The London Embassy Read online

  PAUL THEROUX

  The London Embassy

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  The London Embassy

  Volunteer Speaker

  Reception

  Namesake

  An English Unofficial Rose

  Children

  Charlie Hogle’s Earring

  The Exile

  Tomb with a View

  The Man on the Clapham Omnibus

  Sex and Its Substitutes

  The Honorary Siberian

  Gone West

  A Little Flame

  Fury

  Neighbors

  Fighting Talk

  The Winfield Wallpaper

  Dancing on the Radio

  Memo

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  The London Embassy

  Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His subsequent novels include The Family Arsenal, Picture Palace, The Mosquito Coast, O-Zone, Millroy the Magician, My Secret History, My Other Life and, most recently, A Dead Hand. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh-Air Fiend, and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. He divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian Islands.

  Books by Paul Theroux

  FICTION

  Waldo

  Fong and the Indians

  Girls at Play

  Murder in Mount Holly

  Jungle Lovers

  Sinning with Annie

  Saint Jack

  The Black House

  The Family Arsenal

  The Consul’s File

  A Christmas Card

  Picture Palace

  London Snow

  World’s End

  The Mosquito Coast

  The London Embassy

  Half Moon Street

  Doctor Slaughter

  O-Zone

  The White Man’s Burden

  My Secret History

  Chicago Loop

  Millroy the Magician

  The Greenest Island

  My Other Life

  Kowloon Tong

  Hotel Honolulu

  The Stranger at the Palazzo d’Oro

  Blinding Light

  The Elephanta Suite

  A Dead Hand

  CRITICISM

  V. S. Naipaul

  NON-FICTION

  The Great Railway Bazaar

  The Old Patagonian Express

  The Kingdom by the Sea

  Sailing Through China

  Sunrise with Seamonsters

  The Imperial Way

  Riding the Iron Rooster

  To the Ends of the Earth

  The Happy Isles of Oceania

  The Pillars of Hercules

  Sir Vidia’s Shadow

  Fresh-Air Fiend

  Nurse Wolf and Dr Sacks

  Dark Star Safari

  Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

  Introduction

  When I was small my family thought I was deaf. No, I was dreaming. Later on I heard of people harmed in accidents, scarred or crippled; and the same trauma produced in these victims mathematical genius, or an original line in art, or a quirk. She hit her head on the dashboard and after that she couldn’t stop eating. I know that hunger.

  Certain episodes in infancy or early childhood are a version of such accidents. In my case, I was left with a sense of separation. He’s not all there, people said. The joke was true. I had been made lonely, and given a happy capacity to dream, and a need to invent. I did not understand the question, until I realized that writing my stories was the answer. They were my earliest literary effort, and I have gone on believing that such stories are almost the whole of my imaginative task as a writer. In a novel I try to make each chapter as complete and harmonious as a story. My travel books are a sequence of traveler’s tales.

  People who have no idea who they are talking to have told me that they love Paul Theroux’s stories; yet I can see they aren’t impressed with me. Of course! Other people have told me to my face that they dislike my stories, but that I am a good sort. Why is this? As a person I am hurt and incomplete. My stories are the rest of me. I inhabit every sentence I write! I tear them out of my heart!

  After a long, fruitful and friendly time in London (1971–1990), I came to realize that I hated literary society for the very reasons I had once liked it: the shabby glamour, the talk, the drink, the companionship, the ambition, the business, and the belief: You are your stories. I protested, No, no – my stories are better than me, and went away.

  Conspicuousness is not for me. My pleasure is that of a specter. I am calmest in remote places, haunting people who have no need of books and no idea what I do. I understand magicianship, murder, guilt, and motherhood; I also understand the demented people who late at night telephone strangers and whisper provocative words to them. Sometimes I feel like someone who has committed the perfect crime, an offender on the loose, who will never be caught. Please don’t follow me, or ask me what went wrong. Please don’t watch me eat.

