Tango

by Alan Judd

William had to remind himself that this man was his wife’s lover; it didn’t seem to make the difference it should. ‘Is it true that Herrera comes from an old city family?’

  ‘One of the oldest. But it’s no use looking for him with them. They died out. We did some research. He’s got some cousins somewhere up the coast but all his immediate family are in the cemetery and he doesn’t exactly look set to prolong the line.’

  The cigarette was good only for the first few puffs, like all that William had ever tried. He watched the rest of it burn in his fingers.

  ‘I – guess I should say something about me and Sally,’ Max continued.

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘I feel under obligation to say something.’

  ‘You needn’t.’

  ‘She’s a very fine lady.’ Max’s tone was unctuous. ‘I just wanted to say, no hard feelings.’

  ‘No.’ William wished he would stop.

  ‘We both wanted you to know how very much we appreciate your attitude.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  Max’s features burgeoned with sincerity. ‘We both want to humbly thank you.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  Max transferred his cigarette and held out his hand. ‘William, thank you.’

  Not to have shaken would have been misinterpreted, so William transferred his own cigarette. ‘No need ever to mention it again.’

  Max held on to his hand. ‘William, I count myself a big man, but I reckon you’re bigger.’

  The parrot was in the trees again. William raised his other hand. The parrot waved back. Max looked round.

  ‘Just saying goodbye to the parrot,’ said William.

  The street markets were busy that day, the traders boisterous even by their own standards. Colour photographs of Carlos adorned most of the barrows. William stopped at the first one which had guns. A flintlock, a shot-gun and two rifles were strung up, while on the table revolvers and pistols were scattered amongst gardening tools, old shoes and elaborate riding-crops with silver handles. A couple of biscuit tins contained assorted ammunition. The stall-holder was a short moustachioed man who looked like the orange-seller, except that he smiled.

  William said he wanted a hand-gun. The man nodded. ‘Sí, señor, a little or big one?’

  ‘Nothing too large. Just – well – comfortable.’

  He held two or three. The man commented favourably upon each but even more favourably on a fourth which he found beneath the shoes.

  ‘It is more expensive,’ he said. ‘But better. You want a holster?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘For the shoulder?’

  ‘Er – yes.’

  He was offered a smooth black leather holster but the fourth pistol wouldn’t fit. A smaller silver revolver, yet more expensive, was found.

  ‘Revolvers are simpler, easier, more reliable,’ said the man, divining William’s inexperience. ‘And it fits the holster with clips – let me show – there – or there.’ He clipped the holster and revolver to William’s belt, then to the left breast pocket of his shirt. It was heavy and made the shirt sag, but it fitted snugly beneath the jacket.

  ‘And some bullets, please,’ said William.

  They sorted through the biscuit tins for some that would fit. The revolver held only four. ‘That should be enough,’ said William.

  ‘Is for animals, señor?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For business?’

  William thought. ‘Business involving my wife.’

  The man was immediately sympathetic. ‘You take more.’

  William ended up with a dozen more bullets which he had to put in his pockets. He had never held a gun before and tried to spin the chamber as he had seen in films. ‘It seems a bit stiff. Doesn’t seem to move.’

  The man shrugged. ‘Is not important. You can oil. Anyway, is necessary only for one movement at a time when you fire.’

  William walked away feeling self-conscious and awkward rather than lethal. He kept his jacket buttoned though it was now very warm. People were already sitting and drinking maté in the shade of the plane trees. Perhaps they drank it throughout the summer, too. He was free to try it now.

  The cemetery flower-seller was busy. Inside, flowers had appeared on many of the graves and were even placed in small holders by the doors of the lockers high in the walls. Tall aluminium step-ladders were provided and people waited patiently to use them, laughing and talking. The white walls were clean in the sun, the atmosphere festive – not, William thought, a suitable day for a killing. There were plenty of bodies there already, of course, but a fresh one might seem indecent. Also, there were children around, so there had to be no stray bullets. It seemed that once you decided on something there were immediately other things to be taken into account.

  There was a small door in the wall by the main gate where Theresa had told him they kept books relating grave numbers to family names. The books were large, strong ones like those he had seen in war cemeteries in Europe. There were two families named Herrera but one, because of the dates of recent interments, he could discount. The other, by its number, could not be far from Theresa’s banker. The footsteps in the mist that morning had seemed so clear, so elusive and so threatening that he was unreasonably confident of finding what he sought.

  Walking past 1066, William wondered whether he should buy it for Theresa. Carlos had said she was dead to him and all men now. As with Box, he couldn’t really bring himself to believe in her death, but had to accept it. She had said she wanted to be buried there. Box would more appropriately be buried in England, perhaps with military honours.

  The Herrera grave was high in the wall. Manuel would have needed a ladder to get into it and, having got in, he couldn’t have moved the ladder away. Nor were there signs on the ground of a ladder having been there. All this was clear, but William nevertheless stood and stared for some time at the small high door, unwilling to accept the failure of his theory.

  He turned away and stared instead at the city of obelisks, turrets and sepulchres before walking slowly back towards 1066. Some children were playing around the mini-cathedral in which he and Box had talked. They laughed and shouted. Two ran into the cathedral but came out subdued, they spoke to the others and all walked away.

