A Perfect Spy

“Where is Carlsbad?” Pym asked before he had allowed himself a second’s thought, and noticed at once an awkwardness round him as if everybody had heard the bad news except for himself who was deemed not old enough to receive it.

“Carlsbad no longer exists, Sir Magnus,” Axel replied politely. “When you have read Simplicissimus you will understand why.”

“Where was it?”

“It was my home town.”

“Then you have given me a treasure from your own past.”

“Would you prefer me to give you something I did not value?”

And Pym — what had he brought? God help him, the Chairman and Managing Director’s son was not used to ceremonies with meaning, and had thought of nothing better than a box of cigars to see dear old Axel right.

* * *

“Why does Carlsbad no longer exist?” Pym asked Herr Ollinger as soon as he could get him alone. Herr Ollinger knew everything except how to run a factory. Carlsbad was in the Sudetenland, he explained. It was a beautiful spa city and everybody used to go there: Brahms and Beethoven, Goethe and Schiller. First it was Austria, then it became Germany. Now it was Czechoslovakia and had a new name and the Germans had all been chucked out.

“So who does Axel belong to?” Pym asked.

“Only to us, I think,” said Herr Ollinger gravely. “And we must be careful of him or they will take him away from us, you may be sure.”

“He has women in his room,” said Pym.

Herr Ollinger’s face turned pink with impish pleasure. “I think he has all the women of Bern,” he agreed.

A couple of days passed. On the third Pym banged on Axel’s door and found him standing smoking at the open window with several heavy-looking books before him on the sill. He must have been freezing but he seemed to need the open air to read by.

“Come for a stroll,” said Pym boldly.

“At my speed?”

“Well we can’t go at mine, can we?”

“My constitution dislikes crowded places, Sir Magnus. If we are to walk, better we stay out of town.”

They borrowed Bastl and wandered with him along the empty towpath beside the racing Aare while Herr Bastl peed and refused to follow and Pym did his best to keep an eye open for anyone who looked like a policeman. In the sunless river valley the frost drifted about in evil clouds and the cold was merciless. Axel seemed not to notice. He puffed at his cigar while he tossed out questions in his soft, amused voice. If this is how he walked from Austria, thought Pym, shivering in his wake, he must have taken years.

“How did you reach Bern, Sir Magnus? Were you advancing or retreating?” Axel asked.

Never able to resist an opportunity to portray himself on a fresh page, Pym went to work. And though, as was his wont, he took care to improve upon the reality, rearranging the facts to fit his prevailing image of himself, an instinctive caution nevertheless counselled him restraint. True, he endowed himself with a noble and eccentric mother, and true, when he came to describe Rick he awarded him many of the qualities Rick unsuccessfully aspired to, such as wealth, military distinction and daily access to the Highest in the Land. But in other respects he was frugal and self-mocking and when he came to the story of E. Weber, which he had not told anyone till now, Axel laughed so much he had to sit on a bench and light another cigar to get his wind back, while Pym laughed with him, delighted by his success. And when he showed him her very letter saying, “Never mind. E. Weber love you always,” he shouted, “Nochmal! Tell it again, Sir Magnus! I order you! And make sure it is completely different this time. Did you sleep with her?”

“Of course.”

“How many times?”

“Four or five.”

“All in one night? You are a tiger! Was she grateful?”

“She was very, very experienced.”

“More than your Jemima?”

“Well, jolly nearly.”

“More than your wicked Lippsie who seduced you when you were still a little boy?”

“Well, Lippsie was in a class of her own.”

Axel slapped him gaily on the back. “Sir Magnus, you are a prince, no question. You are a dark horse, you know that? Such a good little boy, yet you sleep with dangerous adventuresses and young English aristocrats. I love you, hear me? I love all English aristocrats, but you best.”

Walking again, Axel had to shove his arm through Pym’s to support himself, and from then on used him unashamedly as his walking-stick. For the rest of our lives we have seldom walked in any other way.

* * *