‘I’m sure you are, Jacques,’ I answered, smiling, ‘but have you ever tried to bring hashish into Egypt?’
‘No, never, but nothing could be simpler. I can go anywhere with my suitcase in my hand without anyone thinking of asking what it contains.’
‘Yes, but – the customs?’
‘Oh, at Suez you can land easily outside the customs limits. I should be there with my valise, and there you are. Just think, thirty pounds; what a marvellous deal!’
I was greatly astonished to see that this soft-living, rather timorous Jew had a taste for adventure and risk. But he did not realize what such an adventure involved. He saw himself as a cinema hero. And I’m sure if I had had hashish there he would have run all over Egypt with his suitcase, so taken up with his romantic role that he would probably have done wonders. I smiled at the thought, but all the same I had often made use of the same expedient to spur on my failing courage. One can face danger more bravely if one imagines an audience hangs breathless on one’s every movement. Sancho and Don Quixote, all the time. So I needn’t have laughed at Jacques.
‘Everybody in Egypt dreams of making money by smuggling hashish,’ went on Jacques.
‘Yes, but there’s a dangerous precipice between dream and reality.’
I listened with amusement while he expounded his ideas on how to smuggle hashish. After all, why not leave him his illusions? They did not harm anybody. We decided to go out for a walk.
‘Where shall we go?’ asked Jacques.
‘First of all I must buy some clothes; I’m rather a scarecrow in this khaki suit.’
‘I know the very thing for you. We’ll go to my brother Abraham’s. He has a ready-made clothes shop.’
So we went to this other brother’s. He was of the same type, but older, and pallid with living in the darkness of his shop. He declared that he could do nothing for me in this shop, as here he had only very cheap articles which, alas, were often sold at a loss. And he sighed despairingly.
‘Come with me,’ he added briskly; ‘I’ll soon get you what you want.’
He put on his hat and we set off across a veritable ghetto. We stopped for a moment at his other shop where he sold second-hand clothes. Gorgeous uniforms, evening clothes, fur-lined overcoats, hung side by side, and from among them crept out the manager, a little round-backed jew with damp hands. Abraham said a few words to him and we went on our way.
At last we reached our destination, a third shop belonging to Abraham. There were only Jews in this quarter; every street was full of them, and every single one seemed to know Abraham. We had to go into several shops, shake hands, ask the family news, have a coffee, and so on. Naturally, since Jacques said ‘thou’ to me and Abraham treated me as an old friend, everybody thought I was a Jew too, and this allowed me to see the little Jewish shop-keepers in their true colours. Anyhow, I had always had a secret sympathy for this race, eternally oppressed, docile and meek, who are called cowards because they have often the courage to appear to be afraid. From this inside view I was now getting I saw that this humble appearance often covered an unbelievable tenacity and ferocity when it was a question of money.
The moneylender would patiently bring about the ruin of a debtor until it was safe for him to pounce. He would take the jewels off a corpse to pay himself for an unsettled debt. He would steal from the orphan if he legally could. And all this with the calm implacability of an automaton. Yet the same Jew would work himself to death to educate his children, follow the most humiliating occupations in order to keep his old parents, or even distant relatives, and he would be most charitable to a fellow-Jew in distress. In them slumbers a mysticism old as the race and change less as time. When by some chance their fierce commercial instinct is deviated from its ordinary aim, then this mysticism comes to the surface and accomplishes wonderful things. This Jewish humility, this resignation of a persecuted race, would appear to be a sort of hoarding of the genius of the race so that it can be used for these sublime exceptions, for prophets and great revolutionaries.
THIRTY-SIX
How History is Written
Jacques came to the station to see me off. We spoke of Massawa, and always the conversation came back to the shipwreck in which Zanni had disappeared, the strange death of old Saïd Ali and the miraculous saving of his treasures.
‘Ah, all years aren’t the same,’ sighed Jacques. ‘I have just spent two absolutely wasted months shut up in Massawa. I couldn’t go to the Dahlak Islands as I generally do; simply couldn’t get a permit. So all the Arab brokers, free to go where they liked, snapped up wonderful bargains under my nose.’
