Tango

by Alan Judd

  William did not see what started the fight but it seemed that Ricardo had cannoned into either the Russian or Ines. Ines was suddenly sitting on the floor with very nearly the same expression, her legs splayed and her dress off her shoulder. She looked like big ugly doll thrown down by a child. The Russian, a burly man with a crew-cut and a grizzled face, had pulled Ricardo down by the hair with one hand and with his other was slapping Ricardo’s face. He shouted as he slapped, pushing and pulling Ricardo backwards and forwards across the floor. No sound came from Ricardo.

  Theresa went to Ines. William started to follow but hesitated. He felt he should help Ricardo somehow. The floor was quickly filled with uniformed men and he was jostled to one side. A woman screamed. His glasses were dislodged and for a moment he couldn’t see what was happening. He could still hear the shouting and slapping. Trying to get round the side, he was pushed back against the table and half fell amongst some chairs, including the one which had his duffel-coat. He picked up the coat with a vague intention of saving it and pushed on round the floor.

  Soldiers had their backs to him. He tried to peer over but was pushed back. Then the soldiers parted and he saw Ricardo on his side on the floor, his head in his arms, his knees doubled up. There was blood on his hands and on the floor. The Russian was kicking him.

  William shouted, ‘Stop! Leave him!’ in English. One or two of the soldiers looked round, but the Russian went on kicking. Small grunting and snuffling noises came from Ricardo. William couldn’t get near enough. He shouted again, this time in Spanish, and looked for someone to help but the soldiers were all laughing. He swung his coat back and threw it, intending it to fall between the Russian and Ricardo like a towel in a boxing-ring. He swung it hard and only as he did so remembered the hammer in the pocket. The coat left his hand with surprising velocity and struck the Russian in the face, flopping over his shoulders. The Russian pushed it off him and stood, blinking. A trickle of blood came from his nose.

  For a second or two no one moved. Through the soldiers on the other side of Ricardo, William glimpsed Carlos still sitting at his table, pale and staring. He felt someone grab him by the arms. For a few moments he was pushed and pulled, then abruptly released. Manuel Herrera stood before him, cigar in one hand and William’s hammer in the other.

  ‘An unusual instrument to bring to a dance, Señor Wooding,’ he said. ‘I wonder what your wife would think.’

  William didn’t remember having told Manuel he was married. ‘It was her suggestion. I had to repair something.’

  Manuel did not smile. ‘Of course. There is usually something to repair at dances.’ He indicated Ricardo with his cigar. ‘Bodies, for instance. But not with hammers. You have injured a senior representative of a friendly power. Perhaps you have caused an international incident. A serious matter.’

  Ricardo was being helped to his feet. William did not regret what he had done but he was frightened of Manuel and the soldiers. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Of course not. Please do not leave until we have spoken again.’ Manuel turned to Ricardo’s friends and told them sharply to take him away.

  Ricardo hobbled out, his arms round the shoulders of those nearest him. He coughed and his face was still bleeding. There was a fragment of tooth in the blood on the floor. Maria walked behind him with her hand on his shoulder.

  William was glad to be ignored. He made his way round the edge of the dance-floor. Some people were leaving but many were milling about. The band, which had stopped playing, were being told something by El Lizard. William wondered where his coat was but didn’t like to go back and look; he didn’t want to meet the Russian. Without having planned it, he found himself near the presidential table. Carlos was sitting there alone, his colonels and companions still engaged with the remnants of the fracas. His slim face looked thoughtful, even mournful.

  ‘Wooding,’ he said. ‘Come and sit here. No one will bother you.’

  William sat. Despite what had happened to Ricardo, he had an urge to apologise. ‘I’m sorry, Carlos. I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble.’

  ‘It wasn’t you, was it? I thought it was your clumsy friend.’

  ‘No, I mean the officer. I threw my coat at the officer who was beating him. There was a hammer in the pocket.’

  ‘A hammer?’

  ‘For repairing Theresa’s car.’

  ‘Of course, yes, she told me.’

  On the dance-floor the Russian was holding his nose and arguing with everyone near him. Carlos toyed with the champagne cork on the table, pushing it backwards and forwards with his long middle finger. ‘Well, that’s Theresa for tonight, anyway. It wouldn’t be the same now. I am no longer in the mood.’

  William was more relieved than he would have thought possible. ‘That’s a pity.’

  ‘It’s like this with everything now. Either it gets out of control and goes wrong or I can have it whenever I want but I stop wanting it. It was better before.’ He looked at William. ‘Do you know what became of Charles Chatsworth?’

  William thought. He remembered Chatsworth from school, a gangling youth who collected catapults. He was often in trouble. ‘No, except that he joined the Army. He struck me as a bit mad.’

  ‘He was a genius. He was below me at Sandhurst.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Promotion in the British Army is slow. I don’t imagine he became a general, like me. They would not recognise his genius.’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘He was in prison for a while in Bogata. Then he got out. I should like to know how he is doing.’

