Howard was wandering morosely in the courtyard, wondering where Lucy had got to and if he could decently go to look for her, when suddenly the airline girls were at his side, both talking a blue streak. At first he couldn’t make head or tail of what they were saying, and then all at once he could. He dashed through the refectory and into the corridor, and there were Lucy and the interpreter and the officer and one of the guards. Lucy was backed up against the wall. The interpreter was talking to her.
Howard broke in. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘There is no problem,’ said the interpreter. ‘Please go. I am concerned only with Miss Faulkner.’
‘Why? What about?’
‘It is not your business. Please go.’
‘What do you want her for?’
‘If you do not go it will be necessary to …’
‘He says he’s got to take me to the President,’ said Lucy.
‘Why?’
‘He says I remind the President of his mother.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Howard.
‘That is not respectful,’ said the interpreter angrily. ‘Do not speak like that.’
‘How on earth could your President have any idea …’
‘Passport photo,’ said Lucy.
The officer, evidently tiring of his marginal role, now began to shout at Howard. He clenched a fist; he took a step forward.
‘Look,’ said Lucy, ‘if I must come then at least …’
‘If you take her anywhere you take me too,’ said Howard.
‘It is not your business,’ snapped the interpreter.
‘It damn well is. She’s my wife.’ The words rose to his lips almost involuntarily, in a moment of pure inspiration.
The interpreter was silenced. He stared at Howard. Then he rallied. ‘That is not so. Different name.’
‘Of course we have different names,’ said Howard. ‘It’s a common law marriage. I thought you’d lived in England. If you knew England at all well you’d know that common law marriage is general nowadays.’
The interpreter’s expression became complicated. Doubt struggled with something else.
‘In our country it is extremely offensive to separate a wife from a husband. I should have thought you would know that. I imagine your President would expect you to know that, in your professional capacity.’
The interpreter looked from one to the other of them. He conferred with the officer, in an undertone. They apparently argued. Then the officer suddenly shrugged. Have it your own way seemed to be his verdict. Be it upon your own head. The interpreter turned again to Howard and Lucy. He had recovered himself, more or less. The smack of authority was tempered only by a faint note of petulance.
‘I will permit that you accompany your wife. I know very well English customs. I am living for many years in your country. Come with me now, please.’
The car was driven by a soldier. Another sat in the passenger seat. In the back were Howard, Lucy and the interpreter. They swung out of the convent driveway and into a suburban road. Villas, gardens with palms and casuarina trees. A line of oleanders. Travelling fast, they swept along similar roads for several minutes and then plunged into a cluttered district of narrow streets lined with shabby apartment buildings from which jutted poles of washing. Small shops brimmed fruit and vegetables on to the pavements. The driver, obliged to slow up, blasted his horn at pedestrians and traffic alike.
‘These are not nice parts of the city,’ said the interpreter. His fingers tapped impatiently on his knee. He leaned forward to remonstrate with the driver. A donkey and cart blocked the way. The driver slammed his hand on the horn. Under cover of the din Howard managed to speak to Lucy.
‘Do you mind?’
‘No,’ she said indistinctly. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘I feel awful about it now. But … I couldn’t let him take you off alone like that.’
‘It’s fine. You were clever. Thanks.’
The driver surged up on to the pavement, forcing a clutch of pedestrians into a doorway. The interpreter sat back. ‘I am sorry for the delay. I am telling the driver he should go a different way but he says there is a problem with obstructions.’ He consulted his watch, shook his head irritably.
‘Why are you in a hurry?’ said Lucy.
‘His Excellency is expecting you.’
‘How can I possibly look like his mother?’
‘That is interesting,’ said the interpreter. ‘His Excellency’s mother was an English lady, I have been told.’
‘Does he suppose that she would approve of his treatment of us?’ demanded Howard.
‘I understand that His Excellency’s mother died many years ago.’
‘So that makes it all right, does it?’
