‘Hardly surprising you needed a wall to protect all that! And the USSR, even more grotesque! Those two souls, Misha! One dreamy, the other cynical, no, you’re wrong, it wasn’t the cynical soul that came off best, it was the idealistic soul which stuck its heels in, the one you’d offered the leading role. I intend to go on being part of the game.
‘I went to the CIA because I’m a better Marxist than you, I told them everything about the past, I had several interviews, handsome office, windows, lost in a corner of a vast room full of computers, just like the offices of a large newspaper; when the people I talked to wanted privacy they lowered the blinds, they didn’t do it often, there were half-a-dozen of them, six civil servants and a tape-recorder, lists of questions, and no one departed from his script, to begin with I found this dangerous, a bogus kind of professionalism, I thought I’d made a stupid mistake in coming to them, I’d thought I’d walk into the realms of alternative truths and I had come to earth among yahoos clutching questionnaires and pencils for ticking boxes with, I was very scared, I almost warned you, told you to vanish.’
Lilstein says nothing. Nothing more to say. He looks at the Obélisque on the Place de la Concorde, a couple of hundred metres away. Talking won’t help. He’s not surprised. He’d been expecting betrayal. Now it’s Morel’s turn to do the talking. It’s his day. In one single moment their friendship has ended, gone without anger. The anger had been earlier, in the bookshop, with the first suspicion. And now that Lilstein would be needing it, there is no anger. Lilstein listens, he tries to get the hang of some of what Morel is telling him, he tries to get a grip, he has always succeeded in getting a grip, but that was because other people didn’t know him very well. Morel is different, Lilstein always told Morel everything, transparency, it was transparency which had kept them together all this time, Morel knows that Lilstein now wants to take back the initiative, so no point in trying to react, Morel will have anticipated this.
Lilstein listens while the man he trained tells him how he betrayed him, because Morel didn’t just defect, he could have gone over to the CIA and covered his old friend, giving his name but remaining selective, giving Lilstein space and time. But he did none of that. Where will the threat come from now? Another car? Lilstein steps back from the kerb.
Morel takes a step forward:
‘Come on, Misha, I’ll show you, Place de la Concorde, the Obélisque, the Hôtel Crillon, the American Embassy.’
At these last words, Lilstein tensed up. He had no wish to go to the Place de la Concorde. Morel agreed to turn left, along the rue Saint-Honoré, towards the Palais-Royal. Lilstein let him talk, all the while steering clear of the kerb.
‘One morning a woman invited me to lunch, Misha, in Washington, I’d seen her around a couple of times, she’d come into the room where I was being interrogated, some of the men would stand, she was black, African-American as they say nowadays.
‘She’d cast an eye over some papers, exchange a few words, look at me without saying a word, then leave, very beautiful, dazzling smile, firm calves, tall, but not too tall, middling height, the invitation was to a French restaurant, yes, she insisted on paying, a restaurant with photos of Toulouse on the walls and rugby pennants, black and white, the proprietor of the restaurant came by, kissed her on both cheeks saying “Bonjour, Maisie”, corner-table, and three men came and sat at another table, between us and the rest of the room, Maisie chose for us, cassoulet, an authentic Toulouse cassoulet, made the previous day, lamb, confit de canard, not forgetting the bacon rind and pork hock, a spiral of Toulouse sausage, covering of breadcrumbs, for the gratin and browning, spoon in it sticking straight up, when the patron asked what wine she said, in accentless French “no fucking contest a Madiran!” The patron laughed, his Madiran is dark cherry, with hints of strawberry and blackcurrant, but it’s an assertive wine, it’s not there to accompany anything, it shouts out for attention with every mouthful.
‘A very hearty lunch, yet Maisie is slim, “I eat whatever I want, this evening the gym, need the energy”, I insisted on serving her, I dropped a bean in her Madiran, I also spilled sauce on the tablecloth, clumsy Frenchman stuff, they love it.’
Lilstein and Morel are now on the corner of the rue Richepance, outside the windows of the Blue Dwarf, in one there’s a display of electronic games, in the other a collection of dolls from around the world. Morel goes on:
‘Maisie’s skin is light, black but light, just as I’m thinking about this she said “some not very great white chief must have raped one of my ancestors”, she started by chewing on a bean, a solitary bean, she smiled at the patron, she loves Europe, two years in Toulouse and one in Berlin, political science at Toulouse and musicology in Berlin, great big eyes, teeth to smile with, emphasises her cheekbones, she added “we’ve decided to cooperate with you, we never suspected you for one moment, that’s why we’re going to cooperate with you”.
‘I was very proud when I heard Maisie say “cooperate”, it meant I wouldn’t get a penny, but at the same time it was high praise, “we saw you come and go several times, but we never suspected you, our big blunder.”
‘Americans are like that, Misha, they conform to type, they make a mistake, its creates a problem, so solve the problem, a beautiful woman, just into her forties, face to go with it, no stretching of the skin, fine lines denoting intelligence, clear eyes, curly hair, she has relaxed, she just loved the South of France, walking through the South of France with friends, got as far as the Gers, “we walked through farmyards and had such fun telling the fowl they used for foie gras apart from the fowl they used for confit”, they did bed and breakfast, for breakfast their hosts served them foie gras and pork scratchings, “I can still hear the voice of the guy who said eat up, it won’t do you any harm, there’s no butter just goose-fat.”
‘Maisie even wanted to settle down in one of those out-of-the-way places, one morning a van stopped, a pick-up, the driver had come to have breakfast with them, on the pick-up were hives, he’d come a long way, he was moving them to the lavender, he talked to her about beekeeping, she’d spent a quarter of an hour working out whether she could give up everything and become an itinerant apiarist moving between fir and lavender.
‘At one point she signalled to one of the men who were watching us in this Washington restaurant, I was surprised because the man shook his head, the signal she gave looked like an order, it wasn’t a question like when you open your eyes wide as you look at someone, it was a frown, brows down, and the man said no with a great deal of authority, I couldn’t make it out, they wouldn’t have fooled you, I had misled myself, she wasn’t as high-grade as I’d thought, the top man was sitting at the other table, and he’d sent my African-American on her way, elbows on table, hand under his chin, he’d said no with his head.
‘I’d taken him for a bodyguard, and he had the power! Maisie had cleared the ground, now we were going to get to the serious stuff, with the real top man, I’d never seen him before, I’d made a mistake, I’d opened up to a subordinate, good cop and now I’d located the bad cop, too late, the guy who’ll say “my assistant here somewhat overstepped the mark, you’re here simply to do what you’re told, cooperation is out of the question”, but the man wasn’t ready to get out of his chair, he sent his Afro-American assistant on her way, she had style, she smiled, she tried to save face, she closed her eyes. Then the man got up, very athletic type, he came over to us, not the cooperating kind.