‘No. Mine’s waiting for a spare part - it will go on waiting till the end of the war, I imagine.’
‘I must not allow that. I have several spare refrigerators. Let me send one up to you.’
‘Oh, I can manage all right, Yusef. I’ve managed for two years. So you were passing by.’
‘Well, not exactly. Major Scobie. That was a way of speaking. As a matter of fact I waited until I knew your boys were asleep, and I borrowed a car from a garage. My own car is so well known. And I did not bring a chauffeur. I didn’t want to embarrass you, Major Scobie.’
‘I repeat, Yusef, that I shall never deny knowing a man from whom I have borrowed money.’
‘You do keep harping on that so, Major Scobie. That was just a business transaction. Four per cent is a fair interest. I ask for more only when I have doubt of the security. I wish you would let me send you a refrigerator.’
‘What did you want to see me about?’
‘First, Major Scobie, I wanted to ask after Mrs Scobie. Has she got a comfortable cabin? Is there anything she requires? The ship calls at Lagos, and I could- have anything she needs sent on board there. I would telegraph my agent.’
‘I think she’s quite comfortable.’
‘Next, Major Scobie, I wanted to have a few words with you about diamonds.’
Scobie put two more bottles of beer on the ice. He said slowly and gently, ‘Yusef, I don’t want you to think I am the kind of man who borrows money one day and insults his creditor the next to reassure his ego.’
‘Ego?’
‘Never mind. Self-esteem. What you like. I’m not going to pretend that we haven’t in a way become colleagues in a business, but my duties are strictly confined to paying you four per cent.’
‘I agree, Major Scobie. You have said all this before and I agree. I say again that I am never dreaming to ask you to do one thing for me. I would rather do things for you.’
‘What a queer chap you are, Yusef. I believe you do like me.’
‘Yes, I do like you, Major Scobie.’ Yusef sat on the edge of his chair which cut a sharp edge in his great expanding thighs: he was I’ll at ease in any house but his own. ‘And now may I talk to you about diamonds, Major Scobie?’
‘Fire away then.’
‘You know I think the Government is crazy about diamonds. They waste your time, the time of the Security Police: they send special agents down the coast: we even have one here - you know who, though nobody is supposed to know but the Commissioner: he spends money on every black or poor Syrian who tells him stories. Then he telegraphs it to England and all down the coast. And after all this, do they catch a single diamond?’
‘This has got nothing to do with us, Yusef.’
‘I want to talk to you as a friend, Major Scobie. There are diamonds and diamonds and Syrians and Syrians. You people hunt the wrong men. You want to stop industrial diamonds going to Portugal and then to Germany, or across the border to the Vichy French. But all the time you are chasing people who are not interested in industrial diamonds, people who just want to get a few gem stones in a safe place for when peace comes again.’
‘In other words you? ‘
‘Six times this month police have been into my stores making everything untidy. They will never find any industrial diamonds that way. Only small men are interested in industrial diamonds. Why, for a whole matchbox full of them, you would only get two hundred pounds. I call them gravel collectors,’ he said with contempt
Scobie said slowly, ‘Sooner or later, Yusef, I felt sure that you’d want something out of me. But you are going to get nothing but four per cent. Tomorrow I’m giving a full confidential report of our business arrangement to the Commissioner. Of course he may ask for my resignation, but I don’t think so. He trusts me.’ A memory pricked him. ‘I think he trusts me.’
‘Is that a wise thing to do, Major Scobie?’
‘I think it’s very wise. Any kind of secret between us two would go bad in time.’
‘Just as you like, Major Scobie. But I don’t want anything from you, I promise. I would like to give you things always. You will not take a refrigerator, but I thought you would perhaps take advice, information.’
I’m listening, Yusef.’
‘Tallit’s a small man. He is a Christian. Father Rank and other people go to his house. They say, ‘If there’s such a thing as an honest Syrian, then Tallit’s the man.’ Tallit’s not very successful, and that looks just the same as honesty.’
‘Go on.’
‘Tallit’s cousin is sailing in the next Portuguese boat. His luggage will be searched, of course, and nothing will be found. He will have a parrot with him in a cage. My advice, Major Scobie, is to let Tallit’s cousin go and keep his parrot.’
‘Why let the cousin go?’
‘You do not want to show your hand to Tallit. You can easily say the parrot is suffering from a disease and must stay. He will not dare to make a fuss.’
‘You mean the diamonds are in its crop?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has that trick been used before on the Portuguese boats?’
‘Yes.’
‘It looks to me as if well have to buy an aviary.’
‘Will you act on that information, Major Scobie?’
‘You give me information, Yusef. I don’t give you information.’
Yusef nodded and smiled. Raising his bulk with some care he touched Scobie’s sleeve quickly and shyly. ‘You are quite right, Major Scobie. Believe me, I never want to do you any harm at all. I shall be careful and you be careful too, and everything will be all right.’ It was as if they were in a conspiracy together to do no harm: even innocence in Yusef’s hands took on a dubious colour. He said, ‘If you were to say a good word to Tallit sometimes it would be safer. The agent visits him.’
‘I don’t know of any agent.’
‘You are quite right, Major Scobie.’ Yusef hovered like a fat moth on the edge of the light. He said, ‘Perhaps if you were writing one day to Mrs Scobie you would give her my best wishes. Oh no, letters are censored. You cannot do that You could say, perhaps - no, better not. As long as you know, Major Scobie, that you have my best wishes -’ Stumbling on the narrow path, he made for his car. When he had turned on his lights he pressed his face against the glass: it showed up in the illumination of the dashboard, wide, pasty, untrustworthy, sincere. He made a tentative shy sketch of a wave towards Scobie, where he stood alone in the doorway of the quiet and empty house.
BOOK TWO PART ONE
Chapter One
THEY stood on the verandah of the D.C.’s bungalow at Pende and watched the torches move on the other side of the wide passive river. ‘So that’s France,’ Druce said,
using the native term for it.
Mrs Perrot said, ‘Before the war we used to picnic in France.’
Perrot joined them from the bungalow, a drink in either hand: bandy-legged, he wore his mosquito-boots outside his trousers like riding-boots, and gave the impression of having only just got off a horse. ‘Here’s yours, Scobie.’ He said, ‘Of course ye know I find it hard to think of the French as enemies. My family came over with the Huguenots. It makes a difference, ye know.’ His lean long yellow face cut in two by a nose like a wound was all the time arrogantly on the defensive: the importance of Perrot was an article of faith with Perrot -doubters would be repelled, persecuted if he had the chance ... the faith would never cease to be proclaimed.
Scobie said, ‘If they ever joined the Germans, I suppose this is one of the points where they’d attack.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Perrot said, ‘I was moved here in 1939. The Government had a shrewd idea of what was coming. Everything’s prepared, ye know. Where’s the doctor?’
‘I think he’s taking a last look at the beds,’ Mrs Perrot said. ‘You must be thankful your wife’s arrived safely, Major Scobie. Those poor people over there. Forty days in the boats. It shakes one up to think of it.’