The Tailor of Panama (52 page)

So there was no warning and the helicopter gunships came in from the sea as usual but this time there was no resistance because there was no army, so El Chorrillo had taken the wise course of giving itself up before the planes got there, which was a sign that the place was finally coming to heel, and that Mickie in taking the same pre-empting line of action was not mistaken either, even if the results were messy. A block of flats similar to Marta's fell to its knees of its own accord, reminding him of Mickie upside down. A makeshift primary school set fire to itself. A sanctuary for geriatrics blew a hole in its own wall almost the exact size of the hole in Mickie's head. Then it turfed half its inmates into the street so that they could help deal with the fire problem, the way people had dealt with it in Guararé, mainly by ignoring it. And a whole lot of other people had sensibly started running before they could possibly have anything to run from—as a sort of fire drill—and screaming before they had been hit. And all this, Pendel noticed over Louisa's yelling, had taken place before the first edge of troubled air reached his balcony in Bethania or the first tremors shook the broom cupboard under the stairs where Louisa had taken the children.

“Dad!” Mark this time. “Dad, come inside. Please! Please!”

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Hannah now. “I love you!”

No, Hannah. No, Mark. Of love another time, please, and alas I cannot come inside. When a man sets fire to the world and kills his best friend into the bargain, and sends his nonmistress to Miami to spare her the further attentions of the police, though he had
known from her turned-away eyes that she wouldn't go, he does best to abandon any ideas he has of being a protector.

“Harry, they have it all worked out. Everything is pinpoint. Everything is high-tech. The new weaponry can select a single window from a distance of many miles. They do not bomb civilians anymore. Kindly come indoors.”

But Pendel could not have gone indoors although in many ways he wanted to, because once again his legs wouldn't work. Each time he set fire to the world or killed a friend, he now realised, they ceased to function. And there was a big blaze forming over El Chorrillo, with black smoke coming out of the top of the blaze—though, like the cats, the smoke wasn't black all over, being red underneath from the flames and silver on the top from the magnesium flares in the sky. This gathering blaze held Pendel fixed in its stare and he couldn't move his eyes or legs an inch in any other direction. He had to stare it back and think of Mickie.

“Harry, I wish to know where you are going, please!”

So do I. Nevertheless her question puzzled him until he realised that he was after all walking, not towards Louisa or the children but away from her, and away from the shame of them, that he was on a hard road going downhill in long strides following the path that Pete's Mercedes pram had taken when it set off on its own, although with the back of his head he was longing to turn round, run up the hill and embrace his children and his wife.

“Harry, I love you. Whatever you've done wrong, I've done worse. Harry, I do not mind what you are or who you are or what you've done or who to. Harry, stay here.”

He was walking in long steps. The steep hill was hitting the heels of his shoes, making him jolt, and it's a thing about going downhill and losing height that it gets harder and harder and harder to turn back. Going downhill was so seductive. And he had the road to himself, because generally during an invasion those who aren't out looting stay indoors and try to telephone their friends, which was what the people were doing in their lighted windows as he strode
past. And sometimes they got through to them, because their friends, like themselves, inhabited areas where normal services are not disturbed in time of war. But Marta couldn't telephone anybody. Marta lived among people who, if only spiritually, came from the other side of the bridge, and for them war was a serious and even fatal obstruction to the conduct of their daily lives.

He kept walking and wanting to turn back but not doing it. He was distracted in his head and needed to find a way of turning exhaustion into sleep, and maybe that was what death was useful for. He would have liked to do something that would last, like have Marta's head in his neck again, and her other breast in his hand, but his trouble was, he felt unsuited to companionship and preferred his own society to anybody else's, on the grounds that he caused less havoc when he was safely isolated, which was what the judge had told him and it was true, and was what Mickie had also told him, and it was even truer.

