The Mule on the Minaret (48 page)

‘Do you know one thing he said? This really got me. Almost the last thing he said, early this morning. “I'll be away a month,” he said. “At least a month. I wish I were a Sultan and could shut you up in a harem in my absence.” “So that nobody could get at me?” I asked. “Partly; but more to have you looked after, by a slave; who'd massage you and give you baths; and cover you with scent and keep you out of the sun, and feed you with honey cakes; and you'd get so white and soft and plump.” That sent me. Can you guess how that sent me. “But, darling,” I said, “I am plump already.” What do you think he said? “Not really. You could do with five pounds more.” To be asked to put on weight! Do you see that box on the table; Turkish delight. His good-bye gift to me. Just pass it over.'

Later, a long while later, Eve brought up another subject. She had been more than a little disconcerted by the remarks he had been making about Aziz. Kitty had come into the room at the very moment when she had been on the brink of learning something.

‘What did you talk about?' she asked. ‘In the intervals. Don't tell me there weren't any intervals.'

Kitty laughed. ‘There weren't so many; after all we had to sleep a little, or at least I had. I had to work next day.'

‘Did you talk about Beirut at all?'

‘A little, why?'

‘It's useful for me to get information about other countries, from foreigners. It's useful for my job, I mean.'

‘I never know what your job is. As a matter of fact that's one of the things in which he was interested.'

‘One of what things?'

‘Oh, you know, things. He wondered what exactly it was that you were doing.'

‘I hope you didn't tell him.'

‘How could I? I don't know. Hush-Hush. That's all you tell me. I sometimes think that you defeat your own ends by telling us so little. We tend to blurt the wrong things out. If you'd tell us where to pipe down, we could pipe down. As it is you leave us to our devices. At your own cost, maybe.'

‘That's very true . . . I guess . . . Maybe you've something there. What did he say?'

‘Nothing that added up to anything. He was inquisitive, that's all. He wondered about Aziz. He wondered how you came to
know him. He didn't like Aziz. I gathered that they'd quarrelled at some party.'

‘That's true. They quarrelled at some party.'

‘It wasn't anything particular. You asked me; that's why I'm telling you.'

‘I know. I'm grateful. It's a help. I can‘t explain. But in my racket, it's like an elaborate chequer-board. Unexpected things fit in. Have you ever done jig-saw puzzles?'

‘I never have.'

‘You've missed a lot. And there's a parallel. You have all these odd bits in front of you. You get the greys together and the blues and greens. The shapes make a pattern. Then suddenly you see the picture. It's not just a group of greens and browns and whites and reds. It's a child with a red skirt, feeding a white rabbit with a lettuce. That's how it is with us. We collect a group of colours. Then suddenly when we expect it least, lo and behold, a picture takes shape under our eyes. I'm very grateful to you, Kitty. You can't guess why and I can't explain it. But it has been helpful to me to learn that Alexis was interested in... well that he did happen to be interested, just in that.'

Next morning, Eve was summoned to Sedgwick's office. ‘Here's Beirut's appreciation of the radio issue. Just as we would have expected. A deception offer. Poor Farrar.'

‘Why poor Farrar?'

‘A signal's come in from Cairo approving Baghdad's scheme. As we expected, didn't we? So will you get busy, laying this one on?'

‘When's the machine being shipped?'

‘That we don't know. Not for three weeks at least. That leaves us all the time we need.'

‘There isn't much we can do, is there?'

‘I wouldn't say there was. It's a Baghdad problem. Only...' He checked. He looked at her quizzically. ‘If anything blows up in Baghdad, it's going to be awkward for us here.'

‘I don't get that.'

‘You don't? If the Germans here were to feel that we had penetrated their organization, as they would do, if they realized that we had been watching for their men in Mosul, they'd start shifting their defences. We wouldn't know where they'd moved. It's something for us to keep in mind, you know.'

‘Have you by the way heard anything about Belorian's visit?'

‘I'm expecting to hear from Chessman in a day or so.'

