The third person Graham Greene
Somewhere behind the cakestall a man was whistling and Martins knew the tune. He turned and waited. Was it fear or excitement that made his heart beat-or just the memories that tune ushered in, for life had always quickened when Harry came, came just as he came now, as though nothing much had happened, nobody had been lowered into a grave or found with cut throat in a basement, came with his amused, deprecating, take-it-or-leave-it manner-and of course one always took it.
“Harry.”
“Hullo, Rollo.”
Don’t picture Harry Lime as a smooth scoundrel. He wasn’t that. The picture I have of him on my files is an excellent one: he is caught by a street photographer with his stocky legs apart, big shoulders a little hunched, a belly that has known too much good for too long, on his face a look of cheerful rascality, a geniality, a recognition that his happiness will make the world’s day. Now he didn’t make the mistake of putting out a hand that might have been rejected, but instead just patted Martins on the elbow and said, “How are thing?”
“We’re got to talk, Harry.”
“Of course.”
“Alone.”
“We couldn’t be more alone than here.”
He had always known the ropes, and even in the smashed pleasure park he knew them, tipping the woman in charge of the Wheel, so that they might have a car to themselves. He said, “Lovers used to do this in the old days, but they haven’t the money to spare, poor devils, now,” and he looked out of the window of the swaying, rising car at the figures diminishing below with what looked like genuine commiseration.
Very slowly on one side of them the city sank; very slowly on the other the great cross-girders of the Wheel rose into sight. As the horizon slid away the Danube became visible, and the piers of the Reichsbru(．．)cke lifted above the houses. “Well,” Harry said, “it’s good to see you, Rollo.”
“I was at your funeral.”
“That was pretty smart of me, wasn’t it?”
“Not so smart for your girl. She was there too-in tears.”
“She’s a good little thing,” Harry said. “I’m very fond of her.”
“I didn’t believe the police when they told me about you.”
“Harry said, I wouldn’t have asked you to come if I’d known what was going to happen, but I didn’t think the police were on to me.”
“Were you going to cut me in on the spoils?”
“I’ve never kept you out of anything, old man, yet.” He stood with his back to the door as the car swung upwards, and smiled back at Rollo Martins, who could remember him in just such an attitude in a secluded corner of the school-quad, saying, “I’ve learned a way to get out at night. It’s absolutely safe. You are the only one I’m letting in on it.” For the first time Rollo Martins looked back through the years without admiration, as he thought: He’s never grown up. Marlowe’s devils wore squibs attached to their tails: evil was like Peter Pan-it carried with it the horrifying and horrible gift of eternal youth.
Martins said, “Have you ever visited the children’s hospital? Have you seen any of your victims?”
Harry took a look at the toy landscape below and came away from the door. “I never feel quite safe in these things,” he said. He felt the back of the door with his hand, as though he were afraid that it might fly open and launch him into that iron-ribbed space. “Victims?” he asked. “Don’t be melodramatic, Rollo. Look down there,” he went on, pointing through the window at the people moving like black flies at the base of the Wheel. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving-for ever? If I said you can have twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money-without hesitation? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax.” He gave his boyish conspiratorial smile. “It’s the only way to save nowadays.”
“Couldn’t you have stuck to tyres?”
“Like Cooler? No, I’ve always been ambitious.”
“You are finished now. The police know everything.”
“But they can’t catch me, Rollo, you’ll see. I’ll pop up again. You can’t keep a good man down?
The car swung to a standstill at the highest point of the curve and Harry turned his back and gazed out of the window. Martins thought: One good shove and I could break the glass, and he pictured the body falling, falling, through the iron struts, a piece of carrion dropping among the flies. He said, “You know the police are planning to dig up your body. What will they find?”
“Harbin,” Harry replied with simplicity. He turned away from the window and said,” Look at the sky.”
The car had reached the top of the Wheel and hung there motionless, while the stain of the sunset ran in streaks over the wrinkled papery sky beyond the black girders.
“Why did the Russians try to take Anna Schmidt?”
“She had false papers, old man.”
“Who told them?”
“The price of living in this zone, Rollo, is service. I have to give them a little information now and then.”
“I thought perhaps you were just trying to get her here-because she was your girl? Because you wanted her? ”
“Harry smiled. I haven’t all that influence.”
“What would have happened to her?”
“Nothing very serious. She’d have been sent back to Hungary. There’s nothing against her really. A year in a labour camp perhaps. She’d be infinitely better off in her own country than being pushed around by the British police.”
“She hasn’t told them anything about you.”
She’s a good little thing, Harry repeated with satisfaction and pride.”
“She loves you.”
“Well, I gave her a good time while it lasted.”
“And I love her.”
“That’s fine, old man. Be kind of her. She’s worth it. I’m glad.” He gave the impression of having arranged everything to everybody’s satisfaction. “And you can help to keep her mouth shut. Not that she knows anything that matters.”
“I’d like to knock you through the window.”
“But you won’t, old man. Our quarrels never last long. You remember that fearful one in the Monaco, when we swore we were through. I’d trust you anywhere, Rollo. Kurtz tried to persuade me not to come, but I know you. Then he tried to persuade me to, well, arrange an accident. He told me it would be quite easy in this car.”
“Except that I’m the stronger man.”
“But I’ve got the gun. You don’t think a bullet wound would show when you hit that ground?” again the car began to move, dialing slowly down, until the flies were midgets, were recognizable human beings. “What fools we are, Rollo, talking like this, as if I’d do that to you-or you to me.” He turned his back and leaned his face against the glass. One thrust. .. “How much do you earn a year with your Westerns, old man?”
“A thousand.”
“Taxed. I earn thirty thousand free. It’s the fashion. In these days, old man, nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t, so why should we? They talk of the people and the proletariat, and I talk of the mugs. It’s the same thing. They have their five year plans and so have I.”
“You used to be a Catholic.”
“Oh, I still believe, old man. In God and mercy and all that. I’m not hurting anybody’s soul by what I do. The dead are happier dead. They don’t miss much here, poor devils,” he added with that odd touch of genuine pity, as the car reached the platform and the faces of the doomed-to-be-victims, the tired pleasure-hoping Sunday faces, peered in at them. “I could cut you in, you know. It would be useful. I have no one left in the Inner City.”
“Except Cooler? And Winkler?”
“You really mustn’t turn policeman, old man. They passed out of the car and he put his hand again on Martin’s elbow. That was a joke: I know you won’t. Have you heard anything of old Bracer recently?”
“I had a card at Christmas.”
“Those were the days, old man. Those were the days. I’ve got to leave you here. We’ll see each other sometime. If you are in a jam, you can always get me at Kurtz’s.” He moved away and, turning waved the hand he had had the tact not to offer: it was like the whole past moving off under a cloud. Martins suddenly called after him. “Don’t trust me, Harry,” but there was too great a distance now between them for the words to carry. |