Anthony Burgess - Tremor of Intent

The hip-shaking stopped, dancers returned to their tables. Miss Devi was alone with the junior ship's officer. He, a mere servant, could easily be seen off. Hillier waited, watching the two suck up something long through straws. The band-leader, who seemed very drunk, said: 'This next one would be for the oldsters, if there were any oldsters here.' Everything laid on, even flattery. The band started to play a slow fox-trot.

Miss Devi seemed quite pleased to be asked to dance by Hillier. 'I rather regret that silly wager now,' said Hillier as they did feather-steps. 'I don't mean because I lost – that's nothing – but because it was a sort of insult to India. I mean, look at it as a sort of tableau in a play by Brecht or somebody – two Western men gorging, a thousand pounds on it, and India watches, sad-eyed, aware of her starving millions.'

Miss Devi laughed. Her slender body, strained back in the dance, was delicious in his arms. Hillier, as he often did when close to a desirable woman, began to feel hungry. 'Starving millions,' she repeated, with a sort of cool mockery. 'I think that we all get what we want. Having too many children and not farming the land properly -that's as much as to say "I want to starve".'

'So you don't go in for compassion, pity, things of that sort?'

She thought about that, dancing. 'I try not to. We should know the consequences of our acts.'

'And if a mad stranger breaks into my house and knifes me?'

'It's pre-ordained, willed from the beginning. You can't fight God's will. To pity the victim is to resent the executioner. God should not be resented.'

'It's strange to me to hear you talking about God.' She looked coldly at him, stiffening. 'I mean here, on a luxury cruise, dancing a slow fox-trot.'

'Why? Everything's in God-slow fox-trot, saxophone, the salted peanuts on the bar. Why should it be strange? The universe is one thing.'

Hillier groaned to himself: it was like Roper talking, except that Roper wouldn't have God. 'And the universe has only one law?' he said.

'The laws are contained in it, not imposed. Whatever we do, we obey the law.'

'What does Mr Theodorescu say when you talk like that?'

'He tends to agree with me. He accepts the primacy of the will. We should do what we want to do. Never nurse unacted desires.'

Good. 'And if we desire a person, not just a thing?'

'There must be a harmony of wills. Sometimes this is predestined. Usually it has to be contrived out of one person's desire. It's the task of the désirer to bring about a reciprocal desire. That's perhaps the most Godlike function a human soul can take on. It's a kind of creation of destiny.'

As logic this made little sense to Hillier, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Nor did he just yet propose to swoop down to the practical and personal application of her theory. Plenty of time, all the night before you. Switch on the oven and stack the dishes in the warming-drawer. 'You yourself,' he said, 'whose desirability is not in question, must have had this reciprocity wished on you many times. And in many countries.'

'Some countries more than others. But I have little time for social life.'

'Mr Theodorescu keeps you pretty busy?'

'Oh, what a terrible sour note that was.' She screwed up her face delectably. 'That saxophone-player seems to be drunk. What did you say? Oh, yes, pretty busy.'

Hillier now saw the steward Wriste, smoking, watching the dancing from a far door. He had put on a shirt and spotted bow-tie for the evening. Catching sight of Hillier, he waved cheerily but discreetly, opening his mouth with a kind of toothless joy. Hillier said: 'Typing and so on? I've been working on the design of a cheap lightweight electrical typewriter. You can carry it about and plug it into a lamp-socket.'

'We're dancing,' said Miss Devi, 'under the starry Adriatic sky, and all you can think of to talk to me about is typewriters.'

'The universe is one thing. God and typewriters and drunken saxophonists. What sort of business does Mr Theodorescu do? Mr Theodorescu is also part of the universe.'

'He calls himself an entrepôt of industrial information. He buys and sells it.'

'And is he always paid in cash?'

She didn't answer. But 'Look,' she said, 'if you're trying to find out whether Mr Theodorescu and I have a personal relationship, the answer is no. And if you're going to ask me to use my personal influence to get your debt rescinded, then the answer is again no. People shouldn't gamble with Mr Theodorescu. He always wins.'

'And supposing I refuse to pay him?'

'That would be most unwise. You might have an unfortunate accident. He's a very powerful man.'

'You mean he'd harm me physically? Well then, perhaps I'd better get in first. I can fight as dirtily as the best of them. I think a gentleman ought to be willing to accept the cheque of another gentleman. Mr Theodorescu wants cash and is ready to engineer unfortunate accidents. I don't think Mr Theodorescu is a gentleman.'

'You'd better not let him hear you say that.'

'Where is he? I'll say it to his face with pleasure. But I suppose he's flat out on his bunk or in his luxe suite or whatever it is.'

'Ah, no. He's in the radio-room, busy with messages. Mr Theodorescu is never ill. He can eat and drink anything. He is, I think, the most virile man I know.'

'Sorry,' said Hillier to a couple he'd nearly bumped into. And, to Miss dancing Devi, 'Yet he's not virile enough to want to draw you into a reciprocal nexus of desire.'

'You use very pompous words. Mr Theodorescu is interested in a different kind of sex. He has exhausted, he says, the possibilities of women.'

'Does that mean that the precocious Master Walters will have to watch out?'

'He is also the discreetest man I know. He is very discreet about everything.'

'My tastes are normal. I don't need so much discretion.'

'What do you mean?' But, before he could answer, she surveyed his face with cat's eyes. 'It seems to me,' she said, 'that you are for some reason trying to make yourself ugly. The face I am looking at doesn't seem to be your face at all. You are perhaps a man of mystery. That young and forward boy doesn't believe you have anything to do with typewriters. A minute ago you were too quick to bring typewriters into our discourse, as though you were trying to convince yourself that typewriters are your professional concern. Why are you here? Why are you taking this voyage? Who are you?'

'My name is Sebastian Jagger. I'm a typewriter technician.' Hillier sang those words gently in a free adaptation of Mimi's aria in the first act of La Bohème. This did not clash with the music of the fox-trot. The pianist, who seemed as drunk as his leader, was doing something atonal and aleatoric; meanwhile drummer and bassist assured the dancers that this was still the dance they had started off to dance. 'I've been doing some work for Olivetti. I'm returning to England for a time, but I'm taking a holiday first.'

'I would like to strip you,' she said, her eyes deliciously malicious, 'and see what sort of man you really are.'

'Let us,' said Hillier gallantly, 'have some reciprocal stripping.'

The music suddenly, except for the pianist, stopped. A glowingly healthy though tubby man with grey curls, evening dress and dog-collar was standing on the players' rostrum. 'My friends,' he intoned with easy loudness. The pianist came in with a recitative accompaniment but then was hushed. The congregation listened, arms still about each other as in a love feast. 'It has been suggested to me that we end now. As most of you will know, one of our fellow-passengers is in the sickbay. Our revelry is, apparently, all too audible there. The worst is feared, I fear, for the poor man. It would be reverent and considerate to end the evening quietly, perhaps even in meditation. Thank you.' He got down to some light applause. The band-leader called: 'You've had it, chums. Proceed quietly to your homes and do nothing naughty at street-corners.'