The Man from Lisbon, page 6
She looked up quickly. “You are joking? Aren’t you?” Her voice was soft, startled.
“Not at all.”
“I see.” She smiled shyly. “I don’t know what to say. I know nothing about money.”
“Ah, you know one great thing, my dearest.” He took her hand, tracing the length of her fingers. “How to spend it.”
She nodded, laughing very quietly.
At length she said, “What has this to do with me? Why are you telling me?” She seemed almost embarrassed by the subject.
“Because I love you, because our two lives make only one life, because money makes things change.” He lit a cigarette and looked at the moon. “It cannot buy the moon, I know, but it is strange and wonderful stuff nonetheless. You see, I have a knack for making it. … It’s like a game, a sport—some people are good at it, others are not. It comes easily to me. And once you begin playing, there’s no point in stopping. …”
“All right,” she said. “I’m happy that you are good at it.” She stretched, held his hand to her mouth for a kiss. Then she cupped his palm around her breast and stopped his eyes with hers. “You are good at even more important things. …” A giggle barely escaped: she was still so much a child. He stroked the round, soft breast, feeling her respond. But he pushed on; he wanted to talk now that he’d begun.
He wasn’t altogether sure she was listening, but he told her of his recent trip to Europe, the buying and selling he’d done in what was being called “war surplus” these days. War surplus—the production overruns left idle in warehouses throughout Europe when the war had finally ended. In France he’d bought an entire trainload of heavy paper sandbags that had never reached the trenches. He had shipped them to Angola, selling them with the guarantee that they were as strong as jute. Not one complaint! And that was only one of many such business dealings.
Against the background of profit-making, the death of his father had seemed only a moment’s interlude. Alves had gone through the photographs he’d saved of his father, trying to fix a happy memory in his mind, but the pictures had been barren of any lightheartedness. It was memory that brought forth the happy moment, the Easter Sunday of his boyhood, his father telling them about the admiral. … That had been an exciting day and his father had been part of it. Now his father was dead, saved further grinding down, spared any more humiliation.
“Our future is in Europe,” he said. “It is clearer every day.”
“But we’re so happy here,” she protested.
“There’s more to life, Maria … life is so much bigger than this.” He watched her leaning back against the saddle and blanket. He knew when she wanted to make love. He looked away at a night sound. “I’m going back to Lisbon in two weeks.”
“Not all of us, not to live?” Her eyes were wide, stricken.
“No, no, my darling. Business. … I’m just preparing you for the inevitable.”
“Then come to me now,” she said. “I know what is inevitable, don’t you?” She held out her arms. Shadows flickered across her face, the expression of sudden need.
In the morning he couldn’t be sure that she even remembered the conversation. Perhaps it made no difference to her, one way or the other, knowing about his life. Perhaps women thought only of their houses and their children and their sexual needs. It was a mystery. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye as she rode beside him. Not a clue. He’d better forget his idea of sharing that part of his life with her. He’d been wrong. Women were women.
While picking through a derelict warehouse in Lisbon near the docks, far below the serpentine streets of the ancient Alfama district, he came across two dozen unused tractors left behind from the day the Portuguese government had impounded all German shipping and goods. Despite some surface rust, a cursory inspection convinced Reis that they were in no way permanently damaged. After a morning of poking about in the clammy, filthy warehouse, he offered to buy the lot for one tenth of the original price. The supply chief looked on it as found money; as well, the space would be cleared at no cost to the government.
