The Levant Trilogy (19 page)

'Really!' Harriet
was interested. 'What immoral practices? The houseboat? Mustapha Quant?'

'Probably. A Turk
was mentioned.'

Guy looked
troubled. 'They can't simply take Pinkrose's word for it. There must be an
official inquiry."

"There has
been an inquiry. In any case, Pinkrose's complaints were only the last of a
series made by British residents. Pinkrose carried most weight because he is
known to Bevington who cabled the Embassy for confirmation. I cabled back that
Gracey had indeed fled and the office was shut. This clinched it. We were
informed that if Gracey returned he should be handed a letter ordering him to
Aden which is, I believe, the Organization's Devil's Island.'

Guy took off his
glasses and, the tape giving way, the lenses fell apart. He asked, 'But who
will replace him? Are they flying someone out?'

'No.' Smiling
blandly, Dobson watched Guy fidgeting with the broken frame then said,
'Bevington has chosen a London-appointed man - the only one left in Egypt'

'Guy?'

Dobson turned his
smile on to Harriet who threw back her head and laughed with delight. Dobson
looked to Guy for a similar reaction but Guy, though he had flushed with
pleasure, looked disturbed. 'Is this really fair to Gracey?'

'You don't have
to worry about Gracey. He's not likely to take himself to Aden. Even before he
left here, he was inquiring about a possible passage to the Cape, saying that
the exigencies of life in a war zone were telling on his health.'

Guy still did not
seem satisfied and Harriet, taking the glasses out of his hand, said, 'Forget
Gracey. What you have to think about is the Organization. If Bevington has
chosen you for the job, it's up to you to do it. Don't waste concern on
Gracey.'

As he reflected
on this, Guy's expression lightened and he realized that he had before him a
whole new area of activity on which to expand his energy. All he had to do now
was settle matters at the Commercial College. As Harriet had suspected,
when the need came, these matters could be settled easily enough.

Guy said, 'I've a
couple of excellent Greek teachers who can take over the English department. I'll
be back here as soon as they're installed and my first aim will be to get the
Institute on its feet.'

'And,' said
Harriet, 'you'll have to tidy yourself up. Here,' she returned his glasses,
neatly mended with tape, and said, 'Order a new frame for them,' then she took
his hand and said with affectionate pride, 'I don't know how you do it, but you
always win in the end.'

Dobson had to
leave them but, standing up, he said, 'I don't know how you feel about that
pension of yours but I have a room free in Garden City. It was Beaker's room
and he's left a few sticks in it. If you like to look at it...'

'Goodness, yes.
How wonderful!' Overwhelmed by the day's good fortune, Harriet could not speak
above a whisper.

It was arranged
that next evening, when she left work, she was to look at the room.

Dobson said,
'Bless you both,' and made off through the garden, walking with a backward tilt
as though his heels were lower than his toes. Looking after the short, plump
figure, Guy said, 'There, I always said Dobson was a really nice fellow.'

'Have I ever said
anything else?'

The Organization
men, feeling themselves inferior, had been inclined to jeer at the diplomats
who, in times of danger, saw the Organization as another and unnecessary
problem.

Now Guy said,
'I'm afraid we felt they were another order of being - but, really, they're not
bad when you get to know them.' He was rapidly taking on confidence and vitality
as he considered the responsibilities that lay ahead. The lines on his face had
faded and he was alert with a new consciousness of authority. Harriet thought,
'He may one day be eminent.' Guy, catching her considering glance, said, 'Well
have more money now, so let's have a Pernod on the strength of it. '

Dobson told
Harriet that the flat belonged to the Embassy. He explained why it was divided
into two parts and led her
through the baize door into
what had been the harem quarters. He usually let these rooms to Embassy staff
but if no Embassy person needed accommodation, he was free to let to friends.

