Horse Under Water

54 Ossie moves like double this

As Baix had said, it was a country of wonders, and the days sped by as I prepared, watched and calculated. In the market we sat wrapping skewered kidney into the rich coarse bread and swallowing the smoke. We went to the cafés for sweet tea and hid in back rooms to drink Stork Beer for fear of offending the faithful. Ossie sketched plans of the local style of house and I lectured him from my scanty knowledge of elementary radio.

On the third day I visited Herr Knobel.

He wasn’t a cheerful hooligan like H.K. or a sad fanatic like Fernie Tomas. Here was a special kind of brain, and you never know where you are with a brain of this sort.

Knobel was da Cunha’s name. He lived in the old town. The street was five feet wide. The door was a hatch in the battered white wall. Inside the courtyard, wrought-iron gates made shadow pictures on the hot tiles. A small yellow bird high on the wall sang a short cadenza about how it would like to escape from its golden cage. A golden cage, I thought. A trap for the prisoner who has everything.

Da Cunha sat on a fine antique carpet reading Hoja de Lunes — the Madrid paper. Other carpets lined the walls and behind them bright coloured tilework shone with complex Arabic calligraphy. Here and there were leather cushions and through the dark doorway, just visible down the corridor, was a cool green patio; the slim leaves turning to silver swords as the breeze moved them under the hot sun.

Da Cunha sat in the middle of the room. He looked different, fatter. He wasn’t fatter, he wasn’t different. When I had seen him before he was trying to look like a slim, ascetic, Portuguese aristocrat. Now he was bothering no longer.

‘“Investigating”, your letter said’ — his voice was booming and plummy — ‘investigating what?’

‘Narcotics activities at Albufeira,’ I told him. He laughed a coarse spiteful laugh that was rich with gold.

‘So that’s it,’ he said. His eyes moved behind the thick lenses like bubbles in a glass of champagne.

‘I’m going to pull you in for it,’ I said.

‘You wouldn’t dare.’ It was my turn to laugh.

‘They sound like famous last words,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘I know that it’s impossible to connect me.’

Over da Cunha’s shoulder I could see through the window across the patio. The yellow bird was singing. Over the edge of the flat roof came a foot, slowly, waving from side to side looking for a foothold.

‘I was the person who assisted you,’ said da Cunha. ‘I told the V.N.V. to contact you. I gave you the sovereign die. I gave it to you.’

‘At Smith’s suggestion?’ I asked.

Da Cunha shrugged. ‘The fool had it all wrong. He would never leave everything to me. He for ever interfered.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Would you think me rude if I solicited some coffee? I just love coffee.’ Da Cunha arranged it immediately.

‘My friends here are very powerful,’ said da Cunha.

‘You mean Baix,’ I said. The servant boy brought a big brass bowl and an ornamental kettle. He set the bowl at my feet and poured water over my hands. It is the Muslim custom before food is eaten. I hoped the servant wouldn’t turn to da Cunha too quickly. I washed my hands slowly and efficiently. The figure that I had seen on the roof was now suspended from the parapet by both hands.

‘Baix came to see me a few days ago,’ I said, trying not to look out of the window. The feet came a few inches lower. I said, ‘But, as I told him, I am working with the authority of the World Health Organization. There are few governments that will hinder such authority.’ The feet sought and found the grille of the top-storey window.

‘Really,’ said da Cunha. The voluminous war-surplus bush jacket was billowing in the breeze.

‘Yes,’ I said. How could they fail to see Ossie? ‘It’s an important thing, health.’ Da Cunha smiled. I finished my hand-washing as Ossie disappeared through the window. The boy took the brass hand-washing gear to da Cunha.

‘You are a very clever man,’ I said to da Cunha. ‘You must have known what was going on at Albufeira.’ Da Cunha nodded.

I said, ‘What briefly were your impressions of this man Harry Kondit — and of Fernandes Tomas?’

Da Cunha unwound the gold-wire spectacles from his ear and extricated them from his white hair. ‘Harry Kondit; it was a pun of your English word “conduit”, of course.’

I nodded.

‘Witty, physically a little over-aware of himself. Natural charm in a brash unsophisticated way.’

‘His business?’

‘Managed with great care.’ Da Cunha answered immediately, then paused. ‘He obeyed what I imagine are the basic rules of the narcotics trade.’

‘Really,’ I said, ‘what are they?’

‘Nations are two-faced about narcotics,’ he said. ‘Few police forces arrest people who buy narcotics and take it away from that country. The rules are: never sell them in the same country that you buy, never process in the country where you sell, never sell in the country of which you are a citizen.’

‘Personality?’

‘He was an idealist gone sour,’ said da Cunha. ‘To be an idealist it is as well not to be born in America. Men like Kondit go through life acting like criminals, but persuade themselves that they are being persecuted for their ideals.’

‘What about Tomas?’ I asked.

Da Cunha smiled. ‘I am tempted to say that men like Tomas go through life acting like idealists but find themselves persecuted as criminals; but it would not be exactly true. Tomas was a unit of a nation’s strength. Anything that he finally became was due to the environment through which he passed. He was neither good nor bad; his misfortunes have always been due to the fact that he was prepared to listen to the other side of the argument. Not a very grievous fault, I would say.’

I agreed.

Da Cunha said, ‘And now you want to know why I did nothing to halt these two men and their disgusting trade. That is why you have followed me, or rather followed my laboratory equipment,’ said da Cunha. I nodded. He said, ‘It arrived so quickly and seemed to excite so little attention en route … There is an old Spanish proverb which runs “For a fleeing enemy make a golden bridge”.’ I bowed.

