The Little Drummer Girl

The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré Read Free Book Online

Book: The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré Read Free Book Online
Authors: John le Carré
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Thrillers, Espionage
wire," he murmured, but Schulmann chose not to hear him.
    "By then we knew who they were--West Bankers from a grape-growing village near Hebron, fled after the war of ‘67. There was a fourth brother, but he was too young to fight, even by Palestinian standards. There were two sisters, but one of them had died in certain reprisal bombings we had to carry out south of the Litani River. That didn't leave much of an army. All the same, we kept looking for our man. We expected him to collect reinforcements, come back at us. He didn't. He ceased trading. Six months passed. A year. We said, ‘Forget him. Most likely his own people have killed him, which is normal.' We heard the Syrians had given him a rough time, so maybe he'd died. A few months back, we picked up a rumour he'd come to Europe. Here. Put himself a team together, several of them ladies, mostly German, young." He took another mouthful, chewed and swallowed thoughtfully. "He was running them at arm's length," he went on when he was ready. "Playing the Arab Mephistopheles to a bunch of impressionable kids," he said.
    At first, in the long silence that followed, Alexis could not make Schulmann out. The sun, high above the brown hills, shone directly into the window. In the resulting brilliance it was hard for Alexis to read his expression. Alexis moved his head and took another look at him. Why this sudden milky clouding of the dark eyes? he wondered. And was it really the sunlight that had bleached Schulmann's skin of colour, leaving it cracked and sickly like something dead? Then, in a day filled with bright and sometimes painful perceptions, Alexis recognised the passion which till then had remained hidden from him: here in the restaurant; down there in the sleepy spa town with its sprawling ministerial cantonments. As some men may be seen to be in love, so Schulmann was possessed by a deep and awesome hatred.
    Schulmann left that evening. The remnants of his team hung on for two more days. A farewell celebration, with which the Silesian was determined to mark the excellent relations traditionally existing between the two services--an evening get-together, with white beer and sausages--was quietly sabotaged by Alexis, who pointed out that since the Bonn Government had chosen that very day to drop heavy hints about a possible forthcoming arms deal with the Saudis, it was unlikely their guests would be in festive mood. It was perhaps his last effective act in office. A month later, as Schulmann had foretold, he was shunted off to Wiesbaden. A back-room job, theoretically a promotion, but one that gave less rein to his capricious individuality. An unkind newspaper, once counted among the good Doctor's supporters, sourly recorded that Bonn's loss would be the television viewer's gain. His one consolation indeed, at a time when so many of his German friends were hastily giving up their claims on him, was the warm little handwritten note of good wishes, postmark Jerusalem, that greeted him on his first day at his new desk. Signed "As ever,Schulmann,"it wished him luck and looked forward to their next meeting, whether private or official. A wry postscript hinted that Schulmann too was not having the easiest of times. "Unless I deliver soon, I have an uncomfortable feeling I shall be joining you," it said. With a smile, Alexis tossed the card into a drawer where anyone could read it, and no doubt would. He knew exactly what Schulmann was doing and admired him for it: he was laying the innocent basis for their future relationship. A couple of weeks later, again, when Dr. Alexis and his youthful lady went through an anticlimactic wedding ceremony, it was Schulmann's roses, of all the gifts, that gave him the greatest joy and the greatest amusement. And I didn't even tell him I was getting married!
    Those roses were like the promise of a new love affair, just as he was needing one.
    two
    Almost eight weeks passed before the man whom Dr. Alexis knew as Schulmann returned to

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