‘Nothing from Beirut yet?'

‘No, nothing from Beirut.'

Nothing anyhow that had appeared on the main office files; but how could she tell what there might not be in that small corner cabinet. She had felt apprehensive ever since she had learnt of its existence.

Eve would have been more apprehensive still could she have been an invisible witness of the scene that was taking place at that moment in Beirut in the apartment in the old town that the office had taken over for Reid's successor. Belorian had just reached the end of his report on his visit to Istanbul. ‘That sounds most satisfactory,' Farrar was saying. ‘This is working out better than I had dared to hope. We'll carry on the way we're doing. Is there anything you've on your mind?'

‘There is one thing. Do you know anything about a girl called Eve Parish?'

‘No, I don't think so. Should I?'

‘She was down here last summer.'

‘A great many people were down here last summer.'

‘I met her at a party of my cousin, Annabelle. Annabelle did not seem to know much about her. She said she was a friend of yours.'

‘I wonder how that happened. Tell me more about her. What does she look like, what does she do? What age is she?'

‘In the early twenties. Small, darkish, not obviously attractive, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that someone had gone for her in a big way. I rather thought I'd have a bash myself, but I got side-tracked.'

‘You mean you met someone better.'

‘Someone a great deal better.'

‘Poor, poor Miss Parish; what was it you said she did?'

‘That's what I'd like to know. I got the impression when she was down here that she worked for the British Council. I'm sure she told me that she did. But when I rang up the Council in Istanbul, they'd never heard of her. But I was so insistent that they finally put me on to someone who they thought might know. It turned out to be the girl that Eve shared a flat with. This girl told me that she was employed in something very hush-hush. Now why should she have told me that she worked in the British Council?'

‘Perhaps because she didn't want to have you make a pass at her.'

‘But I hadn't started to make a pass at her.'

‘My dear Alexis, do you think that you're the kind of man who would ask a girl out to discuss modern painting. Girls know these things.'

‘Do they? Maybe they do. Anyhow I felt it rather fishy. There's another thing too about her that made me curious? At that party she was with a young Turk who was studying at the A.U.B. I met them together up in Istanbul.'

‘Ah, wait a moment. I think I know who you mean. Was his name Aziz?'

‘That's it.'

‘Ah, now I've got it. Yes, it all comes back. Aziz was one of the Prof.'s protégés. He seemed a bit of a misfit, and the Prof, was trying to find friends for him. He asked me if I couldn't get him invited to Annabelle's. I remember the girl too now. He asked if he could take her.'

‘I think there's something on between them.'

‘It's not impossible.'

‘No, I don't mean in that way: I wouldn't have thought he was her dish. An insignificant little squirt. She could do better than that with such a lack of females everywhere. No, I meant in terms of our line. I can't see why else she should be bothering to see anything of him.'

‘You think she's getting information out of him.'

‘I don't see any other explanation.'

‘You may be right.'

‘I half thought of putting the Germans on to him. Then I thought, no, I'd better ask you first.'

‘Quite right. You might have landed in a hornet's nest. The trouble about this racket is that there are so many different rackets and no one knows who's working for whom. I can give you an example. There was a man down here, a Turk, a survival of the Ottoman régime, who was sending up messages in secret ink to Turkey. We didn't know if his information was going to the Germans or the Turks. It wasn't very valuable information and if it was going to the Turks themselves, we didn't mind, but if it was going to the Germans, we thought we'd better stop it. So we asked our Turkish friends in Ankara if they knew anything about this chap. They said they'd never heard of him so we arrested him. The very next day we got a frantic message from our Turkish friends saying that the fellow was employed by their naval branch. They only knew about the military agents. Of course it was too late
then. I'll make inquiries about this girl and her Turkish boy-friend. Are you likely to be seeing more of them?'

‘I'm hoping to see a lot more of the girl she shares a flat with.'

‘Fine, keep us posted. I'm very grateful to you for putting us on to this.'

