Paul Theroux - The Consul's File

I said, 'Maybe we'll both be posted to Hanoi when we open our embassy there. It won't be long.'

Jill said, 'They shoot dogs in Hanoi. They won't shoot my Alfie.'

'You have a dog?'

'Yes, upstairs. Wouldn't travel without him. A cocker spaniel.'

'You didn't have a dog in Kampala.' ,

'I inherited him in Saigon,' she said. 'He changed my life. I took him back to the States after the pull-out. I'm taking him to Djakarta.'

'He's a well-trained dog.'

'You'd better believe it. In the States we crossed the country. We went all the way to Arizona together.'

'I thought you were from Ohio.'

'I bought some land in Arizona.' She saw my interest and added, 'Twenty acres.'

This, like the expensive watch, baffled me. She had told me once how after her father had died she'd gone to secretarial school in Cleveland, because it was cheaper than college. She had worked for three years supporting her mother: the single person always has a significant parent, inevitably a burden. But her mother had died, and Jill had joined the Foreign Service, to leave Ohio.

She said, 'It's outside Tucson — it's good land. When I left Saigon I had so much money! We had all that hardship pay, those bonuses — everyone made money in Vietnam except the GIs. I thought I'd invest it, so we looked around, Alfie and me, and we settled on Arizona. It's sunny, it's clean, I can go there when I retire. I'll sell the land off in lots. Actually, I was thinking I'd sell half and use the money to build some houses on the rest, then sell those houses and buy myself a really nice one.'

It was an ingenious scheme, and at once it all fitted together, the watch, the dog, the vacations, the jewellery, the land. She had made a choice. Once, perhaps, she had needed me; no longer. I could not be her life — this was her life. And seeing how she was managing — that however much she might have needed me she had never counted on me— I felt tender towards her and slightly saddened by the complicated arrangements that are necessary when we can't depend on each other. What precautions had I taken?

This security of hers was, if not an aphrodisiac an encouragement. I had had two drinks, but seeing how safe and contented she was made me happy. She was managing; she wouldn't make demands. She was like that fabulous mistress, the older woman, either divorced or happily married who, with free afternoons, finds a man she likes and sleeps with him because she is energetic and resourceful and likes his dark eyes and believes that as long as she is happy she is blameless.

Land in Arizona: it reassured me.

I said, 'How do you like this hotel?'

'The drinks are too expensive down here,' she said. Tve got a bottle in my room. Shall we economize?'

'Whatever you say.'

'It's time I fed Alfie. He's probably tearing the room apart.'

Her room was on the fifteenth floor, and from the window I could see the sprawling island, the tiny red-roofed houses and the high-rise horrors. The hotel in the underdeveloped country is like a view from a plane. You are passing overhead and you know that if those people down there had this view they would overthrow their government.

I looked out of the window so as to avoid staring at the room. The dog had been sleeping on the unmade bed, and as we entered he had woken and bounded towards us, whimpering at Jill, barking at me.

'You're all excited, aren't you? Yes, you are!' Jill was scratching him affectionately. 'He's very possessive. Look at him.'

The dog was shaking with excitement and rage. I thought he might sink his teeth into me.

Jill said, 'That's pure jealousy.'

There were shoes on the bed. One dress lay over the back of a chair, another over a door to the closet. Three suitcases were open on the floor and it looked as if the dog had pulled the clothes out. Jill's short-wave radio was on the bedside table with a copy of Arizona Highways and a Doris Lessing paperback.

She saw me looking at the novel and said, 'Aeroplane reading. I picked it up in London. That gal has problems.'

'Don't most gals?'

She looked hurt. 'Don't most people?'

She had seemed so cool in the bar. Up here, in this cluttered room, it was as if I was seeing the contents of her mind, all of it shaken out. And I had known the moment I saw the dog that I couldn't do anything here — certainly not make love. There was no room for me; she could not have all this and a lover — she had made her choice.

'Is your room like this?' she asked.

I nodded. One suitcase, my pipe, my drip-dry suit. The opposite of this, and yet I envied her the completeness of her mess and saw in it a recklessness I could never manage.

'I love these little refrigerators. They must be Japanese.' She walked towards the squat thing and the rubber around the door made a sucking noise as she pulled it open. 'Same again? Here's the tonic, here's the ice, and here's the anaesthetic.' She had brought an enormous bottle of gin from the bathroom. 'This was supposed to be your present for letting me stay at your house. Five bucks at the duty-free shop in Bangkok.'

'I'm sorry about that.'

'No, no,' she said. 'This is fine, a real reunion — I'm out of my element.' She made herself a drink and crawled on to the bed. I noticed she was still wearing her shoes. She sat with her legs crossed, stroking the dog. She had moved through the clutter without seeing it; this disorder was her order.

I touched her glass. 'To your new job.' 'Same job, new place,' she said. 'And here's to your new place.'

'I'm leaving Ayer Hitara in two months,' I said. 'That's what I mean.'

'So you knew.'

She said, 'I saw a cable.'

'Where am I going?'

She said, 'I forget.'

Was this why she had come? Because no matter what happened it wouldn't last; we would be parted, as we had been in Kampala. She had known she was leaving there — how wrong I had been to think I was the cause of her transfer to Saigon. That was her element, diplomatic relations, the continual parting. She was stronger than I had guessed.

I said, 'Well, it's not Djakarta.'

'No.'

'It's far.'

'They told you.'

'No,' I said. 'You did.'

She laughed. 'If I knew you,' she said, 'I think I'd really like you a lot.'

'Maybe you should have come to Ayer Hitam.'

'I'm glad I didn't,' she said. 'What if I had liked it? It might be nice — flowers, trees, friendly people. I guessed you had one of those big shady houses, very cool, with gleaming floors and everything put away and a little Chinese man making us drinks.'

I said nothing: it was as she had described it.

'Then I wouldn't have wanted to go. I'd have been sad, crying all the way to Djakarta. You've never seen me cry. I'm scary.'

'You're not sad now.'

'No,' she said. 'This is the place for us. A hotel room. Our own bottle of gin. Glasses from the bathroom. Couldn't be better.'

I must have agreed rather half-heartedly — I was still thinking of her calculation in seeking me out just before I was to be transferred — because the next thing I heard her say was, 'I suppose I should be sight-seeing. Sniffing around. Every country has its own cigarette smell. Funny, isn't it?

You know where you are when someone lights up.'

I said, 'I could take you sight-seeing. There's only the Tiger Balm Gardens, a few noodle stalls and the harbour.'

Td hate you to do that,' she said. 'Anyway, this is a business trip for you. I don't want to be in your way.' She winked as she had before. 'Diplomatic relations.'

As I raised my glass to her the dog growled.

'You don't think it's tacky, retiring to Arizona?'

'You're not retiring yet.'

'So you do think it's tacky. But you're right — there'll be lots of assignments between now and then.'

'Hanoi.'