The collected stories (25 page)

'Forgive my questions.'

'That's okay. I have to explain this about once a week. As a matter of fact I was just saying the same thing to the dean. That's him over there with the beard, if you can see him in this spooky room.'

'Odd,' I said, 'your father coming all this way. To America.'

'Not so odd when you consider that his first wife was an American. But like they say, that was in another country.'

I had no more questions. The dance ended. People were clapping.

But she was saying, 'I can't understand why he came here. I'm leaving for India the day after tomorrow. I can hardly wait.'

'Who knows,' I said. 'You might meet an Indian boy and marry him and never leave India.'

'Not if my father has anything to do with it!' she said, and she raised her eyebrows and laughed loudly and I watched the love knot rising and falling at her throat, a jewel pulsing warmly on that dark velvet skin. She excused herself and disappeared, but I still saw the love knot, the gold threads of the filigree, meeting and crossing and meeting again. And I had a vision of a child I once saw in Calcutta, tracing figure eights in the dust with a wobbling stick. I watched and he drew a dozen or more, and the more he traced the more the figure changed, so that just before he left off, the final lines in each figure which had touched with such symmetry at the beginning ceased to meet at all and left a line curving at an angle in the dust, the open hourglass of an imperfect eight.

What Have You Done to Our Leo?

At the end of the meal, the Sunday curry lunch which many of the expatriates in Dar es Salaam ate in the upstairs dining room of the Rex Hotel, Ernie Grigson leaned over and whispered seriously and slowly to Leo Mockler's ear: Tm going to ask you for a big favor some time when I'm sober.' Ernie found his glass and swallowed some beer. He added, 'Mention it to me tomorrow, okay?'

Leo said yes, expelling it quickly with a vaporous belch, and as he did he saw Margo at the end of the table watching the two of them. Although Margo did not speak, she had the staring look of the practiced wife who knows without hearing him what her husband is saying.

But Ernie and Margo weren't married. They had planned to be months before, and then, out of the blue, Amy - Ernie's wife -went to India with the two children. Amy was living in an ashram outside Bombay. She wrote letters which were vague and dreamy and which always ended with demands for money. She never mentioned divorce. Ernie wondered if perhaps she was ill (the food? the heat? - Amy had never been strong). He wrote to the elderly Canadian lady who ran the ashram, he asked about Amy. The lady wrote back in shaky script on handmade paper, stamped at the top with a Hindu symbol in blue: Amy was fine and the children were happy; 'Amy's thoughts are serene and with us. She has many friends here. It will confuse her to preoccupy her mind with the separation. Amy needs time.'

Ernie was angry: Amy in India had all the time in the world! And it had been understood that the divorce was a mutual wish. In those last months before Amy left for Bombay they had even stopped discussing the divorce: the arguments ended and the indifference that followed was more final than silence, worse than their quarreling had ever been.

Margo had moved in with Ernie the day Amy left. Leo visited them. He could sense their tension, which was lovers' tension, haphazardly pitching them into moods. Marriage, they agreed, was

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a trivial, nearly silly ceremony - but Ernie was still married to Amy and that mattered. Three times Leo heard the elderly Canadian lady's letter being read out; the last time it was read by Margo, who was pregnant now.

It was April in Dar es Salaam, and the rains were on them. The road to Ernie's house was sodden, and the raised sections at the edges broke off in chunks. There were a number of simple brown puddles which proved bottomless and swallowed the wheels of cars. And insects, seemingly given life by the floods of rainwater, crawled over the furniture and clung to windows. Even when it was not raining the air was heavy with wetness and insect racket. Ernie said that screens killed the breeze.

Leo, who lived at a boarding house, The Palms, a mile up the Oyster Bay Road, stopped driving all the way out to Ernie's. He saw the couple only on Sundays at the curry lunch. He was glad he did not see them often, because Margo's mood now did not concern the divorce anymore but was rather a tight shrewish incomprehension over why Ernie had married Amy in the first place. And Leo, once used as a witness, was expected to take sides. So it was 'What do you think, Leo?' and also the rain that kept him away.

On Monday at five Leo pushed through the swinging saloon doors of the Rex and saw Ernie at the end of the bar, standing with one foot on the brass rail, studying the deeply scarred dart board.

'Large Tusker,' said Leo to the barman, drawing beside Ernie and startling him.

