He said to Beatrice, ‘Don’t you think you’d better go home?’
‘It’s you who need protection here,’ she said.
Nobody even noticed them. The mask of the fat woman dangled from one ear and she was drinking a glass of wine with one leg up on a chair. A very thin girl with ribs like piano-keys was pulling on her stockings. Breasts swayed, buttocks bent, cigarettes half finished fumed in saucers; the air was thick with burning paper. A man stood on a stepladder with a screwdriver fixing something.
‘Where is she?’ Beatrice asked.
‘I don’t think she’s here. Perhaps she’s sick, or with her lover.’
The air flapped warmly round them as someone put on a dress. Little grains of powder settled like ash.
‘Try calling her name.’
He shouted ‘Teresa’ half-heartedly. Nobody paid any attention. He tried again and the man with the screwdriver looked down at him.
‘Paso algo?’ he asked.
Wormold said in Spanish that he was looking for a girl called Teresa. The man suggested that Maria would do just as well. He pointed his screwdriver at the fat woman.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘He doesn’t seem to know Teresa.’
The man with the screwdriver sat down on top of the ladder and began to make a speech. He said that Maria was the best woman you could find in Havana. She weighed one hundred kilos with nothing on.
‘Obviously Teresa is not here,’ Wormold explained with relief.
‘Teresa. Teresa. What do you want with Teresa?’
‘Yes. What do you want with me?’ the thin girl demanded, coming forward holding out one stocking. Her little breasts were the size of pears.
‘Who are you?’
‘Soy Teresa.’
Beatrice said, ‘Is that Teresa? You said she was fat – like that one with the mask.’
‘No, no,’ Wormold said. ‘That’s not Teresa. She’s Teresa’s sister. Soy means sister.’ He said, ‘I’ll send a message by her.’
He took the thin girl’s arm and moved her a little away. He tried to explain to her in Spanish that she had to be careful.
‘Who are you? I don’t understand.’
‘There has been a mistake. It is too long a story. There are people who may try to do you an injury. Please stay at home for a few days. Don’t come to the theatre.’
‘I have to. I meet my clients here.’
Wormold took out a wad of money. He said, ‘Have you relations?’
‘I have my mother.’
‘Go to her.’
‘But she is in Cienfuegos.’
‘There is plenty of money there to take you to Cienfuegos.’ Everybody was listening now. They pressed close around. The man with the screwdriver had come down from the ladder. Wormold saw Beatrice outside the circle; she was pushing closer, trying to make out what he was saying.
The man with the screwdriver said, ‘That girl belongs to Pedro. You can’t take her away like that. You must talk to Pedro first.’
‘I do not want to go to Cienfuegos,’ the girl said.
‘You will be safe there.’
She appealed to the man. ‘He frightens me. I cannot understand what he wants.’ She exhibited the pesos. ‘This is too much money.’ She appealed to them. ‘I am a good girl.’
‘A lot of wheat does not make a bad year,’ the fat woman said with solemnity.
‘Where is your Pedro?’ the man asked.
‘He is ill. Why does the man give me all this money? I am a good girl. You know that my price is fifteen pesos. I am not a hustler.’
‘A lean dog is full of fleas,’ said the fat woman. She seemed to have a proverb for every occasion.
‘What’s happening?’ Beatrice asked.
A voice hissed, ‘Psst, psst!’ It was the negro who had been sweeping the passage. He said, ‘Policia!’
‘Oh hell,’ Wormold said, ‘that tears it. I’ve got to get you out of here.’ No one seemed unduly disturbed. The fat woman drained her wine and put on a pair of knickers; the girl who was called Teresa pulled on her second stocking.
‘It doesn’t matter about me,’ Beatrice said. ‘You’ve got to get her away.’
‘What do the police want?’ Wormold asked the man on the ladder.
‘A girl,’ he said cynically.
‘I want to get this girl out,’ Wormold said. ‘Isn’t there some back way?’
