The Levant Trilogy (31 page)

The captain laughed. 'You haven't missed a
thing.'

'Where are the jerries now, then?'

'Stuck in the mine fields.'

Terry swung round to face Tony: 'We must get in
on this,' then asked the captain: 'You think they'll get any further?'

'There's no knowing. They've put in a fair bit
of armour. Our reconnaissance reported a hundred or more Mark IIIs in the gap,
but there's a storm blowing up. Dust so thick you can't tell sand from shit.'

In the general good fellowship, Simon found
courage to enquire about his Column which he had left to the east of Ragil.

'What! Hardy's lot?' the captain gave a laugh
that was almost a gibe: 'Last seen on the Cairo barrel track.'

'Not in action, I suppose?'

'Rather not. Seems like they were looking for
rabbits.'

Simon jumped down from the pick-up. He could not
get in on the fight and he had no excuse for staying with the Cherrypickers.
He must wait for a vehicle that would take him to wherever the Column was now.

As the hussars set off again, the captain shouted
after them: 'Mind you don't drive straight into the bag.' He gave Simon a look
and said, 'I've known that happen before now,' then, having nothing more to say
to an inexperienced second lieutenant, he walked back to the command vehicle.

Simon carried his kit into the shade of a hut
and sat down beside it. He could see the pick-up disappearing down the track in
a cloud of dust. He envied the Cherrypickers but felt no regrets at parting
with them. He had learnt independence during his months in the desert. In early
days, he had attached himself to anyone who could, in some way, replace the
lost relationships of home, but the need for those relationships had died as
his friends died. He had become wary of affections that seemed always to end in
tragedy. This last death, Hugo's death, had, he felt, brought his emotional
life to a close. He no longer wanted intimates or cronies. He told himself he
could manage very well on his own.

Dissatisfaction - chiefly Harriet's - was
eroding the Pringles' marriage. Harriet had not enough to do, Guy too much.
Feeling a need to justify his civilian status, he worked outside of normal
hours at the Institute, organizing lectures, entertainments for troops and any
other activity that could give him a sense of purpose. Harriet saw in his
tireless bustle an attempt to escape a situation that did not exist. Even had
he been free to join the army, his short sight would have failed him. He
thought himself into guilt in order to justify his exertions, and his
exertions saved him from facing obnoxious realities.

Or so she thought. So thinking, she felt not so
much resentment as a profound disappointment. Perhaps she had expected too
much from marriage, but were her expectations unreasonable? Did all married
couples spend their evenings apart? She felt that their relationship had
reached an impasse but Guy was content enough. Things were much as he wanted
them to be and if he noticed her discontent, it was only to wonder at it. He
felt concern, seeing her too thin for health, but saw no reason to blame
himself. He blamed the Egyptian climate and suggested she take passage on a
boat due, some time soon, to sail round the Cape to England.

She had been dumbfounded by the suggestion. She
would not consider it for a moment but said: 'We came together and when we
leave, we'll leave together.' And that, she thought, decided that.

Guy seldom came in for meals and when he
returned to the flat one lunch-time, she asked with pleasurable surprise: 'Are
you home for the rest of the day?'

He laughed at the idea. Of course he was not
home for the rest of the day. He had come to change his clothes. He was to
attend a ceremony at the Moslem cemetery and had to hurry.

Harriet, following him to their room, said, 'But
you will stay for lunch?'

'No. Before I go to the cemetery, I have to
interview a couple of men who want to teach at the Institute.'

'So you're going to the City of the Dead?'
Harriet was amazed. During their early days in Cairo, when he had had time to
see the sights, he had rejected the City of the Dead as a 'morbid show', so
what was taking him there now? He was going from a sense of duty. One of his
pupils had been killed in a car accident and he was to attend, not the funeral,
but the
arba'in,
the visit to the dead that ended the forty days of
official mourning.

'Can I come with you?'

Guy, harassed by the need to dress himself all
over again that day, said, 'No. It's probably only for men. But why not? It
won't hurt them to be reminded that women exist. Yes, come if you like.'

He was a large,, bespectacled, untidy man, now
much improved by his well-cut dark blue suit, but he could not leave it like
that. Stuffing his pockets with books and papers, he managed to revert to his
usual negligent appearance, and becoming more cheerful, said, 'Meet me at
Groppi's at three.'

'But will you
be
there at three?'

'Of course. Now, don't be late. I've a busy
evening ahead, so we'll go early and leave early.'

