Saturn Over the Water Read online

  ‘I never said it was easy.’ She didn’t look at me, and her voice was sulky. ‘Take these mounts if you want them. Or anything else.’

  ‘No, thank you, Rosalia.’ I picked up the sketches. ‘I don’t want anything of yours. You keep it, keep it all.’ I walked straight but rather slowly to the door, without even looking in her direction. Just as I was quietly closing the door behind me I thought I heard her crying. I didn’t care. The way she’d interrupted me in there, shouting like a spoilt child and looking like a beatnik’s pad pal, just when I was trying to get to her through the pictures, had somehow given me a bad jolt. I was still feeling raw round the edges and sour inside when I found my way to the place where I was lunching.

  It wasn’t hard to find because it was in the central building, the only Institute building that had more than one storey. The room itself was clean, bright and uninteresting. I haven’t spent much time with scientists, but they always seem to me to live in the same atmosphere, which somehow has had most of the interest, colour and life drained out of it. I sat at lunch between Dr Guevara, the director, who seemed absent-minded and rather worried, as if an experiment was going wrong somewhere, and Dr Schneider, the head of the medical section, the one who was not unlike Soultz but shorter, darker, hairier. Because I was in a bad mood and feeling impatient, I decided not to waste much time talking about nothing to Schneider. I was here to investigate, wasn’t I?

  ‘I met your friend Dr Magorious at a dinner party in London.’

  ‘It is not surprising,’ said Schneider. ‘He enjoys social life, I understand. You had some talk with him?’

  ‘Not much. We didn’t take to each other. What does he think is wrong with the English?’

  ‘Ah – Soultz told you about his letter to me. It is not a question of something being wrong but of a recent change in the national character. His account of it is rather technical – it would not interest you, I think, Mr Bedford.’

  I know I wasn’t being very clever, but I felt I must find out something. ‘When Dr Soultz told me yesterday that you didn’t find Joe Farne very co-operative, what did he mean?’

  This didn’t seem to worry Schneider. ‘Again, it is all rather technical. Farne was doing some research here on synthetic proteins. He had made some progress and wished to publish his results. But it is the policy of the Arnaldos Institute – and it is clearly stated in our contract with all scientists employed in research here – that no results can be published without the permission of the Institute. Farne strongly resented this. He refused to continue his work here. So he left us.’

  ‘Soultz doesn’t know where he went,’ I said.

  ‘Then you may be sure nobody here knows where he went,’ said Schneider. ‘Are you undertaking some commission from Mr Arnaldos to paint something here, Mr Bedford?’

  I told him I wasn’t, and explained that I only found myself in Uramba because Arnaldos and I both happened to know Sam Harnberg. Having no interest in science, I went on to explain, the Institute wasn’t really my concern, though I’d no doubt it was doing a wonderful job for Peru. He said that it was, and then talked about South America in general. Dr Guevara came out of his worry to join in this, and then lunch was over. There were eight or nine of us round the table and we were moving to take our coffee in the little lounge next door when Schneider, who’d gone over to speak to Soultz, intervened to say that I was taking coffee with him and Soultz in Soultz’s room.

  As soon as I sat down, and before the waitress who had brought the coffee had left the room, I knew they were feeling hostile. But I didn’t care, being still in the same mood. It started as soon as the girl had gone.

  ‘Yesterday, Mr Bedford, when you and I talked, you gave me the impression you had never heard of Farne before.’ Soultz spoke and looked as if he had just been taken out of the refrigerator. ‘But today, when you spoke of him to Dr Schneider, you called him Joe Farne.’

  ‘Do not try to deny that,’ said Schneider sharply.

  ‘I think we are entitled, as you say, to an explanation,’ said Soultz, now the director of personnel on a very high horse.

  ‘And I don’t think you’re entitled, as we say, to a dam’ thing,’ I told them. ‘When I’m asked to lunch I don’t sign a guarantee that I’ll tell the exact truth. And if I suggest on Thursday that I don’t know Farne and then on Friday I call him Joe, that’s my business. And as I don’t work for the Institute, it isn’t your business, Dr Soultz and Dr Schneider. Just blame it on the English national character, running down and getting dodgy. Dr Magorious’ll know.’

