The Towers of Trebizond (29 page)

Meanwhile I was teaching him the alphabet, writing the letters in large black capitals on a large sheet of paper, and pointing to each in turn with a stick, telling him what it was. Then I would say the letter and make him point to it with his stick, and he picked this up very quickly. I got a copy of
Reading Without Tears
, with which Meg and I had been taught to read when we were about four years old, and which is a very good book, because once it gets past how the cat lay on the mat, its stories are most exciting. There is a very good one about wolves, which entered a woodcutter's cottage one day, ravening, when only a little girl and her infant brother were at home, and the little girl shut up her brother in a grandfather clock but was herself eaten up, and when the parents came home there was only blood and bones on the floor and the little boy shut up in the clock, and Meg and I used to like this story very much. But I did not know if Suliman would ever get as far as that, or beyond the alphabet, or would ever even really quite grasp about the cat on the mat; it was difficult to tell, because he could not so far use human language, and if he ever learnt to do this he might only be able to say things like, "Brother, thy tail hangs down behind." I tried to teach him to say words after me, but he did not make much of it, and I thought he might be of a species which was no good at any languages but its own, and, as to that, I did not think that I could ever learn his.

But what he really was picking up was morality. He was learning not to throw things at people when he was vexed, not to steal, not to cheat at games, to do what he was told, anyhow sometimes, and to help in the house and garden and do little errands, and chores like peeling potatoes. He would ride Emily's bicycle to the village, with a label tied to the handlebars saying what shop he was bound for and what he was to buy there, and people would stop him and read the message and take him to the shop and put the things into his basket and send him back. He became more and more obliging, though sometimes, like any one else, he had bad moods and sulked. Meg thought it could not be in his nature to attain to true religion and virtue, as his ancient and ignoble blood had crept through scoundrels ever since the Flood; but I did not see that we had any evidence of this, as we had not known his ancestors, and anyhow, since our species had climbed upwards, why not his? There seemed no reason why the light of conscience should not influence the minor apes through our missionary efforts, as it has always influenced dogs. I told Meg that one cannot draw these rigid lines between human beings and the other animals, it must always be a question of degree, where minds exist at all. Still, I sometimes wondered, and thought that perhaps it was true that human souls are specially privileged in this matter and the other creatures definitely under-privileged.

Music, on the other hand, Suliman really seemed to take in. We tried him with different types of it, and he seemed on the whole to have rather a vulgar ear. Trained on Turkish radio music, he took very kindly to crooning, also to jazz, which made him leap about and dance. Romantic and saccharine melody went well with him too, and gay tunes and jigs, and, for some reason, he had a taste for opera, particularly for Verdi; at the drinking song in
La Traviata
he would prance round the room waving his arms and giving little cries of joy. More serious music he cared less for; Beethoven seemed rather outside his range, and most modern music affected him disagreeably, making him grind his teeth together and scowl. Mozart he liked, and indeed Mozart is every one's tea, pleasing to highbrows, middlebrows and lowbrows alike, though they probably all get different kinds of pleasure from him. I thought Mozart was good for Suliman, and might elevate his taste and mind, so I played him a lot of records. I should like to have taught him the piano, but was not very good at this instrument myself.

When not instructing this ape or seeing my friends, I tried to get on with the Turkey book, arranging aunt Dot's notes and my own and writing it all up to look like a book. Doing this reminded me all the time of aunt Dot and made me pretty sad, as the weeks and months went by and there was no news. All Hallows came on, then All Souls, and it seemed to me that aunt Dot and Father Chantry-Pigg had almost qualified for commemoration as souls who had passed out of our ken; but still I believed they would be back.

