Faraday woke next morning with the sun in his eyes and Prentice shouting.
‘I’ve got Sweet Fanny Adams.’
‘They want three hundred words.’
‘So do mine but they’re not going to get them, are they?’ ‘Mine say they’ve already written the Leader.’
‘Then they’ll have to bleeding well rewrite it. Can’t suck water from a stone. Christ! Who do they think we are?’ Faraday could see them both. Protheroe was standing by the window, Prentice was sitting in his pyjama trousers on his bed, his bedroom directly opposite Faraday’s in the courtyard. Below, mulatto women were rearranging flowerpots and pruning the giant geraniums that festooned from hanging baskets under every window. The scent from the flowers mingled with other smells coming from the kitchen at the far end. A small mulatto boy in a frayed straw hat was spraying the cobbles before the hot morning sun shone into the yard.
Faraday was about to go down for late breakfast when Prentice began talking again in his loud voice and Faraday, ignoring the disciplines he’d been taught as a child, stopped and listened.
‘It’s too bleedin’ quiet,’ Prentice said. ‘Third day of the glorious Socialist Republic and we haven’t heard a shot fired in anger or a song sung in praise.’
‘That’s not a bad line,’ said Protheroe and he began scribbling in his notebook . . . ‘shot fired in anger . . . sung in praise’.
‘You can stop that. Matey. I said it and I’ll bloody well print it. Last time I used that line was on the “Amin Ate Foreign Minister’s Liver” story. Anyway, what I’m saying,’ Prentice went on, ‘is that if it was really a popular coup, you’d have people on the streets doing a knees up, and they’re not.’
‘Probably at church, they’re all Romans here.’
‘Listen, Matey, it’s Sunday, day of rest and remembrance. Place de la République should be packed with them, Birth of a Nation, all that crap. Something’s gone wrong, I can sense it, the people here sense it. They’re keeping their kids indoors, drawing the curtains, staying put. Don’t you feel it? All uptight?’
‘Well, now you come to mention it. . .’ said Protheroe. The women below began singing an old French rhyming song as the first beams of warm sun touched their brightly- coloured headscarves. The boy, bored with his job, sprayed a puppy and it yelped excitedly as it ran in and out of the jet of water.
Faraday leant forward to hear better, hiding himself behind the lattice shutters of the half-open windows. He could smell coffee percolating in one of the domestic rooms below and the occasional whiff of French tobacco.
‘And where’s President Laurent?’ asked Prentice. ‘We haven’t seen him since yesterday.’
‘Any reason why we should?’ Protheroe was still a little doubtful.
‘Come on Matey. Use your loaf. If you’d just become Number One, would you be stuck indoors three days after you’d made it? Wouldn’t you be out there in a horse and trap, on tour, waving, consolidating your popularity, working your way into the hearts and minds of the people?’ ‘They say he goes fishing with his children on Sundays.’ ‘They said yesterday, my old luv, that he was meeting a Frelimo delegation at the airport. The Socialiste de Povo from Mozambique.’
‘But the flight was delayed at Maputo.’
‘Why?’
‘Christ! How should I know, Alf? Why are they ever?’ ‘Don’t get uppity. Matey. We’re trying to find a story. Be objective.’
Protheroe didn’t answer, knowing how right Prentice always seemed to be in these things.
‘If you ask me,’ Prentice lowered his voice, ‘I think your President Laurent has scarpered. Blown it. Gone! Petty cash and all.’
Faraday watched as Prentice’s bedroom door opened and Doubleday came in. He walked, slouched really, over to the window-sill, sat down, crossed his legs and made himself comfortable. Then he watched the women below and began whistling through his teeth.
‘Come in,’ said Prentice. ‘Christ! Don’t you ever bleedin’ knock?’
Doubleday didn’t look up. ‘Am I interrupting? Something I oughtn’t to know about?’
‘No,’ said Protheroe. ‘Nothing.’
‘Really?’
‘Well we’re not banging golliwogs for a start,’ said Prentice with some venom.
‘Don’t suppose you could, Alf, with your weight,’ said Doubleday back, in a brave and uncharacteristic show of spirit. ‘If you were honest with yourself.’