  William approached. His inclination was to hesitate outside and try to see in, but that was stupid. It would take too long for his eyes to adjust. Nor did he feel he could draw his gun. That was unnecessarily dramatic and, anyway, might seriously frighten innocent people. He approached from the side, then ducked through the door and stepped into the gloom.

  Manuel was seated at the end of one of the stone seats, leaning against the wall. He was wearing the robes of a priest. William remained crouched in the doorway. The revolver weighed heavily upon his heart. He did not attempt to draw it. He had imagined doing so many times but now it seemed unthinkable, an almost ludicrous breach of manners. But it was what he was there for.

  Manuel smiled in the gloom. ‘Why have you come here?’

  ‘To find you.’

  ‘Why here?’

  ‘I guessed. You came in this morning, didn’t you, in the mist?’

  ‘Yes.’ Manuel’s tone, like his smile, was perceptive and disconcerting. ‘Why did you want to find me?’

  ‘I came to kill you.’

  Manuel looked politely surprised, as if he had received a proposition from an unexpected quarter. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘In revenge for Arthur Box and Theresa and all the others.’

  ‘That seems a little harsh, if you don’t mind my saying so. I’m not responsible for everything.’

  ‘Nevertheless.’ William’s hatred had evaporated. He kept going only because he had started.

  ‘Are you really going to shoot me?’

  There were voices outside and a breath of breeze. An insect hummed.

  ‘That’s what I came for.’

  ‘I never thought of you as a man of action, Señor Wooding. After a
ll, things don’t always turn out as you plan them, as we both know now.’ He laughed. ‘So, you are going to shoot me, an unarmed man, in cold blood. Well, you may as well do so.’

  Even thinking of Theresa and Box didn’t help now. They wouldn’t have done this. He knew he wouldn’t. Some people could justify it, and there were no doubt others who would say it was his duty, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t quite right enough. A pity because it was the only big thing he had ever set out to do.

  ‘Are you going to do it here?’ asked Manuel. ‘Or outside? Standing or sitting? Am I allowed to pray first?’

  ‘I’m thinking.’

  William was aware of Manuel’s movement but not of any threat. He seemed to fold his arms and change position as if to see William without having to turn his head so much. William’s last sight was of the small dark ‘O’ of the gun barrel. It was so brief a glimpse that he had no time even to be alarmed. There was an explosion in his ears and chest and a pain beyond anything. It lasted an instant yet seemed for ever expanding. Next there was a feeling of being free, of floating, that again seemed both instantaneous and timeless. Then a sudden decline, an abrupt and bottomless fall.

  Chapter 16

  ‘The Cross of Honour, second class. It should be first, but I’ll compromise.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can’t go lower than that. Third class is for diplomats and I don’t want you lumped in with them.’

  ‘I don’t want a medal. I wasn’t being brave.’

  ‘Of course you were. Anyway, it’s useful that you should be recognised for what you did. It lends dignity to the lynching, at least in international eyes.’

  Carlos’s own eyes were drawn again to the window, through which he could see nurses sunbathing on the military hospital lawn. William’s private room was sunny and filled with flowers. They had brought him the remains of his stamp collection that morning. He could walk and talk and eat now, and though there was a dull pain all the time it was excruciating only when he sneezed or coughed. His chest was still discoloured and swollen; the doctors said there was nothing to be done with fractured sternum and ribs except to let them heal. On his bedside table was the silver revolver in its holster, the leather torn and the chamber flattened on one side where Manuel’s bullet had hit it. The shock had actually stopped his heart, they told him. He had seven stitches in his head where he had cut it when thrown back against the tomb. The concussion was wearing off now and the headaches came only if he moved suddenly.

  Manuel had been caught fleeing the cemetery. He had been surrounded by a mob, tied to a trader’s stall and dragged to the covered market where, after castration, he had been hanged from the clock tower. His testicles were rumoured to have been thrown in with other offal and cooked. The incident had threatened to cause public relations problems for the new government but with American help United Nations criticisms had been headed off. There were to be no executions.

  Carlos was wearing another new uniform with many medals. He had been inaugurated as president for life the day before. The reconstituted parliament had voted unanimously and an estimated million people had thronged the streets. His uncle, the prime minister, would actually run the government. There had been dancing all night and that evening Maria’s was to be officially reopened by Carlos. El Lizard would continue to run it but it was to be given the status of a government hostel and run by a board of trustees, chaired by Carlos’s cousin. This was to ensure that it remained, as El Lizard desired, an orderly house.

  William had refused the chairmanship, but had agreed to sit on the board. He was to have special responsibility for the welfare of staff.

  ‘That nurse who was in here when I came?’ Carlos asked.

  ‘Camilla. She’s on in the mornings.’

  ‘I thought she was reasonably beautiful. She reminded me of Theresa. I shall send for her.’

  ‘I’m seeing Theresa this afternoon.’

  ‘How is she? Have they moved her now?’

  ‘The same but yes, thank you, she’s on the floor below.’

