The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [101]
There was nobody now to whom he could speak the truth. There were things the Commissioner must not know, Louise must not know, there were even limits to what he could tell Helen, for what was the use, when he had sacrificed so much in order to avoid pain, of inflicting it needlessly? As for God he could speak to Him only as one speaks to an enemy - there was bitterness between them. He moved his hand on the table, and it was as though his loneliness moved too and touched the tips of his fingers. ‘You and I,’ his loneliness said, ‘you and I.’ It occurred to him that the outside world if they knew the facts might envy him: Bagster would envy him Helen, and Wilson Louise. What a hell of a quiet dog, Fraser would exclaim with a lick of the lips. They would imagine, he thought with amazement, that I get something out of it, but it seemed to him that no man had ever got less. Even self-pity was denied him because he knew so exactly the extent of his guilt. He felt as though he had exiled himself so deeply in the desert that his skin had taken on the colour of the sand.
The door creaked gently open behind him. Scobie did not move. The spies, he thought, are creeping in. Is this Wilson, Harris, Pemberton’s boy, Ali...? ‘Massa,’ a voice whispered, and a bare foot slapped the concrete floor.
‘Who are you?’ Scobie asked not turning round. A pink palm dropped a small ball of paper on the table and went out of sight again. The voice said, ‘Yusef say come very quiet nobody see.’
‘What does Yusef want now?’
‘He send you dash - small small dash.’ Then the door closed again and silence was back. Loneliness said, ‘Let us open this together, you and I.’
Scobie picked up the ball of paper: it was light, but it had a small hard centre. At first he didn’t realize what it was: he thought it was a pebble put in to keep the paper steady and he looked for writing which, of course, was not there, for whom would Yusef trust to write for him? Then he realized what it was - a diamond, a gem stone. He knew nothing about diamonds, but it seemed to him that it was probably worth at least as much as his debt to Yusef. Presumably Yusef had information that the stones he had sent by the Esperança had reached their destination safely. This was a mark of gratitude - not a bribe, Yusef would explain, the fat hand upon his sincere and shallow heart.
The door burst open and there was Ali. He had a boy by the arm who whimpered. Ali said, ‘This stinking Mende boy he go all round the house. He try doors.’
‘Who are you?’ Scobie said.
The boy broke out in a mixture of fear and rage, ‘I Yusef s boy. I bring Massa letter,’ and he pointed at the table where the pebble lay in the screw of paper. Ali’s eyes followed the gesture. Scobie said to his loneliness, ‘You and I have to think quickly.’ He turned on the boy and said, ‘Why you not come here properly and knock on the door? Why you come like a thief?’
He had the thin body and the melancholy soft eyes of all Mendes. He said, ‘I not a thief,’ with so slight an emphasis on the first word that it was just possible he was not impertinent. He went on, ‘Massa tell me to come very quiet.’
Scobie said, ‘Take this back to Yusef and tell him I want to know where he gets a stone like that. I think he steals stones and I find out by-and-by. Go on. Take it. Now, Ali, throw him out.’ Ali pushed the boy ahead of him through the door, and Scobie could hear the rustle of their feet on the path. Were they whispering together? He went to the door and called out after them, ‘Tell Yusef I call on him one night soon and make hell of a palaver.’ He slammed the door again and thought, what a lot Ali knows, and he felt distrust of his boy moving again like fever with the bloodstream. He could ruin me, he thought: he could ruin them.
He poured himself out a glass of whisky and took a bottle of soda out of his ice-box. Louise called from upstairs, ‘Henry’.
‘Yes, dear?’
‘Is it twelve yet?’
‘Close on, I think.’
‘You won’t drink anything after twelve, will you?