The Alexandria Quartet (84 page)

Yours sincerely,

Earwig van Beetfield.

Mountolive studied this document with great care. He found the tone annoying and the information mildly disturbing. But then, every mission was riven with faction; personal annoyances, divergent opinions, they were always coming to the fore. For a moment he wondered whether it would not be wiser to allow Pursewarden the transfer he desired; but he restrained the thought by allowing another to overlap it. If he was to act, he should not at this stage show irresolution — even with Kenilworth. He walked about in that wintry landscape waiting for events to take definite shape around his future. Finally, he composed a tardy note to Pursewarden, the fruit of much rewriting and thought, which he despatched through the bag room.

My dear P.,

I must thank you for your letter with the interesting data. I feel I cannot make any decisions before my own arrival. I don't wish to prejudge issues. I have however decided to keep you attached to the Mission for another year. I shall ask for a greater attention to discipline than your Chancery appears to do; and I know you won't fail me however disagreeable the prospect of staying seems to you. There is much to do this end, and much to decide before I leave.

Yours sincerely,

David Mountolive.

It conveyed, he hoped, the right mixture of encouragement and censure. But of course, Pursewarden would not have written flippantly had he visualized serving under him. Nevertheless, if his career was to take the right shape he must start at the beginning.

But in his own mind he had already planned upon getting Maskelyne transferred and Pursewarden elevated in rank as his chief political adviser. Nevertheless a hint of uneasiness remained. But he could not help smiling when he received a postcard from the incorrigible. ‘My dear Ambassador' it read. ‘Your news has worried me. You have so many great big bushy Etonians to choose from.… Nevertheless. At your service.'

VI

T
he airplane stooped and began to slant slowly downwards, earthwards into the violet evening. The brown desert with its monotony of windcarved dunes had given place now to a remembered relief-map of the delta. The slow loops and tangents of the brown river lay directly below, with small craft drifting about upon it like seeds. Deserted estuaries and sand-bars — the empty unpopulated areas of the hinterland where the fish and birds congregated in secret. Here and there the river split like a bamboo, to bend and coil round an island with fig-trees, a minaret, some dying palms — the feather-softness of the palms furrowing the flat exhausted landscape with its hot airs and mirages and humid silences. Squares of cultivation laboriously darned it here and there like a worn tweed plaid; between segments of bituminous swamp embraced by slow contours of the brown water. Here and there too rose knuckles of rosy limestone.

It was frightfully hot in the little cabin of the airplane. Mountolive wrestled in a desultory tormented fashion with his uniform. Skinners had done wonders with it — it fitted like a glove; but the
weight
of it. It was like being dressed in a boxing-glove. He would be parboiled. He felt the sweat pouring down his chest, tickling him. His mixed elation and alarm translated itself into queasiness. Was he going to be airsick — and for the first time in his life? He hoped not. It would be awful to be sick into this impressive refurbished hat. ‘Five minutes to touchdown'; words scribbled on a page torn from an operations pad. Good. Good. He nodded mechanically and found himself fanning his face with this musical-comedy object. At any rate, it became him. He was quite surprised to see how handsome he looked in a mirror.

They circled softly down and the mauve dusk rose to meet them. It was as if the whole of Egypt were settling softly into an inkwell. Then flowering out of the golden whirls sent up by stray dust-devils he glimpsed the nippled minarets and towers of the famous tombs; the Moquattam hills were pink and nacreous as a finger-nail.

On the airfield were grouped the dignitaries who had been detailed to receive him officially. They were flanked by the members of his own staff with their wives — all wearing garden-party hats and gloves as if they were in the paddock at Longchamps. Everyone was nevertheless perspiring freely, indeed in streams. Mountolive felt
terra firma
under his polished dress shoes and drew a sigh of relief. The ground was almost hotter than the plane; but his nausea had vanished. He stepped foward tentatively to shake hands and realized that with the donning of his uniform everything had changed. A sudden loneliness smote him — for he realized that now, as an Ambassador, he must forever renounce the friendship of ordinary human beings in exchange for their
deference
. His uniform encased him like a suit of chain-armour. It shut him off from the ordinary world of human exchanges. ‘God!' he thought. ‘I shall be forever soliciting a normal human reaction from people who are bound to defer to my
rank!
I shall become like that dreadful parson in Sussex who always feebly swears in order to prove that he is really quite an ordinary human being despite the dog-collar!'

But the momentary spasm of loneliness passed in the joys of a new self-possession. There was nothing to do now but to exploit his charm to the full; to be handsome, to be capable, surely one had the right to enjoy the consciousness of these things without self-reproach? He proved himself upon the outer circle of Egyptian officials whom he greeted in excellent Arabic. Smiles broke out everywhere, at once merging into a confluence of self-congratulatory looks. He knew also how to present himself in half-profile to the sudden stare of flash-bulbs as he made his first speech — a tissue of heart-warming platitudes pronounced with charming diffidence in Arabic which won murmurs of delight and excitement from the raffish circle of journalists.

A band suddenly struck up raggedly, playing woefully out of key; and under the plaintive iterations of a European melody played somehow in quartertones he recognized his own National Anthem. It was startling, and he had difficulty in not smiling. The police mission had been diligently training the Egyptian force in the uses of the slide-trombone. But the whole performance had a desultory and impromptu air, as if some rare form of ancient music (Palestrina?) were being interpreted on a set of fire-irons. He stood stiffly to attention. An aged Bimbashi with a glass eye stood before the band, also at attention — albeit rather shakily. Then it was over. ‘I'm sorry about the band' said Nimrod Pasha under his breath. ‘You see, sir, it was a scratch team. Most of the musicians are ill.' Mountolive, nodded gravely, sympathetically, and addressed himself to the next task. He walked with profuse keenness up and down a guard of honour to inspect their bearing; the men smelt strongly of sesame oil and sweat and one or two smiled affably. This was delightful. He restrained the impulse to grin back. Then, turning, he completed his devoirs to the Protocol section, warm and smelly too in its brilliant red flower-pot hats. Here the smiles rolled about, scattered all over the place like slices of unripe water-melon. An Ambassador who spoke Arabic! He put on the air of smiling diffidence which he knew best charmed. He had learned this. His crooked smile was appealing — even his own staff was visibly much taken with him, he noted with pride; but particularly the wives. They relaxed and turned their faces towards him like flower-traps. He had a few words for each of the secretaries.

