The Honorary Consul Read online

  He chose a collection of stories by Jorge Luis Borges. Borges shared the tastes he had himself inherited from his father—Conan Doyle, Stevenson, Chesterton. 'Ficciones' would prove a welcome change from Doctor Saavedra's last novel which he had not been able to finish. He was tired of South American heroics. Now Doctor Plarr, sitting under the statue of an heroic sergeant—'machismo' again—who had saved the life of San Martin—was it a hundred and fifty years ago?—read with a sense of immense relaxation of the Countess de Bagno Regio, of Pittsburgh and Monaco. After a time he grew thirsty. To appreciate Borges properly he had to be taken, like a cheese biscuit, with an aperitif, but in this heat Doctor Plarr wanted a longer drink. He decided to call on his friend Gruber and demand a German beer.

  Gruber was one of Doctor Plarr's earliest friends in the city. As a boy he had escaped from Germany in 1936 when the persecution of the Jews was intensified. He was an only child, but his parents had insisted that he escape abroad, if only to save the name of Gruber from becoming extinct, and his mother baked a special cake for his journey in which to hide the few small valuables they were able to send with him—his mother's engagement ring set with inconsiderable diamonds and his father's gold wedding ring. They told him they were too old to make a new life in a strange continent and they pretended to believe that they were too old to be regarded as a danger by the Nazi state. Of course he never heard from them again: they had made their withered little plus two sign to that mathematical formula—the Final Solution. So Gruber like Doctor Plarr was a man without a father. He didn't even possess a family grave. Now he kept a photographic store in the main shopping street of the city, which, with its overlapping signs and slogans stuck out over the sidewalks, had a Chinese look. He was an optician as well. "Germans," he once said to Doctor Plarr, "always inspire confidence as chemists, opticians and photographic specialists. More people have heard of Zeiss and Bayer than of Goebbels and Goering, and even more people here have heard of Gruber."

  Gruber left his customer installed in the private section of his shop, where he worked on his lenses. There the doctor could see all that went on without being noticed himself, for Gruber (he had a passion for gadgets) had fitted a small internal television screen on which he was able to watch in miniature, as in a candid camera program, the customers outside in the shop. For some reason, which Gruber had never been able to explain, his shop attracted the prettiest girls in the city (no 'boutique' could compete with Gruber), as though pulchritude and the practice of photography were linked. They came in flocks to receive their color prints and they examined them with cries of excitement, chattering like birds Doctor Plarr watched them while he drank his beer and listened to Gruber's gossip of the province.

  "Have you met Charley Fortnum's woman?" Doctor Plarr asked.

  "You mean his wife?"

  "She can't be his wife, surely? Charley Fortnum's a divorced man. And there's no remarriage here—it's convenient for single men like me."

  "Didn't you hear that his wife died?"

  "No. I've been away. And when I saw him the other day he didn't mention it."

  "He went off with this new girl to Rosario and got married there. So people say. Nobody really knows, of course."

  "That was an odd thing for him to do. It couldn't have been necessary. You know where he found her?"

  "Yes, but she's a very pretty girl," Gruber said.

  "Oh yes, one of the best of Mother Sanchez' lot. But one doesn't necessarily have to marry a pretty girl."

  "Girls of that kind often make good wives, especially for old men."

  "Why old men?"

  "Old men are not very demanding and girls like that are glad of a rest."

  The phrase "like that" irritated Doctor Plarr. After seven days he was still obsessed by the unremarkable body which Gruber had classified so easily. Now on the television screen he saw a girl who leaned across the counter to buy a roll of Kodachrome in the same way Clara had leaned across her bed at Señora Sanchez'. She was more beautiful than Charley Fortnum's wife, and he felt no desire for her at all.

  "Girls like that are very content to be left alone," Gruber repeated. "You know they count it good luck when they find a caller who is impotent or too drunk to perform. They have a native word for it here—I have forgotten the Spanish, but it means a Lenten visitor."

