The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré

CHAPTER TEN

Louisa prepared her husband for his pilgrimage to the General in the same way that she got the children ready for Bible School, but with even more enthusiasm. Patches of attractive colour in her cheeks. Speaking with the greatest animation. A good deal of her enthusiasm taken from a bottle.

‘Harry, we must wash the four-track. You are about to dress a modern living hero. The General has more medals for his rank and age than any general in the US Army. Mark, I want you to carry the buckets of hot water. Hannah, you will please take charge of the sponge and detergent and quit cursing now.’

Pendel could have run the four-track through the automatic car-wash at the local garage but Louisa needed godliness for the General today as well as cleanliness. She had never been so proud to be a Yankee. She said so repeatedly. She was so excited she tripped and almost fell. When they had cleaned the four-track she checked Pendel’s tie. Checked it the way Auntie Ruth checked Benny’s ties. Close to, then from a distance, like a painting. And she wasn’t satisfied till he’d changed it for something quieter. Her breath smelt strongly of toothpaste. Pendel wondered why she cleaned her teeth so much these days.

‘Harry, you are not so far as I know a co-respondent. It is therefore not appropriate that you resemble a co-respondent when you visit the United States General in charge of Southern Command.’ Then in her best Ernie Delgado secretarial voice she rang the hairdresser for a ten o’clock appointment. ‘No bulges and no sideburns, thank you, José. Mr Pendel will want it very short and tidy today. He is calling on the United States General in charge of Southern Command.’

After that she told Pendel who to be:

‘Harry, you will not make jokes, you will be respectful’ – fondly pressing down the shoulders of his jacket though they were perfect as they lay – ‘and you will give the General my regards and you will be sure to tell him that all the Pendels and not just Milton Jenning’s daughter are looking forward to the US Families’ Thanksgiving Barbecue and Fireworks Display, the same as every year. And before you leave the shop you give those shoes another polish now. There wasn’t a soldier born who didn’t judge a man by his shoes and the General in charge of Southern Command is no exception. Drive very carefully, Harry. I mean it.’

Her strictures were unnecessary. Ascending the zigzag jungle road up Ancon Hill Pendel as usual meticulously observed the speed restrictions. At the US Army checkpoint he stiffened up and pulled a gritty smile for the sentry, for by then he was halfway to being a soldier himself. Passing the groomed white villas he observed how the stencilled rank of the occupants rose with him, and experienced a vicarious promotion on his way to Heaven. And as he walked up the noble steps to the front door of Number One Quarry Heights he assumed, despite his suitcase, the peculiar GI military gait that keeps the upper body on a stately course while hips and knees perform their independent functions.

But from the moment he stepped inside the house, Harry Pendel was, as always when he came here, hopelessly in love.

This was not power. This was power’s prize: a pro-consul’s palace on a conquered foreign hill, manned by courteous Roman guards.

‘Sir. The General will see you now, sir,’ the sergeant informed him, depriving him of his suitcase in a single trained movement.

The glistening white hall was hung with brass plates for every general who had served here. Pendel greeted them like old friends even while he cast round nervously for unwelcome signs of change. He need not have feared. Some unfortunate glazing of the verandah, some unsightly air-conditioners. A few too many carpets. The General at an earlier stage in his career had subdued the Orient. Otherwise the house was much as Teddy Roosevelt might have found it when he came to inspect the progress of the moonshot of its day. Weightless, his own existence irrelevant, Pendel followed the sergeant through connecting halls, drawing rooms, libraries and parlours. Each window was a separate world for him: now the Canal, laden with shipping, winding grandly through the valley basin; now the layered mauve hills of forest draped with fever-mist; now the arches of the Bridge of the Americas bounding like the coils of a great sea monster across the bay, and the three far conical islands suspended from the sky.

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