'Thank you,' I said, like I was taking the helm of the Queen Elizabeth. Over the newspaper-covered table the 60-watt bulb shone on to the green steel canister. The edges and corners were rounded and sealing compound joined two equal-shaped sides.
I told Joe to get the Polaroid Land camera. He brought it complete with flash and a green filter to give us a maximum detail in the green paintwork. He took six shots. The prints were satisfactory.
Joe took a small pair of pliers and applied himself to the canister until it creaked open on its ancient hinges. None of us, I think, was expecting much, but we did expect something a little more rewarding. There were a couple of handfuls of chalky cotton wool, not very good quality, a tattered piece of canvas about as large as a man's handkerchief, some torn pieces of white paper, and a twenty-dollar bill, crumpled and dirty. Charly reached across for the twenty-dollar bill, but as she picked it up the racket of a two-stroke motor cycle became louder, until it cut immediately under the shuttered window.
Charly mouthed the word 'Fernie', and sewed a frown in hasty tacks across her forehead.
It didn't matter, of course, we merely hid the canister before letting Fernie in, then took him to the kitchen for coffee. He accepted a cup in his polite laconic manner, smiled pleasantly and said he was bearing 'a message of a confidential nature from the first citizen of the region'.
I asked him who the first citizen of the region was. Fernie answered, 'Senhor Manuel Gambeta do Rosario da Cunha, a very great gentleman if you will allow me to tell you, sir.'
I heard Singleton's voice from the balcony calling, 'So what was in it?'
'I have a principle, Senhor Fernandas Tomas, of allowing anyone to tell me anything at any time.'
'Me too, sir,' he said. He gave no sign of having heard Singleton, then he gave me an address to which I was invited at 5 p.m. to 'learn something to advantage'.
I shall meet you there.' He picked up his black trilby from the marble hallstand and kicked up his bike. He sped past the narrow whitewashed walls of the cobbled street. He didn't look back.
*
Inside the house I found everyone sitting around looking at two twenty-dollar bills. The serial numbers were twenty-three digits apart.
'Two,' I said. 'I thought there was only one in the container.'
'There was,' Joe said. 'Charly brought in its twin brother out of the dirty-linen cupboard.'
I looked at Charly.
'It was in the pocket of one of Harry Kondit's dirty shirts,' she said lamely. 'I'd offered to wash them for him.'
I said nothing.
'Not all his shirts, just the synthetic fibres,' she said.
'O.K.,' I told her, 'but don't get so friendly that you'll miss him if he suddenly disappears.'
17 Da Cunha lays it down
West of Albufeira there is a view across gently sloping fields of ash-grey fig and vines to the blue sea three kilometres away.
A patio rings with the voices of fishermen and shopkeepers of Albufeira. On the sun-bleached wooden tables are plates of black cuttlefish and moray dried in the sun and fried crisp. The new crop of wine is drunk and discussed and drunk and discussed until the next crop appears. Pressed in the old Moorish fashion (while still in the jute sacks) the cloudy rose catches the throat like a fado. On the next hill white tower-like windmills, their canvas sails furled, are asterisks upon the horizon. Beyond them the station marks a spot where the railway from Lisbon grasps towards Albufeira and fails to make it by six kilometres.
Ferule shook hands amid tearing of bread and lifting of glasses. He pulled the stiff door beyond the terrace and it sang a choir-like note, echoing and vibrating. Inside the door it was dark. Barrels dribbled into bottles for the drinkers outside. Past tubs of black olives and bowls of green ones were boxes overflowing with figs. Fernie ran his hands through the sack and gave me a handful. We walked out through the far door. To the left and right low white walls provided picture frames around the red soil. Ahead, olive trees marked a brightly tiled path to a pale-blue building with complex white decorations. It sat across the landscape like a Wedgwood teapot. It was one of the old baronial houses or mantes that dominate estates of cork, olive and fig. Black pigs snuffled under the olive trees and from behind the building a dog barked as if expecting no reply.
