The Levant Trilogy (44 page)

Harriet could not take this declaration
seriously: 'You can't go. You couldn't leave me without a friend.'

'I
am
going. I've already applied for a
passage. I have to get away from Bill and I won't get away unless I do
something drastic So, to hell with him and his God-awful wife. Let him sit
there and smirk. I have my own life to lead and I intend to have a rattling
good time.'

'If you go to England, you'll be conscripted.'

'Not me. I know what to do about that. When they
call you up, you just say, "I'm a tart." Tarts are exempt (God knows
why). They say, "Oh, come now, Lady Hooper, you don't want us to think
you're a common prostitute, do you?" and you say, "Think what you
like. That's what I am: a tart," and if you stick to it, there's not a
thing they can do about it.'

'But you're not a tart. You couldn't keep it
up.'

'I could and, if necessary, I shall.'

'So you really mean to go?' Harriet became
dejected as she saw Angela lost to her.' You've made me feel miserable'

'Then come with me.'

Harriet smiled. 'Perhaps I will,' she said.

No one was in a hurry at the American Hospital.
Once there, Harriet was expected to stay there and when she asked Sister
Metrebian if she could soon go home, the nurse shook her head vaguely: 'How can
I say? First, they must examine the specimens.'

'And when will we get the verdict?'

'Tomorrow, perhaps. The day after, perhaps.'

But the result of the tests was slow in coming
and when Harriet enquired about it, Sister Metrebian became distressed: 'How
can I say? You must wait for Dr Shafik.'

'When will he be back?'

Sister Metrebian shrugged: 'He is a busy man.'

That was not Harriet's impression of Dr Shafik.
Sometimes, from boredom, she went out in her dressing-gown and wandered about
the passages of the hospital, seeing no one and hearing nothing until, passing
through a gate marked 'No Entry', she came into a cul-de-sac where there was
only one door. Behind the door a man was shouting in delirium, expressing a
terror that seemed to her more terrible because it was in a language she did
not understand. As she hurried back to her own room, she met Sister Metrebian
and asked her what was wrong with the man.

Sister Metrebian shook her head in sombre
disapproval: 'You should not go near. He is very ill. He is a Polish officer
from Haifa where they have plague.'

'Plague?
He has got plague?'

'How can I say? He is not my patient. I can say
only: you must not go near.'

Trembling, Harriet sat on her balcony, gulping
in fresh air as though it were a prophylactic, and she thought of England where
there was no plague, no cholera, no smallpox, and the food was not
contaminated. If she went with Angela, she would regain her health - but how
could she leave Guy here alone?

She had said to Angela, 'You know what happens
when wives go home? We've seen it often enough.'

Angela took this lightly: 'You know you can
trust Guy. He's not the sort to go off the rails.'

Perhaps not, but it was Guy who had first
suggested she ask for a passage on the boat and she was suspicious of the fact
he wanted her to go. She thought, 'Everything has gone wrong since we came
here.' The climate changed people: it preserved ancient remains but it
disrupted the living. She had seen common-place English couples who, at home,
would have tolerated each other for a lifetime, here turning into
self-dramatizing figures of tragedy, bored, lax, unmoral, complaining and, in
the end, abandoning the partner in hand for another who was neither better nor
worse than the first. Inconstancy was so much the rule among the British
residents in Cairo, the place, she thought, was like a bureau of sexual
exchange.

So, how could she be sure of Guy? When she
married him, she scarcely knew him and, now, did she know him any better? How
rash she had been, rushing into marriage, and how absurd to imagine it, on no
evidence at all, a perfect, indestructible marriage! Every marriage was
imperfect and the destroying agents, the imperfections, were there, unseen,
from the start. How did she know that Guy, under the easy-going, well-disposed
exterior, was not secretive and sly, suggesting she return to England for his
own ends, whatever they might be?

It was noon, the most brilliant hour of the day,
when the Gezira playing-fields looked as dry as the desert. The sky was
colourless with heat yet to her it seemed to be netted over with darkness. The
world seemed sinister and she felt she could put no trust into it. Aidan Pratt
had said of life: 'If it has to end, does it matter when it ends?' The same
could be said of life's relationships. If Guy were a deceiver, then the sooner
she found out, the better.

Later that afternoon, when she had returned to
bed, Dr Shafik entered with a springing step and, standing over her, looking
satisfied with himself, he said, 'Well, madame, we have discovered your
trouble. You have amoebic dysentery. Not good, no, but not so bad because there
is a new drug for this condition. The American Embassy has sent it to us and
you will be the first to benefit by it.'

'And I will be cured?'

'Why, certainly. Did you come here to die?' Tall
and handsome in his white coat, Dr Shafik smiled an ironical smile: 'Could we
let a member of your great empire die here, in our poor country?'

'A great many members of the empire are dying
here. You forget there is a war on.'

Harriet could see from his face that Dr Shafik
had forgotten but he hid his forgetfulness under a tone of teasing scorn: 'Call
that a war? Two armies going backwards and forwards in the desert, chasing each
other like fools!'

'It's a war for those who fight it. And may I
ask, Dr Shafik, why you have to be so unpleasant to me?'

Surprised by the question, he stared at her then
his smile became mischievous: 'Are you aware, Mrs Pringle, that we have here
another English lady?'

'No.' Harriet had not heard of an Englishwoman
being in hospital but there were a great many English people not known to her
in Cairo. Some lived half-way between the Orient and the Occident, avoiding the
temporary residents brought here by war. Some had adopted the Moslem religion
and its ways. Some had married Egyptians and others, though they went to
England to find marriage partners, had lived here so long, they had become a
race on their own.

'Is she very ill?'

'She was, but now she is recovering. Would you
wish her to come and talk to you?'