Definitely he no longer cared about suits, his own or anyone else's. The line, the form, the rock of eye, the silhouette, were of no concern to him anymore. People must wear what they liked, and the best people didn't have a choice, he noticed. A lot of them got by perfectly well with a pair of jeans and a white shirt, or a flowered dress that they washed and rotated all their lives. A lot of them had not the least idea of what “rock of eye” meant. Like these people running past him, for instance, with bleeding feet and wide-open mouths, shoving him out of the way and shouting “Fire!” and screaming like their own children. Screaming “Mickie!” and “You bastard, Pendel!” He looked for Marta among them but didn't see her, and probably she had decided he was too sullied for her, too disgusting. He looked for the Mendozas' metallic-blue Mercedes in case it had decided to change sides and join the terrified mob, but he saw no sign of it. He saw a fire hydrant that had been amputated at the waist. It was gushing black blood all over the street. He saw Mickie a couple of times but didn't get so much as a nod of recognition out of him.

He kept walking and he realised that he was quite far into the valley and it must be the valley into town. But when you are walking alone in the middle of a road that you drive every day, it becomes difficult to recognise familiar landmarks, specially when they are lit with flares and you are being jostled by frightened people running away. But his destination was not a problem to him. It was Mickie, it was Marta. It was the centre of the orange fireball that kept its eye firmly on him while he walked, ordering him forward, talking to him in the voices of all the new good Panamanian neighbours it was not too late for him to get to know. And certainly in the place that he was headed for, nobody would ever again ask him to improve on life's appearance, neither would they mistake his dreaming for their terrible reality.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Nobody who helped me with this novel is responsible for its failings.

In Panama I must first thank the distinguished American novelist Richard Koster, who with great generosity of spirit went out of his way to open doors for me, and provided me with much wise counsel. Alberto Calvo gave handsomely of his time and support. Roberto Reichard was ever helpful, and hospitable to a fault. And when the book was done he revealed the eye of a natural editor. The lionhearted Guillermo Sánchez, scourge of Noriega and to this day
La Prensa
's vigilant champion of the decent Panama, did me the honour of reading the finished manuscript and gave it his nod, as did Richard Wainio of the Panama Canal Commission, who was able to laugh where lesser men would have blanched.

Andrew and Diana Hyde sacrificed hours of their precious time, despite the twins, never sought to know my purposes and saved me from some embarrassing bloopers. Dr. Liborio García-Correa and his family took me to their collective bosom and guided me to places and people I would not otherwise have reached. I shall always be grateful for Dr. García-Correa's tireless researches on my behalf and for the splendid trips we made together—notably to Barro Colorado. Sarah Simpson, manager and owner of the Pavo Real restaurant, provided me with much good nourishment. Hélène
Breebart, who makes beautiful clothes for beautiful Panamanian ladies, kindly advised me on how I might set up my gentlemen's tailoring establishment. And the staff of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute gave me two unforgettable days.

My portrait of the staff of the British Embassy in Panama is the sheerest fantasy. The British diplomats and their wives whom I met in Panama were uniformly able, diligent and honourable. They are the last people on earth to hatch wicked conspiracies or steal gold bars, and they have nothing in common, thank heaven, with the imaginary characters described in this book.

Back in London, my thanks go to Rex Cowan and Gordon Smith for their advice on Pendel's partly Jewish background, and to Doug Hayward of Mount Street W who allowed me my first misty glimpse of Harry Pendel the tailor. Doug, if you ever drop by to be measured for a suit, is likely to receive you sitting in his armchair beside the front door. There's a cosy old sofa to sit on, and a coffee table strewn with books and magazines. No portrait of the great Arthur Braithwaite hangs, alas, on his wall, neither does he tolerate much in the way of chit-chat in his fitting room, where the mood is brisk and businesslike. But if you close your eyes one quiet summer's evening in his shop, you may just hear the distant echo of Harry Pendel's voice extolling the virtues of alpaca cloth or buttons made of tagua nut.

For Harry Pendel's music I am indebted to another great tailor, Dennis Wilkinson of L. G. Wilkinson of St. George Street. Dennis, when he cuts, likes nothing better than to turn his key upon the world and play his favourite classics. Alex Rudelhof admitted me to the intimate mysteries of measuring.

And lastly, without Graham Greene this book would never have come about. After Greene's
Our Man in Havana,
the notion of an intelligence fabricator would not leave me alone.

J
OHN LE
C
ARRÉ