  "Have you been often to the Sanchez place?"

  "Why should I? Look at the temptations I have to resist nearer home with all these charming customers of mine. Some of the films they bring me to develop are quite intimate, and when I hand the packet back to one, I can see the amusement in her eyes. He has observed that moment when the bikini slipped, she is thinking—and so I have. By the way, there were two men in here the other day who asked about you. They wanted to know if you could possibly be the Eduardo Plarr they knew years ago in Asunci6n. They saw your name on those films I sent round to you on Thursday. Of course I said I had no idea."

  "Were they police agents?"

  "They didn't look like police agents, but of course it doesn't do to take chances. I heard one of them call the other father. He didn't look old enough to be his father and he wasn't dressed like a priest, and that made me suspicious."

  "I'm on good terms with the Chief of Police here. Sometimes he calls me in when Doctor Benevento's on holidav Do you think those men came from across the border? The General's agents perhaps? But why should he be interested in me? I was only a boy when I left..."

  "Talk of the devil," Gruber said.

  Doctor Plarr looked quickly at the television screen expecting to see two strangers reflected there, but all he saw was a thin girl in sunglasses of an exaggerated size—they might have been made for a skin diver. "She buys sunglasses," Gruber said, "as other women buy costume jewelry. I've sold her at least four pairs."

  "Who is she?"

  "You ought to know. You were talking about her just now. Charley Fortnum's wife. Or girl if you prefer it."

  Doctor Plarr put down his beer and went into the shop. The girl was examining a pair of sunglasses and she was too absorbed to notice him. The lenses were colored bright mauve, the rims were of incandescent yellow and the sidepieces were encrusted with chips of what looked like amethyst. She took her own glasses off and tried the new ones on, and immediately added ten years to her age. Her eyes were quite invisible: all he could see was his own mauve face mirrored back at him.

  The assistant said. "We have only just received these from Mar del Plata. They are all the fashion there."

  Doctor Plarr knew that Gruber was probably watching him on the television screen, but why should he care? He asked. "Do you like them, Señora Fortnum?"

  She said, "Who...? Oh, it is you, Doctor, Doctor...?"

  "Plarr. They make you look a lot older, but of course you can afford to add a few years."

  "They cost too much. I was only trying them on for fun."

  "Wrap them up," he told the assistant. "And a case..."

  "They have their own case, doctor," she said, beginning to polish the glasses.

  "No," Clara said, "I cannot..."

  "You can with me. I am your husband's friend."

  "That makes it all right?"

  "Yes."

  She gave a jump which he was to learn later was her expression of joy at any present, even a sweet cake. He had never known a woman accept a present so frankly, with less fuss. She said to the assistant, "Please, I will wear them. Put the old ones in the case." In these glasses, he thought, as they left Gruber's shop together, she looks more like my mistress and less like my younger sister.

  "It is very kind of you," she said, speaking like a well-brought up schoolgirl.

  "Come and sit by the river where we can talk." When she hesitated he added, "Nobody can recognize you in those glasses. Not even your husband."

  "You do not like them?"

  "No. I don't like them at all."

  "I thought they looked very rich and very smart," she said with disappointment.

 
"They are a good disguise. That was why I wanted you to have them. No one would recognize the young Señora Fortnum with me now."

  She said, "Who would recognize me? I know no one and Charley is at home. He sent me with the foreman. I said I wanted to buy something."

  "What?"

  "Oh, just something. I did not know what."

  She walked contentedly beside him, following whatever direction he chose to take. He felt disturbed by the easy way that things were happening. He remembered the stupid conflict in his mind when he wanted to turn his car back toward the camp, and the number of occasions, during the last week, when he had lain awake, wondering what was the right move to make in order to see her again. He ought to have known it would be no more difficult than leading her to her cell at Señora Sanchez' house.

  She said, "I am not frightened of you today."

