Across shadow lines

In Le Carre8217;s latest novel, the protagonist lives between worlds. And as we accompany him on his journeys, we too turn into secret agents engaging with the traumas within ourselves

All great writers create an ambience, whether it is Wessex for Hardy or Malgudi for Narayan. Le Carre has been the magician for our generation creating his own special secret world populated by lamplighters from Acton, scalp-hunters from Brixton, Lacons from Whitehall, mothers from the top floor of the Circus, moles and agent-runners immersed in tradecraft eternally in search of drop-boxes, a world where Karla outwits Control only to be outwitted in turn by Smiley who cleans his glasses with his fat tie with their final denouement at Berlin8217;s famous Checkpoint Charlie. It is a world of minor characters who become major ones 8212; Westerby and Esterhase, Guillam, Connie Sachs and Tarr and of course the famous Prideaux accompanied by the infamous Haydon.

This secret world existed in the context of the Cold War. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the discrediting of Moscow Centre, Le Carre lost the central metaphorical landscape of his world. If the secret services of the world were not in symmetric antipathy, it is almost as if we have entered a world literally beyond good and evil, a world therefore unworthy of literary classics! Le Carre tried his hand at other themes 8212; the tailor from Panama a semi-comic anti-hero was interesting, but not engrossing; a brief interlude in the Caucasus and in the world of Russian arms-dealers had its moments, but remained fundamentally unsatisfying.

And then our favourite author discovered Africa, continent of strife, hopelessness and cacophonies. The Constant Gardener was a gorgeous book. And now with The Mission Song published in the autumn of 2006, Le Carre redeems his promise to his readers. Le Carre builds on the great traditions of English prose 8212; of Conrad and Graham Greene and of course of Naipaul. His characters are absurd, lovable, doomed, lucid and incoherent at once 8212; destined to lose and be overwhelmed by merciless Africa 8212; and yet capable of an existential dignity and a quiet victory of the individual against the inanimate 8220;system8221; that seeks to overpower ordinary folks even as it studiously ignores them.

Bruno Salvador literally lives between worlds. The son of a Congolese mother and an Irish father, his claim to fame is that he knows many languages, not just the standard English and French and Swahili, but the languages of the African soul: Kinyarawanda and Lingala, Bembe and Shi, and some more for sure. He is a resident of Battersea in London and like Jerry Westerby he is a part-time employee of the British Secret Service MI5 or MI6 or the Circus which we all officially agree does not exist!. His wife is from an upper class 8220;all-white Surrey family8221;, a coarser version of Ann Smiley with the same commitment to omnivorous sexual infidelity.

Bruno is whisked away to a Scottish island to interpret for a bunch of British businessmen and mercenaries loosely backed by a caricature of a Blairite-type government who are trying to make a deal with several East Congolese warlords and a self-styled African liberator. The aim is to take control of mineral wealth for the stated benefit of the masses and the very real private benefit of the organisers. The encounter is marked by a black hilarity which amuses even as the realistic monstrous horror-show of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa is unveiled as a pageant in production. To reveal more would be to give the plot away. Suffice it to say, that we are all the time on the side of the puzzled, naive, over-his-head Bruno as he tries to balance his innate decency, his romantic feelings for Hannah, the idealistic Congolese nurse in a North London hospital, and the sleazy tasks assigned to him by his mysterious employers. As Bruno says, 8220;The life of a secret agent is nothing if not a journey into the unknown, the life of a secret lover no less so.8221; As we accompany Bruno on his tortured journeys, we too turn into secret agents engaging with the traumas within ourselves.

Sub-Saharan Africa is not part of the world of trade and investment flows that contemporary globalisation represents. The only references in the media are to Rwandan genocides, international HIV conferences held usually in Seattle or Salzburg and of course the mineral trade which includes among other items, diamonds, gold, cassiterite and coltan. It is to Le Carre8217;s credit that he takes us back to Donne and the ideals of the English metaphysical poets. Human beings cannot be islands even if they wish. Injustice, loot and plunder in Central Africa besmirch each one of us even if we claim that we cannot even spell the relevant names. The book, like many of Le Carre8217;s books, is also about England: contemporary post-colonial, guilt-ridden England which is at the same time the headquarters of fixers, brokers and sundry intermediaries in a shady international underworld. But just as during the height of its robber-baron days England produced a Wilberforce who worked for the abolition of the slave trade, we now have Fergus Thorne a journalist albeit with venal motives who will take great pleasure in exposing publicly high-minded British politicians who have their hands in the till in today8217;s version of the slave trade.

In Bruno Salvador and in his lady love Hannah, we see the reincarnations of Alec Leamas and Liz Gold, the protagonists from The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. At one level, they are puppets and yet they may be the only truly authentic characters who believe not only in old-fashioned romantic love, but who stand for the Africa of infinite promise, not the Africa of penury and destruction that the cynics of the world take for granted. And there is the inevitable delightful minor character, Monsieur Jasper, a 8220;respectable8221; lawyer specialising in the needs of our times. He asks: 8220;Do you wish to create a holding company in Martinique registered in Switzerland and owned by an anonymous Lichtenstein foundation which is owned by you?8221; I am quite sure that we will see more of the elegant M. Jasper in the next book. I, for one, cannot wait for it.

The writer is chairman, Mphasis