Our Man in Havana

  ‘Are you expecting anyone?’ Wormold asked.

  ‘No. No. Not expecting. Would you and Mrs Severn care to have a drink at my apartment?’

  Violence had come and gone. The pictures were back in place, the tubular chairs stood around like awkward guests. The apartment had been reconstructed like a man for burial. Dr Hasselbacher poured out the whisky.

  ‘It is nice for Mr Wormold to have a secretary,’ he said. ‘Such a short time ago you were worried, I remember. Business was not so good. That new cleaner …’

  ‘Things change for no reason.’

  He noticed for the first time the photograph of a young Dr Hasselbacher in the dated uniform of an officer in the First World War; perhaps it had been one of the pictures the intruders had taken off the wall. ‘I never knew you had been in the army, Hasselbacher.’

  ‘I had not finished my medical training, Mr Wormold, when the war came. It struck me as a very silly business – curing men so that they could be killed sooner. One wanted to cure people so that they could live longer.’

  ‘When did you leave Germany, Dr Hasselbacher?’ Beatrice asked.

  ‘In 1934. So I can plead not guilty, young lady, to what you are wondering.’

  ‘That was not what I meant.’

  ‘You must forgive me then. Ask Mr Wormold – there was a time when I was not so suspicious. Shall we have some music?’

  He put on a record of Tristan. Wormold thought of his wife; she was even less real than Raul. She had nothing to do with love and death, only with the Woman’s Home Journal, a diamond engagement ring, twilight-sleep. He looked across the room at Beatrice Severn, and she seemed to him to belong to the same world as the fatal drink, the hopeless journey from Ireland, the surrender in the forest. Abruptly Dr Hasselbacher stood up and pulled the plug from the wall. He said, ‘Forgive me. I am expecting a call. The music is too loud.’

  ‘A sick call?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ He poured out more whisky.

  ‘Have you started your experiments again, Hasselbacher?’

  ‘No.’ He looked despairingly around. ‘I am sorry. There is no more soda water.’

  ‘I like it straight,’ Beatrice said. She went to the bookshelf. ‘Do you read anything but medical books, Dr Hasselbacher?’

  ‘Very little. Heine, Goethe. All German. Do you read German, Mrs Severn?’

  ‘No. But you have a few English books.’

  ‘They were given me by a patient instead of a fee. I’m afraid I haven’t read them. Here is your whisky, Mrs Severn.’

  She came away from the bookcase and took the whisky. ‘Is that your home, Dr Hasselbacher?’ She was looking at a Victorian coloured lithograph hanging beside young Captain Hasselbacher’s portrait.

  ‘I was born there. Yes. It is a very small town, some old walls, a castle in ruins …’

  ‘I’ve been there,’ Beatrice said, ‘before the war. My father took us. It’s near Leipzig, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Severn,’ Dr Hasselbacher said, watching her bleakly, ‘it is near Leipzig.’

  ‘I hope the Russians left it undisturbed.’

  The telephone in Dr Hasselbacher’s hall began to ring. He hesitated a moment. ‘Excuse me, Mrs Severn,’ he said. When he went into the hall he shut the door behind him. ‘East or west,’ Beatrice said, ‘home’s best.’

  ‘I suppose you want to report that to London? But I’ve known him for fifteen years, he’s lived here for more than twenty. He’s a good old man, the best friend. …’ The door opened and Dr Hasselbacher returned. He said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t feel very well. Perhaps you will come and hear music some other evening.’ He sat heavily down, picked up his whisky, put it back again. There was sweat on his forehead, but after all it was a humid night.

  ‘Bad news?’ Wormold asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘You!’ Dr Hasselbacher said. ‘No. You can’t help. Or Mr» Severn.’

  ‘A patient?’ Dr Hasselbacher shook his head. He took out his handkerchief and dried his forehead. He said, ‘Who is not a patient?’

  ‘We’d better go.’

  ‘Yes, go. It is like I said. One ought to be able to cure people so that they can live longer.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Was there never such a thing as peace?’ Dr Hasselbacher asked. ‘I am sorry. A doctor is always supposed to get used to death. But I am not a good doctor.’

