I telephoned the house, but they were both out at a reception; feeling somewhat relieved I betook myself to the Cafe Al Aktar in the hope of finding congenial company and found: only our friend Darley. I like him. I like particularly the way he sits on his hands with excitement when he discusses art, which he insists on doing with Yours Truly — why? I answer as best I can and drink my arak. But this generalized sort of conversation puts me out of humour. For the artist, I think, as for the public, no such thing as art exists; it only exists for the critics and those who live in the forebrain. Artist and public simply register, like a seismograph, an electromagnetic charge which can’t be rationalized. One only knows that a transmission of sorts goes on, true or false, successful or unsuccessful, according to chance. But to try to break down the elements and nose them over — one gets nowhere. (I suspect this approach to art is common to all those who cannot surrender themselves to it!) Paradox. Anyway.
Darley is in fine voice this eve, and I listen to him with grudging pleasure. He really is a good chap, and a sensitive one. But it is with relief that I hear Pombal is due to appear shortly after a visit to the cinema with a young woman he is besieging. I am hoping he will offer to put me up as hotels are expensive and I can then spend my travel allowance on drink. Well, at last old P. turns up, having had his face smacked by the girl’s mother who caught them in the foyer. We have a splendid evening and I stay chez him as I had hoped.
The next morning I was up betimes though I had decided on nothing, was still bedevilled in mind about the whole issue.
However, I thought I could at least visit Nessim in his office as I had so often done, to pass the time of day and cadge a coffee.
Whispering up in the huge glass lift, so like a Byzantine sarcophagus, I felt confused. I had prepared no conversation for the event. The clerks and typists were all delighted and showed me straight through into the great domed room where he sat…. Now here is the curious thing. He not only seemed to be expecting me, but to have divined my reasons for calling! He seemed delighted, relieved and full of an impish sort of serenity. ‘I’ve been waiting for ages’ he said with dancing eyes, ‘wondering when you were finally going to come and beard me, to ask me questions. At last!
What a relief!’ Everything melted between us after this and I felt I could take him on open sights. Nothing could exceed the warmth and candour of his answers. They carried immediate conviction with me.
The so-called secret society, he told me, was a student lodge of the Cabala devoted to the customary mumbo-jumbo of parlour mysticism. God knows, this is the capital of superstition. Even Clea has her horoscope cast afresh every morning. Sects abound.
Was there anything odd in Balthazar running such a small band of would-be hermetics — a study group? As for the cryptogram it was a sort of mystical calculus — the old boustrophedon no less — with the help of which the lodge-masters all over the Middle East could keep in touch. Surely no more mysterious than a stockreport or a polite exchange between mathematicians working on the same problem? Nessim drew one for me and explained roughly how it was used. He added that all this could be effectively checked by consulting Darley who had taken to visiting these meetings with Justine to suck up hermetical lore. He would be able to say just how subversive they were! So far so good. ‘But I can’t disguise from you’ he went on ‘the existence of another movement, purely political, with which I am directly concerned. This is purely Coptic and is designed simply to rally the Copts — not to revolt against anyone (how could we?) but simply to band themselves together; to strengthen religious and political ties in order that the community can find its way back to a place in the sun.
Now that Egypt is free from the Copt-hating British, we feel freer to seek high offices for our people, to get some Members of Parliament elected and so on. There is nothing in all this which should make an intelligent Moslem tremble. We seek nothing illegitimate or harmful; simply our rightful place in our own land as the most intelligent and able community in Egypt.’ There was a good deal more about the back history of the Coptic community and its grievances — I won’t bore you with it as you probably know it all. But he spoke it all with a tender shy fury which interested me as being so out of keeping with the placid Nessim we both knew. Later, when I met the mother, I understood; she is the driving force behind this particular minoritydream, or so I believe. Nessim went on: ‘Nor need France and Britain fear anything from us. We love them both. Such modern culture as we have is modelled on both. We ask for no aid, no money. We think of ourselves as Egyptian patriots, but knowing how stupid and backward the Arab National element is, and how fanatical we do not think it can be long before there are violent differences between the Egyptians and yourselves. They are already flirting with Hitler. In the case of a war … who can tell? The Middle East is slipping out of the grasp of England and France day by day. We minorities see ourselves in peril as the process goes on.
Our only hope is that there is some respite, like a war, which will enable you to come back and retake the lost ground. Otherwise, we will be expropriated, enslaved. But we still place our faith in you both. Now, from this point of view, a compact and extremely rich little group of Coptic bankers and businessmen could exercise an influence out of all proportion to its numbers. We are your fifth column in Egypt,fellow Christians. In another year or two, when the movement is perfected, we could bring immediate pressure to bear on the economic and industrial life of the country — if it served to push through a policy which you felt to be necessary.
That is why I have been dying to tell you about us, for England should see in us a bridgehead to the East, a friendly enclave in an area which daily becomes more hostile, to you.’ He lay back, quite exhausted, but smiling.
‘But of course I realize’ he said ‘that this concerns you as an official. Please treat the matter as a secret, for friendship’s sake.
The Egyptians would welcome any chance to expropriate us Copts — confiscate the millions which we controclass="underline" perhaps even kill some of us. They must not know about us. That is why we meet secretly, have been building up the movement so slowly, with such circumspection. There must be no slips, you see. Now my dear Pursewarden. I fully realize that you cannot be expected to take all I tell you on trust, without proof. So I am going to take a rather unusual step. Day after tomorrow is Sitna Damiana and we are having a meeting in the desert. I would like you to come with me so that you can see everything, hear the proceedings and have your mind quite clear about our composition and our intentions. Later we may be of the greatest service to Britain here; I want to drive the fact home. Will you come?’ Would I come!
I went. It was really a great experience which made me realize that I had hardly seen Egypt — the true Egypt underlying the fly-tormented airless towns, the drawing-rooms of commerce, the bankers’ sea—splashed villas, the Bourse, the Yacht Club, the Mosque…. But wait.