Desertion

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  Martin listened silently to their unwearying reiteration of their difference from the niggers, which had now come to mean more or less everyone they had forced to submit to their rule. It was not only the British. He had listened to similar exchanges between other Europeans, the French and the Dutch, or even Poles or Swedes who had no natives to rule over or pronounce imminent doom upon. He had a reaction to this kind of talk. It made him feel ill. It made him feel nervous of being overheard. He wondered if Burton had sensed his distaste for what he was saying, and was exaggerating to irritate him, or whether it was the gin.

  ‘Come, come, Pearce, I mean Martin, old fellow,’ Frederick said, slightly drunk and slightly tetchy, perhaps because Pearce would not take sides against the vulgar fantasy Burton was entertaining. ‘What think ye of all this? Here we are, 1899, what thought of the new century? Will we do better than our resolute predecessors? Will this place be cleared of its natives, and be turned into a kind of America, or will we see these chumps become civilised and hard-working subjects? Come, let’s hear from you, my good sir.’

  ‘I think in time we’ll come to see what we’re doing in places like these less heroically,’ Martin said. ‘I think we’ll come to see ourselves less charmingly. I think in time we’ll come to be ashamed of some of the things we have done.’

  ‘An anti-Empire wallah,’ Frederick said delightedly. ‘Come now, Burton, let’s hear what you think of that.’

  ‘As for these beasts we have come so far out of our way to improve,’ Martin continued, at the same time wishing he had not spoken at all, ‘we owe them care for the way we have intruded in their ways of life.’

  Burton turned away with a look of sneering disgust. ‘We don’t owe them anything but patience,’ he said, ‘until their time comes. Like the same patience you would show a dying animal. We didn’t make them live and die like beasts. All that we owe them is the patience to allow them to put themselves out of their misery.’

  ‘Burton, you sound like a beast yourself sometimes,’ Frederick said, making a face of distaste. ‘I have no doubt you’re right, Martin, especially when we come to recall these ugly prophecies Burton is so fond of. I don’t expect it’ll be any better than the century we’re limping out of. You can’t expect much of any century that closes off its account by snuffing out a mind like Oscar Wilde in the way that it has.’

  ‘Oscar Wilde!’ Pearce exclaimed, laughing. ‘Oh, we’ve done a lot worse than that.’

  ‘I tell you, if I thought Burton was going to turn out right in his predictions,’ Frederick said, stumbling slightly over his words, ‘I’d pack up and go home tomorrow and to hell with the Empire. These are fantasies of those lunatics Burton spent so much time with down there in South Africa. Greedy Englishmen and Dutch fanatics have fuddled his sharp scientific mind with their predictions of extinguished races. That is not what the empire is about. You never heard any of that kind of talk in India.’

  ‘Africa is not India,’ Burton said. ‘And even there, what the empire has shown is that Indian ways are antiquated. There is no point to them any more. The best they can do is allow themselves to be superseded by us, to imitate us as best they can. But even that is better than what we have here. India is an antiquated civilisation which has come to the end of its useful life. Here there is nothing but beasts and savagery.’

  ‘You are such a ranter,’ Frederick said, filling up the glasses. ‘If you think they’re such beasts, why are you teaching them cricket?’

  ‘For the comedy. It’s certainly not because I think there is a Ranjitsinhji among them,’ Burton said, smiling at his own struggles with the name.

  Martin got up late the following morning, feeling exhausted from the effects of the drink. His early morning tea was cold by his bed, and Hamis had rolled up the mosquito net without waking him. He found Frederick at his desk, in white shirt and baggy khaki short-pants, knee-length stockings and shiny brown shoes, still writing his report on the previous year’s customs and tax returns. Burton had left for the estate at first light. ‘On his donkey,’ Frederick said, leaning back, smiling. ‘You get all sorts in the colonies, don’t you? He’ll be back on his estate this morning, striding about and pitching in as if he’s one of them, up to his thighs in muddy ditches. If he’s in the mood later this evening, he’ll sit with his workers and have a sing-song, or tomorrow afternoon he’ll turn them out for a game of cricket. Then in a few days he’ll be back here on my veranda saying how they are all dying from encountering civilisation, and we simply have to wait for them to perish like dying animals. He likes to act the hard man, the practical and unsentimental technician who is only interested in efficiency. Yet he’s something of a thinker, very serious about his work. How’re you feeling? You look a bit . . under the weather. Still exhausted, I should think. Terribly hot this morning.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m made of the same stern material as you two when it comes to drink. There you are, clean-shaven and blooming, smiling happily and dutifully turning the wheel of Empire, whereas I feel like something evacuated by a beast. Hamis brought me my tea and rolled up the mosquito net, and I didn’t even wake,’ Martin said.

