by Desmond Cory
“I see,” said Johnny. “Was there any message?”
“A message, Well, no.” Yusuf fingered the lobe of his ear. “I rather believe that Mr. O’Brien was hoping to see you personally. Of course - I do not suppose he would wish to interfere with your plans …”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Johnny.
“It is, is it?” The brown eyes remained plaintively questioning. “There is, of course, another boat leaving in two days’ time. Quite soon, don’t you think? And Mr. O’Brien was most anxious that you should see him before you leave.”
“I should be very glad to see Mr. O’Brien,” said Johnny, slowly and distinctly. “And I can easily catch a later boat.”
“Yes? That is really so? Then perhaps we may … Yusuf made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Allow me to take your case. The broken arm is always very inconvenient.”
“It is, yes. Thank you. Have we very far to go?”
“No. It is near, it is quite near. We shall not need a taxi.” They walked together away from the Company’s office and towards the palm-furred avenue that linked the harbour with the town. “You speak English very well,” said Johnny.
“Why, thank you. Yes, I speak English all I can. I have been nearly five years in England, as a matter of fact; in Hertford and London. Do you know Hertford and London?”
“Both.”
“Ah yes? I enjoyed my stay. I learned a great deal there, too.”
“Of English?”
“That, of course. Yes. Naturally. But I was also a student of Art.”
“Then you’re an artist?”
“A sculptor, to be exact.” Yusuf flashed his first white-toothed smile in Johnny’s direction. “A sculptor, in my small way. Yes - of course - I have travelled a lot; not only to England. Also to France and Italy and Spain and various Eastern countries.”
Johnny nodded. “And you’re an old friend of Mr. O’Brien?”
“Indeed yes. I met him many times in Cairo. We belonged to the same little … artistic circle, as you might put it.”
Johnny nodded again and walked on in silence. He could hardly imagine O’Brien as a member of any conceivable variety of artistic or literary tertulia; still, O’Brien was a versatile character, and anything was possible where he was concerned. If it came to that, Yusuf did not look much like a man of artistic inclinations; he looked more like a Desert Song brigand, improbably rigged out in a faded and slightly shabby tropical suit. But his tie, of green cotton, was perfectly knotted and, beneath their thin coating of dust, his black European shoes shone with a determined lustre. A neat dresser, Yusuf, though not of expensive tastes …
Certainly, though, he had the broad, powerful yet precise hands of a sculptor, and wrists pitted with numerous tiny scars. “When did O’Brien arrive in Tripoli?” Johnny inquired suddenly.
“He called on me at seven o’clock this morning. Well, imagine my surprise! I hadn’t seen him for well more than a year … or it must have been eighteen months.” Yusuf looked dubious. “He remembered, of course, that I am an early riser. So we breakfasted together.”
“He was hungry?”
“Yes, very hungry. And he seemed to be rather hurt.”
“About what?”
“About the left shoulder. He was in some kind of a motor accident, I understood. I wished him to see a doctor, but …” Yusuf shrugged his shoulders. “He insisted it was nothing. A very strong-willed person, Mr. O’Brien.”
“He’s strong all round.”
“Please?”
“He’s very strong-bodied.”
“Oh yes. Naturally. Yes, he is. Extremely strong in the body. He is quite amazingly strong; as strong as a bull. Oh yes. Of course.”
Perfect accord having been reached on this point, Johnny and Yusuf turned up a side-street that led from the palm-tree avenue between the whitewashed, clustering houses of the encroaching native town. The heat instantly closed down upon them ferociously, and there was made manifest an interesting variety of smells. The Arab stopped and looked inquiringly at Johnny.
“What do you think of Tripoli, Mr. Fedora?”
“I’ve only just arrived,” said Johnny, with truth. “I haven’t had a chance to take a look round me yet. At first glance, it seems quite a fascinating place.”
“I find it so,” said Yusuf eagerly. “I definitely find it so. Most engrossing. And beautiful, too. I much prefer it to Cairo. Cairo is spoilt. Don’t you agree?”
Yes, Johnny agreed.
