‘I don’t believe in fortune-telling,’ Wilson lied.
‘Nor do I, but he’s pretty good. He did me the first week I was here. Told me I’d stay here for more than two and a half years. I thought then I was going to have leave after eighteen months. I know better now.’ The Indian watched triumphantly from the bath. He said, ‘I have a letter from the Director of Agriculture. And one from D. C. Parkes.’
‘All right,’ Wilson said. ‘Do me, but be quick about it.’
‘I’d better push off, old man, before the revelations begin.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ Wilson said.
‘Will you sit on the bath, sir?’ the Indian invited him courteously. He took Wilson’s hand in his. ‘It is a very interesting hand, sir,’ he said unconvincingly, weighing it up and down.
‘What are your charges?’
‘According to rank, sir. One like yourself, sir, I should charge ten shillings.’
‘That’s a bit steep.’
‘Junior officers are five shillings.’
‘I’m in the five-shilling class,’ Wilson said.
‘Oh no, sir. The Director of Agriculture gave me a pound.’
‘I’m only an accountant.’
‘That’s as you say, sir. A.D.C. and Major Scobie gave me ten shillings.’
‘Oh well,’ Wilson said. ‘Here’s ten bob. Go ahead.’
‘You have been here one, two weeks,’ the Indian said. ‘You are sometimes at night an impatient man. You think you do not make enough progress.’
‘Who with?’ Harris asked, lolling in the doorway.
‘You are very ambitious. You are a dreamer. You read much poetry.’
Harris giggled and Wilson, raising his eyes from the finger which traced the lines upon his palm, watched the fortuneteller with apprehension.
The Indian went inflexibly on. His turban was bowed under Wilson’s nose and bore the smell of stale food - he probably secreted stray pieces from the larder in its folds. He said, ‘You are a secret man. You do not tell your friends about your poetry - except one. One,’ he repeated. ‘You are very shy. You should take courage. You have a great line of success.’
‘Go in and win, old man,’ Harris repeated.
Of course the whole thing was Couéism: if one believed in it enough, it would come true. Diffidence would be conquered. The mistake in a reading would be covered up.
‘You haven’t told me ten bob’s worth,’ Wilson said. ‘This is a five-bob fortune. Tell me something definite, something that’s going to happen.’ He shifted his seat uncomfortably on the sharp edge of the bath and watched a cockroach like a large blood blister flattened on the wall. The Indian bent forward over the two hands. He said, ‘I see great success. The Government will be very pleased with you.’
Harris said, ‘Il pense that you are un bureaucrat.’
‘Why will the Government be pleased with me?’ Wilson asked.
‘You will capture your man.’
‘Why,’ Harris said, ‘I believe he thinks you are a new policeman.’
‘It looks like it,’ Wilson said. ‘Not much use wasting more time.’
‘And your private life, that will be a great success too. You will win the lady of your heart. You will sail away. Everything is going to be fine. For you,’ he added.
‘A real ten-bob fortune.’
‘Good night,’ Wilson said. ‘I won’t write you a recommendation on that.’ He got up from the bath, and the cockroach flashed into hiding. ‘I can’t bear those things,’ Wilson said, sidling through ‘the door. He turned in the passage and repeated, ‘Good night.’
‘I couldn’t when I first came, old man. But I evolved a system. Just step into my room and I’ll show you.’
‘I ought to be off.’
‘Nobody will be punctual at Tallit’s.’ Harris opened his door and Wilson turned his eyes with a kind of shame from the first sight of its disorder. In his own room he would never have exposed himself quite like this - the dirty tooth-glass, the towel on the bed.
‘Look here, old man.’
With relief he fixed his eyes on some symbols pencilled on the wall inside: the letter H, and under it a row of figures lined against dates as in a cash-book. Then the letters D.D., and under them more figures. ‘It’s my score in cockroaches, old man. Yesterday was an average day - four. My record’s nine. It makes you welcome the little brutes.’
‘What does D.D. stand for?’
‘Down the drain, old man. That’s when I knock them into the wash-basin and they go down the waste-pipe. It wouldn’t be fair to count them as dead, would it?’
‘No.’
‘And it wouldn’t do to cheat yourself either. You’d lose interest at once. The only thing is, it gets dull sometimes, playing against yourself. Why shouldn’t we make a match of it, old man? It needs skill, you know. They positively hear you coming, and they move like greased lightning. I do a stalk every evening with a torch.’
‘I wouldn’t mind having a try, but I’ve got to be off now.’
‘I tell you what - I won’t start hunting till you come back from Tallit’s. Well have five minutes before bed. Just five minutes.’
‘If you like.’
‘I’ll come down with you, old man. I can smell the curry. You know I could have laughed when the old fool mixed you up with the new police officer.’
‘He got most of it wrong, didn’t he?’ Wilson said. ‘I mean the poetry.’
Tallit’s living-room to Wilson, who saw it for the first time, had the appearance of a country dance-hall. The furniture all lined the walls: hard chairs with tall uncomfortable backs, and in the corners the chaperons sitting out: old women in black silk dresses, yards and yards of silk, and a very old man in a smoking-cap. They watched him intently in complete silence, and evading their gaze he saw only bare walls except that at each corner sentimental French postcards were nailed up in a montage of ribbons and bows: young men smelling mauve Sowers, a glossy cherry shoulder, an impassioned kiss. Wilson found there was only one other guest besides himself, Father Rank, a Catholic priest, wearing his long soutane. They sat in opposite corners of the room among the chaperons whom Father Rank explained were Tallit’s grandparents and parents, two uncles, what might have been a great-great-aunt, a cousin. Somewhere out of sight Tallit’s wife was preparing little dishes which were handed to the two guests by his younger brother and his sister. None of them spoke English except Tallit, and Wilson was embarrassed by the way Father Rank discussed his host and his host’s family resoundingly across the room. ‘Thank you, no,’ Father Rank would say, declining a sweet by shaking his grey tousled head. ‘I’d advise you to be careful of those, Mr Wilson. Tallit’s a good fellow, but he won’t team what a western stomach will take. These old people have stomachs like ostriches.’
‘This is very interesting to me,’ Wilson said, catching the eye of a grandmother across the room and nodding and smiling at her. The grandmother obviously thought he wanted more sweets, and called angrily out for her granddaughter. ‘No, no,’ Wilson said vainly, shaking his head and smiling at the centenarian. The centenarian lifted his lip from a toothless gum and signalled with ferocity to Tallit’s younger brother, who hurried forward with yet another dish. ‘That’s quite safe,’ Father Rank shouted. ‘Just sugar and glycerine and a little flour.’ All the time their glasses were charged and recharged with whisky,
‘Wish you’d confess to me where you get this whisky from, Tallit,’ Father Rank called out with roguery, and Tallit beamed and slid agilely from end to end of the room, a word to Wilson, a word to Father Rank. He reminded Wilson of a young ballet dancer in his white trousers, his plaster of black hair and his grey polished alien face, and one glass eye like a puppet’s.
‘So the Esperança’s gone out,’ Father Rank shouted across the room. ‘Did they find anything, do you think?’