‘Well, sir’ said Errol, taking off his glasses, ‘I’ve been on to Protocol and said you would like an interview with the Foreign Minister tomorrow on a matter of great urgency. I suppose you’ll wear uniform?’
‘Uniform?’ said Mountolive vaguely.
‘The Egyptians are always impressed if one puts on a Tiger Tim.’
‘I see. Yes, I suppose so.’
‘They tend to judge the importance of what you have to say by the style in which you dress to say it. Donkin is always rubbing it into us and I expect it’s true.’
‘It is, my dear boy.’ (There! The avuncular note again! Damn.)
‘And I suppose you’ll want to support the verbal side with a definitive aide-memoire. You’ll have to give them all the information to back up our contention, won’t you, sir?’ Mountolive nodded briskly. He had been submerged suddenly by a wave of hate for Nessim so unfamiliar that it surprised him. Once again, of course, he recognized the root of his anger — that he should be forced into such a position by his friend’s indiscretion : forced to proceed against him. He had a sudden little series of mental images — Nessim fleeing the country, Nessim in Hadra Prison, Nessim in chains, Nessim poisoned at his lunchtable by a servant…. With the Egyptians one never knew where one was. Their ignorance was matched by an excess of zeal which might land one anywhere. He sighed.
‘Of course I shall wear uniform’ he said gravely.
‘I’ll draft the aide-memoire.’’
‘Very good.’
‘I should have a definite time for you within half an hour.’
‘Thank you. And I’d like to take Donkin with me. His Arabic is much better than mine and he can take minutes of the meeting so that London can have a telegram giving a full account of it.
Will you send him up when he has seen the brief? Thank you.’ All the next morning he hung about in his office, turning over papers in a desultory fashion, forcing himself to work. At mid-day the youthful bearded Donkin arrived with the typed aide-memoire and the news that Mountolive’s appointment was for twelve-thirty the next day. His small nervous features and watery eyes made him look more than ever a youthful figure, masquerading in a goatee. He accepted a cigarette and puffed it quickly, like a girl, not inhaling the smoke. ‘Well’ said Mountolive with a smile, ‘your considered views on my brief, please. Errol has told you ——?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What do you think of this … vigorous official protest?’ Donkin drew a deep breath and said thoughtfully: ‘I doubt if you’ll get any direct action at the moment, sir. The internal stresses and strains of the Government since the King’s illness have put them all at sixes and sevens. They are all afraid of each other, all pulling different ways. I’m sure that Nur will agree and try hard to get Memlik to act on your paper … but….’ He drew his lips back thoughtfully about his cigarette. ‘I don’t know. You know Memlik’s record. He hates Britain.’ Mountolive’s spirits suddenly began to rise, despite himself.
‘Good Lord’ he said, ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way. But they simply can’t ignore a protest in these terms. After all, my dear boy, the thing is practically a veiled threat.’
‘I know, sir.’
‘I really don’t see how they could ignore it.’
‘Well, sir, the King’s life is hanging by a hair at present. He might, for example, die tonight. He hasn’t sat in Divan for nearly six months. Everyone is at jealousies nowadays, personal dislikes and rivalries have come very close to the surface, and with a vengeance. His death would completely alter things — and everyone knows it. Nur above all. By the way, sir, I hear that he is not on speaking terms with Memlik. There has been some serious trouble about the bribes which people have been paying Memlik.’
‘But Nur himself doesn’t take bribes?’ Donkin smiled a small sardonic smile and shook his head slowly and doubtfully. ‘I don’t know, sir’ he said primly. ‘I suspect that they all do and all would. I may be wrong. But in Hosnani’s shoes I should certainly manage to get a stay of action by a handsome bribe to Memlik. His susceptibility to a bribe is … almost legendary in Egypt.’ Mountolive tried hard to frown angrily. ‘I hope you are wrong’ he said. ‘Because H.M.G. are determined to get some action on this and so am I. Anyway, we’ll see, shall we?’ Donkin was still pursuing some private thoughts in silence and gravity. He sat on for a moment smoking and then stood up.
He said thoughtfully: ‘Errol said something which suggested that Hosnani knew we were up to his game. If that is so, why has he not cleared out? He must have a clear idea about our own line of attack, must he not? If he has not moved it must mean that he is confident of holding Memlik in check somehow. I am only thinking aloud, sir.’ Mountolive stared at him for a long time with open eyes. He was trying hard to disperse a sudden and, it seemed to him, almost treacherous feeling of optimism. ‘Most interesting’ he said at last. ‘I must confess I hadn’t thought of it in those terms.’
‘I personally wouldn’t take it to the Egyptians at all’ said Donkin slyly. He was not averse to teasing his chief of Mission.
‘Though it is not my place to say so. I should think that Brigadier Maskelyne has more ways than one of settling the issue. In my view we’d be better advised to leave diplomatic channels alone and simply pay to have Hosnani shot or poisoned. It would cost less than a hundred pounds.’
‘Well, thank you very much’ said Mountolive feebly, his optimism giving place once more to the dark turmoil of halfrationalized emotions in which he seemed doomed to live perpetually. ‘Thank you, Donkin.’ (Donkin, he thought angrily, looked awfully like Lenin when he spoke of poison or the knife.
It was easy for third secretaries to commit murder by proxy.)
Left alone once more he paced his green carpet, balanced between conflicting emotions which were the shapes of hope and despair alternately. Whatever must follow was now irrevocable. He was committed to policies whose outcome, in human terms, was not to be judged. Surely there should be some philosophical resignation to be won from the knowledge? That night he stayed up late listening to his favourite music upon the huge gramophone and drinking rather more heavily than was his wont. From time to time he went across the room and sat at the Georgian writing-desk with his pen poised above a sheet of crested notepaper.
‘My dear Leila: At this moment it seems more necessary than ever that I should see you and I must ask you to overcome your….’ But it was a failure. He crumpled up the letters and threw them regretfully into the wastepaper basket. Overcome her what?
Was he beginning to hate Leila too, now? Somewhere, stirring in the hinterland of his consciousness was the thought, almost certain knowledge now, that it was she and not Nessim who had initiated these dreadful plans. She was the prime mover. Should he not tell Nur so? Should he not tell his own Government so?
Was it not likely that Narouz, who was the man of action in the family, was even more deeply implicated in the conspiracy than Nessim himself? He sighed. What could any of them hope to gain from a successful Jewish insurrection? Mountolive believed too firmly in the English mystique to realize fully that anyone could have lost faith in it and the promise it might hold of future security, future stability.