“Tripoli not so much. Tripoli hardly at all. The Italians, of course … but not so much. I hope you will like Tripoli, Mr. Fedora. One of our Arab poets once called it the flower of cities.” He paused, considering this striking image. “I am very fond of our qasidas; though Shakespeare perhaps is better. Would you care to step inside?”
“Um? Oh, thank you,” said Johnny. He had not realised that they had, in fact, arrived at their destination, and was taken partly by surprise. Yusuf’s house was large and white; the hall was floored with blue glazed tiles and before the door there dangled a heavy bead curtain. Johnny brushed it aside and entered.
“I don’t use the patio much. Perhaps you would care to come straight through into my work-room? There is a verandah giving a delightful view of the sea … You might care to sit there and to take a glass of tea.”
“That would be nice. And O’Brien?”
“Oh, I think he is out at the moment. But soon he will be back.”
Johnny looked up at the sky that yawned, blue and clear, above the confining walls of the patio. There were ferns and creepers growing down from brown pots on the walls, and windows giving on to other corridors of the house. In the corner, an electric fan buzzed quietly to itself, turning eternally round and round like the head of a snake in search of something to strike. The palm of Johnny’s good hand felt hot and moist; he felt a curious and sudden surge of claustrophobia.
“Where has he gone?”
“To take a look round, I suppose.” Yusuf’s voice was restful, soothing. “Mr. O’Brien is very fond of Tripoli. He has been here several times before … But you must not worry, he will surely be back to lunch.”
Johnny was not exactly worried. Everything seemed to be all right. And in the past, when anything had been wrong, some intuition normally dormant had always wakened to warn him; had made him ready to expect and accept his danger. So it had been in the past. But could it be that so long a spell in Africa had dulled that sense? That in learning so much of the ways of beasts of prey, he had forgotten something of his hard-earned knowledge of the ways of human carnivores? Well …
He wasn’t sure. But he knew that, at any rate, he was not revealing his inner uncertainty; and this, his only certain knowledge, lent him a little confidence.
“Well, where do I go? Through here?”
“Yes, if you please. The first door on the left …”
Johnny went through.
“… If you will excuse me now, I’ll see that some tea is prepared.”
The door closed behind Yusuf; almost, but not quite, silently. Johnny stood, his left shoulder brushing the whitewashed wall, looking round the room, the big room. On the far side were french windows, three or four of them, and one of them open, and through the slightly distorting panes of glass was the slightly wavering blue line of the sea’s horizon. The room itself was light and airy, divided as though by a ruler into two unequal parts; to the right, the smaller of the sections, was what approximated to a sitting-room, European style, with comfortable cane chairs, a table littered with English, French and Arabic periodicals, a bookshelf laden with small brown-paper-covered volumes. To the left was, evidently, a sculptor’s studio; blocks of unworked stone stood over by the windows, two or three semi-shaped pieces stood on pedestals nearby, and elsewhere was a jungle of completed works, mostly of a black stone, but some in a greyish-white marble … Some of these had overflowed into the sitting-room, and one or two newspapers had escaped into the studio section; but, by and large, t
he division was surprisingly clear-cut.
Johnny walked across to examine the assembly of finished statues. So far as he could tell - he was no expert - they were rather good. One of the largest studies was of a knight, maybe a Crusader, reclining on one elbow; his face held a strange half-stunned, half-pensive expression. This Johnny liked particularly. He liked it because he could feel that the knight, near to death, had been accepted by the stone on which he lay and of which he had been shaped, had been accepted and immortalised by it; a fossil figure, yet brought by the Arab’s skill and the stone’s durability into contemporaneity …
Johnny moved on, occasionally running his finger over smoothly chiselled stone, enjoying the sensation … None of the others impressed him as strongly, however, as had the dying Crusader. There were a number of busts, strongly sculpted with an emphatic line, a number of slim-waisted nudes of varying degrees of eroticity, and a few convolutionary designs in what Johnny assumed to be abstract form … He surveyed the as yet unrecognisable shapes on the pedestals, weighed in his hand one of Yusuf’s chisels, picked up and dropped again a linen sculptor’s cap powdered with marble dust. Then the door swung open and Yusuf came in.
