Mr. Smetana sat in the empty living-room of the Rest House all through that rainy desert of time between luncheon and tea. He bridged the gap with work and a prolonged beaver, calling the sleeping boy at intervals to renew his plate of corned-beef sandwiches and replenish his lager glass. How dim the Rest House was. Old magazines flapped and flapped in the wind of the fan. The three year-old Illustrated London News lay on a table near Smetana: the fan-wind flicked it open, page by page, and at the last page clouted it in boredom and sent it flopping its wings to the floor. The telephone rang twice but nobody came to answer. It rang yet again and Smetana, putting down his drawing-block with a Czech oath, strode to it, lifted the receiver and said loudly, "He is not here." Then he returned to his work. He was not painting today; he was practising his subsidiary gift of caricature. He was trying to fix in hard pencil his memories of the luncheon-party at the Residency, and he was helped here by certain photographs on the walls – photographs of the U.N. Adviser and his lady and his daughter, taken at various minor functions over the last few years: a farewell dinner for the Caliph's brother-in-law, off for further study in Cairo; the opening of a new Bata shoe shop; a gala performance of an Arab film in aid of the Junior Koran Reading Society. To these Smetana occasionally strode, humming Siegfried's horn-call. Then he would go back to work with new vigour, hearing over the rain the odd groan from Rowlandson asleep in his room.
Semetana completed several deft drawings before the noises of rising and tea-making came from the servants' quarters. There was a cruel one of Penelope, the washed-out colonial miss, writhing at a Latin compliment; there was Mrs. Tomlin, surreptitiously picking her teeth with a little-finger-nail; there were two of The Honourable Mr. Tomlin himself, one petulantly assuming the god, the other blubbing like a fag after a prefect's beating. Smetana felt sure he could sell these for a very good price. But he would not sell them before his exhibition. How dare they insult him and half-starve him. He called for more corned beef sandwiches and lager, well-satisfied.
At four-thirty Rowlandson came out in bedroom sandals, hardly better for his sleep. He had dreamt of seeing his own head, shrunken but still recognisably his, held up before him by grinning black people in a kraal besieged by rain. The dream had been detailed and vivid: behind his held-up head had been a wet vista of date palms and ducks splashing in puddles. He had been told that he could have the head, suitably mounted, for the sum of three thousand bucks. In the dream this had seemed an exorbitant price: he would have to sell his car. But, he had dream-reflected, a car was not much use in a land where the roads were rivers: yet, seeing his car disappear from the porch of his bungalow, it had seemed somehow worse than losing his head. He had awakened very thirsty.
He saw Smetana tying the tapes of his portfolio, humming something aggressive and Slavonic. He would not speak to him. Then, to his relief, a taxi appeared, a man he knew got out of it, paid the driver who said merely,
"You", and began to climb the wooden steps, stiff as though with age.
"Hallo, Frank," said Rowlandson, shaking towards the head of the steps. "It's you, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes," said Lydgate, "it's me all right. How are you, Rowley?" "Thirsty."
"And how long are you here for?"
"I'm not going back," said Rowlandson with passion. "Not there. I've been there long enough, haven't I? Wouldn't you say so? They'll have to give me somewhere else. Or send me home. Let's have a drink."
To reach the armchairs they had to pass a big varnished map of Dunia. Civilisation of a kind had nibbled at the coastline, leaving tooth-marks of names, but the hinterland remained uneaten save by rivers. Rowlandson shivered and pointed shakily. "There it is," he said. "They should never have sent me there in the first place."
"It used to be all right," said Lydgate. "The women were well-known for – "
"It's not all right now. I don't know what's come over them lately. I mean, they've got plenty to occupy their time. Schools and what-not. Maize-planting. We've given some of them battery-radios. Some of them have got portable gramophones. We're trying to civilise them."
"Perhaps they're bored," said Lydgate. "That's what's wrong with civilisation. It's boring."
"We got a bit of football going. And then one day I found they weren't using a ball. They were using – "
Rowlandson began to shake furiously.
"Take it easy," said Lydgate. "Have a drink."
"Boy!" called Rowlandson. "Where are you, boy?" The aged negro came out at once with a bottle of lager for Mr. Smetana. "I was first," called Rowlandson. "You've got to serve me first. This isn't German territory. They wanted to be boss but they're not boss. I'm boss, do you hear? Me, me, me!” ("Czech," said Mr. Smetana.)
"Two cold beers," ordered Lydgate quietly. Rowlandson subsided. He looked again at the map. So did Lydgate. Rowlandson had an awkward territory. It was on the very fringe of Dunia; across a river hardly wide enough for a natural frontier lay the jungles of Shurga; south lay Trognika, marked off from United-Nations-protected land by the third parallel of latitude. Across Rowlandson's river lay the village where Lydgate's mistress should now, if computation had not erred, either be about to give birth or already have just given it. Lydgate said:
"Have you heard anything about Wajak?"
