The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [138]
carob and olive, vine and jujube, pistachio, peach and apricot, spreading around them the green colours of quickness in those tenantless areas of dust choked with sea-salt. He looked almost lustfully upon the pictures of equipment in the shiny brochures Nessim had brought him, lovingly touching them with his finger, hearing in his imagination the suck and swell of sweet water through pumps gradually expressing the dead salts from the ground and quickening it to nourish the sipping roots of his trees. Gebel Maryut, Abusir — his mind winged away like a swallow across the dunes into the Nitrian desert itself — mentally conquering it.
‘The desert’ said Narouz. ‘By the way, will you ride out with me to the tents of Abu Kar tomorrow? I have been promised an Arab and I want to break it myself. It would make a pleasant ex-cursion.’ Nessim was at once delighted at the prospect. ‘Yes’ he said. ‘But early’ said Narouz, ‘and we can pass the olive plantation for you to see what progress we’re making. Will you? Please do!’
He squeezed his arm. ‘Since we started with the Tunisian chimlali we haven’t had a single casualty. Oh, Nessim! I wish you stayed here. Your place is here.’
Nessim as always was beginning to wish the same. That night they dined in the old-fashioned way — so different from the im-pertinent luxury of Alexandrian forms — each taking his napkin from the table and proceeding to the yard for the elaborate hand-washing ceremony which preceded a meal in the country. Two servants poured for them as they stood side by side, washing their fingers with yellow soap, and rinsed them off with orange-water. Then to the table where their only cutlery was a wooden spoon each for dealing with soup — otherwise they broke the flat thin cakes of the country to dip into the dishes of cooked meats. Leila had always dined alone in the women’s quarters, and retired to bed early so that the two brothers were left alone to their repast. They ate in leisurely fashion, with long pauses between the courses, and Narouz acted host, placing choice morsels upon Nessim’s plate
and breaking up the fowl and the turkey with his strong fingers the better to serve his guest. At last, when sweetmeats and fruit had been served, they returned once more to where the waiting ser-vants stood and washed their hands again. In the interval, the table had been cleared of dishes and set back to make room for the old-fashioned divans to pass through the room and out on to the balcony. Smoking materials had been set out — the long-barrelled narguilehs with Narouz’ favourite tobacco and a silver dish of sweets. Here they sat together for a while in silence to drink their coffee. Nessim had kicked off his slippers and drawn his legs up under him: he sat with his chin in his hand won-dering how he could impart his news, the marriage which nibb led at the edge of his mind: and whether he should be frank about his motives in choosing for a wife a woman who was of a different faith from his own. The night was hot and still, and the scent of magnolia blossom came up to the balcony in little drifts and eddies of air which made the candles flutter and dance; he was gnawed by irresolution.
In such a mood every promise of distraction offered relief, and he was pleased when Narouz suggested that the village singer should be called to play for them, a custom which they had so often enjoyed as youths. There is nothing more appropriate to the heavy silence of the Egyptian night than the childish poignance of the kemengeh’ s note. Narouz clapped his hands and despatched a mes-sage and presently the old man came from the servant’s quarters where he dined each night on the charity of the house, walking with the slow and submissive step of extreme old age and approaching blindness. The sounding-board of his small viol was made from half a coconut. Narouz sprang up and settled him upon a cushion at the end of the balcony. There came footsteps in the courtyard and a familiar voice, that of the old schoolmaster Mohammed Shebab, who climbed the stairs, smiling and wrinkled, to clasp Narouz