“We shall take tea very shortly,” he announced. “Please be seated, Mr. Fedora.”
Johnny obediently sat down in one of the cane chairs beside the open window. “I was just looking at your work,” he said. “I like it very much.”
“You do?” Yusuf’s eyes melted to pools of liquid chocolate; he pulled a chair nearer to Fedora’s side. “You appreciate art?”
“Very much. I was wondering what stone you used.”
“It is marble,” Yusuf explained. “Tripoli marble. Unusual, isn’t it? … I believe I am the only artist in the world to work with this stone. I am very proud of it.”
“I like it,” said Johnny firmly.
“One misses the glow, the lustrousness of Carrara or Servozza stone. I realise that. But one must use African stone to deal with African subjects, and this is the most convenient. It is good stone, quite indomitable.”
“… Indomitable?”
“Is that not the word? It is workable, but only in the right way. You see, you cannot impose your own ideas upon it. You must try to realise what the stone wants, what its potentials are. One can do good work only then. One must study stone, think stone, if possible live with stone …” Yusuf paused and, with a clean handkerchief, removed a trace of spittle from the corner of his mouth. “Which of my works do you like the best, Mr. Fedora?”
“I like the dying knight, I think.”
“Ah, really? Yes. Yes. ‘The Crusader.’ Well, I quite agree with you. It is much the best thing here. There was a companion-piece … now in a private collection …” Yusuf surveyed his handiwork meditatively. “It is odd you should like that one.”
“Why?”
“Because it now reminds me a little of Mr. O’Brien.” He replaced his handkerchief with a flourish.
“In what way do you mean?
“I hardly know. It is nonsense, really. I did not even know Mr. O’Brien when I was working on it. It’s no more than a feeling I have.”
… Really, thought Johnny, he spoke English extraordinarily well. But then, the abilities of the intelligent Arab had always been something of a phenomenon … And the Arab genius only reached its flower when partly degenerate …
The Crusader, broad-bladed sword in hand, frowned towards the stone; his thoughts were turned inwards, to the heart of the rock, and remained untraceable. Beside him, a woman raised peach-like breasts towards the fingers of the sun. The one naked and seeking life; the other clothed in a mystery of stone and seeking, finding, the darkness within himself …
Well, O’Brien had certainly picked an excellent cave for refuge …
6
He came in a little before lunch, and there was something changed about him. A change that was not clearly evident; it amounted to no more than a slight clumsiness of movement, a hardly discernible torpor, together with a pallidness of forehead and temples that might have been caused by the heat. He shambled into the room like a great red-headed bear, and seated himself heavily in the chair that Yusuf, some time previously, had vacated. “Well, Johnny,” he said, “it’s good to see you.”
“The pleasure’s mine, and I’d hardly expected it.”
O’Brien grunted. “I thought old Yusuf would manage to spot you, if you came this way. How’s the arm behaving?”
“Pretty well. How’s the leg and the shoulder?”
“Leg’s no trouble at all.” O’Brien raised his foot from the ground as though to offer it for inspection. “Shoulder’s still a bit painful, though. I’ll get a doctor to have a look at it as soon as I get to Italy.”
Johnny nodded. “Why not here?”
“I don’t feel like chancing it. My God, they rumbled me quick enough yesterday.” O’Brien laughed sharply. “I was dodging in and out of a whole posse of cops about three o’clock this morning. Lucky, wasn’t it, that I got out when I did.”
“It looks that way. I got your note all right.”
“Uh-huh. Well, what are your plans?”
“… I was going to take the morning boat when Yusuf picked me up.”
“Like to leave tonight, instead?”
“Tonight? There isn’t a boat.”
“Yes, there is. I’ve fixed it all up. Crooked-looking customer of an Arab skipper’ll take us as far as Piraeus. I don’t see myself leaving on the old Dunia - me, Dangerous Dan McGrew. I’d surely be nabbed.”
“Yes. You probably would. But what’s the idea?”
“H’m?”
“Why do you want me along?”
