Land of Marvels: A Novel

by Barry Unsworth

  He had known that it would not be easy, and so it proved when the time for talking came. The firm had suffered something in the nature of a traumatic shock in 1903, when Sultan Abdul Hamid had granted the newly formed Baghdad Railway Company the right to construct modern port facilities at Baghdad, with the further prospect of extending the line to Basra and thence to a terminus on the Persian Gulf. In the eleven years that had elapsed since, the fear and rage aroused by this threat to the firm’s fifty-year-old monopoly of the river trade from Baghdad to the Gulf had scarcely abated.

  Rampling explained the terms of agreement that had been reached in the Anglo-German negotiations the previous month in London. They would know them already, but the positive aspects needed stressing.

  “A contract was made with the railway company,” he said. “It was signed by me as director of the British and Mesopotamian Navigation Company and witnessed by Herr von Kuhlmann of the German Embassy and Sir Eyre Crowe of the Foreign Office. In it were confirmed the exclusive rights of navigation by steamers and barges on the Tigris, Euphrates, and Shatt al Arab already granted to a new company to be formed by me, the Ottoman River Navigation Company, in which Mr. John Lynch will be one of the directors. It is true that Turkish capital has been offered, and has accepted, a fifty percent participation, but this is entirely without prejudice to the rights of the Lynch Brothers. In fact the firm has been granted the privilege of adding another steamer to their fleet with the sole proviso that it should fly the Turkish flag. Also, the firm and I in partnership together will be assigned by the railway company a forty percent participation in the proposed Ottoman Ports Company, with responsibilities for the construction of port and terminal facilities.”

  It was not a compelling argument, he knew; he himself had gained considerably from the recent convention, but there was no way of disguising the fact that the sun was setting on the firm of Lynch Brothers, that the railway would take away their time-honored privileges, reduce them to smaller fish in a pond that was getting bigger all the time.

  “They will go back on it,” Saunders said. “There will be further meetings, further agreements, further amendments to existing agreements. All this foreign capital coming in. You can’t trust these people to keep their word.”

  “Turkish capital is foreign then?” Rampling’s snarling smile came briefly. “Ours isn’t, of course.”

  It was clear that Saunders found this not worth answering. “Those contracts are not worth the paper they are written on,” he said. He was a tall, gaunt man with a waxed mustache and eyes that slanted downward slightly, giving his face a doglike look, faithful and sad.

  Rampling was capable of a good deal of patience when his own interests were involved, but he felt a certain irritation rising in him now. “Let us be frank,” he said. “You’ll find they are worth something if you try to contravene them. That you are in danger from competition is true, but to a great extent it is your own fault. Your firm was founded back in the 1850s, you have had a virtual monopoly for more than half a century. It was a different world then, life was more leisurely; people were not in such a hurry. Things have quickened up, Mr. Saunders. In today’s terms the service you are offering is inadequate, and that is to express it mildly. I have had recent reports on the matter. It is not uncommon for goods to stand for months on the wharfs of Baghdad and Basra waiting to be shipped. And the charges are unbelievably high. It costs more to send freight down the Shatt al Arab than it does from Baghdad to London. You know these things as well as I do.”

  “With all due respect, Lord Rampling, these questions of costs and delays are largely irrelevant.”

  “Irrelevant?” Rampling’s unruly eyebrows rose in an expression that seemed one of genuine astonishment. He looked across at Balakian, whose soft brown eyes had noticeably widened.

  “Or at least they are of minor importance. The exclusive privilege enjoyed by our company in the river trade is highly important to British commerce; that goes without saying, but it is of equal, and perhaps greater, importance to British prestige throughout the whole region. We are the river trade. We regard the custody of this privilege as our patriotic duty. The principal partners in the firm will not surrender it to a foreign power under any circumstances, and in this we have the backing of the government at home.” Saunders’s speech had quickened with the emotion of these words, but his face still kept its look of sad fidelity. “Over our dead bodies, sir,” he said, “over our dead bodies.”