‘Look Matey,’ said Prentice, ‘don’t you start pushing me. I can manage a bit of rogering when I want it, so don’t you worry yourself about that. I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.’
It was obvious that Prentice was prepared to be angry and Doubleday, never one for prolonged confrontation, retreated.
‘Well anyway,’ he said in his dull, flat. Midlands drawl, ‘what’s the private meeting about? I thought we were going to share . . . communal pot and all that.’
He turned his body slightly on the window sill watching the women below bend from their hips as they swept up geranium cuttings. He seemed always, at all times, to be measuring a woman’s sex potential.
‘We are,’ said Prentice. ‘So what bleedin’ gems have you got?’
‘Nothing yet. But there’s no hurry. The telex line is down, so is the telephone. They’re changing circuits or something at the radio station. No lines until six tonight.’
‘How d’you know that?’ asked Prentice. He nodded knowingly to Protheroe, who nodded back though not understanding why.
‘Americans in the bar just told me,’ said Doubleday. ‘They’re from the tracking station, in town buying their weekly food and Coke supply.’
‘Americans? In town? Buying up food?’ Prentice looked again to Protheroe and winked. Protheroe was now completely baffled.
Prentice pulled his portable typewriter off the bedside table, positioned it on the vast expanse of pyjama thighs, scribbled out previous opening paragraphs and began again, his fat fingers jabbing at the tiny keys so hard the machine bounced with the shock. He read aloud as he typed:
MIRRORMAN PRENTICE DATELINE UNION. MYSTERY OF MARXIST PROFESSOR PREMIER. THIS INDIAN OCEAN ISLAND PARADISE WAITS IN FRIGHTENED SILENCE AFTER COUP- LEADER PRESIDENT LAURENT DISAPPEARS. MOUNTING TENSION ON THIRD DAY OF MARXIST REVOLUTION AMID SPECULATION THAT PROFESSOR PRESIDENT HAS ABANDONED. ALL RADIO AND TELEX COMMUNICATIONS CUT WITH OUTSIDE AND EXPECTED FREL1MO DELEGATION EX MAPUTO CANCEL VISIT. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY AMERICANS MANNING SATELLITE TRACKING STATION IN SUDDEN EMERGENCY OPERATION PANIC BUYING OF FOOD AND ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES IN READINESS POSSIBLE SIEGE SITUATION. MIRROR- MAN ON-THE-SPOT-PRENTICE (AND OTHER PRESS) PREPARING SIMILAR CONTINGENCY INCLUDING PLANNED DECLARATION OF THIS HOTEL AN INTERNATIONAL ZONE. STOP AND ENDS.
OTHERWISE ALL IS WELL. PLEASE SEND MORE MONEY. REGARDS ALF.
The young South African poured himself black coffee, leant against the balustrade and breathed in the sea air.
His balcony overlooked the swimming pool and while people were breakfasting on the terrace, sunbathers were already out arranging their sun-loungers to prime positions on the lawns. North Koreans in dark blue suits promenaded in well-ordered groups of four beyond the palm trees and, by the fountain, Chinese in grey Mao suits squatted cross- legged in a circle as a man in the centre quietly lectured them. And in the space of lawn in between, very fat, very white Russian mothers in one-piece bathing suits ordered their similarly fat and very white children into the shallow end of the pool.
The South African watched a tall, very tanned girl with black hair and a black bikini float on her back slowly across the pool, stretching her long brown legs in a way and with a rhythm that reminded him of other things. As she turned over on to her belly he caught her eye and raised his coffee cup as if to toast her but quickly and hostilely, he thought, she swam to the far side and climbed the steps to her towel without lo
oking back.
The young man had arrived at the Polana Hotel in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, from Johannesburg an hour before, piloting his organization’s Cessna. He was thirtyish, not tall, but powerfully built. His short hair had been bleached almost white by the Southern sun, and the same blond hair filled the area of his chest that showed through his open-necked shirt.
