Invisible Ink: The Untold Stories of
"The Heart of the Matter"
by Graham Greene
The Heart of the Matter spins off a factual thread of suppressed interlocutions that might have ensued in dramatic outcomes, but, which are, conversely, banished in the interstices of the novel following the pattern of Scobie’s diary factual account. Using Aimee Liu’s phrase “invisible ink,” the following creative writing pieces constitute those untold stories that might have confronted characters in unrepressed emotional strain. Marián Machado has recreated an invisible and inexistent- in -the -novel conversation between the two women: Louise and Helen, wife and mistress; Begoña Rodríguez overtly exposes the undercurrent of the word “adultery” that ricochets the novel but always dodges articulation between Louise and Scobie; Cándido Pintos vents the voicing of Ali’s death thawing Scobie’s phlegmatic distancing with Yusef; and, finally, Margarida Pereira tempts Helen through Scobie’s voice to abandon Sierra Leone. Helen’s resistance is crafted in an articulated speech of love.