  ‘Who has died?’

  ‘There has been an accident,’ Dr Hasselbacher said. ‘Just an accident. Of course an accident. A car has crashed on the road near the airport. A young man. …’ He said furiously, ‘There are always accidents, aren’t there, everywhere. And this must surely have been an accident. He was too fond of the glass.’

  Beatrice said, ‘Was his name by any chance Raul?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dr Hasselbacher said. ‘That was his name.’

  Part Four

  CHAPTER 1

  1

  WORMOLD UNLOCKED THE door. The street-lamp over the way vaguely disclosed the vacuum cleaners standing around like tombs. He started for the stairs. Beatrice whispered, ‘Stop, stop. I thought I heard. …’ They were the first words either of them had spoken since he had shut the door of Dr Hasselbacher’s apartment.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  She put out a hand and clutched some metallic part from the counter; she held it like a club and said, ‘I’m frightened.’

  Not half as much as I am, he thought. Can we write human beings into existence? And what sort of existence? Had Shakespeare listened to the news of Duncan’s death in a tavern or heard the knocking on his own bedroom door after he had finished the writing of Macbeth? He stood in the shop and hummed a tune to keep his courage up.

  ‘They say the earth is round –

  My madness offends.’

  ‘Quiet,’ Beatrice said. ‘Somebody’s moving upstairs.’

  He thought he was afraid only of his own imaginary characters, not of a living person who could creak a board. He ran up and was stopped abruptly by a shadow. He was tempted to call out to all his creations at once and have done with the lot of them – Teresa, the chief, the professor, the engineer.

  ‘How late you are,’ Milly’s voice said. It was only Milly standing there in the passage between the lavatory and her room.

  ‘We went for a walk.’

  ‘You brought her back?’ Milly asked. ‘Why?’

  Beatrice cautiously climbed the stairs, holding her improvised club on guard.

  ‘Is Rudy awake?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Beatrice said, ‘If there’d been a message, he would have sat up for you.’

  If one’s characters were alive enough to die, they were surely real enough to send messages. He opened the door of the office. Rudy stirred.

  ‘Any message, Rudy?’

  ‘Na’

  Milly said, ‘You’ve missed all the excitement.’

  ‘What excitement?’

  ‘The police were dashing everywhere. You should have heard the sirens. I thought it was a revolution, so I rang up Captain Segura.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Someone tried to assassinate someone as he came out of the Ministry of the Interior. He must have thought it was the Minister, only it wasn’t. He shot out of a car-window and got clean away.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘They haven’t caught him yet.’

  ‘I mean the – the assassinee.’

  ‘Nobody important. But he looked like the Minister. Where did you have supper?’

  ‘The Victoria.’

  ‘Did you have stuffed langouste?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m so glad you don’t look like the President. Captain Segura said poor Dr Cifuentes was so scared he went and wet his trousers and then got drunk at the Country Club.’

  ‘Dr Cifuentes?’

  ‘You know – the engineer.’

  ‘They shot at him?�
��

  ‘I told you it was a mistake.’

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ Beatrice said. She spoke for both of them.

  He said, ‘The dining-room …’

  ‘I don’t want a hard chair. I want something soft. I may want to cry.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t mind the bedroom,’ he said doubtfully, looking at Milly.

  ‘Did you know Dr Cifuentes?’ Milly asked Beatrice sympathetically.

  ‘No. I only know he has a ponch.’

  ‘What’s a ponch?’

  ‘Your father said it was a dialect word for a squint.’

  ‘He told you that? Poor Father,’ Milly said. ‘You are in deep waters.’

  ‘Look, Milly, will you please go to bed? Beatrice and I have work to do.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Yes, work.’

  ‘It’s awfully late for work.’

  ‘He’s paying me overtime,’ Beatrice said.

  ‘Are you learning all about vacuum cleaners?’ Milly asked. ‘That thing you are holding is a sprayer.’

  ‘Is it? I just picked it up in case I had to hit someone.’

  ‘It’s not well suited for that,’ Milly said. ‘It has a telescopic tube.’

