The Alexandria Quartet (100 page)

Mountolive's spirits suddenly began to rise, despite himself. ‘Good Lord' he said, ‘I hadn't thought of it that way. But they simply can't ignore a protest in these terms. After all, my dear boy, the thing is practically a veiled threat.'

‘I know, sir.'

‘I really don't see
how
they could ignore it.'

‘Well, sir, the King's life is hanging by a hair at present. He might, for example, die tonight. He hasn't sat in Divan for nearly six months. Everyone is at jealousies nowadays, personal dislikes and rivalries have come very close to the surface, and with a vengeance. His death would completely alter things — and everyone knows it. Nur above all. By the way, sir, I hear that he is not on speaking terms with Memlik. There has been some serious trouble about the bribes which people have been paying Memlik.'

‘But Nur himself doesn't take bribes?'

Donkin smiled a small sardonic smile and shook his head slowly and doubtfully. ‘I don't know, sir' he said primly. ‘I suspect that they all do and all would. I may be wrong. But in Hosnani's shoes I should certainly manage to get a stay of action by a handsome bribe to Memlik. His susceptibility to a bribe is … almost legendary in Egypt.'

Mountolive tried hard to frown angrily. ‘I hope you are wrong' he said. ‘Because H.M.G. are determined to get some action on this and so am I. Anyway, we'll see, shall we?'

Donkin was still pursuing some private thoughts in silence and gravity. He sat on for a moment smoking and then stood up. He said thoughtfully: ‘Enrol said something which suggested that Hosnani knew we were up to his game. If that is so, why has he not cleared out? He must have a clear idea about our own line of attack, must he not? If he has not moved it must mean that he is confident of holding Memlik in check somehow. I am only thinking aloud, sir.'

Mountolive stared at him for a long time with open eyes. He was trying hard to disperse a sudden and, it seemed to him, almost treacherous feeling of optimism. ‘Most interesting' he said at last. ‘I must confess I hadn't thought of it in those terms.'

‘I personally wouldn't take it to the Egyptians at all' said Donkin slyly. He was not averse to teasing his chief of Mission. ‘Though it is not my place to say so. I should think that Brigadier Maskelyne has more ways than one of settling the issue. In my view we'd be better advised to leave diplomatic channels alone and simply pay to have Hosnani shot or poisoned. It would cost less than a hundred pounds.'

‘Well, thank you very much' said Mountolive feebly, his optimism giving place once more to the dark turmoil of half-rationalized emotions in which he seemed doomed to live perpetually. ‘Thank you, Donkin.' (Donkin, he thought angrily, looked awfully like Lenin when he spoke of poison or the knife. It was easy for third secretaries to commit murder by proxy.) Left alone once more he paced his green carpet, balanced between conflicting emotions which were the shapes of hope and despair alternately. Whatever must follow was now irrevocable. He was committed to policies whose outcome, in human terms, was not to be judged. Surely there should be some philosophical resignation to be won from the knowledge? That night he stayed up late listening to his favourite music upon the huge gramophone and drinking rather more heavily than was his wont. From time to time he went across the room and sat at the Georgian writing-desk with his pen poised above a sheet of crested notepaper.

‘My dear Leila: At this moment it seems more necessary than ever that I should see you and I must ask you to overcome your.…'

But it was a failure. He crumpled up the letters and threw them regretfully into the wastepaper basket. Overcome her what? Was he beginning to hate Leila too, now? Somewhere, stirring in the hinterland of his consciousness was the thought, almost certain knowledge now, that it was she and not Nessim who had initiated these dreadful plans. She was the prime mover. Should he not tell Nur so? Should he not tell his own Government so? Was it not likely that Narouz, who was the man of action in the family, was even more deeply implicated in the conspiracy than Nessim himself? He sighed. What could any of them hope to gain from a successful Jewish insurrection? Mountolive believed too firmly in the English mystique to realize fully that anyone could have lost faith in it and the promise it might hold of future security, future stability.

No, the whole thing seemed to him simply a piece of gratuitous madness; a typical hare-brained business venture with a chance of large profits! How typical of Egypt! He stirred his own contempt slowly with the thought, as one might stir a mustard-pot. How typical of Egypt! Yet, strangely, how un-typical of Nessim!

Sleep was impossible that night. He slipped on a light overcoat, more as a disguise than anything, and went for a long walk by the river in order to settle his thoughts, feeling a foolish regretfulness that there was not a small dog to follow him and occupy his mind. He had slipped out of the servants' quarters, and the resplendent
kawass
and the two police guards were most surprised to see him re-enter the front gate at nearly two o'clock, walking on his own two legs as no Ambassador should ever be allowed to do. He gave them a civil good-evening in Arabic and let himself into the Residence door with his key. Shed his coat and limped across the lighted hall still followed by an imaginary dog which left wet footprints everywhere upon the polished parquet floors.…

On his way up to bed he found the now finished painting of himself by Clea standing forlornly against the wall on the first landing. He swore under his breath, for the thing had slipped his mind; he had been meaning to send it off to his mother for the past six weeks. He would make a special point of getting the Bag Room to deal with it tomorrow. They would perhaps have some qualms because of its size, he debated, but nevertheless: he would insist, in order to obviate the trouble of obtaining an export licence for a so-called ‘work of art'. (It was certainly not that.) But ever since a German archaeologist had stolen a lot of Egyptian statuary and sold it to the Museums of Europe the Government had been very sensitive about letting works of art out of the country. They would certainly delay a licence for months while the whole thing was debated. No, the Bag Room must attend to it; his mother would be pleased. He thought of her with a sentimental pang, sitting reading by the fire in that snowbound landscape. He owed her a really long letter. But not now. ‘After all this is over' he said, and gave a small involuntary shiver.

