Authors: Eric Ambler
She signed herself, sincerely, Julia Heras de Villegas.
The first paragraph amuses me. Anyone reading it who didn’t know better would assume that I have been refusing her social invitations steadily for weeks.
The last paragraph does not amuse me at all.
Encountered Dr Brissac in corridor Ward C. Unusually affable but said nothing at all about Villegas. Affability had element of unease. Gillon must already have told him to ‘keep his nose out’.
Dr B may be better with the dead than with living patients but he is a kindly man and has always treated me well. He is also a good administrator. I resent his being humiliated in this way.
About five Delvert telephoned to ask what time I would be returning home as he proposed to call on me there briefly. Told him six.
He arrived at six-thirty and refused a drink. Very brisk and businesslike.
Professor Grandval will arrive on Thurday by the lunch-time plane and leave the same night to return to Paris by the plane from Cayenne. Allowing for flight delays his services should be available from 16.00 hrs. My tennis partner at the army communications centre must have been busy.
My initial incredulity did not displease Delvert, I think, but he concealed his pleasure with a show of impatience.
‘You asked for Grandval, you will have him for a clear four hours. Isn’t that enough?’
‘More than enough.’
‘What will he have to do?’
‘Make an examination, ask questions, take tissue samples, I imagine. But that will be for him to decide.’
‘What will he need?’
‘An examination room at the hospital.’
‘Any hospital personnel?’
‘No. I can assist and interpret. But Dr Brissac will have to be informed. You can’t have a man like Grandval in the hospital without informing him.’
‘Why not?’
‘It would be discourteous to both of them.’
‘Professor Grandval will be in no mood for courtesies you will find. Dr Brissac’s co-operation has already been secured. You will have authority to call upon his office for any facilities you need. What have you done about the patient?’
‘I’m seeing him tomorrow. Of course,
his
co-operation will be needed too. He might decide that Thursday was not convenient to him.’
‘Then you’ll have to change his mind, won’t you?’
‘He has guests arriving.’
‘Not until Friday or Saturday.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Curious, eh Doctor?’ He looked pleased again.
I showed him Doña Julia’s letter. He glanced at it.
‘Shall I translate, Commandant?’
‘I can read. A lawyer, a gangster and a priest. You should find it interesting.’
‘A gangster you say?’
‘I dare say he thinks of himself as a revolutionary, but a gangster is what he is. So is the priest in a way. As I say, you should find it interesting. It must be a long time since you spoke to any of your countrymen who actually live there.’ He glanced at the letter again. ‘Monday. I suppose
she anticipates that her guests may be a bit tired after their tortuous journey from the capital. She may be right.’
‘You’re advising me to go.’
‘When you show this to Commissaire Gillon I’m sure he will order you to go. Besides, as Doña Julia says, the visitors will want to meet you. You mustn’t disappoint them.’ He gave the letter back. ‘Meanwhile, you have to make your preparations for Thursday. The army will be handling the liaison work in connection with Professor Grandval. They will deliver him to you, bathed and fed, at the hospital and take him back to the airport when you have finished with him.’
‘Or he has finished with me.’
The smile. ‘Don’t worry, Doctor. He will be treated as circumspectly as if he were the Minister himself, and perhaps with rather more respect.’
He left.
Took Elizabeth to Chez Lafcadio. Half-expected to see Rosier and was prepared to snub him firmly. He wasn’t there.
Went to Les Muettes to keep eleven o’clock appointment with Villegas. No sign of Uncle Paco or Doña Julia. Was shown by Antoine straight up to the patient’s room.
He greeted me cheerfully and removed his glasses which he placed on the thick volume of typescript lying open on his desk. He made a disparaging gesture towards the typescript.
‘Look at it, Ernesto! Do you know how many constitutions we have had in our Americas since Spain left us to our own devices?’
‘Since eighteen-twenty-one? I’ve no idea, Don Manuel.’
‘My count is forty-six to date. I may have missed out some ephemera, but forty-six is about right. That one there is number forty-seven.’
‘I hope it will be the most enduring.’