  ‘If that is your attitude, Mr Bedford,’ said Soultz, who wasn’t as cool as he tried to appear, ‘then you cannot object if we inform Mr Arnaldos that your real purpose in coming here is to make inquiries about Farne.’

  ‘Go ahead. I won’t object. You won’t spoil anything. I’ve hardly seen him and I’m not angling for a commission, as you seem to think. And his granddaughter is just a pain. So go ahead, tell him what you like.’

  It was Schneider’s turn. ‘You admit then that this is your real purpose?’

  ‘I’m not admitting anything. You’re doing the admitting, both of you. I haven’t been very clever, but you’ve been worse. Because if there wasn’t anything fishy about Joe Farne, then why this session?’

  Soultz suddenly lost his temper, as these over-cool types often do. ‘And why are you so stupid?’ he shouted. ‘The man was here – then we agreed he should go – that is all – ’

  Schneider interrupted him. ‘Mr Arnaldos created this Institute, and maintains it at great expense. He is now an old man, not strong, easily tired. We do not wish to disturb him in any way if it can be avoided. At the same time the Institute must be protected – ’

  ‘Against what?’ I asked him. ‘And what’s wrong with it?’

  ‘No, Soultz, allow me to reply to this.’ Schneider stared at me a moment. He had curious murky yellow eyes, which might have belonged to some intelligent unknown animal, but there was some kind of sincerity burning in them now, and I could hear it in his voice. ‘You are an artist, not a scientist. If you were a scientist you would know the reputation of the Arnaldos Institute. Many famous scientists have commended it. But because you are an artist and we live in a very strange world now, then you may have some ridiculous ideas about this Institute – that we are planning biological warfare or discovering fantastic gases or death rays out of science fiction. Mr Bedford, I assure you – no, I swear to you on my honour as a good scientist – that nothing of this kind is happening here. All our research is of a familiar kind, except that it has a regional ecological limitation – for Peru and perhaps Chile.’

  ‘What’s Joe Farne doing in Chile?’ And as I spoke I glanced very quickly from one to the other. They told me, both at the same time, they didn’t even know Farne had gone to Chile; but their eyes had already told me that they did know. ‘The British Embassy in Lima told his wife he’d gone to Chile,’ I said. ‘Then she received a letter from him posted from Chile. How did he leave here?’

  ‘My relations with Farne were far from cordial,’ said Soultz, all iced up again. ‘I did not arrange his transport. I did not see him go. And I have nothing more to say about him.’ He got up and looked pointedly at his desk.

  Schneider saw me out. I told him he had been convincing about the Institute. ‘You are welcome, as I am sure Dr Guevara told you,’ he said, ‘to come at any time and see what we are doing. If our researchers cannot always publish their results, that is because of a condition originally laid down by Mr Arnaldos. As for Farne – if you are inquiring about him on behalf of his wife, which is what I believe now, then I would seriously advise you not to waste your time trying to find him in Chile. It is not a very wide country but it is very long, much of it very far away from any convenient centre. There is something else I must tell you, Mr Bedford. Farne had taken to drinking heavily before he left us. He might be sorry if you did find him. You might be sorry too. There is a strange pull to earth in South Am
erica that some Europeans cannot resist. Why not paint a few pictures for Mr Arnaldos, who will pay you well for them, and then go back to London?’

  ‘Like hell I will,’ I said, but not to Schneider, only to myself as I went back to the big house to collect my painting gear. When I had got it, I looked into Mrs Candamo’s little office, which was off the corridor leading to the hall. I told her I was going to try a fairly distant sketch of the Institute, and asked her if I could take along something to keep my thirst down. After she had telephoned the kitchen department, speaking in Spanish, of course, and we were waiting for whatever they would bring along, she said: ‘You have seen Rosalia’s pictures, I know. Can you tell me what happened?’

  ‘She burst in on me, just at the wrong moment. However, I was able to tell her a few things that might be useful, if she ever takes advice.’ I gave her a very brief outline of what I thought of the girl’s painting, and probably sounded a bit sour.

  Mrs Candamo sighed. She was a hefty woman and could sigh in a big way. ‘Such a pity! Now you do not like her, do you?’

