by Alec Waugh
He sauntered down Soliman Pasha, till a road, turning to the right, led to the bridge over the Nile. He paused on the bridge looking down on to the brown swirling waters of the river that had coloured so much of his youth’s reading: Antony at Actium, the serpent of old Nile, Napoleon at the Pyramids. Had it looked so very different to Cleopatra? Had not the same brown-sailed ships steered down it? The fellahin along its banks were growing cotton under the same immemorial tradition. The Pyramids had seen the passage of so many armies.
It was nearly seven before he was back at Shepheard’s. The main lounge was more crowded now; the officers on leave had finished their shopping or siesta. He directed himself towards the bar. He would have seventy-five minutes’ start of Gustave, but he would make it an early night. He had reached the age when he found it prudent not to drink hard liquor late at night. A voice from the dusk greeted him.
‘Hi there, Prof.’
It was Johnson. Reid had not seen him since they had driven back together to Damascus. He had heard no news of him, and had assumed that he was still employed with the O.C.P. He was not particularly surprised to find him. There was a disease known to the Middle East as Cairoitis: the periodic and overpowering need to savour the fleshpots of the metropolis. ‘Have you wangled a conference here too?’ he asked.
Johnson laughed wryly. ‘I wish I had.’
Only then did Reid notice that Johnson was wearing three stars instead of a crown upon his shoulder. He waited for an explanation. It came obliquely. ‘I see that you are in the same spot too,’ said Johnson.
‘What do I take that to mean?’
‘That you haven’t gone up. Whereas I’ve gone down, after a whole year in the Middle East. I should think that we’re the only two old-stagers in the area in that position. Sandhurst, vintage 1916. Something must have gone wrong that year with the harvest.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘In the pool, waiting for an appointment. Some bloody hopes. If I were in the U.K. I’d be classified as “temporarily relegated to unemployment”. Not the sack, but the embroidered bag. They can’t very well do that here; there’s no unemployment to be relegated to. Besides, they don’t want the expense of repatriation. So they send me on damned fool courses. Map-reading. Sanitation. Aircraft recognition. To hell with it; let’s have a drink.’
Reid would have preferred to drink alone. It was a pleasure that he could rarely allow himself in the corporate atmosphere of army life. Still, listening to other people’s troubles had become his job.
Half an hour later he was feeling that he had never listened to problems for which he could see less of a solution. Many of his pupils had known periods of black despair, and suicide was an occupational hazard of the late teenager. But he had known in their case that there was a sure solution; they had only to be patient; they would get their second wind. They had youth and flexibility and untapped resources. He could encourage them, reassure them in the certainty that there was a cure. It was different in Johnson’s case. Johnson was far from being desperate. He was merely moodily discontented. Yet in point of fact he had more need of despair then any of the young students for whom ‘the pillared firmament seemed rottenness and earth’s base built on stubble.’ There was no future for Johnson, and during the years when he had had youth and energy he had not built up the bastions for his old age.
Johnson had nothing to go back to. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that your University makes up the difference between your salary and your army pay.’
‘There isn’t very much.’
‘But there is a difference, and if you dropped a pip it wouldn’t make any difference to you financially. You started as a lieutenant, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So that when you became a captain you weren’t really any better off. It simply meant that the University cut your stipend.’
‘That’s so.’
‘There isn’t any real inducement to you to become a major or a colonel. You wouldn’t be any better off financially, and rank means nothing to you.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because you’re a professor first; there’s the handle on your name. The world’s lousy with half colonels. You are more important in your own right than you could be in the army. You’re in a very fortunate position.’
‘That’s what everyone keeps telling me.’
‘They’re right too, aren’t they?’
‘We all have our little crosses, even the most seemingly immune of us.’
‘Even you?’
‘Even me.’
‘I’d like to know what they are. It might give me a fellow feeling. Are you doing anything tonight?’
‘I’m dining with our old friend, Gustave. But he isn’t due for another half-hour yet. We’ve time for a second drink.’
