the_last_resort | Blackmoon Celebration

[He snorts another laugh, feeling a little sorry for the old man. Being far away from home is hard, and Niko is still relatively young. It must be even more difficult for him, and Niko recognizes him from one of their lot.]

Hey, my cousin has this. If he would bet on that, maybe he actually make money when he gambles, ah? Come on, is better off the street.

[There's a cafe without every table filled up for the moment. Everyone is distracted by the well lit ceremony and as much as Niko can like this sort of atmosphere he's also not looking forward to encountering the real things when he goes back out into the wilderness.]

[Smiley hesitates a moment, and then ducks into the café after the other man. No point in dragging Cold War anxieties into this place, and he wants to get out of the crowd for a little while anyway.]

I understand there's two more days of this.

Oh man. [Niko pulls up a seat, but seems to conveniently pick one with a straight route out the back and a clear line of the front. It probably doesn't help Smiley's anxieties but it's an unshakable habit.]

[But he's grinning when he sits.]

You would not have done well at a Balkan wedding. It is basically this loud for three days, except getting progressively drunker. More drunk. Whichever. But at least the families have seen each other be stupid and know what they are in for when the party's over.

[Smiley, ever observant, notices the location of the seat and regards the man with even more curiosity—not that it shows on his face. He's seen that kind of caution in men like Peter Guillam and Jim Prideaux, and knows what it means for the kinds of lives such men lead.]

It isn't so different from what the Oktoberfest has become, I suppose. But I confess, it's been far too long since I was able to enjoy these things properly.

[If he ever was.]

One of the things I missed when I came to America. [Of course, after Roman's wedding there was very little to celebrate.] But these things, they're definitely not for everybody.

[When the waitress brings by a menu he smiles at her and takes it, before scanning it with a turn of a frown. Go to the far reaches of the universe, and there's never tea made right. As usual he'll just have to pick something along the lines of lemon flavored and add sugar until its remotely decent.]

Back home there wasn't much celebrating after the war, anyway.

[Smiley takes a menu as well and scans it. That the tea is unlike anything he has at home is neither here nor there for him.]

The war?

[His tone: idle curiosity; then he looks up, his curiosity somewhat less idle, but not quite slipping into "nosy" yet.]

I beg your pardon—when and where are you from?

[He's been here long enough to know that not everyone from Earth was plucked out of the late 1970s.]

2008. Earth. And I was born in Yugoslavia before it went- [and then he makes a little "explode" motion with his hands.]

[Niko both has trouble talking about the war, and no trouble. His personal stake in it trips him up, the damage done to him. But the resentment of the war and the politicians that goaded it on he still wears plainly.]

When are you from? Why do places never have tea like in the Balkans. [Because not everyone likes orange drink mix and a pound of honey in their tea, he knows, but he thinks more people should have it that way.]

[2008—thirty years hence. What must the theatre of Europe be like now? Little better than in Smiley's time, apparently. Possibly even worse.]

I think it's a universal truism that when away from home, no one can ever find one's preferred method of tea.

[An amateur stalling, there. Answer the bloody question, George.He sighs a little, then:]

1977.

[He makes a so so motion with his hand.] If they have something fruity and sugared and still strong, maybe I be alright. Mix a few things together.

[Suddenly Niko leans back and sort of just shakes his head at the menu.]

I was born in 1978. [It's such an odd thing to think about. He might not even be a thought on his mother's mind on the day this man came from.]

You sound British. If this is the case and your world is anything like mine, you do okay. You just end up getting crazy lady in charge who goes a little nuts and messes up the economy a little bit. There were a lot of houses being sold which was bad for tourism. Not that we were allowed to keep a lot of money from tourists. You might have her now, or someone like her. I barely remember it. [He squints hard. He does remember that things were difficult for a very long time. Beautiful mountain Balkan homes were the rage for a little while, but when tensions rose and the recession came, most of the Americans and British sold their scenic homes.]

[He finally decides on what he wants, so when the waitress comes he can order his tea.]

[Smiley frowns. He wishes he could be apolitical much of the time, and indeed things that don't have a direct bearing on the Circus tend to fall outside his interest—but everyone knows about that woman who is the Opposition leader in Parliament. Could this be the "crazy lady" in question?]

I am British, yes. A civil servant.

[His gaze drops to the menu, and then he just can't help himself—]

And the Soviet Union?

[As it turns out, complaining about Russians is one of Niko's favorite hobbies. He knows they're not all bad. He knows some have it very hard. Ilyena spoke of how happy and beautiful her psychotic and paranoid husband had once been when he was only a small time crook. Then he screamed at her, became abusive, and it was nothing Niko could do anything about- just help her after she was lost and a widow.]

