The Levant Trilogy (36 page)

Castlebar who, once a week, went to tutor a
Greek boy in Alexandria, came back with the news that there was heavy combat in
the desert. It vibrated through roads and pavements and at times, when the air
was very still, people could hear the boom of guns. No news had been released.
No one knew what was happening but Castlebar was sure that this was a major
battle.

Jackman, not too pleased that Castlebar should
be the bringer of such tidings, said, 'Of course it is. Didn't I tell you
something was on? What do you think the preparations have been for? This is
it.'

Still, there was no certainty. Alex, like Cairo,
was a city of rumours. The gunfire might mean a German offensive or merely a
minor skirmish, or the Afrika Korps sending a parthian shot before packing and
leaving their long-held position. Ten days passed, then the civilians were
allowed to know that there had been a second battle of Alamein, the greatest
battle of the desert war. The allied forces were pushing Rommel back to the
frontier and perhaps even further than that.

Meanwhile, an extraordinary thing happened. The
sun, the great god of Egypt, disappeared and the noonday sky, so constant in
its brilliance, was hidden behind cloud. A biblical darkness overhung the city
and people, hastening in the streets, feared a cataclysm - the day of judgement
or, at the least, an earthquake - and sought what cover they could find.

Angela and Harriet were out at the time.
Harriet, finding that Angela hardly knew where the Muski was, insisted they
must go there. She said, 'You should learn how the other half live,' and she led
her through the narrow, dusty lanes to her favourite shop: a twilit place, like
a vast tent, where old glass and china ornaments were heaped together on
shelves and floor. In the centre of this disordered treasure store, there was a
glass case lit by acetylene lamps and full of gleaming jewels. Harriet called
Angela to it: 'Come and see the rose-diamonds.'

The rose-diamonds, set in pinkish gold, were
formed into brooches, earrings, bracelets and necklaces, and Harriet, who could
not afford to buy them, was attracted by their elaborate opulence. Angela,
lifting the pieces and examining them, asked, 'What are rose-diamonds? They
look like sugar crystals.'

Harriet repeated the question to a man in a
dirty galabiah who stood guard over the case. He replied in an aloof manner,
having superior knowledge: 'Rosy di'mints? - they is di'mints.'

Angela laughed, 'So now we know. Shall I buy one
for Bill?' She picked among the designs, rejecting the flowers, and came upon a
brooch in the shape of a heart: 'What about this? I'll give it to him for a
giggle.' She did not haggle over the price but, paying what the shop-keeper
asked, she laughed excitedly at the thought of giving the large,
diamond-studded heart to Castlebar.

Coming out of the shop, they found the outdoors
nearly as dark as the indoors. Made nervous by the unusual gloom, they hurried
through the lanes, instinctively making for the European quarter as though
there they might escape the ominous sky. But in the Esbekiyah the sky grew more
ominous. The office workers were coming out for the siesta and the businessmen
who could afford taxis were squabbling over them. As the first rain fell, one
man covered his fez with his pocket-handkerchief and before the pavements were
wet, every fez was protected by a covering of some sort. Drops, heavy and
immense, splashed down and merged into each other, and the Egyptians began to
panic at the sight. The two women, having reached the western end of the
Esbekiyah, ran to Shepherd's Hotel and there, standing under the canopy, they
watched the gutters flow and overflow, then cover the streets. Cairo had no
main drainage and the water, speeding like a river past the hotel, could only
flow down the Kasr el Nil until it lost itself in the Nile.

The shop owners, opposite the hotel, were wading
up to their knees, putting up shutters as though against a riot. Cars, forced
to a stop, stood in the stream with passengers waving and begging for rescue,
though there was no one to rescue them.

One of the men gathered under the canopy said, "They
will be drowned' and this possibility was discussed around Harriet and Angela
with sombre satisfaction. Angela said, 'It's too heavy to last,' but it did
last and, becoming bored with it, she suggested they go inside and have a
drink.

