Read Online Doctor Fischer of Geneva Or The Bomb Party by Graham Greene - Free Book Online Page B

children and skiers, but I didn’t belong to any of those categories. My office was very warmly heated, but the garden outside looked blue through the tinted glass and chilled me all the same. I felt much too old for my job – to deal with chocolates all the time, milk and plain, almond and hazel, seemed work more suitable to a younger man or a girl.
    I was surprised when one of my chiefs opened the door of my office and let in Mr Kips. It was as if a cartoon had come to life; bent almost double, Mr Kips advanced with his hand held out, as though it was in search of that lost dollar rather than in welcome. My colleague said, in a tone of respect I was unaccustomed to hear, ‘I believe you have met Mr Kips.’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said, ‘at Doctor Fischer’s.’
    â€˜I didn’t know that you knew Doctor Fischer.’
    â€˜Mr Jones is married to his daughter,’ Mr Kips said.
    I thought I saw a look of fear on the face of my chief. I had been up till now far beneath his notice and suddenly I represented a danger – for a son-in-law of Doctor Fischer’s, might he not, with that influence behind him, find a place on the board?
    Unwisely I couldn’t help teasing him a little. ‘Dentophil Bouquet,’ I said, ‘tries to undo the damage we do in this building to the teeth.’ It was a very rash remark: it could be classed as disloyalty. Big business, like a secret service, demands loyalty from its employees more than honesty.
    â€˜Mr Kips,’ my chief said, ‘is a friend of the managing director. He has a little problem of translation and the managing director would like you to help him.’
    â€˜A letter I wish to send to Ankara,’ Mr Kips said. ‘I want to attach a copy in Turkish to prevent misunderstanding.’
    â€˜I will leave you together,’ my chief said, and when the door closed, Mr Kips told me, ‘This is confidential, of course.’
    â€˜I can see that.’
    Indeed I had seen it at the very first glance. There were references to Prague and Skoda, and Skoda to all the world means armaments. Switzerland is a land of strangely knotted business affiliations: a great deal of political as well as financial laundering goes on in that little harmless neutral state. The technical terms which had to be translated were all connected I could see with weapons. (For a short while I was in a world far removed from chocolates.) Apparently there was a firm called I.C.F.C. Inc. which was American and it was purchasing weapons, on behalf of a Turkish company, from Czechoslovakia. The final destination of the weapons – all small arms – was very unclear. A name which sounded as if it might be Palestinian or Iranian was somehow involved.
    My Turkish is more rusty than my Spanish because I have less practice (we don’t do much business with the land of Turkish Delight), and the letter took me quite a long while to translate. ‘I will get a fair copy typed,’ I told Mr Kips.
    â€˜I would rather you did it yourself,’ Mr Kips said.
    â€˜The secretary can’t read Turkish.’
    â€˜All the same . . .’
    When I had finished typing, Mr Kips said, ‘I realize you have done this in office time, but all the same perhaps a little present . . .?’
    â€˜Quite unnecessary.’
    â€˜Might I perhaps send a box of chocolates to your wife? Perhaps liqueur chocolates?’
    â€˜Oh, but you know, Mr Kips, in this business we are never short of chocolates.’
    Mr Kips, still bent nearly double so that his nose approached the desk, as though he were trying to find the elusive dollar by the smell, folded the letter and the original and tucked them away in his notecase. He said, ‘When we meet at Doctor Fischer’s, you won’t, of course, mention . . . This affair is most confidential.’
    â€˜I don’t think we’ll ever meet there again.’
    â€˜But