  Rampling took a deep breath, faintly rasping, clearly audible. It was not often that he was presented with the idea that exorbitant charges and unconscionable delays were elements adding to national prestige. But he knew better than to argue the matter; accusations of mismanagement and incompetence brought out a strain of patriotism in his fellow countrymen like almost nothing else. “Well,” he said, “let us hope it won’t come to that.” There would be a large number of dead bodies in Mesopotamia before long; those of the senior partners in the firm of Lynch Brothers would not affect the balance much.

  He paused for some moments longer to let the atmosphere of heroic sacrifice clear a little; then he said, “Let us look at the facts in an objective manner, Mr. Saunders. The Tigris is a very shallow river, and it winds about a great deal. Its course is subject to constant changes owing to floods and the formation of sandbanks and shoals and so on. Nothing new about this; it has always been so, but it is not ideally suited to boat traffic, as I am sure you will agree. It takes five days for a steamer to travel from Baghdad to Basra—and that is in favorable weather. The distance can be covered by rail in a single day, whatever the weather. Now there is a logic here, sir, and wrapping ourselves up in the Union Jack will not protect us from it.”

  “As I have said, sir, we have the backing of the government.” Saunders’s face had stiffened, and the line of his jaw had become more prominent. “Lord Curzon has denounced the railway as a threat to our empire in India, and he carries the majority of the House with him.”

  Rampling turned to the agent, who had taken no part in the discussion but gave every appearance of listening intently. Balakian represented various commercial enterprises, some known, some not, and in either case not necessarily friendly to the British cause. “Mr. Balakian,” he said, “would you leave us in private for a few minutes? You understand, there are matters here that are not yet in the sphere of—”

  “Of course.”

  If Balakian felt any disappointment, it did not show on his face. Rampling waited until the door had closed behind him before resuming. “It is a great mistake to place reliance on the speeches of politicians,” he said. “Circumstances change and the speeches change with them, according to party advantage and political expedients. We must put our trust in the workings of money, Mr. Saunders, not in speeches. Banks and financial houses are not bound to do what the government tells them, and they are not obliged to tell the government what they are doing. They concentrate their energy on securing maximum profits, an aim much more steadfast than any political aim could be. As you know, I have a substantial holding in the firm of Lynch Brothers. Do you think I will sell my shares because of the competition of the railway?”

  In fact he was thinking seriously of selling and was keeping his eye on prices as the railway drew nearer. And the slight smile that he now saw appear on the other man’s face indicated that his question had not been taken in the purely rhetorical sense that he had intended. “No, not at all,” he said. “Far from it. It’s no use trying to block the line or hinder it from going forward. Curzon can fulminate as much as he likes, but he hasn’t got the power to do this, and he knows it. No, we must join the enterprise, but on our own terms. We must put British capital in it. The Germans are in sore need of an injection of capital—von Gwinner at the Deutsche Bank has been putting out feelers. I can tell you in confidence that I am part of a consortium, together with Morgan Grenfell and the Baring Brothers, which is exploring the possibility of gaining control of the line beyond Baghdad, toge
ther with all port facilities as far as the Gulf.”

  He paused on this, looking closely at the other man. Saunders did not strike him as highly intelligent, but he would faithfully report what had passed between them. And this was the message he should carry back with him to Baghdad. The advantages were obvious: continued protection for their trade on the Tigris; large profits to be made from their share in the construction of port facilities; political interests guaranteed by barred access to the Gulf for any foreign power.

  Obvious, yes, but belief was needed first, and this had to be left to reflection. He said nothing more for the moment; too much urging too soon was always a sign of weakness. Balakian was invited back. Rampling refused more coffee and soon afterward got up to leave.

  He was satisfied on the whole with the way things had gone, and this satisfaction persisted through the journey back to his house, survived a cocktail party at the Russian Embassy in the early evening, and was still with him at dinnertime. He dined alone and afterward went to his study to look at some reports that had been summarized by his secretary, concerning the competition between the Crédit Lyonnais and the Deutsche Palestine Bank in financing the trade in raw silk, hitherto a French monopoly. The French were increasingly worried by German encroachments in Syria. A good thing, of course—insecurity would make them more open to offers of joint financing, more yielding in the terms.

