Hemingway's Notebook (4 page)

The night was still and cool, and the sand was damp. Half of the moon sparkled on the water. Gentle waves lapped at the beach. Cohn walked along the beach instead of the main road because it was safer. Every now and then, someone would be reported killed on the road at night, struck by a car speeding north from Madeleine to the capital. The road was narrow and dark. Everyone in St. Michel deplored the state of the road, but the island seemed gripped by a fatal inertia and the road was the symbol of it. It ran from a small capital of slums and a few grand buildings to a second city of slums and whores and dealers nine miles south. It had always been like this. It would be this way tomorrow. Only Manet’s soldiers in the hills above the long road did not accept the way it was.

The sand was wet under Cohn’s bare feet because the beach narrowed at this point and the tide had gone out at sunset. Cohn carried his shoes in his left hand. A little breeze from the sea plucked at Cohn’s dirty tan trouser legs.

Harry Francis was a sad case. Cohn would put that in his report. It was what they wanted to hear back in Washington.

“Pardon, monsieur?”

Cohn stopped, turned, and was surprised by the flashlight that suddenly blinded him. His face was pinched, fatigued, and he was annoyed. He suddenly wanted to relieve himself.

“Who the hell is that?”

“Monsieur?”

He repeated the question in the singsong French acquired at the Army Language School in California.

“Monsieur,” the voice stated with flat authority.

Cohn thought he saw two of them.

They wore midnight-blue uniform shirts with empty epaulets and blue shorts with high black stockings and dark berets. The people of St. Michel did not call them the Special Security Force as President Claude-Eduard had dubbed them; they were the “black police.” The
gendarmes noirs.

“Clowns,” Cohn muttered in English.

“
Monsieur.
You are English?”

“I am an American.”

“Bonsoir, monsieur.”
Politely and without sincerity. “Why are you on the beach?”

“I saw you yesterday in the capital. On Rue Sans Souci. I know you.” He squinted in the light, which hurt his eyes. “You know me. Cohn. With the American consul general.”

“Monsieur Cohn.” The black face was very close. The eyes blinked. He stared at Cohn as though he had never seen him before. “Do you have some identification?”

“What is this about?”

“A woman was raped.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“It happened yesterday.”

The second policeman who held the light smiled.

Cohn took out his wallet with his passport and visa and gave them to the officers. He was a public information officer. The larger policeman opened the wallet and looked at the money inside. He selected a ten-dollar bill. “There is a fine against using the public beaches after they are closed for the night.”

“I’m not using the beach. I’m walking back to St. Michel. It’s safer than the road.”

“The road is very dangerous.” The
gendarme
still held the wallet. “The woman was raped on the road.”

“Amazing she didn’t get run over.”

“It was brutal,” the policeman said flatly. “There were markings on her body after she was found.”

Cohn shivered because of the slight breeze. The whole country was on edge. The tropical forest would take over tomorrow or the day after tomorrow; it would cover the road and there would be no men left on St. Michel.

No wonder Harry Francis had become crazy. He would say that in his report.

“I want to take a piss.”

“The beaches of St. Michel are not a
pissoir
.”

“I have to take a piss. I’ll go by the road.”

The large policeman shrugged. He put the ten-dollar bill back into the wallet and closed it. “It doesn’t matter about the fine. You have diplomatic immunity.”

“Even if you were to piss on the Palais Gris of the president, it would not matter,” said the second.

“You could not be fined,” said the first.

“You may even piss on the beach and not be fined because you have immunity,” said the second.

“There would be nothing we could do,” said the first.

Cohn took a step back. “All right then.” He took the wallet and put it in his pants. “All right then,” he repeated. “I can wait until I get back.”

“No, it’s all right. You have immunity,” said the first.

“Yes. You are a guest of St. Michel. Please piss on the beach.”

Had the wind risen? He felt cold.

“No,” Cohn said.

“Please, sir,” said the first. “We will turn away.”

They turned and waited and Cohn felt a strangling sense of panic. He pulled down his fly and urinated on the sand. The sand smothered the sound of his urine striking the ground. When he was finished, he put on his shoes. He would walk along the highway.

The two policemen stood with their backs to him.

“I am finished,” he said.

They turned slowly. They looked at him. The large one said, “Is everything satisfactory then?”

He began to speak.

He did not feel the razor. It cut from left to right, just below each earlobe, in a wide and grinning arc like the smile that children carve on a pumpkin at Halloween. Cohn did not feel any pain. He thought of something that Harry had said about Hemingway. He felt that something had happened that could not be reversed. The panic overwhelmed him.

It would be all right if he said something. He opened his mouth, and it filled with blood. He struggled to remain upright. Blood fell down his shirt and stained it; it soaked the white wet sand at his feet. He blinked because he thought he was going to cry. Perhaps it would be all right if he stood very still.

But he could not stand still.

