The Mule on the Minaret (38 page)

He reached Beirut in mid-afternoon. On its outskirts the smell of stale Arak tickled his nostrils. It was good to be back; and it was good to find his flat looking exactly as he had left it. He had packed away a few personal belongings in a suitcase: a couple of Persian miniatures on ivory; a Damascene dagger; a Turkish prayer rug; a set of liqueur glasses and a decanter. He arranged them on his desk and table and on the mantelpiece. He had bought a bottle of cognac in the N.A.A.F.I. He filled the decanter. It all looked exactly as it had on that last night five weeks ago. He took a long, slow look round him, as he paused in the doorway, before starting out. Soon, very soon, he thought.

It was now midsummer and Beirut was appreciably hotter than it had been two weeks before. The air had a close, overpowering humidity. The sun was half veiled by the heat. None of the Lebanese were wearing jackets. Most of them had discarded their ties; there was a feeling of languor and exhaustion. The women's hats looked damp, their shirt-waists limp. ‘I'd been warned about this,' he thought. He sauntered slowly along the waterfront. His bush-shirt clung against his shoulders. Even so, how good it was to be back here, to be able to accept the present, looking forward confidently into the future: with work that was of interest and value; with the hour to hour routine lit by Diana's presence. Nothing was changed. Everything would be the same.

There was no sentry at the M.E.S.C. main door. That was part of ‘the purloined letter' system of security. Anyone who wanted could walk in. Suspicion was disarmed. Nor was there any sentry
at the office door, on which was affixed a handwritten notice—‘I.S.L.O. Walk in.' The door was closed. It was very quiet. His heart began to beat faster. It was no good his trying to pretend that he was not excited. The door of Diana's room was open. He looked inside. A female form was silhouetted against the window, facing it. A small and dumpy one. Who on earth was that? He walked on quickly. Farrar's door, too, was open. Farrar was at his desk. He jumped to his feet.

‘Welcome back. It's good to see you. I'm getting overworked. So's everybody else. We've so much work on hand. And the heat. Didn't I warn you? Still, it won't last long. Another month, six weeks.'

Reid was not listening. ‘Who's that girl in Diana's office?'

‘priscilla Marston.'

‘And who may she be?'

‘The new secretary.'

‘What about Diana?'

‘Gone to Cairo.'

‘What?' He stared, astounded. ‘When did she go?'

‘Last week.'

‘She never told me.'

‘She had no time. She left at forty-eight hours' notice.'

‘Is she all right?'

‘Of course she is. Why shouldn't she be?'

‘Why did she go?'

‘Posted there. You know how it is in our racket. The boys in the small back room have a new idea and we all change seats.'

‘But why should she go to Cairo?'

‘Someone whom she knew in London has been posted there. He asked for her.'

‘Did she want to go?'

‘She didn't have any choice. Cairo has first call on us.'

‘But all the same...' He was so astonished, so overwhelmed, that he could not realize that it had happened. Beirut and no Diana. He said the first silly thing that came into his head. ‘I'm going to miss her.'

‘We're all going to miss her. But Priscilla's very good. As a matter of fact, she's a better typist. Not that Diana wasn't good.'

Reid was not listening. Beirut without Diana. ‘How long will she be gone?'

Farrar shrugged. ‘Presumably for ever; it's a posting.'

Beirut without Diana. He blinked. Mentally he shook himself. ‘Well, if she's gone, she's gone. That's that. I'd better get those files and read myself back into the picture.'

‘Let it wait. There isn't all that hurry. You must be tired. Besides, I've got a small party at the flat tonight. The end of term. Aziz is going back to Istanbul. It's to say
au revoir
to him. Annabelle's coming. I was only waiting till you arrived to go. Let's be on our way.'

The flat in the Rue Jeanne d'Arc looked just as much the same as his own flat had done. Beirut without Diana. Yet it was the same Beirut. And here was Annabelle with her inevitable brother; and she and Farrar were sparring like lovers in a Congreve comedy, exactly as they had been in December. They had made no progress.

