As if by Magic

by Angus Wilson

  Silently Jayantha did as she was bid; and Kirsti made no more protest than to squirt the soda loudly into his own whisky.

  “I am a Buddhist, Doctor Malcolm. We have our Way. But now here in Ceylon there are confusions. I don’t speak of all the mad chaps with their strikes and violence. But even amongst the bikkhu, saying foolish things to the village people. And then I look back and regret the wicked British. I was proud to serve under Sir John and to plead before Mr. Justice Carpenter. A white face like a mask. Seeming asleep. People laughed. A judge for Punch. But I remember him. He was very quick. His tongue like a chameleon’s. But then what can we learn from you now? Everything seems confusion in the U.K. also. And then I remember Sir John and Mr. Justice Carpenter were Christians and also Freemasons. It was C. of E., not Roman Catholicism. But even so it is difficult to understand. So I must ask—was it always confusion? Perhaps I remember only rosy pictures because I am old. So I consult the encyclopædia. And the encyclopædia is confused.” He looked sadly at Hamo, and then, as though apprehensive of his reaction, or, perhaps, of the impatient movements of his daughter and son-in-law, he spoke suddenly in a jaunty tone. “Anyway, keep in touch, ask questions. Read books. That’s the recipe against old age. That’s what the new chaps tell us. The geriatric science. Are you familiar with the geriatric bigwigs, Sir?”

  To forestall any harsh words from the young couple to this old man who stood before him, confused and pathetic like some old Chelsea pensioner in mufti, he said, “I think perhaps a general encyclopædia is insufficient for your needs. An encyclopædia of religion, for example, might give you more detail. The Britannica is excellent, of course, but . . .”

  “Oh, I do not use the Britannica.” Mr. Dissawardene looked guiltily towards his son-in-law and said a little wistfully, “Though I have an old set from my student days upstairs in my apartment. No, of course, I use the Dugong Encyclopædia.”

  Mr. Jayasekere said with hearty unease, “Good Heavens, Father, Doctor Malcolm doesn’t know the Dugong.”

  But some counterfeiter’s sense of guilt warned Hamo that here was hot money.

  “I know of it very well.”

  Mr. Jayasekere jumped up from his chair, hurried into another room, and, returning, dropped a heavy book on to Hamo’s lap.

  “There you are, Doctor. See for yourself. A volume chosen at random. So I think you can say, ‘no faking’, eh? Did I ever tell you, Jayantha, of the conjurer I saw at Macclesfield? Lamplugh engaged him for a children’s party. The tricks were very poor. We should be ashamed of them here. But the man’s talk was brilliant. They call it patter. ‘No faking’ they say.”

  Hamo said, “I haven’t seen a conjurer since . . .”

  “Oh, no, no, please, Doctor Malcolm. Read the book. I am talking so that I don’t distract, so that I don’t seem to be breathing down your neck. Otherwise I should seem to be a salesman. Also I am nervous. ‘Here it is at last. What will he think?’ ”

  “But Doctor Malcolm must know the Dugong work or he will not be here.”

  “Ssh! Ssh! Let the chap browse, Jayantha. Now, Father, I wish you had heard this patter as they call it . . .”

  Hamo opened the book at random. He forced himself to read the blurred print: “CAMEL: We are not surprised when this ungainly beast claims the title of Ship of the Desert, for the camel may make another boast . . .” But the boast he never understood, for Mrs. Dissawardene appeared at the kitchen door, behind her the shadowy shapes of attendant servants and the clatter of trays.

  “Doctor Malcolm. I have brought bees’ honey as well as djagaree. Perhaps Doctor Malcolm likes bees’ honey I thought . . .”

  “Violet, Doctor Malcolm is reading the encyclopædia.” The old man’s husbandly rebuke was firm, kind and effective. It brought the stately matron to so sudden a halt that those behind had no time to halt with her. She must indeed have received so sharp a dig in her well-corseted waist that she was thrust forwards absurdly. She was aware of the loss of dignity for she turned in anger upon the servants behind her.

  “This boy is very bad,” she began, then she recovered her sense of the high occasion, “Albert,” she asked her husband in a penetratingly considerate whisper for the benefit of Hamo, “what does Doctor Malcolm think of the illustrations? Everybody is praising the illustrations.”

