The Quiet American

by Graham Greene

‘Is the colonel seriously telling us,’ Granger said, ‘that he’s had time to count the enemy dead and not his own?’ Patiently the colonel wove his web of evasion, which he knew perfectly well would be destroyed again by another question. The French correspondents sat gloomily silent. If the American correspondents stung the colonel into an admission they would

be quick to seize it, but they would not join in baiting their countryman.

waiting in my pigeon-hole, was in fact his victory, the end of the affair—a congratulatory telegram of promotion. Dante never thought up that turn of the screw for his condemned lovers. Paolo was never promoted to Purgatory.

I was to be the new foreign editor,

I was to be a reporter no longer: I was to have opinions, and in return for that empty privilege I was deprived of my last hope in the contest with Pyle.

Pietri sat in his usual place. He had an odd elongated skull which sat on his shoulders like a pear on a dish; he was a Sureté officer and was married to a pretty Tonkinese who owned the Pax Bar. He was another man who had no particular desire to go home.

it seemed impossible to me that I could ever have a life again, away from the rue Gambetta and the rue Catinat,

I said, ‘I’m going back.’ ‘Home?’ Pietri asked, throwing a four-to-one. ‘No. England.’

Pyle had invited himself for what he called a drink,

After the passage of weeks that fantastic meeting in Phat Diem seemed hardly believable:

the conversation had been an elaborate and humorous disguise for his real purpose, for it was already the gossip of Saigon that he was engaged in one of those services so ineptly called secret.

His black dog sat on the floor taking up too much room, panting; its tongue looked like a burnt pancake.

‘Do you like dogs?’ ‘No.’ ‘I thought the British were great dog-lovers.’ ‘We think Americans love dollars, but there must be exceptions.’ ‘I don’t know how I’d get along without Duke. You know sometimes I feel so darned lonely

You know, the fellow who …’ ‘Massacred all the women and children in Limoges.’ ‘I don’t remember that.’ ‘The history books gloss it over.’ I was to see many times that look of pain and disappointment touch his eyes and mouth when reality didn’t match the romantic ideas he cherished,

The big black dog called Duke, having panted long enough to establish a kind of right to the air, began to poke about the room. ‘Could you ask your dog to be still?’ I said.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Duke. Duke. Sit down, Duke.’

‘Duke’s awfully intelligent,’ said Pyle. ‘What happened to Prince?’ ‘We were down on the farm in Connecticut and he got run over.’

‘Oh, I minded a lot. He meant a great deal to me, but one has to be sensible. Nothing could bring him back.’ ‘And if you lose Phuong, will you be sensible?’ ‘Oh yes, I hope so. And you?’ ‘I doubt it. I might even run amok. Have you thought about that, Pyle?’

‘I think I ought to put all my cards on the table. I’m not rich. But when my father dies I’ll have about fifty thousand dollars. I’m in good health—I’ve got a medical certificate only two months old, and I can let her know my blood-group.’

What’s it for?’ ‘Well, to make certain we can have children together.’ ‘Is that how you make love in America—figures of income and blood-group?’

Phuong, will you marry me?’ ‘What about the blood-group?’ I said. ‘And a health certificate. You’ll need hers, surely? Maybe you ought to have mine too. And her horoscope—no, that’s an Indian custom.’

‘She said no.’ ‘She knows that much English.’

‘The best man wins. Only please don’t leave her, Thomas.’ ‘Of course I shan’t leave her,’ I said. Phuong said to me, ‘Would he like to smoke a pipe?’ ‘Would you like to smoke a pipe?’ ‘No, thank you. I don’t touch opium and we have strict rules in the service.

After the parade I interviewed the Pope’s deputy.

I didn’t expect to get anything out of him and I was right:

He began his set speech, forgetting that I had heard it two years before—it

Caodaism was a religious synthesis … the best of all religions … missionaries had been despatched to Los Angeles … the secrets of the Great Pyramid … He wore a long white soutane and he chain-smoked. There was something cunning and corrupt about him: the word ‘love’ occurred often.

our air of respect was as corrupt as his phoney hierarchy, but we were less cunning. Our hypocrisy gained us nothing—not even a reliable ally, while theirs had procured arms, supp...

