The Predicament, page 14
‘I need to – what’s the expression? – disappear “off the radar” for a few days. Four, maybe five, if that’s all right with you. I need to see what will happen when I disappear. It’s a kind of experiment.’
‘To do with the Institute?’
‘Yes. If you don’t mind, I won’t even leave the house. I had the taxi stop in the village. I walked here. I don’t think anyone’s seen me arrive.’
Gabriel looks at her. What new enigmas has she brought to his doorstep?
2.
Gabriel turns in his bed, wide awake, trying to come to terms with the fact that Faith Green is sleeping a few paces away down the corridor.
The door opens and Faith stands there in a cotton nightdress.
‘It’s very cold in that guest room of yours,’ she says. ‘Do you mind if I snuggle up with you?’
3.
They lie in each other’s arms, the buttery morning light squeezing in through the curtains.
Gabriel kisses her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. He feels heady, intoxicated.
‘I think,’ he says, ‘as your host, I have to ask you what’s the real reason you’ve come here. Otherwise I might have to show you the door.’
‘Fair enough, Mr Dax. I’ll tell you over breakfast. Promise.’
4.
Faith stirs her freshly poured cup of tea and adds a splash more milk. Gabriel asks her if she’d like some toast. Yes please, she says. All that exercise has made me famished. Faith is sitting at the kitchen table wearing Gabriel’s dressing gown. Gabriel is fully clothed – he’s been out to buy a pint of milk. The Cat is sitting nearby, eavesdropping.
‘Is this about Ishbel Dunbar?’ Gabriel asks.
‘It is indeed. She’s after my job. She wants me ousted.’
‘How does coming here and hiding out frustrate that?’
‘She’ll interpret my “disappearance” in a way that furthers her cause. What she’ll do will make her vulnerable – when I reappear.’
Gabriel takes this in, remembering his meeting with Ishbel.
‘She did seem to know exactly what you were doing in the States,’ he says. ‘She told me that there was no meeting at Langley with the CIA.’
‘There was a meeting with the CIA, but not at Langley. She doesn’t know everything.’
She stands up and comes round behind him to his side of the table. She puts her arms round his neck and kisses the top of his head. He feels her breasts flatten against his shoulders.
‘It was a lovely night,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’
‘The morning wasn’t too bad either.’
5.
‘When you go shopping,’ Faith says, ‘make sure you only buy what you would buy for yourself. Don’t shop for two.’
‘All right. Good procedure. Good artifice.’
‘What about your neighbour? Is he nosey?’
‘Royston? No. He keeps himself to himself.’
Gabriel goes shopping in the village and, in the butcher’s, buys one veal escalope and half a pound of mincemeat. A pound of potatoes and some spinach in the greengrocer’s. A loaf of bread and a single Danish pastry in the baker’s. A bachelor, leading his solitary life.
6.
Gabriel lies at the tap end of the bath, water brimming, up to his chin. Faith is at the other end, their knees touching.
‘This is a first for me,’ he says. ‘Bathing together.’
‘It’s fun, isn’t it?’ she says, smiling. ‘We’ll be all lovely and clean when we tumble into bed.’
He feels a small sob in his throat. He can’t remember when he has been happier. It’s very important to register these moments, Katerina Haas has told him. Hoard those times when you feel happiness, she advised – it’s like money in the bank of your life. He duly deposits the bullion of being in a bath with Faith Green.
She leans forward and reaches under the water for his cock.
‘What’re you doing?’ he says. ‘It’s bath time.’
‘Looking for the soap. Sorry.’
7.
‘What was Guatemala really all about?’ Gabriel says. ‘I think you can tell me now.’
They are in the sitting room, after supper, the fire blazing, finishing off their bottle of red wine. The Cat is back in Faith’s lap, much to Gabriel’s disgust.
‘Exactly what we told you,’ she says. ‘They – the CIA – needed someone who could legitimately talk to this trade union leader. I thought you would be perfect. Authentic. No suspicions.’
