The Heart Of The Matter Part 9

'Have you any idea why he did it?'

'I didn't know him well enough. We didn't get on together.'

'The only white men here. It seems a pity.'

'He offered to lend me some books, but they weren't at all the kind of books I care to read - love stories, novels ...'

'What do you read, Father?'

'Anything on the saints, Major Scobie. My great devotion is to the Little Flower.'

'He drank a lot, didn't he? Where did he get it from?'

'Yusef's store, I suppose.'

'Yes. He may have been in debt?'

'I don't know. It's terrible, terrible.'

Scobie finished his aspirin. 'I suppose I'd better go along.' It was day now outside, and there was a peculiar innocence about the light, gentle and clear and fresh before the sun climbed.

'I'll come with you. Major Scobie.'

The police sergeant sat in a deck-chair outside the D.C.'s bungalow. He rose and raggedly saluted, then immediately in his hollow unformed voice began to read his report. 'At 3.30 p.m. yesterday, sah, I was woken by D.C.'s boy, who reported that D.C. Pemberton, sah ...'

'That's all right, sergeant, I'll go inside and have a look round.' The chief clerk waited for him just inside the door.

The living-room of the bungalow had obviously once been the D.C.'s pride - that must have been in b.u.t.terworth's day. There was an air of elegance and personal pride in the furniture; it hadn't been supplied by the Government. There were eighteenth-century engravings of the old colony on the wall and in one bookcase were the volumes that b.u.t.terworth had left behind him - Scobie noted some t.i.tles and authors, Maitland's Const.i.tutional History, Sir Henry Maine, Bryce's Holy Roman Empire, Hardy's poems, and the Doomsday Records of Little Withington, privately printed. But imposed on all this were the traces of Pemberton - a gaudy leather pouf of so-called native work, the marks of cigarette-ends on the chairs, a stack of the books Father Clay had disliked - Somerset Maugham, an Edgar Wallace, two Horlers, and spread-eagled on the settee, Death Laughs at Locksmiths, The room was not properly dusted and b.u.t.terworth's books were stained with damp.

'The body is in the bedroom, sah,' the sergeant said. Scobie opened the door and went in - Father Clay followed him. The body had been laid on the bed with a sheet over the face. When Scobie turned the sheet down to the shoulder he had the impression that he was looking at a child in a nightshirt quietly asleep: the pimples were the pimples of p.u.b.erty and the dead face seemed to bear the trace of no experience beyond the cla.s.s-room or the football field. 'Poor child,' he said aloud. The pious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of Father Clay irritated him. It seemed to him that unquestionably there must be mercy for someone so unformed. He asked abruptly, 'How did he do it?'

The police sergeant pointed to the picture rail that b.u.t.ter-worth had meticulously fitted - no Government contractor would have thought of it. A picture - an early native king receiving missionaries under a State umbrella - leant against the wall and a cord remained twisted over the bra.s.s picture hanger. Who would have expected the flimsy contrivance not to collapse? He can weigh very little, he thought, and he remembered a child's bones, light and brittle as a bird's. His feet when he hung must have been only fifteen inches from the ground.

'Did he leave any papers?' Scobie asked the clerk. 'They usually do. Men who are going to die are apt to become garrulous with self-revelations.

'Yes, sah, in the office.'

It needed only a casual inspection to realize how badly the office had been kept. The filing cabinet was unlocked: the trays on the desk were filled by papers dusty with inattention. The native clerk had obviously followed the same ways as his chief. 'There, sah, on the pad.'

Scobie read, in a hand-writing unformed as the face, a script-writing which hundreds of his school contemporaries must have been turning out all over the world: Dear Dad, - Forgive all this trouble. There doesn't seem anything else to do. It's a pity I'm not in the army because then I might be killed. Don't go and pay the money I owe - the fellow doesn't deserve it. They may try and get it out of you. Otherwise I wouldn't mention it. It's a rotten business for you, but it can't be helped. Your loving son. The signature was 'd.i.c.ky'. It was like a letter from school excusing a bad report.

He handed the letter to Father Clay. 'You are not going to tell me there's anything unforgivable there, Father. If you or I did it, it would be despair - I grant you anything with us. We'd be d.a.m.ned because we know, but he doesn't know a thing.'

'The Church's teaching ...'

'Even the Church can't teach me that G.o.d doesn't pity the young ...' Scobie broke abruptly off. 'Sergeant, see that a grave's dug quickly before the sun gets too hot. And look out for any bills he owed. I want to have a word with someone about this.' When he turned towards the window the light dazzled him. He put his hand over his eyes and said, 'I wish to G.o.d my head ...' and shivered. 'I'm in for a dose if I can't stop it. If you don't mind Ali putting up my bed at your place, Father, I'll try and sweat it out'

He took a heavy dose of quinine and lay naked between the blankets. As the sun climbed it sometimes seemed to bun that the stone walk of the small cell-like room sweated with cold and sometimes were baked with heat. The door was open and Ali squatted on the step just outside whittling a piece of wood. Occasionally he chased away villagers who raised their voices within the area of sick-room silence. The peine forte et dure weighed on Scobie's forehead: occasionally it pressed him into sleep.

