‘History,’ I said. ‘That’s always the alibi.’
‘Progress is only possible if we learn from history.’
‘Don’t believe it. Progress is man’s indifference to the lessons of history.’
‘You are cynical as well as ignorant,’ said Datt as though making a discovery. ‘Get to know yourself, that’s my advice. Get to know yourself.’
‘I know enough awful people already,’ I said.
‘You feel sorry for the people who came to my clinic. That’s because you really feel sorry for yourself. But these people do not deserve your sympathy. Rationalization is their destruction. Rationalization is the aspirin of mental health and, as with aspirin, an overdose can be fatal.
‘They enslave themselves by dipping deeper and deeper into the tube of taboos. And yet each stage of their journey is described as greater freedom.’ He laughed grimly. ‘Permissiveness is slavery. But so has history always been. Your jaded, overfed section of the world is comparable to the ancient city states of the Middle East. Outside the gates the hard nomads waited their chance to plunder the rich, decadent city-dwellers. And in their turn the nomads would conquer, settle into the newly-conquered city and grow soft, and new hard eyes watched from the barren stony desert until their time was ripe. So the hard, strong, ambitious, idealistic peoples of China see the over-ripe conditions of Europe and the USA. They sniff the air and upon it floats the aroma of garbage cans overfilled, idle hands and warped minds seeking diversions bizarre and perverted, they smell violence, stemming not from hunger, but from boredom, they smell the corruption of government and the acrid flash of fascism. They sniff, my friend: you!’
I said nothing, and waited while Datt sipped at his coffee and brandy. He looked up. ‘Take off your coat.’
‘I’m not staying.’
‘Not staying?’ He chuckled. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Back to Ostend,’ I said. ‘And you are going with me.’
‘More violence?’ He raised his hands in mock surrender.
I shook my head. ‘You know you’ve got to go back,’ I said. ‘Or are you going to leave all your dossiers back there on the quayside less than four miles away?’
‘You’ll give them to me?’
‘I’m promising nothing,’ I told him, ‘but I know that you have to go back there. There is no alternative.’ I poured myself more coffee and gestured to him with the pot. ‘Yes,’ he said absent-mindedly. ‘More.’
‘You are not the sort of man that leaves a part of himself behind. I know you, Monsieur Datt. You could bear to have your documents on the way to China and yourself in the hands of Loiseau, but the converse you cannot bear.’
‘You expect me to go back there and give myself up to Loiseau?’
‘I know you will,’ I said. ‘Or live the rest of your life regretting it. You will recall all your work and records and you will relive this moment a million times. Of course you must return with me. Loiseau is a human being and human activities are your speciality. You have friends in high places, it will be hard to convict you of any crime on the statute book …’
‘That is very little protection in France.’
‘Ostend is in Belgium,’ I said. ‘Belgium doesn’t recognize Peking, Loiseau operates there only on sufferance. Loiseau too will be amenable to any debating skill you can muster. Loiseau fears a political scandal that would involve taking a man forcibly from a foreign country …’
‘You are glib. Too glib,’ said Datt. ‘The risk remains too great.’
‘Just as you wish,’ I said. I drank the rest of my coffee and turned away from him.
‘I’d be a fool to go back for the documents. Loiseau can’t touch me here.’ He walked across to the barometer and tapped it. ‘It’s going up.’ I said nothing.
He said, ‘It was my idea to make my control centre a pirate radio boat. We are not open to inspection nor even under the jurisdiction of any government in the world. We are, in effect, a nation unto ourselves on this boat, just as all the other pirate radio ships are.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘You’re safe here.’ I stood up. ‘I should have said nothing,’ I said. ‘It is not my concern. My job is done.’ I buttoned my coat tight and blessed the man from Ostend for providing the thick extra sweater.
‘You despise me?’ said Datt. There was an angry note in his voice.
I stepped towards him and took his hand in mine. ‘I don’t,’ I said anxiously. ‘Your judgement is as valid as mine. Better, for only you are in a position to evaluate your work and your freedom.’ I gripped his hand tight in a stereotyped gesture of reassurance.
