The image of his mother remained with him when he fell asleep and she talked to him in her usual vein of complaint, telling him how his father would not rest like a respectable man of property in the interior of his coffin. They had constantly to shuffle him back inside, and that was no way for a caballero to enjoy his eternal peace. Father Galvao was on the way from Rio de Janeiro to see what he could do to persuade him to rest tranquil.
Doctor Plarr opened his eyes. The Indian Miguel lay asleep on the floor beside him, and Father Rivas had taken Pablo’s place in the doorway with a gun across his lap. A candle stuck in a saucer cast a shadow of his ears on the wall behind. Doctor Plarr was reminded of the dogs his father would make for him on the nursery wall. For a while he lay awake looking at his old schoolmate. Leon, Leon dog ears, Father dog ears. He remembered Leon saying, in one of those long serious conversations which they used to have at fourteen, that there existed only half a dozen careers worth a man’s while to follow: a man should be a doctor, a priest, a lawyer (always, of course, on the right side), a poet (if he wrote well enough), or a manual worker. He couldn’t remember now what the sixth career was, but it certainly wasn’t a kidnapper’s or an assassin’s.
He whispered across the floor, “Where are Aquino and the others?”
“This is a military operation,” Leon said. “We have been trained by El Tigre. We set our outposts, and we keep our watches at night.”
“And your wife?”
“She is in the town with Pablo. This hut belongs to him, and he is known there. It is safer that way. You need not whisper. An Indian falls asleep, at any moment, whenever he is not required. The only sound which can wake him is hearing his name-or a noise that may be dangerous. Look at him, lying quietly there while we talk. I envy him. That is real peace. Sleep is meant to be like that for all of us, but we have lost the animal touch.”
“Tell me about my father, Leon. I want the truth.” He had no sooner said it than he remembered how Doctor Humphries always demanded the real truth, even from the Neapolitan waiter, and got only a dusty answer.
“Your father and Aquino were in the same police station a hundred kilometres southeast of Asunción. Near Villarica. He had been there fifteen years, and Aquino only ten months. We did our best, but he was old and sick. El Tigre was against our trying to save your father, but we outvoted him. We were wrong. Perhaps your father would be alive now if we had listened to El Tigre.”
“Yes. Perhaps. In a police station. Dying slowly.”
“It was a question of seconds. A quick dash. He could have done it easily in the days when you knew him, but fifteen years in a police station-you decay there more quickly than in a prison. The General knows there is comradeship in a prison. And so he plants his victims out in separate pots with insufficient earth, and they wither with despair.”
“Did you see my father?”
“No, I was sitting in the escape car with a grenade ready in my lap. Praying.”
“Do you still believe in prayer?”
Father Rivas made no reply and Doctor Plarr fell asleep.
It was daylight when he woke and he went at once into the inner room to look at his patient. Charley Fortnum watched him come in. “So you really are one of them,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand you, Ted. What has all this got to do with you?”
“I’ve told you often about my father. I thought these men might help him.”
“You were my friend-and Clara’s.”
“I’m not responsible for their mistake. How does your ankle feel?”
“I’ve suffered much worse from toothache. You’ve got to get me out of here, Ted. For Clara s sake.”
Doctor Plarr told Fortnum of his visit to the Ambassador. He realized, as he spoke, that it was an encouraging story. Charley Fortnum took the details slowly in. “You really got to the old man himself?”
“Yes. He’s doing his best.”
“Oh, they’ll be relieved in B. A. when I’m dead. I know that well enough. They won’t have to sack me then. An ungentlemanly act. They are all such bloody gentlemen there.”
“Colonel Perez too is doing all he can. It won’t be long before they find this place.”
“It will come to the same thing if they do. Do you suppose these fellows will ever let me get out of here alive? Have you spoken to Clara?”
“Yes. She’s all right.”
“And the baby?”
“Nothing to worry about.”
“I tried to write her a letter yesterday. I wanted her to have something she could look at afterward, though I doubt if she would be able to make much out of it.
She still finds reading pretty difficult. I thought that somebody might read it aloud to her-perhaps you, Ted. Of course that meant I couldn’t say all I felt for her, but I thought if the worst happens you would let her know.”
“Know what?”
“How I feel. I know you are a cold fish, Ted. I’ve often called you that. I sound sentimental to you, but I’ve come to think about a lot of things lying here-I’ve had the hell of a time to fill in. It seems to me that all the prime of life-well, they were pretty empty years, without any purpose, just growing that bloody weed mate to earn some cash-cash for what, for who? I wanted someone I could do something for-not just make a living for myself. There are people who fall back on cats and dogs, but I never cared much for them. Nor horses either. Horses! I could never stand the bloody brutes. All I had to fall back on was Fortnum’s Pride. I used to pretend to myself she was alive. I’d give her gas and oil and listen to her innards, but I know she was less real than one of those dolls which make wee-wee. Of course there was my wife for a while, only she was always so damned superior-there wasn’t anything I could ever do for her which she couldn’t do better for herself. I’m sorry. I’m talking too much, but you seem closer to me than anyone else because you’ve met Clara.”
“Talk all you want. There’s nothing else we can do in the situation we are in. I’m as much a prisoner here as you are.”
“They won’t let you go?”
“No.”
“Then Clara-she’s got no one?”
Doctor Plarr said with irritation, “She can look after herself for a day or two. It’s a lot easier for her than for you or me.”
“They won’t kill you.”
“No, they won’t kill me if they can help it.”
“You know there was a time before I met Clara when I thought I’d found somebody I could love. She was a girl at Mother Sanchez’ too. She was called María, but she was bad, that one.”
“Somebody knifed her.”
“Yes. Fancy you knowing. Well, it was a little while after that when I saw Clara. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed her before. I’m not a good judge of women, I suppose, and María-well, she sort of dazzled me. Clara wasn’t beautiful in that way, but she was honest. I could trust her. To make someone like Clara happy is a kind of success, isn’t it?”
“A modest sort of success.”
“Yes, you can say that, but I’m used to failing, and I can’t set my sights very high. If things had gone better, who knows… I quit drinking for nearly a week when they made me an Honorary Consul, but of course that didn’t last. I’ve still got the letter they sent me from the Embassy. I’d like you to give it to Clara if I don’t get out of here. It’s in the top left-hand drawer of my desk in the Consulate. You can pick it out easily because of the Royal Arms on the flap. She can keep it to show the child one day.” He tried to shift his position on the coffin and winced.
“Did that hurt?”
“Only a stab.” He gave a low laugh. “When I think of my wife and Clara-my God, how different two women can be. My wife told me once she’d married me out of pity. Pity for what? She was like a man in the house-knew every damn thing about electricity. She could even fix a washer on a tap. And if I ever had a little one over the right measure she had no sympathy at all. Of course it wasn’t reasonable to expect much from her. She was a Christian Scientist and even cancer didn’t exist in her eyes, though her father died of it, so you could hardly expect her to believe in a hangover. All the same she needn’t have talked so bloody loud when I had one. Her voice went through my head like a drill. Now Clara-Clara’s a real woman, she knows when to be silent, God bless her. I’d like to keep her happy till the end.”