The Levant Trilogy (16 page)

Here the laughter
began. Harriet had heard the story so often, both from Guy and Yakimov himself,
she could have reproduced every intonation. She ceased to listen but, instead,
watched the two inches of beer going round and round as Guy spoke. If in a
hurry, he could open a throttle in his throat and put down a pint without
pausing for breath. If he wanted to linger, no one could make his beer last
longer.

When he recovered
from his mirth, Lister bent forward to say in a half-whisper, 'Heard a strange
story at Groppi's this morning. You know Hooper, the one that married a rich
girl who paints a bit? Well, she took that boy of theirs into the desert and
she was so busy with her painting, she didn't notice the kid had picked up a
live hand-grenade.'

Harriet sat up,
realizing she was about to hear of the tragedy
she had witnessed - when? With all that had happened since, it
seemed an age ago. She said, 'I was there. I saw her bring the boy in. We all
realized he was dead, but the Hoopers couldn't believe it.
'

Lister opened his
eyes, amazed. 'So - is it true? - Did they really try and feed him ...' He
circled a finger over his cheek '... through some hole in his face?'

'Yes.'

'A weird story!'

Castlebar
sniggered. 'Egypt's a weird place. Feeding the dead's an ancient custom, but it
still goes on.'

'Goes on, does
it?' Lister asked with awe.

'Oh yes, they all
go up to the City of the Dead, taking, food to share with the corpse under the
floor. They set up house there and stay till the dead relative's got used to
the strangeness of the afterlife. I like it.'

'Yes.' Lister,
too, liked it but he could not keep his laughter back. He and Castlebar laughed
together while Aidan, who had been shocked by the feeding of the dead boy,
regarded them with horror. Guy was putting down his beer. The party had to
break up. Castlebar was catching his train. Lister, with his secret intention
in mind, began determinedly to get himself to his feet. He could scarcely put
his right foot to the ground. 'Gout,' he explained and bending unsteadily over
Harriet, he kissed her hand again. 'Look me up when you come to Jerusalem. You
don't need to stay in that ghastly refugee camp. I'll use m'influence and get
you a room at the YMCA. We'll have some fun. I'm the life and soul of the YMCA
smart set. I'm always in trouble because I keep a few bottles in the wardrobe.'

Castlebar and
Lister left the bar together and Guy, reluctant to part from them, went with
them as far as the foyer.

Aidan said in
disgust to Harriet, 'What extraordinary people! Why does Guy waste his time
with fellows like that? And repeating limericks to each other! An odd
occupation!'

'The English do
become odd here. Ordinary couples who'd remain happily together in Baling or
Pinner, here take on a different character. They think themselves Don Juans or
tragedy queens, and throw fits of wild passion and make scenes in
public...' At Aidan's movement of inquiry, Harriet laughed. 'No, not
Guy and me. We're only apart from circumstances. We're thought to be an
exemplary pair.'

'But Guy? With
those people, he was not himself. He was acting the fool, wasn't he?'

'Yes, in a way.
But what's he to do? He's stuck at that commercial college, wasting his
talents. He's not allowed to leave the Organization and Gracey can't, or won't,
give him a job worthy of him. Other men are at war, so he must take what comes
to him. He cannot protest, except that his behaviour is protest. He must either
howl against his life or treat it as a joke.' As she spoke, protest rose in
her, too. This is what they've done to him - Gracey, Pinkrose and the rest of
them. He believes that right and virtue, if persisted in, must prevail, yet he
knows he's been defeated by people for whom the whole of life is a dishonest
game.'

Aidan looked at
her with new interest. 'He's not happy, and I don't think you are, either.'

'Can one except
to be happy in these times?'

'No. We have no
right... no right even to think of happiness,' Aidan sighed and looked to the
door for Guy's return, and Harriet began to feel curious about him, wondering
what she would make of him if she knew him better.

The three of them
set out for Pastroudi's restaurant Alexandria had been blacked out by the military
and the darkness enhanced the disturbing emptiness of the streets. A shudder
passed through the air and the ground seemed to move beneath their feet.
Harriet, unable to account for this phenomenon, came to a stop and said, 'Is
it an earthquake?' She had experienced one in Bucharest but this, she realized,
was something different. The shudder and vibration were repeated and went on
as though a distant steam-hammer was pounding the earth. The two men, walking
indifferently through it, made no comment until Harriet asked, 'What is it?'

Aidan told her,
'It's a barrage. They're preparing an attack.'

'Who? Them or
us?'

'It's very close.
Probably us.'

Guy spoke as
though the vibration was a commonplace. 'I'd guess twenty-five pounders,
wouldn't you?' He looked to
Aidan who said, 'And the new
six pounders. I'd say, 5.5 inch howitzers, too.'

Harriet,
surprised that Guy should have heard of a twenty-five pounder, asked how far
the barrage was from them.

Guy laughed. 'At
least forty miles. I don't think Rommel will make it tonight.'

Aidan said
seriously, 'If they break through, they could make it before daybreak.'

'But they won't
break through. I must say, I'd like to take a troops' entertainment out to our
chaps.'

Harriet said,
'Darling, really, you're mad!' She did not know whether Guy's courage came from
his refusal to recognize reality, or a refusal to run from it, but the idea of
taking an entertainment to men engaged in a desperate delaying action seemed to
her typical of his mental processes.

