Пол Боулз - Let it come down

«No money!» he thought savagely. «Then why does he stay at the Atlantide?» But he knew the answer. Even if it were true that Wilcox was broke, which seemed unlikely, he would have felt obliged, and would have managed, to go on staying at the best hotel, because the town had agreed with his decision that he was one of the big shots, one of those who automatically get the best whether or not they can pay for it. But why? Every day in Tangier several new companies were formed, most of them with the intention of evading the laws of one country or another, and every day approximately the same number failed. And the reasons for their failure or success had very little to do with the business acumen of those connected with them. If you were really a winner you found ways of intercepting your competitors’ correspondence, even his telegrams; you persuaded the employees at the French Post Office to let you have the first look at letters you were interested in seeing, which was how you got your mailing lists; you hired Arabs to break into other companies’ offices and steal their stationery and examples of their directors’ signatures for you; and when you sent your forged replies regretting your inability to supply the merchandise you prudently went all the way to Tetuan in the Spanish Zone to post them — only no customs official at the frontier got them away from you because somehow you were not stripped naked like the others, and the seams of your clothing were not ripped open. Not that you paid bribes in order to escape being molested — but everyone knew a winner on sight; he was the respected citizen of the International Zone. If one was not a winner one was a victim, and there seemed to be no way to change that. No pretense was of any avail. It was not a question of looking or acting like a winner — that could always be managed, although no one was taken in by it — it was a matter of conviction, of feeling like one, of knowing you belonged to the caste, of recognizing and being sure of your genius. For a long time he reflected confusedly upon these things; then he paid, got up, and went out into the rain, which now fell less heavily.

«I knew you would come,» said Mme. Jouvenon. This was her way of saying that she had not been at all sure of it.

Dyar was more truthful. « I didn’t,» he said with a wry smile. And as he said it, he wondered why indeed he had come. Partly out of courtesy, perhaps, although he would not have wanted to admit that. He had found himself outside the restaurant three times during the late morning, but it had been too early for the rendezvous. However, he had seen the bright displays of hors d’oeuvre through the window, and probably it was they more than anything else that had induced him finally to keep the appointment. It was the sort of place he never would have thought of eating in alone.

Mme. Jouvenon was much calmer today — even rather pleasant, he thought — and certainly she was nobody’s fool. She held the reins of the conversation firmly, but directed it with gentleness so that there was no feeling of strain. When they had reached the salad course, with all the naturalness in the world she began to discuss the subject that interested her, and he found it difficult to see anything offensive in what she said or in the way she said it. He understood, she supposed, that most people in Tangier had to live as best they could, doing one thing and another, and precisely because there were so many governments represented in the Administration, there was a great need for a practical system of checking and counter-checking between each power and the others. This ought to have been worked out beforehand officially, but it had not been, and the old formula of private tallying had still to be adhered to. He nodded gravely, smiling to himself, wondering just how long it would take her to make her offer, and under what guise it would come.

He was aware, she said, that practically every Englishman in the Zone, even with a title, was constrained by his government to furnish whatever information he could gather, and that far from being a shameful pursuit, on the contrary this was considered to be a completely honorable activity.

«More than most others you could find here, I guess,» Dyar laughed.

She did not know about the English, she said, but many people she knew managed to make the thing lucrative by supplying data to two or more offices simultaneously. At the moment her government (she did not specify which it was) had no representation on the Board of Administrators, which made adequate reports an even greater necessity. Inasmuch as it was common knowledge that the unseen power behind the Administration was the United States, it was particularly with regard to American activities that her government wished to be documented. The difficulty was that the American milieu in Tangier was peculiarly hermetic, not inclined to mix with the other diplomatic groups. And then of course Americans were especially unsusceptible to financial offers, simply because it was difficult to put the price high enough to make it worth the trouble to most of them.

«— But she makes the proposition to me,» he thought grimly, «because I’m not a big shot».

And the proposition came out. She was empowered to offer him five hundred dollars a month, beginning with a month’s advance immediately, in return for small bits of information which he might glean from conversations with his American friends, plus one or two specific facts about the Voice of America’s set-up at Sidi Kacem, — things which Dyar need not even understand himself, she hastened to assure him, since her husband was a very good electrical engineer and would have no difficulty in interpreting them.

«But I don’t know anything or anybody in Tangier!»

They would even provide introductions — indirectly, of course — to the necessary people, she explained. As an American he had entree to certain places (such as the Voice of America, for instance) from which other nationals were excluded.

«R-r-really we ask very little,» she smiled. «You must not have r-r-romantic idea this is spying. There is nothing to spy in Tangier. Tangier has no interest for anyone. Diplomatic, perhaps, yes. Military, no».

«How many months would you want me for?»

«Ah! How are we to know how good you are to us?» She looked archly across the table at him. «Maybe infor-r-rma-tion you give us is not accur-r-rate. We should not continue with you».

«Or if I couldn’t get any dope for you at all?»

«Oh, I am not wor-r-ried about that».

From her handbag she pulled a folded check and handed it to him. It was a check on the Banco Salvador Hassan e Hijos, and was already carefully made out to the order of Nelson Dyar, and signed in a neat handwriting by Nadia Jouvenon. It shocked him to see his name spelled correctly there on that slip of paper, the work of this intense little woman with blue hair; it was ridiculous that she should have known his name, but he was not really surprised, nor did he dare ask her how she had discovered it.

They ordered coffee. «Tomorrow evening you will take dinner at our home,» she said. «My husband will be delighted to meet you».

A waiter came and asked for Mme. Jouvenon, saying she was wanted on the telephone. She excused herself and went through a small door behind the bar. Dyar sat alone, toying with his coffee spoon, smothered by an oppressive feeling of unreality. He had put the check into his pocket, nevertheless at the moment he had a strong impulse to pull it out and set a match to it in the ash tray in front of him, so that when she reappeared it would no longer exist. They would go out into the street and he would be free of her. Distractedly he took a sip of coffee and glanced around the room. At the next table sat four people chattering in Spanish: a young couple, an older woman who was obviously the mother of the girl, and a small boy who slouched low in his chair pouting, refusing to eat. The girl, heavily made-up and decked with what seemed like several pounds of costume jewelry, kept glancing surreptitiously in his direction, always looking rapidly at her mother and husband first to be sure they were occupied. This must have been going on since the family group had sat down, but now was the first he had noticed it. He watched her, not taking his gaze from her face; there was no doubt about it — she was giving him the eye. He tried to see what the husband looked like, but he was facing the other way. He was fat; that was all he could tell.