He sat at the great desk for a while in the quietness, soothed by the associations of the room with its bric-а-brac; the mandala paintings from some Burmese shrine, the Lepcha flags, the framed drawings for the first edition of the Jungle Book, the case of Emperor moths, the votive objects left at some abandoned temple.
Then the rare books and pamphlets — early Kipling bearing the imprint of Thacker and Spink, Calcutta, Edwards Thompson’s fascicules, Younghusband, Mallows, Derby…. Some museum would be glad of them one day. Under a pressmark they would revert back to anonymity.
He picked up the old Tibetan prayer-wheel which lay on the desk and twirled it once or twice, hearing the faint scrape of the revolving drum, still stuffed with the yellowing fragments of paper on which devout pens had long ago scribbled the classical invocation Om Mani Padme Hum. This had been an accidental parting gift. Before the boat left he had pestered his father for a celluloid aeroplane and together they had combed the bazaar for one without avail. Then his father had suddenly stopped at a pedlar’s stall and bought the wheel for a few rupees, thrusting it into his unwilling fingers as a substitute. It was late. They had to rush. Their goodbyes had been perfunctory.
Then after that, what? A tawny river-mouth under a brazen sun, the iridescent shimmer of heat blurring the faces, the smoke from the burning ghats, the dead bodies of men, blue and swollen, floating down the estuary…. That was as far as his memory went. He put down the heavy wheel and sighed. The wind shook the windows, whirling the snow against them, as if to remind him where he was. He took out his bundle of Arabic primers and the great dictionary. These must live beside his bed for the next few months.
That night he was once more visited by the unaccountable affliction with which he always celebrated his return home — a crushing ear-ache which rapidly reduced him to a shivering painracked ghost of himself. It was a mystery, for no doctor had so far managed to allay — or even satisfactorily to diagnose — this onslaught of the petit mal. It never attacked him save when he was at home. As always, his mother overheard his groans and knew from old experience what they meant; she materialized out of the darkness by his bed bringing the comfort of ancient familiarity and the one specific which, since childhood, she had used to combat his distress. She always kept it handy now, in the cupboard beside her bed. Salad oil, warmed in a teaspoon over a candleflame. He felt the warmth of the oil penetrate and embalm his brain, while his mother’s voice upon the darkness soothed him with its promises of relief. In a little while the tide of agony receded to leave him, washed up so to speak, on the shores of sleep — a sleep stirred vaguely by those comforting memories of childhood illnesses which his mother had always shared — they fell ill together, as if by sympathy. Was it so that they might lie in adjoining rooms talking to each other, reading to each other, sharing the luxury of a common convalescence? He did not know.
He slept. It was a week before he addressed himself to his official papers and read the letter from Pursewarden.
*******
V
My dear David, You will be astonished to get a letter of such length from me, I don’t doubt. But the news of your appointment only reached me lately in rumoured form, and there is much you should know about the state of affairs here which I could not address to you formally as Ambassador Designate (Confidentiaclass="underline" Under Flying Seal) ahem!
Ouf! What a bore! I hate writing letters as you well know. And yet … I myself shall almost certainly be gone by the time you arrive, for I have taken steps to get myself transferred. After a long series of calculated wickednesses I have at last managed to persuade poor Errol that I am unsuitable for the Mission which I have adorned these past months. Months! A lifetime! And Errol himself is so good, so honest, so worthy; a curious goat-like creature who nevertheless conveys the impression of being a breech-delivery! He has put in his paper against me with the greatest reluctance. Please do nothing to countermand the transfer which will result from it, as it squares with my own private wishes.
I implore you.
The deciding factor has been my desertion of my post for the past five weeks which has caused grave annoyance and finally decided Errol. I will explain everything. Do you remember, I wonder, the fat young French diplomat of the Rue du Bac?
Nessim took us round once for drinks? Pombal by name? Well, I have taken refuge with him — he is serving here. It is really quite gay chez lui. The summer over, the headless Embassy retired with the Court to winter in Cairo, but this time without Yours Truly.
I went underground. Nowadays we rise at eleven, turn out the girls, and after having a hot bath play backgammon until lunchtime; then an arak at the Cafe Al Aktar with Balthazar and Amaril (who send their love) and lunch at the Union Bar. Then perhaps we call on Clea to see what she is painting, or go to a cinema. Pombal is doing all this legitimately; he is on local leave.
I am en retraite. Occasionally the exasperated Errol rings up long distance in an attempt to trace me and I answer him in the voice of a poule from the Midi. It rattles him badly because he guesses it is me, but isn’t quite sure. (The point about a Wykehamist is that he cannot risk giving offence.) We have lovely, lovely conversations. Yesterday I told him that I, Pursewarden, was under treatment for a glandular condition chez Professor Pombal but was now out of danger. Poor Errol! One day I shall apologize to him for all the trouble I have caused him. Not now. Not until I get my transfer to Siam or Santos.
All this is very wicked of me, I know, but … the tedium of this Chancery with all these un-grown-up people! The Errols are formidably Britannic. They are, for example, both economists.
Why both, I ask myself? One of them must feel permanently redundant. They make love to two places of decimals only. Their children have all the air of vulgar fractions!
Well. The only nice ones are the Donkins; he is clever and highspirited, she rather common and fast-looking with too much rouge. But … poor dear, she is over-compensating for the fact that her little husband has grown a beard and turned Moslem!
She sits with a hard aggressive air on his desk, swinging her leg and smoking swiftly. Mouth too red. Not quite a lady and hence insecure? Her husband is a clever youth but far too serious. I do not dare to ask if he intends to put in for the extra allowance of wives to which he is entitled.
But let me tell you in my laboured fashion what lies behind all this nonsense. I was sent here, as you know, under contract, and I fulfilled my original task faithfully — as witness the giant roll of paper headed (in a lettering usually reserved for tomb—stones) Instruments for a Cultural Pact Between the Governments of His Britannic Majesty etc. Blunt instruments indeed — for what can a Christian culture have in common with a Moslem or a Marxist?
Our premises are hopelessly opposed. Never mind! I was told to do it and I done it. And much as I love what they’ve got here I don’t understand the words in relation to an educational system based on the abacus and a theology which got left behind with Augustine and Aquinas. Personally I think we both have made a mess of it, and I have no parti-pris in the matter. And so on. I just don’t see what D. H. Lawrence has to offer a pasha with seventeen wives, though I believe I know which one of them is happiest…. However, I done it, the Pact I mean.