There were no trishaw-drivers nearer than the Rue d'Ormay when I went out. I walked down to the Majestic and stood awhile watching the unloading of the American bombers. The sun had gone and they worked by the light of arc-lamps. I had no idea of creating an alibi, but I had told Pyle I was going to the Majestic and I felt an unreasoning dislike of telling more lies than were needed. "Evening, Fowler." It was Wilkins. "Evening."
"How's the leg?" "No trouble now." "Got a good story filed?" "I left it to Dominguez."
"Oh, they told me you were there."
"Yes, I was. But space is tight these days. They won't want much."
"The spice has gone out of the dish, hasn't it?" Wilkins said. "We ought to have lived in the days of Russell* and the old Times. Dispatches by balloon. Why, he'd even have made a column out of this. The luxury hotel, the bombers, night falling. Night never falls nowadays, does it, at so many piastres a word." From far up in the sky you could faintly hear the noise of laughter: somebody broke a glass as Pyle had done. The sound fell on us like icicles. "The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men,"* Wilkins malevolently quoted. "Doing anything tonight, Fowler? Care for a spot of dinner?"
"I'm dining as it is. At the Vieux Moulin." "I wish you joy. Granger will be there. They ought to advertise special Granger nights. For those who like background noise." I said good-night to him and went into the cinema next door-Erro! Flynn, or it may have been Tyrone Power* (I don't know how to distinguish them in tights), swung on ropes and leapt from balconies and rode bareback into technicolor dawns. He rescued a girl and killed his enemy and led a charmed life. It was what they call a film for boys, but the sight of CEdipus* emerging with his bleeding eyeballs from the palace at Thebes would surely give a better training for life today. No life is charmed. Luck had been with Pyle at Phat Diem and on the road from Tanyin, but luck doesn't last, and they had two hours to see that no charm worked. A French soldier sat beside me with his hand in a girl's lap, and I envied the simplicity of his happiness or his misery, whichever it might be. I left before the film was over and took a trishaw to the Vieux Moulin.
The restaurant was wired in against grenades and two armed policemen were on duty at the end of the bridge. The patron, who had grown fat on his own rich Burgun-dian cooking, let me through the wire himself. The place smelt of capons and melting butter in the heavy evening heat.
"Are you joining the party of M. Granjair?" he asked me. "No."
"A table for one?" It was then for the first time that I thought of the future and the questions I might have to answer. "For one," I said, and it was almost as though I had said aloud that Pyle was dead.
There was only one room and Granger's party occupied a large table at the back; the patron gave me a small one closest to the wire. There were no window-panes, for fear of splintered glass. I recognised a few of the people Granger was entertaining, and I bowed to them before I sat down: Granger himself looked away. I hadn't seen him for monthsonly once since the night Pyle fell in love. Perhaps some offensive remark I bad made that evening had . penetrated the alcoholic fog, for he sat scowling at the head of the table while Mme. Desprez, the wife of a public-relations officer, and Captain Duparc of the Press Liaison Service* nodded and becked. There was a big man who I think was a h5telier* from Pnom Penh* and a French girl I'd never seen before and two or three other faces that I had only observed inbars. It seemed for once to be a quiet party. I ordered a pastis because I wanted to give Pyle time to come-plans go awry and so long as I did not begin to eat my dinner it was as though I still had time to hope. And then I wondered what I hoped for. Good luck to the O.S.S. or whatever his gang were called?
Long life to plastic bombs and General The? Or did I-1 of all people-hope for some kind of miracle: a method of discussion arranged by Mr. Heng which wasn't simply death?
How much easier it would have been if we had both been killed on the road
-from Tanyin. I sat for twenty minutes over my pastis and then I ordered dinner. It would soon be half past nine: he wouldn't come now.
Against my will I listened: for what? a scream? a shot? some movement hy the police outside? but in any case I would probably hear nothing, for Granger's party was warming up.* The hotelier, who had a pleasant untrained voice, began to sing and as a new champagne cork popped others joined in, but not Granger. He sat there with raw eyes*
glaring across the room at me. I wondered if there would be a fight: I was no match for Granger.
They were singing a sentimental song, and as I sat hungerless over my apology for a Chapon due Charles* I thought, for the first time since I had known that she was safe, of Phuong. I remembered how Pyle, sitting on the floor waiting for the Viets, had said, "She seems fresh like a flower," and I had flippantly replied, "Poor flower." She would never see New England now or learn the secrets of Canasta. Perhaps she would never know security: what right had I to value her less than the dead bodies in the square? Suffering is not increased by numbers: one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel. I had judged like a journalist in terms of quantity and I had betrayed my own principle; I had become as engage as Pyle, and it seemed to me that no decision would ever be simple again. I looked at my watch and it was nearly a quarter to ten. Perhaps, after all, he had been caught; perhaps that 'someone" in whom he believed had acted on his behalf and he sat now in his Legation room fretting at a telegram to decode, and soon he would come stamping up the stairs to my room in the rue Catinat. I thought. If he does I shall tell him everything.'
Granger suddenly got up from his table and came at me. He didn't even see the chair in his way and he stumbled and laid his hand on the edge of my table. "Fowler," he said,
"come outside." I laid enough notes down and followed him. I was in no mood to fight with him, but at that moment I would not have minded if he had beaten me unconscious. We have so few ways in which to assuage the sense of guilt.
He leant on the parapet of the bridge and the two policemen watched him from a distance. He said, "I've got to talk to you. Fowler."
I came within striking distance and waited. He didn't move. He was like an emblematic statue of all I thought I hated in America-as ill-designed as the Statue of Liberty and as meaningless. He said without moving, "You think I'm pissed. You're wrong." "What's up, Granger?"
"I got to talk to you. Fowler. I don't want to sit there with those Frogs tonight. I don't like you. Fowler, but you talk English. A kind of English." He leant there, bulky and shapeless in the half-light, an unexplored continent. "What do you want. Granger?"
"I don't like Limies,"* Granger said. "I don't know why Pyle stomachs you. Maybe it's because he's Boston. I'm Pittsburgh* and proud of it." "Why not?"
"There you are again." He made a feeble attempt to mock my accent. "You all talk like poufs. You're so damned superior. You think you know everything." "Good-night, Granger. I've got an appointment." "Don't go, Fowler. Haven't you got a heart? I can't talk to those Froggies." "You're drunk."
"I've had two glasses of champagne, that's all, and wouldn't you be drunk in my place?
I've got to go north." "What's wrong in that?"
"Oh, I didn't tell you, did I? I keep on thinking everyone knows. I got a cable this morning from my wife." "Yes?"
"My son's got polio.* He's bad." "I'm sorry."
"You needn't be. It's not your kid." "Can't you fly home?"
"I can't. They want a story about some damned mopping-up operations* near Hanoi and Connolly's sick." (Con-nolly was his assistant.) "I'm sorry. Granger. I wish I could help."