I was quite right. On the fifth of November, in the middle of the swishing and bangs of rockets exploded by the junior no-popery parliament-lovers of Oxfordshire, while I was telling Meg that I saw no reason why gunpowder treason and plot should ever be forgot, and she was telling me that "plot" was right, but that it had of course, as every one now knew, been a protestant plot, and Suliman, excited by the riot in the blazing skies, leaped and somersaulted in the garden, we turned on the nine o'clock news. After a good deal that did not matter at all, it said, "News has been received from the British Embassy in Moscow of Mrs. ffoulkes-Corbett and the Reverend Hugh Chantry-Pigg who disappeared over the Turkish frontier into Russia last July, and have not since been heard of. They called at the Embassy a few days ago, requesting repatriation. They have since then been staying under Embassy supervision, while enquiries were made with respect to their activities in the Soviet Union. They will be escorted to this country next week by boat from Leningrad. It is understood that a serious view is not taken of their activities, but that they will remain under observation for a time after reaching this country. Both are said to be in good health and spirits."

I think I had not known till then how dark my fears had been that I should never see aunt Dot again. Joy overtook me like a flood, the rockets banging and cascading in the sky for poor Guy became celestial explosions of delight. I need not have been afraid for aunt Dot; once again she had revealed her quality of resilient and invulnerable immortality, which had enabled her in the past to surmount a thousand hazards, escaping from perils of water, perils of mountains, perils of brigands, cannibals, mercy-killings, haarems, crocodiles, lions, camels and now Russia, from which she was due to emerge in good health and spirits, no doubt having enjoyed herself very much. And Father Chantry-Pigg, less resilient and adaptable, but protected by the mantle of her invulnerability, had also suffered no harm. About aunt Dot I felt that attired with stars she would for ever sit, triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.

And next morning I got a letter, sent in the Embassy bag, and dated a few days earlier. It said,

My dearest Laurie,

I expect you will be surprised to get this and will be wondering what we have been doing all these months and why I didn't write before. Well, actually I did, but I gather that my letters never reached England, and it seems that letters from people like us are closely vetted by the police and usually filed away as dossiers, the Russian police being, of course, so very inquisitive. I hope you didn't worry. This letter is going by the Bag, and I won't say anything in it, it would take too long if I began, but we have had a most interesting time on the whole. I will only say now that we have reached the Embassy, after a good deal of trouble, and are being sent home by boat from Leningrad under escort, and should be with you in about a week. Please tell Emily. If you can meet the boat, which is called
Molo
tov
,
at Tilbury, it would be very nice and a great help with the mare.

"The
mare
?" said Meg. "What mare is that?"

"Just a mare she's picked up, I suppose. Aunt Dot often comes back with some animal. I wonder if I'd better bring the camel from the Zoo. It hates horses."

Meg said that what with the camel and the ape and now this mare, aunt Dot's house was becoming a Zoo itself.

"And it's not as if she really
liked
animals."

"No. She just finds them useful. Probably this mare she's got is a very rapid Caucasian, and can speed about with a droshky at about thirty miles an hour."

"Should you think she's bringing a droshky too?"

"Quite likely. Or she can get one here. I dare say she's been rushing about the steppes like mad. I wonder how she got the mare. Perhaps it was a reward for her services. Do you think she told them no end of things about this country and our way of life?"

"That wouldn't be much use to them."

"Well, nothing is much use actually that people tell foreign countries about their own country. Except in war time. But governments seem to like to be told things, and they pay for it. I remember aunt Dot saying in Armenia that she would like that job. So she just went over and got it."

"What would you think Father Chantry-Pigg told them?"

"About the Church, I expect. Religious life in Britain, the Church of England, how it differs from theirs, education, schools, and all that. Probably aunt Dot was more interesting. I wonder what 'under escort' means."

Meg said they would probably be put straight into jug, perhaps the tower, and kept there.

So I met the
Molotov
at Tilbury, and coming down the gangway were aunt Dot, plump and pink and gay, and Father Chantry-Pigg, still lean and ascetic and pale, but with a firm, confident look, and neither of them looked like traitors. But it seemed true that they were under escort, who were two quiet men walking beside them and keeping off the Press, which was there in strength. This escort conducted my aunt and the priest to the customs and then to a waiting-room, a small secretive place, where I was allowed to see them. It seemed that they would be conducted to London by the escort, and detained there for questioning.

