Грэм Грин - The Comedians

'I'm glad to see you safely out.'

He explained vaguely, 'My note did it. I thought it would. I was never really worried. Mistakes on both sides. I wouldn't want the girls to know about it though.'

'You would find them very sympathetic. But doesn't he know?'

'Oh yes, but he's bound to secrecy. I would have told you tomorrow how things had gone, but tonight I badly needed a roll in the hay. So you know Tin Tin?'

'Yes.'

'She's a sweet girl. I'm glad I chose her. The captain wanted me to take that girl with the flower.'

'I don't suppose you'd have noticed the difference. Mиre Catherine caters for a sweet tooth. What are you doing with him?'

'We're in a bit of business together.'

'Not an ice-rink?'

'No. Why an ice-rink?'

'Be careful, Jones. He's dangerous.'

'Don't worry about me,' Jones said, 'I know the world.' Mиre Catherine passed: her tray was loaded with rum and what was probably the last of the Seven-Ups and Jones grabbed a glass. 'Tomorrow they are finding me transport. I'll come and see you when I've got my car.' He waved to Tin Tin; to the captain he called 'Salut.' 'I like it here,' he said. 'I've landed on my feet.'

I left the salle, my mouth cloyed with too much Seven-Up, and shook the sentry by the shoulder as I passed — I might as well do someone a good turn. I felt my way past the jeep to my own car, and heard footsteps behind me and dodged sideways. It might be the captain come to preserve the honour of his ice-rink, but it was only Tin Tin.

She said, 'I told them I go faire pipi.'

'How are you, Tin Tin?'

'Very well and you…'

'Зa marche.'

'Why not stay a little while in your car? They will go soon. The Englishman is tout а fait йpuisй.'

'I don't doubt it, but I'm tired. I've got to go. Tin Tin, did he behave all right to you?'

'Oh yes. I liked him. I liked him a lot.'

'What did you like so much?'

'He made me laugh,' she said. It was a sentence which was to be repeated to me disquietingly in other circumstances. I had learnt in a disorganized life many tricks, but not the trick of laughter.

1

JONES fell from view for a while as completely as the body of the Secretary for Social Welfare. No one ever learnt what was done with his corpse, though the Presidential Candidate made more than one attempt to discover. He penetrated to the bureau of the new Secretary where he was received with celerity and politeness. Petit Pierre had done his best to spread his fame as 'Truman's opponent', and the minister had heard of Truman.

He was a small fat man who wore, for some reason, a fraternity pin, and his teeth were very big and white and separate, like tombstones designed for a much larger cemetery. A curious smell crossed his desk as though one grave had stayed open. I accompanied Mr Smith in case a translator were needed, but the new Minister spoke good English with a slight twang which went some way to support the fraternity pin (I learnt later that he had served for a while as 'the small boy' at the American Embassy. It might have been a rare example of merit rising if he had not served an interim period in the Tontons Macoute where he had been a special assistant to Colonel Gracia — known as Fat Gracia).

Mr Smith excused the fact that his letter of introduction was addressed to Doctor Philipot.

'Poor Philipot,' the Minister said, and I wondered whether at last we were to receive the official version of his end.

'What happend to him?' Mr Smith asked with admirable directness.

'We will probably never know. He was a strange moody man, and I must confess to you, Professor, his accounts were not in good order. There was the matter of a water-pump in Desaix Street.'

'Are you suggesting he killed himself?' I had underrated Mr Smith. In a good cause he could show cunning and now he played his cards close to his chest.

'Perhaps, or perhaps he has been the victim of the people's vengeance. We Haitians have a tradition of removing a tyrant in our own way, Professor.'

'Was Doctor Philipot a tyrant?'

'The people in Desaix Street were sadly deceived about their water.'

'So the pump will be set working now?' I asked.

'It will be one of my first projects.' He waved his hand at the files on the shelves behind him. 'But as you see I have many cares.' I noticed that the steel grips on many of his 'cares' had been rusted by a long succession of rainy seasons: a 'care' was not quickly disposed of.

Mr Smith came smartly back at him. 'So Doctor Philipot is still missing?'

'As your war-communiquйs used to put it, "missing believed killed".'

'But I attended his funeral,' Mr Smith said.

'His what?'

'His funeral.'

I watched the Minister. He showed no embarrassment. He gave a short bark, which was meant to be a laugh (I was reminded of a French bulldog) and said, 'There was no funeral.'

'It was interrupted.'

'You cannot imagine, Professor, the unscrupulous propaganda put about by our opponents.'

'I am not a professor and I saw the coffin with my own eyes.'

'That coffin was filled with stones, Professor — I am sorry, Mr Smith.'

'Stones?'

'Bricks to be exact, brought from Duvalierville where we are constructing our beautiful new city. Stolen bricks. I would like to show you Duvalierville one morning when you are free. It is our answer to Brasilia!

'But his wife was there.'

'Poor woman, she was used, I hope innocently, by unscrupulous men. The morticians have been arrested.'

I gave him full marks for readiness and imagination. Mr Smith was temporarily silenced.

'When are they to be tried?' I asked.

'The inquiries will take some time. The plot has many ramifications.'

'Then it's not true what the people think — that the body of Doctor Philipot is in the palace working as a zombie?'

'All that is Voodoo stuff, Mr Brown. Luckily our President has rid the country of Voodoo.'

'Then he has done more than the Jesuits could do.'

Mr Smith broke in with impatience. He had done his best in the cause of Doctor Philipot and now it was his mission which demanded full attention. He was anxious not to antagonize the Minister with such irrelevancies as zombies and Voodoo. The Minister listened to him with great courtesy, doodling at the same time with a pencil. Perhaps it was not a sign of inattention, for I noticed the doodle took the form of innumerable percentage-marks and crosses — so far as I could see there were no minus-signs.

Mr Smith spoke of a building which would contain a restaurant, kitchen, a library and a lecture hall. If possible there should be enough room for extensions. Even a theatre and cinema might be possible, one day; already his organization could supply documentary films, and he hoped that soon — given the opportunities for production — there might arise a school of vegetarian dramatists. 'In the meanwhile,' he said, we can always fall back on Bernard Shaw.'

'It is a great project,' the Minister said.

Mr Smith had been in the republic a week now. He had seen the kidnapping of Doctor Philipot's body; I had driven him through the worst of the shanty-town. That morning he had insisted against my advice in going to the Post Office himself to buy stamps. I had lost him momentarily in the crowd, and when I found him again he had not been able to approach a foot towards the guichet. Two one-armed men and three one-legged men hemmed him round. Two were trying to sell him dirty old envelopes containing out of date Haitian postage stamps: the others were more frankly begging. A man without legs at all had installed himself between his knees and removed his shoe-laces preparatory to cleaning his shoes. Others seeing a crowd collected were fighting to join in. A young fellow, with a hole where his nose should have been, lowered his head and tried to ram his way through towards the attraction at the centre. A man with no hands raised his pink polished stumps over the heads of the crowd to exhibit his infirmity to the foreigner. It was a typical scene in the Post Office except that foreigners were rare nowadays. I had to fight my way to reach him, and once my hand encountered a stiff inhuman stump, like a piece of hard rubber. I forced it on one side, and I felt revolted by myself, as though I were rejecting misery. The thought even came to me, What would the fathers of the Visitation have said to me? So deeply embedded are the disciplines and myths of childhood. It took me five minutes to get Mr Smith clear, and he had lost his shoe-laces. We had to replace them at Hamit's before we called on the Secretary for Social Welfare.