As if by Magic

by Angus Wilson

  Now the youth stood up and the slender dignity of his spare figure in his rags again threatened Hamo’s lust, but this time with an injection of splendid pathos. The youth unbound his sarong, knelt beside Hamo and wiped away the blood from his leg. He then stood and bound the other garment, green, but even more faded, tightly round his figure. He turned away, as though, having done all he could in service, he must now efface himself; tears were again trickling down his cheeks. Hamo sat, crouched on his haunches for a few minutes, too excited to extend a hand, then gently he stroked the back of the boy’s leg up to his firm buttocks. Instantly with a strange grunt of content, the boy turned, unbound his cloth, lay on his face, and, handing Hamo the precious soap, looked over his shoulder in a smile of gleaming white invitation. Hamo’s sole fear was of being too ready for the feast, when suddenly, in the trees above, the boom of the great monkeys sounded again, and a second later a ripe mango followed by a shower of squashy fruits exploded disgustingly over the youth’s glorious nakedness, and over Hamo’s clothed neatness. Looking up in anger, his rage was redoubled when he saw, not the Wilberforcean Victorian features of a wanderoo, but the malicious ape-cat face of the Danish uncle, who, leader in a follow-my-leader, was now calling up reinforcements of the boys to hurl their disgust at the prevented coupling below. Who so casts the first stone? But at the dictation of the scandalized German uncle, it was cast and, with it, great coconuts, one of which half stunned Hamo’s companion as he sought to drag his new lover up the slippery slopes of the holy flower. To the squealing, delighted lads above they must have seemed—this giant uncle who had proved no uncle and this low-born, over-grown passé servant-boy—like two absurd insects struggling to get out of a saucer. Nor was the pack’s treble howling lessened as, continually pelted, Hamo forced his furious way back through the thorny scrub to the hibiscus-edged lawn.

  There the elder English uncle, very red in the face and naval in language, met him.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Langmuir, messing about with the bloody servants, and the outside servants at that? The Jonkheer doesn’t make many rules, but eating yesterday’s dinner out of the kitchen cook-pot goes too far. I think the best thing we can do is to get young Lacey to drive you straight back to the Club. There’s clearly been a grave mistake, not only about your tastes but also about your manners.”

  But Hamo was too angry to take heed of the quarter-deck. He marched towards the bungalow, his arm around the youth, who struggled, from fear of the Jonkheer no doubt, to leave his grasp. Even the disgusted and haughty uncles, let alone the pranksome boys, parted their ranks before Hamo’s determined steps. But not the proud Jonkheer. He stood on the back veranda ready to meet the erring guest. Framed in cascades of black-centred yellow Thunbergia, he looked, in his formidable size, like an early photograph of a returned colonial hunter. He wanted only a rifle and Hamo’s dead body on which to plant his triumphant foot.

  Some such thought may have been in his mind, for when Hamo, reduced to a stuttering incoherence by his anger, got out at last, “Can you explain to me what your friends . . .?” he looked down with vast grey-faced contempt and his voice came through the creeper as thunder from the mountain.

  “I want no conversation with you, Mr. Langmuir. I had no special regard for Nikita Khrushchev and his Russian friends, their business methods are not mine, but he had a remarkable power of illustrating his point of view with stories of the animal kingdom. May I explain to you in the same terms? The tiger, no doubt, is aware of the skulking presence of the jackal and the vulture waiting to feed from the offal that he leaves; but I do not suppose that he holds conversation with them. I suggest that instead of insulting your host by buggering his servants, you look for your leavings in the slums of the cities of Asia. Luckily your very valuable scientific rationalization of our local agriculture has made sure that the bazaars and public places are filled with the scum overflowing from the waters of hopeless paddy-fields. If anyone has such low tastes, they are always ready to oblige for the price of a bowl of rice. And now, if Lacey wishes to atone for his mistake in bringing you here, he will gratify us all by taking you away again.”

