‘You feel sorry for the people who came to my clinic. That’s because you really feel sorry for yourself. But these people do not deserve your sympathy. Rationalization is their destruction. Rationalization is the aspirin of mental health and, as with aspirin, an overdose can be fatal.
‘They enslave themselves by dipping deeper and deeper into the tube of taboos. And yet each stage of their journey is described as greater freedom.’ He laughed grimly. ‘Permissiveness is slavery. But so has history always been. Your jaded, overfed section of the world is comparable to the ancient city states of the Middle East. Outside the gates the hard nomads waited their chance to plunder the rich, decadent city-dwellers. And in their turn the nomads would conquer, settle into the newly-conquered city and grow soft, and new hard eyes watched from the barren stony desert until their time was ripe. So the hard, strong, ambitious, idealistic peoples of China see the over-ripe conditions of Europe and the USA. They sniff the air and upon it floats the aroma of garbage cans overfilled, idle hands and warped minds seeking diversions bizarre and perverted, they smell violence, stemming not from hunger, but from boredom, they smell the corruption of government and the acrid flash of fascism. They sniff, my friend: you!’
I said nothing, and waited while Datt sipped at his coffee and brandy. He looked up. ‘Take off your coat.’
‘I’m not staying.’
‘Not staying?’ He chuckled. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Back to Ostend,’ I said. ‘And you are going with me.’
‘More violence?’ He raised his hands in mock surrender.
I shook my head. ‘You know you’ve got to go back,’ I said. ‘Or are you going to leave all your dossiers back there on the quayside less than four miles away?’
‘You’ll give them to me?’
‘I’m promising nothing,’ I told him, ‘but I know that you have to go back there. There is no alternative.’ I poured myself more coffee and gestured to him with the pot. ‘Yes,’ he said absent-mindedly. ‘More.’
‘You are not the sort of man that leaves a part of himself behind. I know you, Monsieur Datt. You could bear to have your documents on the way to China and yourself in the hands of Loiseau, but the converse you cannot bear.’
‘You expect me to go back there and give myself up to Loiseau?’
‘I know you will,’ I said. ‘Or live the rest of your life regretting it. You will recall all your work and records and you will relive this moment a million times. Of course you must return with me. Loiseau is a human being and human activities are your speciality. You have friends in high places, it will be hard to convict you of any crime on the statute book …’
‘That is very little protection in France.’
‘Ostend is in Belgium,’ I said. ‘Belgium doesn’t recognize Peking, Loiseau operates there only on sufferance. Loiseau too will be amenable to any debating skill you can muster. Loiseau fears a political scandal that would involve taking a man forcibly from a foreign country …’
‘You are glib. Too glib,’ said Datt. ‘The risk remains too great.’
‘Just as you wish,’ I said. I drank the rest of my coffee and turned away from him.
‘I’d be a fool to go back for the documents. Loiseau can’t touch me here.’ He walked across to the barometer and tapped it. ‘It’s going up.’ I said nothing.
He said, ‘It was my idea to make my control centre a pirate radio boat. We are not open to inspection nor even under the jurisdiction of any government in the world. We are, in effect, a nation unto ourselves on this boat, just as all the other pirate radio ships are.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘You’re safe here.’ I stood up. ‘I should have said nothing,’ I said. ‘It is not my concern. My job is done.’ I buttoned my coat tight and blessed the man from Ostend for providing the thick extra sweater.
‘You despise me?’ said Datt. There was an angry note in his voice.
I stepped towards him and took his hand in mine. ‘I don’t,’ I said anxiously. ‘Your judgement is as valid as mine. Better, for only you are in a position to evaluate your work and your freedom.’ I gripped his hand tight in a stereotyped gesture of reassurance.
He said, ‘My work is of immense value. A breakthrough you might almost say. Some of the studies seemed to have …’ Now he was anxious to convince me of the importance of his work.
But I released his hand carefully. I nodded, smiled and turned away. ‘I must go. I have brought Kuang here, my job is done. Perhaps one of your sailors would take me back to Ostend.’
Datt nodded. I turned away, tired of my game and wondering whether I really wanted to take this sick old man and deliver him to the mercies of the French Government. They say a man’s resolution shows in the set of his shoulders. Perhaps Datt saw my indifference in mine. ‘Wait,’ he called. ‘I will take you.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘It will give you time to think.’
Datt looked around the cabin feverishly. He wet his lips and smoothed his hair with the flat of his hand. He flicked through a bundle of papers, stuffed two of them in his pocket, and gathered up a few possessions.
They were strange things that Datt took with him: an engraved paperweight, a half-bottle of brandy, a cheap notebook and finally an old fountain pen which he inspected, wiped and carefully capped before pushing it into his waistcoat pocket. ‘I’ll take you back,’ he said. ‘Do you think Loiseau will let me just look through my stuff?’
‘I can’t answer for Loiseau,’ I said. ‘But I know he fought for months to get permission to raid your house on the Avenue Foch. He submitted report after report proving beyond all normal need that you were a threat to the security of France. Do you know what answer he got? They told him that you were an X., an ancien X. You were a Polytechnic man, one of the ruling class, the elite of France. You could tutoyer his Minister, call half the Cabinet cher camarade. You were a privileged person, inviolate and arrogant with him and his men. But he persisted, he showed them finally what you were, Monsieur Datt. And now perhaps he’ll want them to pay their bill. I’d say Loiseau might see the advantage in letting a little of your poison into their bloodstream. He might decide to give them something to remember the next time they are about to obstruct him and lecture him, and ask him for the fiftieth time if he isn’t mistaken. Permit you to retain the dossiers and tapes?’ I smiled. ‘He might well insist upon it.’
Datt nodded, cranked the handle of an ancient wall phone and spoke some rapid Chinese dialect into it. I noticed his large white fingers, like the roots of some plant that had never been exposed to sunlight.
He said, ‘You are right, no doubt about it. I must be where my research is. I should never have parted company from it.’
He pottered about absent-mindedly. He picked up his Monopoly board. ‘You must reassure me on one thing,’ he said. He put the board down, again. ‘The girl. You’ll see that the girl’s all right?’
‘She’ll be all right.’
‘You’ll attend to it? I’ve treated her badly.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I threatened her, you know. I threatened her about her file. About her pictures. I shouldn’t have done that really but I cared for my work. It’s not a crime, is it, caring about your work?’
‘Depends upon the work.’
‘Mind you,’ said Datt, ‘I have given her money. I gave her the car too.’
‘It’s easy to give away things you don’t need,’ I said. ‘And rich people who give away money need to be quite sure they’re not trying to buy something.’
‘I’ve