  A fire of logs had been made for him, the evenings being still cold. He had his after-dinner brandy at his elbow; the fire was warm against his face; the armchair was deep. After a while his attention drifted from the reports, the pages fell loose over his stomach as he sat back. He thought briefly of asking one of his people to go down to the waterfront at Top Hane and find some woman for him. Tamas was the one he usually sent; Tamas knew what to look for: young, a bit on the fleshy side, with long hair. After a long and active career with women, including two marriages, three mistresses, and various affairs, he was reduced to a passive role now; he had no impulse to hurt the women, but they had to be ready to behave with abject obedience. He could still sometimes reach orgasm if they played their part well.

  This evening, however, after some moments the flicker of desire died down. He was comfortable there. He extinguished the lamp at his side, looked down at the red heart of the fire, and settled into a mood of reflection. Things had gone well on the whole. He thought of the luncheon party now as something of a comedy, with the Ambassador’s scruples melting away at the first hint of real trouble, and the ingenuous Somerville—he had actually seemed to believe they all shared his passion for the history of the Assyrian Empire. The line was unlikely to get very much farther before the outbreak of hostilities. We go on signing contracts and making speeches with the ground shifting under our feet, he thought. What else is there to do? We have to stay open for business.

  The meeting at Balakian’s office he felt somewhat less sure about, though still fairly sanguine. Whether the firm of Lynch Brothers survived or not was a matter of indifference to him, but the partners must be convinced that they would be protected, that the line would bring benefits to them. They had political influence in Britain; they formed part of the faction that opposed the extension of the railway. It was not altogether true what he had said to Saunders: British financial houses would not act in direct opposition to government policy. It was vital that the partners in the firm should be made to see that imperial and financial interests met and combined in this last stretch of the line.

  Absolutely vital, he thought. He was growing sleepy. Native regiments from India could be transported and deployed in a matter of days. And afterward, emerging victorious, our base will be already secured for the occupation of southern Mesopotamia . . . Land of Hope and Glory. Great music—he liked marches. This great empire of ours. Mother of the harmonious pigeons. Our factories that clothe millions in every corner of the globe, our banking houses that finance the businesses and control the trade of half the world. Our great fleet, fueled now by oil. What was it Churchill had said, in making that momentous decision? Mastery itself is the prize. Prophetic words. He who owns the oil will own the world, he will rule the sea and the land, he will rule his fellowmen. The day will come when oil will be more desired, more sought after than gold. I will live to see that day, God willing. But first there was need for reliable information—reliable and exclusive. Elliott would provide that. Good man, Elliott. Highest recommendations. One of the best petroleum geologists in the business. Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set. To include the vilayets of Baghdad and Mosul. And all the oil east of the Euphrates . . .

  His eyes closed and his mouth opened a little. He shifted in his chair and the papers rustled to the floor. A struggling sigh came from him and he slept. The fire, which he had allowed to die down, smoldered for a while and seemed about to go out altogether. But by some process of self-renewal, almost as though laboring for its own survival, the charred log shifted, settled again, and owing to this small, barely noticeable movement, the layer of ash beneath it was dislodged, sifted down through the grate, leaving a red core of embers. The underside of the log began to glow, and then it took fire again and the flames pulsed around the ends of it with an energy that seemed desperate almost. Light flickered over the man slumbering in the deep chair, falling over his chest and legs, making him seem, for these few moments, with his face in shadow and the human likeness obscured, like some beast of the jungle, barred and striped, at rest in its lair.

  7.

  Somerville spent an extra day in Constantinople talking to colleagues at the Imperial Museum and examining some Hittite stamp seals recently discovered at Boazköy in Anatolia, site of the ancient Hittite capital of Hattusas. There were also several sculptured reliefs from the King’s Gate that he had not seen before.

  It was late when he arrived back; his wife was already in bed and he did not want to disturb her. The following morning, before breakfast, was the first opportunity for them to talk together. Edith was still in her dressing gown. She had had tea served to her, but she was slow to wake in the mornings and still had the slightly bemused, sleepy-eyed look that he had always found voluptuous and touching at the same time.

