Saturn Over the Water (16 page)

9

My idea of climate is that it gets hot near the equator and cold near the poles. But somehow it doesn’t work out like that. Santiago, Chile, is about
1
,
500
miles farther away from the equator and nearer the South Pole than Lima, Peru, yet it was hotter still down there. The only hotel room I could find that Sunday night in Santiago had no air-conditioning, just a fan, and I spent more time in it tossing around and dozing than I did sleeping. Next morning I came out blinking into a city already baking in the sun. It was all strange, foreign, damnably noisy. It would have been a hell of a place if the people there had been as sharp-tempered or sour as so many people are these days in London or New York. But in spite of the heat and noise, the Chileans seemed extraordinarily good-tempered, amiably determined to enjoy life, and very soon the sight of them shamed me out of my grumpiness. In fact I began to feel a kind of cheerful recklessness.

I went along to the nearest bank to exchange some traveller’s cheques into
pesos
. It was a biggish place, with a long open counter where, as you waited, you could see all the clerks at work. They were amiable there too, but very leisurely. There were about ten of us waiting at the counter. Perhaps I made some sort of impatient noise.

‘You are in a hurry perhaps,’ said a man at my elbow. He was short but wide and fat, and he wore a crumpled tropical suit and an emerald green shirt that was a mistake with any suit. ‘Excuse me. But I think you are a stranger to Santiago, Chile. You have just arrived perhaps.’ His smile was equally wide and fat.

I told him I had just arrived but wasn’t really in a hurry.

He made a sweeping gesture over the counter, to call my attention to the clerks on the other side. ‘Many are poets. Here in Chile we have many poets. I am a poet myself. My name is Jones.’ I must have looked surprised, because he didn’t look or sound like any kind of Jones I’d ever known. ‘I am Chilean of course but my great-grandfather came from Wales. So I am Jones. Excuse me, but there might be information about Chile you require perhaps. I shall be glad to be of service.’

Before I could reply I was called to finish my banking business, but after I had crammed the
peso
notes into my pocket I found Mr Jones at my elbow again and heard myself inviting him to have a drink. Five minutes afterwards he was smiling at me, like a fat yellow cat, across a café table. It was cool and shady in there, after the bright oven of the streets, and I was determined not to be lured into sight-seeing, for I suspected that Mr Jones hadn’t had any business to transact in the bank and might be looking for a job as guide. On the other hand, I certainly needed plenty of information, and if he could give it to me inside this café, then I wouldn’t have to go sweating round to travel agencies.

‘My name’s Bedford,’ I told him. ‘And I’m a painter by profession.’

Mr Jones beamed his approval. ‘If you have come to paint our Chilean landscapes, Mr Bedford, then you must go south, to Valdivia and Puerto Montt, where there are lakes, volcanic mountains, most striking scenes.’

‘I’m going down there anyhow, though not to paint. I have to see some people who are near the Emerald Lake.’

‘Ah – Emerald Lake – very fine, most striking. It is best you fly to Puerto Montt. There is a service by D.C.
3
– not very comfortable perhaps – but you save much time, Mr Bedford. You cannot leave today. It is too late. But tomorrow morning, if you wish. I can arrange it for you. Only as a friendly service, Mr. Bedford, a Chilean poet helping an English artist, please understand. I am not a tourist agent or travel guide or anything of that sort. You will have a drink with me now perhaps.’ He called a waiter.

After the drinks came he asked me if I would like him to telephone the air line to book a seat on the Puerto Montt Plane. As soon as he went farther into the café to do his telephoning, two men got up from a table a few yards away. One of them followed Mr Jones. The other came over to me. He was one of those Americans, rare now among the podgy or smooth types, who look as if there had been a Red Indian warrior in the family.

‘You an American, mister?’ he asked, standing close to me and speaking in a low voice.

‘No, I’m English. Why?’

‘I could be doing you a favour, so let me ask the questions. Known this guy long?’

‘About half an hour. We met in a bank. Why?’

‘What did he tell you?’

‘He told me he’s a poet. Again – and for the last time –
why
?’

The American regarded me coldly. ‘I wouldn’t get mixed up with his kind of poetry, mister. Could be trouble. If you get into something you can’t handle, you could call me, even though you
are
British.’ He put a card in front of me, then went back to his table. The card said he was F. Erwin Morris, representing the Galveston and South American Oil Company, which had an address and a telephone number here in Santiago. I was still staring idly at the card, wondering what it was all about, when Mr Jones came waddling back, mopping himself.

