The Ugly American (21 page)

But then he went back to the locker, brought back two bottles of beer, and blew suds at her when he filled her glass.

Two days later Atkins had a working model. Not a single item in the crude pump would have to be imported. He had calculated that there was probably enough scrap around the countryside to make a couple of thousand pumps. What he had to do now was to get a couple of pumps actually in operation, to see how they worked. At this point Emma Atkins demonstrated her diplomatic skills.

"Now look, Homer, don't go running off like a wild man," Emma said softly. "You've got a good machine there. I'm proud of you. But don't think that just because it's good the Sarkhanese are going to start using it right away. Remember the awful time that you had getting trade unions in America to accept earth-moving equipment. These people here are no different. You have to let them use the machine themselves and in their own way. If you try to jam it down their throats, they'll never use it."

"All right, Mrs. Foster Dulles, you tell me what to do," Atkins said. He knew she was right and he was grateful to her. "You tell me how I ought to approach the Sarkhanese."

Emma calmly explained her plan to Homer. He realized that she had been thinking of this for some time. It was an intricate, beautiful plan, and he wished that some of the stuffed-shirts in the American Embassy could hear his wife talking.

The next day he put into operation Emma Atkins' grand strategy.

He drove in his used jeep to the tiny village of Chang 'dong, a community of one hundred souls, living in fifteen or twenty houses. The village was set precariously on a steep hill sixty miles outside of Haidho. The soil there was rich; but the backbreaking, time-consuming process of lifting water up seven or eight levels—even though the differentials were small—had always made Chang 'dong a poor village.

Atkins politely asked the first person he met in Chang 'dong where the home of the headman was. He talked to the headman, a venerable man of seventy-five, without an interpreter. It was not easy, but he could tell that the headman was pleased that Atkins was making the effort to talk his language. With infinite courtesy the old man sensed what words Atkins was searching for, and politely supplied them. The conversation moved along more rapidly than Homer had expected it would.

Atkins explained that he was an American and that he was an inventor. He had an idea for a pump to lift water. He, Atkins, wanted to develop and patent this pump and sell it at a profit. What Atkins wanted the headman to find was a Sarkhanese worker with mechanical skill. Atkins said he would pay well for this man's time and skill; and if he was able to help with the pump, he would become half-owner of the patent. The old man nodded gravely. They then began a long, complicated, and delicate negotiation over the matter of how much the native mechanic should be paid. Atkins understood all of this quite well—it was just like negotiating with a trade union organizer in the States. Each man knew that he would eventually have to compromise; and each took pleasure in talking the whole thing out. In the end Atkins got the services of a mechanic for a price which he knew was just slightly higher than the going rate. Both the headman and Atkins were satisfied. They shook hands, and the headman left to bring in the mechanic. Atkins reached in his shirt pocket, took out a cigar, and lit it with pleasure. This would, he thought, be fun.

When the headman returned he brought with him a small, stocky, heavily-muscled man whom he introduced as Jeepo. The headman explained that the name was not a native name. He was called Jeepo because of his reputation as a famous mechanic in the maintenance and repair of jeeps. Atkins didn't listen too closely to what the headman was saying. He was studying Jeepo, and he liked what he saw.

Jeepo looked like a craftsman. His fingernails were as dirty as Atkins', and his hands were also covered with dozens of little scars. Jeepo looked back steadily at Atkins without humility or apology, and Atkins felt that in the mechanic's world of bolts and nuts, pistons and leathers, and good black grease he and Jeepo would understand one another.

And Jeepo was ugly. He was ugly in a rowdy, bruised, carefree way that pleased Atkins. The two men smiled at one another.

"The headman says you are a good mechanic," Atkins said. "He says that you're an expert on repairing jeeps. But I must have a man who is expert at other things as well. Have you ever worked on anything besides jeeps?"

Jeepo smiled.

"I've worked on winches, pumps, Citroens, American and French tanks, windmills, bicycles, the toilets of wealthy white people, and a few airplanes."

