Our Man in Havana-Graham Greene

 

Our man in Havana

Graham Greene

 

English spy story, that is true to life, probably began in early twentieth century with Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden tales.

Maugham worked for secret service during the second world war. He was stationed in Lucerne, in the neutral Switzerland, and was also sent to Russia ‘to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution and to keep Russia in the war’. He wrote a few short stories based on these experiences. These are collected in his book, Ashenden. Ashenden was Maugham’s chosen pen-name. In the preface to the collection, Maugham wrote that ‘this book is a work of fiction, though I should say not much more so than several of the books on the same subject that have appeared during the last few years and that purport to be truthful memoirs’. Later Graham Greene and John Le Carre wrote popular and acclaimed books in this genre. Commenting on his work as a spy, Maugham said in the preface that, ‘the work of an agent in the Intelligence Department is on the whole extremely monotonous. A lot of it is uncommonly useless’. Le Carre honed this futile nature of a spy’s work as a unique trait of his books. Like Maugham, both Greene and Le Carre had worked in British secret service. Their protagonist spy was not a playboy cum killing-machine cum gizmo-geek, but a gentleman next-door. He was immersed neck-deep in the mundane struggles of balancing anxieties at work with domestic worries, to afford a joyful existence. In their elegant prose, urbane humour, and stark commentary on human condition in throes of this clandestine profession, all three writers brought to spy story respectability of serious literature.

John Le Carre’s The Tailor of Panama, a 1996 novel, was extremely popular. It was based on Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana, which had come out in 1958. Theme of both the books is one. Greene had shown the silliness of all espionage work through the medium of a fantastic spoof. Le Carre stuck to this theme. He changed the country though not the continent, the characters, their profession—a major aspect in both books—and details of the plot. 

Graham Greene classified his novels in two categories, serious and entertainments. Entertainments were lighter: either comedies or thriller. Allegedly, these were written for making quick money. In contrast, though Greene didn’t say this, serious novels dealt with issues which had occupied him for long and needed deep cogitation and more deliberate writing. He called Our Man in Havana, an entertainment. 

I do not see the book thus. It is not a light read which merely provides joyful occupation for a few hours. It does this but offers much more. It is easy to read —many Greene books aren’t — and thoroughly entertaining. It is a tragicomedy. Greene uses comical situations to highlight the commonplace, but no less tragic, circumstances of everyday life. I had read it many years back. I had discovered Greene around this time and was immediately seized with a frenetic zeal for his word. I read many of his books in a few months, as fast as I could get them. Memory of most of his books stayed with me, though I forgot much about them. I recently read Greene’s The Heart of the Matter again. I enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps more than my first reading. I decided to read his major works again and read Our Man in Havana, sometime back. 

Jim Wormold is a British expatriate living in Havana with his beautiful teenage daughter Milly. His wife has left him. He sells vacuum cleaners for a living. He is a worried man. In the uncertain, ominous years of late 1950s, when Cuba is ruled by a dictator and viewed suspiciously by West, due to the rising communist influence, Wormold’s business is dwindling. He is a man of simple tastes and frugal habits. His one pleasure in life is drinking daiquiri at the Wonder Bar, in company of his friend of fifteen years, Dr Hasselbacher, a German expatriate. And his other indulgence is his daughter, Milli. 

Milli is a devout catholic, unlike her father ‘who believed in nothing.’ Her behaviour and pious habits are so meticulous, that Wormold feels she is perpetually watched by an invisible duenna, an elderly chaperone. But duenna, it appears, abandons her at the school gate. She has been caught in her convent school smoking and circulating nude picture cards. Wormold doesn’t like the wolf-whistles that follow her. Insistent attention of the city police-chief, Milly invites, adds to his anxieties. Milli is flagrantly extravagant in her personal expenses. Wormold worries constantly about his ever-inadequate income but dare not oppose any demands from Milli, lest he make her unhappy. It is his dream that one day he will have huge savings and ‘then he would retire with Milly to England…’, far away from the wolf-whistles and the city-police chief. 

British Intelligence, MI6, is apprehensive about Cuban politics. They are desperate to hire an agent in the country who meets important people during his daily business but is above suspicion. A supplier of vacuum cleaners seems to them an appropriate choice. Wormold is cornered, quite literally with his pants down, in a lavatory, by an MI6 official and offered lucrative remuneration for information supplied. ‘Patriotic Englishman. Been here for years. Respected member of the European Traders’ Association. We must have our man in Havana, you know,’ answers the MI6 operative when Wormold wonders what the agent wants from him. 

Wormold has always found choices in life baffling. Forever he has possessed, as his friend Dr Hasselbacher comments, ‘two ideas in his head.’ He wants the money badly but doesn’t know how he can procure the secret information demanded of him. Dr Hasselbacher again comes to his rescue. ‘You are a lucky man, Mr Wormold. That information is always easy to give. If it is secret, you alone know it. All you need is a little imagination, Mr Wormold.’ Wormold grasps the hint. 

‘With the help of a large map, the weekly number of Time, which gave generous space to Cuba in its section on Western Hemisphere, various economic publications issued by Government, above all with the help of his imagination…’ Wormold sends florid weekly reports to London. He recruits imaginary contacts. He picks up the names and professions of people he has read in papers. And attributes his confabulated intelligence to these agents. London is utterly pleased with his reports. In their enthusiastic imagination, they add skills of a master spy to his personality. They demand from him drawings of enemy installations in Cuba. Wormold has now acquired a bold assurance in his new trade. He dismantles a vacuum cleaner and sends drawings of its parts as representations of the installations. These are hugely appreciated. London sends him a secretary, Beatrice, and a radio-boy to expand their Havana office. His remuneration is enhanced and so is his reputation. 

Wormold’s trouble begin anew when Beatrice wants to take over his contacts. Cuban authorities and German intelligence too, come to know of these names. They now hound these innocent people – common citizens of Havana whose names Wormold had fished from papers at random. A plot to kill Wormold is foiled at the last moment, but in the aftermath of this fiasco, Dr Hasselbacher is killed. Wormold sees this as end of his days in Havana. ‘They print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like the pain of an amputated leg no longer there. It was time, Wormold thought, to pack up and go and leave the ruins of Havana.’

 

Only the end, I feel, justifies calling the book an entertainment. It appears melodramatic and contrived. Is it because a cynical attitude of the reader makes them overtly suspicious of happy endings? I can’t deny this. But I couldn’t shirk an uneasy impression that Greene was at a loss for ideas as he finished this superbly written story.

This is a marvellous book. Craft and skill of the maestro are amply evident in the crisp prose, nuanced plot, and tongue-in-cheek humour. A major portion of the story is in dialogues. Dialogues, if written well, are a wonderful form of narrating a tale, though writing convincing dialogues is an art few writers possess. Dialogues represent a major form of interaction among people. A story which deals with life, seems real if narrated as a series of conversations. 

An outstanding feature of the book is that it is a remarkably contrived parody on the serious world of espionage. Yet, in its mocking tone and outlandish plot, it also deals with the quotidian miseries of common man. Greene offers soulful comments on life when story provides such opportunity. Wormold is here describing a character, ‘He liked his pipe and when he was a boy the pleasure-steamers on the river at home seemed to him like liners. Perhaps he was a romantic. A romantic is usually afraid, isn’t he, in case reality doesn’t come up to expectations….’ Beatrice in conversation with Wormold decries profession of spying thus, ‘…I don’t care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organisations… I don’t think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren’t there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?’ 

This is a unique story and is told masterfully. It must rank with the great tragicomic tales written in English.