He blinked again to see the
gendarmes
more clearly. The whiteness of the flashlight had grown to a whiteness that must have come from the blinding rays of the moon. He was certain of it.

The flight drained Rita because of all that had happened before she left.

“Run,” she said. “We can run.”

“We can’t run.”

They had sat staring at each other in their apartment in Lausanne until dawn, speaking now and then, waiting for morning. They could not sleep; they could not touch each other.

“Kill him then.”

“And then Langley will know I’m alive and then, in a little while, KGB will know again and the contract will be let again.”

“So you’re going to let me go?”

“He won’t hurt you. He wants a job. It gives us a little time.”

“It won’t be that easy,” she had said.

In the end, she had taken the tickets and visas and credentials and taken the long flight from Frankfurt-am-Main airport to Miami to Guadeloupe and transferred to the shuttle to St. Michel. She had been tired but she could not sleep. She had taken the first taxi from the line at the Aerodrome St. Michel.

The heat made her feel sick. It sapped her strength. Her stomach felt queasy. The ride in the ancient Renault was rough. The driver wore a colorful shirt that pictured palm trees and he spoke of the wonders of the capital city all the way into the town.

There seemed little wonderful about St. Michel. Cement-and-plaster buildings like dirty gray boxes squatted around narrow streets and squares. The streets were full of people who did not seem to move much. There was a grand promenade on the beachfront but the beach itself was littered with garbage. On the deep side of the harbor, fishing boats bobbed at wooden piers jutting into the water. The water was dark with oil and garbage.

“On the hill is the Palais Gris, where the president lives.” The driver’s name was Daniel. He said he was a teacher. He said he taught when he had the time and enough money from driving. Many visitors from other countries were coming to St. Michel now for the independence celebration, he said. He seemed proud of it. He was a very light-skinned Negro with reddish hair. He said he spoke very good English but phrased the statement as a question. She did not answer him. Her hair was damp and limp and she felt dirty and she stared out at the gray landscape of the sun-filled city around her.

“This is where we will build the museum,” said Daniel. He pointed with an elegant hand toward an enormous excavation in the dry, cracked ground next to the road from the aerodrome. There was nothing in the hole. There was no sign of activity; no equipment, no workers, no scaffolding.

“It’s a hole, just a hole in the ground,” Rita Macklin heard herself saying.

“It is the idea of the half-empty cup,” said Daniel with a quick smile into the rearview mirror. “Is it half full or half empty? At least the excavation has been made. It is a promise.”

“What will be in the museum?”

“Many things. Artifacts of our society. And the traditional weaving of the women who live in the hills. Many things to interest important visitors such as yourself.”

“Your shirt? Was it woven—”

“No,” said Daniel. “I speak excellent English? I purchased this shirt when I lived with my aunt one year in Miami. It is from the J.C. Penney store. In time, there will be one such store here. Were you in to the J.C. Penney store in Miami?”

“No.”

“The museum will also receive exhibitions.” They were past the excavation, mounting a small rise from the harbor into the heart of St. Michel. Garbage was piled on the narrow streets. “The exhibitions will come from Paris. From the Louvre, I think. They made many speeches when they began to dig the excavation—this was three years ago. The French consul general said that the Louvre would surely loan an important collection of paintings to the museum of the Republic of St. Michel when the museum was completed.”

“No one is working on the site,” she said and her voice was far away from her.

“There are budget shortages and so work must cease. We have many problems on St. Michel, in all republics, like America. Money must be diverted to the army. The fight against the rebel soldiers in the hills must take precedence. Freedom is the constant price of being vigilant.”

She shook her head to register the mangled quote. She closed her eyes a moment and the car jumped a pothole. The heat glued her blouse to her skin. Her jeans felt tight; she had worn them all her life. She wanted a bath, she wanted to sleep.

“And the cruise ships will come when the new pier is built,” Daniel chattered on, turning into another side street hidden from the one they had been on. The city was a honeycomb of such streets but there was no great sense of urgency to the street life.

Devereaux had let her go two days after Colonel Ready left them. Devereaux had permitted her to become a hostage. Devereaux was to come in three more days, to slide into the island while matters were diverted toward the celebration. To probe the problem presented by Colonel Ready. A little job, he had said. And if he could get the book from Harry Francis that much sooner, all the better for both of them.

Devereaux had let her go.

The taxi coughed to a stop in front of a five-story building done in the classic French style with tall windows and small balconies. The building was a bright sandstone color. Over the portico was the name
Ritz
in script on a blue marquee. She smiled at that.

“This is quite the best hotel in St. Michel,” said Daniel as though he had built it. He got out of the taxi and opened her door. “It is quite comparable to the hotel in Paris, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. I never stayed there.”

“You will be quite comfortable here,” said Daniel with the air of a proprietor.

She took out a fistful of French francs—the currency of St. Michel—and chose two notes and then remembered that the schoolteacher named Daniel drove the taxi because he did not make sufficient money teaching school.

“What do the children do when you do not teach?”