  Frederick laughed. ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s only because you’re still exhausted. We’ll have you hardened up in no time at all. Actually, I’m not sure I can take this stuff quite as I used to. It wears you down in the heat. Yes, Hamis can be quite subtle about his duties. Do you think there’s anything in this idea that blacks have a natural instinct for such things? Who was it who said something about the black man being ideally suited for the avocation of one’s person? Was it Dr Johnson? No, it was Melville. That story about a slave rebellion. He writes a rough-hewn prose, I think, but perhaps appropriate to his subject. Ha, try getting one of those Masai warriors to avocate about your person. It will be short of one or two vital items in no time, if the stories are to be believed. I was thinking about your trudge across the wilderness out there this morning, and all the terrible ordeals you had to go through. No, no, my dear Pearce, there’s no need to make light of them, although I would’ve done the same thing myself if I’d had the fortitude and courage to survive such ordeals. I was thinking about those murderous cut-throats who were your guides and protectors, and their thoroughly disgraceful treachery. Who can fathom the minds of these people? I remember you said something about struggling through that terrifying landscape on your own, and I know then, at the time, I thought of Browning’s ‘Childe Roland’, you know, and that terrible passage to the Tower. I don’t like Browning, do you? I can’t get on with him, all that enjambment sticks in my throat. But this morning I thought no, not Browning at all. Not ‘Childe Roland’, but Swinburne. Swinburne is the one. Are you a poetry man, Martin? It was something you said last night about the new century. I had a look at Swinburne this morning and found these lines. They are quite improbable, you might think, and nothing to do with what you said, but I hear an echo there. I hope you don’t mind, I marked them to read to you:

  Only the wind here hovers and revels In a round where life seems barren as death.

  The poem’s nothing to do with landscape, I know – all about the death of love and so on, good old Swinburne – but it was that image of a forsaken place, a wilderness parched and cruel when once it must have been otherwise. I wondered whether you were right, whether despite all our efforts, what has been eating out the heart of this continent will eat out the rest, and there’ll be nothing left here after us.’

  Frederick looked at Martin for a long moment, his eyes round and molten. Martin looked back silently, unable to think of anything to say. He saw that Frederick was moved by his own words, his own thoughts, and he felt he should say something in return, but he was struck dumb by the self-regard in Frederick’s expression, nothing left here after us. Frederick smiled, ‘You’re right. There’s nothing we can do about it so we might as well do our best and, well, make the most of it. I think I can smell the coffee. So Martin, what are you planning today? Shall I lend you Swinburne? Do
you think he’s a great poet? He’s incorrigibly gloomy and a pukka grumbler, but by God he can write. Would you care to put your feet up and wallow in a bit of penance and remorse?’

  ‘I thought I might go down to the water and take a stroll along the beach,’ Martin said, glancing over his shoulder towards the veranda. Frederick rose from his desk and the two of them walked across to look at the bay.

  ‘The sun’s too strong for a stroll, I think,’ Frederick said. Plenty of traffic down there as well, people have been sleeping on the beach. Look at that beach, look at the filth on it. I’ll have to put some notices up when they’ve cleared off. Do Not Litter, by Order. Or Off With Your Heads. Too late this time. The monsoons are beginning to turn, that’s why those boats are turning up from Mombasa and beyond, loading up. When you lift your eyes the bay looks lovely out there, doesn’t it? No good for real shipping, though, especially when the monsoons begin. The swells can drive a ship aground in no time. Apparently it’s worse when the north-easts are blowing. They had just finished when I arrived. The debris on the beach then had to be seen to be believed. They blow right into the bay and the sea comes up to the road there, and any ship caught in the bay then ends up on the beach or worse. Only those Bajun dhows and other local craft can manage around here. The rest have to anchor out in the roads round the headland. These winds beginning now are the south-wests, and the headland cuts out some of the swells. The dhows, they can snuggle into the curve of the bay safely. Do you see them? They’ll load up there and take all the trade goods to Mombasa and Lamu to wait for the winds. It’s been a good year, I’m told, and those are our customs duties down there. Except for t wretches who smuggle themselves out in the dark, the misera e malcontents. Can you see, down there in that shed? They’re weighing everything that is being loaded on those boats, to make sure Her Brittanic Majesty gets her share in return for our calming presence here among them. It’s quieter in the afternoon. We can go for a stroll then, and the sun is not so oppressive.’

