The Comedians (3 page)

It seemed as though a sudden desire for exercise had struck everyone except myself on the second day out. For next it was Mr Jones – I still couldn't bring myself to call him Major – who passed steadily up the centre of the deck adjusting his gait to the movement of the ship. ‘Squally,' he called to me as he went by, and again I had the impression that English was a language he had learnt from books – perhaps on this occasion from the work of Dickens. Then, unexpectedly, back came Mr Fernandez, skidding in a wild way, and after him, painfully, the pharmacist on his laborious climb. He had lost his place, but he stuck the race out stubbornly. I began to wonder when the Presidential Candidate would appear, he must have had a heavy handicap, and at that moment he emerged from the saloon beside me. He was alone and looked unnaturally detached like one of the figures in a weather-house without the other. ‘Breezy,' he said, as though he were correcting Mr Jones's English style and sat down in the next chair.

‘I hope Mrs Smith is well.'

‘She's fine,' he said, ‘fine. She's down there in the cabin getting up her French grammar. She said she couldn't concentrate with me around.'

‘French grammar?'

‘They tell me that's the language spoken where we are going. Mrs Smith is a wonderful linguist. Give her a few hours with a grammar and she'll know everything except the pronunciation.'

‘French hasn't come her way before?'

‘That's no problem for Mrs Smith. Once we had a German girl staying in the house – it wasn't half a day before Mrs Smith was telling her to keep her room tidy in her own language. Another time we had a Finn. It took Mrs Smith nearly a week before she could get her hands on a Finnish grammar, but then there was no stopping her.' He paused and said with a smile that touched his absurdity with a strange dignity, ‘I've been married for thirty-five years and I've never ceased to admire that woman.'

‘Do you often,' I asked disingenuously, ‘take holidays in these parts?'

‘We try to combine a vacation,' he said, ‘with our mission. Neither Mrs Smith nor I are ones for undiluted pleasure.'

‘I see, and your mission this time is bringing you . . . ?'

‘Once,' he said, ‘we took our vacation in Tennessee. It was an unforgettable experience. You see, we went as freedom riders. There was an occasion in Nashville on the way down when I feared for Mrs Smith.'

‘It was a courageous way to spend a holiday.'

He said, ‘We have a great love for coloured people.' He seemed to think it was the only explanation needed.

‘I'm afraid they'll prove a disappointment to you where you are going now.'

‘Most things disappoint till you look deeper.'

‘Coloured people can be as violent as the whites in Nashville.'

‘We have our troubles in the U.S.A. All the same I thought – perhaps – the purser was pulling my leg.'

‘He intended to. The joke's against him. The reality's worse than anything he can have seen from the waterfront. I doubt if he goes far into the town.'

‘You would advise us like he did – to go on to Santo Domingo?'

‘Yes.'

His eyes looked sadly out over the monotonous repetitive scape of sea. I thought I had made an impression. I said, ‘Let me give you an example of what life is like there.'

I told Mr Smith of a man who was suspected of being concerned in an attempt to kidnap the President's children on their way home from school. I don't think there was any evidence against him, but he had been the prize sharpshooter of the republic at some international gathering in Panama, and perhaps they thought it needed a prize marksman to pick off the Presidential guard. So the Tontons Macoute surrounded his house – he wasn't there – and set it on fire with petrol and then they machine-gunned anyone who tried to escape. They allowed the fire-brigade to keep the flames from spreading, and now you could see the gap in the street like a drawn tooth.

Mr Smith listened with attention. He said, ‘Hitler did worse, didn't he? And he was a white man. You can't blame it on their colour.'

‘I don't. The victim was coloured too.'

‘When you look properly at things, they are pretty bad everywhere. Mrs Smith wouldn't like us to turn back just because . . .'

‘I'm not trying to persuade you. You asked me a question.'

‘Then why is it – if you'll excuse another – that
you
are going back?'

‘Because the only thing I own is there. My hotel.'