[Some Russians just go bad. But it's those bad Russians that have done their part to ruin Niko's life.]

The fucking Russians, [he snorts] Capitalists and opportunists. Worse than Americans. It is not helped that there are less rules for this sort of thing. After the wars- the civil war that broke my country up -some Russians "helped" us [he actually makes air quotes] with aid and dependency while others came in to sell people to Italy, spread drugs around, take advantage that there were no jobs.

You see a man with tattoos on his hands that speaks with a Russian accent? Any man? Avoid him. All he'll ever do is bring you trouble, no matter what he promises.

[Well. Smiley was not actually expecting that.]

Capitalists? Dear me. [He shakes his head, wondering a little.] In my day, they would have considered that a thoroughly filthy word.

Well, the communism- it wasn't easy either. Maybe if you're an idealist. But what happens is they take a lot of money and put it into government buildings, it makes things nice for officials. Everyone has to get by on scraps and it takes my village until 1991 to get electricity. If you want to live good? You work for the government. Easy as that.

Oh! [Thank you. His whole tone changes as the waitress brings his tea. As rude as he can be with his opinions, he does know how to be polite. In a bumpkin way.]

But you take those people and tell them they can make all the money they want? With some just used to giving it away or not knowing how to keep it? With no fear of being dragged away? It gets stupid.

I've been to a lot of places. I don't really like the governments in most of them, though. So I'm not the best person to give happy opinions. [He chuckles on that.]

[Smiley can appreciate Niko's views, really. Possibly all too well. When the waitress brings his tea, he nods and accepts it with a quiet murmur of thanks, not interrupting Niko.]

The more one sees of the world, the more one realises no matter what any idealist may make of their own side, it is worth no more or less than the other ostensible side.

[Don't you think it's time to recognise that there is as little worth on your side as there is on mine? Look, in our trade we have only negative vision. In that sense, neither of us has anywhere to go. Smiley looks up at Niko and for a moment sees a flash of another, older man, far away in a sweltering little room in Delhi. He turns his head slightly, lowers his gaze, as if ashamed.]

[There is a concept among the Russian bratvas called a "torpedo", which is what Niko is. A man hired to trail and eliminate a specific target. But Niko doesn't look everywhere for a threat, despite his paranoia, he looks for very specific threats. So when he sees shame cross an old man's face he misinterprets it as something completely innocent- after all, Smiley is a respectable looking older white British gentleman of a higher class than he is. And even here, a million lifetimes and a whole universe away from home he's aware of his class.]

You know, well, some of us have it hard everywhere because of those bad sides. Don't feel too bad about it. I wish more people would look in those directions, see how hard it is to work their way up and the things that you have to do, sometimes things you really don't like.

As long as you know you're pretty lucky.

[Then, right before he takes a drink of tea, he hesitantly admits something and knits up his brow.]

I don't know what os-tin-si-bel means.

[In the Circus, they'd call Niko's sort a scalphunter.]

Forgive me—your English is quite good, you know. Ostensible is—a thing that appears to be, but is not—or an idea that has been constructed to define a thing but which is not truly accurate.

Oh, thank you. I learned when I was a teenager, but I didn't have much reason to use it until I was in the Merchant Navy. I'm better at Russian.

[He considers the word.]

I think that is a good word for most of the world, I think. A lot of it appears to be one thing, a better thing, but is something a lot different. Do you think it's better that way? That it would bother people more if more people knew how bad things could be, how bad people could be, that it would hurt them more than help them? As irritated as I get with people being blind to the state of their lives, the conditions that everyone lives in, not just one life, I also think it would break many of them to know the truth.

There is scarcely a man born who does not need an illusion to survive.

[The last illusion of the illusionless man, Karla said of Ann to Haydon. And now Smiley had sacrificed even that, in the service of—what? Another illusion—that if he finally beat Karla, he would find peace?

He's brooding. He's got to stop that. He shakes his head, as if in bemusement, and sips his tea.]

There was a writer called Oscar Wilde—he was Irish, but lived much of his life in England. He's supposed to have said of the liquor absinthe that after the first glass, you see things as you wish they were; after the second, you see them as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.

I have an Irish American friend, and I know of absinthe. Judging both those things? This makes perfect sense.

[It makes him sadly think of Kate, though. He hasn't heard from Packie since his sister's death. But he misses him.]

Not a good man, but a good friend. Sometimes the latter is most important.

Blackmoon Celebration

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