Our Man In Havana (14 page)

‘I don’t think I have much. Except for Milly. And Dr Hasselbacher.’

‘London doesn’t like Dr Hasselbacher.’

‘London can go to hell,’ Wormold said. He suddenly wanted to describe to her the ruin of Dr Hasselbacher’s flat and the destruction of his futile experiments. He said, ‘It’s people like your folk in London. … I’m sorry. You are one of them.’

‘So are you.’

‘Yes, of course. So am I.’

Rudy called from the other room, ‘I’ve got it fixed.’

‘I wish you weren’t one of them,’ Wormold said.

‘It’s a living,’ she said.

‘It’s not a real living. All this spying. Spying on what? Secret agents discovering what everybody knows already …’

‘Or just making it up,’ she said. He stopped short, and she went on without a change of voice, ‘There are lots of other jobs that
aren’t
real. Designing a new plastic soapbox, making pokerwork jokes for public-houses, writing advertising slogans, being an M.P., talking to
UNESCO
conferences. But the money’s real. What happens after work is real. I mean, your daughter is real and her seventeenth birthday is real.’

‘What do you do after work?’

‘Nothing much now, but when I was in love … we went to cinemas and drank coffee in Expresso bars and sat on summer evenings in the Park.’

‘What happened?’

‘It takes two to keep something real. He was acting all the time. He thought he was the great lover. Sometimes I almost wished he would turn impotent for a while just so that he’d lose his confidence. You can’t love and be as confident as he was. If you love you are afraid of losing it, aren’t you?’ She said, ‘Oh hell, why am I telling you all this? Let’s go and make microphotographs and code some cables.’ She looked through the door. ‘Rudy’s lying on his bed. I suppose he’s feeling air-sick again. Can you be air-sick all this while? Haven’t you got a room where there isn’t a bed? Beds always make one talk.’ She opened another door. ‘Table laid for lunch. Cold meat and salad. Two places. Who does all this? A little fairy?’

‘A woman comes in for two hours in the morning.’

‘And the room beyond?’

‘That’s Milly’s. It’s got a bed in it too.’

CHAPTER 3

1

THE SITUATION, WHICHEVER
way he looked at it, was uncomfortable. Wormold was in the habit now of drawing occasional expenses for Engineer Cifuentes and the professor, and monthly salaries for himself, the Chief Engineer of the
Juan Belmonte
and Teresa, the nude dancer. The drunken air-pilot was usually paid in whisky. The money Wormold accumulated he put into his deposit-account – one day it would make a dowry for Milly. Naturally to justify these payments he had to compose a regular supply of reports. With the help of a large map, the weekly number of
Time
, which gave generous space to Cuba in its section on the Western Hemisphere, various economic publications issued by the Government, above all with the help of his imagination, he had been able to arrange at least one report a week, and until the arrival of Beatrice he had kept his Saturday evenings free for homework. The professor was the economic authority, and Engineer Cifuentes dealt with the mysterious constructions in the mountains of Oriente (his reports were sometimes confirmed and sometimes contradicted by the Cubana pilot – a contradiction had a flavour of authenticity). The chief engineer supplied descriptions of labour conditions in Santiago, Matanzas and Cienfuegos and reported on the growth of unrest in the navy. As for the nude dancer, she supplied spicy details of the private lives and sexual eccentricities of the Defence Minister and the Director of Posts and Telegraphs. Her reports closely resembled articles
about
film stars in
Confidential
, for Wormold’s imagination in this direction was not very strong.

Now that Beatrice was here, Wormold had a great deal more to worry about than his Saturday evening exercises. There was not only the basic training which Beatrice insisted on giving him in microphotography, there were also the cables he had to think up in order to keep Rudy happy, and the more cables Wormold sent the more he received. Every week now London bothered him for photographs of the installations in Oriente, and every week Beatrice became more impatient to take over the contact with his agents. It was against all the rules, she told him, for the head of a station to meet his own sources. Once he took her to dinner at the Country Club and, as bad luck would have it, Engineer Cifuentes was paged. A very tall lean man with a squint rose from a table near-by.

‘Is that Cifuentes?’ Beatrice asked sharply.

‘Yes.’

‘But you told me he was sixty-five.’

‘He looks young for his age.’

‘And you said he had a paunch.’