‘But why couldn’t you get a permit? You never had any trouble in previous years. The governor is generally very obliging towards foreigners.’
‘It wasn’t his fault; indeed he was very sorry fie had to refuse me. It is a new military regulation. It appears that there was an attempt at a Turkish invasion of Eritrea at Takalaï, a place on the coast a little to the north of Massawa. The colony was under arms, two battle cruisers were sent from Italy, and a regiment with artillery was stationed at Takalaï since it was acknowledged that this was a vulnerable point.’
‘At Takalaï, did you say? What was the date of this alleged invasion?’
‘It happened a little over a month ago, but thanks to the courage shown by the native soldiers it didn’t succeed. A corporal nearly captured a disguised Turkish officer, who was probably Saïd Pasha himself. A rope-soled sandal was found, and the secret police discovered that the general is in the habit of wearing this rather unusual type of footwear when he is not in uniform. It was the same size as he wears, too. If this attempt had succeeded, Massawa would have been surprised and surrounded and all communications cut off.’
But I had subsided in a gale of inextinguishable laughter.
‘Stop, stop, Jacques,’ I cried; ‘I was Saïd Pasha, and this famous sandal was one of my Catalan espadrilles. As for the Turkish squadron, it was simply my boutre.’
Jacques looked at me with dilated eyes; I could see he thought I had gone suddenly mad. I should have to explain the affair in detail, as otherwise he would never be able to reconcile what I had stated with these wild fictions of the Italian imagination, so I told him the story the reader already knows.
‘All the same,’ I said, ‘I sent a letter from Kosseir to the Governor of Asmara, to let him know of the behaviour of this native, who had declared himself an askari of the Government, but who had no uniform to prove it, and that for this reason I had refused to obey his insolent orders. I’m surprised that that did not settle the whole affair.’
‘Probably your letter arrived after my departure, and I knew nothing about it. But you were wrong to write; the affair has become very serious now, and has been mentioned in the newspapers. Take my advice and don’t go back to Massawa, since you are to blame for this panic. I believe the Italians would show more indulgence now towards someone who really had tried to take their colony by force, than towards someone who came and said they had been tilting at windmills.’
‘On the contrary,’ I replied, ‘I shall stop there. I have nothing on my conscience, after all, and if the Italians have made fools of themselves it’s not my fault. Besides, all this is only supposition and I think you take a very pessimistic view, considering how kind and obliging the authorities at Massawa have always shown themselves towards strangers. No, I really have no reason for avoiding the place, especially after writing that letter.’
‘You are absolutely crazy. They will make you pay for the whole ridiculous business. They are quite capable of having you shot just to teach you to make jokes at their expense and have the whole world laughing at their Government.’
‘No, Jacques, you are letting your imagination run away with you. That would cover the army with shame without making it a whit less ridiculous. I think they will rather ask me to keep my mouth shut, for I’m sure my letter was kept secret.’
I left Jacques all upset, and he said good-bye to m
e with tears in his eyes, convinced he would never see me again.
THIRTY-SEVEN
A Pair of Poltroons
I reached Cairo at midnight. Gorgis was not on the platform waiting for me, but I thought this of no importance, since I knew his address. I went out of the station, but hardly had I given up my ticket when a young man put his hand on my shoulder. He had all the appearance and gestures of a plain-clothes policeman. He read this thought in my eyes, and smiled as he said:
‘I came to meet you off the seven o’clock train; you were expected to dinner.’
These words reassured me, but all the same I remained on my guard, and to show this young man how cautious I was I said:
‘But who are you? I don’t have the pleasure of your acquaintance.’
‘I am in the employment of Gorgis,’ he answered, still smiling. ‘He could not come to meet you, so told me to take you to your hotel. Stavro arrived at noon. We have had news from Omar; everything went off very well. But it is injudicious to go straight to his apartment, and that’s why I came to meet you.’
