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‘We sell only wine.’
I put three new francs on the counter-top. The man finished his patience game and collected the dog-eared cards together. He drank his glass of red wine and carried the empty glass and the greasy pack of cards to the counter. He put them both down and laid two twenty-old-franc pieces on top, then he wiped his hands on the front of his work jacket and stared at me for a moment. His eyes were quick and alert. He turned towards the door.
‘Are you going to tell me how to get to Monsieur Datt’s house?’ I asked the woman again.
‘We only sell wine,’ she said, scooping up the coins. I walked out into the hot midday sun. The man who had been playing patience walked slowly across to the tractor. He was a tall man, better nourished and more alert than the local inhabitants, perhaps thirty years old, walking like a horseman. When he reached the petrol pump, he whistled softly. The door opened immediately and an attendant came out.
‘Ten litres.’
The attendant nodded. He inserted the nozzle of the pump into the tank of the tractor, unlocked the handle and then rocked it to pump the spirit out. I watched them close to, but neither looked round. When the needle read ten litres, he stopped pumping and replaced the nozzle. ‘See you tomorrow,’ said the tall man. He did not pay. He threw a leg over the tractor seat and started the motor. There was an ear-splitting racket as it started. He let in the clutch too quickly and the big wheels slid in the dust for an instant before biting into the pavé and roaring away, leaving a trail of blue smoke. The one-eared dog awoke again as the sound and the hot sun hit it and went bounding up the road barking and snapping at the tractor wheels. That awoke the other dogs and they, too, began to bark. The tall man leaned over his saddle like an apache scout and caught the dog under its only ear with a wooden stick. It sang a descant of pain and retired from the chase. The other dogs too lost heart, their energy sapped by the heat. The barking ended raggedly.
‘I’m thinking of driving to the Datt house,’ I said to the pump attendant. He stared after the tractor. ‘He’ll never learn,’ he said. The dog limped back into the shade of the petrol pump. The attendant turned to face me. ‘Some dogs are like that,’ he said. ‘They never learn.’
‘If I drive to the Datt house I’ll need twenty litres of the best.’
‘Only one kind,’ said the man.
‘I’ll need twenty litres if you’ll be kind enough to direct me to the Datt place.’
‘You’d better fill her up,’ said the man. He raised his eyes to mine for the first time. ‘You’re going to need to come back, aren’t you?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘And check the oil and water.’ I took a ten-franc note from my pocket. ‘That’s for you,’ I said. ‘For your trouble.’
‘I’ll look at the battery too,’ he said.
‘I’ll commend you to the tourist board,’ I said. He nodded. He took the pump nozzle and filled the tank, he opened up the rad cap with a cloth and then rubbed the battery. ‘Everything’s okay,’ he said. I paid him for the petrol.
‘Are you going to check the tyres?’
He kicked one of them. ‘They’ll do you. It’s only down the road. Last house before the church. They are waiting for you.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, trying not to look surprised. Down the long straight road I watched the bus come, trailed by a cloud of dust. It stopped in the street outside the café. The customers came out to watch. The driver climbed on to the roof of the bus and got some boxes and cases down. One woman had a live chicken, another a birdcage. They straightened their clothes and stretched their limbs.
‘More visitors,’ I said.
He stared at me and we both looked towards the bus. The passengers finished stretching themselves and got back aboard again. The bus drove away, leaving just four boxes and a birdcage in the street. I glanced towards the café and there was a movement of eyes. It may have been the cat watching the fluttering of the caged bird; it was that sort of cat.
28
The house was the last one in the street, if you call endless railings and walls a street. I stopped outside the gates; there was no name or bell pull. Beyond the house a small child attending two tethered goats stared at me for a moment and ran away. Near to the house was a copse and half concealed in it a large grey square concrete block: one of the Wehrmacht’s indestructible contributions to European architecture.
A nimble little woman rushed to the gates and tugged them open. The house was tall and narrow and not particularly beautiful, but it was artfully placed in about twenty acres of ground. To the right, the kitchen garden sloped down to two large glasshouses. Beyond the house there was a tiny park where statues hid behind trees like grey stone children playing tag, and in between, there were orderly rows of fruit trees and an enclosure where laundry could just be glimpsed flapping in the breeze.