Having guaranteed to empty the warehouse in fourteen days, Alves found two well-qualified, out-of-work mechanics and hired them to refurbish the tractors. He once again climbed into his monkey suit, and the three of them went to work greasing, sanding, oiling, painting. He made a deal with an Angolan importer based in Lisbon: the price of the tractors, or comparable English-made machines, had risen considerably since the time these had first been manufactured—yet Alves generously offered them, brand new, in mint unused condition, for their original price, a 900 percent profit for himself minus the 4 percent he’d agreed to pay the mechanics. The Angolan importer assumed responsibility in the eyes of his clients, and Alves was well out of it. The deal was signed and the consignment delivered in twelve, not fourteen, days. Money, money, money …
Upon his return to Luanda he summoned Arnaldo to a meeting that took place in the handsome beamed study of the ancient walled-in house. He recounted the story of his European adventures and bestowed a substantial raise on his properly impressed associate. Together in their new, elegantly cut dinner clothes and carefully pampered mustaches, the two of them sat in the dim silence and stared at each other from the deep recesses of heavy armchairs. It was one of life’s sweet moments when all has been seen to go right in the face of substantial odds.
“Why are you grinning?” Arnaldo inquired, crossing his right leg over his left, pointing the patent-leather toe of his pump.
“What a pair we are!” Alves exclaimed. “We can do anything … I’m almost convinced of that.”
Together they wandered into the foyer and waited for Maria, who finally bustled in, still instructing the cook about preparations for the late after-theater supper.
Maria clattered down the hall after kissing the children—two by now—good night. She was a determined mother, a natural comforter who gloried in her children, the managing of her home. She was tremendously pleased with her husband’s worldly success, both the money and the esteem in which he was held by Luanda’s leaders. She found it all particularly satisfying. Socially she made the most of her opportunities. That very night a dozen of Luanda’s most prominent figures would dine in her home. And that would make quite a tantalizing subject for a letter home.
The play, Camille, was not done well even by Portuguese standards; by Angolan standards, however, it was a treat, and the young company was warmly applauded once the heroine coughed her last. The party congregated in the lobby, in the center of the swirling, festive, well-dressed crowd. While the Governor had been unable to attend, both Terreira and Chaves were on hand with their wives, the managing director of the Eastern Telegraph Company, an executive of the steamship company, the importer who had handled the tractor transaction, the editor of Luanda’s major newspaper. The women in their jewelry and long dresses glittered and quivered and chattered; the men spoke quietly among themselves and appraised the women.
The newspaper editor’s wife, only a few years older than Maria, was the most strikingly attractive woman in the group. For several months Alves had lusted in his mind after her full round breasts, which were much in view that evening, and her quick, intelligent laughter, her pale-blue eyes, her most unusual pale straw-colored hair. She was German, or perhaps Swiss, and he joined her at a small table in the courtyard for dinner.
He leaned over her slightly, peering into the recesses of her low-cut gown, and asked if he might sit with her. There was a knowing smile on her wide mouth.
“Dinner with the famous Senhor Reis, just the two of us,” she murmured. “I’m very flattered. I hope Director Chaves does not feel slighted … you were very intent together during the intermission, you and Director Chaves.”
“Business,” he said, “mere business. He was seeking my advice about an acquisition—”
“How very interesting,” she said. The thick, somewhat coarse Teutonic intonation and pronunciation intrigued him. Everything about her was so different from Maria, including her interest in the business world. “A very large purchase?”
“Extraordinarily,” he said, smelling her perfume on the cool breeze. “Several huge American locomotives, machines of the future—we must watch the progressive Americans, learn from them.”
“Americans,” she repeated tonelessly. “I suppose you are right, but still, I am a German. … I do not find the Americans very sympathetic, you see.”
“I apologize,” Alves said, reaching across the small table, stroking the soft texture of her hand. “But the fact is their locomotives are of very high quality. I told Director Chaves to buy them at once. They’ll never be cheaper.” He smiled into the cool eyes.
A stiff, straight-backed figure bowed fractionally over the table. It was a man the editor had brought along for the evening and had introduced briefly to Alves. Leaving such a slight alteration in the dinner plans to Maria, he had failed to remember the man’s name. The impression, however, had been dramatic: very close-cropped hair, neck as thick as a tree trunk, with even rolls of hard fat layered down to the back of his collar, flashing monocle, cigarette in an ivory holder—he brought to mind a photograph Alves had seen of a German actor called Von Stroheim.
