The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [237]
He noticed that Cowdell, the Head of Chancery, was trying to catch his eye. He finished the lesson unfalteringly, replaced the markers, and made his way slowly back to his seat. The
chaplain uttered a short catarrhal sentence and with a riffling of pages they found themselves confronting the banal text of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ in the eleventh edition of the Foreign Service Hymnal. The harmonium in the corner suddenly began to pant like a fat man running for a bus; then it found its voice and gave out a slow nasal rendering of the first two phrases in tones whose harshness across the wintry hush was like the pulling out of entrails. Mountolive repressed a shudder, waiting for the instru-ment to subside on the dominant as it always did — as if about to burst into all-too-human sobs. Raggedly they raised their voices to attest to … to what? Mountolive found himself wondering. They were a Christian enclave in a hostile land, a country which had become like a great concentration camp owing to a simple failure of the human reason. Cowdell was nudging his elbow and he nudged back to indicate a willingness to receive any urgent communication not strictly upon religious matters. The Head of Chancery sang:
‘ Someone’s lucky day today
Marching as to war (fortissimo, with piety)
Ciphers have an urgent
Going on before’ (fortissimo, with piety). Mountolive was annoyed. There was usually little to do on a Sunday, though the Cipher office remained open with a skeleton staff on duty. Why had they not, according to custom, telephoned to the villa and called him in? Perhaps it was something about the new liquidations? He started the next verse plaintively:
‘ Someone should have told me
How was I to know?
Who’s the duty cipherine? ’
Cowdell shook his head and frowned as he added the rider:
‘ She is still at work-ork-ork. ’
They wheeled round the corner, so to speak, and drew collective breath while the music started to march down the aisle again. This respite enabled Cowdell to explain hoarsely: ‘No, it’s an urgent Personal. Some groups corrupt still.’
They smoothed their faces and consciences for the rest of the hymn while Mountolive grappled with his perplexity. As they knelt on the uncomfortable dusty hassocks and buried their faces in their hands, Cowdell continued from between his fingers:
‘You ’ve been put up for a “K” and a mission. Let me be the first to congratulate you, etc.’
‘Christ!’ said Mountolive in a surprised whisper, to himself rather than to his Maker. He added ‘Thank you.’ His knees suddenly felt weak. For once he had to study to achieve his air of imperturbability. Surely he was still too young? The ramblings of the Chaplain, who resembled a swordfish, filled him with more than the usual irritation. He clenched his teeth. Inside his mind he heard himself repeating the words: ‘To get out of Russia!’ with ever-growing wonder. His heart leaped inside him.
At last the service ended and they trailed dolorously out of the ballroom and across the polished floors of the Residence, coughing and whispering. He managed to counterfeit a walk of slow piety, though it hardly matched his racing mind. But once in the Chan-cery, he closed the padded door slowly behind him, feeling it slowly suck up the air into its valve as it sealed, and then, drawing a sharp breath, clattered down the three flights of stairs to the wicket-gate which marked the entry to Archives. Here a duty-clerk dispensed tea to a couple of booted couriers who were banging the snow from their gloves and coats. The canvas bags were spread everywhere on the floor waiting to be loaded with the mail and chained up. Hoarse good-mornings followed him to the cipher-room door where he tapped sharply and waited for Miss Steele to let him in. She was smiling grimly.