Fernie pushed open the wrought-iron gate and, holding it open for me, said in slow, careful English, 'You are in contact with Mr Smith?'
'Of course I am,' I lied quickly.
He nodded silently and left me alone at the house of Senhor Manuel Gambeta do Rosario da Cunha, first citizen of the region.
By 5 p.m. in October the sun is well down. To the north the mountains were intensely mauve and the sun, hitting the higher of the white houses, made them as pink as the potted geraniums along the walls.
The last rays of the sun did a spray job on one side of da Cunha's bony head, and behind him the gold lettering of Mommsen's History of Rome and Balzac's complete works made football signals over his shoulder. The house was richly furnished and I didn't have to be asked to dinner to know that the cruet wouldn't be plastic.
On da Cunha's simple mahogany desk was a porcelain-and-gold pen set, a gold letter-opener, an elegant sealing-wax holder, a seal and half a dozen foolscap sheets of fine handwriting. They weren't held down by Coca-Cola caps either.
I understand you to be attempting to locate a lost article by dredging the sea floor.'
It wasn't an exact description, but it wasn't a question either. I said nothing.
Da Cunha removed his gold-rimmed spectacles. There was a bright red mark on the side of his thin nose where they had rested. I wondered just how political you had to be to have a set-up like this.
'In the course of time this coast has attracted adventurers of all sorts. Not all of them have sought recently-lost treasure, and some of them have been far from successful. The town of Olhao was built entirely from the profits made by selling to both sides during the Cadiz affair.'
He said 'Cadiz affair' as though it had happened last week instead of the sixteenth century.
'However, in the case of your party I am of the opinion that the motives are not entirely honourable.'
He paused, and then said, 'I am hoping to provoke a reply.'
'Your English is excellent,' I said.
'I spent the years of 1934 and 1935 at Peterhouse College, bat you avoid my question.'
'I'm not sure how your ideas of honour could be expected to key hi with mine,' I said. 'You could buy a pair of shoes for every barefoot kid in Albufeira with that pen set.'
'Ten years ago I would have been tempted to explain why you are so wrong. Now, however...' his voice trailed away.
The sun had disappeared over the hill now, leaving only a few fiery trees to mark its passage. Da Cunha hooked his spectacles over one ear and wriggled his nose into them.
'There is no discussion necessary. I am able to give you what you are looking for and I trust that then you will leave the Algarve and its people and not return.'
He walked slowly across to the corner of the room, the rich Persian carpet switching off the sound-track of his footfalls. He slid his hand into the shelf of loosely-packed books and removed about six between compressed palms. In the space behind the books was a brown-paper parcel about half the size of a cigar box. He tugged at a red velvet cord and then, bringing the parcel over to me, he put it on the mahogany desk.
I didn't touch it.
'I resent it,' da Cunha said, 'the whole manner of it, I resent it, tell your Mr Smith that, I resent it very much.'
I thought, 'I'll tell him all right - if I ever meet him.' Da Cunha offered me coffee, while I wondered who the ubiquitous Mr Smith was, and how he connected with this little gang of Portuguese pirates.
Coffee came in the only way it could travel in a house like that: in a silver pot attended by Limoges cups and saucers. On a side plate were soft marzipan cakes with a moist egg-yolk in the innermost centre. Da Cunha forced three of them on me h
i quick succession.
'I think of our Algarve as the secret garden of Europe,' -he said as he poured the coffee. He flicked a finger towards the decimated plate of sweets.
'Almonds, figs, finest grapes in Europe, passable champagne. Wonderful olives, walnuts, oranges, tangerines, pomegranates; and lobster, squid, crab, eels, shrimps, sardines, cuttlefish, octopus; more than I can put my tongue to. Upon the upturned eaves of these houses (upturned to ward the evil eye away, as Portuguese sailors discovered in China) - upon these eaves sits the small nightingale so cherished by the Arab poet.'
