The View from Mount Dog

It is unreliably reported that the Cynic philosopher Chimerides, whose dates are unknown and whose very existence is doubted, was exiled to the salt marshes of Meddo (Asia Minor) for the excessive venom of his political criticisms. There he is believed to have written a series of essays which he sent home to a friend in Athens under the title
Letters
from
Mount
Dog.
This was a sarcastic reference to (
a
)
the unremitting flatness of Meddo and its environs and (
b
)
the nickname of his own philosophic school, members of which were decried as snarling fault-finders. The essays were obviously written in defiance of his judges and detractors, the implication being that, no matter where he might be obliged to live, his very contumely would always afford him a lofty view.

It is a great loss that these essays of Chimerides survive only in fragments quoted by contemporaries – a perverse sentence here, a surly phrase there. He must certainly have been more than a sublime curmudgeon, estimable though that would be. His acrid reproof, ‘Belief is merely a failure of doubt: beware', is justly celebrated for its elegant scepticism, and this centuries before Pascal, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, to say nothing of Wilde.

Precisely because of modern scholarly opinion to the contrary, I am more than ever convinced that Chimerides existed. Faint whiffs come down to us of the awe in which his brilliant crabbiness was held: difficult people may become legends but they do not become myths. Whatever the case, one or two of the stories in this volume were written in the foothills of Mount Dog, whose summit stands ever before me as inspiration and challenge. Naturally, the higher I climb the more I shall come to doubt Chimerides ever lived. But even if he did not I honour his putative memory, worthless though it is. Or, rather, my own memory of his memory, now failing.

His Most Serene Highness Sultan Yussuf Masood Ammar had enjoyed quite a lot of his state visit to Britain. He knew perfectly well that occasions of this sort were intended to be politically useful before they were pleasurable, not least because there is generally more agreement between culturally dissimilar nations about what is of mutual advantage than about what constitutes pleasure. Nonetheless, there had been several moments when he was grateful that members of his entourage – notably the Royal Photographer and the Royal Diarist – were present to click and scribble the records which on their return to Jibnah would be worked up into a scrap-book bound in green kid. He had watched a racehorse he was told he owned win the Derby; he had shamelessly overeaten at various banquets; he had been graciously permitted to blow up a mouse-coloured tank on Salisbury Plain.

But what had made the Sultan’s visit were the trains. There were alas no railways in his country which, thanks to the provision by a munificent Deity of vast mineral wealth beneath its sands, had recently moved from caravans to state airline more or less overnight. Accordingly advisers and senior diplomats had made sure in advance of his trip that the Sultan would spend plenty of time on trains, and the highlight of the entire visit was the granting of his special request that he might be allowed to sit with the driver of the night express to Edinburgh.

After that, little in the last week of the visit made much impression on him with the single exception of an informal afternoon spent at Buckingham Palace at the Queen’s personal insistence. The Sultan vaguely perceived that unlike his own Palace of a Thousand and One Rooms the Queen’s palace was not very sybaritic – an impression reinforced by taking tea with her in a drawing room full of family photographs, a portly dog asleep on a cushion, plates of sponge cake and back numbers of
Horse
&
Hound.
However, he did notice a table covered with the day’s newspapers, and his attention was further caught by a three-inch headline reading ‘Queen Hosts Despot’. During tea the wife he used for state visits, an ex-air hostess from Harrogate, engaged the Queen in lively if one-sided conversation while he edged back towards the table and surreptitiously read some more. Under the guise of looking out of the window at a very orderly garden full of guards disguised as gardeners and gardeners hoping to be mistaken by photographers for guards, the Sultan put his cup of tea down on the newspaper in question and, by squinting sideways and downwards and taking frequent sips of tea, read an article about himself describing some sort of desert Yahoo rolling in money and wallowing in gore. The Sultan was far too exalted to feel hurt and far too pragmatic not to be quite certain that the gore of usurpers and pretenders was always much better spilt than one’s own. He did, however, feel a little jab of apprehension, something to do with the way the domestic press of another country could print such things as gospel while back home the idea of calumnies like that even leaving somebody’s typewriter, still less being set up by compositors, was unthinkable. Was he, then, two people? Was he simultaneously beloved shepherd of his desert flock and pariah-sovereign of the international community?

Thoughtfully he dropped a half-scone buttered side down on the page and, holding the bottom of the scone, turned the page with it. Here the headlined article which had begun with banners and continued with trumpets fizzled out in two column inches. Idly the Sultan’s eyes drifted on past the buttery transparent stain spreading from the other side down to an article about the double of the lady behind him. He read in astonishment, bent now over the open page, all pretence at looking through the window gone. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Here was a woman, a commoner, a nobody, capitalising on
what the newspaper claimed was a close likeness to her Monarch. Well, he thought, things were certainly organised rather differently back home. The physical characteristics of his own family were pronounced, the Ammar nose being striking in itself but in combination with the Masood chin unmistakable. Occasionally in some desert village a child would appear whose features bore a peculiar resemblance, but in such cases an exquisitely wrought damascene blade would fall regretfully but not over-apologetically and the child’s family be presented with a lame white camel in traditional acknowledgement.