‘It is all arranged for you, Mr Bedford,’ he said as he sat down.
Then, with an astonishingly quick movement of the hand still holding the handkerchief, he flicked the card across and gave it a glance. ‘He spoke to you of course. What did you tell him, Mr Bedford?’

‘I told him you said you were a poet, Mr Jones.’

This time his smile was so wide and fat that his eyes almost vanished. ‘American secret service. Only Coca-cola is less secret. They followed us in here. I knew if I went to telephone, one of them would speak to you. He warned you against me perhaps, Mr Bedford.’

‘He said your kind of poetry might be trouble. I don’t think he believes you’re a poet.’

‘They do not believe anybody is a poet. But I am one. You do not understand Spanish perhaps. If you did, I would recite to you some of my poetry. You know the poetry of Pablo Neruda?’

‘No, though I’ve heard or read something about it.’

‘He is better than I am,’ said Mr Jones, with such enormous modesty that he almost seemed to be boasting. ‘His Indian blood perhaps. A fine poet. I have always said to myself that when I have time I will try to translate his best poems into English. But now, Mr Bedford, is there any other small service I can perform for you? I feel we are friends. So do not hesitate to ask me.’

This is when the recklessness, which I mentioned earlier, broke through. ‘Thank you, Mr Jones. There
is
something. As I’m leaving in the morning, I wonder if you know a jeweller who could do a rush job for me? It’s no use if he can’t do it today. I want him to make a small gold badge – the cheapest gold will do, or even something that only looks like gold with a fairly simple design that I’ll draw for him. But it must be done today because I want to take it with me. Now is there anybody you know who could do it, Mr Jones?’

‘But of course,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘My friend Pietro Danelli will do this for you, at my special request. We will take a taxi at once to his shop. It is only a small shop, as you will see, but he is an expert craftsman – and a topping old fellow. Let us go.’

There wasn’t much of the morning left by the time we’d found a taxi and Mr Jones had directed it to Danelli’s shop, which was well away from the centre of the city, in a hot and smelly tangle of back streets, populated by handsome sluts, amiable drunks, and all the wild kids they’d produced between them. Mr Jones explained that on paper Chile was one of the most progressive welfare states in the world, but that it lacked the kind of people to set the social machinery to work. He was surprisingly severe about this difference between theory and practice, and I felt I couldn’t tell him that these boozy ragamuffins and their kids seemed to me to be enjoying themselves far more than our highly privileged citizens, swarming into the Underground twice a day to pay rents, rates and taxes. Danelli’s shop looked as if it had been bankrupt for years and was now only waiting for the whole street to fall down. But Danelli himself, sitting behind his counter doing something to a watch, was one of those magnificent-looking elderly Italians who might be Toscanini’s cousins. He’d only a few words of English, so Mr Jones acted as interpreter. I made a sketch of the design I wanted, the wavy line with the figure eight above it, and after some discussion about size, I made Danelli understand that nine-carat gold was quite good enough for me, and he agreed to make the badge for something between five and seven pounds. There was then more talk between him and Mr Jones.

‘At seven tonight it must be ready,’ said Mr Jones, all smiles. ‘Pietro gives a party upstairs tonight for one of his daughters. In Chile we are very fond of parties, all kinds of parties. So tonight when you come for this article he makes for you, you are also invited to the party, Mr Bedford.’ He came closer and made a special conspirator face I hadn’t seen before. ‘I think it would be jolly good for the party if you paid for the article now perhaps. You can trust my friend. He will have it ready for you. And I will be coming too.’

I wouldn’t have paid Mr Jones himself any money in advance for anything, but I felt there was a kind of good craftsman’s integrity in Danelli, so I left about five pounds worth of
pesos
with him as an advance on the job. When we returned to the taxi, which we’d kept because this wasn’t a taxi neighbourhood, Mr Jones invited me to lunch with him, but I muttered something about meeting a British Council man. If I was seeing Mr Jones again that night, I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day with him. Finally we agreed that he should pick me up at my hotel round about six-thirty to take me to Danelli’s party.

Perhaps I’d have done better lunching with Mr Jones. The main course of the hotel lunch seemed to be boiled horse with plain rice. I washed it down with a bottle of the local red wine, and then went up to my room feeling as if I weighed a ton. As soon as I saw my bed I peeled off my shirt and pants, and as soon as I stretched myself out I fell asleep. After a shower, about half-past five, I felt much better, arranged for my plane ticket to be sent round to the hotel, then settled down over a drink to wait for Mr Jones.

