“What will you do if they refuse?”
“I pray they will accept,” the kneeling man said, “I am sure they will accept.”
“Then I hope to God God hears you,” Charley Fortnum said. “Don’t fry the eggs too hard.”
It was not until the afternoon that Charley Fortnum heard the official news about himself. The man Léon turned on a pocket radio at noon, but the battery failed in the middle of some Guaraní music and he had no spares. The young man with a beard whom Léon called Aquino went into town to buy more batteries. He was a long time gone. A woman came in from the market with food and cooked their lunch, a vegetable soup with a few scraps of meat. She made a great show too of cleaning the hut, raising the dust in one part so that it settled in another. She had a lot of untidy black hair and a wart on her face and she treated Léon with a mixture of possessiveness and servility. He called her Marta.
Once Charley Fortnum, with embarrassment because of the woman’s presence, said he wanted to use a lavatory. Léon gave an order to the Indian who led him to a cabin in the yard at the back of the hut. The door had lost one of its hinges and wouldn’t close, and inside there was only a deep hole dug in the earth with a couple of boards across it. When he came out the Guaraní was sitting a few feet away playing with his gun, sighting it on a tree, a bird flying past, at a stray mongrel dog. Through the trees Charley Fortnum could see another hut, even poorer than the one to which he was returning. He thought of running to it for help, but he felt sure the Indian would welcome the chance to try his gun. When he got back he said to Léon, “If you can get a couple of bottles of whisky I’ll pay you for them.” No one had stolen his wallet, he had noticed that, and he took out the necessary notes.
Léon gave the money to Marta. He said, “You will have to be patient, Seńor Fortnum. Aquino is not back. No one can go till he returns. And it is a long walk into the town.”
“I will pay for a taxi.”
“I am afraid that is not possible. There are no taxis here.”
The Indian squatted down again by the door. Charley Fortnum said, “I’m going off to sleep a bit. That drug you gave me was pretty strong.” He went back into the inner room and stretched out on the coffin. He tried to sleep, but he was kept awake by his thoughts. He wondered how Clara was managing in his absence. He had never left her alone for a whole night before. He knew nothing about childbirth, but he had an idea that shock or anxiety could affect the unborn child. He had even tried to cut down his drinking after he married Clara-except for that first married night of whisky and champagne when for the first time they made love properly, without impediment, in the Hotel Italia in Rosario-an old-fashioned hotel which smelled agreeably of undisturbed dust like an ancient library.
They had gone there because he thought she would be a little scared of the Riviera Hotel which was new, expensive, and air conditioned. There were papers he had to collect at the Consulate at Santa Fe 939 (he remembered the number because it represented the month and year of his first marriage), the papers which if inquiries were made would show that there was no impediment to his second marriage-it had taken weeks to get a copy of Evelyn’s death certificate from a small town in Idaho. He was able at the same time to leave his will in a sealed envelope in the Consulate safe. The Consul was a pleasant middle-aged man. He and Charley Fortnum had hit it off right away when for some reason the subject of horses came up. He invited them back after the civil and religious ceremonies and opened a bottle of genuine French champagne. That little drinking ceremony among the file boxes compared very favourably with the reception in Idaho after his first marriage. He remembered with horror the white cake and the relations-in-law who wore dark suits and even hard collars, although it was a civil marriage which was not acceptable in Argentina. They had been prudent and not spoken of it when they returned. His wife had refused a Catholic marriage-it was against her conscience as she had become a Christian Scientist. Of course the civil marriage made her inheritance unsafe-which was also an indignity. He wanted very much to arrange things more safely for Clara; to ensure there were no cracks in the walls of this second marriage. He intended to leave her, when he came to die, in a security which was impregnable.
After a while he slid into a deep dreamless sleep; he was only awakened when the radio in the next room began to repeat his own name-Seńor Carlos Fortnum. The police-the announcer said-believed he might have been brought to Rosario because the telephone call to the Nación had been traced to that city. A city of more than half a million inhabitants couldn’t be searched very thoroughly, and the authorities had been given only four days in which to agree to the kidnappers’ terms. One of these four days had already passed. Charley Fortnum thought: Clara will be listening to the broadcast, and he thanked God Ted would be around to reassure her. Ted would know what had happened. Ted would go to see her. Ted would do something to keep her calm. Ted would tell her that, even if they killed him, she would be all right. She had so much fear of the past-he could tell that from the way she never spoke of it. It was one of his reasons for marrying her, to prove she would never under any circumstances have to return to Mother Sanchez. He took exaggerated care of her happiness like a clumsy man entrusted with something of great fragility which didn’t belong to him. He was always afraid of dropping her happiness. Someone was talking now about the Argentine football team which was touring Europe. He called, “Léon!”
The small head with the bat ears and the attentive eyes of a good servant peered round the door. Léon said, “You have slept a long time, Seńor Fortnum. That is good.”
“I heard the radio, Léon.”
“Ah, yes.” Léon was carrying a glass in one hand and a bottle of whisky was tucked under each arm. He said, “My wife has brought two bottles from the town.” He showed the whisky proudly (it was an Argentine brand) and counted out the change with care. “You must not worry. Everything will be over in a few days.”
“Everything will be over with me, you mean? Give me that whisky.” He poured out a third of a glass and drank it down.
“I am sure tonight we shall hear them announce that they have accepted our terms. And then by tomorrow evening you can go home.”
Charley Fortnum poured out another dose.
“You are drinking too much,” the man called Léon said with friendly anxiety.
“No, no. I know the right measure. And it’s the measure that counts. What’s your other name, Léon?”
“I told you I have no other name.”
“But you have a title, haven’t you? Tell me what you are doing in this setup, Father Léon.”
He could almost believe the ears twitched, like a dog’s, at a familiar intonation-“Father” taking the place of “walk” or perhaps “cat.”
“You are mistaken. You saw my wife just now. Marta. She brought you the whisky.”
“But once a priest always a priest, Father. I spotted you when you broke those eggs over the dish. I could see you at the altar, Father.”
“You are imagining things, Seńor Fortnum.”
“And what are you imagining? You might have made a good bargain for the Ambassador, but you can’t get anything in return for me. I’m not worth a peso to a human soul-except my wife. It seems an odd thing for a priest to become a murderer, but I suppose you’ll get someone else to do the thing.”
“No,” the other said with great seriousness, “if it should ever come to that, which God forbid, I will be the one. I do not want to shift the guilt.”
“Then I’d better leave you some of this whisky. You’ll need a swig of it-in how many days did they say-three was it?”