‘And one day she just stopped, you didn’t say anything, there was even better than that, as with me, roles reversed, right? I’m very fond of this little bistro, let’s say I’m very fond of what it used to be, it’s changed a great deal since the days when I used to come here, end of the fifties early sixties, it was already called The Lock Gate, hardly seats for fifty customers inside, I saw the best female singers of the time pass through here, Barbara, Anne Sylvestre, Cora Vaucaire, I used to come with my wife. That’s all gone now, it’s expensive, but I still come from time to time and stay for half an hour, just long enough to read a newspaper.
‘It was you who passed information to Lena, in 1961, Cuba, the missile crisis, you cozened me into telling my pet minister “got to stay firm, the Russians will back off”, that was designed to land Mister K in a fix, when did your friend Markov become a member of the Politburo?
‘And when Mister K runs the risk of getting himself booted out by the warmongers, he gets support, a brief message is passed to the Americans, “you don’t invade Cuba and we’ll withdraw the missiles”, I know, in Washington, it was Linus Mosberger, an old pal of Max, who was used to pass the message directly to Kennedy, but I’m sure the same message reached the White House by way of a certain great lady of the world of opera, you always need confirmation.
‘Markov landed Khrushchev in a fix, then he helped him get out of it, and finally he had him removed, did Lena actually make a lightning Vienna-Washington trip at that time? To make music? For her, the best outcome was Kennedy emerging as winner and for you it was Markov coming out on top.
‘That said, if all this pother in the forties about uranium and heavy water was all finally to come out into the open the Americans would be capable of digging up Arlington Lena and dumping her on some municipal rubbish tip, but Maisie won’t do that, Lena won’t be touched, she’s more or less committed to that, she’ll tell you she’s committed to it, she told me “I’ve got a heart, you can tell by the way I cover it with my hand every time I hear the last post or the national anthem, especially when it happens at Arlington”.
‘It’s something I have in common with Maisie, Misha, those cemetery emotions, Arlington, the star-spangled banner draped over the coffin, the band, the impeccable folding of said banner, eleven movements, I counted, very fine the way they do it, I think it’s so impressive that I decided to go and see it done properly, at Colleville-sur-mer, the lowering of the colours at Colleville-sur-mer, beautiful site, ten thousand American solders buried there, overlooking the sea, the colours are lowered at about a quarter to six, no bagpipes, a prerecorded last post, ten thousand graves, I was half-expecting gleaming white caps, the guard of honour, there was none of that, no doubt problems of cost, the flag was brought and folded by civilians, pants with pockets at the knees, just guys who looked after the site, they fold it along the creases, still they must have been shown how to do it, but without the threat of ten days in the calaboose if they screw up on the job, it lacks class, if I want to see the flag folded properly I have to go to the cinema, funeral of the hero, sometimes it happens right at the start of the film, it tends to spoil what comes after.
‘Misha, have you seen through our new American lady friend’s little game? You’ve got to wise up! Why does the lovely Maisie want to know all there is to know about Lena? So she can write a report? So she can look good by uncovering yet another mole story? So she can trample all over us?
‘Or rather is it because Walker protected Lena? Because he snatched her from the clutches of McCarthy and because in 1954 he wasn’t seeing straight? Because she was his godmother, as he is fond of pointing out? Would Maisie take action to protect Walker? Now that would be swell. As swell as if we were acting simply to protect Lena’s memory.
‘It seems Walker best likes working when he’s got protection, in Korea he was a flame-thrower, came under the wing of Garrick who was a marksman, he went on working with Garrick but Garrick gets sick. Maybe Maisie replaced Garrick, a beautiful friendship between Maisie and Walker, you believe in friendship? I’d like to see all this more clearly, Misha, let’s imagine that one day Walker said something gross.
‘Something like “I’ll never let Maisie set foot inside the White House, not even to pour the coffee, not even with a big white bow in her hair”, Walker is a careful man, it looked as if he were merely casting doubt on Maisie’s abilities, he wasn’t a racist, he chose to say something that he didn’t think, the better to control, but words like that turned the clock back a few years, the remark about the coffee and the white bow was made in the presence of two leaders of the Republican Party, the old style of boss man, very reactionary, Walker is a liberal, a liberal republican, he doesn’t believe a word of what he said to those guys, but said it all the same, to make them laugh, to get them eating out of his hand.
‘Walker wants to be a White House adviser, he can’t afford to look like a liberal, unfortunately that’s his reputation, although he took part in the Phoenix programme in Vietnam, the eradication of tens of thousands of civilians by the CIA, but he still has a name for being liberal, with his pipe, tweed jackets and his Princeton degree.
‘And he can’t very well go round shouting from the rooftops “I too have had civilians killed” just to defend himself against being thought a wicked liberal. Then he made that crack about waitresses, pouring the coffee, with a bow in their hair, that should do it, they laughed all right, and so Walker gets the discreet support of the Republican right for the price of a crack.
‘One day Maisie smiled at Walker, an even broader smile than usual, cheekbones, teeth, even more dazzling, large eyes sparkling, she held out a cup of coffee to him with a smile, and he knew she’d heard about the crack.
‘And also with that big smile that she was offering to make peace, Walker realised he should have killed her and not made cracks about who serves the coffee at the White House, not even in front of two Republican chiefs, one of the two chiefs must have made progress, or the wife of one of them, or an aide, doesn’t matter which, it was too late, Maisie didn’t get angry, it meant that she had him where she wanted him, no need for getting angry, one of the two chiefs would be prepared to testify, and the other one would corroborate.
‘She talked to Walker with increasing regularity, about this and that, she’d smile “FT it’s so good having you for a boss and as a friend, nothing can wreck our friendship”, and Walker can only agree with her or kill her, too late to kill her now, they are allies, Maisie will help Walker get to the White House and Walker will help her in turn to join him there. That’s the new deal.
‘They talk, Walker likes educating Maisie, passing on the history and tradition of the company, they go together to the coffee-machine.
‘Walker is anxious, he’s a liberal, it’s the old CIA from the Cold War days, when it was in bed with the non-communist left, or the ex-communist left, which was responsible for the downfall of McCarthy.
‘The new chiefs of the White House don’t care for tweed jackets and liberals, of course Walker has taken down communists, Viets, civilians, Phoenix and guys with red gloves, but he overdid it, liberals are like that, when they roll their sleeves up they always go too far, Walker really needs Maisie’s support, he talks to her a lot, confides in her so that she confides in him, he knows she has free access to the President’s family, the crack about coffee was the big mistake of his life, to try and make people forget it he confides in her more and more, he lays out his whole life for Maisie, anyone who listens to him the way she does must be on his side, and in the long run Maisie pieces together the coincidences in what Walker tells her.