  Presumably this was what Box would call an opportunity. ‘Would you like me to find out and let you know?’

  ‘No, it’s not important. He wasn’t a particular friend.’

  William couldn’t remember Carlos having had any particular friends. He had been an isolated figure at school who nevertheless did not appear lonely, as if he didn’t realise he had no particular friends or perhaps didn’t know what they were.

  ‘You have done very well yourself,’ said William.

  ‘Yes, I have. Am I famous in England?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘That is what our embassy in London says.’ Carlos gazed at his officers, who were all still arguing with each other. The Russian held his handkerchief to his nose and gesticulated with his other hand. El Lizard stood obediently to one side while Manuel nodded and spoke calmly. Theresa and Ines were not to be seen.

  ‘I have noticed a strange thing, William,’ Carlos continued. ‘The more powerful I become, the less I can do. Power does not increase in proportion to one’s advance and never can one do as much as one thinks. Of course, there are some things one can do – execute most of the people who were dancing, for instance, or have them imprisoned for injuring Russian officers –’ he smiled ‘– but not much else. One can do that, but it is hard to do less, if you see what I mean. There is not much between that and leaving everything alone. In fact, there is much to be said for leaving things alone but one does not necessarily have the power to do even that.’

  William tried vainly to think of the question Arthur Box would have him ask. It wasn’t so much that what he was doing seemed unreal as that it was almost too ordinary to be significant. ‘Why pursue power?’ he asked, after a pause.

  ‘One does not necessarily have much choice about that, either.’ Carlos’s eyes were on Manuel and the Russian, both now talking to El Lizard. When Carlos resumed he spoke rapidly. ‘Power also means one loses all choice in one’s personal affairs. Tonight is an example. When I was a captain I could have had Theresa, but now I am general and president it becomes a very complicated business involving many people and so it goes wrong. But you can help me.’ Manuel and the Russian were approaching. Carlos turned to William. ‘I don’t want all these people involved any more. I want you to arrange it for me secretly. You know her, you can bring her to me without anyone knowing. It is better that way. I will contact you with instruction
s.’

  William stood as the two reached them. Neither acknowledged him. Manuel turned to Carlos.

  ‘Excellency, Colonel Scherbitsky wishes to speak to you about the woman he was dancing with.’

  William backed away. The band struck up again.

  He found his coat but not the hammer. At least now he would have something to report to Box: the president was unhappy and less in control than was thought. Also there was a good chance of further contact. Presumably this was the sort of thing that would please Box, though William was not so sure that it pleased him. Pimping was one thing – perhaps – but pimping for Theresa another. He already felt possessive about her. Anyway, there were limits, he told himself.

  She was in the next room with a lot of other people. She turned when she saw him. ‘I was worried about you but it’s all right now.’

  ‘It seems to be.’

  ‘Ines is going with him.’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘The Russian colonel. At first he wanted you beaten but now Ines is going with him and Manuel Herrera says it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to be beaten. He will forget about it for you.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad about that.’

  ‘Good for Ines, too.’

  They stood back to allow some people to pass.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ he asked.

  ‘I am going home. The president will not see me again tonight.’

  ‘I’ll come with you to your car, to see if it will start.’

  ‘You are kind but it is not necessary.’

  ‘No, but I shall.’

  She became passive, as if suddenly hopeless. ‘All right.’

  ‘I’ll meet you outside.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was still raining. The old Dodge gleamed balefully in the light of the street-lamp. Theresa joined him wrapped in her shawl and he held the umbrella for her while she got in. When she pressed the starter it produced the same tired groan as before.

  ‘I’ll get the starting handle,’ he said.

  She put her hand on his arm. ‘No, William, you must not do that.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It worked before.’

  ‘No, you must not. You’ll make your hand worse. You won’t be able to do it.’

  ‘All right, I’ll give you a lift in mine.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How will you get home?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her passivity seemed to deepen, as if she were sinking away from him.

  ‘Do you normally drive?’ he asked. ‘How far is it?’

  ‘Normally, if I don’t have my car, my father or my brothers collect me. But tonight I did not make arrangements for going home.’

  ‘Can you telephone them?’

  ‘I have no money.’

  ‘I have plenty of change.’

  ‘They have no telephone.’

  The rain dripped from the umbrella on to the inside of the car’s open door. She stared at the windscreen, one hand on the wheel and the other negligently in her lap.

  ‘Let me take you home,’ he said.

  She shook her head.

  ‘I have a message for you from the president.’

  She looked at him.

  ‘I’ll tell you, anyway,’ he added quickly, ashamed of himself. ‘You don’t have to come with me. I’ll tell you now.’

  She let go of the steering wheel, took out the ignition key and swung her legs towards him. ‘Where is your car?’

