by Damon Galgut
How could it be otherwise? He wanted things to be well with his friend, but there was no doubt that he’d been displaced. Since his last visit, the tenant had moved downstairs, and the more spacious top floor—two rooms, a paved hall, a kitchen and bathroom—had been taken over by the young couple. There would be no more lying snugly together in the warm dark; Morgan had his own room now.
Nevertheless, the emotion between them was unfeigned, not to mention deepened or, at the very least, renewed. Life was more or less in balance and, though it was hard that some distance had intervened, it wasn’t unfitting that it should have happened now. It was one’s duty to be optimistic, and it helped in this endeavour that his relations with Mohammed, though surrounded by complexity, were in themselves simple. In a certain way, things between them didn’t change. It was the greatest event to touch his life so far, and it made him proud. In some indefinable way, he felt he had grown up, he had become a man. Something had finally happened to him.
This knowledge consoled him in his last two months, which were otherwise difficult. He had to prepare himself for the future. Great events had blown him here in a strange, anomalous gust, and now they would carry him back again. He dreaded his return. He was glad that the War had ended, of course, but he suspected that the world had changed irrevocably and he doubted it was for the better. Everything he had heard about England in his absence had deepened his idea of it as a dirty place: its manners, its morals, its thinking, all contaminated by the fighting, infused with a dark, new, compromised spirit.
And although he had resisted and strained inwardly against it, Egypt had touched him more than he knew. It was hard to think he might never come back. He had started writing his book on Alexandria, and consequently the city had taken on a different solidity. It had become freighted with history and legend, not a small part of which had to do with Mohammed.
The work was far from finished and this aspect of the country, at least, he would be taking back home to England with him, to complete. Everything else he would be leaving behind. Now that it was inevitable he almost wished he could slip away without any final moments: board a ship at midnight, fade into the dark.
But Mohammed would be all right, he thought. The consumption, if that’s what it was, seemed to have been beaten down in time. When Morgan returned to Mansourah for a last visit, his friend had a physical fullness he hadn’t seen for a while. It was heartening that his health did seem so much better. He had fattened out a bit and hadn’t coughed up blood, he said, in many weeks. He no longer felt perpetually exhausted.
All this was good, and the sound of Mohammed giggling with his wife, privately, in their room, didn’t bother him as much as before. He was leaving his friend better off, he thought, than when he’d first met him as a tram conductor in Alexandria, living in one rented room with not much money, perhaps not lonely but certainly alone.
Though when the two of them went for a walk early on the second morning, into the fields outside the town, Mohammed became plaintive. They had a good life in Egypt, could Morgan not stay? Why did he want to go home? He had asked these questions in letters recently too; he knew how to work on Morgan’s weakest places.
“Do you think I haven’t thought about it? I don’t want to go, but I’m afraid I must. I have obligations. I have my mother.”
“Fetch Mother back here with you to Egypt. She will be my mother too.”
“That isn’t possible.” He smiled into his moustache at the idea, but at the same time it gave him a pang to think of how little Mohammed had understood of what his English life was like. How he wanted to mix the two! To bring Mohammed to his home, to show him to his friends and relations, let them think what they liked. It would be such a relief not to care.
But in fact it had only been two or three weeks before that he had mentioned his Egyptian friend to Lily for the first time, and he’d been careful to slip in a reference to his marriage.
“Can you not find me a job in England? I will come immediately.”
“I’ll try,” Morgan told him insincerely. “But I think you wouldn’t be happy.”
“Anywhere you can find work for me, I am gratitude to you. Even India. I should like to travel there with you next time you go.”
“Perhaps one day you will,” Morgan said—but that idea was impossible too. India was another life, another love; he couldn’t think of bringing Mohammed there.
The flat landscape they were strolling through reminded him very much of Cambridge, stretching away mistily to knots of trees and farm buildings. They climbed down into the bottom of a ditch, where Mohammed undid his trousers to allow Morgan to fondle him for a few minutes. He was only half-hard and Morgan only half-enthused. Neither of them commented on what they were doing, and it didn’t seem important to bring matters to a climax.
Two weeks later he stood at the rail of the ship that carried him away. Water in every direction, no land visible. Nothing solid to fix on. The farewell that preceded this journey was as difficult as he’d feared, in part because it contained no meaning; everything that mattered had come before. To dwell on it was pointless and, perhaps for this reason, his mind wasn’t with Mohammed, but with the poet.
Morgan had gone to see him a few days before in the Rue Lepsius to say goodbye, and they had stood on the balcony, drinking raki, looking out towards the eastern harbour. In the dusk, all the faults and failures of the city were annulled; a soft breeze carried in from the sea.
The two men had chatted in their usual desultory way on historical topics, before a silence crept in between them. Then Cavafy had said, “So. You are going home.”
“Yes.”
“How I wish to be going with you. I have always thought of myself as an English subject, even though I am a Hellene.” He sighed happily. “But I am used to Alexandria. Even if I had money now, I’m not sure that I would move, though the place disturbs me. A small city can be a great burden, don’t you think? For a man like me, an unusual sort of man, a large city is essential.”