  ‘Thank you, this afternoon will be a perfect time,’ Martin said, because he guessed that Frederick did not want him to go out into the crowd of people, but was too polite simply to forbid him. Could a District Officer forbid him from going for a walk? Frederick the Tyrant, in the antique and benign sense, who knows best and expects to be obeyed, even though he disguises caprice by understatement and self-deprecation. Well, his disapproval as a host so far-away from home was a kind of forbidding, especially when the guest had arrived in such a needy state. It would be ungrateful not to comply. Though what Frederick thought would happen to him in that throng of busy people Martin could not tell. Perhaps he feared he would be offended as he picked his way through the sparse bits of litter and the scattering of dead ashes from the cooking fires. Or perhaps he wanted to accompany him, to show him his dominion himself.

  ‘Ah, here’s the coffee. Then a good dose of Swinburne for you while I finish this damned report, then lunch,’ said Frederick. ‘I like lunch.’

  They went for their walk in late afternoon, Frederick compact and blond in his baggy short-pants, the hair on the bare parts of his legs thick and golden like a pelt, a pipe gripped in his teeth through the lush bronze moustache. Martin assumed this was the public figure of the strolling colonial officer, a figure of relaxed authority. Martin himself was clean-shaven and had had a haircut but was still in borrowed long trousers that were not long enough for him. The frantic activity of the morning and early afternoon had subsided, and they passed people sitting outside houses, or strolling or sitting under a tree, and boys running on the beach or swimming. ‘It’s only a tiny dilapidated town,’ Frederick said, frowning, ignoring the remarks shouted at them from amidst a group of young men sitting in the shade of a tree but returning the greetings of the older men with a small salute of his own. ‘But it has a lot of history. Some of it is pretty fanciful, I must say, Egyptians and Greeks sailing down this way for ivory in ancient times, that kind of thing. There’s a persistent one of a runaway Persian prince who establishes a kingdom which founds the mongrel Swahili civilisation,’ Frederick bared his teeth as he said the last word but it was not clear whether he was smiling or snarling. Perhaps he was only wincing at the word, to indicate its inappropriateness in the context. ‘The Persian came down here on his magic carpet, no doubt. There’s some truth in it, I’m sure, but it’s dressed up in exotic rubbish to beguile idlers. I suspect the people who built these old towns were the same ones that Burton was calling pirates last night, and not runaway princes of any kind. What we do know is that when the Portuguese arrived here this was already a prosperous place, a rival to Mombasa. There was trade with China, so it’s said, although I have my doubts about that. If the Chinese came all this way in the fifteenth century, why did they then turn around and go back? It’s a long way to China, why didn’t they stay and take charge down here?’

  ‘Perhaps because they decided that there wasn’t anything here that was better than what they had at home,’ Martin said.

  Frederick looked at him with a grin and then nodded. ‘Well said, old chap. Anyway, by the time the Portuguese finished with this town, it was not much more than a decaying coastal settlement. You know what they were like, plunder and loot and fanaticism. Then the town almost disappeared, under assault from the Galla and the whatnots from the interior, who camped and defecated on the ruins for centuries, until the sultan in Zanzibar decided to revive it. The land is poor but productive enough, and we’re introducing new crops all the time. There’s a future, I think.’