  The route lay through the centre of the city, past the docks and towards some steep hills farther up the estuary. He didn’t know the area but knew of it as the shanties, a sprawling conglomeration of shanty towns that had grown up over the past twenty years. He had seen it both in daylight when it appeared a generally cloudy or misty region of wooden buildings on muddy hills, and at night when it was identifiable by its lights. These were fewer and yellower than the white lights of the city, the result, he had heard, of the fact that power was illegally siphoned from the mains. There were frequent fires and during wet weather, landslips that washed away dozens of shacks and their occupants. Someone had told him that the shanties were now larger than the city itself, teeming carbuncles of the poor and dispossessed who had chosen urban rather than rural poverty.

  She directed him monosyllabically. He wanted to say something but couldn’t think what and anyway had to concentrate on the muddy pot-holed roads. His headlights picked out the wrecks of vehicles, ramshackle buildings heaped on top of each other like boxes, mangy furtive dogs and, as they went higher, shacks on rickety stilts built into seemingly impossible hillsides. All around there were people, a constant, swarming, variegated stream. It contrasted with the city, which had been near deserted in the rain. Every shack had a light of some sort and from most came the sounds of television or loud music. Scantily-clad children swarmed like insects, oblivious of the rain.

  She seemed to relax and he felt her look at him. ‘You are afraid you will be lost when you go back?’ she asked, smiling.

  ‘Only a little.’

  ‘It’s not so difficult. I live high up. So long as you keep going down in any direction you will come to a road that leads to the city.’

  He turned hard left where the track narrowed and became much steeper, holding his breath as they lurched into another hole. He had his window open and the leaves of a bush brushed his face. Beside the bush was an open door in which a man stood smoking. Behind him was the usual dull yellow light and blaring music.

  ‘I was ashamed for you to come here,’ she said.

  ‘You shouldn’t be ashamed.’

  ‘No. Anyway, my shame does not matter.’

  ‘I spoke to Carlos again after the fight.’

  ‘Does he still want me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Turn right and go slowly because it’s very rough.’

  ‘He wants me to take you to him next time without anyone knowing. He says he will send instructions.’

  ‘Will you do it?’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  She stared ahead. ‘Yes, I want it. The rest does not matter. I told you.’

  The buildings petered out in a haphazard conglomeration of wood and corrugated iron. The track continued up into the darkness.

  ‘Here,’ she said.

  It was hard to see where her home began or ended. ‘Are there many of you?’ he asked.

  ‘Eleven. That is the children. Then my parents, my grandmother and some others.’

  He pointed up the track. ‘What’s up there?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Is there room to turn round?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took his time in order to delay the moment of parting. ‘What do they do, the people who live here?’

  ‘Anything. Nothing. They work in the canning factories or the mines, some in the city.’

  ‘Perhaps they work in my company’s factory.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘What does your father do?’

  ‘He worked for a builder but he hurt his back. Now he cannot work. He lies down nearly all the time. It is for me and my brothers and sisters to earn money.’

  When he had completed his seven-point turn they were facing downhill towards the house. The headlights showed barrels beneath the broken guttering, a rusty water-tank on a ledge and two cats. No one came out to see whose the headlights were.

  ‘Our water,’ she said, indicating the barrels. ‘The rain is good for us.’

  ‘Is it you that supports your family?’

  ‘I help. I told you, it was not my big chance.’

  ‘Yes.’ He kept the engine running, fearing that the silence after switching it off might prompt her to leave.

  ‘Do you dislike me?’ she asked.

  ‘No – no, I don’t at all.’

  ‘You sound as if you do.’

  ‘No – no, I like you very much. Really, I do.’ He was so surprised and pleased that he felt he must sound unconvincing. ‘I like you very much but
I don’t like . . . what you are having to do.’

  She looked at him. ‘You will not help me?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes. I will help you.’

  She opened the door and got out.

  ‘How do I contact you?’ he asked.

  ‘At Maria’s. I am there every day.’

  ‘Every day?’

  She nodded as she closed the door.

  ‘You dance beautifully,’ he called.

  She had to come back to hear him repeat it, then thanked him and complimented him on his own efforts with a professional courtesy that had not been present before. He drove away feeling miserable and reckless, more unhappy at the distancing effect of his remark than at the fact of pimping for her. Eventually, though, it was the thought that perhaps she liked him, perhaps even found him attractive despite his shape – or at least was not obviously repelled – that reconciled him to the frequent wrong turnings and dead ends of his meandering route home.

  Chapter 6

  Next morning the office was busier than usual. An unexpected resurgence in paper supply from the mill coincided with a surprise order from the newly-formed Ministry of Information which was responsible for propaganda and for overseeing the press. William visited the ministry, made arrangements via the now functioning telephone to visit the factory and the mill that afternoon, sent letters, calculated costs and composed his first optimistic report to London. Despite only a few hours’ sleep, he felt fresh and vigorous. Ricardo rang, saying he would be in later and apologising for not being in already. It was as rare for Ricardo to apologise as to appear any earlier than later; to ring and say sorry was a sign of special effort. For once he sounded respectful, as if William were a wealthy patron. He said his injuries were not too bad, there seemed to be nothing serious though his lip was cut and he ached a lot.