Harriet knew that he meant to play some trick on
her but asked from curiosity, 'What is her name?'

Shafik was not telling; 'Perhaps when you see
her, you will know who she is.'

He went, promising that the lady would visit
her, and an hour later a very old woman came sidling into the room, wearing a
hospital bath-robe and a pair of old camel-leather slippers that flapped from
her heels. She crept towards the bed and Harriet, seeing who she was, said,
'Why, Miss Copeland, what are you doing here?'

She had last seen Miss Copeland in the pension
where the Pringles lived before moving to Dobson's flat. She came in once a
week to lay out a little shop of haberdashery which, to help her, the inmates
bought, whether they needed the goods or not. She had not changed; her skin,
stretched over frail, prominent bones, still had the milky blueness of extreme
age. At some time during her long sojourn in Cairo, she had become deaf and had
shut herself into silence, seldom speaking.

Though she knew the old woman could not hear
her, Harriet said to encourage her: 'Why are you here? You look quite well.'

Miss Copeland sat on the edge of the chair. Her
pale, milky eyes observed the things about her and when they came to Harriet,
she whispered: 'They found me in bed. I couldn't get up.'

'What was the matter?'

'I was riddled with it.'

Much shocked, Harriet could think of nothing to
say. Seeing that her lips did not move, Miss Copeland leant towards her and
enquired: 'What did you die of?'

Before Harriet need answer, Miss Copeland jumped
down from the chair: 'It must be time for lunch. It's nice being dead, they
give you so much to eat.' She was gone in a moment, her slippers flapping
behind her.

Almost at once, Dr Shafik came in to discover how
Harriet had taken the visit: 'So, you have seen the lady? You know her, I
think?'

'I know who she is. Has she really got cancer?'

'No. That is her little fantasy. But is she not
charming? An old, harmless lady, living here among other ladies of her own country
- and yet she nearly starved to death. She lay in bed, too ill to move, and no
one called to see how she was. It was a poor shop-keeper, where she bought
bread, who asked himself, "Where is the old English lady? Can she need
help?" - and so she was found.'

Discomforted as Dr Shafik intended her to be,
Harriet said, 'We knew nothing about her. She made some money by selling little
things: tapes, cottons, needles, things like that. She was independent. She
lived her own life and did not seem to want anyone to call on her...' Harriet's
defence faded out because, in fact, no one knew how or where Miss Copeland
lived, and she wondered whether anyone cared.

Shafik nodded his understanding of the
situation: 'So you left her alone and it was an Egyptian peasant who showed
pity! You see, here in Egypt, we live together. We look after our old people.'

'Miss Copeland didn't want to live with anyone.
She wanted to be alone so, when she needed help, there was no one at hand to
give it.'

Shafik gave a scoffing laugh: 'Now you know she
needs help, will you, with your large house and many servants, take her in?'

'I might, if I had a large house and servants,
but I haven't. My husband and I have one room in someone else's flat.'

'Is that so?'

'You did not answer my question, Dr Shafik. I
asked why you are so unpleasant to me?'

He again left the question unanswered but later
in the day, when Edwina came to see her, she had an answer of sorts.

Edwina, her tear-reddened eyes hidden behind
dark glasses, said, 'Oh, Harriet, I couldn't come before. I couldn't...' She
put her head down and sobbed again and it was some minutes before she could
continue; 'Peter's gone back to the desert. I'll never see him again... I'll
never...'

'Don't worry, you will see him again. The next
thing will be a counter-offensive and they'll all be belting back to Solium and
coming to Cairo on leave.'

'That's not what he thought. He said, "This
time we've got them on the run."'

'They say that every time.'

Harriet brought out a bottle of whisky, given
her by Angela, and said, 'Let's have a drink. It'll do us both good.' As Edwina
sniffed and drank her whisky, Harriet said, 'Even if he doesn't come back,
there are other men in the world.'

'That's true. Guy's been terribly kind to me.'

'He's kind to everyone,' said Harriet who had no
intention of offering Guy as one of the 'other men'.

But Edwina was not to be discouraged: 'You know,
I think Guy arranged this whole entertainment just to take my mind off Peter.'

'He arranged it long before Peter became
troublesome.'

A number of people, Aidan Pratt among them, had
imagined they were the sole recipients of Guy's regard. And yet... And yet...
It was Edwina's singing voice that had induced him to plan a troops' entertainment.

Warned by Harriet's silence, Edwina said no more
about Guy but diverted her by giggling: 'I see you've got that gorgeous Dr Shafik!
How romantic, lying here pale and interesting, with Dr Shafik taking your
pulse!'

'Amoebic dysentery is not a romantic condition.'

'
Condition du pays.
I bet he's had it
himself.'

'And he's not gorgeous to me. He's downright
disagreeable.'

'Oh, he's disagreeable to all of us. He's
violently anti-British. He belongs to the Nationalist Party and that's worse
than the Wafd. They'd cut our throats tomorrow if they had the chance.'

'Good heavens, Dr Shafik has every chance in the
world here. I hope Sister Metrebian will protect me from him.'

Edwina, having finished her whisky, became
wildly amused by this but her laughter changed in a moment and she choked with
sobs: 'Oh, Peter, Peter, Peter! I long to have him back!' She was desolate but
not to the point of admitting that Peter was married to someone else.

Harriet, knowing what she did know, said, hoping
to pull her together, 'I'm sorry, Edwina dear, but I think you're well out of
it. He'd make a terrible husband. All that fooling about! What a bore!'

'You're probably right. Yes, I know you're
right. There were times when I could have murdered him. Although he's got a
title, he's a brute, really.'

Edwina dabbed her eyes, then murmured, 'Still...'