  Carlos stood. ‘I shall have tea with my wife and children and then, I think, a short sleep before going to Maria’s tonight.’ He straightened his uniform. ‘You know, idleness is so agreeable to me. I’ve never liked doing things. I only get bored when I’m busy.’

  ‘You look very well on it.’

  ‘I feel well on it. Are we agreed – second class?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘It should really be first, but it is conditional on your accepting my other offer.’

  ‘The British Foreign Office won’t like that.’

  ‘We all have to accept things we don’t like sometimes. At least, some people do.’ Carlos smiled. ‘If they want a representative here and they want cobalt, they’ll agree. Otherwise neither. Anyway, Special Information Services plc owes it to you to use their influence. Chau, William.’

  William waited a while after Carlos had gone, then got carefully out of bed and put on his dressing-gown. It tired him to be up for very long so he built his days around visits to Theresa. Now that, through Carlos, he had got her moved out of the appalling and hopeless mental wing into a room below his, visits were much easier.

  The worst period had been the two days of fluctuating consciousness and persistent pain when, propped up in bed, he had seen the mental patients walking behind the wire on the grass outside their wing. He had thought at first that his sightings of her were cruel tricks of his poor eyesight, then that he was suffering hallucinations. That was why he had said nothing as she wandered, withdrawn and apparently unseeing, amidst the sad aimless people. They looked as if they were all either under heavy sedation or beyond it. She wore the same dull green overalls as the others and her hair had been ruthlessly cut. William had become obsessed. It was the way she held herself and the way she moved. Even her smallest gesture suggested something beyond itself. By the end of the second day he was convinced.

  It had not been difficult to find out. As national hero and friend of the president, he was given everything he requested. Yes, they said, she had been the president’s mistress and she had been raped by Herrera’s security police. They had treated her badly and after the coup she had been found wandering the streets. She had not spoken a word since; her mind was gone. It was sad, such a beautiful girl, and as mistress of the president she would never have been poor. Now, of course, it was impossible for the president to touch her, now she had been raped. Nor would any other man accept her. She was dead to all men now.

  As soon as he could walk far enough William had gone to see her. She had not known him. He talked to her but she did not reply. Her dark eyes rested on him without recognition. She was utterly passive. She would walk beside him and would respond to simple statements about change of direction or standing or sitting, but anything beyond that it was impossible to know whether she even heard. After the first visit he had gone back to bed and resolved to die if she died, otherwise never to leave her.

  Since then he had got used to talking to her. He would put her arm through his and every day they would walk in the grounds. He would tell her everything, hoping that one day something would get through. She was no longer in overalls but in clothes he had ordered for her. The private room where she now slept was bright and quiet. It was imposible to tell whether she noticed her surroundings but she showed no sign of unhappiness. The doctors had described her as ‘deeply withdrawn’.

  Ines had been to see her twice in the early days but had been distressed by the experience. It was not in her nature to be anything other than cheerful and she could not be cheerful when faced by no response at all. After the second visit she had cried, saying she could not bear to do it again. William had promised to call her if Theresa’s powers of recognition ever returned and meanwhile secured for her a permanent position at the club as El Lizard’s secretary, responsible for bookings. She was petitioning the new government to release her father from prison.

  William decided he wo
uld sit with Theresa that day rather than walk. He was still prone to headaches on exertion which, they told him, should wear off after a year or so. He was particularly tired because Carlos’s visit had not been the first that day. In the morning Sally had come with Max Hueffer and flowers and chocolates. Sally described how she had cleaned up the flat and removed her things. She wanted to talk about divorce arrangements. William said he would go along with anything. Max formally asked for his blessing on their union while Sally, who used to be so dismissive of displays of emotion or sentiment, looked on with the exaggerated meekness of the born-again. William had had another headache.

  Theresa sat in one of the cane chairs by the open window of her room. It was not as quiet as it should have been because one of the nurses on the lawn had her radio on. Theresa might have been looking out or she might have been looking at the window-frame. William took the chair next to hers, held her hand and began talking. Her eyes moved to him briefly, then back to the window. He told her that the mystery of Box’s body was almost resolved. It had begun when he had asked for Box’s special shoes as a memento and had been sent the wrong pair. Further requests failed to elicit the right ones. He had then asked for other items of Box’s clothes, but the only article forthcoming was the colonel’s sword with which Box had tried to defend Ines and the girls. It had been cleaned and polished. Box’s body was by then said to be en route for London in the EE(C) coffin, which was no doubt as Box would have wished. Special Information Services plc had behaved decently. They had chartered an aeroplane for the coffin and had sent William a particularly favourable offer on the new share issue. They had also said that if he stayed on they would appoint him their permanent salaried representative. His own company had meanwhile changed their decision about pulling out; they wanted him to stay and were prepared to drop the new name, Britbooks, and revert to the English Bookshop. They had also offered a pay rise but he still hadn’t replied. He was considering putting Ricardo, who was now out of hospital, in charge. They would accept whatever he said now that he was so well established in the country, and he felt he still owed Ricardo something, even though Ricardo was already boasting everywhere about his wounds received in the civil war and the patronage of his new friend, the president; and even though his father, formerly a colonel in an obscure regiment, was now the general in charge of the palace guard.