"Excuse me," he finally said.
Miss Buckley gave him a single nauseated glance, as though Be had shouted a string of filth, and moved her feet. He slipped past her and sat behind his desk. She continued to write.
"I beg your pardon," Paperman said after another long wait. "Is there something I can do for you?"
The lady from Immigration slowly turned her revolted glance on him again. "She still here," she said.
"What? Who's still here?"
The lady official from Immigration brandished a folder. "She. Who else?"
"Would you give me the pleasure of naming the person you're talking about?"
"De pregnant girl from Nevis. Dat who I'm talking about. Esm, Caroline de Quincy. She still here."
"Yes, she is. Aren't her papers in order?"
"She papers ain't de question, she condition de question. Esm, Caroline de Quincy got to leave, or she employer take de responsibility."
"What responsibility? This is all news to me."
Miss Buckley explained, with weary contempt, the problem of Esm, de Quincy.
Esm, was a foreigner, a British subject. Pregnant alien women in the Caribbean were forever trying to get to an American island to have their babies; for the law gave these children United States citizenship, providing only that they emerged from the womb on American soil. The nationality of the mother or the father, in such a case, was of no consequence. Immigration was forever trying to stem this obstetrical skirting of the quotas. The office had been keeping an eye on Esm,, and by its calculations her time was at hand, and she had to go.
Turning even more forbidding, Miss Buckley pointed out that Paperman, when he bought the hotel, had signed a paper taking on himself all the bonds of the alien employees. If Esm, did succeed in having her baby on Kinjan soil, the child would virtually have a legal father in Paperman. His duty to keep it and its mother from becoming public charges would never end until he or they died. He would become personally involved in every encounter Esm, or her child ever had with the government, forever after, wherever they went, from the cradle to the grave-welfare agencies, social security, schools, police, army-all, all, would hark back forever to Norman Paperman, who had made an American citizen of this individual.
This recital terrorized Norman. If any part of it were true-and surely it could not all be petty official bullying-Esm, suddenly loomed as the greatest hazard he had yet encountered in Kinja. He almost cringed to Miss Buckley, in assuring her that he would take action at once. The cringing cheered and brightened the Immigration inspector like a glass of wine. Her eyes cleared, her magenta-ringed smile shone. She put the folders into her briefcase; and with the pleasantest air, she told him that the Immigration Office was glad to welcome him to Amerigo, and was always at his service. She then took a flirtatious, sexy departure.
At once he called Lorna into the office, and asked her to tell him all she could about Miss Buckley. Lorna was crisp and scornful. "She don' know nothin'. She does be a troublemaker, she ignorant as dirt. Don' hoross youself. You don' have to pay her no mind, Senator Pullman he fix de whole ting."
Lorna elaborated as follows: Miss Buckley was the girl friend of Senator Orrin Easter, the chief rival of Senator Evan Pullman. Both legislators were Republicans. One led the party of Eagle Republicans, the other the Elephant Republicans. Since the election of Eisenhower, in 1952, all the senators had become Republicans. Under Truman the two parties had been the Liberty Democrats and the Freedom Democrats. There was a lot more about Kinjan politics that Norman couldn't follow, but he gathered that there were no real issues at stake; the sole question was, which of two rival clubs gave out government jobs. At the moment Pullman's Elephant Republicans were in narrow control. However, there were friendly working arrangements with the Eagle Republicans, and so Christophine Buckley had obtained the Immigration job, which had special glitter because it was a federal appointment. Lorna snarled that Christophine had been thrown out of high school for bearing twins to Senator Easter at the age of fourteen. She had then had a varied government career as a social worker, holding jobs in family guidance and mental health, before leaping to her present federal post.
There was too much female venom stirred into this farrago to convince or reassure Paperman. The only comfort lay in Lorna's scornful assertion that Esm, was at least six weeks away from giving birth to his foster-child. Paperman believed this. The girl didn't look on the verge of childbirth. He decided to keep a very close watch on her waistline, and to deport her after Christmas. Right now, he needed her badly. She was a good girl, the cleanest and best of the staff, and in a shadowy way she seemed to be the leader of the six Nevis chambermaids.