‘Not paunch – ponch. It’s the local dialect for squint.’ It was a very narrow squeak.

After that she began to interest herself in a more romantic figure of Wormold’s imagination – the pilot of Cubana. She worked enthusiastically to make his entry in the index complete and wanted the most personal details. Raul Dominguez certainly had pathos. He had lost his wife in a massacre during the Spanish civil war and had become disillusioned with both sides, with his Communist friends in particular. The more Beatrice asked Wormold about him, the more his character developed, and the more anxious she became to contact him. Sometimes Wormold felt a twinge of jealousy towards Raul and he tried to blacken the picture. ‘He gets through a bottle of whisky a day,’ he said.

‘It’s his escape from loneliness and memory,’ Beatrice said. ‘Don’t
you
ever want to escape?’

‘I suppose we all do sometimes.’

‘I know what that kind of loneliness is like,’ she said with sympathy. ‘Does he drink all day?’

‘No. The worst hour is two in the morning. When he wakes then, he can’t sleep for thinking, so he drinks instead.’ It astonished Wormold how quickly he could reply to any questions about his characters; they seemed to live on the threshold of consciousness – he had only to turn a light on and there they were, frozen in some characteristic action. Soon after Beatrice arrived Raul had a birthday and she suggested they should give him a case of champagne.

‘He won’t touch it,’ Wormold said, he didn’t know why. ‘He suffers from acidity. If he drinks champagne he comes out in spots. Now the professor on the other hand won’t drink anything else.’

‘An expensive taste.’

‘A depraved taste,’ Wormold said without taking any thought. ‘He prefers Spanish champagne.’ Sometimes he was scared at the way these people grew in the dark without his knowledge. What was Teresa doing down there, out of sight? He didn’t care to think. Her unabashed description of what life was like with her two lovers sometimes shocked him. But the immediate problem was Raul. There were moments when Wormold thought that it might have been easier if he had recruited real agents.

Wormold always thought best in his bath. He was aware one morning, when he was concentrating hard, of indignant noises, a fist beat on the door a number of times, somebody stamped on the stairs, but a creative moment had arrived and he paid no attention to the world beyond the steam. Raul had been dismissed by the Cubana air line for drunkenness. He was desperate; he was without a job; there had been an unpleasant interview between him and Captain Segura, who threatened. … ‘Are you all right?’ Beatrice called from outside. ‘Are you dying? Shall I break down the door?’

He wrapped a towel round his middle and emerged into his bedroom, which was now his office.

‘Milly went off in a rage,’ Beatrice said. ‘She missed her bath.’

‘This is one of those moments,’ Wormold said, ‘which might change the course of history. Where is Rudy?’

‘You know you gave him week-end leave.’

‘Never mind. We’ll have to send the cable through the Consulate. Get out the code-book.’

‘It’s in the safe. What’s the combination? Your birthday – that was it, wasn’t it? December 6?’

‘I changed it.’

‘Your birthday?’

‘No, no. The combination, of course.’ He added sententiously, ‘The fewer who know the combination the better for all of us. Rudy and I are quite sufficient. It’s the drill, you know, that counts.’ He went into Rudy’s room and began to twist the knob – four times to the left, three times thoughtfully to the right. His towel kept on slipping. ‘Besides, anyone can find out the date of my birth from my registration-card. Most unsafe. The sort of number they’d try at once.’

‘Go on,’ Beatrice said, ‘one more turn.’

‘This is one nobody could find out. Absolutely secure.’

‘What are you waiting for?’

‘I must have made a mistake. I shall have to start again.’

‘This combination certainly seems secure.’

‘Please don’t watch. You’re fussing me.’ Beatrice went and stood with her face to the wall. She said, ‘Tell me when I can turn round again.’

‘It’s very odd. The damn thing must have broken. Get Rudy on the phone.’

‘I can’t. I don’t know where he’s staying. He’s gone to Varadero beach.’

‘Damn!’

‘Perhaps if you told me how you remembered the number, if you can call it remembering …’

‘It was my great-aunt’s telephone number.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘95 Woodstock Road, Oxford.’

‘Why your great-aunt?’

‘Why not my great-aunt?’

‘I suppose we could put through a directory-enquiry to Oxford.’

‘I doubt whether they could help.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘I’ve forgotten that too.’

