The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [25]
‘All right,’ Wilson said. ‘Do me, but be quick about it.’
‘I’d better push off, old man, before the revelations begin.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ Wilson said.
‘Will you sit on the bath, sir?’ the Indian invited him courteously. He took Wilson’s hand in his. ‘It is a very interesting hand, sir,’ he said unconvincingly, weighing it up and down.
‘What are your charges?’
‘According to rank, sir. One like yourself, sir, I should charge ten shillings.’
‘That’s a bit steep.’
‘Junior officers are five shillings.’
‘I’m in the five-shilling class,’ Wilson said.
‘Oh no, sir. The Director of Agriculture gave me a pound.’
‘I’m only an accountant.’
‘That’s as you say, sir. A.D.C. and Major Scobie gave me ten shillings.’
‘Oh well,’ Wilson said. ‘Here’s ten bob. Go ahead.’
‘You have been here one, two weeks,’ the Indian said. ‘You are sometimes at night an impatient man. You think you do not make enough progress.’
‘Who with?’ Harris asked, lolling in the doorway.
‘You are very ambitious. You are a dreamer. You read much poetry.’
Harris giggled and Wilson, raising his eyes from the finger which traced the lines upon his palm, watched the fortuneteller with apprehension.
The Indian went inflexibly on. His turban was bowed under Wilson’s nose and bore the smell of stale food - he probably secreted stray pieces from the larder in its folds. He said, ‘You are a secret man. You do not tell your friends about your poetry - except one. One,’ he repeated. ‘You are very shy. You should take courage. You have a great line of success.’
‘Go in and win, old man,’ Harris repeated.
Of course the whole thing was Couéism: if one believed in it enough, it would come true. Diffidence would be conquered. The mistake in a reading would be covered up.
‘You haven’t told me ten bob’s worth,’ Wilson said. ‘This is a five-bob fortune. Tell me something definite, something that’s going to happen.’ He shifted his seat uncomfortably on the sharp edge of the bath and watched a cockroach like a large blood blister flattened on the wall. The Indian bent forward over the two hands. He said, ‘I see great success. The Government will be very pleased with you.’
Harris said, ‘Il pense that you are un bureaucrat.’
‘Why will the Government be pleased with me?’ Wilson asked.
‘You will capture your man.’
‘Why,’ Harris said, ‘I believe he thinks you are a new policeman.’
‘It looks like it,’ Wilson said. ‘Not much use wasting more time.’
‘And your private life, that will be a great success too. You will win the lady of your heart. You will sail away. Everything is going to be fine. For you,’ he added.
‘A real ten-bob fortune.’
‘Good night,’ Wilson said. ‘I won’t write you a recommendation on that.’ He got up from the bath, and the cockroach flashed into hiding. ‘I can’t bear those things,’ Wilson said, sidling through ‘the door. He turned in the passage and repeated, ‘Good night.’
‘I couldn’t when I first came, old man. But I evolved a system. Just step into my room and I’ll show you.’
‘I ought to be off.’
‘Nobody will be punctual at Tallit’s.’ Harris opened his door and Wilson turned his eyes with a kind of shame from the first sight of its disorder. In his own room he would never have exposed himself quite like this - the dirty tooth-glass, the towel on the bed.
‘Look here, old man.’
With relief he fixed his eyes on some symbols pencilled on the wall inside: the letter H, and under it a row of figures lined against dates as in a cash-book. Then the letters D.D., and under them more figures. ‘It’s my score in cockroaches, old man. Yesterday was an average day - four. My record’s nine. It makes you welcome the little brutes.’
‘What does D.D. stand for?’
‘Down the drain, old man. That’s when I knock them into the wash-basin and they go down the waste-pipe. It wouldn’t be fair to count them as dead, would it?’
‘No.’
‘And it wouldn’t do to cheat yourself either. You’d lose interest at once. The only thing is, it gets dull sometimes, playing against yourself. Why shouldn’t we make a match of it,