The old yacht has been provisioned in the most imaginative way – caviar, champagne, whisky, nothing lacks. We sit down to meals of fervent Frenchness served by great bronze servants with the tones of gongs, clad in booming white and gloved spotlessly to the forearm. Unruffled in their dignity and truth, like great aristocrats, they disburse kindness without servility. It is my first taste of Egypt, the marvellous hieratic servants of the Prince, serving our food on matchless plate. It worries the Prince sometimes. “I suppose that if we were to receive a plebeian torpedo I would be asked to regret the loss of all this stuff – even though it isn’t mine. Farouk would be furious of course. I suppose he is insured.” I had never thought upon the matter. Kings get given everything – do they need to insure? I yawn and stretch like Cleopatra’s pet cat.
The ship’s library is full of Victorian fiction amassed by Farouk’s English nannies. But among a small yet choice Arabic section there is a play which the Prince considers to be an excellent introduction to his country. “It is by a friend of mine,” he says, “and it is entitled The Death of Cleopatra – Masra Kaliûpâtrâ – it is very suitable for you, yes.”
It is pleasant to know that Cleo was known as “Kaliûpâtrâ” by her subjects. The collapsing world she knew could not have been vastly different from this one – a question of scale merely. Catastrophe is catastrophe, whatever the magnitude.
All around us, according to that scratchy oracle, Ship’s Radio, a war rages. The fleets of France and England threaten to cross swords. Somewhere lurks an Italian fleet, showing great discretion, thank goodness. Meanwhile (as if at the fabled heart of some great hurricane, the core around which it has moulded itself), we float onwards, serenely, in untroubled silence save for the quiet purring of the motor and the languid plume of smoke from our great funnel. Onwards towards the white cliffs of Crete and then Evnostos, the harbour-home of the Alexandria basin. It is too good to be true.
“Mr. Blanford, I would like to ask you a favour on behalf of myself and the Princess.”
“Certainly, Your Highness.”
“May we call you Aubrey? It simplifies things.”
“But of course.”
“Thank you, Aubrey.”
“Not at all, Your Highness.”
So the Arabic lesson winds slowly on its way, interspersed with a hundred and one interruptions and interpolations by the Prince. Among them he urges upon me a book about Egypt written by his own nanny, a Mrs. Macleod, and entitled An Englishwoman on the Nile. He says that it is full of striking observations; it lists many of the queerer things about Egyptian life. I open it as he talks and see that it begins admirably indeed, with the words: “In Egypt one acts upon impulse as there is no rain to make one reflect.”
In the cocoon of this fine warm air it seems a sin to go below, so we order our dinner to be served us upon a tray, and eat it while we are still idling on deck. From time to time a typed news bulletin comes our way with the compliments of the radio operator, but its contents sound mad, inconsequential, out of all proportion to this grave sinking sun and still sea. We had, however, contacted Alexandria and were to expect an escort to join us before midnight in order to see us safely to port. The great harbour with its immobile battleships and cruisers, both French and British, would have been an impressive sight, I suppose, but we were to be spared it; for after dinner the Prince was summoned to the bridge where he was able to make use of the land telephone to call someone who would relay his message directly to the authorities and obtain permission for him to land, rather unorthodoxly, at the Palace of Montaza rather than in the Grand Harbour. He explained that this would lighten the journey a great deal and enable us to get ashore without fussy douaniers and security officials. “The English will be obstructive as usual, and won’t like it; but they will have to lump it if Farouk says so, and now he knows he will jolly well say so!”
We retired early to get some rest, leaving everything to these grave brown beadles of servants, who spoke so thrilling deep and smiled like pianos among themselves. And sleep I did, to be woken by a brown hand on my shoulder, shaking me with extreme reverence while a brown voice said, “Master he say you to go uppy stairs now. He waiting.” I dressed and made my sleepy way on deck, where I found the Prince in high good humour presiding over all our baggage. “I was right,” he said joyfully, “the English are most furious with me.”