‘If anyone apart from lawyers seeking loopholes ever reads it, that is always possible.’
‘How are you feeling today, Don Manuel?’
‘Better, distinctly better.’
What he really meant, of course, was that, having delegated responsibility for his physical wellbeing, he was now thinking about it less. His speech difficulty was well under control.
‘That’s good. I’d like to check your blood pressure if I may.’
He immediately rolled up his right sleeve. ‘I have a strong feeling that it is down.’
It wasn’t down - 17.5 over 9.9.
‘Still a bit higher than I would like, Don Manuel. However, we can do something about that.’
‘Medication?’
‘Nothing drastic and there’s no immediate hurry. What I would like to go into a bit further is the speech difficulty.’
‘It’s quite all right today, you see.’
‘Yes. But it’s this running out of steam you told me about. I’d like to get at the precise cause of that before deciding what ought to be done about it.’
‘Well, I’ve told you all I can. You had a demonstration. You don’t want another I hope.’
‘Oh no. But there are people, neurologists, who specialize in this sort of difficulty, and can identify the basic problem much more quickly and positively than I could. They have their own special testing techniques for taking tissue samples that we just can’t do here in the ordinary way.’
He didn’t like this. ‘You want me to go and see a specialist? Where?’
‘Well, you wouldn’t have to go farther than the hospital here. I said we’re not equipped to do these tests in the
ordinary way. That’s true, in the ordinary way. Luckily there’s a very distinguished French neurologist, one of the most distinguished in fact, who happens to be available to us at the moment. He has agreed to stop in St Paul for a few hours on his way back to Paris tomorrow in order to see you.’
He looked at me shrewdly. ‘You arranged this, Ernesto?’
‘I did, Don Manuel.’ I met his eyes. ‘Yes, I had some official help in doing so, but it was entirely my idea that you should see a consultant.’
‘A consultant from Paris?’ His stare was unblinking.
‘There is a good man in Fort de France whom you could also have seen. But why bother with the good when the best is available?’
He tapped his face. ‘You can’t deal with this trouble yourself?’
‘I could try, Don Manuel, but why should I submit you to a process of trial and error, when what is needed, and easily obtainable, is expert advice?’
‘Very well. I am in your hands.’
He made no further difficulties. He even agreed, without demur, to my request that he be at the hospital no later than four o’clock. Professor Grandval, I explained, would have a plane connection to make later.
‘Ah,’ he said a trifle slyly, ‘we can’t have him missing that. He must be a most accommodating and amiable man, this Professor.’
I hope he is, but doubt if his amiability will extend to St Paul-les-Alizés.
When I got back to the hospital I made the necessary arrangements with Dr Brissac’s administrative assistant for tomorrow.
I then wrote a letter to Doña Julia accepting her invitation for Monday evening. The writing of it felt strangely like an act of superstition, as if I were crossing my fingers to ward off the evil eye. Perhaps I was.
Saw Elizabeth but said nothing to her about any of this. Most of it I can’t tell her anyway. Could have mentioned Doña Julia’s invitation, but had no wish to be harangued again about the Emperor Maximilian.
At 15.30 hrs a telephone call from some official person at the airport to warn me that Professor Grandval was on his way to the hospital. Went down and awaited his arrival at the staff entrance. He came in the garrison commander’s car driven by a military chauffeur.
He is a slim, imposing old man, very well preserved. Does not seem to have aged visibly since I last saw him. He looked tired though and wore a sullen look. Understandable. He also proved to be in a vile temper.
I introduced myself, told him my official position in the hospital and offered to carry the instrument bag he had with him.
He ignored the offer. ‘Who is the person in charge of this place?’ he demanded.
‘The medical superintendent, Dr Brissac, is in charge, Professor. I was told that you would not wish to see him.’
‘Told by whom?’ He went on without waiting for an answer. ‘If he is the person responsible for this banditry, for sending secret police agents to browbeat me, to utter ill-concealed threats on the subject of research funds, to make fatuous appeals to my patriotism and talk mysterious rubbish about the national interest, I certainly wish to see him.’
