The Confidential Agent (6 page)

Well, he remembered the number – 35. He was a little surprised to find that it was a hotel, though not a good hotel. The open outer door was a sure mark of its nature in every city in Europe. He took stock of his surroundings – he remembered the district very slightly. Attached to it was a haze of sentiment from his British Museum days, days of scholarship and peace and courtship. The street opened at the end into a great square – trees blackened with frost: the fantastic cupolas of a great inexpensive hotel: an advertisement for Russian baths. He went in and rang at the glass inner door. Somewhere a clock struck six.

A peaky haggard face looked at him: a child, about fourteen. He said, ‘I think there is a room waiting for me. The name is D.'

‘Oh,' the child said, ‘we were expecting you last night.' She was struggling with the bow of an apron; sleep was still white at the corners of her eyes; he could imagine the cruel alarm clock dinning in her ears. He said gently, ‘Just give me the key and I'll go up.' She was looking at his face with consternation. He said, ‘I had a little accident – with a car.'

She said, ‘It's number twenty-seven. Right at the top. I'll show you.'

‘Don't bother,' he said.

‘Oh, it's no bother. It's the “short times” that are the bother. In and out three times in a night.' She had all the innocence of a life passed since birth with the guilty. For the first two flights there was a carpet: afterwards just wooden stairs. A door opened and an Indian in a gaudy dressing-gown gazed out with heavy and nostalgic eyes. His guide plodded up ahead; she had a hole in one heel which slipped out of the trodden shoe. If she had been older she would have been a slattern, but at her age she was only sad.

He asked, ‘Have there been any messages left for me?'

She said, ‘A man called last night. He left a note.' She unlocked a door. ‘You'll find it on the washstand.'

The room was small: an iron bedstead, a table covered with a fringed cloth, a basket chair, a blue-patterned cotton bedspread, clean and faded and spider-thin. ‘Do you want some hot water?' the child asked gloomily.

‘No, no, don't bother.'

‘And what will you be wanting for breakfast? – most lodgers take kippers or boiled eggs.'

‘I won't want any this morning. I will sleep a little.'

‘Would you like me to call you later?'

‘Oh no,' he said. ‘These are such long stairs. I am quite used to waking myself. You needn't bother.'

She said passionately, ‘It's good working for a gentleman. Here they are all “short time” – you know what I mean – or else they're Indians.' She watched him with the beginning of devotion; she was of an age when she could be won by a single word for ever. ‘Haven't you any bags?'

‘No.'

‘It's lucky as how you were introduced. We don't let rooms to people without luggage – not if they're by themselves.'

There were two letters waiting for him, propped against the tooth-glass on the washstand. The first he opened contained letter-paper headed The Entrenationo Language Centre: a typed message – ‘Our charge for a course of thirty lessons in Entrenationo is six guineas. A specimen lesson has been arranged for you at 8.45 o'clock to-morrow (the 16th inst.), and we very much hope that you will be encouraged to take a full course. If the time arranged is for any reason inconvenient, will you please give us a ring and have it altered to suit your requirements?' The other was from Lord Benditch's secretary confirming the appointment.

He said, ‘I've got to be going out again very soon. I shall just take a nap.'

‘Would you like a hot bottle?'

‘Oh no, I shall do very well.'

She hovered anxiously at the door. ‘There's a gas meter for pennies. Do you know how they work?' How little London altered. He remembered the ticking meter with its avidity for coins and its incomprehensible dial: on a long evening together they had emptied his pocket and her purse of coppers, until they had none left and the night got cold and she left him till morning. He was suddenly aware that, outside, two years of painful memories still waited to pounce. ‘Oh yes,' he said quickly, ‘I know. Thank you.' She absorbed his thanks passionately: he was a gentleman. Her soft closing of the door seemed to indicate that, in her eyes at any rate, one swallow made a whole summer.

