The Comedians

  ‘It sounds simple,’ Jones said with envy. ‘But what do I do?’

  ‘Hold out until tomorrow night.’ I added viciously, ‘You’re in your familiar jungle now.’ I looked out of the doorway: there was nothing to be seen or heard, not even a barking dog I said, ‘I don’t like staying here. Suppose we fell asleep – someone might come. The soldiers must sometimes patrol these roads – or a peasant going to work. He’d inform on us. Why shouldn’t he? We are white.’

  Jones said, ‘We can keep watch in turn.’

  ‘There’s a better way. We’ll sleep in the cemetery. No one will come there except Baron Samedi.’

  We crossed the so-called road and clambered over a low stone-wall and found ourselves in the street of the miniature town, where the houses were only shoulder-high. We climbed the hillside slowly because of Jones’s kitbag. I felt safer in the very middle of the cemetery, and there we found a house higher than ourselves. We put the bottle of whisky in one of the window embrasures and sat down with our backs to a wall. ‘Oh well,’ Jones said mechanically, ‘I’ve been in worse places.’ I wondered how bad a place would have to be before he forgot his signature tune.

  ‘If you see a top-hat among the tombs,’ I said, ‘it will be the Baron.’

  ‘Do you believe in zombies?’ Jones asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Do you believe in ghosts?’

  ‘Let’s not talk about ghosts, old man, let’s have another whisky.’

  I thought I heard a movement and switched on the torch. It shone the whole length of a street of graves into a cat’s eyes which reflected like Franco studs. It leapt upon a roof and was gone.

  ‘Ought we to show a light, old man?’

  ‘If there was anyone about to see it, he would be too scared to come. You couldn’t do better than to dig in here tomorrow’ – it was not a happily chosen phrase to use in a cemetery. ‘I doubt if anyone comes here except to bury the dead.’ Jones sucked in more whisky, and I warned him, ‘There’s only a quarter of a bottle left. You’ve got all tomorrow before you.’

  ‘Martha filled the shaker for me,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known a girl so thoughtful.’

  ‘Or such a good lay?’ I asked.

  There was a spell of silence – I thought perhaps he was remembering with pleasure the occasions. Then Jones said, ‘Old man, the game’s turned serious now.’

  ‘What game?’

  ‘Playing at soldiers. I can understand why people want to confess. Death’s a bloody serious affair. A man doesn’t feel quite worthy of it. Like a decoration.’

  ‘Have you such a lot to confess?’

  ‘We all have. I don’t mean to a priest or God.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To anyone at all. If I had a dog here tonight instead of you, I’d confess to the dog.’

  I didn’t want his confessions, I didn’t want to hear how many times he had slept with Martha. I said, ‘Did you confess to Midge?’

  ‘There wasn’t any occasion. The game hadn’t turned serious then.’

  ‘A dog at least has to keep your secrets.’

  ‘I don’t care a damn who tells what, but I don’t fancy a lot of lies after I’m dead. I’ve lied enough before.’

  I heard the cat come scrambling back over the roofs, and again I turned on my torch and lit the eyes. This time it flattened itself upon a stone and began to scrape its nails. Jones opened his kitbag and pulled out a sandwich. He broke it in half and tossed one half towards the cat which fled, as though the bread were a stone.

  ‘You’d better be careful,’ I said. ‘You’re on short rations now.’

  ‘The poor devil’s hungry.’ He put the half-sandwich back, and we and the cat were silent a long while. It was Jones who broke the silence with his obstinate obsession. ‘I’m an awful liar, old man.’

  ‘I’ve always assumed that,’ I said.

  ‘What I said about Martha – there wasn’t a word of truth in it. She’s only one of fifty women I haven’t had the courage to touch.’

  I wondered if he was telling the truth now or graduating to a more honourable sort of lie. Perhaps he had detected something in my manner which told him all. Perhaps he pitied me. One could hardly sink lower, I thought, than that – to be pitied by Jones. He said, ‘I’ve always lied about women.’ He gave an uneasy laugh. ‘The moment I had Tin Tin, she became a leading member of the Haitian aristocracy. If there had been anyone around to tell about it. Do you know, old man, I haven’t had a single woman in my life I haven’t paid – or at least promised to pay. Sometimes I’ve had to welsh when things were bad.’

