The Comedians

'After all, the children are innocent,' he said. 'Martin Bormann's son is a priest now in the Congo.'

But why, I wondered, tell me this fact about Martha? Sooner or later one always feels the need of a weapon against a mistress: he had slipped a knife up my sleeve to use against his wife when the moment of anger came. The man-servant opened the door and ushered in another visitor. I didn't catch the name, but as he padded across the carpet I recognized the Syrian from whom a year ago we had rented a room. He gave me a smile of complicity and said, 'Of course I know Mr Brown well. I did not know you had returned. And how did you find New York?'

'Any news in town, Hamit?' the ambassador asked.

'The Venezuelan Embassy has another refugee.'

'They will all be coming to me one day, I suppose,' the ambassador said,

'but misery likes company.'

'A terrible thing happened this morning, Excellency. They stopped Doctor Philipot's funeral and stole the coffin.'

'I heard rumours. I didn't believe them.'

'They are true enough,' I said. 'I was there. I saw the whole …'

'Monsieur Henri Philipot,' the man-servant announced, and a young man advanced towards us through the silence with a slight polio limp. I recognized him. He was the nephew of the ex-Minister, and I had met him once before in happier days, one of a little group of writers and artists who used to gather at the Trianon. I remembered him reading aloud some poems of his own - well-phrased, melodious, a little decadent and vieux jeu, with echoes of Baudelaire. How far away those times seemed now. All that was left to recall them were the rum punches of Joseph.

'Your first refugee, Excellency,' Hamit said. 'I was half expecting you, Monsieur Philipot.'

'Oh no,' the young man said, 'not that. Not yet. I understand when you claim asylum you have to make a promise not to indulge in political action.'

'What political action are you proposing to take?' I asked.

'I am melting down some old family silver.'

'I don't understand,' the ambassador said. 'Have one of my cigars, Henri. They are real Havana.'

'My dear and beautiful aunt talks about a silver bullet. But one bullet might go astray. I think we need quite a number of them. Besides we have to deal with three devils not one. Papa Doc, the head of the Tontons Macoute and the colonel of the palace guard.'

'It's a good thing,' the ambassador said, 'that they bought arms and not microphones with American aid.'

'Where were you this moming?' I asked.

'I arrived from Cap Haпtien too late for the funeral. Perhaps it was a lucky thing. I was stopped at every barrier on the road. I think they thought my land-rover was the first tank of an invading army.'

'How is everything up there?'

'Only too quiet. The place swarms with the Tontons Macoute. Judging by the sun-glasses you might be in Beverly Hills.'

Martha came in while he spoke and I was angry when she looked first at him, though I knew it was prudent to ignore me. She greeted him a shade too warmly, it seemed to me. 'Henri,' she said, 'I'm so glad you're here. I was afraid for you. Stay with us for a few days.'

'I must stay with my aunt, Martha.'

'Bring her too. And the child.'

'The time hasn't come for that.'

'Don't leave it too late.' She turned to me with a pretty meaningless smile which she kept in store for second secretaries and said, 'We are a third-rate embassy, aren't we, until we have a few refugees of our own?'

'How is your boy?' I asked. I meant the question to be as meaningless as her smile.

'The pain is better now. He wants very much to see you.'

'Why should he want that?'

'He always likes to see our friends. Otherwise he feels left out.'

Henri Philipot said, 'If only we had white mercenaries as Tshombe had. We Haitians haven't fought for forty years except with knives and broken bottles. We need a few men of guerrilla experience. We have mountains just as high as those in Cuba.'

'But not the forests,' I said, 'to hide in. Your peasants have destroyed those.'

'We held out a long time against the American Marines all the same.' He added bitterly, 'I say "we", but I belong to a later generation. In my generation we have learnt to paint - you know they buy Benoit's pictures now for the Museum of Modem Art (of course they cost far less than a European primitive). Our novelists are published in Paris - and now they live there too.'

'And

your

poems?'

'They were quite melodious, weren't they, but they sang the Doctor into power. All our negatives made that one great black positive. I even voted for him. Do you know that I haven't an idea how to use a Bren? Do you know how to use a Bren?'

'It's an easy weapon. You could learn in five minutes.'

'Then teach me.'

'First we would need a Bren.'

'Teach me with diagrams and empty match-boxes, and perhaps one day I'll find the Bren.'

'I know someone better equipped than I am as a teacher, but he's in prison at the moment.' I told him about 'Major' Jones.

'So they beat him up?' he asked with satisfaction.

'Yes.'

'That's good. White men react badly to a beating-up.'

'He seemed to take it very easily. I almost had the impression he was used to it.'

'You think he has some real experience?'

'He told me he had fought in Burma, but I've only got his word for that.'

'And you don't believe it?'

'There's something about him I don't believe, not altogether. I was reminded, when I talked to him, of a time when I was young and I persuaded a London restaurant to take me on because I could talk French - I said I'd been a waiter at Fouquet's. I was expecting all the time that someone would call my bluff, but no one did. I made a quick sale of myself, like a reject with the price-label stuck over the flaw. And again, not so long ago, I sold myself just as successfully as an art expert - no one called my bluff then either. I wonder sometimes whether Jones isn't playing the same game. I remember looking at him one night on the boat from America - it was after the ship's concert - and wondering, are you and I both comedians?'

'They can say that of most of us. Wasn't I a comedian with my verses smelling of Les Fleurs du Mal, published on handmade paper at my own expense? I posted them to the leading French reviews. That was a mistake. My bluff was called. I never read a single criticism - except by Petit Pierre. The same money would have bought me a Bren perhaps.' (It was a magic word to him now - Bren.)

The ambassador said, 'Come on, cheer up, let us all be comedians together. Take one of my cigars. Help yourself at the bar. My Scotch is good. Perhaps even Papa Doc is a comedian.'

'Oh no,' Philipot said, 'he is real. Horror is always real.'

The ambassador said, 'We mustn't complain too much of being comedians - it's an honourable profession. If only we could be good ones the world might gain at least a sense of style. We have failed - that's all. We are bad comedians, we aren't bad men.'

'For Christ's sake,' Martha said in English, as though she were addressing me directly, 'I'm no comedian.' We had forgotten her. She beat with her hands on the back of the sofa and cried to them in French, 'You talk so much. Such rubbish. My child vomited just now. You can smell it still on my hands. He was crying with pain. You talk about acting parts. I'm not acting any part. I do something. I fetch a basin. I fetch aspirin. I wipe his mouth. I take him into my bed.'

She began to weep standing behind the sofa. 'My dear,' the ambassador said with embarrassment. I couldn't even go to her or look at her too closely: Hamit watched me, ironic and comprehending. I remembered the stains we had left on his sheets, and I wondered whether he had changed them himself. He knew as many intimate things as a prostitute's dog.