But in this sleep there were no pleasant dreams. Pemberton and Louise were obscurely linked. Over and over again he was reading a letter which consisted only of variations on the figure 200 and the signature at the bottom was sometimes 'd.i.c.ky' and sometimes 'Ticki'; he had the sense of time pa.s.sing and his own immobility between the blankets - mere was something he had to do, someone he had to save, Louise or d.i.c.ky or Ticki, but he was tied to the bed and they laid weights on his forehead as you lay weights on loose papers. Once the sergeant came to the door and Ali chased him away, once Father Clay tiptoed in and took a tract off a shelf, and once, but that might have been a dream, Yusef came to the door.

About five in the evening he woke feeling dry and cool and weak and called Ali in. 'I dreamed I saw Yusef.'

'Yusef come for to see you, sah.'

'Tell him I'll see him now.' He felt tired and beaten about the body: he turned to face the stone wall and was immediately asleep. In his sleep Louise wept silently beside him; he put out his hand and touched the stone wall again - 'Everything shall be arranged. Everything. Ticki promises.' When he awoke Yusef was beside him.

'A touch of fever, Major Scobie. I am very sorry to see you poorly.'

'I'm sorry to see you at all, Yusef.'

'Ah, you always make fun of me.'

'Sit down, Yusef. What did you have to do with Pemberton?'

Yusef eased his great haunches on the hard chair and noticing that his flies were open put down a large and hairy hand to deal with them. 'Nothing, Major Scobie.'

'It's an odd coincidence that you are here just at the moment when he commits suicide.'

'I think myself it is providence.'

'He owed you money, I suppose?'

'He owed my store-manager money.'

'What sort of pressure were you putting on nun, Yusef?'

'Major, you give an evil name to a dog and the dog is finished. If the D.C. wants to buy at my store, how can my manager stop selling to him? If he does that, what will happen? Sooner or later there will be a first-cla.s.s row. The Provincial Commissioner will find out. The D.C. will be sent home. If he does not stop selling, what happens then? The D.C. runs up more and more bills. My manager becomes afraid of me, he asks the D.C. to pay - there is a row that way. When you have a D.C. like poor young Pemberton, there will be a row one day whatever you do. And the Syrian is always wrong.'

'There's quite a lot in what you say, Yusef.' The pain was beginning again. 'Give me that whisky and quinine, Yusef.'

'You are not taking too much quinine, Major Scobie? Remember blackwater.'

'I don't want to be stuck up here for days. I want to kill this at birth. I've too many things to do.'

'Sit up a moment, Major, and let me beat your pillows.'

'You aren't a bad chap, Yusef.'

Yusef said, 'Your sergeant has been looking for bills, but he could not find any. Here are IOU's though. From my manager's safe.' He flapped his thigh with a little sheaf of papers.

'I see. What are you going to do with them?'

'Burn them,' Yusef said. He took out a cigarette-lighter and lit the corners. 'There,' Yusef said. 'He has paid, poor boy. There is no reason to trouble his father.'

'Why did you come up here?'

'My manager was worried. I was going to propose an arrangement.'

'One needs a long spoon to sup with you, Yusef.'

'My enemies do. Not my friends. I would do a lot for you, Major Scobie.'

'Why do you always call me a friend, Yusef?'

'Major Scobie,' Yusef said, leaning his great white head forward, reeking of hair oil, 'friendship is something in the soul. It is a thing one feels. It is not a return for something. You remember when you put me into court ten years ago?'

'Yes, yes.' Scobie turned his head away from the light of the door.

'You nearly caught me, Major Scobie, that time. It was a matter of import duties, you remember. You could have caught me if you had told your policeman to say something a little different. I was quite overcome with astonishment, Major Scobie, to sit in a police court and hear true facts from the mouths of policemen. You must have taken a lot of trouble to find out what was true, and to make them say it. I said to myself, Yusef, a Daniel has come to the Colonial Police.'

'I wish you wouldn't talk so much, Yusef. I'm not interested in your friendship.'

'Your words are harder than your heart, Major Scobie. I want to explain why in my soul I have always felt your friend. You have made me feel secure. You will not frame me. You need facts, and I am sure the facts will always be in my favour.' He dusted the ashes from his white trousers, leaving one more grey smear. 'These are facts. I have burned all the IOU's.'

'I may yet find traces, Yusef, of what kind of agreement you were intending to make with Pemberton. This station controls one of the main routes across the border from - d.a.m.nation, I can't think of names with this head.'

'Cattle smugglers. I'm not interested in cattle.'

'Other things are apt to go back the other way.'

'You are still dreaming of diamonds, Major Scobie. Everybody has gone crazy about diamonds since the war.'

'Don't feel too certain, Yusef, that I won't find something when I go through Pemberton's office.'