  "Perhaps because I have given you a present."

  She said, "Yes, it could be that. A man would never bother to give a present to someone he did not like, would he? And the other day I thought you did not like me. I thought you were my enemy."

  They came to the bank of the Paraná. A small bastion jutted into the river, fringed with white pillars, making a tiny temple for a naked statue of classical innocence which faced the water. The ugly yellow block of flats where he lived was hidden by the trees. The leaves were like the lightest of feathers; they gave an illusion of coolness because they seemed to be always in motion—a breath of air undetectable on the skin was enough to set them waving. A heavy barge moved past them up the river, coughing against the current, and the usual black plume of smoke lay across the Chaco.

  She sat and stared at the Paraná when he looked at her all he could see was his own face reflected in the mirror-glass. He said, "For God's sake take off those spectacles. I don't want to shave."

  "Shave?"

  "I look at myself like that twice a day—that's quite enough."

  She took them off obediently and he saw her eyes, which were brown and expressionless and indistinguishable from all the Spanish women's eyes he had ever known. She said, "I do not understand."

  "Oh, forget what I said. Is it true that you are married?"

  "Yes."

  "What does it feel like?"

  "I think it's like wearing another girl's dress," she said, "which doesn't fit."

  "Why did you do it?"

  "He wanted to marry. Something to do with his money when he dies. And if there's a child..."

  "Have you started one?"

  "No."

  "Well, it must be better than life at Mother Sanchez'."

  "It is different," she said. "I miss the girls."

  "And the men?"

  "Oh, I am not bothered about them."

  They were alone on the long parade beside the Paraná: for men it was the hour of work, for women of shopping. Everything here had its proper hour—the hour for the Paraná was evening, and then it was the time for young true lovers, who held hands and didn't speak. He said, "When do you have to be home?"

  "The 'capataz' is picking me up at Charley's office at eleven."

  "It is nine o'clock now. How will you fill in the time?"

  "I will look at the shops and then I will have a coffee."

  "Do you never see any of your old friends?"

  "The girls are all asleep now."

  "You see those flats there beyond the trees?" Doctor Plarr asked. "I live there."

  "Yes?"

  "If you want coffee I can give you coffee."

  "Yes?"

  "Or orange juice," he said.

  "Oh, I do not really like orange juice. Señora Sanchez said we must keep sober, that was all."

  He asked, "Will you come with me?"

  "It would not be right, would it?" she asked, as though she were seeking information from someone whom she knew and trusted.

  "It was right at Mother Sanchez'..."

  "But I had my living to earn there. I sent money home to Tucumán."

  "What happens now?"

  "Oh, I send money to Tucumán just the same. Charley gives it to me."

  He stood up and put out his hand. "Come along." He was prepared to be angry if she hesitated, but she took his hand with the same shallow obedience and followed him across the road, as though the distance were no greater than across the little patio at Mother Sanchez'. The lift, however, made her hesitate. She told him she had never been in a lift before—there were few houses in the city which stood more than two stories high. She tightened her hand in excitement or fear, and when they reached the top floor she asked, "Can we do that again, please?"

  "When you go."

  He led her straight to his bedroom and began to undress her. A catch of her dress stuck, and she took the work out of his hands. All she said, while she lay naked on the bed waiting for him to join her, was, "Those sunglasses cost you much more than a visit to Señora Sanchez," and he wondered whether she thought of them as a payment in advance. He remembered how Teresa would count the peso notes and afterward lay them on a ledge below her saint's statue as though they were the result of a collection in church. They would be divided later in the correct proportion with Señora Sanchez: the personal gift always came later.

