The Outcasts Read Online Free PDF Page B

eyes and quivering nostrils he reminded Morrison of something, someone, long ago, mocking and contemptuous, haughty and unblinking.
    Inside he saw no bar, no cashier, only a large room with almost bare whitewashed walls; in the back screens, and beyond them a dim garden. Philips led him to a table and Goray rose to welcome them, a man of average height but of over two hundred pounds; in his yellow shirt he was a sun. For Morrison he had a benedictory smile and a fat handshake; he bustled. “So! Engineer Morrison! Welcome, welcome.”
    â€œThank you.” Goray’s brilliant smile demanded another. He was very black, and his imposing head sat on a short neck; a small, upturned nose lent his round face good humor, possibly because it had to support a large pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. His hair was graying. His bare forearms were thick around. So was his belly. As he sat down, his cane chair creaked softly in anguish.
    There were a dozen tables and many other diners, all men. In one corner, alone, sat a man Morrison took to be a Portuguese: dark curly hair, hooked nose, mustache. Goray was still smiling. On each table stood a small lamp emitting dirty yellow light, and as Morrison made himself comfortable he was bewildered by the insane fancy that this was a reunion, that he had been—that the room itself—the wooden tables—raffia lampshades—the murmur, the tinkle and clink, the laughter—impossible. Buck up, Morrison. The tropics.
    â€œThis is where I always eat,” Goray said. “Plain and good and not expensive. A drink?”
    Philips and Morrison took rum and water. Goray ordered a whisky-soda and named his brand. “So. This is your first time here?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd what do you think of our country?”
    â€œIt will be the ruin of me.”
    And it went on like that for some minutes. Behind him, abruptly, the thrum of a guitar; he turned to see a troubadour in black trousers and a red shirt picking his way through the room. He passed their table and went to a wicker chair, sitting with his back to the screen and smiling a performer’s dead smile. He bore, aside from the guitar, what looked like a twelve-ounce tumbler of rum, and his first tune was very sad but crowded with notes.
    With their third drink Goray said, “To the bridge. To the bridge. A brilliant bridge. Will it fall down?”
    Morrison was shocked, and set down his glass. “Of course not.”
    â€œNo offense, old man. Tell him about Gimbo while I drink.” Goray grinned gleefully and took a long swallow. His fat hands moved swiftly, like a magician’s, as Philips spoke, and there appeared as if from nowhere a cigarette case, a lighter, flame, gouts of smoke.
    â€œGimbo was the first bridge we built after independence,” Philips said. There was despair in his tone, but as he went on, it became wistfulness and then amusement. “No problem at all: a narrow river, a brook really, and all we needed was solid abutments and some twelve-meter girders. But we took it quite seriously, and built well. When we were ready for the girders we were all rather excited; I remember the craneman was sweating and shaking. You will meet him. We got the first girder up and swung it out and lowered it gently, slowly, more slowly, no one breathing, and when it was perfectly aligned we lowered it the last bit, and it came down, and down, and down, right through the gap, until it was practically in the water. So we hauled it up and measured the gap, which was just right, and then we measured the girder and it was eleven meters. All of them were.” He was smiling now. Goray shook with laughter; his chair creaked. “So we went after the contractor, a Syrian I believe, who had ordered these beams from abroad and wanted us to declare war immediately, because he had bought them from a socialist government and redress would be difficult. This reached our cabinet and we made