  As they walked past the mosque on the seafront, Martin hesitated. A group of older men were sitting on the baraza outside, all bearded, some eminently grey, some turbanned. The courtyard door, which was ainted with a green wash, was open, and Martin saw two doors along the side of the wall of the mosque proper. He took a step backwards and saw that there was a third door, and when he saw that he smiled, recognising the traditional architectural style even in a mosque of this modesty, even this far-away from its origins. One of the men said something and Martin’s smile broadened, and then Martin said something back. The men shuffled interestedly, smiling and exchanging gleeful surprised looks while further exchanges followed. Martin waved to the men and they walked on.

  ‘My dear Pearce, I am most thoroughly impressed,’ Frederick said. ‘What were they saying?’

  ‘Oh, the first man said it’s a good time for a stroll, and I said perhaps he should join us. Then he said he has already had his exercise. Just pleasantries. I’d love to see the inside of the mosque, another time,’ Martin said, glancing at Frederick’s short-pants.

  ‘How come you speak the language? You’re not some kind of . . . er, government . . . representative, are you?’

  Martin laughed. ‘Do you mean a spy? He spoke in Arabic, and I’ve been in Egypt this last year and a bit, advising in the department of education. Interfering, rather. And intefering in the department of antiquities whenever they let me, looking at buildings and charts. I think I learned a great deal more than the unfortunates who had to listen to my advice.’

  ‘Of course you were, silly of me,’ Frederick said, leaning back to give Martin a frank admiring look. ‘I can stir a bit of Hindustani myself, especially if I don’t have to understand what the other fellow is saying. Well, it’s impressive nevertheless. I should commandeer you and keep you here. Burton can push a bit of Swahili, but I don’t think he could describe the destiny of British possessions in Africa in that language. It’s more carry that, bring this, and don’t ever do that again. It doesn’t sound right when you hear him in spate. How he gets that estate to function as remarkably as it does is a mystery. And talking of Burton, he insisted that we visit him on the estate as soon as you feel up to it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Martin said softly.

  ‘Oh, he’s all right. He lets off steam after a drink, and gets frothy about the white man’s destiny, but he’s all right. He gets abrasive like that to provoke. I think he’s a bit of a beachcomber, you know, ha ha
ha.’

  ‘I don’t think I know what you mean,’ Martin said.

  ‘Well, you know, beachcomber. Those chaps in R. L. Stevenson who abandon ship for a bit of a fling with the native girls. Or am I thinking of Melville again? But R.L.S has plenty of beachcombers as well. I imagine Burton gets up to a bit of that up there on that estate. Oh God, I mustn’t slander the poor fellow, take no notice of me, I’m just making it up.’

  They followed the curve of the bay, leaving the edges of the town to their left. Soon, some thick gnarled vegetation forced them inland for a few yards, and when they rounded that they saw ruined stone buildings between them and the sea. ‘Here you are,’ Frederick said. ‘The tomb and the mosque of the sherif. I can’t tell you very much. You’re the antiquities man. I’d say sixteenth century, after the Portuguese had finished with this place.’

  The mosque had three arches along the side wall. Martin smiled again and almost said something to Frederick about Persians on a magic carpet but he did not. Some of the mortar had perished and there was no roof left, and the back wall had collapsed, but the mihrab wall was still standing, the mihrab itself in perfect condition. The surround of the mihrab was a square arch, within which was the pointed arch of the qibla. Above the mihrab was a tablet of a different stone, perhaps marble, with writing on it. The late afternoon sun reflected off the bare coral floor and glowed golden in the qibla enclosure. He stepped through the single arch of the other side wall, and saw graves and collapsed walls, and beyond that, partly in the shade of a huge mimosa tree, the pillared tomb of the sherif. Compared to the graves and the walls of the outbuildings, it was clear that the tomb was maintained. The pillar was whitewashed and unblemished, standing several metres high, higher than the lower branches of the mimosa. It rose from the head of the tom which was rectangular and open at the top. Each corner was formed into a small cupola, topped with a knob of brass or bronze. The tomb itself was not quite so well-maintained as the pillar, the repairs had not been whitewashed and some of the mortar had gone black with moss. Martin saw a porcelain plate set in the wall below the pillar, with ornate writing in Arabic script, too ornate for him to decipher at a glance. Martin again remembered his notebook, and wished he had it with him to make a drawing of the ruins and the tomb. It had been with him throughout his time in Abyssinia and Somalia, and even after his guides abandoned him, but he must have lost it in the scramble to safety.