by Brian Aldiss
In Umbalathorp, the powers of light and dark miscegenated with their traditional abandon. There they could be observed at work, not only in individuals, but in groups of individuals. The nucleus of the government, for instance, was a striking mixture of progressive and retrogressive elements. At the top of the scale, the enlightenment of President M’Grassi Landor was counter-balanced by the obscurantism of Dumayami, both men laying equal claim on the hearts of the people; while at the bottom of the scale, the blundering attempts of well-meaning clerks were matched by the corrupting influence of the wily Portuguese, as both groups vied for a dip in the purses of the people.
This conjunction of opposing forces, complementary but not complimentary, now became evident in another sphere. Under Ted Timpleton’s expert hands, a considerable structure was growing on the floor of the computer room in the palace. Above a steel base measuring some forty-five feet by three feet, rose elaborate towers of relays; about them and from them ran wires, some no thicker than a strand of a spider’s web, some sheathed in white insulation till they looked like squidges of toothpaste, some merging and running with scores of others into cables like frozen oil. The Apostle, plenipotentiary of knowledge, was growing cell by cell.
At the same time, a more sinister structure of suspicion was building up round Soames, intangibly but undeniably. It was something he did not know how to fight. Though its signs were several, its source was doubtful.
The uneasiness made itself felt on the day after his visit to the Pickets, when President Landor, Jimpo and Timpleton all showed degrees of reserve in Soames’ presence. He found himself unexpectedly isolated. Soames could think of only two possible reasons for this new and unwelcome coolness. Firstly, a report of his excursion up Stranger’s Hill had probably filtered back to the palace; this, because of the abhorrence in which the Pickets were held, might well have lowered his stock; yet this should hardly have affected his relationship with Timpleton, who was the last person to worry about moral standards. Secondly, his innocent invitation of Princess Cherry up to his bedroom might have been misconstrued; but this, too, would hardly worry Timpleton – nor yet Jimpo, who showed little regard for his half-sister.
Something, therefore, must have happened of which Soames had no knowledge. He suspected that the phone call which had detained Jimpo on Umbalathorp station might have something to do with the matter. Possibly Dumayami was at work, undermining Soames’ popularity in preparation for a countermove against the Apostle.
Looking for enlightenment, Soames wandered down to the computer room. Timpleton had shown no wish to fraternise all day, and was obviously keen to avoid anything approaching intimate conversation now. He stood in the middle of the electrical skeleton, testing a long narrow fuse box, not catching Soames’ eye.
‘Have a look on the jury board and see if Five-oh-Five’s blinking, will you?’ he asked curtly. Soames knew it for a gambit, a hint to him to be quiet, a reminder of his uselessness. His job was to wear lounge suits, talking about the general functions and uses of Unilateral machines to possible clients, ironing out any so-called ‘consumer difficulties’ which might arise; as such, he was an obvious butt for a technical man like Timpleton; what was more, he had no idea what the jury board was, or what a blinking Five-oh-Five might indicate.
Timpleton wore only mechanic’s dungarees; his wiry, sweat-polished body was a startling mixture of white skin and black, prolific hair, so that he looked like a half-skinned animal trapped in the machine. Peering round an impulse switchboard, he noted Soames’ hesitation with a heavy sigh of contempt and bellowed to his two assistants.
‘Hey, L’Panto, Gumboi, run look-see bloody jury board, look-see number Five-oh-Five he go blink-blink-blink topside. He no do, you bolo me plenty loud and clear, savvy?’
‘OK Ted, plenty bloody roger,’ the young men called, darting eagerly to obey, bounding over the relay banks like salmon headed up-river. The amount of English, larded with technicalities and scatology, that they had picked out of Timpleton’s home-made lingo was really astonishing.
Seeing his case was hopeless, Soames left them at it without a word, retreating under cover of their shouts.
His head ached; he had been roused early that morning by the shrieks of the birds in the creeper outside his window. Now the palace grew oppressive. The rear door of the computer room led straight out to the gardens at the back of the building. Soames walked through them and turned right, strolling by the river, his spirits reviving at the sight of the dark-flowing waters.
