Authors: Eric Ambler
He sipped his drink. ‘There I agree with him. Do you know what a polymer is?’
‘Yes, I looked it up. Polymerization is a kind of chemical event, not a reaction but a change of state, a molecular rearrangement. Raw rubber becomes vulcanized rubber, say, the same substance but with different properties. The second is a polymer of the first.’
‘The point being, I gather, that this change of state – note that pregnant phrase – is usually brought about by the participation of a catalyst. You see? A childish play on words. Change of state, indeed! Still, if it amuses them …’
‘Them?’
‘Rosier’s employers and their business colleagues.’
‘Whom I could find out about at the Chamber of Commerce?’
‘If you were sufficiently interested I dare say I could save you even that trouble.’
‘And S-dec is the catalyst.’
The smile again. ‘If they want to think of us in that way we have no objection. What interests us is the Polymer planners’ continued ignorance of your role in the plan.’
‘I have no role.’
‘We know that, but, naturally, they, with their knowledge of men, must find it difficult to believe.’
‘I dare say they’ll get used to the idea in time.’
‘Or, as you get to know your patient better, you’ll get used to the other one.’
I put my glass down. ‘Is that the object of the exercise, Commandant? That, given a professional responsibility, I get drawn into making a political commitment?’
‘It’s probably Villegas’ object.’ He shrugged. ‘Nobody’s going to force you to make a commitment. Nobody can.
Naturally, we would like to see Villegas given every possible assistance. Your support, your name could be valuable to his, your father’s Party’s, cause. You don’t believe that, or anyway you say you don’t. Nevertheless, it is a fact. I will be frank with you, Doctor. Our view is that you should have been approached much earlier and dealt with in a more straightforward way. That is what we advised. Well, our advice was not taken. We now know why. Paco Segura gave contrary advice and managed to sidetrack the issue. He’s overplayed his hand now, of course, but his delaying tactics seem to have worked. Wouldn’t you say they had?’
His manner was completely casual. He might have been discussing a film he had found rather boring. I had an overwhelming desire to get out of the room. Mumbling something about my appointment with Elizabeth, I stood up.
He made no attempt to continue the conversation or to detain me. My state of confusion must have been obvious. As far as he was concerned that last five minutes had been well spent.
He said that we would doubtless be seeing quite a lot of one another during the coming week.
It was a relief to see Elizabeth. At least for a time it was a relief.
Her femme-de-ménage cooked a light meal and we spent a restful hour going through the new batch of contact prints and choosing those for which we would order colour enlargements. She said nothing at first about her meeting with Delvert and I made no attempt to ask her about it. In the past she has made it more than clear that her marriage is not a subject that I may raise for discussion.
So, when we had finished with the photographs, I told her about Rosier’s approach. After all, it was she who had
warned me against him. But she didn’t seem much interested. In fact her response was not unlike Gillon’s.
‘You should have taken the money,’ she said. ‘I am sure that this insurance company would pay at least the consultancy fee. That would have been arranged with them certainly.’
‘I assumed that that was just his cover story.’
‘His
apparent
cover story, oh yes. Naturally, you were supposed to see through that and divine shrewdly that his actual employer is an American member of the consortium.’
‘Well it’s feasible, isn’t it?’
She looked at me pityingly. ‘Not if he made it that obvious. Ernesto dear, these people, the professionals I mean,
never
let you know who they’re working for. Or who
you’ll
be working for if you take their money. They have layers and layers of cover, always. He could be working for anyone – the Russians, the British, the Venezuelans, the Arabs, the Israelis, the Chinese – anyone. It’s no good your laughing. He could even be working for the people who are supposed to be on the losing side in this beautiful coup he talked about. Or he could be doubling, working for two of them at the same time.’
‘Commandant Delvert says that with this particular man that would be quite likely.’
I had touched a nerve.
‘Delvert! That man is himself unspeakably corrupt.’
When I said nothing she got up and began pacing about the studio.
‘I told you that he came as an emissary from my husband.’
‘You did.’
‘That turned out to be only partly true.’
‘Then it can’t have been such a bad evening after all.’
