‘I was familiar with another version,’ I said, ‘but the concept is the same.’
He laughed. ‘You’ve got it,’ he said. ‘And so you know what I did? Try and guess.’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Try and guess.’
‘I give up,’ I said, ‘it’s too difficult.’
‘I took the lid off a trashcan and dumped in my mailbag. You wait there, letters. Then I made a dash back to the head office and asked to speak to the boss. I need three months’ salary in advance, I said, my father has a serious illness, he’s in hospital, look at these doctor’s certificates. He said: first sign this statement. I signed it and took the money.’
‘But was your father really ill?’
‘Sure he was, he had cancer. But he was going to die just the same, even if I did go on carrying the mail to the ladies and gents of Philadelphia.’
‘That’s logical,’ I said.
‘I brought just one thing away with me,’ he said. ‘Try and guess what.’
‘Really, it’s too difficult, it’s no good, I give up.’
‘The telephone directory,’ he said with satisfaction.
‘The telephone directory?’
‘Right, the Philadelphia telephone directory. That was my only luggage, it’s all that’s left me of America.’
‘Why?’ I asked. I was getting interested.
‘I write postcards. It’s me who writes the ladies and gents of Philadelphia now. Postcards with a nice sea and the deserted Calangute beach, and on the back I write: Best wishes from mailman Tommy. I’ve got up to letter C. Obviously I skip the areas I’m not interested in and send them without a stamp, the person who gets it pays.’
‘How long have you been here?’ I asked him.
‘Four years,’ he said.
‘The Philadelphia phone directory must be long.’
‘Yep,’ he said, ‘it’s enormous. But then, I’m not in any hurry, I’ve got my whole life.’
The group on the beach had lit a large fire, someone began to sing. Four people left the group and came towards us, they had flowers in their hair and smiled at us. A young woman was holding a girl of about ten by the hand.
‘The party’s about to begin,’ said Tommy. ‘It’ll be a big party, it’s the equinox.’
‘Equinox nothing,’ I said, ‘the equinox is the twenty-third of September, it’s December now.’
‘Well, something like that anyway,’ answered Tommy. The girl kissed him on the forehead and then went off again to the others.
‘They’re not that young any more though, are they?’ I said. ‘They look like middle-aged parents.’
‘They’re the ones who came here first,’ Tommy said, ‘the Pilgrims.’ Then he looked at me and said: ‘Why, what are you like?’
‘Like them,’ I said.
‘You see,’ he said. He rolled himself another cigarette, split it in two and gave me half. ‘What are you doing round here?’ he asked.
‘I’m looking for someone called Xavier, he may have passed through here from time to time.’
Tommy shook his head. ‘But is he happy for you to be looking for him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So don’t look for him then.’
I tried to give him a detailed description of Xavier. ‘When he smiles he looks sad,’ I finished.
A girl left the group and called to us. Tommy called back to her and she came towards us. ‘My girlfriend,’ Tommy explained. She was a pale blonde girl with vacant eyes and two childish pigtails gathered up on her head. She swayed as she walked, a little hesitant. Tommy asked her if she knew a guy who looked like this and this, repeating my description. She smiled incongruously and didn’t answer. Then she sweetly stretched out her hands to us and whispered: ‘Hotel Mandovi.’
‘The party’s beginning,’ said Tommy. ‘Come along.’
We were sitting on the edge of a very primitive boat with a crude float like a catamaran’s. ‘Maybe I’ll come over later,’ I said. ‘I’m going to lie down a while in the boat and take a nap.’ As they were going away I couldn’t resist it and shouted after him that he had forgotten to tell me if I was a gentleman like the rest. Tommy stopped, raised his arms and said: ‘Try and guess.’
‘I give up,’ I shouted, ‘it’s too difficult.’ I got out my guidebook and lit matches. I found it almost at once. They described it as a ‘popular, top range hotel’, with a respectable restaurant. In Panaji, once Nova Goa, inland. I stretched out on the bottom of the boat and looked at the sky. The night was truly magnificent. I followed the constellations and thought about the stars and the time when we used to study them and the afternoons spent at the planetarium. All at once I remembered how I had learnt them, classifying them by the intensity of their light: Sirius, Canopus, Centaurus, Vega, Capella, Arcturus, Orion. . And then I thought of the variable stars and the book of a person dear to me. And then of the dead stars, whose light still reaches us, and of the neutron stars in the last stage of evolution, and the feeble ray they emit. In a low voice I said: pulsar. And almost as if reawakened by my whisper, or as if I had started a tape recorder, I heard the nasal phlegmatic voice of Professor Stini saying: When the mass of a dying star is greater than double the solar mass, the matter is no longer in a state such as to arrest the process of concentration which then proceeds ad infinitum; no radiation will ever leave that star again and it is thus transformed into a black hole.
XI
How odd life is. The Hotel Mandovi takes its name from the river it stands beside. The Mandovi is a wide, calm river with a long estuary lined with beaches, almost like sea beaches. On the left there is the port of Panaji, a river port for small steamers pulling barges laden with merchandise. There are two dilapidated gangways and a rusty jetty. And when I arrived, right by the edge of the jetty, as if it were coming out of the river, the moon rose. It had a yellow halo and was full and blood-coloured. I thought, red moon, and instinctively I started whistling an old song. The idea came like a short circuit. I thought of a name, Roux, and then immediately of those words of Xavier’s: ‘I have become a night bird’; and then everything seemed so obvious, stupid even, and I thought: Why didn’t I think of it before?
I went into the hotel and took a look around. The Mandovi was built in the late fifties and already has an air of being old. Perhaps it was built when the Portuguese were still in Goa. I don’t know what it was, but the place seemed to have preserved something of the fascist taste of the period. Perhaps it was the big lobby that looked like a station waiting room, or perhaps it was the impersonal, depressing post-office or civil-service-style furniture. Behind the desk were two employees; one had a striped tunic, and the other a slightly shabby black jacket and an air of importance about him. I went to the latter and showed him my passport.
‘I’d like a room.’
He consulted the register and nodded.
‘With terrace and river view,’ I specified.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said.
‘Are you the manager?’ I asked as he was filling out my form.
‘No, sir,’ he answered. ‘The manager is away, but I am at your service for anything you may need.’
‘I’m looking for Mr Nightingale,’ I said.
‘Mr Nightingale isn’t here any more,’ he said perfectly naturally. ‘He left some time ago.’
‘Do you know where he went?’ I asked, trying to keep sounding natural myself.