The Blue Afternoon

by William Boyd

  “Come on,” he said, and they walked back to the camp bed. He watched her take her little sponge on its string and soak it again in its bottle of clear fluid before, turning away from him and squatting down, she inserted it. He inched over to allow her space as she climbed in beside him.

  “I love you,” he said. This was another of their new habits.

  “Maybe we will fly away,” she said softly, as he softly kissed her throat. “One day.”

  THE RAID

  With a collective groan of effort the four constables tipped up the big coffer and a small avalanche of ice granules spilled on to the ground. There was a soft thud and a bundle rolled free, wrapped in oilcloth. Bobby pushed it to one side with his boot while the others made sure there was nothing else in the coffer but ice.

  “What is it?” Bobby asked.

  Carriscant crouched down and unfolded the material. “It’s a liver,” he said. “Human, I think.”

  “Jesus Christ! Is it Ward’s?”

  “He sent Ward’s liver back. Must be someone else’s.”

  The other coffer was dragged out and unended also. They found three dead dogs, and the lower trunk of an unidentified monkey.

  Carriscant said: “I told you this was a bad idea.”

  The constables rooted around in the compacted ice chips searching for any other bits and pieces. Half a dozen others stood in a loose semicircle around Cruz’s laboratory, their Krags held at the ready, keeping the astonished and befuddled servants at bay. In the bottom corner of the second coffer they found a canvas bag containing what Carriscant identified as two hearts, a human hand and a monkey’s head with half the skull cut away.

  “Is there any way you can say that hand was Braun’s?” Bobby asked.

  “No. The discoloration makes it impossible. Why have you brought me here, Bobby?”

  “I need a medical man. I don’t know what these lumps of meat are.”

  “There are lots of American physicians on this island.”

  “Yeah, but none of them know the case like you.” Bobby went into the lab with a lantern and came out a few seconds later.

  “Where’s everything gone?” he protested. “The last time we came here those two coffers were chock-a–block.”

  “I think Dr Cruz may have given up his experimental work.”

  “Why should he—”

  They were interrupted by an angry shout from the direction of the house and soon they saw Cruz appear, partially dressed, his shirt unbuttoned, exposing his comfortable body with its wobbling belly and its dense fur of grey hair.

  Cruz swore and shouted until Bobby showed him the warrant he had permitting him to search Cruz’s premises.

  “This is your doing, Carriscant,” Cruz yelled at him. “This is a deliberate attempt to destroy my reputation.”

  “I asked Dr Carriscant to accompany me on this raid,” Bobby explained, when Cruz’s oaths had been approximately translated. “He was most reluctant to accompany me, but I insisted.”

  Cruz faced Carriscant over the small scatter of remains, animal and human. The hand lay palm upward, as if begging for alms, the fingers slightly curved.

  “You are suspecting me?” Cruz said in English to Bobby.

  “I’m just investigating every area I think proper.”

  Cruz pointed at Carriscant. “This man, this man is man of violence. I have seen him attacking Dr Wieland. You ask Dr Wieland. I have heard him to threaten to kill Wieland. Wieland will tell you.”

  “Wieland has been relieved of his duties,” Bobby said.

  Cruz began to rant on in Spanish again, fulminating against this disgraceful intrusion, his household roused in the middle of the night, his reputation besmirched.

  Carriscant looked down and made a little dust pile with the toe of his boot, his eyes roving over the pathetic remains laid out in a row. The liver was beginning to thaw and small oozings of blood and water were forming around it, already receiving the attentions of ants and other crawling insects.

  THE LETTER

  He recognised the handwriting on the envelope. “Dr Salvador Carriscant, San Jeronimo hospital. Confidential.” He smiled: it had only been a week since their last meeting. He ripped open the seal and. the familiar deckle edge of her writing paper was revealed. He unfolded the note and frowned. It read: ‘On the Luneta, this evening’ and was unsigned. He looked at his watch, suddenly unsettled: midday. What was she planning?

