Nessim crossed the chamber with a light and lively walk, conventionally touching breast and lip, and seated himself before Memlik to express gratitude for an invitation which did him great honour. On the evening of his appearance there were nine or ten other guests only, and he felt certain that this was because Memlik wished to study him, if possible even to hold some private conversation with him. He carried the exquisite little Koran wrapped in soft tissue paper; he had carefully larded the pages with bank drafts negotiable in Switzerland. ‘O Pasha’ he said softly, ‘I have heard of your legendary library and ask only the pleasure of a book-lover in offering you an addition to it.’ He laid his present down on the little table and accepted the coffee and sweetmeats which were placed before him. Memlik neither answered nor moved his position on the divan for a long moment, allowing him to sip his coffee, and then said negligently: ‘The host is honoured. These are my friends.’ He performed some rather perfunctory introductions to his other visitors who seemed rather an odd collection to gather together for a recitation of the Gospel; there was nobody here of any obvious standing in the society of Cairo, this much Nessim noticed. Indeed, he knew none of them though he was attentively polite to all. Then he permitted himself a few generalized comments on the beauty and appropriateness of the reception chamber and the high quality of the paintings against the wall. Memlik was not displeased by this and said lazily: ‘It is both my work-room and my reception-room. Here I live.’
‘I have often heard it described’ said Nessim with his courtier’s air ‘by those lucky enough to visit you either for work or pleasure.’
‘My work’ said Memlik with a glint ‘is done on Tuesdays only. For the rest of the week I take pleasure with my friends.’
Nessim was not deaf to the menace in the words; Tuesday for the Moslem is the least favoured day for human undertakings, for he believes that on Tuesday God created all the unpleasant things. It is the day chosen for the execution of criminals; no man dares marry on a Tuesday for the proverb says: ‘Married on Tuesday, hanged on Tuesday.’ In the words of the Prophet: ‘On Tuesday God created darkness absolute.’
‘Happily’ said the smiling Nessim ‘today is Monday, when God created the trees.’ And he led the conversation around to the lovely palm-trees which nodded outside the window: a conversational turn which broke the ice and won the admiration of the other visitors.
The wind changed now, and after half an hour of desultory talk, the sliding doors at the far end of the chamber were set aside to admit them to a banquet laid out upon two great tables. The room was decorated with magnificent flowers. Here at least over the expensive delicacies of Memlik’s supper table, the hint of animation and friendship became a little more obvious. One or two people talked, and Memlik himself, though he ate nothing, moved slowly from group to group uttering laboured politenesses in a low voice. He came upon Nessim in a corner and said quite simply, indeed with an air of candour: ‘I wished particularly to see you, Hosnani.’
‘I am honoured, Memlik Pasha.’
‘I have seen you at receptions; but we have lacked common friends to present us to each other. Great regrets.’
‘Great regrets.’
Memlik sighed and fanned himself with his fly-whisk, complaining that the night was hot. Then he said, in a tone of a man debating something with himself, hesitantly almost: ‘Sir, the Prophet has said that great power brings greater enemies. I know you are powerful.’
‘My power is insignificant, yet I have enemies.’
‘Great regrets.’
‘Indeed.’
Memlik shifted his weight to his left leg and picked his teeth thoughtfully for a moment; then he went on:
‘I think we shall understand each other perfectly soon.’
Nessim bowed formally and remained silent while his host gazed speculatively at him, breathing slowly and evenly through his mouth. Memlik said: ‘When they wish to complain, they come to me, the very fountain-head of complaints. I find it wearisome, but sometimes I am forced to act on behalf of those who complain. You take my meaning?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘At some moments, I am not bound to commit myself to particular action. But at others, I may be so bound. Therefore, Nessim Hosnani, the wise man removes the grounds for complaints.’