‘I guess the only thing we own – Mrs Smith and me – is our mission.' He sat staring at the sea, and at that moment Jones passed. He called at us over his shoulder, ‘Four times round,' and went on.

‘He's not afraid either,' Mr Smith said, as though he had to apologize for showing courage, as a man might apologize for a rather loud tie which his wife had given him by pointing out that others wore the same.

‘I wonder if it's courage in his case. Perhaps he's like me and he hasn't anywhere else to go.'

‘He's been very friendly to us both,' Mr Smith said firmly. It was obvious that he wished to change the subject.

When I knew Mr Smith better I recognized that particular tone of voice. He was acutely uneasy if I spoke ill of anyone – even of a stranger or of an enemy. He would back away from the conversation like a horse from water. It amused me sometimes to draw him unsuspectingly to the very edge of the ditch and then suddenly urge him on, as it were, with whip and spurs. But I never managed to teach him how to jump. I think he soon began to divine what I was at, but he never spoke his displeasure aloud. That would have been to criticize a friend. He preferred just to edge away. This was one characteristic at least he did not share with his wife. I was to learn later how fiery and direct her nature could be – she was capable of attacking anyone, except of course the Presidential Candidate himself. I had many quarrels with her in the course of time, she suspected that I laughed a little at her husband, but she never knew how I envied them. I have never known in Europe a married couple with that kind of loyalty.

I said, ‘You were talking about your mission just now.'

‘Was I? You must excuse me, talking about myself like that. Mission is too big a word.'

‘I'm interested.'

‘Call it a hope. But I guess a man in your profession wouldn't find it very sympathetic.'

‘You mean it's got something to do with vegetarianism?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm not unsympathetic. My job is to please my guests. If my guests are vegetarian . . .'

‘Vegetarianism isn't only a question of diet, Mr Brown. It touches life at many points. If we really eliminated acidity from the human body we would eliminate passion.'

‘Then the world would stop.'

He reproved me gently, ‘I didn't say love,' and I felt a curious sense of shame. Cynicism is cheap – you can buy it at any Monoprix store – it's built into all poor-quality goods.

‘Anyway you're on the way to a vegetarian country,' I said.

‘How do you mean, Mr Brown?'

‘Ninety-five per cent of the people can't afford meat or fish or eggs.'

‘But hasn't it occurred to you, Mr Brown, that it isn't the poor who make the trouble in the world? Wars are made by politicians, by capitalists, by intellectuals, by bureaucrats, by Wall Street bosses or Communist bosses – they are none of them made by the poor.'

‘And the rich and powerful aren't vegetarian, I suppose?'

‘No sir. Not usually.' Again I felt ashamed of my cynicism. I could believe for a moment, as I looked at those pale blue eyes, unflinching and undoubting, that perhaps he had a point. A steward stood at my elbow. I said, ‘I don't want soup.'

‘It's not time for soup yet, sah. The captain asks you kindly to have a word with him, sah.'

The captain was in his cabin – an apartment as bare and as scrubbed as himself, with nothing personal anywhere except for one cabinet-sized photograph of a middle-aged woman who looked as if she had emerged that instant from her hair-dresser's where even her character had been capped under the drying helmet. ‘Sit down, Mr Brown. Will you take a cigar?'

‘No, no thank you.'

The captain said, ‘I wish to come quickly to the point. I have to ask your cooperation. It is very embarrassing.'

‘Yes?'

He said in a tone heavy with gloom, ‘If there is one thing I do not like on a voyage it is the unexpected.'

‘I thought at sea . . . always . . . storms . . .'

‘Naturally I am not talking of the sea. The sea presents no problem.' He altered the position of an ash-tray, of a cigar-box, and then he moved a centimetre closer to him the photograph of the blank-faced woman whose hair seemed set in grey cement. Perhaps she gave him confidence: she would have given me a paralysis of the will. He said, ‘You have met this passenger Major Jones. He calls himself Major Jones.'

‘I've spoken to him.'

‘What are your impressions?'