"Did you understand everything that you were working on?" Atkins asked.

"Who understands everything that he works on?" Jeepo said. "I feel that I can work with anything that is mechanical. But that is only my opinion. Try me."

"We'll start this afternoon," Atkins said. "In my jeep outside is a heap of equipment. You and I will unload it and we'll start at once."

By the middle of the afternoon they had assembled most of Atkins' equipment on the edge of a paddy on the second level of the village of Chang 'dong. Twenty-five feet of bamboo pipe had been fastened together; the bottom of the pipe was put into a backwater of the river that flowed by the village. The top piece of the pipe was fitted by a rubber gasket to the crude pump which Atkins had designed. Above the pump was the frame of a used bicycle with both of its wheels removed. Jeepo had done the assembly entirely by himself. Atkins had made one attempt to help, but Jeepo had gone ahead on his own, and Atkins realized that he wanted to demonstrate his virtuosity. By late afternoon the assembly was ready.

Atkins squatted calmly in the mud waiting for Jeepo to finish. The headman and two or three of the elders of the village were squatting beside him. Although they were externally as passive as Atkins, he was aware that they were very excited. They understood perfectly what the machine was intended for; they were not sure it would work.

"Sir, the mechanism is ready to operate," Jeepo finally said quietly. "I'm not sure we can get suction at so great a height; but I'd be pleased to turn the bicycle pedals for the first few minutes to test it."

Atkins nodded. Jeepo climbed aboard the bicycle and began to pump slowly. The chain-drive of the bicycle turned with increasing speed. The crude pipes made a sucking noise.

For several seconds there was no other sound except this gurgle. Then, suddenly, from the outflow end of the pump, a jet of dirty brown water gushed forth. Jeepo did not stop pedaling nor did he smile; but the headman and the other elders could not restrain their excitement about the size of the jet of water that was being lifted to the second rice terrace.

"This is a very clever machine," the headman said to Atkins. "In a few minutes you have lifted more water than we could lift by our old methods in five hours of work."

Atkins did not respond to the man's delight. He was waiting to see how Jeepo reacted. He sensed that Jeepo was not entirely happy or convinced.

Jeepo continued to pump at the machine. He looked down at the machinery, noted some tiny adjustments that had to be made, and called them out to Atkins. When the small paddy was full of water he stopped, and swung down out of the bicycle seat.

"It is a very clever machine, Mr. Atkins," Jeepo said quietly. "But it will not be a sensible machine for this country."

Atkins looked steadily at Jeepo for a long moment, and then nodded.

"Why not?" he asked.

Jeepo did not respond at once. He moved silently around the mechanism, twisting a bolt here, adjusting a lever there; then he stood up and faced Atkins.

"The machine works very, very well," Jeepo said. "But to make it work a person would have to have a second bicycle. In this country, Mr. Atkins, very few people have enough money to afford two bicycles. Unless you can find another way to drive the pump, or unless your government is prepared to give us thousands of bicycles, your very clever device is a waste of time."

For a moment Atkins felt a flush of anger. It was a hard thing to be criticised so bluntly. For a hot, short moment, Atkins calculated how many bicycles his three million dollars would buy; then, with the memory of Emma's tact in his mind, he put the thought aside. He turned back to Jeepo.

"What happens to old bicycles in this country?" he asked. "Aren't there enough of them to serve as power machines for the pumps?"

"There are no old or discarded bicycles in this country," Jeepo said. "We ride bicycles until they are no good. When a man throws his bicycle away, it's too old to be used for one of these pumps."

For a moment the ugly American faced the ugly Sarkhanese. When he was younger, Atkins would have turned on his heel and walked away. Now he grinned at Jeepo.

"All right, Jeepo, you say you're an expert mechanic. What would you do? Am I simply to give up my idea—or can we find some other way to give power to the pump?" Jeepo did not answer at once. He squatted in the shallow rice-field, his khaki shorts resting in three inches of mud. He stared fixedly at the improbable machine. For ten minutes he said nothing. Then he stood up and walked slowly to the machine. He turned the pedal and held his finger over the rear-drive sprocket of the wheel as if to test its strength. Then he walked back and squatted again.

