Loving Monsters

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  These, then, are the four-inch by six-inch prints Jayjay saw being hauled up the Orontes’ side in a wicker basket by the passenger in the panama. He admits to himself that now the initial shock has worn off he is deeply excited by these damp images. Never in his eighteen and a half years has he seen anything so explicit. Regardless of gender or act, they have a cumulative effect. They reveal a hidden world which hitherto was of hazy and secretive outline, alluded to only in schoolboy gossip. The discovery is that the erotic need not be specific to achieve its effect. Enough that it be forbidden and to exist in such detail without requiring any imaginative effort, revealed by the dispassionate objectivity of the camera’s lens. He notices that each print has a monogram in one corner followed by a letter and a serial number.

  Milo appears with some strips of developed film which he hangs up with clothes pegs. ‘Find anything you fancy?’ he enquires.

  ‘Not really.’ Jayjay affects a man-of-the-world offhandedness. Inside, he is trembling. ‘But I’m curious about how you get them.’

  ‘I don’t. I know very little about this racket. You remember Mansur, the fellow you met the other night in Al Ahilla? Fat fingers and moustache? He’s the source of most of this stuff. Where he gets it I’m not sure. I know these ones with ‘L&L’ in the corner are French. The ones down here that look to me like local kids he arranges himself, I think. At a guess they’re shot in Cairo. Those blackish lads and lasses over by the wall come from a German in Upper Egypt or northern Sudan. An anthropologist, I believe. Mansur knows him.’

  ‘How on earth does he get them to do that?’ asks Jayjay naively, indicating a print.

  ‘Money, I should imagine. How else? Or perhaps down there they’ll do anything at the drop of a lens cap.’ Milo sounds indifferent. ‘Anyway, we’ll give these another hour and get them packed up. I’ve got Mansur’s runner from Port Taufiq coming at six. He’ll take care of them. The Egyptians aren’t much good at the technical side but they’re fine for distribution and anything that needs the personal touch because they know exactly who needs bribing, and how much, all the way through the Port. Show them a dark room, a tank of developer and a thermometer, though, and they give that baffled little nod and say sa’b awi as if you’ve asked them to split the atom.’

  Jayjay thinks back to meeting Mansur and recollects a direct stare and an excellent command of English. A few days pass and then one evening when he knows Milo is out of town he finds his way back to the Al Ahilla or New Moons café. From the rubbish-strewn street outside it looks the dive it is: dim lighting, tiled walls, men in all manner of native robes sitting around low tables on which stand hookahs, their long tubes leading to drowsy bearded mouths. Not a European face is to be seen. At the doorway he picks out Mansur sitting where he had been on the previous occasion. He has just relinquished a hookah’s amber mouthpiece and is gazing at Jayjay through a cloud of smoke. At once intimidated and excited, Jayjay finds himself edging towards him among the tables. Yellowish eyes follow him as he crosses the room but no sudden silence falls. Reaching Mansur, Jayjay bows slightly as he offers his hand which the Egyptian accepts mechanically.

  ‘Please excuse my disturbing you but I’d like to talk.’ To his relief Mansur nods, places a large hand on his neighbour’s shoulder, levers himself to his feet and leads the way to a space at the rear of the café. There they squat on stools as low as church kneelers. At a command from Mansur a youth with a squint pours mint tea from a long-spouted pot into two glasses half full of sugar.

  ‘You were here the other night‚’ says Mansur. ‘With Mr Milo.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mansur inclines his head noncommittally and the customary silence falls which is an integral part of Arab discourse and which so nonplusses the anglophone races that they will essay even the most mindless pleasantry in order to fill it. In due course Mansur says: ‘Mr Milo is a good man. He is your friend. But tonight you have come alone. Is there trouble?’

  ‘No, no. He simply went off this afternoon to Cairo for a week on business. As a matter of fact I’ve been helping him recently with some of this business of his. The photographs.’

  ‘Ah, the pictures. You are interested?’ Mansur’s dark eyes, together with the café’s gloom, make his expression unreadable.

  ‘Yes,’ says Jayjay, surprised at himself. Another silence between them in which the word goes echoing on.