She sounds so plausible, he thinks, but he isn’t going to buy her story.
‘You know it didn’t end up that way,’ he says.
‘No. We – you – were used by elements within the CIA. And that’s the problem. A major problem, as it happens.’
‘Who is Austin Belhaven? The man Ishbel Dunbar asked me about.’
‘He’s the man I was meeting in the States when I came to see you. A good man. He’s “concerned” about what’s happening in the Company.’
‘What does that mean?’ Gabriel asks, not particularly interested.
‘There’s a lot of disaffection, resentment within certain factions within the CIA. After the total fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion some people in the CIA feel betrayed by Kennedy – the fact that he refused air support, let the Cubans die, be captured, be humiliated. And then President Kennedy sacking Allen Dulles and his team. People are unhappy. Kennedy – and his brother – are not universally popular, despite what the press may want you to believe.’
‘Who’s Dulles?’
‘Head of the CIA, as was. Ex-director. Not a Kennedy fan.’
‘Oh. Right. What about Frank Sartorius?’
‘Sartorius is a complicated figure. He was – is – close to Dulles.’
‘Is Sartorius still in Guatemala?’ Gabriel thinks that while Faith is being forthcoming he should keep asking questions.
‘No. He’s been promoted – a senior executive, now, in the CIA hierarchy. I don’t know what his role is, precisely.’
‘What fun and games,’ Gabriel says. ‘The ring-a-ring o’ roses in your murky world of espionage.’
‘Our world, Gabriel.’
‘I know.’ He leaves his armchair and kneels beside her, taking her hand and kissing her cheek.
‘I’m your spy, remember? More wine? Or shall we go to bed?’
8.
‘Surely you can go out into the garden?’ Gabriel says. ‘Look, it’s a lovely day. We could have a picnic.’
‘After dark. I can’t risk being spotted.’
‘We’ll have a picnic after dark. A May Day picnic under the stars.’
She looks at him.
‘How many times do I have to tell you? Cynicism doesn’t suit you.’
‘Just trying to make your stay as enjoyable as possible, that’s all.’
He takes her in his arms and kisses her lips, gently. Once again he rejoices in the moment, and her lack of resistance. He deposits it in his happiness bank. He hugs her to him and she hugs him back, strongly.
‘Thank you, Gabriel. I’m so grateful, you know. It means everything.’
It means everything in her war against Ishbel Dunbar? he asks himself, or it means everything to her, having him as a lover? There is no obvious answer.
‘What would you like for lunch? I can do you my special spaghetti Bolognese.’
9.
‘This is excellent spaghetti,’ Faith says. ‘And I’m an expert.’
‘It’s the little bit of chicken liver in the ragù that makes the difference, the sine qua non.’
10.
They are lying in bed. He has brought them tea and toast – now a normal gustatory prelude to their morning lovemaking. A good moment to ask further questions while her guard is halfway down.
‘I want to know more about Guatemala,’ he says. ‘You still haven’t told me everything. What’s the true story behind the killing of Padre Tiago?’
She sits up in bed, covers her breasts with the quilt and reaches for her mug of tea. She takes a sip. He can see she is deciding whether to tell him the truth or some sort of semi-truth that will pacify him. He can’t catch her out.
‘Well, Austin Belhaven told me that Tiago’s murder was a classic Mafia hit – the pattern, I mean,’ she begins, thoughtfully. ‘A “lone gunman” kills the target but there are always other gunmen on hand – or shooting as well. Then the lone gunman is somehow killed. Case closed.’ She pauses. ‘Look at the assassination of President Armas. Shot by a lone gunman who then committed suicide. The Mafia pattern, as I say.’
‘Conveniently. Like Denilson Canul.’
‘Exactly.’