At any rate, he thought, Johnson had the resource of whisky. When a young man sought relief from his troubles in the bottle he drank a great deal too much, he did not know his capacities; the ‘binder’ on which he went had usually disastrous consequences. Johnson knew how to handle his liquor; he could let the smooth distilled produce of malt and barley soothe his troubles and cheat him into a favourable opinion of himself and of his prospects. Johnson’s position was not desperate as long as he could afford whisky and provide a reasonable setting for its enjoyment.
‘Is Gustave in your racket?’ Johnson asked.
Reid nodded.
‘How is he doing in it?’
‘That’s one of the things I’m hoping to find out tonight.’
On the surface everything appeared to be going excellently with Gustave. He was wearing a well-cut gaberdine uniform; his shoes glistened. He had put on a little weight; it suited him, giving him a sleek, well cared-for look, in tune with his Continental air.
‘Where would you like to dine?’ Reid asked.
‘Not in this caravanserai.’
‘Where do you suggest?’
‘The Turf Club.’
‘I’m not a member.’
‘But I am. I’ll do the ordering, and you can pay me afterwards. That’ll improve my credit there. You’ll like it. They’ve got good wine.’
Gustave had been very right. The Turf Club was very much his kind of place. The dining-room was dark and panelled. The tables were not close together. It had a thoroughly English air and the wine list included a Krug 1928. There couldn’t be much of it left, he thought. Maybe it would be the last bottle he ever had.
At the sight of the steaming bucket, Gustave’s spirits rose even higher. ‘I’ll certainly impress those waiters this time.’
It should certainly loosen Gustave’s tongue, if it needed loosening. Reid asked him how he liked his work. Did he, at his age, find himself bored by the long hours of office work? Did he wish he had a more active life? Gustave shook his head. ‘Not here. I might in England, but Cairo is like home; besides, I’m not in the office all the day, not by any means. I have a flat of my own. I’m allowed to wear mufti; the big boys expect me to get around. I’m half Egyptian after all. I know the kinds of joke that an Egyptian will find funny. People are much readier to repeat a rumour if it’ll make the hearers laugh. I’ve got a nose for that.’
‘I’m told Cairo is very expensive now.’
‘It’s not for me. I know how to do things cheaply; the way you do in London. An American would spend twice as much there as you would. I speak Arabic. That makes a tremendous difference. They feel they can trust me. We laugh at the same things. We’re friends. They wouldn’t try to pull a fast one on me. Besides, there’s the question of girls. I don’t have to spend vast sums of money on the women whom half G.H.Q. are chasing. I meet the kinds of girl that the other officers wouldn’t meet: you know the kind, shop girls, junior secretaries, the kind that I’d be having affairs with in England. There are a lot of Greeks here. Those girls wouldn’t go out with a British officer who only spoke schoolroom French. They wouldn’t feel at ease with him. That’s what a girl wants: to f
eel at ease, to be amused, given a good time.’
‘And you’ve got yourself that kind of girl?’
‘I’ll say I have. A Cypriot: half Greek, half Lebanese, lives with her parents, works in a bank; had the dreariest of times till I turned up, never went anywhere, never met anyone.’
‘How did you meet her?’
‘In a cinema; or rather, outside a cinema, waiting for the big picture. We recognized each other right away. It was one of those things. But if I hadn’t spoken Arabic it would have been bogged down, never got off the ground.’
‘And the other officers here, the ones who don’t speak Arabic. How do they manage?’
‘They don’t; or at the best unsatisfactorily. The competition is too great. And there are all those heroes coming in from the desert, with money to burn, vowed on making the most of a ten-days’ leave. They are entitled to the best and they get the pick. Most of the available English girls are out for marriage. They get their heads turned, too. They were nobodies in England, but here they are the belles of the ball. They’ve raised their sights. They get my goat.’
‘But I assume there are affairs going on.’