  ‘Martha told me she’s slept with you.’

  ‘She can’t have told you that. I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Oh yes. It was almost the last words she said to me.’

  ‘I never realized,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘Realized what?’

  ‘That she was your girl. Another of my lies has found me out. You mustn’t believe her. She was angry because you were going away with me.’

  ‘Or angry because I was taking you away.’

  There was a scrabble in the dark where the cat had found the bit of sandwich. I said, ‘There’s quite a jungle atmosphere here. You’ll feel at home,’

  I heard him take a pull at the whisky and then he said, ‘Old man, I’ve never been in a jungle in my life – unless you count the Calcutta Zoo.’

  ‘Were you never in Burma?’

  ‘Oh yes, I was. Or nearly. Anyway I was only fifty miles from the border. I was at Imphal, in charge of entertaining the troops. Well, not exactly in charge. We had Noel Coward once,’ he added with pride and a sense of relief – it was something true that he could boast about.

  ‘How did the two of you get on?’

  ‘I didn’t actually speak to him,’ Jones said.

  ‘But you were in the army?’

  ‘No. I was rejected. Flat feet. They found I’d managed a cinema in Shillong, so they gave me this job. I had a uniform of a kind but without badges of rank. I was in liaison,’ he added with that note of odd pride, ‘with E.N.S.A.’

  I flashed my torch around the acre of grey tombs. I said, ‘Why the hell are we here then?’

  ‘I boasted a bit too much, didn’t I?’

  ‘You’ve let yourself into a nasty situation. Aren’t you frightened?’

  ‘I’m like a fireman at his first fire,’ he said.

  ‘Your flat feet won’t enjoy these mountain tracks.’

  ‘I can manage with supports,’ Jones said. ‘You won’t tell them, old man? It was a confession.’

  ‘They’ll soon find out without my telling them. So you can’t even use a Bren?’

  ‘They haven’t got a Bren.’

  ‘You’ve spoken too late. I can’t smuggle you back.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back. Old man, you don’t know what it was like in Imphal. I used to make friends sometimes – I could introduce them to girls, and then they’d go away and never come back. Or they’d come back once or twice for a yarn. There was a man called Charters who could smell water . . .’ He broke off abruptly, remembering.

  ‘Another lie,’ I said, as though I myself were a man of scrupulous rectitude.

  ‘Not exactly a lie,’ he said. ‘You see, when he told me that, it was like someone calling me by my real name.’

  ‘Which wasn’t Jones?’

  ‘Jones was on my birth certificate,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen it there myself,’ and brushed the question aside. ‘When he told me that, I knew I could do the same with a bit of practice. I knew I had it in me. I made my clerk hide glasses of water in the office and then I’d wait till I had a big thirst and sniff. It didn’t work very often, but then tap-water is not the same.’ He added, ‘I think I’ll ease my feet a bit,’ and I could tell from his movements that he was pulling off his gumboots.

  ‘How did you come to be in Shillong?’ I asked.

  ‘I was born in Assam. My father planted tea – or so my mother said.’

/>   ‘You had to take it on trust?’

  ‘Well, he went home before I was born.’

  ‘Your mother was Indian?’

  ‘Half-Indian, old man,’ he said as though he attributed importance to fractions. It was like meeting an unknown brother – Jones and Brown, the names were almost interchangeable, and so was our status. For all we knew we were both bastards, although of course there might have been a ceremony – my mother had always given me that impression. We had both been thrown into the water to sink or swim, and swim we had – we had swum from very far apart to come together in a cemetery in Haiti. ‘I like you, Jones,’ I said. ‘If you don’t want that half a sandwich, I could do with it.’

  ‘Of course, old man.’ He fingered in his kitbag and felt for my hand in the dark.

  ‘Tell me more, Jones,’ I said.

