The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [44]
‘I think she’s quite comfortable.’
‘Next, Major Scobie, I wanted to have a few words with you about diamonds.’
Scobie put two more bottles of beer on the ice. He said slowly and gently, ‘Yusef, I don’t want you to think I am the kind of man who borrows money one day and insults his creditor the next to reassure his ego.’
‘Ego?’
‘Never mind. Self-esteem. What you like. I’m not going to pretend that we haven’t in a way become colleagues in a business, but my duties are strictly confined to paying you four per cent.’
‘I agree, Major Scobie. You have said all this before and I agree. I say again that I am never dreaming to ask you to do one thing for me. I would rather do things for you.’
‘What a queer chap you are, Yusef. I believe you do like me.’
‘Yes, I do like you, Major Scobie.’ Yusef sat on the edge of his chair which cut a sharp edge in his great expanding thighs: he was I’ll at ease in any house but his own. ‘And now may I talk to you about diamonds, Major Scobie?’
‘Fire away then.’
‘You know I think the Government is crazy about diamonds. They waste your time, the time of the Security Police: they send special agents down the coast: we even have one here - you know who, though nobody is supposed to know but the Commissioner: he spends money on every black or poor Syrian who tells him stories. Then he telegraphs it to England and all down the coast. And after all this, do they catch a single diamond?’
‘This has got nothing to do with us, Yusef.’
‘I want to talk to you as a friend, Major Scobie. There are diamonds and diamonds and Syrians and Syrians. You people hunt the wrong men. You want to stop industrial diamonds going to Portugal and then to Germany, or across the border to the Vichy French. But all the time you are chasing people who are not interested in industrial diamonds, people who just want to get a few gem stones in a safe place for when peace comes again.’
‘In other words you? ‘
‘Six times this month police have been into my stores making everything untidy. They will never find any industrial diamonds that way. Only small men are interested in industrial diamonds. Why, for a whole matchbox full of them, you would only get two hundred pounds. I call them gravel collectors,’ he said with contempt
Scobie said slowly, ‘Sooner or later, Yusef, I felt sure that you’d want something out of me. But you are going to get nothing but four per cent. Tomorrow I’m giving a full confidential report of our business arrangement to the Commissioner. Of course he may ask for my resignation, but I don’t think so. He trusts me.’ A memory pricked him. ‘I think he trusts me.’
‘Is that a wise thing to do, Major Scobie?’
‘I think it’s very wise. Any kind of secret between us two would go bad in time.’
‘Just as you like, Major Scobie. But I don’t want anything from you, I promise. I would like to give you things always. You will not take a refrigerator, but I thought you would perhaps take advice, information.’
I’m listening, Yusef.’
‘Tallit’s a small man. He is a Christian. Father Rank and other people go to his house. They say, ‘If there’s such a thing as an honest Syrian, then Tallit’s the man.’ Tallit’s not very successful, and that looks just the same as honesty.’
‘Go on.’
‘Tallit’s cousin is sailing in the next Portuguese boat. His luggage will be searched, of course, and nothing will be found. He will have a parrot with him in a cage. My advice, Major Scobie, is to let Tallit’s cousin go and keep his parrot.’
‘Why let the cousin go?’
‘You do not want to show your hand to Tallit. You can easily say the parrot is suffering from a disease and must stay. He will not dare to make a fuss.’
‘You mean the diamonds are in its crop?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has that trick been used before on the Portuguese boats?’
‘Yes.’
‘It looks to me as if well have to buy an aviary.’
‘Will you act on that information, Major Scobie?’
‘You give me information, Yusef. I don’t give you information.’
Yusef nodded and smiled. Raising his bulk with some care he touched Scobie’s sleeve quickly and shyly. ‘You are quite right, Major