  ‘And what is your work?’

  ‘At present I’m working in the Orient Line’s offices here in Suez.’

  ‘You are a clerk?’

  ‘I am the son of the company’s true owner, who is neither Mr Anderson nor Mr Green. Even Milo doesn’t know this. You must never tell him, Mr Mansur.’

  ‘I understand. A spy. Your father has asked you to report secretly on how his business is run here so you pretend to be a clerk while you investigate?’ The Egyptian smiles a little as he drinks tea. ‘We Arabs have a long tradition of such things. Our history is full of stories of kings and princes who by day reign in their palaces in silk robes and by night dress as beggars and walk the streets. In this way they learn what their people really think of them. They hear what their advisers and generals do not want them to hear. So you do the same for your father with the Orient Line? He must be a very wise man.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘And you – are you a wise son?’

  ‘I try to be.’

  ‘Then,’ says Mansur, setting down his empty glass, ‘you are playing a dangerous game. You are spying both for your father and for Mr Milo. I tell you frankly, as someone who does business with Mr Milo, I don’t like to hear of this.’

  ‘You are mistaken. My father’s shipping line has nothing to do with Milo. Neither knows of the other’s existence. Nor do I care what Milo does. I am interested only in one of his business enterprises, the one he himself cares least about.’

  ‘The pictures.’

  Jayjay is aware of a racing sensation. Heart? Foolhardiness? He is trapped now by the lie he has just told. He cannot untell it, he cannot backtrack. He cannot recant and say that pretending to be a shipping tycoon’s son was just a joke. He has passed a threshold and is tangling himself with racketeers whose violence towards rivals or traitors is quite as famous as is the brutality of the Egyptian police. A foreigner, he is blundering into a society of strangers, ignorant of their language and customs and oblivious of their networks and knife-edged alliances. He also knows he is banking on still being able to scuttle back to the safety of Anderson & Green or to some ill-defined British authority, spin them a yarn and be put straight on to a homebound ship. Yet it is pointless to pretend that he does not also recognise the promise with which the very walls of this café vibrate. He is overtaken by a certain reckless craving for the company of cut-throats even as he pins his hope on an escape route.

  Once again Mansur is watching him through smoke, having called for a hookah. So far as Jayjay is concerned the air between them is filled with the outlines of unclear propositions, with hazy pleasures that make him fearful and the prospect of debts he may not wish to repay.

  ‘You said you wanted to talk,’ Mansur reminded him.

  ‘I wanted to tell you that Milo is a man I like but he’s not an old friend. I don’t wish to compromise whatever you and he are doing together.’

  ‘I see. And your offer?’

  ‘There’s nothing I can’t get aboard an Orient Line ship, Mr Mansur. Or off it. I am the owner’s son. Milo can’t do that. Apart from anything else he hasn’t got Port clearance. And if he had I could have it revoked.’

  ‘I see. Yours is a position with valuable possibilities. In Suez Europeans, and especially you British, can do things we Egyptians cannot. I will not speak about the injustice of this state of affairs, nor about how long it will be allowed to continue. But yes, for the moment your situation could be highly advantageous to somebody with interests in overseas markets. And in return you want to take over Mr Milo’s part in the manufacture of postcards?’

&n
bsp; ‘No, I don’t want that. I don’t wish to take a single millieme from his pocket. I am interested in the business closer to its source. The camera end of things, if you like.’

  ‘Ah, the camera. But I’m sure Mr Milo will have told you this does not take place here in Suez. This is a city of buyers and sellers, not of producers. The camera work happens far away.’

  ‘I realise that. I’m prepared to travel.’

  ‘What about your disguise as a clerk?’

  ‘I’ve already done all I can. Anderson & Green have few secrets here. I’ve sent my father a report. Between you and me, he wants to send me to do the same thing somewhere else. Colombo, perhaps. For the moment I’m bored.’

