The Levant Trilogy (55 page)

Simon moved his chair noiselessly along the path
with Guy beside him. They were both watching for a sight of Edwina but they
reached the end of the gardens without meeting anyone.

Simon said in a strained voice: 'She hasn't
come.'

'She will. She will.' Guy was confident she
would. They turned back and mid-way between the garden gates found a seat where
Guy could sit. He said it was four o'clock so she would probably come in on her
way to the office. She would have to make a detour and cross by the bridge,
all of which would take some time. An hour passed. The afternoon was changing
to evening and Simon's expectations began to fail. He could not respond to
Guy's talk and soon enough Guy, too, fell silent. They faced the opposite bank
of the river where Kasr el Nil barracks stood, its red colour changing as the
light changed until it was as dark as dried blood. The long, low building, so
bug-ridden that only fire could disinfest it, was hazed by river mist and
looked remote, a Victorian relic, a symbol of past glory.

Gazing across at it, Simon remembered his first
days in Egypt, when Tobruk had fallen. Ordered to join his convoy at dawn, he
had taken a taxi to the barracks, fearing that the other men would laugh at him
for his extravagance. He soon realized that no one knew or cared how he got
there. Hugo had been alive then. Now, with Hugo dead and Edwina uncaring, he
looked back on those early days as a time of youth and innocence he would never
know again.

He sighed and glanced at Guy who also seemed
lost in some vision of the past. He said, perhaps unwisely: 'You loved her very
much, didn't you?'

Surprised and startled by the question, Guy
said: 'You mean Harriet? I suppose I did. Not that I've ever thought much about
love. I've always had so many friends.' He stood up to end this sort of talk:
'You ought to be back at the hospital by now.'

When they reached the main gate, two people were
descending from a taxi: Edwina and an army officer.

Looking round, seeing Simon in his chair, Edwina
ran in through the gates, holding out her hands: 'Oh, Simon! Simon darling, I
was so afraid we'd be too late.' She seized his hands and gazing warmly into
his face, asked: 'How are you? Dear Simon, you're looking so much better!'

Simon, glancing over her shoulder, could see her
companion was a major, an old fellow, thirty-five or more; much too old for
Edwina. But the major had two good legs and he came strolling after her with a
possessive smile, conveying to the world the fact that he and Edwina had spent
the afternoon in intimate enjoyment.

He was introduced as Tony Brody, recently
appointed to
GHQ,
Cairo - a tall,
narrow-shouldered man with a regular face that was too fine to seem effectual.
Edwina, her eyes brilliant, her voice halted by a slight gasp, seemed elated by
her new conquest.

She kept saying: 'Oh dear, I'm sorry I'm late,'
and even Simon could guess why she was late. He wanted to get away from her.
Guy, meeting his appealing glance, said they had no time to talk. Simon was due
back at Helwan. Cutting short Edwina's excited chatter, he helped Simon back
into the waiting car and took him away from her.

Harriet had settled into a pension recommended by
the waiter behind the café bar. It was called the Anemonie, a large, draughty
building, dark inside and, in wet weather, very dark. It had a garden where a
mulberry tree spread its crinoline of branches over a long table and
half-a-dozen rickety chairs. The rain lay in pools on the table-top but Harriet
could imagine the tourists sitting out to dine in the long, indolent twilights
of peace-time summers.

The war had ended all that. The pension
proprietors, Monsieur and Madame Vigo, were surprised when Harriet arrived at
the door but they admitted her. They lived in an out-building and kept
themselves to themselves, so Harriet had the whole pension to herself. Madame
Vigo, who served her meals, spoke French and Arabic but she could make nothing
of Harriet's anglicized French or her Egyptian Arabic.

Harriet knew the Vigos were curious about her
and wondered what she was doing there, alone in Syria. Now that her escapade
had lost impetus, she wondered herself.

The dining-room, where she ate alone, could have
accommodated fifty or sixty guests. At night a single bulb was lit behind her
seat and the large room stretched from her into total darkness. She would have
been glad to have her meals with the Vigos but they maintained their privacy
and were not relenting for Harriet's sake. The food, that was cooked by
Monsieur Vigo, was served in a businesslike way by Madame Vigo who put the
plates on the table and immediately made off.

After supper, Harriet would sit on at the table,
afraid to go up to the bedroom floor where thirty or more empty rooms led off
from a maze of corridors. Wherever she went, there was silence except for the
creak of the boards beneath her feet.

She wondered how long she could bear to stay
there? How long, indeed, could she afford to stay there? And when she went,
where would she go?

During the day, she walked about the streets or
sheltered in doorways from the rain. The shopping area was much like that of
any English town except for the Arabic signs. The real life of the place was in
the covered souks. When the sun shone, she could see the Anti-Lebanon with its
sheen of snow, but this was not often. It was winter, the rainy season, and
most days a foggy greyness overhung the town. Harriet's suitcase was filled
with light clothing intended to see her across the equator. Her winter clothing
had been forwarded to the ship and she could imagine it going to England and
lying unclaimed at Liverpool docks. She could not waste what money she had to
buy more and so, conditioned to the heat of Egypt, she shivered like an indoor
cat turned out in bad weather.

