‘But what’s he asking me to do?’
‘I don’t know. If I did I would prevent him. Please.’
She would have added ‘Harry’, he could feel his name forming on her frayed lips. But in the shop it was her pride never to prey upon his indulgence, never to show by word or sign that they were joined to each other in eternity, that each time they saw each other, they saw the same thing through different windows:
Marta in her ripped white shirt and jeans lying like uncollected refuse in the gutter while three members of Noriega’s Dignity Battalions, known affectionately as Dingbats, take turns to win her heart and mind with the aid of a bloodied baseball bat, starting with her face. Pendel staring down at her with his arms twisted up his back by two more of them, yelling his heart out first in fear, then in anger, then in supplication, begging them to let her be.
But they don’t. They force him to watch. Because what is the point of making an example of a rebellious woman if there’s nobody around to take the point?
It’s all a mistake, captain. It’s sheer coincidence that this lady is wearing the white shirt of protest.
Compose yourself, señor. It won’t be white much longer.
Marta on the bed in the makeshift clinic to which Mickie Abraxas has bravely taken them; Marta naked and covered in blood and bruises while Pendel desperately plies the doctor with dollars and assurances, and Mickie stands at the window keeping guard.
‘We are better than this,’ Marta whispers through bloodied lips and smashed teeth.
She means: there is a better Panama. She is talking about the people from the other side of the bridge.
The next day, Mickie is arrested.
‘I’m thinking of turning the Sportsman’s Corner into a bit of a clubroom,’ Pendel told Louisa, still in his quest for a Decision. ‘I see a bar.’
‘Harry, I do not understand why you need a bar. Your Thursday evening gatherings are riotous enough as it is.’
‘It’s about pulling people in, Lou. Whipping up more custom. Friends bring friends, the friends get their knees under the table, feel at ease, start looking at a few materials, full order books result.’
‘Where will the fitting room go?’ she objected.
Good question, Pendel thought. Even Andy couldn’t tell me the answer to that one. Decision deferred.
‘For the customers, Marta,’ Pendel explained patiently.
‘For all the people who come to eat your sandwiches. So that they increase and multiply and order up more suits.’
‘I wish my sandwiches would poison them.’
‘And then who would I dress? All those hotheaded student friends of yours, I suppose. The world’s first tailormade revolution, courtesy of P&B. Thank you very much.’
‘Since Lenin used Rolls Royces, why not?’ she retorted with equal spirit.
I never asked him about his pockets, he thought, working late in the shop cutting a dinner jacket to the strains of Bach. Or his turn-ups or his preferred width of trouser. I never lectured him on the advantage of braces over belts in a humid climate, specially for gentlemen whose waistline is what I call a moveable feast. Equipped with this excuse, he was on the point of reaching for the telephone when it rang for him, and who should be there but Osnard saying how about a nightcap?
They met in the panelled modern bar of the Executive Hotel, a clean white tower a stone’s throw from Pendel’s shop. A huge television set was showing basketball to two attractive girls in short skirts. Pendel and Osnard sat apart from them and heads together, in cane chairs that wanted them to sit back instead of forward.
‘Made up your mind yet?’ Osnard asked.
‘Not as such, Andy. Working on it, you might say. Deliberating.’
‘London likes everything it’s heard. They want to clinch the deal.’
‘Well, that’s nice, Andy. You must have given me quite a write-up, then.’
‘They want you up and running soonest. Fascinated by the Silent Opposition. Want the names o’ the players. Finances. Links with the students. Have they got a manifesto? Methods and intent.’
‘Oh, well, good. Yes. Right, then,’ said Pendel, who among his many worries had rather lost sight of Mickie Abraxas the great freedom-fighter, and Rafi Domingo his egregious paymaster. ‘I’m glad they liked it,’ he added politely.