We went ashore in darkness in a large motor launch belonging to the Egyptian navy and landed at the water-gate of a palace plunged in utter darkness; then, after much chaffering, somewhere a switch was thrown and a sort of combination of Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower blared out upon the night.
It was my first exposure to Egyptian Baroque, so the simile is surprisingly apt. To blare, to bray – so much light in so many mirrors of so many colours – the effect was polymorphous perverse, so to speak.… I realised that I was going to fall in love with the place – I saw that it was a huge temple of inconsequences. Silently pacing these matchless Shiraz carpets which paved the vast saloons my spirit was intoxicated by scarlet leather, golden studs, lapis lazuli, cat’s eye, and everywhere mirrors spouting light like deserted fountains. For the reception rooms were empty, not a soul was about. The state lavatories were the size of Euston, but the chains clanked on empty cisterns. We hesitated, irresolute.
Then the Princess manifested, coming down the great staircase half-asleep, wrapped in a white kimono of soft feathers like a small, yawning swan. They stood gazing at each other, expressing such a wealth of desire and delight that it was exquisitely moving to the onlooker. Etiquette prevented them from embracing in public after the plebeian style made common by the cinema. They behaved birdfully, like birds, which have no arms to grab hold with; they spread their wings, so to speak, and whispered each other’s names with humble rapture. The Prince kissed the tips of her fingers; then, with a little sob, like an excited child, she rushed away to dress for the journey. While we waited, a sleepy palace servant encouraged us into the vast dining-room where the chandeliers now shone upon tables laid for breakfast with coffee and chocolate and fresh croissants and cream. I felt extraordinarily heartened to see people who could love each other so devoutly; it was so unlike Europe where serious thinking about passion has really come to a standstill.
We embarked in two dark limousines, leaving the staff to disengage the Prince’s affairs from the yacht; there was some concern, for a fresh wind was springing up and the anchorage was not a sound one. However we got our bags, and I travelled in the second car piled high with them. A vague impression of the Grand Corniche with the sea slapping and the wind knuckling the palms. Then dark ribbons of road across the desert. I fell into a troubled slumber, lulled by the smooth engine and the feeling that time had no joints.
I write these words some days later, seated upon a shady balcony overlooking the Nile which runs as smooth as a razor across the garden’s end; it is sulphurous hot, I trickle as I write. My wrist sticks to the paper, so clammy is it, and I am forced to press it upon a blotter in order not to smudge. But I am happy. A whole new world opens before me. I have fallen on my feet. I was rather dreading the Princess – I felt sure she would instantly divine all my deficiencies. But she took my hand and held it for a long moment while she gazed earnestly, thoughtfully into my eyes, with a deep preoccupation as if she were listening to sacred music. Then she sighed with relief, dropped my hand, and said, “He is all right!” Whereupon the Prince gave a small chuckle and said, “She never trusts me.”
I am all right! What more does one need to hear about oneself? A wave of confidence swept over me, and I realised that I would certainly make a success of this rather vague assignment as English secretary to the Prince. It is also pleasant to begin to feel part of a family – my upbringing had not accustomed me to such warmth. Nor are my statutory duties very onerous; the correspondence is fairly heavy but will be easy to despatch in a longish morning of work. Remains the social side – I feared this; but here I am treated with great considerat
ion. I am not forced to hand round drop-scones for the English tea parties of the Princess. But I do it. A complete wardrobe was being supplied to me by the centenarian tailor of the house, in beautifully cut mint summer silk.