  It rained in the afternoon but by the evening the skies had cleared so the Luneta was crowded. The carriages circled, the white-clad crowds lingered and chatted around the bandstand as the sky turned tangerine across the bay. Carriscant stepped out of his carriage and walked along the edge of the road by the sea wall. There was a gratifyingly stiff breeze coming off the sea this evening and, during certain gusts, he had to place his hand on the crown of his panama hat to hold it in place. He sat on the wall to wait and looked out over the silver water towards Corrigedor, swinging his head round until he could see the scattered lights of Cavite down the coast. He concentrated on the view, trying to enjoy the tranquillity and the rare moment of cool and comfort but a small tremor of foreboding was growing in him and he felt the worry-burn of indigestion flare behind his breastbone. What did she want? And why this method of seeing each other? He forced himself to be optimistic: perhaps she was bringing him good news? Nurse Aslinger was leaving, finally. Or maybe Sieverance had been killed by insurrectos in Mindanao. He felt ashamed by that last thought, it was cruel, uncharitable. It was hardly Sieverance’s fault that he was married to Delphine; he had not set out to thwart Salvador Carriscant, exactly. However, it was galling to be confronted by Sieverance’s luck. Sieverance’s luck: that had brought him this woman that had provided him with a life with Delphine…No, he did not wish him dead. As well wish Annaliese dead, he thought. Wish them both dead…And then he began to feel disgusted with himself, at the direction his mind was turning. These were desperate thoughts. There must be other ways.

  Then he saw her, with another woman, in a landau. She wore navy blue trimmed with yellow, and a small shoulder cape and her hair high in the Gibson Girl style. He watched them both descend and make for the bandstand. He pushed himself off the wall and followed them, skirting round the bandstand, full of loud crepitations as the band changed sheet music, to emerge—casually, coincidentally—in front of them.

  “Mrs Sieverance, how do you do?”

  “Dr Carriscant. What a pleasure. May I present you to my friend, Mrs Oliver. Dr Carriscant, the most famous surgeon in Manila.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like faint praise, Mrs Sieverance. Like being the healthiest man in a leper colony.”

  Laughter.

  “You’re teasing me, Doctor,” she said. “You know what I mean.”

  More conversation was indulged in: the strength of the afternoon’s rain and the freshness it brought in its wake; the outrageous price of tinned goods in Escolta; the impossibility of providing a decent buffet in the tropics without ice to serve the cold cuts on.

  Then Delphine said to Mrs Oliver, “Oh, Shirley, you see that boy selling sweetmeats. Could you get me the coconut cakes, the little square ones? What about you, Dr Carriscant?”

  “No thank you, I’m not partial.”

  Shirley Oliver excused herself and they were alone.

  “You look wonderful,” Carriscant said.

  “There’s a problem,” she said quickly, her face all of a sudden showing signs of strain. “My menses. I’ve missed the last two. It’s over eight weeks.”

  “Oh my God…” He felt his indigestion replaced by nausea.

  “I wouldn’t be alarmed, but…” There was a catch in her voice and he could see from her eyes how upset she was. “I’m so regular, normally. You could set your clock—” She could not continue. She turned away to compose herself, she sniffed.

  “My God,” Carriscant said again: he felt stupid, thick-headed like a peasant. “We must be sure.” Mrs Oliver was approaching with h
er booty. “The nipa barn. Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll try—Shirley, well done! Sure we can’t tempt you, Dr Carriscant?” Carriscant waited in the nipa barn from 3 until 6 the following afternoon but she never came. As he sat in the musty gloom of the barn, hearing the rain showers pass overhead, various plans and schemes, some bizarre, some preposterous, skittered across his mind like the kinemato-graph images he had seen projected in the theatre in Quiapo. Imperfect, jerky, histrionic—but telling him something all the same. He supposed it might be a mistake—the only way to be absolutely sure was to hear the beating of the foetal heart, but it was too early for that—however there was no doubting the conviction in her own voice: she was absolutely certain. He made some quick calculations. If she had missed two…It was nearly nine weeks since that first time in his office. His mouth was suddenly dry, tasted rank. He realised that the delicious unreal limbo he and Delphine had been inhabiting for the last two months was now over, for ever. This was the watershed, this was the spur to action as well. But what to do? It was clear that something drastic had to occur—some confrontation, some confession—but where would that lead? And as he thought and speculated the one clear purpose that came to dominate his thoughts was that he must not lose her. Whatever they did should ensure that they remained together. That realisation relaxed him somewhat, that seemed to narrow the options. No attempt to smooth things over, to reconcile the respective spouses, could be attempted, and any public breach would make life in Manila quite impossible. As he sifted through the alternatives one simple course of action selected itself as the only practical method of both resolving this and allowing them to live together—escape.