D. took off his shoes and lay down on the bed, not waiting to wash the blood off his face. He told his subconscious mind, as if it were a reliable servant who only needed a word, that he must wake at eight-fifteen, and almost immediately was asleep. He dreamed that an elderly man with beautiful manners was walking beside him along a river bank; he was asking for his views on the Song of Roland, sometimes arguing with great deference. On the other side of the river there was a group of tall cold beautiful buildings like pictures he had seen of the Rockefeller Plaza in New York and a band was playing. He woke exactly at eight-fifteen by his own watch.

He got up and washed the blood from his mouth; the two teeth he had lost were at the back. It was lucky, he thought grimly, for life seemed determined to make him look less and less like his passport photograph. He was not so bruised and cut as he had expected. He went downstairs. In the hall there was a smell of fish from the dining-room, and the little servant ran blindly into him, carrying two boiled eggs. ‘Oh,' she said, ‘I'm sorry.' Some instinct made him stop her. ‘What is your name?'

‘Else.'

‘Listen, Else. I have locked the door of my room. I want you to see that nobody goes in while I am away.'

‘Oh, nobody would.'

He put his hand gently on her arm. ‘Somebody might. You keep the key, Else. I trust you.'

‘I'll see to it. I won't let anybody,' she swore softly while the eggs rolled on the plate.

The Entrenationo Language Centre was on the third floor of a building on the south side of Oxford Street: over a bead shop, an insurance company, and the offices of a magazine called
Mental Health
. An old lift jerked him up: he was uncertain of what he would find at the top. He pushed open a door marked ‘Inquiries' and found a large draughty room with several arm-chairs, two filing cabinets, and a counter at which a middle-aged woman sat knitting. He said, ‘My name is D. I have come for a specimen lesson.'

‘I'm so glad,' she said and smiled at him brightly. She had a wizened idealist's face and ragged hair and she wore a blue woollen jumper with scarlet bobbles. She said, ‘I hope you will soon be quite an old friend,' and rang a bell. What a country, he thought with reluctant and ironic admiration. She said, ‘Dr Bellows always likes to have a word with new clients.' Was it Dr Bellows, he wondered, whom he had to see ? A little door opened behind the counter into a private office. ‘Would you just step through?' the woman said, lifting the counter.

No, he couldn't believe that it was Dr Bellows. Dr Bellows stood in the little tiny room, all leather and walnut stain and the smell of dry ink, and held out both hands. He had smooth white hair and a look of timid hope. He said something which sounded like ‘Me tray joyass'. His gestures and his voice were more grandiloquent than his face, which seemed to shrink from innumerable rebuffs. He said, ‘The first words of the Entrenationo Language must always be ones of welcome.'

‘That is good of you,' D. said. Dr Bellows closed the door. He said, ‘I have arranged that your lesson – I hope I shall be able to say “lessons” – will be given by a compatriot. That is always, if possible, our system. It induces sympathy and breaks the new world order slowly. You will find Mr K. is quite an able teacher.'

‘I'm sure of it.'

‘But first,' Dr Bellows said, ‘I always like to explain just a little of our ideals.' He still held D. by the hand, and he led him gently on towards a leather chair. He said, ‘I always hope that a new client has been brought here by love.'

‘Love?'

‘Love of all the world. A desire to be able to exchange – ideas – with – everybody. All this hate,' Dr Bellows said, ‘these wars we read about in the newspapers, they are all due to misunderstanding. If we all spoke the same language . . .' He suddenly gave a little wretched sigh which wasn't histrionic. He said, ‘It has always been my dream to help.' The rash unfortunate man had tried to bring his dream to life, and he knew that it wasn't good – the little leather chairs and the draughty waiting-room and the woman in a jumper knitting. He had dreamt of universal peace, and he had two floors on the south side of Oxford Street. There was something of a saint about him, but saints are successful.

D. said, ‘I think it is a very noble work.'

‘I want everyone who comes here to realise that this isn't just a – commercial – relationship. I want you all to feel my fellow-workers.'

‘Of course.'

‘I know we haven't got very far yet . . . But we have done better than you may think. We have had Italians, Germans, a Siamese, one of your own countrymen – as well as English people. But of course it is the English who support us best. Alas, I cannot say the same of France.'

‘It is a question of time,' D. said. He felt sorry for the old man.