I drove slowly past a grimy swimming pool where a beach ball and some ice-cream wrappers floated. Tiny flies flickered close to the surface of the water. Around the rim of the pool there was some garden furniture: armchairs, stools and a table with a torn parasol. The woman puffed along with me. I recognized her now as the woman who had injected me. I parked in a paved yard, and she opened the side door of the house and ushered me through a large airy kitchen. She snapped a gas tap en passant, flipped open a drawer, dragged out a white apron and tied it around her without slowing her walk. The floor of the main hall was stone flags, the walls were white-washed and upon them were a few swords, shields and ancient banners. There was little furniture: an oak chest, some forbidding chairs, and tables bearing large vases full of freshly-cut flowers. Opening off the hall there was a billiard room. The lights were on and the brightly coloured balls lay transfixed upon the green baize like a pop-art tableau.
The little woman hurried ahead of me opening doors, waving me through, sorting amongst a bundle of large keys, locking each door and then darting around me and hurrying on ahead. Finally, she showed me into the lounge. It was soft and florid after the stark austerity of the rest of the house. There were four sofas with huge floral patterns, plants, knick-knacks, antique cases full of antique plates. Silver-framed photos, a couple of bizarre modern paintings in primary colours and a kidney-shaped bar trimmed in golden tin and plastic. Behind the bar were bottles of drink and arranged along the bar-top some bartender’s implements: strainers, shakers and ice-buckets.
‘I’m delighted to see you,’ said Monsieur Datt.
‘That’s good.’
He smiled engagingly. ‘How did you find me?’
‘A little bird told me.’
‘Damn those birds,’ said Datt, still smiling. ‘But no matter, the shooting season begins soon, doesn’t it?’
‘You could be right.’
‘Why not sit down and let me get you a drink. It’s damned hot, I’ve never known such weather.’
‘Don’t get ideas,’ I said. ‘My boys will come on in if I disappear for too long.’
‘Such crude ideas you have. And yet I suppose the very vulgarity of your mind is its dynamic. But have no fear, you’ll not have drugged food or any of that nonsense. On the contrary, I hope to prove to you how very wrong your whole notion of me is.’ He reached towards a bevy of cut-glass decanters. ‘What about Scotch whisky?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘You’re right.’ He walked across to the window. I followed him.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all. We are both ascetics.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ I said. ‘I like a bit of self-indulgence now and again.’
The windows overlooked a courtyard, its ivy-covered walls punctuated by the strict geometry of white shutters. There was a dovecote and white doves marched and counter-marched across the cobbles.
There was a hoot at the gate, then into the courtyard drove a large Citroën ambulance. ‘Clinique de Paradis’ it said along the side under the big red cross. It was very dusty as though it had made a long journey. Out of the driver’s seat climbed Jean-Paul; he tooted the horn.
‘It’s my ambulance,’ said Datt.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Jean-Paul driving.’
‘He’s a good boy,’ said Datt.
‘Let me tell you what I want,’ I said hurriedly.
Datt made a movement with his hand. ‘I know why you are here. There is no need to explain anything.’ He eased himself back into his armchair.
‘How do you know I’ve not come to kill you?’ I asked.
‘My dear man. There is no question of violence, for many reasons.’
‘For instance?’
‘Firstly you are not a man to use gratuitous violence. You would only employ violent means when you could see the course of action that the violence made available to you. Secondly, we are evenly matched, you and I. Weight for weight we are evenly matched.’
‘So are a swordfish and an angler, but one is sitting strapped into an armchair and the other is being dragged through the ocean with a hook in his mouth.’
‘Which am I?’
‘That’s what I am here to discover.’
‘Then begin, sir.’
‘Get Kuang.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean get Kuang. K.U.A.N.G. Get him here.’
Datt changed his mind about the drink; he poured himself a glass of wine and sipped it. ‘I won’t deny he’s here,’ he said finally.
‘Then why not get him?’