‘Your Majesty,’ said the Sultan, turning to interrupt an account by his wife of the dowry system in Yorkshire.

‘Your Highness,’ said the Queen gratefully. ‘More tea?’

‘Thank you, but I am puzzled by an article in this newspaper. This may come as a shock to you but there seems to be a woman daring to impersonate you. Can this be true?’

‘So it would appear, although we are assured it is not impersonation as such.’

‘You do not
mind
?’

‘It’s not clear there’s a great deal one could do about it even if one did. It is peculiar, isn’t it, since you mention it. Apparently the lady in question is always being asked to open fêtes and that kind of thing, despite everybody’s knowing she is not myself and her insistence that she would never pretend to be. Don’t you think that’s interesting? It implies, does it not, that if one’s parish priest happened to resemble the Archbishop of Canterbury there would be more cachet in being married by him than if he merely looked like everybody else’s parish priest?’

‘Exactly,’ said the Sultan uncertainly.

‘Or suppose,’ said the Queen, warming to her thesis, ‘suppose one had an imitation Rolls-Royce made by, well, a Japanese company, for instance, a vehicle which
very
closely
resembled
a real Rolls-Royce but which had on the radiator a badge declaring it to be a Honda.’ The hush which traditionally fell whenever the Queen spoke took on an attentive edge at this bizarre fancy. ‘The question is, would it be accorded the same degree of
respect
as if it were the genuine article?’

Everyone pondered this for a moment before a crusted old equerry ventured an opinion, it being tea-time and the moment of the day usually reserved for informal conversation of a democratic variety when almost anyone might lay claim to having had a thought.

‘That would depend on whether Ma’am were in it or not.’

This excited a murmur of agreement. Even the Sultan found himself nodding, although, truth be told, he was completely lost by the conversation’s sudden philosophic turn.

‘An excellent point, Bertram,’ conceded the Queen. ‘One had overlooked that. Very well, then’ – a mischievously speculative look came into her eye – ‘supposing, supposing it was not one
self
inside the vehicle but the lady who resembles one? Now, then.’ She sat back in triumph and took a large bite of sponge cake.

‘Humpf,’ said the equerry, emboldened by the intellectual cut and thrust. ‘A fake Queen in a fake Rolls, y’mean?’

‘Not exactly,’ said a clear voice. ‘They’re not
exactly
fakes, are they? It’s not Her Majesty because this lady doesn’t claim to be, and it’s not a Rolls because it plainly says “Honda” on the front. Or am I being stupid?’ – and the Sultana giggled a little, just as she once had whenever facing a hundred and twenty strangers wearing a yellow lifejacket and miming the automatic fall of oxygen masks in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure. ‘That’s not proper deceit, is it?’

Other voices began to join in. Forgotten wedges of sponge cake punctured the air to make debating points.

‘I say, now, hold on,’ said a plain-clothes detective masquerading as a page boy. ‘If that’s not deceitful, what is, I should like to know? It’s like this painter fellow comes up to you and says, “Here, cop a look at this picture I’ve just done of my girlfriend. It’s pure coincidence she happens to be the spitting image of the Mona Lisa.” To my mind he’s being deceitful on two counts.’ He held up two fingers and knocked each down with his other hand. ‘One, he’s pretending his portrait’s original when it was da Vinci’s idea all along and, two – most important of all – he’s pretending his girlfriend’s as beautiful as the Mona Lisa.’

The discussion continued in this lively vein for nearly twenty minutes before the Sultan’s own private secretary managed to divert the company’s attention back to the forgotten monarch who was sitting on a spindly gold chair, gold-trimmed white robes about his feet, the Masood chin on his chest. From the moment he left this palace until the moment he once more set foot in his own he was observed to be thoughtful. After the long flight home and once in the Royal Bath-Chamber, however, letting the residues of travel soak off his body in a huge glass chalice filled with his favourite mixture of rose-water and
Harrods bath salts, he began taking decisions. His first was to summon the Minister for State Planning, who arrived down below within half an hour in an air-conditioned Cadillac and was ushered into the royal presence.

‘I want a railway,’ announced the Sultan without preamble. ‘It should go from here in Jibnah down to Hafoos. Later we might make a branch line to Rifa’aq.’ He swished some greenish foam decisively. It became apparent that he wore all his rings in the bath, for they clicked on the glass sides of the chalice.

‘Certainly, Highness. It is a wonderful idea. Do you wish this project to fall within the portfolio of my own humble ministry?’

‘No,’ said the Sultan. ‘Excellent as you no doubt are where overall planning is concerned, railways are highly specialised affairs. We need a Minister in charge who really understands trains. I recommend a man named Reg Burnshaw. You’ll find him in England. He is an absolute authority on the line between London and Edinburgh.’

