by Alec Waugh
‘Have you seen anything of that Lebanese friend of yours?’ he asked.
‘What Lebanese friend?’
‘The one I saw you with here.’
‘Aziz?’
‘Yes, that’s his name, I think. Does he come up here often?’
‘Not very often. He’s at the A.U.B.’
‘That’s what I heard. Not very bright, I gather.’
‘Isn’t he? I wouldn’t know.’
‘I thought you saw him quite a lot.’
‘Only now and then. He cares for music; he likes to play my records. Do you ever see him in Beirut?’
‘Never. We move in very different worlds.’
‘You seemed to be moving in the same world the time I met you.’
’At my cousin, Annabelle’s? I’ve never quite understood what he was doing there. Nor has she.’
There was the click of a lock outside. Kitty. Thank heaven she had kept her promise. ‘This’ll be my room mate, Kitty Lang. It was she who talked to you on the telephone.’
‘So that explained it. I was wondering . . .’ He did not finish his sentence. He had risen to his feet as the door opened. He checked at the sight of Kitty; he stood, gaping. His eyes wide and his mouth half open. Kitty had checked too, astonished by her effect on him. They stared at one another. Eve looked at him. Then looked at Kitty. ‘This lets me out,’ she thought.
He recovered himself quickly, with his charms in full deployment. ‘Now this is a surprise. And what a delightful one. When I heard your voice, I thought: “Now that must belong to a very charming person.” Voices can be deceptive. A woman of fifty can have a very lovely voice. Yet somehow I felt it was a young voice that I was hearing. I wanted to find out who you were. I was planning to ask Miss Parish. Of course, voices can be deceptive in another way. A pretty voice doesn’t necessarily mean a pretty face. Though if a woman has an attractive voice, she almost certainly has an attractive nature. If she hadn’t an attractive nature, it would betray itself in her voice. There’d be a disagreeable undertone. So I was pretty certain that I should want to meet you; but how could I have guessed that your face would match your voice, that... it takes my breath away.’
Kitty laughed. ‘It doesn’t seem to have.’
Inwardly Eve chuckled. Most certainly this let her out. ‘And now I see why I thought that Miss Parish worked with the British Council. It was a flat that you two were sharing; I thought it was an office.’
‘Oh, no,’ Kitty said. ‘Eve’s one of our hush-hush girls.’
‘She is?’
‘She tells everyone she is in the Foreign Office. A very funny Foreign Office I should say. I’ve no idea what she does, or whom she does it with. But she certainly gets a lot of perquisites that we don’t get at the Council. That’s why I bothered to come back early. I felt sure she’d have brought out her Dimple Haig.’
‘I’m afraid that Mr. Belorian isn’t one of the friends that I can enter on an expense account.’
‘I on the other hand can put you down,’ he said. ‘I have to know about local trade conditions. You can tell me a great deal I didn’t know. You already have, about filtering Vodka. I might have guessed about the wad of cotton-wool at the bottom of the funnel. But avoiding glycerine, no, that I’d not have thought of. It’ll look very well in my report. It’ll show them that I’m au fait with the local market. I can give us a good dinner on the strength of that. Where shall we go? Abdullah’s? That’s got the best food. But we might want music. Rejans? Why not. We might like to dance. It’s only one man between two ladies, but I assure you that I shall be equal to my responsibilities.’
‘You needn’t worry about me,’ said Eve. ‘I couldn’t have come out anyhow. But I’ve an idea that Kitty’s free tonight.’
The alacrity with which Kitty accepted proved that she would have made herself free if she had not been.
Next morning, Kitty’s bedroom door was still ajar. Eve pushed it open. The bed had not been slept in. On her return that evening, she recognized from the lack of bottles in the bathroom that Kitty had returned for a hurried packing. Next morning, she rang up Kitty at her office. ‘When are you coming up for air?’ she asked.
‘He’s leaving Tuesday morning.’
‘Then I’ll be seeing you that night?’
‘And mind there’s some whisky in that bottle. I shall need a stiff one.’
Kitty invariably returned bright eyed from a romance. On this occasion she was radiant. ‘I’ve never seen you look so good,’ said Eve.
‘I’ve never felt so good.’
‘I can’t wait to hear all about it.’
‘I can’t wait to tell you. Have you got that whisky?’
‘I’ve got Dimple Haig.’