  Hamo, turning over to the shiny thick-papered photography a few pages forwards, saw a misty over-exposure, a blur out of which two crescent-shaped objects vaguely loomed. Imagining Erroll’s scorn, he decided at once that he could answer no more questions, solve no more problems, encourage no more promises, chide no more incompetence, unravel no more knots, waste no more anger or compassion, indulge no more lusts. He would get up and leave this house at once, with honourable discharge; calling for a napkin and bowl at the hotel, he would wash his hands of it all—Ceylon, South-East Asia, the developing countries, the Third World—all the things without which his father had been perfectly able to live an upright life in Perthshire and die an upright death at Arnhem. He would return to England tomorrow.

  He looked up from the blurred pale hemispheres of the photograph to the view of two deliciously firm buttocks bent beneath their white sarong over the dining table, as Muthu arranged the bowls of buffalo curd for their delight. Looking again to the photograph the blurred shapes took on another meaning too delicious to accept the caption: “Camel’s humps: On a long journey some Arab nomads allow themselves the luxury (!) of a pitcher of camel’s milk (!!).” Ah well, the encyclopædist was not alone in finding foreign customs strange. He allowed himself the pleasant prurience once more of sweeping his eyes from Beauty’s clothed buttocks to their imagined nakedness in the blurred camel’s humps.

  “This photograph of a camel is quite delightful!”

  Something in the warmth of his tone released all the pent-up hopes and conjectures of the family he had invaded.

  “Photo-lithotype on a rich, thick cartridge paper,” said Mr. Jayasekere, attempting an easy professional insouciance, but he collapsed into a schoolboy’s delighted smile. “So you’ve got some good marks for the Dugong Press! Your visit is one of friendship then. I bet the Minister didn’t want you to come. And the Permanent Secretary chap—‘Mr. Jayasekere, I must inform you that the Government does not favour the granting of exclusive licences to private enterprises.’ ‘What the hell did we get rid of the socialists and Mrs. B. and that lot for, then?’ I asked him. ‘Mr. Jayasekere, the new Ceylon will not be built upon cynicism but upon co-operation.’ It will be built upon hard work and profit making, I told him. Did you meet the chap?”

  “No. I have met none of the officials nor the Minister.”

  “You came here without seeing the Minister! Kirsti, do you hear? Doctor Malcolm has snubbed the Minister! You are my idea of a hero, Doctor Malcolm.”

  Looking at the light of admiration in Mrs. Jayasekere’s now suddenly wildly lively eyes, Hamo feared that her excitement might prove orgasmic and that her orgasm would be in honour of himself. He was relieved when her father rebuked her.

  “The ministers in our government are sometimes foolish, Jayantha, but they are good men. They are steering our country through stormy waters. Steer the ship through stormy waters—is that a good phrase, Doctor Malcolm? I think it was used by Sir John in his parting address, but I don’t remember such things exactly now.”

  Mrs. Dissawardene came to support her husband’s authority. “The Minister’s wife is Winnie Wijelawala. She was at school with me. A fat girl but a good girl. The Wijelawalas are a very good family.”

  Mrs. Jayasekere looked for support from her husband, but he had gone from the room. She contented herself by saying, “Doctor Malcolm, I take you for my champion.” And she repeated her fiery, hero-worshipping look.

  Hamo’s embarrassment was moderated by the return of her husband who handed him another heavy volume of the encyclopædia. With a well-manicured finger he indicated a passage for Hamo to read. It was headed DEGREES, University—subheading, Ceylo
n, and read, “At present the University of London has unfortunately withdrawn the granting of external degrees to students in the Universities of Ceylon. Their decision, however, is under reconsideration. Enlightened opinion in Singhalese educational circles is pressing for the restoration of the external degrees both in the sciences and in the sister arts so that the island may take her place beside other lands in the rapidly growing technocratic world of today. Parties of the Left, however, playing upon the nationalist sentiments of their countrymen and seeking to confine the outward-gazing students to the narrow confines of a so-called ‘Asian’ culture, are opposed to the said restoration. One specious argument—that of the supposed high cost to the island’s hard-pressed economy of foreign text-books—may easily be met by the almost limitless expanding potentiality of Ceylon’s indigenous publishing industry (see PRINTING, Asia—Ceylon)”.

