The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [316]
Memorandum will be sufficient explanation. It is clear that he could not look his duty in the face.
I am, Sir, Your Most Obedient Servant,
Oliver Maskelyne, Brigadier.
The two men sighed simultaneously and looked at one another.
‘Well’ said Errol at last, thumbing over the glossy photostats with a voluptuous finger. ‘At last we have proof positive.’ He was beaming with pleasure. Mountolive shook his head weakly and lit another cheroot. Errol said: ‘I’ve only flicked over the corre-spondence, sir, but each letter is signed Hosnani. They are all typescripts, of course. I expect you’ll want to mull them over at leisure, so I’ll retire for an hour until you need me. Is that all?’
Mountolive fingered the great wad of paper with nausea, with a sense of surfeit, and nodded speechlessly.
‘Right’ said Errol briskly and turned. As he reached the door, Mountolive found his voice, though to his own ears it sounded both husky and feeble. ‘Errol’ he said, ‘there’s only one thing; signal London to say that we have received Maskelyne’s Memor-andum and are au courant. Say we are standing by for instructions.’
Errol nodded and backed smiling into the passage. Mountolive settled to his desk and turned a vague and bilious eye upon the facsimiles. He read one or two of the letters slowly, almost un-comprehendingly, and was suddenly afflicted by a feeling of vertigo. He felt as if the walls of the room were slowly closing in upon him. He breathed deeply through his nose with his eyes fast closed. His fingers began involuntarily to drum softly upon the blotter, copying the syncopated rhythms of the Arab finger-drum, the broken-loined rhythms which one might hear any evening floating over the waters of the Nile from some distant boat. As he sat, softly tapping out this insidious dance measure of Egypt, with his eyes closed like a blind man, he asked himself over and over again: ‘Now what is to happen?’
But what could possibly happen?
‘I should expect an action telegram this afternoon’ he mumbled. This was where he found his duty so useful a prop. Despite his interior preoccupations, he allowed it to drag him along now, to drag his aberrant attention along like a dog on a lead. The morning was a relatively busy one. His lunch-party was an unqualified
success, and the surprise visit to the Scent Bazaar afterwards confirmed his powers as a brilliant and thoughtful host. After it was over, he lay down for half an hour in his bedroom with the curtains drawn, sipping a cup of tea, and conducting the usual debate with himself which always began with the phrase: ‘Wou ld I rather be a dunce than a fop — that is the question?’ The very intensity of his self-contempt kept his mind off the issue concerned with Nessim until six when the Chancery opened once more. He had a cold shower and changed before sauntering down from the Residence.
When he reached his office it was to find the desk-lamp burning and Errol seated in the armchair, smiling benignly and holding the pink telegram in his fingers. ‘It has just come in, sir’ he said, passing it to his Chief as if it were a bouquet of flowers specially gathered for him. Mountolive cleared his throat loudly — attemp-ting by the physical action to clear his mind and attention at the same time. He was afraid that his fingers might tremble as he held it, so he placed it elaborately on his blotter, thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets, and leaned down to study it, registering (he hoped) little beyond polite nonchalance. ‘It is pretty clear, sir’
said Errol hopefully, as if to strike an echoing spark of enthusiasm from his Chief. But Mountolive read it slowly and thoughtfully twice before looking up. He suddenly wanted to go to the lavatory very much. ‘I must do a pee’ he said hastily, practically driving the younger man out of the door ‘and I’ll come down in a little while to discuss it. It seems clear enough, though. I shall have to act tomorrow. In a minute, eh?’ Errol disappeared with an air of disappointment. Mountolive rushed to the toilet; his knees were shaking. Within a quarter of an hour, however, he had composed himself once more and was able to walk lightly down the staircase to where Errol