  ‘What if it has?’

  ‘It might telescope at the wrong moment.’

  ‘Milly, please …’ Wormold said. ‘It’s nearly two.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m off. And I shall pray for Dr Cifuentes. It’s no joke to be shot at. The bullet went right through a brick wall. Think of what it could have done to Dr Cifuentes.’

  ‘Pray for someone called Raul too,’ Beatrice said. ‘They got him.’

  Wormold lay down flat on the bed and shut his eyes. ‘I don’t understand a thing,’ he said. ‘Not a thing. It’s a coincidence. It must be.’

  ‘They’re getting rough – whoever they are.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Spying is a dangerous profession.’

  ‘But Cifuentes hadn’t really … I mean he wasn’t important.’

  ‘Those constructions in Oriente are important. Your agents seem to have a habit of getting blown. I wonder how. I think you’ll have to warn Professor Sanchez and the girl.’

  ‘The girl?’

  ‘The nude dancer.’

  ‘But how?’ He couldn’t explain to her he had no agents, that he had never met Cifuentes or Dr Sanchez, that neither Teresa nor Raul even existed: Raul had come alive only in order to be killed.

  ‘What did Milly call this?’

  ‘A sprayer.’

  ‘I’ve seen something like it before somewhere.’

  ‘I expect you have. Most vacuum cleaners have them.’ He took it away from her. He couldn’t remember whether he had included it in the drawings he had sent to Hawthorne.

  ‘What do I do now, Beatrice?’

  ‘I think your people should go into hiding for a while. Not here, of course. It would be too crowded and anyway not safe. What about that Chief Engineer of yours – could he smuggle them on board?’

  ‘He’s away at sea on the way to Cienfuegos.’

  ‘Anyway he’s probably blown too,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder why they’ve let you and me get back here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They could easily have shot us down on the front. Or perhaps they’re using us for bait. Of course you throw away the bait if it’s no good.’

  ‘What a macabre woman you are.’

  ‘Oh no. We’re back into the Boy’s Own Paper world, that’s all. You can count yourself lucky.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It might have been the Sunday Mirror. The world is modelled after the popular magazines nowadays. My husband came out of Encounter. The question we have to consider is to which paper they belong.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Let’s assume they belong to the Boy’s Own Paper too. Are they Russian agents, German agents, American, what? Cuban very likely. Those concrete platforms must be official, mustn’t they? Poor Raul. I hope he died quickly.’

  He was tempted to tell her everything, but what was ‘everything’? He no longer knew. Raul had been killed. Hasselbacher said so.

  ‘First the Shanghai Theatre,’ she said. ‘Will it be open?’

  ‘The second performance won’t be over.’

  ‘If the police are not there before us. Of course they didn’t use the police against Cifuentes. He was probably too important. In murdering anyone you have to avoid scandal.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it in that light before.’

  Beatrice turned out the bedside light and went to the window. She said, ‘Don’t you have a back door?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ll have to change all that,’ she said airily, as though she were an architect too. ‘Do you know a nigger with a limp?’

  ‘That will be Joe.’

  ‘He’s going slowly by.’

  ‘He sells dirty postcards. He’s going home, that’s all.’

  ‘He couldn’t be expected to follow you with that limp, of course. He may be their tictac man. Anyway we’ll have to risk it. They are obviously making a sweep tonight. Women and children first. The professor can wait.’

  ‘But I’ve never seen Teresa at the theatre. She probably has a different name there.’

  ‘You can pick her out, can’t you, even without her clothes? Though I suppose we do look a bit the same naked, like the Japanese.’

  ‘I don’t think you ought to come.’

  ‘I must. If one is stopped the other can make a dash for it.’

  ‘I meant to the Shanghai. It’s not exactly Boy’s Own Paper.’

  ‘Nor is marriage,’ she said, ‘even in UNESCO.’

  2

  The Shanghai was in a narrow street off Zanja surrounded by deep bars. A board advertised Posiciones, and the tickets for some reason were sold on the pavement outside, perhaps because there was no room for a box-office, as the foyer was occupied by a pornographic bookshop for the benefit of those who wanted entertainment during the entr’acte. The black pimps in the street watched them with curiosity. They were not used to European women here.