‘Bless you, that’s heaven. My, but he was wonderful.’
‘He’s a quick worker seemingly.’
‘And I wasn’t dilatory. What’s the point? Why be coy? They say that a man doesn’t respect you if you go to bed on your first date. Why should I want to be respected, anyhow by an Armenian? If it had been an Englishman or an American that I had an idea of marrying, it might have been different: though I guess it wouldn’t, me being what I am. Why waste time? Particularly with Alexis.’
‘Where was he so special?’
‘That’s what I’m coming to; it was the first I’d been with . . . well, I suppose you’d call an Armenian an Oriental, wouldn’t you?’
‘He might not like being called that.’
‘What does he think he is?’
‘A Levantine.’
‘That’s the same thing almost. Let it pass. Anyhow, I’d always heard that Egyptians liked their women plump. You remember those dancers at the Bardia cabaret. Nobody would call me thin. No, don’t say that I’m just right. I’m not. I’ve five pounds too much, at least. Some day I’ll have to do something about it. I’m always a little shy about that with a man. I’m afraid that he’ll be disappointed in me. I’ve never told you this before. Somehow I couldn’t, then. I’d have been ashamed. One’s Achilles,’ heel you know. And I’ve developed my own technique, in self defence. I’ve heard women say that the preliminaries are the best part of all. And I can see that it is so for most women; not for me. I’m always afraid that the man’s going to be disappointed. The first time anyhow; so I cut the preliminaries down; no long, garment by garment, tussle: straight to the battle; when it’s once begun, and he’s having a good time, and I make damn sure he’s having one, he won’t be noticing whether I’m five pounds overweight; he’ll have too much else on his mind; besides, it’ll be my face he’s looking at; most of the time anyhow, and no one’s complained about my face. That’s my secret. Get started fast and make it last for ever; that’s how I was planning to have it work with him. But was Alexis letting me?’
She was lolled back in the chair, her legs stretched out, her eyes half closed; a dreamy reminiscent expression on her face. She took a long, slow sip at her whisky; shook herself as though she were coming out of a doze. ‘That’s how I’d meant to play it. Did I get a chance; hell, I didn’t. He liked me just the way I was; he couldn’t have too much of me. Preliminaries. I thought they’d never finish; the way he gloated over me, over every inch of me. It drove me mad. His hands, did you notice his hands? No, of course you didn’t; they’re short, pudgy hands, very soft. You’d think he’d never done a thing with them; those fingers, the way they kneaded me; that’s the word, kneaded. He made me feel as though I were Cleopatra, an object of idolatry. You know how it is to have someone crazy about the very thing that you’re uncertain of yourself; a society beauty wants to be complimented on her conversation, a blue stocking on her eyes; to have someone crazy about my figure; nobody’s been crazy about me for that before. And it wasn’t as though he didn’t like the rest, my God it wasn’t.
‘Do you know one thing he said? This really got me. Almost the last thing he said, early this morning. “I’ll be away a month,” he said. “At least a month. I wish I were a Sultan and could shut
you up in a harem in my absence.” “So that nobody could get at me?” I asked. “Partly; but more to have you looked after, by a slave; who’d massage you and give you baths; and cover you with scent and keep you out of the sun, and feed you with honey cakes; and you’d get so white and soft and plump.” That sent me. Can you guess how that sent me. “But, darling,” I said, “I am plump already.” What do you think he said? “Not really. You could do with five pounds more.” To be asked to put on weight! Do you see that box on the table; Turkish delight. His good-bye gift to me. Just pass it over.’
Later, a long while later, Eve brought up another subject. She had been more than a little disconcerted by the remarks he had been making about Aziz. Kitty had come into the room at the very moment when she had been on the brink of learning something.
‘What did you talk about?’ she asked. ‘In the intervals. Don’t tell me there weren’t any intervals.’
Kitty laughed. ‘There weren’t so many; after all we had to sleep a little, or at least I had. I had to work next day.’
‘Did you talk about Beirut at all?’
‘A little, why?’
‘It’s useful for me to get information about other countries, from foreigners. It’s useful for my job, I mean.’
‘I never know what your job is. As a matter of fact that’s one of the things in which he was interested.’
‘One of what things?’
‘Oh, you know, things. He wondered what exactly it was that you were doing.’
‘I hope you didn’t tell him.’