‘I do not understand,’ said the interpreter.
The car screeched around a tight corner, its rear end banging into a lamp-post, and forged down another alley, at the end of which they emerged into a wide road.
‘Very soon now we reach Samara Palace. Please look on the right and you see the ruins of the Greek temple. Very famous antiquity. You are interested in antiquities, Miss Faulkner?’
‘Not at the moment,’ said Lucy.
There was hardly any traffic now. The car sped down a boulevard flanked with flowering tamarisks. On one side the broken columns of the temple rose abruptly between a petrol station and a used car lot.
They reached a roundabout and turned into another boulevard.
‘Now you see Samara Palace,’ said the interpreter. ‘It is a most elegant building constructed in nineteen hundred and twenty-five, I think.’
The Palace was straight ahead of them, not so much a building as an architectural flight of fancy in which Gothic windows were juxtaposed with Tudor casements and Moorish balconies beneath a roof-line where crenellation struggled with the intrusions of onion domes and minaret-like spires. The whole edifice appeared to sprawl without rhyme or reason in every direction.
The car drove to a side entrance. They were hustled into the building along corridors. The place bristled with military. At one point the interpreter dived into a room in which he could be heard conferring with unseen colleagues.
Lucy said, ‘It looks as though he was telling the truth. We are going to see this man.’
‘It does look like it.’
‘What do we do?’
‘Cash in.’
‘How?’
‘Talk. Ask questions. Reason with him.’
‘I’m more likely to spit at him,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t do that.’
The interpreter rejoined them. ‘His Excellency will receive you immediately.’
They sat side by side on a spindly gilt sofa. His Excellency Omar Latif, President of Callimbia, sat at an immense leather-topped desk. The interpreter was perched on a chair at his elbow. Periodically Omar lost interest in them and conducted a telephone conversation or received from a minion a heap of papers which he would shuffle through and then shove aside. They had been served Turkish coffee. People kept coming in and out of the room – soldiers, flunkeys. Telephones rang.
He was fat. He was flesh made manifest, flesh that strained against the fabric of his military uniform, that swelled luxuriantly over his collar, flesh that pulsed with well-being, that blazed his presence. He seemed to fill the room, and the room was an acreage of oriental carpeting and gilt-encrusted walls against which were marshalled glass display cabinets and ranks of satin-upholstered chairs. He compelled attention. He was the incarnation of triumphant existence, like some thriving dominant animal bent exclusively upon self-perpetuation. His features seemed exaggerated: the bold nose, the wide mouth with very white teeth, the large very dark brown eyes which he fixed upon Howard and Lucy – especially Lucy – each time his attention focused once more upon them. He spoke at machine-gun speed and at length. The interpreter’s version always appeared much curtailed.
‘His Excellency is saying that now he sees you in person the resembl
ance to his mother is not so close. His Excellency asks if you have brothers and sisters.’
‘No,’ said Lucy after a moment.
The interpreter spoke to Omar.
‘I didn’t say all that,’ said Lucy. ‘I just said no.’
‘It is not suitable to address His Excellency in that way.’
Howard said, ‘Will you ask him again why we have not been allowed access to our embassy?’
‘His Excellency has already said he cannot discuss these matters.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Howard. ‘I want you to ask him again. I insist that you ask him again.’
Omar looked up. He had been scrawling an ornate signature at the foot of some papers. He now grinned hugely in Howard’s direction and said, ‘I want doesn’t get.’
‘Sorry?’ said Howard, startled. The words did not immediately take shape, disguised by the man’s staccato delivery.
The grin was replaced by a scowl. Omar snapped something to the interpreter.
‘His Excellency is saying that those who make categorical demands do not always receive satisfaction. He is saying also that he was under the impression you understood English.’
‘I follow now,’ said Howard coldly. ‘The expression escaped me at first. I haven’t heard it since I was a child.’