So he dismissed Lorna and glanced at the mail from home. Henny's letter was generally cheering. Her pain had faded, and all the doctors now tended to ascribe it to nerves. New York was unspeakably cold, crowded, and filthy in the pre-Christmas panic. Her plans for coming down with Hazel a week hence were set. But the last page was a shocker.
I don't know how to hreak this to you, but with your heart history the surprise might do you in, and you'd better be warned. The Sending is coming to Amerigo for Christmas! Don't ask me why. Don't ask me what to do about it. I'm beside myself. Hazel acts delighted, but I'm very much mistaken if she isn't annoyed. Our tender little darling loves to do the pursuing, you know. She was bored by all the college boys who languished after her, and that was what sent her chasing Klug.
Oh, he drivels about finishing up his thesis on Balzac the Fruit during Xmas, and says he doubts whether he'll even see Hazel except for a swim now and then. But though Hazel may be a prize donkey, she's solid woman, and she can't be fooled. Your screwball chum down there has put a small damper on the Sending's glow. She feels it and she's let Sheldon feel it. And like every dumb cluck of a man, his ego won't allow him to take it quietly. His only hope is to pretend indifference, but no, the damn fool is going to run after her. I do believe we may be approaching the downfall of the Sending, my love, so grit your teeth. This may all be for the best.
Lester's letter was typed on the exceptionally heavy, creamy, engraved stationery of the Atlas Investment Corporation:
Dear Norman:
I thank you for your kind information about the Crab Cove situation in Amerigo. I am interested. Kindly inform the bank.
Due to exhausting negotiations on my Montana situation, including many airplane trips, I am fatigued. I will therefore spend Christmas at the Gull Reef Club. Kindly reserve the best accommodation in the hotel for me.
Kindest personal regards.
As he was digesting this double-barreled blast of disquieting news -for Atlas and the Tilson party seemed as unpromising a juxtaposition as gunpowder and a blowtorch-Lorna put her head in again.
"Suh, you fix de toilet in twenty-six yet?"
"What? Oh, Christ, no." He glanced at his watch. "I've got to meet the plane now."
"We goin' to lose dem guests, suh. Dey a party of four."
Paperman left the office and galloped up the stairs. Eternal weeks ago, when he had first visited the hotel with Lester, this staircase had been a menace to his health, to be mounted with plodding care. Now he took it two steps at a time with hardly a thought, because he seldom went upstairs when some emergency wasn't breaking loose. His heart beat fast and angry each time he did this. But Paperman was too "horossed" to mollycoddle his heart, and with time the palpitations seemed to be getting less violent.
He ran to the supply closet, took out a plunger and a can of murderous chemical, and let himself into Room 26 with a skeleton key. The overflowed toilet and the whole bathroom were a mess, foul and malodorous beyond language to tell. Norman Paperman, the fastidious, tasteful man about Manhattan, Norman Paperman, of the "cashmere existence," Norman Paperman, who until his move to the tropics had never done anything more practical or mechanical than wielding a can opener; this Norman Paperman now sloshed manfully through the vile puddles, worked the plunger for two minutes in the splashing filth, and then emptied the chemicals into the toilet. Horrifying gurgles, steamings, bubblings, and fumings began, and these he endured, together with the stench, for the time prescribed on the can. Then he flushed the toilet and ran, halting in the other room. He heard no splash of an overflow. He returned, looked in the bowl, and saw clear murmuring water. He summoned a maid to mop up; and off to the airport he went, as pleased with himself as if he had written a sonnet.