'So I had
Professor Beaker and now ...' he gave Harriet a humorous little bow, 'I hope to
have Guy and Harriet Pringle. What could be nicer! But you'd better look the
room over before deciding. It's not at all grand. The main part is protected
because the servants' rooms are above it, but this wing is immediately under
the roof. I'm afraid it gets rather hot'

When he opened
the door, the heat, as though too big for the room, rolled out and wrapped
itself round them like an eiderdown. The servants had not bothered to pull down
the blinds so heat came in, not only through the ceiling, but also the window.
The woodwork, which had been sun-baked for a century, seemed to crackle with
heat and the floor shook as they walked upon it.

The room was
furnished with a divan bed, two chairs and a hanging cupboard. The professor
had rented this furniture from a store in the Muski and the Pringles could add
to it if they wished.

'I know it's not
much, but it's rent free. You only have to pay your share of the housekeeping.
So - what do you think?'

Harriet, trying
to think of some adequate expression of gratitude, gave a little sigh and
Dobson, mistaking her hesitation for uncertainty, said, 'I'll leave you to
consider and look around.'

Harriet, left to
herself, absorbed the atmosphere of the room that was square and not very
large. The window looked out on the leaves of a tree that filled the whole
window space. The heat muffled her but, entranced by the thought of living here
with Guy among congenial people, she did not mind the heat. She sat on the edge
of the bed and stared at the tree then, hearing a telephone ringing, she was
struck with fear that someone else was wanting the room and she hurried back to
Dobson to lay claim to it.

Dobson, his call
finished, came into the living-room and she said at once, 'It's a wonderful
room.'

'Oh, hardly that,
but if you want it, it's yours. I'm sorry
Edwina's not
here. She's out with one of her young men, but do sit down. Hassan has squeezed
some limes for us. Will you have gin and lime, or just plain lime and water?'

'Lime juice! What
luxury!'

Dobson, thinking
she referred to the work of squeezing the limes, said, 'Oh, it's not so difficult.
We have a little machine thing.'

Settling down
with his gin and lime, he asked if she had heard any amusing gossip lately.
Unable to think of any, she put her question about the Qattara Depression.

Dobson, being
able to answer it, looked pleased. 'The Depression is just an immense salt pan
but it's got the jerries foxed. They know if they tried to cross it, their
tanks would sink into it Tweedie, the military attaché, drove out to take a
shufti and he said you can see the German engineers climbing down to it and
poking sticks into the surface. Until they find a way across it, it acts as a
strategic terminus.'

'But couldn't
they go round it?'

'Too far. Five
hundred miles or more. Tweedie thinks they're overstretched as it is.'

'You think that's
why they've come to a stop? You don't think they're simply waiting for the
Caucasus to collapse? If the German panzers came down through Persia, they'd
meet up with Rommel and surround the British forces. 8th Army could be wiped
out'

'Dear me,' Dobson
laughed. 'You certainly believe in facing up to the worst.'

'If Hitler got
the Baku oil and the Middle East oil - what would happen then?'

Dobson cheerfully
considered this possibility - Harriet realized that cheerfulness was a form of
diplomatic courtesy - but she could see he was bored by her suppositions. 'I
imagine our troops would have withdrawn to Upper Egypt long before that
happened. We'd battle on.'

'For ever? Like
the Hundred Years War?'

'It's possible:'
Dobson spoke as though the war was a tedious subject better not discussed.
Harriet finished her lime juice and said she must go. Taking her to the door,
Dobson said in the
tone of one making a
confession, I may say that, in my cable to Bevington, I mentioned that Guy was
the only Organization man in Rumania who stuck it out to the end.'

'Thank you,
Dobbie. Guy needs a friend.'

'Needs a friend!
But no one has more friends.'

'There are
friends and friends. There are those who want something from you and those who
will do something for you. Guy has plenty of the first. He's rather short of
the second.'

'Do you mean
that?'

'Yes. He collects
depressives, neurotics and dotty people who think he's the answer to their own
inadequacy.'

'And is he?'

'No, there is no
answer.'

