Last month, I was diagnosed with heart angina, and I was given a small vial of nitro pills to carry around in case of an emergency. I told Maria I was secretly pleased by this – in a way – I thought of General Vladimir and his heart pills. I told Maria all about this wonderful character in John Le Carre’s  novel Smiley’s People. My daughter Emma remember the general as well when I told her about the pills I had to carry.

In the novel, the General, a fictional but dapper and mysterious Estonian refugee living in London, is mysteriously murdered in a city park. George Smiley is called out of retirement to investigate the murder.

He learns that the general, one of his old and very loyal secret agents, had stumbled across information that would lead to a final confrontation with the brilliant Soviet spymaster Karla, who nearly destroyed the British Secret Service by infiltrating spies into it, (remember Kim Philby) and who also managed to end Smiley’s career in disgrace. In an effort to emasculate Smiley, Karla also destroyed his marriage to the lovely but faithless Anne.

I am a  Le Carre and Smiley fan.

(General Vladimir was partly modeled after Colonel Alfons Rebane, an Estonian emigre who ran the Estonian unit of the Secret Service’s Operation Jungle in the 1950’s. Le Carre worked as an intelligence officer for both MI5 And MI6, the British domestic and foreign intelligece agencies.)

When I was diagnosed with angina – a part of the heart is not receiving enough oxygen and when stressed, can cause pain – I remembered that General Vladimir had heart disease and also had angina. He carried a silver pill case with him at all times, Smiley found it on his body when he investigated the general’s death.

I told Maria (and the puzzled cardiologist) that I was pleased to be carrying the very pills that the brave and admirable General Vladimir carried before he was killed by Karla’s agents.

Maria went to see a local jeweler named Tim Shea, who lives in Salem, N.Y. and is a very gifted and much loved craftsman  (he made our wedding rings) and for the last month, he has been figuring out how to build a silver pill case for me, much like General Vladimir’s.

He said it kept him up nights figuring out how to do it. He did a beautiful job.

So I have a silver pill case.

It even has a secret latch to keep it from opening. That makes it all the more magical.

I told Maria that she better treated me with exquisite care and sensitivity, or I would have to take a heart pill. She seems unimpressed.

I was shocked by this gift, I could never have guessed it, and amazed at Maria’s creativity and also her understanding of how much I would love this silver pill case.

It is an amazing gift to be known like that, and to be with so sensitive, creative and intuitive a person. This gift was very personal and took a lot of thought and trouble. Only an artist.

So I wanted to share this domestic spy story with you.  I never guessed, could not have imagined this present.

A wonderful Christmas present, I’ve put my heart pills in it already, it will always be with me. Thanks to Maria. And to John Le Carre, Emma, George Smiley and Genera Vladimir.

Smiley is one of the great fictional characters in modern literature, I believe. I am not as dapper as General Vladimir, but I hope I can be as brave. He carried his heart pills in his silver case for many years, through all sorts of dangers. Mine will carry me.