  “So, Doctor Malcolm, there is our back line volley. Now the ball is in your court, please.”

  “The buffalo curds are served. Hurry up to table.” Mrs. Dissawardene gave this order with mock severity that involved much coy laughter; but also with an air of routine which suggested that she supposed it a facetious remark inseparable from the etiquette of all dining. She added, “Nowadays men are always eating when they are doing business. Do you have the Chamber of Commerce and the Round Table in the U.K., Doctor Malcolm? When Albert was at the courts, the Chamber of Commerce dinners were often so very late.”

  Her husband looked at her sternly, affectionately, over his glasses. “Such things started in the U.K., Violet. The men know how to make their escape there.” Then more lightly he added, “They also have the Buffaloes, but I don’t think they enjoy your excellent buffalo curd.” He turned to Hamo to motion him to the table. “But perhaps you call this now a working luncheon. Can you have a working luncheon in the evening, Doctor Malcolm?” He looked at the table. “There are three places, Kirsti. I shall not eat however.”

  “The third place is for Jayantha, Father. After all, if Doctor Malcolm is happy with the proposals, she will be our partner.”

  “Yes, Albert, Jayantha will not need to go to Lourdes to buy at Harrods. Or at Jaegers. If Doctor Malcolm agrees with Kirsti.” Mrs. Dissawardene paused in her scolding preparation of Muthu’s setting down of the innumerable small bowls that were accessory to the curd. She bowed her noble head at Hamo with a modest but friendly smile.

  Mrs. Jayasekere almost belly-danced as she preceded Hamo to the table.

  “I do not know what Maisie Goonasekere will say when she knows that I also am to be a business woman.”

  “The first rule of business, Jayantha, is to be silent and discreet. Even for a woman.”

  “Kirsti is angry with me, Doctor Malcolm. Are you also angry? You will not want me for a partner now.”

  “Doctor Malcolm is not to be a partner, Jayantha. He is to be a patron.”

  “Aren’t you going to eat all these delicious things with us?” Hamo, seeking to distract, asked first of Mr. Dissawardene who stood by the door like a maître d’hôtel, and then of Mrs. Dissawardene, who stood beside his chair like a formidable waiter.

  “No, Sir. My wife and I do not eat in the evenings. But we wish you every success in your generous espousal of my son-in-law’s cause. May I say ‘espousal’? Or is there perhaps some offence in the term?”

  Hamo did not answer. He did not feel at that moment anything either of quaintness or pathos in the old man’s question; nor indeed in any of the family. On the contrary their remarks as they jostled him gently to the table appeared each in turn to shut a gate to his evasion of the fraudulent scene—gates which he had sought by his silence to keep half-opened. Only Muthu’s presence, stiffly standing to attention by the kitchen door, kept him in his seat; and even that might have been insufficient had not the boy sought unnoticed to scratch the back of his right calf with his left foot. The small manœuvre so whetted Hamo’s lustful appetite that he surrendered himself for the moment to whatever Dr. Malcolm’s apparently undercover activities entailed; but he retained enough of his senses unheightened to seek to make sure that whatever he was letting himself in for gave him some promise of return.

  Now, Mrs. Dissawardene,” he said, “I’m not going to have you waiting upon me. It isn’t our way in England and I shan’t enjoy your delicious dishes if I know I’m being watched.” Pressure, he could see, was teaching him a whole new manner of talking to women.

  “But you must be waited upon.”

  “If you insist, let the boy wait on me. It’ll remind me of my childhood days when we still employed a page.” He gave a small laugh he had never heard himself use before—the apologetic laugh of those who have seen better days. His hosts, knowing none of his days good or bad, made no comment. His imagination, too, was stimulated by adventure. “It’s pleasant to meet the old ways again.” As he said it, he thought that there had been somewhere, even if only in dreams, some such happiness in his childhood—“Master Hamo” at the table, but “Race you up the bank, Hamie,” as they ran, two naked lads, from forbidden bathing in Farmer McGregor’s stream.

  Mr. Dissawardene looked quizzically over his spectacles. “I think that with your liking of the old-fashioned ways you must have some troubles with these radical rascals in the U.K. nowadays, Doctor Malcolm.” But he gave orders in his soft but definite Singhalese and soon Muthu’s beauty had replaced the Matron’s stateliness behind Hamo’s chair.

