Atdtda25: Old Hand, 707-708

[Paul Nightingale]

More confusion regarding Misha and Grisha, which leads to an embrace,
"kissing, not at all the way Englishmen would be expected to--if they
must--but like foreigners, heedlessly". Cyprian ("Misha was hardly a
stranger to the joys of the unpremeditated gesture ...") ends up soaked in
saliva, if nothing else: cf. Theign's despairing reference to "sodomitic
case-files" (bottom of 703), leading to his apology over the page, "...
sometimes it just comes as you'd say spurting out like that ...", which in
turn takes us back to Cyprian's whipping scene with the Colonel. On that
occasion Cyprian was unable--were he inclined to try--to disguise his
pleasure as the Colonel "whipp[ed] him-wordlessly and often ... to climax"
(700). If the Colonel is a man of few words, then so is Theign, once the
routine has been established. Their meetings in Trieste are "never about
anything of moment" (705); and Cyprian suspects Theign is "finding excuses
to repeat this cycle of arriving, falling silent ..." etc. He has gone back
to addressing 'Derrick' ("where do you want me ..."). When Cyprian first
discovered he was being sent to Trieste, Theign suggested he would be better
off there ("... or even further east", 703); subsequently, Theign himself is
unable to stay away; and now they are at it like, well, foreigners.

Theign's ability to switch off ("One does try to avoid it ...") recalls both
his performance of manufactured desire on 702 and the Colonel's own somewhat
robotic display on 700. Cyprian is "[a]ll but tearful" (708), lacking due
professionalism, according to Theign: "... you'll be needing your wits about
you, if that's not asking too much", a reminder that the disappearance of
M/G has, it seems, provoked concern. However, when the section opens
("Theign came in looking preoccupied", 707) he hasn't the omniscience
attributed to the Colonel (eg, "one small though bothersome gap in our ...
ehrm, earlier information"); indeed, he now finds it necessary to ask
Cyprian for information about M/G. Cf. his sardonic response when Cyprian
offers something on "all that undersea business" on 706. Also cf. his
earlier dismissal of the threat posed by M/G on 704. Possibly "[t]he spell
of Venice" has led Theign to emphasise an imaginary threat, one that will
make it easier to send Cyprian back to Vienna.