Free Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene Page A

any prejudice like that. We have to work with them – only up to a point of course.’
    ‘Oh, he’s not at all that way, sir. He’s a very fair-minded man, very balanced. Took his divorce well and keeps his child in a Catholic school according to his wife’s wishes. I’m told he sends her greeting-telegrams at Christmas. I think we’ll find his reports when they do come in are a hundred per cent reliable.’
    ‘Rather touching that, about the child, Hawthorne. Well, give him a prod, so that we can judge his usefulness. If he’s all you say he is, we might consider enlarging his staff. Havana could be a key-spot. The Communists always go where there’s trouble. How does he communicate?’
    ‘I’ve arranged for him to send reports by the weekly bag to Kingston in duplicate. I keep one and send one to London. I’ve given him the book code for cables. He sends them through the Consulate.’
    ‘They won’t like that.’
    ‘I’ve told them it’s temporary.’
    ‘I would be in favour of establishing a radio-unit if he proves to be a good man. He could expand his office-staff, I suppose?’
    ‘Oh, of course. At least – you understand it’s not a big office, sir. Old-fashioned. You know how these merchant-adventurers make do.’
    ‘I know the type, Hawthorne. Small scrubby desk. Half a dozen men in an outer office meant to hold two. Out-of-date accounting machines. Woman-secretary who is completing forty years with the firm.’
    Hawthorne now felt able to relax; the Chief had taken charge. Even if one day he read the secret file, the words would convey nothing to him. The small shop for vacuum cleaners had been drowned beyond recovery in the tide of the Chief’s literary imagination. Agent 59200/5 was established.
    ‘It’s all part of the man’s character,’ the Chief explained to Hawthorne, as though he and not Hawthorne had pushed open the door in Lamparilla Street. ‘A man who has always learnt to count the pennies and to risk the pounds. That’s why he’s not a member of the Country Club – nothing to do with the broken marriage. You’re a romantic, Hawthorne. Women have come and gone in his life; I suspect they never meant as much to him as his work. The secret of successfully using an agent is to understand him. Our man in Havana belongs – you might say – to the Kipling age. Walking with kings – how does it go? – and keeping your virtue, crowds and the common touch. I expect somewhere in that ink-stained desk of his there’s an old penny note-book of black wash-leather in which he kept his first accounts – a quarter gross of india-rubbers, six boxes of steel nibs …’
    ‘I don’t think he goes quite as far back as steel nibs, sir.’
    The chief sighed and replaced the black lens. The innocent eye had gone back into hiding at the hint of opposition.
    ‘Details don’t matter, Hawthorne,’ the Chief said with irritation. ‘But if you are to handle him successfully you’ll have to find that penny note-book. I speak metaphorically.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘This business about being a recluse because he lost his wife – it’s a wrong appreciation, Hawthorne. A man like that reacts quite differently. He doesn’t show his loss, he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. If your appreciation were correct, why wasn’t he a member of the club before his wife died?’
    ‘She left him.’
    ‘Left him? Are you sure?’
    ‘Quite sure, sir.’
    ‘Ah, she never found that penny note-book. Find it, Hawthorne, and he’s yours for life. What were we talking about?’
    ‘The size of his office, sir. It won’t be very easy for him to absorb many in the way of new staff.’
    ‘We’ll weed out the old ones gradually. Pension off that old secretary of his …’
    ‘As a matter of fact …’
    ‘Of course this is just speculation, Hawthorne. He may not be the right man after all. Sterling stuff, these old merchant-kings, but sometimes they can’t see far enough beyond the counting-house