Then at last the great car bore him smoothly away to the Residence on the banks of the Nile. Errol came with him to show him around and make the necessary introductions to the house-staff. The size and elegance of the building were exciting, and also rather intimidating. To have all these rooms at one's disposal was enough to deter any bachelor. ‘Still, for entertaining' he said almost sorrowfully ‘I suppose they are necessary.' But the place echoed around him as he walked about the magnificent ball-room, across the conservatories, the terraces, peering out on the grassy lawns which went right down to the bank of the cocoa-coloured Nile water. Outside, goose-necked sprinklers whirled and hissed night and day, keeping the coarse emerald grass fresh with moisture. He heard their sighing as he undressed and had a cold shower in the beautiful bathroom with its vitreous glass baubles; Errol was soon dismissed with an invitation to return after dinner and discuss plans and projects. ‘I'm tired' said Mountolive truthfully, ‘I want to have a quiet dinner alone. This heat — I should remember it; but I'd forgotten.'

The Nile was rising, filling the air with the dank summer moisture of its yearly inundations, climbing the stone wall at the bottom of the Embassy garden inch by slimy inch. He lay on his bed for half an hour and listened to the cars drawing up at the Chancery entrance and the sound of voices and footsteps in the hall. His staff were busily autographing the handsome red visitors' book, bound in expensive morocco. Only Pursewarden had not put in an appearance. He was presumably still in hiding? Mountolive planned to give him a shaking-up at the first opportunity; he could not now afford absurdities which might put him in a difficult position with the rest of the staff. He hoped that his friend would not force him to become authoritative and unpleasant — he shrank from the thought. Nevertheless.…

After a rest he dined alone on a corner of the long terrace, dressed only in trousers and a shirt, his feet clad in sandals. Then he shed the latter and walked barefoot across the floodlit lawns down to the river, feeling the brilliant grass spiky under his bare feet. But it was of a coarse, African variety and its roots were dusty, even under the sprays, as if it were suffering from dandruff. There were three peacocks wandering in the shadows with their brilliant Argus-eyed tails. The black soft sky was powdered with stars. Well, he had arrived — in every sense of the word. He remembered a phrase from one of Pursewarden's books: ‘The writer, most solitary of animals.…' The glass of whisky in his hand was icy-cold. He lay down in that airless darkness on the grass and gazed straight upwards into the sky, hardly thinking any more, but letting the drowsiness gradually creep up over him, inch by inch, like the rising tide of the river-water at the garden's end. Why should he feel a sadness at the heart of things when he was so confident of powers, so full of resolution? He did not know.

Enrol duly returned after a hastily eaten dinner and was charmed to find his chief spread out like a starfish on the elegant lawn, almost asleep. The informalities were excellent signs. ‘Ring for drink' said Mountolive benevolently ‘and come and sit out here: it is more or less cool. There's a breath of wind off the river.' Enrol obeyed and came to seat himself diffidently on the grass. They talked about the general design of things. ‘I know' said Mountolive ‘that the whole staff is trembling with anticipation about the summer move to Alexandria. I used to when I was a junior in the Commission. Well, we'll move out of this swelter just as soon as I've presented my credentials. The King will be in Divan three days hence? Yes, I gathered from Abdel Latif at the airport. Good. Then tomorrow I want to bid all Chancery secretaries and wives to tea; and in the evening the junior staff for a cocktail. Everything else can wait until you fix the special train and load up the despatch boxes. How about Alexandria?'

Enrol smiled mistily. ‘It is all in order, sir. There has been the usual scramble with incoming missions; but the Egyptians have been very good. Protocol has found an excellent residence with a good summer Chancery and other offices we could use. Everything is splendid. You'll only need a couple of Chancery staff apart from the house; I've fixed a duty roster so that we all get a chance to spend three weeks up there in rotation. The house staff can go ahead. You'll be doing some entertaining I expect. The Court will leave in about another fortnight. No problems.'

No problems! It was a cheering phrase. Mountolive sighed and fell silent. On the darkness across the expanse of river-water a faint noise broke out, as with a patter like a swarming of bees, laughter and singing mingled with the harsh thrilling rattle of the sistrum. ‘I had forgotten' he said with a pang. ‘The tears of Isis! It is the Night of the Drop, isn't it?' Enrol nodded wisely. ‘Yes, sir.' The river would be alive with slender feluccas full of singers and loud with guitars and voices. Isis-Diana would be bright in the heavens, but here the floodlit lawns created a cone of white light which dimmed the night-sky outside it. He gazed vaguely round, searching for the constellations. ‘Then that is all' he said, and Errol stood up. He cleared his throat and said: ‘Pursewarden didn't appear because he had ‘flu.' Mountolive thought this kind of loyalty a good sign. ‘No' he said smiling, ‘I know he is giving you trouble. I'm going to see he stops it.' Errol looked at him with delighted surprise. ‘Thank you, sir.' Mountolive walked him slowly to the house. ‘I also want to dine Maskelyne. Tomorrow night, if convenient.'