He said, ‘My work is of immense value. A breakthrough you might almost say. Some of the studies seemed to have …’ Now he was anxious to convince me of the importance of his work.
But I released his hand carefully. I nodded, smiled and turned away. ‘I must go. I have brought Kuang here, my job is done. Perhaps one of your sailors would take me back to Ostend.’
Datt nodded. I turned away, tired of my game and wondering whether I really wanted to take this sick old man and deliver him to the mercies of the French Government. They say a man’s resolution shows in the set of his shoulders. Perhaps Datt saw my indifference in mine. ‘Wait,’ he called. ‘I will take you.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘It will give you time to think.’
Datt looked around the cabin feverishly. He wet his lips and smoothed his hair with the flat of his hand. He flicked through a bundle of papers, stuffed two of them in his pocket, and gathered up a few possessions.
They were strange things that Datt took with him: an engraved paperweight, a half-bottle of brandy, a cheap notebook and finally an old fountain pen which he inspected, wiped and carefully capped before pushing it into his waistcoat pocket. ‘I’ll take you back,’ he said. ‘Do you think Loiseau will let me just look through my stuff?’
‘I can’t answer for Loiseau,’ I said. ‘But I know he fought for months to get permission to raid your house on the Avenue Foch. He submitted report after report proving beyond all normal need that you were a threat to the security of France. Do you know what answer he got? They told him that you were an X., an ancien X. You were a Polytechnic man, one of the ruling class, the elite of France. You could tutoyer his Minister, call half the Cabinet cher camarade. You were a privileged person, inviolate and arrogant with him and his men. But he persisted, he showed them finally what you were, Monsieur Datt. And now perhaps he’ll want them to pay their bill. I’d say Loiseau might see the advantage in letting a little of your poison into their bloodstream. He might decide to give them something to remember the next time they are about to obstruct him and lecture him, and ask him for the fiftieth time if he isn’t mistaken. Permit you to retain the dossiers and tapes?’ I smiled. ‘He might well insist upon it.’
Datt nodded, cranked the handle of an ancient wall phone and spoke some rapid Chinese dialect into it. I noticed his large white fingers, like the roots of some plant that had never been exposed to sunlight.
He said, ‘You are right, no doubt about it. I must be where my research is. I should never have parted company from it.’
He pottered about absent-mindedly. He picked up his Monopoly board. ‘You must reassure me on one thing,’ he said. He put the board down, again. ‘The girl. You’ll see that the girl’s all right?’
‘She’ll be all right.’
‘You’ll attend to it? I’ve treated her badly.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I threatened her, you know. I threatened her about her file. About her pictures. I shouldn’t have done that really but I cared for my work. It’s not a crime, is it, caring about your work?’
‘Depends upon the work.’
‘Mind you,’ said Datt, ‘I have given her money. I gave her the car too.’
‘It’s easy to give away things you don’t need,’ I said. ‘And rich people who give away money need to be quite sure they’re not trying to buy something.’
/> ‘I’ve treated her badly.’ He nodded to himself. ‘And there’s the boy, my grandson.’
I hurried down the iron steps. I wanted to get away from the boat before Kuang saw what was happening, and yet I doubt if Kuang would have stopped us; with Datt out of the way the only report going back would be Kuang’s.
‘You’ve done me a favour,’ Datt pronounced as he started up the outboard motor.
‘That’s right,’ I said.
40
The Englishman had told her to lock the ambulance door. She tried to, but as her finger hovered over the catch, the nausea of fear broke over her. She imagined just for a moment the agony of being imprisoned. She shuddered and pushed the thought aside. She tried again, but it was no use, and while she was still trying to push the lock the English boy with the injured knee leaned across her and locked the door. She wound the window down, urgently trying to still the claustrophobia. She leaned forward with her eyes closed and pressed her head against the cold windscreen. What had she done? It had seemed so right when Datt had put it to her: if she took the main bulk of the documents and tapes up to the rendezvous for him, then he would be waiting there with her own film and dossier. A fair exchange, he had said. She touched the locks of the case that had come from the boat. She supposed that her documents were inside, but suddenly she didn’t care. Fine rain beaded the windscreen with little lenses. The motor boat was repeated a thousand times upside down.