‘With the police there’s always a back way.’
‘Where?’
‘Got fifty pesos to spare?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give them to him. Hi, Miguel,’ he called to the negro.
‘Tell them to stay asleep for three minutes. Now who wants to be treated to freedom?’
‘I prefer the police-station,’ the fat woman said. ‘But one has to be properly clothed.’ She adjusted her bra.
‘Come with me,’ Wormold said to Teresa.
‘Why should I?’
‘You don’t realize – they want you.’
‘I doubt it,’ said the man with the screwdriver. ‘She’s too thin. You had better hurry. Fifty pesos do not last for ever.’
‘Here, take my coat,’ Beatrice said. She wrapped it round the shoulders of the girl, who had now two stockings on but nothing else. The girl said, ‘But I want to stay.’
The man slapped her bottom and gave her a push. ‘You have his money,’ he said. ‘Go with him.’ He herded them into a small and evil toilet and then through a window. They found themselves in the street. A policeman on guard outside the theatre ostentatiously looked elsewhere. A pimp whistled and pointed to Wormold’s car. The girl said again, ‘I want to stay,’ but Beatrice pushed her into the rear seat and followed her in. ‘I shall scream,’ the girl told them and leant out of the window.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Beatrice said, pulling her inside. Wormold got the car started.
The girl screamed but only in a tentative way. The policeman turned and looked in the opposite direction. The fifty pesos seemed to be still effective. They turned right and drove towards the sea-front. No car followed them. It was as easy as all that. The girl, now that she had no choice, adjusted the coat for modesty and leant comfortably back. She said, ‘Hay mucha corriente.’
‘What’s she saying?’
‘She’s complaining of the draught,’ Wormold said.
‘She doesn’t seem a very grateful girl. Where’s her sister?’
‘With the Director of Posts and Telegraphs, at Cienfuegos. Of course I could drive her there. We’d arrive by breakfast time. But there’s Milly.’
‘There’s more than Milly. You’ve forgotten Professor Sanchez.’
‘Surely Professor Sanchez can wait.’
‘They seem to be acting fast, whoever they are.’
‘I don’t know where he lives.’
‘I do. I looked him up in the Country Club list before we came.’
‘You take this girl and wait there.’
They came on to the front. ‘You turn left here,’ Beatrice said.
‘I’m taking you home.’
‘It’s better to stay together.’
‘Milly …’
‘You don’t want to compromise her, do you?’
Reluctantly Wormold turned left. ‘Where to?’
‘Vedado,’ Beatrice said.
3
The skyscrapers of the new town stood up ahead of them like icicles in the moonlight. A great H.H. was stamped on the sky, like the monogram on Hawthorne’s pocket, but it wasn’t royal either – it only advertised Mr Hilton. The wind rocked the car, and the spray broke across the traffic-lanes and misted the seaward window. The hot night tasted of salt. Wormold swung the car away from the sea. The girl said, ‘Hace demasiado calor?
‘What’s she saying now?’
‘She says it’s too hot.’
‘She’s a difficult girl,’ Beatrice said. ‘Better turn down the window again.
‘Suppose she screams?’
‘I’
ll slap her.’
They were in the new quarter of Vedado: little cream-and-white houses owned by rich men. You could tell how a rich man was by the fewness of the floors. Only a millionaire could afford a bungalow on a site that might have held a skyscraper. When he lowered the window they could smell the flowers. She stopped him by a gate in a high white wall. She said, ‘I can see lights in the patio. Everything seems all right. I’ll guard your precious bit of flesh while you go in.’
‘He seems to be very wealthy for a professor.’
‘He’s not too rich to charge expenses, according to your accounts.’
Wormold said, ‘Give me a few minutes. Don’t go away.’
‘Am I likely to? You’d better hurry. So far they’ve only scored one out of three, and a near miss, of course.’