  ‘Not my type, Rosalia – no. By the way, Mrs Candamo – ’ I stopped there because at that moment a bottle of lemonade and some fruit arrived. After I’d stuffed them into my knapsack, I started again: ‘By the way, Mrs Candamo, what did you mean this morning when you told me to be careful?’

  If I’d hoped to take her by surprise, I’d been too optimistic. At this game she could make rings round me. ‘It was a foolish thing to say,’ she said very calmly. ‘I think I said it just because you are English.’

  ‘You mean they don’t like the English at the Institute?’

  ‘That would be too much to say, Mr Bedford. But – I like you – ’

  ‘I like you, Mrs Candamo. You’re worth fifty Rosalias.’

  ‘No, I am not. But – well – there were these two Englishmen – the one whose wife had to take him away, poor man. And then the younger one – I forget his name – ’

  ‘It was Farne.’ I said it very quietly. I knew something was coming, something I wanted to know, I could feel it in my bones.

  ‘Yes, I think it was. And I remember seeing him when he first came – looking so healthy and strong and sure of himself – and then – the morning he left – having to be almost carried into the car. Not drunk of course, but a very sick man. But you must do your painting, Mr Bedford, and I am busy too – ’

  I went away loving that heavy middle-aged Peruvian woman. If I’d been a caliph with twenty wives, I’d have asked her to be the twenty-first. After poking round a bit, trying one place after another, I did it the hard way, climbing a cliff behind Uramba from which I could get a heat-hazy shimmering view of most of the Institute buildings. The haze and shimmer removed some of the curse of the monotonous roofs and hard rectangular forms; but even so it wasn’t my kind of painting, and I just bashed away at it, in the hope that it might please old Arnaldos. While I was working up there, still sweating it out but not so thirsty this time, I decided that Mrs Candamo hadn’t been careless, telling me about Farne. She wasn’t that kind of gossipy woman. If she’d told me something, and of course she had, she’d done it deliberately, knowing somehow that I was asking questions about Farne. He hadn’t simply gone to Chile, he’d been taken there, something I now felt I’d half-suspected all along. Whatever people might say, I just couldn’t see steady Joe Farne, who thought twice before risking a bottle of Bass, going off on a great pisco blind. Incidentally, I discovered that the port of Pisco, which gave its name to this Pacific South American brandy, pale but powerful, was not a very long way south of Uramba. I was already beginning to take to pisco, but I couldn’t imagine Joe lushing up on it.

  On my way back to the house, the sketch finished, I thought I’d take a chance on not finding Rosalia in her studio. It was unlocked and empty. The mounts were still in the same place on the table, and I found one that fitted the sketch and hastily made off with it. After all, I was going to make the old man a present of the sketch. I took my time having a bath and changing, and when I finally arrived at cocktail corner with my sketch, all nicely mounted, Arnaldos was there with Rosalia. The girl had now gone to the opposite extreme. She was wearing a gold and black evening creation that didn’t suit her; she’d worked on her hair, probably assisted by two Peruvian slaves; and had plastered on a lot of lipstick and some eye shadow that she didn’t need. She’d tarted up her manner of course, as they always do, and behaved to her grandfather and me as if we were forty-five smart people drinking cocktails at the George Cinq or the Waldorf-Astoria. It was all a waste of time and energy; her grandfather was probably too old and tired to notice the difference and thought her half-barmy anyhow; and if I wasn’t downright rude, I was certainly a bit surly and made it plain I didn’t intend exchanging any bright cocktail-party glances with her. The old man, looking more like a tiny emperor than ever, was genuinely pleased with the sketch, the first of its kind of the Institute. He insisted upon pointing out what he thought were its merits to Rosalia, whose party manner had to take the strain. ‘I would be very grateful if you would allow me to purchase this from you, Mr Bedford,’ he said finally. ‘I would be very sorry to see it taken away from us.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of selling it to you, Mr Arnaldos,’ I said. He looked unhappy. ‘I did it specially as a little present for you. Please take it.’

  ‘Why – Mr Bedford – I am very grateful indeed to you.’ And he really seemed happy about it. He looked at the sketch, then at Rosalia, then at me. ‘This must be the first time for many years that I have been given anything. It is an experience with a charming and unusual flavour. I must have this suitably framed as soon as possible. It can go up to Lima in the morning.’ He left us to put the sketch on a desk and make a note on a pad there.

