Free The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré Page A

tersely.
    Kurtz expressed jovial disappointment. "Becker? What the hell name is that? Gadi Becker--and him a sabra?"
    "It's the German version of the Hebrew version of the German version of his name," Litvak replied, without humour. "At the request of his employers, he's reverted. He's not an Israeli any more, he's a Jew."
    Kurtz kept his smile flying. "Does he have any ladies with him, Shimon? What's with women for him these days?"
    "A night here, a night there. Nothing he could call his own."
    Kurtz settled more comfortably in his seat. "So maybe an involvement is what he needs. Then afterwards he goes back to his nice wife, Frankie, in Jerusalem, whom, in my judgement, he had no business relinquishing in the first place."
    Entering a squalid side street, they pulled up before a clumsy three-storey apartment house of dappled stone. A pilastered doorway had somehow survived the war. To one side of it, at street level, a neon-lit textiles shop displayed a lacklustre range of women's dresses. A sign above it said"wholesale only."
    "Press the upper bell," Litvak advised. "Two rings, a pause, a third ring, he will come. They gave him a room above the business." Kurtz clambered out. "Good luck, okay? Really good luck."
    Litvak watched Kurtz storm across the street. He watched him thrusting along the pavement at his rolling pace, too fast, then halt too hastily at the shabby doorway. He saw his thick arm lift to the bell and the door open a moment afterwards, as if someone had been waiting just behind it, and he supposed someone had. He saw Kurtz square his feet and lower his shoulders to embrace a slimmer man; he saw the arms of his host fold round him in a brisk, soldierly greeting. The door closed, Kurtz was inside.
    Driving slowly back through the city, Litvak glowered at everything he saw on his way, externalising his jealousy: Berlin as a place of hatred for him, an inherited enemy for all time; Berlin where terror had its spawning ground, then and now. His destination was a cheap pension where no one seemed to sleep, himself included. By five to seven, he was back in the side street where he had left Kurtz. He pressed the bell, waited, and heard slow footsteps, one pair. The door opened and Kurtz stepped gratefully into the morning air, then stretched himself. He was unshaven and had removed his tie.
    "Well?" Litvak asked, as soon as they were inside the car.
    "Well what?"
    "What did he say? Will he do it, or does he want to stay peacefully in Berlin and learn to make dresses for a bunch of Polish campniks?"
    Kurtz seemed genuinely surprised. He was in the midst of that gesture which had so fascinated Alexis, the one that brought his old wristwatch into his line of sight, while he shoved back his left sleeve with his hand. But, hearing Litvak's question, he abandoned it."Do it? He's an Israeli officer, Shimon." Then he smiled so warmly that Litvak, taken by surprise, smiled in return. "First, I admit, Gadi said he would prefer to continue to study his new trade in its many aspects. So we talked about that fine mission he made across Suez in ‘63. Then he said the plan wouldn't work, so we discussed in detail the inconveniences of living under cover in Tripoli and maintaining a network of extremely mercenary Libyan agents there--a thing Gadi did for three years, I seem to remember. Then he said, ‘Get a younger man,' which nobody ever meant seriously, and we recalled his many night raids into Jordan and the limitations of military action against guerrilla targets, a point on which I had his full agreement. After that, we discussed the strategy. What else?"
    "And the similarity? Is enough? His height, his face?"
    "The similarity is enough," Kurtz replied as his features hardened into their old lines. "We work on it, it's enough. Now leave him alone, Shimon, or you'll make me love him too much."
    Then he put aside his gravity and broke out laughing until tears of relief and tiredness were running down his cheeks. Litvak