  “Well, they have given me assurances of help,” he said. “I think I succeeded in convincing them of the importance of what we are doing here. I went into some detail about these recent finds, which point toward a substantial Assyrian presence.”

  “Them? Who were the others?”

  “A man introduced to me as Baron Rampling was also there. In fact it was at his house that we met. He was very affable and hospitable.”

  “Rampling? The shipowner? What on earth was he doing there?” Surprise had taken the sleep from her eyes. “You didn’t recognize him, you didn’t know who he was?”

  “No, why should I?”

  It was now, with these words of his wife’s, that the first misgivings came to him. The Ambassador, he now recalled, had said very little about Rampling in the course of their chat afterward, only that he was wealthy and had influence in high circles. The warmth of his reception, the cordiality of his old school friend, the genial attention paid to him by the obviously powerful man who was his host . . . And then the matter was of such overwhelming importance to him it had seemed natural that even a grand and titled personage should be prepared to help, should lend his attention to such a threat, such an injustice. Now this cold breath, where warmth should have been. It is you, he thought, looking at his wife’s face. You take my faith away. Something close to hatred came into his heart for a moment, then was lost, merged in his doubt. “A beautiful house,” he said. “One of those old wooden houses on the Bosporus, looking straight out across the water.” He remembered how the light had grown stronger as he advanced, like an earnest of success.

  “The gossip columns were full of his doings at one time,” she said. John never read these things anyway, she knew that. “Daddy once acted for him, something to do with export permits. Said he is an absolute so-and-so, do any
body down that got in his way.” Her adored father, after a highly successful career as a barrister, had recently been appointed a High Court judge. “I just can’t imagine why a man like that should take an interest in archaeology,” she said.

  “He struck me as a fair-minded man. Very reasonable. We did a sort of deal.”

  He told her then of the agreement they had made, a quid pro quo really, he explained: the geologist, this dynamic American, to be given a cover for his activities, and the full weight of the Foreign Office, supported by the influence of Lord Rampling, to be brought to bear on the railway company. “Naturally,” he said, “in this milieu of power politics, you have to give something if you want to get something, that is the way these things are conducted.”

  A reply rose to Edith’s lips, caustic in nature, as she saw the look of worldly sagacity that had appeared on her husband’s face, but she repressed it; there was really no point. “Well,” she said in flat tones, “we shall have to hope for the best then, shan’t we?”

  And that was exactly it, she thought a little later as she dressed. John is the one who is doing the hoping, they have already got what they wanted, they will get this American here, who sounds absolutely dreadful, and we will have to put up with him at mealtimes and see him every day for goodness knows how long. This was all it had come to, the exaltation of the parting. A fire soon doused. If only there had been nothing required in exchange, if Rampling had been there for John’s sake, instead of his own. Then he would have cut a dignified figure, whether or not they did anything about it. She herself did not care much about the railway, whether it went here or there. She had never understood how or why her husband had so convinced himself that the line would go bang smack into Tell Erdek. As far as she could see, there wasn’t much to lose; John could go and dig somewhere else. She hadn’t much in the way of historical imagination, and the finds they had made so far hadn’t impressed her greatly; a bit of ivory, a fragment of stone, a few scratches on a clay tablet, a stump of a wall—it couldn’t be thought to add up to anything very exciting. No, what mattered was the enterprise itself, the spirit of it, the going for what you wanted, the not being daunted. Again the thought came to her, unwelcome, painful even, but not to be held off: John was pathetic; he lacked what Daddy would have called a firm grip. That serious, slightly frowning air he had assumed, the man of the world pronouncing on power politics when he was really such a simpleton. She shouldn’t have married him; she had been taken in by that early boldness of his, that visionary quality, giving up everything to follow the dream. He had not lived up to it; it was as though he had cheated her, broken the contract. She had seen Rampling’s picture in the newspaper sometimes, elegant and portly, a big-nosed, bushy-eyebrowed, commanding face. Something predatory, almost savage, in the lines of the mouth. A brute of a man, Daddy had said. But someone who knew what he was doing, who went for what he wanted, who wouldn’t have the wool pulled over his eyes.