  ‘I came to Europe,’ he said, ‘after the war. I got into a lot of scrapes. Somehow I couldn’t find what I was intended to do. You know, there had been times in Imphal when I almost wished the Japs would reach us. The authorities would have armed even the camp-followers then, like me and the clerks in N.A.A.F.I. and the cooks. After all I had a uniform. A lot of unprofessionals do well in war, don’t they? I’ve learnt a lot, listening, studying maps, watching . . . You can feel a vocation, can’t you, even if you can’t practise it? And there I was, checking transport and travel-vouchers for third-class entertainers – Mr Coward was one of the exceptions, and I had to keep an eye on the girls. I called them girls. Old troupers more like. My office smelt like a stage dressing-room.’

  ‘The grease-paint drowned the smell of water?’ I said.

  ‘You are right. It wasn’t a fair test. I only wanted my chance,’ he added, and I wondered whether perhaps in all his devious life he had been engaged on a secret and hopeless love-affair with virtue, watching virtue from a distance, hoping to be noticed, perhaps, like a child doing wrong in order to attract the attention of virtue.

  ‘And now you have the chance,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks to you, old man.’

  ‘I thought that what you wanted most was a golf-club . . .’

  ‘That’s true. It was my second dream. You have to have two, don’t you? In case the first goes wrong.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’ Making money had been my dream also. Had there been another? I had no wish to search so far back.

  ‘You’d better try to sleep a while,’ I said. ‘It won’t be safe to sleep in daylight.’

  And sleep he did, almost at once, curled up like an embryo below the tomb. That was one quality he shared with Napoleon, and I wondered whether perhaps there might be others. Once he opened his eyes and remarked that this was ‘a good place’ and then slept again. I could see nothing good in it, but in the end I slept as well.

  After a couple of hours something woke me. I imagined for a moment it was the noise of a car, but I thought it unlikely that a car would be out on the road so early, and the wreck of a dream stayed with me and accounted for the noise – I had been driving my car across a river on a bed of boulders. I lay still and listened with my eyes watching the grey early sky. I could see the shapes of the tombs standing around. Soon the sun would be up. It was time to get back to the car. When I was sure of the silence I nudged Jones awake.

  ‘You’d better not sleep again now,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll walk a little way with you.’

  ‘Oh no, you won’t. For my sake. You must keep away from the road until it’s dark. The peasants will be going to market soon. They’ll report any white man they see.’

  ‘Then they’ll report you.’

  ‘I have my alibi. A smashed car on the road to Aux Cayes. You’ll have to keep company with the cat till dark. Then go to the hut and wait for Philipot.’

  Jones insisted on shaking hands. In the reasonable light of day the affection which I had felt for him was leaking rapidly away. I thought again of Martha, and as though he were half aware of my thoughts, he said, ‘Give my love to Martha when you see her. Luis and Angel too, of course.’

  ‘And Midge?’

  ‘It was good,’ he said, ‘it was like being in a family.’

  I walked down a long street of graves towards the road. I was not born for the maquis – I took no precautions. I thought: Martha had no reason to lie, or had she? Opposite the wall of the cemetery stood a jeep, but the sight of it for a moment didn’t change the current of my thoughts. Then I stopped and stood waiting. It was too dark yet to see who was at the wheel, but I knew very well what was going to happen next.

  The voice of Concasseur whispered, ‘Stay just there. Quite still. Don’t move.’ He got out of the jeep, followed by the fat chauffeur with the gold teeth. Even in the half light he wore the black spectacles which were his only uniform. A tommy-gun of ancient make was pointed at my chest. ‘Where is Major Jones?’ Concasseur whispered.

  ‘Jones?’ I said as loudly as I dared. ‘How would I know? My car broke down. I have a pass to Aux Cayes. As you know.’

  ‘Speak quietly. I am taking you and Major Jones back to Port-au-Prince. Alive, I hope. The President would prefer that. I have to make my peace with the President.’

  ‘You’re being absurd. You must have seen my car by the road. I was on the way . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, I saw it. I was expecting to see it.’ The tommy-gun twisted in his hands and pointed away somewhere to my left. There was no advantage to me in that – the chauffeur had his gun covering me too. ‘Come forward,’ Concasseur said. I made a step forward, and he said, ‘Not you. Major Jones.’ I turned and saw Jones was standing there behind me. He held what was left of the whisky in his hand.

