The Man Who Went Down With His Ship

by Hugh Fleetwood

  The other reason he felt somewhat nervous when the man was around was just because he was English and the English, in all their different varieties, had always made Charlie nervous. The ‘typically’ English, as to Charlie’s way of thinking this one was, in his tall, slim, fading, fair-haired fashion; the crabby, mean-voiced Englishman or woman one came across only too often; the booming, barking, military—or more often would-be military-type; or—Charlie’s favourite sort—the shy, awkward, somehow mottled sort, who wore funny clothes, went scarlet in the sun and had something profoundly gentle and kind about them. The sort who looked as if they had been terribly crushed by the weight of their country’s history and had emerged from their ordeal bruised, uncertain of where they stood in the world, or if they could stand at all, but sweeter than they might have been if they had not been so injured and maimed.

  Yet though they made Charlie nervous, he also tended to like the English—apart from the crabby ones and the barking, arrogant, disagreeable ones—more than any other people he had ever come into contact with. Just as he loved England—and this unreservedly; for he thought of those hateful English as changelings, outcasts who had no right in and could claim no part of their native land—more than any other country that he knew of.

  And it was this liking for the English, and this love of England, that undid him. That, and the beauty, the sheer, extraordinary splendour of the upper-Egyptian night.

  One of the reasons Charlie had finally agreed to his father’s request to accompany the Rizzuto party on their Egyptian holiday (‘Please Charlie,’ the very tall, very thin, grey-haired man had said, giving his son a look that meant, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t go alone, we’ll send your friend pity with you’) was that he remembered what the sky had been like on his previous trip down south, when he’d been fifteen. Indeed, it was the thing he remembered most clearly. Somehow Karnak and the Valley of the Kings had always been with him, and were, in reality, only slightly more magnificent than he had always imagined. Whereas the sky he had never spared a thought for before he went, and would have said, had he been asked, that he couldn’t believe it would be any different from the sky in Cairo or Alexandria; the only two places in the world that he knew at the age of fifteen. But when he looked up, the night the ship left Luxor, he saw above him an immense, smooth, blue-black sheet of darkness, with innumerable tiny rents in it through which shone lights of various colours more dazzling, more welcoming, more enticing than he would ever have thought possible. Extraordinary hues, that suggested that behind that vast, dark, yet strangely comforting sheet there was a brilliant kind world in which, had one only been able to burst through the skin of this suffocating, tormented bubble in which one was trapped, one would have been able to live and play and be happy. A world in which one would never come up against those tight, judgmental words that here on earth were constantly binding one and forcing one to be only, and for the whole of one’s life, oneself: words such as ugly, fat, ungainly, sly, greedy, selfish and of course worst of all, pitiful. And when he looked up and saw all that, he became quite dizzy with wonder; and became certain that should he live to be a hundred, he would never see anything even half so glorious again.

  Naturally, he had told himself in the years since then, impressive though that sky had been and stick though it had in his memory, the effect it had had on him had had as much to do with himself and the fact that he was at a particularly sensitive age as it had to do with any absolute, intrinsic beauty—if indeed there was any such thing. After all, it was just then that he was really starting to run up against those limitations that he was soon to realise would be with him till he died. Before then he had imagined that the bubble in which he felt both cocooned and trapped was only the bubble of his childhood. Nevertheless, he would one day like to return, to see to what extent the night and the stars south of Luxor were different from the other nights and stars he knew—which remained those of Cairo and Alexandria—and to what extent he had merely perceived them as different. So maybe if at some future date his father had some client, as he occasionally did, to whom he wished to do a favour by making the arrangements for his holiday in Egypt and providing him with a guide, well, if his father didn’t wish to go himself, maybe he’d allow himself to be persuaded to. He wasn’t sure. But maybe …

  ‘Please Charlie. They’re very nice. I mean, I don’t know what their friends are like. But the Rizzutos themselves, I’m sure you’ll like them. I met them last year, and they’re very kind.’

  ‘Oh, all right then. You’re not paying for them all, are you?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’ve just made sure that the Rizzutos get the best cabin on the boat, and I just said I’d try to get someone to go with them. To take care of … oh, you know, all the little things that could go wrong, or might need taking care of. And I know you like to think you’re no good at that sort of thing and that you prefer to stay shut up here in the office all day. But I’ve seen you in action, and actually you’re not half so inept as you like to make out. In fact, underneath I suspect you have the makings of a very good businessman. And it’ll do you good to get away for a bit. I’d go myself if I could, but they’re doing the whole thing and I really can’t take two weeks off at this time of year.’