‘Of course, there are married men who say they can’t get a divorce in wartime; though of course they could. It’s their alibi. And there are married women whose husbands are at sea, or prisoners-of-war or something; then there are others who are out for all the fun they can get until Mr. Right turns up, and of course that kind of thing gets around and my, but aren’t they a dish of honey with the bees around it; but the odd thing about it is that with all the world to choose from—I reckon that there’s never in any one place been such a congregation of superb specimens of masculinity—in spite of all that they fall, some of them, for the most unlikely males, if male is the right word for them.’
‘Titania was enamoured of an ass.’
‘Exactly, and as an example there’s that girl in our office.’
‘Which girl in our office?’
‘The one who’s just been seconded from Beirut. You must know her.’
‘Yes, I know her.’
‘You should see the kind of man she’s fallen for.’
‘What kind of man has she fallen for?’
‘A perfect squirt: a Frenchman, a sawn-off job if you ever saw one, and she, as you know, is over six feet high.’
‘What does this Frenchman do?’
‘A vague liaison job, mainly with the French fleet in Alexandria.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Twenty-five, thirty. He’s only a lieutenant.’
Reid raised his glass to the light. It was darker, deeper in colour than most champagnes. He had drunk it for the first time in the Athenaeum with the Barlow brothers in ‘38. Alan had said, ‘This is the only champagne that Tom will admit to being a wine.’ He held it to his nose, savoured its aroma, lowered it to his lips. It should, at such a moment, have smelt sour, its taste should have been bitter. It didn’t, it wasn’t; it was the familiar ethereal bubbling nectar. ‘In two years it’ll have passed its prime,’ he thought. ‘I may never taste its like again.’
‘How long has this been going on?’ he asked.
‘It started within a week of her arrival. The coup de foudre. We were all astounded. She’s crazy over him.’
Reid half closed his eyes. ‘This is the worst moment of my life.’ he thought.
‘A rather similar thing happened in Beirut, with one of the officers in the B.S.M. The girl in question . . .’
‘How soon can I call this evening off,’ he thought.
It was one o’clock before he was back in his hotel; Gustave insisted on showing him the town. ‘You haven’t got to work tomorrow. It’s your first night here. A Saturday; and I’m the man to show it you. First we’ll go to Bardia’s... then . . .’
And when it came, Reid did find the Bardia cabaret entertaining. It was the first time that he had seen Oriental belly-dancing. It was, he could appreciate, exceedingly well done. Just as he could see that the small boîte where a Russian émigré in a long white smock was strumming a guitar had an authenticity that he had not found in Paris or Beirut. Later, Gustave was for driving out to the Seraglio near Mena House. ‘Really, Prof., you should see what an Oriental cat house is like.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s too far, and I’m too tired. It’s been a long day for me.’
‘Has it? I suppose it has. And, after all, that kind of thing could not mean anything to you.’
‘No?’
‘You are very lucky in that way.’
‘I am?’
‘You are settled down; children and a wife, established. That side of life has ceased to worry you; yet you are not so old that you can’t play golf and cricket.’
‘Not quite senile yet?’
‘Exactly. I’ve watched you. You really do enjoy yourself at times. Frankly, I envy you.’
‘The next time I have that said to me,’ thought Reid, ‘I’ll scream.’
Next morning as he sat on the terrace of the hotel, he thanked heaven that he had had that warning. He was on his guard. She would not know he was. He held a tactical advantage.
The clock moved round. Half past twelve, twenty to one, ten to one. She had a punctual nature. She had not in that connection reacted against her father. It was as likely as not a working day for her. She would come by taxi or in an office car. Not in a gharry. He began to watch each taxi. Every third one seemed to draw up here. It was, for the most part, officers who got out of them. They came in threes and fours on the way back from their offices; some of them being dropped off at the Continental. A long, low car, chauffeur-driven, flying a foreign flag he did not know, drew up. The door opened and a long slim leg slid out. He blinked. Yes, it was she all right.