Omar’s mood had changed once more. He tapped his front teeth with the nib of a gold fountain pen, apparently locked in thought. Then he pointed the pen triumphantly at Howard and spoke again.
‘Don’t care was made to care, Don’t care was hung. Don’t care was put in a pot and boiled till he was done.’ He lay back in his chair and shook with laughter. The interpreter discreetly tittered.
Omar, still chuckling, contemplated Lucy and Howard. Then, apparently, a further thought struck him. He leaned forward, picked up the phone on the desk and rattled out some instructions. He appeared now mellifluous and expansive, a man all set for a bout of harmless pleasure. He swung towards the interpreter and held forth, laughing from time to time. The interpreter’s expression was a struggle between discomfort and servile compliance; he addressed Howard and Lucy.
‘His Excellency is saying that he remembers English people like to play games. He has in his possession some amusing games. He is telling them to bring these games.’
‘What games?’ asked Lucy after a moment.
The interpreter hesitated. ‘I am not so sure.’
‘For the third time,’ said Howard, ‘will you kindly ask him when we will be allowed access to our embassy.’
‘That is not possible.’
‘Why not?’
‘His Excellency has already stated he does not wish to refer to these matters. This is a social occasion.’
‘Look,’ said Howard. ‘We simply want to discuss, quite straightforwardly and without prejudice …’
‘You must not talk like this. In His Excellency’s presence it is permitted only to address His Excellency.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.’
Omar was now having a telephone conversation. He broke off to wave a finger angrily at Howard.
Howard subsided. ‘This is insane,’ he muttered.
‘Better keep calm. We may yet find a way in.’
‘The man’s crazy.’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘But we’re not. That’s our only advantage.’
The interpreter was becoming agitated. ‘It is not permitted to talk during the audience with His Excellency.’
Omar concluded his telephone conversation and became restless. He snapped his fingers, sent attendants scurrying from the room, conducted an irritable exchange with the interpreter. And then a soldier came into the room bearing a pile of shallow boxes, which he set upon the desk in front of Omar, who brightened up. He beckoned to Howard and Lucy.
‘His Excellency wishes you to come over here.’
They rose. They approached the desk. They gazed, incredulous.
Snakes and Ladders … Monopoly … Ludo … The boxes were battered and faded. Some of them had been scribbled on. Omar sorted through the pile until he came to a box adorned with a coloured picture of what appeared to be trench warfare. ATTACK! Omar lifted the lid. Within was a board laid out in squares, and an assortment of small cardboard rectangles, blank on one side and with the picture of a uniformed and equipped soldier on the other – private, captain, colonel, general. These cards could be fitted into small metal holders to stand upright. Omar, smiling indulgently, began to assemble the pieces and range them on the desk, talking the while, pausing only for the interpreter to catch up.
‘This is a very amusing game. The English army fights the French army. The armies are placed facing each other. The pieces are put so that each player does not know the arrangement of the other army – he sees only the blank side. The pieces are moved to challenge a member of the other army, and always the higher-ranking piece kills the lower-ranking. The general kills everybody. Only the spy can kill the general. But everybody is blown up if they challenge a mine. All pieces can be moved except the mines. The objective is to challenge the enemy’s general with your spy, but the spy can be killed by anyone, even a private. So it is very skilful. Very amusing.’
Omar continued to sort out the pieces. He gestured to one of the attendants to bring up chairs for Lucy and Howard.
‘No,’ said Lucy.
‘His Excellency wishes to play this game.’
‘I don’t want to. Tell him I’m a pacifist.’
The interpreter frowned and murmured to Omar, who shook his head dismissively.
‘There is a translation difficulty,’ said the interpreter. ‘His Excellency is not familiar with the term.’
‘This is grotesque,’ said Howard.
Lucy suddenly stood up. ‘All right. We may as well.’
Omar slapped the desk jovially. He finished assembling and sorting the pieces and pushed the English army over to Howard and Lucy, issuing instructions as he did so. He began thoughtfully to set out his own array on the board.