'Rough day?' asked Ernie. He held his glass to his lips.

The usual,' said Leo. He worked at the National and Grindlays on Shirazi Street. He seldom spoke about his job to Ernie, who had something to do with traffic control at the airport, and thought naively (but like most other people) that Leo was rich because he worked in a bank. 'I get long leave in September,' said Leo. 'I need it, too. I'm thinking of going back via Beirut and Athens.'

i might be able to do something for you - get you a concession, reduced rates, that sort of thing,' said Ernie.

'Really?' Ernie had never made an offer like that before; and the most Leo had allowed Ernie at the bank was jumping the queue on Saturday mornings at the end of the month. 'As a matter of fact 1 was also thinking of going to Prague, but it costs a bit extra.'

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR LEO?

'I could fix it for you/ said Ernie. 'There's a connecting flight to Prague from Athens. Have you booked?'

'No,' said Leo.

'Write down the places you want to go on a piece of paper. Leave it to me. I'll take care of it.'

Then Leo remembered what Ernie had said on Sunday. He was going to mention it. But it seemed so obvious: the favor in return.

'What are you drinking?' asked Leo.

'I'm all right,' said Ernie. He looked into his glass and said, 'You remember what I asked you yesterday?'

'The favor?'

'That's right,' said Ernie, and tried to chuckle. 'Well, the other day I was trying to think who was my best friend. I thought of Charlie and Agnes, Alan, the boys at the airport. And you know what? I couldn't think of one that I could rely on.'

'Money?' asked Leo. He felt sure it was not, but said it to help Ernie along.

'No. I don't have much, but that's the thing, see? This is the one thing money won't buy.'

'You've got me in suspense,' said Leo.

'It's my divorce,' said Ernie. He put his glass down, and with his hands empty he seemed to become conscious of their trembling. He picked them up and made fists and began to rub his eyes, speaking tiredly as he did so: 'I've been seeing lawyers about it, and they all say it's hopeless. There are only two legal grounds for divorce here in Tanganyika.' A long-time resident, Ernie always used the country's colonial name. 'Nonconsummation and adultery, just like UK. And since I've got two kids I can't very well say I never poked my wife, can I?' He laughed briefly and took his fists from his eyes, which were now very red. 'So that leaves me with adultery.'

'It happens in the best of families,' said Leo.

'Sure,' said Ernie, 'but did you ever think how hard it is to prove? The lawyers tell me that I have to supply the name of the chap and of course his address. Then I have to give the number of times and the places where I think it happened. If I can't give the details my divorce is up the spout.' Ernie shook his head. 'God, I haven't had a good night's sleep in ages.'

'Amy's no help, I suppose.'

'Useless,' said Ernie. 'Absolutely useless. I send a check every

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bloody month and she never thanks me. She's only written a couple of times. She wants a tape recorder, she wants a camera. I don't know what she does with the money - a hundred quid goes a long way in India.' In a resigned tone Ernie said, 'But she always took me for granted, you know.'

'Well, who do you think it was that -' Leo stopped deliberately, but Ernie simply watched Leo's eyes and showed no inclination to speak. 'That, um, committed adultery with her?'

'That's just it!' Ernie said. 'She didn't. That's only the grounds.'

'Oh, the grounds,' said Leo. 'But in order to get your divorce here you've got to prove she went off with someone, isn't that right?'

'I could go to Mexico. Divorces are easy there - mental cruelty, incompatibility, lots of vague stuff,' said Ernie. 'But I can't spare the time.'

'It really is hopeless,' said Leo. 'Funny, I thought Amy was playing around.'

'She wasn't,' said Ernie, seemingly offended by what Leo had said. 'I'm no fool. We weren't suited to each other - I knew that before we got married. But she went on about how she'd kill herself if I wouldn't have her. That sort of thing. We got married and that was a mistake, but no one made a monkey out of me, not even when my marriage was breaking up.'

The image suggested a great ship foundering in a boiling sea; but marriage was a flimsy agreement, its only drama was its legality, the image was arrogant. It was the male pride, thought Leo: Ernie denying his cast-off wife's adultery. Her sin was his humiliation. He wanted it all ways.

'Maybe,' said Leo, 'she'll divorce you. After all, you were playing around, weren't you?'

'I found a woman I loved,' said Ernie. His sincerity reproached Leo.