She stood on the pavement, her back to him, talking inside the car. She remained as the car drew off, waving; then she turned. And he was right back, in heart and spirit to those enchanted Beirut days.
It was cool though the sun was shining. She was wearing a rough off-white woollen coat and skirt; there were large buttons on the jacket and wide bands of a dark blue material stitched across it. It gave her the look of an hussar. And she was wearing a small white hat, side tilted, its narrow blue ribbon adorned with a pheasant’s feather. She was half smiling as she walked up the steps with her lips parted; her eyes were clear and wide; there was a glow and gloss about her.
At the sight of him, her half-smile became a real smile. She held out her hand. Because of her height she never kissed friends in public. Her handshake was firm and friendly. There was no doubt that she was glad to see him.
‘That was a very smart car,’ he said.
‘The Brazilian Minister’s.’
‘You’re moving in high circles.’
‘Our fathers were good friends. Brazil was an ally in the last war, remember?’ She sat beside him on the terrace.
‘What’ll you have?’ he asked.
‘A Tom Collins.’
‘So’ll I. That’s a new scent you’re wearing.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘It’s rich and heavy, and it’s right for you.’
‘I got it in the Souks. They’re experts at that kind of thing.’
‘They should be: they’ve been at it longer. The Arabs discovered distillation.’
They sipped through straws at the cool sweet liquid. He watched her over his glass’s rim. She had a radiant look. Was that because she was in love? Had she looked like this to strangers after that first trip to Damascus? He had been too much in love to notice.
‘How does Cairo compare with Beirut?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘There’s no comparison. It’s a bigger place. It’s a centre. It’s more important than Washington or London at the moment. It’s where things are happening. It’s the one place where there is fighting, apart from the Russian front, of course. Everyone has to come here, sooner or later. Beirut was small and provincial. The French wanted to keep it that way. There’s a King he
re and a Court; there are Ambassadors instead of ministers; there’s another thing, too; I hadn’t realized it when I was actually in Beirut but I feel it now. For the English, Beirut was a side-show, a backwater. It was French, not English. Cairo is an extension of the British raj; it’s the centre of the British war effort. You keep meeting here people whom you’ve known all your life; you can talk about your acquaintances and friends. You never could do that in Beirut, could you? We have a personal life outside the office, in a way that we never did in Beirut. One’s in touch with the big world here.’
He asked her where she would like to lunch.
‘Why not here?’ she said. ‘It’s really very good. I like all this grandeur, and you don’t want a small French restaurant. You have enough of that. You’ll hear people say, “I can’t bear hotel food,” but the Ritz is a hotel, after all.’
She was curious to hear all the Beirut gossip. ‘Tell me about Nigel Farrar. Is he ever going to do anything about Annabelle?’
‘It’s hard to tell. Sometimes I think yes, sometimes I think no. They always flirt when they’re together.’
‘He’ll be a fool if he doesn’t marry her.’
‘Lebanon’s a long way from England.’
‘That’s not going to matter so much after the war. England’s going to be a different place. Why not recognize it.’
She was animated, friendly, gay. The talk did not flag for an instant. It was just as it had been in those first days, nearly a year ago. Yet there was a subtle difference. He had been always conscious then of a progression; they were moving towards a point. Each lunch, each dinner, was a stage, a landmark. Each time they had revealed a little more of themselves, or at least she had of herself; and through that revelation they had drawn close to one another. Later, when the final landmark had been passed, though their meals had started as today’s had done with easy animated gossip, there had come a point when suddenly the whole spirit of their meeting underwent a change, when they would cease to be friends and become lovers, even though they did not talk of love. She had a habit, when they were sitting side by side, of lapsing into silence and leaning forward across the table, her elbows on it, her hands closed and her chin rested on them. It was a signal, an invitation. And the tone of his voice would change; he would begin to woo her; with a difference not so much of words as of approach. He might be talking of poetry or of politics, but he would have the feeling that he was swinging incense before a shrine: he would be bathed in the memory of the previous night and the prospect of the enchantment waiting him.