The Towers of Trebizond (30 page)

"Capitalist schools," said the interrogators, and aunt Dot admitted that this was so.

They asked Father Chantry-Pigg about British religious life. All too little of that, he told them, and the people all too little doped by this opium. The topic of Mr. Billy Graham came up; were his activities well regarded in Britain? The Russians obviously considered Mr. Graham an important purveyor of opium, and would never on any account allow him in Russia. Father Chantry-Pigg spoke of this missioner in a manner they thought very proper, and they began to think his investigations into Soviet religion would do no harm to the Soviet republics.

Anyhow, after a time they decided to allow these two fugitives from British capitalism to travel about, under supervision, and see how things were in a Socialist state, and pass on their message about the iniquities of the capitalist world to the Soviet people. It seemed that they had collected quite a number of capitalist fugitives from various countries who were doing this, and, when not doing this, were telling the Soviet Government all kinds of things about their native lands.

"My dear, the things we told them!" aunt Dot said afterwards to me. "Such nonsensical things, and we made them sound so important. It all goes to show what I have always said, that
anything
does as information to a foreign government, and that none of it really matters a bit, and that espionage is the most over-paid profession in the world. I must say I did enjoy it. And Father Hugh was marvellous. He told them how little power the Church had, and how its odd behaviour in South India was discrediting it and driving many people to the Roman obedience, and what a mistake it all was, South India, I mean, and the Roman obedience, he spoke very strongly against both, but one could see that they couldn't really take in about South India, though they quite understood about Rome, because of course they dislike it too. Father Hugh had to undertake not to try to missionise people, and naturally he was closely watched, but he did quite quietly cure a policeman's wife in Tiflis of bad lumbago with a relic of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, because it was on her day, and the policeman was so pleased that he didn't report it, but two days later had his own duodenal cured by a relic of St. Philip Benizi on
his
day. Russians always believe in miracles, of course; I dare say they thought the relics were bits of a coat Lenin had worn, you know how Leninolatrous they are, though it's really no sillier than our basilikolatry, and I'm sure bits of the queen's dress would be most useful to doctors. Anyhow Russians seem the perfect subjects for such things, being natural mystics. It must be rather like the country parts of Turkey, which have taken so little notice of poor Atatürk, it's wonderful how people go on in their old ways of thought long after they have been revolutionised and reformed; it's so discouraging for reformers, the way reformations often don't seem to do more than scratch the surface, so that the mass of the people stay just as they were. Of course Father Hugh couldn't say Mass, or preach, or baptise; but his cures made a great impression, and more and more people came to him for them. And he was allowed to see a lot of churches, and talk to a lot of priests. We had a wonderful tour in Armenia; we were in Erivan for the consecration of the new Catholicos; the church was packed out. But they say they all are, all the year round. And you know how magnificent the country is. I got some nice fishing. We didn't want to leave Armenia and the Caucasus a bit, but we were dragged off to Moscow and set down to work—interviews at police headquarters with solemn men who wrote down all we told them and always wanted to know more; my dear, we were pumped dry. Those note-books of theirs must be full of the most extraordinary nonsense. When we weren't giving information we were conducted round all the tedious things I hate—hospitals and welfare clinics and institutions and schools and administration departments, and railway stations and labour exchanges and whatever;
what
dull things governments are proud of. But of course we had to see them, and admire them. We had to see football matches, too, Britain being beaten off the field by the Dynamos. They thought that would please us; they told us it always pleased the fugitives from Britain to see British teams beaten, so we had to look delighted, but really, you know, it's quite annoying. Even Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess told us it still vexes them; yes, we saw quite a bit of them, they were rather cagey, and very smug and respectable, and it wasn't at all clear just what they were doing, but they were interested in English news—all the gossip, I mean, particularly the gossip about themselves, but we scarcely liked to tell them all that. Then we were taken on a visit to Leningrad to see the same kind of tiresome things there, and of course Father Hugh would keep calling it St. Petersburg, which didn't go at all well; I had to keep on explaining how old-fashioned and dated he always was. Then after a time we both wanted badly to get home, but, as we were never allowed near the Embassy or any other English except the spies, we didn't see how it was to be managed, we were followed and watched all the time. But one evening we were taken to the theatre to see a new play about collective farms, and there was such a crowd in the street coming out that our policeman lost us for a minute, and right in front of the theatre stood a British Embassy car with two young men in it, so we opened the door and got straight in, and I said, "Look, we're British, can you take us to the Embassy, we've just escaped from the men who were watching us, and we want asylum" (you know, that's a very useful phrase, it gets you anywhere), so off they drove and landed us at the Embassy, and gave us asylum there for the night, in fact they took us prisoner, and were pretty chilly, because of course they had heard about us and how we were informing. In the morning we were interviewed and questioned and treated more coldly than ever, but finally we were bundled on to a train with steamer tickets to London, watched all the way by Embassy police lest we should seek asylum again from the ship's captain. My dear, we got so tired of being
watched
all these months, it's such a blessed feeling now not to be."