As he left the room, she saw his wallet half out
of his rear pocket and shouted, 'Put your wallet in before it gets nicked.'

'Thanks. Must hurry. Got a taxi waiting.
Remember, don't be late. If you're late, I'll have to start without you.'

During September, the heat of summer had
settled, layer upon layer, in the streets until they were compacted under a
dead weight of heat which veiled the city like a yellow fog. Groppi's garden, a
gravelled, open space surrounded by house walls and scented by coffee and
cakes, was like a vast cube of Turkish delight.

Wandering into it at the sticky, blazing hour of
three in the afternoon, Harriet saw that Guy was not there. She asked herself
why had she ever thought he would be? He was always late yet his assurances were
so convincing, she still believed he would come when he said he would.

Army men saw Groppi's as a good place for
picking up girls and Harriet disliked being alone there. She had chosen a table
close to the wall and felt herself to be an object of too much interest. She
would, if she could, have hidden herself altogether.

The sun, immediately overhead, poured down
through the cloth of the umbrellas like molten brass. Creepers, kept alive by
water seeping from a perforated hose, rustled their mat of papery leaves. With
nothing but creepers for company, she sat with downcast eyes and told herself
she could murder Guy.

Someone said, 'Hello,' and, looking up, she saw
Dobson had come to sit with her. They met at almost every meal time in the flat
yet she welcomed him as a dear friend unseen for months and her spirits rose.

Dobson, as usual, had an amusing story to tell:
'They say things are so bad in Russia, they've started opening the churches.
What I heard was: Stalin was driving out of the Kremlin one night and the
headlights of his car lit a poster that said "Religion - the opium of the
masses!" "My God," said Stalin, "That's just what we want
these days: opium" and he ordered the churches to be reopened.'

'Did he really say "My God"?'

Dobson's soft sloping shoulders shook as he
laughed: 'Oh, Harriet, how sharp you are!' He brushed a hand over his puffs of
hair and asked, 'What would he say? He'd say "Oh, Russian winter!"'

'Really, Dobbie, you're ridiculous!'

By the time Guy arrived full of excuses and
apologies, Harriet had forgotten her annoyance. When he asked if she had been
waiting long, she replied blandly: 'Since three o'clock.'

He took this lightly: 'Oh, well, you had
Dobbie.'

Although he had earlier emphasized the need to
'go early and leave early', he sat down and ordered tea, saying, 'I've just had
the greatest piece of luck. Two chaps rang the Institute last week and said
they wanted work, teaching English. I saw them today and - it's almost too good
to be true - they're exactly what I've been looking for. They speak excellent
English. They're well read, personable, willing to take on any number of
classes. In fact, they're a gift. I think they could get much better paid jobs,
but they want to teach.'

'Extraordinary!' said Dobson: 'What are they?
Egyptians?'

'No, European Jews.'

'Called?'

'Hertz and Allain.'

Dobson, who expected to have knowledge of the
European refugees under British protection, said, 'Never heard of them. What
was their last place of residence?'

Guy had not thought to ask. 'Does it matter?
They may have come from Palestine.'

'Did you ask what they are doing here?'

'No, but I suppose they can come here if they
want to?'

'Why should they want to? Jews who have the luck
to get into Palestine are only too glad to stay there.'

Not liking these questions, Guy became restless
and looked at his watch. Gathering up his books, he said, 'It's gone four
o'clock,' and added; 'I cannot see why you should be suspicious of two
civilized, intelligent and harmless young men who want to teach. I can now delegate
the English language classes and give my time to the literature.'

Never perturbed for long, Dobson smiled and
said, 'Oh, well! But keep an eye on them in case...'

'In case of what?'

'I don't know. I just feel they're too good to
be true.'

Guy, glancing at Harriet, said, 'Darling, do
hurry,' as though she was responsible for the hour. He had left a gharry
waiting outside the cafe. When they were seated, he said to the driver, 'Qarafa,'
and that was the first time Harriet heard the true name of the City of the
Dead. He had learnt more Arabic than she had and was able to explain to the
driver the dire need for haste. The man was so galvanized that he gave his
horse a lick and the creature trotted for nearly a hundred yards before
settling back into its usual lethargy.

They made their way through the old quarters of
Cairo, among crowded streets from which minarets, yellow with sand, seemed to
be crumbling against the cerulean of the sky. The kites, that found little of
interest in the main roads, here floated, slow but keen-eyed, above the flat
rooftops where the poor stacked their rubbish. As the lanes narrowed, the
crowds became thicker and the enclosed air was filled with the smell of the
spice shops. Guy, worried by their late arrival, had nothing to say.