‘God’s blessing on your work,’ he said unctuously. ‘Remember God loves the truth.’ ‘Which truth?’ I asked. ‘In the Caodaist faith all truths are reconciled and truth is love.’

held out his hand I really think he expected me to kiss it, but I am not a diplomat.

I had continually run into Pyle. The friendship which he had imposed from the beginning he now emphasized more than ever. His sad eyes would inquire with fervour after Phuong, while his lips expressed with even more fervour the strength of his affection and of his admiration—God

recognized him—he had been one of Thé’s assistants before Thé took to the hills. ‘Hullo, commandant,’ I said, ‘how’s the General?’ ‘Which general?’ he asked with a shy grin. ‘Surely in the Caodaist faith,’ I said, ‘all generals are reconciled.’

These people are so friendly when you treat them right. The French don’t seem to know how to handle them.’ ‘The French don’t trust them.’ Pyle said solemnly, ‘A man becomes trustworthy when you trust him.’ It sounded like a Caodaist maxim. I began to feel the air of Tanyin was too ethical for me to breathe.

couldn’t resist the temptation to tease Pyle—it is, after all, the weapon of weakness and I was weak. I hadn’t youth, seriousness, integrity, a future.

‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I was only joking. You two want to be alone.’ ‘Nothing of the kind,’ Pyle said. He was one of the most inefficient liars I have ever known—it was an art he had obviously never practised.

I walked the long empty nave—this was not the Indo-China I loved. The dragons with lion-like heads climbed

the pulpit: on the roof Christ exposed his bleeding heart. Buddha sat, as Buddha always sits, with his lap empty. Confucius’s beard hung meagrely down like a waterfall in the dry season. This was play-acting: the great globe above the altar was ambition: the basket with the movable lid in which the Pope worked his prophecies was trickery.

But I had never desired faith. The job of a reporter is to expose and record. I had never in my career discovered the inexplicable. The Pope worked his prophecies with a pencil in a movable lid and the people believed.

I had no visions or miracles in my repertoire of memory.

Why, even a platoon have

been known to hand over their officers. Sometimes the Viets have a better success with a megaphone than a bazooka. I don’t blame them. They don’t believe in anything either. You and your like are trying to make a war with the help of people who just aren’t interested.’

I’d like those two poor buggers there to be happy—that’s all. I wish they didn’t have to sit in the dark at night scared.’ ‘You have to fight for liberty.’

‘I haven’t seen any Americans fighting around here. And as for liberty, I don’t know what it means. Ask them.’ I called across the floor in French to them. ‘La liberté—qu’est ce que c’est la liberté?’ They sucked in the rice and stared back and said nothing.

‘You don’t mean half what you are saying,’ Pyle said uneasily. ‘Probably three quarters. I’ve been here a long time. You know, it’s lucky I’m not engagé, there are things I might be tempted to do—because here in the East—well, I don’t like Ike. I like—well, these two.

‘Mr Chou has only one lung.’ ‘I am very sorry …’ ‘He smokes one hundred and fifty pipes every day.’ ‘That sounds a lot.’

‘The doctor says it will do him no good, but Mr Chou feels much happier when he smokes.’

‘My name is Fowler. Mr Dominguez sent me. He said that Mr Chou had something to tell me.’ ‘Mr Chou’s memory is very much impaired.

‘Perhaps it would be better if you talked to me,’ the young man said. ‘My name is Mr Heng.’ ‘If you would tell me …’ ‘We will go down to the warehouse,’ Mr Heng said. ‘It is quieter there.’

That is why I have shown you this and this.’ ‘What is Diolacton?’ I said. ‘It sounds like condensed milk.’ ‘It has something in common with milk.’ Mr Heng shone his torch inside the drum. A little white powder lay like dust on the bottom. ‘It is one of the American plastics,’

Pyle was importing plastics for toys.’ I picked up the mould and looked at it. I tried in my mind to divine its shape.