Granta 35: The Unbearable Peace

John le Carrè When is easy. Why never is. It is always possible to say when it happens: that crucial moment, in committing a transgression, when the deed is done. Before it, you are not an adulterer. Afterwards, you are. Before it, you are not a criminal or a traitor. Or a spy. Afterwards... But why is much more difficult. Why did Brigadier Jean-Louis Jeanmaire, a military judge, a commander in the Swiss Army, seek the friendship of Colonel Vassily Denissenko of the Soviety Embassy? And why did he do it in the way that he did? Why did he give him so much? The files, confidential documents, the wife. On 17 June 1977, Jean-Louise Jeanmaire, denounced as the 'traitor of the century', was sentenced to eighteen years in prison. He was sixty-seven years old; he was expected to die behind bars. But he didn't. And, on his release, he needed to tell his story. John le Carrè is the world's greatest writer of spy fiction. In 'The Unbearable Peace', he turns to fact and to a story that, like his novels, is about more than spying. It is a story about the Swiss, about money and democracy, and about our own unbearable peace.