‘Are you all right?’ the boy asked. ‘You don’t look well.’
She didn’t answer.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I wish you’d tell me what all this is about. I know I’ve given you a lot of trouble and all that, you see …’
‘Stay here in the car,’ Maria said. ‘Don’t touch anything and don’t let anyone else touch anything. Promise?’
‘Very well. I promise.’
She unlocked the door with a sigh of relief and got out into the cold salty air. The car was on the very brink of the waterside and she stepped carefully across the worn stones. Along the whole quayside men were appearing out of doorways and warehouse entrances. Not ordinary men but men in berets and anklets. They moved quietly and most of them were carrying automatic rifles. A group of them near to her stepped under the wharfside lights and she saw the glitter of the paratroop badges. Maria was frightened of the men. She stopped near the rear doors of the ambulance and looked back; the boy stared at her across the metal boxes and film tins. He smiled and nodded to reassure her that he wouldn’t touch anything. Why did she care whether he touched anything? One man broke away from the group of paratroops near her. He was in civilian clothes, a thigh-length black leather coat and an old-fashioned trilby hat. He had taken only one step when she recognized Loiseau.
‘Maria, is it you?’
‘Yes, it’s me.’
He hurried towards her, but when he was a pace away stopped. She had expected him to embrace her. She wanted to hang on to him and feel his hand slapping her awkwardly on the back, which was his inadequate attempt to staunch miseries of various kinds.
‘There are a lot of people here,’ she said. ‘Bif?’
‘Yes, the army,’ said Loiseau. ‘A paratroop battalion. The Belgians gave me full co-operation.’
Maria resented that. It was his way of saying that she had never given him full co-operation. ‘Just to take me into custody,’ she said, ‘a Whole battalion of Belgian paratroops? You must have exaggerated.’
‘There is a ship out there. There is no telling how many men are aboard. Datt might have decided to take the documents by force.’
He was anxious to justify himself, like a little boy seeking an advance on his pocket money. She smiled and repeated, ‘You must have exaggerated.’
‘I did,’ said Loiseau. He did not smile, for distorting truth was nothing to be proud of. But in this case he was anxious that there should be no mistakes. He would rather look a fool for over-preparation than be found inadequate. They stood there staring at each other for several minutes.
‘The documents are in the ambulance?’ Loiseau asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The film of me is there too.’
‘What about the tape of the Englishman? The questioning that you translated when he was drugged?’
‘That’s there too, it’s a green tin; number B fourteen.’ She touched his arm. ‘What will you do with the Englishman’s tape?’ She could not ask about her own.
‘Destroy it,’ said Loiseau. ‘Nothing has come of it, and I’ve no reason to harm him.’
‘And that’s part of your agreement with him,’ she accused.
Loiseau nodded.
‘And my tape?’
‘I will destroy that too.’
‘Doesn’t that go against your principles? Isn’t destruction of evidence the cardinal sin for a policeman?’
‘There is no rule book that can be consulted in these matters whatever the Church and the politicians and the lawyers tell us. Police forces, governments and armies are just groups of men. Each man must do as his conscience dictates. A man doesn’t obey without question or he’s not a man any more.’
Maria gripped his arm with both hands, and pretended just for a moment that she would never have to let go.
‘Lieutenant,’ Loiseau called along the wharf. One of the paratroops slammed to attention and doubled along the waterfront. ‘I’ll have to take you into custody,’ Loiseau said quietly to Maria.
‘My documents are on the front seat of the ambulance,’ she told him hurriedly before the lieutenant reached them.
‘Lieutenant,’ Loiseau said, ‘I want you to take the boxes out of the ambulance and bring them along to the shed. By the way, you had better take an inventory of the tins and boxes; mark them with chalk. Keep an armed guard on the whole operation. There might be an attempt to recover them.’