The headman looked once at Atkins and then talked in a sharp voice to the elders. The headman was embarrassed at Jeepo's arrogance, and he was saying that the entire village of Chang 'dong would lose face by this ridiculous performance. Jeepo's ears became slightly red at the criticism, but he did not turn his head or acknowledge that he heard the headman's words.

Atkins felt like laughing. The headman and the elders reminded him very much of the diplomats to whom he had talked for so many months in Phnom Penh. He was quite sure that Jeepo had an answer for these comments, and he was also sure that it was not a political or personal answer, but technical. Atkins squatted down beside Jeepo, and for fifteen minutes the two men sat quietly on their heels studying the machine. Atkins was the first to speak.

"Perhaps we could make the frame of the bicycle out of wood and then we'd only have to buy the sprocket mechanism," Atkins said in a tentative voice.

"But that's the part of the bicycle which is most expensive," Jeepo said.

For perhaps another ten minutes they squatted motionless. Behind him Atkins could hear the shrill voices of the headman and the elders. Although they were attempting to maintain their dignity and manners, it was clear to Atkins that they were trying to find a way to apologize to him and to smooth the whole thing over. It never occurred to Atkins to talk to them. He and Jeepo were hard at work.

Once Atkins walked to the mechanism, turned the pedals rapidly, held his finger on the sprocket gear, and looked at Jeepo. Jeepo shook his head. He understood the mechanical question that Atkins had asked and was giving his answer. Without exchanging a word they demonstrated six or eight alternative ways of making the pump work, and discarded them all. Each shake of the head upset the headman and elders profoundly.

It was dusk before they solved the problem, and it was Jeepo who came up with the solution. He suddenly stood bolt upright, walked over to the bicycle, remounted, and began to pedal furiously. Water gushed out of the outflow of the pump. Jeepo looked back over his shoulder at the lower level of the pump, then started to shout at Atkins in a loud and highly disrespectful voice in which there was the sound of discovery. It took Atkins another five minutes to understand fully what Jeepo was proposing.

It was the height of simplicity. What he proposed was that a treadmill be built which could be turned by the rear wheel of an ordinary bicycle fitted into a light bamboo frame. What this meant was that a family with a single bicycle could put the bicycle in the bamboo rack, mount it, and pedal. The rear wheel would drive the treadmill which in turn would drive the pump with an efficiency almost as great as Atkin's original model. When anyone needed to use the bike, he could simply pick it up from the rack and ride away.

"This man has made a very great discovery," Atkins said solemnly to the headman and the elders. "He has developed a way in which a bicycle can be used to drive the pump and still be used for transportation. Without Jeepo's help my idea would have been useless. What I propose is that we draw up a document giving Jeepo one-half of the profits which might come from this invention."

The headman looked at Jeepo and then at the elders. He commenced talking to the elders in a solemn voice. Atkins grasped that the headman had never heard of a binding legal document between a white man and a Sarkhanese. It became clear to him, also, that the headman was determined to drive a hard bargain. After several minutes of consultation he turned to Atkins.

"Do you propose that you and Jeepo will begin to build such pumps?" the headman asked.

"Yes. I would like to enter into business with Jeepo. We will open a shop to build this kind of a pump, and we will sell it to whoever will buy. If the customer does not have the money, we will agree that he can pay off the cost of the pump over a three-year period. But don't get the idea that Jeepo will be paid by me for doing nothing. He must work as the foreman of the shop, and he will have to work hard. Not any harder than I work, but as hard as I do."

One of the elders broke in excitedly. He pointed out that it was very unlikely that a white man would work as hard as Jeepo. He had never seen a white man work with his hands before, and what guarantee could they have that Atkins would work as hard. Another of the elders agreed, pointing out that this looked like the trick of a white man to get cheap labor from a Sarkhanese artisan. Both of the elders were firmly opposed to Jeepo entering into the partnership.