  He turned his back and went into the house. Perhaps this time his fart was unintentional, for he was an ageing man who had just eaten, drunk and fornicated heavily in the midday heat. Indeed it was this sapping humidity that decomposed, which made Hamo decide that he would not pursue his host. In any case, at that moment, he was almost thrown off balance as the lovely youth with a violent jerk pulled out of his grasp and ran off into the scrub, pursued by stones and fruit from the boys. When some of those high up in the trees showed inclination to pursue the fugitive, however, the elder English uncle, representative in the gathering of his nation’s common sense, genius for order and moderation, called out to them, “No, no, stop that, you fellows, we don’t want any more of a shambles than we’ve got. Now, Poulsen, what about you and I picking sides for a game of tip-and-run?”

  The Danish uncle, in whom there was clearly far more mischief than malice, readily agreed. And as Hamo, seated beside a sullen and silent Lacey, was driven away down the hairpin bends, he could hear the clack of bat on ball, the innocent laughter and the excited cries behind him. His was clearly the exit of a defeated spoil-sport.

  For many miles of their return journey, Lacey’s swollen, purplish face wore a more than usually Neronic scowl beneath its Roman crew-cut, and Hamo was too possessed of a superstitious fear that the Jonkheer’s sinister rule might still not be ended, that they had not gone far enough from the fearful bungalow, that they were being pursued and would be taken back, to feel collected enough to broach the silence.

  At last it was Lacey who spoke.

  “My God! That was a balls-up,” he said, then he added, laughing though harshly, “Do you always have a genius for picking them like that?” And to Hamo perplexed, he explained, “Didn’t you realize that you’d picked up the old boy’s leavings? Hence all that jackal stuff. Look, three years ago, when we celebrated in Laos, there was one hell of a row, because the Jonkheer brought that very boy along. Of course, he was a peach then, not the scrawny half-starved scarecrow you seemed to delight in. But still he broke the old boy’s own first rule—‘Nothing low.’ Quite honestly, I confess,” and the Englishman turned with a near complicit grin to Hamo, “I have certain vulgar tastes myself. I suppose,” and he seemed to be watching for some spark of interest in Hamo’s set face, “you see, at school at Radley, it was so dinned into us that we mustn’t talk to the Teds, that that sort of thing was bound to happen. At least that’s the kind of thing they say,” he added rather sadly as Hamo’s interest failed to come alive at this social analysis. “Anyway, the Jonkheer picked him up at that very estate bungalow. His family is one of the few left scratching a living down in the valley. With the new sort of bumper crops your Magic has brought, that irregularly flooded land isn’t worth the irrigation and there’s only a pocket of half starvers like him left there. Well, you know all that better than I do. The boy was a smasher three years ago. Quite good enough to make the Jonkheer ready to face the music when Leroux and the others got on their hind legs about the club rules. He’d have been wiser to have his piece of cake at home, but he couldn’t help randying the others up. And they knew it. Anyway he paid for it, as his own teaching should have told him all along. You see, with the right sort of boy, this uncle lark really works. They’re going to be engineers, doctors, ad men, even parsons, some of them. But you can’t do anything for these illiterate types. To the strong and the brainy everything, to the weak the wall. Well, you know that, as a scientist. Anyway another trouble is you’re left with them on your hands. Mind you, the Jonkheer was very good to him. He went on until he’d almost got indigestion from tough meat. He must have been sixteen before he told him to get to the kitchen and stay there. Then there have been tears ever since. Crying for his lost looks I suppose. Anyway this week-end it all blew up. Weeping and hysteria because Master Hong Kong—God! he�
��s a dish—arrived on the scene. So the Jonkheer had to kick him out. Silly little tyke! There aren’t too many warm corners for the starving in this country. Trust you to find him though,” Lacey by this time seemed to have acquired an affection for Hamo. He took one hand from the wheel and smacked him on the shoulder. “Feet first every time, is it? God, your lab must be a shambles.” He gave a look of mock disapproval, that would have suggested to one more attentive than Hamo some real softening of feeling, even of admiration in a man clearly given to hero-worship—perhaps the Jonkheer as Commanding Officer or Housemaster was to be replaced by Hamo as the Chap who’s Always on a Charge, the Clumsy Idiot of the Remove.