The path to the left, which he had taken two eventful days before, had led him to Dumayami. The one he was now on twisted and turned through maize patch and thicket and finally dumped him in Main High Street. Wandering aimlessly for a time, self-consciously the tourist, gazing in shops – some of which displayed the celluloid models of Donald Duck, the plastic ray guns, the useless china ornaments, the tubes of toothpaste containing chlorophyll, which may be purchased almost anywhere on earth – Soames bethought himself of the Fountain of a Thousand Appetising Intestines. A glass of Russian tea would be very acceptable.
On his way there, he passed a prosperous general store with a Portuguese name above its entrance. On the steps stood José Blencimonti Soares, a plump tailor’s dummy whose grey cheeks shone like oiled putty; a red flower moped in his buttonhole.
Soames recognised him at once, though they had not met again since Soames’ first morning at the palace.
‘Good-day, Señor Soares,’ he said, nodding.
‘Good-day, señor,’ Soares returned, with a curt wave of his hand, continuing to gaze into space. It was the snub direct, for Soames had automatically stopped for conversation, already deciding that if another invitation were issued to inspect the Portuguese’s home, wife and daughter he would accept it. Affronted, Soames pursed his lips, then utilised the gesture to whistle to show he was not affronted; it was a second-hand gesture handed down to him from his father. Whistling, he turned into the Chinese café.
The interior was gloomier than ever, being well filled with several shades of people eating rice and, presumably, appetising intestines. Taking a seat by a window in whose meagre expanse a strip of Main High Street and an oleander on the other side of it were visible, Soames ordered Russian tea from a waiter whose bows were as violent as nitrogen bends. When the man had gone, Soames sat brooding over the snub delivered by the Portuguese. It was not that he cared much either way for Soares, who had as obvious an axe to grind as Ping Ah and Picket; but the man’s behaviour was a straw in the wind. The wind was cold; today nobody loved Soames. It is never pleasant to find one’s company shunned where it was recently sought, or to perceive that one’s friends can vanish as rapidly as the snows of yesteryear, or the totalitarian politicians of today.
Dismally, Soames received his Russian tea and stared out at the lance-like oleander leaves across the road. The sun burnished them as they hung stiffly over a broken wall, until only a crazy painter could have determined whether they were dark green, black or a sullen gold. Against the imperfect wall, their perfection attained a hint of the uncanny; their shadows, pitched down on to the shabby sidewalk, were spear-sharp with menace. Behind the oleanders, behind all the other still foliage in Goya, lurked a storm whose violence could be felt but not described, just as, behind the insistent façade of sunlight, lurked utter blackness.
The view of the oleanders was abruptly eclipsed by the blue and cream bulk of an American automobile. Though its wings were buckled, its panels bent, it made an impressive spectacle in Umbalathorp; Soames remembered seeing it earlier in the market place. The driver remained in his seat when it bucked to a stop; the passenger climbed out, limped round the bonnet, and entered the Fountain of a Thousand Appetising Intestines.
Silence fell among the customers as the newcomer looked slowly round, spied Soames, walked over to his table and sat down facing him.
‘You are Monsieur Soames Noyes, if I do not make mistake,’ he said. ‘I am Lupe Abonso Guidados de Duidos,
senior member of Goyese Portuguese community. Perhaps my name is already familiar to you.’
It was the man Jimpo had mentioned as being José Soares’ rival; Soames recognised him by the wooden leg Jimpo had spoken of, which, beginning below the knee, looked like a mahogany chair leg. Roses were carved upon it, and the name of the Holy Virgin. De Duidos was tall, thin and dark, as dry and wizened as Soares was greasy; he might have passed for a Chinese. He had none of the ingratiating airs of his compatriot; you would never imagine him in a drawing-room.
Soames sat tight and said nothing, accepting a small cheroot when it was offered. He recognised an air of menace when he saw one; it stimulated him not entirely disagreeably.
‘You do not look happy,’ de Duidos said, breathing smoke from the extreme corners of his mouth.
‘The flies and the company bother me,’ Soames said. ‘What are you doing here? I understand you have a café of your own, Mr de Duidos?’