'I feel quite certain, Major Scobie. You know I cannot read or write. Nothing is ever on paper. Everything is always in my head.' Even while Yusef talked, Scobie dropped asleep - into one of those shallow sleeps that last a few seconds and have only time to reflect a preoccupation. Louise was coming towards him with both hands held out and a smile that he hadn't seen upon her face for years. She said, 'I am so happy, so happy,' and he woke again to Yusef's voice going soothingly on. 'It is only your friends who do not trust you, Major Scobie. I trust you. Even that scoundrel Tallit trusts you.'

It took him a moment to get this other face into focus. His brain adjusted itself achingly from the phrase 'so happy' to the phrase 'do not trust'. He said, 'What are you talking about, Yusef?' He could feel the mechanism of his brain creaking, grinding, sc.r.a.ping, cogs failing to connect, all with pain.

'First, there is the Commissionership.'

'They need a young man,' he said mechanically, and thought, if I hadn't fever I would never discuss a matter like this with Yusef.

'Then the special man they have sent from London ...'

'You must come back when I'm clearer, Yusef. I don't know what the h.e.l.l you are talking about.'

'They have sent a special man from London to investigate the diamonds - they are crazy about diamonds - only the Commissioner must know about him - none of the other officers, not even you.'

'What rubbish you talk, Yusef. There's no such man.'

'Everybody guesses but you.'

'Too absurd. You shouldn't listen to rumour, Yusef.'

'And a third thing. Tallit says everywhere you visit me.'

'Tallit! Who believes what Tallit says?'

'Everybody everywhere believes what is bad.'

'Go away, Yusef. Why do you want to worry me now?'

'I just want you to understand, Major Scobie, that you can depend on me. I have friendship for you in my soul. That is true, Major Scobie, it is true.' The reek of hair-oil come closer as he bent towards the bed: the deep brown eyes were damp with what seemed to be emotion. 'Let me pat your pillow. Major Scobie.'

'Oh, for goodness' sake, keep away,' Scobie said.

'I know how things are. Major Scobie, and if I can help .. I am a well-off man.'

'I'm not looking for bribes, Yusef,' he said wearily and turned his head away to escape the scent.

'I am not offering you a bribe, Major Scobie. A loan at any time on a reasonable rate of interest - four per cent per annum. No conditions. You can arrest me next day if you have facts. I want to be your friend. Major Scobie. You need not be my friend. There is a Syrian poet who wrote, "Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away."'

'It sounds a very bad poem to me. But I'm no judge.'

'It is a happy chance for me that we should be here together. In the town there are so many people watching. But here, Major Scobie, I can be of real help to you. May I fetch you more blankets?'

'No, no, just leave me alone.'

'I hate to see a man of your characteristics, Major Scobie, treated badly.'

'I don't mink the time's ever likely to come, Yusef, when I shall need your pity. If you want to do something for me, though, go away and let me sleep.'

But when he slept the unhappy dreams returned. Upstairs Louise was crying, and he sat at a table writing his last letter. 'It's a rotten business for you, but it can't be helped. Your loving husband, d.i.c.ky,' and then as he turned to look for a weapon or a rope, it suddenly occurred to him that this was an act he could never do. Suicide was for ever out of his power - he couldn't condemn himself for eternity - no cause was important enough. He tore up his letter and ran upstairs to tell Louise that after all everything was all right, but she had stopped crying and the silence welling out from inside the bedroom terrified him. He tried the door and the door was locked. He called out, 'Louise, everything's all right. I've booked your pa.s.sage,' but there was no answer. He cried again, 'Louise,' and then a key turned and the door slowly opened with a sense of irrecoverable disaster, and he saw standing just inside Father Clay, who said to him, 'The teaching of the Church ...' Then he woke again to the small stone room like a tomb.

2.

He was away for a week, for it took three days for the fever to run its course and another two days before he was fit to travel. He did not see Yusef again.

It was past midnight when he drove into town. The houses were white as bones in the moonlight; the quiet streets stretched out on either side like the arms of a skeleton, and the faint sweet smell of flowers lay on the air. If he had been returning to an empty house he knew that he would have been contented. He was tired and he didn't want to break the silence - it was too much to hope that Louise would be asleep, too much to hope that things would somehow have become easier in his absence and that he would see her free and happy as she had been in one of his dreams.

The small boy waved his torch from the door: the frogs croaked from the bushes, and the pye dogs wailed at the moon. He was home. Louise put her arms round him: the table was laid for a late supper, the boys ran to and fro with his boxes: he smiled and talked and kept the bustle going. He talked of Pemberton and Father Clay and mentioned Yusef, but he knew that sooner or later he would have to ask how things had been with her. He tried to eat, but he was too tired to taste the food.

'Yesterday I cleared up his office and wrote my report - and that was that.' He hesitated, 'That's all my news,' and went reluctantly on, 'How have things been here?' He looked quickly up at her face and away again. There had been one chance in a thousand that she would have smiled and said vaguely, 'Not so bad' and then pa.s.sed on to other things, but he knew from her mouth that he wasn't so lucky as that Something fresh had happened.

But the outbreak - whatever it was to be - was delayed. She said, 'Oh, Wilson's been attentive.'

'He's a nice boy.'

'He's too intelligent for his job. I can't think why he's out here as just a clerk.'

'He told me he drifted.'