  Shortly after 6 he let himself out of the barn and in the fading yellowing light he saw Pantaleon crossing the meadow with a tool bag, about to begin his night’s work. Good old Panta, he thought, sentimentally, dear Pantaleon. A true friend.

  Pantaleon glanced apprehensively towards the barn door. “I’m so sorry, Salvador, I hope I’m not—”

  “No, no. She’s not here.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. No. Well, a bit tired. I’ve been thinking. Bit of a strain.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Pantaleon said. “I’ve been noticing how distracted you are. You’ve got to resolve this. It can’t go on.”

  “You’re right. But don’t worry, Panta, it’ll be resolved.”

  The harbourmaster’s office was behind the customs house on the Calle Urbistondo. Carriscant stood patiently in front of a counter while a young Chinese clerk laboriously checked list after list of names in a scuffed ledger.

  “You say Nilson?”

  “No. Axel. Captain Nicanor Axel. His ship is called the General Blanco.”

  “Ah, yes. He leave three days ago. Hong Kong.”

  “How long does it take to go and come from Hong Kong?”

  “That depend how long you stay there.”

  Jesus Christ. “Captain Axel makes this trip regularly. How long does he normally take? Surely you can check the figures.”

  Eventually (Carriscant took the ledger from the exasperating boy himself) he calculated that if the General Blanco had left Manila three days ago it would very likely be back within the week. That was the information he was after. So, if he could see Axel within the next few days he could set things in motion. He stepped down the stairway from the harbourmaster’s office, his head full of dates and conflicting future plans. He had no real sense of what he wanted to do: once again it was a question of having something in place, a stratagem he could propose to Delphine. He had no doubt that she would come with him, if only he could work it out satisfactorily. No doubt in her at all. He strode out of shadow into eye-dazzling early morning sunlight and progressed round to the front of the customs house where there was a rank of carromatos. Axel was the right fellow for a job like this. He would find out exactly what the man—

  “Carriscant! Dr Carriscant!”

  Carriscant halted and turned, his eyes still watery from the sun’s glare. The cry came from the water’s edge. A shimmering steam launch at the jetty. He squinted and shaded his eyes. A blob detached itself from the dark blobs around the launch and took on the lineaments of a figure as it came to greet him.

  “Fancy finding you here,” Sieverance said, jovially. “Just set foot on the dockside and there you are. Delighted to see you.”

  “How are you?” Carriscant managed to say, feeling the skin crawl on his skull. A berserk shriek of despair seemed to echo in his head. “I thought you—I mean the Mindanao posting was for—”

  “To hell with Mindanao,” Sieverance said, leaning forward confidentially. “I’ve been promoted. Full colonel. They’ve given me a desk in the War Department. Just got the news yesterday. I was lucky to catch the steamer.”

  “The War Department?”

  “Yes, thank the good Lord. We’re going, Carriscant. Back to the good old US of A.”

  From the corner of his eye Carriscant could see Sieverance supervising the unloading of his trunks. He leaned forward and said to the carromato driver:

  “Calle Lagarda, opposite the Palace. As fast as you can, please.”

  The little cab set off at a fair pace but they were held up as usual by the mass of traffic on the rise up to the Bridge of Spain. Once over that it was a swift drive down the Calzada de Vidal and on past the low wooden huts of the First Reserve hospital before recrossing the Pasig via the Avila bridge and on through San Miguel to the Calle Lagarda.