He pressed a buzzer and the maid came in. ‘Get Monsieur Kuang,’ he said.
The old woman went away quietly and came back with Kuang. He was wearing grey flannel trousers, open-neck shirt and a pair of dirty white tennis shoes. He poured himself a large Perrier water from the bar and sat down in an armchair with his feet sprawled sideways over the arm. ‘Well?’ he said to me.
‘I’m bringing you an American hydrogen expert to talk to.’
Kuang seemed unsurprised. ‘Petty, Barnes, Bertram or Hudson?’
‘Hudson.’
‘Excellent, he’s a top man.’
‘I don’t like it,’ said Datt.
‘You don’t have to like it,’ I said. ‘If Kuang and Hudson want to talk a little it’s nothing to do with you.’ I turned to Kuang. ‘How long will you want with him?’
‘Two hours,’ said Kuang. ‘Three at the most, less if he has written stuff with him.’
‘I believe he will have,’ I said. ‘He’s all prepared.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Datt complained.
‘Be quiet,’ said Kuang. He turned to me. ‘Are you working for the Americans?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m acting for them, just this one operation.’
Kuang nodded. ‘That makes sense; they wouldn’t want to expose one of their regular men.’
I bit my lip in anger. Hudson had, of course, been acting on American instructions, not on his own initiative. It was a plan to expose me so that the CIA could keep their own men covered. Clever bastards. Well, I’d grin and bear it and try to get something out of it.
‘That’s right,’ I agreed.
‘So you are not bargaining?’
‘I’m not getting paid,’ I said, ‘if that’s what you mean.’
‘How much do you want?’ asked Kuang wearily. ‘But don’t get big ideas.’
‘We’ll sort it out after you’ve seen Hudson.’
‘A most remarkable display of faith,’ said Kuang. ‘Did Datt pay you for the incomplete set of documents you let us have?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Now that our cards are on the table I take it you don’t really want payment.’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘Good,’ said Kuang. He hooked his legs off the arm of the chair and reached for some ice from the silver bucket. Before pouring himself a whisky he pushed the telephone across to me.
Maria was waiting near the phone when I called her. ‘Bring Hudson here,’ I said. ‘You know the way.’
‘Yes,’ said Maria. ‘I know the way.’
29
Kuang went out to get ready for Hudson. I sat down again in a hard chair. Datt noticed me wince.
‘You have a pain in the spine?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I did it in a discothèque.’
‘Those modern dances are too strenuous for me,’ said Datt.
‘This one was too strenuous for me,’ I said. ‘My partner had brass knuckles.’
Datt knelt down at my feet, took off my shoe and probed at my heel with his powerful fingers. He felt my ankle bone and tut-tutted as though it had been designed all wrong. Suddenly he plunged his fingers hard into my heel. ‘Ahh,’ he said, but the word was drowned by my shout of pain. Kuang opened the door and looked at us.
‘Are you all right?’ Kuang asked.
‘He’s got a muscular contraction,’ said Datt. ‘It’s acupuncture,’ he explained to me. ‘I’ll soon get rid of that pain in your back.’
‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Don’t do it if it’s going to make me lame for life.’
Kuang retreated back to his room. Datt inspected my foot again and pronounced it ready.
‘It should get rid of your pain,’ he said. ‘Rest for half an hour in the chair.’
‘It is a bit better,’ I admitted.
‘Don’t be surprised,’ said Datt, ‘the Chinese have practised these arts for centuries; it is a simple matter, a muscular pain.’
‘You practise acupuncture?’ I asked.
‘Not really, but I have always been interested,’ said Datt. ‘The body and the mind. The interaction of two opposing forces: body and mind, emotion and reason, the duality of nature. My ambition has always been to discover something new about man himself.’ He settled back into his chair. ‘You are simple. I do not say that as a criticism but rather in admiration. Simplicity is the most sought-after quality in both art and nature, but your simplicity encourages you to see the world around you in black-and-white terms. You do not approve of my inquiry into human thoughts and actions. Your puritan origin, your Anglo-Saxon breeding make it sinful to inquire too deeply into ourselves.’
