Giscard: “All right. What else?”
Ponia: “It seems highly improbable that the operation would have been carried out by the Bulgarian services without the approval of their big brother. On the other hand, it is possible to envisage Bulgarian agents selling their services to private interests. It is up to us to determine the nature of those private interests.”
D’Ornano: “Do the Bulgarians have that little control over their men?”
Ponia: “Corruption is widespread. No part of society is free of it, least of all the intelligence services.”
D’Ornano: “Secret agents working freelance in their spare time? Frankly…”
Ponia: “Secret agents working for several employers? It’s not exactly unheard of.” (He drains his glass.)
Giscard (stubbing out his cigarette in a little ivory hippopotamus that serves as an ashtray): “Agreed. Anything else?”
Ponia (leaning back in his chair, arms behind his head): “Well, it turns out Carter’s brother is a Libyan agent.”
Giscard (surprised): “Which one? Billy?”
Ponia: “Andropov seems to have got this from the CIA. Apparently, he thought it was hilarious.”
D’Ornano (getting them back to the subject at hand): “So, what are we going to do? If in doubt, wipe them out?”
Ponia: “The president does not need the document. He just needs to know that the opposition doesn’t have it.”
As far as I know, no one has ever pointed out that Giscard’s famous speech impediment became more pronounced during moments of embarrassment or pleasure. He says: “Of coursh, of coursh … But if we could find it … or at leasht locate it, and if poshible, get our handzh on it, I would resht more eazhily. For the shake of Fransh. Imagine if thish document fell into, uh, the wrong handzh … Not that … But, well…”
Ponia: “Then we have to make Bayard’s mission clearer: get hold of the document, without letting anyone read it. Let’s not forget that that young linguist he’s hired is capable of deciphering it and therefore using it. Or of ensuring that every copy of it is destroyed. [He gets up and walks over to the drinks table, muttering.] A lefty. Bound to be a lefty…”
D’Ornano: “But how can we know if the document has already been used?”
Ponia: “According to my information, if someone used it we would know about it pretty damn quickly…”
D’Ornano: “What if they were discreet? Kept a low profile?”
Giscard (leaning against the sideboard under the Delacroix, and fingering the Legion of Honor medals in their boxes): “That doesn’t seem very plausible. Power, of whatever kind, is intended to be used.”
D’Ornano (curious): “Is that true for the atomic bomb?”
Giscard (professorial): “Especially the atomic bomb.”
The mention of a possible end to the world plunges the president into a light daydream for a moment. He thinks of the A71 highway which must cross the Auvergne, of the mayor’s office in Chamalières, of the France over which he rules. His two employees wait respectfully for him to start speaking again. “In the meantime, all our actions should be governed by a single objective: preventing the left from gaining power.”
Ponia (sniffing a bottle of vodka): “As long as I’m alive, there will be no Communist ministers in France.”
D’Ornano (lighting a cigarette): “Exactly. You should slow down if you want to get through the election.”
Ponia (raising his glass): “Na zdrowie!”
36
“Comrade Kristoff … You know, of course, who is the greatest politician of the twentieth century?”
Emil Kristoff was not summoned to Lubyanka Square, but he would have preferred that.
“Naturally, Yuri Vladimirovich. It’s Georgi Dimitrov.”
The faux-intellectual tenor of his meeting with Yuri Andropov, the head of the KGB, in an old bar located in a basement, as nearly all the bars in Moscow are, is not designed to reassure him, and the fact that they are in a public place changes nothing. You can be arrested in a public place. You can even die in a public place. He is well placed to know this.
“A Bulgarian.” Andropov laughs. “Who would have believed it?”
The waiter puts two small glasses of vodka and two large glasses of orange juice on the table, with two fat gherkins on a little plate, and Kristoff wonders if this is a clue. Around him, people smoke, drink, and talk loudly, and that is the first rule when you want to be sure that a conversation cannot be overheard: meet in a noisy place, full of random sounds, so that any microphones hidden nearby cannot isolate a particular voice. If you are in an apartment, you should run a bath. But the simplest solution is to go out for a drink. Kristoff observes the customers’ faces and spots at least two agents in the room, but he presumes there must be more.
Andropov continues on the subject of Dimitrov: “If you think about it, it was there for all to see during the Reichstag trial. The conflict between Göring, who is summoned as a witness, and Dimitrov, in the dock, anticipated the fascist aggression to come, the heroic Communists’ resistance, and our final victory. That trial is highly symbolic of the superiority of communism from every point of view, political and moral. Dimitrov is majestic and mocking, and masters the historical dialectic perfectly, even as he risks his life, faced with the angry, fist-waving Göring … What a spectacle! Göring, who just happens to be president of the Reichstag, prime minister and minister of the interior for Prussia. But Dimitrov reverses their roles, and it is Göring who has to respond to his questions. Dimitrov completely demolishes him. Göring is furious: he stamps his feet, like a little boy who’s been told he can’t have any dessert. Facing him, imperious in the dock, Dimitrov reveals the madness of the Nazis to the world. Even the president of the tribunal realizes it. It’s hilarious because you’d think he was asking Dimitrov to forgive fat Göring’s behavior. He says to him—I remember this as if it were yesterday—‘Given that you are spouting Communist propaganda, you should not be surprised if the witness is so agitated.’ Agitated! And then Dimitrov says he is fully satisfied with the prime minister’s response. Ha ha! What a man! What a talent!”
Kristoff sees allusions and deeper meanings everywhere, but he tries to keep things in perspective because he knows that his paranoia makes it difficult for him to assess the KGB chairman’s words correctly. All the same, the fact that he was summoned to Moscow is, indisputably, a clue in itself. He does not wonder if Andropov knows something. He wonders what he knows. And that is a much harder question to answer.
“Back then, people all over the world said: ‘There is only one man left in Germany, and that man is Bulgarian.’ I knew him, Emil, were you aware of that? A born orator. A master.”
While he listens to Andropov praising the great Dimitrov, Comrade Kristoff assesses his own situation. There is nothing more uncomfortable for someone preparing to lie than being uncertain how much the person he is about to lie to knows. At some point, he realizes, he will have to gamble.
And that moment arrives: ending his disquisition on Dimitrov, Andropov asks his Bulgarian counterpart for clarification on the latest reports that have reached his desk in Lubyanka Square. What exactly is this operation in Paris?
So, here we are. Kristoff feels his heart accelerate, but is careful not to breathe more quickly. Andropov bites into a gherkin. He must decide now. Either admit the operation or claim to know nothing about it. But this second option has the disadvantage of making you look incompetent, which, in the world of intelligence, is never a good idea. Kristoff knows exactly how a good lie works: it must be drowned in an ocean of truth. Being 90 percent truthful enables you to render the 10 percent you are attempting to conceal more credible, while reducing the risks of contradicting yourself. You buy time and you avoid becoming muddled. When you lie, you must lie about one point—and one only—and be perfectly honest about the rest. Emil Kristoff leans toward Andropov and says: “Comrade Yuri, you know Roman Jakobson? He’s a compatriot of yours. He wrote some very nice things about Baudelaire.”