  As he joined her he thought with relief: this is the end of my obsession, and when she cried out, he thought: I'm a free man again, I can say goodnight to Señora Sanchez as she knits in her deck chair and I can walk back along the river with a sense of lightness which wasn't mine when I left home. The last number of the 'British Medical Journal' lay on his desk—it had remained a whole week in its wrapping, and he was in the mood for reading something in a style even more precise than a story by Borges, and of greater practical value than a novel by Jorge Julio Saavedra. He began to read an article of startling originality—or so it seemed to him—on the treatment of calcium deficiency by a doctor called Caesar Borgia.

  "Are you asleep?" the girl asked.

  "No," but all the same he was surprised when he opened his eyes and saw the sunlight between the slats of the blind. He had thought it was night and that he was alone.

  The girl caressed the inside of his thigh and ran lips down his body. He felt no more than a mild interest, a curiosity to see if she were capable of arousing him a second time. Perhaps that was the secret of her success at Mother Sanchez'—she gave a man double his money's worth. She climbed on to his body and cried out an obscenity, taking his ear between her teeth, but the obsession had died with his desire, and he felt depressed at the void it left behind. For a week he had lived with one idea and now he missed the idea as a mother might miss the crying of an unwanted child. I never really desired her, he thought, I only desired my idea of her. He would have liked to get up and go, leaving her alone to make the bed and afterward find another customer.

  "Where is the bathroom?" she asked. There was nothing to distinguish her from the others he had known except that she played her comedy with more spirit and invention.

  He had dressed when she returned, and he watched impatiently while she put on her clothes. He was afraid she would ask him for the coffee he had promised and linger a long time over it. It was his hour for visiting the 'barrio popular'. The women by now would have finished their first chores and the children would have returned from carrying water. He asked, "Do you want me to drop you at the Consulate?"

  "No," she said. "I had better walk. The 'capataz' may be there waiting."

  "You have not done much shopping."

  "I will show Charley the sunglasses. He will never know how much they cost."

  He took a ten-thousand-peso note from his pocket and held it out to her. She turned it over as if to make sure of the amount. She said, "Nobody ever gave me more than five thousand afterward. Generally it was two. Mother Sanchez did not like us taking more. She was afraid it meant we had been hustling. She was wrong. Men are odd that way. If they can do nothing they always give you more."

  "As if any of you cared," he said.

  "As if we care
d."

  "A Lenten visitor."

  The girl laughed. She said, "It is good to be able to talk free again. I cannot talk free to Charley. I think he wants to forget all about Señora Sanchez." She handed him back the note. "It would not be right," she said, "now I am married. And I do not need it. Charley is generous. And the sunglasses cost a lot." She put them on, so that again he saw his own face staring back at him, in miniature, as though he were a doll looking out of a doll's house window. She asked, "Shall I see you again?"

  He wanted to say, "No. It's all finished now," but common politeness—and the relief he felt because she had forgotten the coffee—made him reply formally, like a host to a guest whom he doesn't really want to encourage to call again. "Of course. One day when you come into town... I'll give you my telephone number."

  "You need not give me a present every time," she assured him.

  "And you needn't play a comedy," he said.

  "Comedy?"

  He said, "I know there are always men who want to believe you are finding the same pleasure that they do. Naturally at Mother Sanchez' you had to play a part to earn your present, but here you see—you need not act any longer. Perhaps you have to act with Charley, but not with me. You don't have to pretend anything at all with me."

  "I am sorry," she said. "I did something wrong?"

  "It always used to annoy me," Doctor Plarr went on, "in that house of yours. A man is not nearly so stupid as he seems to you. He knows he has come to get a pleasure and not to give it."

  She said. "All the same I think I pretended very well because I got bigger presents than the other girls." She wasn't annoyed. He could tell that she was accustomed to this sadness after coition. He didn't differ, even in that, from the other men she had known. And this void, he thought—is she right? is it no more than the temporary 'tristitia' most men feel when they leave a brothel behind?

  "How long were you there?"

  "Two years. I was nearly sixteen," she said, "when I arrived. The girls gave me a cake with candles on my birthday. I had never seen one before. It was very pretty."