A Perfect Spy

“You have landed a great coup, Sir Magnus,” he declared proudly as Pym lifted the cover. “Took me a lot of spying to get it for you. A lot of risks. Never mind. It’s better than Grimmelshausen, I think. If they ever find out what I’ve done, I can bring you my balls as well.”

* * *

Pym closes his eyes and opens them again, but it is the same night in the same barn. “I’m a little fat Czech sergeant who loves his vodka,” Axel is explaining while Pym continues in a dream to turn the pages of his gift. “I’m a good soldier Schweik. Did we read that book? My name is Pavel. Hear me? Pavel.”

“Of course we read it. It was great. Is this genuine, Axel? It isn’t a joke or anything?”

“You think fat Pavel takes a risk like this to bring you a joke? He has a wife who beats him, kids who hate him, Russian bosses who treat him worse than a dog. Are you listening?”

With half his head, yes, Pym is listening. He is reading too.

“Your good friend Axel H, he doesn’t exist. You never met him tonight. In Bern long ago, sure, you met a sickly German soldier who was writing a great book and maybe his name was Axel, what’s a name? But Axel vanished. Some bad guy informed against him, you never knew what happened. Tonight you are meeting fat Sergeant Pavel of Czech Army Intelligence who likes garlic and screwing and betraying his superiors. He speaks Czech and German, and the Russians use him as a dogsbody because they don’t trust the Austrians. One week he’s hanging around their headquarters in Wiener Neustadt playing messenger boy and interpreter, the next he’s freezing his arse off on the zonal border looking for small spies. The week after that he’s back in his garrison in Southern Czecho being kicked around by more Russians.” Axel is tapping Pym’s arm. “See this? Pay attention. Here’s a copy of his paybook. Look at it, Sir Magnus. Concentrate. He brought it for you because he doesn’t expect anybody ever to believe anything he says unless it is accompanied by Unterlagen. You remember Unterlagen? Papers? They are what I didn’t have in Bern. Take it with you. Show it to Membury.”

Reluctantly Pym lifts his eyes from his reading long enough to notice the wad of glossy paper Axel is holding up for him to admire. A photocopy in those days is a big matter: plate photographs, tied into a looseleaf book with bootlaces through the holes. Axel presses it upon Pym and again rouses him sufficiently from the material in the folder to make him study the portrait of the bearer: a piggy, part-shaven little man with puffy eyes and a pout.

“That is me, Sir Magnus,” Axel says, and bangs Pym on the shoulder quite hard to assure his attention, exactly as he used to in Bern. “Look at him, will you? He’s a greedy, grubby fellow. Farts a lot, scratches his head, steals his Commandant’s chickens. But he doesn’t like his country to be occupied by a bunch of sweating Ivans who swagger round the streets of Prague and tell him he’s a stinking little Czech, and he doesn’t like being packed down to Austria at somebody’s whim to play toady to a lot of drunk Cossacks. So he’s brave too, you follow me? He’s a brave little greasy coward.”

Pym again pauses in his reading, this time to register a bureaucratic complaint which later causes him some shame. “It’s all very well inventing this delightful character, Axel, but what am I to do with him?” he reasons in an aggrieved tone. “I’m supposed to produce a defector, not a paybook. They want a warm body back there in Graz. I haven’t got one, have I?”

“You idiot!” cries Axel, pretending to be exasperated by Pym’s obtuseness. “You guileless English baby! Have you never heard of a defector in place? Pavel is a defector! He’s defecting but staying where he is. In three weeks’ time he’ll come here again, bring you more material. He’ll defect not just once but if you are sensible twenty times, a hundred. He’s an intelligence clerk, a courier, a low-grade fieldman, a bottlewasher, a coding sergeant and a pimp. Don’t you understand what that means in terms of access? He will bring you wonderful intelligence again and again. His friends in the frontier unit will help him cross. Next time we meet you will have Vienna’s questions for him. You will be at the centre of a fantastic industry: ‘Can you get us this, Pavel? What does this mean, Pavel?’ If you’re polite to him, if you come alone, bring him a nice present, maybe he’ll answer them.”

“And will it be you — will I see you?”

“You will see Pavel.”

“And will you be Pavel?”

“Sir Magnus. Listen.” Pushing aside the briefcase that lay between them, Axel bangs his glass beside Pym’s and yanks his chair so close that his shoulder is nudging against Pym’s shoulder and his mouth is at Pym’s ear. “Are you being very, very attentive now?”

“Of course I am.”