The next day, when
Harriet brought some of her belongings to the flat, she found Edwina in the
living-room. The two girls had met at parties but had talked only once, during
a dance at Mena House when they happened to be in the cloakroom together.
Edwina, putting on lipstick of a violent mulberry colour, caught Harriet's
gaze in the looking-glass and winked at her as though they shared a joke. She said,
'This colour's a bit much, isn't it?' Harriet did not think so and Edwina said,
'Some people say I'm fast, but I'm not really. I only want a good time.'

And why not?
Harriet asked herself. Drawn to Edwina's easy good nature, she would have
talked longer but Edwina, besieged by all the excitements awaiting her, threw
her lipstick into her bag, saying, 'Well, back to the fray. Let's have a chat
some time,' and was gone. The time did not come. Though they were the same age,
Harriet and Edwina did not meet on common ground. Edwina was unmarried and
reputed to be the most eligible girl in Cairo. Even the plainest English girls
were sought after and Edwina, a beauty even if not a classical beauty, had so
many invitations to dinners and parties, she could not, with the best will in
the world, find time for other girls.

Now she greeted
Harriet like an old friend, saying, 'Oh, I'm so glad you've taken the room.
What fun it will be, having you here!' Pushing the sun-bleached hair away from
her eyes, she observed Harriet with such warm and welcoming admiration
that Harriet felt the world would change for her. 'Yes,' she said,
'what fun!' and life, that had been dark with war and defeat, for a moment took
on the brilliance of Edwina's good times.

Edwina said, 'How
sad, I have to go and change but we
'
ll see such lots of each
other now we're sharing a flat, won't we?'

Of course. Of
course. Harriet, going to her room, heard Edwina singing under the shower.
Putting her things into the hanging-cupboard, she noticed a dry, herbal scent
in the air, like the scent of
pot-pourri.
She thought it came from the
dried-out wood, then saw that the window had been opened and noises, gentle and
monotonous, told her that there was a garden outside. She heard the hiss of
water and realized that the water was drawing the scent from dry grass. And
there was a thin thread of pipe music repeating the same phrase over and over
again.

She took a chair
to the window and standing on it, tried to look through the tree's dark,
glossy, ovoid leaves but they grew too thickly and there was nothing to be seen
but the blur of sunlight beneath the lowest branches. The sun was sinking and
its rays, piercing in between the leaves, filled the room with a dusty glow.
Close to the tree, she saw that its head of leaves was dotted with green fruits
that here and there were taking on a flush of orange or pink.

Looking into the
tree, feeling protected by its presence, hearing the delicate pipe phrase
endlessly repeated, she felt comforted as though by the prediction of happiness
to come.

When she returned
to the living-room, Dobson wandered from his room, naked except for a
bath-towel worn round his waist like a sarong. 'We're very informal here,' he
said.

She asked about
the garden outside her window and was told it belonged to the owner of one of
Cairo's big stores. 'A very rich man,' Dobson said with satisfaction.

'Someone's
playing a pipe out there.'

'That's the snake
charmer, a frequent visitor. He's a bit of a joke among the safragis who say he
can always produce a sackful of snakes because he brings them with him. He
charms the same snakes every time.'

Harriet was
pleased to hear that the snakes were not killed
but led this enchanted life, perpetually charmed by pipe music.

At the end of the
week, when she left the pension and brought the last of her things to the flat,
Dobson asked, 'And when are we to be joined by the great man himself?' Edwina
entering, as he spoke, wanted to know who the great man was, saying, 'Why have
I not met him?'

Harriet said,
'You'll meet him soon. He is my husband.' She expected him to turn up for
supper that evening and had told him he would see Edwina, but Edwina was
dressed for some much more sumptuous occasion than supper at the flat. Waiting
for her escort, she asked Harriet to join her on the balcony. The French
windows had been opened and the first cool air of evening was drifting into the
room. Outside there were some old wickerwork sofas and chairs. Sitting in the
mild, jasmin-scented twilight, looking over the palms and sycamores and mango
trees that grew in the riverside gardens, Harriet felt that she and Guy had at
last found a home in Cairo.