“Well, I don’t like to lose friends so easily.” O’Brien crossed one leg over the other. “I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking that we might go into business together, over on the other side. I’ve got a good contact in Athens—”
“But I’m not a flier,” Johnny pointed out.
“That’s just it. What I’m really going to want is somebody to keep an eye on things down below. Somebody who’s knocked around a bit, with his head screwed on pretty firmly.” O’Brien swung his foot back and forth, moodily. “You know, I messed up one of the nicest business deals I ever made … up in Ankara, that was … all through not having a reliable business partner. Swore I’d never make that mistake again.”
“Then did you have a partner before?”
“Before the spot of bother in Kenya? Oh yes, certainly I did. Only he was a flier, too. He’s sort of retired.”
“I see.” Johnny sucked his teeth thoughtfully. “And what kind of business would we be entering?”
“Depends. We’d have to see when we got there. But probably something in the gentlemanly smuggling line. O’Brien looked towards the door for a few seconds. “No drugs, mind you. Nothing nasty. I’ve always drawn the line at some things. But there’s quite a wide field nowadays for operators in other kinds of material … I’d provide the capital, of course; or arrange it, anyway. That’s understood.”
Johnny said, “I thought you were broke.”
“So I am. At the moment. But it’s like I said … I’ve got a good friend here. He’ll be visiting me this afternoon.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here. Where else? Hang around and meet him, if you like. He’ll be here at four, if he gets my message … And he’ll get my message all right.”
Well, thought Johnny; and stroked his chin. We could have been wrong about Bailey …
“How do you feel about it, Johnny?”
“Seems a good idea to me. I’ll come along to Piraeus, anyway … But I’m not going into any business of that kind blindfolded.”
“Hell, no. I quite see that. We’ll talk it over when we’ve seen what Athens has to offer. And if things don’t look so good, we’ll move straight on to Rome.”
Johnny nodded. “What would you have done if I hadn’t reached Tripoli today?”
“I’d have sail
ed. I’ve got no choice. But I’d have picked you up again all right, in Europe.” O’Brien got to his feet, picked up a small bust of a young man and tossed it pensively into the air. “What d’you think of this place?”
“Tripoli?”
“No, I mean this place. This house.”
“Oh … It seems all right.”
“Was lucky I remembered it.” O’Brien replaced the bust on the bench. “Used to know Yusuf in Cairo. He was my translator, for a time. Intelligent beggar.”
“Not a bad sculptor, either.”
“God, I wouldn’t know about that. He has other sidelines, of course.” O’Brien grinned maliciously, and ran his hand over the plumped-out marble thighs of a woman frozen in a kneeling position. “Doesn’t do too well out of it, though - he can’t be all that intelligent.”
“I don’t know that I’d care to be in his bad books, for all that.”
“Eh? Well … Why not?” O’Brien seemed genuinely surprised. “Hell, I’d pull his head off if the little squirt tried any of his fancy tricks on me. He knows it, too. But you needn’t worry about Yusuf … We’ve got him where we want him.”
Johnny stretched his fingers along the bamboo arm of his chair, and made no comment. “… Let’s have lunch,” said O’Brien.
After they had eaten, O’Brien went comfortably to sleep in the chair he sat in; while Johnny sat opposite him and smoked one cigarette after another. The big man slumbered heavily, his jaw collapsed upon his chest in a most unprepossessing manner … He was not, Johnny thought, in any way to be regarded as a thoroughly wholesome character; nevertheless, in his own odd way he was not unlikeable. And Johnny was sufficiently sensitive to find his own role of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds more than a little unpleasant.
Well, he had found O’Brien; somehow Emerald would have to be notified. Whatever was taking place at Bir Azahara was of a nature to make personal loyalties comparatively unimportant; Emerald was a man who knew the value of such loyalties, and would never have asked Johnny’s co-operation had he not known the issues involved, estimated them and arrived at his decision honestly. Yes, he would have to be informed. But it was not so easy … not at the moment. Later in the evening there might be an opportunity to reach discreetly for a telephone. Now it was almost four o’clock, and O’Brien’s visitor was, presumably, approaching …