Gabriel takes this on board. Denilson Canul, ostensibly, had been the lone gunman. Then he had killed himself and left a letter, confessing. Yet Padre Tiago had been killed by a sniper’s bullet on the terrace of his remote farmhouse. Was Canul the sniper? Or somebody else? No, he thinks, whoever killed Padre Tiago, Canul’s suicide was a fake. Canul had been shot by a person or persons unknown and the death was made to look like a suicide – including the handy confession. He thinks back to Furlan and Canul’s last agitated conversation and the way Furlan ordered Canul to leave through the garden entrance of the hotel, unobserved, to go back to his car – where the killers were waiting and Canul’s ‘suicide’ took place, he assumes.
‘Why would the Mafia kill Padre Tiago?’ he asks.
‘Obviously they were paid to do so,’ Faith says. ‘It was a conspiracy. I’m sorry you were caught up in it.’
‘Who paid them?’
‘Cui bono? The old question. Who benefited from Tiago’s death?’
‘United Fruit.’
Faith spreads her hands.
‘Look at the recent history of Guatemala,’ she says. ‘The CIA organized a coup in Guatemala in 1954 to depose President Árbenz. In 1957 President Armas was assassinated by a lone gunman. And this year, 1963, the probable victor of the next general election has been assassinated by a lone gunman. And a military coup takes place with President Ydígoras ousted.’ She frowns, as if she has only just analysed this sequence of events for the first time. ‘Status quo re-established. This is the recent history of Guatemala and this is what’s exercising Austin Belhaven. He may have good reason.’
‘The CIA and the Mafia working hand in hand.’
She tells him how it came about. It all started in the Second World War, she says, after the invasion of Sicily in 1943. The Americans effectively handed over control of the island to the Mafiosi and worked with them as the Allies moved on to conquer the mainland. The links, the bonds were established then. When you want to keep your hands ‘clean’, then you covertly franchise the job out to professionals you know and trust. It’s a pattern, she says. But that’s how they do it, the Mafia. Their signature, if you like. The ‘lone gunman’ signature.
‘So that’s what I was inveigled into,’ Gabriel says, thinking of his short, fraught meeting with Padre Tiago.
‘We genuinely didn’t know,’ Faith says. ‘We were all led up a garden path.’
‘By whom?’
‘Good question,’ she says with a brief frown.
‘How about Frank Sartorius and United Fruit, Guatemala’s biggest landowners, who didn’t want a radical new President of Guatemala committed to agrarian reform?’
‘That’s speculation.’
‘Come on, Faith.’
‘We have no proof, no evidence. Maybe it was just a lone gunman with a grievance, after all. We may never know.’
They look at each other. She doesn’t flinch.
11.
After supper they play Scrabble and drink wine. Faith doesn’t want to watch the television news, she says, with its round of stories about the Beatles, Fidel Castro’s forthcoming visit to Moscow, the fallout from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s Aldermaston march, the end of National Service and what Dr Beeching’s cuts will mean for the future of British Railways. No, she’d rather beat Gabriel at Scrabble, she says. She hasn’t stepped out of doors since she arrived. Occasionally she asks Gabriel if she can use the phone and she makes a few calls, ensuring that he is out of earshot. Who is she calling? he asks himself. What Machiavellian scheme is being enacted? he wonders, as he chops onions for their beef stew. She seems calm enough, he registers: maybe everything is going swimmingly as far as the Faith Green grand plan is concerned.
He doesn’t really care, happy to live in this moment, this strange limbo. They enjoy each other’s constant company, they have a unique shared history, they make love at night and in the morning and occasionally in the afternoon, when the mood takes them. Fondly, stupidly, he wonders if this state of affairs can possibly continue, yet he knows full well that it will come to an end whenever she decides. Take it a day at a time, he tells himself. He has never felt so content, has never felt so at ease with another person. This is as good a life as he has ever experienced.
12.
In his euphoric mood, he thinks it’s time for a feast. Champagne, three courses, fine wine. Push the boat out.
Faith is still asleep when he decides to head out, leaving her a note on the kitchen table – ‘Shopping in Lewes’ – and drives off on the Navigator. He takes proper artifice precautions on the way: turning up side roads, retracing his route for a quarter of a mile, pausing at the outskirts of Lewes to watch the passing traffic and then weaving his way through various streets to park his bike at the train station. No one is following him, he’s convinced.