  ‘I said,’ Charlie had muttered, unable not to sound a little petulant, ‘I’d go.’

  ‘Well, try and sound a little more cheerful about it. After all, it’ll be a holiday. You won’t have to run around them the whole time. They’re all more or less adults, apart from the Rizzuto’s son. And you’ve always said you wanted to go back some time. Do you remember on the way to Aswan? You spent the whole of one night up on the deck, just staring at the stars.’

  ‘Ah,’ Charlie had smiled, without a trace of petulance now, ‘I was just going through a romantic phase then.’

  As, he told himself a month after this conversation with his father, he supposed he must again be doing. For he had spent practically the whole of the first night of this trip, after they had left Luxor, lying in a deck chair staring up at the stars. Finding, moreover, not just that his memory hadn’t lied to him, and given a gloss to what had undoubtedly been fairly spectacular, but that if anything it had cast the faintest mist of scepticism over the scene, and dimmed the splendour of the reality. Indeed, eight years later, that splendour made him feel he was dissolving in it, being rendered invisible by it. So much so that it literally brought tears to his eyes, as he lay up there at two-thirty in the morning, hearing only the sound of the water hissing gently by, and the slow heartlike throb of the engines as they moved the ship forward, so smoothly that the lightest sleeping passenger wouldn’t be woken. Tears to his eyes, and a lump to his throat. Look, he wanted to cry to someone—to, he told himself, Isabella, who was at this moment no doubt sleeping in her cabin—isn’t it the most extraordinarily beautiful sight you’ve ever seen? And isn’t that the sign of true beauty? When it so captures you that it makes nothing of you, it totally eliminates you and all your petty fears and hatreds—and your loves and your sense of duty and honour, too—and so makes you become it that through it you become part of the entire universe, a part that can never be cancelled even if you drop dead right now? For this, insofar as we can understand eternity, will go on forever. And if you give yourself to it, or allow yourself to be taken by it, you yourself will go on forever. Oh look, he wanted to cry to Isabella. Look my darling. Look at the colours. Look at the light. Feel it—oh, feel it drape itself around you. The magic cloak that gives everyone who puts it on immortality. The intoxicating, unutterably lovely sky; stretching over the river where civilisation first started, and man, shedding blood, first started to cut himself off from the sky. Oh, look my darling. Look!

  And he would, he told himself, have gone down to her cabin, woken her and, dragging her up on deck, cried just this to her; if he hadn’t known that Isabella would have gazed up at the sky with the same lack of interest with which she had regarded the Pyramids at Giza; and would have gazed at him, m
ade mad by his rapture, made invisible by his rapture, yet at the same time made beautiful by his rapture, with horror.

  He knew this. He knew it. And yet, less than twenty-four hours later, he had done it. Not to the extent of going down to her cabin and waking her, of course; had he allowed himself to get that carried away Isabella would no doubt have started screaming and insisted he be removed from the ship. Nor even by singing his, in the event much abbreviated and watered down, hymn of praise directly to her. (Though as with his speech about the tourists it was aimed at her and she realised it.) Nevertheless, cry out to her he had; and with enough insistence, enough passion to make her then turn her gaze on him with a revulsion that was not followed by any apologetic touch of the hand, or any compensating smile of pity. And having cried out to her, instead of trying somehow to make amends, he had both panicked at the damage he had already done—launching into another hymn out of desperation and thereby compounding the damage—and at the same time become defiant; thinking ‘Oh well, my darling, since I’ve already made myself ugly in your eyes, I don’t see any point in stopping now, and while we’re about it you might just as well get the whole portrait and really be revolted.’

  That damned, damned Englishman, Charlie found himself thinking afterwards; for it had been to him, standing on the top deck with Isabella at eleven o’clock on the second night of the journey from Luxor to Aswan that he had, at least ostensibly, chanted his paean to the sky. As it had been the Englishman who had started the whole ball rolling, so to speak, by murmuring, in his quiet, encouraging voice, ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ ‘Oh yes,’ Charlie had blurted out. ‘In fact, I spent just about the whole of last night up here on deck looking at the stars. I think this is the most extraordinary sight in the world. Or at least,’ he had added apologetically, ‘the most extraordinary sight I’ve ever seen.’