The Sultan dismissed his Minister, changed into a magnificently embroidered robe with a gold-handled ornamental dagger at his waist and roamed thoughtfully through the royal apartments trailing a confused scent of roses and verbena. Night had fallen. Beyond the windows designed by a firm of Italian architects to imitate the shape of the opening in a Bedouin tent lay the small desert capital of Jibnah, neat avenues of mature date-palms (transplanted by airlift from an oasis three hundred miles away) radiating from in front of the Palace. The beacon revolving on the control tower of the newly built international airport some distance away intermittently lit one corner of the night sky, and the Sultan knew that if he went and looked through the windows at the back of the Palace he would see another corner of the sky suffused with the flickering orange glow of the burn-off flares at the Zabul gas-fields sixty miles away over the horizon. He stepped out on to the balcony breathing in the smell of mimosa, baked earth, urine, freshly cut grass and petroleum fractions. It was the unmistakable smell of his Sultanate; it was good to be home.

But a thought was troubling him somewhere at the back of his mind. Some days ago a doubt had been sown by a phrase. ‘Queen Hosts Despot’, indeed. Still, one could never be too careful. He took another decision and rang for his personal servant.

‘Do we have any old robes in the Palace, Mehdi?’

‘No, Highness.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Certain, Highness. There is nothing old in this palace, Highness, except the traditions of your subjects and the allegiance we owe you.’ He said this very gracefully with his nose touching the rug.

‘I see. Then bring me a camel-driver.’

‘A camel-driver, Highness.’ It was a flat repetition.

‘Well?’ said the Sultan, sensing difficulty.

‘Any
camel-driver, Highness?’

‘More or less. About my size.’

‘But young, of course,’ said the prostrate Mehdi, ‘and fair of countenance.’

‘Not necessary at all,’ the Sultan said impatiently. ‘I don’t care what he looks like as long as he looks like a camel-driver.’

‘Highness, I hear. Now, this instant. But’, came the voice as it retreated slowly over the priceless half-million knots, ‘it may not be easy.’

‘Why not? It is a simple enough order.’

‘If Mehdi dare presume, Highness, it is your Highness’s own fault in being so prompt to make manifest the gifts of Allah the Bountiful to all men that today camels are a rarity in the city. Now, if you had asked for a
taxi-
driver
,
there are a thousand at this moment sitting in their ranks with the air-conditioning on, reading Egyptian paperbacks.’

‘A camel-driver, Mehdi, at once.’

Mehdi withdrew.

He reappeared forty minutes later escorting a magnificent old man whose lined and hawk-like face the Sultan barely glimpsed on its way down to the rug. Around him on the floor lay a spreading puddle of tattered brown robes. The peculiar scent of camels became apparent. The Sultan looked at him speculatively for a moment, but then his heart failed. His own power was such that at his behest damascene blades lifted and fell; but all of a sudden he had not got it in him to make this dignified old man stand up and take his robe off. He could not even dismiss him to another room and likewise order the clothes off his back, not even if they were immediately exchanged for the most sumptuous in his own private wardrobe. In all probability the camel-driver had never removed his robe since the day he put it on. How long ago? the Sultan wondered. Three years? Five? How often
did
camel-drivers change their garments? And, anyway,
how did they do it? He could not imagine a naked camel-driver but he did remember a boyhood visit to the Gulf where he had had hermit crabs explained to him by an English tutor. Perhaps camel-drivers were the same. When the time approached for a change of outer wear maybe they looked around for something suitable and then, under cover of darkness and when they were sure no one was watching, quickly slipped out of the old and into the new. The Sultan experienced a brief imaginative flash of something coiled and tender and pink and then came back to earth.

‘A thousand greetings, O loyal camel-driver,’ he said. ‘I wished merely to see again something familiar from before the day when Allah opened his riches to us. Go with peace and a suitable gift which Mehdi here will be glad to bestow on you.’

His subjects retired; the Sultan fell to brooding. The newspaper articles he had read in Britain had given him various ideas, all of them fuelled by a growing sense that in these turbulent times he ought to be better in touch with things outside the Palace. There had been one or two awful reminders lately of what happened to rulers who went on living feudally in a world where yesterday’s illiterate Bedouin now read inflammatory Egyptian paperbacks. All that talk in London about disguises had reminded him of the old stories they used to tell of kings dressed as beggars and even of beggars dressed as kings. He had lately heard that one or two modern rulers had resorted to such things the better to guide their people’s destiny. It had been the plan, therefore, of His Most Serene Highness Sultan Yussuf Masood Ammar secretly to don a humble disguise and prowl the streets of his capital incognito. Yet it was turning out to be infernally difficult. The embarrassment he had experienced at the thought of ordering an old man to undress had extended itself to the explanations necessary to stop Mehdi gossiping, the Palace guards shooting, the general uproar on discovering what purported to be an unescorted camel-driver smelling of roses and verbena trying to leave the Royal Apartments. It was hopeless. How
did
they do it in the stories?