  My secret is safe. No one ever sees me write. One of the triumphs of fiction is that it is created in the dark. It leaves my house in a plain wrapper, with no bloodstains. Unlike me, my stories are whole and indestructible. In a reversal of the natural order, I am the shadow, my fiction is the substance. If my books are buried by time they can be dug up. The most powerful of the Chinese emperors, Qin Shi huangdi – who tried – could not make printed books vanish.

  I planned to be a medical doctor (who also wrote books) and on the days I cannot write, and especially when I am in a place like New Guinea or Malawi, I regret that I do not have a doctor’s skill to heal. I am too old to learn now. But I would like to speak Spanish fluently, and tap-dance, and study celestial navigation. I intend to paddle for months down a long river, the Nile or one of the long Chinese rivers, or hike for a year or more across an interesting landscape. I dream of flying, using only my arms. I am well aware that some of these activities are metaphors for writing, but not the writing of stories.

  Pretty soon I will be gone, and afterwards when people say, He is his stories, the statement will be true.

  The London Embassy

  Volunteer Speaker

  It annoyed me when people asked, because I had to tell them I had just been in Southeast Asia. That was a deceptively grand name for the small dusty town where I was American Consul. But who has heard of Ayer Hitam? Officially, it was a hardship post – the designation meant extra money, a hardship allowance I could not spend. There was no hardship, but there was boredom, and nothing to buy to relieve me of that. With a free month before I was due in Washington to await reassignment, I decided to finance a private trip to Europe – another grand name. One town on my route was Saarbrücken, where the river formed the French–German border. It looked like magic the day I arrived; at dinner it seemed like a version of the town I had left in Malaysia.

  My choice of Saarbrücken was not accidental. The Flints, Charlie and Lois, had been posted here after their stint in Kuala Lumpur. They had been urging me to visit them: the single man and the childless couple are natural allies, in an uncomplicated way. Charlie had accepted this minor post because he had refused to spend the usual two deskbound years in Washington. He had not lived in Washington for fifteen years. It was his boast – no good telling him that Washington had changed – and it meant that he had to keep on the move. A little patience and politicking would have earned him promotions. ‘Next stop Abu Dhabi,’ he used to say. That was before Abu Dhabi became important. At dinner, he said, ‘Next stop Rwanda. I don’t even know the capital.’

  ‘Kigali,’ I said. ‘It’s a hole.’

  �
��I keep forgetting you’re an old Africa hand.’

  Lois said, ‘One of these days, the State Department’s going to send us to a really squalid place. Then Charlie will have to admit it’s worse than Washington.’

  ‘I didn’t squawk in Medan,’ said Flint. ‘I didn’t squawk in KL. I actually liked Bangalore. They once threatened me with Calcutta. The idiots in Washington don’t even know that Calcutta morale is the highest in the Foreign Service. The housing’s fantastic and you can get a cook for ten bucks. That’s my kind of place. Only squirts want Paris. And the guys on the third floor – they like Paris, too.’

  ‘Who are the guys on the third floor?’

  ‘The spooks,’ said Flint. ‘That’s what they call them here.’

  Lois winked at me. ‘He’s been squawking here.’

  ‘I didn’t think anyone complained in Europe,’ I said.

  ‘This isn’t Europe,’ said Flint. ‘It’s not even Germany. Half the people here pretend they’re French.’

  ‘I like these border towns,’ I said. ‘The ambiguity, the rigmarole at the customs post, the rumors about smugglers – it’s a nice word, smugglers. I associate borders with mystery and danger.’

  ‘The only danger here is that the Ambassador will cable me that he wants to go fishing. Then I have to waste a week fixing up his permits and finding his driver a place to stay. And all the other security – antikidnap measures so he can catch minnows. Jesus, I hate this job.’

  Flint had turned grouchy. To change the subject, I said, ‘Lois, this is a wonderful meal.’

  ‘You’re sweet to say so,’ Lois said. ‘I’m taking cooking lessons. Would you believe it?’

