The Night Manager by John le Carré Read Free Book Online Page B

Jonathan's ear long after he has rung off.
    Jonathan and Sophie sit side by side on the flat roof of the Chicago House, drinking vodka and staring at the stars. On the flight she has barely spoken. He has offered her food, but she wants none. He has put a shawl over her shoulders.
    "Roper is the worst man in the world," she announces.
    Jonathan's experience of the world's villains is limited. His instinct is to blame himself first and others afterwards.
    "I guess anyone in his business is pretty frightful," he says.
    "He has no excuse," she retorts, unappeased by his moderation.
    "He is healthy. He is white. He is rich. He is wellborn, well educated. He has grace." Roper's enormity grows as she contemplates his virtues. "He is at ease with the world. He is amusing. Confident. Yet he destroys it. What is missing in him?" She waits for him to say something, but in vain. "How does he come to be like this? He was not dragged up in the back streets. He is blessed. You are a man. Perhaps you know."
    But Jonathan doesn't know anything anymore. He is watching the outline of her battered face against the night sky. What will you do? he was asking her in his mind. What will I?
    He switched off Heir Strippli's television set. The war ended. I loved you. I loved you with your smashed face as we walked at arm's length among the temples of Karnak. Mr. Pine, you said, it is time to make the rivers flow uphill.
    It was two a. m., the hour at which Herr Meister required Jonathan to make his rounds. He began in the lobby, where he always began. He stood at the centre of the carpet where Roper had stood, and listened to the restless night sounds of the hotel, sounds that by day were lost in the hubbub: the throb of the furnace, the growl of a vacuum cleaner, the clink of plates from the room-service kitchen, the footfall of a waiter on the back stair. He stood where he stood every night, imagining her stepping from the lift, her face repaired, her dark glasses shoved into her black hair, crossing the lobby and pulling up before him while she quizzically examines him for flaws. "You are Mr. Pine. The flower of England. And you betrayed me."
    Old Horwitz the night concierge was sleeping at his counter. He had laid his cropped head in the crook of his arm. You're still a refugee, Horwitz, thought Jonathan. March and sleep. March and sleep. He set the old man's empty coffee cup safely outside his reach.
    At the reception desk, Fräulein Eberhardt had been relieved by Fräulein Vipp, a greyed, obliging woman with a brittle smile.
    "Can I see tonight's late arrivals, please, Fräulein Vipp?"
    She handed him the Tower Suite registration forms. Alexander, Lord Langbourne, alias no doubt Sandy. Address: Tortola, British Virgin Islands. Profession, according to Corkoran: Peer of the realm. Accompanied by wife, Caroline. No reference to the long hair tied at the nape, or to what a peer of the realm might do apart from being a peer. Onslow Roper, Richard. Profession: Company director. Jonathan leafed briskly through the rest of the forms. Frobisher, Cyril: Pilot. Mac-Arthur, Somebody, and Danby, Somebody Else: Company executives. Other assistants, other pilots, bodyguards. Inglis, Francis, from Perth, Australia--Francis, hence Frisky, presumably: Physical-training instructor. Jones, Tobias, from South Africa--Tobias, hence Tabby: Athlete. He had left her till last deliberately, like the one good photograph in a batch of misses. Marshall, Jemima W. Address, like Roper's, a numbered box in Nassau. British. Occupation--rendered with a particular flourish by the Major--Equestrienne.
    "Can you do me copies of these, Fräulein Vipp? We're conducting a survey of Tower Suite guests."
    "Naturally, Mr. Pine," said Fräulein Vipp, taking the forms to the back office.
    "Thank you, Fräulein Vipp," said Jonathan.
    But in his imagination it is himself that Jonathan sees, labouring over the photocopier in the Queen Nefertiti Hotel while Sophie smokes and watches him: You