“I don’t know. I have never lived in a large city myself.”
“I should leave this flat, certainly. Though on the other hand, I have everything I need here. There is the brothel downstairs, which caters for the flesh. There is St Saba nearby, where my sins may be forgiven. And there is the hospital opposite, where I may die.”
Morgan had heard this joke before and soon afterwards, when Cavafy fell to wondering aloud whether to move or to install electric lighting instead, he knew that it was time to go.
From the street below, he turned to look up. The pale face was still visible on the balcony, and even from a distance it seemed inscrutable and strange, an oddity in what surrounded it. His mind went back to the visit three years before when he’d heard the first poem. “The God Abandons Antony”. Bid farewell to her, to Alexandria whom you are losing. He waved a hand and perhaps the poet waved back, it was hard to be sure.
* * *
From almost the first instant he stepped ashore in Gravesend, the country that revealed itself to him was one he knew, and also did not recognise. He tried to break the surface, to sink into what he knew. He rushed about, visiting friends and family. He stopped with Aunt Laura and the Bargers and Edward Carpenter; he saw the Merediths in Belfast and took a two-week holiday with Goldie in Lyme Regis. But it rained without stopping at Aunt Laura’s and Florence was a wonderful confidante when one was writing to her but, alas, a little dull as company, and Carpenter more interested in lecturing than in listening, and Hom’s family life was depressing, along with Goldie’s gloom and misery over the state of the world, although the cottage they stayed in was nice.
If he kept dashing about nevertheless, it was because sitting still was painful. And at home of course there was his mother, from whom he felt even more removed, owing to the Great Events he had to keep from her.
Though what mattered most had to stay concealed, confessi
on lurked always just below the skin. Past and present almost came together one morning at the breakfast table when he opened a letter from Mohammed, telling him that Gamila was pregnant. If the child was a boy, his friend added, he would be called after Morgan. This was more than Masood or India had ever done for him, and he found himself knocking over the milk jug and becoming disproportionately upset. He was appalled at himself for making a scene.
But Lily was unexpectedly sweet to him, stroking his hand while he struggled to explain.
“It’s my nerves,” he said. “I haven’t yet accepted that I’m home. It was a great strain, being away for so long. I meant to be gone for three months, and it turned into three years.”
His voice sounded brittle to himself, but his mother was unusually in tune with him. She had been making an effort since his return, and he’d been pleased to be welcomed—for the first time since his childhood—by family prayers read in his honour. The emotion between them was best contained in ritual.
“I too thought it would go on forever,” she murmured. “Or the end of my life, at least.”
Which was nearer now than before. She had noticeably aged while he’d been gone. In shape and thickness, she was more than ever a pillar; time had smoothed away some of the sharper edges. Nevertheless, he resolved afterwards not to put himself into her power in that way again. It wasn’t safe to break in front of her; the truth had a way of seeping through the cracks.
His one moment of weakness aside, Egypt could usually be held at a distance. The closest he could come was in writing about it. He was still busy with his Alexandrian book, which carried him back in imagination at least, but now he also began writing journalistic articles and reviews, many of which were about the country he’d left behind.
For the rest, it was a topic best reserved for the breakfast table, where the newspapers provided fodder for outrage. The end of the War had stirred up hopes in many subject peoples, and some of these hopes had been dashed. So Egypt bubbled and stewed, while loud voices shouted from mosques and Coptic pulpits alike. Blood had been shed, and at first it was English blood.
“Forty dead,” Lily announced in shock one morning, the headlines vibrating in her hand.
“Really, it is one thousand and forty. But the thousand are Egyptians, and they don’t count.”
“Don’t be unreasonable, Morgan. You can’t expect me to care about people I don’t know, ahead of my countrymen.” After a moment she conceded: “You, I suppose, do know an Egyptian or two.”
Of course it was true: his main, abiding fear was for Mohammed. He saw everything now through his eyes. His loyalties had crossed the front lines and there were whole days when he felt quite limp with anxiety and outrage. When he read about Egyptians being arrested, Egyptians being shot or jailed, he saw only Mohammed’s face. Though the outlets for anger were small, limited to rhetorical flourishes in certain newspapers.
Then, in the middle of the upheavals, a letter came, written in French, from a village near Mansourah. Mohammed had been arrested, it told him; he would be in jail for six months.
Nothing more was explained, but it sent Morgan into panic. He wrote back immediately, but the reply that followed didn’t make the situation any clearer. All that he understood was that a fine of ten pounds needed to be paid, or Mohammed’s sentence would be extended by three months. He paid the fine.
At the same time, the news coming in from India was equally disturbing. First reports were short on detail, but there had been some kind of massacre in Amritsar. A British general, confronted by a seditious crowd, had decided to let loose on them with rifle-fire.
Morgan’s own memory of Amritsar was sketchy: he had visited the Golden Temple hastily, between trains, under a threatening storm, and retained only a vague impression of water and marble, and of holy books being fanned to keep them clean of impurities. He didn’t know anybody there. So it was hard to visualise the shooting, the panic, the death, in the way that he could in Egypt. Perhaps because it was far from the recent theatre of war, India had fallen somewhat off the mental map of late.