‘I am very sorry for Lebanese young men, in one way,' he was saying.

‘In what way, pray?'

‘In the way of love.'

‘They are not accustomed to complain.'

‘That is their good manners.'

‘It is agreeable for young men to have good manners.'

‘Perhaps they do not know any better.'

‘Do you think that European young men have greater cause to be contented?'

‘They at least have an opportunity of knowing what the young lady whom they intend to marry is really like.'

‘And do you think, my exacting captain, that that is an advantage? We do not think so here. We consider that the mystery of marriage is one of its greatest charms.'

‘How can you say that, Annabelle?'

‘Because that is how we are instructed by our elders. We are introduced to a number of young men, we dance with them, we flirt with them, but we never know what they are like when they are alone. We wonder, we are curious, inquisitive. We look at those seven, those eight young men. Which shall we choose? Which is the one we really need? Finally, we select one. But still we do not know what he is really like. What mystery. What romance. Finally, the great day arrives. The knot is tied. We drive away together. We are alone, to reveal at last our secrets to each other. What mystery, what romance. How can you compare with that your European honeymoon, where the bride and groom can have scarcely a
remaining secret for each other: their picnics, their petting parties, their drives in cars. No, I don't envy them.'

‘But Annabelle, marriage is for life. Do you not run a great risk marrying a stranger?'

‘Every man is a stranger until he becomes a husband. You play for safety. We are more romantic. And I suspect that our romantic marriages are more successful than your prudent ones.'

Her eyes were sparkling, in her left cheek there was a dimple; and Farrar had an air of gallantry.

‘But isn't it tragic,' Farrar was continuing. ‘when you choose unwisely, when the stranger reveals himself to be an ogre?'

‘There are remedies.'

‘Divorce is disagreeable medicine.'

‘There are medicines besides divorce.' There was a look of mischief in her smile.

‘If I were a Lebanese young man, and I fell in love with a Lebanese young lady, do you know what I should do?'

‘What would you do, Monsieur Nigel?'

‘I should wait until she had married, and then I should offer her that medicine.'

‘How very ungenerous of you, my cautious captain; to wish an unhappy marriage for her. Besides, how unromantic. Surely if you were genuinely attracted to a Lebanese young lady you would want, above all things, you would rate it as your highest privilege, to initiate her into the pleasures and mysteries of love, pleasures that I am assured can be considerable. No, no, I am afraid that you confirm my worst suspicions of the English. You belong to a most unromantic race.'

‘If you would only give me an opportunity of proving that I can be a highly romantic suitor—'

‘Ah, there you go again. You are not only an unromantic race; you are an exceedingly immoral one. It is a great pity, I sometimes think, that your father did not settle down after the First War in Lebanon and marry here.'

‘Or that your mother, during that First War, did not fall in love with an English officer and go back with him to London.'

‘That might have been a solution, too.'

Listening to them, Reid thought, ‘I was wrong. They are not where they were six months ago. They have advanced a long way along a road.' There was a new depth, a new fondness in their badinage. It had been a flirtation then. Now it was a courtship. A
kind of courtship that was new to him, but whose attractions he could appreciate. To have to conduct a courtship in public, under the eyes and ears of friends and relatives, required address and wit and fantasy.

He looked round for the guest of honour. Aziz seemed on the immediate surface no different from the young man whom he had met in December on the terrace of the St. Georges. Yet Reid was conscious of a change. He was more self-confident. He was readier to enter a conversation. He did not sit and wait to have questions addressed to him. He asked them himself. Something must have happened while that girl from the Turkish office had been in Beirut. Diana had shrugged when he had asked her. ‘She said nothing to me. But then she isn't the kind of girl who would.'

‘And you're not the kind of girl who asks that kind of question.'

‘Exactly.'

‘How did they seem when they were together?' he had asked.

‘I only saw them together twice. They seemed quite natural.'

