Paul Theroux - Saint Jack

“Say fifty or sixty thousand quid,” said Yardley. “That’s money.”

Someone’s wicker chair creaked.

“Or maybe a hundred,” said Frogget.

“You could live on that,” said Yardley.

“You certainly could,” said Yates.

“Imagine,” said Smale.

“Funnily enough,” I said, “I can.”

“So can I,” said Frogget.

“The last time I was on leave,” said Smale, “I took a taxi from Waterloo to King’s Cross. Had a lot of baggage. I paid the fare and told the driver to keep the change. ‘A bob,’ he says, and hands it back to me. ‘Fit it up your arse.’”

“That rosebush wants pruning,” said Yates.

“‘Fit it up your arse’,” said Smale. “A shilling!”

“It wouldn’t fit,” said Frogget.

“That reminds me,” said Yardley. “The funniest thing happened today. It was at Robinson’s. Jack, you’re not listening.”

“I’m all ears,” I said.

MY WEEK was over, though it seemed like more than a week: it was very hard for me to tell how fast the time went with my eyes shut. It was the suspenseful captivity I had known with Toh’s gang, the time no one ransomed me. I sat blinded by resolution in my luxurious armchair — luxury at that price now something like a penalty — and I recorded the general confirming his plane ticket, packing his bags, phoning for a taxi; I knew that I was listening to the end. Mr. Khoo came up and filled the holes in the wall. I checked out quietly and went back to Moulmein Green. It was three in the afternoon. I slept under the fan and woke up the next day to the squeals of children playing outside my window. They were comparing paper lanterns they had obviously just bought, squarish roosters in red cellophane, airplanes and boxy fish.

A few days later, at Hing’s, I was standing in the shade of the portico, watching the traffic on Beach Road, my hands in my pockets.

“Sorry,” said a voice behind me. I turned and saw Jimmy Sung unzipping a briefcase. “The pictures,” he said, laughing, “no good, myah!” He passed me a thick envelope of pictures.

“If they’re duds it’s not your fault,” I said. I flicked through the envelope and saw rippling water stains on an opaque background; some were totally black, others smirched and blurred. No human form was apparent. I was off the hook.

“Wrong esposure,” he said.

“That’s how it goes,” I said. I wanted to hug him.

“And these,” he said. He gave me a smaller envelope.

“What’s this?”

“Some good ones.”

“You said they were all dark.”

“Not all.” He nodded. “I make some estra print. Okay, Jack, I see you.”

“Be good,” I said. I took the envelope into my cubicle to open it, and with fingers slowed by dread I started shuffling. The swimming lesson was first, and though “swimming lesson” sounds like the euphemism for a pervert’s crimp, this one looked genuine enough: the girl thrashed, the general stood at the end of the bed and coached, and in one he appeared to be giving the girl artificial respiration. Some showed the girl alone, or the general alone, and at the side of the picture the arm or leg of the other. Two I liked. In the first the general was wagging his finger at the grinning girl; in the second they were staring in different directions, the general vacantly at his watch, the girl at her splayed-out fingers. It was always the swimmer. One I treasured: the general’s arms were folded around the dark girl who sat in his lap and held his head in her hands. He was a big man, his embrace was protective, and her posture replied to this. If the photograph of a posture could prove anything, this proved fondness, even if it was a hopeless flirtation like his own war.

As blackmail they were of no value — the opposite of incriminating. It might have been different; in the Belvedere that week a crime fantasy had sustained me. The blackmailer photographing what he thinks is an infidelity discovers that he is witnessing a murder; he hears the threats, he sees the violence, he springs into the room, a nimble rescuer in the nick of time. It would have made a good story. Mine was not so neat, but there in my cubicle I had my first insight into the whole business: betrayal may damn, or it may vindicate. It was, after all, revelation. I had spied on the general to find him guilty; I came away with proof of something ordinary enough to be blameless. I was as relieved as if it was an affirmation of whatever well-intentioned gesture I had made: that impulsive embrace when one can believe for a full minute that one is not alone. So I was saved, and I thought: might not some chilly gray intriguer, hard by an enemy window, watch sadness or love rehearsed and change his mind? Shuck held him responsible for a war. I could not speak for that outrage, but in one respect, the only one I had seen, the man was gentle. I had spied on innocence.

“You looked pleased with yourself,” said Shuck in the Pavilion. Shuck had taken a corner table, and he looked around the bar as he spoke to me.

“I’ve got them.” I patted my breast pocket. “He’s in here.”

“How about a drink first,” said Shuck. “I’m just having a Coke.”

“Gin for me,” I said. “Well, here they are.”

We were beside a ship’s clock, under a long shelf of brassware, old pistols, sabers, and muskets. Shuck looked closely at the clock before he opened the envelope. He kept his poker face while he examined each picture, and when he finished and put them back he said, “Any others?”

“Nope.”

He creased the envelope. “He’s no Casanova, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t have believed it. But these’ll be useful. I mean, he’s with a Chinese girl, loving her up and so forth. He’ll have a hard time explaining that to the Pentagon. You know the girl?”

“Swimming lessons,” I said. “Can I see them a minute?”

Shuck palmed them and put them into my hand. I slipped the envelope into my pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping them.”

“Maybe it’s better that way, for the time being.” Shuck was still looking around the bar, half covering his mouth when he spoke, though with his lisp I doubted whether anyone could have understood a word he said.

“For good,” I said. “Until I burn them.”

“Hey, not so fast,” he said. “Those pictures are mine.”

“I took them,” I said. “They’re mine.”

Shuck laughed uncertainly. “I know your game,” he said. “You want more money. Okay, I’ll give you more — in addition to the ten grand we agreed on.”

“It’s not enough.”

Shuck gripped his Coke; his face was malevolent. “Another five.”

“No.”

“Jack—”

“It’s not enough.”

“Six,” he lisped, and his expression changed from malevolence to concern. “I understand. You’re holding out for more and you think I have to give it to you because you’ve got something on me — because I put you up to this. I’ve got news for you — it won’t wash. Now hand over the goods.”

“It’s not enough money, one,” I said. “And, two, you’re not getting them anyway.”

“It figures,” said Shuck. His smile was grim. “This happens with nationals all the time. Thais, say, or Cambodians. They agree on a price, usually peanuts — but they’re Thais, so how do they know how much to ask? They deal in small figures, then later they want more. It always gets bigger. And then they really get expensive.”

“So you tell them to get lost.”

“Sometimes,” said Shuck. “Anyway, as soon as you told me how much you wanted I knew you’d been out of the States for a long time. You really belong here. Ten grand! I couldn’t believe it.”