John le Carre by The Russia House

Author:The Russia House
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780743464666
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 1989-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

where to? Where from? Who for? must have been the Thursday when the little plane from Logan airport brought us Merv and Stanley in time for their favourite breakfast of pancakes and bacon and pure maple syrup. Randy’s kitchen was well acquainted with their tastes. They were bearish, kindly men of the soil, with pumice-stone faces and big hands, and they arrived looking like a vaudeville duo, wearing dark trilby hats and humping a salesman’s suitcase which they kept close to them while they ate and later set down gingerly on the red-painted floor of the billiards room. Their profession had made their faces dull, but they were the type our own Service likes best–straightforward, loyal, uncomplicated foot-soldiers with a job to do and kids to feed, who loved their country without making a to-do of it. Merv’s hair was cropped to a moleskin fuzz. Stanley had bandy legs and wore some sort of loyal badge in his lapel. ‘You can be Jesus Christ, Mr. Brown. You can be a fifteen-hundred-a-month typist,’ Sheriton had said as we stood around in Barley’s boat-house in a state of shifty supplication. ‘It’s voodoo, it’s alchemy, it’s the Ouija board, it’s reading fucking tea-leaves. And if you don’t go through with it, you’re dead.’ Clive spoke next. Clive could find reasons for anything. ‘If he’s nothing to hide,

why should he be bothered?’ he said. ‘It’s their version of the Official Secret’s Act.’ ‘What does Ned say?’ Barley asked. Not Nedsky anymore. Ned. There was a defeat in Ned’s reply that I shall never forget, and in his eyes as well. Brady’s interrogation of Barley had shaken his faith in himself, and even in his joe. ‘It’s your choice,’ he said lamely. And as if to himself, ‘A pretty disgusting one too, if you ask me.’ Barley turned to me, exactly as he had done before, when I had first asked him

whether he would submit to the American questioning. ‘Harry? What do I do?’ Why did he insist on my opinion? It was unfair. I expect I looked as uncomfortable as Ned. I certainly felt so, though I managed a light-hearted shrug. ‘Either humour them and go along with it or tell them to go to hell. It’s up to you,’ I replied, much as I had on the first occasion. Thus, the eternal lawyer. Barley’s stillness again. His indecision slowly giving way to resignation. His separation from us as he stares through the window at the sea. ‘Well, let’s hope they don’t Page 153

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John Le Carre - The Russia House.txt catch me telling the truth,’ he says. He stands up and flips his wrists around, loosening his shoulders, while the rest of us like so many butlers confirm among ourselves by furtive looks and nods that our master has said yes. At their work Merv and Stanley had the respectful nimbleness of executioners. Either they had brought the chair with them or the island kept one for them as a permanency, an upright wooden throne with a scalloped arm-rest on the left side.

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