“They wait for me,” said Daniel. “I promise never to be away from them for too long. It is just long enough to make a little money.”

Rita Macklin gave him four notes and climbed out of the Renault. Daniel had her bag and he carried it across the threshold of the hotel. He wore shoes and long pants and his beautiful shirt from Miami. He put down the bag at the lobby desk and waited for the clerk.

After a moment, a pale man with light blond hair appeared from the alcove. He looked at Daniel and at Rita and said in French, “
Complet
.”

“I have a reservation.”

“There is no room.”

“I have a reservation.”

“It is impossible.
Complet! Complet!
”

“From Colonel Ready.”

“
Complet
,” said the bored young man and then his eyes opened wider and he took the proffered reservation form and looked at it as though it might be a forged bank note. He turned it over.

Rita looked at the lobby. The leather chairs looked old and unused but the lobby was clean and spare. There was a small bar off the lobby. A couple of men stood at the bar drinking with each other and speaking in soft French.

“Madame,” said the young man. “I beg your pardon.”

“Yes.”

“We are expecting you, of course.”

“Of course.”

He rang the bell for the boy. He looked at the mail slot and found a card. He rushed around the front desk and shooed Daniel away. He picked up her bag. He waited for the boy who emerged from another alcove rubbing his chin.

The clerk spoke to the boy in imperious French. After a year in Switzerland, Rita Macklin had begun to understand the differences in the foreign language.

“We have your suite, Madame Macklin, and after you are refreshed, there is to be a reception for the friends of St. Michel—our foreign guests—at the Palais Gris—”

“I thought it was tomorrow night.”

“No. It was changed.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was changed.”

“When?”

“I’m not certain, but it was changed.”

“I’m exhausted.”

“
Garçon
, take the madame to her suite.” The boy hefted the bag with thin arms and led her to the elevator cage. The cage was open. He pushed back the gate and they got on board and he pushed the button marked two. In the European style, it took them to the third floor.

The room was not a suite. It was a room furnished in an imitation French style with white painted tables and Louis XIV chairs that were actually fabricated in Mexico. The bed, she saw, had an elaborate headboard though no footboard at all.

She took a long, hot shower to stop her tiredness. The water had only a little pressure but it was enough. And it was hot.

There was no air conditioning in the room. It was muggy. She wrapped herself in a towel and pushed open the large windows and caught a breeze from the harbor that smelled of sea and fish. It was a sweet rotting smell. She stared at the squat capital beyond her window.

There was a knock at the door. The clerk opened it without waiting for a reply. He was followed by the bellboy.

“Madame, my pardon,” he said.

The towel covered her sufficiently but she did not move. The bellboy had a large oscillating fan on a silver tray. He placed the fan on the dresser and plugged it in. It whirred to life. The clerk carried a bottle of chilled Moët and a glass. “Madame Macklin, welcome to St. Michel.”

She could only stare at him, at the fan blowing back and forth, at the bellboy waiting in attendance.

“Unfortunately,” said the clerk, clearing his throat, “money for air conditioning was not included in the budget of the Ritz, which is only two years old and the most modern hotel in St. Michel.” The clerk folded his hands in front of him. “There is every intention in the next budget to equip each room with air conditioning by the time the new cruise ships arrive at the new docks.”

Everyone in St. Michel seemed obsessed with explanation, all delivered with cheerful regrets and an acceptance of perpetual failure.

When the two left, with more francs in their pockets, Rita sat in front of the fan and let it blow on her naked body and she drank a glass of champagne and tried to feel better.

Why had she come here?

Because she loved him. It was why she had done any of it. Devereaux had met her and used her and left her; then Devereaux had crossed her path a second time. They had fallen in love and had tried to run away once from his old life but there had been a contract against him from the KGB. Only when it seemed he had died in the hotel room in Zurich on the last business—only when R Section was willing to bury his file—did it seem they were safe. He had relished his safety. He had lived with her and never wanted anything more. And one day, Colonel Ready had come down a hill in Lausanne and awakened him to his old life and now he said he thought he knew a way out for both of them. But it would take time. And she would have to play Ready’s game.

“Ready is death,” she told Devereaux.

But he had waited, he had not wanted to run again. The old dreams that had made him groan in his sleep when they first slept together and which had been banished by the peace of his dead life in Switzerland came back on those last two nights. He groaned and saw ghosts of dead men in sleep. He heard the chains of all the dead he had known and all the dead he had killed and all the dead he had tried to keep alive. The old life was in him again, cold and unfeeling and she had become a hostage for his life, for the chance he might be able to be dead again. He had said he had a plan. He was enacting it now… she would be patient.

The air from the fan felt cold on her naked body.

She put down her glass of champagne.

She pulled down the coverlet on the bed and felt the cool linen next to her skin. The sun sank inexorably. She fell asleep and did not dream; she had no old life to relive. He was her life. She slept until the evening when there was a knock at her door.