  I said, ‘You bloody fool. Why didn’t you stay put?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought perhaps you might need the whisky waiting.’

  ‘Get into the jeep,’ Concasseur said to me. I obeyed. He went up to Jones and struck him in the face. ‘You cheat,’ he said.

  ‘There was enough in it for both of us,’ Jones said, and Concasseur hit him again. The chauffeur stood and watched. There was enough light to see the wink of his gold teeth as he grinned.

  ‘Get in beside your friend,’ Concasseur said. While the chauffeur held us covered, he turned and began to walk towards the jeep.

  A noise, if it is loud and close enough, almost escapes the hearing: I felt a vibration in my ear-drums rather than heard the explosion. I saw Concasseur knocked backwards as though struck by an invisible fist: the chauffeur pitched upon his face: a scrap of the cemetery-wall leapt in the air and dropped, a long time afterwards, with a small ping in the road. Philipot came out of the hut and Joseph limped after him. They carried tommy-guns of the same ancient make. Concasseur’s black glasses lay in the road. Philipot ground them to pieces under his heel and the body showed no resentment. Philipot said, ‘I left the driver for Joseph.’

  Joseph was bending down over the driver and working on his teeth. ‘We’ve got to move quickly,’ Philipot said. ‘They’ll have heard the shots in Aquin. Where is Major Jones?’

  Joseph said, ‘He went into the cemetery.’

  ‘He must be fetching his kitbag,’ I said.

  ‘Tell him to hurry.’

  I walked up between the little grey houses to the spot where we had passed the night. Jones was there, kneeling beside the tomb in the attitude of prayer, but the face he turned to me was olive-green with sickness. He had vomited on the ground. He said, ‘I’m sorry, old man. One of those things. Please don’t tell them, but I’ve never seen a man die before.’

  CHAPTER 4

  I

  I DROVE along many kilometres of wire-fencing to find a gate. Mr Fernandez had procured for me in Santo Domingo a small sports-car at a cut-rate, perhaps a too flippant car for my errand, and I had a personal introduction from Mr Smith. I had left Santo Domingo in the afternoon and now it was sunset; there were no road-blocks in those days in the Dominican Republic and all was peace – there was no military junta – the American Marines had not yet landed. For
half the distance I followed a wide highway where cars went by me at a hundred miles an hour. The sense of peace was very real after the violence of Haiti which seemed more than a few hundred kilometres away. Nobody stopped me to examine my papers.

  I came to a gate in the fence, which was locked. A negro in a steel helmet and blue dungarees asked my business from the other side of the wire. I told him I had come to see Mr Schuyler Wilson.

  ‘Let me see your pass,’ he demanded, and I felt as though I were back where I had come from.

  ‘He expects me.’

  The negro went to a hut and I saw him telephoning (I had almost forgotten that telephones worked). Then he opened the gate and gave me a badge which he said I was to wear so long as I was on the mining estate. I could drive as far as the next barrier. I drove a good many miles beside the flat blue Caribbean sea. I passed a small landing-ground with a wind-stocking blowing towards Haiti and then a harbour empty of boats. The red bauxite dust lay everywhere. I came to another barrier closing the road and another negro in a tin hat. He examined my badge and took my name again and my business and telephoned. Then he told me to wait where I was. Someone would come for me. I waited ten minutes.

  ‘Is this the Pentagon,’ I asked him, ‘or the headquarters of the C.I.A.?’ He wouldn’t speak to me. He probably had orders not to speak. I was glad he didn’t carry a gun. Then a motor-cycle arrived driven by a white man in a tin helmet. He spoke practically no English and I knew no Spanish; he indicated I was to follow his motor-cycle. We drove on for a few kilometres more of red earth and blue sea before we reached the first administrative buildings, rectangular blocks of cement and glass with no one in sight. Further on was a luxurious trailer-park where children played with space-uniforms and spaceguns. Women looked out of windows over kitchen-stoves, and there was a smell of cooking. At last before a great glass building we came to a halt. There was a flight of steps wide enough for a parliament and a terrace with lounging-chairs. A large fat man with an anonymous face shaved as smooth as marble stood at the top. He might have been a city mayor waiting to deliver a freedom.