  ‘That was a fine thing to do, Tim,’ Rosalia whispered. ‘Didn’t you see how happy you’ve made him?’ She put a hand on my arm.

  I moved away. She might have been sincere, and then again she might not; anyhow, I didn’t care. ‘Does a car go to Lima every day?’

  ‘Nearly every day. Why?’

  ‘I’d like one whole day out sketching,’ I said, as impersonal as I’d been before. ‘And then I must go.’

  She turned away, perhaps to put her glass on the table, perhaps not. We went into dinner. The old man, whose day’s rest must have done him good, took charge of the talk. After this and that, he got on to Nietzsche. He had read Nietzsche as a young man when the first Spanish translations were appearing, and later he had collected French and English translations not being able to read German. He told us that Nietzsche’s very last works, written when he was considered to be already more than half dotty, were really his most profound, mistaken for mere ravings just because they were so profound. There was a lot more along this line, but after a time I wasn’t really listening, being busy with my own thoughts, and not knowing or caring much about Nietzsche. (I could have kicked myself afterwards for my lack of attention that night.) After we had had our coffee on the balcony and he was still talking away, telling me among other things – and very pleasantly too – that on the previous night Steglitz had been right and I had been wrong, I got up and asked to be excused. I said I had to go out.

  ‘You wish to see somebody at the Institute?’ he said. ‘Or perhaps they are showing a film there.’

  ‘No, it’s nothing to do with the Institute.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t anywhere else to go,’ said Rosalia rather sharply.

  I risked the true explanation, even if I didn’t tell the whole truth. ‘Yesterday in the village I ran into a young Englishman who’ll be an alcoholic soon if he isn’t one already. I want to have another talk with him, and not waste daylight on it, so I’ll go across to the village and see if he’s still around.’

  Freece was where I’d expected him to be – in that dim and smelly grog shop. When he saw me, he left the group playing cards near the counter – with no drink to bring with him, I noticed – and after I’d ordered a coupl
e of piscos, he followed me into a corner we had to ourselves. He needed a drink or two badly. It wouldn’t be difficult to make him talk, if he really had anything worth hearing. But it would be hopeless, I decided, to let him ramble on, particularly as his very sloppy speech made him hard to understand.

  ‘Now listen, Freece,’ I said, after we’d lowered some of the pisco and had chatted a few minutes, ‘I’m trying to find out what happened to a man called Farne. So if you know anything about him, tell me.’

  ‘All right, you listen, chum. ’Cos I know plenty about Farne. After I got the push from the bloody Institute and was getting short, he give me the price of a bottle once or twice, maybe more. Then when any more touches was out, I sold him this pointing mike I got from the drunk Yank in Callao.’ When I asked him to explain what he meant, he took so long and got so involved, in a pisco mixture of technicalities and unnecessary details, that it’s only worth giving the gist of it. He’d bought or stolen from this Yank in Callao a special and extra-sensitive type of microphone that could be pointed at people like a gun and would then pick up talk at a distance, the talkers thinking it impossible for them to be overheard. Having listened to Freece boasting about this mike, and then having given it a rough test in the village, Farne had bought it from him for about five pounds worth of sols. ‘It was giving it away, chum, but I needed the money bad – see? Then after I’d worked steady for a time selling and mending radio sets – and had made a bit on a lucky gamble – I wanted to buy it back. But Farne had gone – and no good-bye neither. Just went. How about ordering us a couple more, chum?’

  By the time we’d nearly finished our third pisco each – half a tumbler a time of raw spirit, and I was beginning to feel muzzy – he didn’t care what he said. When I told him I’d heard that Farne had been loaded into a car looking very ill, he made a noise as if he was going to puke, but it was just scorn. ‘You’re telling me nothing, chum. He had it coming to him, Farne had. Bloody lucky to get out alive, if you ask me. Why? I’ll tell you why, chum. He was too curious. Like me. And English of course, like me. He knew, just like I did, there was something behind all this research caper.’ He jerked his head sideways, to indicate the card players near the counter. ‘You might think these blokes are stupid. So they are up to a point. But even they know there’s something goes on – behind the scenes. All this coming and going, for instance! Big pots! One bloke I saw might have come straight out of Hitler’s General Staff. All right if I have another? How you doing?’