It might very easily have been a friendship and nothing more. They had seen a lot of one another, but then Eve had a business reason for seeing plenty of him. ‘I've always found,' Diana said, ‘that when you are sure something is happening, it isn't. And where you are convinced nothing is happening, wedding bells are just about to ring.'

For all he knew, nothing at all was afoot between Aziz and Eve. It was every bit as likely that Aziz was involved with a student at the A.U.B.

He went across to him. ‘I've seen nothing of you for weeks. I've been in Syria on the Wheat Commission.'

‘So I had been told.'

‘How did things go this term?'

‘Well; quite well, thank you.'

‘Not having to worry about that exam must have made a difference.'

‘It made all the difference.'

‘You won't have to worry about another one for quite a while.'

‘Not for a year.'

‘Does that allow you to mix more in the life of the University?'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘If you are not worrying about exams, you have more time to join clubs and groups.'

‘I'm not interested in clubs and groups. I'm only interested in those who share my tastes.'

‘And that means music.'

‘Exactly.'

‘Haven't you made any special friends?'

‘I'm more interested in the music that I hear than in the people with whom I hear it.'

Reid laughed. ‘Haven't you guessed yet what was the point of all these questions?'

‘No.'

‘I was wondering whether you had met the young woman who would have the same effect on you that music does.'

‘I have met no one in the University who could have that effect.'

That wasn't the answer to his question, but Reid did not press the point. Sooner or later he would learn. ‘How long will you be away?' he asked.

‘The new term starts on October the first.'

‘I'll be in touch with you soon after that.'

‘I shall be very grateful.'

October the first. Two months away. Two months in Beirut without Diana.

Eve had learnt through the files that Aziz was coming up to Istanbul as soon as the term ended. Her anxiety had mounted as the last day of term approached. He had promised to come up as soon as his classes ended. But it was easy to make that kind of promise during a long siesta. He might feel very different seven weeks later. It would be stiflingly hot here now in Istanbul. It would be humid in Beirut; but there was the cool of Aley, there were the golden beaches. He might well decide to linger on. The list of passengers on the Taurus was always sent to the office. But it arrived two or three days late, except on occasions of special urgency, and this was not such a case. If Aziz had been a relative, or an English friend, she would not have hesitated to say to Sedgwick, ‘Could I be told as soon as he arrives?' But she could not display that interest where Aziz was concerned. She had no idea if Sedgwick suspected anything. She did not see how he could, unless Beirut had sent up a report. If Beirut had, it would have been sent up secretly. There were, no doubt, channels that she did not know for such communications. Sedgwick was highly secretive. ‘At any rate,' she consoled herself, ‘if he does come up and doesn't telephone me I shall know he's here; even if I know it three days late. I shan't be in the dark.'

But she need have had no such qualms. On the same day that she had read a list of Taurus passengers that did not include his name, she found a message at the Perapalas. Would she telephone Aziz that afternoon at five?

She telephoned him from the office, on a line that she was
confident would not be monitored. She listened, with her eyes closed, to the ringing tone. Fifteen seconds, twenty-five seconds, half a minute. Was he out? But then it came. And the shock along her nerves was so great that she could scarcely speak. ‘Welcome back,' she said. It was like a croak. There was a pause. Then his voice again.

‘When do we meet?'

‘Tonight at nine. The same flat.'

‘Good.' And he rang off.

Again she closed her eyes. She was grateful to him for not making conversation.

She returned to the flat to find Kitty standing before her looking-glass, turning first one way then another, patting at her hair, fluffing it, pulling it. ‘There's no doubt. I'm getting fat. There isn't any doubt about it. I am getting fat.'

Eve made no comment. She could not contradict her. There was the evidence of the bathroom scales. But, even so, Kitty was beyond any question a highly appetizing object.

‘You've nothing to worry over yet,' she said.

‘Thank you for the “yet”. The evil day is not far distant. I shall have to diet. How I shall hate it. How I enjoy good food. And tonight at Abdullah's won't do me any good. What are you doing?'