by Paul Theroux
“For good,” I said. “Until I burn them.”
“Hey, not so fast,” he said. “Those pictures are mine.”
“I took them,” I said. “They’re mine.”
Shuck laughed uncertainly. “I know your game,” he said. “You want more money. Okay, I’ll give you more—in addition to the ten grand we agreed on.”
“It’s not enough.”
Shuck gripped his Coke; his face was malevolent. “Another five.”
“No.”
“Jack—”
“It’s not enough.”
“Six,” he lisped, and his expression changed from malevolence to concern. “I understand. You’re holding out for more and you think I have to give it to you because you’ve got something on me—because I put you up to this. I’ve got news for you—it won’t wash. Now hand over the goods.”
“It’s not enough money, one,” I said. “And, two, you’re not getting them anyway.”
“It figures,” said Shuck. His smile was grim. “This happens with nationals all the time. Thais, say, or Cambodians. They agree on a price, usually peanuts—but they’re Thais, so how do they know how much to ask? They deal in small figures, then later they want more. It always gets bigger. And then they really get expensive.”
“So you tell them to get lost.”
“Sometimes,” said Shuck. “Anyway, as soon as you told me how much you wanted I knew you’d been out of the States for a long time. You really belong here. Ten grand! I couldn’t believe it.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s not money. I’m glad you didn’t ask me to shoot him. I might have done that for fifteen.”
“So what’s your price?”
“No price.”
“You’re putting me on again, aren’t you?”
“I’m not,” I said. “No price, no pictures. I’m giving you back the five grand. No sale.”
“You did lose your nerve after all,” said Shuck.
“Not on your life,” I said. “I’ve even got tapes of the guy—more graphic than the pictures in a way, but harder to visualize. Muffled noises, very touching really.”
“Jack,” said Shuck. “Are you going to the other side with them?”
“You’re a tricky feller,” I said. “Do you know that until now that possibility hadn’t even occurred to me?”
“You’re playing with dynamite.”
“Dynamite,” I said. “A feller kissing a girl. A girl saying fuck. A feller in bed. A girl doing the breast stroke. Dynamite!”
“He’s a general!” said Shuck.
“He was out of uniform,” I said. “I want to change the subject.”
“I know you’re going to the Russians,” said Shuck. “Or is it the Chinese?”
“Neither.”
“I’ll tell you something,” said Shuck. “They’re not even good pictures. They’re very amateurish.”
“To me they’re hopeful,” I said. “I’d give them to you—for nothing—but you’d do the wrong things with them. You’d misuse them.”
“Jack, I promise—”
“You’d put the wrong interpretation on them,” I said. “That would kill me.” And I wanted to say, but I couldn’t phrase it, that the honor he talked about was a very arbitrary notion, as temporary as power, and would be out of fashion tomorrow, when the sides changed. I wanted no part of the graceless distortion. I was a person of small virtue; virtue wasn’t salvation, but knowing that might be.
“I don’t believe he’s guilty,” I said at last.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m not.”
“If you don’t hand those over you are.”
“If I give you these,” I said, “I’m sunk.”
“So you’re trying to save yourself!”
“And you, too,” I said.
Shuck appealed, but I was scarcely listening: “You’d never have to worry . . . I’m not talking about nickels and dimes . . . Blow the lid off this thing . . . only the beginning . . . everything you always wanted . . . famous.”
I was looking at the old waiter with the lucky moles on his face, the dusty sabers, the pots of beer; and I was thinking: What a pleasant bar this is, what happy people.
And I walked. Alone, leaving Shuck and my untouched gin, out the swinging doors, and stumping regally down Orchard Road, which was choked with traffic and the nighttime bustle of shoppers and late eaters; past the car dealers and the Istana Gardens, to Dhoby Ghaut, where a gigantic blood-flecked poster of a fanged and green-faced Dracula was suspended, garishly lit, over the Cathay marquee; past the secondhand bookshops on Bras Basah Road (“Ksst. Mistah, something special?”). I had panicked and acted. I shouldn’t have panicked; but the act released me. I was a lucky feller.
“Hey Jack!” A nasal Chinese yell, the man’s shyness causing him to scream. I saw a white shirt in a doorway, not a zombie—a friend with no face.
I waved to him and kept walking, cutting through the noise that was crowding me, liking the night air. I had had my nose pressed against two fellers, one dead, one alive. I knew them, and my betrayal, begun exclusively as a crime—I had insisted on that—ended as an act of faith, the conjuring trick that fails when you understand it. The Oriental Bookstore, Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, Bamboo Bar, Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Union—mottled and beflagged—and down Victoria Street I could see children ducking into alleys, carrying flimsy red lanterns for the moon festival: colored lights jostling in the dark, illuminating shirtfronts and faces. I walked across the grassy maidan, past the War Memorial to civilians which looks like four enormous floodlit chopsticks, and dodging traffic—pretty nimble for a feller my age—bounded to the steel rail on the harbor promenade. Out there, ship lights twinkled. This was the very edge of the island, on the thickest part of the world.
Not one life—I had had many. A memoir selects from the interruption of different fears. There had been others; I expected more, and I was calm, for I had had a death as well. But all I thought were preparations for flight had readied me for staying, a belonging the opposite of what I wanted: familiar, yes, and yet who would willingly die here? I was no exile. There were fast planes west, and I knew the cosiest ships. Being away can make you a stranger in two places, I thought; but it wasn’t a country I needed, and not money, though I knew some cash would improve my backward heart. I had a ten-dollar win ticket on Major General in the fourth race on Saturday, and a lottery ticket—Toto Number 915. Fortune might be denied me, but that denial still held a promise like postponement. No drums, no trumpets; a love gallop thundered in my head, and the random sea splash quickened below me, signals of danger very much like the sounds of rescue.
I was tranquil enough at last to kill myself—to toss myself into the harbor; but I changed my mind and decided to live for a hundred years. So my life was only half gone. I would celebrate the coming glory with an expensive drink at Raffles, down the road, and, time permitting, do a spot of work before I put in an appearance at the Bandung. Children with bright lanterns moved along the promenade toward me, swinging their blobs of light. I blessed them simply, wishing them well with a nod.
There was another admirer. A woman in a white dress, with a camera slung over her shoulder, leaned against the sea rail twenty feet away. When the children passed by, she approached me, smiling.
“What beautiful children,” she said. “Are they Chinese?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But they should be in bed at this hour.”
“So should I,” said the woman, and she laughed gently. She was a corker. She looked across the street and held her fingers to her mouth and kissed them in concentration. “Oh, hell,” she said, “I’m lost.”
“No, you’re not,” I said.
“Hey, you’re an American, too,” she said. “Do you have a minute?”
“Lady, believe me,” I said, and a high funny note of joy, recovered hope, warbled in my ears as I pronounced the adventurous sentence, “I’ve got all the time in the world.”
PAUL THEROUX is the author of many highly acclaimed books. His novels include The Lower River and The Mosquito Coast, and his renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.
