The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [101]
‘Major Scobie, if I saw more of you, I should become a better man.’ The soda hissed in the glasses and Yusef drank greedily. He said, ‘I can feel in my heart, Major Scobie, that you are anxious, depressed ... I have always wished that you would come to me in trouble.’
Scobie said, ‘I used to laugh at the idea - that I should ever come to you.’
‘In Syria we have a story of a lion and a mouse...’
‘We have the same story, Yusef. But I’ve never thought of you as a mouse, and I’m no lion. No lion.’
‘It is about Mrs Rolt you are troubled. And your wife, Major Scobie?’
‘Yes.’
‘You do not need to be ashamed with me, Major Scobie. I have had much woman trouble in my life. Now it is better because I have learned the way. The way is not to care a damn. Major Scobie. You say to each of them, ‘I do not care a damn. I sleep with whom I please. You take me or leave me. I do not care a damn.’’ They always take you, Major Scobie.’ He sighed into his whisky. ‘Sometimes I have wished they would not take me.’
‘I’ve gone to great lengths, Yusef, to keep things from my wife.’
‘I know the lengths you have gone, Major Scobie.’
‘Not the whole length. The business with the diamonds was very small compared...’
‘Yes?’
‘You wouldn’t understand. Anyway somebody else knows now - Ali.’
‘But you trust Ali?’
‘I think I trust him. But he knows about you too. He came in last night and saw the diamond there. Your boy was very indiscreet.’
The big broad hand shifted on the table. ‘I will deal with my boy presently.’
‘Ali’s half-brother is Wilson’s boy. They see each other.’
‘That is certainly bad,’ Yusef said.
He had told all his worries now - all except the worst. He had the odd sense of having for the first time in his life shifted a burden elsewhere. And Yusef carried it - he obviously carried it He raised himself from his chair and now moved his great haunches to the window, staring at the green black-out curtain as though it were a landscape. A hand went up to his mouth and he began to bite his nails - snip, snip, snip, his teeth closed on each nail in turn. Then he began on the other hand. ‘I don’t suppose it’s anything to worry about really,’ Scobie said. He was touched by uneasiness, as though he had accidentally set in motion a powerful machine he couldn’t control.
‘It is a bad thing not to trust,’ Yusef said. ‘One must always have boys one trusts. You must always know more about them than they do about you.’ That, apparently, was his conception of trust. Scobie said, ‘I used to trust him.’
Yusef looked at his trimmed nails and took another bite. He said, ‘Do not worry. I will not have you worry. Leave everything to me, Major Scobie. I will find out for you whether you can trust him.’ He made the startling claim, ‘I will look after you.’
‘How can you do that?’ I feel no resentment, he thought with weary surprise. I am being looked after, and a kind of nursery peace descended.
‘You mustn’t ask me questions, Major Scobie. You must leave everything to me just this once. I understand the way.’ Moving from the window Yusef turned on Scobie eyes like closed telescopes, blank and brassy. He said with a soothing nurse’s gesture of the broad wet palm, ‘You will just write a little note to your boy, Major Scobie, asking him to come here. I will talk to him. My boy will take it to him.’
‘But Ali can’t read.’
‘Better still then. You win send some token with my boy to show that he comes from you. Your signet ring.’
‘What are you going to do, Yusef?’
‘I am going to help you, Major Scobie. That is all.’ Slowly, reluctantly, Scobie drew at his ring. He said, ‘He’s been with me fifteen years. I always have trusted him until now.’
‘You will see,’ Yusef said. ‘Everything will be all right’ He spread out his palm to receive the ring and their hands touched: it was like a pledge between conspirators. ‘Just a few words.’
‘The ring won’t come off,’ Scobie said. He felt an odd unwillingness. ‘It’s not necessary, anyway. He’ll come if your boy tells him that I want him.’
‘I do not think so. They do not like to come to the wharf at night.’
‘He will be all right He won