The Comedians

'Except the heat,' I added.

'I shall join the cortиge,' Mr Smith said.

'Don't you dream of it.'

Suddenly I was aware of the anger those blue eyes were capable of showing. 'Mr Brown, you are not my keeper. I am going to call Mrs Smith and we shall both …'

'At least leave her behind. Don't you really understand the danger … ?'

And it was on that dangerous word 'danger' that Mrs Smith entered.

'What danger?' she demanded.

'My dear, that poor Doctor Philipot to whom we had an introduction has killed himself.'

'Why?'

'The reasons seem obscure. They are taking him for burial to Pйtionville. I think we should join the cortиge. Joseph please, s'il vous plaоt, taxi …'

'What danger were you talking about?' Mrs Smith demanded.

'Do neither of you realize the kind of country this is? Anything can happen.'

'Mr Brown, dear, was saying he thought I ought to go alone.'

'I don't think either of you should go,' I said. 'It would be madness.'

'But - Mr Smith told you - we had a letter of introduction to Doctor Philipot. He is a friend of a friend.'

'It will be taken as a political gesture.'

'Mr Smith and I have never been afraid of political gestures. Dear, I have a dark dress … Give me two minutes.'

'He can't give you even one,' I said. 'Listen.' Even from my office we could hear the sound of voices on the hill, but it didn't sound to me like a normal funeral. There was not the wild music of peasant pompes funиbres, nor the sobriety of a bourgeois interment. Voices didn't waiclass="underline" they argued, they shouted. A woman's cry rose above the din. Before I could attempt to stop them Mr and Mrs Smith were running down the drive. The Presidential Candidate had a slight lead. Perhaps he maintained it more by protocol than effort, for Mrs Smith certainly had the better gait. I followed them more slowly, and with reluctance.

The Hotel Trianon had sheltered Doctor Philipot both alive and dead, and we were still not rid of him: at the very entrance of the drive I saw the hearse. It had apparently backed in so as to turn away from Pйtionville, in retreat towards the city. One of the hungry unowned cats which haunted that end of the drive had leapt, in fear of the intrusion, on to the top of the hearse and it stood there arched and shivering like something struck by lightning. No one attempted to drive it away - the Haitians may well have believed it to contain the soul of the ex-Minister himself.

Madame Philipot, whom I had met once at some embassy reception, stood in front of the hearse and defied the driver to turn. She was a beautiful woman - not yet forty - with an olive skin, and she stood with her arms out like a bad patriotic monument to a forgotten war. Mr Smith repeated over and over again, 'What's the matter?' The driver of the hearse, which was black and expensive and encrusted with the emblems of death, sounded his horn - I had not realized before that hearses possessed horns. Two men in black suits argued with him one on either side; they had got out of a tumbledown taxi which was also parked in my drive, and in the road stood another taxi pointing up the hill to Pйtionville. It contained a small boy whose face was pressed to the window. That was all the cortиge amounted to.

'What's going on here?' Mr Smith cried again in his distress and the cat spat at him from the glass roof.

Madame Philipot shouted 'Salaud' at the driver and ' Cochon,' then she flung her eyes like dark flowers at Mr Smith. She had understood English.

' Vous кtes amйricain? '

Mr Smith, expanding his knowledge of French nearly to its outer limit, said, ' Oui. '

'This

cochon, this salaud,' Madame Philipot said, still barring the way to the hearse, 'wants to drive back into the city.'

'But

why?'

'The militia at the barrier up the road will not let us pass.'

'But why, why?' Mr Smith repeated with bewilderment and the two men, leaving their taxi in the drive, began to walk down the hill towards the city with an air of purpose. They had put on top-hats.

'They murdered him,' Madame Philipot said, 'and now they will not even allow him to be buried in our own plot of ground.'

'There must be some mistake,' Mr Smith said, 'surely.'

'I told that salaud to drive on through the barrier. Let them shoot. Let them kill his wife and child.' She added with illogical contempt, 'They probably have no bullets in any case for their rifles.'

' Maman, maman, ' the child cried from the taxi.

' Chйri? '

' Tu m'as promis une glace а la vanille. '

' Attends un petit peu, chйri. '

I said, 'Then you got through the first road-block without being questioned?'

'Yes, yes. You understand - with a little payment.'

'They wouldn't accept payment up the road?'

She said, 'Oh, he had orders. He was afraid.'

'There must be a mistake,' I said, repeating Mr Smith, but unlike him I was thinking of the bribe which had been refused.

'You live here. Do you really believe that?' She turned on the driver and said, 'Drive on. Up the road. Salaud,' and the cat, as though it took the insult to itself, leapt at the nearest tree: its claws scrabbled in the bark and held. It spat once more over its shoulder, at all of us, with hungry hatred and dropped into the bougainvillaea.

The two men in black returned slowly up the hill. They had an intimidated air. I had time to look at the coffin - it was a luxurious one, worthy of the hearse, but it bore only a single wreath of flowers and a single card; the ex-Minister was doomed to have an interment almost as lonely as his death. The two men who had now rejoined us were almost indistinguishable one from the other, except that one was a centimetre or so the taller - or perhaps it was his hat. The taller one explained, 'We have been to the lower road-block, Madame Philipot. They say we cannot return with the coffin. Not without the authorization of the authorities.'

'What authorities?' I asked.

'The Secretary for Social Welfare.'

We all with one accord looked at the handsome coffin with its gleaming brass handles.

' There is the Secretary for Social Welfare,' I said.

'Not since this morning.'

'Are you Monsieur Hercule Dupont?'

'I am Monsieur Clйment Dupont. This is Monsieur Hercule.' Monsieur Hercule removed his top-hat and bowed from the hips.

'What's happening?' Mr Smith asked. I told him.

'But that's absurd,' Mrs Smith interrupted me. 'Does the coffin have to wait here till some fool mistake has been cleared up ?'

'I'm beginning to fear it was no mistake.'

'What else could it be?'

'Revenge. They failed to catch him alive.' I said to Madame Philipot,

'They will arrive soon. That's certain. Better go to the hotel with the child.'

'And leave my husband stranded by the road? No.'

'At least tell your child to go and Joseph will give him a vanilla ice.'

The sun was almost vertically above us now: splinters of light darted here and there from the glass of the hearse and the bright brass-work of the coffin. The driver turned off his engine and we could hear the sudden silence extending a long long way to where a dog whined on the fringes of the capital.

Madame Philipot opened the taxi door and lifted the little boy out. He was blacker than she was and the whites of his eyes were enormous like eggs. She told him to find Joseph and his ice, but he didn't want to go. He clung to her dress.

'Mrs Smith,' I said, 'take him to the hotel.'

She hesitated. She said, 'If there's going to be trouble, I think I ought to stay here with Madame Phili - Phili - you take him, dear.'

'And leave you, dear?' MrSmith said. 'No.'