This explanation showed me that this young man knew all about my affairs, and my distrust vanished. He amiably took hold of my suitcase, and said he knew me already, having seen me in the funeral undertaker’s establishment. He was a young man of about twenty-six, dressed quietly; indeed, it was obvious that he tried to be as little noticeable as possible. Every item of his dress had been chosen so that the general effect should be absolutely ordinary and without originality, so that in any kind of crowd he would have passed unremarked. That was what had made me think he belonged to the police, for such individuals, invisible in a crowd, have something odd about them when seen alone and out of their usual surroundings, something which causes them to be classed among those functionaries who are called in French slang ‘saucepans’. This youth’s face, too, was unremarkable, a face one would forget, a sort of average of all the faces of a crowd. He spoke all European and Oriental languages. He knew all the secret police of Cairo, Port Said and Alexandria, and pointed out several of them to me as we went along. The carriage with the silent coachman which I had already seen was waiting for us outside the station, and took me to the hotel where I had already stayed. The landlord welcomed me with a knowing air. Stavro was there too, it seemed, but he was asleep, for I heard snores coming from under his door.
Next morning the young man who had met me at the station called for us and took us to the funeral undertaker’s shop. Gorgis was there sitting behind his desk. He looked grey and worried, and his features were drawn as if he had slept badly.
‘So everything went off all right, it seems?’ I asked.
‘Great God, I hope so,’ he replied in Italian, ‘but I have been waiting for Omar for an hour; he was to come and confirm the news. He should have been here long ago. Last night he came to see me at ten o’clock to tell me of some uneasiness due to the movements of the police, of which Michael had informed him.’ Michael was the young man I had taken for a detective the night before. He had discreetly left us alone, and was busy scratching spots of paint off the shop windows. A boy wearing a long Egyptian gandoura placed cups of Turkish coffee on one of the luxurious coffins laid out for show in the entrance. I was not quite accustomed to this furniture yet.
‘No, no,’ said Gorgis, ‘not there, I beg you. You will make stains; take the table over there and put the cups on it.’
While the boy was carrying out this order, Gorgis went up to one of those glittering coffins, opened it carelessly, chatting the while, and took out of it a tray on which were caviare, rolls of fresh butter, toast and lemons. When this tray appeared, a superb Angora cat which had been lying on a window-sill, rose, mewed, arched her back, and sprang lightly to the ground, then went, purring, to rub herself against her master’s legs.
‘Ha, ha, brigand; that’s what you were waiting for,’ said Gorgis, stroking the cat; ‘if I hadn’t put it where you couldn’t get at it, you would have lunched before me, as you did yesterday. Come, captain,’ he added to me, ‘let us lunch. I was waiting for your arrival to taste this caviare which arrived yesterday from the Sea of Azov. It is a special fresh caviare which the Captain of a Russian steamer brings me every month.’
I need no second bidding to taste such delicacies. Gorgis helped me as if he were ladling out porridge, and advised me to eat it like that by the spoonful without bread. It was pitiful, he said, to see people making mean little sandwiches when they ate caviare. He always ate at least a pound, so that he really got the taste of the stuff, and then it looked rich and impressive to do so. He gave a pleased smile when he saw how taken aback I was at this gastronomic extravagance. But suddenly he grew grave; Stavro had just come in. He had left me at our hotel door to go and see what he could find out.
He had a sinister air, and when Gorgis invited him to join us, he replied in hollow tones:
‘No, thank you, I’m not like you, I’m not light-hearted enough to eat this morning.’
And with a weary gesture he put down his enormous hat on a coffin and heaved a profound sigh. Gorgis felt his throat tightening with apprehension, the mouthful of caviare he had just smilingly carried to his lips refused to go down. While Stavro was speaking his face had become greenish and his features all twisted. In a few seconds he had aged ten years. The giant let himself fall heavily into a chair and explained that an order had been given that no ship was to leave the roads of Suez. Nobody knew the reason for this. Perhaps at this very hour Omar was already in a prison. And if he were cleverly cross-examined and harassed with questions, goodness knew what he might not let out.