  ‘It feels far from home,’ Beatrice said.

  The seats all cost one peso twenty-five and there were very few empty ones left in the large hall. The man who showed them the way offered Wormold a packet of pornographic postcards for a peso. When Wormold refused them, he drew a second selection from his pocket.

  ‘Buy them if you want to,’ Beatrice said. ‘If it embarrasses you I’ll keep my eye on the show.’

  ‘There’s not much difference,’ Wormold said, ‘between the show and the postcards.’

  The attendant asked if the lady would like a marijuana cigarette.

  ‘Nein, danke,’ Beatrice said, getting her languages confused.

  On either side of the stage, posters advertised clubs in the neighbourhood where the girls were said to be beautiful. A notice in Spanish and bad English forbade the audience to molest the dancers.

  ‘Which is Teresa?’ Beatrice asked.

  ‘I think it must be the fat one in the mask,’ Wormold said at random.

  She was just leaving the stage with a heave of her great naked buttocks, and the audience clapped and whistled. Then the lights went down and a screen was lowered. A film began, quite mildly at first. It showed a bicyclist, some woodland scenery, a punctured tyre, a chance encounter, a gentleman raising a straw hat; there was a great deal of flicker and fog.

  Beatrice sat silent. There was an odd intimacy between them as they watched together this blueprint of love. Similar movements of the body had once meant more to them than anything else the world had to offer. The act of lust and the act of love are the same; it cannot be falsified like a sentiment.

  The lights went on. They sat in silence. ‘My lips are dry,’ Wormold said.

  ‘I haven’t any spit left. Can’t we go behind and see Teresa now?’

  ‘There’s another film after this and then the dancers come on again
.’

  ‘I’m not tough enough for another film,’ Beatrice said.

  ‘They won’t let us go behind until the show’s over.’

  ‘We can wait in the street, can’t we? At least we’ll know then if we’ve been followed.’

  They left as the second film started. They were the only ones to rise, so if somebody had tailed them he must be waiting for them in the street, but there was no obvious candidate among the taxi-drivers and the pimps. One man slept against the lamp-post with a lottery-number slung askew round his neck. Wormold remembered the night with Dr Hasselbacher. That was when he had learnt the new use for Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. Poor Hasselbacher had been very drunk. Wormold remembered how he had sat slumped in the lounge when he came down from Hawthorne’s room. He said to Beatrice, ‘How easy is it to break a book-code if once you’ve got the right book?’

  ‘Not hard for an expert,’ she said, ‘only a question of patience.’ She went across to the lottery-seller and straightened the number. The man didn’t wake. She said, ‘It was difficult to read it sideways.’

  Had he carried Lamb under his arm, in his pocket, or in his brief-case? Had he laid the book down when he helped Dr Hasselbacher to rise? He could remember nothing, and such suspicions were ungenerous.

  ‘I thought of a funny coincidence,’ Beatrice said. ‘Dr Hasselbacher reads Lamb’s Tales in the right edition.’ It was as though her basic training had included telepathy.

  ‘You saw it in his flat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he would have hidden it,’ he protested, ‘if it meant anything at all.’

  ‘Or he wanted to warn you. Remember, he brought us back there. He told us about Raul.’

  ‘He couldn’t have known that he would meet us.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  He wanted to protest that nothing made sense, that Raul didn’t exist, and Teresa didn’t exist, and then he thought of how she would pack up and go away and it would all be like a story without a purpose.

  ‘People are coming out,’ Beatrice said.

  They found a side-door that led to the one big dressing-room. The passage was lit by a bare globe that had burned far too many days and nights. The passage was nearly blocked by dustbins and a negro with a broom was sweeping up scraps of cotton-wool stained with face powder, lipstick and ambiguous things; the place smelled of pear-drops. Perhaps after all there would be no one here called Teresa, but he wished that he had not chosen so popular a saint. He pushed a door open and it was like a medieval inferno full of smoke and naked women.