The woman glanced up. “Herr Hennies,” she said, “you’ve met our host, Senhor Reis?”
“Of course,” Hennies said stiffly. “Adolf Hennies.” He made it sound like a command, bowed again. “May I join you?”
“Please do,” she said. “We were speaking of business.”
Seating himself, placing his dinner plate on the table, Hennies nodded stiffly. “I could not help but overhear you in passing—so I stopped, intruding on your tête-à-tête, I am afraid.” He smiled thinly below the monocle, which gleamed opaquely in the candlelight like a huge Cyclopean eye. “But I could not resist. You have become a famous man in Angola, Senhor Reis … famous for your unerring business sense. I hoped for a chance to talk this evening. Tomorrow, you see, I return to the Continent.” He chewed a tiny morsel of the excellent stuffed fish.
“You are too kind,” Alves said, tearing his eyes away from the woman’s pale bosom, confronting the monocle. “You are here on business, Herr Hennies?”
The German nodded. “In a way. Germany must make its way in this new postwar world. There is no time to sit licking our wounds—business is the business of the world, is it not?”
He watched the German, wondering if he was a better bet for the evening than the editor’s wife.
“You have done well here, no one can doubt it,” Hennies said. “But Africa lacks the stability of Europe. We may face inflation of the currency in Europe, but there are alternative currencies—if one doesn’t suit you, try another. Here, where you are also facing inflation, you are locked to the mother country … and business opportunities are limited. Angola is owned by Portugal, a fact that puts a finite limit on opportunity. Now—” carefully sipping his wine, speaking so quietly that the editor’s wife was forced to lean forward—“now is the time for a man of your caliber to make his move back to Europe. With the way the Angolan economy is developing, well, you must see for yourself what is happening. … You have recently been to France, I understand, and Lisbon. You have undoubtedly reached these conclusions for yourself. I hope I have not been presumptuous.”
“Not at all,” Alves assured him. “Most interesting, in fact. You are obviously a man who gives such matters considerable thought.”
“Herr Hennies is very deep, very mysterious,” the woman said, smiling at the German. “He is a good man to strike a bargain with.” Her lashes fluttered. “But watch him closely. Others have not and lived to regret it. I warn you.”
“Ah, you defame me,” Hennies said, forcing a chuckle.
Alves’ attention had swung almost completely away from the woman to concentrate on Hennies. He had never spoken at any length with a German before, and he found himself wondering how the man’s mind worked. How much of what he had always been told about Germans was true? Stiff, formal, slow-witted, brutal, intransigent? As a Portuguese he didn’t fully trust any German, nor did he pretend to understand the man’s motivation. What did the man want?
In time the editor came to spirit his wife off to another cluster of guests, leaving him alone with the German. They smoked in silence for a moment, listening to the fountain splashing nearby.
“Seriously, Senhor Reis,” Hennies said, “our charming friend has made a small joke at my expense … but let me say that I hope you recognize it as just that, a joke. If you decide to return to the Continent I should be most grateful if you would inform me.” He inclined his head on what seemed to be a ballbearing at the top of his spinal column, slipped a small white pasteboard from his pocket, smoothing his waistcoat. “Please accept my card. Men of vision and ability may often benefit one another. Just possibly I could put some good things in your way.” He stood abruptly, consulted a large gold hunter at the end of a substantial gold link chain and softly brought his heels together. “Good evening, Senhor Reis. My ship embarks at first light.”
Alves watched the German move his substantial bulk toward Maria. Alves drained his wine and lit another cigarette.
Director Chaves, as was his custom, was the final guest. Alves found him scraping the sides of the chafing dish.
“What do you know of the German, Herr Hennies?”