According to the flight plan he had filed at Rand Airport, he was flying on from Maputo three hundred miles north to Paradise Island, a joint South African-Mozambiquan holiday project, in his capacity as an official of the South African Tourist Authority. Except that he had nothing whatsoever to do with tourism or Paradise Island and he was not intending to fly north at all but due east, to another island altogether. The young South African was an agent for his country’s Department of National Security.
There was movement in the corridor and a knock on the door. He turned his back on the swimmers, the Soviet sunbathers and the Communist Oriental strollers. ‘Come in, it’s on the latch.’
Through the mosquito mesh door that led from the balcony to the suite’s living-room he saw a small man enter and heard him turn the key in the lock behind him.
The South African laughed. ‘Freddy, you’re the grubbiest man in Mozambique, but you have the one thing nobody else here has. Punctuality.’
‘Good morning,’ said Freddy.
He was grubby. A delicate, grubby little man with a young face, brown curly hair and a curly beard. He had folds of grey skin under his eyes; he was very white despite his lifetime in the sun, and he wore a faded brown corduroy suit and a grubby blue T-shirt advertising Coke. His plastic sandals flip-flopped their way across the stone- tiled floor. Freddy was a Mozambique-Portuguese, born in Maputo of wealthy parents who had been wise enough to keep their dual nationality just in case things went wrong for them, as things eventually did.
‘I’ve put your drink on the side,’ said the South African. ‘Bring it out here.’ He sat down at the breakfast tray and began spreading beef essence on thin slices of toast.
‘Everything go okay?’
Freddy opened the bottle of Fanta and the bottle of Coke and poured them both into the same glass. He pushed open the mesh door and sat down at the table.
‘I don’t know what you mean by okay,’ he said. ‘If things were okay you needn’t have left Jo’burg and I could stop worrying. Things are bloody awful. They’re doing everything the way you hoped they wouldn’t. And on time too.’
‘Tell me.’
‘No. I’ve written it down.’ Freddy pulled a sheet of paper neatly folded into four from under his T-shirt. Unfolded, it was foolscap size, and the writing, in pencil, was small and also very neat. Freddy was neat in all those things that didn’t show. He handed the paper to the South African who wiped toast crumbs from his mouth and read.
Convoy of thirteen lorries plus jeep left Beira depot 0715 hours: crossed Zambesi at Vila Fortes and overnighted at Mutarara. Arrived shortly after dusk and made camp in eucalyptus forest five miles north of Chinde. Yesterday morning unloaded twelve native-type long boats: twelve outboard four-stroke Yamahas; twelve pressure-type plastic fuel containers plus quantity of nylon groundsheets. Unknown number of sealed plastic sea buoyant cocoons which assume contained weapons. Twenty light machine- guns wrapped in waxed cloth: Twenty mortars similarly wrapped plus assortment of cocoon-sealed packages not identifiable. By mid morning yesterday fibreglass prefabs had been erected and a line aerial set in trees. Saw three radio transmitters with hand generators plus smaller backpacks. Camp situated at 36° 50 E/18° 50 S. One and a half miles in from the sea. Counted eighty men including leader, a tall Black wearing red skullcap under beret. Ends.
The South African put the paper down and slid it under his plate as the breeze caught a corner of the tablecloth. For a minute or more he looked out to sea, biting his bottom lip. ‘How tall?’ he asked.
‘Very.’
‘I suppose most men look tall to you, Freddy.’
‘Six feet four, possibly more.’
‘And black? Very black?’
‘As the ace of spades. But not from here. Not from Africa I’d say.’
‘A big man. Well built?’
‘Immense.’
Still the South African looked at the sea and Freddy followed his eye line. A Russian freighter was moving very slowly into harbour, hardly under steam. Otherwise the channel was empty.
‘He reminded me,’ said Freddy, ‘of an American football star.’
The South African suddenly looked round at him. Then laughed loudly.
‘You perceptive little man, Freddy, you clever little
dog.’
‘You know him?’
‘Yes I know him. But I never thought they’d use him this far south. We know too much about him.’ He looked down at Freddy’s writing again.
‘They really mean to follow this one through. D’you know that? They mean to make this one really stand up. They’d never commit someone like him unless they expected success.’