‘Do you know this, Monsieur Noyes, that Britain and Portugal are very old allies in Europe, with never any trouble between, as between Portugal and Spain, or Britain and France? Here, when you come to Umbalathorp, is waiting a prosperous Portuguese community to greet you. But no, apparently for you Africa is not Europe; friends in Europe mean enemies in Africa. You avoid us. You speak only to this gangster man Soares.’
‘You have rather the wrong end of the stick, I think,’ Soames said. ‘I’m a stranger here. I spoke to Soares because he spoke to me. If you wanted to fraternise, why not come to the palace, ring the front door bell and greet me properly?’
De Duidos smiled by the cunning expedient of drawing his lips back from his brown teeth.
‘Things do not run on such smooth rails as that in Umbalathorp,’ he said, ‘as you will find if you live here that long. M’Grassi Landor is a dangerous man apt to side with the gangster Soares. Instead of myself, I send out my emissary to look out the ground. He reported to me you are not cooperative man or friendly with strangers, such as I like.’
‘Who was this emissary, as you call him?’ Soames demanded, gulping down the last of his tea and dropping three-quarters of the cheroot to soak in the dregs. ‘Nobody has spoken to me of you, I am happy to say. Now I’m off, Monsieur de Duidos. Goodbye.’
‘But I come too,’ de Duidos said, following Soames into the street. He stuck a finger into Soames’ ribs. ‘And before I leave you, I tell you one thing and ask another. One thing is, that I enjoy company only of people with manners. Other thing, how you think you can make crooked deal with this Soares without other men find out? You think we are fools, eh?’
‘What deal are you talking about?’ Soames asked. ‘I made no deals with anyone. It seems to me, de Duidos, you’re running on the wrong track entirely.’
The Portuguese grabbed the cheroot butt from his mouth, came closer to Soames and said furiously, ‘So, you pretend you know nothing about thousands pounds sterling of computer parts handed to this cheap crook Soares yesterday? You no longer are among bunch of softies in London now; you be a bit too funny and you are found only by hyenas dead in jungle, see?’
The information coupled with the threat did a wonderfully speedy job of softening Soames up; his semi-belligerent attitude vanished.
‘I can assure you I know absolutely nothing about any such deal,’ he said, ‘but if one has taken place – if this isn’t just an odd figment of your imagination – I should much like to know about it. I am officially in charge of the computer, as you may have heard. Please tell me what you know.’
‘Not so fast, friend,’ de Duidos said, smiling at his cheroot. ‘Get in the car and we talk a little at my place all about the matter.’
‘Where is your place?’ Soames asked suspiciously.
‘Not far. I can’t offer you the bodies of my wife and daughter like that gangster Soares, but you will be OK. Get in! Your computer is worth a little ride, no?’
He held the rear door of the blue and white Oldsmobile open. Soames glanced up and down the street. Eyes watched from all directions. A native policeman in puttees leant against the Catholic church, smiling at them. Reassured by such a cloud of witnesses, Soames climbed in; de Duidos eased in after him, slammed the door and they were off.
They hustled through the market with horn blazing, flashed past the palace gate, nearly stampeded a bullock cart, and wound up a road in a direction Soames had not yet explored.
The car fled through jungle and stopped at a solitary, neglected bungalow beside the Uiui. The cliffs were high here on both sides. As Soames climbed out, he could see, further downstream, the green water hemmed by a slender dam, above which stood a white structure, Umbalathorp’s only power house. There was the contrast again: the ancient with the modern, order against energy.
‘Come along in,’ de Duidos said, uninvitingly.
They passed a muscular man lounging on the steps of the bungalow. He neither looked up nor spoke.
The bungalow was disorderly.
One big room served as bedroom and living quarters. Two refrigerators stood, disconnected, in one corner; a case of what looked like rifles lay under the bed. Boxes were piled beneath the table, while dirty cups and a sweaty shirt lay on the table. As a home, it was little enough; compared with chez Picket it exuded sweetness and light.
‘Sit down,’ de Duidos ordered, ‘and say to me what you know of this swindle.’