The town house of the Prince (for they also appear to own an abandoned palace at Rosetta and a summer villa at Helwan) is not exactly a castle. It is the size of a medieval prince’s hunting lodge with extensive dependencies, indeed a sort of nabob’s country seat. Parts have been shored up against ruin, parts have been allowed to subside gracefully and melt back into the primeval mud of Egypt – the black viscous element from which everything seems to be fashioned. One wing is full of corridors boarded up as a safety precaution against floors which have been ravaged by termites. The furnishings are modest compared to those of the palace of our arrival, and all is a bit dusty, decorations, furniture, mirrors, everything; but very faintly, like powder in a wig. Time and neglect and the river-damps have hazed the clear outline of things. On the other hand there is distinction in the quality of the paintings and bibelots, the plaster mouldings. They had not just accumulated, one felt, but had been individually chosen and desired and cherished for their aesthetic feel. Though they were various, not matching in a uniform way, they lived on in harmonious and coherent discord. The whole place felt nice, smelt nice. Extraordinary cats abounded. The dissonant shriek of peacocks made one jump. The Nile smelt old and sad and disabused, turning green like oxidising copper, but imperishably itself, unlike any other river in the world. At dawn I saw a fisherman standing in quiet expectancy by the river bank, as if waiting for the sun to rise; presently it did, and the whole insect world began to buzz and bubble in the warm ray which burned the last mists from the water’s surface. The fisherman took up a mouthful of water and blew it out in a screen of spray against the sunlight, revelling in the prismatic hues of the water-drops.
In the morning I heard moans from an outhouse and the sound of strokes and swearing; I enquired of the Princess what this might be, and she informed me demurely that it was Said, their young major-domo, receiving what she described as a “smart slippering” for some domestic fault. “Ah,” added her husband, “you no doubt recall that the royal sceptre of Egypt was always the rod. And with our servants there is no way to combat the progressive amnesia which comes over them, gradually accumulating until they seem quite mental, quite unable to hold anything in mind. Then they begin to forget things and break things and it is time for a kindly reminder. About every six months I reckon. You will see the difference in Said tomorrow. Today he will sulk because of the insult to his honour, but tomorrow …”
“And your secretaries – do you have them slippered?”
The Princess clapped her hands and chirped as she replied, “I told you he was all right.” But the Prince cocked an eyebrow and said, “We have much worse reserved for the secretaries!”
I am not the only secretary – there are several others, each with his own domain of activity; but they all vanish at the end of the day while I stay on to dine en famille or else alone in the magnificent suite of rooms I have been allotted. Everything is new and curious, so that for the moment I do not find this padded life of an honorary attaché becoming wearisome. But I have always enjoyed being on my own and I indulge the bent several evenings a week in order to write letters or scribble notes such as these sporadic annotations on the margins of history. For the moment I feel cut off from the world, almost from the human race. Egypt is like some brilliantly coloured frieze against which we move in perfect ease and normality. The country has declared itself neutral, and its cities are “open cities” – shimmering pools of crystal light at nights, of choked bazaars and traffic-laden thoroughfares by day, of lighted shops and brilliant mosques – a parody of the true Moslem paradise. We read of blackouts elsewhere; in the City of the Dead you can practically read a newspaper at the full moon. I feel at once exhilarated and lost, exultant and despairing. The world has been cut off, abbreviated to the confines of this lighted city between deserts where all is comfort and plenty. But for how long? Nobody dares to think about it.
The disturbance of the mails has called forth new conventions like the air-letter; I have armed myself with a package of them, but to what end? Will England still exist by the time my letters arrive? A profound despondency rules over this underworld of forebodings and hidden fears – I speak as much for my hosts as myself. They are beginning to realise the depths of their affection for the misty island where they had spent so many happy summers hating the English. And France, too. “France, halas!” It sounds somehow sadder and more absolute in Arabic, like an overturned statue. It has in it a hint of the wailing Aman-Aman (Alas-Alas) songs of the radio which scribbles over the silences of every cafe with the voice of Oum Kalsoum, the nightingale from Tanta.… I suppose kaput would be the translation of halas?
I was formally presented to my fellow scribes by the Prince himself. Professor Baladi was tall and slim and spoke fluent English. He had blue eyes and a fresh colouring and wore his red fez at a jaunty angle. He had an endearing desire to represent himself as a man about town and hinted that he would be available to assist me in exploring the city – a most useful offer. He carried an ebony-headed walking stick with great care, like a sceptre of an inconceivable preciousness. We clicked. So it was with a slower and muddier gentleman, Khanna, a Copt, who seemed at first a little shy and taciturn. Confluent smallpox had given him a skin like a colander. He had a preference for speaking French, and to express an opinion cost him a great effort. He was a brilliant soul in strict hiding; he trusted nobody. There was reserve here, but none of the animosity I had feared.