I said, "I dare say you
are
being watched, only more tactfully than before. I should think your telephone is certainly tapped."

Aunt Dot agreed that this was probably the case: she did not seem to mind.

"I have been thinking what I can say on it to interest them. I feel I do owe them that, after all I said to interest the Russians. You've no idea how easy it is to interest foreigners, it takes no effort whatever, only a little mild invention. But now what I want, after these months of excitement, is a little quiet home life. When I get my mare out of quarantine, I must start training her in English ways. She isn't used to lanes and roads, only to steppes and mountains. Do you think I ought to have the camel here, and let them get used to each other? But I suppose they would both bite and kick. Animals have such bad tempers. Actually, the mare and the camel are both a little mad. Halide says so many animals are, not at all only bulls. They are mental from birth, she says, and every so often go quite round the bend. And of course the way they are brought up makes them worse; most come from broken homes; their fathers take no notice of them as a rule, and we often take them from their mothers too young, and treat them most oddly, and of course they feel deprived and frustrated and their minds and tempers and nerves give way, not that their minds and tempers are ever strong at the best, they're so neurotic."

I told her how Suliman's mind and temper had been improved by religion and moral teaching, but she did not think this would do much for the camel or the mare, who were less assimilative.

"How very nice," she added, "it will be to go to church again. That is one thing that travel teaches one—there is really
no
other service so good as our own High Mass. I keep telling the B.B.C. Religious Department that if they televised it every Sunday they would make
hundreds
of converts, but they don't take much notice, though they often televise the Roman one, which most viewers don't understand because it's Latin, you know how unlettered they are, while all the time and every Sunday in half our London churches we have this superb service, with everything people like, beautiful singing, clouds of incense, priests in fine vestments moving about in the most impressive way, the action of the Mass, a magnificent liturgy, and all in English but for the Kyrie and a few oddments, so it really can be followed. Father Hugh thinks it would have a tremendous effect on simple, inexperienced people like televiewers; he thinks they would say, 'I must join the Church, if that's what its services are like.' Mind you, I wouldn't let
him
take part, he'd put in far too much Latin and worry people. For all he says he isn't, he's a bit of an ultramontane, in practice though not in theory, and we can't have
that
in the Church of England, we must stay dyed-in-the-wool Anglican. I don't say the B.B.C. doesn't try to be fair, it does provide an equal number of communion services from all the chief denominations, but look at the
type
of Anglican service they usually have, whether it's sound or television—oh very dignified, cathedral and what not, or some simple middle-of-the-road church, nice of course, but dull not showy, not the kind that impresses and excites and converts. So that the majority think we haven't got High Mass at all, and that they must go to Rome for it. What they mostly get on sound radio is an Anglican monkish office set to music with a sermon thrown in, or else prayers and hymns from some Nonconformist chapel, which I've nothing against if nonconformists like them, it's their affair, but I do complain of the choice of Anglican churches, because that's
our
affair, and I shall go on complaining. If you ask me, it's a popish plot to reclaim England for Rome."