The lieutenant saluted Loiseau warmly and gave Maria a passing glance of curiosity.
‘Come along, Maria,’ said Loiseau. He turned and walked towards the shed.
Maria patted her hair and followed him.
It was a wooden hut that had been put up for the duration of World War Two. A long, badly lit corridor ran the whole length of the hut, and the rest was divided into four small, uncomfortable offices. Maria repaired her make-up for the third time. She decided to do one eye at a time and get them really right.
‘How much longer?’ she asked. Her voice was distorted as she held her face taut to paint the line over her right eye.
‘Another hour,’ said Loiseau. There was a knock at the door and the paratroop lieutenant came in. He looked briefly at Maria and then saluted Loiseau.
‘We’re having a little trouble, sir, getting the boxes out of the ambulance.’
‘Trouble?’ said Loiseau.
‘There’s some madman with an injured leg. He’s roaring and raging and punching the soldiers who are trying to unload the vehicle.’
‘Can’t you deal with it?’
‘Of course I can deal with it,’ said the paratroop officer. Loiseau detected a note of irritation in his voice. ‘It’s just that I don’t know who the little squirt is.’
‘I picked him up on the road,’ said Maria. ‘He was injured in a road crash. I told him to look after the documents when I got out of the car. I didn’t mean … he’s nothing to do with … he’s just a casualty.’
‘Just a casualty,’ Loiseau repeated to the lieutenant. The lieutenant smiled. ‘Get him along to the hospital,’ said Loiseau.
‘The hospital,’ repeated Maria. ‘Everything in its proper place.’
‘Very good sir,’ said the lieutenant. He saluted with an extra display of energy to show that he disregarded the sarcasm of the woman. He gave the woman a disapproving look as he turned about and left.
‘You have another convert,’ said Maria. She chuckled as she surveyed her painted eye, twisting her face slightly so that the unpainted eye was not visible in the mirror. She tilted her head high to keep her chin line. She heard the so
ldiers piling the boxes in the corridor. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said after a while.
‘I can send out,’ said Loiseau. ‘The soldiers have a lorry full of coffee and sausages and some awful fried things.’
‘Coffee and sausage.’
‘Go and get two sweet coffees and some sausage sandwiches,’ Loiseau said to the young sentry.
‘The corporal has gone for his coffee,’ said the soldier.
‘That’s all right,’ said Loiseau. ‘I’ll look after the boxes.’
‘He’ll look after the boxes,’ Maria said flatly to the mirror.
The soldier looked at her, but Loiseau nodded and the soldier turned to get the coffee. ‘You can leave your gun with me,’ Loiseau said. ‘You’ll not be able to carry the coffee with that slung round your neck and I don’t want guns left lying around in the corridor.’
‘I’ll manage the coffee and the gun,’ said the soldier. He said it defiantly, then he slung the strap of the gun around his neck to prove it was possible. ‘You’re a good soldier,’ said Loiseau.
‘It won’t take a moment,’ said the soldier.
Loiseau swung around in the swivel chair, drummed his fingers on the rickety desk and then swivelled back the other way. He leaned close to the window. The condensation was heavy on it and he wiped a peephole clear so that he could see the waterfront. He had promised the Englishman that he would wait. He wished he hadn’t: it spoiled his schedule and also it gave this awkward time of hanging about here with Maria. He couldn’t have her held in the local police station, obviously she had to wait here with him; it was unavoidable, and yet it was a bad situation. He had been in no position to argue with the Englishman. The Englishman had offered him all the documents as well as the Red Chinese conducting officer. What’s more he had said that if Loiseau would wait here he would bring Datt off the ship and deliver him to the quayside. Loiseau snorted. There was no good reason for Datt to leave the pirate radio ship. He was safe out there beyond the three-mile limit and he knew it. All the other pirate radio ships were out there and safe. Datt had only to tune in to other ships to confirm it.