“Yes, but he already gives the Yankees something in return which they value a great deal more than an English Honorary Consul. The General has one great quality, like Papa Doc used to have in Haiti. He is anti-communist. Are you quite sure you are alone, doctor?”
“Of course.”
“It was only… I thought I heard… well, never mind. Are you a communist, doctor?”
“No. I have always found Marx unreadable. Like most economics. But you really believe these kidnappers are communist? It is not only communists who are against tyranny and torture.”
“Some of the men they want released are communist-or so the General claims.”
“My father is not.”
“Then you do really believe he is still alive?”
The telephone rang out at Doctor Plarr’s elbow. He lifted the receiver unwillingly. A voice which he recognized as Leon’s said, “Something has happened. We need you urgently. We have been trying all day…”
“It is so very urgent? I have a friend drinking with me.”
“Are you under arrest?” the voice whispered up the line.
“Not for the moment.”
Colonel Perez leaned forward, watching him, trying to hear.
“It is too late to telephone me. Yes, yes, I know. A little fear is quite natural under the circumstances, but the temperature of a child always runs high. Give her two more aspirin.”
“I will call you again in fifteen minutes.”
“I hope you will not find it necessary. Ring me up tomorrow morning but not too early. I have had a long day, I have been to Buenos Aires.” He added with his eye on Colonel Perez, “I want to get to bed.”
“In fifteen minutes,” the voice of Leon repeated. Doctor Plarr put down the receiver.
“Who was that?” Perez asked. “Oh, forgive me, I get into the habit of asking questions. It is a police vice.”
“Only a worried parent,” Doctor Plarr said.
“I thought I heard a man’s voice.”
“Yes. The father. Men are always much more worried about their children than women. The mother is in Buenos Aires shopping. What were we talking about, colonel?”
“Your father. It is strange that these men included his name in their list. There are so many others who would be much more useful to them. Younger men. Your father must be quite an old man now. It almost looks as though they were paying for some help you could give them…” He finished his sentence with a vague gesture.
“What could I do for them?”
“All the publicity you are trying to arrange-it’s useful to them. It is something they cannot do for themselves. They do not want to kill the man. His death would be a sort of defeat. And then-it occurred to me only today, I am a slow thinker-they knew what the papers never printed-the real program the Governor had made for the Ambassador’s visit. It is funny how something so obvious escaped me for so long. They must have received information, confidential information.”
“Perhaps. But not from me. I am not in the Governor’s confidence.”
“No, but Seńor Fortnum knew and he might have told you. Or Seńora Fortnum. It is not an unusual thing for a woman to mention to her lover when her husband is going to be away.”
“You make me out a Don Juan with my patients, colonel. I might be afraid of a husband in England, but here the General Medical Council does not operate. I hope you have not been bothering Seńora Fortnum?”
“I wanted to have a word with her, but she was not at the camp. This evening she visited the Sanchez house. Then she went to the Consulate, but she is not there now. I was a little anxious at first because Seńor Fortnum’s Land Rover was found by the road damaged-poor man, he has had two cars smashed in two days. I was glad to hear she had been with Seńora Sanchez and that her injuries were only small ones. You have been attending a patient, doctor, I think? Your right sleeve is turned up.”
Doctor Plarr pushed the telephone away from him. He was afraid it might speak to him again too soon. He said, “How observant you are, colonel. I did not trust Seńora Sanchez as a doctor. Clara is with me here.”
“And I was right too about your lies yesterday.”
“An affair always involves a few lies.”
“I am sorry to have interrupted you, doctor, but it was the lies which bothered me. After all we are old friends. We have even shared a few adventures in our time. Seńora Escobar, for example.”
“Yes, I remember. I told you I was leaving her and the coast was-nearly-clear. I never understood why in the end she preferred Vallejo to you.”
“She did not trust my motives. The common fate of a policeman. You see Seńor Escobar has a landing strip on his estancia in the Chaco. Probably whisky and cigarettes come out of Paraguay by that route.”
“A public benefactor.”
“Yes, of course I would never have interfered with him. I hope those aspirins work. You will not want to be interrupted again.” Colonel Perez drained his whisky and stood up. “You have relieved my mind a great deal. Of course I understand now why you would want Seńor Fortnum released. A husband is of great importance in a love affair. He is a way of escape when an affair begins to get boring. No one would wish to leave a woman quite alone. Well, we shall have to try and save Seńor Fortnum for you-and capture his kidnappers too. They will know what to do with them on the other side of the river.”
Doctor Plarr went with him to the door. “I am glad you are feeling happier about me.”
“Secrets always smell bad to a policeman, even innocent secrets. We are trained, like a dog with cannabis, to scent them out. Take my advice, doctor, you have really done enough now, so please do not interfere any more. We have always been friendly, but if you meddle in this affair, you must look out for yourself. I will shoot first and send a wreath later.”
“You sound a bit like Al Capone.”
“Yes. Capone too supported order in his own way.” He opened the door and hesitated for a moment on the dark landing, as though something important had slipped his memory. “There is one more thing I ought perhaps to have told you earlier. I do have news of your father. From the Chief of Police in Asunción. Naturally we checked with him all the names that the kidnappers put on their list. Your father was killed more than a year ago. He tried to escape with another man-a man called Aquino Ribera-but he was too old and too slow. He could not make it and he was abandoned. You see-it is no good thinking there is anything you can do to help him now. Goodnight, doctor. I am sorry to bring you bad news, but at any rate I leave you with a woman. A woman is the best comforter a man can have.”
The telephone began to sound again, almost as soon as the door closed.
Doctor Plarr thought: Leon cheated me. He has been lying to me all along in order to get my help. I won’t answer the telephone. Let them get out of their own mess in their own way. Not for a moment did it occur to him that it might be Colonel Perez who had lied. The police were strong enough to speak the truth.
The bell rang and rang as he stood stubbornly in the hall, and then whoever was calling him gave it up. For all he knew this time it might have been one of his patients, and in the accusing silence he began to feel guilt for his egoism: it was like the silence after a suicide’s cry for help. There was silence in the bedroom too. From Clara a little while ago had come an appeal. He had walked away from that too.
The small patch of marble floor on which he stood seemed like the edge of an abyss; he could not move one step in either direction without falling deeper into the darkness of involvement or guilt. He stood and listened to the silence-in the flat where Clara lay, in the midnight street outside where a police car would now be moving home, in the barrio popular where something must have happened among the huts of mud and tin. Silence, like a thin rain, blew across the great river into the world-abandoned republic where his father was lying dead in the deepest silence of all-“He was too old and slow. He couldn’t make it and they abandoned him.” He felt giddy on his ledge of marble parquet. He couldn’t stand motionless for ever. Again the telephone rang and he moved back into his office.