As he said these words, which fell on the air like a passing-bell’s tolling, Stavro shot a secret glance and almost imperceptible wink at me. Michael continued to scrape paint, and his face bore a look of suppressed laughter. I realized that Stavro was pulling Gorgis’ leg. He was taking a malicious pleasure in terrifying his wealthy partner and showing me what a coward he was when any danger threatened. Perhaps, too, he wanted to make me forget that he himself had acted just like Gorgis the day before, when Djebeli had stopped his narrative to light his cigarette at the candle burning before the icon.
In the twenty years these two men had worked together they had constantly staged these little comedies. Each time the other fell into the trap, and his partner felt very brave and superior. Stavro took a special delight in his victim’s distress because of my presence.
A tall shadow crossed the threshold; it was Omar. He came in wrapped in his black cloth mantle, smiling, calm and majestic as usual. As he passed in front of a neighbouring café he had motioned to the waiter to bring him a water pipe. He replaced his coral-beaded Mohammedan rosary in his silk girdle, saluted us and sat down, stretching out his beautiful hand immediately for his beloved pipe. Once he had got it going, he listened to Gorgis’ anguished questions. His smile did not fade, he declared that Stavro’s fears surprised him very much. A Bedouin had arrived during the night to tell him that the caravan had safely arrived at its destination. Certainly there had been a police alarm, but it had nothing to do with hashish. Gorgis mopped his streaming forehead, and began taking long breaths like a diver who had come up to the surface. His habitual air of self-possession returned, and he darted a scornful glance at Stavro, the coward, who looked meekly at the floor as if overcome with confusion, but hid a smile under his heavy moustache.
The accounts had been prepared, and Gorgis handed me a thick roll of bank-notes. I seated myself at his big desk and counted them. Business was now over; my venture had succeeded. I must now be thinking of getting home, and decided to employ these last few hours in making a few necessary purchases. Gorgis lent me the faithful Michael as guide. This young man spoke French very fluently, and we had taken to each other at once.
‘Did you notice,’ he said, laughing, ‘how these two cowards spend their time frightening each other? It’s always the same. If it weren’t for me goodness knows what awful bloomers they would have made owing to their r
idiculous terror at every shadow.’
‘Have you known Gorgis long?’ I asked.
‘He brought me up, in a way, and now he takes advantage of the fact to exploit me. What do you think he pays me? Ten pounds a month and a small present of forty or fifty pounds occasionally when he has put through a deal on which he makes ten thousand.’
‘Why do you stay, then?’
‘Yes, I know I am a fool to stay, but where could I go if I left him? I have no trade; all I have been taught is to serve Gorgis’ interests. I’ve never had time to think of myself. Besides, my mother and sister are dependent on me, and I can’t expose them to the risk of want if I didn’t manage to get work elsewhere. Anyhow, Gorgis is not a bad fellow – at heart he is fair enough. And he has a very commanding personality. If ever I open my mouth to grumble, he quells me with one look. He is very good at making slaves of people.’
He was a curious fellow, this young Hungarian; intelligent, active, remarkably gifted as are so many slaves, but without will-power; bound to his master by a very complex sentiment, into which entered fear, gratitude, some affection and the bitter regret of his wasted life. The whole mixture gave a blind devotion.
This was Gorgis’ great power. This ex-sailor, illiterate though he was, had this faculty of binding men to his service. They criticized him, they realized his faults and suffered from his egotism, but an indefinable charm caused them to love him without knowing why. Stavro felt like this about him, and I’m not sure that I didn’t myself.
THIRTY-EIGHT
The Mysterious Drug
I wanted to play my role of tourist conscientiously, so I went to see the Pyramids. What a disappointment they were to me; I thought that the majesty of the desert completely overwhelmed them. The only thing one might possibly admire is the stupendous human effort it must have been to build them, and this sort of admiration demands the mentality of a German tourist. The smallest hill which rises in the solitude of the desert is more grandiose than those geometrical volumes surrounded by cafés, photographers’ booths and imitation caravans, with black-coated clergymen perched on camels. The sphinx is lamentable. Nose in air and mouth wide open, it seems to be listening to the droning of the guide. A Hen Doktor from some obscure university north of the fiftieth parallel was writing postcards to his students on the monster’s paw, while his family opened tins of sardines, dreaming dutifully of the forty centuries which contemplated them.
Hashish Page 24