Nessim bowed again gracefully and once more remained silent. It was useless to pursue the dialectics of their relative positions until he had obtained acceptance of his proffered gift. Memlik perhaps sensed this, for he sighed and moved away to another group of visitors, and presently the dinner ended and the company retired once more to the long reception-room. Now Nessim’s pulse beat faster, for Memlik picked up the tissue-wrapped package and excused himself, saying ‘I must compare this with the books in my collection. The sheik of tonight — he of Imbabi — will come soon now. Seat yourselves and take your leisure. I will join you soon.’ He left the room. A desultory conversation began now, in which Nessim tried his best to take part though he realized that his heart was beating uncomfortably fast and his fingers felt shaky as they raised a cigarette to his lips. After a while, the doors were once more opened to admit an old blind sheik who had come to preside over this ‘Night Of God’. The company surrounded him, shaking his hands and uttering compliments. And then Memlik entered abruptly and Nessim saw that his hands were empty: he uttered a prayer of thanksgiving under his breath and mopped his brow.
It did not take him long to compose himself once more. He was standing rather apart from the press of dark-coated gentlemen in whose midst stood the old blind preacher, whose vacant, bewildered face turned from voice to voice with the air of some mechanical contrivance built to register sound-waves; his air of mild confusion suggested all the ghostly contentment of an absolute faith in something which was the more satisfying for not being fully apprehended by the reason. His hands were joined on his breast; he looked as shy as some ancient child, full of the kinetic beauty of a human being whose soul has become a votive object.
The pasha who entered once more made his way slowly to Nessim’s side, but by stages so delayed that it seemed to the latter he would never reach him. This slow progress was prolonged by compliments and an air of elaborate disinterestedness. At last he was there, at Nessim’s elbow, his long clever fingers still holding the bejewelled fly-whisk. ‘Your gift is a choice one’ the low voice said at last, with the faintest suggestion of honey in its tones. ‘It is most acceptable. Indeed, sir, your knowledge and discrimination are both legendary. To show surprise would betoken vulgar ignorance of the fact.’
The formula which Memlik-invariably used was so smooth and remarkably well-turned in Arabic that Nessim could not help looking surprised and pleased. It was a choice turn of speech such as only a really cultivated person would have used. He did not know that Memlik had carefully memorized it against such occasions. He bowed his head as one might to receive an accolade, but remained silent. Memlik flirted his fly-whisk for a moment, before adding in another tone: ‘Of course, there is only one thing. I have already spoken of the complaints which come to me, effendi mine. In all such cases I am bound sooner or later to investigate causes. Great regrets.’
Nessim turned his smooth black eye upon the Egyptian and still smiling said in a low voice: ‘Sir, by the European Christmastide — a matter of months — there will be no further grounds for complaint.’ There was a silence.
‘Then time is important’ said Memlik reflectively.
‘Time is the air we breathe, so says a proverb.’
The pasha half turned now and, speaking as if to the company in general, added: ‘My collection has need of your most discriminating knowledge. I hope you may discover for me many other treasures of the Holy Word.’ Again Nessim bowed.
‘As many as may be found acceptable, pasha.’
‘I am sorry we did not meet before. Great regrets.’
‘Great regrets.’
But now he became the host again and turned aside. The wide circle of uncomfortable stif
f-backed chairs had been almost filled by his other visitors. Nessim selected one at the end of the line as Memlik reached his yellow divan and climbed slowly upon it with the air of a swimmer reaching a raft in mid-ocean. He gave a signal and the servants came forward to remove the coffee-cups and sweetmeats; they brought with them a tall and elegant high-backed chair with carved arms and green upholstery which they set for the preacher a little to one side of the room. A guest rose and with mutterings of respect led the blind man to his seat. Retiring in good order the servants closed and bolted the tall doors at the end of the room. The Wird was about to begin. Memlik formally opened the proceedings with a quotation from Ghazzali the theologian — a surprising innovation for someone, like Nessim, whose picture of the man had been formed entirely from hearsay. ‘The only way’ said Memlik ‘to become united with God is by constant intercourse with him.’ Having uttered the words he leaned back and closed his eyes, as if exhausted by the effort. But the phrase had the effect of a signal, for as the blind preacher raised his scraggy neck and inhaled deeply before commencing, the company responded like one man. At once all cigarettes were extinguished, every leg was uncrossed, coat buttons formally done up, every negligent attitude of body and address corrected.