He tried the grilled gate. It was not locked. The position was absurd. How was he to explain his presence? ‘You are an agent of mine without knowing it. You are in danger. You must hide.’ He didn’t even know of what subject Sanchez was a professor.
A short path between two palm-trees led to a second grilled gate, and beyond was the little patio where the lights were on. A gramophone was playing softly and two tall figures revolved in silence cheek to cheek. As he limped up the path a concealed alarm-bell rang. The dancers stopped and one of them: came out on to the path to meet him.
‘Who is that?’
‘Professor Sanchez?’
‘Yes.’
They both converged into the area of light. The professor wore a white dinner-jacket, his hair was white, he had white morning stubble on his chin, and he carried a revolver in his hand which he pointed at Wormold. Wormold saw that the woman behind him was very young and very pretty. She stooped and turned off the gramophone.
‘Forgive me for calling on you at this hour,’ Wormold said. He had no idea how he should begin, and he was disquieted by the revolver. Professors ought not to carry revolvers.
‘I am afraid I don’t remember your face.’ The professor spoke politely and kept the revolver pointed at Wormold’s stomach.
‘There’s no reason why you should. Unless you have a vacuum cleaner.’
‘Vacuum cleaner? I suppose I have. Why? My wife would know.’ The young woman came through from the patio and joined them. She had no shoes on. The discarded shoes stood beside the gramophone like mousetraps. ‘What does he want?’ she asked disagreeably.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Señora Sanchez.’
‘Tell him I’m not Señora Sanchez,’ the young woman said.
‘He says he has something to do with vacuum cleaners,’ the professor said. ‘Do you think Maria, before she went away …?’
‘Why does he come here at one in the morning?’
‘You must forgive me,’ the professor said with an air of embarrassment, ‘but this is an unusual time.’ He allowed his revolver to move a little off target. ‘One doesn’t as a rule expect visitors …’
‘You seem to expect them.’
‘Oh, this – one has to take precautions. You see, I have some very fine Renoirs.’
‘He’s not after the pictures. Maria sent him. You are a spy, aren’t you?’ the young woman asked fiercely.
‘Well, in a way.’
The young woman began to wail, beating at her own long slim flanks. Her bracelets jangled and glinted.
‘Don’t, dear, don’t. I’m sure there’s an explanation.’
‘She envies our happiness,’ the young woman said. ‘First she sent the cardinal, didn’t she, and now this man … Are you a priest?’ she asked.
‘My dear, of course, he’s not a priest. Look at his clothes.’
‘You may be a professor of comparative education,’ the young woman said, ‘but you can be deceived by anyone. Are you a priest?’ she repeated.
‘No.’
‘What are you?’
‘As a matter of fact I sell vacuum cleaners.’
‘You said you were a spy.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose in a sense …’
‘What have you come here for?’
‘To warn you.’
The young woman gave an odd bitch-like howl. ‘You see,’ she said to the professor, ‘she’s threatening us now. First the cardinal and then …’
‘The cardinal was only doing his duty. After all he’s Maria’s cousin.’
‘You’re afraid of him. You want to leave me.’
‘My dear, you know that isn’t true.’ He said to Wormold, ‘Where is Maria now?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘When did you see her last?’
‘But I’ve never seen her.’
‘You do rather contradict yourself, don’t you?’
‘He’s a lying hound,’ the young woman said.
‘Not necessarily, dear. He’s probably employed by some agency. We had better sit down quietly and hear what he has to say. Anger is always a mistake. He’s doing his duty – which is more than can be said of us.’ The professor led the way back to the patio. He had put his revolver back in his pocket. The young woman waited until Wormold began to follow and then brought up the rear like a watchdog. He half expected her to bite his ankle. He thought, Unless I speak soon, I shall never speak.
‘Take a chair,’ the professor said. What was comparative education?
‘May I give you a drink?’
‘Please don’t bother.’
‘You don’t drink on duty?’