Wandering aimlessly beneath the sodden sky, she
felt persecuted by the Abana, a river in flood, that would scatter out of
sight into a drain only to reappear round the next corner, its rushing,
splashing water enhancing the air's cold. She began to forget that she had been
ill most of her time in Egypt and she longed for the sumptuous sunsets, the
dazzling night sky, the moonlight that lay over the buildings like liquid
silver. She remembered how the glare of Cairo produced mirages in the mind, so
vivid they replaced reality, and she forgot the petrol fumes and the smell of
the Cairo waste lots.

There were no mirages in Damascus. Instead,
there was rain and she could escape that only by returning to the pension or by
pushing her way through the crowds in the big main souk, the Souk el Tawill,
the Street called Straight where Paul had lodged in his blindness. Here there
were tribesmen, hillmen, businessmen in dark, western suits, peasants, donkey
drovers and noise. She was astonished by the energy of the crowds and after a
while, she realized her own energy was returning. The Syrian climate was
restoring her to health. She felt she could walk for miles but wherever she
went, she was on the outside of things, a female in a city where women were
expected to stay indoors.

One morning she found the souk in a state of
uproar. Something was about to happen. The roadway had been cleared and the
crowd pressed back against the shops. The shopkeepers had pulled down their
shutters and become spectators, straining then-necks and bawling with the rest
of them. Harriet, at the back of the crowd, stood on a piece of stone, remnant
of a Roman arcade, and looked over the heads in front of her, eager to see what
was to be seen. While she waited, she became aware that one man in the crowd
was not looking expectantly down the souk but looking up at her. He wore a dark
suit, like the businessmen, and was holding a flat, black case under one arm.
He was a thin man with a thin, sallow face and a way of holding himself that
denoted a self-conscious dignity. Catching her eye, he bowed slightly and she,
tired of her own company, smiled and asked him: 'What are they all waiting
for?'

'Ah!' He pushed his way towards her, speaking in
a serious tone to make clear the honesty of his intentions: 'They are waiting
for a political leader who is to drive this way.' He paused, bowed again and
said: 'May I offer you my protection?'

'Good heavens, no,' she was amused: 'I don't
need protection. I'm an Englishwoman.' Then, the noise becoming a hubbub, she
looked for the political leader and saw him being driven slowly between the two
rows of excited onlookers. He was standing up in the back of an old, open Ford,
and, as the enthusiasm became frantic, he waved to right and left, grinning all
over his fat, jolly face, seeming to love everyone and being loved in return.
His followers screamed and applauded and, drawing revolvers from waistbands,
fired up at the tin roof of the souk. There was a frenzy of gunfire and
pinging metal and Harriet felt she had been unwise in refusing any protection
she could get. She looked to where the sallow man had stood, holding his black
case, but he was no longer there and she feared her answer had driven him away.

As the Ford passed, the crowd pressed after it
and Harriet could safely get down from the stone and walk back to her solitary
meal in the pension. If she had replied to the man in a more encouraging
fashion, she might have made a friend. But did she want a friend who looked
like that? She liked large, comfortable men. She wanted a large, comfortable
man as friend and companion, like Guy but without his intolerable
gregariousness. If Guy were with her, he would not be a companion. Nothing
would get him into the Ummayad Mosque or the El Azem Palace. She had spent too
much time bored by left-wing casuists; she thought marriage with Guy had been
hopeless from the start. They had never enjoyed the same things.

But without Guy, she was not enjoying herself
very much. And her money would not last long. Having paid for her first week at
the pension, she realized she would soon be in need of help. And where could
she find it? The only person to whom she could turn was the British consul and
he would advise her to go back to her husband. She thought: 'What a fool I've
been! If I'd gone on the evacuation ship, my whole life would have changed. In
England, I would have been among my own people. I would have found work. I would
have had all the friends I wanted.'

A few evenings later, coming down to supper, she
heard voices in the dining-room. Several more lights had been switched on and
three people - a man and two women - were sitting at the table next to hers.
The man was talking as she took her seat and went on talking, though he gave
her a covert stare, then broke in on himself to say: 'You were wrong. We aren't
alone here. There's this young lady: black hair, oval face, clear, pale skin
-Persian, I'd guess!'

Harriet did not blink. His words having no
effect on her, he returned his attention to his two companions and talked on in
an accent that at times was Irish and at other times American. He was large but
Harriet would not have called him comfortable. The women seemed insignificant
beside him. His milky colouring and heavy features produced the impression of a
Roman bust placed on top of a modern suit. It was a talking bust. Served with
pilaff, he forked the food into his mouth and gulped it as though it were an
impediment to be got out of the way. The pilaff finished, he threw aside his
fork and gestured, shooting his big, white hands out of his sleeves and waving
them about as he discoursed on the origins and cultures of the people of the
eastern Mediterranean. The two women gave him so little attention they might
have been deaf but Harriet, having been cut off from conversation for a week,
listened intently.