They waited now with emotion for that old voice, melodious and worn with age, to utter the opening strophes of the Holy Book, and there was nothing feigned in the adoring attention of the circle of venal faces. Some licked their lips and leaned forward eagerly, as if to take the phrases upon their lips; others lowered their heads and closed their eyes as if against a new experience in music. The old preacher sat with his waxen hands folded in his lap and uttered the first sura, full of the soft warm colouring of a familiar understanding, his voice a little shaky at first but gathering power and assurance from the silence as he proceeded. His eyes now were as wide and lustreless as a dead hare’s. His listeners followed the notation of the verses as they fell from his lips with care and rapture, gradually seeking their way together out into the main stream of the poetry, like a school of fish following a leader by instinct out into the deep sea. Nessim’s own constraint and unease gave place to a warmth about the heart, for he loved the suras, and the old preacher had a magnificent speaking voice, although the tone was as yet furry and unaccentuated. But it was a ‘voice of the inmost heart’ — his whole spiritual presence coursed like a bloodstream in the magnificent verses, filling them with his own ardour, and one could feel his audience tremble and respond, like the rigging of a ship in the wind. ‘Allah!’ they sighed at every newly remembered felicity of phrasing, and these little gasps increased the confidence of the old voice with its sweet high register. ‘A voice whose melody is sweeter than charity’ says the proverb. The recitation was a dramatic one and very varied in style, the preacher changing his tone to suit the substance of the words, now threatening, now pleading, now declaiming, now admonishing. It was no surprise that he should be word-perfect, for in Egypt the blind preachers have a faculty for memorizing which is notorious, and moreover the whole length of the Koran is about two-thirds that of the New Testament. Nessim listened to him with tenderness and admiration, staring down upon the carpet, half-entranced by the ebb and flow of the poetry which distracted his mind from the tireless speculations he had been entertaining about Memlik’s possible response to the pressures which Mountolive had been forced to bring upon him.
Between each sura there came a few moments of silence in which nobody stirred or uttered a word, but appeared sunk in contemplation of what had gone before. The preacher then sank his chin upon his breastbone as if to regain his strength and softly linked his fingers. Then once more he would look upwards towards the sightless light and declaim, and once more one felt the tension of the words as they sped through the attentive consciousness of his listeners. It was after midnight when the Koran reading was complete and some measure of relaxation came back to the audience as the old man embarked upon the stories of tradition; these were no longer listened to as if they were a part of music, but were followed with the active proverbial mind: for they were the dialectics of revelation — its ethic and application. The company responded to the changed tone by letting their expression brighten to the keenness of habitual workers in the world, bankers, students, or business men.
It was two o’clock before the evening ended and Memlik showed his guests to the front door where their cars awaited them, with a white dew upon their wheels and chromium surfaces. To Nessim he said in a quiet deliberate voice — a voice which went down to the heart of their relationship like some heavy plumb-line: ‘I will invite you again, sir, for as long as may be possible. But reflect.’ And with his finger he gently touched the coat-button of his guest as if to underline the remark.
Nessim thanked him and walked down the drive among the palm-trees to where he had left the great car; his naked relief was by no means unmixed with doubt. He had at best, he reflected, gained a respite which did not fundamentally alter the enmity of the forces ranged against him. But even a respite was something to be grateful for; for how long though? It was at this stage impossible to judge.
Justine had not gone to bed. She was sitting in the lounge of Shepheards Hotel under the clock with an untouched Turkish coffee before her. She stood up eagerly as he passed through the swing doors with his usual gentle smile of welcome; she did not move but stared at him with a peculiar strained intensity — as if she were trying to decipher his feelings from his carriage. Then she relaxed and smiled with relief. ‘I’m so relieved! Thank God! I could see from your face as you came in.’ They embraced gently and he sank into a chair beside her whispering: ‘My goodness, I thought it would never end. I spent part of the time being rather anxious too. Did you dine alone?’
‘Yes. I saw David.’
‘Mountolive?’
