Leon’s voice spoke. “What has happened?”
“I had a visitor.”
“The police?”
“Yes.”
“You are alone now?”
“Yes. Alone.”
“Where have you been all day?”
“In Buenos Aires.”
“But we tried to get you last night.”
“I was called out.”
“And this morning at six.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I took a walk by the river. You said you wouldn’t need me any more.”
“Your patient needs you now. Go down to the river and stand near the Coca-Cola stall. We can see if anyone is watching. If the road is clear we will pick you up.”
“I have just had news of my father. From Colonel Perez. Is it true?”
“What news?”
“That he made a break, but he was too slow, and you abandoned him.”
He thought: if I detect one lie over the telephone-even a hesitation-I will put the receiver down, and I will never answer again.
Leon said, “Yes. I am sorry. It is true. I could not tell you before. We needed your help.”
“And my father is dead?”
“Yes. They shot him at once. As he lay on the ground.”
“You could have told me.”
“Perhaps, but we could not take the risk.”
Leon’s voice reached him as though across an immeasurable distance, “Will you come?”
“Oh yes,” Doctor Plarr said, “111 come.” He put down the receiver and went into the bedroom. He turned on the light and saw Clara, her eyes wide open, watching him.
“Who was it came?”
“Colonel Perez.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“Not from him.”
“And the telephone?”
“A patient. I have to go out for a while, Clara.”
He remembered there was some question which had been left hanging unanswered between them, but he couldn’t remember now what it was. He said, “My father is dead.”
“Oh, Eduardo. I am sorry. Did you love him?” She couldn’t take love for granted any more than he could, even between a father and son.
“Perhaps I did.”
He had once known a man in Buenos Aires who was illegitimate. The man’s mother died without telling him the name of his father. He searched through his mother’s letters, he asked questions of her friends. He even examined bank records-his mother had an income which must have come from somewhere. He was not angry, nor shocked, but the desire to know who his father was vexed him like an itch. He explained to Doctor Plarr, “It is like one of those little picture puzzles with quicksilver. I cannot get the eyes in the right place, and yet I cannot put the puzzle down.” Then one day he learned his father’s name: that of an international banker who had been dead a long time. He said to Plarr, “You cannot imagine how empty I feel now. What is there left to interest me?” It is that kind of emptiness, Doctor Plarr thought, which I am experiencing now.
“Come and lie down, Eduardo.”
“No. I must go out.”
“Where?”
“I am not sure. It is something to do with Charley.
“Have they found his body?” she asked.
“No, no, nothing like that.” She had half thrown the sheet off and he tucked it around her. He said, “You will catch cold from the air-conditioner.”
“I will go back to the Consulate.”
“No, stay here. I shall not be very long.” In solitude, one welcomes any living thing-a mouse, a bird on the sill, Robert Brace’s spider. In complete loneliness even a certain tenderness can be born. He said, “I am sorry, Clara. When I come back-” but he could not think of anything which was really worthwhile to promise her. He put his hand over her stomach and said, “Look after it. Sleep well.” He turned the light out so that he could no longer see her eyes watching him-puzzled, as though his actions were too complicated for any girl from the establishment of Seńora Sanchez to understand. On the stairs (the lift might have been heard by his neighbours) he tried to remember what that question of hers had been which he had never answered. It could not have been very important. The only questions of importance were those which a man asked himself.
PART FIVE
1
Doctor Plarr came back from the inner room and said to Father Rivas, “He will do well enough. Your man couldn’t have aimed better if he had intended it. He hit the Achilles tendon. Of course, it will take time to mend. If you give him time. What happened?”
“He tried to escape. Aquino fired at the ground first and then at his legs.”
“It would be better if he could be taken to hospital.”
“You know that is impossible.”
“All I can do is to strap him up. His ankle ought to be put in plaster. Why don’t you give up the whole affair, Leon? I can keep him in my car for three or four hours to give you the time to disappear, and I’ll tell the police I found him by the road.”
Father Rivas did not trouble to reply. Doctor Plarr said, “It is always the same when one thing goes wrong-it is like an error in an equation… Your first error was mistaking him for the Ambassador and now this follows. Your equation will never work out.”
“You may be right, but unless we receive orders from El Tigre…”
“Get your orders then.”
“Impossible. After we announced the kidnapping all contact was broken. We are on our own here. In that way if we are captured, we cannot talk.”
“I have to go. I must get some sleep.”
“You will stay here with us,” Father Rivas said.
“That’s not possible. If I’m seen leaving in daylight…”
“If your telephone is tapped they will know you are an accomplice of ours already. If you go back they may arrest you and your friend Fortnum will be left without a doctor.”
“I have other patients to consider, Leon.”
“But they can find other doctors.”
“If you get your way… or you kill him… what happens to me?”
Father Rivas indicated the Negro called Pablo in the doorway. “You were abducted and kept here by force. It is the simple truth. We cannot allow you to leave now.”
“Suppose I just walk through that door?”
“I will tell him to shoot. Be reasonable, Eduardo. How can we trust you not to lead the police here?”
“I’m no police informer, Leon, in spite of the trick you played on me.”
“I wonder. A man’s conscience is not a simple thing. I believe in your friendship. But how do I know you would not persuade yourself you had to return for the sake of your patient? The police would follow you, and your Hippocratic oath would condemn us all to die. And then there is that sense of guilt I think you feel. They say you sleep with Fortnum’s wife. If it is true, trying to atone for that might demand all our deaths.”
“I am not a Christian any longer, Leon. I don’t think in those terms. I have no conscience. I am a simple man.”
“I have never met a simple man. Not even in the confessional, though I used to sit there for hours on end. Man was not created simple. When I was a young priest, I used to try to unravel what motives a man or woman had, what temptations and self-delusions. But I soon learned to give all that up, because there was never a straight answer. No one was simple enough for me to understand. In the end I would just say, ‘Three Our Fathers, Three Hail Mary’s. Go in peace.’ “
Doctor Plarr moved impatiently away. He looked once again at his patient. Charley Fortnum was sleeping quietly enough-a drugged contented sleep. They had collected some extra blankets from somewhere to make the coffin bed more comfortable. Doctor Plarr came back into the outer room and stretched on the floor. It seemed to him he had passed a very long day. It was difficult to believe he had taken tea only the afternoon before at the Richmond in the Calle Florida and watched his mother eat her éclairs.