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Authors: John le Carré
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egomaniac zealots without an ounce of
history between them. And
certainly
we should not have attempted to persuade
other sovereign nations to follow our disgraceful example. So resign away. You’re
exactly what the
Guardian
needs: another lost voice bleating in the wilderness.
If you don’t agree with government policy, don’t hang around trying to
change it. Jump ship. Write the great novel you’re always dreaming
about.’
But Toby is not to be put down so
easily:
‘So where the hell do
you
sit,
Giles? You were as much against it as I was, you know you were. When fifty-two of our
retired ambassadors signed a letter saying it was all a load of bollocks, you heaved a
big sigh and told me you wished you were retired too. Do I have to wait till I’m
sixty to speak out? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? Till I’ve got my
knighthood and my index-linked pension and I’m president of the local golf club?
Is that loyalty or just funk, Giles?’
Oakley’s Cheshire-cat smile softens
as, fingertips together, he delicately formulates his reply:
‘Where do I sit, you ask. Why, at the
conference table.
Always
at the table. I wheedle, I chip away, I argue, I
reason, I cajole, I hope. But I do not expect. I adhere to the hallowed diplomatic
doctrine of moderation in all things, and I apply it to the heinous crimes of every
nation, including my own. I leave my feelings at the door before I go into the
conference room and I
never
walk out in a huff unless I’ve been
instructed to do so. I positively
pride
myself on doing everything by halves.
Sometimes – this could well be such a time – I make a cautious démarche to our
revered masters. But I
never
try to rebuild the Palace of Westminster in a day.
Neither, at the risk of being pompous, should you.’
And while Toby is fumbling for an
answer:
‘Another thing, while I have you
alone, if I may. My beloved wife Hermione tells me, in her capacity as the eyes and ears
of Berlin’s diplomatic shenanigans, that you are conducting an inappropriate
dalliance with the spouse of the Dutch military attaché, she being a notorious
tart. True or false?’
Toby’s posting to the British Embassy
in Madrid, which has unexpectedly discovered a need for a junior attaché with
Defence experience, follows a month later.
*
Madrid.
Despite their disparity in age and
seniority, Toby and Giles remain in close touch. How much this is due to Oakley’s
string-pulling behind the scenes, how much to mere accident, Toby can only guess.
Certain is that Oakley has taken to Toby in the way that some older diplomats
consciously or otherwise foster their favoured young. Intelligence traffic between
London and Madrid meanwhile was never brisker or more crucial. Its subject is not any
more Saddam Hussein and his elusive weapons of mass destruction but the new generation
of jihadists brought into being by the West’s assault on what was until then one
of the more secular countries in the Middle East – a truth too raw to be admitted by its
perpetrators.
Thus the duo continues. In Madrid, Toby –
like it or not, and mainly he likes it – becomes a leading player in the intelligence
marketplace, commuting weekly to London, where Oakley flits in the middle air between
the Queen’s spies on one side of the river and the Queen’s Foreign Office on
the other.
In coded discussions in Whitehall’s
sealed basement rooms, new rules of engagement with suspected terrorist prisoners are
cautiously thrashed out. Improbably, given Toby’s rank, he attends. Oakley
presides. The word
enhance
, once used to convey spiritual exaltation, has
entered the new American dictionary, but its meaning remains wilfully imprecise to the
uninitiated, of whom Toby is one. All the same, he has his suspicions. Can these
so-called
new
rules in reality be the old barbaric ones, dusted off and
reinstated, he
history between them. And
certainly
we should not have attempted to persuade
other sovereign nations to follow our disgraceful example. So resign away. You’re
exactly what the
Guardian
needs: another lost voice bleating in the wilderness.
If you don’t agree with government policy, don’t hang around trying to
change it. Jump ship. Write the great novel you’re always dreaming
about.’
But Toby is not to be put down so
easily:
‘So where the hell do
you
sit,
Giles? You were as much against it as I was, you know you were. When fifty-two of our
retired ambassadors signed a letter saying it was all a load of bollocks, you heaved a
big sigh and told me you wished you were retired too. Do I have to wait till I’m
sixty to speak out? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? Till I’ve got my
knighthood and my index-linked pension and I’m president of the local golf club?
Is that loyalty or just funk, Giles?’
Oakley’s Cheshire-cat smile softens
as, fingertips together, he delicately formulates his reply:
‘Where do I sit, you ask. Why, at the
conference table.
Always
at the table. I wheedle, I chip away, I argue, I
reason, I cajole, I hope. But I do not expect. I adhere to the hallowed diplomatic
doctrine of moderation in all things, and I apply it to the heinous crimes of every
nation, including my own. I leave my feelings at the door before I go into the
conference room and I
never
walk out in a huff unless I’ve been
instructed to do so. I positively
pride
myself on doing everything by halves.
Sometimes – this could well be such a time – I make a cautious démarche to our
revered masters. But I
never
try to rebuild the Palace of Westminster in a day.
Neither, at the risk of being pompous, should you.’
And while Toby is fumbling for an
answer:
‘Another thing, while I have you
alone, if I may. My beloved wife Hermione tells me, in her capacity as the eyes and ears
of Berlin’s diplomatic shenanigans, that you are conducting an inappropriate
dalliance with the spouse of the Dutch military attaché, she being a notorious
tart. True or false?’
Toby’s posting to the British Embassy
in Madrid, which has unexpectedly discovered a need for a junior attaché with
Defence experience, follows a month later.
*
Madrid.
Despite their disparity in age and
seniority, Toby and Giles remain in close touch. How much this is due to Oakley’s
string-pulling behind the scenes, how much to mere accident, Toby can only guess.
Certain is that Oakley has taken to Toby in the way that some older diplomats
consciously or otherwise foster their favoured young. Intelligence traffic between
London and Madrid meanwhile was never brisker or more crucial. Its subject is not any
more Saddam Hussein and his elusive weapons of mass destruction but the new generation
of jihadists brought into being by the West’s assault on what was until then one
of the more secular countries in the Middle East – a truth too raw to be admitted by its
perpetrators.
Thus the duo continues. In Madrid, Toby –
like it or not, and mainly he likes it – becomes a leading player in the intelligence
marketplace, commuting weekly to London, where Oakley flits in the middle air between
the Queen’s spies on one side of the river and the Queen’s Foreign Office on
the other.
In coded discussions in Whitehall’s
sealed basement rooms, new rules of engagement with suspected terrorist prisoners are
cautiously thrashed out. Improbably, given Toby’s rank, he attends. Oakley
presides. The word
enhance
, once used to convey spiritual exaltation, has
entered the new American dictionary, but its meaning remains wilfully imprecise to the
uninitiated, of whom Toby is one. All the same, he has his suspicions. Can these
so-called
new
rules in reality be the old barbaric ones, dusted off and
reinstated, he
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