Out of these events, a longing to see Masood came over him. He had avoided thinking of his Indian friend for some time, but now he allowed himself to dwell on him again and on some of what had passed between them. That tall, powerful frame, that long, handsome face with its despondent eyes and droopy moustache! Oh, he had missed him, though he couldn’t allow himself to know it; he had felt the physical distance between them intensely, and the more painful distance that had opened between their lives, which was impossible to measure.
Masood was at present in Paris, attached in some vague, informal way to the Peace Conference. He would be drifting over the Channel shortly, and would continue to drift afterwards, among his English friends—at least one of whom was filled with anxiety at the prospect. Morgan wanted the coming reunion so badly that he pretended he didn’t want it at all.
But when the moment finally arrived, it was as if Morgan was twenty-seven again and Masood was coming for his first Latin lesson. He was late, as always, and with the same distracted assurance he’d shown on their first meeting. Though age was wearing on him—he was noticeably stouter, his face a little looser—he remained tall and comely, his eyes were still sad, and his talent for rhetoric was undimmed. “Ah, my first and only English friend,” he cried, picking Morgan up in his arms and planting kisses on the top of his head. “I have thought of nothing but this doorstep since setting foot in Europe!”
It wasn’t true—he had bought a whole new wardrobe in Paris and had seen many mutual friends already in London—but Morgan forgave him everything.
“I am happy to see you, Masood.”
“Happy? Happy? What a pale, pathetic English word. You must not be ‘happy’ to see me. No, you must be enraptured, transported! You must be overjoyed. I have no use for ‘happy’. Let me come inside, please, I am desperate for tea.”
He greeted Lily and the maids with the same mournful ebullience; he had brought gifts for everybody, and his large spirit infected them all. He overflowed a sofa languidly, and his voice twined through the house. He had become very loud and orotund, and his inertia was wearying, but by the time he moved on a couple of days later the mood that hung over England like a pall seemed to have lifted a little.
Morgan saw him again a few times over the coming weeks. The vague dread of anticipation had given way to a renewal of intimacy. They didn’t talk about what had happened in India; that was on the other side of the world. Instead they spoke about the last six years and how their lives had changed.
It took Morgan a while to mention Mohammed. Against all logic, he felt that this transfer of affections somehow constituted a betrayal. But eventually, blushing and stammering, he came out with it. “I had what you might call a romance. Or no, more accurately, it was love. While in Egypt.”
“Yes, yes, it was obvious. You were dissembling with me.”
“I was angry with you.”
“I know, I am guilty of everything, I deserve the most extreme punishment, but let’s not talk about that now. I want to hear about your great love affair. I demand to know everything.”
They were circling the pond in Regent’s Park at the time, a long autumn afternoon waning slowly around them, and the happy commotion of children and dogs and ducks only underscored for Morgan the strangeness of what he was describing. Had he really done those things? None of it sounded real. Yet once he started speaking, he couldn’t hold back.
When Morgan mentioned Mohammed’s child, he saw Masood flinch.
“He has named his son after you?”
“Yes, there is a little baby Egyptian named Morgan. Well, it is only his second name, but still. I am very pleased. Born last month.”
He couldn’t help himself; he wanted to punish Masood a little. His Indian friend by now had two sons, Anwar and Akbar. He had asked Morgan in an airy way whether he woul
d be a guardian to his boys, but it was a gesture, nothing more, and both of them knew it.
Now Masood sighed and waved a hand and said, “I will name all my future children in your honour.”
“No, you won’t. You will promise and promise, and do nothing.”
“I have already conceded, I am a failure as a friend. Forgive your wretched servant, please, who cares only for your welfare.” Masood took his hand and slapped him lightly on the wrist.
“What was that for?”
“It is punishment, for your recklessness.”
“Do you think I have been reckless?”
“You have been courting danger, yes. You know it very well.”
“But you don’t resent my happiness?”
“How could I, when it is what I want most in the world? I am glad for you, my dear fellow. But you must promise me that you will be more sensible and careful in the future. What is going on now with this tram conductor of yours?”
Mohammed’s experience had wrecked the whole year for Morgan, the more so because he couldn’t speak openly about it. Now he did, and the relief was palpable. Mohammed had eventually been released from prison, after four months inside. Only then had he related what had happened. In his version, two Australian soldiers had tried to sell him a firearm, which was tempting, because of the lawless state of the country. But he had refused their price, insulting them in the process, and in revenge they had had him arrested for trying to buy a weapon. It was a serious charge. He had been sentenced to six months’ hard labour and a ten pound fine. In prison, he had been beaten and badly fed and treated with contempt.
Morgan couldn’t entirely believe Mohammed’s account of buying the gun, but he didn’t say so, out of loyalty. And there were other elements of the story that he couldn’t mention either—such as, for example, that Mohammed had performed sexual favours on the guards in order to obtain leniency, nor that he spoke openly now of his hatred for the English, calling them cruel, and of his desire for revenge. These things might not reflect well on his friend.