His dark suit looked just as crumpled as his light one. His emerald green shirt had gone but in its place he was now wearing a cobalt violet one, which made his face look as if it had been modelled out of pale margarine. He seemed even more pleased with himself and with life than he had been in the morning, and he insisted upon standing me a drink before we set out for Danelli’s. He may not have actually called me ‘Old bean’ but a lot of Edwardian slang came into his talk now, as if he’d spent the afternoon brushing up his English with early Wodehouse.

The room above Danelli’s shop was surprisingly large but not big enough for that party. I’ve often thought that parties bring out the worst in the English and the Americans, but these Chileans seemed to be natural party types, delighted to be jammed in with sixty other people in a room that could comfortably hold only about thirty. After the first half-hour or so, I lost sight of both Mr Jones and Danelli. Red and white wine and
pisco
were poured without stint. There was plenty of food, but boiled horse and rice were back on the menu, and the various kinds of shellfish, including some little black crabs that seemed to be still alive, looked a bit sinister, so I satisfied what little appetite I had with macaroni and tomato, bread and cheese. Some of the girls were gay and pretty, and some of their young men talked to me in fairly fluent English. Finally, a space was cleared, God knows how, for a strange-looking middle-aged woman, her face a dark ruin of Indian sorrow, who sang folk songs to a guitar. By the time she’d finished I was ready to go, but I still hadn’t been given the gold badge I’d ordered and mostly paid for, and I began asking for Danelli and Mr Jones. It was then that a young man I hadn’t spoken to before, had never even noticed, pulled me out of the party, not roughly but firmly, and took me up a short flight of stairs into what appeared to be Danelli’s bedroom. Above the bed, sardonically presiding, was a portrait of Lenin.

Sitting on the bed, probably ruining it, was Mr Jones. In his left hand was a glass of
pisco
, and in his right, pointing straight at my navel, was one of the nastiest-looking automatics I’ve ever seen. It waved me into the only chair in the room. Danelli was standing before the window, looking noble and melancholy, Toscanini about to conduct an
adagio
movement. The young man who had brought me here was now leaning against the door, and another young man, a tough type, was keeping him company there. I had time to glance round, taking all this in, before Mr Jones spoke. He was in no hurry; he was enjoying himself.

‘I’ve come for that badge, Mr Jones,’ I told him. ‘And would you mind putting that automatic away? You’re four to one, and those things have a nasty habit of going off if people get excited.’

‘Very well, Mr Bedford.’ He put it down beside him on the bed. ‘And you shall have your badge when you have answered some questions.’

‘Go ahead. I’ll try.’

‘I think you are working with Nazis, Mr Bedford.’

‘Then you can think again, Mr Jones. To begin with, I wouldn’t know how to work with Nazis, even if I wanted to, because I don’t know any. And I certainly wouldn’t want to, not after spending some years of my life fighting Nazis. I was fighting Nazis when Stalin and all your Russian friends were still sending Hitler anything he wanted.’

Mr Jones ignored this last crack. ‘You are going to Osparas, to the German chemical company there.’

‘I’m going to Osparas, certainly, but I didn’t even know there’s a German chemical company at Osparas.’

‘There is nothing else at Osparas but this company and its staff and workers. You told me yourself this morning that you were not going to the Emerald Lake to paint its scenes but to see some people there. Your exact words, Mr Bedford. And we have thought for some time that the company at Osparas is an undercover Nazi organisation. At the head of it is a man called von Emmerick who was a high-ranking German General Staff officer during the war.’ He must have noticed my reaction to this last statement. He gave me a very sharp look and his hand moved towards the automatic. ‘Well, Mr Bedford?’

‘What you say interests me, Mr Jones. I met von Emmerick not long ago at a party in America, and he struck me then as being a German General Staff type. But I’m not here because of him, and I didn’t even know he was running this company at Osparas. I’m here because I’m trying to find a cousin of mine, a bio-chemist, who took a job in Peru and then disappeared. And from what I learnt in Peru I believe I might find him down there at Osparas. And don’t think he’s a Nazi sympathiser – far from it. I don’t believe he went to Osparas of his own free will. But I promised his wife I’d find him, and that’s why I’m going to Osparas.’

Mr Jones and Danelli exchanged glances and then spoke rapidly in Spanish. Danelli produced a small box, took the gold badge out of it and handed it to Mr Jones, who stared at it a moment before he turned to me again. ‘My friend Danelli wishes to know the meaning of this badge. And so do I.’