Staff officers, who regarded the place as their
own, filled every chair in the main rooms and possessed every table. When they
showed no sign of moving, Angela said loudly, with a gleeful contempt, 'When I
was a little girl, during the First War, I heard the term "temporary
gentleman". I couldn't think what it meant then, but now I know.' At this,
two of the officers rose and Angela, saying, 'Oh, too kind!', smiled upon them
and sat down.

Delighted by her success, she laughed and winked
at Harriet, but this mood did not last. The latest communique from the front
sated 'Axis forces in full retreat'. This news, that had rejoiced the British
in Cairo, had merely perturbed Angela.

She said to Harriet: 'I don't like it. If the
army leaves here, that bitch will stand a much better chance of getting back.'

'What do you think would happen if she got back?'

'Bill says he intends telling her he's finished
with her.'

Pondering on the fact that both her friends were
enamoured of men whom they might never have for their own, Harriet could see
that uncertainty was a strong potion and said: 'Angela, would you want
Castlebar so much if he didn't belong to someone else?'

Angela put the question aside with a gesture:
'Don't let's think any more about it.' Looking into her bag, she brought out
the rose-diamond brooch to distract them: '"Rosy di'mints? They is
di'mints." Wasn't that wonderful? Come on, let's go to the restaurant and
eat,'

The noise of the rain stopped while they were at
luncheon but when they returned to the terrace, they found they were trapped by
the stream that still filled the street and held captive the occupants of the
cars. Another hour passed before the last of it, a long, low ripple of water,
slid down Kasr el Nil and away. The sun broke through the clouds, the roads
began to steam, dry circular patches appeared on the paving stones, drivers
struggled to restart their engines, and Harriet and Angela were released.

But that was not all. The rain had watered not
only the city but the surrounding desert with remarkable consequences. The
papers reported a marvel: seed that had lain for years dormant in the sand,
sprang up and blossomed but the great age of the seeds prevented normal growth.
The flowers were miniatures of their kind. Dobson, reading this at breakfast,
said he had heard that the Saccara sands were covered with flowers.

'A garden,' he said, 'a veritable garden!' and
Harriet, turning eagerly to Guy, put her hand on his arm: 'It's your free day.
Do let us go and see it.'

'How would we get there?' The tram-line ended at
Mena House.

'But why can't we take a taxi?'

Guy laughed at the idea of taking a taxi into
the desert: 'I've better things to do,' he said and Harriet knew he had meant
to refuse from the start.

'But it's your free day.'

'That's when I really work. I'm preparing my
troops' entertainment. I've a hundred and one things to do.'

Guy had begun to plan the entertainment some
time before and Harriet had hoped that by now it was forgotten. But it was not
forgotten. 'Haven't the troops enough entertainments?'

'This will be no ordinary show.' To prevent
further argument, he jumped up, his breakfast unfinished, as Hassan was putting
down a bowl of fruit steeped in permanganate. He took a couple of guavas,
splashing the cloth with purple fluid, and called out as he went: 'Sorry about
that.'

Dobson looked after him: 'What energy! What a
man! He never stops, does he?'

'No, never. How would you like to be married to
him?'

'Oh, come now, Harriet, You wouldn't have him
any different?'

'Wouldn't I? These entertainments worry me to
death. Suppose this one fails?'

'Not likely. He's got
ensa
backing.'

Harriet said, 'How do you know?': then, too
late, realized she was admitting her own ignorance and put in a second question
to erase the first:
'Why should
ensa
back Guy's show?'

'You know what he's like! He could charm the
monkeys down from the trees.'

'Yes.' Harriet sat silent for a few minutes then
said, 'I wish I were a man fighting in the desert,'

'You'd find it a very great bore.'

'It couldn't be worse than our life here.'

'Here?
Most Englishwomen think they're damned lucky to
be here.'

'Well, I'm not most Englishwomen.'

Edwina was supposed to be on duty at the Embassy
but, coming slowly to the table, her hand on her brow, her hair dishevelled,
she said in a small voice: 'Oh, Dobbie, I've got such a head. I don't think I
can go in this morning.'

Dobson, in a tone of bantering commiseration,
said, 'Poor thing! Then I suppose we'll have to manage without you. What about
the evening stint?'