  ‘It’s a kind of local sausage,’ said Flint, spearing a tube of encased meat with his fork. ‘Everything’s kind of local sausage. You’d get arrested for eating this in Malaysia. The wine’s drinkable, though. All wine-growing countries are right-wing – ever think of that?’

  ‘Charlie still hasn’t forgiven me for not learning to cook,’ Lois said. She stared at her husband, a rather severe glaze on her eyes that fixed him in silence; but she went on with what seemed calculated lightheartedness, ‘I can’t help the fact that he made me spend my early married life in countries where cooks cost ten dollars a month.’

  ‘Consequently, Lois is a superb tennis player,’ said Flint.

  A certain atmosphere was produced by this remark, but it was a passing cloud, a blade of half-dark, no more. It hovered and was gone. Lois rose abruptly and said, ‘I hope you left room for dessert.’

  Charlie did not speak until Lois was in the kitchen. I see I have written ‘Charlie’ rather than ‘Flint’; but he had changed, his tone grew confidential. He said, ‘I’m very worried about Lois. Ever since we got here she’s been behaving funnily. People have mentioned it to me – they’re not used to her type. I mean, she cries a lot. She might be heading for a nervous breakdown. You try doing a job with a sick person on your hands. It’s a whole nother story. I’m glad you’re here – you’re good for her.’

  It was unexpected and it came in a rush, the cataract of American candor. I murmured something about Lois looking perfectly all right to me.

  ‘It’s an act – she’s a head case,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to do about her. But you’d be doing me a big favor if you made allowances. Be good to her. I’d consider it a favor –’

  Lois entered the room on those last words. She was carrying a dark heap of chocolate cake. She said, ‘You don’t have to do something just because Charlie asks you to.’

  ‘We were talking about the Volunteer Speakers Program,’ said Flint, with unfaltering coolness and even a hint of boredom: it was a masterful piece of acting. ‘As I was saying, I’m supposed to be lining up speakers, but we haven’t had one for months. The last time I was in Bonn, the Ambassador put a layer of shit in my ear – what am I doing? I told him – bringing culture to the Germans. The town’s a thousand years old. There were Romans here! He didn’t think that was very funny. It would help if you gave a talk for me at the Center.’

  Lois reached across the table and squeezed my hand. There was more reassurance than caution in the gesture. She said, ‘Pay no attention to him. He could have all the volunteer speakers he wants. He just doesn’t ask them.’

  ‘Herr Friedrich on Roman spittoons, Gräfin von Spitball on the local aristocracy. That’s what Europe’s big on – memories. It hasn’t got a future, but what a past! There’s something decadent about nostalgia – I mean, really diseased.’

  ‘Charlie doesn’t like Germans,’ said Lois. ‘No one likes them. For fifteen years, all I’ve heard is how inefficient people are in tropical countries. Guess what the big complaint is here? Germans are efficient. They do things on time, they keep their word – this is supposed to be sinister!’

  Flint said, ‘They’re machines.’

  ‘He used to call Malays “superslugs,”’ said Lois.

  ‘And Germans think we’re diseased,’ said Flint. ‘They talk about German culture. What’s German culture? These days it’s American culture – the same books, the same music, the same movies, even the same clothes. They’ve bought us wholesale, and they have the nerve to sneer.’ His harangue left him gasping. With a kind of mournful sincerity he said, ‘I’d consider it a favor if you did a lecture. We have a slot tomorrow – there’s a sewing circle that meets on Thursdays.’

  He was asking me to connive at his deception, and he knew I could not decently refuse him such a simple request. I said, ‘Doesn’t one need a topic?’

  ‘The white man’s burden. War stories. Life in the East. Like the time the locals besieged your consulate and burned the flag.’

  ‘All the locals did was smile and drink my whiskey.’