‘How could I? I don’t know. Hush-Hush. That’s all you tell me. I sometimes think that you defeat your own ends by telling us so little. We tend to blurt the wrong things out. If you’d tell us where to pipe down, we could pipe down. As it is you leave us to our devices. At your own cost, maybe.’
‘That’s very true . . . I guess . . . Maybe you’ve something there. What did he say?’
‘Nothing that added up to anything. He was inquisitive, that’s all. He wondered about Aziz. He wondered how you came to know him. He didn’t like Aziz. I gathered that they’d quarrelled at some party.’
‘That’s true. They quarrelled at some party.’
‘It wasn’t anything particular. You asked me; that’s why I’m telling you.’
‘I know. I’m grateful. It’s a help. I can‘t explain. But in my racket, it’s like an elaborate chequer-board. Unexpected things fit in. Have you ever done jig-saw puzzles?’
‘I never have.’
‘You’ve missed a lot. And there’s a parallel. You have all these odd bits in front of you. You get the greys together and the blues and greens. The shapes make a pattern. Then suddenly you see the picture. It’s not just a group of greens and browns and whites and reds. It’s a child with a red skirt, feeding a white rabbit with a lettuce. That’s how it is with us. We collect a group of colours. Then suddenly when we expect it least, lo and behold, a picture takes shape under our eyes. I’m very grateful to you, Kitty. You can’t guess why and I can’t explain it. But it has been helpful to me to learn that Alexis was interested in... well that he did happen to be interested, just in that.’
Next morning, Eve was summoned to Sedgwick’s office. ‘Here’s Beirut’s appreciation of the radio issue. Just as we would have expected. A deception offer. Poor Farrar.’
‘Why poor Farrar?’
‘A signal’s come in from Cairo approving Baghdad’s scheme. As we expected, didn’t we? So will you get busy, laying this one on?’
‘When’s the machine being shipped?’
‘That we don’t know. Not for three weeks at least. That leaves us all the time we need.’
‘There isn’t much we can do, is there?’
‘I wouldn’t say there was. It’s a Baghdad problem. Only...’ He checked. He looked at her quizzically. ‘If anything blows up in Baghdad, it’s going to be awkward for us here.’
‘I don’t get that.’
‘You don’t? If the Germans here were to feel that we had penetrated their organization, as they would do, if they realized that we had been watching for their men in Mosul, they’d start shifting their defences. We wouldn’t know where they’d moved. It’s something for us to keep in mind, you know.’
‘Have you by the way heard anything about Belorian’s visit?’
‘I’m expecting to hear from Chessman in a day or so.’
‘Nothing from Beirut yet?’
‘No, nothing from Beirut.’
Nothing anyhow that had appeared on the main office files; but how could she tell what there might not be in that small corner cabinet. She had felt apprehensive ever since she had learnt of its existence.
Eve would have been more apprehensive still could she have been an invisible witness of the scene that was taking place at that moment in Beirut in the apartment in the old town that the office had taken over for Reid’s successor. Belorian had just reached the end of his report on his visit to Istanbul. ‘That sounds most satisfactory,’ Farrar was saying. ‘This is working out better than I had dared to hope. We’ll carry on the way we’re doing. Is there anything you’ve on your mind?’
‘There is one thing. Do you know anything about a girl called Eve Parish?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Should I?’
‘She was down here last summer.’
‘A great many people were down here last summer.’
‘I met her at a party of my cousin, Annabelle. Annabelle did not seem to know much about her. She said she was a friend of yours.’
‘I wonder how that happened. Tell me more about her. What does she look like, what does she do? What age is she?’
‘In the early twenties. Small, darkish, not obviously attractive, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that someone had gone for her in a big way. I rather thought I’d have a bash myself, but I got side-tracked.’
‘You mean you met someone better.’
‘Someone a great deal better.’
‘Poor, poor Miss Parish; what was it you said she did?’
‘That’s what I’d like to know. I got the impression when she was down here that she worked for the British Council. I’m sure she told me that she did. But when I rang up the Council in Istanbul, they’d never heard of her. But I was so insistent that they finally put me on to someone who they thought might know. It turned out to be the girl that Eve shared a flat with. This girl told me that she was employed in something very hush-hush. Now why should she have told me that she worked in the British Council?’
‘Perhaps because she didn’t want to have you make a pass at her.’
