‘They haven’t even asked me to align myself with their point of view, they’ve got enough ostensible allies, I’m going to write an article about the war in Iraq, about the bombing of the motorway just outside Kuwait City, all the cars incinerated by United States Airforce napalm, though the victims were civilians. They’re perfectly willing for me to express my reservations, the role of the man who asks himself questions, just a ploy to suit the people who will want to answer my questions.
‘It’s what they call luring the wolf out of the forest, the idea is to go on getting myself invited to places where it’s important, then tell them what goes on there, my little entrées into grand houses, I’ve got the taste for it.
‘Are you coming, Misha? Penny for your thoughts? Looking at the water? Remember, you can’t swim twice in the same river.’
They are now on the Quai du Louvre, at the entrance to the Pont du Carrousel. How stupid, being afraid this was going to be a lift, Lilstein stares down at the Seine. He has allowed a small gap to open up between him and Morel. The same river! Morel turns, comes back towards him, tells him to stop watching the water flow by, it numbs the brain, never twice in the same river, Morel is mocking him, Morel is invulnerable, because he no longer has a Marguerite, his own wife dumped him though she was no Marguerite, Morel is alone, that’s his strength, this man has never felt the cold, he’d lost hope momentarily in ’56, he’d almost become a penny-plain bourgeois, and it was Lilstein who offered him meaning, and when that meaning had unravelled Lilstein offered him a game. Today, Morel mocks both the game and the meaning, he shoves Lilstein’s head under the water and laughs, saying ‘never twice in the same river’.
‘Come out of the river, Misha, Gorby has dumped you, if it’s any consolation he won’t last much longer, this you already know but you’ve got out of the habit of believing anything that might do you some good.
‘There isn’t even a river any more. Let’s get to the point, why we’re both here, why you won’t go to Berlin but to Washington: my new friends don’t know the right way to make a Linzer, they’d like to try but they’ll never acquire the knack, all they’re asking from you is a few files, not many names, no one’s going to ask you to foul your own nest, not important, all in the past, you can even keep the agents you’ve been running and arrange a meet with them now and then over a couple of drinks, to sing the “Chant des marais” and such like.
‘What my new friends need is whatever you’ve got on your opponents: the Christian-democrats, the socio-democrats, the pluto-democrats, the eco-democrats, the liberal-democrats, any and all the groups that have claimed the moral high ground and would like to see you in jail, we want to know exactly what the new Germany is planning to do in Europe, in Poland, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Mittel-Europa, all that stuff.
‘When Herr Kohl says “in this country of ours”, we watch his hand, the one that sweeps up the space in front of him, we want to know how far it intends to reach, you can help us, when the old Warsaw Pact countries gain entry to Europe, the Germans will have the right to buy all the land they want, in Poland, Bohemia, Danzig, the Sudetenland, it will cost them much less than a world war, we’ll need to keep an eye on that, and moreover you know the Russians pretty well, the Evil Empire is dead but Russia is still an empire.
‘That’s what they’ll want of you. Say yes, there’s no point any more in always saying no. I know, it’s not a very attractive prospect, lackeys of the CIA, if that was all I’d be embarrassed suggesting it to you, Misha.’
They are now at the middle of the Pont du Carrousel, leaning on the parapet. Lilstein can’t stop looking eastwards. The air is cool. The city is beautiful in the breeze. Lilstein has deliberately not responded to Morel’s last remark, he allows him to continue.
‘I’d blush. You suspect there’s more to it than that, crumbs of information for the CIA, everything you taught me to despise, which has its importance, on a daily basis, we’ll do our duty, but we must have a good time, Misha, my new friends have given me to understand that we’ll have the wherewithal to have us a whale of a time, they didn’t agree to that willingly, it wasn’t cynicism, they are cynics but it was when they were being most frank with me that they taught me things, had they but known it.
‘Walker, for example, one day he mentioned the name of Lena Hellström, Walker had tears in his eyes, he said she was his godmother, that she’d cuddled him when he was a babe in arms, Maisie laughed saying, “FT, if you’re going to go all dewy-eyed on us we’ll bounce you out of your job as director of operations.” Ever since that day, Walker has not said another word about Lena Hellström. You like it when I talk about Lena, Misha?
‘It was Maisie who brought her name up again, in the restaurant, Maisie gave the impression she’d fallen in love with Lena, I had a lot of discussions with her, we talked about heavy stuff, and in the end, to unwind, she’d ask me to tell her about Lena. And to make me talk she’d talk about herself, and she let her own friends talk about her, Maisie said I can skate on ice too, and ski, and play Beethoven. It’s true, Maisie doesn’t sing but she can play piano sonatas, high standard, top amateur level, and chamber music too, plays with colleagues, they call themselves the “National Security Chamber Orchestra”, they give concerts two or three times a year, Maisie is a great lady.
‘In the good years, when you could still say that civil rights were something which communists demanded, an eminent professor declared in a seminar that the white race was gifted with superior abilities, Maisie was there, she let him have it, deathly silence, important seminar, forty or so students, and colleagues of the professor, assistants, the kind of place where you find a lot of future leaders, clear careful minds, the prof is a little out of touch in his philosophical views but he’s the top man for international law, you let him say his piece even if you don’t agree with him, Maisie didn’t stand up, sat right there in her seat to speak, very calm, seminar voice, she looked at her pen all the time, they looked her, she said “you study philosophy and you don’t read German, I do, you study international law and you don’t know Russian, I can speak it, I can read it and I can write it, along with German, French and Spanish, these are things any human being can learn, you like to think you’re a man of culture, but I’m the one who plays Beethoven sonatas”.
‘Up to this point, you could say that Maisie’s comments were brave, fine role for a woman, she bore witness, birth of a new muse of civil rights, I am the exception but I refuse to prove your rule, it’s just a question of being out of sync, just a question of catching up, she was right, you can guess the rest, and the big finish on “I have a dream”, she had a fine job ready and waiting for her in the farce that is politics, queen of civil rights, positive discrimination, etc. But there was something else.
‘And the people around her felt that Maisie had taken her first step along a very long road, that she wouldn’t just be playing the role of representative of the Blacks.
‘To be sure she said “I’m the only black person here”, it was enough to get her looked at with a mix of sympathy, a trace of shame and a guilty conscience prepared to do whatever it took to atone, they were going to make it easier for her, recognise all the talents she’d talked about, defend her against the professor if they had to.