'No fooling,' I said. I sipped my coffee and offered him a High Life cigarette - a cheap local brand. He declined and lit an oval Turkish which he discovered hi a carved ivory box.
'There is a story told of the region,' da Cunha went on. 'It tells of a Moorish prince who married a Russian queen. She pined away thinking of her snow-covered northern home, until one February morning she awoke and looked from her window to see the white blossoms of the almond tree covering our whole land. You would love our Algarve in February.'
'I love it now in my own bourgeois way,' I told him, helping myself to another cheese of almond. He nodded.
With the second pot of coffee he told me of the Sao Marcos festival, when monks whip a calf on the church steps in order that all the cattle ills and troubles of the year fall upon that one poor calf. I drank the coffee and mused.
Mr Smith is somehow involved with the car following me down the A3. He has R.N. Signals Gibraltar doing a wire-tap job on me; when I get here his name is brandished on all sides, and now someone is giving me presents because they think he and I are pals. I knew how that calf felt.
With the smoked paprika-and-pork sausage da Cunha told me of the climb to the top of a hill on the day of Sao Vincente. If the flaming torch is blown out, preparations are made for a good year. If it stays alight, the farm-hands are sacked. Half a dozen cold beers later we were on to the witches' sabbath of St John's night, when boys and girls jump hand in hand over bonfires. The girl burns the flower of a purple thistle hi the flames and plants the stalk. Only true love makes the stalk flower.
'Fascinating,' I said. Senhor Manuel Gambeta do Rosario da Cunha got up from the desk and walked to the door, where he had a whispered conversation. Then he told me briefly of the twelve grapes that must be eaten on New Year's Eve at midnight while drums, trumpets, and bells sound in every square in Portugal: only thus can twelve months of happiness be ensured. The door opened.
It was dark outside and Senhor da Cunha lit the little green-shaded brass lamp and cleared a space on the desk. The maid, in formal white cap and black dress, put a tray down on the desk. There was a lop-sided Portuguese loaf, butter, a red spider crab open and ready to eat, and a bowl of creamy fish soup floating with pink shrimps.
'The local cognac is good enough to follow such a small snack,' said da Cunha with Portuguese hospitality, 'and perhaps a little of the sweet anise liquor with a fresh pot of coffee.'
As I left he clicked his heels and said what a pleasure it was to talk with such an educated and cultured person. He wanted to send Maria through the garden with me to carry the lantern, but I insisted upon taking it myself. Halfway to the iron gate a gust of wind blew the wavering light out. There was a thin nail-pairing of moon, and behind the house the dog began to bark again. Beyond the hydrangea flowers and the high wall, grey-blue in the moonlight, a two-stroke motor cycle started up.
I moved into the shadow of the wall and looked back towards the house. Only the light from the upstairs study shone across the garden. I hopped over a low wall and landed in the soft earth. I shook my head and tried to disperse the effect of the alcohol. I felt the bite of my pistol under the armpit. There was no one in sight; I walked along in the soft earth, quite happy at the idea of footmarks being discovered the next morning. Beyond the gate, where the motor-cycle tracks were still fresh, was an excavation. It was nearly seven feet long. I looked into it. It was three feet deep. It had another few feet to go before it could be called a well-made grave.
There was a simple wooden board at the head of it It said, Here lies the body of a petty officer of the German Navy, name unknown. Washed ashore May 2 1945. May his soul rest with God.
I went back to where the car was parked high on the verge. I found the car key under a pocketful of almonds and walnuts and the motor buzzed calmly into life. What was that local saying that da Cunha had quoted - 'Italy, a place to be born, France, a place to live, and here is a place to die.'
Back at the house I had four small cups of coffee before I felt anything like sober and before anyone had summoned the courage to ask me what I had learned to my advantage.
'It won't be ready for me until tomorrow,' I said airily. I could hardly tell them that I had forgotten to bring it.
Tomorrow,' I said to Joe Macintosh, 'you and I both return to London.'