Freddy finished his drink. ‘How can they fail?’ he said. ‘No one’s going to stop them so I don’t see that he needs to be that good. And I don’t see that they need all this secrecy anyway. They could just walk in. No one on our side is going to make a noise.’
The South African didn’t answer. He stood up and slowly kneaded the sheet of paper into a tight knot the size of a golfball. Then, as if he hadn’t heard Freddy’s complaint, he said, ‘So they’ve made their decision. Must have settled it when they met three days ago in Lusaka. He was there but we never guessed he had anything to do with this.’ He looked down at the ball of paper and then at Freddy. He smiled. ‘You’ve done well little man even if you do think it’s a waste of time. I’ll tell the Department to bang up your retainer.’
‘A decent lunch would do.’
‘King prawns?’
‘For a start, yes. But soon. Before the Soviet revolutionary pigs start stuffing themselves.’
‘Right. Take me first via the airport and then we’ll eat early.’ The South African walked into the lavatory via the living-room and Freddy heard him flush away the ball of paper.
‘D’you know,’ he said to the open lavatory window, ‘that the East Germans have now been ordered to go in pairs whenever they leave their hostel.’
‘Security?’
‘They can’t go anywhere alone.’
‘Why?’
‘So that nothing can be done or said by them without their Embassy knowing. They watch each other.’
‘Like the Jesuits?’
‘Yes. Just like the Jesuits.’
‘They’re very suspicious people,’ said the South
African. ‘They’ve taken over.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘Very efficiently as you’d expect. They’re into logistics, the ports, the prisons. They’ve completely restructured the secret police and now they’re trying to move into finance.’
The South African laughed. ‘Freddy, they could win the Third World War, but they’ll never take the money away from the Goanese and they’re the ones who control the escudo and the US dollar here.’
‘You laugh too much,’ said Freddy, ‘that’s your trouble, you and yours. You don’t take them seriously enough. You worry about Communism at third remove, because you never really believe it’ll ever cross your own doorstep. We Portuguese used to think like that once. But we were fools and so are you. You sound anxious but nothing really convinces you. You see genuine African nationalism and you crush it, but when Sovietism stares you in the face you don’t even recognize it. And it’s everywhere.’
‘Really?’ The South African seemed not too interested. ‘There are six thousand East German military already in Africa,’ Freddy continued, ‘just military, not counting the thousa
nds of economic and agricultural advisers and the telecommunication technicians and the teachers and road builders. Next year it’ll be ten thousand and the year after that sixteen thousand. And still you do nothing.’
‘I thought our worry was the Cubans,’ said the South African. He sounded bored and fidgeted. His eyes scanned
the deck chairs on the lawn below for the long, tanned girl in the black bikini.
‘The East Germans are the brains,’ said Freddy. ‘They are the organizers. They instruct the Cuban military, teach their political commissars, provide the ideas. The Cubans just provide the fodder. It’s the East Germans who provide the dedication. I’m told their sincerity even frightens the Russians.’
Freddy emptied his glass. ‘Last week the British Embassy here held a garden party for their Queen’s birthday. I’m told she has two. The Ambassador invited the Foreign Press Corps to make up the numbers. They had to fill up the lawns somehow and there are so few people here nowadays.
‘That evening I was in the Tivoli and there were some Russians, Bulgarians, Cubans and East Germans in the bar. They had all refused to attend the party, on principle they said. By midnight they were all drunk, all that is except the two East Germans. They swore and sang songs and told irreverent jokes about their wives and their Presidents. All except the two East Germans. They just sat there sipping their lime juice, saying nothing, never laughing, just listening. They are frightening people and you make out as if they didn’t exist, as if you didn’t see them.’
The South African suddenly stiffened. He turned to Freddy and looked him in the eyes. ‘You are a fool Freddy to call us fools. You underestimate us and our friends in the West. You forget something. The East Germans, like the Cubans and the rest of the Soviet camp, are welcomed here. They are welcome in all the countries they operate in, at least to begin with. They are invited and they stay. And that’s the difference between them and us.
‘The Third World allows the West to send them free wheat, free powdered milk, free tractors and free money. But they allow Moscow to send men. Remember that Freddy, when you next call us blind.’
Red Joker Page 5