‘I hardly know . . . I hadn't thought . . .'

‘I have just received a cable from my office in Philadelphia. They wish me to report by cable when and where he lands.'

‘Surely you know from his ticket . . .'

‘They wish to be sure that he does not alter his plans. We go on to Santo Domingo . . . You have yourself explained to me that you have booked to Santo Domingo, in case at Port-au-Prince . . . he may have the same intention.'

‘Is it a police question?'

‘It may be – it is my conjecture only – that the police are interested. I want you to understand that I have nothing against Major Jones. This is very possibly a routine inquiry set on foot because some filing-clerk . . . But I thought . . . you are a fellow Englishman, you live in Port-au-Prince, on my side a word of warning, and on yours . . .'

I was irritated by his absolute discretion, absolute correctness, absolute rectitude. Had the captain never slipped up once, in his youth or in his cups, in the absence of that well coiffured wife of his? I said, ‘You make him sound like a card-sharper. I assure you that he hasn't once suggested a game.'

‘I never said . . .'

‘You want me to keep my eyes open, my ears open?'

‘Exactly. No more. If it were anything serious they would surely have asked me to detain him. Perhaps he has run away from his debtors. Who knows? Or some woman business,' he added with distaste, meeting the gaze of the hard woman with the stony hair.

‘Captain, with all respects, I'm not trained to be an informer.'

‘I am not asking anything like that, Mr Brown. I cannot very well demand of an old man like Mr Smith . . . in the case of Major Jones . . .' Again I was aware of the three names, interchangeable like comic masks in a farce. I said, ‘If I see anything that merits a report – I'm not going to look for it, mind.' The captain gave a little sigh of self-commiseration. ‘As if there were not enough responsibilities for one man on this run . . .'

He began to tell me a long anecdote about something which had occurred two years before in the port we were coming to. At one in the morning there had been the sounds of shots and half an hour later an officer and two policemen had appeared at the gangway: they wanted to search his ship. Naturally he had refused permission. This was sovereign territory of the Royal Netherlands Steamship Company. There had been a lot of argument. He had complete belief in his night-watchman – wrongly as it turned out, for the man had been asleep at his post. Then on his way to speak to the officer of the watch the captain had noticed a trail of blood spots. It led him to one of the boats and there he had discovered the fugitive.

‘What did you do?' I asked.

‘He was attended by the ship's doctor and then, of course, I handed him over to the proper authorities.'

‘Perhaps he was seeking political asylum.'

‘I do not know what he was seeking. How could I? He was quite illiterate, and in any case he had no money for his passage.'

IV

When I saw Jones again, after the interview with the captain, I felt a prejudice in his favour. If he had asked me to play poker at that moment I would have consented without hesitation and gladly have lost to him, for an exhibition of trust might have removed the bad taste which remained in my mouth. I took the port-side route around the deck to avoid Mr Smith and was slapped with spray; before I could dive down to the cabin I met Mr Jones face to face. I felt guilty, as though I had already betrayed his secret, when he stopped his walk to offer me a drink.

‘It's a bit early,' I said.

‘Opening time in London.' I looked at my watch – it read five minutes to eleven – and felt as though I were checking his credentials. While he went in search of the steward I picked up the book he had left behind him in the saloon. It was an American paperback with the picture of a naked girl sprawled face down upon a luxurious bed and the title was
No Time Like the Present
. Inside the cover in pencil was scrawled his signature – H. J. Jones. Was he establishing his identity or reserving this particular book for his personal library? I opened it at random. ‘“Trust?” Geoff's voice struck her like a whiplash . . .' And then Jones came back carrying two lagers. I put the book down and said with unnecessary embarrassment, ‘
Sortes Virgilianae
.'

‘
Sortes
what?' Jones raised his glass and turning the pages of his mental dictionary and perhaps rejecting ‘mud in your eye' as obsolete brought out a more modern term, ‘Cheers.' He added after a swallow, ‘I saw you talking to the captain just now.'