John le Carre - Our kind of traitor

'You see my Natasha?'

Perry has seen his Natasha.

'She beautiful?'

Perry has no difficulty assuring Dima that Natasha is indeed very beautiful.

'Ten, twelve book a week, she don't givva shit. Read them all. You wanna get a few student like that, you be goddam happy.'

Perry says he would indeed be happy.

'Ride horse, dance ballet. Ski so beautiful like goddam bird. Wanna know something? Her mother. She got dead. I loved this woman. OK?'

Perry makes noises of regret.

'Maybe I fuck too many women once. Some guys, they need a lotta women. Good women, they wanna be the only one. You screw around, they go a bit crazy. That's a pity.'

Perry agrees it's a pity.

'Jesus God, Professor!' He is leaning forward, stabbing at Perry's knee with his index finger. 'Natasha's mother, I love that woman, I love her so much I explode, hear me? Love like make your guts on fire. Your prick, balls, heart, brain, your soul: they live only for this love.' He makes another pass of the back of his hand across his mouth, mutters 'like your Gail, beautiful', takes a shot of vodka and continues. 'Her bastard husband kill her,' he confides. 'Know why?'

No, Perry does not know why Natasha's mother's bastard husband killed Natasha's mother, but he is waiting to discover, just as he is waiting to discover whether he really is in a madhouse.

'Natasha she my child. When Natasha's mother tell this to him because she cannot lie, the bastard kill her. One day, maybe I find this bastard. Kill him. Not with gun. With these.'

He holds up his improbably delicate hands for Perry's inspection. Perry dutifully admires them.

'My Natasha go to Eton School, OK? Tell this to your spies. Or no deal.'

For a brief moment, in a violently rotating world, Perry feels himself on firm ground.

'I'm not absolutely sure that Eton takes girls yet,' he says cautiously.

'I pay good. I give swimming pool. No problem.'

'Even so, I don't think they'll change the rules for her.'

'So where she go?' Dima demands recklessly, as if it's Perry and not the school who is making the difficulties.

'There's a place called Roedean. It's supposed to be the girls' equivalent of Eton.'

'Number one for England?'

'People say so.'

'Kids of intellectuals? Lords? Nomenklatura?'

'It's a school for the high end of British society, put it that way.'

'Cost lotta money?'

'A great lot.'

Dima is only half appeased.

'OK,' he growls. 'When we make deal with your spies. Number-one condition: Roedean School.'

*

Hector's mouth is wide open. He gawps at Perry, then at Luke beside him, then at Perry again. He passes his hand through his unkempt mop of white hair in frank disbelief.

'Holy fucking cow,' he murmurs. 'How about a commission in the Household Cavalry for his twin sons while he's about it? What did you tell him?'

'I promised I'd do my absolute best,' Perry replies, feeling himself drawn to Dima's side. 'It's the England he thinks he loves. What else was I supposed to say to him?'

'You did marvellously,' Hector enthuses. And little Luke agrees, marvellous being a word they share.

*

'You remember Mumbai, Professor? Last November? The crazy Pakistani guys, kill the whole goddam world? Take orders over their cells? The goddam cafe they shoot up? The Jews they kill? Hostages? The hotels, train stations? The goddam kids, mothers, all dead? How the fuck they do that, those crazy bastards?'

Perry has no suggestions.

'My kids cut a finger, bleed a bit, I wanna throw up,' Dima protests indignantly. 'I done enough death in my life, hear me? Whadda they wanna do that for, the crazy fucks?'

Perry the unbeliever would like to say 'for God' but says nothing. Dima steels himself, then takes the plunge:

'OK. You tell this once to your goddam English spies, Professor,' he urges with another lurch into aggression. 'October two thousand eight. Remember the fucking date. A friend call me. OK? A friend?'

OK. Another friend.

'Pakistani guy. A syndicate we do business with. October 30, middle of the goddam night, he call me. I'm in Berne, Switzerland, very quiet city, lot of bankers. Tamara she's asleep beside me. Wakes up. Gives me the goddam phone: for you. It's this guy. Hear me?'

Perry hears him.

'"Dima," he tell to me. "Here is your friend, Khalil." Bullshit. His name's Mohamed. Khalil, that's a special name he got for certain cash business I'm connected with, who givva shit? "I got hot market tip for you, Dima. Very big, very hot tip. Very special. You guys gotta remember it was me who tell you this tip. You remember for me?" OK, I say. Sure. Four o'clock in the goddam morning, some piece shit about the Mumbai stock market. Never mind. I tell him, OK, we remember it's you, Khalil. We got good memory. Nobody stiff you. What's your hot tip?

'"Dima, you gotta get the fuck outta the Indian stock market or you catch big cold." "What?" I say, "what, Khalil? You fucking crazy? Why we gonna catch a big cold in Mumbai? We got a shitload respectable business in Mumbai. Regular, squeaky-fucking-clean investments, took me five years I clean – services, tea, timber, hotels so fucking white and big the Pope could hold a mass in them." My friend don't listen. "Dima, hear me, get the fuck outta Mumbai. Maybe a month after, you take strong position again, make a few million. But first you get the fuck outta those hotels."'

A fist again passes across Dima's face, punching away the sweat. He whispers Jesus God to himself and stares around their tiny box for help. 'You gonna tell this to your English apparatchiks, Professor?'

Perry will do what he can.

'Night October 30 two thousand eight, after this Pakistani arsehole wake me up, I don't sleep good, OK?'

'Next morning October 31 I call my goddam Swiss banks. "Get me the fuck outta Mumbai." Services, timber, tea, I got maybe thirty per cent. Hotels seventy. Couple week later, I'm in Rome. Tamara call me. "Turn on the goddam television." What do I watch? Those crazy Pakistani fucks shooting the shit outta Mumbai, Indian stock market stop trading. Next day, Indian Hotels are down sixteen per cent to 40 rupees and falling. March this year, they hit 31. Khalil call me. "OK, my friend, now you get the fuck back in. Remember it's me who told you this." So I get the fuck back in.' The sweat is pouring down his bald face. 'End of year, Indian Hotels are 100 rupees. I make twenty million profit cold. The Jews are dead, the hostages are dead and I'm a fucking genius. You tell this to your English spies, Professor. Jesus God.'

The sweated face a mask of self-disgust. The cracking of the rotten weatherboards in the sea-wind. Dima has talked himself to a point of no return. Perry has been observed and tested and found good.

*

Washing his hands in the prettily decked-out upstairs lavatory, Perry peers into the mirror and is impressed by the eagerness of a face he is beginning not to know. He hurries back down the thickly carpeted staircase.

'Another nip?' Hector asks, flapping a lazy hand in the direction of the drinks tray. 'Luke, lad, how's about making us a pot of coffee?'

In the road above the basement, an ambulance tears past, and the howl of its siren is like a scream for the whole world's pain.

In the wind-beaten, half-hexagon turret overlooking the bay, Dima is unrolling the satin sleeve from his left arm. By the changeful moonlight that has replaced the vanished sun, Perry discerns a bare-breasted Madonna surrounded by voluptuous angels in alluring poses. The tattoo descends from the tip of Dima's massive shoulder to the gold wristband of his bejewelled Rolex watch.

'You wanna know who make this tattoo for me, Professor?' he whispers in a voice husky with emotion. 'Six goddam month every day one hour?'