  But Hamo was hypnotized by the heat, by the car’s motion, and by the somnambulistic rhythm of the gaily-coloured women and children as they waded backwards in the mud passing their shining yellow-green bundles of seedlings from left to right hand, gibbing them in endless lines into the richly fed and well tended black soil of the vast estate of paddy-fields on either side of the road. For they were passing through land where Magic had clearly found a home. Through his ever more shadowy thoughts ran professional unease that made his body twitch, and a lustful regret that made it twitch again; a longing for sleep, in which he would know no more of such twitches than a cat or a dog before the fire, dominated all his thoughts and feelings. But alas for Hamo, the dream of his driver was for mutual aid, not for oblivion.

  “You seen any of the temples yet?” he said, stopping before a white, gold and vermilion dagoba of more than usually rich confection. Hamo, coming to from his day-dream, thought for a moment that he was being offered again a slice of birthday cake. Then, fully awake, was about to say, yes, that he had visited one or two such temples, and also, that having no understanding either of their religious purpose or their architectural form, he had not found his visits particularly rewarding. But Lacey cried, “We can’t have you go away without seeing the Temple of the Tigers. That would never do.” As it turned out, they went away seeing only the tigers, who, three in number, were as morosely, stingily and mangily engaged with a few blood-stained bones in their sunk pit in the temple fore-court as any old Western circus tigers in their cages on wheels.

  “Of course, it’s strictly very un-Buddhist all this,” Lacey commented, “probably some local superstition, that goes back to the Ark, that’s got attached to the place. You ought to have come with an old Asia hand like the Commander if you wanted to know the religious ins and outs of the thing.”

  He seemed annoyed at Hamo’s supposed expectations. But his attention was immediately drawn to the young meat-vendor who stood beside the enclosure selling, to the pious, bones to give to the tigers as well as frangipani and lotus to offer to the Buddha.

  “I say. What have we got here? He seems a likely sort of lad.”

  What they had got there Hamo found embarrassingly young (? thirteen years old) and embarrassingly naked for approach to any kind of worship, so he looked instead studiously down into the tiger pit.

  He could hear from behind him Lacey addressing the boy but without response; and then suddenly there was a jabber of both voices. He turned to see Lacey standing with his arm encircling the boy’s naked waist, his fingers tickling his smooth, flat little belly. He put on his black glasses; the sight was no less unpleasing, but his disgust would be less apparent.

  “Just choose a couple of these juicy chops and throw them to the wretched beasts, will you? I think it’ll please our friend here if we buy his wares.”

  Lacey winked at Hamo, who, feeling that, whatever his own uninterest, he could not be responsible for a sabotage of his host’s amatory plans twice in a day, rummaged with head averted from the fly-covered mass in the meat basket, and dropped in turn two high-smelling, blood-slimy bones to the ambiguously sacred animals. He then occupied himself rather longer than was required in wiping his hands in order to leave Lacey time to make his assignation or whatever. He supposed the tedious, distasteful business done, for a minute later Lacey was at his side taking his arm and moving him towards the car again, apparently forgetful, in his fulfilled excitement, of the proposed visit to the temple.

  “Well,” he said, “I shall have something to talk of at the club. Do you know what that chap was? I had my suspicions from the first that he wasn’t a local Indonesian lad, though I tried him in each of the five local dialects. So I took a very long shot. My Batak’s pretty rusty, but it acted like magic. He started jabbering away. God knows how he got here. One of our peasant lads looking for gold bricks again, I expect. They walk bloody hundreds of miles. Looks as if he could do with one of those chops, doesn’t he? But then they’re probably sacred. Anyhow, I told him he was as beautiful as the teat ends of a full ewe. That’s the way they pitch the story in his lot.” He stopped. It became clear that Hamo was intended to comment. He spoke as interestedly as he could sound, but he was most unwilling to be cognisant of any details of the encounter or party to any future meeting.

  “And what was his reply?” In nervousness, his voice took on a treble note that sounded in his own ears unbearably arch, but Lacey appeared not to notice it.

  “Well, it’s difficult to give an exact translation for imaguta-si. But I suppose ‘barmy’ would be the right word. Yes. He said, ‘You must be barmy.’ ”

  Hamo could not stop himself laughing out loud.

  Lacey frowned, and for the rest of the journey remained silent. The familiar lagoon, with its doleful mangroves, brought additional depression to Hamo, underlining the watery world, but at least announcing the coming of the city and a release from this disastrous expedition. Lacey, looking more firmly to the road than his usual standard of driving demanded, spoke again.

