“But if the Reds had won …” began the Frenchman.
“Ah yes!” exclaimed his wife. “If the Reds had won.… They were anti-Christ. They burnt churches and broke sacred images and relics. They violated nuns and murdered priests.”
“It was all very bad for business,” repeated José obstinately. “I know a man in Bilbao who had a big business. It was all finished by the war. War is very stupid.”
“The voice of the fool,” murmured Haller, “with the tongue of the wise. I think that I will go and see how my wife is. Will you excuse me, please?”
Graham finished his meal virtually alone. Haller did not return. The mother and son opposite to him ate with their heads bent over their plates. They seemed to be in communion over some private sorrow. He felt as if he were intruding. As soon as he had finished he left the saloon, put on his overcoat and went out on deck to get some air before going to bed.
The lights on the land were distant now, and the ship was rustling through the sea before the wind. He found the companionway up to the boat deck and stood for a time in the lee of a ventilator idly watching a man with a lamp on the well deck below tapping the wedges which secured the hatch tarpaulins. Soon the man finished his task, and Graham was left to wonder how he was going to pass the time on the boat. He made up his mind to get some books in Athens the following day. According to Kopeikin, they would dock at the Piræus at about two o’clock in the afternoon, and sail again at five. He would have plenty of time to take the tram into Athens, buy some English cigarettes and books, send a telegram to Stephanie and get back to the dock.
He lit a cigarette, telling himself that he would smoke it and then go to bed; but, even as he threw the match away, he saw that Josette and José had come on to the deck, and that the girl had seen him. It was too late to retreat. They were coming over to him.
“So you are here,” she said accusingly. “This is José.”
José, who was wearing a very tight black overcoat and a grey soft hat with a curly brim, nodded reluctantly, and said: “Enchanté, Monsieur,” with the air of a busy man whose time is being wasted.
“José does not speak English,” she explained.