"It won't take long," aunt Dot cheerfully told me. "We have done nothing wrong. When we meet properly, I'll tell you all about everything."

"What about the mare?" I said.

"In quarantine," said aunt Dot. "When she gets out, I shall take her down to Troutlands and mate her. Then when she foals I shall mix her milk with a wild donkey's, and that will make koumiss. Most refreshing and invigorating. Father Hugh and I have been thriving on it. But there may be trouble with the camel; you know how they can't bear horses, nor horses them. How is it, by the way? And did you ride it all about the Levant?"

"It's in the Zoo just now, giving rides to children. Mentally, it seems rather better."

"Well, it mustn't meet the mare, so it had better stay there for the present."

Then the escort took them away to a car for London. Father Chantry-Pigg said as they went out, "I don't know why we are being treated in this extraordinary manner."

I saw his point, but after all people are usually treated in some extraordinary manner when they return from Russia, on account of being usually thought to have behaved there in some extraordinary way, for Russia is so odd a country that it is difficult to believe that people going there and staying there some time have not been odd there too. Actually, aunt Dot and Father Chantry-Pigg were rather odd anywhere abroad, and had been, probably, less odd in Russia, which is full of British and other people behaving most oddly, than they were elsewhere.

They remained in custody for three weeks, during which time their Russian activities were investigated, and they were questioned closely about the information they had given to the Soviet Government. The thing that most told against them was their having said, when accosted by the police near the frontier, that they had come to seek political asylum from the capital west. Aunt Dot said she had had to put it like that, to avoid being turned out or incarcerated as spies. She had also told them that she was an acquaintance of Mr. Maclean and Mr. Burgess, and that Father Chantry-Pigg, a very progressive Church of England dignitary, knew the Dean of Canterbury. Father Chantry-Pigg, knowing little Russian, had not followed all this talk, but thought he had better leave it to aunt Dot. His own main object in Russia, which was to look into the state of religion, he kept in the background, mentioning only such creditable and improbable desires as to study Soviet drama and literature, the prison system, education, and the birthplaces of Dostoievsky, Tolstoy and Chekov. Aunt Dot had said she was particularly anxious to learn all she could about the position of women, which compared so favourably with that of their sisters in the provincial parts of Turkey. Approving all this flattering curiosity, and looking forward to a flow of information about the capitalist way of life in Britain, the visitors had been treated kindly, taken on conducted tours, and invited to communicate all they knew. Aunt Dot told me later the kind of way it had gone. Some of it had been rather difficult on account of the interpreter's acquaintance with the English language not being very close, so that a good deal of what was said was no doubt slightly deformed in transit. They were questioned about British democracy: were they under the impression that this existed? Aunt Dot, who had strong views on this matter, said certainly not; the public were not consulted in most emergencies, there was no referendum, and, having voted members of Parliament into power, we had to accept their very disputable decisions. Not democracy, said aunt Dot, but bureaucracy. And presided over by monarchy, they suggested to her, but to this she demurred; monarchy had no say in any governmental matter, it was kept for social purposes, and to please a monarchically minded nation. Father Chantry-Pigg, asked about democracy, said, on the other hand, that he feared there was only too much of this, and made remarks about King Demos that aunt Dot had thought not fully understood by their questioners. Asked about education, both Britons thought we had, by and large, singularly little of this. "The rich go to one kind of school, the poor to another, is it not so?" and they agreed that this was, on the whole, so. The Russians knew about English schools for the workers, for
Nicholas Nickleby
was one of the standard books on the subject and was widely studied.

"Ancient history," said aunt Dot. "You might as well read
Oliver Twist
for information about modern Public Assistance, or
Newgate Visited
for prison life. There are no schools like that to-day. The children of the workers go first to primary schools, then either to modern or grammar schools. Modern schools seem to have a bad name, for some reason, and grammar schools a good one. They are both attended mainly by the children of the workers. The
bourgeoisie
usually send their children to other schools, paid for by themselves."