The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [318]
‘But Nur himself doesn’t take bribes?’
Donkin smiled a small sardonic smile and shook his head slowly and doubtfully. ‘I don’t know, sir’ he said primly. ‘I suspect that they all do and all would. I may be wrong. But in Hosnani’s shoes I should certainly manage to get a stay of action by a handsome bribe to Memlik. His susceptibility to a bribe is … almost legendary in Egypt.’
Mountolive tried hard to frown angrily. ‘I hope you are wrong’
he said. ‘Because H.M.G. are determined to get some action on this and so am I. Anyway, we’ll see, shall we?’
Donkin was still pursuing some private thoughts in silence and gravity. He sat on for a moment smoking and then stood up. He said thoughtfully: ‘Errol said something which suggested that Hosnani knew we were up to his game. If that is so, why has he not cleared out? He must have a clear idea about our own line of attack, must he not? If he has not moved it must mean that he is confident of holding Memlik in check somehow. I am only thinking aloud, sir.’
Mountolive stared at him for a long time with open eyes. He was trying hard to disperse a sudden and, it seemed to him, almost treacherous feeling of optimism. ‘Most interesting’ he said at last. ‘I must confess I hadn’t thought of it in those terms.’
‘I personally wouldn’t take it to the Egyptians at all’ said Donkin slyly. He was not averse to teasing his chief of Mission.
‘Though it is not my place to say so. I should think that Brigadier Maskelyne has more ways than one of settling the issue. In my view we’d be better advised to leave diplomatic channels alone and simply pay to have Hosnani shot or poisoned. It would cost less than a hundred pounds.’
‘Well, thank you very much’ said Mountolive feebly, his optimism giving place once more to the dark turmoil of half-rationalized emotions in which he seemed doomed to live per-petually. ‘Thank you, Donkin.’ (Donkin, he thought angrily, looked awfully like Lenin when he spoke of poison or the knife. It was easy for third secretaries to commit murder by proxy.) Left alone once more he paced his green carpet, balanced between conflicting emotions which were the shapes of hope and despair alternately. Whatever must follow was now irrevocable. He was committed to policies whose outcome, in human terms, was not to be judged. Surely there should be some philosophical resignation to be won from the knowledge? That night he stayed up late listening to his favourite music upon the huge gramophone and drinking rather more heavily than was his wont. From time to time he went across the room and sat at the Georgian writing-desk with his pen poised above a sheet of crested notepaper.
‘My dear Leila: At this moment it seems more necessary than ever that I should see you and I must ask you to overcome your….’
But it was a failure. He crumpled up the letters and threw them regretfully into the wastepaper basket. Overcome her what?
Was he beginning to hate Leila too, now? Somewhere, stirring in the hinterland of his consciousness was the thought, almost certain knowledge now, that it was she and not Nessim who had initiated these dreadful plans. She was the prime mover. Should he not tell Nur so? Should he not tell his own Government so?
Was it not likely that Narouz, who was the man of action in the family, was even more deeply implicated in the conspiracy than Nessim himself? He sighed. What could any of them hope to gain from a successful Jewish insurrection? Mountolive believed too firmly in the English mystique to realize fully that anyone could have lost faith in it and the promise it might hold of future security, future stability.
No, the whole thing seemed to him simply a piece of gratuitous madness; a typical hare-brained business venture with a chance of large profits! How typical of Egypt! He stirred his own con-tempt slowly with the thought, as one might stir a mustard-pot. How typical of Egypt! Yet, strangely, how un-typical of Nessim!