Yet the power behind the throne, so to speak, was a young and quite disarming Syrian, by name Affad. He was, I gathered, a millionaire in his own right, and only appeared upon a number of boards to support the Prince, out of pure affection. He was a remarkably attractive character with rather misty, glaucous eyes and a helpless appearance; slim and tall, he gave a curious sort of androgynous feel upon first meeting. I thought he must be some brilliant homosexual of the ancient ilk, for like Alcibiades he had a faint lisp. His line of talk was most amusing, self-deprecating, satirical; it was clear that nobody could long stay immune to his deadly charm. In dress he was of a negligent elegance which almost suggested a fashion-plate. His English was faultless, he possessed the language fully and his apparent incoherence and almost ineffectual mildness was really a ruse in order to call forth affection. When he wanted to make it so, his talk was brilliantly incisive. “Well, but I have been expecting you for some time,” he said, to my surprise. “It has taken him an age to find the right sort of secretary for his work, and once he met you he cabled me that you would be ideal and that he would try and make you an offer.” I wondered what I could have said to create an impression upon my first meeting with the Prince back there in Provence. As if he read my thoughts, Affad smiled and answered the question for me; the solution could not have been more surprising. “The Prince heard you say something most interesting about Apollonius of Tyana, and it made him realise that you would find yourself at home in Egypt.” What could I have said? I racked my brains to remember. Yes, perhaps I had mentioned something about gnosticism in Egypt in relation to the Templar heresy – to Quatrefages or perhaps to Felix. It was nonetheless astonishing. The Prince himself was far from being an erudite, an intellectual, so why should such a remark…? I thought idly of the dried and resined head in his red hat-box. I wondered what had happened to it.
Meanwhile Affad poured me a drink and assured me that I should find my post a deeply satisfying one from several points of view. This I was beginning to believe. Never had I fallen among such agreeable and gentle folk. To work for them, with them, promised to be easy and pleasurable.
There remained my compatriots; we spent a morning and an afternoon upon them, since form decided that I must at least register at the Consulate and fill in an availability form in case I should ever be called up. My passport was examined by a dis
agreeably lordly little grocer’s assistant (it would seem) called Telford – Mister Telford, sir, if you please! He was thus addressed by his sycophantic pro-consul. “You will have to stay on call for the present. I can guarantee nothing.”
The Prince was nettled by his tone. “Well, I think I can,” he said icily, “we are seeing H.E. this afternoon and he is aware that Mr. Blanford is engaged as my secretary.” Telford shrugged and handed back my passport with disdain. “So be it,” he said and waved us away into the noisy street where the Prince’s car waited.
In the afternoon we went up to the Consulate to sign the book and to make our obeisances to the Minister. He was sitting in a deck-chair far out upon the dusty lawn, a thin, tall, rather attractive man in his shy way. He had chosen a strategic spot midway between a couple of large water sprinklers which were hard at work in the heat keeping the paper-dry lawn alive. The water pushed large blocks of tepid air about around his chair, giving the faint illusion of freshness and coolth. We stepped between the columns with care so as not to get our trousers sprinkled, and were received kindly enough by the Minister, whose servants came running with further deck-chairs which were placed with equal strategy round about us; also a table upon which appeared in due course a large English tea complete with rock cakes, ginger biscuits and drop-scones. How strange it seemed to find this in Egypt! I commented on the fact and our host smiled and said, “You should find it reassuring, should you not? With the present situation on our hands we shall need all the morale-building tea we can get.” Then he added as he stirred his cup, “I have had you officially ‘frozen’ for a year, as the saying goes. This means that H.M. regards your job as a privileged one and essential to the war effort.” I did not quite follow how and was about to ask, when the Prince turned to me and did the explaining himself. “It’s because I am a Colonel on the Military Mission, and also head of the Red Cross in Egypt. That is why H.E. wants you to keep an eye on me and see that I don’t get into mischief by inviting Mehar Pacha to lunch one day, eh?”
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