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Authors: John le Carré
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for his ample stomach.
When I say âmy seatâ, this is merely because the gallery, which was small and perched like a box at the opera on the back wall of the Bundestag chamber, was always in my experience unaccountably empty save for a CIA officer called, unconvincingly, Herr Schulz, who, having taken one look at me and sensing probably a contaminating influence, sat as far from me as possible. But today there was just the one plump gentleman. I smile at him. He beams fondly at me. I sit myself a couple of chairs along from him. The debate on the floor is in full flood. We listen, separately and intently, aware of one anotherâs concentration. Come lunch break we stand up, fuss over who goes through the door first, make our separate ways downstairs to the Bundestag canteen, and from different tables smile politely to one another over our soups of the day. A couple of parliamentary aides join me, but my neighbour from the diplomatic gallery remains alone. Our soups consumed, we return to our seats in the gallery. The parliamentary session ends. We go our ways.
Next morning when I arrive, there he is in my chair again, beaming at me. And come lunchtime there he is all alone, taking his soup, while I gossip with a couple of lobby journalists. Should I invite him to join us? Heâs a fellow diplomat, after all. Should I go and sit with him? My urge to empathize is, as so often, groundless: the man is perfectly happy reading his Frankfurter Allgemeine. In the afternoon he doesnât appear, but itâs a summerâs Friday and the Bundestag is putting up the shutters.
But come next Monday, I have barely sat down in my old seat when he enters, one finger to his lips out of deference to the uproar below while he offers me his spongy hand in greeting: but with such an air of familiarity that I am seized with a guilty conviction that he knows me and I donât know him; that weâve met each other on Bonnâs endless diplomatic cocktail merry-go-round; that heâs remembered the encounter all along, and I havenât.
Worse still, to judge from his age and bearing, there is every probability that he is one of Bonnâs numberless minor ambassadors. And one thing minor ambassadors donât like is other diplomats, especially young ones, not recognizing them. It takes another four days for the truth to declare itself. We are both note takers: he in a ruled notebook of poor quality, held together by a red elastic band that he eases back into position after each entry; I in a pocket-sized pad of plain paper, my jottings lightly strewn with furtive caricatures of the Bundestagâs leading players. So it is perhaps inevitable that one dull afternoon during a recess I should find my neighbour leaning mischievously across the empty chair between us and enquiring whether he may take a peek; at which no sooner granted than his eyes squeeze themselves into slits behind his spectacles and his upper body squirms with mirth as, with the flourish of a magician, he spirits a dog-eared visiting card from his waistcoat pocket and observes me while I read it, first in Russian, then, for the benighted, in English:
Mr Ivan Serov, Second Secretary, Embassy of the USSR , Bonn, West Germany.
And hand-printed along the bottom in spidery capitals of black ink, also in English: CULTURAL .
Even today, I hear our ensuing conversation from a distance:
âYou want drink some time?â
A drink would be great.
âYou like music?â
Very much. I am in fact tone deaf.
âYou married?â
Indeed I am. Are you?
âMy wife Olga, she like music too. You got house?â
In Königswinter. Why lie? My address is there in the diplomatic list for him to read any time he wants.
âBig house?â
Four bedrooms, I reply without counting.
âYou got phone number?â
I give him my phone number. He writes it down. He gives me his. I give him my card: Second Secretary (Political).
âYou
When I say âmy seatâ, this is merely because the gallery, which was small and perched like a box at the opera on the back wall of the Bundestag chamber, was always in my experience unaccountably empty save for a CIA officer called, unconvincingly, Herr Schulz, who, having taken one look at me and sensing probably a contaminating influence, sat as far from me as possible. But today there was just the one plump gentleman. I smile at him. He beams fondly at me. I sit myself a couple of chairs along from him. The debate on the floor is in full flood. We listen, separately and intently, aware of one anotherâs concentration. Come lunch break we stand up, fuss over who goes through the door first, make our separate ways downstairs to the Bundestag canteen, and from different tables smile politely to one another over our soups of the day. A couple of parliamentary aides join me, but my neighbour from the diplomatic gallery remains alone. Our soups consumed, we return to our seats in the gallery. The parliamentary session ends. We go our ways.
Next morning when I arrive, there he is in my chair again, beaming at me. And come lunchtime there he is all alone, taking his soup, while I gossip with a couple of lobby journalists. Should I invite him to join us? Heâs a fellow diplomat, after all. Should I go and sit with him? My urge to empathize is, as so often, groundless: the man is perfectly happy reading his Frankfurter Allgemeine. In the afternoon he doesnât appear, but itâs a summerâs Friday and the Bundestag is putting up the shutters.
But come next Monday, I have barely sat down in my old seat when he enters, one finger to his lips out of deference to the uproar below while he offers me his spongy hand in greeting: but with such an air of familiarity that I am seized with a guilty conviction that he knows me and I donât know him; that weâve met each other on Bonnâs endless diplomatic cocktail merry-go-round; that heâs remembered the encounter all along, and I havenât.
Worse still, to judge from his age and bearing, there is every probability that he is one of Bonnâs numberless minor ambassadors. And one thing minor ambassadors donât like is other diplomats, especially young ones, not recognizing them. It takes another four days for the truth to declare itself. We are both note takers: he in a ruled notebook of poor quality, held together by a red elastic band that he eases back into position after each entry; I in a pocket-sized pad of plain paper, my jottings lightly strewn with furtive caricatures of the Bundestagâs leading players. So it is perhaps inevitable that one dull afternoon during a recess I should find my neighbour leaning mischievously across the empty chair between us and enquiring whether he may take a peek; at which no sooner granted than his eyes squeeze themselves into slits behind his spectacles and his upper body squirms with mirth as, with the flourish of a magician, he spirits a dog-eared visiting card from his waistcoat pocket and observes me while I read it, first in Russian, then, for the benighted, in English:
Mr Ivan Serov, Second Secretary, Embassy of the USSR , Bonn, West Germany.
And hand-printed along the bottom in spidery capitals of black ink, also in English: CULTURAL .
Even today, I hear our ensuing conversation from a distance:
âYou want drink some time?â
A drink would be great.
âYou like music?â
Very much. I am in fact tone deaf.
âYou married?â
Indeed I am. Are you?
âMy wife Olga, she like music too. You got house?â
In Königswinter. Why lie? My address is there in the diplomatic list for him to read any time he wants.
âBig house?â
Four bedrooms, I reply without counting.
âYou got phone number?â
I give him my phone number. He writes it down. He gives me his. I give him my card: Second Secretary (Political).
âYou
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