‘I have been at it now for thirty years. Of course the War was our great blow.' He suddenly sat firmly up and said, ‘But the response this month has been admirable. We have given five sample lessons. You are the sixth. I mustn't keep you any longer away from Mr K.' A clock struck nine in the waiting-room. ‘La hora sonas,' Dr Bellows said with a frightened smile and held out his hand. ‘That is – the clock sounds.' He held D.'s hand again in his, as if he were aware of more sympathy than he was accustomed to. ‘I like to welcome an intelligent man . . . it is possible to do so much good.' He said, ‘May I hope to have another interesting talk with you?'

‘Yes. I am sure of it.'

Dr Bellows clung to him a little longer in the doorway. ‘I ought perhaps to have warned you. We teach by the direct method. We trust – to your honour – not to speak anything but Entrenationo.' He shut himself back in his little room. The woman in the jumper said, ‘Such an interesting man, don't you think, Dr Bellows?'

‘He has great hopes.'

‘One must – don't you think?' She came out from behind the counter and led him back to the lift. ‘The tuition rooms are on the fourth floor. Just press the button. Mr K. will be waiting.' He rattled upwards. He wondered what Mr K. would look like – surely he wouldn't fit in here if he belonged to the ravaged world he had himself emerged from.

But he did fit in – with the building if not with the idealism. A little shabby and ink-stained, he was any underpaid language master in a commercial school. He wore steel spectacles and economised on razor blades. He opened the lift door and said, ‘Bona matina.'

‘Bona matina,' D. said, and Mr K. led the way down a pitchpine passage walnut-stained: one big room the size of the waiting-room below had been divided into four. He couldn't help wondering whether he was not wasting his time – somebody might have made a mistake – but then, who could have got his name and address? Or had L. arranged this to get him out of the hotel while he had his room searched? But that, too, was impossible. L. had no means of knowing his address before he had the pocket-book.

Mr K. ushered him into a tiny cubicle warmed by a tepid radiator. Double windows shut out the air and the noise of the traffic far below in Oxford Street. On one wall was hung a simple child-like picture on rollers – a family sat eating in front of what looked like a Swiss chalet. The father had a gun, and one lady an umbrella; there were mountains, a forest, a waterfall; the table was crammed with an odd mixture of food – apples, an uncooked cabbage, a chicken, pears, oranges and raw potatoes, a joint of meat. A child played with a hoop, and a baby sat up in a pram drinking out of a bottle. On the other wall was a clockface with movable hands. Mr K. said, ‘Tablo' and rapped on the table. He sat down with emphasis on one of the two chairs, and said, ‘Essehgo.' D. followed suit. Mr K. said, ‘El timo es . . .' he pointed at the clock, ‘neuvo.' He began to take a lot of little boxes out of his pocket. He said, ‘Attentio.'

D. said, ‘I'm sorry. There must be some mistake . . .'

Mr K. piled the little boxes one on top of the other, counting as he did so, ‘Una, Da, Trea, Kwara, Vif.' He added in a low voice, ‘We are forbidden by the rules to talk anything but Entrenationo. I am fined one shilling if I am caught. So please speak low except in Entrenationo.'

‘Somebody arranged a lesson for me . . .'

‘That is quite right. I have had instructions.' He said, ‘Que son la?' pointing at the boxes and replied to his own question, ‘La son castes.' He lowered his voice again and said, ‘What were you doing last night?'

‘Of course I want to see your authority.'

Mr K. took a card from his pocket and laid it in front of D. He said, ‘Your boat was only two hours late and yet you were not in London last night.'

‘First I missed my train – delay at the passport control – then a woman offered me a lift: the tyre burst, and I was delayed at a roadhouse. L. was there.'

‘Did he speak to you?'

‘He sent me a note offering me two thousand pounds.'

An odd expression came into the little man's eyes – it was like envy or hunger. He said, ‘What did you do?'

‘Nothing, of course.'

Mr K. took off the old steel-rimmed spectacles and wiped the lenses. He said, ‘Was the girl connected with L?'

‘I think it's unlikely.'