He said, ‘I knew that there was a risk of it, but …’ he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Without it I couldn’t work anyway. What is it that you really want: the “Weiss List”?’

‘I really don’t know for sure.’ I paused. ‘You as a scientist know that you start an experiment to find a coefficient of expansion and end up with control of the world.’

‘Some of us,’ said da Cunha, ‘prefer the coefficient of expansion.’

‘London has always been very interested in your ice-melting work,’ I said. Da Cunha’s eyes went very bright but he said nothing.

‘The ice-melting,’ I said again. I unfolded a message from London. ‘I sent them photos of your laboratory. This message says … blah blah here we are, says … “when the molecular construction of water forms regular patterns the result is ice, similarly if the regular patterns of the molecules of ice can be rearranged the ice would become water, instantaneously, instead of going through the laborious process of melting. Since at the present time the U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. have large fleets of missile-carrying submarines and none of them so far is capable of discharging missiles under even thin ice, the advantages of a method of making a hole in the ice (technically known as a ‘polynya’) are obvious and manifold. The work of Professor Knobel is vital to the Free World’s stake in the Arctic.”’

I folded the paper and placed it inside my wallet, taking great care not to let him see the message.

‘You come to the point very quickly,’ said da Cunha. He smiled a great self-satisfied smile and said, ‘The military aspects of this project do not interest me at all. All I want is to be left in peace. A painter is allowed to disappear to a remote part of the world and paint, why should I not disappear to a remote part of the world and continue my studies?’

‘I can imagine the owner of a flick-knife factory saying the same thing,’ I said.

The servant had brought pancakes with almonds and sugar inside. He offered them and we munched heartily into the plateful. I was wondering how to handle the next part while keeping an eye open for Ossie’s exit. Da Cunha leaned towards me. ‘It has no military importance and never has had,’ he said.

I said, ‘The way I heard it, there was a plan to freeze a narrow section of the English Channel in 1940 to march a German army over it.’

‘It was of no importance,’ said da Cunha.

I said, ‘I was on the other side of that Channel; I was keen it should stay liquid.’

‘I mean it was impossible to do. The theory was correct but the practical difficulties were insurmountable. But by 1945 I had done enough research to be near a breakthrough in basic science.’ Da Cunha chewed into a honey cake. ‘But by 1945 it was too late. The army had disintegrated; it was too late to do anything but wait.’

‘Wait for what?’ I asked.

‘For the renaissance of the middle class,’ he said. He was oversalivating, and now he prodded my chest.

‘You have come a long way to see me. I appreciate that. I am given to understand that you are highly placed in the Civil Service of your country. Whether you come offering good or threatening ill does not change the compliment you pay me. I shall give you advice to take back to your government: “Don’t destroy the middle classes!”’

I thought of taking that message back to the government of my country. I imagined trotting into Dawlish and saying, ‘We are not to destroy the middle classes.’ I looked at da Cunha and said ‘Yes.’ He went on hurriedly:

‘The Allies destroyed the middle classes in Germany after the war.’ I realized that he was speaking of the First World War. ‘The inflation destroyed savings overnight and pushed the middle classes into the arms of the Nazis. Where else could they go? The Dawes Plan gave Germany a loan of $200,000,000. It didn’t go to helping the middle classes — the people you had sitting in Spitfires in 1940. Ten million dollars went to Krupp and another twelve million to Thyssen, which meant to Hitler. The industrialists and the finance houses had a wonderful time, but the middle classes had disappeared into a political whirlpool.

‘And now we are reappearing. The new Europe will be a middle-class Europe. Run by people with taste, run not by jumped-up trade unionists and terrorist rabble-rousers but by men of culture, breeding and taste.’ Da Cunha was looking beyond me in a fixed way. I dared not look round. His sharp, bony fingers dug into my arm, his words were laden with spittle, ‘You call me a Fascist …’

‘No,’ I said nervously, ‘I called you nothing of the kind.’

He hadn’t waited for my reply. ‘Perhaps I am,’ he shouted, ‘perhaps I am a Fascist. If Young Europe is Fascist then I am proud to be a Fascist too.’

The servant boy was hovering at the door. How he had grown! I noticed for the first time that he was well over six foot of oiled muscle.

‘Take him,’ da Cunha shouted. He heaved at my arm and his adroit wiriness threw me off balance. ‘Take him to the cellar,’ he shouted, ‘give him six lashes. I’ll teach these thieving reactionary friends of the Jew Kondit what I mean by discipline.’ His mouth was a mousse of anger.

I said gently, ‘A man like you would never imprison an envoy.’ Da Cunha stretched himself to a regal height. ‘I have your message for my government,’ I coaxed. He looked through me for a moment or so and then gradually brought me into close focus.

He said, ‘It is only because you are an envoy that you shall live.’ He was speaking a little more quietly now. I caught the servant boy’s eye and he gave a slight twitch of the shoulders that might have been a shrug.

‘I shall carry your words to England,’ I said like something out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then da Cunha and I shook hands gravely as though one of us was about to step into a space capsule.

He said, ‘Could you let me have that message your London office sent?’

‘About molecular rearrangements of water particles?’ I said. ‘I’m afraid not, I shouldn’t have brought it with me really.’

‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘How did the last sentence read?’

‘I can remember it,’ I said, ‘It reads: “The work of Professor Knobel is vital to the anti-Bolshevist world’s stake in the Arctic”.’

‘When you get to my age,’ he said, ‘such food for the ego suddenly means a lot to one.’

‘I understand,’ I said. It was an understatement.