  The maid who opened the door did not recognise him, he was glad to observe, but when he asked if Señora Sieverance was in he was told she was out. He groaned inwardly: he had to reach her before Sieverance did. But at least this absence meant she could not have known her husband was due to return from Mindanao. La Señora, he was told, was playing bridge at the house of Señora Oliver in Ermita. Carriscant ran back down the path to his cab, not leaving his name.

  The Olivers’ house in Ermita was secluded in large walled gardens. Carriscant paced around outside the gate desperately trying to pummel his brain into producing a convincing reason why he, Dr Salvador Carriscant, should be interrupting a ladies’ bridge game, mid-morning, in Ermita. He could think of nothing. He walked down a narrow grass-choked path beside the garden wall, vaguely thinking that if he could gain the garden he might secretly be able to attract her attention somehow. But, supposing he could achieve this, what could she do then? And in any event, even if he scurried from shrub to shrub like some demented franc-tireur, he would probably be spotted. All the same it was his only solution and he reached up to the top of the wall and pulled himself up to peer over.

  The garden was large and well tended, lush from the rains and with a dense close-cut lawn. Just in front of him was an ornamental summerhouse, the walls made of bamboo set in a herringbone pattern and crowned with a thick thatch of woven palm leaves. He hauled himself over the wall and dropped down on the other side. Some way across the garden by a chicken run he could see what he took to be a couple of gardeners. He moistened a finger and held it up to determine the direction of the wind—it would do. He removed his handkerchief from his pocket and, striking a match, held the flame to a corner. When the cotton was well ablaze—he could see the hairs on his left hand beginning to singe, the flames were almost invisible in the sunlight—he tossed it up on to the roof of the summerhouse. He hoped the thatch was dry enough to take and looked up into the milky, hazy sky—no chance of rain. He shimmied up and over the wall and, back on the street, told his cab driver to go down to the barracks at Malete and tell the guard there that there was a fire at number fourteen, Calle de la Galleria. American ladies were in danger.

  From his vantage point on the road he soon saw the smoke from the summerhouse roof and was gratified to note that the breeze did in fact blow it directly towards the house. But then he became a little anxious when the fire took real hold, with six-foot flames shooting from the crackling thatch, with dense drifts of smoke beginning to engulf
the house. Still there was no cry of alarm. What were those gardeners doing? Then he heard shouts and a few screams and, right on time, the clanging of the bell on the barracks fire pump. He walked down the road towards the front gates telling two curious urchins that there was a big fire and that they should run and get help.

  The gleaming scarlet fire pump, manned by half a dozen negro soldiers, and pulled by four vigorously trotting ponies, wheeled smartly into the driveway as the house gates were flung open and Carriscant, along with some worried and curious neighbours, augmented by an increasing flow of helpful locals, followed it to see if they could be of any assistance. Hoses were being run out from the pump and the household seemed to have gathered on the back lawn, at a safe distance, to watch the really rather spectacular blaze, Carriscant had to admit. Chinese servants grinned and gaped as a crouching intrepid gardener threw a useless bucket of water on to the roaring palm thatch. Half a dozen American ladies stood by the rear steps of the house. The bridge party. Carriscant removed his hat as he approached.

  “Mrs Oliver? I’m Dr Carriscant. I was passing. Can I be of any assistance? Is everything all right. Anyone hurt?”

  “Oh, Dr Carriscant, yes of course. No, no injured. We’re just shocked. How could it have happened?”

  “Sometimes thick vegetation, the thatch, the heat of the sun, it can combust spontaneously,” he invented. “It happens here from time to time.”

  “Really? But we’ve had so much rain. Good Lord.” She shouted at the gardener who was returning with a second bucket. “Pu Lin, stop that, please!”

  Carriscant turned. Delphine stood on the verandah, staring at him in some amazement.

  “Morning, Mrs Sieverance. I was passing, saw the smoke and flames.”

  She came down the steps to join him, her eyes now narrow with suspicion. By now hoses were primed and water was being played on the flames. The small crowd began to applaud.