Chaves belched appreciatively into his fist. “Seems to me I heard he was a spy. During the war, maybe even now. You know what people say, Alves. Germans are not to be trusted. Now they say that the Germans want to take Angola away from us, that Hennies is here evaluating the situation. …” He huffed tiredly. “They say he’s passing himself off as a Swiss these days.”
“Do you think it’s true?” But hadn’t he implied he was German?
Chaves shrugged. “Why not? Most of what I hear these days turns out to be true.” He put his plate down and yawned. “Can you forgive me? Maria, my dear, I’ve stayed too long yet again.”
“Impossible, Director,” she said, taking his hairy hand. “You are always our favorite guest.” The cook had come in to clear the buffet. Arnaldo dozed on a bench in the courtyard. His snoring wafted gently on the breeze. Alves walked to the gate with Chaves.
“Hennies thinks I should return to Europe.”
“And you, Alves? What do you think?”
“He may be right.”
Chaves sighed deeply and nodded. “Sooner or later, I’ve known it was inevitable—your leaving. I can’t say I blame you, if it comes to that. But keep an eye on Hennies. I expect he’s a tricky one.” He turned in the roadway. “Don’t do anything impulsively, Alves. Think it over. But whatever you do, you must make me a promise. …”
“And that is?”
“The American locomotives. You must wait for delivery, in case there’s a problem. Promise me, Alves.”
“Of course I’ll wait.”
Chaves came forward, squeezed Alves’ shoulder. Then he strolled off into the darkness.
That night Alves sat on the bed watching Maria brush her long rich hair, one hundred, two hundred strokes, like a careful, solemn little girl. She was such an innocent, so sheltered: helpless without him. He wanted her. He always wanted her, always enjoyed the yielding softness. Maybe it was better, all things considered, that his little attempt to draw her into his public life had come to nothing. Maybe it was better this way, the old way. … Away from the everyday battles, she gave him refuge, a place to forget for a moment. Holding her, watching her tremble, tears on her cheeks as she struggled to reach her climax, he was sure that she was as she should be, complete in her womanhood, innocent of the outside world, devoted solely to the life he made for her. … He had been wrong to expect anything else, and only infrequently, when he saw another kind of woman on the street or at dinner, did he wonder what else there was, what secrets might lie within other women.
After they made love, erasing the editor’s wife from his mind, he lit a cigarette and told her that they would be returning to Lisbon soon, once the American locomotives arrived.
During the months of waiting for the new locomotives, Alves pursued his various business arrangements with increased fervor. With the decision to return home made he was intent on building up as large a supply of capital as possible. He spent most of his time traveling into the countryside, seeking new and increasingly ingenious ways to make money, and the more he saw the more committed he became in his belief that somehow Angola would play a deciding role in his life. Sooner or later …
Traveling alone, by train and horseback, stopping in friendly farmhouses and ramshackle, makeshift inns and outland campsites, he had the time to evaluate his condition, the course his life had taken since that night on the beach with José—that, he felt in his heart, had been the turning point. Late at night he would sit on the plain beneath a shadowy tree, smoke a cigarette, warm his feet by a campfire and consider the moon sliding silently across sleeping Africa. He knew what it took to succeed. He had to ignore his own doubts: doubt yourself, he thought, and the doubts of others would surely follow.
What had always been important to Alves was the country itself, Angola, all 480,000 square miles of Africa’s western coast that was fourteen times larger than Portugal itself. Three and a half million people roamed the vastness of plain and rain forest and mountainous ridge with areas larger than all of England, inhabited by only a few thousand blacks. … He loved it. He knew he would be back. …
Only a few weeks before the locomotives were scheduled to arrive from America, Alves received a surprise by post—a thick envelope, sent from Mozambique. José Bandeira!
He ripped the envelope, a grin spreading across his face. José—good old José. How often since arriving in Luanda almost six years before had he longed for word of José. …
The letter, which began in a rambling, discursive manner, laboriously thrashed its way toward the point. Alves slumped down behind his study desk and read it again from the beginning, slowly shaking his head.
