How is my aunt, Wordsworth?
She pretty O.K., he said, but there was a look of distress in his eyes and he added, She dance one hell too much. Ar tell her she no bebi gel no more. Ef she no go stop Man, she got me real worried.
Are you coming on the boat with me?
Ar sure am, Mr. Pullen. You lef every ting to old Wordsworth. Ar know the customs fellows in Asunción. Some good guys. Some bad like hell. You lef me talk. We don wan no humbug.
Im not smuggling anything, Wordsworth. The noise of the ships siren summoned us, wailing up from the river.
Man, you lef everyting to old Wordsworth. Ar jus gone tak a look at that boat and ar see a real bad guy there. We gotta be careful.
Careful of what, Wordsworth?
You in good hands, Mr. Pullen. You lef old Wordsworth be now.
He suddenly took my fingers and pressed them. You got that picture, Mr. Pullen?
You mean of Freetown harbour? Yes, Ive got that.
He gave a sigh of satisfaction. Ar lak you, Mr. Pullen. You allays straight with old Wordsworth. Now you go for boat. I was just leaving him when he added, You got CTC for Wordsworth? and I gave him what coins I had in my pocket. Whatever trouble he might have caused me in that dead old world of mine, I was overjoyed to see him now.
They were carrying the last cargo on to the ship through the black iron doors open in the side. I made my way through the steerage quarters, where women with Indian faces sat around suckling their children and climbed the rusting stairs to the first-class. I never noticed Wordsworth come on board, and at dinner he was nowhere to be seen. I supposed that he was travelling in the steerage and saving for other purposes the difference in the fare, for I was quite certain that my aunt would have given him a first-class ticket.
After dinner OToole suggested a drink in his cabin. Ive got some good bourbon, he said, and though I have never been a spirit-drinker, preferring a glass of sherry before a meal or a glass of port after it, I accepted his invitation gladly, for it was our last night together on board. Again the spirit of restlessness had taken over all the passengers in the ship, and they seemed touched with a kind of mania. In the saloon an amateur band had begun to play, and a sailor with hairy legs and arms, dressed inadequately as a woman, had whirled in a dance between the tables, demanding a partner. Now in the captains cabin, which was close to OTooles, someone was playing the guitar and a woman squealed. It wasnt what you expected to hear from a captains quarters.
No one will sleep tonight, OToole remarked, pouring out the bourbon.
If you dont mind, I said, a lot more soda.
Weve made it. I thought we were going to be stuck fast at Corrientes. The rain is damn late this year, and as though to soften his rebuke of the weather there came a long peal of thunder which almost drowned the music of the guitar.
What did you think of Formosa? OToole asked.
There wasnt much to see. Except the prison. A fine colonial building.
Not so good inside, OToole said. A splash of lightning was flung over the wall and made the cabin lights flicker. Met a friend, didnt you?
A friend?
I saw you talking to a coloured guy.
What was it that made me cautious, for I liked OToole? I said, Oh, he wanted money. I didnt see you on shore.
I was up on the bridge, OToole said, looking through the captains glasses. He changed course abruptly. I cant get over you knowing my daughter, Henry. You cant imagine how I miss that girl. You never told me how she looked.
She looked fine. Shes a very pretty girl.
Yeah, he said, so was her mother. If I ever married again Id marry a plain girl. He brooded a long time over the bourbon, and I looked around his cabin. He had made no attempt, as I had made the first day, to make it a temporary home. His suitcases lay on the floor filled with clothes; he had not bothered to hang them. A razor beside the wash-basin and a Bantam book beside his bed seemed to be the extent of his unpacking. Suddenly the rain hit the deck outside like a cloudburst.
I guess winters here all right, he said.
Winter in July.
Ive gotten used to it, he said. I havent seen the snow for six years.
Youve been out here for six years?
No, but I was in Thailand before this.
Doing research?
Yeah. Sort of If he was usually as tongue-tied as this it must have taken him a long time to unearth every fact he required.
How are the urine statistics?
More than four minutes thirty seconds today, he said. He added glumly, And I havent reached the end, lifting the bourbon. When the next peal of thunder had trembled out he went on, obviously straining after any subject to fill the pause, So you didnt like Formosa?
No. Of course it may be all right for fishing, I said.
Fishing! he exclaimed with scorn. Smuggling is what you mean.
I keep on hearing all the time about smuggling. Smuggling what?
Its the national industry of Paraguay, he said. It brings in nearly as much as the maté[253] and a lot more than hiding war criminals with Swiss bank accounts. And a darn sight more than my research.