Back in his office, Farrar sent for Aziz's file. There were not very many recent entries on it. Chessman reported that the Germans were far from satisfied with him. He did not seem to be of much use to anyone, and he was costing quite a lot of money. Alexis' casual remark had started him on a new train of thought. It might be that quite a different use might be made of young Master Aziz.

Jenkins had asked Rachel Reid to call on him at half past ten. It was now quarter to eleven, but punctuality was impossible in wartime, at any rate for civilians. Jenkins was in the middle fifties. During the First War he had served in the same regiment as Reid; at that time they had seemed contemporaries. Front line subalterns met on equal terms. But now Jenkins thought of himself as belonging to another generation. He was ten years older, but felt twenty. He was rheumatic. He moved slowly. He had put on weight through eating too much starch. He had had his clothes let out because he had no coupons to buy new ones with, but his cutter had been called up for military service and his replacement had done the job clumsily. He was conscious of looking shabby, he who had prided himself on his neat, military appearance. His chief clerk was in the army. He had to work twice as hard as he had before the war, and taxation had reduced his income by half. Because of his rheumatism, he had not joined the Home Guard, but he was on fire-watching duty two nights a week. One of his sons was in the R.A.F. The other was in the Western Desert. His daughter was a clerk in the Admiralty, stationed in Bath. She came back for a long week-end leave once a month and slept the clock round. She never seemed to have time to talk to him. He lived in Pinner; before the war he had enjoyed his daily train journey, with a corner seat in a first-class carriage, and
The Times
crossword puzzle to occupy his thirty minutes run. The journey now lasted fifty minutes. He rarely got a corner seat and often failed to get a seat at all and had to stand. He walked to and from the station to
save petrol. At home he had no servant living in. A woman from the village came in once a week to scour the living-rooms and kitchen. The house was too large and it was impossible to keep more than one room warm. They sat in the library. His wife had become a household drudge. She grumbled about chilblains in the winter. It was her first experience of daily cooking; he presumed that she did the best she could with the scanty material at her disposal; but he never sat down to the table with a sense of anticipation, nor did he rise from it feeling that he had been fed.

Wine had been one of his favourite pre-war hobbies; he had already drunk all the wine he had laid down. His wine merchant sent him a monthly parcel of twelve miscellaneous bottles. He would say, ‘I think I shall be able to give you a little Burgundy this month . . .' with the word ‘give' underlined. He had to drink beer every other night, thin weak beer tasting of watered straw. He never felt well. Gastronomically, he had the sensation of being simultaneously stuffed and hungry. His weeks were occupied in a series of minor frustrations. He never seemed to be able to get anything he wanted done, whether it was a boiler to be repaired, a jacket to be let out, a car to be overhauled, a rebate supplied by the Income-Tax Authorities.

At his office, he found his temper short. He had little patience with his clients' preposterous demands upon his time and patience; estate duties, death duties, wills, conveyancing, trust funds, mortgages, as though any of these things mattered now in wartime. He often found it difficult to keep his temper. And he had to admit that he took a certain satisfaction out of being able to say ‘No.' He was relieved when his clients were unable to do what they wanted. He warned himself that he had to be on guard against this predilection. ‘You are paid,' he would tell himself, ‘as your father was before you, and your sons will be after you, by men and women who rely on you to smooth out their problems for them. That is your function, your purpose in the world. You depend on the gratitude of your clients.' He knew that; yet he could not help chuckling when he unearthed a new regulation that prevented a landlord from evicting a tenant who would not pay his rent. ‘He's in the same boat too,' he'd think, and sitting now waiting for Rachel Reid, he found it impossible to care whether she got her divorce or not. He presumed that she was sleeping with this American. Why couldn't she be content with that? Was that not one of the blessings of wartime conditions that you were spared the
hole and corner subterfuges of an intrigue? All those inconvenient trysts that, after the first rush of emotion, made a sensitive person think, ‘either we've got to call this off or cut and run.' In wartime you could have your cake and eat it.