The Honorary Consul by Greene Graham

Author:Greene, Graham [Graham, Greene]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-05-21T23:00:00+00:00

2

Having sent out invitations by telephone from the airport Doctor Plarr waited for his two guests on the terrace of the Nacional. On a sheet of hotel notepaper he drafted a careful letter which he believed the Ambassador would have found sober and convincing. The city was beginning to wake up for the evening hours after the long siesta of the afternoon. A chain of cars drove by along the riverside. The white naked statue in the belvedere shone under the lamplight, and the Coca-Cola sign glowed in scarlet letters like the shrine of a saint. Through the darkness the ferry boat was screaming a warning from the Chaco shore. It was a few minutes past nine—far too early for most people to dine—and Doctor Plarr was alone on the terrace except for Doctor Benevento and his wife. Doctor Benevento sat taking little sips at an apéritif, as though he were suspiciously testing the tonic of a rival, while his wife, a severe and middle-aged woman who wore a large gold cross like some order of distinction, ostentatiously took nothing and watched the disappearance of her husband's aperitif with a false air of patience. It was a Thursday, Doctor Plarr remembered, and perhaps Doctor Benevento had come straight to the hotel from his weekly inspection of Mother Sanchez' girls. The two doctors ignored each other: after all the years which had passed since he arrived from Buenos Aires Doctor Plarr was still in the eyes of Doctor Benevento a foreign interloper.

Humphries was the first of his guests to arrive. He was tightly buttoned in a dark suit and his forehead was wet in the humid night. His temper was not improved when a bold mosquito, immediately he sat down, attacked his ankle through a thick gray woolen sock. The professor of English struck angrily out and complained, "I was just leaving for the Italian Club when I got your message," as if he resented being deprived of his usual goulash. He looked at the third place at table and asked, "Who's coming?"

"Doctor Saavedra."

"In God's name why? I can't understand what you see in that fellow. A pompous ass."

"I thought his advice might be useful. I want to draft a letter to the papers from the Anglo-Argentinian Club on behalf of Fortnum."

"You are fooling me. What club? It doesn't exist."

"You and I are going to found the club tonight. Saavedra, I hope, will be the president, I will be the chairman. I thought you wouldn't mind taking on the job of honorary secretary. There won't be very much to do."

"This is sheer madness," Humphries said. "As far as I know there's only one other Englishman in the city. Or there was. I'm convinced Fortnum's absconded. That woman of his must have been costing him a great deal of money. Sooner or later we shall hear that the accounts at the Consulate are in the red. Or more likely we shall hear nothing at all. Those Embassy fellows in B. A. are sure to hush things up.

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