What have they got to smuggle?
Scotch whisky and American cigarettes. You get yourself an agent in Panama who buys wholesale and he flies the stuff down to Asunción. They are marked GOODS IN TRANSIT, see. You pay only a small duty at the international airport and you transfer the crates to a private plane. Youd be surprised to see how many private Dakotas[254] there are now in Asunción. Then your pilot takes off to Argentina just across the river. At some estancia a few hundred kilometres from BA you touch down they nearly all have private landing grounds. Not built for Dakotas perhaps, but thats the pilots risk. You unload into trucks and there you are. Youve got your distributors waiting with their tongues hanging out. The government makes them thirsty with duties of a hundred and twenty per cent.
And Formosa?
Oh, Formosas for the small guy working himself up on the river traffic. All the goods that arrive from Panama dont go on in the Dakota. What do the police care if some of the crates stay behind? Youll buy Scotch cheaper in the stores at Asunción than you will in London and the street boys will sell you good American cigarettes at cut-rate. All you needs a rowboat and a contact. One day, though, youll get tired of that game perhaps a bullets come too close[255] and youll buy a share in a Dakota and then youre in the big money. You tempted, Henry?
I didnt have the right training at the bank, I said, but I thought of my aunt and her suitcases stuffed with notes and her gold brick perhaps there was something in my blood to which a career like that might once have appealed. You know a lot about it, I said.
Its part of my sociological research.
Its part of my sociological research.
Did you never think of researching a bit deeper? The frontier spirit, Tooley. I teased him only because I liked him. I could never have teased Major Charge or the admiral in that way.
He gave me a long sad look, as though he wanted to answer me quite truthfully. You dont save enough money in a job like mine to buy a Dakota. And the risks are big too, Henry, for a foreigner. These guys fall out sometimes and then theres hijacking. Or the police get greedy. Its easy to disappear in Paraguay not necessarily disappear either. Whos going to make a fuss about an odd body or two? The General keeps the peace thats what people want after the civil war they had and a dead man makes no trouble for anyone. They dont have coroners in Paraguay.
So you prefer life to the frontier spirit, Tooley.
I know Im not much good for my girl three thousand miles away, Henry, but at least she gets her monthly cheque. A dead man cant write a cheque.
And I suppose the CIA arent interested?
You shouldnt believe that nonsense, Henry. I told you Lucindas romantic. She wants an exciting father, and whats she got? Shes saddled with me. So she has to invent things. A report on malnutritions not romantic.
I think you ought to bring her home, Tooley.
Wheres home? he said, and I looked around the cabin and wondered too. I dont know why I wasnt quite convinced. He was a great deal more reliable than she was.
I left him with his Old Forester and returned to my cabin on the opposite deck. OToole was port and I was starboard. I looked out at Paraguay and he looked out at Argentina. The guitar was still playing in the captains cabin and someone was singing in a language I couldnt recognize perhaps it was Guaraní. I hadnt locked my door, and yet it wouldnt open when I pushed. I had to put my shoulder to it to make it give[256]. Through the crack I saw Wordsworth. He faced the door and he had a knife in his hand. When he saw who it was he held the knife down. Come in, boss, he said in a whisper.
How can I come in?
He had wedged the door with a chair. He removed it now and let me in.
Ar got to be careful, Mr. Pullen, he said.
Careful of what?
Too much bad people on this boat, too much humbug.
His knife was a boys knife with three blades and a corkscrew and a tin-opener and something for taking stones out of horses hoofs cutlers are conservative and so are schoolboys. Wordsworth closed it and put it in his pocket.
Well, I said, what do you want, you happy shepherd boy?
He shook his head. Oh, shes a wonder, your auntie. No one ever talk to Wordsworth like that befo. Why, she come right up to me in the street outside the movie palace an she say, clear like day, Thou child of joy. Ar love your auntie, Mr. Pullen. Ar ready to die for her any time she raise a finger an say, Wordsworth, you go die.
Yes, yes, I said, thats fine, but what are you doing barricaded in my cabin?
Ar come for the picture, he said.
Couldnt you wait till we get ashore?
Your auntie say bring that picture safe, Wordsworth, double quick[257], or you no come here no more.
A suspicion returned to me. Could the frame, like the candle, be made of gold? Or did the photograph cover some notes of a very high denomination? Neither seemed likely, but neither was impossible with my aunt[258].
Ar got friends in customs, Wordsworth said, they no humbug me, but, Mr. Pullen, you a stranger here.