  It’s amazing what you can get away with if you try. Hamo got away with a good deal of covert stroking of the most beautiful thighs in the world and even a pinch or two of the most beautiful buttocks; the most beautiful knees, in their turn, caressed on occasion the small of his back, the most beautiful hand gently once or twice flickered across the nape of his neck. All this he got away with, perhaps because he so astonished his hosts by the amount of food he consumed.

  “Bee’s honey and djagaree! Doctor Malcolm is eating the candied guava! Do you like the plantains? They are very big. We usually eat them as vegetables. No, please help yourself to more of the shredded coconut. I am so pleased that you like it. Doctor Malcolm likes the shredded coconut. He has had three helpings.”

  But, in for a loquat, in for a bread-fruit. The excitement of the unknown increased as much Hamo’s appetite as his lust; indeed he hardly felt the two as separate when opening his seventh mangosteen he sucked the delicious sticky white coating from the pulpy seeds. And he learned, indeed helped to outline, the shape of the role he had taken on.

  As Doctor Malcolm, Secretary and Representative of the London University Examination Board, he could and did safely say that the Board’s inclination, no, let it be put more strongly, its earnest wish was for the restoration of external degrees of the University to candidates from the Universities of Ceylon in the nearest possible foreseeable future. Candidates, let it be understood, who satisfied the examiners. That went without saying. A certain sternness, a certain reserve, a certain insistence on academic standards seemed to him his best bargaining counter; and then again it appeared impossible to move completely from one personality to another without carrying some of one’s personal luggage—intellectual rectitude, at least, and a concern for the good name of British Institutions, these were as indispensable to him as his dressing-case and his hairbrushes. Whatever the other Doctor Malcolm might dispense with in professional decorum (and the whole affair appeared to be in some degree shady), Langmuir-Malcolm was to be a stickler for correct form. The man was, after all, a representative of English learning, even science, after his fashion (although the administrative fashion was hardly of the most elegant). Nevertheless he found himself, when Mr. Jayasekere told of the Minister’s concern, in the event of a resumption of London degree-giving, that text-book supply should be left open to the bids of British educational publishers, despite all the claims to efficiency, local knowledge, and, above all, saving of foreign currency that the selection of a prominent native publisher would entail, astonished, even a little (though as a foreign v
isitor, cautiously) shocked at such an—unpatriotic was hardly for him to say—but certainly unnecessary, and he must say, yes, frankly misguided attitude. If as was being said (by Mr. Jayasekere, in fact) the Minister feared that, without commerce with the English publishers, the University would not be interested in the deal, he could say at once and with a good deal of hauteur (and he did so) that the Minister sadly misunderstood the independent standing of the English Universities. Indeed he must altogether deprecate the use of the word “deal” which, unknown in academic vocabulary, totally failed to describe the independent decision of the University which would be made solely in the interests of Singhalese education, or, he would go further and say, global education.

  As soon as he had said it, he wanted to recede; to find himself using Sir Alec’s vocabulary threatened some dreadful take-over by his new and administrative personality. But he concentrated on the positive side of things: it was evident that a Singhalese publisher, provided that one could be found that could undertake so considerable an enterprise (and it looked as though one could) was the obvious solution to what was probably the one single most important factor in a complex decision. That, indeed, had been the thinking behind his surprise visit.

  If he had not been excitedly resisting an absurd giggle as Muthu, for a daring second, tickled his armpit, he would have got up and fled before Sir Alec entirely took him over. He could not, of course, commit himself immediately, but he would venture to say that he was deeply impressed by what he had seen of the—he must look to see how it was spelt—work of the Dugong Press, such a good and easily memorable name. He had not as yet had an opportunity of visiting the other presses. (“Oh, you are going to the other publishers, Doctor Malcolm. Who will you go to? You will not like them. There is Aloysius da Souza. Not at all a smart man. Their house is very vulgar. They live in Dambulla. That is not a smart . . .” “Oh, my God, Jayantha, don’t rock the boat. Of course he must see the other chaps’ work. That’s only trade etiquette. Justice must be seen to be done and so forth and so on.”)