The moon was pushing
up between sea and sky, throwing a long channel of light across the water. The
promenade was a spectral grey in the moon glimmer. Not a soul, it seemed, had
come out to enjoy the cool of evening, but when they pushed through the heavy
curtains into Pastroudi's, they found the restaurant crowded, noisy and
brilliantly lit. The Alexandrians were eating while there was still something
to eat. Uncertainty and fear raised the tempo of chatter into an uproar. Aidan
had booked a table but they had stayed so long at the Cecil, the table was lost
to them. They had to wait in a queue and while they waited, the air-raid
warning rose. As the wailing persisted, people shouted to each other that it
must be a false alarm. The Luftwaffe would never bomb a town that was about to
fall into German hands. The warning added a sort of hilarity to the noise. No
one took it seriously until the manager strode through the room shouting,
'What do you do? You know the regulations. Downstairs, everyone. M'sieurs,
m'dams, into the kitchens, I beg you.'

His alarm
infected the diners and they began pushing their way down into the hot and
clotted, greasy atmosphere of the basement. The kitchen staff and waiters,
fitting themselves in between stoves and sinks, left the central space clear
for the customers. The lights were switched off. The wailing ceased and there
was an interval of attentive silence before people began
to complain that the precautions were unnecessary. They had left
their food for nothing. It was, as they had said, a false alarm. A man called
them all to go back to their dinners but before the fret and grumbles could
lead to action, a bomb fell. It was a distant bomb, but a bomb, nevertheless.
The silence was the silence of fear, then a moan passed over the kitchen.

Guy said, 'That
was the harbour. They're bombing the French warships.'

Ah, that
explained the raid. And who cared what happened to the French ships that had
lain there immobilized since the fall of France? Then a second bomb fell, much
nearer, so close, in fact, that the pots and pans rattled and cries went up.
People began struggling towards the stairs as though hoping to find some
other, safer place, and Guy put his arms round Harriet to protect her and she
pressed to him, less afraid of the bombs than of the fear around her.

A third bomb
fell, further off, a fourth, so distant it could just be heard, and at once the
panic died. The raiders had passed over. People relaxed and took on the gaiety
of relief, telling each other that they could now go back and eat in peace. But
the manager was on the stair and would not let anyone pass. They had to wait
for the All Clear before the lights were switched on and they could return to
their spoilt food.

Harriet was due
back in her office next morning and had to catch the last train. Leaving the
restaurant, Guy was intercepted by a man who wished to gain favour for a stout
youth who came lagging after him. The son had to take a bookkeeping
examination and the father pleaded for him. 'I feel, Mr Professor, sir, he
should have an extra understanding of this subject.' The subject was not part
of Guy's curriculum but he listened patiently and gave what advice he could.
The conversation ended with an invitation to cakes and liqueurs. When could
the professor come? Any day of that week or the next week or the week after
would be suitable. The whole future was open to him so there was no excuse, no
chance of escape. Harriet made off before the invitation could be extended to
her.

In the hall she
could hear the man shouting, 'So, then, you come Thursday week, professor,
sir?'

'If Rommel
doesn't get here first.'

'Very funny,
professor, sir. You make a joke, eh? You make a joke?'

Passing out
through the black curtains, they found the city adazzle with moonlight. Harriet
was reminded of another night of full moon, the night of Hugo Boulderstone's
twenty-first birthday. Just as tonight, they had left the blacked-out restaurant
and entered this startling light that cut the buildings into shapes of silver
and black. Harriet remembered Hugo's face white in the moonlight and the voice
that told her they would never see him again.

Now Guy, his head
full of productions and plays and all the theatre talk of the dinner-table,
stopped to declaim, 'On such a night as this ...' and pausing, turned
expectantly to Aidan Pratt who took the lines up, speaking them in a voice so
charged with emotion and melodic resonance that his two listeners marvelled:

In such a night

Troilus methinks
mounted the Trojan walls

And sighed his
soul out to the Grecian tents

Where Cressid lay
that night...

At the end of
Jessica's speech, he bowed to Guy, inviting him to continue.

Guy, in his rich,
pleasant voice, said, 'In such a night stood Dido with a willow in her hand...'
and broke off to add, 'And on this very shore.'

'Somewhere
further west,' Aidan gravely amended and Harriet turned to hide her laughter.

Walking towards
the station, Guy persuaded Aidan to recite other speeches from other plays,
adding others himself and so, quoting and counter-quoting, the thought of the
invaders was lost in the poetic past. They left the sea behind and came into
the gimcrack district near the station where a whole family might occupy a
corner of a room. One of the last bombs had fallen here. Three houses had
collapsed together on to the basement where people had been sheltering. Some of
them
had survived but were trapped
inside. They were calling through cracks in the masonry, pleading to be
released.

Neighbours,
mostly of the balani poor, stood in the road before the ruin, grinning with
embarrassment because the pleadings were in vain. No one had the means to move
the vast mountain of rubble heaped on top of those who cried.

Guy, Harriet and
Aidan, coming upon this scene, felt they should act or conduct action but
realized they were as helpless as the rest. Seeing a policeman at the rear of
the crowd, Guy asked what was being done for the prisoners. When would they be
released? The man put on a show of official competence on hearing an English
voice and said, 'Bokra.' Guy did not think this good enough. Something should
be done there and then. The policeman said that the civil authorities had no
rescue team and no machinery for lifting heavy material. They usually depended
on the good will of British servicemen, but now the servicemen had gone away.
The people in the base-bent would have to wait and see if help came. In an
earlier raid, survivors were similarly trapped and had been still crying out a
week later.

'What happened in
the end?' Harriet asked but no one had the answer to her question.

The survivors,
overhearing what was being said, set up a more furious wailing and the
policeman, going to the rubble, shouted in to them to be patient. Very soon,
perhaps that very night, the whole German army would be here to dig them out At
this, the prisoners began to curse the British for bringing the house down on
their heads.

Guy said to
Aidan, 'If we organized these fellows into a gang, they could clear the site by
passing the stuff from hand to hand.' When the policeman returned, Guy repeated
this plan in Arabic and the bystanders, realizing what he had in mind, wandered
off in all directions.