A young Portuguese woman looked at them from the back room, peering cautiously round a curtain. De Duidos barked at her and she withdrew her head.
‘I am sorry. A man’s night-time recreations often trouble his daytime business, as perhaps already you find out. Umbalathorp is a dull town, monsieur, unlike our respective native capitals; a man turns naturally to all those things his mother once taught him to abhor. Proceed with your explanation.’
It took Soames about half an hour to convince the man he knew nothing whatever about any missing computer parts; de Duidos evidently had grasped this long before – perhaps before they entered the car – but was reluctant to accept it. Finally, he got up, lit another cheroot, and said, ‘So. Then it is your friend Timpleton the culprit. He has made this villainous deal with Soares.’
‘I suppose so: all the equipment is in his care,’ Soames said. ‘I want to get this stuff back, de Duidos. In that respect, I am with you against Soares, if Soares has it. I will check on what is missing as soon as I get back to the palace; meanwhile, tell me exactly what you have heard, then I shall go to the police.’
This made de Duidos laugh, a sharp, brown rattle of noise. ‘Don’t speak of police here!’ he exclaimed. ‘This is above police; they are only for keeping herdsmen and drunks in order. You do not read your excellent compatriot Graham Greene, or you will know these universal matters. No, do you not know Umbalathorp is Utopia, for here is crime abolished – rape and robbery and murder are reduced to private concerns? What we do in this matter is our own business.
‘This is what I am able to find out by various emissaries. Your firm sent out this computing machine which is to transform Goya to Paradise packed in forty-one crates. Also, for preventing any delay here due to accident in transit, it sent in addition five crates of the spare parts which are sensitive to breakage.’
‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Soames affirmed.
‘It is correct; I tell you I find out,’ de Duidos said. ‘Nothing in all forty-six crates is broken, saying thanks to British factory packing, or maybe the gentle African tree breaking your plane’s fall. But Timpleton sends cables to your firm of which you are not aware, saying all spare parts smashed and more required; my emissaries give me copies of these cables. Then Timpleton makes a deal secretly with this cheap crook Soares and the spare parts are smuggled out the palace.’
‘How?’ Soames asked. ‘How could they possibly do that without being noticed?’
‘My friend, in the laundry baskets of a laundryman without conscience called Ping Ah, who would sell his little daughter to a gorilla for two brass mores. So, all these
delicate valves and so forth are taken out in the dirty nightdresses of the Queen – and that is a thought, monsieur, upon which we do not linger as we are pure men – and delivered to the hands of the ruffian Soares.
‘Next act of the comedy, your man Timpleton takes a nice meal with this ruffian, is allowed to make the ascent of his mountainous daughter Maria, and is given nine thousand doimores as his payment. To consider that the parts are probably worth ten thousand pounds sterling in your money, or twenty thousand doimores in our money, Soares had ridden on a good bargain. All the same, nine thousand doimores is a princely sum. It can buy you half Umbalathorp and all the female population, if you should be so greedy to want them.’
De Duidos licked his lips sadly at this thought, rubbing his lighted cheroot between his palms.
Soames, after an outburst of anger against Timpleton, asked what good the spare parts were to Soares.
‘Can you really not guess the little comedy?’ de Duidos asked, raising a narrow eyebrow. ‘Corruption is the great organ musicians like this villain Soares play all their life. When you English are gone, the two black men Gumboi and L’Panto are left in charge of the machine, and along come the snake and speak to them with a few doimores in his mouth.
‘Pretty soon, one of these young men, perhaps Gumboi, perhaps L’Panto, kick in a precious glass valve and the machine does not work any more. The President, our King, sighs and says “Never mind, we get another valve from England, cost twenty pounds sterling.” “Alas, that will take two weeks, maybe a month,” sighs L’Panto or Gumboi. “Luckily we know a Portuguese with great presentiment who has a duplicate of this valve by him, which he will supply for only twenty and a half pounds sterling, with carriage free” …’
‘I see,’ Soames said.
A pause followed. De Duidos strolled over to a cupboard by the bedside, brought out a heavy revolver, and began ostentatiously to oil it.