‘He was at some big dinner. He bowed frigidly but did not stop to speak to me. But then, he had people with him, bankers or something.’
Nessim ordered a coffee and as he drank it gave an account of his evening with Memlik. ‘It is clear’ he said thoughtfully ‘that the sort of pressure the British are bringing is based upon those files of correspondence they captured in Palestine. The Haifa office told Capodistria so. It would be a good angle to present these to Nur and press him to … take action.’ He drew a tiny gallows in pencil on the back of an envelope with a small fly-like victim hanging from it. ‘What I gathered from Memlik suggested that he can delay action but that the sort of pressure is too strong to ignore indefinitely; sooner or later he will be forced to satisfy Nur. I virtually told him that by Christmas I would be able … I would be out of the danger zone. His investigations would lead nowhere.’
‘If everything goes according to plan.’
‘Everything will go according to plan.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then what!’ Nessim stretched his long arms over his head, yawning, and nodded sideways at her. ‘We will take up new dispositions. Da Capo will disappear; you will go away. Leila will go down to Kenya for a long holiday together with Narouz. That is what!’
‘And you?’
‘I shall stay on a little while to keep things in place here. The Community needs me. There is a lot to be done politically still. Then I shall come to you and we can have a long holiday in Europe or anywhere you choose.…’
She was staring unsmilingly at him. ‘I am nervous’ she said at last with a little shiver. ‘Nessim, let us drive by the Nile for an hour and collect our thoughts before we go to bed.’
He was glad to indulge her, and for an hour the car nosed softly along the noble tree-lined roads of the Nile river-bank under the jacarandas, its engine purring, while they talked intermittently in low voices. ‘What worries me’ she said, ‘is that you will have Memlik’s hand upon your shoulder. How will you ever shake it off? If he has firm evidence against you, he will never relax his grip until you are squeezed dry.’
‘Either way’ said Nessim quietly ‘it would be bad for us. For if he pr
oceeded with an open enquiry, you know very well that it would give the Government a chance to sequestrate our properties. I would rather satisfy his private cupidity as long as I can. Afterwards, we shall see. The main thing is to concentrate on this coming … battle.’
As he uttered the word they were passing the brilliantly lighted gardens of the British Embassy. Justine gave a little start and plucked his sleeve, for she had caught sight of a slender pyjamaclad figure walking about the green lawns with an air of familiar distraction. ‘Mountolive’ she said. Nessim looked sorrowfully across the gardens at his friend, suddenly possessed by a temptation to stop the car and enter the gardens to surprise him. Such a gesture would have been in keeping with their behaviour towards each other — not three months before. What had happened to everything now? ‘He’ll catch cold’ said Justine; ‘he is barefooted. Holding a telegram.’
Nessim increased speed and the car curved on down the avenue. ‘I expect’ he said ‘that he suffers from insomnia and wanted to cool his feet in the grass before trying to get to sleep. You often used to do that. Remember?’
‘But the telegram?’
There was really no great mystery about the telegram which the sleepless Ambassador held in his hand and which he studied from time to time as he walked slowly about in his own demesne, smoking a cigar. Once a week he played a game of chess with Balthazar by telegram — an event which nowadays gave him great solace, and some of the refreshment which tired men of affairs draw from crossword puzzles. He did not see the great car as it purred on past the gardens and headed for the town.
XV
They were to stay like this for many weeks now, the actors: as if trapped once and for all in postures which might illustrate how incalculable a matter naked providence can be. To Mountolive, more than the others, came a disenchanting sense of his own professional inadequacy, his powerlessness to act now save as an instrument (no longer a factor), so strongly did he feel himself gripped by the gravitational field of politics. Private humours and impulses were alike disinherited, counting for nothing. Did Nessim also feel the mounting flavour of stagnation in everything? He thought back bitterly and often to the casually spoken words of Sir Louis as he was combing his hair in the mirror. ‘The illusion that you are free to act!’ He suffered from excruciating headaches now from time to time and his teeth began to give him trouble. For some reason or another he took the fancy that this was due to over-smoking and tried to abandon the habit unsuccessfully. The struggle with tobacco only increased his misery.