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Absolute
Friends by John Le Carre Rating: • (Read only
if your interest is strong) |
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Lukewarm Readers
know that John Le Carre (David Here’s
an excerpt from the beginning of Chapter 7, pp. 182-187: The
psychedelic bus has lumbered out of view; the troupe’s last tragic howls of
farewell have merged into the din of traffic. Mundy and Amory are seated
opposite each other in a sound-proofed safe room across the corridor 1mm
Amory’s bare office, a tape recorder turns on the
cork table between them. Even as we speak, says Amory the crock of gold is
winging its way to Dog
tired and overstimulated at once, Mundy answers Amory’s
questions brilliantly for an hour, then raggedly for another, before he
starts to doze off [or want of oxygen in the womb. Back in the reception room
where he waits for Amory to dispose of the tape, he falls fast asleep, barely
wakes for the short car journey to wherever Amory is taking him, and conies
round to discover that he is shaved and showered and holding a whiskey and
soda in his hand, and standing at he lace-curtained window of a pleasant flat
overlooking the Kleistpark, with sturdy
representatives of Berlin’s petit bourgeoisie, including many unawakened mothers with prams. strolling
in the pleasant evening sunlight fifty feet below Firm. If he is an object of
curiosity to Amory he is a mystery to himself. The stress, the realization of
what he has unleashed, and a bunch of accumulated anxieties that he has put
aside till nova have left him drained and bewildered. “So
maybe it’s time you called your Kate while I powder my,” Amory suggests, with
the smile that never leaves his face. To
which Mundy says, oh, well, yes, that’s what’s bothering him actually: Kate,
and the problem of what exactly to tell her. “Not
a problem at all’ Amory corrects him cheerfully. “Your conversation will he
monitored by at least six intelligence services, so all you can do is play it
down the middle.’ ‘What
middle?’ “You’re
being kept here by the British Council, reasons to follow- ‘Held up darling
trouble at mill — my lords and masters are begging me to stay on till it’s
sorted. Tschuss,
Edward.’ She’s a professional girl. She’ll understand,” Where
am I staying?” Here.
Tell her it’s a bachelor officers’ hostel, that’ll put her mind at rest. Same
number as on the phone. Don’t gild the lily too much and she’ll believe you.” And
she does. While Amory powders his nose, Kate believes Mundy with a conviction
that accuses him almost beyond bearing. Yet minutes later he’s back in
Anion’s car Swapping jokes with Cliff the sergeant at the wheel, and the next
thing he knows he’s sitting in this new fish place in the Grunewald
that a hit of people don’t know about yet, thank God, because Berlin’s so
bloody incestuous these days. And over dinner, which they enjoy head to head
in a timbered cubicle darkened for lovers and conveniently bombarded with
live music and hubbub, Mundy again magically recovers his spirits— so much so
that, when Amory playfully asks him whether, as a confirmed lefty he regrets
forsaking the sanctuary of Communist Europe for the decadence of the capitalist
West, Mundy startles not just Amory hut himself with a full-throated
condemnation of Soviet communism and all its works. And
perhaps he really feels all this, or perhaps he’s
having a last shudder as he looks back with horror on his foolhardiness.
Either way Amory is not about to let the moment pass. ‘If
you want it straight, Edward, you’re a born One of Us,” he says. “Onward and
upward is the cry. So thanks and welcome aboard, Cheers.’ And
it is From there — Mundy is never afterwards sure why, but t seems at the
time perfectly natural — that the conversation shifts to the strictly
academic question of what a chap should or shouldn’t reasonably tell his wife
in a situation like this, without
anybody precisely identifying what situation they are referring to And Amory’s
point, which he offers tentatively hut on the strength of a certain amount of
experience, Edward, is that burdening people one loves with information they
don’t need and cant do anything about is as hurtful — and self-indulgent — as
not telling them anything at all, and arguably more so. But that’s just Amory’s
personal view, and Edward may feel differently. For
example, if the person one is proposing to confide in is pregnant, Amory goes
on lightly. Or
if they’re naturally warmhearted and trusting, and haven’t got the checks and
balances to keep something as big as this bottled up inside them. Or
if they’re someone of high principle, say who might have problems reconciling
heir political beliefs with — well certain activities directed against a
certain enemy or ideology which they don’t see in the same light as we do. In
short if they’re Kate and have enough to worry about already, what with a
school department to run, and a house to run, and a husband to take care of,
and a first baby on the near horizon, and a bunch of Trotskyists
to flush out of the St. Pancras Labor Party — because
somewhere along the line, Mundy must have old Amory about them too. The
Kleisipark flat is not Amory’s. And it’s not a
bachelor officers hostel either. It’s a place he
keeps for what he calls the odd chum who’s floating through town and doesn’t neccessarily want to announce his presence. And anyway Amory
needs to get back to the office for an hour in case anything new has come in
from But
Cliff here will be in the bedroom next to you ii you need anything. And
Cliff always knows how to find me. And
if you’re thinking of an early walk, which you tell me you’re a devil for, I’m
game. Meanwhile, get some sleep. And well done again. I’ll
try Mundy
lies wide awake — as awake as last night in Cut
and run, he tells himself. You don’t need this stuff. You’ve got Kate, the
baby, the job, the house. You’re not a But
while he gives himself this advice he remembers, and elsewhere in his head was
remembering all along, that Nick Amory has his passport — only a formality,
Edward, you’ll get it back in the morning. And
he also knows that, in handing over the passport, he was entirely alive to
the significance of what he was doing, and so was Amory. He
was joining. A Born One of Us was signing up to His Own. He wasn’t submitting, he wasn’t being
press-ganged. He
was saying, “I’m in,” just as he was saying it over dinner when he was
winging off about the awfulness of Communist life. He was offering himself as
a playing member of Amory’s team because that was how he saw himself in the
flush of his success, and how Amory saw him too. So
just remind me, please, how I got into this mess in the first place. It
wasn’t Amory who recruited me, it was Sasha. Amory
didn’t dump a sackful of secrets in my lap and say,
“Here, take this lot and give it to the British Secret Service.” Sasha did. So
am I doing this for Mother England, or for a
self-flagellating anti-Lutheran on the run from God? Answer:
I’m not bloody well doing it at all. I’m jumping ship. All
right, Sasha’s my friend. Not a friend I
necessarily like, but a friend, a loyal one, and an old one, a friend who
needs my protection And, God knows, has had it. A friend who also happens to
be a chaos addict, waging a fanatical one-man war against all forms of
established order. And
now he’s found himself another temple to pull down, so good luck to him. But
he’s not pulling me down with it. Or
Kate. Or
the baby. Or
the house. Or the job. And
that’s what I’m going to be telling Amory in a couple of hours’ time when I
take him up on that early walk he was talking about. “Nick,” I’ll be saying.
“You’re a fine professional, I respect But
there is no early walk. There is Nick Amory hovering over him in the gray
light of dawn, telling him to get dressed now. “Why?
Where are we going?” “Home. The shortest route.” “Why?” “The
analysts have given you an alpha double plus.” “What
the hell’s that?” “Best
there is. Vital to national security. Your chum must have been hamstering the stuff for years. They’re asking whether
you’d prefer a VC or a peerage.” Proceed
with caution, and be prepared for disappointment if you choose to proceed
with reading Absolute
Friends. Steve
Hopkins, February 23, 2004 |
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ă 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the March 2004
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Absolute
Friends.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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