The Other Side of Silence

Anne French sat down on a chair beside the table and stared straight ahead of her. She was wearing a sober-looking sleeveless blue dress. Her hair was gathered at the back of her head in a knot. She looked like an innocent schoolgirl. By now I could smell the cloying scent of her perfume, and I suddenly remembered where the red wallet file I had seen on the table in front of the monk must have come from. It was one of her research files from the cabinet in her office in Villefranche.

“What is your name?” asked the monk.

“Anne French.”

“Would you please tell us why you’re here?”

Imperfect and partial evidence that she was about to betray me swiftly became something much more concrete.

“I’m an author by profession.” She smiled a rueful smile. “Not a very successful one, I’m afraid. It’s a job that enables me to travel to lots of different places and provides excellent cover for a spy. Like Somerset Maugham himself, you might say. Until recently I was also a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and an agent of the HVA-the East German Hauptverwaltung Aufklarung.”

“What’s your connection with East Germany?”

“Originally my mother was German. From Leipzig.”

“Do you speak German?”

“Fluently.”

All of this was news to me. Not once had she ever given me to suspect that she could speak my own language.

“And for how long have you been an agent for the East Germans?”

“I joined what was later to become the HVA on a trip to Leipzig in nineteen fifty; since then I have been involved in a number of clandestine operations here on the Riviera. Most recently I was asked to befriend the French minister of defense, Monsieur Bourges-Maunoury, who was staying at the Grand Hotel Cap Ferrat. I was to become his mistress so that I might spy on him for the HVA. This, however, was not successful. He’s a happily married man with two sons. Not long after this I received new orders from Berlin to-”

“Did you receive any special training for your work?” asked the monk.

“Some. I attended a few classes at an espionage school in Tschaikowskistrasse, in Berlin-Pankow. But to be honest it was mostly teaching table manners and social behavior to young East Germans who lacked social niceties. That wasn’t much good to me since I already had those manners. I was trained to use a radio transmitter, however. And a gun.”

“How did you receive your orders from Berlin?”

“Mostly by radio.”

Suddenly Anne’s devotion to her Hallicrafters and the BBC World Service took on a different meaning.

“I’m sorry, my dear. Do go on with your story.”

The “my dear” was nice; it helped me understand that they already believed whatever it was she had to tell them now, and told me to prepare for the worst.

“Not long after my abortive attempt to become the mistress of Monsieur Bourges-Maunoury I received new orders to join an operation with two agents of the HVA I’d met in Berlin. Bernhard Gunther and Harold Hennig.”

“Bullshit,” muttered Hennig. “What is this?”

“Can you identify these men?”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “There they are.”

Anne duly pointed us out, just in case there was any doubt about who we were. This was one of the few times in the proceedings that she ever looked at me, but she might as well have been looking at the postman.

“Can you describe the HVA operation, please?”

“Yes. It had been something that was planned at the highest level in the HVA by Comrade General Mielke himself. In short, it was a covert black operation designed to entice MI5 into eliminating or at the very least neutralizing the deputy director general of MI5, Roger Hollis. To persuade the British secret service that one of their most efficient and loyal spymasters was in fact a long-term spy working for Soviet military intelligence-the GRU. Gunther was already working in a deep cover position as the concierge at the Grand Hotel where, originally, it had been hoped he would help me carry through the honey trap for the French minister. But when this plan failed, the plan to discredit Roger Hollis-code-named Othello-went into immediate effect.”

“Can you explain how the plan was to work in detail?” said the monk.

“This is all a lie,” said Hennig.

“You’ll have a chance to speak,” said the monk. “Please allow Miss French to finish.”

Anne nodded patiently. “Thank you. Well, Comrade General Mielke’s idea was inspired by Shakespeare’s play Othello, he said. Iago sets about blackening the name and reputation of Desdemona, with a great show of reluctance and almost incrementally. Which was what was supposed to happen here. So, Harold Hennig arrived at the hotel posing as a businessman. His job was to blackmail Somerset Maugham with a compromising photograph featuring Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and Maugham himself. The photo had been sold to Anthony Blunt by the author’s nephew, Robin, and then stolen from Mr. Blunt’s flat in London, and sold to Hennig.”

“Stolen by whom?” asked the avuncular man with bad teeth.