Not even the immense and stately column of black smoke rising out of what had once been El Chorrillo made the smallest sound as it emptied itself into the morning sky. Only a few malcontents were refusing as usual to recognise the ban, and they were the last remaining sharpshooters in the compound of the comandancia, who were still potting at Yanqui emplacements in the surrounding streets. But soon they too, with a little encouragement from the tanks installed on Ancon Hill, fell silent.
Not even the telephone in the forecourt of the petrol station was exempt from the self-denying ordinance. It was intact. It was able. But Marta’s number refused to ring.
Clinging defiantly to his newly assumed mantle of Solitary Mature Man Facing a Life Decision, Pendel rode his familiar seesaw of devotion and chronic pessimism with a wildness of indetermination that threatened to unseat him. From the accusing internal voices of Bethania he bolted to the sanctuary of the shop, and from the accusing voices of the shop he bolted to the sanctuary of home, and all in the name of calmly weighing his alternatives. Not for one minute would he allow himself to think – not even in his most self-accusing moments – that he was alternating between two women. You’re rumbled, he told himself, with the triumphalism that seizes us when our worst expectations are fulfilled. Your grandiose visions have come home to roost. Your fabricated world is crashing round your ears and it’s your own stupid fault for building a temple without foundation. But no sooner had he flailed himself with these doomsday predictions than cheering counsel came running to his rescue:
‘So a few home truths make a Nemesis already’ – using Benny’s voice – ‘when a fine young diplomat is asking you to stand up and be a man for England, you think you’re a doomed corpse in a morgue? Does a Nemesis offer to play mad millionaire for you, slip you an inch of fifties in a plain envelope and tell you there’s plenty more where they came from? Call you God’s gift, Harry, which is more than some have done? A classic? A Nemesis?’
Then Hannah needed the Great Decider to decide which book she should read for the school reading competition, and Mark needed to play ‘Lazy Sheep’ for him on his new violin so that they could decide whether he was good enough to sit his exam, and Louisa needed his opinion on the latest outrage at the Headquarters Building so that they could decide what to think about the future of the Canal, although Louisa’s views upon that subject had been decided long ago: the peerless Ernesto Delgado, Washington-approved straight arrow and Preserver of the Golden Past, was incapable of fault:
‘Harry, I do not understand. Ernesto only has to leave the country for ten days in order to escort his President, and his staff immediately sanction the appointment of no fewer than five attractive Panamanian women as Public Relations Officers on full US scale, when their sole qualifications are that they are young, white, drive BMWs, wear designer dresses, have large breasts and rich fathers, and refuse to speak to the permanent employees.’
‘Shocking,’ Pendel decided.
Then back to the shop where Marta needed to go through overdue bills and uncollected orders with him so that they could decide who to chase and who to leave another month.
‘How are the headaches?’ he asked her tenderly, noticing she was even paler than usual.
‘It’s nothing,’ Marta replied from behind her hair.
‘Has the lift stopped again?’
‘The lift is now permanently stopped’ – granting him a lopsided smile – ‘the lift is officially declared stopped.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Well please don’t be. You are not responsible for the lift. Who is Osnard?’
Pendel was at first appalled. Osnard? Osnard? He’s a customer, woman. Stop shouting his name around!
‘Why?’ he said, sobering completely.
‘He’s evil.’
‘Aren’t all my customers?’ he said, harping playfully upon her preference for the people the other side of the bridge.
‘Yes, but they don’t know it,’ she replied, not smiling any more.
‘And Osnard knows it?’
‘Yes. Osnard is evil. Don’t do what he is asking you to do.’