There was a silence.
One could see that Lydia was making a great effort to control her emotion, but when she spoke there was a break in her voice.
“Did you see him?”
“Yes.
I talked to him.
We were in hospital together.
I went in to have my appendix out, I didn’t want to get back to France and have trouble with it here.
He’d been working on the road they’re making from St. Laurent to Cayenne and he got a bad go of malaria.”
“I didn’t know.
I’ve had one letter from him, but he said nothing about it.”
“Out there everyone has malaria sooner or later.
It’s not worth making a song and dance about.
He’s lucky to have got it so soon.
The chief medical officer took a fancy to him, he’s an educated man, Berger, and there aren’t many of them.
They were going to apply to get him transferred to the hospital service when he recovered.
He’ll be all right there.”
“Marcel told me last night that he’d given you a message for me.”
“Yes, he gave me an address.”
He took a bundle of papers out of his pocket and gave Lydia a scrap on which something was written.
“If you can send any money, send it there.
But remember that he’ll only get half what you send.”
Lydia took the bit of paper, looked at it, and put it in her bag.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.
He said you weren’t to worry.
He said it wasn’t so bad as it might be, and he was finding his feet and he’d make out all right.
And that’s true, you know.
He’s no fool.
He won’t make many mistakes.
He’s a chap who’ll make the best of a bad job.
You’ll see, he’ll be happy enough.”
“How can he be happy?”
“It’s funny what one can get used to.
He’s a bit of a wag, isn’t he?
He used to make us laugh at some of the things he said.
He’s a rare one for seeing the funny side of things, there’s no mistake about that.”
Lydia was very pale.
She looked down in silence.
The elder man turned to his friend.
“What was that funny thing I told you he’d said about that cove in the hospital who cut his blasted throat?”
“Oh, I remember.
Now what was it?
It’s clean gone out of my mind, but I know it made me laugh my head off.”
A long silence fell.
There seemed nothing more to say.
Lydia was pensive; and the two men sat limp on their chairs, their eyes vacant, like the mechanical dolls they sell on the Boulevard Montparnasse which gyrate, rocking, round and round and then on a sudden stop dead.
Lydia sighed.
“I think that’s about all,” she said.
“Thank you for coming.
I hope you’ll get the job you’re looking for.”