and see how beautiful she was. It was the only thing you did say.’
‘You don’t understand, Graham,’ he replied. ‘She has reached the age when she needs reassurance.’
He was indeed something better than a professor of Marxist philosophy and of mathematics and a sergeant in the security guard – he was a good and a kind man with a human wisdom much greater than my own. I think my deep affection for him began that day, when he was too drunk to drive with safety. He broke through the lights and ran into a parked car before we landed at a bookshop kept by a Greek war hero. ‘We have to invite him to your party on Friday,’ he said.
‘ My party?’
It appeared that the General and Chuchu had decided between them that I was to be the host at a party. The drinks would be provided by the National Guard, and the party would be held at the house of an old Panamanian writer, Rogelio Sinan. The General wouldn’t be able to attend as he was busy with the Refrigerator, old Mr Bunker, and his American delegation. ‘We’ll invite the Cubans,’ Chuchu said (he had quite forgiven them for the defective Russian pistol), ‘but we will not invite Señor V.’ There was an American, he warned me, who would certainly turn up whether he was invited or not – a writer called Koster who lived in Panama City and was supposed to be a CIA agent. He had asked Chuchu about me. ‘What’s the old goat doing here?’ he had enquired. I looked forward to meeting him.
11
The next day the General lent us an army helicopter which landed us after lunch on the beach of Taboga in front of the little hotel there. They would come to fetch us again for the party in Panama City two days later. The island was very small, but included a village and a jungle. Somewhere buried in the jungle – but we couldn’t find the path – was an English cemetery; its inhabitants could now be regarded as buried twice over. Years ago, about the time when Panama had joined Colombia to become a nation, there had been a British commercial establishment on the island, perhaps in connexion with de Lesseps’s Canal project. Gauguin had visited the island twice, but was disappointed on his second visit because he found the peace had been disturbed by a branch of the Canal company. Now peace had returned again.
Chuchu and I bathed with caution in the surf, for there were sharks, though we were assured that for some mysterious reason they confined themselves to the waters around the next island, visible only too clearly about a mile away. We had sandwiches and beer and walked in the village. In the evening the one sea bus arrived carrying the islanders who worked on the mainland. The peace of the place without cars was so deep that it was like a tune running in the head. In the passage outside my room there was a polite notice with an English translation: ‘If you expect visits of the opposite sex, please receive them in the public areas.’ It seemed an oddly puritanical request for Panama. Chuchu and I had a pin-table tournament, but I don’t remember which of us won. Then I went to bed and dreamt – in reaction from all this peace – that I received a disquieting telegram from home.
Next day I woke from my dream to the same tune of peace, peace, peace, and we did exactly the same things. We bathed, we breakfasted, we walked in the village, we bathed again. It was as though we had been living for many quiet months on the island. But one false note was struck. Chuchu was called out of the sea by a telephone call from Señor V. He wasn’t, thank God, joining us as I feared, but he had taken over all the arrangements for the party to which we had not intended even to invite him. That evening, I remember, the light was particularly beautiful – we could forget Señor V. The white hazy towers of Panama City shimmering ten miles away across the sea were like an engraving of paradise by John Martin.
In bed I reread Heart of Darkness as I had done last in 1958 in
‘You don’t understand, Graham,’ he replied. ‘She has reached the age when she needs reassurance.’
He was indeed something better than a professor of Marxist philosophy and of mathematics and a sergeant in the security guard – he was a good and a kind man with a human wisdom much greater than my own. I think my deep affection for him began that day, when he was too drunk to drive with safety. He broke through the lights and ran into a parked car before we landed at a bookshop kept by a Greek war hero. ‘We have to invite him to your party on Friday,’ he said.
‘ My party?’
It appeared that the General and Chuchu had decided between them that I was to be the host at a party. The drinks would be provided by the National Guard, and the party would be held at the house of an old Panamanian writer, Rogelio Sinan. The General wouldn’t be able to attend as he was busy with the Refrigerator, old Mr Bunker, and his American delegation. ‘We’ll invite the Cubans,’ Chuchu said (he had quite forgiven them for the defective Russian pistol), ‘but we will not invite Señor V.’ There was an American, he warned me, who would certainly turn up whether he was invited or not – a writer called Koster who lived in Panama City and was supposed to be a CIA agent. He had asked Chuchu about me. ‘What’s the old goat doing here?’ he had enquired. I looked forward to meeting him.
11
The next day the General lent us an army helicopter which landed us after lunch on the beach of Taboga in front of the little hotel there. They would come to fetch us again for the party in Panama City two days later. The island was very small, but included a village and a jungle. Somewhere buried in the jungle – but we couldn’t find the path – was an English cemetery; its inhabitants could now be regarded as buried twice over. Years ago, about the time when Panama had joined Colombia to become a nation, there had been a British commercial establishment on the island, perhaps in connexion with de Lesseps’s Canal project. Gauguin had visited the island twice, but was disappointed on his second visit because he found the peace had been disturbed by a branch of the Canal company. Now peace had returned again.
Chuchu and I bathed with caution in the surf, for there were sharks, though we were assured that for some mysterious reason they confined themselves to the waters around the next island, visible only too clearly about a mile away. We had sandwiches and beer and walked in the village. In the evening the one sea bus arrived carrying the islanders who worked on the mainland. The peace of the place without cars was so deep that it was like a tune running in the head. In the passage outside my room there was a polite notice with an English translation: ‘If you expect visits of the opposite sex, please receive them in the public areas.’ It seemed an oddly puritanical request for Panama. Chuchu and I had a pin-table tournament, but I don’t remember which of us won. Then I went to bed and dreamt – in reaction from all this peace – that I received a disquieting telegram from home.
Next day I woke from my dream to the same tune of peace, peace, peace, and we did exactly the same things. We bathed, we breakfasted, we walked in the village, we bathed again. It was as though we had been living for many quiet months on the island. But one false note was struck. Chuchu was called out of the sea by a telephone call from Señor V. He wasn’t, thank God, joining us as I feared, but he had taken over all the arrangements for the party to which we had not intended even to invite him. That evening, I remember, the light was particularly beautiful – we could forget Señor V. The white hazy towers of Panama City shimmering ten miles away across the sea were like an engraving of paradise by John Martin.
In bed I reread Heart of Darkness as I had done last in 1958 in
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