John le Carre - Our kind of traitor

Yes, Perry would like to know who has tattooed a topless Madonna and her female choir on to Dima's enormous arm, and taken six months to do it. He would like to know what relevance the Holy Virgin has to Dima's quest for a place at Roedean for Natasha, or permanent residence in Britain for all his family in exchange for vital information, but the English tutor in him is also learning that Dima the storyteller has his own narrative arc and that his plots unfold with indirection.

'My Rufina make this. She was zek, like me. Camp hooker, sick from tuberculosis, one hour each day. When she finish, she die. Jesus Christ, huh? Jesus Christ.'

A respectful quiet while both men contemplate Rufina's masterpiece.

'Know what is Kolyma, Professor?' Dima asks, still with a husk in his voice. 'You heard?'

Yes, Perry knows what is Kolyma. He has read his Solzhenitsyn. He has read his Shalamov. He knows that Kolyma is a river north of the Arctic Circle that has given its name to the harshest camps in the Gulag archipelago, before or after Stalin. He knows zek too: zek for Russia's prisoners, the millions and millions of them.

'With fourteen I was goddam zek in Kolyma. Criminal, not political. Political is shit. Criminal is pure. Fifteen years I serve there.'

'Fifteen in Kolyma?'

'Sure, Professor. I done fifteen.'

The anguish has gone out of Dima's voice, to be replaced by pride.

'For criminal prisoner Dima, other prisoners got respect. Why I was in Kolyma? I was murderer. Good murderer. Who I murder? Lousy Sovietsky apparatchik in Perm. Our father suicide himself, got tired, drank lotta vodka. My mother, to give us food, soap, she gotta fuck this lousy apparatchik. In Perm, we live in communal apartment. Eight crappy rooms, thirty people, one crappy kitchen, one shithouse, everybody stink and smoke. Kids do not like this lousy apparatchik who fuck our mother. We gotta stand outside in kitchen, very thin wall, when apparatchik come to visit us, bring food, fuck my mother. Everybody stare at us: listen to your mother, she's a whore. We gotta put our hands over our goddam ears. You wanna know something, Professor?'

Perry does.

'This guy, this apparatchik, know where he get his food?'

Perry does not.

'He's a fucking military administrator! Distributes food in barracks. Carries a gun. Nice pretty gun, leather case, big hero. You wanna try fucking with a gun belt round your arse? You gotta be big acrobat. This military administrator, this apparatchik, he take off shoes. He take off his pretty gun. He put gun in shoes. OK, I think. Maybe you fuck my mother enough. Maybe you don't fuck her no more. Maybe nobody gonna stare at us no more like we're whore's kids. I knock on door. I open it. I am polite. "Excuse me," I say. "Is Dima. Excuse me, Comrade Lousy Apparatchik. Please I borrow your pretty gun? Kindly look me in my face once. You don't look me, how do I kill you? Thank you so much, Comrade." My mother look me. She don't say nothing. Apparatchik look me. I kill the fuck. One bullet.'

Dima's forefinger rests on the bridge of his nose, indicating where the bullet went. Perry is reminded of the same forefinger resting on his sons' noses in the middle of the tennis match.

'Why I murder this apparatchik?' Dima inquires rhetorically. 'Was for my mother who protect her children. Was for love of my crazy father who suicide himself. Was for honour of Russia, I kill this fuck. Was to stop stares they give us in corridor, maybe. Therefore in Kolyma I am welcome prisoner. I am krutoi – good fellow, got no problems, pure. I am not political. I am criminal. I am hero, I am fighter. I kill military apparatchik, maybe also Chekist. Why else they give me fifteen? I have honour. I am not -'

*

Reaching this point in his story, Perry faltered, and his voice became diffident:

'I am not woodpecker. I am not dog, Professor,' he offered dubiously.

'He means informant,' Hector explained. 'Woodpecker, dog, hen: take your pick. They all mean informant. He's trying to persuade you that he isn't one when he is.'

With a nod of respect for Hector's superior knowledge, Perry resumed.

*

'One day, after three years, this good boy Dima will become man. How he become man? My friend Nikita will make him man. Who is Nikita? Nikita is also honourable, also good fighter, big criminal. He will be father to this good boy Dima. He will be brother to him. He will protect Dima. He will love Dima. It will be pure love. One day, it is very good day for me, proud day, Nikita bring me to vory. You know what is vory, Professor? You know what is vor?'

Yes, Perry even knows what is vory. He knows vor too. He has read his Solzhenitsyn, he has read his Shalamov. He has read that in the Gulag the vory are the prisoners' arbiters and enforcers of justice, a brotherhood of criminals of honour sworn to abide by a strict code of conduct, to renounce marriage, property and subservience to the State; that the vory venerate priesthood and dabble in its mystique; and that vor is the singular of vory, plural. And that the vory's pride is to be Criminals within the Law, an aristocracy far removed from street riff-raff who have never known a law in their lives.

'My Nikita speak to very big vory committee. Many big criminals are present for this meeting, many good fighters. He tell to vory: "My dear brothers, here is Dima. Dima is ready, my brothers. Take him." So they take Dima, they make him man. They make him criminal of honour. But Nikita must still protect Dima. This is because Dima – is – his -'

As Dima the criminal of honour hunts for the mot juste, Perry the outward-bound Oxford don comes to his assistance:

'Disciple?'

'Disciple! Yes, Professor! Like for Jesus! Nikita will protect his disciple Dima. This is normal. This is vory law. He will protect him always. This is promise. Nikita has made me vor. Therefore he protect me. But he die.'

Dima dabs at his bald brow with his handkerchief, then smears his wrist across his eyes, then pinches his nostrils between his finger and thumb like a swimmer emerging from the water. When the hand comes down, Perry sees that he is weeping for Nikita's death.

*

Hector has called a natural break. Luke has made coffee. Perry accepts a cup, and a chocolate digestive while he's about it. The lecturer in him is in full flood, rallying his facts and observations, presenting them with all the accuracy and precision he can muster. But nothing can quite douse the glint of excitement in his eyes, or the flush of his gaunt cheeks.

And perhaps the self-editor in him is aware of this, and troubled by it: which is why, when he resumes, he selects a staccato, almost offhand style of narrative more in keeping with pedagogic objectivity than the rush of adventure:

'Nikita had picked up a camp fever. It was midwinter. Minus sixty degrees Celsius, or thereabouts. A lot of prisoners were dying. Guards didn't give a damn. The hospitals weren't there to cure, they were places to die in. Nikita was a tough nut and took a long time dying. Dima tended him. Missed his prison work, got the punishment cell. Each time they let him out, he went back to Nikita in the hospital until they dragged him off again. Beating, starving, light deprivation, chained to a wall in sub-zero temperatures. All the stuff you people outsource to less fastidious countries, and pretend you know nothing about,' he adds, in a spurt of semi-humorous belligerence that falls flat. 'And while he was comforting Nikita, they agreed that Dima would induct his own protege into the vory Brotherhood. It was a solemn moment, apparently: the dying Nikita appointing his posterity by way of Dima. A passing of the chalice across three generations of criminals. Dima's protege – disciple, as he was now pleased to call him, thanks to me, I'm afraid – was one Mikhail, alias Misha.' Perry reproduces the moment: