The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene Page B

mad.’
    He said, ‘Do you mean if I cheat you or cheat our people at home?’ He was genuinely uncertain of her meaning. He was lost and exhausted among potential enemies; the further you got away from the open battle the more alone you were. He felt envy of those who were now in the firing line. Then suddenly he was back there himself – a clang of bells, the roar down the street – fire-engine, ambulance? The raid was over and the bodies were being uncovered; men picked over the stones carefully for fear they might miss a body; sometimes a pick wielded too carelessly caused agony. . . . The world misted over as in the dust which hung for an hour about a street. He felt sick and shaken; he remembered the dead tom-cat close to his face: he couldn’t move: he just lay there with the fur almost on his mouth.
    The whole room began to shake. The manageress’s head swelled up like a blister. He heard her say, ‘Quick! Lock the door,’ and tried to pull himself together. What were they going to do to him? Enemies . . . friends. . . . He was on his knees. Time slowed up. Mr K. moved with appalling slowness towards the door. The manageress’s black skirt was close to his mouth, dusty like the cat’s fur. He wanted to scream, but the weight of human dignity lay like a gag over his tongue – one didn’t scream, even when the truncheon struck. He heard her say, ‘Where are the papers?’ leaning down on him. Her breath was all cheap scent and nicotine – half female and half male.
    He said apologetically, ‘Fight yesterday. Shot at to-day.’ A thick decisive thumb came down towards his eyeballs: he was involved in a nightmare. He said, ‘I haven’t got them.’
    â€˜Where are they?’ It hovered over his right eye; he could hear Mr K. fiddling at the door. Mr K. said, ‘It doesn’t lock.’ He felt horror as if her hand as well as her face carried infection.
    â€˜You turn it the other way.’ He tried to heave himself upwards, but a thumb pushed him back. A sensible shoe trod firmly upon his hand. Mr K. protested about something in low tones. A scared determined voice said, ‘Was it you who rang, ma’am?’
    â€˜Of course I didn’t ring.’
    D. raised himself carefully. He said, ‘I rang, Else. I felt ill. Nothing much. Ambulance outside. I was buried once in a raid. If you’ll give me your arm, I can get to bed.’ The little room swung clearly back – the boot cupboard and the epicene girls in black silk stockings and the masculine chairs. He said, ‘I’ll lock my door to-night or I’ll be walking in my sleep.’
    They climbed slowly up to the top floor. He said, ‘You came just in time. I might have done something silly. I think after to-morrow morning we’ll go away from here.’
    â€˜Me, too?’
    He promised rashly, as if in a violent world you could promise anything at all, beyond the moment of speaking. ‘Yes. You, too.’

[3]
    The cat’s fur and the dusty skirt stayed with him all the night. The peace of his usual dreams was hopelessly broken: no flowers or quiet rivers or old gentlemen talking of lectures. He had always, after that worst raid, been afraid of suffocation. He was glad the other side shot their prisoners and didn’t hang them – the rope round the neck would bring nightmare into life. Day came without daylight; a yellow fog outside shut visibility down to twenty yards. While he was shaving Else came in with a tray, a boiled egg and a kipper, a pot of tea.
    â€˜You shouldn’t have bothered,’ he said. ‘I would have come down.’
    â€˜I thought,’ she said, ‘it would be a good excuse. You’ll be wanting the papers back.’ She began to haul off a shoe and a stocking. She said, ‘O Lord, what would they think if they came in now?’ She sat on the bed and felt for