Harriet, feeling the ride was spoilt by his mute
disinterest in things, asked, 'Why didn't you come at three o'clock as arranged?'

'Because I had more important things to do. You
don't stop to think how much I have on hand.'

His tone of controlled exasperation, exasperated
her. 'Most of it unnecessary. I suppose you got so involved with the two
teachers, you forgot the time.'

Truths of this sort annoyed him and he did not
reply but stared ahead, his face creased as with suffering. 'This,' she thought,
'is marriage: knowing too much about each other.'

They came up to the Citadel wall and turned
towards the desert region beneath the Mokattam Hills. At one time the dead had
been buried in front of their homes, but Napoleon put a stop to that. Now they
were carried up to their own city where there were streets and mausoleums built
like houses. The relatives who escorted them took food and bedding and settled
in until the spirit had become accustomed to the strangeness of the after-life.

Harriet had thought this a pleasing idea until
she learnt that the dead were not buried but merely placed under the floorboards
on which the family had to sit. Having gone up with friends on moonlit
excursions, when the place had a macabre attraction, she had once or twice
caught a whiff of mortality that brought the imagination to a standstill.

Now, in the oppressive, fly-ridden heat of late
afternoon, the city looked as discouraging as death itself. The air, reflected
off the naked
_:
cinderous Mokattam cliffs, was suffocating and
Harriet said, 'I suppose we won't stay long?'

'No, it's just a courtesy visit.'

The gharry wheels sank into soft ground and the
only noise in the dead streets was a snort from the horse. The driver asked
where they wanted to go. Guy said the tomb belonged to a family called Sarwar;
the dead boy was called Gamal. None of this meant anything to the man who went
aimlessly between the rows of sham houses, some of which had sunk down into
heaps of mud brick. The city seemed to be deserted but, turning into a main
avenue, they came on a young boy standing alone. At the sight of the gharry, he
took on joyful life and ran towards it.

'Ah, professor, sir, we knew you would come.' He
was Gamal's brother, posted to intercept Guy, and had been waiting an hour or
more. He jumped on to the gharry step and, talking excitedly, he explained that
the
arba'in
went on all day so Guy must not think he was late. It was,
of course, a family occasion but the Pringles must regard themselves as part of
the family. And how welcome they were! Gamal, who was, as it were, holding a
reception to celebrate his inception into the next world, would be delighted.

Guy, though he did not believe in a next world,
seemed equally delighted that his ex-pupil was now an established spirit.

A few streets further on, they came on the
Sarwars gathered before the family tomb. It appeared to be, like most occasions
in Egypt, an all-male function and Harriet said she would remain in the gharry.
Gamal's brother would not hear of it. Mrs Pringle must join the party.

The Sarwar men, in European dress but each
wearing his fez, stood in a close group, occasionally shaking hands or touching
breasts with gestures of grief and regret. All this must have been done much
earlier but now, to reassure the visitors, it was being re-enacted as though
the Sarwars, like the Pringles, had just arrived.

Harriet was warmly received by the men who might
keep their own wives in the background but were quick to show progressive
appreciation of an educated Englishwoman.

'Where is Madame Sarwar?' Harriet asked one of
the men.

'Madame Sarwar?' he seemed for a moment to doubt
whether there was such a person, then he smiled and nodded. 'Madame Sarwar Bey?
She is, naturally, with the other ladies.'

'And where are the other ladies?'

"They are together with Gamal in the
house.'

Glancing inside the tomb, she saw dark forms in
the darkness and, imagining the hot, crowded room with the corpse beneath the
floorboards, she was thankful that no one suggested she should join them.

But something was required of Guy. After they
had exchanged condolences and compliments, Sarwar Bey, a stout man in youthful
middle-age, took Guy by the arm and led him close to the tomb, beckoning
Harriet to follow. The other men came behind them and they all stood at a
respectful distance gazing into the door from which the black-clad women
retreated.

Taking Guy a step forward, Sarwar Bey called to
his son: ' Gamal, Gamal! Emerge at once and witness who is among us.' He
paused, then satisfied that Gamal had obeyed his command, he shouted
vigorously: 'My boy, who do you see? It is your teacher, Professor Pringle,
come to visit you on your
arba'in.
This is a very great honour and on
your behalf I will tell him you are very much pleased.' This admonitory oration
went on for some time, then Sarwar Bey turned to address Guy.