‘He spent most of the time talking about you.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t you want to hear what he said?’
‘Not unless you want to tell me. About the emissary part I take it that there was nothing new.’
‘Only that my husband’s mistress has just given birth to twin boys.’ She pointed at me accusingly. ‘You don’t consider that new?’
It was the best news I had had for a long time, but I answered carefully. ‘It has a certain novelty, yes.’
‘Novelty! It is an affront!’
‘Well …’
‘A deliberate affront!’
‘Come now, Elizabeth. It could hardly be deliberate.’
‘Deliberate! The woman has been taking a fertility drug.’
I managed to look medically interested. ‘You know that for a fact?’
‘It was inferred.’
‘Then your husband was lucky. She could have had triplets.’
Elizabeth gave me a hard stare. ‘Are you laughing at me, Ernesto?’
‘Certainly not. Though I don’t see why you should feel affronted. Your husband’s mistress wanted a child by him. She now has two. These things happen.’
‘And this happening pleases you. You think, like Delvert, that the existence of these two bastards will induce in me a softening of the brain, eh?’
‘A softening of the brain? Definitely not.’
‘But a change of heart, perhaps. Is that it?’
It was and she knew it. I could only shrug.
‘So let us see what sort of a change of heart Delvert has in mind for
you.
’ She can never resist the temptation to repay instantly even a fancied slight.
‘I know what he has in mind for me.’
‘I doubt it, Ernesto. I doubt it very much.’
‘Then I’ll tell you.’
I gave her edited versions of the two private conversations I had had with Delvert.
She didn’t interrupt and after a while she stopped pacing about.
‘Those are the blandishments,’ I said finally. ‘You, I take it, were invited to help guide me towards a right view of them.’
She sighed. ‘I said he was corrupt. I didn’t say he was an idiot. He asked, from my knowledge of you, for advice.’
‘Advice? What kind of advice?’
‘Apparently it is important for them to know soon whether you can be used at all in this affair or should be discarded at once.’
It was her turn to touch nerves. I think I spluttered slightly. ‘Discarded! And in what capacity are they proposing to discard me, may I ask? As physician, as tame spy or as hereditary cult-figure?’
She smiled, pleased with herself. ‘He was well aware of the fact that I would discuss the matter with you, of course. He used the word “discard” several times. Obviously he expected it to be passed on to you and to have exactly the effect it has had – to make you angry.’
‘Well, naturally …’
‘No, not naturally at all, Ernesto. Whether or not you are yet prepared to admit it to yourself you are hovering on the brink of a commitment. He said he wanted my advice on how best to give you the necessary push.’
‘And may I know what you told him? Or is that a state secret?’
‘No clumsy sarcasm, please, my dear. I told him that you could not be pushed, and that unless he could find a way of engaging your sympathies for this clap-trap, CIA-permitted, S-dec conspiracy other than those already employed – cheap appeals to your father’s memory and shoddy attempts to play upon other faded loyalties – you should be discarded forthwith.’
‘Oh, so that was your advice.’ A stupid comment, but I was suddenly feeling stupid.
‘Yes.’
‘And what was his reaction?’
‘He didn’t accept a word of it. In fact he seemed highly amused. He said … Do you want to know what he said?’
‘Yes please.’
‘You won’t like it. He said that the person I was talking about was Dr Frigo not Dr
Castillo
, and that Frigo was nothing more than a drab suit of protective clothing so full of holes by now that it had become pathetic.’
‘Charming. Do you think he’s right?’
She looked at me consideringly. ‘I hope he isn’t.’
‘Anything else?’
‘About you, no. He knows now that he’ll get no help from me. I did ask him why they’d picked on a colourless figurehead like Villegas?’
‘And I’m sure you were convincingly answered. Villegas is the only democratic party leader in or outside the country with any sort of reputation or following. He’ll be politically acceptable to a majority in the Organization of American States, left of centre but not too far left. He’s the right age for a modern head of state, not too young but vigorous and personable. He’s been a university professor teaching a branch of engineering technology learned in the United States. He’s an astute, politically experienced technocrat, the kind of man who ought to be in government in this part of the world. I wish there were more like him. As for his being colourless I don’t know what you mean. That he won’t use oil royalties to build pink marble palaces? Good. Less colour and more effective land reform is exactly what the country needs.’
