The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [330]
‘Give praise to God!’ and from this point forward Memlik’s hands would be tied. But for the moment he was still a free agent, free to express his contempt for the elder Minister by inaction.
‘There are two brothers, Excellence,’ Rafael had said, putting on a story-book voice and casting an expression of gloomy maturity upon his little doll’s face. ‘Two brothers Hosnani, not one, Excellence.’ He sighed as his white fingers took up small purses of Memlik’s dark skin for the razor to work upon. He proceeded slowly, for to register an idea in a Moslem mind is like trying to paint a wall: one must wait for the first coat to dry (the first idea) before applying a second. ‘Of the two brothers, one is rich in land, and the other rich in money — he of the Koran. Of what good are lands to my Excellence? But one whose purse is fathomless….’ His tone suggested all the landless man’s con-tempt for good ground.
‘Well, well, but….’ said Memlik with a slow, unemphatic impatience, yet without moving his lips under the kiss of the crisp razor. He was impatient for the theme to be developed.
Rafael smiled and was silent for a moment. ‘Indeed’ he said thoughtfully, ‘the papers you received from his Excellence were signed Hosnani — in the family name. Who is to say which brother signed them, which is guilty and which innocent? If you were wise in deed would you sacrifice a moneyed man to a landed one? I not, Excellence, I not.’
‘What would you do, my Rafael?’
‘For people like the British it could be made to seem that the poor one was guilty, not the rich. I am only thinking aloud, Excellence, a small man among great affairs.’
Memlik breathed quietly through his mouth, keeping his eyes shut. He was skilled in never showing surprise. Yet the thought, suspended idly in his mind, filled him with a reflective astonish-ment. In the last month he had received three additions to his library which had left in little doubt the comparative affluence of his client, the elder Hosnani. It was getting on for the Christian Christmastide. He pondered heavily. To satisfy both the British and his own cupidity…. That would be very clever!
Not eight hundred yards away from the chair in which
Memlik sprawled, across the brown Nile water, sat Mountolive at his papers. On the polished desk before him lay the great flor id inv itation card which enjoined his participation in one of the great social events of the year — Nessim’s annual duckshoot on Lake Mareotis. He propped it against his inkwell in order to read it again with an expression of fugitive reproach.
But there was another communication of even greater impor-tance; even after this long silence he recognized Leila’s nervous handwriting on the lined envelope smelling of chypre. But inside it he found a page torn from an exercise book scrawled over with words and phrases set down anyhow, as if in great haste.
‘David, I am going abroad, perhaps long perhaps short, I cannot tell; against my will. Nessim insists. But I must see you before I leave. I must take courage and meet you the evening before. Don’t fail. I have something to ask, something to tell.
“This business”! I knew nothing about it till carnival I swear; now only you can save….’
So the letter ran on pell-mell; Mountolive felt a queer mixture of feelings — an incoherent relief which somehow trembled on the edge of indignation. After all this time she would be waiting
for him after dark near the Auberge Bleue in an old horse-drawn cab pulled back off the road among the palms! That plan was at least touched with something of her old fantasy. For some reason Nessim was not to know of this meeting — why should he disapprove? But the information that she at least had had no part in the conspiracies fostered by her son — that flooded him with relief and tenderness. And all this time he had been seeing Leila as a hostile extension of Nessim, had been training himself to hate her! ‘My poor Leila’ he said aloud, holding the envelope to his nose to inhale the fragrance of chypre. He picked up the phone and spoke softly to Errol: ‘I suppose the whole Chancery has been invited to the Hosnani shoot? Yes? I agree, he has got rather a nerve at such a time