As he makes his meandering way from Claverleigh to Lewes he thinks about the Faith he’s come to know these past few days. Is this Faith’s true self, he wonders, as opposed to the false self she presents at the Institute? He feels he has connected with her – her person, her nature – in a way that is different from the past, and not just because of the lovemaking they’ve been enjoying. Maybe because she needs him on a personal level for once, he thinks; therefore the power relationship has shifted significantly and the real Faith Green is finally before him, her true self. He looks forward to his discussion with Katerina Haas – no doubt she’ll have something perceptive to say.
In Lewes he buys a thick slice of pâté de campagne, a capon, some streaky bacon, a wedge of Stilton and two small apple tarts for pudding. In a wine merchant’s he chooses a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Calvados to go with the apple tarts. He has plenty of wine in his cold pantry. They will eat well tonight, he says to himself, anticipatory pleasure growing as he remounts the Navigator, its pannier loaded, ready for the journey home. His final stop is at a jeweller’s in the high street where he picks up the piece of Guatemalan jade he bought in Dos Vados. The curved piece of stone is now held in a tight gold pre-notched prong setting, with a gold chain. It looks both beautiful and ancient, nestled in its bed of cotton wool in the small cardboard box. He’ll give it to her after their feast, he thinks.
Artifice prevails once more on his route back to Claverleigh and Rose Cottage – doubling back, driving up narrow lanes, waiting to see if anyone is following. Nothing. All clear. Faith will approve of the good procedure, he knows. Her stay at Rose Cottage has preserved an ideal secrecy. Only the Cat could bear witness to her presence.
He lugs his provisions inside, entering the cottage through the kitchen door and dumping them on the table. The house is very quiet. No sign of the Cat. Then he sees the note propped against the toaster. He picks it up.
Darling Gabriel,
Everything has worked out as I hoped. Perfectly. I have to go back to London to resolve the crisis that my absence has generated (and destroy Ishbel Dunbar). Thank you for coming to my rescue. Thank you for an unforgettable, lovely few days. I will miss you tonight, for sure. But we will see each other very soon.
With my love, Faith
He feels an acrid taste at the back of his throat. Bile. Caused by what? Disappointment? Suspicion? Resentment? For an instant he thinks of throwing the ingredients of his feast into the dustbin – the spoilt child recourse, he tells himself. Be calm. Nothing has changed. He realizes that she has to go back to London – the object of the exercise has to be completed. But their relationship is now altogether different – since the Rose Cottage interlude it has become solid and sincere. He lets out a groan of frustration, nonetheless. Perhaps he’ll invite Royston round for supper – he can’t eat all that food himself. But not tonight – it’s too soon. Everything should keep until tomorrow, he considers. He needs to be alone tonight, to brood and to drink too much.
He goes to bed, half-drunk, but can’t sleep, thinking of Faith and what they’ve experienced. He takes a sleeping pill but it doesn’t seem to work, and so he takes another. For the first time in months he dreams about the night his family home burnt down and his mother died.
Part Five
* * *
LONDON BERLIN
May–June 1963
1.
True Self/False Self
Gabriel sold the British and Commonwealth rights to his next travel book, On the Beaten Path, on the basis of his detailed outline, to Mulholland & Melhuish for £1,500. He signed the contract and received a cheque in the post for £450. His agent, having taken his commission, was very confident about a US sale also, not to mention potential foreign publishers who were professing interest. Suddenly Gabriel felt almost rich. All he had to do now was write the book.
But this good fortune in his literary career couldn’t cancel out his constant low-grade anguish regarding Faith. He hadn’t heard from her for two weeks. It was now the middle of May. It was as if those five days, five nights and their intense emotions had never happened. Or had happened and were now in the process of being erased or eroded, or becoming merely memories – something that had occurred in the recent past. Gone.