  ‘Improvise,’ he said, twirling his wineglass. ‘Ideally, I’d like something on “America’s Role in a Changing World” – like, What good is foreign aid? What are the responsibilities of the super-powers? The oil crisis with reference to Islam and the Arab states. Are we at a crossroads? Look, all they want is to hear you speak English. We had to discontinue the language program after the last budget cuts. They’ll be glad to see a new face. They’re pretty sick of mine.’

  Lois squeezed my hand again. ‘Welcome to Europe.’

  The next morning, trying sleepily to imagine what I would say in my lecture – and I hated Flint for making me go through with this charade – I was startled by a knock at the door. I sat up in bed. It was Lois.

  ‘I forgot to warn you about breakfast,’ she said, entering the room. Her tone was cheerfully apologetic, but her movements were bold. At first I thought she was in her pajamas. I put on my glasses and saw she was in a short pleated skirt and a white jersey. The white clothes and their cut gave her a girlish look, and at the same time contradicted it, exaggerating her briskness. Tennis had obviously kept her in shape. She was in her early forties – younger than Charlie – but was trim and hard-fleshed. She had borne no children – it was childbirth that left the marks of age on a woman’s body. She had a flat stomach, a server’s stride, and as she approached the bed I noticed the play of muscles in her thighs. She was an odd apparition, but a woman in a tennis outfit looks too athletic in a businesslike way to be seductive.

  She was still talking about breakfast, not looking at me, but pacing the floor at the foot of the bed. Charlie didn’t normally have more than a coffee, she said. There was grapefruit in the fridge and cereal on the sideboard. The coffee was made. Did I want eggs?

  ‘I’ll have a coffee with Charlie,’ I said.

  ‘He’s gone. He left the house an hour ago.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I can look after myself.’

  Lois’s tennis shoes squeaked as she paced the polished floor. Then she stopped and faced me. ‘I’m worried about Charlie,’ she said. ‘I suppose you thought he was joking last night about the Ambassador. It’s serious – he hasn’t accomplished anything here. Everyone knows it. And he doesn’t care.’

  Almo
st precisely the words he had used about her: I wondered whether they were playing a game with me.

  ‘I’m his volunteer speaker,’ I said. ‘That’s quite a feather in his cap.’

  ‘You don’t think so, but it is. He’s in real trouble. He told the Ambassador he was thinking of taking early retirement.’

  ‘Might not be a bad idea,’ I said.

  ‘He said, “I can always sell second-hand cars. I’ve been selling second-hand junk my whole Foreign Service career.” That’s what he told the Ambassador! I was flabbergasted. Then he told me it was a joke. It was at a staff meeting – all the PAOs were there. But no one laughed. I don’t blame them – it’s not funny.’

  I wanted to get out of bed. I saw that this would not be simple while she was in the room. I could not think straight, sitting up, with the blankets across my lap, my hair in my eyes.

  Lois said, ‘Can I get in?’

  I have always felt that if a person wants something very badly, and if it is not unreasonable, he should have it, no matter what. I usually feel like supplying it myself. Once, I gave my hunting knife to a Malay. He admired it; he wanted it; he had some use for it. Generosity is easy to justify. I always lose what I don’t need.

  I considered Lois’s question and then said, ‘Yes – sure,’ convinced that Charlie had not misled me: something was wrong with her.

  She got in quickly, without embarrassment. She said, ‘He’s mentally screwed up, he really is.’

  ‘Poor Charlie.’

  We lay under the covers, side by side, like two Boy Scouts in a big sleeping bag, sheltering from the elements in clumsy comradeship. Lois had not taken off her tennis shoes: I could feel the canvas and rubber against my shins. Her shoes seemed proof that Charlie had not exaggerated her mental state.

  ‘He thinks it’s funny. It’s me who’s suffering. People pity mental cases – it’s their families they should pity.’

  ‘That’s pitching it a bit strongly, isn’t it?’ I tried to shift my hand from the crisp pleats of her skirt. ‘Charlie may be under a little strain, but he hardly qualifies as a mental case.’