John Le Carré - Absolute Friends

Copyright 2003 by David Cornwell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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ISBN: 978-0-7595-0869-9

First eBook Edition: January 2004

Other Books by John le Carr

The Constant Gardener

Single and Single

The Tailor of Panama

Our Game

The Night Manager

The Secret Pilgrim

The Russia House

A Perfect Spy

The Little Drummer Girl

Smileys People

The Honorable Schoolboy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The Nave and Sentimental Lover

A Small Town in Germany

The Looking Glass War

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

A Murder of Quality

Call for the Dead

O N THE DAY his destiny returned to claim him, Ted Mundy was sporting a bowler hat and balancing on a soapbox in one of Mad King Ludwigs castles in Bavaria. It wasnt a classic bowler, more your Laurel and Hardy than Savile Row. It wasnt an English hat, despite the Union Jack blazoned in Oriental silk on the handkerchief pocket of his elderly tweed jacket. The makers grease-stained label on the inside of the crown proclaimed it to be the work of Messrs. Steinmatzky & Sons, of Vienna.

And since it wasnt his own hatas he hastened to explain to any luckless stranger, preferably female, who fell victim to his boundless accessibilityneither was it a piece of self-castigation. Its a hat of office, madam, he would insist, garrulously begging her pardon in a set piece he had off perfectly. A gem of history, briefly entrusted to me by generations of previous incumbents of my postwandering scholars, poets, dreamers, men of the clothand every man jack of us a loyal servant of the late King Ludwighah! The hah! perhaps being some kind of involuntary throwback to his military childhood. Well, whats the alternative, I mean to say? You can hardly ask a thoroughbred Englishman to tote an umbrella like the Japanese guides, can you? Not here in Bavaria, my goodness, no. Not fifty miles from where our own dear Neville Chamberlain made his pact with the devil. Well, can you, madam?

And if his audience, as is often the case, turns out to be too pretty to have heard of Neville Chamberlain or know which devil is referred to, then in a rush of generosity the thoroughbred Englishman will supply his beginners version of the shameful Munich Agreement of 1938, in which he does not shy from remarking how even our beloved British monarchy, not to mention our aristocracy and the Tory Party here on earth, favored practically any accommodation with Hitler rather than a war.

British establishment absolutely terrified of Bolshevism, you see, he blurts, in the elaborate telegramese that, like hah!, overcomes him when he is in full cry. Powers-that-be in America no different. All any of em ever wanted was to turn Hitler loose on the Red Peril. And how in German eyes, therefore, Neville Chamberlains rolled-up umbrella remains to this very day, madam, the shameful emblem of British appeasement of Our Dear Fhrer, his invariable name for Adolf Hitler. I mean frankly, in this country, as an Englishman, Id rather stand in the rain without one. Still, thats not what you came here for, is it? You came to see Mad Ludwigs favorite castle, not listen to an old bore ranting on about Neville Chamberlain. What? What? Been a pleasure, madamdoffing the clowns bowler in self-parody and revealing an anarchic forelock of salt-and-pepper hair that bounces out of its trap like a greyhound the moment its releasedTed Mundy, jester to the Court of Ludwig, at your service.

And who do they think theyve met, these puntersor Billies, as the British tour operators prefer to call themif they think at all? Who is this Ted Mundy to them as a fleeting memory? A bit of a comedian, obviously. A failure at somethinga professional English bloody fool in a bowler and a Union Jack, all things to all men and nothing to himself, fifty in the shade, nice enough chap, wouldnt necessarily trust him with my daughter. And those vertical wrinkles above the eyebrows like fine slashes of a scalpel, could be anger, could be nightmares: Ted Mundy, tour guide.

Its three minutes short of five oclock in the evening, late May, and the last tour of the day is about to begin. The air is turning chilly, a red spring sun is sinking in the young beech trees. Ted Mundy perches like a giant grasshopper on the balcony, knees up, bowler tipped against the dying rays. He is poring over a rumpled copy of the Sddeutsche Zeitung that he keeps rolled up like a dog-chew in an inner pocket of his jacket for these moments of respite between tours. The Iraqi war officially ended little more than a month ago. Mundy, its unabashed opponent, scrutinizes the lesser headlines: Prime Minister Tony Blair will travel to Kuwait to express his thanks to the Kuwaiti people for their cooperation in the successful conflict.

Humph, says Mundy aloud, brows furrowed.

During his tour, Mr. Blair will make a brief stopover in Iraq. The emphasis will be on reconstruction rather than triumphalism.

I should bloody well hope so, Mundy growls, his glower intensifying.

Mr. Blair has no doubt whatever that Iraqs weapons of mass destruction will shortly be found. U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, on the other hand, speculates that the Iraqis may have destroyed them before the war began.

Why dont you make up your stupid minds then? Mundy harrumphs.

His day thus far has followed its usual complex and unlikely course. Prompt at six he rises from the bed he shares with his young Turkish partner, Zara. Tiptoeing across the corridor he wakes her eleven-year-old son, Mustafa, in time for him to wash and clean his teeth, say his morning prayers, eat the breakfast of bread, olives, tea and chocolate spread that Mundy has meantime prepared for him. All this is done in an atmosphere of great stealth. Zara works late shift in a kebab caf close to Munichs main railway station, and must not on any account be woken. Since starting her night job she has been arriving home around three in the morning, in the care of a friendly Kurdish taxi driver who lives in the same block. Muslim ritual should then permit her to say a quick prayer before sunrise and enjoy eight hours of good sleep, which is what she needs. But Mustafas day begins at seven, and he too must pray. It took all Mundys powers of persuasion, and Mustafas also, to convince Zara that Mundy could preside over her sons devotions, and she could get her hours in. Mustafa is a quiet, catlike child, with a cap of black hair, scared brown eyes and a raucous boing-boing voice.

From the apartment blocka shabby box of weeping concrete and external wiringman and boy pick their way across wasteland to a bus shelter covered in graffiti, much of it abusive. The block is what these days is called an ethnic village: Kurds, Yemenis and Turks live packed together in it. Other children are already assembled here, some with mothers or fathers. It would be reasonable for Mundy to consign Mustafa to their care, but he prefers to ride with him to the school and shake his hand at the gates, sometimes formally kissing him on both cheeks. In the twilight time before Mundy appeared in his life, Mustafa suffered humiliation and fear. He needs rebuilding.