'Now, take the Turks and Tartars of the
Dobrudja,' he said. 'And the Gagaoules - Mohammedans coverted to Christianity
and then converted back to Mohammedanism! They speak a language unknown
anywhere else in the world.'

At this statement, Harriet could not help
catching her breath and the man instantly swung round. Pointing his fork at
her, he said: 'Our Persian lady is asking herself what on earth we're talking
about.'

Harriet laughed: 'No, I'm not. I know what
you're talking about. I used to live in Rumania.'

'Hey, d'ya hear that?' he gawped at the women:
'The Persian lady speaks English.'

'I am English.'

'Well, what d'ya know!' He stared at Harriet
then told the two women: 'She's not Persian after all.' Quite unaffected by
this revelation, the women went on with their meal.

Harriet said: 'May I ask what you are? Irish or
American?'

'I'm neither. I'm both. I'm an Italian who's
lived both in Dublin and in the States. I acquired an Eire passport because I
thought it was the answer to life in these troubled times, but it's been a
goddam bother to us. No one in the occupied countries will believe that Eire
isn't part of England and as much at war as you are. To tell you the truth,
we've stopped trying to stay in Europe. It's too much trouble. So we've shaken
the dust and here we are monkeying around the Levant gathering material for my
book. You've probably heard of me: Beltado, Dr Beltado, authority on ancient
cultures. And this here's m'wife, Dr Maryann Jolly, another authority, and this
is our assistant, Miss Dora O'Day.'

Dr Beltado looked at Dr Jolly and Miss Dora as
though expecting them to carry on from there, but neither showed any interest
in Harriet.

Dr Beltado spoke to cover their silence: 'You
are called
...?'

Harriet said: 'Harriet.' Dr Beltado again
referred to his wife but she remained unmoved. She was a small, withered woman
and, Harriet now saw, not to be disregarded, and Miss Dora, physically like
her, was her handmaiden. Together they owned the large, flamboyant Dr Beltado.
They might ignore him, they might even despise him, but no one else was going
to get him. Harriet need not try to enter the group.

Having no wish to compete for Dr Beltado's
attention, Harriet looked away from him and pretended not to hear when he
directed remarks towards her. Their meal finished, Dr Beltado asked Madame Vigo
for Turkish coffee and he and Dr Jolly lit Turkish cigarettes. The warm,
biscuity smell of the smoke drifted towards Harriet like an enticement and Dr
Beltado said: 'How about coffee for the Persian lady?' Harriet did not reply.
She would remain apart but in her mind was the thought: 'In one minute, Guy
would have had them eating out of his hand.'

The dining-room door opened a crack and someone
looked in. Beltado said under his breath: 'Here's that guy Halal.' There was no
welcome in his tone but lifting his voice, he shouted: 'Hi, there, Halal, nice
to see ya. Come right in.'

Glancing up through her eyelashes, Harriet saw
that Halal was the man who had offered his protection in the souk. He gave her
a swift look and she suspected she was the reason for his visit, but he went
directly to Beltado's table and, bowing, said: 'Good evening, Dr Jolly and Miss
Dora. Good evening, Dr Beltado. Jamil has asked me to deliver an invitation.
This evening he has a party and would ask you to his house.'

'Is that so?' Dr Beltado beamed and was about to
accept when Dr Jolly's thin, dry voice stopped him: 'No, Beltado, we are all
too tired.' She lifted her eyes to Halal: 'No. We have spent the day driving
from Alexandretta.'

Dr Beltado began: 'Perhaps if we just looked in
to say "hello"
...'
but Dr
Jolly interrupted more firmly: 'No, Beltado.'

Beltado shrugged his acquiescence then, as
though not wishing to waste the occasion, pointed to Harriet: 'Why not take Mrs
Harriet! Believe it or not, she's English.'

'I am aware of that.' Halal looked towards
Harriet and bowed. A slight smile came on his face as he remembered her avowal
in the souk: 'If she would care to come, she would be made most welcome.'

'Thank you, but I'm just going to bed.'

'Bed! At nine o'clock, a young thing like you!'
Beltado waved her away: 'Go and enjoy yourself. See one of the big Arab houses.
It will be an experience.'

Yes, an experience! Knowing it would be
faint-hearted to refuse, Harriet smiled on Halal and said: 'Thank you, I will
come.'

'That's right,' said Beltado approvingly and as
she passed him, he patted her just above the buttocks as though encouraging her
towards an assignation.

A large car stood outside the pension gate. 'I
suppose this is Dr Beltado's?'

'Certainly, yes. Few own such cars in Syria.'

'Do you know him well?'