Our Man in Havana by Greene Graham

Author:Greene, Graham [Graham, Greene]
Format: epub, pdf, mobi
Published: 2010-05-18T23:00:00+00:00

PART FOUR

Chapter 1

1

Wormold unlocked the door. The street-lamp over the way vaguely disclosed the vacuum cleaners standing around like tombs. He started for the stairs. Beatrice whispered, 'Stop, stop. I thought I heard....' They were the first words either of them had spoken since he had shut the door of Dr Hasselbacher's apartment.

'What's the matter?'

She put out a hand and clutched some metallic part from the counter; she held it like a club and said, 'I'm frightened.'

Not half as much as I am, he thought. Can we write human beings into existence? And what sort of existence? Had Shakespeare listened to the news of Duncan's death in a tavern or heard the knocking on his own bedroom door after he had finished the writing of Macbeth? He stood in the shop and hummed a tune to keep his courage up.

'They say the earth is round My madness offends.'

'Quiet,' Beatrice said. 'Somebody's moving upstairs.'

He thought he was afraid only of his own imaginary characters, not of a living person who could creak a board. He ran up and was stopped abruptly by a shadow. He was tempted to call out to all his creations at once and have done with the lot of them Teresa, the chief, the professor, the engineer.

'How late you are,' Milly's voice said. It was only Milly standing there in the passage between the lavatory and her room.

'We went for a walk.'

'You brought her back?' Milly asked. 'Why?'

Beatrice cautiously climbed the stairs, holding her improvised club on guard.

'Is Rudy awake?'

'I don't think so.'

Beatrice said, 'If there'd been a message, he would have sat up for you.'

If one's characters were alive enough to die, they were surely real enough to send messages. He opened the door of the office. Rudy stirred.

'Any message, Rudy?'

'No.'

Milly said, 'You've missed all the excitement.'

'What excitement?'

'The police were dashing everywhere. You should have heard the sirens. I thought it was a revolution, so I rang up Captain Segura.'

'Yes?'

'Someone tried to assassinate someone as he came out of the Ministry of the Interior. He must have thought it was the Minister, only it wasn't. He shot out of a car-window and got clean away.'

'Who was it?'

'They haven't caught him yet.'

'I mean the the assassinee.'

'Nobody important. But he looked like the Minister. Where did you have supper?'

'The Victoria.'

'Did you have stuffed langouste?'

'Yes.'

'I'm so glad you don't look like the President. Captain Segura said poor Dr Cifuentes was so scared he went and wet his trousers and then got drunk at the Country Club.'

'Dr Cifuentes?'

'You know the engineer.'

'They shot at him?'

'I told you it was a mistake.'

'Let's sit down,' Beatrice said. She spoke for both of them.

He said, 'The dining-room... '

'I don't want a hard chair. I want something soft. I may want to cry.'

'Well, if you don't mind the bedroom,' he said doubtfully, looking at Milly.

'Did you know Dr Cifuentes?' Milly asked Beatrice sympathetically.

'No. I only know he has a ponch.'

'What's a ponch?'

'Your father said it was a dialect word for a squint.'

'He told you that? Poor Father,' Milly said.

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