3
It behooved him to hurry. Nothing seemed to irritate the guests more, or to get them off to a worse start, than having to wait even a few minutes at the hot airport at midday, especially if they encountered the mysterious taxicab boycott. Paperman would have gladly capitulated to the cab drivers, but there was no calling back Amy Ball's circulars with the fatal opening words: "From the moment you arrive in Amerigo, when we personally meet you at the airport, your vacation at Gull Reef will be not a stay at a hotel, but a visit to the gracious tropical home of old friends." This was a commitment like the Monroe Doctrine. Norman had to struggle through this season, at least, with the old policy.
He raced through the somnolent town. It was high noon. The only traffic in sight was an old red taxicab far up Prince of Wales Street, evidently making for the airport. It went out of sight around a turn; Norman came bowling after it, and saw with horror, as he rounded the turn, that the red cab had stopped short in the narrow street and the driver was happily joking with a pretty girl on the sidewalk. He jammed on his brakes, slowed with fearsome squeals, crashed into the taxi, and struck his head on the windshield.
When he came to, he was lying on the roasting hot sidewalk; he sat up, and then staggered to his feet. A dozen Kinjans ringed him, including the chief of police in his gold braid and vast pistols. "Easy, mon," said the chief, taking his arms. Paperman insisted that he was quite all right, and he seemed to be. The blackout had been a momentary stunning. Neither car was badly damaged, but it was fifteen minutes before he could quit the scene. The chief insisted on writing down all the facts. He gently chided the cab driver for stopping in the middle of the street to hold a conversation. This was a universal custom in Kinja, and Norman had observed the chief doing it himself in his silvery new prowl car. However, since the law frowned on it, and the taxi driver admitted he had stopped for a few seconds to greet his best friend's sister, the chief gave him a summons, and gave another to Paperman for negligent driving. Norman drove off down the tar highway through the green walls of cane as fast as he dared, still giddy, and thankful for the heavy glass in the Land Rover windshield, which had saved him from breaking through and cutting his throat. One more small, unpublicized hazard of Eden to bear in mind, he thought.
Chapter Eight
Lionel
I
"Lionel, for Christ's sake!" Paperman involuntarily yelled, clear across the terminal.
In the distraction of the quake and its aftermath, he had quite forgotten that one of the arriving guests was Dan Freed's green-faced stage manager. There he was, sitting in a shady corner with an elderly couple and two schoolteacherish women. Except for this group, the torrid airport was deserted.
"Hey there, Norm! Here's the five for Gull Reef! Say, you sure look healthy, fella!"
Lionel had been passing the time by telling theatre anecdotes, and the other guests were in good spirits despite the long wait. They kept asking Lionel eager questions about Broadway stars even when they were all in the Land Rover, jerking and snorting along the coast road back to Georgetown.
Soon, as usual, they were exclaiming at the beauty of Amerigo. Even Norman, weary and disillusioned as he was, still loved the verdant hills, the blue-green sea, the play of sun and shadow in the valleys and on the ruins. Their effect on Lionel was astonishing. It was hard to recognize in this man the phlegmatic robot of backstage. The cheese-green cadaverous face, the straight long pale hair, the pursed old-lady lips were the same. But he smiled, he laughed, he spoke in high gay tones, he pointed out wonders to the others; for he was the only one of the five who had been to Amerigo before.
"Ah, Norman, you're the smartest guy I've ever known. This is heaven. This is for me. This is for anybody with half a brain. Look, Mrs. Stegmeyer. Look, Susy! See that ruin? That's Charlotte's Fancy, built by slaves before George Washington was born. How about that ocean? Did you ever see such a color?"
Lionel's delight over the waterfront-the red fort, the arcades, the Vespucci statue amid its pink-and-purple bougainvillea, the native schooners-reminded Norman of his own raptures when he and Lester Atlas had first trod this cobbled plaza. The gondola, said Lionel, was marvelous; and as for Virgil, he was more picturesque than the beefeaters in the Tower of London. "Tell me, gondolier, can you sing Venetian songs?" he asked, as they were rowing across.
"Fongf? No, fuh, I can't fing no fongf," Virgil said, smiling toward a spot about seven feet to the left of Lionel. "But I work two fifff."
