Wormold said, ‘I am a British subject, my name is Wormold, my address Havana Lamparilla 37. My age forty-five, divorced, and I want to ring up the Consul.’
The man who had called him a pig and who carried on his arm the chevron of a sergeant told him to show his passport.
‘I can’t. It’s in my brief-case at the hotel.’
One of his captors said with satisfaction, ‘Found on the street without papers.’
‘Empty his pockets,’ the sergeant said. They took out his wallet and the picture-postcard to Dr Hasselbacher, which he had forgotten to post, and a miniature whisky bottle. Old Granddad, that he had bought in the hotel-bar. The sergeant studied the bottle and the postcard.
He said, ‘Why do you carry this bottle? What does it contain?’
‘What do you suppose?’
‘The rebels make grenades out of bottles.’
‘Surely not such small bottles.’ The sergeant drew the cork, sniffed and poured a little on the palm of his hand. ‘It appears to be whisky,’ he said and turned to the postcard. He said, ‘Why have you made a cross on this picture?’ ‘It’s the window of my room.’
‘Why show the window of your room?’
‘Why shouldn’t I? It’s just well, it’s one of the things one does when travelling.’
‘Were you expecting a visitor by the window?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Who is Dr Hasselbacher?’
‘An old friend.’
‘Is he coming to Santiago?’
‘No.’
‘Then why do you want to show him where your room is?’ He began to realize what the criminal class knows so well, the impossibility of explaining anything to a man with power. He said flippantly, ‘Dr Hasselbacher is a woman.’
‘A woman doctor!’ The sergeant exclaimed with disapproval. ‘A doctor of philosophy. A very beautiful woman.’ He made two curves in the air.
‘And she is joining you in Santiago?’
‘No, no. But you know how it is with a woman, Sergeant? They like to know where their man is sleeping.’
‘You are her lover?’ The atmosphere had changed for the better. ‘That still does not explain your wandering about the streets at night.’ ‘There’s no law…’
‘No law, but prudent people stay at home. Only mischief-makers go out.’
‘I couldn’t sleep for thinking of Emma.’
‘Who is Emma?’
‘Dr Hasselbacher.’
The sergeant said slowly, ‘There is something wrong here. I can smell
it. You are not telling me the truth. If you are in love with Emma, why are you
in Santiago?’
‘Her husband suspects.’
‘She has a husband? No es rnuy agradable. Are you a Catholic?’
‘No.’
The sergeant picked up the postcard and studied it again. ‘The cross at a bedroom window -that is not very nice, either. How will she explain that to her husband?’
Wormold thought rapidly. ‘Her husband is blind.’
‘And that too is not nice. Not nice at all.’
‘Shall I hit him again?’ one of the policemen asked.
‘There is no hurry. I must interrogate him first. How long have you known this woman, Emma Hasselbacher?’
‘A week.’
‘A week? Nothing that you say is nice. You are a Protestant and an adulterer. When did you meet this woman?’
‘I was introduced by Captain Segura.’
The sergeant held the postcard suspended in mid-air. Wormold heard one of the policemen behind him swallow. Nobody said anything for a long while. ‘Captain Segura?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know Captain Segura?’
‘He is a friend of my daughter.’
‘So you have a daughter. You are married.’ He began to say again, ‘That is not n…’ when one of the policemen interrupted him, ‘He knows Captain Segura.’
‘How can I tell that you are speaking the truth?’
‘You could telephone to him and find out.’
‘It would take several hours to reach Havana on the telephone.’
‘I can’t leave Santiago at night. I will wait for you at the hotel.’
‘Or in a cell at the station here.’
‘I don’t think Captain Segura would be pleased.’
The sergeant considered the matter for a long time, going through the contents of the wallet while he thought. Then he told one of the men to accompany Wormold back to the hotel and there to examine his passport (in this way the sergeant obviously thought that he was saving face). The two walked back in an embarrassed silence, and it was only when Wormold had lain down that he remembered the postcard to Dr Hasselbacher was still on the sergeant’s desk. It seemed to him to have no importance; he could always send another in the morning. How long it takes to realize in one’s life the intricate patterns of which everything -even a picture-postcard can form a part, and the rashness of dismissing anything as unimportant. Three days later Wormold took the bus back to Santa Clara; his Hillman was ready; the road to Havana offered him no problems.
Chapter 3
A great many telegrams were waiting for him when he arrived in Havana in the late afternoon. There was also note a from Milly. ‘What have you been up to? You-know-who’ (but he didn’t) ‘very pressing not in any bad way. Dr Hasselbacher wants to speak to you urgently. Love. P. S. Riding at Country Club. Seraphina’s picture taken by press photographer. Is this fame? Go, bid the soldiers shoot.’ Dr Hasselbacher could wait. Two of the telegrams were marked urgent. ‘No .2 of 5 March paragraph A begins trace of Hasselbacher ambiguous stop use utmost caution in any contact and keep these to minimum message ends.’ Vincent C. Parkman was rejected as an agent out of hand. ‘You are not repeat not to contact him stop probability that he is already employed by American service.’
The next telegram No .1 of 4 March read coldly, ‘Please in future as instructed confine each telegram to one subject.’
No .1 of 5 March was more encouraging. ‘No traces Professor Sanchez and Engineer Cifuentes stop you may recruit them stop presumably men of their standing will require no more than out-of-pocket expenses.’ The last telegram was rather an anticlimax.
,Following from A.O. recruitment of 59200/ 5/1’ -that was Lopez
‘recorded but please note proposed payment below recognized European scale and you should revise to 25 repeat 25 pesos monthly message ends.’ Lopez was shouting up the stairs, ‘It is Dr Hasselbacher.’
‘Tell him I’m busy. I’ll call him later.’
‘He says will you come quick. He sounds strange.’
Wormold went down to the telephone. Before he could speak he heard an agitated and an old voice. It had never occurred to him before that Dr Hasselbacher was old. ‘Please, Mr Wormold…’
‘Yes. What is it?’
‘Please come to me. Something has happened.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In my apartment.’
‘What’s wrong, Hasselbacher?’
‘I can’t tell you over the telephone.’
‘Are you sick… hurt?’
‘If only that were all,’ Hasselbacher said. ‘Please come.’ In all the years they had known each other, Wormold had never visited Hasselbacher’s home. They had met at the Wonder Bar, and on Milly’s birthdays in a restaurant, and once Dr Hasselbacher had visited him in Lamparilla when he had a high fever. There had been an occasion too when he had wept in front of Hasselbacher, sitting on a seat in the Paseo telling him that Milly’s mother had flown away on the morning plane to Miami, but their friendship was safely founded on distance -it was always the closest friendships that were most liable to break. Now he even had to ask Hasselbacher how to find his home. ‘You don’t know?’ Hasselbacher asked in bewilderment.
‘No.’
‘Please come quickly,’ Hasselbacher said, ‘I do not wish to be alone.’ But speed was impossible at this evening hour. Obispo was a solid block of traffic, and it was half an hour before Wormold reached the undistinguished block in which Hasselbacher lived, twelve storeys high of livid stone. Twenty years ago it had been modern, but the new steel architecture to the West outsoared and outshone it. It belonged to the age of tubular chairs, and a tubular chair was what Wormold saw first when Dr Hasselbacher let him in. That and an old colour print of some castle on the Rhine.