I felt sure that aunt Dot would go on complaining. I did not share her anxiety, because I am less bigoted about the Church of England, and anyhow I do not listen to radio services and am not a televiewer, and I am not really a missionary either, as aunt Dot is, so I do not care what other people listen to or view. Though I personally think Anglicanism is the most attractive branch of the Christian Church, its prayers being dignified and beautiful and in fine English, and not abject or sentimentally pious, or hearty and pally and common, or in Latin, and having a theology which is subject to new light and development, and a Mass mainly from pre-Reformation rites, and church ornament and much of its architecture on the whole, though by no means always, in good taste—though I like all this, and could never belong to any other Church (indeed, I only with difficulty, and in part, belong to this one), I see no reason to press it on other people, who may prefer, as they obviously do, to be Roman Catholics or dissenters or agnostics, and seem to get on all right as they are, in fact often much better than I do. So I live and let live, but that is not what aunt Dot does at all, she is a true missionary, and has it in her blood, and I have too, but with me it has not taken so well.

Next day aunt Dot had a letter from Halide. She wrote a little guardedly, as if she was not quite sure just how far aunt Dot had gone in espionage, but was grudgingly willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. She had married her Moslem man after all, and had reverted to Islam, and not only because of her marriage, for,

I have come to see, she wrote, that we emancipated Turkish women, if we are to lead our poor countrywomen into freedom, must do this from within. What is the use that I speak to them in villages and tell them I belong to the Church of England? What is that to them, when they belong to the Church of Turkey? What is the use to tell them, as many do, that we, the educated women, have no religious faith at all, when this is to the simple men and women the great sin against Allah? No, we must speak to them as Moslems, we must tell them that our religion and theirs allows these things that they think they may not do, and this way we shall wake them to ambition and to progress, and make their men ashamed to keep them down. There is now a band of educated truly Moslem women, who will go into the backward villages and teach them along these lines. So, my dear Dot, do not come with your Church of England missions, nor Father Pigg, for that is not the way. I can assure you that I am very happy, and determined to atone for my Anglican error and infidelity by serving my country and my faith as best I may. Perhaps you and I may meet again one day, though now it is rather soon that I condone that strange Russian expedition, and what you may have told them about Turkey how can I know? I can only hope that, if the great war breaks out between our enemy and us, they will not find themselves assisted by anything which you and Imam Pigg have told them, but more probably they knew it all before, and could find their way from Trua to Eski-Stamboul better than you. All the same, you should not have gone to Russia, I cannot condone that. But I send you my affection, and the faithful well wishes of a friend. Also to Laurie, and I hope the camel grows better now that it leads a quieter life.

Your friend,

Halide Yorum

I wondered if Halide's Moslem man could, by chance, be that Mr. Yorum to whom I had so often asked the staff of the Yessilyurt Oteli at Trebizond to telephone, and who had at last arrived there, and with whom I had, until he got tired of me, enjoyed more than one drink. Anyhow, the relations between Halide and my family seemed for the time being closed, and I was sorry, so was aunt Dot.

"Turks," she said, "won't condone, they won't co-exist. And that old-fashioned religion they have will get their women nowhere. I think Halide has made a great mistake. I am disappointed in her. But I shall ask her later to come and stay, so that we can thrash things out, and I can tell her about Russia. She can go to mosque in Oxford, on the camel, to remind her of home. But for the moment I shall leave the camel in the Zoo, and concentrate on training the mare."

I asked if I could leave Suliman at Troutlands when I was in my flat. I told her how useful he was helping in the garden, sweeping up leaves, pulling up weeds (though here he was a little indiscriminate) and bicycling to the village on errands. Aunt Dot said all right, so long as he didn't get too violent at croquet or paint on the walls without leave or bother Emily in the kitchen or insist on driving the car. She would not, however, take him to church, she thought this a little on the irreverent side, and the vicar and the churchwardens did not care for it either, so Suliman had better be a blue-domer.