As I went to sleep that night the big grave was fresh in my mind, but the chisel marks on the headboard were even fresher.
18 Sad song
I was angry at myself. I went out to da Cunha's early next morning. His maidservant came to the door and said 'Bons dias.' She gave me da Cunha's engraved business card, on the back of which was written in neat writing, 'Your small package is quite safe. Please do me the honour of calling at 10 p.m. this evening to collect it. - Yours truly, M. G. R. da Cunha.'
She held out her hand for the card to be returned. I gave it to her, thanked her and returned to the car.
There was no diving that morning. The grey wind was breaking the points off the waves and white spray was thrashing the big rocks of the headland. We sat around doing nothing until H.K. invited us to his place for coffee. We went.
'Maria Teresa de Noronha,' H.K. was saying, 'the greatest little fado singer in Portugal.' A glass coffee machine was bubbling away on the blue-and-white tiled hearth and Charly, in her bronze toreador pants, was sitting cross-legged like some special sort of Buddha. Around her were scattered the brightly coloured record sleeves that are the folk art of the new world.
The walls were hung with brilliant striped local blankets and photos of H.K. standing with his gun underarm and his foot in the ear of various large quadrupeds.
Singleton and Joe were listening to H.K. doing a quick rundown on Portugal (Joe had lived there over fifteen years). Giorgio was gazing across the balcony to the grey sea. I was looking at H.K.'s books, chest expander, the nicely kept 7-mm. Mauser sporting rifle and its beautiful Zeiss x 4 telescopic sight in a leather case. I looked at his modern lithographs and listened to the strange lament of the fado records. H.K. commented on each as he selected it. 'This is a song about a girl who rents a room in a house on the cliffs to watch her lover's return. One day the news comes that her lover is drowned at sea and will never return. So she sings to the old lady whose house it is. "Faz um preco," she sings. "Faz um preco mais barato para longa estadia?"' H.K. said it in an impassioned and melancholy voice. Singleton nodded dolefully, Giorgio didn't even turn his face, but Charly clapped her hands and wore the sort of smile she wore when she was thinking about how the smile looked.
'Did you understand?' said Charly. 'It means, is there a lower price for a longer stay? It's what you hear the tourists in Lisbon saying all the time. You are a terrible tease, Mr Kondit.'
H.K. laughed. He poured big cups full of coffee and I took mine back to the shelves.
In them he had Fodor's Spain and Portugal, almost every D. H. Lawrence in print, including the Olympiad edition of Lady Chatterley and the Penguin book of the Lady Chatterley trial. There was Koestler's Spanish Testament, A Guide to the World's Great Art Treasures for Children, Art Since 1945, and a selection of books on modern painters illustrated in colour.
We made appreciative noises over the coffee and then Singleton said, 'What made you come to live in Europe, Mr Kondit?'
'Well,' said H.K., 'I was eating Milltown to sleep, Dex-amyl to wake up and Seconal to get through to bed-time. Here I drink champagne all day
and what's more, it's cheaper!' H.K. was -lacing the coffee with Portuguese cognac. Joe declined.
'Yes,' he said, and he took a swig from the bottle before recorking it, 'there I was, you see, up to the back teeth in credit cards and Milltown, and worrying about what sort of season the Yankees were likely to have. How to break out of it? I knew there were jobs for Americans abroad but I was already too old for the big corporations, and Uncle Sam's got no job for an illiterate bum like me that don't involve an M.I rifle. So one day I am standing in the bar car of the 5.11 out of Grand Central looking at all these commuting crums and thinking about how I would like the New Haven railroad not to play a part in my life-cycle every a.m. and p.m. and I think: what are all these narrow-lapelled nuts looking for that I could get them in exchange for money? And what do I conclude?'
He looked at his audience, picked up the Silex and poured coffee, enjoying the pause before answering.
Len Deighton - Harry Palmer 02 - Horse Under Water Page 7