  Oh why, he asked himself afterwards, hadn’t that man kept quiet, or addressed his remark to Isabella? And why, having heard that brief lovesong from a creature he had hitherto taken to be a slug—an agreeable slug maybe, but a slug nevertheless—hadn’t he left it at that, told himself, ‘So you see, slugs too have souls,’ and either retired to his cabin or suggested to Isabella that they go to the bar for a nightcap? Instead of allowing his almost but not quite supercilious face to soften at the discovery that the slug had a soul and then gently, sadly even, and without the slightest trace of malice, starting to wheedle further snatches of that melody out of him; or if not that one, which the slug seemed unwilling to come out with at any length, some other, sweet song.

  He supposed, though, it hadn’t really been the man’s fault. It had just been his misfortune to come across a music lover, and an Englishman, when Isabella was present.

  It had gone, the remainder of that unfortunate encounter, like this.

  After Charlie had confessed to spending most of the previous night up on deck, the Englishman had asked him if he often made this trip. And when Charlie said no, in fact this was only the second time in his life as far as he remembered, though his parents told him they had taken him to Aswan when he was very small, whether by train, car, boat or plane he wasn’t sure, and he had often flown to Aswan with other clients of his father’s, where he had put them on their cruise ships before returning to Cairo by plane, the Englishman had said that this was the second time that he had made the trip too, though he would like to make it every year. ‘Not so much for the monuments and temples and things,’ he murmured, his voice as attuned to the sound of the river as the ship’s engines had seemed the night before, ‘as for the Nile itself.’ He smiled. ‘You know, for the whole idea that this is where everything started and that in a way this river is the source of all art, all religion, all politics, all economics, all culture, all history.’

  Then, when Charlie, glancing apprehensively but with a smile of his own at Isabella, had only taken him up on these remarks to the extent of muttering, almost incomprehensibly, that he had been thinking just the same thing last night and that it was true; and that he’d always had an image of the Nile as the principal artery in the body of civilisation (a very sheepish smile after that) and that in a way, in a sense, in his opinion, ‘I mean, it’s probably stupid, but … all art, all civilisation possibly, though we don’t really know too much about the precise day-to-day working of those days, started at the top in ancient Egypt and has been in constant decline ever since. Because no art has ever equalled the purity, the sophistication, the sublimity of Egyptian art …’ and after hitting that particular high note, had lapsed into a gloomy, embarrassed silence in which he tried to look, as he leant on the railings, more baboonlike than ever, the Englishman had gracefully—but understandingly?—changed the subject. He had asked exactly what Charlie did. ‘I mean, in Cairo, though without wishing to be rude I’m not exactly sure what you’re doing here with us now, other than keep us company—which is very reassuring I must say. No, no, honestly, I’m not being sarcastic. It really is.’ He had nodded when Charlie had muttered something about supposing his father was the classic Levantine businessman, ‘You know, in the export/import business as they call it. I work for him, though in fact he isn’t really Levantine, my father …’ And he had taken a step back, as if he were genuinely sorry to be so intrusive, before asking Charlie (‘if it isn’t a rude question’) how come he was called Charlie. ‘I mean, it’s not what one normally thinks of as an Egyptian or an Arab name.’ To which Charlie, giving one of his most tragic grins and looking down at the deck, and wriggling his shoulders uncomfortably, had replied that the reason was, he wasn’t an Egyptian himself, nor even an Arab, ‘though I was born here and my parents were born here’. In fact—and oh how he writhed now, as if trying to turn himself inside out—he … he … he was English, he was an Englishman, himself.

  Whereupon, sensing perhaps that all this stuttered information, this verbal and apparently moral twisting was just Charlie’s way of vocalising, and that all that was needed now for the music to flood out was the mildest of pressures to be applied, the Englishman paused, leaned forward, right over the railings, and, staring into the black, star-reflecting water, applied it. ‘How come?’ he murmured. ‘I mean, doesn’t it make difficulties for you here, or hasn’t it in the past? I should have thought

  Charlie found himself pausing. He gave Isabella a final, imploring glance, and saw that she was looking at him with some curiosity now, as a witness in court might a murderer who is about to be cross-examined. Then he took, in his imagination, a deep breath and opened his mouth.