'It's still adultery,' said Leo quickly, trying to cover his embarrassment. 'Amy can divorce you for it, can't she?'

'She's up in the clouds,' said Ernie. 'She's in that ashram. You know what they do there? They pray, sort of, and meditate, silly things like that. Besides, she's got her money coming every month. They all have in these ashrams - they're all rich or divorced there. They don't care; they go around barefoot and write poems. No, she'll never divorce me. I'll have to divorce her, and if I don't do

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR LEO?

it soon Margo's going to have a bastard in five months' time. A bastard with no passport,' Ernie said bitterly.

'But how do you expect to-' Again Ernie did not speak. He waited for Leo to finish. 'You can't divorce her. You haven't got any grounds. It's impossible, you said so yourself.'

'No, I didn't,' said Ernie.

Leo laughed. 'Yes, you did!'

'It's possible,' said Ernie slowly, 'but it's illegal. Did you ever hear of connivance?'

'I suppose conniving is what we're doing now,' said Leo.

'Not yet,' said Ernie. 'Have another drink?' Leo said yes, and Ernie went on. 'Amy never committed adultery with anyone and you know it. She wouldn't know where to begin. But if I say she did and can prove it, I can get the divorce - providing she agrees to the whole business.'

'You mean, concoct a story about a boy friend she had?'

'They call them corespondents.'

'So you have to find a corespondent.'

'That's the favor I was going to ask you,' said Ernie, and he said it with the same sincerity that had picked at Leo's shame earlier -that reproachful sentence, 'I found a woman I loved.'

'Me?' said Leo, but couldn't laugh. In a very thin voice he said, 'I only met her once.'

'Twice,' said Ernie. He took out a worn pocket diary and fingered the pages.

Leo remembered the first time. He was new in the country, and, having met Ernie casually in the Rex, Ernie had invited him home for a last drink. Amy had made a show of surprise, so wooden and deliberate that the word theatrical occurred to Leo; and then she used halting sarcasm: 'At least you could have given me a ring and let me know you were bringing someone.'

Ernie, much to Leo's discomfort, turned his back on his wife.

Leo said, 'I'm terribly sorry if I'm intruding.'

'It's not you,' Amy had said, 'it's him.'

It was clear they were not getting on well, and Leo thought: if a man was kind to her she would take him as a lover. Amy left the room. She came back without the ribbon in her hair; her hair was long and alive with the electricity the comb had left in it. She was charming to Leo, got him a drink, lit his cigarette, sat beside

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him and said, 'Have you got pots and pots of money?' when Leo told her he worked at the National and Grindlays.

'No, I'm just a clerk on the foreign exchange side, though I started out on fixed deposits. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to save enough money so that I can resign in a few years and go back to university.'

'I was at Exeter,' Amy said. Her reply was pleasing: she was one of the few people who had not said, 'At your age?' when he mentioned going back to university. 'I did art history, but I read fiction most of the time.'

'I read a lot of novels,' said Leo. 'I'm very fond of-'

'I haven't read a book since -' Here Amy looked at Ernie. 'Since I met you.'

'Well, children must take up a great deal of your time,' said Leo.

'Not here,' she said. 'We've got slaves - ayahs. They do everything, washing, cooking . . . the children are devoted to them. I've plenty of time. But no . . . interest. Are you married?'

Leo shook his head.

'God, how I envy you.' Amy closed her eyes and seemed to relax, and Leo took a good look at her. She was pale, small boned, blonde as a Swede, with a sharp lean nose and breasts which were probably small - it was hard to tell: she was wearing a loose shirt, one of Ernie's perhaps, and the breasts were only suggestions at the pockets. But she had a lovely fragile face, and with her eyes closed Leo could imagine her head on a pillow.

'You could do a little art history here,' Leo said.

'Bongo drums,' said Amy contemptuously. 'India - that's where the art is. Have you ever been to India, Leo?'

'No.' When had he told her his name? 'But I've always wanted to go.'

'Indians are fabulous creatures - very catlike, I always think, very gentle and smooth,' she said, stroking her forearm as she spoke. 'Erotic sculpture on temples. Yes! On holy temples! Fantastic things. They worship the lingam, you see. You wouldn't believe what they get up to,' she said, her eyes flashing. 'Look at poor Ernest - he's blushingV