A Perfect Spy

Evening mist lay in strips across the field. The surface of the lake popped with rising fish. With the sun setting, the larches threw mile-long shadows across the golden meadow. Sawn logs lay beside the barn door, boxes of geraniums adorned the windows. Pym thought again of Sabina. Her enfolding flanks, the broad spaces of her back. “What I tell you I have not told to any Englishman. In Prague I have a younger brother who is called Jan. If you tell this to Membury he will already dismiss me immediately. The British do not allow us to have close family inside a Communist country. Do you understand?” Yes, Sabina, I understand. I have seen the moonlight on your breasts, your moisture is on my lips, it is sticking to my eyelids. I understand. “Listen. My brother sends me this message for you. Only for Pym. He trusts you because of me and because I have told him only good things about you. He has a friend who wishes to come out. This friend is very gifted, very brilliant, top access. He will bring you many secrets about the Russians. But first you must invent a story for Membury to explain how you received this information. You are clever. You can invent many stories. Now you must invent one for my brother and his friend.” Yes, Sabina, I can invent. For you and your beloved brother I can invent a million stories. Get me my pen, Sabina. Where did you put my clothes? Now tear me a piece of paper from your diary and I will invent a story about a strange man who telephoned me at the Weisses Ross and made me an irresistible proposal.

Pym unbuttoned his loden. “Always draw across the body,” his weapons instructor had advised at the sad little depot in Sussex where they had taught him how to fight Communism. “It gives you better protection when the other laddie shoots first.” Pym was not sure this was good advice. He reached the door and it was closed. He walked round the barn, trying to find a place to peep in. “His information will be good for you,” Sabina had said. “It will make you very famous in Vienna, Membury also. Good intelligence from Czechoslovakia is extremely rare at Div. Int. Mostly it comes from the Americans and is therefore corrupt.”

The sun had set and the dusk was gathering fast. From across the lake Pym heard the yelping of a fox. Rows of chicken coops stood at the back of the barn and the straw in them was clean. Chickens in no-man’s-land, he thought frivolously. Stateless eggs. The chickens tucked their necks at him and blew out their feathers. A grey heron lifted from the lake and set course toward the hills. He returned to the front of the barn.

“Kaufmann!”

“Sir?”

A hundred metres lay between them but their voices were as close as lovers in the evening stillness.

“Did you cough?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, don’t.”

“I expect I was sobbing, sir.”

“Keep guard, but whatever you see, don’t come any nearer unless I order you.”

“I’d like to desert, if I may, sir. I’d rather be a defector than this, honestly. I’m a sitting target. I’m not a human being at all.”

“Do some mental sums or something.”

“I can’t. I’ve tried. Nothing comes.”

Pym lifted the door latch, stepped inside and smelt cigar smoke and horse. St. Moritz, he thought, lightheaded in his apprehension. The barn was cavernous and beautiful and raised at one end like an old ship. On the dais stood a table and on the table, to Pym’s surprise, a lighted oil lamp. By its glow he admired the ancient beams and roof. “Wait inside and he will come,” Sabina had said. “He will want to see you go in first. My brother’s friend is very cautious. Like many Czechs, he has a great and cautious mind.” Two high-backed wooden chairs were pulled to the table and magazines were strewn on it like in a dentist’s waiting-room. Must be where the farmer does his paperwork. At the end of the barn, he noticed a rustic ladder leading to a loft. At the weekend I’ll bring you here. I’ll bring wine and cheese and bread, and blankets in case it’s prickly, and you can wear your flouncy skirt with nothing underneath. He climbed halfway up the ladder and peered over. Sound floor, dry hay, no sign of rats. An admirable location for rustic Rococo. He returned to the ground floor and made his way towards the dais where the light burned, intending to settle down in one of the chairs. “You must be patient, if necessary all night,” Sabina had said. “Crossing the border is extremely dangerous now. It is late summer and the doubters are coming over before the passes close. Therefore they have many guards and spies.” A stone pathway ran between two cattle drains. His feet echoed thickly in the roof. The echo stopped, his feet with it. A slender figure was seated at the head of the table. He was leaning alertly forward, posing for something. He held a cigar in one hand and an automatic pistol in the other. His gaze, like the barrel of the automatic, was fixed on Pym.