‘But I hadn’t started to make a pass at her.’
‘My dear Alexis, do you think that you’re the kind of man who would ask a girl out to discuss modern painting. Girls know these things.’
‘Do they? Maybe they do. Anyhow I felt it rather fishy. There’s another thing too about her that made me curious? At that party she was with a young Turk who was studying at the A.U.B. I met them together up in Istanbul.’
‘Ah, wait a moment. I think I know who you mean. Was his name Aziz?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Ah, now I’ve got it. Yes, it all comes back. Aziz was one of the Prof.’s protégés. He seemed a bit of a misfit, and the Prof, was trying to find friends for him. He asked me if I couldn’t get him invited to Annabelle’s. I remember the girl too now. He asked if he could take her.’
‘I think there’s something on between them.’
‘It’s not impossible.’
‘No, I don’t mean in that way: I wouldn’t have thought he was her dish. An insignificant little squirt. She could do better than that with such a lack of females everywhere. No, I meant in terms of our line. I can’t see why else she should be bothering to see anything of him.’
‘You think she’s getting information out of him.’
‘I don’t see any other explanation.’
‘You may be right.’
‘I half though
t of putting the Germans on to him. Then I thought, no, I’d better ask you first.’
‘Quite right. You might have landed in a hornet’s nest. The trouble about this racket is that there are so many different rackets and no one knows who’s working for whom. I can give you an example. There was a man down here, a Turk, a survival of the Ottoman régime, who was sending up messages in secret ink to Turkey. We didn’t know if his information was going to the Germans or the Turks. It wasn’t very valuable information and if it was going to the Turks themselves, we didn’t mind, but if it was going to the Germans, we thought we’d better stop it. So we asked our Turkish friends in Ankara if they knew anything about this chap. They said they’d never heard of him so we arrested him. The very next day we got a frantic message from our Turkish friends saying that the fellow was employed by their naval branch. They only knew about the military agents. Of course it was too late then. I’ll make inquiries about this girl and her Turkish boy-friend. Are you likely to be seeing more of them?’
‘I’m hoping to see a lot more of the girl she shares a flat with.’
‘Fine, keep us posted. I’m very grateful to you for putting us on to this.’
Back in his office, Farrar sent for Aziz’s file. There were not very many recent entries on it. Chessman reported that the Germans were far from satisfied with him. He did not seem to be of much use to anyone, and he was costing quite a lot of money. Alexis’ casual remark had started him on a new train of thought. It might be that quite a different use might be made of young Master Aziz.
Chapter Three
Jenkins had asked Rachel Reid to call on him at half past ten. It was now quarter to eleven, but punctuality was impossible in wartime, at any rate for civilians. Jenkins was in the middle fifties. During the First War he had served in the same regiment as Reid; at that time they had seemed contemporaries. Front line subalterns met on equal terms. But now Jenkins thought of himself as belonging to another generation. He was ten years older, but felt twenty. He was rheumatic. He moved slowly. He had put on weight through eating too much starch. He had had his clothes let out because he had no coupons to buy new ones with, but his cutter had been called up for military service and his replacement had done the job clumsily. He was conscious of looking shabby, he who had prided himself on his neat, military appearance. His chief clerk was in the army. He had to work twice as hard as he had before the war, and taxation had reduced his income by half. Because of his rheumatism, he had not joined the Home Guard, but he was on fire-watching duty two nights a week. One of his sons was in the R.A.F. The other was in the Western Desert. His daughter was a clerk in the Admiralty, stationed in Bath. She came back for a long week-end leave once a month and slept the clock round. She never seemed to have time to talk to him. He lived in Pinner; before the war he had enjoyed his daily train journey, with a corner seat in a first-class carriage, and The Times crossword puzzle to occupy his thirty minutes run. The journey now lasted fifty minutes. He rarely got a corner seat and often failed to get a seat at all and had to stand. He walked to and from the station to save petrol. At home he had no servant living in. A woman from the village came in once a week to scour the living-rooms and kitchen. The house was too large and it was impossible to keep more than one room warm. They sat in the library. His wife had become a household drudge. She grumbled about chilblains in the winter. It was her first experience of daily cooking; he presumed that she did the best she could with the scanty material at her disposal; but he never sat down to the table with a sense of anticipation, nor did he rise from it feeling that he had been fed.