  “We’re not trendy here, you know, if that’s the word we’re supposed to use. But we’re not fools either. You thought it very funny that I said ‘barmy’. I’m quite aware that it’s out-of-date slang. I use it because my father was very fond of it and that happens to be enough to make it a special pleasure to me.” As he stopped the car at the Club door, still looking ahead, he added, “Of course, you can tell everyone that Lacey’s very soppy about his father. But it wouldn’t be true. I’ve never mentioned my feelings to anyone before. I wouldn’t now, only thanks to you, today’s been such an appalling wash-out. It seemed to me only fair to give you some idea of the way you balls things up.”

  Hamo reflected, as he took a shower, that he had already been given some idea of this earlier that day. Nevertheless the man’s piety towards his father touched him very nearly. He felt weighed. down by a sense of being a double murderer. It took indeed a lot of soap and hot water and splashings and blowings to make him feel himself once again: Hamo Langmuir, plant geneticist and gentleman eccentric, and not just a too long body exposed to the disgust of those upon whose privacy he had obtruded his repulsive tastes. The boys’ mocking, sportive laughter, the uncles’ malevolent distaste still rang in his ears.

  The Erroll he met on the hotel’s dining terrace was in high spirits. He had had success with the secretary of the Commercial Counsellor at the Embassy, a girl named Jane Dare, who had prepared for him, in addition, a first-rate curry lunch; not the sort of thing the bazaars ponged of, but tasty and authentic.

  *

  For the first six weeks after she left the Tangier hospital, where she had been so devotedly fêted and blessed by the loving, disapproving nuns, Alexandra sat or lay hour after hour every day and for many of the still warm nights on exactly the same stretch of sand, her right arm either holding Oliver to her as he sucked her breast, or holding on to the rim of his carry-cot as he slept.

  Only some eight miles to the north-west stood the Msûra circle of cromlechs around an eight-foot high menhir—great limestone monuments brought somehow, somewhen to a sandstone region. Señor Ramón Lopez y Garcia gives them a 2000 B.C. date and refuses to conjecture about their neolithic purpose further than to agree that it must have been “religious”. Brigadier Foxways-White, however, considers that only prejudice can r
efuse to recognize in them the sole-surviving, millennia-ancient, Atlantean mainland scientific achievements, infinitely skilful, religious only in the sense that Atlantean science was, of course, occult, and still extraordinarily powerful in their cosmic vibrations.

  This view has called forth a vexed rebuttal from Doctor Stephanie Gautier who considers that such excessive claims do immense harm to the study of Atlantean science. It is evident, she points out, that the Msûra columns are very inferior in execution, in sacred measurement, and, indeed, in cosmic force, to even such outlying, provincial Atlantean engineering projects as Stonehenge (itself the work, no doubt, of members of the inferior trading caste of Atlantis absent on some barter mission among the outer savages when diluvian disaster overtook the great civilized continent and all its highest caste of initiates). Msûra, she thinks, could possibly be the work of some similar but less instructed trading group, or more likely a very much later and inferior imitation of Stonehenge made by descendants of the Atlantean traders isolated in those northern parts who had come south over the ice in an instinctual search for more powerful solar cosmic rays. That this view is correct, she, in fact, knows from direct psychic communication with the Atlantean initiates, but such information being arcane she can only hint at it (a hint, however, that with its undertones of power greatly excited Sir James Langmuir when he read her book).

  Berber and Arab peasants alike, despite all Allah’s disapproval, worship or propitiate spirits there. La ilaba il Allah, Muhammad il Rasul Allah, they cry illogically, but find no blasphemy, because the propitiation of spirits strengthens the Oneness of God and the single voice of his Prophet.

  Elinor has felt the force of its vibration and has persuaded Ned, on occasion, to take his troupe (an entity this, like the Community, changing from day to day) to perform their mimetic movements within its rhythm-enhancing circle. She regularly performs her own spiritual breathing and postures (pranayamas and asanas to her, for she is ready poised for flight to India) within the shadow of these mysterious limestone columns. Rodrigo, immaculate in clothing, if in nothing else, walks there (in the absence of Elinor or members of the mime) for its regularity and symmetry soothe the outrage that the flux and muddle of the Community daily inflict upon his nerves.