  ‘Difficulties? No,’ he said, starting in a very subdued manner that gave no clue as to the pyrotechnics he suspected, knowing himself, were likely to follow. ‘You know on the whole, in spite of everything, the Egyptians like the English, and look on them as being civilised and friendly. The French they tend to find standoffish and anyway they have a reputation for being prejudiced against the Arabs. The Germans they find—well, German. The Americans they think loud and stupid, generally nice, but sort of crass; and the Italians—present company excepted of course,’ he muttered to the watching, waiting Isabella, ‘friendly, very friendly, and cheerful, but at times, and especially when they’re trying not to be, just a little bit—well, vulgar. Whereas the English, I mean, it’s all nonsense of course and just a pack of generalisations. And maybe I feel this way because of who I am and what I am. You see, all right, I was born here and my father was born here. My mother’s Italian, from Ravenna, or at least her family was, because she was born here too. And in a way, despite the fact that I have a British passport and I have to apply for a resident’s permit every month—we all do—I’m Egyptian and this country’s part of me and I love it as if it were, which as I say it is in a way, my own. Also, because I’ve never been to any other country in my life. I’ve never actually wanted to, though my father’s always trying to persuade me to. But although I was born here, and although to all intents and purposes I consider myself an Egyptian, inside I have this dream of England. I’m sure it doesn�
��t correspond to the reality in any way. Or not much. And I’m sure if I actually went there I’d be terribly shocked. Either pleasantly or unpleasantly. But that doesn’t really matter. Because my England’s an imaginary place and I can’t help feeling, I’ve never been able to help feeling, that even if it doesn’t exist, it’s a place I’ve got to aspire to. It’s the one place in the world I’ve got to be … worthy of. If you follow me. Because, well, I mean, in a sense I’m an outcast here, someone who doesn’t fit …’ he hesitated, laughed nervously, and shot on. ‘I mean, look at me.’ He laughed again, ‘I don’t look like an Arab, do I? On the other hand, I don’t look like an Englishman either. Or an Italian. Or … anything. And so—oh, I suppose most people who feel like me tend to identify with America, to think of themselves as Americans at heart. The land of the free and all that. The land of opportunity. But aside from the fact that I’ve never quite gone along with that idea—oh, I suppose my imaginary England is more congenial to me. I feel it would harbour someone like me more … understandingly than America would. You see …’—and now he could hear his, as it were, interior voice starting to rise and see Isabella taking a step back; but it was far too late to stop now, especially with that damned Englishman urging him on, exhorting him, saying with his very stance, ‘Go on, Charlie, you can do it, sing’—‘I’ve always pictured it as the green and pleasant land that tourist books tell us it is and poets have always written odes to, where the very landscape, the very soft wet weather will take one in and make one feel welcome. Unlike here, where there’s only sun and desert, and the Nile. But as well as the landscape, or even more than the landscape, it’s the people of my imaginary England who I feel would welcome me, would take me in should I ever want to … go home. Of course, it’s sentimental nonsense, this is home and I probably wouldn’t even be allowed to stay there for more than a month or two, for all my British passport. And the English I’ve come into contact with here, business contacts of my father’s, friends of distant relatives who have been told to look us up, just tourists in the street, are no different, no better, no worse, than any of the other people I come into contact with. But my dream English—oh, they’re a people who have committed terrible crimes, worse crimes, I can’t help feeling, than any people who have ever lived. I mean, not just because of the British Empire and all that, nor even because I myself in a certain sense am a casualty of British history, a bit of driftwood left here in the sand when the British tide went out. But because of their attitude. Because of their manner. Such a stunned, awkward, at times smug, at times arrogant, people must have committed great crimes. How else could they have become as they are? There’s no other people on earth who do give such an impression of being weighed down, somehow stained through and through with guilt. Not the Russians. Not the Americans. Not the French. Not even, not above all, the Germans, who in this particular century should perhaps, more than anyone else. And yet, and yet, though they are so stained, though they are so riddled with guilt, or just exhausted from the too heavy weight of history, they seem to bear their exhaustion, their guilt, with—how can I put it?—grace. All right, they seem to be telling you, our hands are dripping with blood and like Lady Macbeth we’ll never be able to wash it off. But please, can’t we extend this hand to you, and won’t you take it and allow it to help you? For only those who have greatly sinned, unforgivably sinned, can really offer … consolation. Oh, I know I’m talking nonsense,’ Charlie repeated, with, as he had had last night when looking up at the stars, tears in his eyes; tears that didn’t, however, blind him to the fact that Isabella was not just backing away now but was, as discreetly as she could, actually leaving him alone up there with the Englishman. ‘And you’ll probably think I’m mad and disappointed or simply typical of someone who doesn’t really belong here, there or anywhere. Well, maybe I am. All the same, that grace, that consolation I sense in my imaginary England, or in my imaginary English, seems to me the very essence of civilisation, which I can’t help feeling all men, everywhere on earth, should aspire to. Not because they will ever attain it, or because it will ever wash their hands clean, but because otherwise—oh, the sheer stain of being human will drag them down, destroy them and deprive them of any chance of happiness that they might have here on earth.