"Who's Wajak? Oh, I know, that one of yours. Yes, she's going to have a baby. Wait," said Rowlandson. “I knew there was something. I've had so much on my mmd, you see, what with one thing and another. I've got it here somewhere. Wait." From his trouser pockets Rowlandson pulled out a schoolboy collection of string, pencils, nails. At length he found a mildewed wallet and began to fumble with it.
"I'll open that if you like," said Lydgate.
"No, no, I can manage." Rowlandson disclosed crumpled money and bits of paper. "A bloke came over the river with this. It's a sort of letter. They've got a kind of letter- writer somewhere down-river."
Lydgate opened the sort of letter. It said, in pencil: "My dear husband I very good but not yet been born I hope be born very soon then if you send ticket to Mister Ali in town he come fetch in boat I come in flying ship I hope see you soon both child very good now have three child we be very happy letter writer say five buck for write letter I tell him you send soon I no money love." It was as satisfactory a letter as he had ever received from a woman. He folded it up, put it away and felt happier than he had felt for a long time. The beer came and he drank contentedly, Rowlandson desperately.
"I wouldn't worry," said Rowlandson, "if they'd stick to their own heads." The drink had made him calmer. "But they keep looking hungrily at mine, you see. Oh, I know you can say it's only imagination, but that's the way it gets you up there. Anyway, they're not so friendly as they used to be. It's only my car that keeps me going."
"But I don't see what good a car is where you are."
"It occupies my time, you see. I keep it clean and rev it up and drive a few yards with it. And I think of the time I'll be able to use it. I had it sent in advance to meet me here. But it's not going back with me. Oh, no. Because I'm not going back myself."
"You might feel better after a few days' rest," soothed Lydgate. "It might not be as bad as you think it is."
"Are you saying that I'm a bloody liar?" said Rowlandson fiercely. "Are you like the rest of them?" He glowered round the room, ready for the rest of them, but there was only Mr. Smetana placidly eating a tea of corned-beef sandwiches: a regular meal had caught up his long snack. Mr. Smetana was also placidly drawing. Rowlandson said, "There are things going on, you know. There's that blasted man Patu and his revolution. He's probably telling everybody to kill off the white oppressors. And how do we know what's coming up over the border? There's a lot of trouble in the Congo just now. And I know for a fact that there's a bit of head-hunting across the river. They've been digging up some of the old ones, too, hanging them up after giving them a dusting. There's a Belgian one, complete with horn-rimmed glasses. And they've even put Brylcreem on his hair."
"That's civilisation for you," said Lydgate. But he added,
"Across the river, you say?"
"Yes. You want to watch out for your kids. There's one that's very white, golden-haired, so they say. You've got one like that, haven't you? I wouldn't trust any of them. If they can't get a two-bob piece they'll take a tanner."
Lydgate now knew that Rowlandson was suffering from mid-term nerves. But he felt a curiously strong desire to have his love-children about him, irradiating his dim hovel. And he saw Wajak's black body lying across the bed. That reminded him; he must ask P.W.D. for a double-bed. And he also, in an unbidden vision, saw a line of shrunken heads, some of them recognisable, most of them of senior government officers. Mudd's shone out clearly, topped by a smart jockey-cap. And there was one he never expected. But no, no, no. That was impossible. "More beer," he said. "Boy!" he called.
"What's that bastard drawing?" asked Rowlandson. He got up from his armchair. "He keeps looking over here all the time. If he's drawing me – " He went to Smetana who, with bold sweeps of pencil, was finishing things off.
"Let's have a look," said Rowlandson.
"You can have it if you wish," said Smetana. "Fifty bucks only."
"It's not too bad," said Rowlandson, with the first smirk of pleasure he had shown since coming to Dunia Town. He held up the sheet to the light. "I'll say that for the bloody Germans. They're clever all right. Sometimes a damn sight too clever. He's got me all right, hasn't he?" he said to Lydgate. "Expression and everything, eh?"
"Your face is a bit fatter than that," said Lydgate. "And he ought to give you a neck."
"But it's all right, isn't it?" said Rowlandson. "He's not made too bad a job of it at all.· But I can't give three thousand bucks for it," he said to Smetana in a sudden passion. "That's too much. I'd have to sell my car."
"Fifty," said Smetana, his mouth full of bread and corned beef.
"Fifty?" said Rowlandson. "For a few minutes' work like that? We U.N.officers aren't made of money, you know."
"Fifty," said Smetana, eating. "Even artists must eat, though the world and your U.N.Adviser think not."
"All right," said Rowlandson. He began shakily to count out notes. Near-broken, he was still an Englishman; he would not bargain. "I'd hang it up in that bungalow of mine," he said, "if I was going back there. But I'm not going back," he said, "whatever they say. You can be quite sure of that." The rain began to ease a little.
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