'I'll try, Dobbie dear.'

Dobson left for the Embassy and Edwina drooped
over the table, sighing, until the telephone rang. Coming to instant life, she
reached it before Hassan had found his way into the hall. Harriet, hearing one
side of an animated conversation, gathered that Peter Lisdoonvarna had the
morning off and was taking Edwina out. She came back to say, 'Oh, Harriet, to
think I might have been at the office. What luck I was here!' She danced away
crying,' What luck! What luck! What luck!'

Harriet, hearing her singing as she splashed
under the shower, envied her excitement. That, Harriet thought, was what women
most wanted, and what risks they took to attain it. She, herself, had married
and travelled to the other side of Europe with someone she barely knew. She
might have been abandoned there. She might have been murdered. In fact, she had
suffered no more than disappointment, finding that her husband's devotion to
all comers left little room for her.

She was still sitting over her coffee when Peter
Lisdoonvarna arrived, giving off vigour like a magnetic force. The shutters had
been closed but the semi-darkness seemed to disperse itself as he gave Harriet
a hearty kiss on the lips. All good-looking girls were Peter's girls and he
approached them with such boisterous confidence, few could resist him. Edwina
shouted to him from her room but he was quite happy to stay with Harriet, telling
her he had just bought King Farouk's second-best Bendey.

'Magnificent job! Been angling for it for weeks.
Park Ward body. Eight-litre chassis. Bonnet as long as the gun on a Panzer Mark
III. I know some chaps don't think it's worth owning a car out here, but I'm
the car-owning type. Like to know it's there. Get in and push off, no hanging
around for taxis. You've got to have some relaxation after the stultifying,
bloody chores at HQ. Care for a spin? Like to try her out?'

Harriet felt there was nothing she would like
better, but what of Edwina? Hesitating, she asked, 'Where are you going?'

'Don't know. Haven't thought about it. Anywhere
you like.'

'Would you go to Saccara?'

'Why not? Saccara it is!' As Edwina came into
the room, he shouted: 'Come on, then, girls.'

Edwina hesitated only a moment before she smiled
and said, 'Is Harriet coming with us? How lovely!'

The car, standing outside the house, was indeed
magnificent, Harriet was put into the spacious back seat and, when they were
under way, was soon forgotten. Edwina, having spent her enthusiasm about the
car, put an arm round Peter's shoulder and her head against his head, but Peter
still gave his attention to the Bentley's splendour. 'All leather upholstery,'
he said.

'Leather, really?' Edwina spoke as though
leather were an unheard of luxury.

Peter demonstrated the automatic opening and
closing of the windows, and the button that sent the canvas roof folding back
behind the seats. Harriet attempted to murmur her appreciation but anything she
said was lost behind Edwina's gasps and squeals of wonder.

Unable to compete, Harriet looked out of her
side window to see what could be seen. And she saw a peasant, head bound up in
a scarf, mooning along the pavement. The scarf indicated that he had toothache
or a cold, but she knew he was not thinking of his ailments. Instead he was
telling himself one of the fantasies that compensated the poor for their
poverty. A shop-keeper had once told her that a rich American lady had fallen
in love with a guide at the pyramids and gone to live with him in his
one-roomed village hut. Harriet had laughed at the story but the shop-keeper
believed it because belief made life tolerable. She knew the peasant in the scarf,
grinning, head wagging, was imagining just such a romance for himself.

Out on the Saccara road, Peter said, 'Like to
travel at m'own speed,' and pressing on the accelerator, the car sped through
villages, scattering children and chickens and causing the villagers to shout
after him in rage. Someone must have telephoned the sugar factory at
El-Hawandiyen for the factory workers had gathered outside the building with
stones in their hands. The hood was down and seeing women in the car, most of
them let the stones fall harmlessly but two let fly and hit the side of the
car. Edwina screamed, hiding her face in Peter's shoulder, and he replaced the
hood and latched it. He did this without losing speed while he grumbled:
'Damned fool country, this is! Can't take a gallop without chaps chucking
stones. Wish I was back in the blue. Do what you like there.'