  ‘Bored. Excuse me if I observe how very young you are. But you have balls, I know that much. I don’t believe Mr Milo knows you have come to see me tonight; and I don’t believe you are an agent provocateur for either the British or ash-shorta, our police. I have known many spies and impostors but you are still too young to have been recruited and trained. Besides, no matter how good their cover the training always gives them a certain confidence which shows in the way they sit and stand. You have the politeness of the truly scared. Very well, Mr … Jayjay? Let us find out how we are to establish this matter of good faith between us. If you are to learn the secrets of my business I will be putting myself into your hands. This is not in balance.’

  ‘True. But I have thought how this balance might be restored. I’ve heard there’s an increasing taste for opium both here and in Europe since it has been declared illegal. Don’t they call it rūh al-afyūn here? Or maybe that’s the tincture we call laudanum. In any case it comes from Siam and a lot finds its way to Ceylon. As I’m sure you know, our steamers stop in Colombo on their way back from Australia before they arrive here at Port Taufiq. These circumstances surely make it possible to restore the balance by one means or another.’

  Mansur takes the mouthpiece from between his teeth and watches a worm of smoke crawl from its hole. ‘It’s good that you know rūh al-afyūn. If you are learning our language I will gladly help you. Your pronunciation is excellent, by the way. The method you are suggesting to restore the balance between us is interesting but it would take months to arrange safely. Even the son of the shipping line’s owner could hardly organise such a thing tomorrow. The danger is extreme. And I have the idea you are in a hurry,’ and he shoots Jayjay a sidelong glance while smoothing his glossy moustache.

  Jayjay knows his own expression has given him away. He can’t conceal that he came tonight wanting immediate access to sensuality. He has neither the character nor the patience to plot and scheme for months on end, all the while earning his pittance as office-fodder. Apart from anything else he is too young.

  ‘However,’ Mansur is saying, ‘the process could be made much quicker, this business of keeping the balance between what you know about me and what I know about you. Let us call this trust. Our trust is easier than you think to make certain. Tomorrow night I will take you somewhere where you can see things and not be seen. You will like it, this I swear. But tonight? Tonight you will take me somewhere. And you will like that, too. You came here looking for something, you cannot deny it.’

  Jayjay is mildly in shock, realising he has just been propositioned for the first time in his life. This is not what I came for, he tells himself. It is not a price I’m prepared to pay, no matter what doors it might open. Or so he thinks until hot excitement wells painfully up beneath his apprehension as though already glimpsing the reward for paying the entrance fee. ‘I’m not at all sure about that‚’ he temporises weakly.

  Mansur watches him and keeps on smoothing his moustache which gleams as though oiled. ‘Since you can’t deny you came here as a hunter,’ he says, folding his hands in a raconteur’s gesture perhaps designed to conjure up an Arabian Nights atmosphere, ‘I shall tell you a story about a hunter. It concerns a Turk in the high mountains of his country. He saves his money and buys a brand-new gun. He is very proud of the gun and eager to try it out. So off he goes to hunt bears in the forest. And his luck is good. His first day, he meets a little brown bear right in his path. He takes aim and fires, pum! Right between the eyes. It falls down dead. Suddenly he feels a tap on his shoulder and to his horror he finds a much bigger bear standing right behind him. Maybe it’s the dead bear’s father! But before he can lift his gun the bear says to him: “All right, Mr Turkish huntsman, you have two choices. Either I tear you to pieces or I give you one up the backside. It’s up to you.” Well, it’s not much of a choice. Still, the hunter naturally takes the second alternative. It is extremely painful but at least he escapes with his life.

  ‘He goes home full of shame and has to wait several weeks before the pain in his backside has gone. But at last his old passion returns and he takes his new gun and sets off again for the wilds to avenge himself. Obviously his luck is still holding because in only a matter of hours he comes on the very bear who caused him such pain. Without giving the animal a chance he brings up his gun and fires, pum!, and knocks it over stone dead. “Praise be to Allah!” he thinks. “I am avenged.” But no sooner has he said this than he feels a heavy paw on his shoulder and turns to find a far bigger bear. This one is as tall as he is, three times as wide and ten times as strong. “All right, Mr Turkish huntsman,” says this great bear. “Two choices. Either I rip your head off or you take it up the backside.” Once more the hunter decides he has no alternative. But merciful Allah! At what cost in agony and shame! This time a whole year passes before he can even walk properly again. By the end of the year, though, some of the memory has faded and his old spirit returns. He has never in his life gone without hunting for so long and besides, he has a big score to settle.

