2

Tallit’s living-room to Wilson, who saw it for the first time, had the appearance of a country dance-hall. The furniture all lined the walls: hard chairs with tall uncomfortable backs, and in the corners the chaperons sitting out: old women in black silk dresses, yards and yards of silk, and a very old man in a smoking-cap. They watched him intently in complete silence, and evading their gaze he saw only bare walls except that at each corner sentimental French postcards were nailed up in a montage of ribbons and bows: young men smelling mauve Sowers, a glossy cherry shoulder, an impassioned kiss. Wilson found there was only one other guest besides himself, Father Rank, a Catholic priest, wearing his long soutane. They sat in opposite corners of the room among the chaperons whom Father Rank explained were Tallit’s grandparents and parents, two uncles, what might have been a great-great-aunt, a cousin. Somewhere out of sight Tallit’s wife was preparing little dishes which were handed to the two guests by his younger brother and his sister. None of them spoke English except Tallit, and Wilson was embarrassed by the way Father Rank discussed his host and his host’s family resoundingly across the room. ‘Thank you, no,’ Father Rank would say, declining a sweet by shaking his grey tousled head. ‘I’d advise you to be careful of those, Mr Wilson. Tallit’s a good fellow, but he won’t team what a western stomach will take. These old people have stomachs like ostriches.’

       ‘This is very interesting to me,’ Wilson said, catching the eye of a grandmother across the room and nodding and smiling at her. The grandmother obviously thought he wanted more sweets, and called angrily out for her granddaughter. ‘No, no,’ Wilson said vainly, shaking his head and smiling at the centenarian. The centenarian lifted his lip from a toothless gum and signalled with ferocity to Tallit’s younger brother, who hurried forward with yet another dish. ‘That’s quite safe,’ Father Rank shouted. ‘Just sugar and glycerine and a little flour.’ All the time their glasses were charged and recharged with whisky,

       ‘Wish you’d confess to me where you get this whisky from, Tallit,’ Father Rank called out with roguery, and Tallit beamed and slid agilely from end to end of the room, a word to Wilson, a word to Father Rank. He reminded Wilson of a young ballet dancer in his white trousers, his plaster of black hair and his grey polished alien face, and one glass eye like a puppet’s.

       ‘So the Esperança’s gone out,’ Father Rank shouted across the room. ‘Did they find anything, do you think?’

       ‘There was a rumour in the office,’ Wilson said, ‘about some diamonds.’

       ‘Diamonds, my eye,’ Father Rank said. ‘They’ll never find any diamonds. They don’t know where to look, do they, Tallit?’ He explained to Wilson, ‘Diamonds are a sore subject with Tallit. He was taken in by the false ones last year. Yusef humbugged you, eh, Tallit, you young rogue? Not so smart, eh? You a Catholic humbugged by a Mahomedan. I could have wrung your neck.’

       ‘It was a bad thing to do,’ Tallit said, standing midway between Wilson and the priest.

       ‘I’ve only been here a few weeks,’ Wilson said, ‘and everyone talks to me about Yusef. They say he passes false diamonds, smuggles real ones, sells bad liquor, hoards cottons against a French invasion, seduces the nursing sisters from the military hospital.

       ‘He’s a dirty dog,’ Father Rank said with a kind of relish. ‘Not that you can believe a single thing you hear in this place. Otherwise everybody would be living with someone else’s wife, every police officer who wasn’t in Yusef’s pay would be bribed by Tallit here.’

       Tallit said,’ Yusef is a very bad man.’

       ‘Why don’t the authorities run him in?’

       ‘I’ve been here for twenty-two years,’ Father Rank said, ‘and I’ve never known anything proved against a Syrian yet. Oh, often I’ve seen the police as pleased as Punch carrying their happy morning faces around, just going to pounce - and I think to myself, why bother to ask them what it’s about? they’ll just pounce on air.’

       ‘You ought to have been a policeman, Father.’

       ‘Ah,’ Father Rank said, ‘who knows? There are more policemen in this town than meet the eye - or so they say.’

       ‘Who say?’

       ‘Careful of those sweets,’ Father Rank said, ‘they are harmless in moderation, but you’ve taken four already. Look here, Tallit, Mr Wilson looks hungry. Can’t you bring on the bakemeats?’

       ‘Bakemeats?’

       ‘The feast,’ Father Rank said. His joviality filled the room with hollow sound. For twenty-two years that voice had been laughing, joking, urging people humorously on through the rainy and the dry months. Could its cheeriness ever have comforted a single soul? Wilson wondered: had it even comforted itself? It was like the noise one heard rebounding from the tiles in a public baths: the laughs and the splashes of strangers in the steam-heating.

       ‘Of course, Father Rank. Immediately, Father Rank.’ Father Rank, without being invited, rose from his chair and sat himself down at a table which like the chairs hugged the wan. There were only a few places laid and Wilson hesitated. ‘Come on. Sit down, Mr Wilson. Only the old folks will be eating with us - and Tallit of course.’

       ‘You were saying something about a rumour?’ Wilson asked.

       ‘My head is a hive of rumours,’ Father Rank said, making a humorous hopeless gesture. ‘If a man tells me anything I assume he wants me to pass it on. It’s a useful function, you know, at a time like this, when everything is an official secret, to remind people that their tongues were made to talk with and that the truth is meant to be spoken about. Look at Tallit now,’ Father Rank went on. Tallit was raising the corner of his black-out curtain and gazing into the dark street. ‘How’s Yusef, you young rogue?’ he asked. ‘Yusef’s got a big house across the street and Tallit wants it, don’t you, Tallit? What about dinner, Tallit, we’re hungry?’

       ‘It is here, Father, it is here,’ he said coming away from the window. He sat down silently beside the centenarian, and his sister served the dishes. ‘You always get a good meal in Tallit’s house,’ Father Rank said.

       ‘Yusef too is entertaining tonight.’

       ‘It doesn’t do for a priest to be choosy,’ Father Rank said, ‘but I find your dinner more digestible.’ His hollow laugh swung through the room.

       ‘Is it as bad as all that being seen at Yusef s?’

       ‘It is, Mr Wilson. If I saw you there, I’d say to myself, ‘Yusef wants some information badly about cottons - what the imports are going to be next month, say - what’s on the way by sea, and hell pay for his information.’ If I saw a girl go hi, I’d think it was a pity, a great pity.’ He took a stab at his plate and laughed again. ‘But if Tallit went in I’d wait to hear the screams for help.’

       ‘If you saw a police officer?’ Tallit asked.

       ‘I wouldn’t believe my eyes,’ the priest said. ‘None of them are such fools after what happened to Bailey.’

       ‘The other night a police car brought Yusef home,’ Tallit said. ‘I saw it from here plainly.’

       ‘One of the drivers earning a bit on the side,’ Father Rank said.

       ‘I thought I saw Major Scobie. He was careful not to get out. Of course I am not perfectly sure. It looked like Major Scobie.’

       ‘My tongue runs away with me,’ the priest said. ‘What a garrulous fool I am. Why, if it was Scobie, I wouldn’t think twice about it’ His eyes roamed the room. ‘Not twice,’ he said. ‘I’d lay next Sunday’s collection that everything was all right, absolutely all right,’ and he swung his great empty-sounding bell to and fro, Ho, ho, ho, like a leper proclaiming his misery.