The power and the glory by Graham Greene Read Free Book Online Page A

know," she said. "I could look after you. My room is just opposite this door. You would just tap at my window. Perhaps," she went seriously on, "it would be better to have a code. You see, somebody else might tap."

He said in a horrified voice: "Not a man?"

"Yes. You never know. Another fugitive from justice."

"Surely," he asked in bewilderment, "that is not likely?"

She said airily: "These things do happen."

"Before today?"

"No, but I expect they will again. I want to be prepared. You must tap three times. Two long taps and a short one." He giggled suddenly like a child. "How do you tap a long tap?"

"Like this."

"Oh, you mean a loud one?"

"I call them long taps-because of Morse." He was hopelessly out of his depth. He said: "You are very good. Will you pray for me?"

"Oh," she said, "I don't believe in that."

"Not in praying?"

"You see, I don't believe in God. I lost my faith when I was ten."

"Dear, dear," he said. "Then I will pray for you."

"You can," she said patronizingly, "if you like. If you come again I shall teach you the Morse code. It would be useful to you."

"How?"

"If you were hiding in the plantation I could flash to you with my mirror news of the enemy's movements."

He listened seriously. "But wouldn't they see you?"

"Oh," she said, "I would invent an explanation." She moved logically forward a step at a time, eliminating all objections. "Good-bye, my child," he said.

He lingered by the door. "Perhaps-you do not care for prayers. Perhaps you would like... I know a good conjuring trick."

"I like tricks."

"You do it with cards. Have you any cards?"

"No."

He sighed. "Then that's no good," and giggled-she could smell the beer on his breath-"I shall just have to pray for you."

She said: "You don't sound afraid."

"A little drink," he said, "will work wonders in a cowardly man. With a little brandy, why, I'd defy-the devil." He stumbled in the doorway.

"Good-bye," she said. "I hope you'll escape." A faint sigh came out of the darkness: she said gently: "If they kill you I shan't forgive them-ever." She was ready to accept any responsibility, even that of vengeance, without a second thought. It was her life.

Half a dozen huts of mud and wattle stood in a clearing; two were in ruins. A few pigs rooted round, and an old woman carried a burning ember from hut to hut, lighting a little fire on the centre of each floor to fill the hut with smoke and keep mosquitoes away. Women lived in two of the huts, the pigs in another, in the last unruined hut, where maize was stored, an old man and a boy and a tribe of rats. The old man stood in the clearing watching the fire being carried round: it flickered through the darkness like a ritual repeated at the same hour for a lifetime. White hair, a white stubbly beard, and hands brown and fragile as last year's leaves, he gave an effect of immense permanence. Nothing much could ever change him, living on the edge of subsistence. He had been old for years.

The stranger came into the clearing. He wore what used to be town shoes, black and pointed: only the uppers were left, so that he walked to all intents barefoot. The shoes were symbolic, like the cobwebbed flags in churches. He wore a shirt and a pair of black torn trousers and he carried his attaché case-as if he were a season-ticket holder. He had nearly reached the state of permanency too, but he carried about with him still the scars of time-the damaged shoes implied a different past, the lines on his face suggested hopes and fears of the future. The old woman with the ember stopped between two huts and watched him. He came on into the clearing with his eyes on the ground and his shoulders hunched, as if he felt exposed. The old man advanced to meet him: he took the stranger's hand and kissed it.

"Can you let me have a hammock for the night?"

"Ah, father, for a hammock you must go to a town. Here you must take only the luck of the road."

"Never mind. Anywhere to lie down. Can you give me-a little