‘Nobody in this hospital, Professor, is responsible for any of those things, I can assure you.’
‘Oh you can, can you? Excellent! Let me tell you, young man, I have been taken away, virtually kidnapped away from work of considerable importance, for what I must conclude, on the basis of the non-information given to me, is a mere routine consultation. Let me also tell you that if the General had been alive still this would not have happened. I would have complained of this blackmail directly to him. It would not have been permitted to succeed.’
The man on the staff entrance desk was listening, fascinated. It was essential that we moved on.
‘This is far from being a routine case, Professor. If we could go upstairs I will attempt to explain why.’
He stared at me. ‘Is it your case, Doctor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well,’ he said grimly. ‘We shall see.’
The crack of doom would have sounded more reassuring. Going up in the lift I made efforts to stop moistening my lips repeatedly and to pull myself together. I saw him noting both efforts with bleak satisfaction.
In the examination room he sat down, ran his eye over the equipment there and said: ‘Well?’
I told him briefly who Villegas was and that our proposal to send the patient to him had been vetoed by higher authority. I made no attempt to explain which higher authority or why.
‘And what do you think is the matter with the man?’
I told him of the tentative diagnosis I had made.
He snorted. ‘What do you know about that? Ever seen a known case of it before?’
‘No, Professor. What I know about it I learned from listening to your lecture on the subject.’
‘Where? When?’
I told him. ‘You mentioned the case of a Protestant pastor,’ I added. ‘I remember you said that it had interfered with his preaching.’
‘And this politician has trouble preaching too?’
‘He has the same kind of difficulty, I think, yes.’
‘What’s your name again, Doctor? I’m bad at names.’
‘Castillo.’
He thought for a moment. ‘Ah yes, I have it. The Latin-American student. Your name got into the newspapers. Where is this patient of yours?’
I glanced at my watch. ‘He should be here any minute now, Professor. I have his dossier here and some other notes of mine if you wish to see them.’
He did wish. He read it all carefully. While he was rereading the notes the main entrance receptionist called up to say that Villegas had arrived. I told the Professor.
He nodded. ‘All right. Let them bring him up. One question. When he stopped speaking what happened exactly? Did he stammer first or just slow down and stop?’
‘Speech became jerky, then stopped. He described it as running out of steam. There seemed to be pronounced fibrillation of the tongue. He calls it an unpleasant tic.’
‘Any other muscles affected?’
‘He seemed to have trouble with the lower jaw.’
‘Very well.’
‘Would you prefer to see him alone, Professor?’
‘Does he speak French well?’
‘Not well, no.’
‘Then you’d better stay and interpret. You can assist, too, if I need assistance.’
The extraordinary thing was that the moment Villegas entered the room, Professor Grandval became a totally different man – smiling, soft spoken, gentle and infinitely courteous. And Villegas responded. Except that neither could speak the other’s language very well, they were within minutes behaving like two old friends. To establish that sort of relationship with a patient, I reflected, Doctor Frigo would need hours, or days – or an eternity. Except when I was called upon to interpret, they ignored me.
The questioning began almost imperceptibly, a smooth
continuation, or so it seemed, of the initial politeness; but it was very thorough. How often did the difficulty occur? When mostly? What time of day? How long to recover? How long could it be deferred by husbanding of energy? What other feelings accompanied it? Was there any numbness? Twitching? Any other particular sensation? How about arms and legs? The hands? Any trouble anywhere else?
After about half an hour I could see that Villegas was just beginning to tire. Of course, he hadn’t been speaking continuously because my interpreting had given him respites, but the consonants were becoming slurred. I thought at one point that Grandval might be intending to take him as far as he could go; but then the questions suddenly ceased and the physical examination began.
Again, very thorough. Finally Professor Grandval said to the patient: ‘I want to take some very small sections of muscle from your face, shoulders, arms and legs for examination. Tiny pieces. It won’t hurt because I will give you novocaine injections like your dentist does. But there will be no drilling. You will feel nothing. A slight soreness tomorrow perhaps, because I will close these small incisions by sealing them electrically.’