasonable act. He did not consider that tomorrow was the day set for his irrevocable execution — the day on which all hope for Pym would die and your father would be born. He was watching the dawn rise on a day of beauty and harmony. A day when a bad record could be put straight, when the fate of everyone he was responsible for rested in his care, when the electors of his secret constituency would go down on their knees and thank Pym and his Maker that he had been born to see them right. He was glowing and exulting. He was letting his goodwill and self-faith fill him up with courage. The secret crusader had placed his sword upon the altar and was transmitting fraternal messages to the God of Battles.
“Axel, come over!” Pym had begged him. “Forget about Sergeant Pavel. You can be an ordinary defector. I’ll look after you. I’ll get you everything you need. I promise.”
But Axel was as fearless as he was determined. “Do not advise me to betray my friends, Sir Magnus. I am the only one who can save them. Did I not tell you I have crossed my last frontier? If you help me, we can win a great victory. Be here on Wednesday at the same time.”
* * *
Briefcase in hand Pym makes quickly for the top floor of the villa and unlocks the door to his office. I am a morning man, it is known of me. Pym is an early riser, Pym is keen, Pym has done a day’s work while most of us are still shaving. Membury’s office is linked to his own by a pair of grand doors. Pushing them open, Pym steps inside. As he does so, his sense of well-being becomes unbearable: a dizzying blend of resolution, rightness and release. I am blessed. Membury’s tin desk is no Reichstag desk. It has an old tin back and Pym’s Swiss Army penknife knows the four screws well. In the third drawer down, on the left side, Membury keeps his basic works of reference: standing orders for the unit, Brown Fish of the World, classified telephone directory, Lakes and Waterways of Austria, Order of Battle of Military Intelligence in London, a list of leading aquaria and a chart for Div. Int., Vienna, showing units and their functions but no names. Pym reaches a hand in. Not an invasion. Not a retribution. No initials are being carved into the panelling. I am here to administer a caress. Folders, loose-leaf manuals. Signals instructions marked “Top Secret, Guard” which Pym has never seen. I am here to borrow, not to steal. Opening his briefcase he extracts an army-issue Agfa camera with a one-foot measuring chain fastened to the lens front. It is the same camera that he uses when Axel brings out raw material and Pym has to photograph it on the spot. He cocks it and sets it on the desk. This is what I was born for, he thinks, not for the first time. In the beginning was the spy.
From a file with the word “Vertebrates” crossed out on the cover, he selects the Order of Battle of Div. Int. Axel knows it anyway, he reasons. Nevertheless, there are impressive “Top Secret” stamps at top and bottom, and a distribution stamp to guarantee authenticity. As you love my freedom, get me something wonderful. He photographs it once, then again, and is left with a feeling of anticlimax. There are thirty-six frames on this film. Why do I cheesepare and give him only two? I could do something for our mutual understanding. Axel, you deserve better. He remembers a recent War Office assessment of the Soviet threat. If they will read that, they’ll read anything. It is in the top drawer, beside A Handbook of Water Mammals, and begins with a summary of conclusions. He photographs each page and finishes the film nicely. Axel, I’ve done it! We’re free. We’ve put the world to rights, exactly as you said we would! We are men of the middle ground — we have founded our own country with a population of two!