‘His Excellency says you will join to play as a single player. He allows that you should consult with each other concerning moves since you are novices at this game.’ Omar glanced at them, evidently in high spirits. He placed a piece, then changed his mind and altered its position.
Howard began to set out their pieces.
‘No,’ said Lucy after a moment. ‘Not like that. It would be better to put the low-ranking pieces at the front where they can be picked off first. And we can use them to test the water – find out what he’s got in his front row. Put the general somewhere at the back. With mines near.’
‘I thought you were a pacifist,’ said Howard.
‘If we’re being made to play this stupid game, then we’re damn well going to win.’
Omar advanced one of his pieces. ‘Attack!’ he announced.
‘Ah,’ said the interpreter. ‘Your piece is only a scout and His Excellency has challenged with a captain, so you are dead. You must take your piece from the board. Now it is your turn to move.’
Howard advanced a colonel, thus disposing of Omar’s captain. The colonel’s next encounter, though, was with a mine. Omar laughed loudly.
‘This game is most amusing,’ said the interpreter.
After a few minutes their front line had been polished off. Omar sat with folded arms, a watchful expression on his face. He lost a couple of privates and a lieutenant to an advancing captain of the opposition, and the watchful look changed to a scowl.
‘We know where three of his mines are now,’ muttered Lucy. ‘And I think his spy’s in that top right corner – he never shifts those pieces. Move the colonel up that way.’
Omar rapped out an objection.
‘Ah,’ said the interpreter. ‘Unfortunately it is not permitted to move a colonel by four paces, only three. Therefore you lose your turn.’
‘That’s the first time we’ve heard that rule,’ said Lucy.
‘Unfortunately it is so.’
; Omar advanced his general, with considerable carnage. ‘His Excellency is most skilful in this game,’ said the interpreter.
‘It’s a curious concept of skill,’ said Howard.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Never mind.’
‘I think perhaps soon all your personnel will be killed,’ said the interpreter complacently.
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Lucy. ‘Attack!’
Omar sulkily removed his second colonel from the board.
‘Now he knows where our general is,’ Howard pointed out.
‘Yes. That should flush out his spy.’
‘To say my heart isn’t in this would be the understatement of all time.’
‘Probably. But we’re not just going to let him walk all over us.’
The interpreter broke in.
‘It is permitted only to discuss the next move.’
‘That’s what we’re doing,’ said Lucy.
‘Excuse me. I could not hear.’
The two armies were now considerably reduced. Omar stared intently at the board. He reached for a cigarette from the silver box by his elbow, lit it, took a swig of coffee. He spoke, chuckling.
‘His Excellency says he is enjoying this amusing game. His Excellency had forgotten these games and was reminded by your arrival. He learned these games from his mother, you understand.’
‘Fine,’ said Howard. ‘Will you tell His Excellency that we are glad he is enjoying the game, and we would appreciate it if when the game is finished he could answer the questions we have been trying to put to him.’
‘I do not think so.’
‘You do not think what?’ snapped Howard in barely suppressed rage.
The phone rang. Omar snatched it up irritably, rapped out an interrogative. He listened. His expression darkened. He turned away, hunched over the receiver. From time to time he grunted a query. The interpreter shifted apprehensively in his seat. Omar spoke, angrily and at length. The interpreter’s glance slid uneasily to Howard and Lucy. Omar listened again, fired some terse instruction and slammed down the receiver. He stared again at the board, but it was clear that there had been a profound and dramatic change of emphasis. He swept the telephone towards him again, knocking over several pieces as he did so. They noted his spy, upended, exactly where Lucy had foreseen. Omar picked up the receiver and began to talk simultaneously down the line and at the interpreter. He gestured dismissively at Lucy and Howard. The interpreter leapt to his feet. ‘His Excellency is called away on urgent matters. The audience is finished.’
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