Once in bed he entered a narrow maze of shallow and un-refreshing dreams in which he floundered all night long — images of the great network of lakes with their swarming fish and clouds of wild birds, where once more the youthful figures of himself and Leila moved, spirited by the soft concussion of oars in water, to the punctuation of a single soft finger-drum across a violet night-scape; on the confines of the dream there moved another boat, in silhouette, with two figures in it — the brothers: both armed with long-barrelled rifles. Soon he would be overtaken; but warm in the circle of Leila's arms, as if he were Antony at Actium, he could hardly bring himself to feel fear. They did not speak, or at least, he heard no voices. As for himself, he felt only the messages to and from the woman in his arms — transmitted it seemed only by the ticking blood. They were past speech and reflection — the diminished figures of an unforgotten, unregretted past, infinitely dear now because irrecoverable. In the heart of the dream itself, he knew he was dreaming, and awoke with surprise and anguish to find tears upon the pillow. Breakfasting according to established custom, he suddenly felt as if he had a fever, but the thermometer refused to confirm his belief. So he rose reluctantly and presented himself in full fig, punctual upon the instant, to find Donkin nervously pacing the hall with the bundle of papers under his arm. ‘Well' said Mountolive, with a gesture vaguely indicating his rig, ‘here I am at last.'

In the black car with its fluttering pennant they slid smoothly across the town to the Ministry where the timid and ape-like Egyptian waited for them full of uneasy solicitudes and alarms. He was visibly impressed by the dress uniform and by the fact that the two best Arabists of the British Mission had been detailed to call upon him. He gleamed and bowed, automatically playing the opening hand — an exchange of formal politenesses — with his customary practice. He was a small sad man with tin cuff-links and matted hair. His anxiety to please, to accommodate, was so great that he fell easily into postures of friendship, almost of mawkishness. His eyes watered easily. He pressed ceremonial coffee and Turkish delight upon them as if the gesture itself represented a confession of love almost. He mopped his brow continually, and gave his ingratiating pithecanthropoid grimace. ‘Ah! Ambassador' he said sentimentally as the compliments gave place to business. ‘You know our language and our country well. We trust you.' Paraphrased, his words meant: ‘You know our venality to be ineradicable, the mark of an ancient culture, therefore we do not feel ashamed in your presence.'

Then he sat with his paws folded over his neat grey waistcoat, glum as a foetus in a bottle, as Mountolive delivered his strongly worded protest and produced the monument to Maskelyne's industry. Nur listened, shaking his head doubtfully from time to time, his visage lengthening. When Mountolive had done, he said impulsively, standing up: ‘Of course. At once. At once.' And then, as if plunged into doubt, unsteadily sat down once more and began to play with his cuff-links. Mountolive sighed as he stood up. ‘It is a disagreeable duty' he said, ‘but necessary. May I assure my Government that the matter will be prosecuted with speed?'

‘With speed. With speed.' The little man nodded twice and licked his lips; one had the impression that he did not quite understand the words he was using. ‘I shall see Memlik today' he added in lower tones. But the timbre of his voice had changed. He coughed and ate a sweetmeat, dusting the castor sugar off his fingers with a silk handkerchief. ‘Yes' he said. If he was interested in the massive document lying before him it was (or so it seemed to Mountolive) only that the photostats intrigued him. He had not seen things like these before. They belonged to the great foreign worlds of science and illusion in which these Western peoples lived — worlds of great powers and responsibilities — out of which they sometimes descended, clad in magnificent uniforms, to make the lot of the simple Egyptians harder than it was at the best of times. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes' said Nur again, as if to give the conversation stability and depth, to give his visitor confidence in his good intentions.

Mountolive did not like it at all; the whole tone lacked directness, purpose. The absurd sense of optimism rose once more in his breast and in order to punish himself for it (also because he was extremely conscientious) he stepped forward and pressed the matter forward another inch. ‘If you like, Nur, and if you expressly authorize me, I am prepared to lay the facts and recommendations before Memlik Pasha myself. Only speak.' But here he was pressing upon the shallow, newly-grown skin of protocol and national feeling. ‘Cherished Sir' said Nur with a beseeching smile and the gesture of a beggar importuning a rich man, ‘that would be out of order. For the matter is an internal one. It would not be proper for me to agree.'

And he was right there, reflected Mountolive, as they drove uneasily back to the Embassy; they could no longer give orders in Egypt as once the High Commission had been able to do. Donkin sat with a quizzical and reflective smile, studying his own fingers. The pennant on the car's radiator fluttered merrily, reminding Mountolive of the quivering burgee of Nessim's thirty-foot cutter as it slit the harbour waters.… ‘What did you make of it, Donkin?' he said, putting his arm on the elbow of the bearded youth.

‘Frankly, sir, I doubted.'

‘So did I, really.' Then he burst out: ‘But they will have to act, simply have to; I am not going to be put aside like this.' (He was thinking: ‘London will make our lives a misery until I can give them some sort of satisfaction.') Hate for an image of Nessim whose features had somehow — as if by a trick of double-exposure — become merged with those of the saturnine Maskelyne, flooded him again. Crossing the hall he caught sight of his own face in the great pierglass and was surprised to notice that it wore an expression of feeble petulance.

That day he found himself becoming more and more short-tempered with his staff and the Residence servants. He had begun to feel almost persecuted.

XIV

I
f Nessim had the temerity to laugh softly now to himself as he studied the invitation: if he propped the florid thing against his inkstand the better to study it, laughing softly and uneasily into the space before him; it was because he was thinking to himself:

‘To say that a man is unscrupulous implies that he was born with inherent scruples which he now chooses to disregard. But does one visualize a man
born
patently conscienceless? A man
born
without a common habit of soul? (Memlik).'