John Le Carré - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Finally he took the job in the library. The Labour Exchange put him on to it each Thursday morning as he drew his unemployment benefit, and he'd always turned it down.

"It's not really your cup of tea," Mr. Pitt said, "but the pay's fair and the work's easy for an educated man."

"What sort of library?" Leamas asked.

"It's the Bayswater Library for Psychic Research. It's an endowment. They've got thousands of volumes, all sorts, and they've been left a whole lot more. They want another helper."

He took his dole and the slip of paper. "They're an odd lot," Mr. Pitt added, "but then you're not a stayer anyway, are you? I think it's time you gave them a try, don't you?"

It was odd about Pitt. Leamas was certain he'd seen him before somewhere. At the Circus, during the war.

The library was like a church hall, and very cold. The black oil stoves at either end made it smell of paraffin. In the middle of the room was a cubicle like a witness box and inside it sat Miss Crail, the librarian.

It had never occurred to Leamas that he might have to work for a woman. No one at the Labour Exchange had said anything about that.

"I'm the new help," he said; "my name's Leamas."

Miss Crail looked up sharply from her card index, as if she had heard a rude word. "Help? What do you mean, help?"

"Assistant. From the Labour Exchange. Mr. Pitt." He pushed across the counter a form with his particulars entered in a sloping hand. She picked it up and studied it.

"You are Mr. Leamas." This was not a question, but the first stage of a laborious fact-finding investigation. "And you are from the Labour Exchange."

"No. I was sent by the Exchange. They told me you needed an assistant."

"I see." A wooden smile.

At that moment the telephone rang: she lifted the receiver and began arguing with somebody, fiercely. Leamas guessed they argued all the time; there were no preliminaries. Her voice just rose a key and she began arguing about some tickets for a concert. He listened for a minute or two and then drifted toward the bookshelves. He noticed a girl in one of the alcoves, standing on a ladder sorting large volumes.

"I'm the new man," he said, "my name's Leamas."

She came down from the ladder and shook his hand a little formally.

"I'm Liz Gold. How d'you do. Have you met Miss Crail?"

"Yes, but she's on the phone at the moment."

"Arguing with her mother I expect. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Work."

"We're marking at the moment; Miss Crail's started a new index."

She was a tall girl, ungainly, with a long waist and long legs. She wore flat, ballet type shoes to reduce her height. Her face, like her body, had large components which seemed to hesitate between plainness and beauty. Leamas guessed she was twenty-two or three, and Jewish.

"It's just a question of checking that all the books are on the shelves. This is the reference bit, you see. When you've checked, you pencil in the new reference and mark it off on the index."

"What happens then?"

"Only Miss Crail's allowed to ink in the reference. It's the rule."

"Whose rule?"

"Miss Crail's. Why don't you start on the archaeology?"

Leamas nodded and together they walked to the next alcove where a shoe box full of cards lay on the floor.

"Have you done this kind of thing before?" she asked.

"No." He stopped and picked up a handful of cards and shuffled through them. "Mr. Pitt sent me. From the Exchange." He put the cards back.

"Is Miss Crail the only person who can ink the cards, too?" Leamas inquired. "Yes."

She left him there, and after a moment's hesitation he took out a book and looked at the flyleaf. It was called Archaeological Discoveries in Asia Minor. Volume Four. They only seemed to have Volume Four.

It was one o'clock and Leamas was very hungry, so he walked over to where Liz Gold was sorting and said, "What happens about lunch?"

"Oh, I bring sandwiches." She looked a little embarrassed. "You can have some of mine if that would help. There's no café for miles."

Leamas shook his head.

"I'll go out, thanks. Got some shopping to do." She watched him push his way through the swing doors.

It was half past two when he came back. He smelled of whisky. He had one shopping bag full of vegetables and another containing groceries. He put them down in a corner of the alcove and wearily began again on the archaeology books. He'd been' marking for about ten minutes when he became aware that Miss Crail was watching him.

" Mister Leamas."

He was halfway up the ladder, so he looked down over his shoulder and said, "Yes?"

"Do you know where these shopping bags come from?"

"They're mine."

"I see. They are yours." Leamas waited. "I regret," she continued at last, "that we do not allow it, bringing shopping into the library."

"Where else can I put it? There's nowhere else I can put it."

"Not in the library," she replied. Leamas ignored her, and returned his attention to the archaeology section.

"If you only took the normal lunch break," Miss Crail continued, "you would not have time to go shopping anyway. Neither of us does, Miss Gold or myself; we do not have time to shop."

"Why don't you take an extra half hour?" Leamas asked. "You'd have time then. If you're pushed you can work another half hour in the evening. If you're pressed."

She stayed for some moments, just watching him and obviously thinking of something to say. Finally she announced: "I shall discuss it with Mr. Ironside," and went away.

At exactly half past five Miss Crail put on her coat and, with a pointed "Good night, Miss Gold," left. Leamas guessed she had been brooding on the shopping bags all afternoon. He went into the next alcove where Liz Gold was sitting on the bottom rung of her ladder reading what looked like a tract. When she saw Leamas she dropped it guiltily into her handbag and stood up.

"Who's Mr. Ironside?" Leamas asked.

"I don't think he exists," she replied. "He's her big gun when she's stuck for an answer. I asked her once who he was. She went all shifty and mysterious and said 'Never mind.' I don't think he exists."

"I'm not sure Miss Crail does," said Leamas, and Liz Gold smiled.

At six o'clock she locked up and gave the keys to the curator, a very old man with First World War shellshock who, said Liz, sat awake all night in case the Germans made a counterattack. It was bitterly cold outside.

"Got far to go?" asked Leamas.

"Twenty-minute walk. I always walk it. Have you?"

"Not far," said Leamas. "Good night."

He walked slowly back to the flat. He let himself in and turned the light switch. Nothing happened. He tried the light in the tiny kitchen and finally the electric fire that plugged in by his bed. On the doormat was a letter. He picked it up and took it out into the pale yellow light of the staircase. It was the electricity company, regretting that the area manager had no alternative but to cut off the electricity until the outstanding account of nine pounds, four shillings and eightpence had been settled.

He had become an enemy of Miss Crail, and enemies were what Miss Crail liked. Either she scowled at him or she ignored him, and when he came close, she began to tremble, looking to left and right, either for something with which to defend herself, or perhaps for a line of escape. Occasionally she would take immense umbrage, such as when he hung his mackintosh on her peg, and she stood in front of it shaking for fully five minutes, until Liz spotted her and called Leamas.

Leamas went over to her and said, "What's troubling you, Miss Crail?"

"Nothing," she replied in a breathy, clipped way, "nothing at all."