  ‘So off he sets again into the high mountains with his gun, full of determination. And there in the middle of a cedar forest he catches sight of the big bear which has just cost him a year of his hunting life. Since it is quite far away he takes careful aim and fires, pum! His beautiful gun is as accurate as ever and the beast drops in its tracks. This time when he feels a tap on his shoulder he is more resigned than surprised. He turns to find a real monster. This is a bear such as he has never dreamed of: a huge black creature straight down from the steppes of Russia, half as tall again as he is. The creature is looking at him thoughtfully as he stands there paralysed. At last it shakes its great head. “Tell me, Mr Turkish huntsman,” it says. “Do you still believe you come up here just to hunt?”’

  For some time, overcome by his tale, Mansur goes on shaking his own head and wiping his eyes while repeating the punchline. ‘“Do you still believe you come up here just to hunt?” That’s such an Egyptian story, believe me.’

  ‘Because it’s anti-Turkish?’

  ‘Well, that too. But because it’s very wise. It has a meaning.’

  This is just what Jayjay is afraid of, and something fails within him. It becomes pressing to sue for time. As though Mansur were a step ahead of him the Egyptian says equably, ‘Not tonight, then. But soon. You can find me here or else in Al Kef in tariq al Baladiyya. You know it? By the suq. Never fear, my friend. You and I can do business. For the moment we have an agreement, right? I say nothing to Mr Milo, who isn’t here, and you say nothing to your father, who isn’t here either.’

  They shake hands on this and Jayjay finds himself in the noisome back streets of Suez in a state between numbness and exhilaration. This persists until he reaches his hated billet in the Caramanli. It is a large room divided into two by a curtained doorway beyond which Simpkins is asleep and audible. It is porky Simpkins who, though unconscious, exposes the essential nature of their shared living space as no more than a bare cement cave. The loudest of tonight’s awesome farts include sound frequencies that make the room briefly ring. Through the curtain drifts a disgusting and anomalous stench of burnt rubber and mutton. The intermittent blurts and squeaks and gassy blats are a wearisome reminder to Jayjay that he must tell Simpkins yet again that if he persists in eatin
g chickpeas he may never survive to taste his mother’s cooking. Suddenly, the squalor of such living conditions reveals itself as a world he has just decided to leave, which he realises he already has half left. After barely two months he is sick of apprenticeship with its magnanimous promise of more of the same for the next forty years. A further series of gruff barks from the other room drives him out on to the small gritty balcony from where he can see the street below with its thin cats and a donkey dozing between the shafts of a cart, one of its rear feet raised and resting on the tip of its hoof. Something has happened tonight, Jayjay thinks. I can’t go back to being the person I was this morning. I won’t go back to my father’s world of ledgers and endeavour. I won’t go back to Eltham.

  The stars above the ill-lit town are brilliant, trembling in the unseen heat as if the whole universe is in ferment. A tug hoots briefly in Port Taufiq. He suddenly feels adult. He has become someone who leans on a night balcony in Suez and thinks; leans on a balcony and inhales the pepper air.

  7

  A strange thing is how physically close to each other Jayjay and I have unwittingly been living these last fifteen years. Were it not for the jutting lump of forest below that prevents my seeing into the next valley, my house would have an excellent view of Il Ghibli. Our roofs could be joined by a beeline not much over a mile in length. Yet to reach his house by track and road requires twenty minutes of jolting down through the forest followed by detours around olive groves and vineyards on the lower slopes. Strictly speaking, I suppose it is not true that we were completely unaware of each other’s existence. Over the years I had heard mention of an English ‘lord’ (pronounced lorde) living nearby and reputed to have a beautiful house. In turn, he had heard the odd conversational reference to an English writer living in eccentric seclusion somewhere up Sant’ Egidio – and a hand would be waved vaguely towards the top of the mountain with its crowning metal nest of relay aerials and radio masts. Only when an article about me appeared in La Nazione was he able to put a name and out-of-focus face to this fellow countryman of his.