‘You’re forgetting water and sewage projects and rural agricultural schools.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Delvert mentioned those things as well as land reform. But he didn’t pretend not to know what I meant by colourless. Do I have to tell you about your own countrymen, Ernesto? Villegas may be all you say, though I doubt it, but supposing he is. What do your people care for
technocracy and sweet reason. Technocracy means machines that take away men’s jobs and sweet reason is another term for cowardice. What they expect from revolution is blood on the walls and in the streets, generals’ blood, policemen’s blood with a landowner’s corpse for good measure.’
‘Nonsense.’ I was getting quite angry with her.
‘If it’s nonsense why doesn’t El Lobo the Wolf, call himself El Moderator the Good, and if it’s nonsense why does the son of Castillo the Martyr seem such a desirable acquisition to this technocratic government? Because your people are superstitious primitives, that’s why.’
‘Then the sooner they’re re-educated the better.’
‘The Castro way? Shame on you, Ernesto.’
‘I’m not talking about the Castro way. Nor am I talking about going back to the Batistas, the Somozas, the Trujillos or the coalitions of generals. You, I take it, prefer the status quo, this committee of fat-arsed landowners with their coffee fincas, their cattle ranches, their sugar centrales and their good, Communist-fearing supporters in the United States Congress.’
‘Don Ernesto is eloquent.’
‘Merde!’ I had by then completely lost my temper.
She laughed. ‘So Delvert
was
right. The protective clothing
is
full of holes. Frigo-Castillo
is
tempted.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Elizabeth!’
‘Why do agnostics so often invoke the Deity? I prefer merde.’
‘All right. Merde.’
She ran her fingers through her hair. It is a gesture I know well. It means that she is consulting the Hapsburg oracle and assembling precedents.
‘When the Archduke Max was offered an Imperial Crown in Mexico,’ she said, ‘he was told a lot that was untrue and much that was foolish. Gutierrez d’Estrada, the Mexican who did most to persuade him that his countrymen were crying out for a Hapsburg prince to come and rule them,
had not been near Mexico, much less in it, for over twenty years.’
‘I don’t think I’m being offered an Imperial Crown, Elizabeth.’
‘You are being offered respect and affection. At least, those things are being dangled as bait, just as they were dangled in front of Maximilian and Charlotte. They believed what they were told. Result – he went to his death, shot by peasants in ragged uniforms, and she to madness, grovelling before the Pope and being dragged away finally by doctors disguised as priests.’
‘I’ve always understood that they believed the stories they were told because they wanted to believe them.’ I felt myself getting angry with her again. ‘My dear, I am not a romantic Hapsburg archduke, a second son with imperial ambitions. And I’m not a wishful-thinking idiot listening to émigré politicians.’
She waved the objection aside. ‘Napoleon the Third and his ridiculous Eugenie wanted a French colony in Central America with a puppet emperor. It was a financial adventure from which they and other parvenus like them – that vulgar Duc de Morny was one – hoped to profit. What happened? As soon as Napoleon found that there was neither profit nor glory to be had after all, he withdrew the French army from Mexico – with deep regret and many crocodile tears – and left the Emperor Max to his fate. What is the difference here? S-dec and an oil consortium are in this for what they hope to make out of it – glory for S-dec, oil for the free world, profit for the consortium. Oh, I know what you will say!’
‘All right, what will I say? I’d like to know.’
‘This time, you will say, there are only subsidies involved. This time there are no French troops, no General Bazaine, no President Juarez with an army in the provinces. This time the Americans do not invoke the Monroe Doctrine, but give the project their surreptitious blessing because they are in need of more Caribbean oil too, and
don’t mind letting someone else do the political dirty-work for a change. But – ’ she sliced the air with the edge of her hand – ‘it is still a financial adventure and there are still puppets to be installed.
Puppets
, Ernesto!’