‘Duty!’ the young woman said. ‘You treat him like a human being. What duty has he got except to his despicable employers?’
‘I came here to warn you that the police …’
‘Oh come, come, adultery is not a crime,’ the professor said. ‘I think it has seldom been regarded as that except in the American colonies in the seventeenth century. And in the Mosaic Law, of course.’
‘Adultery had got nothing to do with it,’ the young woman said. ‘She didn’t mind us sleeping together, she only minded our being together.’
‘You can hardly have one without the other, unless you are thinking of the New Testament,’ the professor said. ‘Adultery in the heart.’
‘You have no heart unless you turn this man out. We sit here talking as though we had been married for years. If all you want to do is to sit up all night and talk, why didn’t you stick to Maria?’
‘My dear, it was your idea to dance before bed.’
‘You call what you did dancing?’
‘I told you that I would take lessons.’
‘Oh yes, so as to be with the girls at the school.’
The conversation seemed to Wormold to be reeling out of sight. He said desperately, ‘They shot at Engineer Cifuentes. You are in the same danger.’
‘If I wanted girls, dear, there are plenty at the university. They come to my lectures. No doubt you are aware of that, since you came yourself.’
‘You taunt me with it?’
‘We are straying from the subject, dear. The subject is what action Maria is likely to take next.’
‘She ought to have given up starchy foods two years ago,’ the young girl said rather cheaply, ‘knowing you. You only care for the body. You ought to be ashamed at your age.’
‘If you don’t wish me to love you …’
‘Love. Love.’ The young woman began to pace the patio. She made gestures in the air as though she were dismembering love. Wormold said, ‘It’s not Maria you have to worry about.’
‘You lying hound,’ she screamed at him. ‘You said you’d never seen her.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Then why do you call her Maria?’ she cried and began to do triumphant dance-steps with an imaginary partner.
‘You said something about Cifuentes, young man?’
‘He was shot at this evening.’
‘Who by?’
‘I don’t know exactly, but it’s all part of the same round-up. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but you really seem to be in great danger, Professor Sanchez. It’s all a m
istake, of course. The police have been to the Shanghai Theatre too.’
‘What have I to do with the Shanghai Theatre?’
‘What indeed?’ cried the young woman melodramatically. ‘Men,’ she said, ‘men! Poor Maria. She hasn’t only one woman to deal with. She’ll have to plan a massacre.’
‘I’ve never had anything to do with anybody at the Shanghai Theatre.’
‘Maria is better informed. I expect you walk in your sleep.’
‘You heard what he said, it’s a mistake. After all, they shot at Cifuentes. You can’t blame her for that.’
‘Cifuentes? Did he say Cifuentes? Oh, you Spanish oaf. Just because he talked to me one day at the Club while you were in the shower you go and hire desperadoes to kill him.’
‘Please, dear, be reasonable. I only heard of it just now when this gentleman …’
‘He’s not a gentleman. He’s a lying hound.’ They had again come full circle in the conversation.
‘If he’s a liar we need pay no attention to what he says. He’s probably slandering Maria too.’
‘Ah, you would stick up for her.’
Wormold said with desperation – it was his last fling, ‘This has got nothing to do with Maria – with Señora Sanchez, I mean.’
‘What on earth has Señora Sanchez to do with it?’ the professor asked.
‘I thought you thought that Maria …’
‘Young man, you aren’t seriously telling me that Maria is planning to do something to my wife as well as to my … my friend here? It’s too absurd.’
Until now the mistake had seemed to Wormold fairly simple to deal with. But now it was as though he had tugged a stray piece of cotton and a whole suit had begun to unwind. Was this Comparative Education? He said, ‘I thought I was doing you a favour by coming to warn you, but it looks as if death for you might be the best solution.’
‘You are a very mystifying young man.’
‘Not young. It’s you, Professor, who are young by the look of things.’ In his anxiety he spoke aloud, ‘If only Beatrice were here.’
Our Man in Havana Page 14