‘The combination really is secure, isn’t it?’

‘We always just knew her as great-aunt Kate. Anyway she’s been dead for fifteen years and the number may have been changed.’

‘I don’t see why you chose her number.’

‘Don’t you have a few numbers that stick in your head all your life for no reason at all?’

‘This doesn’t seem to have stuck very well.’

‘I’ll remember it in a moment. It’s something like 7,7,5,3,9.’

‘Oh dear, they would have five numbers in Oxford.’

‘We could try all the combinations of 77539.’

‘Do you know how many there are? Somewhere around six hundred, I’d guess. I hope your cable’s not urgent.’

‘I’m certain of everything except the 7.’

‘That’s fine. Which seven? I suppose now we might have to work through about six thousand arrangements. I’m no mathematician.’

‘Rudy must have it written down somewhere.’

‘Probably on waterproof paper so that he can take it in with him bathing. We’re an efficient office.’

‘Perhaps,’ Wormold said, ‘we had better use the old code.’

‘It’s not very secure. However …’ They found Charles Lamb at last by Milly’s bed; a leaf turned down showed that she was in the middle of
Two Gentlemen of Verona
.

Wormold said, ‘Take down this cable. Blank of March blank.’

‘Don’t you even know the day of the month?’

‘Following from 59200 stroke 5 paragraph A begins 59200 stroke 5 stroke 4 sacked for drunkenness on duty stop fears deportation to Spain where his life is in danger stop.’

‘Poor old Raul.’

‘Paragraph B begins 59200 stroke 5 stroke 4 …’

‘Couldn’t I just say “he”?’

‘All right. He. He might be prepared under these circumstances and for reasonable bonus with assured refuge in Jamaica to pilot private plane over secret constructions to obtain photographs stop paragraph C begins he would have to fly on from Santiago and land at Kingston if 59200 can make arrangements for reception stop.’

‘We really are doing something at last, aren’t we?’ Beatrice said.

‘Paragraph D begins stop will you authorize five hundred dollars for hire of plane for 59200 stroke 5 stroke 4 stop further two hundred dollars may be required to bribe airport staff Havana stop paragraph E begins bonus to 59200 stroke 5 stroke 4 should be generous as considerable risk of interception by patrolling planes over Oriente mountains stop I suggest one thousand dollars stop.’

‘What a lot of lovely money,’ Beatrice said.

‘Message ends. Go on. What are you waiting for?’

‘I’m just trying to find a suitable phrase. I don’t much care for Lamb’s
Tales
, do you?’

‘Seventeen hundred dollars,’ Wormold said thoughtfully.

‘You should have made it two thousand. The A.O. likes round figures.’

‘I don’t want to seem extravagant,’ Wormold said. Seventeen hundred dollars would surely cover one year at a finishing school in Switzerland.

‘You’re looking pleased with yourself,’ Beatrice said. ‘Doesn’t it occur to you that you may be sending a man to his death?’ He thought, That is exactly what I plan to do.

He said, ‘Tell them at the Consulate that the cable has to have top priority.’

‘It’s a long cable,’ Beatrice said. ‘Do you think this sentence will do? “He presented Polydore and Cadwal to the king, telling him they were his two lost sons, Guiderius and Arviragus.” There are times, aren’t there, when Shakespeare is a little dull.’

2

A week later he took Beatrice out to supper at a fish-restaurant near the harbour. The authorization had come, though they had cut him down by two hundred dollars so that the A.O. got his round figure after all. Wormold thought of Raul driving out to the airport to embark on his dangerous flight. The story was not yet complete. Just as in real life, accidents could happen; a character might take control. Perhaps Raul would be intercepted before embarking, perhaps he would be stopped by a police-car on his way. He might disappear into the torture-chambers of Captain Segura. No reference would appear in the press. Wormold would warn London that he was going off the air in case Raul was forced to talk. The radio-set would be dismantled and hidden after the last message had been sent, the celluloid sheets would be kept ready for a final conflagration …

Or perhaps Raul would take off in safety and they would never know what exactly happened to him over the Oriente mountains. Only one thing in the story was certain: he would not arrive in Jamaica and there would be no photographs.

‘What are you thinking?’ Beatrice asked. He hadn’t touched his stuffed langouste.